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NO PERFECTION. "No organism has to be perfect. For example, many taxa (like some mosses, protists, fungi, sharks, opossums, and crayfish) have changed little over great expanses of time. They are not marching up a ladder of progress. Rather, they are fit enough to survive and reproduce, and that is all that is necessary to ensure their existence." https://lnkd.in/djzVhcc View in LinkedIn

FUNCTIONAL JUNK. "Scientists now believe that TEs make up more than 40% of the human genome. It is also widely believed that TEs might carry out some biological function, most likely a regulatory one." (TE = transposable elements). https://lnkd.in/CCzK4Q View in LinkedIn

GENETIC PARASITES. "Repeated DNA makes up a large fraction of a typical mammalian genome, and some repetitive elements are able to move within the genome (transposons and retrotransposons). DNA transposons move from one genomic location to another by a cut-and-paste mechanism." https://lnkd.in/eKngvkU View in LinkedIn

JUNK DNA WAS FOREIGN MATERIAL. "A large fraction of the human genome is composed of interspersed repetitive sequences that by and large represent inactivated copies (fossils) of transposable elements." https://lnkd.in/efudabf View in LinkedIn

MANY FOREIGN GENES. "Approximately one-sixth of the genes in the tardigrade genome were found to have been acquired through horizontal transfer, a proportion nearly double the proportion of previous known cases of extreme horizontal gene transfer (HGT) in animals. Foreign genes have impacted the composition of the tardigrade genome: supplementing, expanding, and replacing endogenous gene families, including those families implicated in stress tolerance." https://lnkd.in/eRtAbJz View in LinkedIn

TRANSITIONAL MORPHS. Nothing is as it seems to be. We marvel at nature's inventiveness, with good reason. But no living morsel under the sun has been purpose built. All are morphs from previous borrowed inventions, with limitless examples of aeons of tinkering for new purposes. All are morphs in restless transitions, destination unknown, with a thousand blind ends, and a few startling successes. Morphs, both genetically and phenotypically. https://lnkd.in/dxcB7XZ View in LinkedIn

NOT FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES. We always assume that evolution has developed the most highly adapted design for a particular function -- think Darwin's Finches -- and how adapted they are to their particular foods. However, most of evolution seems to have been a series of workarounds from an outmoded design to a new use, rather than a design from first principles. The evolution of the human foot is a case in point. It derived from a quadrupedal and arboreal ancestor, trying to make it suitable for bipedal locomotion. Or, put differently, turning a square into a triangle. View in LinkedIn

"THE MARCH OF PROGRESS is the canonical representation of evolution – the one picture immediately grasped and viscerally understood by all...The straitjacket of linear advance goes beyond iconography to the definition of evolution: the word itself becomes a synonym for progress." (Stephen Jay Gould). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Progress View in LinkedIn

BIBLICAL VIEW. "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him." (Genesis 1:27). http://biblehub.com/genesis/1-27.htm View in LinkedIn

FACELESS DRIVER. "Evolution has no purpose. It is not changing a population into a preconceived ideal. It is simply the sum of various forces and their influence on the genetic and phenotypic variance of a population." As dispassionate as the deep sea or a cliff face. https://lnkd.in/d3pZ6np View in LinkedIn