1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:23,640 Good morning. I'm honored to be invited to take part in this year's third international 2 00:00:23,640 --> 00:00:29,660 conference on the origin of life and universe. I have the privilege of speaking at the first 3 00:00:29,660 --> 00:00:34,380 two conferences, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to participate in this year's 4 00:00:34,380 --> 00:00:40,080 conference as well. Thank you to the Technics and Science Research Foundation for the vision 5 00:00:40,080 --> 00:00:46,240 to sponsor and host such an important event. It's exciting to be part of a project in which 6 00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:51,780 one of the goals is to show the world how science can be used to build a bridge of friendship 7 00:00:51,780 --> 00:00:57,480 between Christians and Muslims. Based on our shared belief in a transcendent creator, we 8 00:00:57,480 --> 00:01:03,000 can collaborate to demonstrate to people of all world views how scientific advance points 9 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:10,640 to the existence of God and undermines the evolutionary paradigm, a paradigm often used to justify atheism. 10 00:01:11,400 --> 00:01:20,400 As a Christian and as a scientist, I am convinced that nature provides evidence for God's handiwork. 11 00:01:20,780 --> 00:01:23,200 As written in the Old Testament book of Job, 12 00:01:23,200 --> 00:01:28,780 Ask the animals and they will teach you, or the birds of the sky and they will tell you, 13 00:01:28,940 --> 00:01:32,940 or speak to the earth and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you. 14 00:01:33,580 --> 00:01:36,940 Which of these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? 15 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:42,220 To God belong wisdom and power, counsel and understanding are his. 16 00:01:43,100 --> 00:01:47,480 And yet when presented with compelling evidence for design that comes from biology, 17 00:01:47,480 --> 00:01:54,300 so many skeptics reject that evidence, and with that rejection, they reject belief in God. 18 00:01:55,360 --> 00:02:01,220 They justify their skepticism by pointing out so-called flawed designs in nature, 19 00:02:01,740 --> 00:02:04,160 designs that would be unworthy of a creator. 20 00:02:05,440 --> 00:02:10,360 As the late evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould wrote in his famous essay, 21 00:02:10,440 --> 00:02:11,480 The Panda's Thumb, 22 00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:15,800 Odd arrangements and funny solutions are proof of evolution. 23 00:02:16,820 --> 00:02:19,440 Paths that a sensible creator would never tread, 24 00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:24,460 but that natural processes constrained by history follows perforce. 25 00:02:25,440 --> 00:02:31,060 And yet in my experience, as we learn more about the so-called odd arrangements and funny solutions, 26 00:02:31,580 --> 00:02:37,380 inevitably what we thought were flawed designs turn out to be elegant, sophisticated designs, 27 00:02:37,380 --> 00:02:39,960 one that reflects the creator's glory. 28 00:02:39,960 --> 00:02:46,440 And the latest scientific insights into the human genome beautifully illustrate this point. 29 00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:53,580 As a biochemist and someone who spent most of my life studying biology, 30 00:02:54,020 --> 00:02:59,840 I rank the sequencing of the human genome as the most significant scientific accomplishment of all time. 31 00:03:00,400 --> 00:03:04,060 The human genome sequence is the genetic blueprint for human beings. 32 00:03:04,060 --> 00:03:10,660 From our genetic blueprint, we can gain fundamentally important understanding about the nature of humanity, 33 00:03:11,100 --> 00:03:13,120 at least in a biological sense. 34 00:03:14,220 --> 00:03:18,080 The draft sequence of the human genome was reported in June 2000. 35 00:03:18,880 --> 00:03:26,180 There's a famous picture showing then-President Bill Clinton standing next to two gentlemen in bitter scientific rivals. 