Posted on 06/16/2007 1:09:15 AM PDT by balch3
Two recent news articles are discussing the death of the junk-DNA icon of Neo-Darwinism. Wired Magazine has an article pejoratively titled "One Scientist's Junk Is a Creationist's Treasure" that emphasizes the positive point that intelligent design has made successful predictions on the question of "junk-DNA." The article reports:
[A] surprising group is embracing the results: intelligent-design advocates. Since the early '70s, many scientists have believed that a large amount of many organisms' DNA is useless junk. But recently, genome researchers are finding that these "noncoding" genome regions are responsible for important biological functions.
The Wired Magazine article then quotes Discovery Institute's Stephen Meyer explaining that this is a prediction of intelligent design that was largely unexpected under neo-Darwinian thought:
"It is a confirmation of a natural empirical prediction or expectation of the theory of intelligent design, and it disconfirms the neo-Darwinian hypothesis," said Stephen Meyer, director of the Center for Science and Culture at the Discovery Institute in Seattle.
The Wired Magazine article openly and unashamedly confuses intelligent design with creationism, but it does admit that ID proponents are making positive predictions about the scientific data:
Advocates like Meyer are increasingly latching onto scientific evidence to support the theory of intelligent design, a modern arm of creationism that claims life is not the result of natural selection but of an intelligent creator. Most scientists believe that intelligent design is not science. But Meyer says the opossum data supports intelligent design's prediction that junk DNA sequences aren't random, but important genetic material. It's an argument Meyer makes in his yet-to-be-published manuscript, The DNA Enigma.
Another article in the Washington Post similarly discusses the death of the junk-DNA paradigm of Neo-Darwinism:
The first concerted effort to understand all the inner workings of the DNA molecule is overturning a host of long-held assumptions about the nature of genes and their role in human health and evolution. ... The findings, from a project involving hundreds of scientists in 11 countries and detailed in 29 papers being published today, confirm growing suspicions that the stretches of "junk DNA" flanking hardworking genes are not junk at all. But the study goes further, indicating for the first time that the vast majority of the 3 billion "letters" of the human genetic code are busily toiling at an array of previously invisible tasks.
(Rick Weiss, "Intricate Toiling Found In Nooks of DNA Once Believed to Stand Idle," Washington Post, June 14, 2007)
The Washington Post article explains that scientists are finally "being forced to pay attention to our non-gene DNA sequences." What were the consequences of their failure to suspect function for junk-DNA? The article explains how there may be real-world medical consequences of the failure to presume function for non-coding DNA:
But much of it seems to be playing crucial roles: regulating genes, keeping chromosomes properly packaged or helping to control the spectacularly complicated process of cell division, which is key to life and also is at the root of cancer. .... [S]everal recent studies have found that people are more likely to have Type 2 diabetes and other diseases if they have small mutations in non-gene parts of their DNA that were thought to be medically irrelevant.
Could neo-Darwinism have stopped science from investigating the causes of these medical problems?
Intelligent Design has Long Predicted This Day Proponents of intelligent design have long maintained that Neo-Darwinism's widely held assumption that our cells contain much genetic "junk" is both dangerous to the progress of science and wrong. As I explain here, design theorists recognize that "Intelligent agents typically create functional things," and thus Jonathan Wells has suggested, "From an ID perspective, however, it is extremely unlikely that an organism would expend its resources on preserving and transmitting so much ‘junk'." [4] Design theorists have thus been predicting the death of the junk-DNA paradigm for many years:
As far back as 1994, pro-ID scientist and Discovery Institute fellow Forrest Mims had warned in a letter to Science[1] against assuming that 'junk' DNA was 'useless.'" Science wouldn't print Mims' letter, but soon thereafter, in 1998, leading ID theorist William Dembski repeated this sentiment in First Things:
[Intelligent] design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term "junk DNA." Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as "junk" merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. For instance, in a recent issue of the Journal of Theoretical Biology, John Bodnar describes how "non-coding DNA in eukaryotic genomes encodes a language which programs organismal growth and development." Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it.
(William Dembski, "Intelligent Science and Design," First Things, Vol. 86:21-27 (October 1998))
In 2002, Dr. Richard Sternberg surveyed the literature and found extensive evidence for function of certain types of junk-DNA and argued that "neo-Darwinian 'narratives' have been the primary obstacle to elucidating the effects of these enigmatic components of chromosomes."[1] Sternberg concluded that "the selfish DNA narrative and allied frameworks must join the other ‘icons’ of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory that, despite their variance with empirical evidence, nevertheless persist in the literature.”[2]
Soon thereafter, an article in Scientific American explained that “the introns within genes and the long stretches of intergenic DNA between genes ... ‘were immediately assumed to be evolutionary junk.’” John S. Mattick, director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia was then quoted saying this might have been “one of the biggest mistakes in the history of molecular biology.”[3]
The next year, in 2004, pro-ID molecular biologist Jonathan Wells argued that "The fact that ‘junk DNA’ is not junk has emerged not because of evolutionary theory but in spite of it. On the other hand, people asking research questions in an ID framework would presumably have been looking for the functions of non-coding regions of DNA all along, and we might now know considerably more about them."[4]
Then in 2005, Sternberg and leading geneticist James A. Shapiro conclude that “one day, we will think of what used to be called ‘junk DNA’ as a critical component of truly ‘expert’ cellular control regimes.”[5] It seems that day may have come.
