Genome complexity: how do genes exert control (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, August 15, 2016, 18:04 (2804 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Nature is not a consciously experimenting scientist. A theist will perhaps argue that every experiment is carried out by a god. The alternative has to be that every experiment is carried out by the organisms themselves. The effects of such experiments would be accumulative, as every experiment would create new information to be incorporated into new structures. Two possibilities, then: a) a god does it directly; b) the organisms do it themselves. The second of these still leaves open the question of how life and the ability to self-organize originated, but it offers an explanation for the Cambrian, as does the first alternative, which raises the question of how a god originated (usually glossed over by the non-explanation of “first cause”).-Your second alternative is not supported by the fossils, as Darwin hoped. The current findings in the shale layers in China show the abrupt dramatic appearance of whole multicellular sea animals with the equivalent of arms, legs, organ systems, eyes, etc. with no reasonable antecedent experimental forms. In the preceding pre-Cambrian layer there are simple sheets of cells (Ediacarans) and bilatarian bags of simple cells. Tell me how the complex forms appear with no layer of trial and error forms you propose? Your proposal does not fit the findings. 
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> 2nd article:
> David's comment: What this all means is that we recognize the genome does more than just code for proteins, but we are still just at the beginning of how to understand the multitude of layers of functional controls that must be present, especially the HAR's, the human accelerated regions that produce evolutionary jumps just presented yesterday. I continue to believe it is not by chance. [/i]
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> dhw: I agree, and yet again I wish you would consider the possibility that it is not the environment that alters gene function but the cells that alter themselves as an intelligent reaction to the environment. ..... (NB, in case you have forgotten, this explanation does not exclude God as the originator of cellular intelligence.)-As you infer, we know that epigenetic effects exist, but so far they are not proven to cause speciation. On the other hand the discovery of HAR's offers a new road to study. I suggest they are God's tool.