Junk DNA: goodbye! (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, July 31, 2014, 01:52 (3769 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Cells do not plan, they have responses to choose from.
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> dhw: As new situations arise, cells/cell communities must find ways to respond. Some succeed, and some don't. No-one is claiming that they anticipate the new situation and plan ahead for it. The point is that successful cells work together to find an appropriate response. Unless that response has been preprogrammed (and you say it hasn't), they must make their own decisions.-No, cells have decision trees, a range of responses dictated by the chemical stimuli they intercept or receive. So these decisions are very limited to what response is allowed. There is no decisions making as we do, and I know you understand that. -
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> dhw: I can accept that all forms of intelligence, including our own, may be “within genetically provided guidelines of response”, since all forms of intelligence appear to be limited by physical capacity. That does not make them automatic. 
> DAVID: I repeat, cells do not plan. They are organized to work together within resonse guidences.
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> dhw: My point was that Oxford scientists clearly disagree with ENCODE scientists, and so the layman can hardly make a decision. You now say we don't know how much is junk, but you predict that there will be less, and no doubt the Oxford scientists would predict there will be more. -You are missing the point. Until a few years ago it was a clearly state point that 80% of DNA was left-over non-coding segments that did nothing, i.e., junk. Bit by bit function has been found in large areas, not so much coding as controls and modifications of gene action. Therefore the 80% is receding and junk is now obviously much less than 80%. Will it recede to 50% or 20%, no one can predict, but until the studies are completed over the next 10-20 years, we don't have an answer? As bit by bit the shrinkage of junk is proceding, there is only one expectation. the final %age will be much less than 80%. And you clearly understand what this means to each side of the debate.