Evolution: An Objective Look

22. More Stumbling Blocks for Evolution

The above video is about my book Evo-illusion, now available on Amazon. The URL for my book is www.Evo-illusion.com.

The page begins below.

The invention (atoms came from nothing to the incredible entities they are), and unlikely design of atoms is just another piece of evidence that there has to be intelligence behind this whole universe/life package. Evolutionauts say they know how nature formed itself, but they have no idea how the building blocks formed themselves. They just defer on this subject, as if it isn’t connected to the formation of life and nature. But the atoms that we are built of are certainly part of the equation, and for evolutionauts to say they know how one got here without knowing how the other did is simply disingenuous. The following is a video on the subject of atoms:

Chemical Complexity
There are serious chemical problems with the beginning of evolution, meaning the formation of the first amino acids and such compounds of life from a mixture of chemicals. One major problem is the fact that randomly-forming amino acids will be an equal mixture of left-handed and right-handed isomeric molecules, but every single amino acid used in living things today is left-handed. Right-handed amino acids do not work in the bodies of living things. Another major problem for evolution is the fact that randomly-forming sugars, the type that makes up the rails of the DNA/RNA ladder will also be an equal mixture of left-handed and right-handed isomeric molecules. But every single sugar used in the ladder rails is right-handed. Right-handed amino acids and left-handed sugars do not work in the bodies of living things. This chirality cannot be the product of natural random processes.

A second chemical problem is that of reactivity. Proteins are formed from a very specific sequence of many amino acids (all of which must be left-handed, of course), but these sequences do not correspond at all to the reactivity of the amino acids with each other. In a randomly-forming protein, the most reactive amino acids will bind together first, and then less reactive ones later. Also, there are many different orders of the same amino acids due to the way they could bind to either end of the chain. This chirality cannot be the product of natural random processes. Producing a specific protein for a specific function randomly is mathematically and chemically impossible even without the chirality problem.

Probability
Not only are there real chemical problems with the idea that the necessary building blocks for life formed by themselves and assembled themselves into a living cell, the whole idea is mind-numbingly improbable. By improbable, I don’t mean “unlikely, but possible by a remote chance.” I mean that the probability against it is so high that it is literally impossible. Even the probability that the correct sequences of amino acids could come together to form a working cell is almost literally zero. And the more complex the biochemistry gets, the lower the probability. Can we go below zero on the probability chart?

Consciousness

Consciousness is an incredibly difficult word to define. But consciousness makes for an incredibly difficult and immense roadblock for evo-illusionists and their theory. How could chemical reactions turn into consciousness, and complex thought? A really daunting challenge to evolution is the fact that modern terrestrial species supposedly evolved over a period of approximately 400-500 million years. A great deal of that time saw no real improvement in the “design” of animal species. Species were just different, not better. For example, a T. Rex would have been undoubtedly superior to a lion or an elephant in survivability. Species had all of the equipment that they would ever have over 400 million years ago. Eyes, ears, teeth, wings, and legs, have all been fully developed just about as much as they ever would be for the last several hundred of million years. A good question for evo-illusionists would be why it took so long for consciousness to show up. It isn’t as if there is any indication that consciousness evolved gradually over time in many different species. Consciousness exists in only one species out of the billion or so that have inhabited the earth. It suddenly appeared with modern man about 100,000 years ago, the last 500th of the time since species became land animals. I wonder if Richard Dawkins has a Lego consciousness demonstration to show the evolution of our consciousness.

Webster’s Dictionary defines consciousness as: “The quality or state of being aware especially of something within oneself”. A simple definition is that consciousness is what you’re aware of when you introspect when you pay attention to what’s going on inside of you. What if consciousness didn’t exist in the world? Apples would still be red, but there would be no awareness of red or any sensations of red. There would be no awareness of any color, feelings, thought……anything that makes us who we are.

