Junk DNA supports creationism better than evolutionism

There’s a proposal for a new thread at EvC mostly about junk DNA

A rising trend among creationists/intelligent design advocates is to imply, or state outright, that all DNA (i.e., junk DNA/noncoding DNA) has function. While this is already demonstrably untrue, many such folk maintain this line, including Jonathan Wells in his new book, 'The Myth of Junk DNA'. [The book is at Amazon of course, and the comments on that page are interesting -- Faith].

On a related note, it is claimed by YEC/IDC 'information' types that functional DNA possesses CSI, and further they claim that CSI is indicative of creation/design. Further, I have been told by a YEC that CSI is determined by calculating the Shannon information of the DNA sequence (which is a function of its number of base pairs) and adding its 'meaning' which is premised on its function (I've been trying to get creationist information types to tell me how to quantify 'meaning' for some time, but to no avail).

Taking the YEC/IDC position to its logical conclusion, this must mean that an organism with a genome larger than humans possess more CSI than humans do.

Thus, the marbled lungfish, with a genome of 133 billion bps, has ~44 times the CSI [something "specific information" -- Faith] that humans do (if YEC/IDCs are correct).

Which means that the Creator/Designer put more effort into creating them than us.

How can YEC/IDCs reconcile this with their beliefs that humans are 'special'?

I mean without special pleading....

I'm always surprised to find creationists arguing that junk DNA must have a function. I suppose some of it may retain some function after all, I haven't studied the science involved, but its not having a function makes it compatible with the Biblical scenarios of the Fall and the Flood, which imply so much death, and that's how I've been thinking of it for some time -- as the DNA cemetery. Death entered the world because of sin. It makes sense the DNA would die too. The creationist arguments for its functionality are probably due to the fact that evolutionists have claimed its nonfunctionality supports evolution, but really it supports Biblical creation better.

Evolutionists have claimed that junk DNA is evidence for evolution because it must reflect the many genetic trials by natural selection that didn't work out in the long history of evolution (or possibly, the record of previous adaptations that were later obsolesced?) I dunno, seems to me that given the enormously long history they postulate, 98% of the DNA is an awfully small record to show for it, it ought to be more like 99.9999999%. But the idea that 98% of human DNA is functionless or dead is perfectly compatible with the biblical history of the Fall in Eden and the Flood of Noah, as it could be regarded as a record of all the death that was the result of those events, and the time period of 4500 years since the Flood bottleneck is a more reasonable number than millions of years too of course.

[Aug 12, want to add here that at EvC someone or other is always claiming that if there had been a bottleneck 4300 or so years ago that would be apparent in the DNA. I've never caught anyone saying exactly what in the DNA would indicate such a bottleneck, so I can only just shrug off such comments until they do, and since they habitually think in terms of millions of years and can't seem to help themselves, whatever they come up with would have to be taken with a great deal of skepticism anyway. But the Junk DNA seems to me to be a fine indicator of such a bottleneck.]

As for marbled lungfish or any other creature with a genome larger than the human, that also has to be explained by the Fall and the Flood. It doesn't reflect Creation but the destruction after the Fall, and Creationists should recognize this. Some creatures were less affected by the fall of humanity and God's judgment than others, and would have retained more genetic vitality for that reason. The land creatures that were taken on the ark probably lost about the same amount of DNA for their Kind as the people on the ark did, but sea creatures either lived or died without benefit of the ark, and some no doubt survived in greater numbers than others and retained more living DNA for that reason.

Yes, this is all just speculative musing on my part and I can't very well insist on it, it just seems to fit the biblical account while the claim of functionality for the junk DNA doesn't.

Anonymous Comment insists on definitional word magic

Got an Anonymous Comment on an older blog post and thought I'd bring it up front:

Anonymous Poster quotes me:

"THIS IS NOT EVOLUTION, THIS IS NORMAL BUILT-IN VARIATION, OTHERWISE SOMETIMES IRRITATINGLY KNOWN AS "MICROEVOLUTION." MICROEVOLUTION SAYS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING FOR THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION!"

And answers me:

You can't just go around redefining the word "evolution". That normal variation is exactly what evolution is. That is ALL evolution is. There is variation, and some of the variants survive better than others, and that's natural selection. I'm sorry, but that's.. just the definition.

