Junk DNA: goodbye!: An RNA controls chromosome number (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, December 31, 2015, 12:58 (3033 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You're quite right, I should have put it the other way round. Natural selection ensures the survival of what is useful. But if useful material is passed onto subsequent organisms, how does that cast doubt on evolution? (I am not trying to defend the atheist line - I am merely pointing out that both sides can twist any discovery to fit in with their hypotheses.)-DAVID: You've got it, but, evolution will always pass on useful information in the newly reconstructed DNA. It is generally found that mutations that cause 'advances' actually delete existing information! An initial hailing of junk as 'proof' is now being walked back.
Afterthought: The finding that information is lost when advancing adaptations occur, is part of the reasoning I use to think that DNA was coded for all of evolution from the beginning of life.-This is very much in line with hard determinism, as explained in the article Romansh referred us to: ”Hard determinists will dispute that subatomic particle behaviour is really random and instead claim that the way they behave is exactly as predetermined as everything else in the universe has been since the Big Bang.” (My bold) According to you all evolutionary innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders are predetermined (by your God). Romansh himself doesn't like "predetermined", and prefers ”caused”, but of course random events have causes too, which removes the distinction between random and predetermined. The question is whether evolution is directed by an intention, and that is where the three of us probably diverge: you think there is an overall purpose directed by your God, and basically only humans have the ability to determine their own way of life, though maybe other large organisms have a small degree of freedom to modify your God's work; I tend to opt for all levels of life pursuing their own evolutionary purposes (and if God exists, that would have been his intention); Romansh will have to speak for himself...