What positive evidence is there that consciousness and the self are not merely a physical process of the brain? We have experimental data, for one thing. Neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield (who is considered the father of modern neurosurgery) electrically stimulated the brains of epilepsy patients and found he could cause them to move their arms or legs, turn their heads or eyes, talk or swallow. Invariably the patient would respond by saying, “I didn’t do that, you did”. According to Penfield, “the patient thinks of himself as having an existence separate from his body”. No matter how much Penfield probed the cerebral cortex there was no place where electrical stimulation would cause a patient to believe or decide. That’s because those functions originate in the conscious self, not the brain. A lot of subsequent research has validated this. When Rodger Sperry and his team studied the differences between the brains left and right hemispheres they discovered the mind has a casual power independent of the brains activities.

Consciousness is inner and private to the individual and is experienced by introspecting. We have a way of knowing about what’s happening in our minds that is not available to anyone, including doctors, and neuroscientists. A scientist could know more about what’s happening in our brains than we do, but he can’t possibly know more about what’s happening in our minds.

“Why should a bunch of atoms have thinking ability? Why should I, even as I write now, be able to reflect on what I am doing and why should you, even as you read now, be able to ponder my points, agreeing or disagreeing, with pleasure or pain, deciding to refute me or deciding that I am just not worth the effort? No one, certainly not Darwinian (evolution) as such, seems to have any answer to this. The point is that there is not a scientific answer.” Darwinist philosopher Michael Ruse.

Water and Ice:

A remarkable fact that demonstrates the incredible luck or intelligence that promotes life on our planet is the fact that the earth has to be just the right distance from the sun for water to be liquid and to sustain life. Water is one of the very few substances on earth that expands and gets less dense when it freezes. This allows ice to float so that the sun can melt it. If it were like 99.99% of all other substances, when it freezes, it would shrink and become denser. Its specific gravity would rise, which would make ice settle to the bottom of the oceans, lakes, and rivers, and the sun’s heating would never thaw it out. You would eventually have nothing but ice throughout the world. And no life. Is this another example of astounding luck? Or intelligence.

The amazing Woodpecker:

The woodpecker is the perfect example of an un-evolvable species. Thinking about the woodpecker in the simplest fashion: what was the first “peck” like? Did a bird peck its beak on a tree trunk, find a morsel of food, decide that was pretty good, then go on to have offspring that pecked more, until the full woodpecker evolved? The woodpecker has the hardest beak material of any bird species. Its beak is specifically constructed to act as an efficient tool for pounding into wood and bark. There is a cartilaginous shock absorber between its skull and beak. The skull is thicker than any other known specie per body weight. Its tongue can stick out ten inches to retrieve bugs “holed” up in trees. No other bird has a tongue that can be extended past its beak. The woodpecker tongue has barbs along each side to aid in grabbing its prey. Its tongue also has a gland that creates glue so the prey will stick to its tongue. Another gland makes a glue solvent which dissolves the glue when the woodpecker is ready to swallow so it won’t swallow its tongue. The woodpecker’s toes are specifically designed for climbing up vertical tree trunks: two claws forward, and two back, unlike all other birds that have three forward and one back. The woodpecker closes its eyes every time it hits the bark, which prevents its eyes from popping out of their sockets. The European Green Woodpecker has a tongue that goes backward from the throat, up the back of the skull to the top of the head, then down into the mouth. This gives it extra length in its trapping of prey.

If evolutionists can make up a story about how a system such as the woodpecker’s could evolve in micro-steps, I would like to see it. But, I am sure they can think of something.

LeoM from http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=242607

had this interesting take on the origins of life:

The origin of life remains a mystery:

There is not only the mystery of life’s origin as a purported result of random processes. There is also the mystery of the basic laws of nature and the cosmic constants – how they were determined and why they are so curiously “fine-tuned” to produce an orderly, stable, habitable universe. There is the mystery of quantum mechanics, which seems to show that the mind impinges on physical reality in bizarre ways, and may even call into question the nature of physical reality as such. (Is it just a projection of the mind? A few physicists think so.) There is the mystery of consciousness and its relationship to the brain, the so-called “hard problem” of neurology – how do electrochemical impulses become thoughts? How does a physical system give rise to a nonphysical phenomenon like consciousness? And there is the ultimate mystery, existence itself. Why is there something rather than nothing? Why does anything exist at all? And why are our minds capable of understanding it, of formulating laws and equations that express basic cosmological relationships so elegantly?

