Evolutionists: How did legs evolve?

[Clete]

Ok!

1. Lobe-finned fish are the first to ever exist with bones. Prior to them, it was just sharks, skates, rays, and fish that either have no rigid internal structure (think hagfish) or those with osteoderms (natural plate armor) on the outer surface

I don't want to get into the weeds on this but I just have to point out that this is just such a great example of bias confirmation/blindness. "The first to ever exist with bones"? You couldn't possibly know that, first of all, but more importantly, does it ever occur to evolutionists to ask where the bones came from? Did the bones come as a result of the fish's attempts to use their fins as legs or was it that the use of their fins as legs was made possible and thereby indirectly caused by the existence of the bones? In either case, was is just pure blind chance that it was the pectoral fins that got the bone or is it that the whole skeleton was bone and if so, why? Where is the survival advantage for the oddball first fish with bone vs. the fish's mother who had no bone but managed to reproduce and make him? Who would the first bone fish have reproduced with in order to have bone fish babies?
Such questions are as endless as they unanswerable but the evolutionist just goes right along on his merry way believing that, "Lobe-finned fish are the first to ever exist with bones." or a thousand other similar unfounded presumptions and call it a scientific theory.

2. Lobe-finned fish are called so due to their stubby, almost leg-like appendages. Their fins have become more rigid and compact. Look up a coelacanth to see a good example. Some lobe-finned fish (henceforth called lobies) alive today use their stubs to "walk" along the bottom of the ocean. That is exactly what happened to shallow water lobies: some started to crawl.

"Their fins have become..."
It just astounds me that, what I think are, for the most part, well meaning, scientifically minded people, just do seem to be able to detect their confirmation biases.

3. After millions of years of evolution, we have a lobie that has adapted to breathe air briefly, a fantastic way to avoid predators in a world where all of those predators are underwater. Likely this occurred via the swim ladder being co-opted into a simple lung (something that lungfish today, as well as arapaima, and some catfish, can still do now: breathe air with their swim bladder or lungs). The stubby fins become more and more leg-like as the eons pass, because the lobies that CAN get out of the water don't get eaten as often as those that cannot, and they survive and reproduce.

Okay. Complete fantasy but, okay.

4. A few million more years and we have a creature that needs water to survive, but can also come out of it if necessary and for long periods of time. There is no competition on the land for food because nobody else is here yet, other than Arthropods. This creature flourishes with its stubby legs that it uses to drag its body along (like a mudskipper).

No competition for food on the surface?

Just how many unverifiable assertions are we going to need on this journey toward legs?

5. Those stubs are refined over millions of years until they are primitive legs, like those that a newt would have. And in fact, this is where the fish become amphibians. The legs get refined over time due to this: those creatures with a better ability to move around on land are better adapted to survive and reproduce. You start with a knub, and in the next few thousand years a mutation produces lengthened fin bones, which over many more millions of years become digits (think: whale fin bones for a crude example). And voila, you have a working leg.

Hope that was helpful.

Okay, yes, actually, it was.

The critical point being that there was a long list of amazingly lucky genetic mutations that just so happen to coincide with circumstances that would just so happen to allow them to be useful and thereby continue to exist which led to the next astoundingly lucky mutation that just happened to be of use to the already multiple time genetic lottery winning line of fish. One might wonder why none of the land animals look anything like fish with vestigial dorsal fins and gill plates but that's a discussion for another time.

The point of my question was to get exactly the sort of thing you've offered. So, let me ask you two questions...

First, is there any other path that legs have taken on their evolutionary journey to legdom? How, for example, did spider legs or insect legs evolve?

And lastly, if, while using legs to get around, you occasionally encounter obstacles that you have to step over (not around, only over); would sufficiently long legs evolve all at once or would some have legs that are too short (and/or too long) leaving only the 'just right' legs to reproduce?

Clete

 

[6days]

Likewise, any "evolutionists" who dismissed DNA or all vestigial organs as useless failed...