And I answer Anonymous there, and here with a few differences:

Dear Anonymous, thanks for your comment. I appreciate your being polite.

What you are saying illustrates another point I try to make here, which is that a great deal of the evolution side of this dispute is definitional, or to put it another way, it's "word magic" which asserts as fact something that is really contrary to reality: If you simply DEFINE evolution as normal variation then you blind yourself to what is really going on.

As I've argued over and over here, there is a NATURAL end point to normal variation that is the TRUE definition of it, beyond which no further evolution is possible. In reality. In fantasy it is assumed without warrant that the observed variations that are called "microevolution" simply continue indefinitely. They cannot. There is a natural end point which is the true boundary line that separates the Kinds, the end point brought about by the ACTUAL FACT that genetic variability must decrease as new phenotypic forms emerge.

Every time you get a new variant, it has emerged because some genetic variability has been lost in the process of bringing to phenotypic expression the particular genetic codes underlying the new variant. It can't happen any other way, as I've argued here in many posts. You have to lose competing genetic variations in order for a particular phenotypic variation to become established in a population. The more refined, or distinctive, a variant, the more specific the genetic code for it and therefore the greater the loss of genetic competitors. Eventually a point is reached where further variants are no longer possible at all, and evolution has come to an end for that line of variation. The very processes of evolution that bring about new variants naturally lead to a point beyond which evolution is impossible. That's the outer boundary of "microevolution." Microevolution is how Kinds vary within themselves. There is no macroevolution possible at all. Evolution defeats evolution, as I like to say.

There is also the ACTUAL FACT that there is no such thing as "beneficial" mutations capable of driving evolution, which is what is usually posited as the remedy for the situation I describe. If mutations did in fact occur as supposed, you could never have an identifiable variant at all, as mutations would constantly interfere with the specific coding for such a variant. The whole idea of beneficial mutations is just another huge piece of word magic, an assumption or belief for which there is no evidence, while there is very good reason to believe they can't happen, as I just said. In reality, known mutations only interfere with normal genetic processes and there is absolutely no evidence that they do anything at all beneficial. Evolutionism simply invents mutations to fuel the continuing changes required by the theory, nothing but invention, nothing but fantasy.

So, I recommend to you that you stop believing in definitional word magic and join creationists in recognizing reality.

The trashed condition of planet Earth and the Christian explanation

GDR has expressed the view that the planet appears to have been designed with us in mind, made ready for us and Dr. A is responding:

Dr A writes: Made ready in what way? The lighting is intermittent, the heating likewise, often with lethal effect, the water mostly undrinkable, the sewage system non-existent, and the whole place is crawling with vermin. This is why we've had to make the whole place over in order for it to be habitable and tolerable.

Really, if you checked into a hotel room with half these defects and the manager assured you that he had made it ready for you, would you not suppose that he had done so under the impression that you had slept with his wife and run over his dog?

GDR answers: Just the same the vast majority of us aren't wanting to check out either. Have you got a better room on offer?

At any rate, the Christian answer is that it isn't finished yet.

I agree that the planet does for the most part look like it was designed with us in mind, since although it may not provide guaranteed protection from harm or death, nor all the comforts we'd prefer, it does provide the basic necessities for sustaining life -- and human beings were designed to make good use of the materials provided as well, another clue to a planned fit.

Still, the answer that it isn't finished yet is the wrong explanation for the discomforts. The Christian answer -- or what ought to be the Christian answer because it's Biblical, although it's not the usual answer -- is that the planet was pretty much trashed by sin and God's judgments against sin, particularly by God's great judgment, the Flood. The hostile environment is all part of the judgment against sin too. And, it's never going to be "finished" or corrected. It will eventually be replaced by a new heavens and a new earth.

====

Continuing to read on that thread I see the creationist allowing that the Bible is "subjective" saying that the Koran is also. I have no idea what he thinks he's saying, maybe that belief in the Bible -- or Koran -- is subjective perhaps? That's also misleading. The Bible is mostly history, accounts of many events purported to have actually happened over some four thousand years. Either these accounts are true or they aren't -- there's nothing "subjective" about them. If they are true they are as objective as any statement of fact. (The Koran is not a history, by the way, it's a collection of sayings and instructions).