36 00:03:26,180 --> 00:03:32,980 Francis Collins, the head of the human genome project, funded in part by NIH in the United States, 37 00:03:33,120 --> 00:03:40,000 and Craig Venter, the head of Solera Genomics, a private company that was looking to sequence and commercialize the human genome. 38 00:03:40,520 --> 00:03:45,860 The human genome project, funded by NIH, was initiated 15 years earlier, 39 00:03:45,860 --> 00:03:51,020 and it cost $3.2 billion to sequence the human genome. 40 00:03:52,020 --> 00:03:58,820 Solera was in a race with the human genome project, hoping to complete the sequence before the publicly funded project. 41 00:03:58,820 --> 00:04:03,000 If they could, they planned on monetizing the sequence data. 42 00:04:03,700 --> 00:04:10,280 As it turns out, Collins and Venter decided to call a truce, agreeing to walk arm-in-arm across the finish line. 43 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:16,640 In the process, they shared data with one another, facilitating the completion of the draft sequence. 44 00:04:17,300 --> 00:04:21,200 During the press conference, President Clinton made these now-famous remarks. 45 00:04:25,720 --> 00:04:30,980 Today we are gaining, sorry, today we are learning the language in which God created life. 46 00:04:31,500 --> 00:04:37,920 We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift. 47 00:04:37,920 --> 00:04:44,060 With this profound new knowledge, humankind is on the verge of gaining immense new power to heal. 48 00:04:44,780 --> 00:04:50,540 Genome science will have a real impact on all of our lives, and even more on the lives of our children. 49 00:04:50,960 --> 00:04:56,320 It will revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of most, if not all, human diseases. 50 00:04:57,320 --> 00:05:02,360 Truly, President Clinton appreciated the significance of having the sequence for the human genome. 51 00:05:02,360 --> 00:05:10,180 He even went so far as to describe the human genome sequence as the language God used to create life. 52 00:05:11,180 --> 00:05:20,940 Yet the initial analysis of the human genome sequence indicated to many scientists that the human genome was anything but the product of a creator's handiwork. 53 00:05:20,940 --> 00:05:38,520 Instead of being the language God used to create human life, it appeared to many scientists that the human genome was cobbled together over hundreds of millions of years by evolutionary processes with much of the human genome riddled with molecular fossils, vestiges of an evolutionary history. 54 00:05:39,240 --> 00:05:44,500 Many scientists would argue that the human genome stands as the most powerful evidence for human evolution, 55 00:05:44,500 --> 00:05:50,680 while at the same time indicating that God had nothing to do whatsoever with humanity's origin. 56 00:05:50,940 --> 00:05:56,580 In the next few minutes, I'll explain why these scientists reached these conclusions, 57 00:05:57,520 --> 00:06:03,740 but then I'm going to describe some recent insights into the structure and function of the human genome 58 00:06:03,740 --> 00:06:13,960 that is radically changing our perspective on the human genetic blueprint in a way that presents the genetic code of humanity as the handiwork of God. 59 00:06:14,380 --> 00:06:20,280 Let's begin first by having a little background information on the structure of DNA. 60 00:06:21,620 --> 00:06:26,700 This biomolecule consists of chain-like molecules known as polynucleotides. 61 00:06:27,160 --> 00:06:34,600 Two polynucleotide chains align in an anti-parallel fashion to form a DNA molecule. 62 00:06:35,820 --> 00:06:46,640 The two strands are arranged parallel to one another with the starting point of one strand in the polynucleotide duplex located next to the ending point of the other strand and vice versa. 63 00:06:46,640 --> 00:06:55,700 The paired polynucleotide chains resemble a ladder with the side groups extending from the backbone interacting with each other to form rungs. 64 00:06:56,200 --> 00:07:01,940 The coupled polynucleotide chains twist around each other, forming the well-known DNA double helix. 65 00:07:01,940 --> 00:07:09,520 The cell's machinery forms polynucleotide chains by linking together four different subunit molecules called nucleotides. 66 00:07:09,900 --> 00:07:19,700 The four nucleotides used to build DNA chains are adenosine, guanosine, cytidine, and thymidine, famously abbreviated A, G, C, and T, respectively. 