All evolutionists failed, both then and now. They assumed / assume most non coding DNA was functionless evolutionary remnants.

As Francis Collins admits "Most of the genome that we used to think was there for spacer turns out to be doing stuff."

Evolutionists were wrong calling non coding DNA a "biological wasteland".

Evolutionists were wrong in referring to non coding DNA as garbage, and claiming this was inescapable evidence we are share ancestry with mice.

Not only were evolutionists wrong... but you also are wrong in trying to whitewash the history of false conclusions and shoddy 'science' based on the common ancestry belief system.

 

[gcthomas]

Shall I go on?

No, best not.

Self creation is not a critical problem for the universe if it isn't for a deity. Let's propose that the universe was formed from a quantum fluctuation in a predecessor universe, and that one formed from its predecessor, and so on backwards for eternity. The sequence of universes has always existed in this model. No beginning or creation needed.

Information is evidence of a Creator? Really? How are you so sure that information can't increase naturally? Or indeed that the total amount of information in the system has indeed increased? What definition of information are you using here, since keeping it vague is a hallmark of dodgy arguments.

And C-14: it has been discussed before on Tol how C-14 is formed and how nuclear decay can do it deep under the ground. Just because solar activity is one way to make C-14 doesn't mean you should assume that it is the only way. C-14 is expected to be everywhere there is radioactivity and a supply of similar mass atoms.

 

[Right Divider]

Self creation is not a critical problem for the universe if it isn't for a deity. Let's propose that the universe was formed from a quantum fluctuation in a predecessor universe, and that one formed from its predecessor, and so on backwards for eternity. The sequence of universes has always existed in this model. No beginning or creation needed.

So you're a fan of fairy tales? Got it.

 

[JudgeRightly]

No, best not.

Sounds like I need to.

Self creation is not a critical problem for the universe if it isn't for a deity.

It's a problem for any entity, deity or not.

In order to create, one must first exist. If you don't exist, you cannot create.

Let's propose that the universe was formed from a quantum fluctuation in a predecessor universe, and that one formed from its predecessor, and so on backwards for eternity. The sequence of universes has always existed in this model. No beginning or creation needed.

So, basically, you're saying that the universe and its energy (in some form or another) has always existed?

That's not self creation, that's a "universe has always existed" type of claim.

Entropy prevents such.

Talk about science fiction...

In order to explain this complex universe, you have to propose something infinitely more complex that causes it. In order for you to explain the origin of this universe, you start with universes already in existence. It doesn't solve the problem of "origins."

Information is evidence of a Creator?

Yes.

Really?

Yes, really.

How are you so sure that information can't increase naturally?

I didn't say it couldn't. I said that information comes from other information. If you have a strand of DNA, that's a piece of information. Then the cell duplicates it, now you have two pieces of information. That's a natural increase in information.

Or indeed that the total amount of information in the system has indeed increased?

Again, I have no qualms about information being increased, I'm merely stating that information comes from existing information.

What definition of information are you using here, since keeping it vague is a hallmark of dodgy arguments.

How about just the normal definition found on Google:

in·for·ma·tion
/ˌinfərˈmāSH(ə)n/
noun
noun: information

1.
facts provided or learned about something or someone.
"a vital piece of information"
synonyms:details, particulars, facts, figures, statistics, data; More
knowledge, intelligence;
instruction, advice, guidance, direction, counsel, enlightenment;
news, word;
hot tip;
informal info, lowdown, dope, dirt, inside story, scoop, poop
"we'll give you the latest information"

*LAW
a formal criminal charge lodged with a court or magistrate by a prosecutor without the aid of a grand jury.
plural noun: informations
"the tenant may lay an information against his landlord"

2.
what is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things.
"genetically transmitted information"

*COMPUTING
data as processed, stored, or transmitted by a computer.
(in information theory) a mathematical quantity expressing the probability of occurrence of a particular sequence of symbols, impulses, etc., as contrasted with that of alternative sequences.[/BOX]

Good enough?

