|
|
You may freely copy this file and print it out for reference or to discuss evolution and its problems with other people, provided you keep my Email address on it.
Index
Is it important? | To be scientific. | Saltation. | A minor problem for you to consider. |
Kettlewell's moth.
| Cilium.
| Flagellum | Diagram of flagellum | Quotes | Rhinogradentia | F1-ATPase Motor
When searching for scientific proof of evolution I read amongst others, Evolution a Theory in Crisis by evolutionist Michael Denton and Darwin's Black Box by Michael J Behe, another evolutionist, also a lot of other scientific data on the subject over the last 20 years or so, and recently The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins, which some people think is scientific. I am still searching for some scientific proof that evolution can and did happen. Is there any? If not then why not?
If you have some scientific data that you have been assured proves evolution please Email it to me so I can publish it with my comments.
Why is it important?
To be scientific you must try
to fit the available scientific data into every possibility. The only ones I
know of are evolution, saltation, (a sudden jump, or punctuated equilibrium),
panspermia, (life drifted in through space from some other galaxy), or some sort
of manipulative intelligence referred to as God.
Many evolutionists view the
possibility of life starting on earth by accident as so highly improbable that
they proposed panspermia as a way of avoiding the problem by putting the start
so distant that it cannot be studied, and therefore no explanation is required.
However consider the dangers of space, the extreme temperatures for thousands of
years, and the fiery entry to earth. Also if elephants and dinosaurs didn't
drift in through space, then they must have evolved here, so the intermediates
should be in the fossil record. Basically you come back to the same problems as
evolutionists have in trying to find intermediates to show how evolution
happened, so the idea gains nothing at all.
In saltation it is assumed that numerous small errors in the DNA get to a point where the next offspring takes on a totally new characteristic that will improve survival. This repeats over thousands of years to build up a totally different species from the one started with, ie lizard to bird, or some such extrapolation. This is still unguided by any outside intelligence, and supposedly gets around the problem of not being able to find any transitional forms. The problem as I see it is that with no guidance to ensure that the next saltation is reasonable or helpful there should be obviously erroneous fossils where the saltation didn't cause great harm, but was ridiculous, so the species was able to continue for a long time. Why not the Rhinogradentia family? (See subject below) If it can be imagined why hasn't evolution stumbled upon it. Why not a lizard with some downy feathers and a half avian lung system? So why is it not represented in the fossil record? It must have taken thousands of years for evolution to develop feathers all over. Also if the saltation did occur where would the new oddity find a mate, as most species are very fussy about that. If it did mate with its previous kind the saltation would probably soon be lost, or further errors may cause the saltation to die out, as all observed errors in the DNA are harmful. If evolution is not true then what is?
The only other theory I have heard of is that God created, and therefor has the right to lay down the law, and He promises rewards after this life, or total lack of them for those against Him. If an eternal enjoyable life is the reward then the most important thing in this life is to find out if it is true, or if evolution is true.
Please consider this and make up your mind before continuing.
Kettlewell's
moth.
Return to Index
One example of evolution, which I understand is still in textbooks, is the peppered moth. This breeds in two shades, light and dark. Before the Industrial Revolution the dark moths were easily found and eaten by predators, on the lighter coloured bark. Consequently when the moths were surveyed there was a predominance of the lighter coloured ones. Pollution from the Industrial revolution darkened the bark and the lighter moths were more easily found, and the darker ones were predominant. This has been claimed to show evolution, but actually shows stasis, no change in spite of all that the predators could do. The change in survival rate shows survival of the fittest for that situation, but this never causes an upward change, just removes the unfit and slows the downward genetic drift that is due to genetic mutations. Note that this was researched by evolutionists, and published as a proof of evolution.
The story has generated boundless evolutionary enthusiasm. H.B.Kettlewell, who preformed most of the classic experiments, said that if Darwin had seen this,"He would have witnessed the consummation and confirmation of his life's work."
The foreword in the 1971 edition of Darwin's Origin of Species states that the peppered moth showed natural selection but not evolution in action.
But surprise surprise the truth is coming out at last.
