Summations Only

Regardless of anything in your post, you haven't provided any proof that accepting the theory of common descent was helpful in developing the relevant vaccines (ditto for any vaccine).
Common descent is an irrelevance to applied biology, why don 't you just admit it and stop beating about the bush?

Certainly Jenner didn't use evolution theory to develop smallpox vaccination. Nor did Pasteur for vaccines against Anthrax and Rabies. Cerainly we need new flu vaccine each year because the flu virus changes but the theory of evolution is of no help in predicting the way it will change, so it isn't used there either.As for Cholera there were several pioneers in the development of the vaccine. In 1884, Catalan physician Jaume Ferran i Clua developed a live vaccine he had isolated from cholera patients in Marseilles, and used it that on over 30,000 individuals in Valencia during that year's epidemic. Waldemar Haffkine then developed a vaccine with less severe side effects, testing it on more than 40,000 people in the Calcutta area from 1893 to 1896. Finally, in 1896, Wilhelm Kolle introduced a heat-killed vaccine that was significantly easier to prepare than Haffkine's, using it on a large scale in Japan in 1902.[Wikipedia] As far as i know none of these used evolution theory.

I've already admitted this. So I did a google search on practical use of common descent and I got a number of results, among them: Talk Origins Claim CA215

quote:

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Claim CA215: The theory of evolution is useless, without practical application.
Source: Lindsey, George. 1985. Evolution -- Useful or useless? Impact 148 (Oct.). The Institute for Creation Research
Wieland, Carl. 1998. Evolution and practical science. Creation 20(4) (Sept.): 4. Missing Link | Answers in Genesis

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Response:

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1. Evolutionary theory is the framework tying together all of biology. It explains similarities and differences between organisms, fossils, biogeography, drug resistance, extreme features such as the peacock's tail, relative virulence of parasites, and much more besides. Without the theory of evolution, it would still be possible to know much about biology, but not to understand it.
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   This explanatory framework is useful in a practical sense. First, a unified theory is easier to learn, because the facts connect together rather than being so many isolated bits of trivia. Second, having a theory makes it possible to see gaps in the theory, suggesting productive areas for new research.
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2. Evolutionary theory has been put to practical use in several areas (Futuyma 1995; Bull and Wichman 2001). For example:
   • Bioinformatics, a multi-billion-dollar industry, consists largely of the comparison of genetic sequences. Descent with modification is one of its most basic assumptions.
   • Diseases and pests evolve resistance to the drugs and pesticides we use against them. Evolutionary theory is used in the field of resistance management in both medicine and agriculture (Bull and Wichman 2001).
   • Evolutionary theory is used to manage fisheries for greater yields (Conover and Munch 2002).
   • Artificial selection has been used since prehistory, but it has become much more efficient with the addition of quantitative trait locus mapping.
   • Knowledge of the evolution of parasite virulence in human populations can help guide public health policy (Galvani 2003).
   • Sex allocation theory, based on evolution theory, was used to predict conditions under which the highly endangered kakapo bird would produce more female offspring, which retrieved it from the brink of extinction (Sutherland 2002).
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   Evolutionary theory is being applied to and has potential applications in may other areas, from evaluating the threats of genetically modified crops to human psychology. Additional applications are sure to come.
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3. Phylogenetic analysis, which uses the evolutionary principle of common descent, has proven its usefulness:
   • Tracing genes of known function and comparing how they are related to unknown genes helps one to predict unknown gene function, which is foundational for drug discovery (Branca 2002; Eisen and Wu 2002; Searls 2003).
   • Phylogenetic analysis is a standard part of epidemiology, since it allows the identification of disease reservoirs and sometimes the tracking of step-by-step transmission of disease. For example, phylogenetic analysis confirmed that a Florida dentist was infecting his patients with HIV, that HIV-1 and HIV-2 were transmitted to humans from chimpanzees and mangabey monkeys in the twentieth century, and, when polio was being eradicated from the Americas, that new cases were not coming from hidden reservoirs (Bull and Wichman 2001). It was used in 2002 to help convict a man of intentionally infecting someone with HIV (Vogel 1998). The same principle can be used to trace the source of bioweapons (Cummings and Relman 2002).
   • Phylogenetic analysis to track the diversity of a pathogen can be used to select an appropriate vaccine for a particular region (Gaschen et al. 2002).
   • Ribotyping is a technique for identifying an organism or at least finding its closest known relative by mapping its ribosomal RNA onto the tree of life. It can be used even when the organisms cannot be cultured or recognized by other methods. Ribotyping and other genotyping methods have been used to find previously unknown infectious agents of human disease (Bull and Wichman 2001; Relman 1999).
   • Phylogenetic analysis helps in determining protein folds, since proteins diverging from a common ancestor tend to conserve their folds (Benner 2001).
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4. Directed evolution allows the "breeding" of molecules or molecular pathways to create or enhance products, including:
   • enzymes (Arnold 2001)
   • pigments (Arnold 2001)
   • antibiotics
   • flavors
   • biopolymers
   • bacterial strains to decompose hazardous materials.
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   Directed evolution can also be used to study the folding and function of natural enzymes (Taylor et al. 2001).
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5. The evolutionary principles of natural selection, variation, and recombination are the basis for genetic algorithms, an engineering technique that has many practical applications, including aerospace engineering, architecture, astrophysics, data mining, drug discovery and design, electrical engineering, finance, geophysics, materials engineering, military strategy, pattern recognition, robotics, scheduling, and systems engineering (Marczyk 2004).
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6. Tools developed for evolutionary science have been put to other uses. For example:
   • Many statistical techniques, including analysis of variance and linear regression, were developed by evolutionary biologists, especially Ronald Fisher and Karl Pearson. These statistical techniques have much wider application today.
   • The same techniques of phylogenetic analysis developed for biology can also trace the history of multiple copies of a manuscript (Barbrook et al. 1998; Howe et al. 2001) and the history of languages (Dunn et al. 2005).
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7. Good science need not have any application beyond satisfying curiosity. Much of astronomy, geology, paleontology, natural history, and other sciences have no practical application. For many people, knowledge is a worthy end in itself.
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8. Science with little or no application now may find application in the future, especially as the field matures and our knowledge of it becomes more complete. Practical applications are often built upon ideas that did not look applicable originally. Furthermore, advances in one area of science can help illuminate other areas. Evolution provides a framework for biology, a framework which can support other useful biological advances.
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9. Anti-evolutionary ideas have been around for millennia and have not yet contributed anything with any practical application.

