Page 523 - Atlas of Creation Volume 3

Harun Yahya

The Last Support for the Myth of Junk DNA has Fallen:

A Pseudogene has been Shown to be Functional

Since the 1990s, important developments have all shown that the concept of junk DNA was an evo-

lutionist error based on lack of knowledge. Non-coding DNA, like introns interrupting the sequence of
genes and repetitive DNA found as longer sequences, have been shown to be functional. There was only
one kind of non-coding DNA left whose functionality was unknown: pseudogenes.
The prefix pseudo means "false, deceptive." Evolutionists gave the name "pseudogene" to a DNA seg-

ment produced by a functional gene that had apparently undergone a mutation and lost its functionality.
Pseudogenes have a special significance for evolutionists, who covertly acknowledge that mutations
cannot bring about evolution and have resorted to pseudogenes as a means to deceive people.
Countless experiments on living things have shown that mutations always result in a loss of genetic

data. Just as a few random blows with a hammer will not lead to improvements in the running of a clock,
mutations have never led to the development of new organisms, or cause existing ones to evolve.
Although the theory of evolution requires an increase in genetic data, mutations always reduce and de-
stroy them.

Evolutionists, lacking even a single demonstrable mechanism to support their theory, presented
pseudogenes as by-products of a phantom mechanism functioning in an imaginary evolutionary process.
They claimed that these allegedly useless DNA segments were molecular "fossils" of so-called evolution.
Their only support for this claim was the lack of knowledge as to whether these genes had any real func-

tion.
That is, up until May 1, 2003.
That was when Nature magazine published a study showing the functionality of pseudogenes. In a
letter titled "An expressed pseudogene regulates the messenger-RNA stability of its homologous coding

gene," researchers told of their observations in mice prepared for an experiment. 98 According to the in-
formation they gave, fatal mutations oc-
curred in a line of transgenic mice as a result
of genetic changes in pseudogenes called

Makorin1-p1. They observed in the mice
polycystic kidneys and bone deformity.
It became evident why a change in the
arrangement of the pseudogene would have

such a disastrous effect on the mice's organs:
A pseudogene is not just functional, but nec-
essary.
An article in Nature evaluating this re-

search stated that this discovery challenged
the popular belief of evolutionists that
pseudogenes were simply "molecular fos-
sils." 99 And so, one more evolutionist myth

collapsed.
Just three weeks after pseudogenes were
revealed to have a biological function after
all, a study in the May 23, 2003 issue of

Science dealt another severe blow to the idea
of junk DNA 100 revealing yet another func-
tion of the non-coding DNA. Evolutionists
apprised of all these developments had no

other choice but to accept that the time had

Adnan Oktar 521