Intelligent Design Bears Good Scientific Fruit in the Study of 'Junk DNA'

[SVPete]

Intelligent Design Bears Good Scientific Fruit in the Study of 'Junk DNA'

https://townhall.com/columnists/casey-luskin/2026/09/20/intelligent-design-bears-good-scientific-fruit-in-the-study-of-junk-dna-n2683215

For decades, many scientists have confidently dismissed the vast majority of the human DNA as useless evolutionary garbage. Yet a recently published scientific paper in Cell, one of the world’s most prestigious biology journals, declares a “paradigm shift” against the idea that huge portions of the human genome are merely “junk DNA.”

After the Human Genome Project was completed in 2003, a startling discovery was made. Only about 2 percent of the entire human genome codes for proteins. Scientists naturally asked, what is the other 98 percent doing?

Evolutionary biology was ready with an answer. For decades, they had claimed that the vast majority of the human genome was essentially genetic garbage — “junk DNA.” This idea had deep roots in evolutionary thinking — which loves to claim humanity and other living things are poorly designed.

A 1969 paper titled “Non-Darwinian Evolution” in the journal Science proposed that “99 percent of mammalian DNA is not true genetic material.” Three years later, the great Japanese biologist Susumu Ohno coined the term “junk DNA” and predicted that “at least 90% of the mammalian genomic DNA appears to represent ‘nonsense.’”

Atheist evolutionary biologists loved the idea. Richard Dawkins wrote in his 2003 book "A Devil’s Chaplain" that “genomes are littered with nonfunctional … junk.” ...
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Meanwhile, proponents of intelligent design (ID) developed a very different view of so-called "junk DNA."

In 1994, pro-ID scientist Forrest Mims wrote a letter to Science warning against assuming that “junk” DNA was “useless.” Four years later, mathematician William Dembski articulated the ID view: “Consider the term ‘junk DNA. … Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it.”
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A consortium of hundreds of scientists involved in the ENCODE Project published results in the top journal Nature showing that over 80 percent of the human genome is biochemically active. They showed the vast majority of the genome is converted into RNA — a process called “transcription” that is normally a telltale sign of function. One lead ENCODE researcher predicted that as more human cell types are studied, “that 80 percent will go to 100 percent.”

These discoveries had a dramatic effect on biological thinking. Even Francis Collins changed his tune. Speaking at a scientific conference in 2015, he admitted:

"In terms of junk DNA, we don’t use that term anymore because I think it was pretty much a case of hubris to imagine that we could dispense with any part of the genome as if we knew enough to say it wasn’t functional."

I'm so old that I remember when human organs such as the tonsils and appendix were labelled "vestigial" leftovers from evolution ... and were later found to have immune system and other important functions. This was just one aspect of the arrogance of The Science, being unable to say, "We don't know right now." That arrogance has not covered itself with reverence, recently.

[Rick]

When I was born in 1951, males were automatically circumcised "to prevent cancer". This had changed a little bit, twenty years later when my daughter was born.