Synthetic life ‘advance’ reported

By Helen Briggs Science reporter, BBC News

According to this article: “An important step has been taken in the quest to create a synthetic lifeform. A US team reports in Science magazine how it built the entire DNA code of a common bacterium in the laboratory using blocks of genetic material. The group hopes eventually to use engineered genomes to make organisms that can produce clean fuels and take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.” Above is pictured M. genitalium which has one of the smallest known genomes.

The only problem here is the fact that all materials needed to construct living cells are already present. Scientists should be able to take living cells apart and reconstruct them into different living cells. That would, of course, be the easiest way to test if life can truly be constructed in the lab. Evillusionists hope that someday we will be able to synthetically construct living cells from laboratory-made DNA and other proteins required for life. They repeatedly say we are getting closer and closer. We are still light years away, and we most likely will never get there. It is truly amazing that we can now synthesize a genome. But if we are trying to construct synthetic life, scientists should start with living cells that are already in existence, break them down, then rebuild. That would be much easier than trying to make life from scratch from synthesized biochemicals. But of course, the chance of that working is zero.

Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny: Haeckel’s Embryos

The theory of recapitulation, also called ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, was a theory in biology which attempted to explain apparent similarities between humans and other animals. First developed in 1866 by German zoologist Ernst Haeckel, a contemporary of Charles Darwin, the theory has since been discredited. Ontogeny is the embryonic development process of an individual organism, and phylogeny a species’ evolutionary history.

Haeckel’s recapitulation theory claims that the development of advanced species was seen to pass through stages represented by adult organisms of more primitive species. Otherwise put, each successive stage in the development of an individual represents one of the adult forms that appeared in its evolutionary history. Haeckel formulated his theory as such: “Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny“. Haeckel produced several embryo drawings that overemphasized similarities between embryos of related species. These found their ways into many biology textbooks, and into popular knowledge.

For example, Haeckel believed that the human embryo with gill slits (pharyngeal arches) in the neck not only signified a fish-like ancestor but represented an adult fish-like developmental stage. When I was in school in the 1960’s these arches were given as proof of an evolutionary connection between fish and humans, and I was even more of a believer. Embryonic pharyngeal arches are not gills and do not carry out the same function. They are the invaginations between the gill pouches or pharyngeal pouches, and they open the pharynx to the outside. Gill pouches appear in all tetrapod animal embryos. In mammals, the first gill bar (in the first gill pouch) develops into the lower jaw (Meckel’s cartilage), the malleus and the stapes. In a later stage, all gill slits close, with only the ear opening remaining open.

Modern biology rejects the literal and universal form of Haeckel’s theory. Stages of human embryonic development are not functionally equivalent to the adults of these shared common ancestors. In other words, no clearly defined and functional “fish”, “reptile” and “mammal” stages of human embryonal development can be discerned. And Haeckel theory was proved a fake, just as many other sub-theories and fossil finds have been.

And, what about the gills? The “gill-like” structure in the embryo is often brought up as evidence of evolution. Gills are not even present in many fish this early in development. Calling them gill-like structures is forcefully injecting evolution into embryonic development when none is there, a common trick of evo-illusion.

Gravity

The fine-tuning of the universe is the extraordinary balancing of the fundamental laws and parameters of physics and the initial conditions of our universe. It’s almost as if the most unimaginably exacting dial was set for each and every law of nature, and relationships of matter that would allow for the formation and existence of life. The astounding fine tuning is simply too amazing to have been the result of blind luck. Over the past 30 years or so, scientists have discovered that just about everything involved with the basic structure of the universe is balanced on a razor’s edge for life to exist. And, the physical laws of nature are constant. In other words, the speed of light will not change over time. The force of gravity remains the same. If it could change, life could not depend on gravity. And, with only minor changes, life could not exist.

