I’ve got a lovely crocoduck tie, but maybe I need a new pigbird tie. Look! Evolution is impossible! It’s like a flying pig!
This is some new awful short video from Answers in Genesis. It’s slick and fast and just babbles rapid-fire lies at the viewer — don’t stop, don’t think, you might catch on to the nonsense!
(Ugh, sorry, but WordPress thinks it is smarter than I am and refuses to let me imbed the video here. You’ll have to watch it at this link.)
It makes precisely two discrete claims that it claims disprove evolution. All you have to do is watch this video and yay, you’re done, you can forget that science stuff and move on to loving Jesus. Here are the arguments:
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There is no known observable process by which new genetic information can be added to an organism’s genetic code.Except mutations and gene transfer, of course. Oh, hey, they forgot those! That does sort of scuttle their whole point. I’m afraid we do know of observable processes that add measurable, quantitative genetic information to an organism (not to its code, though: that’s stupid. Whoever created this thing is one of those common ignoramuses who can’t tell the difference between a genome and a genetic code). Geneticists have seen this happen: look at copy number variants in humans, for instance, and geneticists have seen novel mutants in flies in which a segment of the genome is duplicated; parents don’t have it, progeny does. We also have evidence from gene families. We have five α globin genes and six β globin genes (some of which are dead pseudogenes), for instance, and they’re clearly derived by duplication and divergence.
So sorry, guys, this one is simply a lie. I’d be happy to be confronted by a creationist peddling this bit of misinformation, since it is so patently bogus.
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Life has never been observed to come from non-life.Ooh, better. This claim is literally true and not a flat-out lie. It’s also irrelevant. One of the things you’ll discover as you get deeper and deeper into biology is that it’s chemistry all the way down. There are no vital agents working away inside a cell, adding intelligent guidance: it’s all stoichiometry and reaction kinetics and thermodynamics. In a sense, all life is built of non-life and denying it is like seeing the Lego Millennium Falcon and arguing that it couldn’t possibly be made of little tiny plastic bricks. Yeah, it is.
But it’s true that we haven’t seen life re-evolving from simple chemicals now, and there’s a good reason for that: this planet is now crawling with life everywhere, and life’s building blocks that form nowadays don’t last long — they’re lunch. We also have only rudimentary ideas of what prebiotic chemicals were reacting in ancient seas, so we can’t even simulate early chemistry in an organism-free test tube, yet. Scientists are busily tinkering, though, and we do have protocols that spontaneously produced complex organic chemicals from inorganic sources, we just haven’t found the formula for a chemical replicator yet.
But it’s an irrelevant objection, anyway. Nobody has shown me god conjuring people out of mud, either. Creationists have their own problem of demonstrating origins, and they aren’t even trying to puzzle it out — goddidit, they’re done.
The conclusion is, of course, to claim that they have now disproven evolution (they haven’t), and therefore…Jesus. Faulty premises and ludicrous leaps of logic make this one a pathetic foray into addressing evolution. It’s slick, though — maybe they should have used a picture of a greased pig as their header image.
(Also on Sb)
Have you ever observed Jesus coming back from the dead? Therefore….
So cute. It’s Ken Ham’s fantasy love interest!
(BTW, PZ, you has a tpyo. “its code”, not “it’s code”)
I would love such a tie.
Off topic:
Yeah! You guys have finally made the move from that hollow shell that once was the mighty Sb. I am very glad to see this come to fruition. I will be coming here on a regular basis. Bu-bye Sb.
Awww, I want a cute little piglet with wings! Can science please hurry up and make one of those, huh? It would certainly take less time than it would take the Christian god to do it. For some reason, he never seems to do anything at all. Gee, I wonder why that is?
Why give them any airtime here? new place, keep it clean. :-)
Shit! I’m glad I’m not prone to epileptic fits, after watching that my eyes were spinning.
How can anyone in the same very short video say life cant be created from non life then say god created life from nothing!….and not be an idiot!….and not even know they are an idiot!
ARGHHHHHHHHHH!!
Wow, this is just pure comedy gold.
What baffles met though is that they are accusing actual scientists of not being scientific. They think because they like reading their fairy tales they know how to do other peoples jobs. I like poking fun at these guys, but I sometimes have to protect myself from facepalming myself a concussion.
