Is ID Scientific? (was "Abusive Assumptions")

Um, what are you talking about? Why would you be putting amino acids, of any form, into a strand of DNA? Proteins do exist, even in nature, which have D- forms of amino acids incorporated into them, but substituting D- amino acids for L- in most proteins may well lead to a loss of function since they will change the structure of the protein.Do you have any evidence that L- and D- forms of amino acids are chemically and entropically indistinguishable? The very fact that they change the structure of proteins in which they are included shows that there is a significant difference in form which you ignore for some reason. Any idea whether deoxyribonucleotides, which are what DNA is made of, actually display chirality as you seem to claim? Most sugars are actually dextro molecules so the deoxyribose element of the nucleotides would suggest that if the individual nucleotides showed any isomerism it would be prferentially for the D- form. Indeed a qucik scan of the literature shows this to be the case, and also shows that L- form nucleotides can be incorporated without disrupting the structure of the DNA (Cherrak, et al.,2003) Of course this doesn't neccessarily mean that that exact stretch of DNA would be transcribable, the L-nucleotides could mess up the process, but it certainly doesn't cause any significant disruption of the double helix.Do you actualy know much biology, because if so it might be an idea for you to take more time with your posts so that they say what you actually want them to, if the post actually reflects your grasp of molecular biology then you need to put in considerable further study.TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 08-04-2005 05:08 AM

I never said that it made no difference, in fact I explicitly stated that I thought it might. Since your claim was that the inclusion of just one element of the opposite chirality would mean it didn't work. Would you like to now provide some sort of evidence to back up this claim.Against it here is another paper, this one shows that primer mediated oligonucleotide synthesis will still proceed even with 2 consecutive L-nucleotides (Kozlov, et al., 1998), so there is at least one mechanism connected to DNA which is not affected by a less than 100% optically pure composition. You just saying it doesn't act as further evidence, you already just said it. And considering the structure is one of the most fundamental features of protein function it seems odd to overlook it in terms of its role in proteins.If optical isomers are so identical in every functionally important respect then why do they do different things, as in the case of thalidomide?Now how about explaining why you think you should be putting amino-acids into DNA?Or providing some evidence that either proteins or DNA must be optically pure to function? For being condescending, not answering my questions and giving me a vague anecdotal account of seperation of different isomers? You expect a lot.I didn't notice you thanking me for pointing out that amino acids shouldn't be being incorporated into DNA, something directly relevant to your claims.TTFN,WK

Except for the fact that your recounting was vague and anecdotal, and still is since you have still not provided any significant information about the experiment.So far you have given no indication that you have any real familiarity with biology, maybe with the URLs of some creationist websites though. Well you could start by adressing DNA, which is what we were talking about to start off with. You could also provide some evidence of the neccessity for everything to be optically pure, since there are examples of proteins incorporating D-form amino acids (Caparros, et al., 1991). Why? It clearly shows that 100% optical purity is not neccessary for all the processes of DNA replication, which is one vital part of a DNA based life cycle. Have you never heard of glycoproteins? How can you conceiveably claim that there is no interlacing of activities when there are both glycoproteins and ribosomes which have proteins mixed with sugars or RNA, L and D forms interlaced for functionality.So far you have yet to provide a single shred of scientific evidence to substantiate any of your claims. If you want to even pretend to be able to conduct a scientific debate you are really going to have to pull your finger out.TTFN,WK

If you keep this up I really do fear the Admins are going to be on your tail.TTFN,WK

Woo-hoo, 1 for 1. My career as a prophet has started!!!TTFN,WK

Oh no? How about Post 96 where you said...

quote:

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Or you could just just substitute dextro forms of amino acids into the dna strands

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How was that not suggestive of putting amino acids into DNA strands? My God!!! You just did it again!!! Exactly which four amino acids are you talking about and what code are they involved in?And in exactly what way are sugars unnecessary?. *ABE* sorry I misread your comment about sugars. Abosolute rubbish, there are plenty of non-chiral molecules. Lets start off with the most fundamental one Glycine. Glycine is an amino acid whose R side chain consists only of 1 hydrogen atom and which is not optically active. *ABE* There are also molecules which have different biologically active properties depending on which enantiomer is produced such as Carvone, Asparagine or Limonene. Could you please, please, pretty please try and make an effort to actually substantiate some of your many assertions? I'm sure there is quite a bit of evidence to lend at least some weight to this claim, but it might help if we had any impression that you had any familiarity with it at all. Oh Dear, I think you may be mixing up bits of your high school biology? Strictly the copying of DNA in terms of replication/synthesis is a completely different mechanism than that of producing anything for enzymes. One inolved DNA synthesis to make a second double helix and the other involves the transcription of mRNA. Thats funny since E. coli have a generation time of 15-20 minutes. Perhaps you should specify what organism you are thinking of, I presume it is humans. How about back to my post #121 and you could maybe address my points for a change.TTFN,WKThis message has been edited by Wounded King, 08-05-2005 05:02 AM

