WNL

“Real scientists don’t believe in God; and certainly don’t believe that any such “Person” created us.”

(Dogma Bag of the Current Crop)

Consider this, then, from a real genetic pioneer with numerous patents and published papers, from Cornell Univ.

“Imagine entering the intergalactic starship SS Phenome. You go past doors labeled, “Warp Speed Engine Room,” and “Holodeck.”  Then you see a door marked, “Office of the Senior Architect and Chief Engineer.” You open the door and you see an office that is a complete wreck.  Papers are strewn everywhere, there is the smell of rotting food, and computer screens are broken.  Standing on a desk are 2 chimpanzees fighting over a banana. Would you be so naïve as to believe that you were actually looking at the Senior Architect and Chief Engineer of the SS Phenome?  “

“Would you actually think that this ship could have been created and maintained  through this office in its degenerated and chaotic condition?  Yet this is the ruling paradigm regarding the genome’s very nature!  --which describes the idiotic master—genius slave relationship of the genome and the phenome…”

“We should be able to discover many levels of unity of form and function within the genome. I predict that this will be seen more and more in the coming years, as we unravel the many elaborate and multi-dimensional patterns within the genome.” 

Dr. J.C. Sanford’s book was first published in 2005.  He hadn’t long to see this prediction confirmed by the most secular of scientists in the follow-up to the Human Genome Project, called ENCODE, or Encyclopedia of DNA Elements. Scientific American asked him, after the publication of 30 papers all at once, “Should we be retiring the phrase, ‘Junk DNA ‘now?”  Dr. Birney replied, “Yes I really think this phrase does need to be totally expunged from the lexicon. It was a slight throwaway phrase to describe (our ignorance) in the 70’s.  …it’s not a very useful way to describe what’s going on. “At least one and usually multiple sequences have been found in 80% of the genome, and it is extrapolated that this will be 100% before this decade is over.

On the negative side, Dr. Sanford also notes that the biological DNA clock of the entire human species is winding down.  The same forces that cause cancer in the individual—mutated rogue DNA—is accumulating in the human genome at the rate of 60 per generation—some harmful, some lethal, some seemingly neutral (see above) but any of the exceedingly rare, potentially useful mutations are not selected due to dozens of inhibitory factors, and no new information is ever added to the genome.  The vast amount of genetic drift and noise;  limits not only our species’ longevity but that of all other species, probably accounting for the majority of extinctions. We do not have to posit an asteroid to take care of the dino “problem”—the species just plain wore out.  And the more complex the system

; such as sexual reproduction—“nothing works unless everything works”—as we saw of the later and larger saurians—“the more there is to go wrong,” as my Dad used to say about the electric windows on his Thunderbird.

Then there is the other “secular” discovery of DNA in T-rex fossil bones.  This has been studied extensively because of the implications for Darwinian theory.  But there is no question now as to the origin of the DNA and other cellular and molecular components that have been preserved. Besides all that, the research team on New Zealand’s extinct Moas has shown that the half-life of DNA is 521 years!

 

“At this rate, DNA molecules in bone break down after only 10,000 years into tiny chemical segments too short for modern technology to sequence.  And this result assumes preservation factor that optimize biochemical longevity.” 

Hmmmm…150 million years give or take a million?  Keeping in mind that this is all secular research without even a hint of “intelligent design,” much less the clear implications of Scripture.  

Isn’t it strange, Hobbes; that man will concoct the most far-fetched theories to avoid an occasional bleak truth? I suppose that scientists of Darwin’s time, ignorant of the most fundamental elements of molecular biology, could be excused if Dr. D led them around by the nose for a century or so.  It reminds me of that wonderful acronym, “WNL”  which doctors use so liberally in their documentation.  What it is supposed to mean is, “Within Normal Limits.”  A colleague of mine in residency told me it really means:

 

  “WE NEVER LOOKED.”

 

 

 

 

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