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Why Epigenetics Contradicts Evolutionary Theory

Photo credit: Jørgen Håland via Unsplash.

Epigenetics (epi means “above” genetics) is a term given to mechanisms that do not alter genes in our DNA, but rather turn genes off or on (or influence whether they are turned off or on). Epigenetic mechanisms are complicated and enable organisms to adapt intelligently and rapidly to challenging environments.

Here is one reason this contradicts evolutionary theory: the adaptation arises immediately, in direct response to the challenge. Not blindly. Not by random mutation. Not by natural selection.

Epigenetic mechanisms are ubiquitous in biology, and extremely important. Because of epigenetics, organisms with otherwise identical genes (e.g., twins) can be quite different.

Now look at a recent article in The Scientist about Andrew Pospisilik and his epigenetics research. The article attempts to cast epigenetics into an evolutionary framework. From, “One Sequence, Many Variations”:

For organisms that produce many offspring, such as fruit flies, it does not make evolutionary sense to have hundreds of truly identical offspring. If their DNA sequence makes them sensitive to an environmental perturbation, then they could all die.

That makes sense, right? Wrong. It ascribes forward-looking capability to evolution. There is a fancy term for such forward-looking capability: teleology. Evolution is not, and cannot be, teleological.

Evolutionists do this all the time. The literature is chock full of teleological language, because otherwise it can make no sense. That is an internal contradiction. For more details, see my video:

This post is adapted from Dr. Hunter’s comments on Twitter.