Prologue

Introduction

It is humbling for me and awe-inspiring to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God.

                                                                                                Francis Collins (2000)

Those were the words of Francis Collins when the President of the United States, Bill Clinton, announced the completion of the human genome sequence on June 26, 2000. But in spite of what Collins said there were a great many people besides God who had a pretty good idea of what was in your genome. Knowledgeable experts had been predicting for the past 30 years that the human genome would contain about 30,000 genes and lots of other functional regions. They estimated that the human genome was about 90% junk.

The publication of the human genome sequence proved that those knowledgeable experts were correct. (pp. 1-5)

The junk DNA wars

Most scientists were reluctant to believe the experts and they developed all sorts of hypotheses and speculations to avoid accepting the evidence that most of our genome is junk. This spawned the junk DNA wars that continue to this day.

"In this book I will attempt to show you that the concept of junk DNA is compatible with all the evidence, consistent with our understanding of evolution and population genetics, and possess extraordinary explanatory power. It helps us make sense of biology. I will also show you that all the arguments against junk DNA are incompatible with our present understanding of molecular biology, incompatible with evolution, and lack explanatory power. They do not make sense." (pp. 5-6)