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Junk DNA?

A fascinating post on the intelligent design debate crossed my desk today...the more we think we know, the less we discover we really know:

FROM THE EVOLUTION NEWS WEBSITE

Evolutionists have long cited pseudogenes as a type of "junk" DNA that demonstrates an unguided evolutionary origin of the genome. Richard Dawkins typifies this view:

Genomes are littered with nonfunctional pseudogenes, faulty duplicates of functional genes that do nothing, while their functional cousins (the word doesn't even need scare quotes) get on with their business in a different part of the same genome. And there's lots more DNA that doesn't even deserve the name pseudogene. It, too, is derived by duplication, but not duplication of functional genes. It consists of multiple copies of junk, "tandem repeats", and other nonsense which may be useful for forensic detectives but which doesn't seem to be used in the body itself. Once again, creationists might spend some earnest time speculating on why the Creator should bother to litter genomes with untranslated pseudogenes and junk tandem repeat DNA.

 

(Richard Dawkins, "The Information Challenge," The Skeptic, Vol. 18 (4) (December, 1998). For a full rebuttal, see here.)

 

Sounding much like Dawkins, Francis Collins and Karl Giberson discuss pseudogenes to argue that is "not remotely plausible" that "God inserted a piece of broken DNA into our genomes." (Karl W. Giberson and Francis S. Collins, The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions, p. 43 (InterVarsity Press, 2011).)

But are pseudogenes actually "nonfunctional ... faulty duplicates ... that do nothing" (Dawkins) or "broken DNA" (Giberson and Collins)? Consider the abstract of a new review article in the decidedly non-pro-ID journal RNA which sounds decidedly different from atheistic evolutionist Dawkins and theistic evolutionists Giberson and Collins:

Pseudogenes have long been labeled as "junk" DNA, failed copies of genes that arise during the evolution of genomes. However, recent results are challenging this moniker; indeed, some pseudogenes appear to harbor the potential to regulate their protein-coding cousins. Far from being silent relics, many pseudogenes are transcribed into RNA, some exhibiting a tissue-specific pattern of activation...(read the rest here)

Badlands author's message to critics

Reply to Kim Workman

 

Kim Workman’s criticism of me reveals with startling clarity the weakness of his case. It is irrelevant whether an author is ‘known’ or ‘unkown’ – what matters is whether the arguments he puts forward are backed up by the evidence.

 

The proper way to criticise my thesis is to present sound evidence which shows that the conclusions I have reached in the book ‘Badlands’ are questionable or wrong.  He and others are free to do this. Surely, this is the way for this debate to be carried out. But when the only criticisms put forward are of a personal nature, such as those recently made by Workman, it indicates that he has no such evidence. I am not surprised.

 

I have spent years researching the results of the UK’s sentencing policies and for the last three years those of New Zealand. What these enquiries have revealed is that the thousands of persistent offenders in New Zealand who are placed back in the community every year, many on some form of supervision, continue to commit an enormous number of crimes. Claims for the success of supervision programmes for offenders do not survive scrutiny. Likewise accumulated evidence (quoted in the book) shows that longer prison sentences are associated with much reduced reconviction rates. Even so, recently published research from the UK shows that even short prison sentences are more effective at protecting the public than community based offender programmes.

 

Critics such as Workman, frequently state they disagree with my arguments. My answer is that unless they have good evidence to show my conclusions are faulty, they are not in a position to disagree. I tell them that what they mean is that they do not like my conclusions, because they conflict with their cherished beliefs and ideology. Many of us – me included – may not like the results of these objective investigations – but we cannot go on ignoring the impact that crime has on the general public. Workman clearly does not like the results of the analysis presented in the book, because it conflicts with his belief that criminals are victims of circumstance and need help rather than punishment. We must not base sentencing policies on beliefs and personal ideologies, but on the evidence which tells us which sentences protect the public and which do not. For the last 50 years New Zealand sentencing polices have been based on wrong ideas about crime and criminals – ideas which Workman wants to perpetuate.

 

I have never published in an academic journal because I have never needed to or wanted to - because I am not a professional academic. But this does not impact on the assessment, positive or otherwise, of the arguments contained in the book. Let Workman (and others) focus on that and produce reliable data to show that non-custodial sentences for persistent offenders do protect the public. He won’t of course because it does not exist. Had it done so, I would have found it by now and reported on it in ‘Badlands’. If Workman thinks that only professional academics should publish books of this kind he has allowed the phoney mystique many of them project to befuddle his thinking. My argument (put forward in my first book in 2006) that community supervision of persistent offenders puts the public at great risk by exposing them to non-stop crime, has never been refuted by officialdom or academics. They have all kept their heads down and remained silent, because they know there is no evidence to contradict my case. Perhaps Workman should do the same.

 

For the record his remarks about me are all factually incorrect. I have never described myself as an expert in anything, international or otherwise. This is a label given to by others. He is wrong when he says I am unknown to ‘criminal justice experts and academics’. I am. What Workman means I think, is that I am not a member of the criminal justice anti-prison establishment. Without meaning to he has underlined the central purpose of the book which is to examine the problems of crime and punishment through the eyes of the public as opposed to criminal justice ‘insiders’.

 

He is also wrong to say I left the probation service having made ‘absolutely no impression’. Many past (and probably some present) Chief Probation Officers throughout the UK will tell him otherwise. I was known to many of them – notoriously so- for my insistence in pointing out the harmful effects of their policies on the vulnerable public. In parallel to this I pioneered a number of projects during my career, including rehabilitation programmes for jailed offenders, well before such ideas became fashionable, but long since accepted as general policy.

