Re: differences between chimps and humans

Reading from news:talk.origins,
John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> posted:

Damaeus wrote:
Reading from news:talk.origins,
John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> posted:

Damaeus wrote:
Reading from news:talk.origins,
wf3h <wf3h@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> posted:

also in the same issue, michael shermer points out the existence of
ARE's...ancient repetitive elements...parts of the genome which get
repeated in various areas and code for nothing.
They must code for something that he has not discovered. Which at this
point, would be nothing. They must serve some purpose, or they wouldn't
be there.
Why do you make that assumption? Does everything in the world have to
serve a purpose?

Can you think of anything in the ecology that is not useful?

Define "useful". To whom? According to whom?

The context is the ecology and all its processes. If you ask me to define
"useful" in the way you describe, whatever it is would have its benefits
and its detriments making it "useful" overall in both ways, no matter what
happens to the organisms involved. That's why I say everything does serve
a purpose in some way, and you act as if it's wrong to think everything
has a purpose. That was my assumption when you asked "Does everything in
the world have to serve a purpose?"

Why?

Because as I see it, everything /does/ have a purpose.

That's not an answer. That's just repeating the claim.

What am I supposed to do? Make a list of everything known to exist and
detail what purpose it serves? Instead of refuting my claim, why don't
you come up with something you can think of created by nature that serves
no purpose at all?

If these elements are indeed identical between widely separated species,
they must do something. I should also point out that "codes for nothing"
is unfortunate language that he's been using a lot. The only sensible
usage in biology is in the context of the genetic code, in that a gene,
and its transcribed mRNA, "codes for" a peptide, i.e. is translated by
ribosomes to produce a peptide with a particular sequence. He's been
saying that genes "code for" brains, fingers, and such, which is a
bizarre misunderstanding of development. And he seems to equate "codes
for nothing" with junk DNA, when a fair amount of DNA that is not
translated into peptides still has clear function and is often conserved
by selection.

Isn't there a lot more junk DNA than there is "understood" DNA? I've been
thinking that what appears to be "Junk DNA" might actually be some kind of
"future sequencing zip file (compressed DNA genetic data)". As old
sequences become useless and die off, new sequences come out of junk DNA
to replace them.

You really, really have no idea what you're talking about.

And you act as if you understand junk DNA completely, when even science
admits it doesn't understand all that well what it's there for.

But it's really hard arguing with a person whose idea of evidence is
whatever thought happens to come into his head.

I just talk about what I experience, like the popping sensations in my
head, which someone else collaborated, (Subject: Comparison of a Human
Brain with a Bird Brain) proving that it is possible to feel these things,
and the other person seems to have more respect than I do.

Damaeus

.

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