The perfect example of perfect balance is the four forces of nature: (1)Gravity (2) strong nuclear, which binds protons together in the nucleus of an atom, (3) weak nuclear and (4) electromagnetic which pulls magnets together as well as repels electrons of two items which are touching each other; your butt and the chair for example . In reality, atoms are 99.9999999…% space, and they are ruled by forces. If a hydrogen atom nucleus was the size of a tennis ball, its electron would travel in a 17,000 ft. in diameter sphere-shaped path around the nucleus. Physicists have spent the better part of the twentieth century trying to unite the four forces into a single force, without success. They are still trying. These forces are proportioned in an inconceivably perfect way which allows for the existence of life. Imagine a ruler that stretches across the entire universe and is broken into inches (that would be billions of billions of billions of inches). The ruler represents the range of the four forces, with gravity being the weakest force at one inch. The strong nuclear force is the strongest and would be represented by the entire length of the ruler. The strong nuclear force is 1×10 to the 30^th power times stronger than gravity. The range of possible settings “dial” settings for gravity can plausibly be taken to be at anywhere between where it is now to as large as the strong force. In other words, gravity could plausibly be as strong as the strong nuclear force, or anywhere in between. If we could increase gravity’s value by only one inch, the impact on life would be catastrophic. Species the size of humans would be crushed. Even insects would need thick legs to support themselves and no species could be much larger. A planet with a gravitational pull a thousand times that of the earth would only be forty feet in diameter. Of all of the possibilities, gravity is defined by the perfect amount of force for life to exist.

Further, if the strong nuclear force was 0.3% stronger, there would be no hydrogen in the universe, just heavy elements. If it was 2.0% weaker, protons and neutrons would not bond and there would be no elements heavier than hydrogen. Either way, the universe would never be able to support life. If the ground state energies for 4He, 8Be, 12C, and 16O were higher or lower by more than 4% of the universe would have insufficient oxygen or carbon for any kind of life. Carbon is formed in significant quantities only because 12C has a nuclear energy level very slightly above the sum of the energy levels of 4He and 8Be. The nuclear energy level of 16O is just right for converting some of the carbon to oxygen while ensuring that both elements are abundant. A slight change in the ratio of energy levels in either direction would make life impossible. Another example of precisely tuned parameters is the mass ratio of the nucleons. The neutron is 0.138% heavier than the proton. This led to the formation of 1 neutron per 7 protons in the big bang. If this mass ratio was reduced by just 0.1%, too many neutrons would be formed, resulting in the production of only heavy elements. No normal stars would form, and life would be impossible. If the mass ratio was increased by 0.1%, very few neutrons would be formed, and there would be no carbon, oxygen, or other heavy elements available for life.

The Idea of Infinitely Existing Matter:

A scientific discussion about the age of the universe isn’t quite outwardly simple as it may seem.  There are numerous ways scientists have for determining the age of the universe.  Some think that matter and the universe existed forever in the past, and, of course, will do so in the future. And, that “forever existing matter” gave birth to life in the universe.

The first notion to get off the table is that matter and the universe existed for an infinitely long time.  The idea of infinitely old matter is mathematically impossible. Many other absurdities would occur if you had an infinite number of anything. An infinite amount of marbles is a good example. Imagine that I gave you all of my marbles.  I would have none. The formula would look like:

                                                                          infinity – infinity = 0

Imagine that I have an infinite number of marbles and you have none. Imagine that I gave you half of my marbles. The result would be that we would have the same number of marbles; we would both together have an infinite number.  The formula would be:               

                                                                    infinity/2=2 X infinity=infinity

                                                                        infinity – infinity = infinity

Or I could give you all the marbles except three, leaving me with three marbles. The formula would be:

                                                                          infinity-infinity = 3 

These illustrations show that the idea of an infinite amount of anything has contradictory results. In the first case infinity minus infinity equals zero. In the second case infinity minus infinity equals infinity. And in the last case infinity minus infinity is three. These are completely contradictory results and make the use of an infinite number of anything mathematically not possible. Further, if you had an infinite number of marbles, would they fill the entire universe with marbles? Of course.   And they would continue on forever past the edges of the universe. This might give you a better idea: you would need to fill an infinite number of universes solid with marbles.  Or, actually, you could put one marble in each of an infinite number of universes, and you would get the same result: an infinite number of marbles. 

 “Infinite”, “forever”, “eternal” are such easy words to use. But they describe impossible scenarios. The universe could not have an infinite past, thus it must have a finite past. It doesn’t and couldn’t have an infinite future. The idea of infinity is just conceptual. If matter was infinitely old, one billion years from now the universe would be just as old as it is now.  Here is the formula:

                                                             infinity + one billion = infinity. 

