The original question was:
Why do you persist in pushing creation when surely you can see that Transposons allow evolution to occur in the present despite your fossilised arguments against it?
Answer by Diane Eager
Transposons, also known as Transposable Elements, are pieces of DNA have the ability to move from one part of the genome to another. Because of this property they are sometimes called “jumping genes”. When they move they can activate or de-activate other genes, which results in some variation in living things, so the claim has been made that this is an observed mechanism of evolution in action. But what is really needed for evolution to occur?
For evolution to have happened genetic information had to first evolve, by itself, from chemicals and form the first cell. Then new genetic information had to be naturalistically made and added many times over as organisms made the transition from single cells to multi-cellular organisms, then from simple organism like seaweed and sponges to all the different kinds of complex plants and animals that now exist on earth. Transposons don’t make new genetic information, so what do they do?
When they were first found transposons were called “genetic parasites” and were considered to be “junk DNA” left over from millions of years of random evolution. This was because they can sometimes damage the genes they jump to, but since damage to genes results in loss of genetic information, that is no help the theory of evolution. Sometimes the movement of a transposon switches on genes that would not normally be activated, but activating genes inappropriately can cause deadly diseases like cancer, so that is no help to the theory of evolution either.
As their name suggests, transposons transfer already existing pieces of DNA code from one place to another, and this can influence the expression of already existing genes, but this process does not manufacture any new genetic information. Recent research is finding transposons can be useful. An intriguing function was found a few years ago by scientists studying embryonic development of the brain. They found the movement of a type of transposons influenced whether developing cells became neurones (information processing cells) or support cells in the developing brain. The research team suggested the activity of the transposons could change the proportions of different neurones in the brain and their activity, resulting in differences in brain function between individuals. This would help explain why even identical twins have different personalities and abilities, even though they start out with the same genes. (See ScienceNOW 15 June 2005, Nature vol. 435, p903)
Transposons seem to have an important “switching” function in gene regulation during embryonic development by moving binding sites for transcription factors – proteins that act like switches that turn genes on an off. (See Nature Genetics. 42 (7): 631-634) We still have a lot to learn about transposons, but the more research we do indicates transposons are part of a complex system of regulating which genes are activated and when, but regulating existing genes is not the same as evolving new genes. This process may produce variation between individuals of the same kind, but has never been observed to produce new kinds of living things, as is required to produce evolution.
Some transposons seem to have lost their function and can now cause problems when they move, but this is the opposite of evolution. However, it fits exactly with the Biblical history of the world changing from created perfection to degeneration following the rebellion of man in Eden. Transposons are part of a complex genetic machine that shows all the evidence being created as a functioning whole for each kind of organism.
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