I am not a molecular biologist, nor a geneticist, so may be oversimplifying or whistling in the wind here, but I have found the following analogy helpful in better understanding the shifting issue of "junk DNA" in human (or other) cells.
As a quick introduction, the human genome has some 3 billion DNA nucleotide pairs that, taken together include most of the information needed to build and operate a human being, complete from development of a fertilized egg, through to the maintenance of an adult, including the means for ongoing metabolism and eventual reproduction. Back in the 1980's, it was discovered that something like 98% of this DNA does not code for proteins or enzymes, the building blocks of life. Thus, your 20,000 or so genes (instruction for these blocks) make up only around 2% of your genome.
Those enamoured to the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution grabbed onto this factoid and declared that most of the remaining 98% of your genome is simply "junk DNA" left over from millions of years of evolutionary trial and error, just as might be expected from the undirected Darwinian process of random mutation plus natural selection. This assumption quickly became the received wisdom and researchers did not look for function or purpose in the supposed junk. The same people also made a lot of the fact that, within that 2% coding DNA, almost 99% is the same as for chimpanzees and bonobos, our nearest relatives on the presumed tree of life.
The then nascent Intelligent Design (ID) community responded to this "junk DNA" assumption with their own prediction, that essential functions would be found for most of the 98% "non-coding" DNA if careful testing were to be done. (And some people claim that ID makes no predictions.) Subsequently, the ENCODE project did a series of experiments and found that perhaps 80% of the genome (so far) shows some sort of "activity" in human cells, but did not delve into the nature of the activity and how important it might be for humans. Rather than admit that ID was right, Darwinists attacked the ENCODE results, or simply denied their prior "junk DNA" claims, stating that, of course Darwinism would optimize the genome by throwing out non-functional DNA. (Darwinism is like that; if prediction "X" doesn't pan out as expected, claim that the theory also predicts "not-X".)
In the meantime, assuming that 98% of the genome was indeed "junk" most evolutionary biologists did not bother to look for functionality there, delaying much of our understanding of human cell biochemistry by a decade or so. Now that we know the 98% is NOT all inactive, scientists have begun to explore its varied functions and have found all sorts of purposes for some of the "junk": regulatory, developmental, quality control, etc. And since then, most Darwinists have quietly stopped using the term "Junk DNA".
Notwithstanding all this, my purpose in this post is not to delineate these new-found DNA functions. Rather, I will offer up a simple analogy to explain why there has to be much more to the human genome than just codes for proteins and enzymes. As an aside, I used to ask people who passed on the meme that "we only use 10 % of our brains", whether they would like to have the other 90% removed to improve their thinking efficiency. Similarly, I wonder if those who claim that 98%, 50%, or even just 20% of their DNA is "junk" would like to have that removed from their cells - not that it would be possible to do so, of course, but just in principle. After all, if it truly is junk, then having a smaller genome would make for more efficient cell division (less DNA to copy and sort through), and possibly a longer life or more energy for other things.
Anyway, on to my analogy, which is to compare the building of a human being to the construction of a house or some larger building, or even an entire city. Of course, a human is far more complex than any building, and buildings do not self-replicate, so the analogy is limited, but I hope it will serve to elucidate potential "functionality" for the non-coding parts of our own DNA.
In this analogy, the house to be constructed has a stack of blueprints, or a hard drive full of all the design information needed to construct the house. This information is, of course, analogous to our DNA. The coding parts of the DNA (genes) would then be analogous to the instructions for making bricks, two-by-fours, shingles, glass, cabling, pipes, etc. (the "protein" materials needed for the house). Given that the information for the house has to start from available materials, we cannot assume that bricks, lumber and tools are readily available to the house (or the fertilized cell in the biological case). Some of them may be available initially (in the womb as it were), but later on, once the house (baby) has begun to grow, it will have to make its own materials out of simpler ones (e.g. metabolism of digested food in the human context).
In addition to materials (proteins), the house plans will need instructions for making the tools (or parts of tools) required to build the house (the enzymes, as it were). In the context of the house construction, these tools will have to be more complex than those usually employed as we cannot assume people are available to use them. Thus, some of the instructions will have to include how to make robots to use the tools to build the house. And of course, the "parent house" (maybe a model home?) will be available to supply the first robots, tools and materials, until the new house can take over its own construction.