There could be no change.  Nothing would be able to age.  So the universe must have a finite past.  There must be a start to it. Astronomers call the beginning of the universe the Big Bang.   The Big Bang is the start of all matter, energy, space, time. Everything in the universe was formed. Physics tells us that matter and energy are interchangeable, and cannot be created nor destroyed. The Big Bang must break that rule.  So we have discrepancies among the sciences. The paradoxes continue and are amazing.

Our Amazing Spaceship Earth

Ev-illusionists would have us believe that there is nothing special about Earth. That it is just a minor planet in an average galaxy. However, studies have shown that our planet is unique. Earth’s distance from the sun, its size, its structure, its atmosphere, its temperature, its composition, its internal dynamics, and its many intricate cycles that are essential to life – the carbon cycle, the oxygen cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the phosphorus cycle, the sulfur cycle, the calcium cycle, the sodium cycle, and so on, testify to the degree to which our planet is exquisitely and precariously balanced. The earth’s atmosphere and magnetosphere shield us from deadly solar radiation and works with the oceans to moderate the climate.

We’ve found that our location in the universe, in our galaxy, in our solar system, as well as such things as this size and rotation of the earth, the mass of the moon and sun and so forth , a whole range of factors, conspire together in an amazing way to make the earth a planet that can support life. The moon is also essential to the life on our planet. If the moon was nonexistent or not large enough, Earth’s tilt would swing wildly resulting in major temperature swings. If the moon were more massive and in the same place the tides would be much too strong, which would create serious difficulties.

A terrestrial planet must have a minimum mass to retain an atmosphere. An oxygen-rich environment is necessary to support large-brained creatures like humans. Earth’s atmosphere is twenty percent oxygen, just the right percentage to support life. And the planet has to be a minimum size to keep the heat from its interior from being lost too quickly. If the earth was a more massive and compact planet, the resulting higher surface gravity would cause flattening of the mountains. The tendency would be toward creating a smooth sphere. We would be a water world. And a water world would not allow for specialized species like…….us.

IQ and Natural Selection

Since random mutations and natural selection were responsible for assembling the human brain, I think it would be reasonable to assign them an IQ. Most things in nature were produced in hundreds of thousands of steps. It would be reasonable to assign mutations and natural selection an IQ value of, let’s say one. There has to be some value, considering they put together the most incredible systems imaginable, and natural selection made some pretty incredible choices. So, if RM and NS had an IQ of 1, could it put together a human brain with an average IQ of 110, in hundreds of millions of years? Could a two-year-old child, if he could remain constant, jump up and touch a ten-foot basketball rim? Could he assemble a computer if he had no idea what a computer was, like evolution assembled a heart when it had no idea what a pump was, and none existed for at least 30 trillion miles in any direction? If he had hundreds of millions of years to accomplish these tasks, could he?

A quote from Sir Isaac Newton…

“. . . Can it be by accident that all birds, beasts, and men have their right side and left side alike shaped, (except in their bowels,) and just two eyes, and no more, on either side of the face; and just two ears on either side of the head, and a nose with two holes; and either two forelegs, or two wings, or two arms on the shoulders, and two legs on the hips, and no more? Whence arises this uniformity in all their outward shapes but from the counsel and contrivances of an Author? Whence is it that the eyes of all sorts of living creatures are transparent to the very bottom, and the only transparent members in the body, having on the outside a hard transparent skin, and within transparent humours, with a crystalline lens in the middle, and a pupil before the lens, all of them so finely shaped and fitted for vision, that no artist can mend them? Did blind chance know that there was light, and what was its refraction, and fit the eyes of all creatures, after the most curious manner, to make use of it? These, and such like considerations, always have, and ever will prevail with mankind, to believe that there is a Being who made all things, and has all things in his power, and who is, therefore, to be feared.”

From Memoirs of the Life, Writings and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton by Sir D.Brewster Volume 2 Pages 347-348

Humans have 23 paired chromosomes, apes 24.

