Remember for years and years we were told that appendixes were completely useless and proof that we lived in a godless world because no God would put something in us that was useless and could kill us. Well, remember it turned out that appendixes actually do serve a purpose. Oh well.
Robbed of their appendix theory, anti-theists have moved on to what they’ve termed “Junk DNA” that serves no purpose and is therefore evidence that we are simply biological accidents existing on a tiny rock in the infinite of space. But…not so fast.
Evolution News reports:
But are pseudogenes actually “nonfunctional … faulty duplicates … that do nothing” (Dawkins) or “broken DNA” (Giberson and Collins)? Consider the abstract of a new review article in the decidedly non-pro-ID journal RNA which sounds decidedly different from atheistic evolutionist Dawkins and theistic evolutionists Giberson and Collins:
Pseudogenes have long been labeled as “junk” DNA, failed copies of genes that arise during the evolution of genomes. However, recent results are challenging this moniker; indeed, some pseudogenes appear to harbor the potential to regulate their protein-coding cousins. Far from being silent relics, many pseudogenes are transcribed into RNA, some exhibiting a tissue-specific pattern of activation. Pseudogene transcripts can be processed into short interfering RNAs that regulate coding genes through the RNAi pathway. In another remarkable discovery, it has been shown that pseudogenes are capable of regulating tumor suppressors and oncogenes by acting as microRNA decoys. The finding that pseudogenes are often deregulated during cancer progression warrants further investigation into the true extent of pseudogene function. In this review, we describe the ways in which pseudogenes exert their effect on coding genes and explore the role of pseudogenes in the increasingly complex web of noncoding RNA that contributes to normal cellular regulation
Just seems to me that anytime anti-theists see something as purposeless perhaps they should wonder if its our own ignorance rather than quickly declaring a godless universe as scientific orthodoxy.
You can continue reading the piece called Et tu Pseudogenes at Evolution News.
April 29, 2011 at 12:39 am
Giberson and Collins are both Christians… you may already have realized that, but the way this post is written makes it sound like you're lumping them in with the atheist scientists. Also, belief in evolution and even junk dna is perfectly consistent with Catholicism.
April 29, 2011 at 2:29 am
The only junk here is the theory…Not the DNA!!
April 29, 2011 at 3:14 am
Anonymous, Evolution News clearly called them "theistic evolutionists". They argue that since God wouldn't have put broken DNA into our genome, we must have evolved. (Strange logic, since God didn't make us to be sinful, yet we are).
As far as I'm concerned, the real problem is with scientists who think they know enough to make definitive pronouncements about a still-growing field. The search into how DNA functions, how it really works, is still young, and there's a lot to learn. Like this instance, where "junk" or "broken" DNA seems to actually have a purpose (or, at least, usefulness).
April 29, 2011 at 5:39 am
Pseudogenes traveled throughout Academia with his lantern…
April 29, 2011 at 9:48 am
I do have the impression that among atheists there is a lot of junk DNA going on….
Mundabor