"Genetic Death": The Evolution Meat Grinder

Spendius- May I respectfully suggest that if you need some input from Mr. Gungasnake,you can find it at the beginning of this thread.

You are wrong. I have worked in science doing research on a particular set of genes called Meox. I have worked in a completely different research project on the cell cycle control genes, Crb2 and Rad4.

Do you know how long it took me to do one PCR test just to check that my cells were correctly expressing these genes? For the Meox genes it took several days just to grow up the cells. For the Crb2 and Rad4 genes, which used the faster growing yeast, it took one day to grow up the cells, a further six hours to get the proper concentration and a further 2 hours just to do the test.

Your claim of making discoveries about the human genome and revising them every day is unrealistic.

It took me one year just to get enough information on the Rad4 gene in order to say for sure whether it did what I thought it did.

Science, especially the wet sciences, is slow. An average PhD takes 3 years in the molecular biology sciences and that's concentrated mainly on one particular gene.

So your question of...



Can only be answered with, "I don't know." Even the people who are trying to find the answers to the questions won't be able to give you a very accurate answer. You know why? Because we do experiments on living organisms and they like to do their own thing.

Yes, it is good to be skeptical, however you are being selectively skeptical. You're not skeptical of religion, despite the fact that it has less going for it than Evolution. You are not skeptical of ID, despite it having less going for it than Evolution.

So, there are questions unansewered. Big deal. There are lots of unanswered questions. That's no excuse for inventing some Intelligent Designer.

Bernard wrote-



To which I responded by pointing him to the substance of the thread as laid out by Gunga and offering a compliment to his father's advice about snow jobs using esoteric language.

To which he replied after some lengthy snow jobs-



Well Mr Bernard,it is a free debate and you are fully entitled to suggest anything you wish,respectfully or otherwise, but if you are going to allow us to partake of your father's wisdom I think it might be a good idea if you took some notice of it yourself and if you are going to refer to the substance of the thread it might be a good idea if you read Gunga's post and try to discover exactly what it is rather than referring me to the first post which you seemingly haven't bothered studying or haven't understood the importance of the point Gunga made in the paragraph of his that I quoted.
Displays of gobbledygook of no relevance to that point look from here to be in danger of throwing away the case for questioning the potential consequences of Darwin's ideas, correct though they may be for the limited perspective of science. The approach you are making is the precise reason the Dover case went the way it did. You haven't the faintest chance of causing timber and fm to question their position and are in fact helping their case.

So I respectfully suggest that you get your brain in gear on your own account and forget these so called experts, who are self-publicists grubbing around in the unknowable for fees, and focus on the social issues and their capacities to affect the happiness of ordinary folks.

TS Eliot said something to the effect that human beings can't stand too much reality and he was right and he will be remembered long after Behe and Pinker & Co are long forgotten assuming Orwell's vision doesn't come true.

You know, Spendius, you may be right. On the other hand, you may not be.

You seem to be a very intelligent person. I will ask you a question.

What can you point to that is completely and totally incontrovertible because it is self-evident?

Mathematics?

All else, according to the philosopher, Mortimer Adler, can become subjects of debate.

Note: I am not saying that some ideas or propositions do not have an overwhelming amount of evidence for them. I am only saying that some ideas or theories are not proven beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Are you opposed to Skepticism on principle?

Mr. O'Donnell. I would respectfully ask you to reread my post concering genetics. In it you will find a misleading headline which was later corrected by genetics experts.


That is precisely what I meant about changes in genetics.

I am sure that you know that when the genome was outlined, some said that the difference in the number of genes between chimpanzees and humans was not that great.

I do hope that you know, as I pointed out in my post, that the differences, according to genetic experts, are huge.

Wow, A2K seems to have quit giving updates again , so apparently Ive missed a few pages. Wolf, I did not know that you had experience in PCR work. Have you ever done Short tandem repeat allele sequening?.
I have a student who wishes to combine STR work from bacteria in various areas of oil reservoirs to see whethre there are any common Diagenesis features. She is planning this for an MS and Ive been busy trying to put together a committee for her.

Bern--Im not sure, after reading your last few entries, where are you trying to go? Disagreements among scientists do not invalidate the conclusions.
Punctuated equilibrium ws a model for "saltation" or "apparent" rapid evolution.

Behe , whose major "contributions " have been proven incorrect, is still a fan of evolutrion. He just wants a theistic direction.

Changes in science occur regularly and often frequently> SO far, none have cast any doubts on the concept of natural selection.

fm wrote-



I've done that fm.More than once truth to tell. Maybe more than I ought to have done. There's a scientific dispute simmering under the surface about that.

Once when I did it I had this red-head who had ginger arm-pit hair up against the back wall of the cricket club on one of those summer late evenings when the night-chill has been banished into the dustbin of history. A timeless moment so to speak.But it's a long story. She had had six or seven pints of weak lager.

