An article in science blog says we may have to rethink how genes work. So called “junk DNA” actually appears to be functional. What’s more it works in a mysterious way involving multiple overlaps that seems to be connected in some sort of network.
The ENCODE consortium’s major findings include the discovery that the majority of DNA in the human genome is transcribed into functional molecules, called RNA, and that these transcripts extensively overlap one another. This broad pattern of transcription challenges the long-standing view that the human genome consists of a relatively small set of discrete genes, along with a vast amount of so-called junk DNA that is not biologically active. The new data indicates the genome contains very little unused sequences and, in fact, is a complex, interwoven network. In this network, genes are just one of many types of DNA sequences that have a functional impact. “Our perspective of transcription and genes may have to evolve,” the researchers state in their Nature paper, noting the network model of the genome “poses some interesting mechanistic questions” that have yet to be answered.
It’s good to see secular science catching up with creationist science.
For years evolutionists have been citing “junk DNA” as evidence of evolution. They said that these were the leftovers of evolution’s work and indications of an imperfect creation. For years, creationists have been telling evolutionists that even though we haven’t figured out yet what exactly those portions of DNA do, they are there for a reason.
This is a repeating pattern throughout history. Men think they have things figured out and proven reality to be contrary to God’s word, but as man’s knowledge grows, his own knowledge contradicts the conclusions he made contrary to the word of God. This happened with the existence of Pontius Pilate, and many other historical/archaeological issues. It happened when the science of the day said the earth was flat, despite the Bible talking about the circle of the earth.
One Response
June 21st, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Actually, The Bible contains repeated references to the earth being flat in addition to references to the earth being “a circle.” (The fact that it was a circle is, BTW, not mutually exclusive from it being flat. Many believed that the earth was both flat and circular, a result of seeing the earth’s shadow on the moon during eclipses.) Psalms, Isaiah and 1 Chronicles all describe the earth as “immovable” and “fixed.” In Daniel 4 there’s a description of a tree at the center of the earth that’s so tall that it’s visible from anywhere on Earth. Ditto, most famously, in Matthew, when Satan takes Jesus to a high mountain, so that Jesus could see the whole of the world.
As on most matters of verifiable fact, The Bible is a mixed bag.
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