The Feasibility Of An Intelligent Design Theory

[MrSpooky]

I just made this reply on Reddit but I thought ExC might enjoy it too:
 

Hi, I'm a molecular biologist with two bachelors degrees and a masters in biomedical sciences.

 

As a movement, Intelligent Design is very much a way to inveigle religion into the public school setting, yet I do believe that searching for design inferences is a perfectly scientific endeavor.  Scientists do indeed do this all the time in forensic pathology for example, or when it came to the SETI Institute and its quest to find intelligent life in the universe.

 

Setting side the political/social issues that surround the Discovery Institute and focusing solely on the evidence behind Intelligent Design, the real question is how researchers develop design inferences in the first place.  The answer is this:  scientists first figure out how natural, undesigned phenomena operate, and then look for anomalies that are not typically found in these phenomena.  For example, suppose a dead body was found and its blood was tested, and the results showed that cyanide was found in its system.  I'm sure you know that cyanide does NOT normally accumulate in the tissues to a high degree on its own.  This would indicate death by design: murder.  A typical sign of intelligence for SETI would be a series of prime numbers, since those supposedly don't normally occur in nature.

 

So there it is:  Design is inferred through contradistinction to non-design.  What you first do is study nature to see how it works on its own, and only then is it possible to start looking for intelligent action.

 

That being said, it's important to recognize that forensic pathology and astrophysics tend to be relatively straightforward fields in which one can look for design.  Phenomena in forensic pathology are fairly easy to compartmentalize and test in isolation.  Astrophysics deals with large but structurally simple phenomena that can be modeled fairly effectively using mathematics and computation.  Biology however, particularly with how it operates on the molecular level, is an immensely complicated field.  Factor in population dynamics/ecology and their impact on evolution, and you have another layer of complexity to unravel before you have a clear view of "how nature works on its own."

 

If you don't have a clear enough perspective of "how nature works on its own" to work from, there is no solid ground whatsoever for a teleological argument to be constructed, and any attempts to prove a Designer are going to be premature.  And frankly, this has been the history of Creationism (and Intelligent Design) in a nutshell:  pretty much all Creationists arguments have jumped the gun, and will continue to do so until we get a truly full picture of molecular biology.

 

This, I feel, is why Intelligent Design utterly fails as a teleological science.  We don't have a sufficient body of knowledge into what is possible in nature, so how can we expect to seek design by showing what is NOT possible in nature?  We may get to this point someday, but as of now the project of the Discovery Institute is fantastical as faster-than-light travel (moreso really...  FTL theories at least have sound models behind them).  We just don't have the academic infrastructure to even begin tackling that question.

[♦ ficino ♦]

What you write sounds good so far to this layman.

[pantheory]

From a strictly logical perspective, intelligent design of some kind, concerning the beginnings of life in general, is not impossible, but close to it IMO. But intelligent design of life and mankind, having a biblical basis involving a God or Gods, is preposterous with the understandings of today's related sciences.

[Geezer]

I am not an advocate of intelligent design or supernatural explanations for life, and I have had no scientific training. The word nature is a problem for me. It infers some things just naturally happen, but what causes "things" to naturally happen? Any form of life is enormously complex and that is the problem for me when it comes to evolution. I accept evolution as a fact, but I cannot honestly say that accounts for all the complexities of life, for me anyway. How and why did birds learn to fly? Why can fish only survive in water but humans cannot. Just look at the human eye or the human digestive system. Complex way beyond my understanding. The list is endless.

 

As I noted, I'm not a scientists, but evolution doesn't answer all the questions for me. Again, I note that I'm not an advocate of intelligent design either, or supernatural entities. I love to watch Hummingbirds at our feeder. They are simply amazing. Natures helicopters. They are so tiny but so beautiful. How did they "naturally" lean to hover? I try to not think about stuff like this because it blows my mind.

 

I can completely understand why the ancients decided "God" did it. I know now God didn't do it, but it seems to me there is more going on here than evolution by itself. Cosmology, with all of its theories, is another subject that just blows my mind too.

 

If the Japanese physicists theory is correct then the universe is a hologram. If that theory is ever proven to be true.....I don't even want to think about that.

