Rethinking Junk DNA

Psalm 139:14
“I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.”

At the time of the Scope's Trial of 1925, several organs of the body were labeled as 'vestigial'. By this, it was meant that the organ has no purpose and has been 'left behind' by the onward march of evolution. Examples of such organs are the coccyx and the appendix. Today, both of these are known to have actual functions and are, hence, not vestigial. All of the other systems identified during the Scope's Trial as vestigial have now been found to have a use. Many scientists – including many evolutionists – would now suggest that an organ labeled as vestigial is simply one for which the purpose has not yet been found.

Similar arguments have been made about parts of DNA, which have been labeled as Junk DNA because they have no known purpose. Scientists are now casting doubt on the 'junk' nature of such DNA segments. Indeed, searching for junk DNA on Wikipedia will lead you to an article entitled Non-Coding DNA. But scientific articles are showing that these DNA segments are probably not non-coding, but the purpose of the coding is not yet known. An example of this is a recent article, showing that mutations in a so-called non- coding section could actually cause genetic illnesses such as autism. Researchers actually made predictions of what such mutations would cause and then demonstrated that these predictions seemed to be correct. Such segments of DNA are not junk, nor even non-coding. We just might not have discovered their purpose yet.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, according to Your purposes. Amen.

Author: Paul F. Taylor

Ref: Simons Foundation. "New causes of autism found in 'junk' DNA: Neurodevelopmental condition can result from mutations in the noncoding regions of the human genome, research shows." ScienceDaily, 27 May 2019.

© 2020 Creation Moments. All rights reserved.

For more from Creation Moments, visit CreationMoments.com.
Listen to daily messages from Creation Moments on
OnePlace.com.