Poor simpletons, easily dazzled by these pedantic arguments. Ken Ham is a flim-flam man.
If you don’t know the difference between genetic code and genome, you just don’t have even ‘pretend science’, much less the real thing.
I have never seen any explanation by creationists why the genome of Homo sapiens and other primates have ERV’s in common. As much as any evidence can possibly prove common descent, this does. How can they not see this fact as utterly convincing evidence of CD? … Oh, I forgot. They have faith. Lucky them.
I don’t know where the video you were trying to embed is. The video on that page provides an “embed” code, which I think works in WordPress. Perhaps you were trying to embed from YouTube or another video-sharing site?
YouTube videos are, by default, offered with an iframe embed code. This won’t be accepted by the WordPress editor. You can tell YouTube to give you the old SWF embed code, which will work on YouTube, but uses flash only, so it won’t work on devices without flash.
There is a plugin for WordPress which allows you to use the iframe embed code. I suggest using the old SWF embed code in the meantime, providing a link to the original for people without flash.
TRiG.
Well now, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that there’s no way to add information to something’s genetic code. Both selenocysteine and pyrrolysine are encoded by stop codons (UGA or UAG) in particular contexts. I think those are pretty clear examples of evolving new information into the code. Other than that, though, preach on!
I liked when the video says “evolution is just a story”…
Actually, on second thoughts, I suspect that WordPress doesn’t like “embed” but is happy with “object”. The old style on YouTube provides both, for different browsers. WordPress strips out the “embed” (which is fine, because all modern browsers support “object”).
The video on that page is provided with only the “embed” code, with no “object” version. It’s not too hard to create an “object” version of the code, and thus embed the video here.
<object width="300" width="400">
<param name="movie" value="http://temp.answersingenesis.org/assets/scripts/mediaplayer-viral/player-viral.swf"></param>
<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param>
<param name="flashvars" value="&backcolor=0xCFE7F8&dock=false&file=http%3A%2F%2Fmedia.answersingenesis.org%2Fvideo%2Fondemand%2Fcheck-this-out%2Fcto-1_evolution.flv&frontcolor=0x0083D7&image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.answersingenesis.org%2Fassets%2Fevolution.jpg&plugins=viral-2d"></param>
</object>
TRiG.
Of course life has never (yet) been observed to come from non-life. All evidence points to it having happened exactly once.
If life had come into being multiple times independently, we wouldn’t observe common descent among all known life on Earth. There would be a bunch of distinct lineages of life that had almost nothing in common with one another. (There might be some morphological convergence due to sharing an ecosystem, but their genetic basis would be totally different; probably not even DNA/RNA based.)
In fact, biologists would be able to look at the genomes of various organisms and say, “we can tell that life originated independently at least X times”, given the number of different genomes discovered.
The moment scientists do manage to create new life in the lab, they’re going to need some new taxonomic terminology, because the system we’ve got assumes all life shares common ancestry!
That piglet-with-wings is freakin’ adorable! But knowing it came from Ham’s place just makes it kinda creepy.
And I’m extremely frustrated by the fact that the credulitionists never seem to get any new arguments or evidence. I do realize that’s because it doesn’t exist, but really.
PZ, please don’t send people to AIG. It’s really disgusting and sick over there.
What you mean, “…WordPress thinks it is smarter than I am and refuses to let me imbed the video here.”
If you have to send us to aig then maybe WordPress IS smarter than you think. Maybe WordPress is owned by aig or at least sympathetic to aig and wants much more traffic at aig. you know how twisted they can be.
I wouldn’t think you’d want a Pigasus award tie.
I suppose these dolts never bother to define “information” or give a way to measure it with any precision. They never do. They just seem to think it’s a fancy argument and will wow their idiotic/ignorant followers.
It’s also funny that they argue that life can’t come from non-life, but have no problem arguing that God whooshed Adam into being by piling up some dust and made Eve by swiping one of Adam’s ribs. Neither is “alive.” But, wait… GOD can create life from non-life. Cool… and by what mechanism? Magic? That’s it then, huh? Well okay then, here’s your button, you smart little creationist you. You’ve cracked science!
