How Much of DNA is Functional?

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Rumraket

But what you need to show it is that the attributes of objects (for example the attributes of folders) naturally sort into an objective nested hierarchy.

And you need to show that the component parts of those objects fit the same nested hierarchy.

[AllenWitmerMiller (Semi-Expired Professor & Minister.)]

@Faizal_Ali

If so, you still end up with a nested hierarchy that is not a requirement of separate creation in an orchard. Each of the other five animals could differ from the lamprey to increasing degrees, without the specific differences forming a nested hierarchy. Your argument is basically that God could deliberately create the genomes of organisms so that the fall into a nested hierarchy. However, special creation would not predict this, whereas common ancestry would.

Yes indeed. Haven’t we been down this path countless times? (i.e. arbitrary diagrams from Common Descent deniers which aren’t based on evidence.)

Déjà vu all over again.

@Faizal_Ali

One of my hobbies is building tube audio equipment, and when I was first learning it took me a while to understand that many of the separate nodes in a schematic could be joined to a single point, allowing multiple possible configurations that all operated the same so long as the path of the current thru the individual components remained the same. It’s similar to how a phylogenetic tree can look entirely different depending on how one arranges the nodes, but still convey exactly the same information.

That’s actually a pretty nifty analogy! And quite nostalgic for me.

I’m enough of a dinosaur that your schematic brought back memories from the 1960’s. (And I recall something very jarring that occurred back then when I finally started working with schematics which had transistors in them.)

@scd

here are two papers about primates phylogeny:

Primates Phylogeny was the name of my rock band when I was in college.

@scd

in any case, if we can get a nested hierarchy by difference/similarity comparison on designed objects, it means that we can get a nested hierarchy without common descent.

No. We can’t. (Not the way you are trying to do it.) That just doesn’t follow. How many times has this been explained on these forum threads?

Evidence matters.

Meanwhile, it seems that this thread has gone far afield from “How Much of DNA is Functional?”

[scd]

@John_Harshman

What you now have is an unrooted 3-taxon tree, which will always result from putting 3 taxa together. To turn it into a nested hierarchy you must add a root, as you did in your cartoon

do you mean something like that?:

@Rumraket

But what you need to show it is that the attributes of objects (for example the attributes of folders) naturally sort into an objective nested hierarchy.

see above. this is indeed an objective tree, since it represent well the difference among these objects.

@Mercer

And you need to show that the component parts of those objects fit the same nested hierarchy.

i guess that you aware that many genes dont follow the same nested hiearchy too.

[John_Harshman]

@scd

do you mean something like that?

Now you have an unrooted 4-taxon tree, still a cartoon with no support. And this time I think you would have a very hard time convincing anyone that “wheel” is a valid outgroup to vehicles or that “wheel” is equally closely related to bicycles, cars, and trucks. You really should stop with the silly pictures that you don’t understand.

@scd

i guess that you aware that many genes dont follow the same nested hiearchy too.

Minor and easily explicable exceptions. But I doubt you have actually bothered to look or are capable of looking.

[scd]

@John_Harshman

And this time I think you would have a very hard time convincing anyone that “wheel” is a valid outgroup to vehicles or that “wheel” is equally closely related to bicycles, cars, and trucks.

why?

@John_Harshman

Minor and easily explicable exceptions.

how minor exactly?

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@scd

how minor exactly?

1.21 gigawatts.

[John_Harshman]

@scd

why?

“wheel” is a part, not a vehicle. Bicycles, cars, and trucks all have them. There’s no information there.

@scd

how minor exactly?

That would depend on exactly what taxa and data you’re talking about, if you are in fact talking about anything.

[scd]

@Rumraket

1.21 gigawatts.

thats a good one:

Giga-Giga-Watt-Watt

@John_Harshman

“wheel” is a part, not a vehicle. Bicycles, cars, and trucks all have them

so replace it with a cell-phone.

[John_Harshman]

@scd

so replace it with unicycle.

Instead of desperately patching your nonsense, why not take the trouble to make sense initially? This patch also fails. You can’t produce any data to support a tree with “unicycle” as the outgroup any more than you can support a tree with “wheel” as the outgroup. Are you actively interested in being a laughingstock?

And “cell-phone”?

[Faizal_Ali]

Might “cell phone” not at least make a good outgroup?

[John_Harshman]

@Faizal_Ali

Might “cell phone” not make a good outgroup?

No, I think it’s a separate kind.

[scd]

@John_Harshman

You can’t produce any data to support a tree with “unicycle” as the outgroup any more than you can support a tree with “wheel” as the outgroup.

but you just say so without a real explanation. i think that we agree to disagree.

[John_Harshman]

@scd

i think that we agree to disagree.

I agree that you have no case and have never presented anything real. Would that be good enough for you?

[Faizal_Ali]

@scd

but you just say so without a real explanation. i think that we agree to disagree.

Why would you not simply present the data and show how its analysis leads to a nested hierarchy, since you insist you can do so?

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

Because despite his insistence, he can’t actually do so.

[T_aquaticus]

@r_speir

You would have no idea in your model either what the prediction would be until the genome of each was mapped.

That would be false. Mice and humans share the same common ancestor with chickens. Therefore, mice and humans are evolutionarily equidistant from chickens. Wouldn’t you know it, the percent similarity between the chicken and mouse cycs gene is nearly the same as the percent similarity between the human and chicken cycs gene.

This is yet another specific prediction that the evolutionary model makes that the creationist model is not able to make. This is why evolution is science and creationism is not.

@r_speir

I couldn’t care less what similarities or hierarchies looked like between living organisms. The creationist has no reason to even go there in the first place. Can you not understand that?

I understand that creationists are often afraid of looking at the evidence.

[John_Harshman]

@T_aquaticus

Therefore, mice and humans are evolutionarily equidistant from chickens.

…assuming that by “evolutionarily equidistant” you refer to the same amount of sequence change, and therefore a molecular clock. I’m not sure that’s a very safe assumption, so the prediction is iffy.

[scd]

@John_Harshman

therefore a molecular clock. I’m not sure that’s a very safe assumption

if the majority of the genome is indeed junk, does it mean that the majority of it can be changed without any real problem to the creature?

[John_Harshman]

@scd

if the majority of the genome is indeed junk, does it mean that the majority of it can be changed without any real problem to the creature?

Yes. Why?

[Faizal_Ali]

@scd

if the majority of the genome is indeed junk, does it mean that the majority of it can be changed without any real problem to the creature?

More to the point: The fact that most of the genome is junk largely explains the fact that most of the genome can be mutated with no effect on the organism’s functioning.