Evolution Predicts “Junk”… Intelligent Design Predicts “Treasure”
A long trail of refuse is what has been left behind by the theory of evolution. From the many deaths because evolutionary theory taught that tonsils were vestigial, to stalled insight into the appendix. Now we have years lost in the study of what was known as “Junk DNA.” Many years ago I debated that this will be found not to be junk, but will be shown to be useful, and after the first Scientific American article about “Junk DNA” not being Junk DNA, I was using it as an example to bolster the Intelligent Design argument:
For instance you can find a response here that I wrote in March of 2005:
The Above Response is from this Larger Debate
It is nice to see more and more INFORMATION (pun intended) come out on this, and the prediction made by Intelligent Design leaders in 1994! (Taken from Evolution News Article):
As far back as 1994, pro-ID scientist and Discovery Institute fellow Forrest Mims had warned in a letter to Science[1] against assuming that 'junk' DNA was 'useless.'" Science wouldn't print Mims' letter, but soon thereafter, in 1998, leading ID theorist William Dembski repeated this sentiment in First Things:
[Intelligent] design is not a science stopper. Indeed, design can foster inquiry where traditional evolutionary approaches obstruct it. Consider the term "junk DNA." Implicit in this term is the view that because the genome of an organism has been cobbled together through a long, undirected evolutionary process, the genome is a patchwork of which only limited portions are essential to the organism. Thus on an evolutionary view we expect a lot of useless DNA. If, on the other hand, organisms are designed, we expect DNA, as much as possible, to exhibit function. And indeed, the most recent findings suggest that designating DNA as "junk" merely cloaks our current lack of knowledge about function. For instance, in a recent issue of the Journal of Theoretical Biology, John Bodnar describes how "non-coding DNA in eukaryotic genomes encodes a language which programs organismal growth and development." Design encourages scientists to look for function where evolution discourages it.
(William Dembski, "Intelligent Science and Design," First Things, Vol. 86:21-27 (October 1998)
If these scientists were coming from the perspective that everything was “designed” to begin with, they wouldn’t merely write off unknowns as “junk.”