[pantheory]

I am not an advocate of intelligent design or supernatural explanations for life, and I have had no scientific training. The word nature is a problem for me. It infers some things just naturally happen, but what causes "things" to naturally happen? Any form of life is enormously complex and that is the problem for me when it comes to evolution. I accept evolution as a fact, but I cannot honestly say that accounts for all the complexities of life, for me anyway. How and why did birds learn to fly? Why can fish only survive in water but humans cannot. Just look at the human eye or the human digestive system. Complex way beyond my understanding. The list is endless.

 

As I noted, I'm not a scientists, but evolution doesn't answer all the questions for me. Again, I note that I'm not an advocate of intelligent design either, or supernatural entities. I love to watch Hummingbirds at our feeder. They are simply amazing. Natures helicopters. They are so tiny but so beautiful. How did they "naturally" lean to hover? I try to not think about stuff like this because it blows my mind.

 

I can completely understand why the ancients decided "God" did it. I know now God didn't do it, but it seems to me there is more going on here than evolution by itself. Cosmology, with all of its theories, is another subject that just blows my mind too.

 

If the Japanese physicists theory is correct then the universe is a hologram. If that theory is ever proven to be true.....I don't even want to think about that.

 

Hey Geez,

 

Yes, there are still a lot of unanswered questions and speculations concerning evolution and its related theories, but its foundation, Natural Selection, has a mountain of evidence to support it. It is otherwise known as the survival of the fittest, also favoring the most prolific breeders.

 

Don't judge science in general based upon mainstream cosmology. Present theories of cosmology do not blow my mind like you suggest it does to you.  I consider it/them and related hypothesis to be no better than Ptolemy's epi-cycles, its basis being totally fiction, although not as preposterous as the universe being solely a hologram, granted.

 

Likewise I expect many or most of today's theories in modern physics to be replaced by far simpler theories before mid-century, so consider all with a grain of salt (healthy skepticism).

[MrSpooky]

I am not an advocate of intelligent design or supernatural explanations for life, and I have had no scientific training. The word nature is a problem for me. It infers some things just naturally happen, but what causes "things" to naturally happen? 

 

Hi geezer!  Most of your questions are actually quite easy to answer.  

 

 

Why can fish only survive in water but humans cannot.

 

It's important to remember that evolution generally pushes species to specialize in a particular way of living, or ecological niche.  Generally speaking, it is often a better survival strategy to be very good at one thing rather than mediocre at multiple things.  So really, your question is a lot like asking:  "Why is it engineers are so good at computers but doctors are not?"  Because specialization means better success.

 

Doctors COULD learn to be half-assed computer programmers, but their training in medicine would suffer for it.  And the job market generally doesn't have a need for mediocre doctor-programmer hybrids.  Similarly, a human who evolved to live a partially aquatic life wouldn't be in a very good position either on land or in the sea.

 

It is important to note however that it IS possible for an animal specialized for land-dwelling to evolve to be more specialized in living in the sea (or vice versa).  However, this primarily happens when there is no competition in the new ecosystem or niche that the critter is transitioning into.  Amphibians for example first evolved because being able to get to land meant being able to escape predators in the sea, and they could do this because in the early history of the earth there were no land-dwelling predators to eat them in turn.  On the other hand, whales were originally land mammals who developed a progressively more aquatic lifestyle, possibly because large sea creatures went extinct which allowed ancestral whales to take over new niches in the sea.

 

 

 

Just look at the human eye or the human digestive system. Complex way beyond my understanding. The list is endless.

 

Eye evolution is very easy to explain!  Here:

 

 

 

Scientists generally have very good transitional serieses for a lot of the things you mentioned.  Please feel free to research it yourself.  Google is your friend.

[Geezer]

MrSpooky, I noted in my original post that I'm not qualified to even ask an intelligent question as that relates to this topic, so l'll ask a dumb one. You note that nature works on its own. I acknowledge there is sufficient evidence to validate that as true. I accept that the strongest survive, & life forms evolve. There is a lot of evidence to surpport that, but how does Nature (1) Determine there is a flaw or problem in a species that needs to be corrected? (2) Once nature detects the problem how is the solution determined? (3) Once nature has detected a problem & then finds a solution for the problem, the solution must then be implemented. I assume the implementation process is called evolution.

