Genome complexity: pseudogenes (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, August 29, 2013, 13:49 (4105 days ago) @ David Turell

I have attacked the claim that non-junk makes evolution into a "failed paradigm". David claims that evolution is a collection of disjointed conjectures. I have tried to show how these conjectures are interlinked.-Dhw: Nothing disjointed here, but controversy over HOW the changes from which nature selects actually take place.-DAVID: It is a major controversy. How do those punctuated jumps take place. Epigenetics is a very suggestive way, but it only produces modifications. So again I think God tweakes.-The intelligent cell/genome would be sufficient to explain the innovations that drive evolution and cause the "punctuated jumps".
 
Dhw: You are arguing that evolution is a "failed paradigm" because junk is not junk. We have long since agreed to jettison random mutations and gradualism. Evolution does not deal with the origin of the genome. So how does non-junk lead to the failure of common descent and natural selection as an evolutionary paradigm?-DAVID: My concept is still consciousness pervades the universe through God. The atheists love 'junk' as evidence of failed DNA experiments, illustrating a chance method of evolution without purpose. The more purposeful coordination found in the Genome, the less likely chance was ever present. The newest research supports teleology more and more. ENCODE was a shock to atheists and they have produced article after article to discredit it without success.-So how does ENCODE lead to the failure of common descent and natural selection as an evolutionary paradigm? Or do you now agree that it doesn't? As regards teleology, I did respond to that earlier, and I think the point is worth developing. Survival of the individual, propagation of the species, self-improvement, exploration, experimentation etc. may be purposes in themselves at all levels of existence. If Margulis is right, and bacterial cells "as already 'conscious' entities" merged to create the eukaryotic cell, you can extrapolate a whole purposeful pattern of evolution from this one advance, but it does not need to be God-driven. The drive can come from within. And so if there is no such thing as junk DNA, that is because organisms inevitably retain what is useful as they fulfil their own purposes. This may be a blow to atheism, but it is not a blow to evolution, which as you yourself have confirmed is perfectly compatible with belief in God.