Genome complexity: de novo or orphan genes (Introduction)

by David Turell , Wednesday, April 11, 2018, 20:40 (2418 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Speciation involves innovation of some kind, and it seems to me perfectly reasonable to assume that innovations are triggered by the drive for survival and/or improvement, in accordance with the living conditions of the organisms involved. This is illustrated by all the examples. If common descent is true, then of course there will be departures from each new species’ ancestors, and these will in some way involve innovative changes to the structure and function of cells and genes. What is your proposal? The Arctic cod is still a cod, so did your God preprogramme cod anti-freeze 3.8 billion years ago? Or did he see a cod freezing and pop down to give it some brand new genes? But yes, you can say that fits (though one can’t help wondering why he found it necessary to provide the polar cod with anti-freeze when apparently all he wanted to do was produce the brain of Homo sapiens), but whatever he may have done to the cells could also have been done by his providing cells with the autonomous means to do exactly the same thing. As always, the complexity of such an autonomous mechanism offers a powerful argument for design, but I’d be surprised if you thought your God was incapable of doing it.

DAVID: They are all forceful arguments for specific design. Whether God stepped in or gave the organisms inventive adaptive mechanisms, it doesn't matter. It is all at God's direction.

dhw: It matters to anyone who thinks it matters. As indeed does the question of whether God exists or not. Hence this website.

Ten years of this website.