Friday, May 25, 2012

Words - If evolution is true


If evolution is true --- that all living things are descendents of a single cell --- then all simple, or single-celled, organisms will have simpler and shorter DNA than more complex, multi-celled organisms.  And mankind, the supposed peak of evolution, will have the longest and most complicated DNA of all.

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Generic human (picture by Leonardo via Wikipedia)

But human DNA is only 3 billion base pairs of DNA long.  This is shorter than the DNA of the marbled lungfish, which has 130 billion base pairs of DNA.

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Marbled Lungfish (picture via Wikipedia)

Also, human DNA is far shorter than the 150 billion base pairs of DNA to be found in the simple flower Paris Japonica.

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Paris Japonica (picture via Wikipedia)

And human DNA is about 10 times shorter than the 290 billion base pairs of DNA to be found in the single-celled Amoeba proteus.

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Generic amoeba (drawing via Wikipedia)

So, if we measure evolutionary intelligence by the complexity of our DNA, Amoebas may be the genius, and humans can sometimes be dumber than rocks.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

Cambrian Extinction


Wait.  What?

Michael Behe ("Darwin's Black Box") says that the Cambrian Explosion (of most life forms) happened in only 10 million years.  Why would anyone think that?

When you look at the fossil layer labelled the "Cambrian" period, you are not actually looking at a deposition laid down over ten million years.  You are looking at what should be called the "Cambrian Extinction."  This layer is evidence of a near-extinction by one or more cataclysmic floods which happened in an instant of geologic time.  The thickness of such a layer of fossils does not begin to tell us how many years may have happened before this event.  The lack of fossil evidence of all of that Cambrian life possibly evolving over the previous hundreds of millions of years only shows that life cleans up after itself.

This is why we are not hip-deep in skeletal remains. Life feeds on life, and just a few short years after death, there is nothing left of a dead body.  It is only in very exceptional circumstances that a body can leave visible evidence: Buried in a peat bog, frozen in a high-altitude cave, desiccated in a desert, or buried in the mud of a river or flood.

In my opinion, people should stop assuming that all fossil layers were laid down slowly and gradually over millions of years.  If that were the case, then the fossils would not exist because life would have consumed them.  If you are going to believe in the theory of Evolution, then use the brain God gave you: The fossils were obviously laid down as the result of a great flood.  You can use the lack of fossil evidence prior to that flood layer as evidence that life was alive and well, doing what life does best: consuming itself. 

Do I believe that the Cambrian fossils were deposited as the result of a great flood? Absolutely!  There is fossil evidence of this from the deepest desert to the top of Mt. Everest.

Do I believe that the Cambrian life-forms evolved in the millions of years before this flood-event?  Sorry, I don't have enough faith to believe in something with no evidence.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

2012-05-17 Books --- Darwin's Black Box

"Darwin's Black Box," by Michael J. Behe, gives a detailed exposition of the chemical machines to be found within living cells.  This is probably more about cell biology than any of us ever wanted to know.  But the point is, every little thing has a cause.  If our theories cannot identify or explain the little causes then, either science has not progressed to the point where we can see the causes, or the theories are telling us lies based on wishful thinking.

Behe goes on to propose that the irreducible complexity of some cellular processes should lead the astute thinker to conclude that Intelligent Design, rather than random Evolution, caused life.  But he still claims to believe in Evolution in spite of its lack of evidence.


Saturday, May 5, 2012

Oopsie - High Wizardry

In the book "High Wizardry," the third book of Diane Duane's Young Wizards series there seems to be a discrepancy. Page two and three has Nita conversing with a "catbird" in the back yard elm tree which was making "an enthusiastic but substandard imitation of a blue jay."  She promises the bird a half a muffin to take a message to Kit.

Then, in the next-to-last page of the story, just after returning to the back yard, we read: "In the elm tree, a mockingbird was doing blue jay imitations and demanding muffins."

Presumably this is the same bird.  So, is it supposed to be the Gray Catbird (Dumetella Carolinensis) or the Northern Mockingbird (Mimus Polyglottos)?  The description on page three, "In a whir of white-barred wings, the catbird was gone," tells us it is a mockingbird and not a catbird. The Northern Mockingbird has white bars on the underside of its wings, but the Gray Catbird does not.

This oopsie is probably not something you would notice unless you, like me, have read the book at least five times.