Rethinking junk DNA

[Phronesis]

Phew... more trash-talking and empty assertions and not a hint of you actually posting anything relevant. Oh dear... What's the matter, "junk DNA" got the better of you?

 

[cyghost]

All relevant to what *you* post. A direct response if you will.

And so more moral hypocrisy with your "trash talk" insults.

 

[Phronesis]

You're really acting like a disgusting little troll here. Grow up won't you. Post something relevant... Tell us something about junk DNA. I dare you.

 

[cyghost]

And you are acting like a spoiled brat. I am so posting relevant stuffs. junk DNA is a provisional label for the portions of the DNA sequence of a chromosome or a genome for which no function has been identified. That is straight from wikipedia.

Introduced in 1972 the term has changed over time. Like all good science.

"Some consider the "junk" label as something of a misnomer, but others consider it appropriate as junk is stored away for possible new uses, rather than thrown out; others prefer the term 'noncoding DNA'"

Now I dare you to admit this is a straw man argument thread trying to discredit the "bad design" argument. You are sitting on your high horse and taking pot shots at what real scientists are doing out there. I am making a prediction that you won't be man enough to and that you'll continue to peddle your bull**** across multiple forums like some kind of obsessive compulsive parasite.

 

[Phronesis]

Marvelous... It took you 4 posts to get something relevant and you got something from wiki. ROFL man.
Straw man argument thread? Lol, ok, if that makes you sleep better.
The "bad design" argument discredits itself and any numbnuts that wants to argue they are a bad design. :erm: Dumb fools that want to argue they are bad designs ROFL.
Peddle BS? You can't even recognize your own BS. Wake up and grow up won't you please.

 

[cyghost]

teh irony.... is staggering



btw what is it with you and my sleeping patterns? your interest is disconcerting...

 

[Phronesis]

Better check that irony meter for false positives. Better yet, point the meter to yourself to see if it works?
My sleeping patterns have nothing to do with you btw. Please stop acting like a creepy stalker troll.
Anyway, since you love junk DNA so much...here is more:

Junk DNA may have handed us a gripping future

Transposons, or Jumping Genes: Not Junk DNA?

Oh, I really hope you have not forgotten the lovely piece from the poster child of hypocrisy and atheism...that fellow Dawkins. Heck, it was a favourite argument of his to show how badly he is designed (by that designer aka evolution of course). Silly numbnuts. Here is the article for all to laugh at again:

The Information Challenge
From the article:

The story of the globins is just one among many. Gene duplications and deletions have occurred from time to time throughout genomes. It is by these, and similar means, that genome sizes can increase in evolution. But remember the distinction between the total capacity of the whole genome, and the capacity of the portion that is actually used. Recall that not all the globin genes are actually used. Some of them, like theta in the alpha cluster of globin genes, are pseudogenes, recognizably kin to functional genes in the same genomes, but never actually translated into the action language of protein. What is true of globins is true of most other genes. Genomes are littered with nonfunctional pseudogenes, faulty duplicates of functional genes that do nothing, while their functional cousins (the word doesn't even need scare quotes) get on with their business in a different part of the same genome. And there's lots more DNA that doesn't even deserve the name pseudogene. It, too, is derived by duplication, but not duplication of functional genes. It consists of multiple copies of junk, "tandem repeats", and other nonsense which may be useful for forensic detectives but which doesn't seem to be used in the body itself.

Once again, creationists might spend some earnest time speculating on why the Creator should bother to litter genomes with untranslated pseudogenes and junk tandem repeat DNA.

What a catastrophically bad argument from ignoance that turned out to be. Now what will you tell the poor hypocritical professor and poster child of new atheism after learning more about junk DNA and how functional and uselful it turned out to be.

Oh, and this from one of his books:
A Devil's Chaplin

No, because, in any case, most of the capacity of the genome of any animal is not used to store useful information.

Be sure to read all the crap he spewed in that book with regards to "junk DNA".

And then a studying scientist here mentioned this:

Haemoglobin A and B have some pseudogenes (pseudoalpha and pseudobeta in between zeta and alpha and between epsilon and delta respectively). Note that haemoglobin research is still on going and I'm quite sure microarrays have been used which indicated the genes to be non functional.
"Junk" is merely a common name. In those regions you have repetitive sequences e.g. ATTATTATTATTATT....ATTATTATT. Are you telling me a sequence like that is being transcribed? What purpose can such an RNA molecule possibly have? Mind showing me where the start codon and stop codons are? Enhancers? Promoters? Many of the flanking regions have been sequenced and is used in microsatellite analysis.

