Adaptation is internal, not external, yet another paper confirms. For the Religion of Darwin, a theological mantra is ‘adaptation proves evolution’. As if having more hair or less hair is proof of fish to fishermen. Neo-Darwinism uses the magic of random mutations (almost all mutations are neutral or negative, so you would regress not progress) cites the environment as a key “driver” of adaptation. The newer science of epigenetics makes bunk of this. Internal factors “tune” the genome to its surroundings quickly, without waiting for some “beneficial random mutation” to arrive, delivered by Chuckie’s magic mutation fairy.
Epigenetic matching of the genome to environmental constraints is very different from Neo-Darwinism because it locates adaptation internally instead of externally. Our bodies possess an internal engineering process, a supra-layer of genetic interactions which allow modifications of genes and erases the Darwinian miracle of the personal God of natural selection, who according to the religion of Evolution, picks winners and losers based on chance or fitness (natural selection).
One Sequence, Many Variations
(The Scientist, 5 Oct 2022).
At the Van Andel Institute, researchers have a new take on what makes animals and plants adapt to their environment. It’s called epigenetics, “above the genes.” Andrew Pospisilik is a founding member of the VAI’s Metabolic and Nutritional Programming group. “Pospisilik explores the epigenetic changes that give organisms the plasticity to change in response to their environments.”
“For years, scientists have been fascinated with how DNA mutations impart phenotypic changes. However, epigeneticists including Andrew Pospisilik think mutations are responsible for only a portion of the variation present in all organisms. Epigenetic changes from molecules attaching to DNA and histones—proteins that compact DNA into chromatin—and other factors that modulate gene expression allow organisms the flexibility to change according to their environment. These changes can be inherited, altering the phenotypes of future generations in the absence of mutations.
DNA is tightly wound around chromatin, affecting access to genes by transcription factors and polymerases.
To the extent this happens, it represents a very different picture from classic Neo-Darwinism. Neo-Darwinism places all phenotypic change in random mutations—mistakes in the genes, whether from cosmic rays, copying errors or other undirected sources—and claims that only those that are mildly “beneficial” will be inherited, while the vast majority are deleterious or neutral.
According to Pospisilik organisms can get many variations from one sequence, applying epigenetic factors built into the cell’s internal operations (e.g., regulatory elements). Mutations cannot tell the whole story, he continues. “For example, identical twins are not always identical.”
These factors exist within the epigenome to give flexibility to organisms placed in new environments. If variations are resulting from within the organism, they are not the consequence of mutations.
Another Darwin fail.