 

My first book was reviewed extensively in the UK and in the United States. It was covered by all the major news outlets on the radio, TV stations and was given wide circulation in the press. For the last 5 years I have been called upon by various radio and TV news outlets to comment on criminal justice matters. This hardly fits with the description of someone ‘unknown’. But even if I was it would have no bearing on the merit or otherwise of the book.

David Fraser, London, 28 April

BBC caught financially supporting climate change lobby company

What is being called a "shadowy" climate change lobby organisation turns out to have had an undeclared conflict of interest after one of its members was outed in connection with a Climategate inquiry whitewash.

ANd it also turns out to be financially supported by the supposedly independent BBC.

Ever get the feeling the mainstream media have been taking you for a ride on climate change?

Justice system in denial over controversial new book

MEDIA RELEASE

NZ JUSTICE SYSTEM IN DENIAL OVER NEW BOOK
(radio ad available here

Badlands1 )

A new book on the failings of New Zealand’s justice system is provoking major controversy before it has even hit shop shelves.

BADLANDS: NZ – A LAND FIT FOR CRIMINALS, is written by former British probation service official and national crime intelligence service analyst David Fraser, and it claims New Zealanders have been kept in the dark about the real reasons for New Zealand’s high crime rate.

One former NZ justice official has today issued a news release claiming Fraser is unknown and his work has never been published in a “reputable” journal.

Badlands publisher Ian Wishart says a quick scan of news stories shows Fraser’s previous book was given high praise by the prestigious Times of London newspaper’s book review section. The Times says Fraser’s book provides “timely criticism of the criminal justice system…startling observations…damning.”

The reviewer also said David Fraser’s book was a “welcome antidote” to the claims of restorative justice advocates, and praised Fraser for his “impeccable research”.

For someone who is “unknown” as a commentator on justice and crime, it seems strange that he could walk off the street and command reviews like these from the other large British newspapers:

“A wonderful antidote to the poisonous myths so assiduously promoted by the anti-prison lobby.” --Sunday Telegraph

“A devastating critique (and) startling insider's account of the deception being played upon the public.” --Daily Mail

“A powerful 'wake-up' call which Britons at all levels can afford to ignore only at their peril.” --The Commonwealth Lawyer

A reviewer for Britain’s Social Affairs Unit wrote of the book:

“The main thrust of this book is an exercise in ideological demolition. The self-serving motivation of the criminal justice elite is exposed and ridiculed. As is the underlying ideology that has fed lies to the public day in and day out and has managed to dissuade most politicians from standing up for the victims of crime.”

New Zealand’s Kim Workman in his news release negating Fraser today, quoted British Probation Service official Phil Wheatley as his source on the credibility of David Fraser, but here’s what one commentator (General Sir David Ramsbotham) in the Guardian newspaper had to say about Phil Wheatley, clearly suggesting Wheatley is part of the problem:

“If Jack Straw and Phil Wheatley do not resign, they should also be subject to a performance capability for what the Sonnex verdict exposes of the damage they have done to the probation service.”

“There is a valid debate to be had about criminal justice policy in New Zealand,” said Badlands publisher Ian Wishart today, “but New Zealand justice insiders are going to need to lift their game much higher if they want the media and the public to take them seriously. Shooting the messenger is the oldest trick in the book, but in this case they missed. Badlands is opening up the debate, the public will make up their own minds.”

ENDS

Badlands: NZ – A Land Fit For Criminals by David Fraser, $41.90, Howling At The Moon Publishing Ltd, onsale Tuesday April 26

New Badlands book shatters myths on NZ crime problems

MEDIA RELEASE

PUBLIC KEPT IN DARK ABOUT NZ'S TRUE CRIME PROBLEMS

A new book by a British crime expert says New Zealanders have been kept in the dark about the true nature of our crime problem, because politicians and academics have caused most of the soaring crime rate and would prefer the public didn’t find out.

 

David Fraser’s book Badlands goes on sale later this week, and shatters dozens of key myths about crime that have been used to placate the public.

 

One of those myths is that New Zealand has the second highest imprisonment rate in the world. Fraser discovered the claim was not true, but has been used by successive governments to justify not spending money on more prisons.

 

In fact, says Fraser, New Zealand’s rate of imprisonment per 100,000 offences recorded is well down the world rankings, and goes a long way to explaining why New Zealand has a high crime rate – we’re continuing to let people stay in their communities and re-offend on a regular basis.

 

Another misleading claim used to justify not sending people to jail is the supposed cost of $100,000 a year to keep a prisoner in jail. Fraser says the claim is accurate, but utterly out of context. Based on national and international crime statistics, the average offender is committing around 80 crimes a year if they are not in prison, at a cost of around $355,000 a year to the community.

 

In other words, it costs the public nearly four times as much when the courts decide not to send a criminal to prison.

 

Although the country’s murder rate has tripled, per capita, since the 1960s, Fraser reveals that the numbers don’t tell the real story – medical advancements are keeping hundreds alive each year today who would have died in 1960 or 1970, masking the real comparative homicide rate behind an explosion in violent assault statistics instead.

 

Fraser’s new book argues that successive law changes since the 1960s have essentially caused New Zealand’s massive crime problem, and he publishes suggested policy changes he argues will rapidly reduce New Zealand’s crime rate.

 

Fraser has spent decades working in the Probation Service and is a former analyst with the UK National Crime Intelligence Service.

 

Badlands: NZ – A Land Fit For Criminals by David Fraser, $41.90, Howling At The Moon Publishing Ltd, onsale Tuesday April 26