This year is the 50th anniversary of the double helix design of the DNA molecule. On top of this the Human Genome Project announced it has completed a “final draft” of man’s DNA sequence. Yet even as they celebrate their burgeoning knowledge in the field of genetics, they are once again discovering how much they have to learn.
In a recent Scientific American journal (Nov 2003), the author, Wayt Gibbs, explained “the central dogma of molecular genetics.” He writes: “DNA makes RNA, RNA makes protein, and proteins do almost all the real work of biology.” But, points out John S. Mattick, director of the Institute for Molecular Bioscience at the U. of Queensland, Australia, the protein-coding sections account for less than 2 percent of the DNA in human chromosomes. Three billion or so pairs of bases in nearly every cell “are there for some other reason.” Yet these long sections of DNA between the protein-producing genes were, as Mattick puts it, “immediately assumed to be evolutionary junk.”
“The assumption,” writes author Gibbs, “was too hasty.” Mattick concludes, “Indeed, what was damned as junk because it was not understood may, in fact, turn out to be the very basis of human complexity.”
FLOATS LIKE A BUTTERFLY
It is a rare thing to open a secular book in any realm of science today and find a respected author speak up for special creation. But Bernard d’Abrera, regarded as the world’s most renowned lepidopterist (butterfly expert), is an outspoken critic of evolution, which he says requires “blind religious faith.”
His 350-page book, The Concise Atlas of Butterflies of the World, is called concise because, while including illustrations of almost every genus of butterfly known, it is actually a précis of his 24-volume set!
His comments on evolution are hard hitting. For example, “Evolutionary Man, having slandered and libeled Biblical Man into impotent irrelevance, is now leading mankind backwards down atavistic pathways into a terrifying auto-demolition of civilization and all that is transcendentally good.” So there.
—Creation, Jun-Aug 2003
NO LEG TO STAND ON
According to the Orange County (California) Register, the fossilized skull of a whale unearthed in that state has paleontologists scratching their heads. The September 9, 2003 article quotes them as saying that this prehistoric whale “may have had small rear legs, though this remains speculative because the rear part of the whale was not found.” Really?
LISTENING FOR ALIENS
Speaking of California, Jack Welsh, astronomer from U. Berkeley, is busy installing more than 350 antenna dishes to act as one radio telescope at the Hat Creek Radio Observatory in Shasta County. With big private funding (Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen pledged $11.5 million), they are preparing to scan the heavens for special signals. What signals, you ask? Messages being sent by extra-terrestrial civilizations!
U.S. News & World Report comments (under a subheading “Giggle Factor”): “While there’s not a scintilla of evidence for aliens, the search goes on with more energy than ever.” The price tag? $30 million.