67 00:07:19,700 --> 00:07:30,180 The human genome consists of 3.2 billion genetic letters that are distributed among 24 discrete DNA molecules. 68 00:07:30,700 --> 00:07:35,220 These molecules interact with proteins to form complexes called chromosomes. 69 00:07:35,980 --> 00:07:39,760 These structures become visible in the cell nucleus as the cell divides. 70 00:07:40,440 --> 00:07:47,100 Each chromosome consists of a single DNA molecule that wraps around a series of globular protein complexes. 71 00:07:47,100 --> 00:07:55,780 These wrapped complexes repeat to form a supramolecular structure that resembles a string of beads. 72 00:07:56,280 --> 00:07:58,700 Biochemists call the beads nucleosomes. 73 00:07:59,380 --> 00:08:06,360 The chain of nucleosomes further coil to form a structure called a solenoid. 74 00:08:07,060 --> 00:08:12,180 The solenoid condenses to form higher order structures that constitute the chromosome. 75 00:08:12,180 --> 00:08:18,480 Between cell division events, the chromosome exists in an extended diffuse form that is not detectable. 76 00:08:18,980 --> 00:08:26,200 Prior to and during cell division, the chromosome condenses to form its readily recognizable compact structures. 77 00:08:28,400 --> 00:08:33,600 All the genetic material in the cell's nucleus is distributed among the chromosomes. 78 00:08:34,160 --> 00:08:39,080 The number of chromosomes in each cell is characteristic of a particular species. 79 00:08:39,080 --> 00:08:48,640 For example, the nucleus of each cell of a chimpanzee possesses 48 chromosomes, and for humans, the nucleus of every cell possesses 46. 80 00:08:49,860 --> 00:09:00,760 The human genome is comprised of 22 autosomes, numbered from 1 to 22 based on size, with chromosome 1 being the longest and chromosome 22 being the shortest. 81 00:09:00,760 --> 00:09:04,500 There are also two sex chromosomes, dubbed X and Y. 82 00:09:05,100 --> 00:09:11,060 Every cell in the human body has 23 pairs of chromosomes, one set from the mother and one set from the father. 83 00:09:11,600 --> 00:09:16,500 The set is made up of 22 autosomes and one sex chromosome, either X or Y. 84 00:09:17,400 --> 00:09:23,700 One of the surprises about the human genome came shortly after the rough draft sequence was produced. 85 00:09:23,700 --> 00:09:30,420 The initial analysis indicated that only about 20,000 genes are found in the human genome. 86 00:09:31,380 --> 00:09:36,620 This was a far cry from the predicted number of at minimally 100,000 genes. 87 00:09:37,500 --> 00:09:44,100 This meant that less than 2% of the human genome coded for proteins, the workhorse molecules of the cell. 88 00:09:44,940 --> 00:09:49,480 Evolutionary biologists interpreted the rest of the human genome as junk DNA. 89 00:09:49,480 --> 00:09:57,520 Evolutionary biologists argue that most of the human genome looks like it was derived from retroviral infections. 90 00:09:58,180 --> 00:10:05,260 Also included in the human genome are non-functional genes dubbed pseudogenes, along with other types of evolutionary debris. 91 00:10:06,260 --> 00:10:10,240 At first glance, the human genome looks like a vast wasteland of junk. 92 00:10:10,880 --> 00:10:17,180 And of course, this begs the question, why would a creator make a human genome with so much useless DNA? 93 00:10:17,180 --> 00:10:24,540 In Psalm 8, one of my favorite passages in the Old Testament, David asks the question, 94 00:10:25,260 --> 00:10:29,380 What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? 95 00:10:29,980 --> 00:10:36,600 David answers his own question by remembering the Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 creation accounts for humanity's origin. 96 00:10:37,120 --> 00:10:37,960 David replies, 97 00:10:37,960 --> 00:10:56,580 Given David's words, a human genome littered with garbage is not what one would expect if human beings are the crown of creation, 98 00:10:57,060 --> 00:11:01,520 but it's exactly what one would predict if evolution cobbled together the human genome. 99 00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:10,760 For evolutionary biologists, a high level of junk DNA, the human genome, also provides resolution to something called the C-value paradox, 100 00:11:11,520 --> 00:11:14,220 adding presumably to the case for evolution. 