It seems beyond dispute that the Neo-Darwinian paradigm led to a false presumption that non-coding DNA lacks function, and that this presumption has resulted in real-world negative consequences for molecular biology and even for medicine. Moreover, it can no longer seriously be maintained that intelligent design is a science stopper: under an intelligent design approach to investigating non-coding DNA, the false presumptions of Neo-Darwinism might have been avoided.
Citations:
[1] Forrest Mims, Rejected Letter to the Editor to Science, December 1, 1994.
[2] Richard v. Sternberg, "On the Roles of Repetitive DNA Elements in the Context of a Unified Genomic– Epigenetic System," Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 981: 154–188 (2002).
[3] Wayt T. Gibbs, “The Unseen Genome: Gems Among the Junk,” Scientific American (Nov. 2003).
[4] Jonathan Wells, “Using Intelligent Design Theory to Guide Scientific Research,” Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design, 3.1.2 (Nov. 2004).
[5] Richard v. Sternberg and James A. Shapiro, “How Repeated Retroelements format genome function,” Cytogenetic and Genome Research, Vol. 110: 108–116 (2005).
Who is to say that God has not used evolution with a push here or there to get us where we are today.We have no imperical data either way....The existance of God can neither be proven or disproven although I believe a Supreme being exists,
only the ones with blinders on who have been brainwashed by the atheistic religion of Darwinism.
Not if you are a Darwinian. Randomness implies "chaos and puposelessness" i.e. "junk". ID implies "direction and purpose".
Randomness is a subset of Darwinian thinking. That could predespose a Darwinist not to question the metaphor "junk" but an ID'er would more likely than not assume the "junk" was in fact somehow useful stuff. And it was up to science to discover its purpose.
If there is no 'junk' DNA, i.e. DNA that now serves no purpose as the species has evolved, that would seem to be a problem for evolutionary theory.
But what if the "materialist world view" is false? And the "theistic world view" is true? Should we then stick to a false theory in order to prop up a false world view?
There is nothing atheistic about Darwinism or evolution. The world is the way it is. If you think the truth we discover about the world threatens the existence of God then your faith is very weak.
According to whom?This is not the case.
Creationist view 55%
Theistic evolution 27%
Naturalistic Evolution 13%
Irrelevant. Although personally, I am somewhat disposed to #2.
It’s not irrelevant in terms of latent political potential should ID begin to get the upper hand.
Public Opionion polls are no way to conduct this kind of science.
well that’s a good start. They should never had tried to prejudiced students minds by calling the unknown “junk dna.” That is typical of darwinists...not very honest without even knowing it. Many other holes in the evolution theory are kept out of the classroom along with the competing theories of ID and creationism. It is not that they are not valid as some very deceived minds would have us believe. THe facts prove otherwise...the darkness which has a grip on so many learned minds simply can’t stand the truth so it just tries to claim it is not science. He was always a liar from the beginning and now does his most crafty work through unwitting scientists and teachers. I am glad the evidence is so available nowadays largely through the internet.
I recommend:
Sagan, Carl
1996 The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Random House Inc., New York.
thanks...is Sagan revealing a belief in the spirit world in that book?
No.
Of course not. But if ID scientists manage to convince the public that Darwin’s theory of origins is untenable, then we have the numbers to make a very rapid sweep of the Church of Darwin’s stranglehold on the ideology of science.
Disproving the theory of evolution would not "prove" ID. For that, you have to have scientific evidence.
And if there was so much scientific evidence for ID, the Discovery Institute would not be running a PR campaign instead of conducting scientific research.
Face it, they are pushing religion under the guise of science. And so far, they have not reached even the level of junk science. Read the court testimony of the Dover case, and see what the folks pushing ID admitted to when they were under oath and had to tell the truth.
it’s happening the more we learn about the incredible complexities of creation. Most people are not as confused and mislead as die hard darwinists. A brainfull of false knowledge is a very big burden!
I assume you mean Darwin’s theory of evolution. There are many competing theories of evolution just waiting for their chance. But disproving Darwin’s theory would certainly remove the current gatekeepers tasked with preventing ID from becoming a mainstream scientific research project.
Uh, yeah. Hey, Steve, how is "this is a prediction of intelligent design"? [...cue crickets...]
IOW how do otherwise unexpected, and usefully specific, predictions about the function of DNA sequences follow deductively from the mechanisms and empirical claims of ID. (Especially when ID has no mechanism and makes no empirical claims!)
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