Darwin re-visited

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Galapagos

What you are explaining is known as "front-loading", where the genetic information is placed in the DNA in advance by God.
It was put forth in ID biochemist and fellow of the Discovery Institute Michael Behe in his book "Darwin's Black Box", and was subsequently shot down by biologist Ken Miller:

Thanks for the response, Gala. I will take this one at at time.

1) Thanks for the nomenclature. I will use "front loading" in this post. I did not suggest that "God did it". I suggested that the evidence support that the code is front loaded.

2) Ken Miller's "refutation" (above) doesn't really refute anything. He posits a problem with "runaway mutations" that would have nothing at all to do with front loading. His refutation is essentially a non-sequitur to my position. Mutations could do whatever they do. They usually result in dysfunctional systems that expire. Let them.

Bio

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Galapagos

The section on wiki(which is supported by citations from major peer reviewed journals) paints a very different picture than your description above...Current evolutionary theory offers much better explanations for the Cambrian biota than anything you have posted in this thread. We can discuss the validity of scientific literature(with citation), but I am not interested in your own personal narrative about fossil strata or the evolution of genomes.

Your own quote states that these discoveries "dampen the bang" of the explostion. The probabilistic issues with generating a new enzyme system de novo still remain. Gould was still defending PE when he passed away (2006, I believe)

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

Thanks for the response, Gala. I will take this one at at time.

1) Thanks for the nomenclature. I will use "front loading" in this post. I did not suggest that "God did it". I suggested that the evidence support that the code is front loaded.

2) Ken Miller's "refutation" (above) doesn't really refute anything. He posits a problem with "runaway mutations" that would have nothing at all to do with front loading. His refutation is essentially a non-sequitur to my position Mutations could do whatever they do. They usually result in dysfunctional systems that expire. Let them.

Bio

It might be ok for some to just say it was front loading and let it drop but since it obviously wasn't abiogenesis where did the original loaded genes come from? Don't avoid the $64,000,000 question, if you truly believe the genes were front loaded then where did they come from?

[Biochemist]

With respect to the restricted genetic alphabet:

Originally Posted by Galapagos

Questions of this nature are considered in detail with reference to published research in "The Major Transitions in Evolution" by Smith and Szathmary, which I mentioned back in this post. See specifically, section 5.5 "What Determines the Size of the Genetic Alphabet" and section 6.3 "The Origin of the Code II: The bottom up approach"(the section "Why are there 20 amino acids?"), although those interested would do well to read chapters 4, 5, and 6, or perhaps the whole thing.

This is a perfectly reasonable counter hypothesis. It is just entirely hypothetical and not particularly well supported. The "complex RNA" environment precursor environment has to have essentially disappeared. It would have been more reasonable for two separate life pools to have emerged from this biogenesis model. But this is still a reasonable hypothesis. It certainly does not refute my position. It is just (probably) the best counterposition.

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Galapagos

Genome sizes vary in ways that are not yet fully understood.

I appreciate you confirming my main point. In fact, if I were going to preload code for a couple of kingdoms, I would probably explode the initial genome as quickly as possible, then winnow it down as phylogenation occurred. But then, I wasn't there when it happened.

Your picture does a better job of supporting my position that my earlier brief statement.

Bio

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Galapagos

Two more items I would like to post because I believe they shed light on where the disagreement in this thread is coming from...And this article from Dan Dennett belongs in any thread about evolution/creationism:

Gala- You seem a little hung up on creationism. I am not making any references to divine intervention at all. I am offering a data-driven argument. I don't really care if someone else sees this as theistic. Have at it.

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

Don't avoid the $64,000,000 question, if you truly believe the genes were front loaded then where did they come from?

How about: I don't know? I recognize that this is a little disturbing, but so is the big bang (What happenned before? Why did it start here?). Or the incongruities of particle physics (light is both a particle and a wave, depending what you measure?).

I truly thought abiogenesis was infeasible even when I still thought speciation-by-mutation was reasonable. That fact that my view on speciation makes abiogenesis even more problematic is pretty consistent with nearly every discovery in basic science: The more we know, the more complex the model gets.

I just don't have an answer, and it is very difficult to model abiogenesis. But I really don't expect to find out that there was a "poof" and God stuck the first totipotential cell here. It will have arisen from someplace.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

Gala- You seem a little hung up on creationism. I am not making any references to divine intervention at all. I am offering a data-driven argument. I don't really care if someone else sees this as theistic. Have at it.

If what you say is true then answer my question, who or what preloaded the genome? Your conjecture doesn't answer anything it just asks the question of who preloaded the genome.

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Biochemist

How about: I don't know? I recognize that this is a little disturbing, but so is the big bang (What happenned before? Why did it start here?). Or the incongruities of particle physics (light is both a particle and a wave, depending what you measure?).

All you are doing is obfustacating the issue your premise only asks more questions than it answers.

I truly thought abiogenesis was infeasible even when I still thought speciation-by-mutation was reasonable. That fact that my view on speciation makes abiogenesis even more problematic is pretty consistent with nearly every discovery in basic science: The more we know, the more complex the model gets.

Current Abiogenic theory is completely plausible, far more plausible than front loaded gens. Your idea of pools of water is so far from current theory it's not even in the same universe. You are going on out dated material and using that material as defense of your stand.

I just don't have an answer, and it is very difficult to model abiogenesis. But I really don't expect to find out that there was a "poof" and God stuck the first totipotential cell here. It will have arisen from someplace.

No abiogenesis is not hard to model, do some research somewhere other than creationist web sites and you'll see this. No "Pool" no need for god or preloaded genes. I am very disappointed bio, I thought you were up front but you are just another disingenuous creationist trying to get your ideas inserted into the main stream by obfuscation.

[Biochemist]

Originally Posted by Moontanman

All you are doing is obfustacating the issue your premise only asks more questions than it answers.

If only I knew everything.

Originally Posted by Moon

Current Abiogenic theory is completely plausible, far more plausible than front loaded gens.

I think I agree with the second part of your point, but not the first. You are going to honestly say that we got the first self replicating life form with our four nucleic acids and 20 amino acids in the roughly 500 million years between when the earth cooled and 3.5 billion year ago????? Completely randomly???? Did it happen seven more times (in nearly exactly the same way) since???? Heck, we have had time and the environment is a lot less hostile now. Why aren't there a half dozen common descent trees? Get real. This is a perfectly reasonable position as a hypothesis, but it is not high on the plausibility scale.

Originally Posted by Moon

No abiogenesis is not hard to model, do some research somewhere other than creationist web sites and you'll see this.

I don't look at creationist web sites. I leave that to you unbiased scientists.