“Evolution? Bah, when pigs fly!”
AiG says, with fire in eye.
“You can’t add info
to ANY gene’s code!
Man from monkeys? Biology’s lie!”
Of course certain processes do
change a gene’s codes through and through.
But that takes an act
of reason and facts.
Not Jesus, or Odin, or Q.
“Pigs can fly, with enough externally applied thrust. (The pig won’t like it. And don’t stand underneath.)”
I want a pigasus
Who cares about flying pigs? See what evolved apes can do with glue and string…
http://www.ted.com/talks/a_robot_that_flies_like_a_bird.html
In point #1 – Is there a mechanism for adding to the genome without duplication? In other words, does a chunk of DNA always get bigger/longer through duplication of existing parts, or is there a method that can add to it?
Also, what is meant be code? Do you mean the method by which base pairs code for amino acids isn’t changing, or are you referring to something else? Elementary to you, fascinating unknowns to me.
Not all DNA is for proteins. Some of it is regulatory genes, turning other genes on and off as needed. Mutations to the regulatory genes can change timing, and therefore things like hair color, hair pattern, size of limbs, and other changes.
I’m offended that potential bacon and angelic wings have been slapped together in an obvious attempt at insulting religious perceptions.
Wait.
My original attempt at a joke was how using a pig to flip off atheists might insult Muslims.
Then I made a BLT, looked at the “Ham with Wings” and saw a blinding flash of light.
Slapping myself across the eyeballs tends to do that.
Nerd of Redhead – I’ve heard of regulatory genes before, stop and start sequences and other things (not that I understand too much of it). Do you know what PZ means when he wrote “we do know of observable processes that add measurable, quantitative genetic information to an organism (not to its code, though”? I’m trying to understand what code he’s referring to. What code isn’t being added to?
It’s… it’s beautiful…
You know, if I can get a miniature pigasus as a pet, I’ll totally get one as soon as my dog decides it’s done around here. Considering she’s only 3, she’s probably still got another 10 years left in her, just enough time for those nifty genetic engineers to come up with the pigasus.
Lego Millennium Falcon > Creationism
I chuckled aloud. Thank you for that, PZ.
So, what exactly is the difference between a genome and a genetic code? I am confused. (And please don’t flame me, it’s an honest question.)
@cogito: The genome’s the entire book; the genetic code is the alphabet it’s written in. Less flippantly, the genetic code means the system of four base pairs – A, T, G, C – which encode instructions like “stop here”, “cut here” and “this amino acid goes here”. The code itself, particularly the amino-acid coding, is almost identical for every organism on Earth – this is why you can splice a human gene into a bacterium and have it work. (Which is how synthetic insulin, HGH and such are made – Wiki link)
The DNA codon table: ‘Nother Wiki link
@cogito: I forgot to add, a GENOME is the entirety of the genetic instructions for a given organism, and it’ll be essentially the same for all members of that organism’s species. So the human genome’s 96% or so identical to the chimp genome, and 50% ish identical to the banana genome; but the actual genetic code is still the same for every living thing on the planet.
That’s why it’s so important, actually… which DNA sequence codes for which amino acid is fixed, but random. There’s nothing special about the sequence that makes TGG mean tryptophan and TGA mean stop. The code is what it is because it’s always been that way, ever since the earliest replicating mats of slime.
Pardon me going on and on about my favorite topic at two in the morning ;>
Is Ken angling for a Pigasus Award? He does know that’s not the one with the million dollar prize, right?
But it does have an interesting (to me) interaction with another proclamation by many of the same xianities as comprise AiG:
IOW: In the context of interest (ovum + spermatzoa), there is no life prior to some point in the conception process; at that point, life starts to exist. Since the conception process can be largely performed* in vitro, any life that begins with this conception can only have come from non-life as they define it.
* It’s not at all clear where the various xianities place the bounds of the ‘conception’ process, nor where in the process they imagine ‘life’ to ‘begin’.
So all those transformations with plasmids I did in microbiology… never happened. Well, I feel duped. Those little critters really had me fooled.
And hey, they actually emphasize the importance of observable and reproducible evidence… that we dont’ have… therefore God! Wait a minute…
Life can never come from non-life? But yet their fairy tale has magic man breathing life into dirt.