And C-14: it has been discussed before on Tol how C-14 is formed and how nuclear decay can do it deep under the ground. Just because solar activity is one way to make C-14 doesn't mean you should assume that it is the only way. C-14 is expected to be everywhere there is radioactivity and a supply of similar mass atoms.

I'm pretty sure I didn't mention anything about where C-14 comes from, so perhaps you shouldn't make such strawman arguments.

Perhaps you've read it before, but could I ask you to read it again?

http://kgov.com/carbon-14-and-dinosaur-bones

The article makes the claim that anything that is supposed to be millions of years old should have NO (as in zero) Carbon-14 in it. Things such as coal, oil, diamonds, fossils, and other things that are supposedly millions of years old.

Yet we find C-14 in all of those.

 

[Jose Fly]

Your links mention the ENCODE project, the one that found that between 9 and 80 percent of DNA is biologicallly active.

Speaking of ENCODE.....

ENCODE debate revived online

The ENCODE researchers admit that their "80% functional" claim was....well, let them speak for themselves"

"The 80% claim, he [ENCODE lead Manolis Kellis] says, was misunderstood and misreported. Roughly that proportion of the genome might be biochemically active, he explains, but some of that activity is undoubtedly meaningless, leaving unanswered the question of how much of it is really 'functional'."

CLICK HERE for Larry Moran's summary of how this all looks very much like deliberate hype.

 

[Jose Fly]

I don't want to get into the weeds on this but I just have to point out that this is just such a great example of bias confirmation/blindness. "The first to ever exist with bones"? You couldn't possibly know that, first of all, but more importantly, does it ever occur to evolutionists to ask where the bones came from? Did the bones come as a result of the fish's attempts to use their fins as legs or was it that the use of their fins as legs was made possible and thereby indirectly caused by the existence of the bones? In either case, was is just pure blind chance that it was the pectoral fins that got the bone or is it that the whole skeleton was bone and if so, why? Where is the survival advantage for the oddball first fish with bone vs. the fish's mother who had no bone but managed to reproduce and make him? Who would the first bone fish have reproduced with in order to have bone fish babies?
Such questions are as endless as they unanswerable but the evolutionist just goes right along on his merry way believing that, "Lobe-finned fish are the first to ever exist with bones." or a thousand other similar unfounded presumptions and call it a scientific theory.

If you're interested....

Where did bone come from? An overview of its evolution

The critical point being that there was a long list of amazingly lucky genetic mutations that just so happen to coincide with circumstances that would just so happen to allow them to be useful and thereby continue to exist which led to the next astoundingly lucky mutation that just happened to be of use to the already multiple time genetic lottery winning line of fish.

Well, here's the thing.....we've been observing, studying, experimenting on, and manipulating populations for well over a century now, and every single time a new trait, ability, or species arises, it does so via mutation and evolution.....every single time.

So just on that basis alone it's reasonable to conclude that the same was true in the past. When we look at the fossil record we see the emergence of new traits and species. Given the above entirely consistent history of observations, we conclude that those traits and species arose the same way they do now, i.e., via evolutionary mechanisms.

Now, if you're going to claim that everything was different in the past and new traits, abilities, and species arose via some completely different mechanism(s), then it falls on you to 1) specify the mechanism(s), 2) provide evidence of its/their existence, and 3) demonstrate that it/they are capable of generating new biological traits, abilities, and species.

Anything short of that and all you're doing is standing on the sidelines, stamping your little feet, and shouting "Nuh uh!!"

First, is there any other path that legs have taken on their evolutionary journey to legdom? How, for example, did spider legs or insect legs evolve?

And lastly, if, while using legs to get around, you occasionally encounter obstacles that you have to step over (not around, only over); would sufficiently long legs evolve all at once or would some have legs that are too short (and/or too long) leaving only the 'just right' legs to reproduce?

I'm curious as to why you're asking these types of questions in a religious internet forum. If you're truly interested in the science, why not pose your questions in a more appropriate arena?

