At 09:46 AM 9/26/01 -0400, you wrote:
>This is an extract from a website of Jonathan Wells in which he describes
his calling into the fight against Darwinism:
>http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm
>>According to the standard view, the development of an embryo is
programmed by its genes-its DNA. Change the genes, and you can change the
embryo, even to the point of making a new species. In the movie "Jurassic
Park," genetic engineers extract fragments of dinosaur DNA from fossilized
mosquitoes, splice them together with DNA from living frogs, then inject
the combination into ostrich eggs which had had their own DNA inactivated.
In the movie, the injected DNA then re- programmed the ostrich to produce a
dinosaur. Experiments similar to this have actually been performed, though
not with dinosaur DNA.
>>In every case, if any development occurred at all it followed the pattern
of the egg, not the injected foreign DNA. While I was at Berkeley I
performed experiments on frog embryos. My experiments focused on a
reorganization of the egg cytoplasm after fertilization which causes the
embryo to elongate into a tadpole; if I blocked the reorganization, the
result was a ball of belly cells; if I induced a second reorganization
after the first, I could produce a two-headed tadpole. Yet this
reorganization had nothing to do with the egg's DNA, and proceeded quite
well even in its absence (though the embryo eventually needed its DNA to
supply it with additional proteins).
>>So DNA does not program the development of the embryo.
>
>I know Well carries two PhD's, but this seems just plain wrong. His
statement that the DNA in an egg does not control the initial developement
of the embryo seems almost silly. Is he refering to an egg with two sets
of DNA (one natural one injected) ?
>Any ideas ?
Wells is actually correct though I think this is another case of trumpeting
something that isn't that big of a deal. He trumpets the standard view
and then acts as if this is some new insight. Yes the development of the
first cells divisisions has more to do with the preprogrammed materials
that were supplied by the mother than they do with the actual DNA of the
embryo. This is why some characteristics of a mother can be imprinted on
her progeny even if they don't share her DNA. I don't think there is much
her to fight the Darwinists on. Joel
>
>Alan McCarrick
>
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