Creation Moment 11/18/2014 - The 3 arguments of Avise: #3

"In the May 11, 2010 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), John Avise authored a paper titled “Footprints of Nonsentient Design Inside the Human Genome” (Avise, 2010). In this article, Avise highlighted several alleged evidences from the human genome which, according to him, prove it could not have been created by intelligent design, but rather must be a product of natural selection over countless years of time. The author calls his evidence an “argument from imperfection.” The thesis for his argument in favor of evolution is that the human genome, while undeniably complex, is riddled with errors and imperfections. Avise contends that the simple presence of these alleged fallibilities argues against an omnipotent Creator and, instead, is evidence for a nonsentient process (natural selection). This article addresses each of the major arguments posed by Avise.

The diploid human genome is roughly six billion base pairs in length. But, it is estimated that less than 2% of the genome is composed of functional, protein-coding DNA sequences. The vast majority of the DNA sequence consists of non-coding introns, regulatory sequences, repetitive DNA elements, and other uncharacterized sequences. DNA is the basic genetic material because it codes for the proteins and RNAs needed for all biological processes. So, as Avise notes, why is there so much non-protein coding DNA sequence that some have called “junk DNA”? He makes the argument that if the human genome were truly designed, it is a flawed, wasteful design.

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But our cells seem to function just fine with the extra DNA. If the human genome arose by evolutionary means, natural selection has not favored discarding this DNA over the alleged billions of evolutionary years. So, the repetitive DNA elements would not seem to be an evolutionary fitness disadvantage.
Furthermore, as we learn more about genomics, scientists are finding new properties and new functions for much of this “extra” DNA. We have already discussed the usefulness of introns to allow alternative splicing. Additionally, the aforementioned miRNAs are encoded by intronic and other non-coding DNA elements. Another recent discovery is that of the long noncoding RNAs (Petherick, 2008). These RNAs have undefined function, but are found within non-coding DNA elements."
ApologeticsPress

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God.

1 Corinthians 3:19