even worse, this is almost exactly what IDists have been arguing, that evos have been overlooking areas of research based on evo dogma
Holmes, I know you're playing devil's advocate here, but what a tendentious statement! The novel result was found by evolutionary biologists whose research program is directed by the theory of evolution! The existence of a remarkable error-checking mechanism (and note that its existence remains to be verified) harms evolutionary theory no more than the existence of "proof-reading" during the translation process or the splicing of mRNA.
Holmes, of course I don't mean the rest of this comment to apply to you in particular, but I can see the way this article is being received by creationists elsewhere.
I despair of anybody who, reading this article, finds nothing of interest other than a wrongheaded "challenge to evolution". This is a really exciting article! For the sake of argument, let's assume (prematurely) that mRNA templates exist within the nucleus. An imaginative person could easily get carried away: This could have great importance for our theories of how "DNA life" evolved from the RNA world! It impacts our view of the mutation/selection process! It might even suggest novel means of combatting genetic disease! Where is this information being stored such that nobody has seen it before? Does it occur in other genes? Does it occur in other species?
Any creationist who, after reading this article, thinks nothing more than "oh, the theory of evolution is wrong" betrays a huge lack of interest and imagination.
mick
This message has been edited by mick, 03-24-2005 12:16 PM
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