Arthur Hunt Chooses Willful Ignorance

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Check out this clueless rant:

The research I am referring to deals with the movement of DNA from the chloroplast to the nucleus in higher plants. It turns out that one can assay for this by placing a transgene in the chloroplast genome that has nuclear (eukaryotic) gene expression signals - promoters, poly(A), among other things. If the transgene codes for an enzyme that confers antibiotic resistance, then one can monitor gene flow from the plastid to the nucleus by screening for resistance to the appropriate antibiotic. 

Typically, this sort of study is done by linking the nucleus-enable marker gene with another marker (resistance to a different antibiotic) that is expressed in the chloroplast. This is how one can select for trans-plastomic plants that carry foreign DNA in the plastid genome. This second marker has chloroplast (prokaryotic) gene expression signals, and will not usually be expressed if it finds its way to the nucleus. 

The process that moves the nucleus-enabled marker to the nucleus also will carry along linked DNA, such as the chloroplast marker. So, if one first identifies plants that have had the nuclear marker move to the nucleus, and then ask how frequently the second antibiotic resistance marker is expressed (again, a simple selection on suitable media), then one can get a handle of the frequency with which the second marker captures promoters in the nucleus. Long story short - this happens often enough that it can be detected in the laboratory. Which means that, contrary to what ID proponents claim, this sort of event is not fantastically improbable. 

There are details I won’t elaborate on here, but they speak to mechanisms that are generally in operation in eukaryotes (and not plant-specific). Beyond this, these studies are all very interesting, and have important ramifications for plant biotechnology.

WRONG AGAIN, Art. ID says that it is highly improbable that blind and mindless process produced what you describe. What ID says is that what you have described happens by DESIGN.

How many times do these assholes have to be told that the debate is all about the mechanisms- design vs blind and mindless?