Is intelligent design scientific?

1) Is intelligent design scientific? Why or why not?

2) Darwin was working in the 1800s, well before modern science tools that would be invented and allow the detection of DNA (which Darwin had no idea about) and exact processes of mutation.

Complete Darwin’s synthesis by adding in this new information about genetics and mutation. Where do you put it in the synthesis? What do you say about it? Is it a new bullet point or does it modify one of the existing ones from the synthesis?

3) One of the coronavirus vaccines being developed right now is an mRNA vaccine. Most vaccines are injections of dead or weakened viruses, and your body responds by learning how to develop antibodies (proteins) that can travel through the blood and hunt down actual much more dangerous viral infections.

The mRNA vaccine is an injection like other vaccines but differs in that instead of being an injection of antibodies, this new one would be injection of mRNA code for these antibodies. The benefit of an mRNA vaccine is that no dead or weakened viruses need to be injected into the body.

Describe how this vaccine will work in the human body using the following wordbank from lecture: DNA, nucleus, transcription, mRNA, amino acid, translation, protein. Note: Not all of these terms are directly involved in how this vaccine will function. Be specific in stating which are involved and why others are not, where appropriate.

4) CRISPR-Cas9 is an adaptation of the bacterial immune system that probably evolved from one of the types of mutations we’ve reviewed (point mutation, gene duplication, chromosome duplication, genome duplication, transposon, horizontal gene transfer).

Of these, one of these is most similar in effect to how CRISPR functions and probably an “ancestor” to CRISPR. Identify this mutation type and describe the similarity.

5) What are isotopes, and how are these used to determine ages of rocks?