I’ve talked about some of these ideas elsewhere and was only considering giving it its own post… but after having just read this article a few minutes ago, I figured that now was the time to spit this stuff out.

“A close-up view of the human genome has revealed its innermost workings to be far more complex than first thought.”

Oh, you don’t say?

Yeah so, I’m no authority on evolutionary theory but I am familiar with a lot of the misconceptions that other people have regarding it. It’s one thing to judge a idea based on its merits but it’s another thing altogether to accept it whole-heartedly without really considering its implications and following them out to their logical end. I’ve noticed that a lot of people who believe that evolution is “the answer” haven’t really put that much thought into what the theory truly suggests.

First I’m going to pick apart what I believe are erroneous assumptions made about the process of evolution and then I’m going to suggest a couple alternate ideas with their own possible implications. Feel free to pick apart my ideas too, as you may feel I’m not following them to their logical end either.

Here we go…

“Natural selection is the source of genetic variation.”

The idea behind natural selection is that the creatures fit enough to survive and reproduce will pass on their traits to successive generations whereas those that don’t survive, do not — thus weeding-out “inferior” traits while promoting and spreading the ostensibly “useful” traits. However, genetic recombination over the course of many years is NOT the actual source of genetic variation. What sexual reproduction does is shuffle the existing traits of both parents and pass them onto offspring. Sexual reproduction and successive generations are NOT the source of new traits… mutation is.

If it were not so, then how could a unicellular asexual organism ever progress through time to be a complex sexual organism using ONLY the traits of the original life form? Genes must be added… genes must be changed for this to happen.

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“Mutation is a random thing.”

Many people assume that genetic mutation is a wholly random thing, but there is nothing that really supports that position. Declaring something as “random” is just another way of saying “I don’t know the causes behind this particular effect.” If one is aware of all the possible factors and permutations within a system then that system ceases to appear random. The complexity of certain systems prevents us from knowing everything about them, but that isn’t to say they must necessarily operate without any underlying rhyme or reason to them.

There are certain types of mutation that we already know about such as those caused by interfering forces such as toxins or radiation, and those caused by “copy errors” during DNA replication. However, we also know that cells are equipped to repair changes made to their DNA molecules. It’s actually a constant process due to the damage we recieve from UV light rays. Besides that, mutation is assumed random. So then… how does a cell know when not to repair a DNA change? How does a cell differentiate between a good change and a bad change, especially a change that just “randomly” popped-up?

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“Evolution is not needs-based.”

This is tied to the assumption that genetic mutation is a random occurance, and will segue me into the idea of Involution.

The idea that evolution is not needs-based says that mutations are perpetuated only depending upon how useful they turn out to be. That is, a mutation doesn’t actually serve a purpose or function until after it’s been expressed and passed-on to subsequent generations. I don’t know about you, but to me that doesn’t really seem to make much sense… and this is where involution comes into play.

The idea of involution says that before a thing evolves, it must first be involved. That is, engaged in some type of awareness or interaction with its surrounding environment. From this perspective, mutations are not random but instead serve specific purposes. Consider it like this… if light had never existed to be seen then would eyes ever have developed? A person who believes that mutation is random must say yes to this whereas a person who believes in involution would say no — for if there is no need for eyes, then there is no reason for them to develop.

How do molecules form? By atoms becoming involved with other atoms in their environment.
How does life survive? By organisms becoming involved with other organisms in their environment. Why should evolution be any different when the pattern of “stuff getting involved with other stuff” occurs at every level of existence?

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“Junk DNA”

One of the things the linked article mentions is “junk DNA.” As you know, the vast majority of our genes appear to serve no purpose, but the likelihood of that being true is rather remote. Just because scientists don’t know what they code for yet doesn’t mean they don’t code for something. This is where I introduce my own ideas (I mean… I think they’re my own but I don’t know who else may have already stated them) and their possible implications…

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“Self-modifying code”

It’s long been said that DNA sequences bear a striking resemblence to computer code. Now in programming, there is this concept known as “self-modifying code” — code that alters it’s own instructions upon being executed. I believe that so-called junk DNA may serve an important role in genetic self-modification.

My line of reasoning is that an organism must first be involved with it’s environment in order to evolve to fit it. So… if adaptation is purposeful, then by what mechanism would it function? I would posit that portions of junk DNA are somehow directly influenced by the entire organism’s involvement with the surrounding environment. That is, junk DNA’s coded functions activate upon specific environmental triggers and result in specific genetic changes affecting, perhaps, the entire DNA template or even just a small portion of it.

A definate cause followed by a definate effect… is this or is this not more appealing to the scientific mind than simply chalking-up change to complete randomness?

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Now there are several implications if all this were to be true, the first and not least of which being that a whole lot of existing evolutionary theory would have to be thrown-out the window, something that “the establishment” is never really keen on doing. Another implication is that complex speciation could potentially occur en masse given the right environmental conditions. Lastly, if all this truly IS purpose-driven… then who or what is dictating that purpose?