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Mike Gene — Someone You Should Know

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Mike Gene is the pseudonym of one of the most insightful individuals in the ID/evolution debate. He remains critical of various aspects of ID, but he is far more critical of conventional evolutionary theory. For his views, have a look at his website. To get a flavor of his thinking, here is a recent post of his at the ARN website:

The problem with the R[andom]M[utation]/N[atural]S[election] brand of evolutionary theory is that it explains too much. That is, it can always be counted on to come up with some explanation after the fact. Consider a small sample of examples:

1. Nobody [someone who posts on the ARN board] just linked to an article where we learn:

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“Carroll contends that Evo Devo simply has stunned biologists, reshaping their picture of how evolution works. Not a single biologist, he writes, ever anticipated that the genes controlling how a tiny fruit fly’s body and organs are made also control the making of most animals, including man.”
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How can biologists have been so stunned about such an important aspect of evolution when they had the evolutionary theory in hand the whole time? Why didn’t evolutionary theory lead them to predict that the genes controlling how a tiny fruit fly’s body and organs are made also control the making of most animals, including man?

2. With microbial evolution, it has recently become clear that lateral gene transfer has played a fundamental role. Did “evolutionary theory” predict this? Not really. On the contrary, most evolutionary biologists resisted the idea that LGT would be so important in microbial evolution.

3. Junk DNA. We still can’t seem to get a decent read on what “evolutionary theory” has to say about it. Does evolutionary theory predict it should be functional? Or does it predict that its the flotsam and jetsam left over from the tinkering blind watchmaker?

4. RNA polymerase and proofreading. Darwinian theory explained why RNA polymerase could not proofread. Now it explains why RNA polymerase can proofread.

Or, if someone wants, simply consider evolutionary psychology.

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