Research on Intelligent Design

To put together scientific advances from the perspective of Intelligent Design.

Friday, September 30, 2005

In Search of an Intelligent Understanding of Variation in Nature.

Varieties can be considered interfertile organisms that can have a fertile offspring.

Following this simple principle, one of my self imposed tasks has been to try to identify in the literature those organisms that are able to interbreed producing a fertile offspring. On doing that, I have found on a daily basis that there are thousands of organisms currently and mistakenly considered as members of different species, that are, respectively, just varieties of the same kinds of organisms.

Some of my references can be seen at:

http://www.reocities.com/plin9k/limiting-species.htm

My basic working principle is that:

Organisms can only originate similar organims.

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Intelligent Design, Biodiversity and Antiobesity

Today I want to be focused in other aspects of my studies based on an Intelligent Design inference.

Like in other events of genetic variation, the simplest equation to describe obesity is:

Susceptible Genes + Predisposing Environment = Obesity

Here, as we saw yesterday, the conceptual model is likening the genes to the inner biological software (IBS) possessor of an inherent Intelligent Design, activated and modulated by the environment. The environment can be compared to one of the upper levels of computational assembly, the biological hardware.

If the genetic morphologies or mutations that trigger obesity are present, then obesity will develop, favored by a predisposing environment which activates its expression; however, such environment can be deliberately controlled (i.e., by diets and exercise) either to counteract or to inhibit the negative effects of those altered genes.

Methodologies similar to microarrays, both for transcripts and for proteins, will be helpful to better describe the identities and functions of genes and genomes. Being both of them components of the biological program, which is the precise, complex and natural genetic software contributor to the expression of health, as well as to the pathological reprogramming of life when altered.

The discovery of genes expressed only in particular tissues (tissue-specific) will also be helpful in our understanding of the precise design to fulfill specific purposes by the proteins. Each cell being compared to a factory, and working all the tissues as synchronized machines under an intense molecular communication, to the end that the full body may also be able to fulfill its own and purposeful design.

Here, methodologies similar to the microarrays can also help us to differentiate the expression of genes among different organisms, unraveling not only specific genes within families and tissues, but also species-specific genes, proteins and metabolic processes.

Specific cells under altered environments can start producing genes not supposed to be present there, unfolding the process of disease. If those strange genes or alterations can be detected at the very moment of its pathological triggering, then we will be able to prevent its out-of-control expression. Environmental mutations are generally altering the normal gene expression, causing collateral effects rather than improvement, starting thus a pathological state for the organism.

Allelomorphs are the agents of a wide array of polymorphisms, many of them with only aesthetic variations, independent of any environmental pressure. The field of healthy allelomorphs remains still an "unexplored land", even when more than 135 years have already passed since the publication of the original work of Mendel related to the Laws of Heredity.

By following Intelligent Design methodologies, I have proposed that we can be able to generate biodiversity, excluding molecular methodologies and using only those well-known "Laws of Heredity" of Mendel. Even until today, we are still lacking of the proper identification of biological varieties in nature

By the other hand, molecular studies based on Intelligent Design principles will have the purpose to discover non-invasive and reversible treatments; for example, against human obesity, targeting exclusively the fat cells. This is a deliberate "reprogramming of life", specifically directed to correct genetic anomalies, i.e., by temporarily "turning-off" the expression of a protein, i.e., perilipin, which is the molecule involved in fat storage within our adipose tissues.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Our "Inner Biological Software" (IBS, not IBM)

Today I want to talk to you, my dear reader, that aside of posting on boards and blogs like this one; I have published one paper including the next statement:

"Using Intelligent Design models, we can use the analogy of the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA) as being the Software for the building up of proteins, and the proteins as being the Hardware, with the special feature that here, the Software builds up the Hardware and the Hardware plays and modulates the Software. In the case of metabolic pathways, the proteins are sufficiently flexible to become part of the regulatory Software, in a stairway of self-contained types of Hardware: organelles, cells, tissues, organs, organisms, etc."
Castro-Chavez F. Microarrays, antiobesity and the liver. Annals of Hepatology 2004; 3(4): October-December: 137-145 (in PDF).

Such molecular studies prompted me to declare that this is "The optimal use of genetic information to see the art and the beauty of God's Creation in Molecular Biology."

To the new reader I may ask: It is there any practical use of thinking in such a way?

Well, I believe that the answer is YES!

In the same review I emphasize, apart of the previous quotation, and among other points, that:

1- Species-specific pathways, proteins and genes can also be found,

2- New pathways can be discovered with the use of Microarrays, and new functions found for known proteins,

3- On using Microarrays also well known genes being expressed in unexpected tissues or cells; i.e., my findings of hbb-b1 and hba1 expressed inside white adipose tissue, and the heart, fulfilling their own and particular function inside a specific environment,

4- The results of performing a careful microarray analysis of the genetic program of organisms have been helpful, thus far, in setting an integrated foundation for nutrigenomics (effects of nutrients on the genome and on the regulation of gene expression), and nutrigenetics (effect of genetic variation on the interaction between diet and disease and on the healthy response to nutrients).

5- and to better describe the identity and function of genes and genomes, composers of a natural, complex, and precise biological software that as a genetic program, contributes to the healthy programming and the pathological reprogramming of life.

I have used in that indexed review, and as an example of "the healthy programming of life", the next valuable reference:

Stephen C. Meyer. The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories. Proc Biol Soc Washington, 2004; 117(2):213-239.

I think that tomorrow I will need to translate something from Spanish into English in order to post it here.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Dear Reader,

Introduction.

I started my trip on posting boards at ISCID while presenting a brief set of observations:
Some Implications for the Study of Intelligent Design Derived from Molecular and Microarray Analysis

Then I submitted to ISCID my research proposal:
Intelligent Design to Generate Biodiversity

Occasionally I also post at ARN references for the students (examples):
Critical Analysis of Evolution, Material for Students

Mendelian Bioengineering and the Limits to Biological Change

From ARN and with Teleologist's help I blogged at teleological.org (examples):
Calling Darwin’s Bluff

For the Record: Intelligent Design’s Audio and Video, its Hip-Hop and More on Music

Today I was trying to answer to the excellend UK blog of Andrew Rowell:
Intelligent Design in the United Kingdom

I was attempting to answer him but instead, his website host directed me to write my own blog, and that's how I am starting here.

The specific purpose of this blog is to put together day after day scientific advances from the perspective of Intelligent Design. Today I conclude my first posting by presenting some references gathered by the Discovery Institute:
Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design (Annotated)

For the freedom and progress of science!