A Challenge to Proponents of Intelligent Design

This is my original video, which Thunderf00t made a lot more interesting in his version.

I'm serious about this. If someone really thinks they can find a single gene that doesn't show homology and alternative function, I want to hear about it. I'll even help you get the results published, with full credits.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Challenge
• Intelligent
• Design
• Stephen
• Meyer
• gene
• genetics
• irreducible
• complexity
• DNA
• BLAST
• Homologene
• OMIM

[Answerquestions1]

the genes that code for echolocation are the same ones in bats and dolphins, so there is your answer, hope to see a video of you admiting that evolution is wrong, and that the idea of homology is just an evolutionists lie used to endoctrinate people

[C0nc0rdance]

@Answerquestions1

You are talking about prestin, which is a outer hair cell motor protein, of the SLC26 class. It fails the challenge, because it's found in animals as diverse as dogs and mosquitoes. We know of its origin. It's an SLC26 superfamily member: the result of gene duplication of the ancestral SLC26.

What you are talking about in bats and whales is called homoplasy, and it's sequence convergence in evolution. I suggest you research it.

Curr Biol. 2010 Jan 26;20(2):R55-6.

[Answerquestions1]

@C0nc0rdance

perstin in bats and dolphins is nearly identical, while perstin in bats and other mammals (inluding bats that do no use sonar) i very different.

perstin fails to follow the ´´homology rule´´ if you make a phalogenetic tree using only perstin, you will have to put dolphins to be more closely ralated to bats, than to seals opposing what evolution says.

if you are saying that the same genes can evolved independently more than once, then there is no way to answer your challenge

[C0nc0rdance]

@Answerquestions1

You are letting someone else think for you, AQ1. Go read this PNAS paper (you'll find the full text easily). It actually does graph the phylogenetics, and bats are in one clade, whales in another. It is a typical evolutionary cladogram, and fully supports molecular evolutionary predictions (homoplasy), not magical creation.

PNAS Sep 16, 2008 vol. 105 no. 37 13959-13964.

I'll quote some of the bits of the paper, to get you started.

[C0nc0rdance]

"...most likely explanation is that the Prestin gene tree reflects convergent evolution at the molecular level, associated with high-frequency hearing among echo. species. Indeed, removal of synonymous changes resulted in a reversion to the species topology; whereas a tree based solely on amino acid differences gave a well-supported putative gene tree. These findings thus appear to add credence to the view that the high-frequency hearing associated with echolocation has evolved more than once."

[C0nc0rdance]

By "very different" prestin sequences, how much do you think they differ?

Do you think prestin was created by divine magic specifically to benefit echolocating species? Why is it so closely related to the same prestin found in every other mammal species? Why wouldn't the divine creator make a tool for the purpose, rather than slightly altering a protein found in every other animal?

Why are there hundreds of other proteins in the SLC26 family with >95% homology? Are they unrelated?

[C0nc0rdance]

@S1587915G

Actually, it was "started" in 1987 in response to Edwards vs. Aguillard, but all of the proponents had been involved in creation science or c-science since the mid-70s. It's not a science, it's a legal strategy to subvert Constitutional protections. The Wedge Document spells that out clearly, and their actions since then confirm it.

History is littered with bad hypotheses. Like Intelligent Design Creationism, they rushed to publicize before they had empirical support.

[C0nc0rdance]

The "Batman" articles are mostly in psychology journals, exploring children's development or identifying popular characters.

The fact that "Neodarwinism" appears in the scientific literature 5 times means that it is not a term used by scientists. Even "Darwinism" gets only 294 hits. Scientists just say "evolution" (259,601 hits).

Neodarwinism just refers to the modern synthesis in 1930's of evolution and genetics.

Neodarwinism as an IDENTIFIER is an invention of the Discovery Institute.

[Genomiques]

@Genomiques

Well, silly me. I should have clarified: FliF does share good sequence similarity with YscJ, a component in type III secretion systems. But the TTSS is not ancestral to the flagellum, thus YscJ cannot be evidence of the evolution of FliF, so wouldn't that seem to meet your challenge, in some way at least?

[GonzoInthefoot]

Gene hackman! 

[leenkiss]

The awesomeness gene in trilobites was specifically designed, no doubt. Jesus also had designed genes specifically to waterwalk, that are totally unrelated to waterwalking animals.

[DaToNyOyO]

Gene Kelly.

[mignik01]

@Answerquestions1 ur first response was spot on. its the last one that i was talking about.

[Answerquestions1]

@mignik01

well, i just answered to the challenge. he asked for a gene that does not fit the evolutionary tree pattern, and the answer is perstine

[mignik01]

@Answerquestions1 i'm very young in the field of research. but even i have to work for days on ideas that i absolutely think is sensible, to get every detail, to present the whole argument, to work out the flaws and a lot of times i turn out to be wrong. its frustrating but enlightening and humbling at the same time.

Then i see arguments like these and you try to falsify the central theory in biology with a couple of sentences, without doing any actual work.

[mignik01]

@Answerquestions1 look at the explanation. if you have any specific claims. you can address that.

I'll give you an analogy from physics. Bernoulli's theorem states that fluid pressure should increase with decrease of velocity. But in boundary layers, we see fluid being slowed down but the pressure doesnt necessasrily increase. Does that mean the theorem is wrong??? no. it doesnt

U cannot put science into abstract ideas like you said.