 

As I've noted this stuff is way over my head, so please forgive my ignorance, but it seems to me something we humans call intelligence would be required for this process to work. How else would a cell, or DNA, whatever, be able to evolve? I'm not suggesting that an external force, supernatural or otherwise, has anything to do with the evolution process, but from the perspective of an uneducated mind it kind of appears that DNA has something that kind of seems like what we call intelligence.

 

Easy enough to say that is just the way nature works, but the details of how nature works is definitely intriguing. And then some might ask what, exactly, is this thing we call nature?

[pantheory]

MrSpooky, I noted in my original post that I'm not qualified to even ask an intelligent question as that relates to this topic, so l'll ask a dumb one. You note that nature works on its own. I acknowledge there is sufficient evidence to validate that as true. I accept that the strongest survive, & life forms evolve. There is a lot of evidence to surpport that, but how does Nature (1) Determine there is a flaw or problem in a species that needs to be corrected? (2) Once nature detects the problem how is the solution determined? (3) Once nature has detected a problem & then finds a solution for the problem, the solution must then be implemented. I assume the implementation process is called evolution.

 

As I've noted this stuff is way over my head, so please forgive my ignorance, but it seems to me something we humans call intelligence would be required for this process to work. How else would a cell, or DNA, whatever, be able to evolve? I'm not suggesting that an external force, supernatural or otherwise, has anything to do with the evolution process, but from the perspective of an uneducated mind it kind of appears that DNA has something that kind of seems like what we call intelligence.

 

Easy enough to say that is just the way nature works, but the details of how nature works is definitely intriguing. And then some might ask what, exactly, is this thing we call nature?

 

Hope you don't mind Geez, but I thought I would also weigh in on your questions.

 

How does Nature (1) Determine there is a flaw or problem in a species that needs to be corrected?

 

1) It is not necessarily a problem or flaw with a species. Natural selection is when one species out-competes, or out-breeds another taking all the food in a particular environment, for example, causing another species to starve and go extinct. Another example, larger males of the same species win fights to mate, and as time passes the species continues to get larger because larger fathers produce larger children.  Still another example, a hummingbird on an island with a longer beak gets more nectar because most flowers there have a deep funnel shape. Therefore longer beaked hummingbirds can get more food and likely produce more chicks. In time all future hummingbirds on this island may have longer beaks.

 

 

(2) Once nature detects the problem how is the solution determined?

 

If the environment changes, less rain and food for instance, larger animals that cannot get enough food will die out, while smaller ones requiring less food might survive. In time species may become smaller to better match the food supply.

 

(3) Once nature has detected a problem & then finds a solution for the problem, the solution must then be implemented. I assume the implementation process is called evolution.

 

The implementation process is usually best described as Natural Selection whereby the animals best suited for a particular environment can better survive, or even thrive.

 

--------------------

 

Key factors known today concerning evolution, are genetics and epileptics.  The mechanics of genetic evolution was not know to Darwin, but he understood how it played out in nature concerning random variations within the species and how that relates to Natural Selection of the most desirable traits for a particular environment. Epi-genetics, where genes may be turned on and active, or turned off and inactive, is in the forefront of modern evolutionary study concerning the adaptability, changeability, and vulnerability of individuals to their environment, including treatments for undesirable characteristics and behaviors which can make an individual's life more difficult.

[Geezer]

Thanks pantheory. Every answer generates a whole bunch of new questions, that is why scientists spend their entire lives searching for answers. I very much admire folks who spend their lives seeking answers to these kinds of questions. I wish I had been blessed with that kind of mind.

[MrSpooky]

 

(1) Determine there is a flaw or problem in a species that needs to be corrected? (2) Once nature detects the problem how is the solution determined? (3) Once nature has detected a problem & then finds a solution for the problem, the solution must then be implemented. I assume the implementation process is called evolution.

 

Hi Geezer!  Thanks for your questions.  I think there's a bit of a fundamental misunderstanding here, so in a nutshell here's how evolution really works:

 

Life has three main features that make evolution possible.

