Junk DNA goodbye!: neutral DNA is shown as smaller (Introduction)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, October 29, 2018, 05:13 (2003 days ago) @ David Turell

"This suggests that while most of our genetic material is formed of non-functional sequences, the vast majority of it evolves indirectly under some type of selection."
https://elifesciences.org/articles/36317

DAVID: And who or what is doing the selecting?

dhw: Nature, as in natural selection? Whatever is useful will survive?

DAVID: Unless there are extinctions. We don't know what is natural and what is controlled.

dhw: Extinctions are the natural consequence of organisms not having the necessary equipment to cope with changing conditions. But we are talking about so-called “junk DNA”. Why do you find it so difficult to accept the idea that something useful is more likely to survive than something which is of no use?

David: The point of the poorly thought out 'junk DNA' theory is that the junk was supposed to have survived despite being useless. It appears 80% of DNA has some form of function.

This is a big rub for me with evolution. 'Random mutations' have to magically hit on not one, not two, but hundreds, if not thousands' of proper permutations for even some of the least complex adaptations before 'natural selection' can passively filter it.Yet, many such adaptations would be useless, in a two way fashion, without each other. Call it biological codependency.

This mindset of negating biological codependency has led, I believe, to a fundamental misunderstanding of how genetics work. Further, because of the chaotic nature of life, and the random nature of misfortunes, I do not think 'survival of the fittest' has any real explanatory power. The fittest may have been called by sheer dumb luck, thus reducing natural selection as nothing more than random chance.

All of the mad scrambling to recover from one fire after another about evolutionary theory should clue them in, but they see their marginal successes as grand victories, impressing themselves with their own cleverness, and become blind to the evidence in front of their eyes.

It makes me sad, not angry, though it used to make me angry as well. If only they (research scientist) could ever set their ego aside, along with their own preconceived notions. I know DHW will likely chime in and say we all have our preconceived notions, including me, and he would be right. But a person can learn to let go of those .

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.