101 00:11:15,780 --> 00:11:22,160 The C-value paradox traces its origin back to the late 1960s and early 1970s. 102 00:11:22,700 --> 00:11:29,360 At that time, biochemists developed techniques to quantify the amount of DNA found in individual cells. 103 00:11:29,360 --> 00:11:35,660 They used these techniques to measure the amount of DNA in different cell types comprising an organism. 104 00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:41,100 For example, human beings have approximately 210 cell types that make up our bodies. 105 00:11:41,780 --> 00:11:45,280 Biochemists were interested in the amount of DNA in each of these cell types. 106 00:11:45,840 --> 00:11:51,840 For every organism studied, biochemists found that all the cells in their body contain the same amount of DNA. 107 00:11:52,640 --> 00:11:56,300 They dubbed this the C-value, where C stands for constant. 108 00:11:56,300 --> 00:12:01,680 The C-value refers to the constant amount of DNA found in each of an organism's cells. 109 00:12:02,380 --> 00:12:11,140 At that time, biochemists thought that the amount of DNA should correspond to the complexity of the organism. 110 00:12:11,640 --> 00:12:17,200 More complex organisms should have more DNA, and less complex organisms should have less DNA. 111 00:12:17,200 --> 00:12:27,400 When biochemists plotted C-values for different organisms, they failed to discover any relationship between complexity and the quantity of DNA in an organism's cells. 112 00:12:28,120 --> 00:12:31,600 The discovery of junk DNA resolved the C-value paradox. 113 00:12:32,340 --> 00:12:39,080 Accordingly, most of an organism's genome consisted of junk DNA, which accumulated through random events. 114 00:12:39,620 --> 00:12:44,540 As a result, the C-value varied from an organism to organism with no rhyme or reason. 115 00:12:44,540 --> 00:12:49,680 In other words, the size of an organism's genome has no relationship to complexity. 116 00:12:50,320 --> 00:12:53,340 It is just the vestiges of an unguided evolutionary history. 117 00:12:54,080 --> 00:13:01,620 And again, this begs the question, why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God create genomes with more junk than functional DNA? 118 00:13:02,480 --> 00:13:13,300 And even more problematic, why would organisms that naturally group together possess identical or nearly identical junk DNA sequences at corresponding locations in their genomes? 119 00:13:13,300 --> 00:13:18,920 On the surface, the explanation that seems to make the most sense is an evolutionary one. 120 00:13:19,520 --> 00:13:29,240 Junk DNA sequences arose in the shared evolutionary ancestor and persisted in the genomes as the different evolutionary lineages diverged from a common ancestor. 121 00:13:29,820 --> 00:13:39,340 In other words, junk DNA sequences in our genome and the genomes of other organisms reflect our evolutionary history and can be used to map evolutionary relationships. 122 00:13:39,340 --> 00:13:51,980 Yet, over the course of the past decade, molecular biologists and geneticists have made discoveries that are forcing us to rethink this evolutionary view of the human genome. 123 00:13:52,340 --> 00:13:59,160 Bit by bit, researchers have discovered that most of the classes of junk DNA actually have function. 124 00:13:59,880 --> 00:14:04,320 And of course, if junk DNA is functional, it undermines the case for evolution. 125 00:14:04,320 --> 00:14:17,260 One could argue that these shared sequences of junk DNA that are actually functional, that occur in corresponding locations in genomes, actually reflect common design, not common descent. 126 00:14:18,320 --> 00:14:26,300 The case for design in the human genome virtually became stronger overnight thanks to the ENCODE project. 127 00:14:26,860 --> 00:14:31,220 This project was initiated shortly after the human genome was sequenced. 128 00:14:31,220 --> 00:14:37,200 It became immediately apparent that simply having the DNA sequence for the human genome was not enough. 129 00:14:37,580 --> 00:14:40,580 There had to be some means to interpret the human genome. 