Pseudogenes, or "false genes," were initially thought to be mutated and useless genetic "junk" since they don't code for proteins. When they were first discovered, evolutionists claimed they were leftovers of Darwinian evolution. But ongoing studies clearly show that the evolutionary interpretation was premature and even misleading.

Francis Collins and Karl Giberson, prominent participants of the BioLogos Forum, have suggested that Christians should believe in evolution because it has been confirmed by science. They relied on a category of DNA called "pseudogenes" to make this case in their recently published book The Language of Science and Faith: Straight Answers to Genuine Questions.

The world of biology was stunned when ENCODE, a massive consortium of researchers, announced in 2007 that it had found virtually no inactive "junk DNA" in the one percent of the human genome that it intensively studied.

Darwinian evolution asserts that a single original organism morphed over countless generations into the modern known life forms. Each species alive today would therefore represent the tip of its own "branch" on a gigantic imaginary tree of life, with the hypothetical ancestor of all life forms situated at the base of the trunk.

Certain repetitive DNA sequences have long been viewed as "confirmation" of evolution. Since they are not genes that code for proteins, they were considered to be unnecessary. Therefore, they were supposedly available for alterations that would eventually lead to a brand new function within the cell or body after all the "right" mutations had accumulated.