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Oh look, they list the use of common descent. Which includes vaccines and fighting diseases like HIV.This is on Talk Origins PRATT list.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : revised last commentEdited by RAZD, : .Edited by RAZD, : ..

Their definition of "function" differs greatly from the common one in biology and even they have admitted that they way overstated their case. Transcription does not equate to any meaningful definition of biological function. On the Meaning of the Word "Function"

That's false. ENCODE included junk DNA in their definition of "functional". If a stretch of DNA was transcribed into RNA, even at very low levels, they counted it as functional. In the real world, leaky RNA transcriptase activity will transcribe junk DNA, and it is still junk DNA. Their findings did nothing to change the consensus that the vast majority of the human genome has no sequence specific function. Finding function in a tiny portion of what was once considered junk DNA does not mean that the rest of the genome has function. False. The ERV argument has nothing to do with function. Even if all of the ERVs had function they would still be evidence for common ancestry between humans and other primates.ERVs are evidence for common ancestry because they are found at the same position in the genomes of multiple species, not because they lack function. Retroviruses insert randomly into the host genome, so finding the same insertion at the same position in the genome of two species indicates that the insertion occurred once in a common ancestor. As it stands today, there are over 200,000 ERVs in the human genome, and more than 99% are found at the same position in the chimp genome. This is smoking gun evidence for common ancestry. Scientists have aligned ERVs and reconstituted a consensus sequence of those ERVs. That sequence produced a viable retrovirus."Here, we derived in silico the sequence of the putative ancestral progenitor element of one of the most recently amplified familythe HERV-K familyand constructed it. This element, Phoenix, produces viral particles that disclose all of the structural and functional properties of a bona-fide retrovirus, can infect mammalian, including human, cells, and integrate with the exact signature of the presently found endogenous HERV-K progeny. "
Identification of an infectious progenitor for the multiple-copy HERV-K human endogenous retroelements - PMCIntact ERVs have all of the features of a retroviral genome. We can directly observe retroviruses inserting into host genomes and producing new ERVs. Why shouldn't we conclude that ERVs are the result of past retroviral infections? We do see ERVs moving towards fixity now. There are several ERV insertional polymorphisms in the human population.Just a moment...You need to find a new source of information on ERVs since you appear to be wrong about almost everything about them.

Now that's what I call a smack-down response.Enjoy

Exactly! Darwinists vehmently insist that their beloved theory of common descent is vital to biology and that it is eminently useful in applied science, but when one examines their claims, one finds them spurious and empty. It's all bluff and hot air. These poor souls are so indoctrinated by the Darwinist cult that they have trouble thinking any other way.

It's not vital to biology, it's simply a discovery that biology is organised that way. If it was different, we'd be saying something else. No-one except creationists are hung up on this. The evolutionary process DOES have applications in science - you been shown some - but it wouldn't matter a damn if it didn't, it's major use is in explaining how life on earth developed over time. It's knowledge. It would exist and be just as important if it had no practical uses whatsoever.You realise that it doesn't make the facts of evolution go away even if it has no uses at all? Or do you?

