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I can not believe that anything supernatural was involved in human creation, when as much as 98 percent of our genome is shared with chimpanzees, and when most of what is shared has no function. Creationists can claim all they want that we don't know for sure that the DNA is functionless. Until they demonstrate that all the homologous DNA has a function, they haven't got a leg to stand on.
Belief that nothing supernatural was involved in human creation is just as much a religion as any other. Junk DNA is a problem for evolutionists just as much as for creationists. From evolution theory, it is expected that natural selection would remove this type of DNA if it were useless, since DNA manufactured by the cell is energetically costly, and harmful to it. Because of the lack of selective pressure on this neutral DNA, one would also expect that ‘old’ pseudogenes should be scrambled beyond recognition as a result of accumulated random mutations (neutral theory). Moreover, a removal mechanism for neutral DNA is now known.
There is growing evidence that "pseudogenes" are involved in gene regulation (silencing or enhancing gene activity) or as acting as a receptor binding site.
The very persistence of "pseudogenes" indicates that they do something.
[This message has been edited by blitz77, 08-02-2002]
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