Genome By Accident Or By Design?

We are complex. Image courtesy of the National Human Genome Research Institute.




Joel Kontinen

Darwinian storytelling has not become extinct. An article in New Scientist says:

“Our genome is far from a perfectly honed, finished product. Rather, it has been crudely patched together from the detritus of genetic accidents and the remains of ancient parasites. It is the product of the kind of crazy, uncontrolled experimentation that would be rejected out of hand by any ethics board.”

The biggest problem with this claim is that it is entirely bogus. In contrast to this storytelling, our genome looks designed. Full of tiny interacting molecular machines, we are indeed “fearfully and wonderfully made,” as the psalmist puts it. The New International Version (NIV) renders Psalm 139:14 as: “I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”

The New Living Translation likewise says it aptly: “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous--how well I know it.”

This is obvious to all who are willing to see it.


Source:

Le Page, Michael. 2012. A brief history of the human genome. New Scientist 2882, 30–35.