Thursday, September 11, 2014

Creation Moment 9/12/2014 - Bye, Bye Junk...


"At least 80% of the human genome is functional, scientists now say, based on a genetic survey called ENCODE that may force reassessment of what a gene is.
The big news in human genetics this week is the publication of results by the ENCODE (Encyclopedia of DNA Elements) consortium, “the most ambitious human genetics project to date,” and what it reveals about function in the human genome.  When the human genome was first
published, scientists were surprised that only about 3% of it coded for proteins.  That was before they knew about all the coded information in the “epigenome,” which includes RNA transcripts that regulate the code.  The new results show that at least 80% of the human genome is, in fact, functional, rendering the evolutionary notion of “junk DNA” (leftovers from our evolutionary past) incorrectEvolutionists themselves are writing the “eulogy for junk DNA.”
Popular reports in the news media are too numerous to list.
  • Nature’s news feature “ENCODE: The Human Encyclopaedia” by Brendan Maher begins, “First they sequenced it. Now they have surveyed its hinterlands. But no one knows how much more information the human genome holds, or when to stop looking for it.
  • Evolution is mentioned in some of the Nature papers, but after notions of “evolutionarily conserved” and “evolutionary constraints” are removed (which refer to lack of evolution), what is left is mostly assumption rather than discovery.  In Nature’s summary article “Genomics: ENCODE Explained,” one mention of evolution was not particularly helpful to Darwinists: “Why evolution would maintain large amounts of ‘useless’ DNA had remained a mystery, and seemed wasteful,” Barroso wrote.  “It turns out, however, that there are good reasons to keep this DNA.”  Then Barroso listed some of the good things the non-coding DNA does. 
  • Nature posted a video by members of the ENCODE team explaining what their published results mean to human genetics.  ENCODE Lead Coordinator Ewan Birney describes the hundreds of terabytes of raw data generated in the 5-year project involving hundreds of people.  There are probably things that we have no idea what they’re doing and yet they’re doing something important,” he says, hinting at potentially more than 80% function.  “It’s very hard to get over the density of information,” he said.  Genes can no longer be considered discreet sections of code.  The data looks more like a jungle.  There are “places in the genome we thought were silent and they’re teeming with life,” he said." CEH


I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:
Psalm 139:14