Amazing how the huge things NEVER happen with evolution, so they try to link the tiny.  Anything and everything is evidence for evolutionauts.   A huge puzzle for evolution was the fact that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, the great apes have 24. More than humans? This was a pretty indefensible fact and was a real conundrum for evolution to explain. Then evolution’s big break came when they found the apparent fusion of two human chromosomes. The patterns were the same, but the way the chromosomes were “notched”  it actually had the look of a fusion, which would mean humans “really” have 24, just like apes. Why would two human chromosomes fuse? Did they actually fuse, or do they just give the appearance of fusing?  Did the fusion occur in microsteps? On millionth of a fusion per generation? Or did they whip around and fuse in only one human, then the design caught on, and spread to other humans? Did the human with the fusion survive better than the ones without the fusion? One would think that there would be several types of humans, some with the fusion, others without. Why did this change spread to 100% of the species? Did the fusing chromosomes first stick together a little bit, next……. So evolution thinks they have the answer to one question, only to have more to answer for. One would think if more complexity occurs with time, and the genome gradually increases in size, we would have 25 pairs, not 23 with two fused. We should have more than apes. Why would the number increase, and when we come along, it went the other way? Strange, no matter which side you are on. Of course, the huge thing here, is how did the information in the genome expand? The number of chromosomes? Evolutionauts stumble around and have no idea. Genetic material can change, but increasing in number is tough. Richard Dawkins was stumped trying to answer that question. (See my page on Richard Dawkins being stumped.)  He still never has. But he gave a bunch of speeches berating the questioner, and never answering the question. The huge question is HOW did this huge gene modification occur. Evolution always explaining that an event  occurred, but how is never considered.

From: http://www.gate.net/~rwms/hum_ape_chrom.html:

Most of the chromosomal differences among the four species involve inversions – localities on the chromosome that have been inverted, or swapped end for end. This is a relatively common occurrence among many species and has been documented in humans (Ref. 8 ). An inversion usually does not reduce fertility, as in the case I have referenced. Don Lindsay provides a diagram of the chromosome inversion between chimpanzees and humans scanned from ref. 1. Note how all of the bands between the two chromosomes will line up perfectly if you flip the middle piece of either of the two chromosomes between the p14.I and q14.I marks. The similarity of the marks will include a match for position, number, and intensity (depth of staining).  Similar rearrangements to this can explain all of the approximately 1000 non-heterochromatic bands observed among each of the four species for these three properties (band position, number, and intensity).

Other types of rearrangements include a few translocations (parts swapped among the chromosomes), and the presence or absence of nucleolar organizers. All of these differences are described in ref. 2 and can be observed to be occurring in modern populations.

The biggest single chromosomal rearrangement among the four species is the unique number of chromosomes (23 pairs) found in humans as opposed to the apes (24 pairs). Examining this difference will allow us to see some of the differences expected between common ancestry as opposed to a common designer and address the second creationist objection listed above.

There are two potential naturalistic explanations for the difference in chromosome numbers – either a fusion of two separate chromosomes occurred in the human line, or a fission of a chromosome occurred among the apes.  The evidence favors a fusion event in the human line. One could imagine that the fusion is only an apparent artifact of the work of a designer or the work of nature (due to common ancestry). The common ancestry scenario presents two predictions. Since the chromosomes were apparently joined end to end, and the ends of chromosomes (called the telomere ) have a distinctive structure from the rest of the chromosome, there may be evidence of this structure in the middle of human chromosome 2 where the fusion apparently occurred. Also, since both of the chromosomes that hypothetically were fused had a centromere (the distinctive central part of the chromosome), we should see some evidence of two centromeres.

The first prediction (evidence of a telomere at the fusion point) is shown to be true in reference   Telomeres in humans have been shown to consist of head to tail repeats of the bases 5’TTAGGG running toward the end of the chromosome.  Furthermore, there is a characteristic pattern of the base pairs in what is called the pre-telomeric region, the region just before the telomere. When the vicinity of chromosome 2 where the fusion is expected to occur (based on comparison to chimp chromosomes 2p and 2q) is examined, we see first sequences that are characteristic of the pre-telomeric region, then a section of telomeric sequences, and then another section of pre-telomeric sequences. Furthermore, in the telomeric section, it is observed that there is a point where instead of being arranged from head to tail, the telomeric repeats suddenly reverse direction – becoming (CCCTAA)3′ instead of 5′(TTAGGG), and the second pre-telomeric section is also the reverse of the first telomeric section. This pattern is precisely as predicted by a telomere to telomere fusion of the chimpanzee (ancestor) 2p and 2q chromosomes and in precisely the expected location.  Note that the CCCTAA sequence is the reversed complement of TTAGGG (C pairs with G, and T pairs with A).

