Me:
> Evidence of gene duplication is simply sequence similarity.
> How is this evidence against ID and for RM&NS? Where in
> ID is the requirement for the intelligent designer to employ
> nothing more than completely different sequences?
> Where is the evidence that those sequence similarities were
> indeed generated by random gene duplications?
Tedd:
>Where is the evidence that a fossil found in the ground actually
>was a living creature? An ID could have merely created the
>bones and planted them in the ground. Why do you accept
>the implication of fossils but reject the implication of
>gene sequences?
If a designer created artifacts that we call fossils to make it
look like life forms existed when they did not, I can think
of only one reason for doing this - the designer intended
to deceive someone. In the case of sequence similarity,
intended deception is not the only reason to design them
as such. A better reason (IMO) is that similar sequences
often make good design sense.
For example, see my posting on Muscle Machines a few
months back. In the case of fast- and slow-twitch muscles,
all the machinery in muscles exist in slightly different
forms due to slightly different gene products from slightly
different genes. By tweaking the basic machinery of muscle,
one can thus design two different types from the same
basic prototype. Now, we can indeed interpret these
different gene forms as the result of gene duplication
driven by RM&NS and that is the only good explanation
if we exclude, a priori, intelligent design. But the
system also makes good design sense and I see no
reason for thinking that an intelligent designer would
have used completely different components to design
fast- and slow-twitch muscles.
Thus, that similar genes often make good design sense
does not require us to embrace the notion that similar
genes imply an intelligent deceiver.
Mike
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