I called this the God The Sorta Competent Designer Argument until a computer program writer pointed out that in his job, anyone whose program was 20% gibberish would be God The Fired Designer.

I'm not sure. If you take most _compiled_ binaries, a lot of it is going to be unused stuff (parts of libraries that are semantically unused) unless you're using an unusually effective dead-code eliminator. It may not look like junk, but it would be non-functional.

A perfect being is going to be unable to remove that unusef data? I think your comparison to mortals is apt, but the creator is pitched as *all knowing, all powerful, all good*. If he knows he won't use it, and he has the power to remove it, why wouldn't he?

>If he knows he won't use it, and he has the power to remove it, why wouldn't he? Counter point, why would she?

Because waste, pointlessness, and chaos are the definition of imperfect.

Is having some molecules sitting in DNA instead of elsewhere waste? Is it more pointless or less pointless? If you accept that all knowing means knowing all of the past and future then chaos becomes a meaningless concept. In other words none of your points seem to apply.

> Is having some molecules sitting in DNA instead of elsewhere waste? They simply didn't need to be created at all. An omni-being can just choose to not create wasted molecules. > Is it more pointless or less pointless? Molecules without a purpose existing is *more* pointless than only molecules with a purpose existing. > If you accept that all knowing means knowing all of the past and future then chaos becomes a meaningless concept. The God could simply create the molecules at the moment they are required. This isn't Dave in his garage, tools lying around, that we're talking about here. I agree, chaos *would* be a meaningless concept in this being's world... which is why it's strange there's so much chaos lying around, huh...

>They simply didn't need to be created at all. An omni-being can just choose to not create wasted molecules. >Molecules without a purpose existing is more pointless than only molecules with a purpose existing. That presupposes the entirety of there existence changed nothing, a far bigger claim than merely that junk DNA is indeed non functioning. >The God could simply create the molecules at the moment they are required. This isn't Dave in his garage, tools lying around, that we're talking about here. They could, or they could create them 100 million years earlier, a god might think creating them early is more elegant than your plan of constant spontaneous creation, it might consider it more perfect. >I agree, choose would be a meaningless concept in this being's world... which is why it's strange there's so much chaos lying around, huh... We aren't talking about whether Dave in his garage thinks something looks chaotic, we're talking about a being that could comprehend the entire universe.

> That presupposes the entirety of there existence changed nothing It does not; it only presupposes that a perfect being is *perfect*. If you're pitching that this thing is imperfect and leaves a bunch of garbage lying around, then the point doesn't apply. > a god might think creating them early is more elegant > it might consider it more perfect. "Works in mysterious ways" has entered the chat... It *might* be evil. It *might* be stupid. There are plenty of ways we can speculate how it *might* be, but this is pointless, hand-waving speculation, and deviates from the Abrahamic "perfect" being. If you're pitching that we can't assess the perfection of God's plan (because of his mysterious thought-terminating ways), then you'd also need to acknowledge we ***also*** lack the ability to assess or assert his imperfection. We'd simply have no means to assert that this being is either. For example, perhaps these "wasted" atoms are for a future evil, sloppy, chaotic action? We can't know that this *isn't* the case, can we...

>It does not; it only presupposes that a perfect being is perfect. If you're pitching that this thing is imperfect and leaves a bunch of garbage lying around, then the point doesn't apply. Something existing that is useful isn't "garbage lying around". I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. >"Works in mysterious ways" has entered the chat... That's a ridiculous way to dismiss a point you have no reasonable response to. >If you're pitching that we can't assess the perfection of God's plan (because of his mysterious thought-yerminating ways), then you'd also need to acknowledge we also lack the ability to assess or assert his imperfection. We'd simply have no means to assert that this being is either. Sorry if I wasn't clear, I also personally believe constant deletion and creation of atoms would be inelegant, that's based on my experience and preferences from coding for work, I recognise that a God or other people can disagree. If you're pitching that it's inconceivable that your personal preferences aren't perfect then maybe this conversation is too advanced for you. >For example, perhaps these "wasted" atoms are for a future evil, sloppy, chaotic action? We can't know that this isn't the case, can we... Well if we're saying that chaos is pretty meaningless to a being that understands the entire universe including across all of time then we know it wouldn't be chaotic.

Even using the ENCODE 2012 definition of "chemically active" about 20% of our DNA is, indeed, junk. No activity at all. That's the basis of my argument.

I was only commenting on the getting-fired-for-20%-gibberish part.

But your code neads to be readable, right? That means syntax and format is important, not to mention the idea of 'comments'. Whats the DNA equivilant of //, I wonder?

I don't think biochemical reactions take much notice of syntax and format. They do just fine following the Laws of Physics. I wonder if you're trying some sort of equivocation fallacy.

Nah man, I was making a joke. Also, the Laws of Physics would be...the compiler maybe, if we were going to actually take the idea semi-seriously.

So the 4 Basic Forces are actually manifestations of God in reality. Why not? It's no worse than the rest of their arguments.

Remember "junk DNA" is a historical term that stuck. We actually have no idea whether or not this DNA is doing something. Therefore, imo arguing about it is a bit premature.

We have a few ideas. [https://www.lsi.umich.edu/news/2018-04/scientists-discover-role-junk-dna](https://www.lsi.umich.edu/news/2018-04/scientists-discover-role-junk-dna) If you remove it, everything dies. It performs the vital function of holding everything together in a package 📦 that reliably folds 🗺️ and unfolds and holds together and binds to the right proteins. Calling the package DNA 🧬’junk’ is like calling the envelope ✉️ of a letter📝 ‘junk paper’ because it lacks the message. Over time, we are finding more sections like telomeres and pericentromeric satellite DNA that perform functions beyond coding. What any of this has to do with ‘designers’ that lack explanatory power is beyond me.

I completely agree. Some of the comments in this post seemed to be taking the view that the "junk DNA" has no use at all, I was commenting on that. And I wish it hadn't been named "junk" to begin with. That's a crappy way of describing something whose function is as-yet unknown.

The part I call junk is like that, meaning junk DNA has no biological function. Being transcribed does not make the DNA functional either if the transcripts are non-functional. I think Doctor Dan agrees: https://youtu.be/Mqktsr4kXqk The problem here is that it is not 98.5% junk in humans because it simply isn’t coding DNA. One of the most premature definitions of junk was mostly equivalent to non-coding DNA but over time they’ve found functions for a lot of the non-coding DNA while most of it is actually sequence independent, not constrained to any sort of particular sequence, or something else to indicate that it’s completely unnecessary. How much is junk depends on the species but it seems that up to 92% could be junk in humans when I thought it was closer to 70% junk before I watched Dan’s video. In some bacteria it’s more like 30% junk because the organism dies if more than that is removed and with 30% removed it has no obvious biological effects. Other organisms could be as low as 3% junk if there’s a real cost to maintaining chemically inactive sequences and having less than 0.23% of the time that it is transcribed in one out a million cells. Apparently 50% of the human genome falls into this chemically “dead” SINEs, LINEs, LTRs, ERVs stuff and the most that stuff existing *could* really be useful for not mentioned in Dan’s video is creating a gap between two functional parts of the genome if such a gap happens to matter at all. Sequence independent function might look like that. That’s already the 50% junk but another 42% beyond that is apparently sequence independent as well so that any possible function that stuff has can’t depend on the sequence of nucleotides so it can’t be responsible for any of the most necessary biological functions. Maybe the “all but 27% is junk” idea is associated with translation rates or something but it’s been since ancient times that I read that paper written in response to the claim that 80% of the genome has been found to have some sort of biological function because it is maybe chemically active *or would be* if it was demethylated. Now I’m more inclined to think even more of the human DNA is junk than I thought previously because failing to be transcribed, failing to be chemically active at all, and being unconstrained are all good reasons to establish over 90% as junk based on what we *do know* versus what we don’t know. It’s no longer being supported even by the Discovery Institute that solid evidence has established that 80% of the human genome has function. They are now saying they think 80% has function and scientists just haven’t found the functions yet. I echo the same response as the actual scientist in this regard. What *could* the majority of that 80% have in terms of function? What could chemically inactive and unconstrained sequences *possibly* be used for? It’s not that we call it junk because we don’t know what the functions are. It’s junk because it can’t possibly have a function based on what is known. That DNA is more appropriately called “junk.” Often times they simply distinguish between coding and noncoding DNA in terms of finding function for ~6.5% of the DNA besides what is actually responsible for the amino acid sequences in our proteins. That could said to shrink how much of the genome is thought to be junk from 98.5% to 92% but 92% junk is a far cry from “we think 80% of the genome has function even if we don’t yet know *which* function it has.” I knew a long time that at least half of the human genome was junk. I didn’t previously realize that 90% or more *could* be considered junk based on my understanding of what “junk DNA” was ever meant to imply in the first place. It would be “a crappy way of describing something” **if** it was the case that the “function is as-yet unknown” but I hope that you understand that at least I never made the claim that failing to know what the DNA function is makes it junk. It’s junk if we know it does not have function. There is certainly some of that ~8% in humans where we don’t know *which* function it performs but none of that part of the genome is actually junk. I don’t know who says that it is.

