During the new study, researchers linked more than 80 percent of the human genome sequence to a specific biological function and mapped more than 4 million regulatory regions where proteins specifically interact with the DNA. These findings represent a significant advance in understanding the precise and complex controls over the expression of genetic information within a cell. The findings bring into much sharper focus the continually active genome in which proteins routinely turn genes on and off using sites that are sometimes at great distances from the genes themselves. They also identify where chemical modifications of DNA influence gene expression and where various functional forms of RNA, a form of nucleic acid related to DNA, help regulate the whole system.Though I don’t want to overload you with numbers, I assume you can easily imagine winning a million dollar lottery. Take a million times a little more than 3 thousand and that is about how many DNA units carry on their work in our body’s cells: over 3 billion. Take a million times 75 million and that is approximately how many cells we humans each have: 75 trillion. Almost all of these cells contain the full 3 billion complement of DNA with the functions identified by this ENCODE project. Among other things, they have found that various, specific sets of switches are active depending which cell type is studied.
Before this latest part of the project was released, we were under the impression by an initial study, called the Human Genome Project, that there were only about 20,000 genes comprising about 1-2% of the DNA code. There were inklings that other things were going on, but by and large scientists thought that the rest of the DNA, which was called “junk,” was accumulated from millions of years of evolution and basically worthless. However, they were getting practically nowhere in understanding how some genetic diseases and even cancerous tumors come about. Now they are seeing that these previously unknown switches have a great deal to do with the actions of DNA and small mistakes in their functions can cause big problems.
This false prediction of evolutionary theory is no joke. It cost precious time and kept monies from being available to learn more about the rest of the DNA. Fortunately, scientific curiosity prevailed. After the Human Genome Project, the first ENCODE endeavor included looking at just 1% of the rest of DNA. The scientists found activity for the small molecules that were made from DNA but not translated into protein. These, therefore, were useful products from parts of the non-gene-producing DNA. Surprised by this study, scientists desired to know more and procured the necessary money and manpower needed (both considerable). The results of the ENCODE research were published in over 30 papers in several scientific journals in early September, 2012. Numerous other journal articles have already been spawned from the basic research.
Sadly, the scientists still refer to evolution. Though evolution has many definitions, the one accepted in modern scientific terms is the one that refers to totally materialistic, naturalistic, random formation of life, both originally and in developing speciation. It relies only on the laws of chemistry and physics to bring about the first creature known as the common ancestor and develop diversity from it. There has been no discussion of which I’m aware in all the scientific articles of any other possibility.
Let me be the first to tell you, then, that the latest ENCODE results prove that materialistic, naturalistic evolution is impossible. Scientists already knew that active parts of DNA were too valuable to change much. Mutations are usually bad for the metabolism of the organism. That’s why they focused on the “junk” as available to change “neutrally,” part of their “neutral theory of molecular evolution.” Though this already was doubtful to anyone who understood probabilities, the theory should have been scrapped for sure in 1990, when two MIT scientists published a paper about their tests on what proportion of the combinations of amino acids, components of proteins, would be found functional. The paper is JF Reidhaar-Olson and RT Sauer, "Functionally acceptable substitutions in two alpha-helical regions of lambda repressor," Proteins, 7, 4 (1990): 306-16. They gave the astounding number of 1 in 10 to the 63rd power (written 10^63). 10^63 is a 1 with 63 zeroes following. A trillion is a million times a million, or 10^12. You would find less than 1 functional protein in a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion of them. A billion years would be a drop in the bucket to form even 3 useful proteins, much less for them to find each other. A free-living organism is estimated to need 1000 self-producing proteins to survive.
It was then that every headline should have shouted: "Discovery Brings End to Darwin’s Theory!" Of course, one study could be wrong. But since then, similar results have been produced. And now the ENCODE project has shown that the “junk” is not available for mutational experimentation and re-arrangement anyway. The non-gene part of the DNA, now being called “dark matter,” is projected to be found almost 100% functional by the time more experiments evaluate even more types of cells.
But the headlines never seem to come that announce even the possibility that blind physical forces are not the whole story of life. And scientists and the media wonder why people don’t trust them. Even before these revelations, many persons thought there could have been evolution over eons directed by God as well as those who believe in a young Earth. I know from studying genes that though I am amazed by the discoveries of technology, it is unlikely I will get the whole truth from modern scientific journals and the media. I hope that though the jargon and numbers may be difficult, people will realize they can understand what the research reveals. It’s worth more to them than a million dollars.
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