That might have been a valid response several years ago, say when Larry Moran wrote a piece in Sandwalk in ~2003, but not now. In the intervening years, more and more functions have come to light. E.g.
- Penn Medicine News, ‘Mysterious’ Non-protein-coding RNAs Play Important Roles in Gene Expression.
- Repetitive DNA. It must be unimportant, right? Not so, found two researchers from Rockefeller University. Writing in PNAS, they discovered that three proteins carefully protect those repeats around centromeres the locations on chromosomes where the spindle attaches during cell division.
- Canadian researchers publishing in PNAS say intrinsically disordered regions (IDRs) are widespread and have diverse functionsAccording to University of California San Francisco

quote:

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The mysterious majority — as much as 98 percent — of our DNA do not code for proteins. Much of this dark matter genome is thought to be nonfunctional evolutionary leftovers that are just along for the ride. However, hidden among this noncoding DNA are many crucial regulatory elements that control the activity of thousands of genes. What is more, these elements play a major role in diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and autism, and they could hold the key to possible cures.

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While UCSF still thinks much is junk scientists are finding more function and less junk as time goes by.Science was hindered for decades by the junk-DNA myth but it's now catching up. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Feb. 2, 2017, announced millions of dollars in new grant funding for a nationwide project to set up five characterization centers, to study how regulatory elements, including the "junk", influence gene expression and, consequently, cell behavior.[edit]
With Fresh Funding, ENCODE Team Continues Demolition of Junk DNA Myth
Evolution News | @DiscoveryCSC
February 13, 2017
With Fresh Funding, ENCODE Team Continues Demolition of “Junk DNA” Myth | Evolution NewsEdited by CRR, : Reference added

I think a great deal of junk in the genome fits with the Fall, being one of the ways death has worked on living systems.

I agree, but I think it would be in the order of 10% rather than 90%.

Thank you for supplying this article. I will add it to my collection as it represents a classical example of mendacious Darwinist propaganda.Allow me to point out the b.s. contained therein, as you obviously can't see it:Firstly, you can bet your bottom dollar that whenever "Evolutionary theory" is mentioned, 99.99% of the time it is referring to principles and facts of biology that are readily confirmed by observation or repeatable experiments - such as natural selection, variation, recombination, genetic drift, etc, etc. None of these things are denied by creationists and are demonstrable realities ... whether one accepts common descent as a fact or not.
Of course, Darwinists like to misleadingly label said demonstrable principles and facts as "evolutionary", hoping that the uncritical and gullible amongst us will associate them with "real" evolution - ie, common descent. But not all of us are that easily fooled - if a relatively uneducated bozo like Dredge can see through this sham, what's your excuse?Secondly, when it says, "the evolutionary principle of common descent has proven its usefulness", this is really Darwinist-speak for, "the fact of genetic similarities between different organisms has proven its usefulness." This is explained by the fact thatDarwinists consider that there can be no other possible explanation for genetic similarities between organisms other than common descent. So when they see said genetic similarities, they see common descent. This false equivalence is a form of intellectual alchemy, but is de rigueur in evolutionary "science".By the way, to claim that common descent is the only possible explanation for genetic similarities between organisms is flawed thinking and at the very least represents a Fallacy of the False Alternative - in other words, it's junk science. So the bottom line is, it's the genetic similarities between organisms that have proven useful, and not accepting common descent as a fact. The theory of common descent is a complete irrelevance to applied science.P.S. I notice Talk Origins is pushing that old myth about HIV
coming from monkeys in Africa. So scientific!Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

Excellent point, Faith. I'm sure we've lost a lot of functionality due to the effects of Original Sin, and we probably tend to under-estimate such losses. Junk DNA makes perfect scientific sense in the Biblical-creationist paradigm.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.Edited by Dredge, : No reason given.

Except there is no evidence of any Fall in either reality or the Bible. That is yet another fact that you have been shown repeatedly.There is no "Fall", separation, spiritual death to be found in the Genesis 2&3 myth or anywhere else in the Bible. There are a few totally unsupported assertions that can be quote mined that apologists have used to create the myth of the Fall and market that myth to gullible Christians.

This is that fallacy I was talking about earlier. Finding a function for tiny portions of junk DNA is not evidence that all junk DNA has function. For example, what portion of the genome do the repeats around centromeres comprise? Maybe 1% of the total genome, 0.1%? Finding activity in 1% of repeats does not mean that all repeats have function. This should be obvious, yet you keep making this mistake. What percentage have they found activity for? An additional 1% of DNA compared to 10 years ago? Enough with the lying creationist sites. Please use a proper scientific reference.