Evolution and humans; our unique genes (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, October 22, 2015, 10:27 (3319 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Appearing in the last 3+ million years:-http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-mystery-of-human-only-genes-and-...-QUOTE: "One such unique human gene is HYDIN2. It first appeared around 3.1 million years ago, as a duplicate of an existing gene called HYDIN. During the duplication process, “the head got chopped off and the tail got chopped off,” explains Max Dougherty from the University of Washington. It was as if someone had transcribed a book but neglected the prologue and epilogue. That should have been a fatal mistake since the prologues of genes contain sequences called promoters, which switch them on or off. The new gene should have been dead on arrival—a book that couldn't be opened.-"Instead, as luck would have it, it fused with a copy of another gene, which gave it a new lease on life. The fusion, which Dougherty described at the American Society of Human Genetics 2015 conference, created an entirely original gene, which looks like HYDIN but with a new prologue and a new first chapter. And while HYDIN, like most of our genes, exists in many other animals, its wayward daughter—HYDIN2—is a human-only innovation. (David's bold)-David's comment: Lucky or designed?-Weird! It certainly seems like a random mutation if the head and tail were chopped off during duplication, but the constructive fusion and the new human-specific genes described in the rest of the article suggest that intelligence is at work. More evidence of the autonomous ability of cells to work out ways of improving - or are you suggesting that God dabbled, or preprogrammed the chopping off process and fusion 3.8 billion years ago?