NEO-DARWINISM JUST DIED: Junk DNA or useful (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, September 09, 2012, 15:33 (4437 days ago) @ dhw
edited by unknown, Sunday, September 09, 2012, 15:53


> The heading of this article is: "Reports of Junk DNA's Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated", which may be so, but when the author writes how hard it is to convey "real science" to the general public, perhaps he should keep in mind that the uselessness of all junk DNA was also conveyed as "real science" until not so long ago. -Many of the articles has conveyed the idea that 'junk' is now gone. Not true. The functionality of many segemnts is minimal.-http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/09/fighting-about-encode-and-junk.html
 
> Regardless of religious beliefs and non-beliefs, and of how much DNA is or isn't junk, I have no difficulty whatsoever in believing that "our huge genome really is full of wonderful sophisticated control elements", even if not of every gene. -The key statistic is that these electrifying discoveries come from only 147 cell types and there are over a thousand cell types in humans. Those cells all use the same DNA, but express different parts of DNA. Obviously with more research into more cell types, more junk will disappear. -Also this research has emphasized the 3-D nature of DNA. Tightly coiled around histones the double helix presents genes to midifier sections in close proximity, while if the model of DNA is presented strung out in straight lines the modifying triggers seem far apart. My thought is that some junk is conserved simply as buffer material to allow for proper 3-D spacing. DNA looks to be brilliantly conceived, much to atheist dismay.