From ScienceDaily:
Although variants are scattered throughout the genome, scientists have largely ignored the stretches of repetitive genetic code once dismissively known as “junk” DNA in their search for differences that influence human health and disease.
A new study shows that variation in these overlooked repetitive regions may also affect human health. These regions can affect the stability of the genome and the proper function of the chromosomes that package genetic material, leading to an increased risk of cancer, birth defects and infertility. The results appear online in the journal Genome Research.
…
“What we found in this study is probably the tip of the iceberg,” Sullivan said. “There could be all sorts of functional consequences to having variation within the complex, repetitive portion of the genome that we don’t know about yet.”Although genetic variants are scattered throughout the human genome, scientists have largely ignored the stretches of repetitive genetic code known as ‘junk’ DNA in their search for differences that influence human health and disease. Now, researchers have discovered that variation in these overlooked regions can affect the stability of the genome and the proper function of the chromosomes that package our genetic material, leading to an increased risk of birth defects, infertility, and cancer. More. Paper. (paywall) – Megan E Aldrup-MacDonald, Molly E Kuo, Lori L Sullivan, Kimberline Chew, Beth A Sullivan. Genomic variation within alpha satellite DNA influences centromere location on human chromosomes with metastable epialleles. Genome Research, 2016; gr.206706.116 DOI: 10.1101/gr.206706.116
Keep on the trail, folks. All signs suggest you are on to something.
See also: New York Times science writer defends the myth of junk DNA
Is “dark genome” becoming the new name for junk DNA?
“Researchers say junk DNA plays key role in brain development” and “Non-coding RNAs undermining the junk DNA concept?”
Old concepts die hard, especially when they are value-laden as “junk DNA” has been—it has been a key argument for Darwinism. So even though “dark genome” makes more sense given all the functions now being identified, expect “junk DNA” to be defended in practice.
For an odd example of that, see “Nothing makes sense in evolution except in the light of junk DNA?”: “If ENCODE [a project that identifies functions] is right, then Evolution is wrong.”
And more recently, Furore over no junk DNA?
For background, see Jonathan Wells on the junk DNA myth
Pod: Richard Sternberg on “junk DNA”
More later. Meanwhile, why did Darwin’s faithful box themselves into this corner anyway? It would have been possible to construct a naturalistic theory of life in which there was no junk DNA. Readers?
Follow UD News at Twitter!
Interestingly, Larry Moran is apparently writing something for the first time and it’s apparently going to be a book to support the 90% junk DNA delusion that very few uneducated Darwinists apparently still support.
I’ve offered to publish Larry’s book asap so that by the time his book is published it is no longer 85% SHORT OUT OF JUNK DNA PREDICTION.
I hope Larry takes it seriously and is not trying to commit himself to failure right at the end of his ……. career…
You got to wonder how much humiliation an evolutionist can take. After their central claim of junk dna gets shot down, they still cling to their materialist beliefs. I feel sorry for them trapped in a quagmire of embarrassment.
The paper is about centromeres. Nobody ever said that centromeres were junk DNA. Centromeres perform essential functions in your genome.
What’s in your genome?
The press release is garbage. Only a fool (or an IDiot) would believe such a stupid university press release. Only a fool wouldn’t bother to read the paper.
There’s nothing in the paper about junk DNA.
Moran claims that people who believe what the press release is quoting Sullivan as saying are fools or IDiots. In fact, Moran constantly refers to anyone who believes that life could possibly be designed as an “IDiot”
Fool is defined as such
And an idiot is defined as such
Not to be overly rude or anything like that, as Dr Moran is when he often calls people by those terms, but does not the term fool and/or idiot apply much more aptly to Atheistic Evolutionists/Darwinists themselves? Especially in regards for how the word ‘fool’ is defined in its verb tense as to being ‘deceived’?
Especially in regards to Evolutionists ‘fooling themselves’ in science? Feynman puts that ‘fooling ourselves’ tendency in science succinctly as such:
The reason I say that fool, as in being ‘foolishly deceived’, is much more aptly applied to Atheistic Materialists/Darwinists is because atheists themselves admit that life overwhelmingly appears to be designed.