 

1)  All organisms reproduce:  they make new progeny and pass down their genetic traits to them.

2)  The progeny are not exact copies of their parents:  Because cell division is not 100% perfect, mutations occur from one generation to another.  sexual reproduction produces even more variability because, progeny are a random mix-and-match assortment of the parental traits.

3)  The external environment places some kind of stress on a population of living organisms:  the most classic example is that there isn't always enough food for all organisms to survive.  There are also predators, disease, and other nasty things out in the world.

 

Now keeping these in mind, imagine a scenario in which a group of mice live in a forest with a bunch of cats.  Now some of these mice are slightly bigger, some are slightly smaller.  Some are brown, some are black.  Some are faster, some are slower.  Etc.  We'll call this population "Early Mice."  In order to survive long enough to reproduce, the mice have to adopt some sort of survival strategy, by perhaps running away faster.  As time goes on, the slower mice will be caught and eaten by the cats, while the faster mice are able to get away and reproduce.  Because all the slow mice have been eliminated from the gene pool, the next generation of mice will have a bunch of fast-running genes.  This next generation of mice will, of course, still have to contend with the cats, but they'll be better suited for it.

 

Repeat this cycle for a few hundred generations, and more and more gene variants that prevent the mice from running fast will be eliminated from the gene pool, and eventually we'll have a new population of mice that is quite different from the "Early Mice" population.  Perhaps they look more streamlined, or have longer limbs.  We'll call this new population "Fast Mice."  Again, Fast Mice still have a lot of variation.  Some are bigger, some are smaller.  Some are brown, some are black.  Some have longer claws, some have shorter claws.  But one trait they now share that makes them different from the ancestral "Early Mice" is that overall, they are faster.

 

Now, running away from cats is a decent enough survival strategy, but it's not GREAT.  So perhaps some of the mice try climbing trees to get away.  Again, the better climbers will reach safety, survive to reproduce, and continue to pass on their "fitter" traits to the next generation.  Repeat this cycle for a few hundred generations, and the new population of mice will become expert climbers.  Perhaps they evolved to have longer claws and stronger forelimbs.  We'll call this new population "Climbing Mice."

 

Basically, evolution works by the gradual accumulation of genetic traits that allow a species to survive a hostile environment.  The mice didn't necessarily have to go on this evolutionary course, however.  There are lots of survival strategies they could have evolved to escape prey.  Rodent-like species have a broad variety of ways to do so:  some climb (squirrels), some burrow (moles), some even evolved gliding (flying squirrels) and eventually fully-fledged flight (bats).

 

So to get back to your question to answer more directly:

 

 

 

(1) Determine there is a flaw or problem in a species that needs to be corrected?

 

There is no all-seeing eye to check up on a species to see if it's deficient in some way.  The stresses that a population experiences from its environment creates a selective pressure against weaker variants, weeding them out of the population so that the next generation is fitter.

 

 

 

(2) Once nature detects the problem how is the solution determined?

 

There is no intelligence to determine how a solution is to proceed.  The variants in a population that are less fit simply die out, often before they can reproduce.  The next generation will thus be composed of fitter organisms that are less vulnerable to the selective pressure.

 

 

 

(3) Once nature has detected a problem & then finds a solution for the problem, the solution must then be implemented. I assume the implementation process is called evolution.

 

Yes.  The "implementation" of the solution is merely the reproduction of a new generation that has the traits that allow the species to better survive.

[Geezer]

Thanks, that does help.

[MrSpooky]

No problem.  Please keep in mind that mutation and natural selection are incredibly robust ways of generating adaptive changes.  It's often very surprising what sort of traits life can develop.  Re-watch the video with the eye example I pointed out, and it shows you a very simple, stepwise series of evolutionary changes that lead to a progressively more intricate eye.

 

There have been plenty of other examples in which extremely complex-seeming organs have very good models for their evolutionary history behind them.  It just takes a little reasoning and investigation.

[♦ ficino ♦]

Spooky, you do a very good job of distilling complex information and communicating it to people who haven't already mastered it.

 

Can you give Ben Carson a tutorial on evolution?

