Largest Genome Ever Sequenced - and it's 82% Junk

by cofty 37 Replies latest social current

  • snare&racket
    snare&racket

    Kate, you seem to be undergoing wild fluxations of belief and resistence. It is a tough time, I remember it well. At least you are quick to accept the evidence and change your mind, I took a long time.

    Perhaps before you answer, research first. Junk DNA is a hot potato for believers, they assume we mean it is a bad design and disproves god. But thats like saying we go hunting fir evidence that there is no unicorns, it makes no sense. It is the religious who are sensitive to such information and evidence, it is not an atheist agenda'd attack.

    Besides all of this junk dna is a poor use of terminology, but that is it's name and it is largely junk and unusable. Read up on it yourself. The only reason it can become uselful in the sense of evolutionary adaptation is via random chance that the junk dna hides a useful mutation within it...by chance.

    It is clear you don't want to let go of a concept of god, but there is no short cut to research and study if you are really going to assign him a role in our universe. Right now, a perfect designer with a perfect universe has long ago been dismissed..... he would have to be a bumbling fool to have created all of this. I remember when I didn't comprehend such a perspective, there is no way to not sound elitist or superior, but I really don't mean to be. But if humans, the earth, the universe looks perfect to you, there is much to learn as there was with me.

    Junk DNA is formed by cells cocking up as they make copies of themselves, it happens millions of times a minute in all living things, defending the use of junk DNA is a losing battle from its very conception, it is made by crappy design. The process of making junk dna is the same that gives us cancer but it also allows for evolution. You can't have benevolence and designer , it is one or the other..... or neither.

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    However some plants seem to trim their genome as small as they can make it, another survival technique.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabidopsis_thaliana

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genlisea_margaretae

    Cofty, I know I am using a false convention. It's not like the plants are directing their genome. It's just that their environment favored a trim genome. These plants, even with the relative absence of junk, have mutated.

  • snare&racket
    snare&racket

    Well there is strength in stability too jgnat, especially in less changeable enviroments.

    I wonder if orgnaisms with less junk dna, i.e. less mutations, offer us insight into better coding for cell divison? Reducing cancer comes to mind obviously.

  • KateWild
    KateWild

    It is clear you don't want to let go of a concept of god-snare

    Yes its true, you remind me of the picture you posted of the mountain climbers. So many intelligent people just belive in God and that's it. Think of all the religious denominations in your field. So many Doctors have a belief in God, it doesn't take over their lives but they still believe.

    My concept of God and the way I define God is very different though to the Jehovah I used to worship 6 months ago. But I am still clinging onto a creator, I don't believe he is omnipotent or benevolent though. He simply designed the universe, some have pointed out the flaws which I cannot dispute either.

    I suppose the fact that I still pray, and vent to God is keeping me stay firm in my position. If prayer stopped who know, my belief may change too.

    Kate xx

  • snare&racket
    snare&racket

    It is wrong of me to state beyond the evidence. I can't say there is no god, so forgive me for making a comment that assumes atheism as the end point of knowledge. However, for sure, there is no evidence of a coherent designer in our universe. Quite the opposite.

    As I have said before, he would not get a job with apple....

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2164/14/476

    snare, it appears that the plant's flexibility (rate of mutation and duplication) is not affected, but it has still managed to ditch 10% of its' junk DNA.

  • snare&racket
    snare&racket

    oh interesting......

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    Maybe the loblolly pine has been invaded by alien body snatchers. Here's a talk to keep you up nights:

    http://www.ted.com/talks/ed_yong_suicidal_wasps_zombie_roaches_and_other_tales_of_parasites

  • cofty
    cofty

    There is a Puffer fish that has a very lean genome. Not sure if its been discovered yet how it deletes the "junk". Every year at least a few Japanese people die eating badly prepared puffer fish.

    Prokaryotes need to replicate quickly so their genomes have very little if any "junk". Its us eukaryotes that can afford the luxury.

  • jgnat
    jgnat

    Yes, that's it! I REMEMBER there was an advantage of some sort. That little flowering plant has a lot of competition so it must replicate quickly. As we know from programming, nearly everything runs faster than bloated Microsoft (too much junk).

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