In 1984, a guy hired me to write 8051 code for a product he was developing to track real-time automobile milage and expenses for tax purposes – he did the hardware, I did the software. In a few months, we had a working prototype. Right about that same time, the laws that had made record keeping for expense purposes much stricter were loosened again, making the product unnecessary. Oh well…
We stayed friends and got together every now and then, usually around Telegraph Avenue near the UC Berkeley campus, for large quantities of coffee and philosophical / spiritual / technical / scientific discussions. He was a smart guy; a little eccentric, but very smart. Two characteristics that seem to go together quite often.
At one of our get-togethers, I shared an idea I’d had recently that maybe junk DNA isn’t junk at all. A lot of our DNA, our bodies’ molecular instruction manual for how to develop and maintain themselves, has no apparent purpose – as much as 99%, although estimates vary widely. This DNA with no apparent purpose has been designated “junk”.
This is unusual in living things. Pretty much everything has a purpose. Sure, there’s the appendix. But that’s the exception rather than the rule. So, to have as much as 99% of something as fundamental to our bodies as DNA be of no use is unlikely. What if, instead, our “junk” DNA is actually the blueprint, the plans, for the further development of the human race? I’ll let you think through the ramifications of that possibility. But they’re huge. My friend thought that was the most outstanding idea he’d heard in a long time.
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