Richards Dawkins is far from the only prominent atheist who seems to be afflicted with the mental illness of seeing the ‘illusion of design’ pervasively throughout life. The well known atheist Francis Crick, co-discoverer of DNA, seems to also have been particularly haunted by this illusion of seeing design everywhere he looked in molecular biology:
Yet, despite the fact that, according to many leading atheists themselves, life gives the overwhelming ‘appearance’ of having been designed for a purpose, all the purported scientific evidence, that is suppose to demonstrate for us “IDiots” how this overwhelming appearance of design in life came to be by purely unguided material processes, turns out, itself, to be ‘illusory’.
Franklin M. Harold, whom I believe is also an atheist, calls Darwinian accounts ‘a variety of wishful speculations’. Specifically he states:
James Shapiro, main founder of the anti neo-Darwinian group “The Third Way”, makes an almost verbatim statement prior to Harold’s statement:
In fact, one of the main themes of many of Michael Behe’s talks is that all ‘grand Darwinian claims rest on undisciplined imagination’:
Moreover, natural selection was/is suppose to be the ‘designer substitute’ that is supposedly fooling all of us into thinking life is designed:
Yet, despite the fact that natural selection was/is, according to Darwin’s theory, suppose to be the ‘designer substitute’ that supposedly producing this overwhelming appearance of design in life that is fooling IDiots into thinking life is designed, it is now known that natural selection is grossly inadequate as that supposed ‘designer substitute’. The easiest way to see that Natural Selection is grossly inadequate as a designer substitute is by the ‘princess and the pea’ paradox (John Sanford), and also by the 4-Dimensional quarter power scaling that is found pervasively throughout life:
Moreover, the math of population genetics also shows that natural selection cannot be a major player in evolution.
In other words, Neutral theory, and the concept of junk DNA, was not developed because of any compelling empirical observation, but was actually developed because it was forced upon Darwinists by the mathematics of population genetics. In plain English, neutral theory, and the concept of junk DNA, is actually the result of a theoretical failure of Darwinism, particularly Natural Selection, within the mathematics of population genetics!
Sternberg comments on the obvious implications of Natural Selection, i.e. the ‘designer substitute’, being severely demoted in its theoretical importance for Darwin’s theory:
Even Moran himself leans heavily towards Neutral theory being true (although he flip flops to natural selection being a major player when put in a pinch. See Torley: “Larry Moran responds to my questions” for an example of Moran’s flip flopping on the importance of natural selection).
In an exchange with me personally, Moran seemed to lean heavily towards neutral theory being for the most part true. He stated
Thus, since atheists themselves are self admittedly seeing the ‘illusion of design’ in life, and yet they, including Moran himself, self admittedly have no experimental evidence whatsoever that unguided material processes, and natural selection in particular, can produce this ‘illusion of design’ , then of course the ID advocate would be well justified in saying that this ‘illusion of design’ that they are seeing in life not an illusion after all but the design they see is indeed real and that these atheists are not really suffering from some sort of a mental illness after all.
In fact, I hold that Darwinists are ‘naturally detecting design’ because of the inherent ‘image of God’ that they have within themselves, but that they are living in denial of that ‘design intuition’. i.e. they are ‘fooling themselves’
Moreover, this illusory nature inherent to the supposed evidence for Darwinian evolution gets worse for the atheist. Much worse! For instance, although reliable ‘observation’ of reality is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method itself,,,
,,, Although reliable ‘observation’ of reality is a necessary cornerstone of the scientific method, the reductive materialistic foundation that Darwinian evolution rests upon undermines this cornerstone.
That is to say, Given materialistic/atheistic premises, not only are our personal beliefs about reality held to be somewhat flawed, but even our perceptions/observations of reality itself are held to be untrustworthy and thus ‘illusory’ given the materialistic premises of atheism.
Richard Dawkins puts the awkward situation between Darwinian evolution and reliable observation like this:
In the following video and article, Donald Hoffman has, through numerous computer simulations of population genetics, proved that if Darwinian evolution were actually true then all of our perceptions of reality would be illusory.
Thus, in what should be needless to say, a worldview that undermines the scientific method itself by holding all our observations of reality are illusory is NOT a worldview that can be firmly grounded within the scientific method!
Moreover, completely contrary to materialistic premises, conscious observation, far from being unreliable and illusory, is experimentally found to be far more integral to reality, i.e. far more reliable of reality, than the math of population genetics predicted. In the following experiment, it was found that reality doesn’t exist without an observer.
Apparently science itself could care less if atheists are forced to believe, because of the math of population genetics, that their observations of reality are illusory!
