Comment by Lumich

9 hours ago

« the helix existed as a theory before it could be verified »

This is an important point. And the X-ray diffraction patterns are not direct evidence. They had to be interpreted. How do we call that "verification"?

Crick and Watson only suggested the structure was a double helix. They made a cardboard model to illustrate their idea. Crick's wife made a drawing. Still, their idea, at first, didn't make much of an impact.

Over time, more theory was added, in analogy to information theory. DNA as a kind of biological "magnetic tape". It eventually became consensus.

If you think about it, it boggles the mind. Two meters of DNA in every cell of the human being, containing the entire blueprint of the organism.

How do you fit two meters in such a tiny space, and then without a reel, as nature doesn't do "hub and wheel"? The suggested structure is also extremely awkward for "splitting", as it involves rotationary mechanics. Yes, it "looks nice" (two snakes entwined, a very old symbol), but it doesn't make any practical sense.

And why would every cell contain the entire blueprint? There is no need. In fact, it is counter-productive. The cell needs to know only the tiny bit that concerns its own place in the whole. How does it retrieve that bit in the millions of base pairs? Why would it have to in the first place? What would be the processing speed? This kind of organization seems absurd.

And then if we look at the practical results of genetics, there are none that are conclusive or imnpressive. Think about all the dog races and crops that predate genetics. Did genetics manage to create anything like the Chihuahua? No, it didn't.

It seems what works is – horribile dictu – the Lyssenko methods. Refined, certainly, but it's his approach. Life adapts. If you expose plants to toxic environments, they'll adapt over time (survival of the fittest). They call it epigenetics. But it's nature's doing, where man provides the toxic environment and systematic selection.

Here's an audio in German (you can find similar articles in English if you search Lyssenko epigenetics):