Then cavediver says the Bible isn't the only source of claims about God, that even his own brother claims to have met the incarnate God. Our creationist Chuck77 obviously has no idea what he's referring to but clearly he's talking about one of the Hindu "avatars," probably the demon-possessed Sai Baba who died recently. These supposed "God-men" are credited with miracles, usually pretty trivial stuff that is within the capabilities of demons (or magicians' simple tricks), manifesting baubles and trinkets out of thin air for instance. Anyone interested in Sai Baba can read a book by Tal Brooke about his own time as a follower of Sai Baba back in the late 60s, titled Avatar of Night. After a period of following this guru and beginning to recognize some very unholy activities at the ashram, Brooke eventually meets a Christian missionary couple and is saved, comes back to the US and writes his book.

The Flood is Evident Everywhere Pt. 3

On that same thread, Taq replies to creationist Chuck77:

[Chuck77]I have no proof of the worlwide flood when it comes to "regular" Science.

[Taq] Wouldn't there be scientific evidence if the entire Earth were covered by water just 4,500 years ago? I would think that such evidence would be obvious and abundant. Don't you?

Of course there would be and there is, an abundance of it, a copious abundance even, an in-your-face indisputable abundance of it. Hidden only by the assumptions of establishment geology which misinterpret it, as I've said SO many times here, and lately in the previous two posts and now this one.

It is sad that so many creationists have so many different ideas about the Flood and so few focus on the most salient facts that demonstrate it. This situation is quite similar to earlier Flood geology which was all too easily overthrown by the Old Earth theorists simply because there was no developed coherent Flood theory. By now there should be. I believe I've been hammering away at the most important pieces of evidence, and that's what we should be doing. We may not be able to answer all the various claims and challenges but we ought to be able to simply point to the obvious evidence of the Flood in the strata themselves and their fossils, pointing out the necessity of explaining them by such an event and the absurdity of the current explanation. Then the other issues should gradually fall into place as well.

Is it possible that all of the waters from the flood are in the oceans today? The mountains were "hills" before the flood and didn't "sprout " up till afterwards because of plate tectonics?Or catastophic plate tech? The earth's surface was maybe a little more level back then. Also the water poured into the deep valleys in the oceans afterwards when tectonic movement took place.

I would like to approach these questions from a different angle than the posters above. What type of geologic formation would demonstrate that this didn't happen? IOW, how does one falsify the idea of a recent worldwide flood (in your eyes)?

Said the spider to the fly.

My list of absurdities in Part 1 of this series should sufficiently falsify the current Old Earth theory, let's stick to that.

The sequence of posts on that thread started back with this one, which is a frustrating rehearsal of the false expectations that are allowed to dominate this discussion. Chuck77 has shown himself to be completely out of his depth and a very tempting morsel for the spider's wiles when he supposes that the Flood should have been evidenced in ONE layer of the earth's surface. His question is badly misconceived and the answers are only going to take advantage of his ignorance:

So, I guess if I were to rephrase my question it would simply be, where is the flood layer? Maybe? . So, is it at all possible since most of the world is covered by water, a lot of the evidence of the flood could be barried under the ocean floors, if in fact we aren't finding any evidence on land? Or "enough" on land? Im sure almost everywhere in the world has been under water at some point in time and that there are areas that would say so but can it be certain it wasn't all at once at some point in time

When dealing with the "flood" we aren't looking at geological layers, but soil layers. The dating of the flood is ca. 4350 years ago, not in distant geological time. This is the conclusion of biblical scholars.

So the assumptions of the geologic time table are brought out to answer our hapless creationist, the assumption that the worldwide strata reflect time periods such that the Flood should be located at whatever depth they would identify as 4500 years ago, which of course completely begs the question. The establishment insists on such things as looking at "soil" layers and ignoring the miles deep strata themselves, which are all neatly tied up in their theory to such an extent that they can't think outside that framework. But the Flood laid down ALL the strata with ALL their fossils, the timetable is wrong, the whole time-focused system is false.

An early lesson in archaeology states, "if you want 10,000 year-old sites, look in 10,000 year-old dirt." For the flood we have to look in 4,350 year-old dirt.