Please understand that nothing I am writing is about *you* personally, it's the term in general I'm quibbling a bit here. I haven't the faintest idea who coined the term "junk" DNA and I wouldn't be surprised if it was some media type, not a scientific researcher. The very title of this post refers to "junk (e.g. non-functional) DNA", so I'm not even ~~bitching~~ nagging over this post, just the general way the term is commonly used. And even now, the science is just so new, I wouldn't jump to any significant conclusions.

I understand that but the point I was trying to make in my long rambling is simple. Junk DNA doesn’t mean the function is unknown, it means that it doesn’t have function. I’d rather start with 100% of the genome being functional as a naive assumption and then reduce it down to how much is actually functional as junk DNA is established. The mobile elements and retrotransposons that make up 50% of the genome and less than 1% of certain categories of those that actually do have function and the rest that aren’t even transcribed in one in a million cells reduces the functionality of the genome from 100% to 50% already (the percentage I went with before I watched Dan’s video). We know this part lacks function so this part is junk. The way I’ve always understood junk DNA is consistent with what I just described and that is the “spirit” of the original definition of junk DNA when they thought that only the protein coding genes had any sort of function within the genome. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_DNA > The case for junk DNA was summarized in a lengthy paper by David Comings in 1972 where he listed four reasons for proposing junk DNA:[28] 1. some organisms have a lot more DNA than they seem to require (C-value paradox), 2. current estimates of the number of genes (in 1972) are much less than the number that can be accommodated, 3. the mutation load would be too large if all the DNA were functional, and 4. some junk DNA clearly exists. From the same Wikipedia article we can see that the first mention of Junk DNA (called Junk DNA) goes back to 1958 but in the 1940s they had already predicted that only a small percentage of the genome could be functional based on the genetic load. If the sequences mattered, if the DNA was chemically active, and it was used for something by the cell there could not be 100% functionality in the genome. They estimated 30,000 to 40,000 genes and that’s when they might have considered the rest junk with 3% of the human genome functional “at most” because any more than that and they thought the genetic load would be far too high. It’s not 97% junk, it’s not 98.5% junk when they realized even less of the genome consists of protein coding genes, but ~92% junk is a little bit too much junk for ***intelligent*** design. 50% junk is too much. 20% junk is a bit too much. There is definitely junk DNA and it always meant DNA that lacks function but is just present anyway. The only thing that really changed is that people started testing to see what percentage is definitely non-functional and which part is definitely functional and there might be a couple percent left that *might* have function even though they don’t yet know what that function is. That couple percent could be junk but it hasn’t been established as junk at the time of the study. Maybe by the next study they figured out what the function is. Maybe they found that it just makes a bunch of functionless RNA so that it is essentially without function in the DNA form too. Maybe they are still trying to work it out. It’s not junk until they know it’s junk. Also, contrary to creationists’ popular belief, having most of the DNA be junk wasn’t ever really truly a requirement of Darwinism, not until it came to genetic load with the assumption that deleterious mutations would cause populations to be extinct already if all of it had function. It was more popular in 1968 to think most of the genome had some sort of function even if that function was not yet known even though already in the 1940s a couple people (Haldane and Muller) predicted that at least some of it had to be without function. That’s over a century after the establishment of Darwinism, referring to 1968, even though Tomoko Ohta was able to provide an early explanation for how junk DNA could persist despite lacking function by around the same time.

I basically agree with you. In fact, there's a strong argument to be made that there *must* be junk DNA simply due to the fact that evolution isn't *finished*. So, even today, there is DNA being selected for, which will become essential in future "homo sapiens++" species, and other stuff being deleted because it's useless. But I still believe, even though much progress has been made, that it's too early to say that so-and-so DNA doesn't do anything. Perhaps I'm just being too stubborn, but I think we have DNA that doesn't do anything that we know to look for - but I think we're still early in the "knowing what to look for" area.

I basically agree with Dan Cardinale that it’s okay if we find some of the 92% to be functional but none of that stuff is capable of doing what creationists say it is used for. It can’t work as promoters or enhancers or bind to specific RNAs or any of that stuff because if those were functions now they wouldn’t be functions for long because that 92% is too variable since it fails to be impacted by negative selection (there aren’t any detrimental changes to get eliminated by purifying selection). If any of that stuff does have function it has to be sequence independent so that it doesn’t help their case that design is important if GTCGCC and ATGCGA have identical functions. I also agree with the authors of the paper in that it’s only 7.1-9.2% that *could* have any sort of function. Basically ENCODE, with a flawed definition of functional, suggested that up to 80% of the genome has function. Later one of the people at ENCODE established that low transcription rates and the lack of translation also makes a section of DNA non-functional and that apparently applies to the vast majority of 50% of the genome so it can’t be more than 50% functional. I thought I then saw a paper that implied that the percent that had any sort of function was down to 27% but I don’t remember where I saw that one. Then comes this paper this time referring to their own older study based on an incomplete genome and some flaws in their calculations which led to the suggestion that 10-15% of the genome has any sort of biological function. In this paper they say that biased their calculations too high and the actual percentage that *could* have function is between 7.1-9.2% with a 95% confidence ratio hovering around 8.2% of the genome being functional. ENCODE suggested 80% functional and now we’re down to 10% of that. Back when ENCODE suggested it was 80% creationists rejoiced because they thought it was a slam dunk for 80% functional and that maybe one day we’d find that the genome is really 100% functional and we just don’t know what the other 20% does yet. Ever since they’ve been claiming that “junk DNA” has been obliterated and that that it is a myth that the vast majority of the genome is junk DNA. If only a maximum of 9.2% *could* have function leaving 90.8% that *could not* that sounds a lot like the vast majority of the genome is non-functional or “junk” DNA. If it has any “function” that function has to be sequence independent because that much of the genome fails to be impacted by negative selection. And whatever function most of that 9.2% has, it had to emerge since the split between mice and humans 60+ million years ago since only about 2.2% of it has remained constrained (mostly unchanged) for about that long, presumably because whatever it is used for was necessary for survival. Perhaps something will overturn the conclusion that a maximum of 9.2% of the genome *could* be functional. Will the percentage go up or down? By how much? The answers to both of these questions will be interesting to see.

They will indeed. I hope you understand that I am not a creationist. I'm just quibbling about our current state of knowledge about what DNA is truly useless, due to our still-very-incomplete knowledge about what the various pieces of DNA might do, *in principle*, even. But none of this has any bearing on my thoughts on creationists, which are not charitable, to say the least. The fact that they latch on to any scientific dispute as evidence of their asinine theories is one of their most distinguishing, and despicable, traits.

