Commentary on the so-called Creation/Evolution/Intelligent Design Debate and Right-Wing nuttery in general - and please ignore the typos (I make lots!)

Friday, April 21, 2006

I really hate to beat a dead horse, but... (re: Warren Bergerson)

Over here, Internet Darwinism falsifier and "hard science predictive theory" monger Warren Bergerson demonstrates his ignorance of basic genetics and biology...

Again...

If the purpose or function of genetic material is to provide long term information storage, then it make logical sense that the information will 'evolve' before the information is moved into long term storage. It is therefore reasonable to assume, or at least speculate, that there exist processes to develop or evolve proteins. Only after a new protein was successfully evolved, would the part of the information required to easily reproduce the protein be moved to long term genetic storage.


Perhaps someone would be so kind as to inform Bergerson that the changes occur IN the "long term information storage" before the protein is produced.

One of the big problems that these "genetics is exactly like computer science" types don't seem to understadn is that genetics is only like computer science by way of analogy to introduce a complex topic to the uninformed.

In REALITY, it is, frankly, stupid to extend the analogy any further, and worse to declare that the genome MUST act in the way that computer information storage works.

*UPDATE*

I go to lunch, come back and check the ARN thread linked to above, and anti-Darwinist "bertvan*" adds her 2 cents:

In other words: Creative adaptations originate in physical adaptive biological systems, not their genomes. The genome is merely a record of those adaptations
that remain persistent over generations.

Never mind that Bergerson did not provide or even suggest a mechanism by which this might operate...
Isn't it interesting how a baseless assertion by one poster becomes an absolute to be paraphrased by another...

In... credible....

*I first encountered "bertvan" more than 10 years ago on the old Internet Infidels discussion forum. Back then, she was not shy about her creationist beliefs, which she would proclaim true by virtue of an essay she had written on the evils of the phychiatry (yeah, I didn't get the connection either). Now, however, she denies being a creationist and has adopted the so called EAM (endogenous adaptice mutagenesis) position espoused but unsupported by one "mturner."


**UPDATE 2**

I think I could find a new Bergerson claim to write about every day if I wanted - found this gem shortly after I read the above:

...The information required for gene regulation is many, many times greater than the information included in the gene. But then, of course, biologists conveniently ignore any mathematics that doesn't agree with their dogmaa. [sic]

1 comment:

FreezBee said...

So bertvan wrote

In other words: Creative adaptations originate in physical adaptive biological systems, not their genomes. The genome is merely a record of those adaptations that remain persistent over generations.

Interesting neo-lamarrckian way of thinking. BĂșt what is a "physical adaptive biological system"? And why do the adaptations need to be recorded? Is the genome merely a historical record for use by biologists? If the "physical adaptive biological systems" really are so physical adaptive, they would be physical adaptive also in the nexr generation and not need to be inherited, right? Where did I miss something?