tedlusk wrote:Just a little time to refute Sarfati's distortions and incompetence:
Biologists have discovered a whole range of mechanisms that can cause radical changes in the amount of DNA possessed by an organism. Gene duplication, polyploidy, insertions, etc., do not help explain evolution, however. They represent an increase in amount of DNA, but not an increase in the amount of functional genetic information—these mechanisms create nothing new. Macroevolution needs new genes (for making feathers on reptiles, for example),
This betrays Sarfati's shallow grasp of how genes work. Duplicating a gene, or an insertin that upregulates the expression of a gene , in fact, can and often does have phenotypic effects. New genes can arise via numerous diocumented mechanisms. Sarfati either does not know about them or is purposefully ignoring them.
yet Scientific American completely misses this simple distinction:
Moreover, molecular biology has discovered mechanisms for genetic change that go beyond point mutations, and these expand the ways in which new traits can appear. Functional modules within genes can be spliced together in novel ways. Whole genes can be accidentally duplicated in an organism’s DNA, and the duplicates are free to mutate into genes for new, complex features. [SA 82]
It looks more like Sarfati missed the boat...
In plants, but not in animals (possibly with rare exceptions), the doubling of all the chromosomes may result in an individual which can no longer interbreed with the parent type—this is called polyploidy. Although this may technically be called a new species, because of the reproductive isolation, no new information has been produced, just repetitious doubling of existing information.
And now the shallowness of the creationist's knowledge of the subject really becomes clear -
If a malfunction in a printing press caused a book to be printed with every page doubled, it would not be more informative than the proper book. (Brave students of evolutionary professors might like to ask whether they would get extra marks for handing in two copies of the same assignment.)
And I would respond to these "brave" (apparently, in creationese, 'brave' means brainwashed and gullible) students by pointing out that, in fact, genes do not operate just like english language sentences or pages in a book. Rather, doubling the amount of a protein product can have dramatic, even beneficial effects. But the creationist either does not know this, is suppressing it, or actually thinks that silly analogies are sufficient to act as evidence.
Duplication of a single chromosome is normally harmful, as in Down’s syndrome. Insertions are a very efficient way of completely destroying the functionality of existing genes. -- Jonathan Sarfati
Whatever Jonny the chemist who stopped doing research right after he graduated to become a full time propagandist/apologist... :roll: