Even with DNA sequence data, we have no direct access to the processes of evolution, so objective reconstruction of the vanished past can be achieved only by creative imagination N. DNA and other genetic evidence as proof of evolution are found to be inconsistent with the fossil record and comparative morphology of the creatures. Anthropologist Dr Roger Lewin has commented: "The overall effect is that molecular phylogenetics is by no means as straightforward as its pioneers believed.
The Byzantine dynamics of genome change has many other consequences for molecular phylogenetics, including the fact that different genes tell different stories" "Family Feud", New Scientist, vol January 24th, , p Evolution theory depends upon the great age of rocks calculated by the geologic timescale. This scale was based upon principles of geology recently invalidated by laboratory experiments.
If this fact had been known in the 19th century, Darwin could never have formulated his theory. Evolution depends upon geological formations taking millions of years to form, and Darwin's geologist friend Charles Lyell provided those years with his principles of geology. It is these principles that now stand refuted. New knowledge of geology allows the reconstruction of the original conditions in which the rocks were formed. These original conditions include the time taken for formation.
In reconstructions, the time taken is shown to have been in weeks or even days rather than millions of years see www. The supposed evolutionary process breaks the most universal and best-proved law of physics, the law of increasing entropy, known as the second law of thermodynamics. It applies not only in physical and chemical systems, but also in biological and geological systems, in fact all systems, without exception.
The law stipulates that all systems tend to lose order. They go towards disorganisation and loss of complexity. The law of increasing entropy therefore precludes evolution, because all evolutionary systems are expected to increase in order and complexity.
Physicists E. Lieb and Jacob Yngvason explain: "No exception to the second law of thermodynamics has ever been found, not even a tiny one. Despite the above, and many other facts, a naturalistic origin of mankind and the cosmos continues to be justified by evolution theory. That was thought to occur incrementally, in very slow stages, by mutations in the genome. Once there are variations among individuals, natural selection, the survival of the fittest, acts upon those variations.
But horizontal gene transfer has revealed that nature does sometimes make leaps, whereby huge lumps of DNA can appear in an individual or population quite suddenly and then natural selection acts on them. That can be a very important mechanism in the evolution of new species. We now realize, because we can sequence genomes, that we have great populations of bacteria living within us. In fact, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different kinds of bacteria that live benignly within our guts, armpits, ears, noses, pores, or on our skin.
This is known as the human microbiome. The maintenance of that ecosystem of microbes is essential to human health, which is one reason why the over-use of antibiotics can be a bad thing. Most antibiotics tend to be broad range. We now understand that we humans, along with most other creatures, are composites of other creatures.
Not just the microbiome living in our bellies and intestines, but creatures that have over time become inserted in our very cells. Every cell in the human body contains, for instance, little mechanisms that help package energy. Those are called mitochondria. We now realize that those mitochondria are the descendants of captured bacteria that were either swallowed by, or infected, the cells that became complex cells of all animals and plants.
Likewise, 8 percent of the human genome, we now know, is viral DNA, which has come into our lineage by infection over the last million years or so. Some of that viral DNA is still functioning as genes that are important for human life and reproduction. CRISPR is an acronym for a gene-editing tool discovered in the last years that is very powerful and inexpensive. With it, scientists can now edit genomes, delete mutations or insert sections of new genes.
It promises a lot of wonderful medical possibilities and a lot of really troubling moral and societal choices.
But how far does it go? Does it go to the point where wealthy people will be able to choose designer children, whose genomes have been edited to make them smarter or stronger? These are, to put it mildly, really difficult ethical propositions. But it is something that has always existed in nature. Microbes were using CRISPR to protect themselves and to edit their own genomes before it was ever discovered and put to use in a laboratory by some really brainy humans.
Simon Worrall curates Book Talk. Follow him on Twitter or at simonworrallauthor. All rights reserved. Your book opens with Charles Darwin making a little sketch in a notebook. Put us inside that moment and explain how the image of the tree of life has altered over the centuries. The British research lab at Porton Down has been much in the news recently because of the Skripal affair. Take us inside this top-secret facility and talk about the strange case of NCTC 1.
Share Tweet Email. Why it's so hard to treat pain in infants. Other islands were once connected to continents but have moved away because of plate tectonics. In the case of Madagascar, the island was originally connected to the massive landmass that would become South America, Africa, and Australia. At that time species were able to freely inhabit it. But the Indian subcontinent including Madagascar broke away about million years ago, and Madagascar separated from it about 88 million years ago, leaving the island isolated in the Indian Ocean.
Species we find there today, like lemurs, are found nowhere else in the world, but can be traced to common ancestors on the mainland, dating from a time when the land was close enough for ancient primates to cross the water and then become isolated.
Just as God created the islands themselves through natural processes, the species we find on those islands were also created through natural processes we can explain. There are many other examples of the distribution of species today that fit the pattern of common ancestry see ring species for another intriguing example. The relationships between species inferred from biogeography, the fossil record, and the shapes and structures of animals today now have their most impressive confirmation from the recently developed field of genetics.
If we never find another fossil or vestigial trait, genetic evidence puts common ancestry beyond reasonable doubt. Genetics, then, enables us to test and confirm hypotheses in a powerful way. Consider just one example from this rich area of research.
Unlike many other animals, we humans are not able to make our own vitamin C. We started realizing this deficiency when long sea voyages became more common. After a couple of months at sea eating only things like dried meat and hardtack biscuits, humans had high rates of scurvy and many died. But the animals on board like horses, dogs, and mice did not contract the disease. We now know that this is due to the human inability to synthesize vitamin C the way these other animals can and the problem was addressed by the British Navy by supplying their ships with lemon juice for sailors to drink.
The species at the bottom printed in red are unable to produce vitamin C. It has also been discovered that other primates—chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and monkeys—cannot make their own vitamin C either. So that leads to a very specific prediction: if these primates are related to us through a common ancestor, we would expect the same gene to be broken in them in the same way.
And it turns out, that is just what we find. The best explanation is that a mutation event occurred in the common ancestor of these species, rendering all of their descendants unable to make vitamin C. The common ancestry explanation predicts these to be different mutations, because it would be highly unlikely for the same mutation to occur a second time.
When the genetic codes of guinea pigs and fruit bats are examined, we find different mutations than the one primates have, which is what common ancestry predicts. As genetic information has become more widely available in the last two decades, many more of these kinds of nested relationships among species have been found.
Common ancestry explains the genetic evidence beautifully, while alternative explanations seem less and less plausible. No matter what position a person takes on evolution, it is important to understand why almost all professional biologists affirm the evolution of all life on Earth. At BioLogos, we see God as crafting and governing the entire evolutionary process to bring about the abundance of species we see today.
Of course it is possible that God supernaturally created each of the species separately, but did so in the pattern that so strongly suggests common ancestry. So too we believe that body plans, fossils, biogeography, and the genetic code all testify truly to the way God created. We may legitimately wonder why God chose to create species in this long and meandering fashion, instead of snapping his fingers and having things appear fully formed.
From Genesis to Revelation, God works with and through his creation, bringing his plans to fruition slowly and carefully.
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