Junk DNA: goodbye!: used for therapy (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, August 28, 2017, 13:21 (2645 days ago) @ David Turell

David’s comment: 'Junk' DNA, as a concept, is important to atheists, who point to so-called junk areas in DNA as a proof that the process of evolution is really at random, and these areas are evidence of discarded useless genes from past attempts at evolution. The less evidence of purpose, the more likely it is all a chance mechanism, no God needed. It appears more and more about 805 of DNA is functional.

Junk DNA may be important to atheists who wish to debunk the idea that God created every species separately (i.e. why would he specially design something useless?) but (a) it tells us nothing whatsoever about how life and the mechanism for evolution began, and (b) a theist evolutionist can simply argue that God allowed the mechanism to run its own course, and so it was perfectly natural that different species should retain those elements of the mechanism that were no longer of use to them. If there is no junk DNA, the theist can say: “There you are, perfect design”, and the atheist can say that evolution gets rid of any material that is not useful. Both sides can take it or leave it, and it won’t make the slightest difference to their beliefs.