Intelligent Design Bears Good Scientific Fruit in the Study of 'Junk DNA'

Townhall ^ | Sep 20, 2026 | Casey Luskin

[T Ruth]

For decades, many scientists have confidently dismissed the vast majority of the human DNA as useless evolutionary garbage. Yet a recently published scientific paper in Cell, one of the world’s most prestigious biology journals, declares a “paradigm shift” against the idea that huge portions of the human genome are merely “junk DNA.”

After the Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, a startling discovery was made. Only about 2 percent of the entire human genome codes for proteins. Scientists naturally asked, what is the other 98 percent doing?

Evolutionary biology was ready with an answer. For decades, they had claimed that the vast majority of the human genome was essentially genetic garbage — “junk DNA.” ...

A 1969 paper titled “Non-Darwinian Evolution” in the journal Science proposed that “99 percent of mammalian DNA is not true genetic material.” Three years later, the great Japanese biologist Susumu Ohno coined the term “junk DNA” ...

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In his 2006 book "The Language of God," Francis Collins — who headed the Human Genome Project — wrote that some “45 percent of the human genome” is little better than “genetic flotsam and jetsam.”

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These discoveries [of the ENCODE project] had a dramatic effect on biological thinking. Even Francis Collins changed his tune. Speaking at a scientific conference in 2015, he admitted:

"In terms of junk DNA, we don’t use that term anymore because I think it was pretty much a case of hubris to imagine that we could dispense with any part of the genome as if we knew enough to say it wasn’t functional."

Collins explained that most of so-called “junk” is regulating the production of proteins, called gene expression. ...

These discoveries represented a spectacular fulfillment of ID’s prediction that we would discover function for junk DNA, and a colossal failure for evolution.

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TOPICS: Religion; Science
KEYWORDS: 2003; 2006; biology; cherrypicking; collins; dna; evolutionarybiology; franciscollins; geneexpression; genes; genome; hubris; humangenome; humangenomeproject; junkdna; proteins

[Retain Mike]

Evolution requires going from a less complex to a more complex design in an open system. If we assume the probability is .99 for an individual step, 10,000 steps over billions of years for a creature becomes .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000224877484981609

[Jan_Sobieski]

Of the scientists who say 98% of their DNA 🧬 is “Junk”, we should erase their 98% useless DNA using CRISPR-Cas9! This will cleanse them of their useless vestigial genome!

[EnderWiggin1970]

Why run a urethra though the prostate when a plumbing apprentice would simply go around it?

That's covered in the book I cited, but my experience is that evolutionary cultists wallow in ignorance and are fanatically hostile to reading non-evolutionary writing. Instead they defend themselves with empty and inaccurate gibes like the ones you gave to excuse their refusal to learn.

Birth canal dysteleology debunked