When you think about it, it’s a better long-term strategy to predict that something has function than that it doesn’t.
‘Junk DNA’
CalTech researchers map spatial organization of the (“junk”) DNA and RNA in the cell nucleus
At ENST: Now, the windows are opening on [nucleus] organization so all-encompassing for all those non-coding RNA transcripts, it is truly mind-boggling what goes on in the nucleus of a cell.
AI helps us see previously unknown cell components
The friend who forwarded this story notes, “Even though we didn’t know maybe half of what’s in our cells, we somehow knew that most of the genome is junk?” Darwinism did that, of course. It was the Darwinians who needed the idea that most of the genome is junk.
Evangelical scientists getting it wrong…
Casey Luskin: Craig continues to rely upon BioLogos arguments that pseudogenes are “broken” and non-functional junk DNA that we share with apes, thereby demonstrating our common ancestry. Those arguments are increasingly contradicted by evidence presented in highly authoritative scientific papers which find that pseudogenes are commonly functional, and they ought not be assumed to be genetic “junk.”
Is it the “junk DNA” that makes us human?
Researchers: “This suggests that the basis for the human brain’s evolution are genetic mechanisms that are probably a lot more complex than previously thought, as it was supposed that the answer was in those two per cent of the genetic DNA. Our results indicate that what has been significant for the brain’s development is instead perhaps hidden in the overlooked 98 per cent, which appears to be important. This is a surprising finding.”
Here’s a lay-friendly explanation of the critical role “junk DNA” plays in mammalian development
Odd, isn’t it, that ancient invading viruses would turn out to be critical for survival.
And now … Transposable elements (junk DNA) shape the evolution of mammalian development
No wonder people are backing away from the Darwinian staple of junk DNA. We wonder, when will the pop science articles start to appear, claiming that junk DNA was never really an argument used by Darwinian evolutionists in support of their cause and that, in any event, they were right to use such an argument.
“Junk DNA” is expressed differently in chimps and humans — and makes a difference in brain types
At GenEng and BioTech mag: “In a new study, stem cell scientists at the Lund University, Sweden, explore the role of non-coding regions of the genome—previously deemed to be functionless “junk” DNA—and find humans and chimpanzees use a part of their non-coding DNA in different ways. This they claim affects how and when the human brain develops.”
A 2010 Oxford U Press book on “unintelligent design” seems so dated now
Now that the very concept of “junk DNA” is being officially retired, this all seems pretty stale. Note: Well yes, there is still Nathan Lents and Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes: Still wrong about sinuses but still writing about them.
Jonathan Wells reflects on the importance of “junk DNA” to Francis Collins’ Language of God
Wells: It’s not a moral failure to be mistaken about evidence that supposedly supports Darwinian evolution. But the title of Collins’s Language of God was deceptive from the start. And Collins has looked the other way as it has continued to deceive. I consider this one more moral failure of Francis Collins.
Casey Luskin reflects on the “official” demise of the term “junk DNA”
Luskin: “these authors remember a day when ‘the common doctrine was that the nonprotein coding part of eukaryotic genome’ consisted of ‘“useless sequences, often organized in repetitive elements.’” Good. Keep the history alive. It won’t be very long before Darwinians start claiming that they never thought it was junk. Then they will start insinuating that WE said it was junk. No, that doesn’t make any sense but if the history is forgotten, it doesn’t need to either.
Term “junk DNA” critiqued at journal. But now remember the history!
“The days of ‘junk DNA’ are over…”? So the house is clearly supporting this move away from the Darwinian position. Oh yes, let’s not forget that “junk DNA” was very much a Darwinian position. Most or all of the Darwinian Bigs signed onto junk DNA as part of their thesis about the unguided nature of life. The big question will doubtless be put off for now: Why does it only count if Darwinian predictions are right but never if they are wrong?
Another job for “junk DNA”: Killing cancer in blind mole rats
Researcher: “The paper describes an important new mechanistic insight into the way one can trigger inflammatory signals in cancer cells to either kill them directly or make them vulnerable to cancer-killing therapies,” says cancer biologist Stephen Baylin of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, who was not involved in the research. “The importance of it is really quite profound.”
The complex truth about junk DNA
At Quanta: “Genomes hold immense quantities of noncoding DNA. Some of it is essential for life, some seems useless, and some has its own agenda.”
Researchers: “Junk DNA” plays a key role in speciation
At Phys.org: When the researchers deleted a protein called Prod that binds to a specific satellite DNA sequence in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, the flies’ chromosomes scattered outside of the nucleus into tiny globs of cellular material called micronuclei, and the flies died. “But we realized at this point that this [piece of] satellite DNA that was bound by the Prod protein was completely missing in the nearest relatives of Drosophila melanogaster,” Jagannathan said. “It completely doesn’t exist. So that’s an interesting little problem.”