Silent Gene Theory

Well I am about to become over stressed as Christmas approaches, so I thought I'd try and get another post in (aren't they regular) before Christmas. Of course many think that the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection is in about as much doubt as the "Earth going round the Sun". In reality this is not the case. I have just read a book, not by someone who proports to have any theistic faith, who doubts this theory for one very simple reason: Natural selection reduces rather than increases variation. So over long time scales where does the variation come from upon which natural selection works? In his "Silent Gene Theory of Evolution", Warwick Collins proposes that variation comes from genetic mechanisms within the cell and that the Selfish Gene Theory of evolution propounded by Dawkins et al has holes in it.

Of course the usual answer to the question "Where does variation come from?" is that variation comes from mutation. However, most mutations are deleterious, they lead to death. Indeed beneficial mutations seem far too rare to account for the vast increase in variation throughout the history of life on earth. So it makes considerable sense, and there seems to be some encouraging evidence, that much of the genetic material in cells, whilst actually "junk" (there seems to be no use for it), may well have a function over evolutionary time scales. It is an interesting proposal that accords with what we actually see in comparing genomes. It would be a fruitful line of research, yet he does make the point that Darwinian Evolutionary Theory seems to so have mastered the academy and become an unassailable orthodoxy within the academy, that no dissent is allowed. Neodarwinian thoought will not allow any investigation into alternative theories, or so he claims. I thought that it was only supposed to be among the religious that there is thought to be such a thing as blind faith and suppression of free thought?! Maybe this is simply human.