Genetic Redundancy and Natural Selection

So, if Dr. Borger is correct, God sat down and figured out how to make a gene so that any of the inevitable mutations that could occur in this gene cause cancer in the organism that gene was in?Because nothing says intelligent design like a big ol' tumour.

That "quote" does not appear anywhere in the letter (mis-cited, btw, it's Gibson, T.J. and Spring, J.), the nearest is this:

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However, in the KH and SRC cases, many, perhaps almost all, point mutations that damage the protein product also cause a deleterious phenotype. So the genetic redundancy cannot easily decay away through the accumulation of point mutations.

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Being charitable we can forgive the paraphrasing to "in the redundant gene family of SRC-like protein" as perhaps meant as a clarifying alteration, although noting that it's bad form to alter a quotation without pointing out where you've altered it.The section "and kill the organism" however is simply not found anywhere in the letter.Most astonishing however, in it's dishonesty, is Borger's following line:

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If the SRC genes are really so potently harmful that point mutations induce cancer, how could this extended gene family come into existence through gene duplication and diversify through mutations in the first place?

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This is dishonest (or incompetent) in two ways, firstly he ignores a key part of the quoted line "many, perhaps almost all point mutations that damage the protein". I draw your attention to how that is a distinct subgroup both of point mutation, and of non-synonymous point mutations. Borger is dishonestly (or incompetently) acting as though this is not the case. Secondly, and more damningly, the question he poses is answered in the source he cites. The whole thrust of Gibson and Spring's argument is that the redundant gene family arose not by gene duplication but by polyploidy! So why does Borger not address this point?(I'm not sure, btw, whether Toby and Spring's idea is widely accepted or not. Although the suggestion of animal polyploidy is one I've encountered elsewhere)Also, for interested readers, I found a discussion in which Borger was thrashing out the ideas he later formed into this article, I haven't look in depth at it yet: it's here if anyone wants to trawl through it.Edited by Mr Jack, : Noticed mis-cite

Sorry, I should have been clearer. Gibson and Spring argue that has been polyploidy a the root of the entire vertebrate line; it's that I'm not sure whether is widely accepted or not.

I dunno, because the source he's citing gives it as their explanation. It's pretty bizarre to think a source is perfectly good on one point, while ignoring their explanation for the very thing you're looking at.