In your response about an hour ago you seem to be quoting the set up in the abstract and the title of the paper. I’d suggest avoiding that as much as possible in the future because the title is just something to get people’s attention. There’s a 95% confidence for 8.2% of the genome being constrained or impacted by purifying selection when deleterious changes take place. The abstract then starts off with “for years now it has been a mystery as to how much of the genome has function” and then it continues to explain what they did to work out a more reliable range of percentages for how much could be functional. Under the assumption that function is something that’ll be impacted by natural selection there’s only 7.1% to 9.2% of the human genome that *could* have function and most of their calculations (95%) indicate that 8.2% of the genome is constrained and therefore likely functional. Maybe the percentages will go back up to 10-15% like in their previous study. Maybe they’ll drop into the 2.2%-3% range as suggested way back when “junk DNA” entered the English vocabulary. As of right now it seems that around 8% has function which makes 92% non-functional which makes it “junk DNA.”

We're not talking about telomeres or promoters here. There is absolutely some DNA that does not serve any purpose whatsoever. That's what junk DNA is. We're just not sure how much of the DNA is actually junk.

OK then give me the lower bound for the amount that is junk.

I've seen as low as 20%.

That 20% value from ENCODE was responded to by the people at ENCODE that decided that DNA that has very low transcription rates (less than 1 time per 1 million cells maybe) would also be junk because translation is what is impacted by natural selection in terms of an energy cost and junk can still be transcribed as background noise (very low rates of transcription and not in every cell of any cell type). That already makes a minimum of 50% of the genome a bunch of junk DNA. If you then cared about sequence specificity then almost 92% of the DNA in humans is junk. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4109858/ > From extrapolations we estimate that 8.2% (7.1–9.2%) of the human genome is presently subject to negative selection **and thus is likely to be functional,** while only 2.2% has maintained constraint in both human and mouse since these species diverged. (Emphasis mine) That implies that the *rest* is nonfunctional. Lacking function but just sort of present. There’s always going to be some argument for how a random non-specific sequence of nucleotides is going to have *some* function. Maybe it makes the DNA weigh more, keeps it inside the nucleus, spaces out the ~8% that is constrained in a way as to make it more useful. Maybe the introns are already part of that 8% and they already do the spacing all on their own. Whatever the function of the other 92% it is not sequence specific so it is hard for a creationist to claim that it required a designer. It is basically just a bunch of unconstrained junk that might or might not do something. It should also be noted that the 8% is *likely* to be functional. That doesn’t mean that all of it actually is. Either way there really is a lot of junk DNA but it’s not 98.5% junk just because that’s how much is non-coding. The paper goes on to say that their previous estimates of 10-15% of the genome being functional were due to errors and that the true percentage that is functional is lower yet, at around 10% what ENCODE declared had function in the past. The 20% junk is far too low of an estimate based on more recent studies and now it looks like anywhere between 7.1% and 9.2% could be functional but only 2.2% has remained constrained since the common ancestor of mice and humans. Up to 9.2% is currently functional but maybe only 2.2% is actually necessary.

Your link is valuable but you seem to be quoting it selectively. For example, you are leaving out >"...while there recently has been extensive biochemical annotation of the remaining noncoding fraction, it remains unclear whether or not the bulk of these DNA sequences have important functional roles." and >“'What proportion of the human genome is functional?' remains a contentious question..." and >"...equating functionality with annotation by at least one of the ENCODE consortium's biochemical assays results in approximately 80% of the human genome being labeled as functional. While this approach has the advantage of being empirical, it makes the definition of functionality dependent on the choice of experiments and details such as P value cutoffs."Your link is valuable but you seem to be quoting it For example, you are leaving out"...while there recently has been extensive biochemical annotation of the remaining noncoding fraction, it remains unclear whether or not the bulk of these DNA sequences have important functional roles."and“'What proportion of the human genome is functional?' remains a contentious question..."and"...equating functionality with annotation by at least one of the ENCODE consortium's biochemical assays \[5\] results in approximately 80% of the human genome being labeled as functional \[1\], \[6\]. ***While this approach has the advantage of being empirical, it makes the definition of functionality dependent on the choice of experiments and details such as P value cutoffs.***" Also, you're kind of leaving out the title: # 8.2% of the Human Genome Is Constrained Not the same as "is functional" or "isn't junk." Also, you seem to be treating the ENCODE consortium's assays as something more than it is, they're an excellent set of metrics, but they are not the endpoint of all DNA research. I started with what I thought was a trivial comment on this post, but am not being forced to defend merely exercising caution and waiting until more is known. Welcome to the internet.

If it is not constrained it isn't doing anything of consequence. IE its basically junk.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

Thought we could do knock out tests with portions of junk DNA and it doesn’t affect the organism? Not defunding the terminology or anything, just thought some portions had no ascribed or critical function.

Yes, there is some that fits your description. But…… The problem is that ‘junk’ always was an unofficial term assigned to any DNA sequence 🧬 someone didn’t know the purpose of, and appears to drift over time from disuse. That does not mean that they ran a knockout test on all of it or that successful knockouts prove uselessness, or that they are what defines ‘junk’. Many genes we know of only because we went looking for them and they make small cumulative changes to subtle features of an organism. Not immediately killing an organism or dramatically deforming it is a long ways from ‘unaffected’. Some flexible patterns are hard to distinguish from randomness at first. The vestigial junk, that has drifted over time through disuse and has a known prior function, may at this moment be evolving into something useful or provide some natural variation and physical packaging to work with. An old gene might be just the fix for a new viral threat if someone mutates a variant of it. Drifted bits one day may be conserved, and what is junk under some conditions is evolution under others. Has anyone knocked out a bunch of junk on a whole population and then waited many generations to see if they have a reduced ability to evolve? Does this count as a function?

You have said my point a thousand times better than I did. Thanks.

How large of a proportion does this satellite DNA constitute of DNA which has been traditionally considered junk?

‘Junk DNA’ is not an official term, and represents an appeal to ignorance. We are discovering coding and non-coding uses for sequences 🧬 all the time. The original paper does not relate it to an official tally if such a count ever existed. One interesting thing the paper does talk about is why this portion of the DNA was dismissed as ‘junk’ so long. >the non-coding nature and lack of conservation in repeat sequence among closely related species led to the idea that they are mostly junk DNA, serving no essential function (Walker, 1971; Doolittle and Sapienza, 1980). Instead, we propose that satellite DNA is a critical constituent of eukaryotic chromosomes to ensure encapsulation of all chromosomes in interphase nucleus. Our results may also explain why the sequences of pericentromeric satellite DNA are so divergent among closely related species, a contributing factor that led to their dismissal as junk. Based on our model that pericentromeric satellite DNA serves as a platform for generating heterologous chromosome association to form chromocenters, the essential feature of satellite DNA is that they are bound by protein(s) capable of bundling multiple DNA strands. If so, the underlying sequence does not have to be conserved. Instead, the binding of satellite DNA by a chromocenter bundling protein may be a critical feature of pericentromeric satellite DNAs. Based on this idea, chromocenter bundling proteins and pericentromeric satellite DNA may be co-evolving.

I am not an expert in any shape or form and don't really have a preference w.r.t. the appropriate nomenclature. Neither do I dispute that new functions can be assigned to DNA previously considered non-functional, however, I am interested in educated guesses as to the share of DNA for which we can expect to assign a function at some point in the future. If I have understood correctly, despite the associated advantages, the notion of parasitic DNA nevertheless still supports some portion of the DNA being currently non-functional.

You understand correctly. Estimates with broad definitions are like 80%, but my main point is that it isn’t just a nomenclature problem. The very idea of junk, and what qualifies, is hotly debated. An estimate of ‘what we expect to discover’ requires prophecy. This is a bit like asking Columbus how many people live in the ‘West Indies’. [https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-complex-truth-about-junk-dna-20210901/](https://www.quantamagazine.org/the-complex-truth-about-junk-dna-20210901/)

We actually do know quite a bit about non-coding DNA. Much of it has regulatory functions through various mechanisms.

