Intelligent Design and the Death of the "Junk-DNA" Neo-Darwinian Paradigm

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.

[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).

a prediction of intelligent design

Wow! That makes ID a science! BTW, if a watchmaker makes a watch and leaves it on a beach is it a watch before somebody who knows what a watch is finds it?

"The question: What is this apparently useless chain of DNA? Evolutionary theory relied on this being true for 50 years now"

You are saying that science relied on "what is X" being true. That makes no sense by he rules of English grammar much less science.

Are yo sure you wrote that correctly?

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.

William Dembski, Intelligent Design,1999

==My my. Aren’t we in a tizzy. Your atheistic religious beliefs have been offended.

He’s not an atheist. He worships the Natural Selection god, and Darwin is his prophet.

"The Wired Magazine article openly and unashamedly confuses intelligent design with creationism,"

They're the same thing. Nothing to be ashamed of here. The article also sounds like talking about it is something that should be in the closet like homosexuality. I guess I'm "outed" every time I talk about ID being the same as creationism.

==Geology—those fools can’t get the age of the Grand Canyon right. GONE!

http://www.detectingdesign.com/geologiccolumn.html

==Radiometric dating—those fools can’t get the dating right either. GONE!

http://www.detectingdesign.com/radiometricdating.html

"No, because no one on the side of sanity believed in ‘junk’ DNA, but the evolutionary religion sure did."

The definition of Junk DNA is "a section of DNA for which there is no known function"

Unless you can specify the function of every single piece of DNA, then by definition it is unknown.

I don't think you really understand the words you are using.

I recommend reading through this overview and trying again.

==Biology—they started that evilution stuff and figured out how the eye really developed. GONE!

http://www.detectingdesign.com/humaneye.html

==Biology—they started that evilution stuff and figured out how the eye really developed. GONE!

http://www.detectingdesign.com/geneticphylogeny.html

"==Geology...GONE!...==Radiometric dating...GONE!...==Biology...GONE!"

OK, so you have now dismissed Biology, Geology and Chemistry.

Is there any science you do accept?

then why has it been labeled junk? Now scientists are seeing that there is some function to that part of the dna. In many cases darwinists assume they know and then go out and teach that mislead assumption only to find that they don’t know. Some of the trully most stupid people are those who think they know so much and it has become a way to deny their wordless conscience.

==Paleontology—millions of inconvenient fossils that are all fakes. GONE!

http://www.detectingdesign.com/fossilrecord.html

==If anyone is laboring under the delusion that the Discovery Institute has the furtherance of science anywhere in their thoughts, all they need to do is read the Institute’s Wedge Strategy.

http://www.detectingdesign.com/truthscienceevolution.html

Please tell me how, how does one "embrace a result"? Agree with, yes I'll go with that, but embrace?? come on...

It's the touchy-feely cult.

"then why has it been labeled junk?"

It is labeled "Junk DNA" and that has a specific definition and is not synonymous with "junk", although admittedly it is sometimes referred to as "junk" because the author assumes (it appears incorrectly) the reader understands the meaning of "Junk DNA".

In science it is impossible to say something "can't possibly" do something. There is always the assumption that a new discovery will change things.

"Now scientists are seeing that there is some function to that part of the dna. "

Not only have they suspected that some of it does something, I personally have been involved in projects trying to figure out what some of it does and that was 6-7 years ago.

I didn’t say that, Coyoteman said it. Far from throwing these scientific disciplines out, I posted links demonstrating that there is a growing body of evidence that contradicts the Church of Darwin in virtually every one of Coyoteman’s faith-based assertions.

OK, so you have now dismissed Biology, Geology and Chemistry.

Is there any science you do accept?

Sort of confirms my point, eh? If fundamentalists ever take over significant control of this country, I believe many or most sciences will be trashed.

Remember, "Design theory promises to reverse the stifling dominance of the materialist worldview, and to replace it with a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions."

Paging Nehemiah Scudder. Pick up the white courtesy telephone please.

"So they predicted that there are things that we don’t know and offered no clue as to what they were?... That’s a brilliant prediction."

Sounds to me as though they predicted that the things we don't know are just as important as the things we think we do know.
That it is foolish, in fact dangerous, to ignore them.
And that it is disingenuous to ignore them because the prevailing bias has relegated them to 'junk'.

It might not be brilliant, but it certainly is appropriate.

...Coyoteman said it. Far from throwing these scientific disciplines out, I posted links demonstrating that there is a growing body of evidence that contradicts the Church of Darwin in virtually every one of Coyoteman’s faith-based assertions.

I have examined a lot of those links, especially in fields I know well. They do not stand up to critical examination.

You are aware, I assume, that many creation "scientists" calibrate the radiocarbon method by reference to a global flood? Some even assume wildly changing rates of beta decay before and after the fall? I am not impressed by that kind of "science."

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