 

[Jose Fly]

Perhaps you've read it before, but could I ask you to read it again?

http://kgov.com/carbon-14-and-dinosaur-bones

The article makes the claim that anything that is supposed to be millions of years old should have NO (as in zero) Carbon-14 in it. Things such as coal, oil, diamonds, fossils, and other things that are supposedly millions of years old.

Yet we find C-14 in all of those.

Years ago someone sent me a link to an article at that website. After I pointed out a number of fundamental errors in it, the person challenged me to email my critique to the site....so I did.

You know what I got back? "The Bible is either God's word or it isn't", followed by a paragraph about how I should convert to Christianity.

I'll just let that speak for itself.

 

[The Barbarian]

I don't want to get into the weeds on this but I just have to point out that this is just such a great example of bias confirmation/blindness. "The first to ever exist with bones"? You couldn't possibly know that, first of all, but more importantly, does it ever occur to evolutionists to ask where the bones came from?

O.K. So you pulled me in with a great question. "Where did bones come from?"

The first known bones were not skeletal, but plates of bone in the skin of ostracoderm fish. They likely served as armor against the large invertebrate predators of the time, and also (as today) served as a reserve of calcium and phosphate ions.

Leonard B. Radinsky
The Evolution of Vertetbrate Design
University of Chicago Press 1987 pp 39-40.

Did the bones come as a result of the fish's attempts to use their fins as legs or was it that the use of their fins as legs was made possible and thereby indirectly caused by the existence of the bones?

The latter seems to be true. Dermal bone became supporting bone in things like opercula (gill covers) and vertebrae (by calcification of tissue around the notochord).

In either case, was is just pure blind chance that it was the pectoral fins that got the bone or is it that the whole skeleton was bone and if so, why?

In many cartilagenous fish, the cartilage skeleton is partially calcified. And there is genetic evidence that chondrocytes (cells that lay down cartilage) and osteoblasts (cells that lay down bone) are genetically related, and thereby have a common evolutionary history.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4585068/

Where is the survival advantage for the oddball first fish with bone vs. the fish's mother who had no bone but managed to reproduce and make him?

A primitive chordate, with more mineral in his scales would be tougher to kill and eat, even with just a little more of it. So it wasn't a binary thing of "bone/no bone." And of course as it is today, bone was a great way to store excess calcium and phosphorus that might later be needed.

Who would the first bone fish have reproduced with in order to have bone fish babies?

Other fish of the same species. Over time, whatever mutations could get chondrocytes to lay down more mineral, would be advantageous.

Such questions are as endless as they unanswerable but the evolutionist just goes right along on his merry way believing that, "Lobe-finned fish are the first to ever exist with bones."

They aren't. Bone existed before there were bony skeletons. But they were first to have the cartilage in fins to form supporting rods of bone to connect to the spine. This was also a gradual thing; the earliest lobed-fin fishes had rather weak conections, while late examples like Acanthostega had legs sufficiently connected to let it walk around on the bottom of ponds.

or a thousand other similar unfounded presumptions and call it a scientific theory.

What you're asking is a fairly hot topic right now. Evolutionary Development people are looking precisely at the relevant genes to see if a predicted connection between chrondrocytes and osteoblasts exists. The indications are,that it does. Theories are confirmed by such confirmed predictions.

The critical point being that there was a long list of amazingly lucky genetic mutations that just so happen to coincide with circumstances that would just so happen to allow them to be useful and thereby continue to exist which led to the next astoundingly lucky mutation that just happened to be of use to the already multiple time genetic lottery winning line of fish.

Each generation builds on whatever survives the last. This process was observed in Barry Hall's bacteria, which gradually evolved a new enzyme system in a series of steps like that.

One might wonder why none of the land animals look anything like fish with vestigial dorsal fins

The fish so far found with legs, lack dorsal fins. Acanthostega had a fishlike tail though. Icthyostega,which could actually walk on land, had neither fin.

and gill plates but that's a discussion for another time.