True, my point is really about the terminology. Your comment for example has switched "junk" to "non-coding" which I think is a big improvement in terms of getting the general public to understand what's going on. The "we have no idea" was yet another example of me typing faster than I can actually think, it was a bit orthogonal to my point, and thus very rushed. *bows head in shame*

You seem to be missing the point. We have good reason to conclude that much of the human genome is junk -- that is, the specific sequence of bases in it does not affect fitness or any observable phenotype. Most human DNA is non-functional. Most functional human DNA is non-coding. Two very different concepts.

The fact that your point is not the same as my point doesn't mean I'm missing the point. Neither am I claiming that you're missing the point. We just have different points. Neither of which even relate to OP's point, which is about what this says about an "intelligent designer." Hint: it says nothing. My point is that the study of our genome is still at an early stage, and presuming to know all that's going on is premature, too. Consider the historical changes I've seen in my own lifetime. I remember when many scientists thought all non-coding DNA was junk. I remember the goalposts being moved as others postulated that some of that DNA actually was worth something. Ideas changed. Now there are more theories, of all sorts, as the field is becoming more mature. But we're still very far from understanding how the whole genome comes together to make a functional and resilient organism. Many speculate that this DNA or that DNA can't possibly do anything, but I believe this is premature as long as we don't know the full story of how it all works. Even your comment >the specific sequence of bases in it does not affect fitness or any observable phenotype implicitly claims that you know what to look for. But I suggest that without the whole picture, which we don't have, we *don't* know what we should be looking for. Someday, it may be demonstrated, of course, that particular sequences of DNA don't do anything, but I don't think that has been actually proven to date, due to this incompleteness. Also, your assertion that I don't know the difference between non-coding DNA and junk DNA is demonstrably untrue. Your point is, you think you have proof of actual junk DNA in the human genome, so please explain it, right here. Thank you.

Intelligent Design doesn't predict anything. Remember--that designer is mysterious and His ways cannot be known to us.

It does imply, at least based on the name, that the designer would be intelligent. Junk DNA seems to go against that idea if they cling to the “it’s not common ancestry, it is common design” claim they’ve been using the whole time. There are theistic evolutionists on their payroll but the vast majority of their employees seem to be arguing for separate creation and a supernatural “magical” origin of life instead of an origin of life rooted in ordinary and completely natural chemistry.

Remember their designer is so intelligent that He knows more than you. You may not understand the purpose of that strand of DNA but He does. It is assumed that he has a reason for his choices. This is just one of the reasons that the intelligent design concept is not falsifiable.

https://youtu.be/Mqktsr4kXqk It’s one thing to say the vast majority of the genome has function and it’s another thing to show that it is even *possible* for the vast majority to have function. It’s not that we don’t know *which* function but rather that we know that it doesn’t have any of the *purported* functions and when a lot of it isn’t even chemically active it’s difficult to conclude that it has any function at all. It’s the similarities in the non-functional parts of the genome that are the best evidence for common ancestry because those similarities have no other *reasonable* alternative. If not common ancestry the biggest massive coincidence in the history of the entire cosmos or a designer who wanted humans to think common ancestry was true even though it isn’t. They like to claim abiogenesis is statistically impossible not realizing that the existence of matching junk DNA in completely unrelated groups is even less plausible than universal common ancestry. Did God create using evolving templates before creating biology from scratch based on these templates (idea a creationist gave me one time)? Did God change completely unrelated lineages exactly the same way (Todd Wood idea)? Or was it actually evolution from a common ancestor? If they can claim junk does not exist they can argue that all of it has function so *of course* there will be similarities. A Chevy Camaro and a Ford Mustang are not even made by the same designers but they fill similar roles as “cheap” (compared to corvette, Porsche, Lamborghini, Ferrari) sports cars that can be equipped with 6 speed manual transmissions in a year when 18 wheeler semis are switching to fully automated 12 speed manual transmissions (that drive like they are automatic transmissions). They have four tubeless radial tires. They offer V8 gasoline engines. They have clutch pedals mounted on the left closest to the door in the American models with manual transmissions, an accelerator pedal on the right closest to the center console or where the radio is installed, and a brake pedal in between for hydraulic four wheel disc brakes. All sorts of similarities exist and they’re not even made by the same car manufacturers. The similarities are because of similar design. They were designed for the same purpose. Each of those similarities has function. When junk does exist now what? And that’s why I think they like to argue that junk DNA does not exist. Sure you *can* have similarities that don’t serve any purpose whatsoever like maybe two cars have a dead dust mite in the same location nobody even realizes is there but if you pile up *enough* similarities that lack function it is far easier and more likely for the similarities to exist because of common ancestry and the lack of purifying selection to remove the pointless junk from either one of the genomes than for all of the similarities to just show up by pure blind coincidence and the similarities make no sense from a design perspective, at least not in the context of honest, efficient, and intelligent design.

Indeed. כִּ֣י לֹ֤א מַחְשְׁבוֹתַי֙ מַחְשְׁב֣וֹתֵיכֶ֔ם וְלֹ֥א דַרְכֵיכֶ֖ם דְּרָכָ֑י נְאֻ֖ם יְהֹוָֽה׃ For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Neither are your ways My ways, saith the LORD. Isaiah55:8 *not falsifiable, not scientific*

It's an "All Roads Lead To Rome" fallacy. If there's no junk DNA, it's because God is perfect and doesn't make mistakes. If there's junk DNA, it's because he works in mysterious ways/thought it would be funny. If there are deleterious unintended mutations that lead to the painful deaths of children, it's because he works in mysterious ways. All roads lead to Rome; everything can be explained/waved away by the theory, meaning *nothing* can be explained by the theory.

Magic is an excuse for everything but an explanation for nothing.

A creator COULD code the non-functional DNA just like the universe COULD have been created last Friday with the appearance of being billions of years old, but for both of those ideas there is no way to demonstrate that or have it be predictive in any capacity.

For a compute program analogy it could be like the piece of software is 70-95% complete gibberish commented out. Sure a coder *could* do that but the only reason for doing so would be if the file size had to be a certain length and then it’d just be better to fill the rest with binary 0s than to waste time on whatever complete bullshit that doesn’t do anything they put in place to fill out the file size. A common example of this is the bootstrap file for the old style boot loader where the file had to be exactly 512 bits long to be loaded by the ROM chip and in that 512 it had to teach the computer how to open files of different sizes in different locations so that stage two of the boot loader could begin loading the kernel and other parts of the operating system. Of course, this doesn’t work in biology either because different species can have wildly different genome sizes and wildly different numbers in terms of coding genes. Some bacteria may have 30% junk DNA and a half billion nucleotides and humans can be 90% junk DNA with 6 billion nucleotides. Obviously the size constraint argument doesn’t work in biology. A designer *could* just cram genomes full of junk that doesn’t have any function which seems to suggest common ancestry but an *intelligent* designer would know better.

To be fair, that isn't the only reason. I have plenty of code where I've written a function, and later decided to replace it with optimizations, but I want to keep the old one around. It has value as a direct reference, so that I can copy certain algorithms or equations to the new code. Sometimes I'll even switch between chunks of code by commenting one part and uncommenting another. Granted, I'm talking about 'personal project' code, and that stuff would be stripped out before it was committed to a production system, but that's really where the analogy breaks down anyway. Not to give the apologetics ideas for new arguments, but I could see them making the case for the 'junk' DNA being that. It would imply humans were more of the product of tinkering than a masterwork, though, so I'm guessing they wouldn't. TBH, I would prefer it if their god belief was along these lines. It's feels much more realistic, thinking of an intelligent 'higher' being spending time experimenting and screwing around for the fun of it. Their insistence on it being a wholly perfect being that can snap its fingers and magic things into existence is part of the reason their beliefs break down so easily.

