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“Junk” RNA Found to Encode Peptides That Regulate Fruit Fly Development
Advocates of intelligent design have long been skeptical of the claim that the majority of our genome is nonfunctional gibberish, a mere relic of our evolutionary past. Many of the key arguments for common ancestry are based around the supposition that certain loci of our genome are functionless. But the gaps in our knowledge of the genome (in which such supposition resides) are continually shrinking. A recent paper published in Science by Kondo et al. reported on the discovery that some of the supposed “non-coding” regions of the RNA transcript actually actively encode for short peptides that regulate genes involved in Drosophila development. According to the Abstract, A substantial proportion of eukaryotic transcripts are considered to be noncoding RNAs because Read More ›
Back to School: Do You Know What Your Child Is Learning?
Another school year is set to begin at high schools and colleges where the next round of biology students will be filled with evolutionary misinformation. At the center of this propaganda campaign are the many biology textbooks used to indoctrinate young minds with old dogma. These textbooks contain the latest evolutionary newspeak, but the underlying lies are no different. In their text The Living World (Fifth Edition, McGraw Hill, 2008) evolutionary apologists George Johnson and Jonathan Lobos rehearse the usual lies. Students are told that “Microevolution Leads to Macroevolution” with the giraffe’s neck serving as the example of how small change is supposed to accumulate to the large-scale change evolution needs. Of course this is a long-standing, well-known problem for evolution. Mechanisms Read More ›
Nick Lane Takes on the Origin of Life and DNA
Recently, Nick Lane, a biochemist and Provost’s Venture Research Fellow in the Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment at University College London, published a new book, Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution. Nick Lane lays out ten biological phenomena for which he seeks to propose plausible evolutionary explanations. Among the phenomena discussed by Lane are the origin of life, DNA, photosynthesis, the complex cell, sex, movement, sight, hot blood, consciousness, and death. But does Darwinism have the goods? Or does Nick Lane offer us only a series of wishful speculations? New Scientist offered the following praise for Lane’s work: What makes this such a great read is that Lane, a biochemist by training, does not simply rehash the Read More ›
The ‘Junk DNA’ Paradigm Continues To Collapse As New Functions Are Discovered For Retrotransposons
The literature continues to flood in demonstrating that so-called ‘junk’ regions of the genome are not junk after all, but serve significant and important functions. One such recent paper reports evidence that retrotransposons may play significant roles in the cell. According to the abstract, Retrotransposons including endogenous retroviruses and their solitary long terminal repeats (LTRs) compose >40% of the human genome. Many of them are located in intergenic regions far from genes. Whether these intergenic retrotransposons serve beneficial host functions is not known. Here we show that an LTR retrotransposon of ERV-9 human endogenous retrovirus located 40–70 kb upstream of the human fetal γ- and adult β-globin genes serves a long-range, host function. The ERV-9 LTR contains multiple CCAAT and Read More ›
Nature Immunology Editorial Botches American Law and Science Education
A May, 2010 editorial in Nature Immunology makes it clear that they don’t trust religious persons–even those who are neo-Darwinian evolutionists like Francis Collins–in positions of scientific authority. The editorial (written by the journal’s editors) states: “The openly religious stance of the NIH director [Francis Collins] could have undesirable effects on science education in the United States. … In the introduction and in interviews surrounding [Collins’] book release, he describes his belief in a non-natural, non-measurable, improvable deity that created the universe and its laws with humans as the ultimate aim of its creation. Some might worry that describing scientists as workers toiling to understand the laws and intricacies of this divine creation will create opportunities for creationism adepts.” (“Of Read More ›