Genome complexity: pseudogenes (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, August 23, 2013, 10:50 (3898 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: If junk DNA is not junk, how does that prove evolution is a failed paradigm? -DAVID: Junk has been used to say that natural selection discarded stuff throughout purposeless chance evoluton.-dhw: I thought the atheist point was that so-called junk DNA (i.e. those existing elements of DNA that are of no use) proved that life was not the product of design, since a designer would not create anything useless (or at least an "omnipotent, all-wise Creator" wouldn't). If now it's proved that some is junk and some isn't, both sides can claim partial support;-DAVID: You are still missing a major point. Years ago more than 90% of DNA was thought to be junk. Now many scientists support the idea that up to 80% is not junk. As research into DNA becomes more and more refined it seems that junk disappears and more and more DNA appears purposeful. If recognized junk becomes only a tiny percentage of DNA where does the atheist argument devolve to?-Perhaps you overlooked the rest of my post! Let me repeat it for you:
"[...] if none of it is junk, atheist evolutionists can claim natural selection has streamlined DNA, theists can claim that God has streamlined DNA, and theist evolutionists can claim that God designed DNA in such a way that natural selection would streamline it. It doesn't matter what we discover about Nature, the information can always be twisted to fit the theory."