Daniel Smith
Posts: 970
Joined: Sep. 2007
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[quote=swbarnes2,Mar. 06 2008,18:14] | Quote (Daniel Smith @ Mar. 06 2008,19:03) |
| Quote | | They are talking about trends here - not hard fast rules.” |
Sigh.
Do the data they present support the claim to see? Yes, or no? |
Sigh.
Yes it does. (Hint: reproductive rates are not the focus of their claim and are not part of their data.) If you search their paper for the partial term "reproduc" (which should catch all references to reproduction) there are only three matches (and the other two are about reproductive isolation). So making a big deal about reproductive rates is a classic strawman argument.
| Quote | | Quote | | If you look at the table as it appears in the paper, you'll see that it is just a listing showing significant statistics related to 1) Genome size, 2) % repetitive DNA, and 3) % coding sequences.” |
Okay, so when you graph the data they present, does the graph support the “trend” they claim? Or is their trend nonsense, and they threw data in the paper to make it look factual, when it’s not? Does it support a “trend” between less repetitive DNA and reproductive cycle times? |
First off, I should have said "tendency" not "trend" - since "tend to" was the phrase they used. (I have not been given the privilege of editing my own posts, so I was unable to go back and change that.)
Secondly, is that their claim? If so, why do they not expound upon it? Like I said before, it's not presented as if it's a rule - it's a tendency. There are exceptions to tendencies. Here are the other places where they reference that table (Table 1) in the paper. You tell me if reproductive rates are the focus: | Quote | Fifty years of DNA-based molecular genetics and genome sequencing have revolutionised our ideas about the physical basis of cell and organismal heredity. We now understand many processes of genome expression and transmission in considerable molecular detail, and whole genome sequences allow us to think about the principles that underlie the organisation of cellular DNA molecules. There have been many surprises and new insights. In the human genome, for example, the protein-coding component represents about 1.2% of the total DNA, while 43% of the sequenced euchromatic portion of the genome consists of repeated and mobile DNA elements (International Human Genome Consortium, 2001; Table 1). In addition to dispersed elements, most of the unsequenced heterochromatic portion of the human genome (about 18% of the total) consists of repetitive DNA, both mobile elements and tandemly repeated ‘ satellite ’ DNA. Thus, over half the human genome is repetitive DNA. Table 1 shows that the human genome is far from exceptional in containing a major fraction of repeats. Even in bacteria, repetitive sequences may account for upwards of 5–10% of the total genome (Hofnung & Shapiro, 1999; Parkhill et al., 2000)....
...It is important to note here the little known fact that phenotypic effects of heterochromatin are not necessarily limited to adjacent genetic loci. The strength of heterochromatic silencing on the three large D. melanogaster chromosomes is sensitive to the total nuclear content of heterochromatin carried on the Y chromosome (see Table 1). ...
...Another frequently ignored feature of genome system architecture associated with repeat elements is overall genome size (Cavalier-Smith, 1985). In plants, genome size correlates with an increase in repetitive DNA abundance (Table 1). Plant molecular geneticists have suggested that the total length of each genome is an important functional characteristic, which influences replication time, a characteristic that correlates with the length of the life cycle (Bennett, 1998; Bennetzen, 2000; Petrov, 2001; Vinogradov, 2003). It makes sense that amplification of mobile genetic elements is an efficient method of altering total DNA content in the genome. Similarly, distance between regulatory and coding sequences may be an important control parameter (Zuckerandl, 2002). |
Well? | Quote | | Quote | | Musgrave's table adds reproduction rates and leaves out 'genome size' and '% coding sequences'. These elements add an important ratio to the equation.” |
He leaves out the coding percentage but since the claim isn’t about coding percentages, but repetitive percentages, leaving that out doesn’t alter a thing.
Musgrave’s table has the percentage of repetitive sequences. For goodness sakes, we can all go to the link and see that ourselves. |
There are two percentages listed in the table. Those two percentages, (along with the genome size), paint a picture of "the significance of genome size and of distance between distinct regions of the genome" - which was the part of their claim Musgrave left out.
| Quote | Oh wow…you honestly don’t think that a percentage is a ratio, do you?
This is priceless, and very Creationist of you to not understand middle school math. Okay, I won’t accuse you of dishonesty on this one. I’ll do you the charity of assuming that you are too stupid to realize that what you said is nonsense.
Well, I think we can scratch "intelligent" off the list of adjectives describgin this post. |
Sigh...
| Quote | | Quote | | When left out, it gives the false impression that the authors are falsifying data.” |
No, it doesn’t. It gives the correct impression that the authors’ conclusion can’t be drawn from their data. |
Which data is that? Reproduction rates? That's not their data!
| Quote | | But one doesn’t expect a person who thinks that percentages aren’t ratios to understand that. |
Sigh...
| Quote | | Quote | | So you'll go and read the paper yourselves, with an open mind, to see if Shapiro and Sternberg actually make a good case.” |
Sure, some repetitive DNA has function. But that case was made years ago, by all the real scientists who did the research and wrote the papers that those two guys cited.
But that doesn’t prove that all, or even most of non-coding DNA does anything. |
So is that a "Yes" or a "No" about whether or not you'll actually read the paper? | Quote | You want to impress us with your scientific integrity, it’s very simple.
What do you predict would happen if say, a chunk of DNA a million bases long which was known to have no coding DNA were totally deleted from, say, the mouse genome?
What do you predict the mouse would be like?
Put your money where your mouth is, or continue to prove that you have thrown your integrity in the toilet for Creationism. |
I already know the answer to that (You see, I actually read the panda's thumb review). But just because the deletion produced no observable effects doesn't mean the DNA was not functional.
I could probably delete a big chunk of the files on my hard drive with no ill effects. I would not even notice they were gone until I needed them - which could be months or years later. The again, I might never notice if they were files used for the one-time setup of my computer. Yet they are all functional files.
Maybe the chunk deleted from the mouse genome was used during ontogeny and then not used again. Deleting it would produce no ill effects then.
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"If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true is really true, there would be little hope of advance." Orville Wright
"The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question." Richard Dawkins
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