[RogueScholar]

Thanks for the discussion Spooky. I don't envy you and your study of molecular biology. I had to take a semester of molecular mechanisms and pharmaceutical biotransformation in grad school and it's never a good time when the first lecture of the course is a derivation of the Michaelis-Menten kinetics.

[MrSpooky]

LOL Michaelis-Menten isn't all that bad I think.  But then again my work centers around developing point-of-care diagnostic platforms so I don't have to handle that sort of math much at all.  

What'd you get your degree in?

[RogueScholar]

Undergrad degrees were in allied health and nursing. Graduate was in pharmaceutical science.

[bleedblue22]

Hello Mr. Spooky. Good to have someone of such great expertise (and from what I've seen so far, great skill in educating)!

 

What mutations make it into the sex cells that go on to provide genetic code for offspring? If I had a mutation in one of my skin cells that changed the pigment of the cells that inherited the DNA from that mutated cell, would that mutated gene  be passed on to an offspring? Or perhaps if I had a cancerous mutation, could that cancerous DNA make it into my gametes (I guess I'm asking if cancer could be heritable)?

 

Also can you point me to any resources regarding epigenetics? I want to learn about that and it's probably too in depth for you to explain in an online forum.

[bleedblue22]

I had a recent confrontation with an Intelligent Design proponent at my university. I was very nervous and fumbled my words quite a bit at the beginning before settling down to get my point across. This is the recording of my discussion:

 

https://soundcloud.com/user776542719/new-recording-2

 

The sound is obviously bad (I recorded it on my phone) so you'll have to turn the sound up. It's not all that exciting and I don't get to talk much so I don't blame you if you don't watch it, but just thought I'd share.

 

The guy claimed that virtually all mutations that happen in the early stage of human development are detrimental and almost always fatal, and this is where a lot of scientists are staking there ground for a lot of the major mutations that could cause the speciation that led to the diversity of life today. I was wondering if you could comment on that.

 

I hope I'm not too demanding and thanks for your time if you have a chance to respond.

[RogueScholar]

Hey bleed, when we reproduce, we do so through the agency of sex cells (ova and spermatozoa). A mutation in a skin cell for example would not be passed on. However, a gene that perhaps increased your risk for developing say skin cancer that you inherited from your parents when they reproduced could be passed along.

 

The condensed intro to epigenetics can be seen as the following: Every cell in our body has the exact same DNA "blueprint." However, there are many cell types and specialisations, how can this be if they all share the same blueprint? How DNA is "stored" and expressed is incredibly nuanced; however, an important consideration is the fact that DNA is in essence wrapped around proteins known as histones. Molecules or molecular tags attached to these histones can lead to increased gene expression or inhibition of gene expression. Aside from histone modifications with these molecular tags, the DNA base pair sequences may have molecular tags that lead to increased or decreased expression. Not the base pair sequence per se but a molecule such as a methyl (Carbon atom and three Hydrogen atoms) group can be added to the "residue" of the already established base pair. These, are the basic areas where the rudimentary appreciation of epigenetics begins. This is also an important basis for the specialisation of cells. Additionally, the loss of cell specialisation and alterations to these molecular tags that can result in the expression and inhibition of genes may be the basis for certain types of cancer. This is also the basis for many drug interactions where certain drugs can cause certain genes to be over expressed and others to be under expressed. This mechanism underpins the understanding of how certain drugs cause certain enzymes involved in drug metabolism to be over and under expressed (enzyme induction and inhibition)

 

Regarding the sound recording, I'm afraid that I don't really have the time or interest to listen and then respond to a discussion by proxy in this way. However, mutations that happen to occur during early development can have a tendency to cause significant problems. This is why the early stages of feral development are so important. This is especially important in my field when considering the effects and dangers of certain drugs during fetal development.

 

Forgive typographical errors as this response is an iPhone special.

[VacuumFlux]

One of the best descriptions of evolution I've heard (it was even from someone who, at the time, identified as a Christian) is that it doesn't try to make the best organisms possible; all evolution does is make them good enough. Good enough to have fertile kids. Doesn't matter if you get back pains and loose your vision in old age, as long as you reproduced when you were younger. The only time "good enough" doesn't get passed on is if some other organism out-competes you and your offspring; when the environment changes, something that was good enough in the past may not be enough any more.

