There's a fascinating report in Science Daily. It seems that researchers have discovered that the difference between chimps and humans is due to the fact that some segments of what is called "junk" DNA, DNA that doesn't code for proteins, were somehow "switched on" in the early history of primates. The resulting proteins coded for by this newly activated DNA were responsible for the emergence of the human species:
Humans and chimpanzees are genetically very similar, yet it is not difficult to identify the many ways in which we are clearly distinct from chimps. In a study published online in Genome Research, scientists have made a crucial discovery of genes that have evolved in humans after branching off from other primates, opening new possibilities for understanding what makes us uniquely human.
The prevailing wisdom in the field of molecular evolution was that new genes could only evolve from duplicated or rearranged versions of preexisting genes. It seemed highly unlikely that evolutionary processes could produce a functional protein-coding gene from what was once inactive DNA.
However, recent evidence suggests that this phenomenon does in fact occur. Researchers have found genes that arose from non-coding DNA in flies, yeast, and primates. No such genes had been found to be unique to humans until now, and the discovery raises fascinating questions about how these genes might make us different from other primates.
They estimate there may be approximately 18 human-specific genes that have arisen from non-coding DNA during human evolution.
This is quite a revelation since Darwinians had long claimed that junk DNA has no function and Intelligent Design advocates had been predicting thatit would eventually be found to have a function in the cell. That there are 18 human-specific genes in what was previously thought to be genetic clutter is pretty embarrassing to Darwinism.
It's also interesting because the DNA was present in the cell prior to having any function. This is hard to square with Darwinian evolutionary theory since it suggests that the cell produced and carried macromolecules for which it had no use, a phenomenon which Darwinism disallows.
Finally, the finding fits nicely with the idea of front-loaded evolution, i.e. the theory that God laid the groundwork for biological evolution at the time of creation and that subsequent evolutionary change has simply been the unfolding of the genetic potentialities latent in life from the beginning.
Whatever the case, the news that junk DNA is not really junk should disturb those who wish to deny teleology in biology. The discovery that preexisting DNA was activated at a certain point in evolutionary history and subsequently gave rise to the human species certainly seems more compatible with a telic view of life than with the notion that evolution is purposeless and random.
RLC