Peppered moths don't even rest on the tree trunks during the day! British scientist Cyril Clarke investigated the peppered moth for 25 years, and only saw two in their natural habitat by day- no other researchers have seen any. Kettlewell and others attracted the moths into traps in the forest either with light, or by releasing pheromomes- in each case, they only flew in at night.
The moths filmed being eaten by the birds were laboratory-bred ones placed onto tree trunks by Kettlewell; they were so languid that once he had to warm them up on the engine bonnet of his car.
One paper described how the photos of moths on the tree trunks were obtained, dead moths were glued to the tree. University of Massachusetts biologist Theodore Sargent helped to glue moths onto trees for a NOVA documentary. He says textbooks and films have featured 'a lot of fraudulent photographs'. University of Chicago evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne agrees that the peppered moth story, which was 'the prize horse in our stable', has to be thrown out.
Obviously Kettlewell would have known that the moths did not, or very seldom, rest on the tree trunks during the day, since he was researching them. So why did he invent this story?
Again we see that one evolutionist puts up a good sounding evolutionary scenario, and everyone tries to support the story, even when they can't find the evidence (moths) they fake the evidence to support the theory, because the theory must be supported, even at the expense of honesty and science. Surely science teachers are supposed to teach science, but how can they tell what is scientifically accurate if evolutionists bolster their " proofs" with false data. Consider the original claims about Neanderthal Man, depicted as brutish, now normal, Peking Man, the bones may have been from animals the locals were eating, Java Man, a hoax by Eugene Du Bois, Piltdown Man, a deliberate hoax that reigned for forty years, Nebraska Man a whole family depicted based on the tooth of an extinct pig, Lucy, now just a southern ape (Australopithecus). If you were fooled into believing any of these you need to be more cautious, if your teacher / lecturer has taught you these are real proofs of evolution you need to complain that you should be taught science, not a religion based on evolution theory.
Many bacteria propel themselves with a cilium, a hair-like tail structure that has no muscles. The electron microscope shows nine rod-like structures, each consisting of two columns of different proteins assembled around two central rods. Complex research indicates that a chemical form of energy called ATP causes one of the proteins to slide past the other, making one side of the rods longer and causing the cilium to bend. This is, in effect, a linear motor. There has been a lot of research into cilium, as the same design is used in your lungs to help to remove dust and mucus. So far, no one has made any serious suggestion as to how it could have evolved. How could a simple cell produce such a scientific breakthrough, what possible fore runner could there have been to jump from muscles to a linear motor? All of the specifications for forming it and using it, and the knowledge or instinct to make use of it have to be correctly specified in the DNA, otherwise it is of no use. But can knowledge or instinct be specified in the DNA? These are thought processes, that are not inherent to, or a property of, molecular substances. If thought processes could be specified in the molecular substances, then to accidently produce a living cell that could operate itself you would have to accidently assemble billions of molecules correctly to form the cell and all its essential parts,and also accidentally encode the instinct for that particular type of cell. The wrong instinct would be like trying to run an old Z80 cpu program on a modern cpu, or trying to converse in a language you know nothing about. This would greatly increase the complexity of the cell. Most evolutionary scenarios only consider the DNA but this cannot operate unless in the correct type of cell, to get its supplies and be able to control maintenance, growth and reproduction, all of which must have been operational for the DNA to have been formed, as if left in water (or a primordial soup) it is quickly contaminated by molecules joining incorrectly to the DNA. This has been proved by research while trying to assemble a section of DNA. Therefore it can only be formed by the copying/reproducing mechanism in a complete cell, which of course, had to have the DNA to control its functions and had the DNA to copy.
Although this makes it difficult to give any credence to the evolution theory, other bacteria are even more amazing. Evolution can be made to sound very plausible, provided you don't get down to the nitty-gritty. At the molecular level, it is full of seemingly impossible hurdles, and since all life starts as a single cell, this is the make or break point of life, and evolution theory. If you can't make the single cell work, then nothing works.