Can you detect the argument from ignorance there? Perhaps real scientists should work on junk DNA?

Oh btw, here is the origin of the term junk DNA.

[...The late] Dr. Susumu Ohno, writing in the Brookhaven Symposium on Biology in 1972 in the article "So Much ‘Junk DNA' in our Genome" is credited with originating the term. But his paper was focused "mainly on the fossilized genes, called pseudo genes, that are strewn like tombstones throughout our DNA. But as the term caught on in the 1980’s, its meaning was extended to "all non-coding sequences, the vast stretches of DNA that are not genes and do not produce proteins" (about 95% of the genome) [98.7% of human DNA - AJP]

Some bozos just climbed on the "junk" term to make silly arguments from ignorance...like the Professor above.

 

[rwenzori]

Oh, I really hope you have not forgotten the lovely piece from the poster child of hypocrisy and atheism...that fellow Dawkins. Heck, it was a favourite argument of his to show how badly he is designed (by that designer aka evolution of course). Silly numbnuts. Here is the article for all to laugh at again:

...

Some bozos just climbed on the "junk" term to make silly arguments from ignorance...like the Professor above.

Oh lordy, boring biology again. So some genetic stuff that was labelled "junk" has be found to have a function. Whoopee. No doubt lots more will as science finds out more. BUT ( from the Wikipedia article )...

However it is noted that the fact that some non-coding DNA has a purpose does not establish that all non-coding DNA has a purpose. In addition, sections of DNA can be randomized, cut, or added to with no apparent effect on the organism in question.

Some bozos tuned into the great quantum consciousness, the fount of logic and knowledge, and came up with:

Some pizzas taste yukk.
Dogpoo tastes yukk ( or so I am told ).
Therefore pizzas are dogpoo.

Silly numbnuts. "What a catastrophically bad argument from ignoance(sic)". LOL!

In any event, the "goodness" or "badness" of "design" imply design for a purpose. ( "This knife is well designed" does not mean it is good for piping hot water, say ). What purpose? I can think of many things that would be "good" for me, in terms of my "design" - if I had wings I could fly, and my ancestors could have flown away from sabre-tooth tigers. I still resent not having wheels. So even if EVERY chunk of DNA is shown to have a function, that in no way implies that our "design" is "good" or even "optimal", even if you state the "purpose" as survival of the species. Our DNA worked and we survived - it could have worked better, or worse.

BTW TelePhrone old boy, allow me to repeat a question I have asked of you before. Are we now at our final evolved state, as "designed" by Jesus, or do we still need to evolve some more? Polite, rational answers only, please. You don't want to upset the sysops as you seem to have done over at the skeptic forum.

 

[Phronesis]

Oh lordy, boring biology again. So some genetic stuff that was labelled "junk" has be found to have a function. Whoopee. No doubt lots more will as science finds out more. BUT ( from the Wikipedia article )...

And that means it is functionless junk? Perhaps we should cut off your one hand and randomize it into your stomach. I mean, it won't have any major or minor effects on your fitness (look at all the others people that don't have hands, they are fine and can procreate). After doing that we can safely assume your hand is junk because that will be soooo scientific right?

Some bozos tuned into the great quantum consciousness, the fount of logic and knowledge, and came up with:

Some pizzas taste yukk.
Dogpoo tastes yukk ( or so I am told ).
Therefore pizzas are dogpoo.

Silly numbnuts. "What a catastrophically bad argument from ignoance(sic)". LOL!

Oh dear... don't know where you get his from?

In any event, the "goodness" or "badness" of "design" imply design for a purpose. ( "This knife is well designed" does not mean it is good for piping hot water, say ). What purpose? I can think of many things that would be "good" for me, in terms of my "design" - if I had wings I could fly, and my ancestors could have flown away from sabre-tooth tigers. I still resent not having wheels. So even if EVERY chunk of DNA is shown to have a function, that in no way implies that our "design" is "good" or even "optimal", even if you state the "purpose" as survival of the species. Our DNA worked and we survived - it could have worked better, or worse.