I am rendered pratically speechless, well typeless perhaps.You really don't have a clue what the hell you are talking about. Adenine, Guanine, Thymine and Cytosine ,the nucleotides which are found in DNA, are not amino acids!!! How much clearer can we get on this point?The amino acids are ...# alanine
# arginine
# asparagine
# aspartic acid
# cysteine
# glutamine
# glutamic
# glycine
# histidine
# isoleucine
# leucine
# lysine
# methionine
# phenylalanine
# proline
# serine
# threonine
# tryptophan
# tyrosineThe amino acids occur in the L form but nucleic acids are of the d form due to the sugar part of their structure.Your references seem totally irrelevant. I'm not saying that l-amino acids are not used almost exclusively in naturally occurring proteins. That is very different from you having demonstrated that the inclusion of even 1 amino acid of a different chirality would render the protein functionless, which was your claim.Please learn something about DNA, nucleotides and amino acids. At the moment you are just showing yourself to be clueless and confirming everyone's worst beliefs about engineers commenting on the biological sciences.TTFN,WK

You don't know what you are talking about. Anyone who is familiar with molecular biology can see that you don't. Appealing to the admins won't suddenly change the whole nature of life on Earth and magically make you any less completely wrong.Amino acids certainly won't fit into DNA, because DNA is not composed of amino acids in any way shape or form, of any enantiomeric form.Please read up on the structure of DNA and the processes of transcription and translation.Then you might understand why the things you are saying do nothing but convince me that you know nothing about biology.TTFN,WK

Here are 3 examples... I see AdminAsgara has also brought this up, but when you say something three times and then deny you ever said it, it stands out a mile.TTFN,WK

Is the the engineering term for word salad? So in fact you are basically claiming that the cycle of production of the machinery for dna replication and protein synthesis form an irreducibly complex loop. Is that right?Why do you need 1000 extra words to do it?And how do the amino acids substitute for bases in DNA again?Why, oh why, didn't you just listen when I suggested that if you knew what you were talking about you spent the time writing your thoughts clearly. Clearly enough at least that someone without a degree from the Brad McFall school of language could understand you. Of course the main reason appears to be that you don't actually know what you are talking about.TTFN,WK

Well some enzymes are required in vitro as well, I find that my PCR reactions never work as well when I forget to put TAQ in.I believe Evopeach was not claiming that protein synthesis was required concurrent to DNA replication, but rather that without protein synthesis there would be no enzymes for DNA replication and without DNA there would be no template for the synthesis of new proteins.It is the same old tired claim of irreducible complexity, just made in a highly confusing manner and mixed up with some aparent gross misunderstandings of molecular biology.TTFN,WK

These seem somewhat contradictory positions. Surely the whole point of irreducible complexity is that if even one of the components which is claimed to be part of the irreducibly complex system is removed but the system maintains a reasonable degree of functionality then that particular system has been shown not to be irreducibly complex. Perhaps the burdein is rather on the proponents of ID to determine beforehand which componets of the system are absoloutely vital to function so as to have a minimal set of irreducibly complex components. If even one component can be successfully removed then the claim of IC for that system has been falsified, but low and behold we have a new smaller system which can noe be claimed to be IC, you just seem to be presenting us with an automated goalpost moving procedure.By these standards all systems should probably be considered IC until shown to be otherwise. Do you mean that this is a natural corollary to the fact that the system still works or that even though the system still works we must examine every part of it in detail to determine why it still works?This also fails to address the important problem that no one denies that IC systems can exist, they just deny that it is impossible for IC systems to evolve. So showing a system to be IC does not show that it could not have evolved.TTFN,WK

Actually this isn't what Snurps (Small NUcleolar RibonucleoProteins) do. Snurps, or SnRNPs, are actually involved in the splicing of pre-mRNAs, i.e. the removal of intronic regions.TTFN,WK

The problem is that as much as they may lip service to compatibility the actual rhetoric they useand purported 'problem's they present totally belie that claim.If ID and evolution are so compatible then why do they spend so much time talking about irreducibly complex systems which they claim cannot evolve?You also appear to be mixing up ID and creationism into one homogeneous whole. Abelief in creation and evolution are obviously compatible as the thousands as the many theistic evolutionists show.The point is that one does not have to throw away the processes of random mutation and natural selection in order for them to be reconcilable. It is by no means a the case that any metaphysical involvement is ruled out it is simply not considered because it is not scientific. Only the most rabidly atheistic evolutionary proponents, such as Richard Dawkins, claim that evolution is any sort of disproof of the non-existence of god.So the two extreme ends of the spectrum biblical literalists and hardcore materialists are probably irreconcilable but there is plenty of tenable middle ground. The problem is tht for all the trappings of science the DI and others take on they are simply, for the most part, the old style creation science people in mufti.TTFN,WK

Did someone do that?TTFN,WKP.S. Why do you keep talking to yourself?