130 00:14:41,360 --> 00:14:44,500 Nobody knew how to read the 3.2 billion genetic letters. 131 00:14:46,120 --> 00:14:48,860 We needed a Rosetta Stone for the human genome. 132 00:14:49,560 --> 00:14:51,700 Hence, the ENCODE project was born. 133 00:14:53,100 --> 00:14:56,860 Its goal to identify all the functional elements in the human genome. 134 00:14:57,480 --> 00:15:00,460 ENCODE stands for the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements. 135 00:15:00,460 --> 00:15:03,520 This project began in the early 2000s. 136 00:15:03,840 --> 00:15:07,320 The pilot phase cost $55 million to tarry out. 137 00:15:07,900 --> 00:15:13,900 The research consortium attempted to identify all the functional elements in 1% of the human genome. 138 00:15:14,680 --> 00:15:17,680 The success with phase 1 led to phase 2. 139 00:15:18,260 --> 00:15:23,360 Phase 2 cost $130 million and was completed in September of 2012. 140 00:15:23,880 --> 00:15:29,680 Phase 3 is currently underway and the total cost for the ENCODE project will be about $300 million. 141 00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:36,160 This is actually a bargain because it cost $3.2 billion to sequence the human genome. 142 00:15:36,500 --> 00:15:42,700 So we will be able to interpret the human genome for a mere tenth of the cost of actually sequencing the human genome. 143 00:15:43,400 --> 00:15:46,520 The ENCODE project was big science come to biology. 144 00:15:46,520 --> 00:16:03,700 The phase 2 project consisted of 440 scientists and 32 research groups around the world who performed almost 1,700 experiments analyzing 147 human cell types, generating 15 times 10 to the 12 bytes of data, 145 00:16:03,700 --> 00:16:08,660 and it required 300 years of supercomputer time to analyze the data. 146 00:16:08,660 --> 00:16:16,500 The ENCODE consortium produced 40 publications distributed among some of the leading biology journals in the world. 147 00:16:17,140 --> 00:16:28,080 Phase 3 of the ENCODE project will survey the remaining 63 cell types and also look for functional DNA at different points in development and at different points in the cell cycle. 148 00:16:28,080 --> 00:16:37,520 This project will take us a long way towards understanding fundamentally human biology and human uniqueness. 149 00:16:38,300 --> 00:16:41,640 It will help us to understand disease processes better. 150 00:16:42,840 --> 00:16:48,040 It will help us to develop genetic tools that will allow us to diagnose genetic disorders. 151 00:16:48,040 --> 00:16:55,920 The insights coming from the ENCODE project also impact this creation-evolution controversy that we've been talking about. 152 00:16:56,640 --> 00:17:03,460 These results eliminate the best argument for evolution and eliminate the biggest challenge to biochemical design. 153 00:17:03,940 --> 00:17:06,740 So what did ENCODE discover that was so important? 154 00:17:07,740 --> 00:17:15,780 Well, these researchers performed six assays measuring transcription, the binding of transcription factors, histone binding, 155 00:17:15,780 --> 00:17:20,940 modified histone binding, methylation, and three-dimensional interactions within the genome. 156 00:17:21,420 --> 00:17:25,940 All of these processes play a key role in what's called gene expression. 157 00:17:26,980 --> 00:17:29,820 It's one thing to know what genes are present in the genome. 158 00:17:30,360 --> 00:17:33,620 It's another thing to know how and when those genes are used. 159 00:17:34,200 --> 00:17:38,200 We can think of genes in the genome like being words in a dictionary. 160 00:17:39,000 --> 00:17:44,340 To write a novel, one needs to use the words in the dictionary in a variety of combinations, 161 00:17:44,340 --> 00:17:46,760 often using words more than one time. 162 00:17:47,300 --> 00:17:54,100 Each novel uses words from the dictionary in a different way to produce pieces of literature that communicate different meanings. 163 00:17:55,220 --> 00:17:58,760 The set of genes found in the human genome are like words in the dictionary. 164 00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:04,820 These genes can be used to build cells in the human body, with the cells functioning like novels. 165 00:18:05,380 --> 00:18:11,440 The genes are used or expressed differently from cell to cell, accounting for each cell type's unique features. 