 

One common confusion I see is the idea that evolution is linear. That you have one type of organism that evolves into a different one in the future. But it's really a lot fuzzier than that, because evolution acts on populations, not on individuals. It seems like an easy way to think about evolution is that one species turns into a different species - but it turns out even species boundaries are hard to define.

 

One example that we see today is a ring species. Sub-species A lives at one end of the ring; maybe on one side of a mountain range or a large body of water. In the next area over lives sub-species B. A and B can and do interbreed, so they're part of the same species. Moving on geographically, perhaps on the other side of the mountains or lake, you find sub-species C that can and does interbreed with B, so they're also part of the same species. But... C and A can't or won't breed at all, which would make them not part of the same species!

 

Other modern examples we can see are similar animals in different geographic areas. Turns out that they can breed with each other and have viable offspring, but the few times they meet each other, they don't. Maybe they've been living apart long enough that they just don't look sexy to each other any more, maybe each population has a slightly different courtship dance. So for now, they might be the same species because they can produce offspring on the rare occasions they bother to, but they usually don't, and they don't interact with each other much. As the generations go by, and they get different from each other by random chance ("genetic drift" is the term for random changes that don't help or hurt survival, so they don't have anything to do with natural selection), they may eventually get to the point where if the populations meet again, they not only won't bother to mate, but couldn't produce offspring with each other even if they tried. And now they're two separate species. Human languages work in a very similar way; if two groups of humans spend enough generations apart, they'll go from speaking the same language to speaking different dialects that can still make sense of each other, to speaking different languages. So in those cases, there's no problem to be fixed, no goal that needs to be reached, just that everything changes in the long term.

[MrSpooky]

 

 bleedblue22, on 26 Oct 2015 - 9:31 PM, said:

Hello Mr. Spooky. Good to have someone of such great expertise (and from what I've seen so far, great skill in educating)!

 

What mutations make it into the sex cells that go on to provide genetic code for offspring? If I had a mutation in one of my skin cells that changed the pigment of the cells that inherited the DNA from that mutated cell, would that mutated gene  be passed on to an offspring? Or perhaps if I had a cancerous mutation, could that cancerous DNA make it into my gametes (I guess I'm asking if cancer could be heritable)?

 

Also can you point me to any resources regarding epigenetics? I want to learn about that and it's probably too in depth for you to explain in an online forum.

In regards to skin cell changes:  Nope!  Only mutations in germ cells (that is, sperm or eggs, the cells that are directly involved in reproduction) are carried onto the progeny.  Mutations in somatic cells (cells of the body) just stick to that particular cell line.

As for epigenetics, it's an exceptionally new field but it basically involves the histone proteins that bind to DNA and regulate its expression (that is, some genes are turned off, some are turned off).  Epigenetics research shows that these proteins and the DNA they bind to can be chemically modified by their environment to alter their activity, and sometimes this chemical modification can be passed down to new cells.
 

 

 

I had a recent confrontation with an Intelligent Design proponent at my university. I was very nervous and fumbled my words quite a bit at the beginning before settling down to get my point across. This is the recording of my discussion:

 

https://soundcloud.com/user776542719/new-recording-2

 

The sound is obviously bad (I recorded it on my phone) so you'll have to turn the sound up. It's not all that exciting and I don't get to talk much so I don't blame you if you don't watch it, but just thought I'd share.

 

The guy claimed that virtually all mutations that happen in the early stage of human development are detrimental and almost always fatal, and this is where a lot of scientists are staking there ground for a lot of the major mutations that could cause the speciation that led to the diversity of life today. I was wondering if you could comment on that.

 

I hope I'm not too demanding and thanks for your time if you have a chance to respond.

 

No problem it's nice to have some downtime between experiments, and I really do want to get back into the subject of evolution as a side hobby.  I'm afraid I can't listen to the recording right now but the short of it is this:  No, the person you're talking to is absolutely wrong.  The fact is, the majority of mutations tend to be neutral.  This is because of the way the genetic code is structured in a redundant way.  Because of this, a mutation might not change anything at all, or it might switch out one amino acid for another amino acid that is so chemically similar that it doesn't matter.  This is why even though humans and, say, mice have very different genes for hemoglobin A, the two versions look very similar and function in essentially the exact same way.

