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

by David Turell , Monday, April 15, 2019, 17:41 (2047 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: 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.

dhw: Darwin knew nothing about DNA. So what did Darwin write that has now been invalidated? What is the issue? Some evolutionists believe that if there is junk DNA, it supports the case for randomness and destroys the case for design. And so the less junk there is, the weaker their argument becomes. I have no idea how much is junk and how much is not. My point is that even if it turns out that all of DNA is useful, these evolutionists can argue that it is explained by Darwinian natural selection, whereby what is useful survives. And you still haven’t come up with an answer.

I'm only trying to explain what current Darwinists think. You have offered them an out, which I have tried to explain they won't accept, since natural selection does not act on DNA directly.

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.

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.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: It is blindingly obvious that if common descent is true, any innovation involves new DNA instructions, and it makes no difference to our discussion whether the process takes ten years or ten million years (though you have ignored the vital point about the role of environmental conditions). I have no idea whether DNA is deleted or just restructured. The article talks of storehouses being wiped out, but the new organisms must still have formed their innovations out of the DNA that had survived. The two questions remain (a) how much existing DNA is junk or is useful, and (b) what are the implications if there is no junk (see above).

And as I read Behe's new book, he reports Darwinist findings that advances in evolution are always caused by damaging genes, damage they admit to! Generally accompanied by convoluted excuses as to how it follows Darwin's theory.