Encode supported? (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, August 15, 2013, 18:54 (4119 days ago) @ David Turell

More from this article:-"In essence, the argument posits that
the presence of non-protein-coding or so-called 'junk
DNA' that comprises >90% of the human genome is evidence
for the accumulation of evolutionary debris by
blind Darwinian evolution, and argues against intelligent
design, as an intelligent designer would presumably not
fill the human genetic instruction set with meaningless
information (Dawkins 1986; Collins 2006). This argument
is threatened in the face of growing functional indices
of noncoding regions of the genome, with the
latter reciprocally used in support of the notion of intelligent
design and to challenge the conception that natural
selection accounts for the existence of complex
organisms (Behe 2003; Wells 2011).
"Conclusions
It is our position that these arguments are misguided. Indeed,
we have refuted the specific claims that most of the
observed transcription across the human genome is random
(Clark et al. 2011; Mercer et al. 2012) and put forward
the case over many years that the appearance of a
vast layer of RNA-based epigenetic regulation was a
necessary prerequisite to the emergence of developmentally
and cognitively advanced organisms (Mattick 1994;
Mattick and Gagen 2001; Mattick 2004; Amaral et al.
2008; Mattick 2009a, 2011). This case is, moreover, entirely
consistent with the broad tenets of evolution by natural
selection, although it may not be easily reconcilable
with current population theory and current ideas of evolutionary
neutrality. In any case, that our understanding of
the remarkably complex processes underlying the molecular
evolution of life, including the likely evolution of
evolvability (Mattick 2009c), is incomplete should not be
surprising. With the emergence of transformative technologies,
such as massively parallel sequencing, which
provide tools to view the inner molecular workings of the
genome that were inconceivable less than a decade ago, it
is as important as ever that we as scientists remain open
to observations that challenge even the most fundamental
paradigms that exist within biology today."-http://www.thehugojournal.com/content/pdf/1877-6566-7-2.pdf