 

That being said:  Yes, a lot of mutations are indeed harmful or fatal.  Why else do you think that as many as 31% of pregnancies end in miscarriages before 20 weeks?  As tragic as this is, take a moment to consider how these mutations would be involved in evolution.  Like, seriously ask your friend to think about it:  suppose that a bunch of mutations occur which kill the progeny even before birth.  How would this affect the gene pool?

The answer:  it wouldn't.  Because the progeny carrying the fatal gene died in the womb (or egg, or the seed is sterile, depending on the species), it never had a chance to spread its genes into the population.

 

Now, what about a gene that wasn't fatal, but instead weakened the organism significantly?  Would it have a chance to spread its genes into the population?  Again, the answer is:  not very likely.  This is because natural selection weeds out organisms that are too weak to compete in the environment.  So negative mutations generally don't have that much of an overall impact.  Even when the mutation is recessive (that is, you only have the weakened condition if you have two copies of the gene, one from each parent) the impact of this gene is minimal since weakened progeny are again gradually removed from the population by environmental stresses.

 

That being said, there ARE mutations that show enhanced or increased function.  There are numerous examples in bacteria developing antibiotic resistance for example.  Or mutations that give them the ability to digest chemicals they normally wouldn't be able to, like the Lenski experiment where bacteria evolved to break down citrate, or all the nylon-eating bacteria that evolved.

 

A prime example in humans would be the Apo-AI-Milano gene that recently arose in a particular Italian family.  This gene gives them much healthier circulatory systems, and their rates of heart disease are exceptionally low.

[bleedblue22]

Thanks! That is very interesting. I am looking up the apo-al-Milano gene. Looks like it may have promise in developing a gene therapy to reduce risk of heart disease.

 

And as for my "friend"(not really a friend as much as a guest speaker who holds a Ph.D. In evolutionary biology at an apologetics club for my school), I had a sneaking suspicion he was full of shit. How can someone with a doctorate in evolutionary biology make such false claims? What religion will do to the brain...

[bleedblue22]

Btw this speaker was from the discovery institute. They make all sorts of claims in support of their premise that Darwinian natural selection is incapable of creating the diversity of life as we know it today. Have you read any of their stuff? Are their claims usually patently false or are they just inserting a "God did it" into any gaps that biologists have not already figured out?

 

For example, a big point was talking about how junk DNA is a misnomer since it codes for important proteins that scientists did not previously know about. Is there any validity to this claim that there is no such thing as junk DNA? Hearing about how we have genes that code for a tail that are not expressed and genes that code for a useless appendix makes me think otherwise...

 

Once again, feel free to respond (or not) at your leisure. You've already been far too generous with your time.

[VacuumFlux]

Btw this speaker was from the discovery institute. They make all sorts of claims in support of their premise that Darwinian natural selection is incapable of creating the diversity of life as we know it today. Have you read any of their stuff? Are their claims usually patently false or are they just inserting a "God did it" into any gaps that biologists have not already figured out?

 

For example, a big point was talking about how junk DNA is a misnomer since it codes for important proteins that scientists did not previously know about. Is there any validity to this claim that there is no such thing as junk DNA? Hearing about how we have genes that code for a tail that are not expressed and genes that code for a useless appendix makes me think otherwise...

 

The Discovery Institute has a habit of making God of the Gaps claims, and well as horribly misrepresenting the current state of scientific knowledge. I think they're the ones who have some weird idea that DNA encodes "information", which they use in a manner that no scientists do, and then do weird math on it to claim that disproves evolution.