They forgot the speech bubble. Because this rejection of evolution could only be uttered by a winged pig.
Ken Ham suddenly Googles oversized butterfly net…
Did they seriously say “those are just stories”? They must have had their sense of irony surgically removed!
Maybe it’s still in there, screaming under that oppressive hypocrisy flooding their brain, but they just say it all EXTRA fast. That way it not only gives your audience no time to think it through, it keeps them from having to think about either.
Probably not, but it seems like an option to avoid costly surgeries. Is the sense of irony located anywhere near the ability to spell? That might explain a lot.
Pteryxx: Thank you! Excellent explanation.
In all honesty, 99,5% of all science journalists are oblivious to the difference between “genetic code” and “genome”.
Hell, even the BBC series about genetics uses “genetic code” indiscriminately…
I know that most people don’t understand the difference between a coded message (DNA in this case) and the code used to decode the message (genetic code), but still…
Buffalo wings and bacon in one package. :-)
As always, there’s an XKCD cartoon for that http://xkcd.com/435/
Do they never come up with anything new? Their intuition that life can’t come from non-life is easily refuted by the simple observation that none of the molecules that make up our bodies are alive, but yet somehow the collection of non-living molecules is alive. Yep: this is another appeal to the ancient wisdom (and childish assumption) of Vitalism. Life is a magical force which works by miracle.
Though they probably can’t come up with anything new — how often can you find novel ways to appeal to ignorance? — but every now and then I run into something that’s new to me.
Case in point: a letter to the editor in this morning’s paper titled “Big Bang theory is not science.” It’s filled with a number of howlers — including this creative definition of “theory”:
I read that 3 times and still find it a bit unclear. It’s new to me. But my favorite innovation is this clever taunt directed at the fools who believe in the Big Bang Just-a-Theory:
WTF? The Big Bang Theory posits that someone stood on the earth and tossed stars up into space? Otherwise — God.
New to me.
@Fukuda:
“In all honesty, 99,5% of all science journalists are oblivious to the difference between “genetic code” and “genome”.
Hell, even the BBC series about genetics uses “genetic code” indiscriminately…”
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Yeah, and that burns my feathers no end. Journalists know to be careful about using “alleged” and spelling their proper names right, but nobody knows and/or cares that “genetic code” is the language and “genome” the story. It’d take 30 seconds to find out, too. Sheesh. Most of them were even careful about distinguishing radiation from radioactive contamination in the Fukushima coverage – they CAN do it when they bother.
Genomes can be manipulated by adding and subtracting genes (transgenic animals, bacteria, viruses). Transgenic animals are the most easily visible example of this. There are thousands of different strains of transgenic mice, all with different gene chunks inserted into their DNA for different research purposes. Knock-outs have either had a gene shut off or excised, removing that particular gene. All of this is generally accomplished via some vector that has been manipulated (plasmids, bacteria, viruses). A quick search on transgene and gene knockout produce some decent explanations of what these are. It’s more complex than I’ve explained, but it’s the laymens version (I work with researchers utilizing transgenic animals daily, but I myself do not make them).
Other than gene duplication there are other mechanisms, sorry in advance as this will be quite complex:
There are stretches of DNA that can move around the genome inserting themselves, these are known as transposons.
There are several kinds of these DNA elements: the simplest ones code for an enzyme called transposase that simply cuts and pastes the transposon around without replicating it.
A more “advanced” version is the replicative transposon, this one is able to replicate using a rather complicated trick, it builds a complex DNA figure called “cointegrate” and then manages to copy itself into a distant site without erasing the first copy.
This mechanism allows the addition of more genetic material without usual duplication, but there are other kinds of “self-inserting” elements that we ain’t talked about yet: retrotransposons and their ilk.
These DNA elements use an even neater way of inserting themselves into other places, they code for an enzyme called reverse transcriptase:
They have a promoter like any other gene and are transcribed into RNA. One of the products of this RNA is the reverse transcriptase(RT) enzyme which is able to “rewrite” RNA back into DNA, thus allowing the retransposon to propagate, as RT will grab the RNA produced by the retrotransposon and will retroinsert it in another place of the DNA by converting it back into DNA and pasting it there.
