Posted on 10/06/2003 4:34:06 PM PDT by blam
Scientists vie to break junk DNA's secret code
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 06/10/2003)
Huge tracts of human DNA, previously written off as meaningless junk, have been found to contain a hitherto unrecognised "genetic grammar", making the language of our genes much more complex than previously thought.
The discovery is of potentially huge significance, since it could lead to an entirely new explanation for certain diseases and symptoms. A race is now on among teams of scientists worldwide to investigate this cryptic code.
While the genetic recipe of a human being is spelt out with three billion letters of DNA code, only about two per cent of these correspond to the genes - the DNA that describes the proteins that build and operate bodies.
In the latest issue of the journal Science, Prof Stylianos Antonarakis of the University of Geneva Medical School, Dr Ewen Kirkness of the Institute of Genomic Research, Maryland, and colleagues have reported compelling evidence that up to three per cent of our genetic material has a crucial role that is not understood.
They made the unexpected discovery that some DNA regions of humans, dogs and species as distant as elephant and wallaby are nearly identical. These regions of what were once called junk have been dubbed "conserved non-genic sequences", or CNGs, a reference to how they are not conventional genes.
Prof Antonarakis said: "I suspect that mutations in CNGs may contribute to numerous genetic disorders." Defects in CNGs could result in illness while the symptoms of Down's syndrome, caused by an extra copy of a chromosome, might be linked to the presence of additional CNGs.
"Many laboratories are now working on identifying pathogenic mutations," he said.
Read the Humanist Manifesto - I believe it addresses the problem of attaining morality without religion. In order to have morality, you must have a standard - who sets it? The problem is that humanists have no moral standard other than man, and each man has his own opinion on what that standard should be. Our founding fathers (Washington, Adams, Madison, et al.) stated over and over that you can't have morality without religion. Read Washington's farewell address - I'm sure you can find that on-line. While you're at it, read his inaugural address. But what did Washington know - he was only the Father of our Country. "Virtue" is meaningless without religion because it is a moving target with no standard.
Then you do not understand the heritage of America or the reasons why our government was set up the way it was. A French observer, de Toqueville, said that in America, the notions of Christianity and freedom are "intimately united" and inseparable in the minds of Americans. It has to do with the notion of self-governance (a pillar of our system) which holds that people will govern themselves and restrain themselves from evil based upon their fear of God and relationship with God. No fear of God, no restraint! Just look at out society today - it is plain to see that there is no fear of God - in fact the courts are driving God out of society while gay rights, tolerance, hedonism, in-your-face perversities of every sort are the norm. There are two ways to restrain sinful man (sinfulness of man is another cornerstone of our system) - God or the gun. See the correlation now?
The problem with many Americans today is that they are ignorant of our history. I would estimate that less than 5% have a decent understanding of our national heritage and our system of government and its roots. The reason for that is that our schools teach revisionism (outright lies, omissions, etc.) about our founders and our founding documents. That is a fact.
Sort of like having thousands of religions, sects, and denominations, each of whom claims the one true standard, and which at some time in their history, have killed people for disagreeing with them. Of course you will argue that it is the Bible, not denomination that is the one true standard. I suppose that explains why there is so much agreement. After all, it's all in the book, and anyone can understand it.
No, Christians may disagree on non-essential theological issues, but they do not differ on what is right and wrong. What part of the 10 commandments is hard to understand? The denominations that ignore the 10 commandments are not Christian - they are their own authority - apostate liberals. "Liberal theology is merely humanism in theological terms" (Francis Schaeffer)
Only 42 of them can be true at any given time.
Anyone living in that time had no choice but to take the Bible seriously. Whether they interpretated the Bible the way you do is, I think, revealed more in their private correspondence than in their public speeches.
Sorry, but the founders took the bible seriously BY CHOICE. Even a cursory reading of their writings makes that clear. Even Franklin (probably not a Christian) called for prayer and believed that God won the revolutionary war for America. And you wrong, the public writings are very clear in that the founding fathers started the American Bible Society and American Tract Society - do you suppose they kept that a secret? 27 of 56 signers of the D of I had seminary degrees!
With all due respect, you need some study on this, and you need it from an objective historian that cites PRIMARY sources in their full context, not historical revisionism.
The Pope is not THE anti-Christ ...
... and explicitly said the pope is NOT the antichrist.
Evolution!
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