One has to wonder whether there is some formal argument you can make from the above. Oh do try old chop. Or is it you just moaning that because you don't have wings and wheels for legs that you are badly designed and therefore can't make any well-designed arguments?

Are we now at our final evolved state, as "designed" by Jesus, or do we still need to evolve some more?

I can't know, but like I mentioned before, the fact that we have not changed much in the past 20 000 years (sorry no wheels or wings for you) implies that evolutionary perhaps we have reached a global maximum... Like here:

Figure 1: A) Basic lay out of memetic algorithms. A population of individuals is randomly seeded with regard to fitness (initialized). The individuals are randomly mutated and their fitness is measured. Individuals with optimal fitness are further mutated until convergence of a local optima is reached. The process is carried out for the entire initialized population. The global optima is selected from the various local optima. B) Fitness landscape with local optima (A, B and D) and a global optima (C). In a memetic algorithm, the initial population of individual are randomly seeded and can be viewed as any of the arrows indicated in the figure.​

 

[cyghost]

Better check that irony meter for false positives. Better yet, point the meter to yourself to see if it works?

Sadly I haven't replaced my meter yet after you blew it the last time. I had to rely on my innate supernatural ability to spot irony as she appears.

My sleeping patterns have nothing to do with you btw.

What? You mention *my* sleeping in two posts, I ask you about it and now this? I DON"T WANT TO SLEEP WITH YOU. EVER. PLEASE STOP INSINUATING LIKE THIS.

Please stop acting like a creepy stalker troll.

The moment you stop being a ********?

That being said, I dismiss your charges against me with the contempt it deserves. You and I don't see eye to eye on a great many things and your standard response to anyone disagreeing with you is stale and impotent. This is something you need to address. This is also the main reason I, (like rwenzori, alloytoo and probably quite a few others) suspect you of sockpupperty and colluding. Your glaring inability to put an argument or counter argument together other than copious amounts of 'copy and paste' jobbies is quite telling. While the hypocrisy of your accusations of incivility and insults all the while freely insulting those you engage with, quite frankly stinks.

Anyway, since you love junk DNA so much...here is more:

I'll thank you for not putting words in my mouth. I am quite indifferent to "junk DNA" even though I find it interesting that such a large portion of our DNA is non-coding. I'll reserve judgement and leave it to the experts. ie not you

Silly numbnuts.

hypocritical professor and poster child of new atheism

Be sure to read all the crap he spewed in that book with regards to "junk DNA".

Insults against a real scientist noted. For one who decries insults so much you sure manage to throw quite a few around yourself. Hypocrisy much?
That being said, this is the one thread you haven’t peddled at dawkins and I wonder why?

Here is a wiki article on bad design and here the talkorigins version. This argument is of course a counter argument that life is somehow designed. “junk DNA” being one example only. Life isn’t designed, it evolved. Evolution adequately explains how we got to where we are *without* a designer. Occam’s Razor explains why we then shouldn’t infer a designer, it is an unnecessary extra entity that really doesn’t explain anything (it needs explanation in and of itself)

Now phrony argues (badly and ineptly) that “junk DNA” is not an argument for bad design. He may very well be right on this. The facts are that there are large pieces of DNA that are non-coding. For some of these functions have been found. For some we may ever find a function even though in fact it does have a function.
None of this means or is evidence for a designer. That still takes a leap of faith (the blind kind).

There is no irreducible complexity, not on any level.

And that means it is functionless junk? Perhaps we should cut off your one hand and randomize it into your stomach. I mean, it won't have any major or minor effects on your fitness (look at all the others people that don't have hands, they are fine and can procreate). After doing that we can safely assume your hand is junk because that will be soooo scientific right?

Fallacy of Equivocation. Shifting the Goal Posts. We are talking on the sub cellular level. Please stay on track. Parts of DNA can be removed, added to or randomized without any telling effects. This strongly points to it being unnecessary and superfluous.

How do you resolve this problem without being falacious?

