Yet another challenge to Darwin's dogma comes from worthless stretches of DNA- JUNK DNA -or introns. Most evolutionary theorists see the history of life as a progression from spineless blobs to that most exalted of creatures -ourselves. Obviously then, the notion that bacteria might in some way be more advanced than us seems preposterous. Yet this is what a small band of molecular biologists is proposing.

These scientists claim to have found evidence that single-celled organisms have the most advanced genes on earth. By contrast, genes of all higher animals, including humans, have changed little since the first living things emerged. The controversy hinges on whether these scraps of DNA evolved with the first living organisms or appeared less than a billion years ago.

But the implications are immense. If introns were there in the beginning, then human genes would reflect the primordial pattern; simple organisms conversely would be highly evolved since their genes are devoid of introns. This goes against the grain of Darwin's simple to complex trajectory of life's evolution.