Junk DNA goodbye!: the battle with Dan Graur continues (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, May 10, 2020, 15:42 (1659 days ago) @ dhw

QUOTE: "If the human genome is indeed devoid of junk DNA as implied by the ENCODE project, then a long, undirected evolutionary process cannot explain the human genome. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, then all DNA, or as much as possible, is expected to exhibit function. If ENCODE is right, then evolution is wrong." (David’s bold)

DAVID: The 'no junk DNA' is important for atheists to fight as Graur explains. Despite Darwin's later protestations following his first edition that God did it, atheists need his natural evolution theory to stay intact.

dhw: We have discussed this over and over again. If ENCODE is right, and there is no junk, any self-respecting atheist should be able to say: there you are, natural selection ensures that only useful things survive.

DAVID: You are missing Graur's point. The key to his argument is chance mutations should fill DNA if most of them were useless and abandoned by natural selection.

dhw: You are missing your own point! You bolded: "if ENCODE is right, evolution is wrong", and you said that junk DNA was important for atheists and Graur’s atheism “is based on chance as the only cause of evolution so there MUST be junk DNA which proves that point.” In other words, if ENCODE is right, there is no junk, Graur is wrong, and evolution and atheism are wrong! Now please tell me what is wrong with my bolded argument above – i.e. that whatever was useless WAS abandoned by natural selection.

You are right and a mistake by me fooled you. The bold in my original statement should read "if encode is right, then any theory that evolution was naturally caused is wrong." Your bolded comment is correct but off the point also.