Is the human genome highly functional or mostly junk? This is a question that is not only being asked in the creation-evolution debate; it is a question raging in the ivory tower as well. The ‘old guard’ is much more likely to resist any claim that large swaths of the genome are useful. The ‘young punks’ in science is more willing to accept the obvious fact that the genome is highly functional. Who is going to win? In this episode, Dr Rob puts a few more nails in the coffin of junk DNA..

Notes and links:’

• Carter 2023 What proportion of the human genome is actually functional? And how much variation is tolerable?
• Chen et al. 2023 A genomic mutational constraint map using variation in 76,156 human genomes
• Moran 2023 What’s in your genomes? 90% of your genome is junk

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