Yeah right. The current theory defines how old the dirt is and this definition blinds everyone to the simple sheer fact that the entire geologic column had to have been created by the Flood. But he's shifted the focus from geologic time to archaeologic time. The latter spans ONLY the time SINCE the Flood, being built ON the strata that were laid down by the Flood. In some parts of the world -- not all -- human settlements have been layered over and built one atop another in that short time period, a completely different kind of layering from that laid down in the Flood.

Fortunately that is easy to find. You probably have some in your back yard.

The easiest place to find and analyze 4,350 year-old dirt is in archaeological sites where there are a lot of different time markers.

Total misdirection based on a false assumption based on a blind acceptance of the current theory.

I have tested probably over a hundred sites that cross-cut that time period, and have found neither evidence of massive erosion nor depositions from a flood at the appointed time.

Of course not, because his assumption is wrong. The Flood completely rearranged the crust of the earth into that huge depth of strata that is found in bits and pieces and occasionally very deep deposits all over the earth.

My colleagues around the world have tested tens of thousands of sites with the same results.

Looking for the Flood in all the wrong places, alas!

But we do find evidence of localized floods. The channeled scablands of eastern Washington state are a good example. These are about three times older than the 4,350 year date ascribed to the "flood" but they are clearly seen by archaeologists and geologists. See this website for some good details:

http://www.uwsp.edu/...ticipants/dutch/vtrips/scablands0.htmLet me know what you think.

Which I already addressed in Part 1.

Poor Chuck77.

The Flood is Evident Everywhere Pt. 2

Some more from that same EvC thread:

[Dr. A] Genesis 7:19 makes it clear that there were "high mountains" pre-flood; and Genesis 8:7 and 8:13 describe the water as drying up from the fac of the Earth, not flowing away.

First consider the massive evidence indicated in my previous post which is foundational to any answer to these questions.

Either the expression "high mountains" refers to the highest of the pre-Flood hills or to the mountains that were built afterward that the new generations no doubt assumed had always been there. "High mountains" was written a thousand years after the Flood, and most likely no one had witnessed their building, nor been affected by the tectonic forces involved except perhaps as by an earthquake at a great distance. Most of the mountain building went on in parts of the world where Noah's descendants migrated much later.

"Drying up from the earth" describes how it appeared to those at land level, it doesn't purport to describe the mechanisms that took the water away. Some of it no doubt DID flow away, but the upshot was that the land got dry.

As for catastrophic tectonic events, might they not have been a little too catastrophic? I don't see what you're describing happening without tsunamis, which would have been inconvenient for Noah.

Not if he was up on a mountainside in the middle of a land mass rather than near the water.

Myself I don't think creationists need to try to hard to explain the how of the Flood, since your hypothesis involves a god with miraculous powers who can take care of these details. But the question of whether it happened at all is much more awkward.

There is no hint of anything miraculous occurring in the Flood scenario except that God apparently herded all the animals in Noah's direction.

[Percy] As I'm fond of saying, things that actually happen leave evidence behind. If around 4500 years ago water covered the Earth, and if the mountains rose and the valleys deepened, then there must be evidence of these events. Every geological event of Earth's history is accepted by geologists because of evidence, and they'll include the flood as one of those events as soon as evidence of the flood is discovered.

The evidence is everywhere but they interpret it away.

Evidence of the Flood is the worldwide strata chock full of fossils (see previous post), about as evident a mass of evidence as you'll find for any event. Evidence of mountain building is the strata of the mountains themselves and the marine fossils found at mountaintops, at the very least.

[Jonf]...the big problem with condensing events such as plate tectonics into a short time period is that there are certain characteristics of the events that cannot be scaled. E.g., radioactive decay releases heat and radiation, and X amount of radioactive decay releases Y amount of heat and radiation no matter the time period, so accelerated nuclear decay would leave subtle traces such as a molten Earth and all life destroyed twice over.

Similarly, mountain building by plate tectonics is inefficient (thermodynamically speaking) and releases heat, and creates earthquakes and tsunamis. It's difficult if not impossible to quantify the effects of catastrophic plate tectonics but it's pretty certain no life could survive it. And that's not even considering the extreme silliness of the scenarios that have been proposed for catastrophic plate tectonics.

