From: rokimoto557@gmail.com   
      
   On 7/21/2025 7:14 PM, John Harshman wrote:   
   > On 7/21/25 2:05 PM, RonO wrote:   
   >> On 7/20/2025 2:05 PM, RonO wrote:   
   >>> https://phys.org/news/2025-07-reveals-hidden-regulatory-roles-junk.html   
   >>>   
   >>> QUOTE:   
   >>> Today, TEs make up nearly half of the human genome. While they were   
   >>> once thought to serve no useful function, recent research has found   
   >>> that some of them act like "genetic switches," controlling the   
   >>> activity of nearby genes in specific cell types.   
   >>> END QUOTE:   
   >>>   
   >>> This was likely never true from McClintock's first papers on   
   >>> transposable elements in the late 1930's.  She found them to regulate   
   >>> gene expression, and the regulation could be developmentally   
   >>> regulated. Transposons would become active at certain developmental   
   >>> stages of the plant.   
   >>>   
   >>> They were not considered to be part of junk DNA because they had no   
   >>> effect on gene regulation.  They were considered to be junk because   
   >>> they were obviously repetitive parasitic DNA sequences.  It would be   
   >>> the organims that had to adapt to dealing with how they altered the   
   >>> regulation of genes that they jumped into or around.  It has been   
   >>> known for decades that some transposons are responsible for   
   >>> interesting mutations.  Morgan's famous white eyed fly was due to a   
   >>> copia element transposon.  This is just overhype of the recent   
   >>> findings.  My guess is that the ID perps will use the stupid   
   >>> misinformation to claim that junk DNA isn't junk, when they never   
   >>> wanted their designer to be responsible for parasitic DNA sequences.   
   >>> Why would a designer produce a parasitic DNA parasite that is   
   >>> responsible for many de novo infant genetic defects when they move   
   >>> around the genome?  Transposons do not account for over half the   
   >>> human genome because they are good and useful.  It is because we   
   >>> can't get rid of them, and they are effective parasites.   
   >>>   
   >>> Ron Okimoto   
   >>>   
   >> https://evolutionnews.org/2025/07/another-case-where-junk-myth-   
   >> impeded-science/   
   >>   
   >> More misinformation about junk DNA from the ID perps.   
   >>   
   >> QUOTE:   
   >> For decades, evolutionary biologists considered non-coding regions of   
   >> DNA as evolutionary junk, a paradigm that long dissuaded researchers   
   >> from studying these little-understood portions of the genome.   
   >   
   > Note the conflation of non-coding DNA with junk DNA, a common tactic   
   > among IDers and other fans of a 100% functional genome. It's a fine   
   > strawman to attack, but that's all it is.   
   >   
   >> But a series of discoveries starting in 2008 has forced a major change   
   >> in thinking about so-called “junk” DNA. Many examples of function have   
   >> since been identified for the non-coding regions of DNA, and more are   
   >> being uncovered each year.   
   >   
   > ....most of them in non-coding DNA that's never been considered junk.   
   >   
   >> On a new episode of ID the Future, Dr. Casey Luskin reports on a pair   
   >> of American biologists who were recently awarded the Nobel Prize for   
   >> their discovery of function in what was previously considered junk DNA.   
   >>   
   >> MicroRNAs are another case where the presumption of a genome bloated   
   >> with useless debris has proven to be an impediment to science. Back in   
   >> 1993, when microRNA and its role in post-transcriptional gene   
   >> regulation was first identified, the development was met with   
   >> skepticism and silence by a scientific community largely wedded to the   
   >> assumption that non-coding regions of DNA must be junk. Now, the 2024   
   >> Nobel Prize raises the question with special poignancy: Did junk DNA   
   >> thinking slow a Nobel Prize-worthy discovery from being recognized?   
   >> The answer appears to be yes.   
   >   
   > Or perhaps no. MicroRNAs are conserved sequences, never thought of as   
   > junk, just RNAs of unknown function. The most obvious sign of junk is a   
   > lack of conservation of the sequence.   
   >   
   >> END QUOTE:   
   >>   
   >> RNA genes were never considered to be junk DNA.  The paper that is   
   >> always cited as designating junk DNA excluded regulatory sequences,   
   >> and then known RNA genes such as ribosomal RNA, small nuclear RNAs,   
   >> and tRNAs from being junk.  We always understood that regulatory   
   >> sequences existed in the noncoding sequence, and people were always   
   >> actively looking for regulatory sequences in noncoding DNA.  We   
   >> already understood that there were RNA genes that did things in the   
   >> cells before junk DNA was called junk DNA.  The first two IDiotic   
   >> paragraphs are fiction (lies).  Micro RNAs were never ignored.  As   
   >> soon as they were identified and characterized the results were   
   >> readily accepted because small RNA interference was already a working   
   >> technology.  RNA interference was a widely used research tool in the   
   >> 1990's.   
   >>   
   >> Not only this fact, but the fact that small RNAs that regulated mRNA   
   >> post transcriptionally had already been discovered in plants, and were   
   >> the actual drivers of RNA interference research that was already up   
      
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