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I might add to your excellent point, allmendream, that this fascinating work would certainly not be nearly so far along but for the fact that the scientists doing it assume evolution to be true.

Typically -- whether dealing with DNA, RNA like the polymerases, or proteins like the histones packaging the DNA and influencing it's expression -- the key step in zeroing in for investigation on those sequences likely to functionally important is identifying sequences conserved across evolutionary lineages. Evolution (the assumption of common descent) tells you where to look. Knowing where to look is often the first and crucial step in fruitful scientific research.

I might add to your excellent point, allmendream, that this fascinating work would certainly not be nearly so far along but for the fact that the scientists doing it assume evolution to be true.

Thanks for the laugh.

Typically -- whether dealing with DNA, RNA like the polymerases, or proteins like the histones packaging the DNA and influencing it's expression -- the key step in zeroing in for investigation on those sequences likely to functionally important is identifying sequences conserved across evolutionary lineages. Evolution (the assumption of common descent) tells you where to look.

A wide range of philosophical beliefs about the nature of life, biochemistry, or other factors could lead to the same results. Of course, there could be far more important factors in DNA which are overlooked because of this particular philosophy. You defending evolution by arguing from ignorance and speculation is a pretty common practice though.

Typically -- whether dealing with DNA, RNA like the polymerases, or proteins like the histones packaging the DNA and influencing it's expression -- the key step in zeroing in for investigation on those sequences likely to functionally important is identifying sequences conserved across evolutionary lineages. Evolution (the assumption of common descent) tells you where to look. Knowing where to look is often the first and crucial step in fruitful scientific research.

To a point, I suppose ... but in so doing, it seems to me that you sacrifice some of the information available. DNA apparently contains layers upon layers of information, including "meta-information." These recent findings tend to strengthen the impression that DNA seems to share certain similarities with software. Perhaps taking a more "ID" approach to the problem would perhaps be more helpful in decompiling it. You don't necessarily have to buy into ID ... but the idea just may provide ways to look at the problem that a purely evolutionary approach doesn't allow.

Suppose we look at through an analogy -- instead of DNA, let's suppose it's a binary file of previously unknown nature. After some investigation, you discover that the binary file appears to contain both information and instructions -- in other words, it has characteristics similar to a software executable. At some point, wouldn't it make sense to look at the binary data as if it were actually programmed by somebody, as a means of unravelling the information flow?