RECENT DESIGN ORIGINATOR VALIDATIONS: 1. Growing appreciation for frameshifting encoding. 2. Growing appreciation for bi-directional encoding. 3. Early evidence that some “neutral” mutations may not be neutral. 4. Massive and extensive role for RNAs in cellular processes. Yes, this relates to ENCODE, but deserves to be mentioned in its own right, as there is rapidly growing experimental evidence for the functional roles of specific RNAs. 5. The need for regular maintenance and care of DNA, such as the critical role of topoisomerase that Joe Deweese studies. See the recent animation from Discovery Institute below. If you’re speaking about this to an audience, a great object lesson is to show the supercoiling problem with a two-stranded piece of yarn. From personal experience, I’d recommend practicing at home before. 6. The growing list of alternative genetic codes.
7. Directly contrary to the evolutionary prediction, with more genomes in the database, the number of lineage-specific or taxonomically restricted genes. Not here and there, but extensive. This is a massive problem for evolutionary theory. 8. Many functional roles have been identified for the inappropriately named pseudogenes. This counters one of the most loudly proclaimed evidence for blind, undirected evolution. 9. Growing evidence for functional roles for some so-called “endogenous retroviruses.” There’s less information here, but it generally appears to be trending in the same direction as pseudogenes and other junk DNA claims. 10. Clear genetic-based evidence that several of the most loudly touted examples of evolution are degradative. There is Michael Behe’s work and Scott Minnich’s lab work, and Lenski’s long-term evolutionary experiment analysis. The importance of this cannot be overstated. It is one of the few areas where we have actual experimental data, as opposed to ideas, conjectures, and hand-waving claims about what evolution is supposed to be able to accomplish. And the evidence is extremely clear. 11. Related to taxonomically restricted genes, but this needs to be mentioned in its own right: The grand hope of comparative genomic studies was to produce a coherent tree that would show the true evolutionary history. Precisely the opposite has happened. It is an absolute mess, with contradictions everywhere and nothing even approaching a unified evolutionary history. It’s reached the point where even prominent evolutionists have started abandoning the tree model altogether, reposing their hope in convergent evolution, HGT, some as-yet-undiscovered process, etc. 12. Less directly related, but perhaps worth mentioning: (a) Growing recognition that protein folding requires careful control in many cases, not just an automatic fold. (b) Growing support for the idea of protein rarity and isolated regions in search space. This is precisely what we see in designed systems and the opposite of what’s predicted by evolutionary theory.
ERIC H. ANDERSON
