Molecular Darwinism Ignores Information
In an attempt to bring DNA under Darwin’s mechanism and thermodynamics, this theory ignores the elephant in the room.
Put a padlock on Chuck in the Box to prevent unwelcome episodes of Up Chuck.
Genetic Code Evolution and Darwin’s Evolution Theory Should Consider DNA an ‘Energy Code’ (Rutgers University). They call it “molecular Darwinism.” Evolutionists at Rutgers University tackle the steep hurdle at the heart of the origin of life: how did DNA become the carrier of a genetic code? The idea is that Darwinism needs a linkage to thermodynamics: “‘Survival of the fittest’ phenomenon is only part of the evolution equation.”
Darwin’s theory of evolution should be expanded to include consideration of a DNA stability “energy code” – so-called “molecular Darwinism” – to further account for the long-term survival of species’ characteristics on Earth, according to Rutgers scientists.
The iconic genetic code can be viewed as an “energy code” that evolved by following the laws of thermodynamics (flow of energy), causing its evolution to culminate in a nearly singular code for all living species, according to the Rutgers co-authored study in the journal Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics.1
To illustrate their point, they show three possible configurations of DNA out of “trillions of possibilities.” Only one of them—the one used by all living organisms—is thermodynamically stable.
The scientists expanded the underpinnings of the landmark “survival of the fittest” Darwinian evolutionary theory to include “molecular Darwinism.” Darwin’s revolutionary theory is based on the generational persistence of a species’ physical features that allow it to survive in a given environment through “natural selection.” Molecular Darwinism refers to physical characteristics that persist through generations because the regions of the molecular DNA that code for those traits are unusually stable.
It is true that DNA is thermodynamically stable, but did that “evolve” by an “energy code”? The argument is like saying, “Birds, pigs and sauropods are among trillions of possibilities for powered flight, but only birds have persistent, stable flight characteristics. There must have been, therefore, a ‘flight code’ that evolved to weed out pigs and sauropods to satisfy the laws of thermodynamics. Since flight evolved by natural selection, we could term this ‘flight Darwinism.'” The fallacy is obvious; it begs the question of how numerous, interdependent specifications emerged by Darwin’s Stuff Happens Law.
The Rutgers Darwinists ignored the elephant in the room of their thinking: the question of the origin of genetic information in DNA that could be translated into functional information in proteins. But they promise futureware for that:
Next steps include recasting and mapping the human genome chemical sequence into an “energy genome,” so DNA regions with different energy stabilities can be correlated with physical structures and biological functions.
This hope cannot succeed. The information in DNA is not a function of energy or stability. Each base pair is equal in energy to any other base pair. The sequence is a function of information, not energy. If the sequence had originated according to energy considerations alone, it would most likely be repetitive, not informational. The key to the genetic code is its aperiodicity, or specification – just like the key to semantics in language is the sequence of letters, not their energy states.
- Horst H. Klump, Jens Völker, and Kenneth J. Breslauer, Energy mapping of the genetic code and genomic domains: implications for code evolution and molecular Darwinism. Quarterly Reviews of Biophysics: Cambridge University Press: 04 November 2020.
True to form, the Darwinists rationalize their speculative, fallacy-laden argument with hand-waving appeals to what it might do to help sick people get well: they say their research “would enable better selection of DNA targets for molecular-based therapeutics.” That’s a promissory note with no due date, a snake oil with no clinical trials.
This article also answers atheists who complain when creationists criticize evolution as ‘Darwinism’. ‘Evolutionary theory has progressed way beyond Charles Darwin for a long time,’ they will assert. Well, lookie here: these evolutionists at Rutgers do not hesitate to up Chuck with references to ‘molecular Darwinism’ and Charlie’s key phrases natural selection and survival of the fittest. They describe it as “the landmark ‘survival of the fittest’ Darwinian evolutionary theory.” It is perfectly up to date, therefore, to describe evolution as Darwinism.