In fact, RT has a wider specificity than just retrotransposon RNA and will insert normal mRNA into other places aswell. We have found quite a number of these retrotranscribed “normal” genes, they are called “processed pseudogenes”
All these mechanisms allow for an increase of “genetic information” without usual gene duplication mechanisms.
*please look for the terms I put in bold in google images to find nice images explaining it better than I could ever do.
[Stops staring at 6-year-old jar of peanut butter.] Fuck this.
Of course, there’s nothing stopping life from coming from non-life again, except for all the already there life that’s not about to give up its hard-won real estate to a bunch of unsophisticated newcomers.
Much for the same reason that one doesn’t see pioneers in covered wagons and sod houses homesteading among the skyscrapers of Park Avenue.
Sastra, It’s pretty clear to me that he’s confusing ‘theory’ with ‘theoretical’. Or is that not what you’re confused by?
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In point #1 – Is there a mechanism for adding to the genome without duplication? In other words, does a chunk of DNA always get bigger/longer through duplication of existing parts, or is there a method that can add to it?
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Sure – there’s translocation, where a chunk of DNA from elsewhere gets randomly spliced into a gene; run-on mutation, where a gene’s normal stop codon gets deleted so it includes whatever sequence happened to be downstream; repeat sequences that tend to get longer and longer with successive generations (as in Huntington’s disease); and insertion of retroviruses and genetic parasites (such as ERVs!) which actually comprise upwards of 40% of the entire human genome. Note that all these cases use DNA that’s already in the cell, except for retroviruses; but they still are not GENE duplication. Also, some add new expressed protein sequences, some increase the physical size of the genome, and some do both.
eta: And Fukuda scooped me; ah well, I’m giving a much less technical (and more sloppy) explanation. ;>
The genetic code isn’t quite fixed. We know of at least 22 naturally occurring variations of the “standard code” (see this link for details). The standard code is clearly ancestral and pretty stable, but there’s nothing magically fixed about what each codon translates to. Heck, most mitochondria translate AUA as methionine. (Standard translation would have that as isoleucine.)
I might have missed it but why are we dismissing loosing parts of the genome? It is an important part of biological genetics. Bigger =/= more complex or better. Amoebas have bigger genomes than humans.
@Ing: It started with point 1 of the video PZ’s refuting above, namely:
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“There is no known observable process by which new genetic information can be added to an organism’s genetic code.”
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A few folks asked for examples of how genetic information, or just more genome, DOES get added. We haven’t gotten into deletion, regulation, or repurposing yet; but we could! (Venom! MHC! Number of digits!)
I wish you’d tell my mother that.
She’s always asking “Why don’t you find a nice amoeba and settle down? Your telomeres aren’t getting any longer, you know.”
“Ma, I’m happy with my human girlfriend.”
“Oh, sure,” she replies, “Miss Three Billion Base Pairs. What kind of genetic legacy are you gonna leave your kids? You want me to die of a broken heart seeing my grandchildren beg in the streets for spare cytosine? Mrs. Wong, from my seniors’ spinning class, was telling me about a cute P. dubium living in the pond behind her walk-up. You could do your old mother a favour and take her out to dinner just once. Thirty-seven hours I was in labour with you…”
“Fine, Ma.”
“Good. I’ve already made a reservation for you two for seven-thirty on Wednesday at the algaeria on third.”
Mothers. Amiright?
They’re just stories people! Unlike the Bah-bull which is of course fact because like someone wrote it down, duh! For those who can’t tell I am being sarcastic.
My favourite part was when they said that evolution “was just a story,” but the bible was real and true. I wonder which one is more of a fiction. Apparently an all-seeing, all-knowing, all-powerful supernatural being is more believable than a logical, rational theory based on data.
Though, the model AiG seems to take is a fiction of the real theory. And what’s this 5-senses bullshit they’re spouting? These AiG people seem to not to do the most important thing in science and they don’t ignore their personal bias when their hypotheses are wrong and instead pretend their answers are true.
Which was my point. You can get new information via deletion. the old reading is lost but you get a new unique one…most will be garbage but that’s still “new” information, and some will be functioning “new” information.