Reasoning with Darwinists

In short, you can't (*).

Cornelius Hunter: Of Turtles and the Closing of the Evolutionary Mind

...Life scientists think in lock-step and no skepticism or doubt is allowed. This narrowing of view is not just an after effect, it is a powerful constraint and influence on the science, for all findings are interpreted according to the dogma. That recent study on the evolutionary origin of turtles is a typical example.

The evolution of turtles has always been a problem. ...

The new study purports to resolve the dilemma (they say the evidence is overwhelming that turtles evolved from a common ancestor of birds and crocodilians). And how did they solve the problem? They used the so-called UCEs (ultra conserved elements) and their flanking regions. But there is one problem: UCEs falsify [Darwinian] evolution.

That is, at least, what one evolutionist told me years ago [I, too, had been told that by a True Believer biologist-in-training -- it was, after all, a common trope amongst Darwinists at the time, in must the same way that they all repeat the quip about the Pre-Cambrian Rabbit, as though they've said something meaningful, and as though they've driven a stake in the ground from which they will not retreat, upon pain of incoherence], before UCEs were discovered. Identical or nearly identical functionally unconstrained DNA sequences, conserved broadly across different species, would undoubtedly falsify evolution. That falsifier was discovered in the form of UCEs.

Indeed, one evolutionist exclaimed “I about fell off my chair” when seeing the UCE comparisons. Surely these absurdly conserved sequences must be utterly essential. But hundreds of tests failed to reveal their importance. In fact many of the sequences could be removed altogether with little effect.

But of course, as usual, that [the claim made by Darwinists before the discovery of UCE sequences that such a hypothetical discovery would falsify Darwinism] was Darwinian Doublespeak as we were told to move along yet again. No one so much as whispered a word of doubt about evolution and the scene returned to normal, just as in the Star Wars bar scene. Evolution is still a fact, UCEs or no UCEs.

So now, years later, UCEs not only are no longer a problem for the evolutionary mind, they may freely be used as evidence for [Darwinistic] evolution. The fact of [Darwinistic] evolution is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Evidence, no matter how contradictory, is interpreted according to [Darwinistic] evolution, and then recruited as yet more proof texts for [Darwinistic] evolution.

The turtle story is not merely another tale of contradictory data that make little sense on evolution. It is another example of the closing of the evolutionary mind.

Anyone who has ever tried to reason with DarwinDefenders has seen this sort of bait-and-switch regarding what possible discoveries would falsify Darwinism.

Now, regardless of what any DarwinDefender did or did not say, and regardless of whether he did or did not have standing to proclaim what would or would not falsify Darwinism -- use your own mind. [edit: already in the comments, I see that one DarwinDefender is attempting that ploy; so, again, I say: use your own mind]

'Ultra Conserved Elements' are identical, or nearly so, stretches of DNA sequences found within the so-called "junk DNA" of species that, according to Darwinism, are separated by tens or even hundreds of millions of years of divergent descent. By the very logic of Darwinism, such as it is, since these UCEs are still identical, or nearly so, after all that "evolution", then they must be vital to the life processes of the individual organism.

Yet, as Mr Hunter makes reference, when scientists run experiments in which they "knock-out" UCEs in a fertilized egg (of say, a mouse or rabbit), and allow that organism to mature into an adult of its species, they do not observe deleterious effects upon the organism – that is, UDEs do not appear to be vital to the life processes of the individual organism.

Yet, if Darwinism were true, and these DNA sequences are not vital to the life processes of the individual organism, as they appear not to be, then there is nothing at all to prevent them becoming randomly mutated -- such that they would not be "ultra conserved" even from one generation to the next, much less for scores of thousands of generations.

Use your own mind -- use your own ability to reason logically -- disregard the DarwinDefenders and their fits of hysteria: see the logical necessity that:
1) IF Darwinism is true, THEN any stretch of DNA not vital to the life processes of the individual organism is utterly free to become randomly mutated in any direction, such that even sibling organisms can have divergent DNA sequences in such non-vital stretches of DNA;
2) IF Darwinism is true, THEN 'Ultra Conserved Elements' must be vital to the life processes of the individual organism;
3) Multiple scientific experiments have failed to find evidence that 'Ultra Conserved Elements' are vital to the life processes of the individual organism;
4) Ergo, UCEs scientifically falsify Darwinism.


(*) Trying to reason with a Darwinist True Believer is as futile as trying to reason with a Marxist or a Freudian, and for much the same reason. Trying to reason with a DarwinDefender is as futile as trying to reason with the typical 'atheist' or Moslem, and for much the same reason. Trying to reason with a Darwinist is as futile as trying to reason with the typical "liberal" or socialist, to say nothing of hard-code leftist, and for much the same reason.