Evolution: a different view with loss of DNA segments (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, January 06, 2019, 18:54 (2147 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID’s comment: This research supports Behe's theory about loss of DNA driving evolution. Note the comment about small population size. There were never very many hominins, yet major changes occurred. Deletion appears to be a major concept, supporting the idea that original DNA had all the information needed for evolution. Note the DNA of an amoeba is larger than a human DNA but with just a few functional genes. Note my bold about bacteria.

dhw: Evolution is an ongoing process! You seem to have forgotten that the migratory ocean sticklebacks had already evolved their spines, but when they entered new environments, they needed different structures, which in some cases meant jettisoning structures which had evolved earlier. (Like pre-baleen whales' teeth.) I propose that the original DNA contained the ability to make these changes (the ability is the “information”, not the changes themselves, which = your 3.8 byo computer programme for every change). And yes indeed, small individual groups in different environments would explain why different structures evolved in order to cope with different environments. This is why I have proposed that a particular group of apes in a particular location may have decided (and most likely needed) to descend from the trees, whereas elsewhere their brothers had no problem. [I should have said brothers and sisters.]

DAVID: Of course evolution is ongoing. You totally miss the point of small groups and large changes in form. To repeat, a small group of hominins evolved very advanced changes in the human form and brain.

dhw: How have I missed the point? That IS the point of my last example!

Yes you have. A tiny number of existent hominins made enormous changes to advance the human form and brain in short geologic time. Where did the large number of mutations come from your small group of apes on the ground? At one point it is thought there were only 10,000 pre-sapiens living! As for 3.8 byo pre-programming, it must an included a system for necessary minor adaptations within a species as I've described.

DAVID: Not millions of sticklebacks with new mutations and some changes. The issue is still chance vs. design.

dhw: No it isn’t. You claimed that the sticklebacks supported Behe’s theory that loss of DNA drives evolution. I have explained that in some cases evolution will require the jettisoning of previously evolved structures that are no longer suited to the new environment.

Same point as Behe. Jettisoning advances evolution.

DAVID: More to the point why do amoeba have more DNA bases the we do? All the evidenced points to the 3.8 byo DNA being ready for evolution with information supplied by God.

dhw: I don’t know enough about the subject to discuss amoeba, but of course DNA must have been ready for evolution from the start, or evolution would never have happened. That does not mean that your God provided the first cells with detailed programmes to be passed down through billions of years and organisms and environments for every single innovation, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life! The “information” – as you agreed earlier – could have been in the form of a mechanism capable of autonomous design, which would make its own changes according to the requirements and/or opportunities offered by changing conditions.

I never agreed to autonomous design, and you know it. Design with guidelines, in existing DNA.