I'm not sure I have ever seen it expressed so elegantly.

And it wasn't that short a tandem I'll have you know. It was about average I've been assured and that's "peer reviewed".

Bernard wrote-



That the bookies paid me out on the Grand National winner, which incidentally I recommended to A2kers 3 hours before the race,as I had done the year before,and,knowing bookies as I do I don't think they would have done that had it not been self-evident.

Unless you are suggesting what one of my scientific colleagues once suggested and that it is all an illusion and that I was God and it was God's fantasy.The bookies paying out I mean.

Bullshit! I said. If I'm God and this is my fantasy why aren't they lined up waiting pantingly for me to give them one. Why do I have to go through all this tribulation. What would I need bookies for?

I don't think I actually have, although I can imagine what is needed. Two PCR primers that lie a reasonably good space outside of the sequence itself with a relatively even distribution of ATs and GCs with a GC on the ends of the primers that will form the edges, so they don't flap around.

The design of the primers is crucial. 24-26 base pairs is a normal number needed.



Guided Evolution as discussed in a Skeptics Magazine article I once posted (can't remember whether it was in this one) would be the best option. It's basically Intelligent Design but without the Design aspect that makes a mockery of science and God at the same time.



Yes, my bad. I was taking into account only one lab. If science were up to only one lab, then yes, changes would be slow and infrequent thanks to the time it takes to do a particular research project.

Actually, in retrospect, now that I think about it, PCR might not be such a good idea. Depending on the enzyme you use, you can have quite a lot of mutations in your end product.

Furthermore, how will she view the PCR product? Via gel electrophoresis? Depending on how short it is, she might need a very large agarose gel and a very concentrated one at that.

It might also be better for her to do a nucleic acid hybridization assay.

She's doing an MS in a interdisciplenary mode. WE have an example of a multi emplaced petroleum reservoir and shes going to attempt to do an investigation that begins with an assumption that multi emplacement assumes multi critter complements in the living bcteria. Im not so sure . Weve already done stable carbon isotope ratios and have shown that C13/C12 ratios vary in a pattern from various areas in the field. Im afraid that since the area had been test drilled the "contaminant flora" introduced by drilling may be an artifact that needs to be argued away. Shes collected a series of papers on the applications from Petroleum Institute and AAPG. Im a bit dubious that she may merely be doing something because "she can" and is not addressing the more intrinsic properties of the filed like the chemistry of the long chain aliphatics, and others .

PCR looked to her as a simple enough technique to do in her lab area. I wanted to see more GCMS work or more isotope work or even trace elements and microfossils. However, shes from the Bio College and her advisor asked me to put together a committee freom geo and Engineering to be readers.

So would a nucleic acid assay be looking at the mass of nucleotide components?

Well if she knows the sequence, all she can do is take an individual DNA clone (this requires her actually having a known sample) and see if it binds to the DNA samples she has. She would then have to do Southern Hybridisation or Northern to see if it's bound.

This is a good site to get started on finding the right protocol for her:

http://www.protocol-online.org/

Im more familiar with the isotope and coupled with immunoassay tricks. Thanks for the site. I have a get together with committee reps next week and this student wants to employ genomics to geologis surveys and Im not convinced that differentiating the pool is important unless she links it to some fractionation phenomenon.
Speaking of links, her advisor is convinced that cross contamination wiill be a problem so hes stated that everything in her lab be treated with a "flourescence cross-linker".(a piece of equipt that Im not familiar with) sounds like an ultraviolet cleanup machine that renders extraneous DNA material from being replicated by the "xerox ". Since its my lab area, her budgets have gotta come through us and I need to get a handle on some of the gizmos that are unfamiliar to me.

What the...? Don't you think that's a bit too hi-tech?

When I worked with embryonic stem cells I was worried about contamination too. All I needed was to wipe things down with 70% ethanol and if there was a huge contamination problem I used Virkon (which kills everything).

You jokers are talkin' way over my head, but i appreciate that you post information to which most of us would not otherwise have access without a difficult search process.

hey set, dont feel alone. Im learning a lot by asking the dumb questions.

I myself am learning a few techniques I didn't usually know. That site I found is great!

Setanta wrote-



It's a private technobabble prowess competition.

These anti-IDer's assertive aggression demands a regular fix of that sort of thing. You don't need to know what's going on on the surface like you don't in a Chess Champion's ****-kicking set to. It separates the wheat from the chaff. It's a derivation of the "biggest dong" competition and it impresses ladies who need to be kept in a manner their parents have foolishly allowed them to become accustomed to. It a "biggest salary expectations" competition. Dongs don't count anymore or dreamy poetic eyes.

Or a version of "You're safe in our technological wizard's hands".

I say we need to work on spendiis self esteem. Im afraid hes going to hang himself or do something rash.