IOW, the fact that we are here is strong evidence that plate tectonics and nuclear decay and other process have taken place over time scales many orders of magnitude greater than YEC time scales.

Whatever occurred did so in a period when there were few human beings on the earth, all of them concentrated in a small piece of geography by comparison with the whole planet. You don't know what happened, you are merely speculating of course, and if you are going to speculate you need first to take into account the MASSIVE evidence of the existence of the strata and their fossil contents, which can only be reasonably accounted for by a worldwide Flood (see previous post) and adjust your speculations accordingly. Obviously, whatever happened did NOT destroy Noah and his descendants.

[Jar says] I have yet to find a YEC that can explain how the lowest exposed material at the Grand Canyon got formed.

I've answered this many times both here and at EvC. The granites and schists were formed by underground volcanic activity toward the end of the strata-building of the Flood, compressed by the weight of the then-two-mile depth of strata above; the Great Unconformity was formed by the force of that same volcanic activity displacing the originally horizontal strata beneath the upper strata -- the upper strata remained more or less horizontal although raised by the force.

The dates for the local post-ice age floods fit within an overall framework, which includes fauna and flora, geology, sedimentation rates, and so on. The whole package fits together nicely, as worked out by scientists over 100+ years.

There are all kinds of absurdities involved in this supposedly neatly fitted scenario, as I note in my previous post. It's all concocted to fit the theory but if you think about the reality it's utterly absurd to suppose slow sedimentation rates, to turn fossils that were clearly catastrophically dumped into their current beds into time-period flora and fauna and so on.

If there were any real dating problems you can bet that various scientists and advanced students would be all over them, trying to figure out where the problems were.

Sounds good but apparently they are mesmerized by the theoretical edifice that has already been built. Their only option would be to turn YEC and if they do that they'll lose all credibility with the establishment.

A good way to become well-known quickly in a field is to find the answer to a long-standing puzzle. But at this point, the dating of the post-ice age floods is pretty well understood, as that site I referred you to shows.

It's pretty well accepted as understood, despite the holes in it as indicated in my previous post.

You note that you find no proof for the worldwide flood in "regular" science and that you get your support from creationist sources. That should be a clue.

Keep checking out the real science sites, and perhaps you will learn a few things. The information is out there, in plain sight.

The dogma is out there in plain sight of course, and the weight of establishment adherence to it can sway a half-educated person in its favor. It is accepted as evidence but it's very shaky evidence in reality. (See previous post and all my others on this subject).

The Flood is evident everywhere, odd they can't see it

Another example of this odd blindness from EvC:

[Coyote]But we do find evidence of localized floods. The channeled scablands of eastern Washington state are a good example.

[Dr. A] Arguably they're not a good example of what creationists should be looking for, since they were caused by a natural dam breaking and a sheet of water sweeping laterally across the landscape.

The question is, what results would Noah's flood have had if it had happened? I think not very much (in geological terms, biogeography is a whole other question).

Such blindness to the obvious is clear evidence that nothing anyone says is going to open their eyes short of an intervention by God.

The entire "geologic column," all the strata, all their fossil contents, is proof of the Flood. The current interpretation is sheer absurdity from many different points of view -- the absurdity of the idea that time periods could be characterized by discrete sediments; the absurdity of the idea that such an abundance of tossed and tumbled bunches of fossilized life forms, often found in beds of one kind alone, could have occurred piece by piece over millions of years, and in such slowly developing circumstances fossilization would be nearly impossible; the absurdity of explaining the worldwide distribution of marine fossils in such extravagant abundance as the result of many former localized changes in sea level; the absurdity of many risings and fallings of land and/or sea level at all; the absurdity of thinking in terms of billions of years for strata in some places a mile deep or more, that are clearly undisturbed by normal weathering and erosion all the way up to the top layers (absurdly considered to be "recent time" as opposed to ancient time), when and only when such disturbances finally occurred -- tectonic distortions, foldings and tiltings, breaking and canyon formation, volcanic distortions, liftings and tiltings, etc. etc.

But a worldwide Food and the tectonic / volcanic disturbances that followed it account quite well for all of it.

How odd they are so completely blind to it, something so obvious.

