[slight correction and update follows]
[update: I had previously taken a second hand quotation from Paul Nessleroade of Ken Miller here (2003 Wedge Update). Below I give a quote by Miller by a better source document here: Life’s Grand Design.
However, the more accurate quotation still demonstrates Miller made an embarrassing assessment about the architecture of DNA. I apologize to him for the inaccuracy, however, it was not a material inaccuracy as can be seen in the quotation from his website.
The greater burden is on Miller to retract his mistaken ideas from the public sphere. Further, he owes an apology to many in the ID movement for misrepresentations and errors of fact which he has promoted currently, over the years, and even under oath.]
the designer made serious errors, wasting millions of bases of DNA on a blueprint full of junk and scribbles.
Ken Miller, 1994
Empirical evidence 13 years later is putting some egg on Miller’s face [remember Ken Miller is the guy who made misrepresentations under oath in the Dover trial].
Encyclopedia Of DNA: New Findings Challenge Established Views On Human Genome
The new data indicate the genome contains very little unused sequences and, in fact, is a complex, interwoven network. In this network, genes are just one of many types of DNA sequences that have a functional impact. “Our perspective of transcription and genes may have to evolve,” the researchers state in their Nature paper, noting the network model of the genome “poses some interesting mechanistic questions” that have yet to be answered.
Other surprises in the ENCODE data have major implications for our understanding of the evolution of genomes, particularly mammalian genomes. Until recently, researchers had thought that most of the DNA sequences important for biological function would be in areas of the genome most subject to evolutionary constraint — that is, most likely to be conserved as species evolve. However, the ENCODE effort found about half of functional elements in the human genome do not appear to have been obviously constrained during evolution, at least when examined by current methods used by computational biologists.
According to ENCODE researchers, this lack of evolutionary constraint may indicate that many species’ genomes contain a pool of functional elements, including RNA transcripts, that provide no specific benefits in terms of survival or reproduction.
Behe 10 years ago, in Darwin’s Black Box (DBB) suggested junk DNA may not be junk after all. Behe has been vindicated by the facts, Miller refuted.
Finally, there is at least one other interesting fact in this article: “the ENCODE effort found about half of functional elements in the human genome do not appear to have been obviously constrained during evolution“. This means these designs NOT attributable to natural selection. Features in the genome have been shown not to be likely products of “slight successive modifications”. How I love science!