The answers to the question of 'junk' DNA have been coming
in for years, and we now know that the 'junk' is not really junk. Since 'junk' DNA is not really junk, from now on I will call it ' non-coding' DNA. Let's first look at some of the early studies which indicated that there was some
design behind the non-coding DNA. Initial and subsequent studies showed there were long
areas of non-coding DNA which contained palindromes, thus maintaining symmetry between
complementary strands (2). Other studies, examining large regions of
genomes, using statistical techniques borrowed from linguistics, have shown patterns in
the non-coding DNA similar to that seen in human languages (3). For
example, when you take human language texts and create a histogram plotting the log of the
frequency of occurrence of words against the log of the rank, the resulting plot is always
linear with a slope of -1 for every human language. Likewise, when you perform the same
plot for coding and non-coding DNA, the plot for the non-coding DNA exhibits a nearly
perfect linear relationship (much better than that seen for the coding regions of DNA).
The purpose or function of this ' DNA language' was not determined. Another study
showed that DNA contains large areas with unexplained patterns (4).
Such patterns could not be the result of random chance as stated by Dr. H. Eugene Stanley
(Boston University), 'it is almost incredible that the occupant of one site on a gene would somehow influence which nucleotide shows up even 100,000 bases away.'" - The Myth of Junk DNA, by Jonathan Wells, Ph. D. "Our [Founding Fathers] never intended that anything but 'gentlemen' of the new nation, their own class, should sit as jurors. It was to be a jury of their peers, all right - that is, a jury of landed gentlemen. Our constitutional fathers, the elitists of their time, trusted the ordinary people the way a hawk trusts a flock of pestering magpies. They never intended that juries should be selected from 'the rabble and riffraft.' They never intended to give either the right to vote or the power of the jury to the poor, the blacks, or to women. Because juries were made up only of trusted members of the ruling class, they were also freely given the right to nullify the law..." - in the criminal case...where the poor are usually the accused, and - more important - where money and property are not at risk, juries are trusted somewhat more with the decision..." - With Justice for None - Destroying an American Myth, by Gerry Spence (Attorney)