Turns out that Acanthostega had lost the operculum (gill covers). This would have prevented it from capturing prey by suction, as most fish do. It would have captured prey by biting as tetrapods do.
.

First, is there any other path that legs have taken on their evolutionary journey to legdom? How, for example, did spider legs or insect legs evolve?

Genetic and fossil data indicate they came about by hardened exoskeletons forming in organism with lobopods. There's lot of detail here. If you want to hear about it, we can talk about that.

And lastly, if, while using legs to get around, you occasionally encounter obstacles that you have to step over (not around, only over); would sufficiently long legs evolve all at once or would some have legs that are too short (and/or too long) leaving only the 'just right' legs to reproduce?

Think of a millipede. It can go over obstacles, but does not step over them.

 

[The Barbarian]

All evolutionists failed, both then and now. They assumed / assume most non coding DNA was functionless evolutionary remnants.

You've been misled by that. As you learned, almost as soon as we found non-coding DNA, we realilzed that a lot of it had functions. Over 50 years ago, those functions were being explored. The nature of DNA was realized in 1954. By the end of the decade, non-coding DNA, and the fact that such DNA sometimes had functions were found.

As Francis Collins admits "Most of the genome that we used to think was there for spacer turns out to be doing stuff."

Evolutionists were wrong calling non coding DNA a "biological wasteland".

Creationists were wrong in claiming that blacks were intellectually and spiritually inferior.

But evolutionary theory never said non-coding DNA wasn't functional, and it's entirely possible to be a creationist and not be a racist.

I realize how important your story is to you. But as you now see, it's faked.

 

[Clete]

I'm curious as to why you're asking these types of questions in a religious internet forum. If you're truly interested in the science, why not pose your questions in a more appropriate arena?

I've got my reasons. I'll share them with you once I have answers that are unjaded by your understanding of my motives. For now, just answer the question like I was the typical public school graduated college student in a first year biology class where I'm getting my first university level indoctrination into the real world of science.

 

[Clete]

O.K. So you pulled me in with a great question. "Where did bones come from?"

The first known bones were not skeletal, but plates of bone in the skin of ostracoderm fish. They likely served as armor against the large invertebrate predators of the time, and also (as today) served as a reserve of calcium and phosphate ions.

Leonard B. Radinsky
The Evolution of Vertetbrate Design
University of Chicago Press 1987 pp 39-40.



The latter seems to be true. Dermal bone became supporting bone in things like opercula (gill covers) and vertebrae (by calcification of tissue around the notochord).



In many cartilagenous fish, the cartilage skeleton is partially calcified. And there is genetic evidence that chondrocytes (cells that lay down cartilage) and osteoblasts (cells that lay down bone) are genetically related, and thereby have a common evolutionary history.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4585068/



A primitive chordate, with more mineral in his scales would be tougher to kill and eat, even with just a little more of it. So it wasn't a binary thing of "bone/no bone." And of course as it is today, bone was a great way to store excess calcium and phosphorus that might later be needed.



Other fish of the same species. Over time, whatever mutations could get chondrocytes to lay down more mineral, would be advantageous.



They aren't. Bone existed before there were bony skeletons. But they were first to have the cartilage in fins to form supporting rods of bone to connect to the spine. This was also a gradual thing; the earliest lobed-fin fishes had rather weak conections, while late examples like Acanthostega had legs sufficiently connected to let it walk around on the bottom of ponds.



What you're asking is a fairly hot topic right now. Evolutionary Development people are looking precisely at the relevant genes to see if a predicted connection between chrondrocytes and osteoblasts exists. The indications are,that it does. Theories are confirmed by such confirmed predictions.



Each generation builds on whatever survives the last. This process was observed in Barry Hall's bacteria, which gradually evolved a new enzyme system in a series of steps like that.



The fish so far found with legs, lack dorsal fins. Acanthostega had a fishlike tail though. Icthyostega,which could actually walk on land, had neither fin.



