Here’s a New Paper on a Long Non Coding RNA

Wow

Genes in our DNA code for proteins, but those genes only account for a few percent of the entire genome. What is the rest of our DNA doing? Evolutionists thought it was mostly useless but, in fact, all kinds of functions have been implicated. Some of the DNA is transcribed in long segments but, unlike the coding genes, does not get translated into a protein. Instead, this large noncoding RNA (lncRNA) helps to regulate which protein-coding genes are transcribed. New research is helping to elucidate how lncRNA does its job. The findings are not only astonishing, they demolish evolutionary theory.

The new research studied a particular lncRNA, known as Xist, that directs X-chromosome inactivation. The researchers found that Xist performs a three-dimensional, spatial, search for key protein-coding genes and directs the rearrangement of the chromosome. The key genes, though far apart along the chromosome, are close together in the tangled chromosome structure and can be regulated as a single group by Xist. As one researcher explained:

You can now think about these lncRNAs as a way to bring together genes that are needed for common function into a single physical region and then regulate them as a set, rather than individually. They are not just scaffolds of proteins but actual organizers of genes.

So not only is the lncRNA DNA sequence important to perform its job, but its location and the locations of the other genes are important. And all of this depends on the intricate, three-dimensional structural details of the chromosome. As the researcher further explained:

LncRNAs, unlike proteins, really can use their genomic information—their context, their location—to act, to bring together targets. That makes them quite unique.

Indeed. Not only would random, chance mutations need somehow to luckily hit upon the lncRNA DNA sequence, but they would have to do that in the right place in the genome. And the chromosome structure, and location of the key genes and their packing proteins, need to support this incredible capability. Here is how one writer explained the findings:

Before Xist is activated, X-chromosome genes are all spread out. But, the researchers found, once Xist is turned on, it quickly pulls in genes, forming a cloud. “And it’s not just that the expression levels of Xist get higher and higher,” Guttman says. “It’s that Xist brings in all of these related genes into a physical nuclear structure. All of these genes then occupy a single territory.”

Evolution

The lncRNA’s function reveals that evolution is even more unlikely. Evolution is a theory of a large number of low probability events. Evolving the sequence is itself unlikely (evolutionists say it arose from mutations combining portions of a dead protein gene and mobile elements). Now those random mutations must do the job in the right place, within the genome, as well.

But that is not all. For lncRNAs such as Xist are not even well conserved across different species (it is not found outside the eutherians), as evolution predicts and expects. Such lack of sequence conservation, evolution predicts, should mean lack of function. But lncRNAs such as Xist obviously do not lack function.

This leaves evolutionists with nothing but yet another just-so story as their only alternative; namely, that lncRNAs such as Xist underwent “rapid evolution.”

Evolution predicts certain patterns to be found amongst the species, and when they find those patterns evolutionists proclaim them as proof of evolution. But when unique designs are found which contradict evolution’s expectations, which is far more prevalent than the textbooks reveal, evolutionists quietly explain them away as the results of “rapid evolution.” Here is how one paper explained the evolution of Xist:

The mammalian transcriptome contains many non-protein-coding RNAs (ncRNAs), but most of these are of unclear significance and lack strong sequence conservation, prompting suggestions that they might be non-functional. However, certain long functional ncRNAs such as Air and Xist are also poorly conserved. In this article, we systematically analyzed the conservation of several groups of functional ncRNAs, including miRNAs, snoRNAs and longer ncRNAs whose function has been either documented or confidently predicted. As expected, miRNAs and snoRNAs were highly conserved. By contrast, the longer functional non-micro, non-sno ncRNAs were much less conserved with many displaying rapid sequence evolution. Our findings suggest that longer ncRNAs are under the influence of different evolutionary constraints and that the lack of conservation displayed by the thousands of candidate ncRNAs does not necessarily signify an absence of function.

As highlighted above, this paper explains the lack of conservation, across species, of Xist and other lncRNAs, as a consequence of “rapid sequence evolution.” In fact, the paper goes further, making the non scientific claim that these lncRNAs display rapid sequence evolution.

That is, of course, a misrepresentation of the science. Resorting to an unfalsifiable, unlikely, explanation is one thing. It is even worse to present that explanation as a given. LncRNAs do not display rapid sequence evolution any more than a football field displays a flat Earth.

Ever since Darwin, evolutionists have required long time periods. Darwin was greatly concerned about Lord Kelvin’s arguments that the age of the Earth was limited to 100 million years. And evolutionists celebrated the resolution to those arguments and the upward revision of the Earth’s age into the billions of years. But when deep time is unavailable, such as with the origin of Xist, evolutionists simply enlist “rapid evolution.”

Did Xist evolve? Perhaps, perhaps not. Who knows what future research will reveal. But from a scientific perspective, the current evidence is abundantly clear. It is astronomically unlikely that Xist, with its amazing capabilities, evolved. The fact that it must have evolved “rapidly” adds an exclamation mark to the finding. An intricate sequence must have evolved with amazing functionality. Those random mutations must have evolved Xist in the right place within the genome. And all this must have happened rapidly, at the right time. The right sequence, the right place, and the right time. When it comes to science, evolutionary theory simply makes no sense.

Religion drives science, and it matters.