JLT
Posts: 740 Joined: Jan. 2008
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Quote (Daevans @ Feb. 21 2010,11:08) | Also your all forgetting about "Professor John A. Davison's work", he is definitely not in either "camps". furthermore the unlikelihood that Darwinian evolution can explain the appearance of the formation of NEW information in the cell. We need a more scientifically fulfilling mechanism, one that takes in account advances in paleontology, genome analysis, genetics and embryology. The present model simply doesn't meet that standard however a "preexisting genomic mechanism" could. |
So, you're a med student. Then you might've heard about something called antibodies. Our immune system can produce antibodies against almost everything that invades the body although our genome doesn't code for every possible antibody. Instead, during the maturation of B cells (the antibody producing cells) in each B cell precursor the antibody-coding gene is randomly assembled from some gene segments. There're about 10000 possible combinations, plus variations in the binding regions between segments. Whichever B cell binds however weakly to a specific invader (= an antigen) gets a signal through that binding to start proliferating. The progeny inherits of course the newly assembled antibody gene but in addition a gene that's also activated in the proliferating B cell introduces random mutations in the antibody gene so that each progeny cell gets a slightly modified version. This new version can bind better or worse to the antigen than the original version. The better the binding the stronger the survival signal for the daughter cell - so, if the binding is more efficient in one cell than the other, the cell with the better antibody will produce more offspring than the other. With each proliferation cycle this step is repeated until in the end only B cells survive* that produce high-affinity antibodies against the antigen.
At which point did the intelligent antibody designer inject the information about how to produce high-affinity antibodies against this antigen? Since this information isn't contained in the genome it must be new information that according to you can't come about by mutation and selection. So, where did it come from in your opinion?
* Or more specific, B cells with high-affinity antibodies outcompete the rest.
-------------- "Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, [...] Thus, a realistic [computer] simulation [of evolution] would allow the program, OS, and hardware to be affected in a random fashion." GilDodgen, Frilly shirt owner
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