That's the evidence for the worldwide Flood. The "local floods" such as the one mentioned above that made the Washington scablands are clearly former huge lakes that broke through natural dams -- Lahontan, Missoula, Bonneville -- lakes most likely left after most of the Flood had drained away, dams that most likely broke under the tectonic and volcanic disturbances that followed the Flood, possibly even years afterward.

Yes, I know I'm repeating myself. But then that's all they do over at EvC too. Our positions are pretty well established by now. Either they get their eyes opened or the "debate" just continues along the same old lines indefinitely.

I do hope I have time eventually to get back to Lyell. That got shelved by what is known as "real life" outside the internet.

=========================

Oh, and a side note on another EvC absurdity: Buzsaw got banned from the science forums for the mere infraction of correcting somebody's misunderstanding of his point of view. Simply describing his point of view, which is clearly all that is called for under such circumstances, is insufficient according to EvC administration, which is quite blandly insensitive to context.

Here's Buz explaining his position to Zen Monkey, who had gotten it wrong:

Zen, my position has never been that the rain or flood skewed the dating. It has always been that the implications of the make-up of the pre-flood planet and atmosphere would be the reason for skewing the conclusions reached via research methodology of conventional science.

A perfectly simple direct statement of his position which ZM had misunderstood, and a standard creationist position too.

And here's Admin completely missing the point:

Hi Buz,

It wasn't so long ago that you were restricted from posting in the science forums because of your inability or unwillingness to argue from evidence. You were permitted back in to the science forums after committing to keep your arguments focused on evidence, but you're not doing this. Efforts to reach an understanding with you about what was desired in terms of evidence have not been successful.

...You leave me no choice but to reinstate your restriction from the science forums. Please do not participate in threads in the science forums from this time forward.

Of course Buz is only too familiar with this sort of treatment, as is any creationist who hangs out there very long. I decided there was no point in continuing to subject myself to it, but Buz seems to manage to keep on keeping on despite it all.

Carbon Dating only proves what evolutionists want it to prove

Ah, good ol EvC does it again, this time on carbon dating.

Chuck77 writes:
Huh??? Im not sure they EVER carbon dated any dino bones because that would prove they existed recently. they wont do it.

And Coyote answers:

Dinosaur bones have been Carbon-14 dated, and returned measurable amounts of C-14.

Which would normally date those dinosaur bones to a few thousand years, not millions. But rather than accept the normal reading they simply interpret it away as follows:

But the results are meaningless. When you are dealing with objects at or past the usable range of the method contamination and equipment error become the major factors.

Uh yeah, but this is a monumental begging of the question. The test shows the bones are only a few thousand years old but you contradict it with your mere assumption -- which as usual is all that the ToE has to go on though it is treated as science gospel -- that the bones are millions of years old which REQUIRES the interpretation that the reading is "method contamination and equipment error." Thus is actual evidence dismissed on the basis of mere belief.

Questions occur: How many attempts have been made to date dinosaur bones by Carbon-14, and how many of those attempts showed measurable amounts of C-14, and how many of those attempts involved efforts to be sure there was no contamination of the equipment? If contamination is suspected in a great number of cases, what's to say it isn't present in all cases of attempts to date anything by any radiometric method?

They have also dated diamonds and found trace amounts of C-14. That was an experiment to determine how much residual contamination resulted from the interior of the C-14 measuring equipment. Those results do not show there was C-14 in the diamond.

Of COURSE not, as long as you "know" the diamonds are millions of years old and can simply insist on that and ignore what the test actually says, the kind of test that evolutionists otherwise insist on when their readings confirm their bias. SO clever. NO science could EVER falsify the evolution fantasy since all they have to do is assume it against all the evidence.

But in their desperation for anything which will support their beliefs, creationists take these results out of context and claim they support a young earth.

Pretty silly, eh?

In their insistence on interpreting everything to support their beliefs, evolutionists take these results out of context, which clearly proves much younger dinosaur fossils and much younger diamonds than their beliefs will allow, and claim "contamination" from the measuring equipment. They don't have to prove contamination, they merely assert it based on their belief in millions of years. They even MEASURE it based on their belief in millions of years. They assume the millions of years as their measuring rod and measure the only objective measuring tool they have by it.

Pretty silly for sure.

Evolutionists never have any problem proving creationists wrong. All they have to do is interpret their science to fit their theory and all is well.