Author: Jonathan McLatchie
Do Shared ERVs Support Common Ancestry?
In my previous article, I discussed the background of one of the most commonly made arguments for primate common ancestry. In this article, I want to examine the first of the three layers of evidence offered by a popular-level article written about this subject.
Revisiting an Old Chestnut: Retroviruses and Common Descent (Updated)
One common argument for common descent which one hears very frequently in the evolutionary literature concerns the placement of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) in orthologous loci in primate genomes.
More Signs of Design: Bacteria on the Radio
The information story extends deeper than we realized.
Does Life Use a Non-Random Set of Amino Acids?
If chance and necessity are seemingly inadequate, either on their own or in co-operation, what about the causal powers of agent causality? If, in every other realm of experience, such features are routinely attributed to intelligent causes, and we have seen no reason to think that this intuition is mistaken, are we not justified in positing and inferring that these systems we are finding in biology also originated at the will of a purposive conscious agent?
“Junk DNA” and the Molecular Basis of Cell Identity
Once thought to be “junk,” or functionless vestiges of once-protein-coding-genes which have, through the course of evolutionary history, mutated to a state of non-functionality, the research documents that these lincRNAs have an extremely important — even crucial — role with respect to the determination of cellular identity.