Flagellum
Other bacteria use a flagellum, again a filament that has no muscle - actually doesn't seem to be much more active than a piece of string, judging from what I have read. What makes it work is the motor that spins it around like a propeller, a rotary motor, acid-driven, that works like an electric motor. It can be compared to an AC induction motor assembly. The cell has an inner and outer membrane. The stator (stationary part) is mounted in the inner membrane and has two rings of studs (pole like objects). The rotor has much smaller pole-like bars, and is supported by a bushing in the outer membrane, and the shaft is extended out of the outer membrane by a hook, a tube like piece that is bent about 80 degrees with the filament coming out of its end. This is my rough description, condensed from 12 pages. Get the book from the library.
Illustration from p71 Darwin's Black Box. The original drawing is in Voet and Voet, fig. 34-84, p.1259.
Quotes
"Biochemical analysis shows that the cilium contains over two hundred different kind of proteins; the actual complexity of the cilium is enormously greater than what we have considered." "Because the cilium is irreducibly complex, no direct, gradual route leads to its production."
"The bacterial flagellum in addition to the proteins already discussed, requires about forty other proteins for function." (Meaning over 240.) "In summary, as biochemists have begun to examine apparently simple structures like cilia and flagella, they have discovered staggering complexity, with dozens or even hundreds of precisely tailored parts." "As the number of required parts increases, the difficulty of gradually putting the system together skyrockets, and the likelihood of indirect scenarios plummets. Darwin looks more forlorn. New research on the roles of the auxiliary proteins cannot simplify the irreducibly complex system. The intransigence of the problem cannot be alleviated; it will only get worse. Darwinian theory has given no explanation for the cilium or flagellum. The overwhelming complexity of the swimming systems push us to think it may never give an explanation. As the number of systems that are resistant to gradualist explanation mounts, the need for a new kind of explanation grows more apparent. Cilia and flagella are far from the only problems for Darwinism."
Quotes are from “Darwin's Black Box”, pp72-73. This book is quite easy to read, you don't need to be a scientist, the few technical parts can be glossed over as the text gives a good laymans understanding of the many problems.
It seems to me that to assemble such complexity without knowledge, design or any thought, just relying on accidental occurrences makes one possible answer the obvious choice, also life is not an inherent property of material substances, no matter how complex the proteins may be.
As BEHE points out you cannot build this up progressively from some simpler useful design. He gives a good explanation and an overview of evolution.
The evolutionary view would be that the cell accidentally made an inner and outer membrane, accidentally fitted a stator to the inner one, bearing and rotor to the outer one, processed fuel, and knew how to use it.There is a simple test you can do to test out this theory. The simplest cell has about 5000 genes with about 1000 base pairs in each, about 10 million bits of data. The Windows program has about the same number of bytes, if it takes 500 bytes to program a new feature, try randomly changing 500 bytes in the program, then test all aspects of the program to see what improvement you have made. Bear in mind that the cell does not have a reset button, it's do or die for the cell.
Rhinogradentia
The picture is from H.Wurmbach, R.Siewing. Lehrbuch der
Zoologie Bd. 1 Verlag Fischer, Stuttgart-New York, 1985 p543. This 1985 European
zoology textbook gives a straightforward scientific description of this group of
strange creatures, and a 1989 edition is still in print. Supposedly discovered on
an archipelago called Hi-Lay, which conveniently sank out of sight after atomic
testing. This family of six creatures was concocted by zoologist G.Steiner,
using Stumpke as a pseudonym. It looks like a great proof for evolution, as it
should be able to evolve in many weird ways, so why not nose walkers? Why are
all creatures, and plants, of reasonable design, often interlinked in complex
ways with other plants and animals? Guidance perhaps? This answer is not allowed
as it can't be tested in the science lab. Was this intended as a serious hoax, or
was it just a daydreaming intellectual prank, that got taken seriously by
hopeful evolutionists?
F1-ATPase Motor
F1-ATPase is a subunit of a larger enzyme, ATP synthase, that spans the membranes of mitochondria, the energy producing organelles in cells. The motor has been extracted and mounted on a glass slide, for tests and the drawing. ADP and inorganic phosphate are processed to produce ATP which is the 'energy currency' of life, which is thrown off as it spins, this takes much energy. ATP is the central enzyme in energy conversion in mitochondria, chloroplasts and bacteria.