If you have not entirely given up on me as having concocted a bizarre analogy, we can move on to the next part. A house cannot make itself just from instructions on brickmaking and sawing up lumber. Even with some capable robots, tools and materials, the house cannot be constructed without detailed plans or instructions. The hard disk or blueprints will have to contain step-by-step instructions for where to start, what to do next, and how to perform each step, which materials to use, where to find them (in a pile somewhere after they were made), how to prepare them, and precisely where to put them. None of those instructions create materials or tools, so would not be considered as coding information (genes) in the genome context, yet they are essential to the project.
Moreover the construction robots are probably not handy-man generalists. As there are usually many subcontractors needed to finish a house, so there will be many robots required, or perhaps it would be better to have one type of very simple robot, with lots of detailed instructions (an expanded version of the "how to" guides from Home Depot?). So already we have some detailed functional (necessary) "non-coding" instructions: instructions for how to use tools and what to do with materials.
For efficient construction, the building plans would also need a lot of control instructions, both positive (enable process X) and negative (disable or suspend process Y) to avoid piling up bricks before they are needed, or delivering lumber before the hole is dug, and to make sure that when the roof goes on, the shingles are available, the roofing tools are ready and the robots know how to use them. Oh by the way, there will doubtless be other "protein" codes for temporary items such as scaffolding, concrete forms, etc. at certain times during construction (or child development in the womb). These must also be specified, along with when they are needed, and what to do with them after they are no longer needed; e.g. discarded, or dismantle so bits can be reused.
The instructions would need to be very detailed to get the house built right. You cannot just tell the robot to "lay bricks", it would need to be told where to start, how to hold the brick and trowel, how to spread mortar, what to do at corners, how to handle half-bricks or broken ones, how to finish a row and start another, when to stop, and so on. Lots of instructions are needed to build a house (or a human). There would also be a need for "what if" instructions for unexpected things or random errors. Something would have to check the work as it progresses (supervisory or inspection robots?), make corrections (more specific tools?), and allow the work to proceed once each inspection passed. The cells in your body have analogous processes that also follow coded instructions.
All of this work would also require some sort of schedule or timeline, with complex start/stop instructions and checks/balances to ensure a timely and accurate result. There would also be a need for sensing and feedback mechanisms as noted above for quality control, repairs and rework. Once the house was completed, there is still a need for operating instructions - how to: open/close windows, adjust thermostats, regular checking and cleaning, and so on. In the human context, each cell has to monitor itself and its cell boundary for conditions around and within it, and make adjustments to protein and enzyme synthesis to keep itself and its surroundings healthy (this is called homeostasis in biology). Thus, cells, humans and self-constructing houses all need "non-coding" instructions in order to grow and exist properly.
If a house can be likened to a cell, then perhaps a human organ can be like an apartment building, with specialized rooms, and a human being can be analogous to a whole city, with many different buildings, along with infrastructure requirements. Indeed, a human cell has itself been likened to a city, given its internal complexity, so a human must be far more complex than even a big city. In that respect, some might consider it remarkable that a human being can be constructed using only 3 billion nucleotide bits of information! In any case, the building instructions would have to include plans for many types of buildings as well as the interfaces between them, in order to get everything in the right place and working together harmoniously.
Consider now, that many different buildings can be made using the same bricks, lumber, tools, etc. Thus, the fact that human and chimp genes are almost 99% the same only means that they are built of the same proteins and their metabolism uses the same enzymes. That is hardly surprising and does not imply that humans are almost the same as chimps, just as a library is not almost the same as a nursing home just because they both use the same framing, concrete and roofing materials. Obviously there are some minor differences even in the coding parts; for example, some houses may have different coloured bricks, or an oil furnace instead of gas. There are similarly some (around 0.1%) DNA differences among human genes due to eye/skin/hair colour, size/build, etc., just as in a given subdivision, there are variations among houses built by the same developer.
