davidH

Yo, anyone know an estimate on the amount of DNA bases there are in a single cell? Any cell will do. An also anyone got an estimate to how many bases it would take to code the human eye?

Thanks. I can't fing the info anywhere.

Pantera

According to the <a href="http://www.ornl.gov/hgmis/publicat/primer2001/4.html" target="_blank">Human Genome Project</a>, "the human genome contains 3164.7 million chemical nucleotide bases". About 2% of these actually code for proteins.

theyeti

Every cell should contain the entire genome.

Here's a list of the genome size of selected organisms, taken from Lodish, et al., Molecular Cell Biology 4th ed, p. 238:

(values are in kb [kilobase = 1000 base pairs])

• M. genitalium 580
• M. jannaschii 1660
• H. influenzae 1830
• E. coli 4640
• S. cerevisiae 12,050

These are all unicellular organisms, with the last one (yeast) being the only eukaryote. If memory serves, H. sapiens has a genome of about 3.2 Gb, or around 3,200,000 kb. However, the descrepancy between genome size is much greater than that of the number of proteins expressed -- in other words, the human genome may be two orders of magnitude greater than that of yeast, but it only expresses about 10-20 times as many proteins. There is a progressive trend towards less compact genomes as you move up in "phyletic complexity".

As for how many it takes to make an eye, no one can say. In fact, it belies a misunderstanding of how genes work -- they do not say "make this structure". There are of course genes that make proteins that will only be expressed in the eye. But the construction of the eye is a process that takes place during development, and will depend mostly on the timing of expression of certain developmental genes, which themselves will activate tissue specific genes.

I don't know what you've got cooked up, but I hope this helps.

theyeti

[ January 16, 2002: Message edited by: theyeti ]</p>

Mageth

Every cell should contain the entire genome.

You know this, of course, but not every cell contains the entire genome (e.g. red blood cells, sperm and oocytes)

theyeti

Pedant.

Dr Rick

Ah-ahhh...theyeti, you're slippin.'

Sort of off the subject, and maybe davidH can answer this one: how many base-pairs does it take to make a god?

I wonder if our current E/C forum creationist-in-residence may be getting ready to post something about the sheer magnitude of the complexity of the eye as "logically" arguing against RM and NS again despite repeated simple explanations of why that is not the case and ignoring the obvious fallacy that the existence of a complex God capable of making an eye is less probable than an eye gradually evolving.

[ January 16, 2002: Message edited by: rbochnermd ]</p>

bluefugue

There's that Infinite Regression argument again. It makes sense to me and Dawkins, but theologians have never been much troubled by it.

HRGruemm

Of course. They can postulate what they have to prove, or claim that it is true "by the definition of God" ....

HRG.

Boro Nut

I used to have the same trouble. I stopped trying to fing it and found it straight away. Silly me.

CodeMason

Boro Nut: A thousand wasted posts.