The second prediction – remnants of the 2p and 2q centromeres is documented in reference 4. The normal centromere found on human chromosome 2 lines up with the 2p chimp chromosome, and the remnants of the 2q chromosome is found at the expected location based upon the banding pattern.

Some may raise the objection that if the fusion was a naturalistic event, how could the first human ancestor with the fusion have successfully reproduced? We have all heard that the horse and the donkey produce an infertile mule in crossing because of a different number of chromosomes in the two species. Well, apparently there is more to the story than we are usually told, because variations in chromosome number are known to occur in many different animal species, and although they sometimes seem to lead to reduced fertility, this is often not the case. Refs 5, 6, and 7 document both the existence of such chromosomal number differences and the fact that differences do not always result in reduced fertility.  I can provide many more similar references if required. The last remaining species of wild horse, Przewalski’s Wild Horse has 66 chromosomes while the domesticated horse has 64 chromosomes. Despite this difference in chromosome number, Przewalski’s Wild Horse and the domesticated horse can be crossed and do produce fertile offspring (see reference 9).

Now, the question has to be asked – if the similarities of the chromosomes are due only to common design rather than common ancestry, why are the remnants of a telomere and centromere (that should never have existed) found at exactly the positions predicted by a naturalistic fusion of the chimp ancestor chromosomes 2p and 2q?

The diagram above is from Human Chromosome 2 and its analogs in the apes – from Yunis, J. J., Prakash, O., The origin of man: a chromosomal pictorial legacy. Science, Vol 215, 19 March 1982, pp. 1525 – 153

There isn’t any design. It’s only apparent design, which isn’t design at all……….

Try these for some fun: Every watermelon has an even number of stripes on the rind. Each orange has an even number of segments. Each ear of corn has an even number of rows. Each stalk of wheat has an even number of grains. All grains are found in even numbers on the stalks. Every bunch of bananas has on its lowest row an even number of bananas, and each row decreases by one so that one row has an even number and the next row an odd number. The waves of the sea roll in on shore twenty-six to the minute in all kinds of weather. Flowers blossom at certain specified times during the day, so that Linnaeus, the great botanist, once said that if he had a conservatory containing the right kind of soil, moisture, and temperature, he could tell the time of day or night by the flowers that were open and those that were closed! Just some interesting facts that make things seem not too random. In fact, not random at all.

The eggs of the potato bug hatch in 7 days; Those of the canary in 14 days; Those of the barnyard hen in 21 days; The eggs of ducks and geese hatch in 28 days; Those of the mallard in 35 days; The eggs of the parrot and the ostrich hatch in 42 days. (Notice, they are all divisible by seven).

The four legs of the elephant all bend forward in the same direction.  No other Quadruped is configured in this way. This animal would have a huge body, of course, too large to live on two legs. For this reason, it needs four fulcrums so that it can rise from the ground easily. The horse rises from the ground on its two front legs first. A cow rises from the ground with its two hind legs first. I wonder why that changed since they supposedly all have a common ancestor. Shouldn’t they all get up in the same fashion?