As a final note, building blueprints or construction plans also contain considerable information that is not, strictly speaking, needed to build the house. The name of the house model, the architectual firm, drawing inspection and approval dates, building license, surveyor notes, and engineer stamps are not needed to construct the house, but they are included in the information package anyway. Then there is the table of contents and page numbers so you can find what you need quickly, and cross references for related info and prerequisites or next steps. I expect that science will find similar pointers and directions in our DNA at some time, if they haven't already.
Wouldn't it be funny if somehow, some small piece of human "junk DNA" were eventually decoded as, "Then God said, Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness..." (Gen. 1:26). Or maybe it would say, "Species: Homo sapiens, model No. Adam/Eve; developed Holocene year 136,000, on planet Sol-3, by Archangel team Gabriel under divine directive Our-Image; QC by team Michael, passed inspection; released and ensouled by YHWH Himself into production thereafter; Soli Deo Gloria!"
In summary, just as construction projects need non-material instructions, so cells and humans require non-coding information in their DNA to develop, live well and reproduce properly. Such information should never have been considered as junk, and science should now do more research into the functions of "non-coding" DNA in our genomes. That about wraps up all I can find in this analogy. I hope you found it at least entertaining, if not educational. Forgive me if I have gotten any biology wrong or misused the terminology somehow. Comment if you can think of other intriguing aspects of this analogy.
Tuesday 26 February 2019
Thursday 14 February 2019
What Are You?
When we are asked who we are, we usually reply with our name, and a couple of suitable references to what we do or how we fit into the group at hand. When asked further what we are, we normally respond with our occupation, familial relationships, position within the group, perhaps other important affiliations, or interests such as a key hobby. To most of us, these answers address our personal identities as human beings. However, in this post I would like to describe some alternative answers from a philosophical, scientific, and perhaps humorous perspective that apply to every one of us.
Consider your body: what is it? From one perspective it is a community of cells - some 25 trillions of them - each one a complex biochemical factory, working cooperatively to maintain your life and its various supportive processes. Each cell does its own thing, as it was programmed to do during your development in the womb, but each cell is also connected to and in communication with other cells to build up your organs, as well as their organized whole that together make up your physical self. This is vaguely like an ant colony, with different ants having different roles, all working together for the greater good in the colony's survival and flourishing.
Notwithstanding this physiological picture of health and well-being, most of the cells in your body are not human! Your "micro-biome" includes various bacteria, fungi, other microbes, and not a few larger living things, which together populate your gut, your mouth, your skin, and various other locations in and around your person. Taken together, these cells outnumber those with human DNA. Does that make you grossed-out, mostly alien, or just normal?
Looking deeper, we know that our bodies are mostly - some 70% or so - water. And the remainder is just a variety of organic molecules made up of mostly a handful of abundant chemical elements. In the last century chemists estimated that the value of the raw elements in a typical adult body was worth about $0.84 total. With inflation and resource price changes, that is probably a few dollars today, but still not very much. How does that affect your self worth?
But you say, surely we are more than raw chemical elements? Admittedly, all except the hydrogen atoms are indeed stardust from past supernovae explosions in the Milky Way galaxy. Together those elements form the molecules of life from simple sugars and fats, to more complex hormones and neurotransmitters, and on to complex and interactive enzymes and proteins. And you may want to add, "I have unique and highly complex DNA!" Yes, that is true, but from another perspective you are just a haphazard collection of selfish genes trying to propagate themselves. Moreover, some much simpler organisms have more DNA in each cell than you do.
Even deeper, the atoms making up your body consist of just three types of sub-atomic particles: protons, neutrons and electrons. How simple is that? But taken together, these particles take up only a miniscule volume of each atom. A typical carbon nucleus is just 0.005% of the diameter of a carbon atom, so more than 99.99999999999% of your body is nothing but "empty space"! Well not quite empty; those atoms are held together by electromagnetic fields and photonic forces that determine their chemical properties. The same goes for your molecules with their ionic, covalent and other bonds between atoms, governing all of the chemistry going on inside each cell. When you push your finger against something, the forces are all essentially interacting EM fields resisting the intrusion to maintain the structural integrity among molecules. Are you then mostly a complex and dynamically interactive EM field?
