Ok, you’re not being helpful. Is there an objection to GE that has anything to do with Junk DNA? If so, what is it?
You’re not being helpful. What is this objection that you want people to deal with? I don’t see one. Perhaps if you actually stated what you think the objection is, I could respond. I could also make up an objection that incorporates some of the words from your post, but that would be guessing.
I take it from this non-answer that you are not aware of any way that Junk DNA forms the substance of an objection to GE. However, others have disagreed with you here. For example one person (I believe it was @T_aquaticus?) said something about mutations in the “trash can”. So he’s saying that mutations in Junk DNA don’t matter. How exactly that can be formulated as an actual objection to GE I haven’t apparently yet understood, and neither do you.
You should tone down the arrogance. It doesn’t look good on anyone, but especially on those who have no demonstrated reason to have a high opinion of themselves. Still, we would expect most mutations in junk DNA to be strictly neutral. If a sequence has no function, what does it matter whether there’s a C or a T at some particular spot? There may be occasional effects, as when a mutation creates a spurious transcription factor binding site. But we would not expect that to be common.
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This does not represent what the population genetics scientists (e.g. Kimura, Keightly, Eyre-Walker) have written. You have misunderstood them entirely, since they do not hold that essentially any mutations are “strictly neutral”.
Clearly I need somebody else to answer this for me.
You haven’t supported this with anything other than one sentence from the introduction to a paper on something else, and that sentence isn’t supported by any reference or by results from the paper itself.
Clearly you need somebody to give you the answer you want.
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Also completely false. I invite you to go back to my debate where the handout link is provided. Then you can read some references for yourself.
There is no use going on and on with this subject when we’ve already seen that you have no real evidence for GE. That is to say, that there’s no good empirical evidence that the distribution of fitness effects of mutations you imagine is actually true, because none of the references you give show that there are so many mutations of invisible deleterious effect that fitness decline is inevitable and unavoidable.
That you change the definition of fitness away from reproductive fitness, to some nebulous and unquantifiable verbal idea having to do with “the integrity of information in the genome” when the predictions of the invented DFE of mutations you use are contradicted by observation.
And that you invent unquantifiable ad-hoc hypotheses (like the idea that the degree of “simplicity” affects the rate of fitness decline) to handwave away serious questions.
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In your own words, what is the objection to GE from “Junk DNA”? If you think the same thing as Harshman then don’t bother responding, since he hasn’t understood the basics of this just yet. No offense intended.
I invite you to provide actual support for your claim.
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You seem very confused. Is it not you who claimed in your point #2 that one of the objections to GE was that mutations are only harmful if they happen in the coding region?
Who has suggested this?
It’s suspicious when nobody can answer my simple question when I ask it directly. Maybe there never was an actual coherent response having to do with Junk DNA.
Price can I ask you to quote whoever it was who invoked the argument you are presumably paraphrasing in your point #2?
He’s apparently claiming as Harshman did that most mutations are strictly neutral. This is something the population geneticists reject, so it cannot be a correct response to GE. He doesn’t understand the secular literature, so why think he understands GE either?
However, @Joe_Felsenstein also brought up Junk DNA in his big multipoint response. I don’t have the direct link handy, but he didn’t explain how Junk DNA is supposed to solve the problem of GE.
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So you’ve just revealed you’ve conflated non-coding DNA with junk-DNA. Clearly @T_aquaticus is talking about junk-DNA, not non-coding DNA(as you write in #2). Those are not the same thing.
But even then I would agree the analogy he’s making has certain limitations. After all it is possible for mutations to create functions in junk-DNA(turn a sequence into one that matches a canonical promoter binding spot) that interfere with normal and adaptive cellular functions, and hence it is possible for deleterious mutations to occur even in DNA that is junk(what he calls trash).
But I have to say I think it is extremely misleading to pick that response by @T_aquaticus to @Giltil as being among the most substantive critiques of GE you’ve heard around here. It’s a form of straw manning.
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Ok. That’s good, but still I don’t hear any answer to my question forthcoming. You are saying what’s allegedly wrong, but you refuse to say it the right way.
I’m asking you to give me the non-strawman version. Why won’t you do it?
So you’ll keep asking and ignoring the correct answer until someone tells you the wrong answer you want to hear? Wow. YEC “science” at its finest.
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I’m sorry but you’ve become confused again. It is a strawman of the opposition to pick out a particular weaker argument from a larger list containing multiple other, stronger arguments, and then present and attack that weaker argument as if it was among the most substantive arguments.
Do you fathom this elementary concept?
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Are you saying that there is no substantive argument against GE which involves the concept of Junk DNA?