junk dna

Creationists are in complete agreement with you werd. We do not doubt that this is one way to get speciation.Does that mean that that is how mice and men and bats came about? Not at all.In the end we think a look at the genomes will enable us all to see which genomes are due to this sort of simple loss and/or extension to exisiting genes (and thus advantage on some cases) vs the origin of genuine novelty.The problem for evoltuion is explaining where the gene families came from. We all know that the genes within families could have evolved from the original member. As a professional molecular biologist who runs an academic lab I can tell you that the question is: Where did the protein families came from (which have distinct sequence/'fold')? There are about 100 of these families in the simplest organisms and thousands in man.The key point is that creationists have no problem with speciation whatsoever. It is the origin of genuine novelty that we suspect never occurred naturalistically.------------------
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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 05-19-2002]

Werd, anything can be imagined, the question is, is there a mechanism for the systematic acquisition of genetic noelty? The anwer is: no (not yet anyway). It's mainly hand waving and evoltuonary expectation currently.------------------
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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 05-19-2002]

Nice to chat Taz.I can guarentee you that ICR's (and AIG's) official stance is that speciation is kosher! There may be some older creationists who are still in the dark ages of creationism () but not ICR and AIG as a whole, that's for sure. By speciation they mean everything you mean but they will empahize that the mechanisms are microevoltuionary (mutations, copyings, recombinations, horizontal transfer) of existing genes. It was recently agreed at a creationist confernce that, scientifically, the Genesis 'kind' level is approximately the Linnean family level on the basis of micro/macro-evoltuionary considerations. For each Linnean family this will have to be specifically tested as we reel the genomes in. I'm sure this will iterate a bit.Genuine novelty? I guess I mean new protein families, organs, biochemical pathways and systems that are gained (and not lost) - and not via horizaontal transfer. As a genomics researcher I of course know all about paralogs so I know there are variations on themes (which I believe are typically created although not necessarily) but here I am talking about genuinely novel protein families becasue it is easier to distinguish creation/evolution.I agree with you that there is vast conservation of genes and systems throughout life but there is also the unmistakable addition of cellular/anatomical novelty that is almost always accomplished via addition of new protein families (and also the reuse of old ones - paralogs, I agree). Simple single celled organisms use only a repotoir of about 100 protein families (and yes that is an origin of life issue) but humans have several thousand distinct protein families.------------------
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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 05-20-2002]

I'd be happy to explain what Taz and I were talking about without jargon (I agree we used a lot for good reason) but I won't bother unless you specifically ask becasue I don't think you're really interested (?).You wont get many comments from either camp on your black hole stuff becasue it sounds even more far fetched than creationism . You drew Taz and I to your thread becasue you did raise the fundamental question of this BBS - the origin of genuine novelty.------------------
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[This message has been edited by Tranquility Base, 05-20-2002]