 

[Palimino]

I can't know, but like I mentioned before, the fact that we have not changed much in the past 20 000 years (sorry no wheels or wings for you) implies that evolutionary perhaps we have reached a global maximum... Like here:

Figure 1: A) Basic lay out of memetic algorithms. A population of individuals is randomly seeded with regard to fitness (initialized). The individuals are randomly mutated and their fitness is measured. Individuals with optimal fitness are further mutated until convergence of a local optima is reached. The process is carried out for the entire initialized population. The global optima is selected from the various local optima. B) Fitness landscape with local optima (A, B and D) and a global optima (C). In a memetic algorithm, the initial population of individual are randomly seeded and can be viewed as any of the arrows indicated in the figure.​

Your diagram has an error. There are no feedback loops. It is a totally open system. There should be a feedback loop from ‘mutation / recombination’ back to ‘population’.

Newsflash – evolution doesn’t stop until suitability to purpose occurs. Sharks and crocodiles are said to be optimally evolved killing machines. We are not killing machines. We can still evolve. This requires feedback.

 

[Phronesis]

That being said, I dismiss your charges against me with the contempt it deserves. You and I don't see eye to eye on a great many things and your standard response to anyone disagreeing with you is stale and impotent. This is something you need to address.

Yes... and your wonderful and constructive insights are noted of course. BTW, you do seem to have a lot of time these days. may I remind you of the following:

You assert:
I am not a materialist, not a naturalist and bear no metaphysical biases.

The questions remain:
Lay out what exactly you agree and disagree with naturalism and materialism.
Lay out these "metaphysical biases" you disagree/agree with?
Name them and explain them!

Seeing that you do have time to answer them... do try won't you? How about in this thread if you don't mind?

This is also the main reason I, (like rwenzori, alloytoo and probably quite a few others) suspect you of sockpupperty and colluding.

"sockpupperty and colluding". Get a few more to believe it and it becomes your truth right? Irrespective of what really goes on?

 

[Phronesis]

Your diagram has an error. There are no feedback loops. It is a totally open system. There should be a feedback loop from ‘mutation / recombination’ back to ‘population’.

If something reproduces and is successful, it forms part of the next population, reprodcing again.

Newsflash – evolution doesn’t stop until suitability to purpose occurs.

Who said that? How about a global maximum being reached?

Sharks and crocodiles are said to be optimally evolved killing machines. We are not killing machines. We can still evolve. This requires feedback.

Global maximum. Like you sharks and crocodile example?

 

[cyghost]

Yes... and your wonderful and constructive insights are noted of course.

Thank you, I do try.

"sockpupperty and colluding". Get a few more to believe it and it becomes your truth right? Irrespective of what really goes on?

Not at all. There is compelling evidence for *my* suspicions. Your own actions.

fearisgood, teleological, telic-meme, techne, machinist, phrony ~ the list is bloody endless.

singularity and oxphos??

Various websites the same nonsense over and over and over. What kind of mind (he he he) does it take to do that?

Obsessed much?

 

[Phronesis]

fearisgood, teleological, telic-meme, techne, machinist, phrony ~ the list is bloody endless.

Newsflash..... No sock puppetry. That would entail two of these operating at the same time on the same site. I don't see a problem having a different nick for a different site. Why should you? I will gladly tell anyone that I am the same person and that I just want a different nick, depending on the site...


So.... how about elaborating on your assertion that:
You are not a materialist, not a naturalist and bear no metaphysical biases.

The questions remain:
Lay out what exactly you agree and disagree with naturalism and materialism.
Lay out these "metaphysical biases" you disagree/agree with?
Name them and explain them!

You have the time right?

 

[cyghost]

Do clear up singularity and oxphos for us then? You have (other than these two) three open on this very site.

I suspect you and I submit I have reason to. If I am wrong, I am wrong. Wouldn't be the first time, nor by any stretch of the imagination the last. I just think you behavior and the lies you tell, significant.

 

[Phronesis]

Do clear up singularity and oxphos for us then? You have (other than these two) three open on this very site.

Uhm... not me. Told you before.

 

[cyghost]

I know you did Just setting a little trap there. I submit both had your style and brand of posting. Could be co-incidence, so I'll accept your word then.

 

[Phronesis]

Oh sod off with your silly games. Get a life , go argue your pointless BS somewhere else. Post something scientific won't you... Better yet, why don't you support this assertion you made:

You are not a materialist, not a naturalist and bear no metaphysical biases.

The questions remain:
Lay out what exactly you agree and disagree with naturalism and materialism.
Lay out these "metaphysical biases" you disagree/agree with?
Name them and explain them!

You have the time right?

 

[cyghost]

roflol If you can't beat em, join em