From Jonathan Wells at Evolution News & Views
According to a recent Science Daily news item, Oxford University researchers say that only 8.2% of our DNA is likely to be functional. The rest is “junk.”
The 8.2% figure contradicts the conclusions of the ENCODE Project (for “Encyclopedia of DNA Elements”), which was established after the Human Genome Project to make sense of our newly sequenced DNA. In September 2012, the results from over a thousand experiments — involving dozens of laboratories and hundreds of scientists on three continents, published almost simultaneously in dozens of articles in five different journals — provided evidence that 80% or more of our DNA is functional.
It might have to do with who the DNA works for:
A clue might be found in a presentation given by Dan Graur at the 2013 meeting of the Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution in Chicago. As Graur — a vocal, even nasty, opponent of ENCODE — reasoned in his presentation:
If the human genome is indeed devoid of junk DNA as implied by the ENCODE project, then a long, undirected evolutionary process cannot explain the human genome. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, then all DNA, or as much as possible, is expected to exhibit function. If ENCODE is right, then Evolution is wrong.
So while the definition of “function” is close to the heart of the controversy, adherence to Darwinian evolution is even closer.
So DNA doesn’t behave like junk because it isn’t working for the Darwin lobby?
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As soon as I read the study I saw their severe bias.
i.e. So according to these Darwinian critics of the ENCODE study which found widespread functionality for ‘junk’ DNA, in their scheme of things functionality does not determine if a sequence is actually functional, only ‘conservation of sequence’ determines what is functional in their scheme???, So basically, only if Darwinian evolution is assumed as true will Darwinists accept that a given sequence of ‘junk’ DNA may be functional!,, That is called ‘assuming your conclusion into you premise’ and is horrible science!
It should also be noted that these two following studies came out at about the same time as the severely biased 8.2% study from Darwinists. Studies that had drastically different conclusions as to the functionality of the supposed ‘junk’ DNA.
In pointing out how far off base Darwinists are in their insistence that most of the sequences in DNA are junk, it is good to reflect on just how little we know.,,,
As to how a single cell of a billion protein molecules turns into a human of trillions of cells, at roughly a billion trillion molecules total, nobody, and I repeat NOBODY, has a solid clue as to how this ‘miracle’, (and I don’t use that word lightly), is pulled off.
Talbott is certainly not alone in his assessment;
Alexander Tsiaras is not exaggerating in the least:
Thus, despite the sheer hubris of Darwinists to declare the vast majority of our DNA junk before we have even had a chance to study it in any meaningful way, the fact of the matter is that the complexity being dealt with in molecular biology is far, far, beyond anything man has ever encountered before, and certainly far from being understood,,,, much less are Darwinists anywhere close to giving a rational explanation as to how that unfathomable complexity, of how a single cell turns into trillions of cells functioning as a whole, came about.
Despite what Darwinists dogmatically claim to the contrary, the plain truth of the matter is that everyone of you are fearfully and wonderfully made:
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JW, this is one of the most blatant examples of taking a statement out of context. Why don’t you be honest and provide details on what Dan Graur said before and after the couple sentences that you present here?
JW isn’t like to be lurking here.
If you can point me to the source of the quote I’d be happy to provide the full context.
Why don’t you just bring in the details and call his bluff?
Sebestyen
Acartia_bogart, if the genome is as useless as Darwinists insist it is, (since, of course, God would never design junky genomes! 🙂 ), why in blue blazes is so much effort extended by the rest of the cell towards repairing these vast, useless, stretches of junk DNA instead of the cell allowing natural selection to do its job and get rid of all that excess baggage? Excess baggage that would be, apparently, slowing down successful reproduction???
Of note:
i.e. Since successful reproduction is all that really matters on a neo-Darwinian view of things, how can anything but successful reproduction be realistically ‘selected’ for? Any other function besides reproduction, such as sight, hearing, thinking, (DNA REPAIR) etc.., would be highly superfluous to the primary criteria of successfully reproducing, and should, on a Darwinian view, be discarded as so much excess baggage since it would, eventually, be seen to slow down successful reproduction???
A few notes that contradict the notion that junk DNA will accumulate over time:
Experimental Evolution of Gene Duplicates in a Bacterial Plasmid Model
Excerpt: In a striking contradiction to our model, no such conditions were found. The fitness cost of carrying both plasmids increased dramatically as antibiotic levels were raised, and either the wild-type plasmid was lost or the cells did not grow. This study highlights the importance of the cost of duplicate genes and the quantitative nature of the tradeoff in the evolution of gene duplication through functional divergence.
http://www.springerlink.com/co.....4014664w8/
Michael Behe finds Loss of Function Mutations Challenge the Darwinian Model – Casey Luskin – August 24, 2013
Excerpt: “Because of the many ways in which a gene can be altered to lose function, the LOF mutation would have a rate several orders of magnitude greater than that of the GOF mutation for the duplicated gene.”
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....75591.html
Douglas Axe and Ann Gauger Argue that Design Best Explains New Biological Information – Casey Luskin August 26, 2013
Excerpt: Axe and Gauger observe that “The most widely accepted explanation for the origin of new enzymes is gene duplication and recruitment.” However, they cite experimental work showing that a duplicate gene is much more likely to be silenced (because of the costly resources expended in transcribing and translating it) than it is to acquire a new function.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....75601.html
The regulatory utilization of genetic redundancy through responsive backup circuits – 2006
Excerpt: many such backed-up genes were shown to be transcriptionally responsive to the intactness of their redundant partner and are up-regulated if the latter is mutationally inactivated. … We thus challenge the view that such redundancies are simply leftovers of ancient duplications and suggest they are an additional component to the sophisticated machinery of cellular regulation.
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/31/11653.full
The regulatory utilization of genetic redundancy through responsive backup circuits – 2006
Excerpt: Duplicate genes and paralogous gene families long have been perceived as genomic sources of genetics robustness (1–5). The assumption is that a functional overlap of these genes acts to compensate against mutations. Yet, this very fact also renders redundancy evolutionarily instable (5, 6), and functional overlaps, typically, are rapidly lost because of divergence (7).
Nevertheless, numerous examples of paralogs retaining their functional overlap for extended evolutionary periods (for examples, see refs. 6 and 8–12) suggest that, at least for a fraction of gene pairs, redundancies are conserved throughout evolution despite their predicted instability.,,, In fact, although retention of redundancy is much less frequent than its loss, its widespread existence is nontrivial and cannot (6) be dismissed as leftovers of recent duplication events.,,,
the paradigm that has emerged is that genes that are functionally redundant are not often independently controlled but rather they are regulated by a system that both monitors and responds to their intactness.
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/31/11653.full
http://sandwalk.blogspot.co.uk.....o.html?m=1
A_B so LA Moran can use that quote but Wells cannot? See July 15 comment half way down in above link. It would seem Graur agreed with its use.
why don’t you go over and correct them as well eh?
Dr. JDD,
Perhaps the moral paralysis is due to severe ideological contamination. Or perhaps there’s differential application of intellectual indulgences based on what the other person believes in.
BTW, nicely articulated, bornagain77.
-Q