You Just Knew This Was Coming, Didn't You?

Jonathan McLatchie must have hardly been able to contain himself when he wrote: Latest ENCODE Research Validates ID Predictions On Non-Coding Repertoire.

Readers will likely recall the ENCODE project, published in a series of papers in 2007, in which (among other interesting findings) it was discovered that, even though the vast majority of our DNA does not code for proteins, the human genome is nonetheless pervasively transcribed into mRNA. The science media and blogosphere is now abuzz with the latest published research from the ENCODE project, the most recent blow to the “junk DNA” paradigm. Since the majority of the genome being non-functional (as has been claimed by many, including notably Larry Moran, P.Z. Myers, Nick Matzke, Jerry Coyne, Kenneth Miller and Richard Dawkins) would be surprising given the hypothesis of design, ID proponents have long predicted that function will be identified for much of our DNA that was once considered to be useless. In a spectacular vindication of this hypothesis, six papers have been released in Nature, in addition to a further 24 papers in Genome Research and Genome Biology, plus six review articles in The Journal of Biological Chemistry.

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This new research places a dagger through the heart of the junk DNA paradigm, and should give adherents to this out-dated assumption yet further cause for caution before they write off DNA, for which function has yet to be identified, as “junk".

Not much I can say right now. I'm up to my ears trying to convince sane people that the ENCODE papers are wrong. The IDiots are just going to have to wait.

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