[allmendream]

The conservation of essential sequences between different lineages is one of the main lines of evidence confirming our common ancestry.

Most pseudo-genes (looks like a gene but no longer an open reading frame) change at the neutral mutation rate. Within an open reading frame there is more likely to be changes in the third codon position than at other positions because changes at this position usually do not change what amino acid is coded for, or entail a conservative substitution.

Probably the most surprising thing about the genome project was the existence of these evolutionarily conserved DNA sequences that do not code for proteins.

[muawiyah]

They do? I seriously doubt we've examined enough of that category of sequences to know if they change at any sort of rate. Some are presumed to do so and have been extensively studied, but it's only recently that we've managed to dig up the whole genome, and I seriously doubt anyone has had the time to evaluate the whole thing and come to that conclusion.

How about this ~ DNA is simply a computer ~ part of it produces proteins or parts of proteins. The rest of it figures out how to fool fundies and evolutionists.