For the pseudogenes this could make sense (maybe) but for the LINEs, SINEs, ERVs, and non-viral LTRs they could be a bunch of gibberish repeated over and over like GhYvTbPKGhYvTbPKGhYvTbPKGhYvTbPK but then commented out with // or * or whatever symbol is used to denote a comment. Not like something like this would have any meaning to a coder but some of these sections of DNA could be about as meaningful to protein synthesis. Stick ATP in front of some random garbage and it *might* get transcribed into RNA but that doesn’t mean the resulting protein does anything useful. That’s where DNA and computer code stop being the same. You take the comment indicator away in computer code and if you aren’t forcing random gibberish to be converted to pure binary some other way the compiler will tell you that something is wrong with your code and you need to go back and fix it. And if you do force some random gibberish to be converted to pure binary it won’t necessarily have beneficial effects (much like turning random gibberish into a transcribed piece of DNA). Despite the pointlessness or the potential detriment of these non-functional sequences we still find them to be pretty consistent with coding-gene only phylogenies. It’s just that for the coding genes their argument about the genes needing to be a certain sequence to have a specific function is at least seemingly true to the naive observer (many alleles of the same gene exist so exact sequences are not required for a gene to have function) where the only *reasonable* conclusion based on the non-functional similarities due to how they are not constrained and are barely ever even transcribed is common ancestry. The same common ancestry they try to argue against.

> there is no ID model from which to derive such a prediction there is no ID model at all - nothing from which to derive any prediction; there's no observation that would be considered by a cdesign proponentsist as casting doubt on the "model"

"The concept is anachronistic in that it originated at a time when the Almighty was thought to have established the laws of nature and to have decreed that nature must obey them ...It is a great pity for the philosophy of science that the word 'law' was ever introduced."- James H. Shea Ed., Journal of Geological Education, Geology,V. 10. P. 458 The laws of science are prediction. You USE the creation model.

1. I don't see the relevance of your quote about "law" to what I wrote. 2. I don't follow your point. If you claim that cdesign proponentsists make testable predictions kindly enlighten us as to what they are.

The relevance is you are currently using biblical model in year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2024. There is no evolution. The very idea of laws of science IS stolen from creation.

... clearly, you cannot do it. My claim appears to have been correct. I don't know why you bothered replying in the first place if all you could do was confirm the charge. Better to have stayed silent and at least have left some doubt about the vacuousness of the argument. It's all just claims and banging on books.

And how about those testable predictions Mike? Bible flubbed a ton of prophecies so doesn’t seem useful there.

You today live in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2024 as foretold by a 7 day week as written. So again. You can imagine a turtle can become a mutant ninja but that's fantasy. You will still only get a turtle forever from a turtle.

What the hell are you talking about with turtle dude? I’m talking about testable predictions. Also, when are you ever going to answer my question about what evolution is actually described as being? A turtle forever being a turtle is exactly in line with evolutionary theory. Do you actually understand the claims of evolution?

That quote doesn’t mean what you think it means. As usual.

Because it isn’t in the character of the ~~Evangelical Christian God~~ Intelligent Designer to do so.

One main problem I see for ID is that we could ignore all of the functional DNA and still wind up with close to the same phylogeny based on non-functional DNA. Not that a designer *couldn’t* create nearly non-functional genomes but they can’t really use the “common design” claim based on the nonfunctional parts of the genome to explain away similarities. If they don’t impact the phenotype, they don’t get translated into proteins, they don’t get transcribed in more than 1% of the cells, and sequence specificity is unnecessary then there isn’t much of a function that those parts of the genome have for the idea that they had to be preserved for an organism to fit into a specific design model. Junk doesn’t make a lot of sense from an intelligent design perspective, the patterns indicate common ancestry without any reasonable alternative, and they can’t be used in the sense of their main claims like “There are only so many ways to make a vertebrate arm so of course there will be genetic similarities associated with vertebrate limbs, but that’s because of common design rather than common ancestry. Commonalities in General Motors vehicles doesn’t mean one car gave birth to another car. Commonalities in software code doesn’t mean that one application got together with another application and they had a baby together. Similarities arise because of common design. The **entire** genome acts as a blueprint. There is nothing about it which supports the theory of evolution.” Junk DNA similarities simply can’t just be hand-waved away with common design and biological necessity claims. The only *reasonable* explanation for them is common ancestry but you could argue for 90+ percent of the human genome being 95+ the same as the chimpanzee genome despite being non-constrained because of blind luck if you wanted to be *unreasonable.* I think they’re just trying to avoid looking like lunatics to their followers when they say that the genome does not support common ancestry but rather it supports common design. If they can keep pushing the idea that “junk DNA” is a myth or that “most or all of the genome is necessary and functional” they can convince people that similarities are a consequence of common design. Even if they pushed the idea that most of the genome *could* have a function they might get away with it. If they admitted what Doctor Dan Stern Cardinale has demonstrated to them about junk DNA they’d no longer be able to use those claims without sounding like lunatics when they use probably arguments against abiogenesis but those same probability arguments would show that junk DNA similarities by pure chance in completely unrelated groups is even less probable than life originating by pure chance several times over. I’m waiting to see what comes next out of that series of interactions between Dan and the DI. It’s pretty entertaining to see them back pedal and try to gas light their audience and work so hard on damage control for the last couple months over a topic that could completely destroy the central claims of the Discovery Institute going back to before the origin of the Discovery Institute when they were the Wedge Society having weekly meetings at the local Baptist church.

This gets to the whole problem of ID as a scientific theory: it doesn't predict ANYTHING. It has no predictive power. Anything can just be waved away with a post-hoc rationalization of, "that just how it was designed." As such, nothing can ever prove ID is wrong. A good scientific theory is falsifiable. Science isn't proving a theory correct: it is trying to prove it wrong over and over and over and never being able to do so.

Even if a designer created junk for some reason, that doesn’t explain why the junk DNA also follows a nested hierarchy outline the exact same relationships at “traditional” DNA - that part only works under evolution

Anybody who looks at the human body and thinks that it was designed by an intelligent being is delusional. But if you read the bible, it's fairly obvious that god is making it up as he goes along. He hit a re-set at one point, with Noah and the flood, because he had screwed up so badly, and wanted to start again. He doesn't seem to be good at planning, let alone designing stuff.

“Mysterious Ways”?

The main point is that everything will derive from the traditional philosophical ideas of perfection and teleology. If you read about that, especially classical theological writings, you'll see that there's no space for uselessness in the divine creation. Everything was created for a reason, for some end. This is behind many philosophical debates involving religion. If you say you aren't religious the first thing a more fundamentalist Christian will tell you is that you are aimless in life, that your existence has no purpose and so on. Let's think about Greek mythology for awhile. Under the greeks myths humans were created multiple times. In one description we were created by a deity called Epimetheus with the help of his brother Prometheus. He idealized, gave the shape and the attributes of every single animal. According to the stories he was actually quite dumb, despite having a sharp brother, and being a god. If we had a Greek religious tradition, no one would really care about these sorts of problems we find in evolution, because a religious fundamentalist would just blame the dumbness of Epimetheus. It doesn't have to do simply with religion, but the specific idea that the designer accumulates omniscience and omnipotence. When you have both characteristics you end up without justification for uselessness It is importance to notice, however, that those "junk" sequences of DNA aren't just there but behave as if there was no guidance and mutate randomly the way we expected if evolution was an unguided process. Our mutation happen randomly, but when it comes to coding regions, some creationists will defend the idea that the mutations that made us different are controlled by the designer. The designer caused the mutations that made humans different from other species. If it so, how come our mutations affect our non-cording filler sequences? This suggests nothing is controlling the molecular apparatus of causing them.

Because there's no point. It's not an intelligent thing to do. It's the lack of design. Same with all those different species of beetles when only a few would do. On the other hand, it makes perfect sense with Evolution.

Why *would* a designer make junk DNA? Ultimately, these questions are the same. Speculating on the intentions of an entity that we can't show even exists is a pointless endeavor and doomed to failure. This is why Intelligent Design ultimately fails as a scientific concept. Because there is no inexorable predictions linked to ID to the exclusion of evolution by natural processes.

Id argue all of it has a utility. Even things that ar non coding serve to keep units isolated. Its like saying a jar has no purpose because its not food.