Explosions and the Big Bang:

An amazing thought: At the outset of the Big Bang, in three minutes ninety-eight percent of all the matter there is or will ever be has been produced. An entire universe was formed. And it was all done in about the time it takes to eat a bowl of cereal. I pretty much agree that the Big Bang started the universe since the universe is expanding at an incredible rate. By backing up time, it’s pretty obvious that the universe was once far more compact. And that compactness brought with it “infinite” gravitational forces that would have had to crunch the entire universe into a tiny singularity. For the universe to escape the tremendous forces that wanted to crunch down all of the matter, the four forces of nature, and most notably, gravity, could not have been present when the Big Bang occurred.  Or else all of that matter could not have escaped into expansion.  But, once the expansion began, the four forces had to come into play.  Otherwise, galaxies, stars, planets, and everything that goes with them would not have formed. After the Big Bang, the universe formed into an incredible mass of organized matter. Solar systems, galaxies, planets with moons all displayed that organization. Then life. On earth. And who knows how many trillions of other locations. Life, organization, and complexity. My question being: What explosions that we have seen or experienced now or in history have brought the incredible organization that the Big Band brought. We can see, with our telescopes, explosions that are unimaginably large. Supernovas, which are burned out exploded stars that expand silently at ridiculous speeds, and are immensely large.  But they are completely disorganized masses. Nuclear bombs have never brought forth any kind of complexity or organization. Nor have TNT explosions, or 500 lb.bombs, or hand grenades, or…….So, why did the Big Band bring obviously organized and designed atoms, organization, and unbelievably complex and organized life? What kind of Bang was this? Like no other. Why?

I was watching a debate on the subject between a creationist and an evolutionaut.  The creationist asked the evolutionaut to example an explosion that resulted in a degree of organization. The evolutionaut said that the explosions inside an internal combustion engine were a good example. And then he about swallowed his tongue when the creationist suggested that an internal combustion engine was constructed by an intelligent entity. A near spit-take from the evolutionaut.

The Tree of Life: Falling Out of Their Own Tree

A cover story written by Graham Lawton, “Why Darwin Was Wrong About the Tree of Life,” in New Scientist (January 21, 2009).
demolished the Tree of Life idea held by so many evolutionauts. “The problem was that different genes told contradictory evolutionary stories.” The article observed that with the sequencing of the genes and proteins of various living organisms, the tree of life came crashing to the ground:

“For a long time the holy grail was to build a tree of life,” says Eric Bapteste, an evolutionary biologist at the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, France. A few years ago it looked as though the grail was within reach. But today the project lies in tatters, torn to pieces by an onslaught of negative evidence. Many biologists now argue that the tree concept is obsolete and needs to be discarded. “We have no evidence at all that the tree of life is a reality,” says Bapteste. That bombshell has even persuaded some that our fundamental view of biology needs to change.

Of course, these scientists are all committed evolutionauts, which makes their admissions all the more pertinent. The basic problem is that one gene or protein yields one version of the “tree of life,” while another gene or protein yields an entirely different tree. As the New Scientist article stated:

The problems began in the early 1990s when it became possible to sequence actual bacterial and archaeal genes rather than just RNA. Everybody expected these DNA sequences to confirm the RNA tree, and sometimes they did but, crucially, sometimes they did not. RNA, for example, might suggest that species A was more closely related to species B than species C, but a tree made from DNA would suggest the reverse.

Likewise, leading evolutionary bioinformatics specialist W. Ford Doolittle explains, “Molecular phylogenists will have failed to find the ‘true tree,’ not because their methods are inadequate or because they have chosen the wrong genes, but because the history of life cannot properly be represented as a tree.” Evolutionauts may claim that this problem is only encountered when one tries to reconstruct the evolutionary relationships of microorganisms, such as bacteria, which can swap genes through a process called “horizontal gene transfer,” thereby fuzzying any phylogenetic signal. But this objection is full of holes because the tree of life is challenged even among higher organisms where such gene-swapping does not take place. As the article explains:

Syvanen recently compared 2000 genes that are common to humans, frogs, sea squirts, sea urchins, fruit flies and nematodes. In theory, he should have been able to use the gene sequences to construct an evolutionary tree showing the relationships between the six animals. He failed. The problem was that different genes told contradictory evolutionary stories. This was especially true of sea-squirt genes. Conventionally, sea squirts—also known as tunicates—are lumped together with frogs, humans and other vertebrates in the phylum Chordata, but the genes were sending mixed signals. Some genes did indeed cluster within the chordates, but others indicated that tunicates should be placed with sea urchins, which aren’t chordates. “Roughly 50 per cent of its genes have one evolutionary history and 50 per cent another,” Syvanen says.

So, I say oops to another bedrock of evolution: the phylogenetic tree.