DNA -- It Ain't Junk

HELEN

There are a number of evolutionist apologists who, through the years
I
have been involved with forums, have claimed that God couldn’t have
directly created man and the evidence is that there is so much ‘junk’
DNA.

Folks, calling it junk was a sign of our ignorance, not an indication
of
poor design or the lack of man being directly created by God.

Recent studies of DNA have shown that without that “junk”, DNA can’t
replicate properly. There are also areas which get switched on in
times
of stress, or sleep deprivation. In other words, we not only have
regulators we didn’t know about before, but we have back-up systems
for
when the regular stuff gets overwhelmed.

The most recent article is out of the University of Michigan Health
System, and I quote the first part of it here. The public release
date
was May 12, 2002:

Junk DNA is the Rodney Dangerfield of the genetics world.
It makes up nearly half of all human DNA, but many scientists dismiss
it
as useless gibberish. A new study published online today from the
June
2002 issue of Nature Genetics, however, suggests that segments of
junk
DNA called LINE-1 elements deserve more respect.

Conducted by scientists from the University of Michigan Medical
School
and Louisiana State University, the study is the first to show in
mammalian cells that some human LINE-1, or L1, elements can jump to
chromosomes with broken strands of DNA, slip into the break and
repair
the damage.

So we now not only have junk DNA as regulators and back-up
mechanisms,
but as repairmen as well.

We were directly created. DNA does not have lots of junk in it, and
it
is very possible that the ‘mistakes’ we ‘share’ with the apes and
such
are not mistakes at all, but simply something we don’t know enough
about
yet.

In short? It’s still safe to trust the Bible. God not only knew
what
He was doing during creation, but He knew how to communicate it to us
quite clearly as well.

 

SCOTT PAGE

I don’t know what an “evolutionary apologist” is supposed to be, but I do know that evolutionists have known for a long time that “junk DNA” is not “junk” in the common usage. I also know that many lay evolutionists consider ‘junk DNA’ to be useless junk… indicators of the general scientific ignorance of the American masses, not of ‘apologetics.’
However, even if ‘junk DNA’ turns out to be absolutely essential, it is an illogical extrapolation to claim that it is indicative of ‘man’ being directly created by God.

You are wildly extrapolating. That some areas previously considered junk (by virtue of not encoding any protein) have been discovered to have some regulatory function is hardly supportive of your matter-of-fact statement above. From the way your sentence is written, it appears that ALL so-called ‘junk-DNA’ has these functions. Is that true? I think not. Please be more judicious in your choice of words.[/quote]

The most recent article is out of the University of Michigan Health
System, and I quote the first part of it here. The public release
date was May 12, 2002:

Junk DNA is the Rodney Dangerfield of the genetics world.
It makes up nearly half of all human DNA, but many scientists dismiss
it as useless gibberish. A new study published online today from the
June 2002 issue of Nature Genetics, however, suggests that segments of
junk DNA called LINE-1 elements deserve more respect.

Conducted by scientists from the University of Michigan Medical
School and Louisiana State University, the study is the first to show in
mammalian cells that some human LINE-1, or L1, elements can jump to
chromosomes with broken strands of DNA, slip into the break and
repair the damage.

So we now not only have junk DNA as regulators and back-up
mechanisms, but as repairmen as well.

We were directly created. DNA does not have lots of junk in it, and
it is very possible that the ‘mistakes’ we ‘share’ with the apes and
such are not mistakes at all, but simply something we don’t know enough
about yet.

In short? It’s still safe to trust the Bible. God not only knew
what He was doing during creation, but He knew how to communicate it to us
quite clearly as well.
[/quote]

“Quite clearly”? If it was so clear, one should wonder why the only folks that see this so-called message are committed to it on a priori grounds.

As for LINE elements, take a look here:

http://www2.norwich.edu/spage/alignmentgam.htm

On the top line, I have listed locus information. You will notice on the very first line the locus identifier “L1A” – that stands for LINE-1A. As you look down the columns under it, you will see some interesting trends, including a 14-bp deletion followed by an AAA insertion in three species of Old World monkey (Lat, Pcy, Tge). Those unique changes are within the L1A. Did God put those synapomophies there to fool evolutionists into thinking that these species are related via descent? Is that part of the ‘clearly’ written Biotic Message? Or is there some other, more logical solution?
Then, about 1/2 of the way down the entire alignment there is another LINE element. Two, in fact (L1-A and L1-B). You can easily find it by searching for “L1”. The two are truncated and spliced. You will see some interesting trends there, as well. The logical conclusion is that the genes in question (globins) are flanked by L1s and that during crossing over events, the similarity of the L1s facilitated gene duplication and in the process got truncated themselves. You will notice that several of the species do not have the L1b or even the second gamma gene. Yet, they do quite well.
One needs to look at the totality of the available data to draw conclusions, rather than sorting through all of the literature to find a few tidbits that, when taken alone, seem to support one’s notions.

 

KEVIN KLEIN

It appears to be time for a little refresher on junk DNA. The
following excerpt is from

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/molgen/

As I have indicated in bold above, findings like the ones in the
paper Helen cited are to be expected and do not provide a sufficient
basis to conclude that all or even a significant amount of junk DNA
has a function.