Turns out that Acanthostega had lost the operculum (gill covers). This would have prevented it from capturing prey by suction, as most fish do. It would have captured prey by biting as tetrapods do.
.


Genetic and fossil data indicate they came about by hardened exoskeletons forming in organism with lobopods. There's lot of detail here. If you want to hear about it, we can talk about that.



Think of a millipede. It can go over obstacles, but does not step over them.

I appreciate your having taken the time but you and I have already been down this road on this thread. I've sort of started over with Mr. Jennings but the conversation is headed to the exact same destination.

Clete

 

[Jose Fly]

I've got my reasons. I'll share them with you once I have answers that are unjaded by your understanding of my motives. For now, just answer the question like I was the typical public school graduated college student in a first year biology class where I'm getting my first university level indoctrination into the real world of science.

I provided you with a link to a review paper that is specifically about the evolution of bones. As I hope you're aware, when a professor provides you with reading material.....you should read it.

Also, I explained why even at a very basic level, the conclusion that legs and bones and other traits are a result of evolutionary mechanisms is justified. You appeared to have ignored that. Again, as I hope you realize, when a professor presents you with something like that.....it's not a good idea to ignore it.

Finally, Barbarian went through the bother of writing up a more detailed answer to your request, and you basically blew him off, which means he essentially wasted his time and also indicates that you're not asking your questions in good faith. Having seen that, why should anyone else bother trying to explain the subject to you again?

 

[Clete]

I provided you with a link to a review paper that is specifically about the evolution of bones. As I hope you're aware, when a professor provides you with reading material.....you should read it.

Also, I explained why even at a very basic level, the conclusion that legs and bones and other traits are a result of evolutionary mechanisms is justified. You appeared to have ignored that. Again, as I hope you realize, when a professor presents you with something like that.....it's not a good idea to ignore it.

Finally, Barbarian went through the bother of writing up a more detailed answer to your request, and you basically blew him off, which means he essentially wasted his time and also indicates that you're not asking your questions in good faith. Having seen that, why should anyone else bother trying to explain the subject to you again?

I'm not ignoring it. I asked a question and you answered it and, as I explained to Barbarian and as Barbarian is fully aware, we've already been down this road together. I had a lengthy and detailed discussion with about all of this already, ON THIS VERY THREAD! If you want to read it, it's all still there!

Finally, as I also explain to Barbarian, the only reason I'm even posting any longer on this thread is because someone picked the conversation up anew and so I'm happy to have the discussion again with a new participant.

I've explained this way earlier in the thread but I'm sure you didn't see it and so let me just take the opportunity to state it again for your benefit. I do not debate evolution. Evolution is not science and, to my mind, not worthy to be debated. It is perhaps history's greatest example of an unfalsifiable mass delusion and deserves no more time devoted to debate than would have been debating the existence of witches in Salem. It is flat out stupidity and anyone who is even the slightest bit objective can see readily that is has nothing to do with science. It is a creation myth for the atheist, minus the evidence.

As for your answer to my question, if that's all you have on the topic of leg evolution then understand that I've read it and it will stand or fall on its own merits and as such it will serve my ends quite well. Thank you for your contribution.

Clete

 

[The Barbarian]

I appreciate your having taken the time but you and I have already been down this road on this thread. I've sort of started over with Mr. Jennings but the conversation is headed to the exact same destination.

Clete

Yep. But that question about where bones came from originally was such a good one, that you pulled me in, again.

If some creationists ask stuff like that, I know it's trolling and that I can ignore. But you're not trolling; you honestly want to know what the scientific explanation is.

So there we are. Worth saying, if for no other reason than information.

 

[Jose Fly]

I'm not ignoring it. I asked a question and you answered it

Then why did you just say that I should answer your question? You're not making much sense.

and, as I explained to Barbarian and as Barbarian is fully aware, we've already been down this road together. I had a lengthy and detailed discussion with about all of this already, ON THIS VERY THREAD! If you want to read it, it's all still there!