 

There is some DNA that is completely junk. There's some DNA that we used to think was junk that doesn't encode for any proteins, but does affect protein creation. Some DNA could encode for proteins but never gets used. Some junk DNA, the ones at the end that get worn down as cells replicate (telomeres), has a use even though it doesn't encode for anything or have any information content about controlling other proteins; it's just a long chunk of repetitive stuff. DNA replication mechanisms are incapable of reading all the way to the end of the DNA, so putting anything useful down there would be a bad idea. But the Discovery Institute likes to tell this story that scientists used to believe everything non-coding was completely useless, which makes DNA seem wasteful and supports the idea that it was all random, but since they we've discovered that a lot of that "junk" is actually useful, and therefore more likely to be designed. Except... that's misrepresenting the history of the study of DNA, and scientists have been quite willing to find useful things that non-coding regions do. The Discovery Institute likes to pretend that scientists resisted this evidence because they didn't want to believe in a designer. Now, there is still quite a debate among real scientists about how much is complete junk and how much does useful things, and what those useful things are, but admitting that there are things you don't know and trying to find out is very different from willfully ignoring that you don't know everything.

[MrSpooky]

Btw this speaker was from the discovery institute. They make all sorts of claims in support of their premise that Darwinian natural selection is incapable of creating the diversity of life as we know it today. Have you read any of their stuff? Are their claims usually patently false or are they just inserting a "God did it" into any gaps that biologists have not already figured out?

 

For example, a big point was talking about how junk DNA is a misnomer since it codes for important proteins that scientists did not previously know about. Is there any validity to this claim that there is no such thing as junk DNA? Hearing about how we have genes that code for a tail that are not expressed and genes that code for a useless appendix makes me think otherwise...

 

Once again, feel free to respond (or not) at your leisure. You've already been far too generous with your time.

LOL that explains quite a bit.  Yes, the Discovery Institute was the group that first popularized Intelligent Design.  Some context:  Every since the 1980s or so the Supreme Court has struck down anything that seemed like Creationism from being taught in public schools in America.  This obviously didn't sit well with Creationists, who repeatedly tried to rebrand their claims.  Attempts to call it "Creation Science" instead of "Creationism" for example initially squeaked it past some very naive school boards but the Supreme Court caught them every time.

 

Eventually a lawyer named Philip E. Johnson wrote the book "Darwin on Trial" and used his lawyering sense of legal reasoning and critical logic to try to tear holes in evolutionary biology.  Mind you, a real scientist was not very impressed by his work, but Johnson nonetheless became a central figure and founder of the Intelligent Design movement.  While biologists and educators felt this was just another attempt to rebrand Creationism, Johnson and his colleagues firmly held their ground and claimed it was less about promoting Christianity and more about critically examining evolution and showing that some undefined intelligent force had a role in the development of life.  He and a few other like-minded individuals like William Dembski and Michael Behe thus banded together to form the Discovery Institute.

 

Now at the beginning Intelligent Design was in a sort of legal gray area since technically it wasn't a religious claim.  However, later on an internal memo within the Discovery Institute was leaked which was basically a mission statement, and it explicitly said that the goal of Intelligent Design was to act as a "wedge" to break apart the monopoly evolutionary biology had and insert a new view of science that was more "consonant with Christian theological values."  This later became known as the Wedge Document, and was a HUGE embarrassment for the DI.  In fact this memo was used against them in the 2005 Dover Pennsylvania trial to determine whether a school board violated the separation of Church and State in trying to teach Intelligent Design.

 

As for Junk DNA... yes there is new research showing that junk DNA does have interesting regulatory functions and may play a role in evolution in some ways.  However, this doesn't mean that junk DNA has some intelligently designed purpose at all.  The idea that junk DNA has some functional roles is perfectly consistent with evolution.  Junk DNA is probably better described as "noncoding DNA" and biologists used to think that it was a bunch of vast dead zones of inactive DNA that lay between genes.  DNA that actually codes for genes that make proteins makes up 2% of the human genome, the rest is this noncoding "junk DNA."

 

Its existence is generally quite incidental:  a lot of this noncoding DNA is composed of ancient genes that have been deactivated through mutation, or they're just places where DNA viruses inserted but then became inactivated, or they're the result of DNA copying errors, etc.  However, because there's so much material some of it might start to get involved in certain regulatory functions in affecting how other genes because through secondary systems.

 

It'd be kinda like if you threw out the old aluminum foil that lined your baking pan because it was over and done with, but some hobo fished it out of the garbage bin and folded it into a hat.  That aluminum foil wasn't DESIGNED to be a hat, it's just become raw material repurposed for that by happenstance.