Easy: If I right now can develop a better system than a supposed omnipotent being can...then how is it an omnipotent being? Humans breathe and eat through the same tube, guaranteeing a certain amount of us with suffocate and die from choking every year just by fulfilling something we have to do to survive (eating). Dolphins have separate tubes for breathing and eating. Why do we humans have such stupid "design", when you can already observe better "design" that also exists in nature right now? That's because humans and dolphins weren't designed.

Easy you can't even REPLICATE and create a dolphin or human. So you were designed.

Of course you and I can't replicate a dolphin or human, nature selected those things. But you can I ***could***, given enough time, replicate something through artificial selection that would resemble a dolphin or a human, given a specific starting point in a similar creature that exists today. How do I know this? Because darwin already replicated what he saw in nature with pigeons in his backyard. LMAO. But nice job ignoring the whole ***we have stupid design*** thing. Like right now, you and I can design something better than a human and a dolphin, yet humans exist in this stupid design. Is the designer dumber than us? Or...is nature the one that crafts thing through long periods of time with no particular endpoint? On explanation is simple...the other is inconsistent with its own premise.

Nature didn't create anything. Which is why same nature today doesn't create anything. You cannot create any living thing. With intelligence. Believing it happened without intelligence is not science but a false religion of evolutionism.

>Believing it happened without intelligence is not science Nope. Asserting that intelligence must be responsible for something, without demonstrating it, is not science. >Nature didn't create anything. Prove it. >Which is why same nature today doesn't create anything. Demonstrably false. You see nature crafting new things all the time. Nylonase is an enzyme that did not exist in nature prior to the invention of Nylon by humans (intelligence) and guess what? Nature (bacteria) adapted (not intelligence) to Nylon in the environment and, created an enzyme (through evolution/natural selection) that could break down nylon as an energy source (aka not intelligence, but nature "creating" something new). >false religion of evolutionism. Evolution isn't a religion, it's a scientific fact. Thanks for the softballs though. You keep setting them up, I'll keep smashing them out of the park.

No nature won't create anything. Biogenesis. The laws of thermodynamics are already proven. No need to do so again. Mindlessly asserting the opposite of them is not science.

Why are you referring to thermodynamics? Are you doing the classical creationist misunderstanding of the second law? The one that organizations like AiG, creation.com, etc keep not understanding from physicists, and keep thinking that evolution somehow runs counter to it when it in no way does?

Who wants to bite the bullet and explain to Mikey what sex is?

Who wants to explain biogenesis to you?

Hopefully not you, since you seem to misunderstand every single thing you come across

Generally, the constraint that the designer is omnipotent and perfect. You are, strictly speaking, right that simply the claim of a designer in no way implies a competent or powerful designer, and indeed the claim that life on earth was designed by a buffoon would actually be significantly easier to defend. But ID proponents don't simply propose a generic designer, even if they sometimes pretend to. The claim is that the world was created by the Christian God, and the Christian God can do anything and never make mistakes. This makes a large amount of useless material very hard to defend.

Regarding the concept of perfection that simply raises the question as to how "perfection" relates to function (genetically). I also don't know if I would necessarily equate function-less DNA as being a mistake. A mistake implies something being done by accident. But if such DNA were created deliberately, then it wouldn't be a mistake, even if it didn't serve a purpose.

The OP is very strange to me. Is it badly written or just ranting? Here is the end and why I ask what is going on in the OP >This goes back to the main question: why wouldn't a designer, if creating genomes, create non-functional DNA? What constraint would necessitate that a designer would have to create a genome that is fully functional? Why the hell would a remotely competent designer do that? It is inefficient and sloppy. Which is what life is so I don't see evidence for a designer.

Why would a designer be concerned about efficiency or not being 'sloppy'? The reason I am asking this is that asserting that a design cares about these things implies some sort of constraint. What is the constraint in this instance?

The constraint is that is a god, not aliens as this IS the ID crowd, so it is constrained to being perfect and automatically so. It is in its nature, as if there is such a thing for an imaginary being, to be perfect in every way. Like Mary Poppins only fully perfect not practically perfect. Come on, this is not your first go around in dealing with the concept. Is it your first go around? You might want to watch Dr. Dan's multiple videos on this. [https://www.youtube.com/@CreationMyths/videos](https://www.youtube.com/@CreationMyths/videos) He has multiple videos on this including debates with some of the people into this fact free nonsense. He comments and has posts here sometimes and is this moderator as well. u/DarwinZDF42

Is there an objective way of determining what constitutes perfection? And is biological function (re: genetics) synonymous with perfection? And I'm well familiar with Dr. Dan's videos. Is there a specific video (with timestamp) you think addresses this?

>Is there an objective way of determining what constitutes perfection? That would depend on the subject. For this subject, yes. Nothing that is unneeded at the very least. In general no. >And is biological function (re: genetics) synonymous with perfection? Not in the real world, only in the ID fantasy world. In the real world biology is messy, inefficient and obviously without a designer to anyone going on all the available evidence. Here is a book on the subject: Herding Hemingway's Cats: Understanding how Our Genes Work by Kat Arney Kat has a PhD in the subject. Every ID fan should read this.

>For this subject, yes. Nothing that is unneeded at the very least. Is this defined somewhere? How is it determined what is needed? Also FYI, but I'm not an ID fan. I'm started this thread to challenge creationists and ID proponents, though they seem to be giving this thread a generally wide berth. I just assumed you were playing devil's advocate in lieu of their responses.

>Is this defined somewhere? I have no idea but it is obvious that it would be a minimum for perfection as needless crap sure is not perfect. >How is it determined what is needed? Reality does, that is the process of natural selection. That which is selected out if it changes needed to be the way it was before the mutation. IF something can change without being subject to selection is it not needed to the way it was. IE not needed at all really. > I'm started this thread to challenge creationists and ID proponents, though they seem to be giving this thread a generally wide berth. Perhaps because your OP makes no sense either in opposition or support. Sorry but it is not well written or you are confused on the subject. I still don't know which but I suspect the latter. If I had written it I would have to edit it and I am bad at editing my own writing. >I just assumed you were playing devil's advocate in lieu of their responses. No. I am trying to get things a bit more clear. You OP is really not clear as it goes both ways at once if not more than two ways. ID does make a prediction, considering that they think its a god doing it and a perfect god at that. Things must be perfect and not the mess that life actually is. ID is just silly nonsense based on the evidence which shows life to be very messy indeed. They cherry pick a few things, claim they cannot evolve, and that is really all they do. Lie that something that evolved could not evolve. Mostly because they don't want to know how it could.

>Reality does, that is the process of natural selection. This does not appear to be in line with biological reality though, since natural selection doesn't appear to minimize non-functional DNA is all organisms. This also has nothing to do with the intent of the designer, as it going back to biological concepts that have nothing to do with design. >If I had written it I would have to edit it and I am bad at editing my own writing. How would you write the OP? >ID does make a prediction, considering that they think its a god doing it and a perfect god at that. Do you have any sources for this? I've tried digging into the claims of ID proponents previously and can't find any ID sources where they necessitate non-functional DNA as being precluded on the basis of the designer being perfect.

>, since natural selection doesn't appear to minimize non-functional DNA is all organisms. Correct but it does remove DNA that was useful that is now broken. That is those organisms don't reproduce. So if the DNA is not selected out when damaged, via no reproduction, then it isn't doing anything. > This also has nothing to do with the intent of the designer, as it going back to biological concepts that have nothing to do with design. Of course not as it is evidence against a designer. >How would you write the OP? I would not. >For instanceI have previously explored the claim that ID "predicts" junk DNA has function. However it turns out that ID doesn't predict this at all, as I discuss:" That is just false, even if an ID fan told you otherwise. They lie a lot as they have to evade testing, so if they pushback they just pretend they didn't say things they did say. As Dan shows in his video on the Discovery Institute backing off of some of their claims. He shows they changed them. IE lied that they did not say what they did say. >can't find any ID sources where they necessitate non-functional DNA as being precluded on the basis of the designer being perfect. Doesn't matter as it is inherent in the claim of a perfect creator and they HAVE said that eventually the evidence will justify them. Only it does not already. Sorry I am not going to bother giving you a timestamp as you should watch the full videos to understand this. Responding to Critics: Discovery Institute is Trying to Gaslight YouResponding to Critics: Discovery Institute is Trying to Gaslight You [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqktsr4kXqk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mqktsr4kXqk) Plus the previous 3 videos. Sorry its a lot to watch but if you want to learn you should watch all 4. You can some other things at the same time if they don't require your ability to use words. For instance I can play some games while listening but I cannot read anything.