As far as I can see, the subject of the evolution of bones hadn't been addressed before in this thread.

I do not debate evolution.

I don't blame you. If I were you, I'd avoid it too.

Evolution is not science and, to my mind, not worthy to be debated. It is perhaps history's greatest example of an unfalsifiable mass delusion and deserves no more time devoted to debate than would have been debating the existence of witches in Salem. It is flat out stupidity and anyone who is even the slightest bit objective can see readily that is has nothing to do with science. It is a creation myth for the atheist, minus the evidence.

The moon is made of cheese.

See? Anyone can go online and make ridiculous empty assertions.

As for your answer to my question, if that's all you have on the topic of leg evolution then understand that I've read it and it will stand or fall on its own merits and as such it will serve my ends quite well. Thank you for your contribution.

Try and pay closer attention Clete. Your most recent question was about the evolution of bones and that's what I responded to.

 

[6days]

The ENCODE researchers admit that their "80% functional" claim was....well, let them speak for themselves

It is obvious you quotemined this, deleting the first, sentence of the paragraph which says Kellis says that ENCODE isn't backing away from anything.

"The 80% claim, he [ENCODE lead Manolis Kellis] says, was misunderstood and misreported.

Lead? LEAD what? He was a contributiting author to the original ENCODE papers. He was not the lead researcher. He did author a later paper himself.

(Kellis)"Roughly that proportion of the genome might be biochemically active, he explains, but some of that activity is undoubtedly meaningless, leaving unanswered the question of how much of it is really 'functional'."

So what is Kellis saying here? The context is that he has recieved intense heat and hate directed his way from evolutionists who are afraid of losing another of their icons... functionless DNA. So, he is trying to walk a tight rope between what the data showed, and his evolutionary belief system. Kellis. Birney, and the others did not object initially to their research being reported in journals such as 'Nature's like this...[/quote]"After an initial pilot phase, ENCODE scientists started applying their methods to the entire genome in 2007. Now that phase has come to a close, signalled by the publication of 30 papers, in Nature, Genome Research and Genome Biology. The consortium has assigned some sort of function to roughly 80% of the genome....A third phase, now getting under way, will fill out the human instruction manual and provide much more detail."[/i]


NOTE...Intial Encode results realized 80% of what previously was considered junk, was doing something. They were able to determine that's some of this non coding DNA is performing regulatory functions for genes. They say they don't understand it all yet, and with further research they may find that 100% of our DNA is doing something.


So.... ENCODE researchers know a lot more of the non-coding DNA is performing some type of function, than what evolutionists thought in the past. They are still doing research...still discovering function... and still angering people who WANT much of our DNA to be junk.

 

[6days]

As you learned, almost as soon as we found non-coding DNA, we realilzed that a lot of it had functions.

You seem to be suggesting that all evolutionists are as dishonest as yourself. If science discovered 50 ago that "a lot" of non coding DNA had functions; then why do many evolutionists continue to say most of our DNA is 'garbage (Many derogatory terms used).


God's Word tells us we are wonderfully made. You are not biological vestigial remnants of a fish... nor any other non-human creature. In six days God created the heavens and the Earth and everything in them.

 

[gcthomas]

This …

And I don't intend to try to pick apart whatever explanation is offered. It isn't about that. I'm simply curious to know what evolution has to say about legs and why they exist and how they got here. Feel free to just offer whatever it is you understand to be what evolutionary theory has to say on the topic.

Doesn't seem compatable with:

Evolution is not science and, to my mind, not worthy to be debated.

:nono:

While this …

It is perhaps history's greatest example of an unfalsifiable mass delusion [and] has nothing to do with science. It is a creation myth for the atheist, minus the evidence.

… doesn't seem to match reality and looks rather self serving to protect your specific interpretation of the Bible.