166 00:18:11,440 --> 00:18:19,820 Gene expression not only differs from cell to cell, it also changes throughout the course of the cell cycle and during growth and development. 167 00:18:20,720 --> 00:18:27,340 Each stage of the cell cycle, each stage of development represents a different novel that needs to be written. 168 00:18:28,300 --> 00:18:31,080 And here is the remarkable piece of the ENCODE project. 169 00:18:31,080 --> 00:18:40,540 It appears as if most of the DNA sequences found in the human genome are regulating gene expression needed to build and then maintain the human organism. 170 00:18:41,120 --> 00:18:49,920 Phase 2 of the ENCODE project reported that 80% of the human genome displays biochemical activity that likely reflects biochemical function. 171 00:18:50,560 --> 00:18:58,080 The ENCODE scientists expect that as phase 3 is completed, 80% of the functionality will turn into 100%. 172 00:18:58,080 --> 00:19:03,960 Ed Young, who wrote in an article in Discover Magazine, said this, 173 00:19:03,960 --> 00:19:06,100 And what's in the remaining 20%? 174 00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:09,620 Possibly not junk either, according to you and Bernie. 175 00:19:10,040 --> 00:19:16,680 It's likely that 80% will go to 100%, and Bernie serves as the head of the ENCODE project consortium. 176 00:19:17,600 --> 00:19:21,560 In other words, the human genome doesn't appear to be a wasteland of junk. 177 00:19:22,180 --> 00:19:23,440 It appears to be functional. 178 00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:29,780 Most of the DNA sequences of the human genome play a role in making us human beings. 179 00:19:30,240 --> 00:19:35,140 This insight stands as a radical revision of our view of the human genome. 180 00:19:35,500 --> 00:19:42,120 It's not a wasteland of junk, but an elegant biochemical system that is far more complex than we initially imagined. 181 00:19:42,860 --> 00:19:45,820 Well, how have biologists responded to the ENCODE results? 182 00:19:45,820 --> 00:19:55,580 Within hours of the publication of the ENCODE results, evolutionary biologists began to decry the ENCODE project, 183 00:19:55,940 --> 00:20:00,560 citing technical issues with the way the study was designed and the way the results were interpreted. 184 00:20:01,160 --> 00:20:09,720 These technical complaints continue today, igniting what are called the junk DNA wars between evolutionary biologists and genomic scientists. 185 00:20:09,720 --> 00:20:15,720 Evolutionary biologists argue that if the results of the ENCODE project are correct, 186 00:20:15,720 --> 00:20:22,880 then cornerstone ideas in the evolutionary theory, such as the C-value paradox, can't be correct. 187 00:20:23,820 --> 00:20:31,180 On other hand, genomic scientists see value in the ENCODE results, using them to understand the genetic basis for disease. 188 00:20:31,180 --> 00:20:40,200 Evolutionary biologists have roundly criticized ENCODE scientists, claiming them to be incompetent and decrying the design of the ENCODE assays. 189 00:20:40,680 --> 00:20:47,780 Evolutionary biologists claim that if ENCODE is correct, then key aspects of the evolutionary paradigm are in deep trouble. 190 00:20:48,520 --> 00:20:50,740 But these critics are doing science backwards. 191 00:20:51,660 --> 00:20:58,780 Instead of data being used to evaluate a theory, the theory is being used to evaluate the data from the ENCODE project. 192 00:20:58,780 --> 00:21:05,020 The character of these objections are not lost on objective members of the scientific community, 193 00:21:05,300 --> 00:21:13,180 who have suggested that the real motivation for the criticisms of ENCODE are philosophical, even theological in nature. 194 00:21:14,220 --> 00:21:21,300 For example, two scientists, molecular biologists, John Maddock and Marcel Dinger, 195 00:21:21,800 --> 00:21:25,560 in an article published in the Hugo Journal, wrote these words. 196 00:21:25,560 --> 00:21:31,200 There may be also another factor motivating Grar and other related articles, 197 00:21:31,400 --> 00:21:36,620 which is suggested by the sources and selection of quotations used at the beginning of the article, 198 00:21:36,760 --> 00:21:40,600 as well as the use of the phrase evolution-free gospel in its title. 