One could delve further into quarks and gluons, but at human temperatures, those are locked inside your neutrons and protons. To summarize therefore, what you are is: mostly non-human, largely common water, a bag of cheap elements, many highly-repetitive molecules, and a lot of empty space, held together by electromagnetic glue! But then, so am I - this is an equal opportunity humiliation! And when you die, the community of cells that make up your body will cease to function, your molecules will dissipate or break down, returning to simpler materials and their elements via entropy. Dust to dust, celestial ashes to ashes! Does that make you feel humble, insignificant, or just weird?
However, I don't want to leave you in that lamentable state. You are indeed more than all that! You are a unique and complex living being. And what you are from a physics and chemistry perspective, is much less important than who you are from a human, social, and spiritual perspective. You are one of the most complex things in the entire Universe, a unique and valuable individual person with consciousness, abilities, memories, rights, intentions, free-will, etc. That is where the real you exists, not in an assembly molecules, however complicated. Indeed, beyond all that, you are the very image of God himself, with an eternal soul! I hope that makes you feel better.
Consider your body: what is it? From one perspective it is a community of cells - some 25 trillions of them - each one a complex biochemical factory, working cooperatively to maintain your life and its various supportive processes. Each cell does its own thing, as it was programmed to do during your development in the womb, but each cell is also connected to and in communication with other cells to build up your organs, as well as their organized whole that together make up your physical self. This is vaguely like an ant colony, with different ants having different roles, all working together for the greater good in the colony's survival and flourishing.
Notwithstanding this physiological picture of health and well-being, most of the cells in your body are not human! Your "micro-biome" includes various bacteria, fungi, other microbes, and not a few larger living things, which together populate your gut, your mouth, your skin, and various other locations in and around your person. Taken together, these cells outnumber those with human DNA. Does that make you grossed-out, mostly alien, or just normal?
Looking deeper, we know that our bodies are mostly - some 70% or so - water. And the remainder is just a variety of organic molecules made up of mostly a handful of abundant chemical elements. In the last century chemists estimated that the value of the raw elements in a typical adult body was worth about $0.84 total. With inflation and resource price changes, that is probably a few dollars today, but still not very much. How does that affect your self worth?
But you say, surely we are more than raw chemical elements? Admittedly, all except the hydrogen atoms are indeed stardust from past supernovae explosions in the Milky Way galaxy. Together those elements form the molecules of life from simple sugars and fats, to more complex hormones and neurotransmitters, and on to complex and interactive enzymes and proteins. And you may want to add, "I have unique and highly complex DNA!" Yes, that is true, but from another perspective you are just a haphazard collection of selfish genes trying to propagate themselves. Moreover, some much simpler organisms have more DNA in each cell than you do.
Even deeper, the atoms making up your body consist of just three types of sub-atomic particles: protons, neutrons and electrons. How simple is that? But taken together, these particles take up only a miniscule volume of each atom. A typical carbon nucleus is just 0.005% of the diameter of a carbon atom, so more than 99.99999999999% of your body is nothing but "empty space"! Well not quite empty; those atoms are held together by electromagnetic fields and photonic forces that determine their chemical properties. The same goes for your molecules with their ionic, covalent and other bonds between atoms, governing all of the chemistry going on inside each cell. When you push your finger against something, the forces are all essentially interacting EM fields resisting the intrusion to maintain the structural integrity among molecules. Are you then mostly a complex and dynamically interactive EM field?
One could delve further into quarks and gluons, but at human temperatures, those are locked inside your neutrons and protons. To summarize therefore, what you are is: mostly non-human, largely common water, a bag of cheap elements, many highly-repetitive molecules, and a lot of empty space, held together by electromagnetic glue! But then, so am I - this is an equal opportunity humiliation! And when you die, the community of cells that make up your body will cease to function, your molecules will dissipate or break down, returning to simpler materials and their elements via entropy. Dust to dust, celestial ashes to ashes! Does that make you feel humble, insignificant, or just weird?
However, I don't want to leave you in that lamentable state. You are indeed more than all that! You are a unique and complex living being. And what you are from a physics and chemistry perspective, is much less important than who you are from a human, social, and spiritual perspective. You are one of the most complex things in the entire Universe, a unique and valuable individual person with consciousness, abilities, memories, rights, intentions, free-will, etc. That is where the real you exists, not in an assembly molecules, however complicated. Indeed, beyond all that, you are the very image of God himself, with an eternal soul! I hope that makes you feel better.
Monday 4 February 2019
Intelligent Design Speculations
As noted in an earlier post, intelligent design (ID) is a theory that claims there is considerable scientific evidence that the Universe, life on planet Earth, and human consciousness are not accidents of naturalistic evolution, but are the results of intentional design by a super intelligence, although who or what that designer may be is not identified. For further details about ID theory, refer to this web site. I will not repeat any of this now; my purpose here is different.
ID theorists are often chastized for not identifying the designer or his methods. I will first point out that Darwinism, the principal naturalistic alternative to ID for life on planet Earth, has been around for 150+ years, with thousands of scientists working on various aspects of it, yet there are still huge uncertainties about how it works and whether it can accomplish everything attributed to it. In contrast, ID has been around for perhaps 30 years and has maybe a dozen scientists working on it openly (i.e. those willing to be known publicly, given the attacks made against anyone promoting ID). Thus, it is hardly surprising that ID theory is not yet fully developed! Even so, it has a lot going for it, usually focusing on the biological information aspect of life on Earth; i.e. where did all that information in DNA come from?
It is correct that ID theory does not offer any mechanism for how the intelligent designer (whoever it was) operated or proceeded to do its design work, nor how all that design got implemented in various life forms. There has been some speculation, of course (see below for mine), but ID purposely avoids saying who the designer was/is and how he/she/it/they did their work. The reason is that there is, as yet, little scientific evidence that would point to a particular designer or its methodology. Given the fossil record, the bio-molecular data, and other available evidence, it is impossible to go beyond detecting the attributes of design in the data.
ID is not the only science having that limitation. Forensics looks at data and can say that some event (e.g. a death) was not an accident, but rather was murder, without identifying the murderer, or precisely how the murder was carried out. Similarly, archaeology can say that certain artefacts (e.g. stone tools, or post hole patterns) are evidence of design and manufacture rather than natural causes, but they usually cannot say who made them without other evidence. It is always assumed that some group of early humans made them, but that is often just an assumption (albeit probably a good one), based on our expectations.
What follows is some idle speculation on my part about one possible mechanism for ID. First off, I assume, for lack of a different word, that “God” is the designer, tinkering or playing with his creation and aiming ultimately to create living beings capable of supporting souls well enough to appreciate and interact with him (that would be us humans). At the same time he is expanding the repertoire of possible life forms, for his own good reasons and pleasure. He perhaps uses his agents (e.g. angels with lab coats?) to do the detailed design work (i.e. defining new genes and other genome changes), and then implementing those designs by incorporating the changes into existing species to create new ones, possibly using methods we would view as “miraculous”. Thus, new or modified genes and other DNA are carefully inserted into existing genomes in somatic cells to provide new features or functions for the new species being created.
Choosing to modify existing species simplifies the work and provides continuity (AKA common descent), but also constrains the type of changes that can be made successfully. Why create something new from scratch when you have a viable species with 98% of what you want, and just need to tweak or add a few genes for some new feature or function? This is the same way that biologists today would work to resurrect lost species like the Woolly Mammoth, for example – implanting a modified egg into a female elephant – so it is not entirely crazy. Of course, human scientists have mammoth DNA to work with, making their job somewhat easier – nothing to design except the process, as difficult as that undoubtedly is. Perhaps in a few more decades, scientists will understand genomes and living systems well enough to invent new genes and their related information needed to implement new features, thereby creating new species of their own.
For what should be obvious reasons, you cannot have a fish giving birth to a reptile, or a dinosaur egg producing a fully fledged bird, so there would have to be some intermediary steps along the way between these different families. Modified somatic cells would have to be compatible with the existing species and be viable in order to develop and grow to maturity within the parents' environmental context, so the steps from one species to the next would have to be small enough to accommodate such practicalities. And at each step, you would have to generate a minimum population of the new species to support reproduction. All that work could, perhaps, be done elsewhere, in a “divine laboratory” somewhere, before releasing the new species into the wild, just as modern scientists would do. Once natural selection had worked to stabilize the new species (or cause its extinction if not truly viable), the next steps could be taken and another new species created.
Those familiar with Darwinian evolution theory will note that this picture looks like “punctuated equilibrium”, but with ID accounting for the punctuations to new species, and natural selection taking care of the periods of equilibrium between intelligent interventions. The difference, of course is that ID readily provides the evolutionary “saltations” (jumps) that Darwin ruled out in his theory, while materialistic evolutionary concepts cannot account for them. Sudden major jumps to a new species in a small population (as inferred from the fossil record, and supported by genomic data) go against any realistic Darwinian process, but fit right into the above ID scenario. This also “explains” where all the bio-information comes from for the origin of life, novel proteins, irreducible complexity, etc. – the hallmarks of ID theory – which naturalistic causes cannot account for. The designer decides what new species it wants, and its agents do the detailed design and lab work to bring them about.
Unlike blind Darwinism, ID can obviously have purpose and goals in mind for its work, easily accounting for the multitude of life forms on Earth, both past and present. All the weird and wonderful plants and animals can be seen as the designer tinkering within his creation, just for the joy of seeing what can be done with the marvellous biology he has developed. ID also neatly accounts for the apparent borrowing of genetic information between distant, unrelated branches of the "tree of life", which Darwinian theories have difficulty explaining, simply labelling it "convergent evolution". For example, the same genetic designs can be used to provide echo-location functions in both bats and in dolphins even though the two mammal branches separated in the fossil record long before echolocation existed. If the designer has a design available, he may incorporate it wherever he wishes, regardless of the pattern of descent to those species.
All this, of course, is not part of formal intelligent design theory, but is just an entertaining romp in theo-biological speculation. Perhaps once ID theory is allowed to exist alongside naturalistic theories about life's origins, researchers can begin to look closely at the saltations in the fossil record, and between the genomes of seemingly related species, to better understand at what points in time the new genomic information was added to create each new species, as well as the nature of the additional DNA needed to bridge the gap between each new species and its assumed precursor. That would go some way to identifying when, how, and how often ID was performed in the biosphere; whether one species at a time continually, or as upgrades to numerous life-forms at distinct and simultaneous points, as after a mass extinction event for example. That would provide a lot more scientific data to fill in ID theory and would allow further speculation about the designer and its methods.
ID theorists are often chastized for not identifying the designer or his methods. I will first point out that Darwinism, the principal naturalistic alternative to ID for life on planet Earth, has been around for 150+ years, with thousands of scientists working on various aspects of it, yet there are still huge uncertainties about how it works and whether it can accomplish everything attributed to it. In contrast, ID has been around for perhaps 30 years and has maybe a dozen scientists working on it openly (i.e. those willing to be known publicly, given the attacks made against anyone promoting ID). Thus, it is hardly surprising that ID theory is not yet fully developed! Even so, it has a lot going for it, usually focusing on the biological information aspect of life on Earth; i.e. where did all that information in DNA come from?
It is correct that ID theory does not offer any mechanism for how the intelligent designer (whoever it was) operated or proceeded to do its design work, nor how all that design got implemented in various life forms. There has been some speculation, of course (see below for mine), but ID purposely avoids saying who the designer was/is and how he/she/it/they did their work. The reason is that there is, as yet, little scientific evidence that would point to a particular designer or its methodology. Given the fossil record, the bio-molecular data, and other available evidence, it is impossible to go beyond detecting the attributes of design in the data.
ID is not the only science having that limitation. Forensics looks at data and can say that some event (e.g. a death) was not an accident, but rather was murder, without identifying the murderer, or precisely how the murder was carried out. Similarly, archaeology can say that certain artefacts (e.g. stone tools, or post hole patterns) are evidence of design and manufacture rather than natural causes, but they usually cannot say who made them without other evidence. It is always assumed that some group of early humans made them, but that is often just an assumption (albeit probably a good one), based on our expectations.
