Re: [asa] Biologic Institute

The example of the fellow impressed with the eye highlights a problem
especially related to applying natural theology-ish passages in the
Bible to the present ID movement. The ID movement has largely bought
into the scientism claim that things have to be scientific to be
valid, though this is also shaped by the political issue of calling
things science so they can get into schools. In reality,
scientifically intangible things such as wonder and beauty are more in
view in Biblical musings on creation than are scientific gaps.

"Junk" versus "functional" in DNA is a somewhat complicated question.
It's true that more of the genome is important than what people
thought when protein-coding genes were thought to be the whole story.
There are DNA regions that function in gene regulation, DNA regions
that code for RNAs, etc. Other regions have some function, but this
function provides little constraint on the sequence. Spacer regions,
introns, etc. keep the important parts in the right places by filling
in the gaps, but almost any sequence of similar length (in some cases,
+/-100%) would do. Pseudogenes, transposable elements, old virus
sequences, etc. do not have much use in and of themselves, but are
rather useful as raw material for future evolution. I don't think
that particular function is one that antievolutionary ID can honestly
invoke, however. Likewise, introns are handy for exon shuffling, a
useful evolutionary trick, but not generally much use within an
organism.

Given the relatively non-functional nature of the sequences of such
non-coding regions, the fact that they show patterns of similarity
matching evolutionary expectations is a strong argument in favor of
evolution. However, there's the caveat that any of them with multiple
copies in an individual could have different copies in an individual,
muddying the picture.

-- 
Dr. David Campbell
425 Scientific Collections
University of Alabama
"I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
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