Trash Talk: Junk DNA

As one Nature Education title put it, “Mutations Are the Raw Materials of Evolution.”1 But it’s clear that most mutations are bad, and the more complex the system, the worse the mutations! Evolutionists got around that problem by asserting that the vast majority of DNA was nonfunctioning, vestigial “junk DNA” where the majority of mutations occurred. With that interpretation, evolutionists had a piece of evidence for evolution and a fix for their mutation problem.

But a new scientific study has proved that “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” It claims, “What scientists once dismissed as junk DNA may actually be some of the most powerful code in our genome.”2 That is just what creationists would have predicted!

Creationists Were Right All Along!

Creationists asserted for years that “junk DNA” likely has a function that hasn’t yet been discovered. Just because we didn’t know what large sections of DNA were doing didn’t mean they were junk! And just as so-called vestigial organs like the appendix have an important function, so does “junk DNA.” Ignorance of something’s function isn’t evidence for evolution!

Ignorance of something’s function isn’t evidence for evolution!

Evolutionists argued that because “junk DNA” was noncoding, mutations there were neutral, meaning that natural selection couldn’t act on it and it could not have been removed by selection.3 This became the dominant view for many years. Anti-creationists even used this view to criticize creationists, laughing at the notion that an intelligent agent would make a genome full of mostly defective and useless genetic material.4

The Vital Role of So-Called Junk DNA

Now it’s clear that “junk DNA” has an important role in controlling how genes are turned on and off, particularly during development in the womb. What was thought to be junk actually reflects brilliant design! And that’s a problem for evolutionists.

First, creationists accurately predicted this outcome while evolutionists mocked us for it. This is yet another instance of creationist assumptions providing a framework that allows us to make accurate scientific predictions. Evolutionists’ assumption led to the wrong interpretation.

A Fresh Coat of Lipstick on the Evolutionary Pig

So evolutionists admitted they were wrong, right? Not so fast! Whenever evolutionists are forced to admit they were wrong, they always seem to find a way to insert an evolutionary “saving mechanism” into their explanation of the facts they found in order to blunt the blow against their failed and former bold claims that supposedly proved evolution but were shown to be false.

For example, when Archaeopteryx was first discovered, it was claimed to be the transitional link between dinosaurs and birds. But later fossil finds showed that birds were buried supposedly millions of years earlier in the fossil record, meaning that Archaeopteryx couldn’t be the link (because you can’t be older than your grandparents).5 But evolutionists didn’t discard dinosaur-to-bird evolution; they just claimed that Archaeopteryx is only a bird-like dinosaur, instead of a dinosaur-like bird, so it’s still “proof” of evolution!6

This type of reinterpretation means that these evolutionary evidences are often not discarded but simply massaged to fit current evolutionary explanations. And this is exactly what is happening with so-called junk DNA!

This new article claims that so-called junk DNA is actually “ancient viral DNA . . . originally from long-extinct viruses.”7 It even claims that this DNA “may even have helped shape what makes humans different from other primates.”

But can you tell the difference between the scientific fact and the evolutionary interpretation? Science showed that this “junk DNA” has an important role. But evolutionists have to explain this within their paradigm, and crediting it to “ancient viral DNA” bakes millions of years, and even common ancestry with apes, into the explanation!

This gives the impression that evolution is explaining what this DNA is and how it got in our genome. Actually, evolution slowed down our understanding of this DNA by terming it junk that is so useless, natural selection couldn’t even act on it! Their explanations are just a thin glaze of evolutionary storytelling poured over the observed facts to make them fit their naturalistic worldview.

Discerning Against Deception

Their explanations are just a thin glaze of evolutionary storytelling poured over the observed facts to make them fit their naturalistic worldview.

When you read scientific items like this, try to recognize the difference between the science and the evolutionary storytelling! This is important because journalists and scientists often blend observed facts with naturalistic narratives, making it seem like the scientific facts have no explanation except the evolutionary story.

Some scientists are aware that this is exactly what they are doing! For example, Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin famously said the following:

Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.8

Immunologist Scott Todd put it even more simply: “Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such an hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.”9

So it’s not that there isn’t any evidence for God or biblical creation—the evidence is overwhelming. As Romans 1:20 states:

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

Rather, evolutionists automatically dismiss or reinterpret this evidence toward evolutionist explanations.

Take Every Thought Captive

God’s Word has several applicable exhortations for this issue:

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:2)

For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” (1 Corinthians 3:19–20)

Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:22–23)

If we train ourselves to be discerning, we will be able to answer these evolutionary interpretations and to “destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5).