Junk, or Not Junk, that is the Question

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@terrellclemmons

I do not think your conception of MN matches actual practice.

My conception of MN, at least for the purpose of the immediate question about the rules of science and based on comments up the line of this discussion thread, is that for a design inference to be considered legitimate, the inferred designer must itself be explainable within MN. You confirmed that that was a correct application of MN.

My guess would be that that matches actual practice in some circles and does not match practice in other circles.

Well, the key point is that this negative rule applies ONLY within scientific discourse. Outside science, we can infer divine design all we like.

I think Mount Everest was designed!

No one in science cares that I say this, because I’m NOT making that claim within scientific discourse. That is the key point. MN is not a worldview, it is just rules to play by with in the “scientific restaurant”. Violate that rule, people respond like you aren’t tipping the waiter, or worse, skipping on the bill.

@terrellclemmons

The broad consensus is that ~90% of the human genome is junk.

Didn’t the ENCODE project call this consensus into question? This article goes all the way back to 2012. ENCODE Project Writes Eulogy for Junk DNA | Science

No, ENCODE did not call this into question. The use of “Junk” is a misnomer, any ways, and was disputed long before ID and ENCODE, because it is often misunderstood.

@T_aquaticus

Didn’t the ENCODE project call this consensus into question?

No. ENCODE tried (unsuccessfully) to blur the line between “does something” and “functional”.

That is right.

@terrellclemmons

Are you saying you take a position different from the one taken by the article in Science mag? Or does the Science mag author and the authors of the 30 mentioned papers take one different from the consensus?

Scientists argue about use of words all the itme, even when we agree on the content. Case in point is @T_aquaticus and me right here. There is no such thing as Junk DNA, in my view, but ENCODE did horribly equivocates “something happens” with “something important happens.”

A lot happens in the genome, but most of it doesn’t matter. Wee know this because we see a large amount of variability in the parts that do not matter.