Has it occurred to you, Clete, that Evoloution isn't so much unfalsifiable as unfalsified? Potentially falsifying evidence is easy to come up with but difficult to actually find. Such as the tree of life based on genetics looking totally unlike that from physiology. Such as finding fully modern rabbit fossils found in the guts of dinosaur raptors. Such as breeding experiments with fruit flies producing nothing like what would be predicted from evolutionary theory. Such as the time sequence derived from stratified remains not matching the mDNA mutation timelines.

Why haan't any falsifying evidence like this be found?

Hmm. :think:

 

[Jose Fly]

It is obvious you quotemined this, deleting the first, sentence of the paragraph which says Kellis says that ENCODE isn't backing away from anything.

Just a tip.....when someone provides the link to the full article that gives the full quote in all its context, it isn't "quote mining".

So what is Kellis saying here?

That's a good question, and is exactly what Larry Moran posted about.

You see, the ENCODE research found that up to 80% of the human genome shows signs of biochemical activity. Yet when they went around to the media to talk about their results, they described it in ways that gave the impression that 80% of the human genome is functional. So now for them to say they aren't "backing away from anything" means that they see....

A: "We found that up to 80% of the human genome shows signs of biochemical activity"

--and--

B: "We found that 80% of the human genome is functional"​

.....as equivalent statements, even though they clearly aren't. I mean, if they gave statement A to the media, their colleagues would have likely reacted with "Huh....that's interesting" and it wouldn't have generated much public interest. Ah, but by giving statement B they created instant headlines and buzz.

And that's the question....did they do that on purpose as a media ploy, or were they truly unaware of what they were doing? I tend to agree with Larry. They knew exactly what they were doing. And that's too bad, because it's good work.

The context is that he has recieved intense heat and hate directed his way from evolutionists who are afraid of losing another of their icons... functionless DNA. So, he is trying to walk a tight rope between what the data showed, and his evolutionary belief system.

LOL! If you honestly think scientists' worries about losing evidence for common ancestry and evolution is what's driving this, you're more delusional than I thought.

In scientific circles, one sure way to quickly erode your own credibility is to oversell or spin your research merely to get media attention.

Kellis. Birney, and the others did not object initially to their research being reported in journals such as 'Nature's like this..."After an initial pilot phase, ENCODE scientists started applying their methods to the entire genome in 2007. Now that phase has come to a close, signalled by the publication of 30 papers, in Nature, Genome Research and Genome Biology. The consortium has assigned some sort of function to roughly 80% of the genome....A third phase, now getting under way, will fill out the human instruction manual and provide much more detail."[/i]

Exactly. They never issued any sort of correction, even though the above isn't accurate.

NOTE...Intial Encode results realized 80% of what previously was considered junk, was doing something. They were able to determine that's some of this non coding DNA is performing regulatory functions for genes. They say they don't understand it all yet, and with further research they may find that 100% of our DNA is doing something.

And "doing something" and "biochemical activity" do not always translate into "function". We've know that for a very long time. There are genetic sequences that produce biochemical products that are never used and are instead immediately broken right back down again.

And now the ENCODE folks are admitting that (Kellis: "The 80% claim, he says, was misunderstood and misreported. Roughly that proportion of the genome might be biochemically active, he explains, but some of that activity is undoubtedly meaningless, leaving unanswered the question of how much of it is really 'functional') but are also pretending that they never gave the media the impression that the 80% number represented actual function, rather than just "activity".

Then, in 2014 the ENCODE folks published another paper (CLICK HERE) where they acknowledge the issue:

"However, biochemical signatures are often a consequence of function, rather than causal. They are also not always deterministic evidence of function, but can occur stochastically."​

They finish by, well....let's just let them speak for themselves:

The major contribution of ENCODE to date has been high-resolution, highly-reproducible maps of DNA segments with biochemical signatures associated with diverse molecular functions. We believe that this public resource is far more important than any interim estimate of the fraction of the human genome that is functional.​

Huh. Suddenly the 80% thing isn't so important. :think: