Encode rejected (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, February 23, 2013, 15:38 (4268 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: It's not clear to me from your own comments whether you are accusing the critics of twisting the meaning of "functional" or repeating their own accusation that this is what the ENCODE people have done. -I've chosen to answer this one question of yours as the entire subject is very convoluted. Encode folks are as valid and clear thinking microbiologists as James Shapiro, and just as frightening to committed Darwinists, who are defending the old turf. These are scientific brains at war. The word 'functional' is twisted beyond belief in the meat of the article, and the purpose is to degrade the statement of Encode that 80% of the DNA is 'functional'. What Encode showed is that modifying segments of gene expression are scattered over 80% of the molecule. So far, what is inbetween those segments may be simply spacers for 3-D purposes as I noted, may have no other purpose, or may have some other not yet detected functionality.-A key tenet of Darwinism is that the DNA is so giant because a lot of junk DNA was left behind as evolution progressed in developing this molecule. This article now claims that there is useful junk (!) and true garbage, the first time that term has appeared. Darwin does not explain why the amoeba has a larger DNA than humans and some plants have 15-20% more. DNA has been a giant molecule from the beginning of life. And human DNA is filled with transpositions, repeats, viral segments, and so on. Yet the controls over the code are extremely tight in the copy mechanisms. Is junk, junk or isn't it? That is really not clear as functions are found where originally none was expected to be. That is a key, expectation based on preceding theory. The original thinking about a simple DNA coding process, one gene, one protein produced, is totally out the window. Original Darwin expectations are constantly twisted beyond belief by new discoveries. The complexity complexifies on a weekly basis with every new finding.-What is apparent to me from reading Shapiro's recent book is that the scientists who are nanotechnicians in their study of the nanomachines in cells, may be committed to evolution as a valid process, but raise serious doubts about the nitty-gritty of basic Darwin theory. This is appearing from philosophers of science like Nagel. Darwin's simple, common descent, natural selection and random mutationcan't possibly explain the complexity in the cells. DNA does not fit the template proposed by the evolution theorists prior to these discoveries. -What is obvious to me is simple Darwinism does not work when the new findings are analyzed, and the authors of this article are semantically scrambling to redefine what functionality is, to degrade the conclusions of the Encode group.