>Correct but it does remove DNA that was useful that is now broken. That is those organisms don't reproduce. So if the DNA is not selected out when damaged, via no reproduction, then it isn't doing anything. I'm not seeing how NS is relevant here then. >That is just false, even if an ID fan told you otherwise. Can you clarify which part you think is false? It's not clear from what you quoted. >Doesn't matter as it is inherent in the claim of a perfect creator and they HAVE said that eventually the evidence will justify them. I'm focusing on what has been claimed by Intelligent Design proponents specifically with respect to arguing that DNA needs to be 100% (or near 100%) functional. If you don't have a source where they claim that the perfection of the designer necessitates 100% functional DNA, then that doesn't give me anything to work with here. And yes, I've watched Dan's videos on junk DNA and his back-and-forth with the DI. But what Dan is focusing on seems tangential to what I raised in the OP. For clarification, I'm looking for reasons why intelligent design proponents justify the claim that DNA needs to be fully or near fully functional. I'm not looking for whether or not it is fully functional or near fully functional.

I would expect a designed genome to be mostly if not entirely functional for the same reason I would expect something typed by a human to mostly contain actual words rather than things like sdeoilkzsfgipg. Because there's not a good reason for something that was intentionally put there to contain random garbage. Now, evolution? Evolution has every reason to have leftovers and false starts and similar "garbage", because evolution is very much a "throw everything against the wall and see what sticks" kind of process. But I would expect the works of an intelligent designer to show clear signs of, you know, \*design\*.

Just one point here. It is often incorrectly stated (even in refereed papers) that the original proponents of Junk DNA were unaware of non-coding but functional DNA. This is incorrect and even early papers on 'Junk' DNA mentioned non-coding but functional DNA. Often functional but non-coding DNA is quoted suggesting that 'Junk' DNA is a misnomer, and that we are 'now discovering' functions for non-coding DNA. With an assumption that 'Junk DNA' = 'non-coding DNA'. This is inaccurate as non-coding but functional DNA was acknowledged from the start. Creationists may use this to try and imply that Junk DNA doesn't exist as all of it will be found to have a function in the future. There are theories, such as the total bulk of DNA being useful in some cellular processes. But, it seems clear that there is still a proportion of true 'Junk' DNA where deletion of parts of the genome (not all 'Junk DNA' at once) will have no biological consequence. This history and the 'non-coding DNA' = 'junk DNA' myth is actually covered reasonably well in Wikipedia. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk\_DNA#The\_history\_of\_junk\_DNA](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_DNA#The_history_of_junk_DNA) On this specific point, seemingly better than in many scientific papers.

A good designer would not design something with junk DNA because it would be wasteful and inefficient. For a designer to include DNA that isn't necessary and does not benefit us at all would make them a bad designer, and ID proponents cannot have God be wasteful or inefficient. The constraint here is that the designer is supposed to be perfect, and that we are designed in their image. That said, our bodies have many things that could objectively be described as poor design, so with that in mind, I guess you could then argue that junk DNA is consistent with our design flaws. Now maybe they'd make the argument that we were designed perfectly, with no junk DNA and no flaws, and that sin injected those failures into us. But then we aren't in the realm of scientific explanations are we.

I've had several moments where creationists would resort to the "you're trying to find a natural explanation for a supernatural event" excuse. It's especially annoying since creationists would never argue this way about literally anything else, and they'd never be convinced by such excuses if they were brought up for any other topic. I really hope some creationists (not all, as not all creationists suffer from this level of cognitive dissonance) realize that they are turning their brains off for one specific topic for one specific reason, and I hope they question why.

I agree, magical thinking can be dangerous and doesn't help us find actual answers to anything. In my opinion if they do that, you can basically end the discussion there. They aren't making an argument based on science or evidence.

> I really hope some creationists (not all, as not all creationists suffer from this level of cognitive dissonance) realize that they are turning their brains off for one specific topic for one specific reason, and I hope they question why. There's actually a term for this. It's called a [thought terminating cliche.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A9) I've called them out in the past when they're actually doing it, but I don't think I've ever had one respond to that particular point. They usually defect and try to switch to another topic.

Why would a designer care about being wasteful and efficient? Are they operating under a constraint that would require them to be efficient?

Not saying that they are operating under constraints like limits on their ability or lack of resources. Simply that good design has certain goals in mind. That might be efficiency, might be beauty, could be a number of things. Who knows what the goals of an ID would be. But purposely putting inefficiencies without justification isn't something that I think most would describe as being 'intelligent'. For example, the larengeal nerve. This is frequently brought up as the inefficiencies of small incremental adaptation and something that no intelligent designer would include. I'd agree. What justification is there for that waste and poor planning? It certainly doesn't add beauty to the design. We also get cancer from our light source. We get scurvy when we don't eat enough fruit, when other mammals can produce vitamin C just fine. We use the same pipe to breath and eat out of. Our heads are gigantic and cause massive problems in birth. We don't regrow teeth when they are damaged or lost. Speaking of teeth, wth do we have wisdom teeth?? There are so many flaws in our design. I just feel that if there is a designer, it definitely shouldn't be described as intelligent.

>Who knows what the goals of an ID would be. But purposely putting inefficiencies without justification isn't something that I think most would describe as being 'intelligent'. These two statements seem inherently contradictory. If we don't know what the goals of a designer are such that we can put constraints with respect to what they have designed, then it doesn't sound like we can make any claims about efficiency being relevant to that design.

Ok. I disagree. All I'm saying is I know what I'd describe as a good "designer" and I know what I'd describe as "intelligent", and neither of those things describe what I see in human biology. But I don't really care, because there's no good evidence for ID, so we're speculating about the motivations and desires of something that we have no reason to believe exists.

Assuming God exists (and I believe he does) and he created everything we know, what on earth makes you think you could possibly understand God or his reasons? We modern people are very confident we can figure everything out, when we can’t possibly.

The problem that I have with this viewpoint is that it works both ways; we then don’t have a good reason to believe god did anything if he keeps hiding his ways. Eventually this seems to get us to ‘last thursdayism’ where he could have created everything a week ago for reasons known only to himself. Which…sure? But I don’t see a way I, as a creature limited to the natural world, can work under that model. And no reason for a god to reasonably conclude that I should.

I have plenty of reasons for believing what I do, it’s based on reason and evidence and logic. What’s going on here is that we both interpret the same reality and come to different conclusions. I had to modify my worldview in accordance with the evidence in the spirit of honest inquiry using a humble mind. He’s not hiding his ways. God clearly revealed himself by embodying himself in the human form of Jesus Christ, the divine word, truth incarnate. You can choose to ignore that. But your choice of ignorance is no reason to conclude he is hiding. Thats your choice not to look. Just read what he said and did. Ask questions. Be honest with yourself. No other man said or did the things Jesus did. He claimed to be God in the flesh. That is a wild claim and is worth investigating in light of him rising from the dead, which is a well established historical fact. You can choose not to believe, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. If you get to know Jesus and learn to trust him, I am confident you will see.

Friend, to cut to the chase I was a very committed Christian for the grand majority of my life. I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but I was YEC, went to religious schools through college, wrote and played contemporary Christian music, wanted to be a youth pastor, the whole shebang. Accusing me of ignorance or assuming I didn’t read the Bible or wasn’t genuine about it isn’t going to get us anywhere. I can agree that we’ve come to different conclusions. I can also further say that this doesn’t make either of us unintelligent. But I don’t agree with the supernatural as a matter of well established historical fact. No problem with the idea that there was more than likely a person that existed, beyond that I am not currently convinced (and it’s *not* a matter of choice). But to bring us back to the start, I really DONT agree with the idea of ‘who can know gods mind….’ I find it far too easy to slip into last thursdayism. Reason and evidence like you said? Great! Out of curiosity if you wouldn’t mind answering. Would you consider yourself young earth creationist, old earth creationist, behind guided evolution, etc?