Moreover, as Nancy Pearcey alluded to in her ‘Why Evolutionary Theory Cannot Survive Itself’ article, given the materialistic/atheistic premises of Darwinian evolution, not only are our observations of reality itself held to be illusory, but even our sense of self, i.e. the belief that we really exist as real persons, which is the most sure thing we can know about reality, becomes illusory too.
Thus, in what I consider to be a shining example of poetic justice, in their claim that God does not really exist as a real person but is merely an illusion, the naturalist also ends up claiming that he himself does not really exist as a real person but is merely an illusion. Here are a few quotes to that effect,,,
Thus, given materialistic premises of Darwinian evolution, people become illusions whose observations of reality are illusory.
And why in blue blazes should anyone trust what illusions having illusions have to say about reality?
And although Feynman said we must not fool ourselves in science, and also said that we are the easiest ones to fool in science, apparently Darwinists have fooled themselves, with their ‘science’, into thinking that they do not even exist as persons! Now that, folks, is what I call one astonishing piece of fooling yourself! 🙂
Moreover, as Nancy Pearcey alluded to in her article, free will itself also becomes illusory. Thus, under atheistic naturalism there is not really a real person with the free will to choose to believe in, or to not believe in anything, be it believing in God or be it believing in naturalism. There are only illusions of persons who are fed illusions of free will. Illusions of free will that somehow miraculously coincide with the illusory intentions of their illusory self.
Moreover, the denial of the reality of free will by materialists undermines rationality itself and thus also undermines science itself
Thus, basically, without God, everything within the atheistic/naturalistic worldview, (i.e. sense of self. observation of reality, free will, even reality itself), collapses into self refuting, unrestrained, flights of fantasies and imagination. Because of such catastrophic epistemological failure inherent within Darwinian Evolution and Atheistic materialism, it would be hard to find a more unscientific worldview than Darwinian evolution and Atheistic materialism turn out to be.
Verses, Videos and Music:
Larry wrote:
“The press release is garbage. Only a fool (or an IDiot) would believe such a stupid university press release. Only a fool wouldn’t bother to read the paper.”
Larry, are you suggesting that the press release was written by ID proponents? If not, just give a sound reason as to why the “other side of the issue scientists” would publish that piece. Are they anti-evolution for some reason?
I used to follow Moran’s blog. I finally gave up because there was never any solid arguments for evolution, just faith and name calling. In the time I followed him there was only really one justification given – it was the horrible treatment of women and gays in the Bible, that’s the sole foundation for evolution. Just as Dr Hunter has been saying all along, evolution is based solely on theology.
J-Mac,
Scientists don’t write press releases, university press offices do. The story that scientists once “thought all non protein-coding DNA was junk and now we know that’s wrong” is journalstic cliche that press officers like, because it makes their researchers looking cutting edge (there goal, after all, is to advertise their university).
That the cliche is not actually true doesn’t really make much difference to them.
Scientists don’t write press releases, university press offices do. The story that scientists once “thought all non protein-coding DNA was junk and now we know that’s wrong” is journalstic cliche that press officers like, because it makes their researchers looking cutting edge (there goal, after all, is to advertise their university).
That the cliche is not actually true doesn’t really make much difference to them.
Well, wd400 if science circle of care can’t get their act straight, where should someone who is just learning turn? The so called science gurus can’t even agree on fundamental issues, such as the mechanism of evolution. What would happen if I asked them to provide one piece of scientific evidence that convinced them to believe that life originated on its own? How many pieces of evidence would I get? How many do you have? I’m willing to place some money on your venture and the big-guys response. But, you will not bet…And you very well know why… you will lose …pa…pa..
Sorry J-Mac, I can’t see how this comment is related to the article or my comment at all?
J-Mac,
‘where is someone who is just learning to turn?’
J-Mac, what ever you do don’t turn to science journals if you are ‘just learning’. My advice would be to get an undergraduate degree, proceed to Masters, and then perhaps science journals will be intelligable to you; they are certainly routinely, and regularly abused here.
You could read popular science writers like Shubin and Coyne. These people explain ‘junk’ very well, and convincingly.
The style of News, to take a poorly worded release, sensastionalise it for her very small audience, and then wait for lackeys to pile in, is a poor way to understand science.
I myself visit several popular science sites and understand the term ‘junk’ very well; a poor, and past its use by date term, but still useful to describ non-coding sites.
You could of course wait for BA to explain things, but then we have a different problem known by me as, ‘exponential confusion’ or ‘ex-con’.