Logic and evolution: Darwin theory is not scientific (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, April 14, 2019, 15:44 (2049 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: The dispute concerns the implications of there being junk or no junk in the genome. If there is no junk, those Darwinians who claim that the presence of junk supports their case against design will be proved wrong. But if they are too stupid to realize that no junk supports the Darwinian case for natural selection as the preserver of what is useful, then more fool them.

DAVID: Natural selection cannot control what is in the genome. It can only work with what is offered by new mutations and that is the only level of its choosing ability. It cannot directly cause removal of genes

dhw: We agree that natural selection creates nothing, but works on whatever exists. If what exists is useful, it will naturally survive. If it is no longer useful, it will naturally disappear. This is an ongoing process, by which yesterday’s innovation may become today’s redundancy. If there is no junk DNA, it simply means that the DNA is useful, thereby confirming Darwin’s theory that natural selection preserves what is useful. Why do you find this so difficult to accept?

DAVID: You are totally confused. Your platitudes about Darwin and natural selection are correct at the level of living and surviving. But that is not at the functioning genome level of DNA with new mutations and deletions. They change the organisms living abilities which is then subject to the trials of natural selection. See today's entry on extinction and recovery.

dhw: The confusion is yours. Mutations and deletions within the genome have everything to do with living and surviving and with the adaptations and innovations that drive evolution! The claim that no junk means that “Darwin is dead” (the subject of this discussion) is nonsense, because the principle of natural selection applies at all levels of life: if something is useful, it will survive. Calling this a platitude does not mean it is wrong.

Still confused. Natural selection is passive as a receiver of what DNA offers it represented as the attributes of a living organism. Surviving or extinct, the DNA is part of a living bush of life in which the patterns of DNA remain changed only as the bush complexifies, 80% functional as ENCODE reports. Graur, the author of your 'nonsense' firmly believes 80-90% of DNA is 'junk'. So 'junk' becomes a huge issue in whether Darwin has any validity.

Re Extinction and recovery:

QUOTE: They found that total complexity recovered before the number of species -- a finding that suggests that a certain level of ecological complexity is needed before diversification can take off.

In other words, mass extinctions wipe out a storehouse of evolutionary innovations from eons past. The speed limit is related to the time it takes to build up a new inventory of traits that can produce new species at a rate comparable to before the extinction event.[/i]

dhw: The fact that it takes time for different life forms to emerge after an extinction has nothing to do with the implications of junk/no junk. Please note the vital link between the environment (ecological complexity) and diversification: cells/cell communities respond to the needs and opportunities that arise from environmental change. No hint that your God preprogrammes or dabbles all the mutations before the environment changes.

The implication I see is the requirement to build new DNA instructions on the surviving old DNA and time involved. No implication natural selection deleted useless DNA.