In 1972 it was estimated that 90% of the mammalian genome was not used, and became referred to as junk DNA. However recent discoveries have forced us to revise this assessment. Unused genes may lie dormant and are passed on from generation to generation until needed, but then suddenly can be activated in a single generation to make significant changes to an organism to allow it to evolve or adapt to a new environment. Could it be possible that evolution is an ability designed into an organism, instead of a product of random mutations over millions of years?
Here are some known functions of what had been considered “Junk DNA”:
- Gene regulation, the ability to turn other genes on or off and control which genes are expressed.
- Raw material for sympatric speciation.
- Mobile genetic elements, known as transposons “jumping genes” move around the genome as needed to adapt to the environment. They are now known to account for 50% of the human genome.
- Phenotypic plasticity drives evolution and genetic diversity. “Phenotypic plasticity demonstrates that organisms are not strictly bound by their genes, but rather, their development is an interactive process between genetics and the environment.”
What had been considered junk, is now known to be a warehouse/laboratory for invention. While science textbooks still emphasize that evolution requires random mutations over millions of years, we now know many examples where that is not the case.
Examples of Rapid Evolution
- Tuskless Elephants (Gorongosa National Park): Following extreme poaching, many female elephants evolved to be born without tusks, an adaptation to survive human poaching.
- Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria: Bacteria like E. coli can develop resistance to antibiotics or disinfectants in just a few years or even days.
- Urban Lizards: Lizards in cities have evolved longer limbs and larger toe pads to move faster and climb, adapting to human-built environments in only 10-15 years.
- Silent Crickets (Hawaii): Within 5 years, male Polynesian field crickets evolved to lose their chirping song to avoid parasitic flies, with silence becoming a survival trait.
- Smaller Fish (Chinook Salmon & Cod): Overharvesting favors smaller fish that can escape nets, causing populations to mature earlier and reach smaller adult sizes within 30-40 years.
- Pollutant-Resistant Killifish: Atlantic killifish adapted to survive high levels of industrial pollutants that would typically kill them, demonstrating rapid adaptation to toxic environments.
- Peppered Moths: During the Industrial Revolution, moths shifted color from light to dark to blend in with soot-covered trees.
Perhaps the most amazing example of phenotypic plasticity is the pupfish of Death Valley. This is considered one of the world’s rarest vertebrates and lives in an extreme environment. These amazing fish can even live without oxygen for up to 5 hours. In an effort to save this endangered species some pupfish were taken from Devil’s Hole and moved to three special pupfish refuges, which were designed to match that environment. In only 5 years the pupfish morphologies were observed to have diverged from that in Devil’s Hole.
“Convergent Evolution” is a related mystery that needs an explanation. Convergent evolution occurs when unrelated species independently evolve similar traits. It is known that bats, birds, and insects do not share a common ancestor, yet they all “developed” the ability to fly independently according to the Darwinian narrative. Bats and whales independently “evolved” complex sonar systems (echolocation) to navigate and hunt, yet they are not related. If we didn’t know better, we might assume that these complex systems were used in different organisms by the same design team.
As children we were amazed by monarch butterflies. We would find their caterpillars chewing on milkweed, bring them home to feed on the milkweed in a jar, and watch them spin a cocoon. A week or two later they would eventually emerge as a butterfly with wings. They undergo a complete metamorphosis. It turns out that they are also an example of convergent evolution. Fourteen species of insects have been shown to share their insensitivity to cardenolides, a poison found in milkweed. All are said to have independently evolved with this same mechanism that gives them this insensitivity which also has the benefit of making them poisonous to predators. One researcher expressed the difficulty of explaining this as the result of random mutations. “The finding of parallel evolution in not two, but numerous herbivorous insects increases the significance of the study because such frequent parallelism is extremely unlikely to have happened simply by chance.” (Princeton University 2012).
As you explore our amazing world, be careful to distinguish between “evolution” as a description of the ability of an organism to adapt and change in response to its environment, versus “evolution” of all life from a single cell as a theory of origins. The first is science that can be observed and appears to use existing information in the DNA. The second is a philosophical position of Naturalism and requires the creation of information and complete systems by random chance (which has never been documented or demonstrated as possible). Confusing these two concepts is an example of the logical fallacy of equivocation.
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