199 00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:46,600 The argument of a largely non-functional genome is invoked by some evolutionary theorists 200 00:21:46,600 --> 00:21:50,520 in the debate against the proposition of intelligent design of life on Earth, 201 00:21:50,900 --> 00:21:53,540 particularly with respect to the origin of humanity. 202 00:21:53,540 --> 00:22:01,020 In essence, the argument posits that the presence of non-protein coding or so-called junk DNA 203 00:22:01,020 --> 00:22:04,240 that comprises greater than 90% of the human genome 204 00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:09,240 is evidence for the accumulation of evolutionary debris by blind Darwinian evolution 205 00:22:09,240 --> 00:22:11,780 and argues against intelligent design, 206 00:22:12,100 --> 00:22:16,880 as an intelligent designer would presumably not fill the human genetic instruction set 207 00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:18,400 with meaningless information. 208 00:22:18,400 --> 00:22:25,420 This argument is threatened in the face of growing functional indices of non-coding regions of the genome, 209 00:22:25,760 --> 00:22:29,900 with the latter reciprocally used in support of the notion of intelligent design 210 00:22:29,900 --> 00:22:36,780 and the challenge to the conception that natural selection accounts for the existence and complexity of organisms. 211 00:22:37,620 --> 00:22:40,720 John Maddock and Marcel Dinger, who wrote these words, 212 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:44,620 are not creationists, they're not intelligent design proponents. 213 00:22:45,460 --> 00:22:50,020 Our design of the human genome is in its infancy. 214 00:22:51,080 --> 00:22:53,680 Forced by their commitment to the evolutionary paradigm, 215 00:22:54,340 --> 00:22:59,460 many biologists see genomes as cobbled together product of evolutionary history. 216 00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:03,140 But the more that we learn about the structure and the function of genomes, 217 00:23:03,140 --> 00:23:06,060 the more elegant and sophisticated they appear to be, 218 00:23:06,420 --> 00:23:10,300 and the more reasons to think that the genomes are the handiwork of our creator. 219 00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:13,620 I would like to conclude with the words of Eric Green, 220 00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:16,800 the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. 221 00:23:17,740 --> 00:23:20,720 During the early debates about the human genome project, 222 00:23:21,260 --> 00:23:24,700 researchers had predicted that only a few percent of the human genome sequence 223 00:23:24,700 --> 00:23:28,760 encoded proteins that were courses of the cell, and the rest was junk. 224 00:23:29,660 --> 00:23:32,080 We now know that this conclusion was wrong. 225 00:23:32,080 --> 00:23:35,680 ENCODE has revealed that most of the human genome 226 00:23:35,680 --> 00:23:39,000 is involved in the complex molecular choreography 227 00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:43,420 required for converting genetic information into living cells and tissues. 228 00:23:44,360 --> 00:23:47,040 In light of the data coming from the ENCODE project, 229 00:23:47,480 --> 00:23:50,760 as a Christian, I feel justified in viewing the human genome 230 00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:54,500 and hence human beings as a product of a creator's handiwork. 231 00:23:55,260 --> 00:23:59,540 In Psalm 139, David sings a song of praise to the creator, 232 00:23:59,540 --> 00:24:03,560 summarizing the latest insights from the ENCODE project well, 233 00:24:03,860 --> 00:24:04,720 when he declares, 234 00:24:04,900 --> 00:24:08,080 I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. 235 00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:09,540 Your works are wonderful. 236 00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:11,620 I know them full well. 237 00:24:12,140 --> 00:24:12,640 Thank you. 238 00:24:12,640 --> 00:24:13,840 Thank you. 239 00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:22,280 Thank you.