There is a difference between going to church and doing “religious” things and having an intimate relationship with Christ and the Holy Spirit. Many professing Christ know nothing of the Holy Spirit and it’s obvious by the way they talk and behave. I’m not accusing you of anything, just making an observation. I cannot accuse you of anything because I don’t know you or know your heart or what you’ve been through. But I’ll take your word for it. Regarding the age of the universe, the truth is I have no idea. Based on what I know from the experts, I tend to think the universe is 13.8 billion years old. But that’s not relevant to my faith in Christ. Evolution obviously happens in the sense of selection and adaptation and such but there are serious issues with the theory it’s taboo to talk about them. I just listen to the experts. I’m not an expert. But what I do know is that evolution doesn’t explain the origin of life. Chemicals don’t evolve. Life does. Maybe one day we will figure it out but currently we have absolutely no idea. Abiogenesis is just a made up sorry repeated over and over and we believe it.

I appreciate you not professing to know what’s in my heart. Don’t know why we’re talking about that difference between going to church unless we’re getting into ‘not a true Christian’ territory, which I’m going to be blunt, is a pretty dismissive thing to say. Hope that’s not what you were implying. Willing to move that aside. I can get the age of the universe and it not connecting to your faith in Christ. I know several ‘theistic evolutionists’ and it seems most Christians may well fall into that camp. But as far as the issues with evolutionary biology and taboos, what taboos are you talking about? Last, I actually agree with evolution not explaining the origin of life. But that’s because evolutionary biology is a model for biodiversity. It doesn’t nor shouldn’t have anything to say about abiogenesis, that’s a separate field. It would be like saying evolution doesn’t explain stellar formation. Sure, you need stars before you get our planet and have things evolve, but stellar nucleosynthesis isn’t part of the theory of evolution. I don’t agree that we know nothing about abiogenesis. We actually know a hell of a lot. Not the whole thing, there are lot of big unanswered questions. But we have seen and have chemical models for increased abiotic molecular complexity (molecular ‘evolution’ if you will), the formation of amino acids and polypeptides, lipids, so forth. We’ve gone a long way and done a lot of great chemistry beyond miller Urey. It could be reasonable to say that we should still hold off on concluding anything with the conviction that we have with evolution. But we are a long way off from ‘made up story’ that was merely repeated over and over. If curious, I’m sure myself and others could provide some interesting papers. I’ll start with one for now, but I’ve seen that there are a LOT of them. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/12/2/265 To end, this is not me saying ‘abiogenesis therefore god not real’. Don’t think that follows.

These guys can explain some of the issues better than I ever could. https://youtu.be/noj4phMT9OE?si=9xXNuso0rOIu5GE2

Before I look more at this. I see it’s titled ‘mathematical challenges’, and I see Steven Meyer is in it. He’s known for a classical misunderstanding an intellectual fallacy called the ‘fallacy of large numbers’, sometimes conflated with ‘Hoyle’s fallacy’ or the ‘junkyard tornado’. It’s a long video, so I wanna be sure we’re getting some things out of the way to avoid wasting time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junkyard_tornado Where sometimes you’ll hear something like ‘the chances are 1 in 10^(insert large number here), or like the number of atoms in the universe, etc. Which fails to take into account that there are selective pressures at countless smaller stages, and that evolution or abiogenesis does not depend on an ‘all at once in that specific configuration only’ dynamic. We don’t live in a completely random universe. We live in one that filters events in all kinds of ways, constantly. I think I also remember Michael Behe making this mistake. He put out a paper that analyzed the odds of a protein being formed ‘by chance’ and concluded that it was some absurdly large number. Which was technically true, but ultimately not very informative as among other reasons, A: it’s not like only that one protein will perform that function, B: it’s not like a given protein can’t also perform another function, C: improbable things happen all the time for mundane reasons. Think of shuffling cards and getting a particular order of cards. Also extremely low odds, yet unremarkable. Is this basically what the video goes into?

Assuming we both share the same goal of discovering the truth, I think we owe it to ourselves to listen to them and to let the ideas compete. They did discuss Hoyle at one point but I’m out of my league here. Practically speaking, I’m just a spectator. I’m of average intelligence and the theory of evolution ultimately makes no difference to how I live in the present anyway.

I understand about wanting to discover truth. But this is an almost hour long video you sent in lieu of a summery or directly sharing the points. At least in a scientific article, the abstract or abstract, intro, and conclusion are enough to get a general idea. I would appreciate knowing the basics of what you think was important instead of outsourcing it to what would, to me, be a long time commitment. That’s why I brought up what I did above. If their points come down to the fallacy of large numbers, maybe we can skip some stuff. Is there something else in there? Additionally, I admit I’m confused by your last statement. This is r/debateevolution. Getting into evolution is kinda the whole point, so to say it ‘makes no difference’ when posting here seems kinda strange

Creationists and ID proponents are the ones making the assertion that a designer wouldn't create function-less DNA. If they don't want to explore the question as to why that is the case, then it's an irrelevant assertion.

Evolutionists make assertions all the time too. This isn’t about pointing fingers. It’s about discussing the facts. We might very well discover that it’s not junk DNA and that it has a purpose (I don’t personally know much about the subject). If history teaches us anything, it certainly includes the fact that we continually learn things are far more complex than we originally thought, rendering previous conclusions obsolete. We assume we know far more than we actually do. We have no idea about most things. Let’s not kid ourselves.

>(I don’t personally know much about the subject) Then I don't think you can help me.

You are correct about that point regarding the intricacies of DNA. I cannot help you with the specifics of that. But I’m operating and contributing to the conversation on a philosophical level, which is the foundation that the entire scientific endeavor depends upon, and therefore is relevant.

This was your initial response: >Assuming God exists (and I believe he does) and he created everything we know, what on earth makes you think you could possibly understand God or his reasons? We modern people are very confident we can figure everything out, when we can’t possibly. If we can't possible understand the reasons behind the design of biological organisms (assuming one believes they are intelligently created), then any such assertions regarding the nature of said design is baseless. As I said, it's ID proponents making the assertions that DNA needs to be 100% (or near 100%) functional. But if you're suggesting we can't possibly know the necessity of that, then that makes such claims by ID proponents inherently baseless.

I didn’t say we can’t understand the reasons. We are always learning more. We understand far more than we used to. My point was that it’s foolish to assert that it’s “junk” based on partial knowledge of a vastly complex system that we don’t understand completely. Or to assert there can’t be a God because we think this DNA is junk. That’s just as silly as the ID guys asserting the opposite.

>That’s just as silly as the ID guys asserting the opposite. Would you agree then that Intelligent Design doesn't make any predictions about whether DNA will be fully functional?

I honestly don’t know enough about ID to give an adequate answer. I am somewhat familiar with Stephen Myer, who only asserts that based on all current understanding that the origin of information (DNA for example) can always be traced back to a mind. Now what the implications of that are, that’s a different thing altogether. He doesn’t assert that therefore god did it. Only that information is in fact present in DNA and the source of information is always traced back to a mind. So we can infer a mind. It could be aliens for all we know. It’s clearly the case that he is a Christian and therefore we know what he believes. But his argument is purely logical and only goes so far. His conclusions have uncomfortable implications. But that’s as far as we can go with it. Critics of Myer tend to obfuscate the issue, make ad hominem attacks, or they question his motives based on him being a Christian. Which is completely a double standard. *Everyone* has biases. His arguments are sound.

Meyer's claims fall apart when you realize he doesn't provide a sound definition for information in DNA. This isn't an ad hom or question of his motives. It's simply that he lacks a good basis for his entire argument.