What follows is some idle speculation on my part about one possible mechanism for ID. First off, I assume, for lack of a different word, that “God” is the designer, tinkering or playing with his creation and aiming ultimately to create living beings capable of supporting souls well enough to appreciate and interact with him (that would be us humans). At the same time he is expanding the repertoire of possible life forms, for his own good reasons and pleasure. He perhaps uses his agents (e.g. angels with lab coats?) to do the detailed design work (i.e. defining new genes and other genome changes), and then implementing those designs by incorporating the changes into existing species to create new ones, possibly using methods we would view as “miraculous”. Thus, new or modified genes and other DNA are carefully inserted into existing genomes in somatic cells to provide new features or functions for the new species being created.
Choosing to modify existing species simplifies the work and provides continuity (AKA common descent), but also constrains the type of changes that can be made successfully. Why create something new from scratch when you have a viable species with 98% of what you want, and just need to tweak or add a few genes for some new feature or function? This is the same way that biologists today would work to resurrect lost species like the Woolly Mammoth, for example – implanting a modified egg into a female elephant – so it is not entirely crazy. Of course, human scientists have mammoth DNA to work with, making their job somewhat easier – nothing to design except the process, as difficult as that undoubtedly is. Perhaps in a few more decades, scientists will understand genomes and living systems well enough to invent new genes and their related information needed to implement new features, thereby creating new species of their own.
For what should be obvious reasons, you cannot have a fish giving birth to a reptile, or a dinosaur egg producing a fully fledged bird, so there would have to be some intermediary steps along the way between these different families. Modified somatic cells would have to be compatible with the existing species and be viable in order to develop and grow to maturity within the parents' environmental context, so the steps from one species to the next would have to be small enough to accommodate such practicalities. And at each step, you would have to generate a minimum population of the new species to support reproduction. All that work could, perhaps, be done elsewhere, in a “divine laboratory” somewhere, before releasing the new species into the wild, just as modern scientists would do. Once natural selection had worked to stabilize the new species (or cause its extinction if not truly viable), the next steps could be taken and another new species created.
Those familiar with Darwinian evolution theory will note that this picture looks like “punctuated equilibrium”, but with ID accounting for the punctuations to new species, and natural selection taking care of the periods of equilibrium between intelligent interventions. The difference, of course is that ID readily provides the evolutionary “saltations” (jumps) that Darwin ruled out in his theory, while materialistic evolutionary concepts cannot account for them. Sudden major jumps to a new species in a small population (as inferred from the fossil record, and supported by genomic data) go against any realistic Darwinian process, but fit right into the above ID scenario. This also “explains” where all the bio-information comes from for the origin of life, novel proteins, irreducible complexity, etc. – the hallmarks of ID theory – which naturalistic causes cannot account for. The designer decides what new species it wants, and its agents do the detailed design and lab work to bring them about.
Unlike blind Darwinism, ID can obviously have purpose and goals in mind for its work, easily accounting for the multitude of life forms on Earth, both past and present. All the weird and wonderful plants and animals can be seen as the designer tinkering within his creation, just for the joy of seeing what can be done with the marvellous biology he has developed. ID also neatly accounts for the apparent borrowing of genetic information between distant, unrelated branches of the "tree of life", which Darwinian theories have difficulty explaining, simply labelling it "convergent evolution". For example, the same genetic designs can be used to provide echo-location functions in both bats and in dolphins even though the two mammal branches separated in the fossil record long before echolocation existed. If the designer has a design available, he may incorporate it wherever he wishes, regardless of the pattern of descent to those species.
All this, of course, is not part of formal intelligent design theory, but is just an entertaining romp in theo-biological speculation. Perhaps once ID theory is allowed to exist alongside naturalistic theories about life's origins, researchers can begin to look closely at the saltations in the fossil record, and between the genomes of seemingly related species, to better understand at what points in time the new genomic information was added to create each new species, as well as the nature of the additional DNA needed to bridge the gap between each new species and its assumed precursor. That would go some way to identifying when, how, and how often ID was performed in the biosphere; whether one species at a time continually, or as upgrades to numerous life-forms at distinct and simultaneous points, as after a mass extinction event for example. That would provide a lot more scientific data to fill in ID theory and would allow further speculation about the designer and its methods.
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