Since energy is required for life and all life uses ATP as its energy, life could not have evolved until this motor was fully functional. Copying the DNA and encoding a new DNA strand is an essential part of reproduction, and this requires energy, for the cell to produce the necessary chemistry, to manipulate the DNA and components, and to form a new cell to house the new DNA. This energy has to be in the form of ATP, which had to have the motor to process the ADP and inorganic phosphate to make it. Does this mean that the most important first step in accidentally creating the first living cell is to produce the F1-ATPase motor, to make the fuel to enable the assembly of the cell and then later the DNA to control the functions of the cell, and its future reproduction? If the DNA came first, then it had to have the exacting specifications to make the motor, to get the energy to make the cell. But making the motor requires energy, where does that come from, if the motor is not working, or evolution has not yet stumbled upon its complexities by blind chance?
Nature Vol. 370 page 621 to 628, 25th August 1994 shows the complexity of the amino acid strands that make up the motor. There are five different proteins, they contain 510, 482, 272, 146 and 50 amino acids. To specify how to make the amino acids, how to make them into the five proteins, how to assemble these to make the motor, would take an enormous amount of information, and if it is wrong the motor fails and the cell dies.
The Nature Vol. 370 shows nine pictures of the strands which make up the
proteins. To me it looks like heaps of streamers littering the floor after a
great party. The logistics of putting it all together to form the motor
components would defy an origami expert. But of course the first living cell
must have done this by accident.
This article is highly technical, but on
page 594 of the same issue the article "Our primary source of ATP" is easier to
follow. Apparently the enzyme was discovered 34 years ago, but had to wait for
improved technology to be able to prove it has a motor.
In Nature Vol. 386, March 97 page 217 "Real engines of creation" is another good article which covers bacterial flagellar motor (and linear motors) as well. These can turn in excess of 1000Hz and can propel bacteria at great speed. "Transposed into our own dimensions, if cars could drive at equivalent scale speeds, they would break the sound barrier." These motors are around 40nm across by 60nm high.
I think a quote from Richard Dawkins is in order here.
"Natural selection
is the blind watchmaker, blind because it does not see ahead, does not plan
consequences, has no purpose in view. Yet the living results of natural
selection overwhelmingly impress us with the appearance of design as if by a
master watchmaker, and impress us with the illusion of design and planning. The
purpose of this book is to resolve this paradox... and ...to impress the reader
with the power of the illusion of design" R. Dawkins, 1986 The blind Watchmaker,
Penguin Books, London, p.21.
How can nature accidentally create such complex,
highly efficient motors, and their use, without looking ahead, without planning,
without purpose, surely the consequences are disastrous. I think that clever
rhetoric gives the illusion of blind chance designing perfection. As far as I
can tell R.Dawkins puts a lot of faith in the DNA forming by accident, and
copying and improving itself and eventually enclosing itself in a cell membrane,
but this has been pretty well disproved as a possibility, but many cling to it
because the only alternative seems to be that God created. He outlines this
belief in The Blind Watchmaker.
"The deficiency in modern science lies essentially in its neglect of universal causality; it will no doubt be objected that science is not concerned with philosophical causality but with phenomena, which is untrue, for evolutionism in its entirety is nothing other than hypertrophy [an intellectual deformity], thought out as a means of denying real causes [first causes]." Schuon, F., 1976. Islam and Perennial Philosophy, translated J. P. Hobson, World of Islam Festival, London.p.53.
If evolution is not true then creation is, and all the research spent on
evolution, and how it developed is a waste, and all the books and all the
teaching and study. What a waste that would be! And why? Because we don't face
up to resolving the first cause of life. For both possibilities we would do much
the same research, but the aim would be different. We would get much more
understanding if we are researching what is true, rather than researching what
is not true. Are we wasting our time and research because we start with the
wrong assumptions, looking for the wrong things, clues, and evidence? Is this why
there are so many questions, and conundrums?
Quick click reply form.
Your comments would be appreciated. Please reply even if you click only one box.
