Belief system
Creationist view 55%
Theistic evolution 27%
Naturalistic Evolution 13%
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).
Actually, if life is designed, then true science is by definition consonant with theistic convictions. Even Richard Dawkins is forced to admit that living things “overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design.” In short, ID merely seeks to apply science to the investigation of Dawkin’s very own admission.
I believe this thread is about ID, not Creation Science. And if the links I posted do not stand up to critical examination, feel free to critically examine them.
well, junk is a very predjudiced and inaccurate description of something that scientists are still searching for the function of.
I don’t need to read anymore, actually, for a simple textbook definition can be rewritten by whoever holds the typewriter, and the use of the term has always been more than the simple phrase of “ DNA that exists that we do not know the usage for”, it has always had the context that it is an evolutionary leftover.
Just like the Appendix used to.
And Tonsils, too.
Oh, here’s another inconvenient fossil that has the Church of Darwin’s collective panties in a twist (also see the Carbon 14 link at the bottom...the Darwinist assumptions are piling up faster than geocentric epicycles):
http://www.detectingdesign.com/fossilizeddna.html
I have posted critiques on many occasions, particularly regarding radiocarbon dating. I have convinced nobody here because in spite of what is claimed, ID is creation "science" with the serial numbers filed off in an attempt to sneak it into science classes.
If ID and creation "science" were about science, then facts, logic, and reason -- scientific evidence -- would prevail. What shows that ID and creation "science" are both religion is that belief (scripture or revelation) prevails over scientific evidence.
Those links you posted are good evidence of this, as are several creationist/creation "science" websites. Look up the Creation Research Society, Institute for Creation Research, Creation Studies Institute, and Answers In Genesis and see what their Statement of Belief, Tenets of Scientific Creationism, Mission, and Statement of Faith are (respectively). I can provide links if you need.
This is good evidence that they are doing religion, not science. They state clearly that religious belief supersedes science.
That is not science, and a critical examination of their writings confirms this.
Fundamentalists take many shapes. Orthodox Environmentalists already control Europe. Radical Darwinists still rule universities and many "respected" publications worldwide, too.
The poor scientist who dares publish DNA code skipping (the death of Evolutionary Theory) will be trashed, just as you predict above, by those entrenched fundamentalists.
intelligent design has made successful predictions on the question of "junk-DNA."
then
A physicist demonstrates that God is consistent with laws of physics.
Thank you:
I will accept
"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'."
as fact and be quite happy to do so.
Actually, it was your very own Richard Dawkins who said that “The presence or absence of a creative super-intelligence is unequivocally a scientific question...”
And the fact that you keep mixing up Creation Science with Intelligent Design indicates that you are ignorant about both.
"It's wasn't a prediction, it was a statement of accepted fact."
Thank you:
I will accept: "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'" as fact.
And be quite happy to do so.
No, they predict that most of what the Darwinists call “junk DNA” will later turn out to be functional DNA. It’s a solid prediction that flies in the face of Darwinist expectations, and science is starting to confirm the the same.
It's going to be someone other than a journalist. After all, there had been (up to a few months ago) a thriving school of neo-Darwinian thought that held that "junk DNA" segments were leftovers from antiquated or functionally discarded and/or "broken" genes, and were being moved thorugh evolutionary methods into non-existence.
More recently we've been hearing that we have retro-viruses "inserted" into our genomes that do incredible things such as controlling the size of the brain, making the placenta functional, etc., etc.
Pretty profound stuff to me if not to you ~ and not at all a surprise if life as we know it here on this little planet in a vast cosmos was "designed" in some "life factory" somewhere, some time in the distant past ~ maybe even in a different universe.
Ergo, ID is not just another restatement of Creationism, particularly if our particular form of life is just a clustering of bio-engines and sensors useful in machines the function of which we cannot yet imagine.
Belief system
Creationist view 55%
Theistic evolution 27%
Naturalistic Evolution 13%
“In many cases darwinists assume they know and then go out and teach that mislead assumption only to find that they don’t know.”
Your statement is unfair. Those who believe in evolution are the ones who made this discovery. It didn’t have anything to do with the Discovery Institute or those who support Intelligent Design. Scientists had a theory that the dna was a relic, and therefore not important. It has been disproven by the scientists who made this discovery. That is how it is supposed to work.
If the Discovery Institute had actually made this scientific discovery, I would be impressed. But I don’t know that they actually do any scientific research. It appears that they criticize the works of those doing the research, but provide little of their own scientific research data.
This results of this study are being used to criticize those who support evolution. But, those who support evolution are the ones that have done this study, made the discovery and published the results. They did not make an assumption and treat it as fact. They made an assumption, tested it scientifically, and shared the results with others. Even though the results are not what was expected, it is an advancement in science, which will be taught to students.
As long as we're demanding citations....
There's gotta' be something roughly the equivalent of a "Patent Pending" followed by a long number in there.
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