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Science or Pseudo-Science?

> Origin of Life (Abiogenesis)
Science or Pseudo-Science?

> Common Descent (Darwinism)
Science or Pseudo-Science?

> How Does Evolution
Supposedly Work?

> Genetics

> Mutations

> Genetic Recombination

> Gene Duplication

> Natural Selection

> Fossil Evidence

> Stasis

> “Junk” DNA – The Biggest Blunder of Evolutionary-Based Science

> Endogenous Retroviruses

	“Major questions posed by zoologists cannot be answered from inside the neo-Darwinian straitjacket. Such questions include, for example, 'How do new structures arise in evolution?' 'Why, given so much environmental change, is stasis so prevalent in evolution as seen in the fossil record?' 'How did one group of organisms or set of macromolecules evolve from another?' The importance of these questions is not at issue; it is just thatneo-Darwinians, restricted by their presuppositions, cannot answer them.” —Lynn Margulis Professor of Microbial Evolution and Organelle Heredity, University of Massachusetts and Dorian Sagan, 1997. “Slanted Truths: Essays on Gaia, Symbiosis and Evolution” New York: Springer-Verlag, Inc., p.100. “But they are trying to figure out how evolution happens, and that's not an easy job.” University of California Museum of Paleontology and the National Center for Science Education website, “The big issues” http://evolution.berkeley.edu/ evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_50

How Does Evolution Supposedly Work?

The foundation of Darwinism is NOT the fact that variations and adaptations can modify EXISTING features, such as larger or different shaped leaves, flowers, beaks, etc.

Darwinism goes further by claiming that genetic changes and natural selection can create NEW features and organs to appear. The problem? They have NO idea of how that might occur nor do they have any evidence of it every occurring, whether in the past or present. (Examples of new features and organs would be a leaf, flower, eardrum, retina, beak, feather, wing, heart, etc.)

When challenged to give hypothetical genetic scenarios of how novel features appear, evolutionists retreat in silence as seen on our forum:

• http://pub17.bravenet.com/forum/1424646898/fetch/756950/
  
• http://pub17.bravenet.com/forum/1424646898/fetch/748021/
  
• http://pub17.bravenet.com/forum/1424646898/fetch/746941/
  
• http://pub17.bravenet.com/forum/1424646898/fetch/730697/
  
• http://pub17.bravenet.com/forum/1424646898/fetch/730410/

When likely scenarios are actually proposed, they routinely:

1. Suggest that a particular ‘need’ produces change, and/or;
   
2. Cite a mechanism that has not been scientifically proven to cause the genetic change that is claimed, and/or;
   
3. Builds on component structures that appear out of nowhere, and/or;
   
4. Omits specific mention of a likely genetic mechanism.

THE FOLLOWING ARE TWO EVOLUTIONARY SCENARIOS THAT ATTEMPT TO EXPLAIN HOW EVOLUTION CREATES AN EYE - Note that neither example touches on the complex creation of the network of neurotransmitters http://hubel.med.harvard.edu/b6.htm

Example #1

“The simple light-sensitive spot on the skin of some ancestral creature gave it some tiny survival advantage, perhaps allowing it to evade a predator. Random changes then created a depression in the light-sensitive patch, a deepening pit that made "vision" a little sharper. At the same time, the pit's opening gradually narrowed, so light entered through a small aperture, like a pinhole camera.
Every change had to confer a survival advantage, no matter how slight. Eventually, the light-sensitive spot evolved into a retina, the layer of cells and pigment at the back of the human eye. Over time a lens formed at the front of the eye. It could have arisen as a double-layered transparent tissue containing increasing amounts of liquid that gave it the convex curvature of the human eye.”
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html

Critique of terms used:

1. “Random changes …”
   No mention of a likely genetic process.
2. “simple light-sensitive spot”
   No explanation for the initial evolution of each complex component that makes-up the spot or the response triggers that activate the flagella. Read how complex “spots” are:
   “These eyes constitute the simplest and most common visual system found in nature. The eyes contain optics, photoreceptors and the elementary components of a signal-transduction chain. Rhodopsin serves as the photoreceptor, as it does in animal vision. Upon light stimulation, its all-trans-retinal chromophore isomerizes into 13-cis and activates a photoreceptor channel
   which leads to a rapid Ca2+ influx into the eyespot region. At low light levels, the depolarization activates small flagellar current which induce in both flagella small but slightly different beating changes resulting in distinct directional changes. In continuous light, Ca2+ fluxes serve as the molecular basis for phototaxis. In response to flashes of higher energy the larger photoreceptor currents trigger a massive Ca2+ influx into the flagella which causes the well-known phobic response.”
   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9431675
3. “ … evolved into a retina,”
   No explanation for the evolution of the components of a fully formed retina, the optic nerve, or the independent specific mental and neural capacity required for interpreting the information. The following describes the components of a retina:
   “It contains millions of photoreceptors that capture light rays and convert them into electrical impulses. These impulses travel along the optic nerve to the brain where they are turned into images.
   There are two types of photoreceptors in the retina: rods and cones. The retina contains approximately 6 million cones. The cones are contained in the macula, the portion of the retina responsible for central vision. They are most densely packed within the fovea, the very center portion of the macula.
   There are approximately 125 million rods. They are spread throughout the peripheral retina and function best in dim lighting. The rods are responsible for peripheral and night vision.”
   http://www.stlukeseye.com/anatomy/Retina.asp

Example #2

“This ancient animal probably had very simple eye spots with no image-forming ability, but still needed some diversity in eye function. It needed to be able to sense both slow, long-duration events such as the changing of day into night, and more rapid events, such as the shadow of a predator moving overhead. These two forms arose by a simple gene duplication event and concomitant specialization of association with specific G proteins, which has also been found to require relatively few amino acid changes. This simple molecular divergence has since proceeded by way of the progress of hundreds of millions of years and amplification of a cascade of small changes into the multitude of diverse forms we see now. There is a fundamental unity that arose early, but has been obscured by the accumulation of evolutionary change. Even the eyes of a scorpion carry an echo of our kinship, not in their superficial appearance, but deep down in the genes from which they are built.”
http://www.seedmagazine.com/news/2008/03/eyeing_the_evolutionary_past.php?page=3

Critique:

1. “ … but still needed some diversity in eye function. It needed to be able to sense …”
   An organism senses a need? This suggests that a particular need produces change:
   “Contrary to a widespread public impression, biological evolution is not random, even though the biological changes that provide the raw material for evolution are not directed toward predetermined, specific goals.”
   “Science, Evolution, and Creationism,” 2008, National Academy of Sciences (NAS), The National Academies Press, 3rd edition, page 50.
   http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=11876&page=50
2. “ … very simple eye spots,”
   Refer to above “Example #1.”
3. “ … simple gene duplication event”
   There is NO scientific proof that gene duplication can create genes with more complex functions. Research papers reflect this admission by using words “most likely”:
   “Duplicate gene evolution has most likely played a substantial role in both the rapid changes in organismal complexity apparent in deep evolutionary splits and the diversification of more closely related species. The rapid growth in the number of available genome sequences presents diverse opportunities to address important outstanding questions in duplicate gene evolution.”
   http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2F
   journal.pbio.0020206&ct=1&SESSID=9999360a804131d0f0009da33ced0db9
   An erroneous example cited is the claim that, over 100 million years ago, two genes of the yeast S. cerevisiae supposedly evolved from one gene of another specie of yeast (K. lactis).
   Refer to:
   http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7163/abs/nature06151.html
   What is the evidence for their claim? Nothing but the presupposition that Darwinism is true so the very existence of two genes that total the same functions of the one gene proves that they must have evolved from each other:
   ”The primary evidence that duplication has played a vital role in the evolution of new gene functions is the widespread existence of gene families.”
   http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2F
   journal.pbio.0020206&ct=1&SESSID=9999360a804131d0f0009da33ced0db9
   Also, what Darwinists fail to present is a feasible step-by-step scenario how each gene could:
   - split their functions in a precise manner so that neither function would be disabled until ‘random chance’ completed the event;
   - become fixed in the population during each new step:
   “A duplicated gene newly arisen in a single genome must overcome substantial hurdles before it can be observed in evolutionary comparisons. First, it must become fixed in the population, and second, it must be preserved over time. Population genetics tells us that for new alleles, fixation is a rare event, even for new mutations that confer an immediate selective advantage. Nevertheless, it has been estimated that one in a hundred genes is duplicated and fixed every million years (Lynch and Conery 2000), although it should be clear from the duplication mechanisms described above that it is highly unlikely that duplication rates are constant over time.”
   http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371%2F
   journal.pbio.0020206&ct=1&SESSID=9999360a804131d0f0009da33ced0db9
   
4. “concomitant specialization”
   This apparently means that, “rather than having two copies of a gene do two things poorly, they both specialize on one substrate.”
   http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/03/pz-meyers-casey.html#
   more Comment #145689
   Evolutionists devise all sorts of redundant and scientific sounding terms when they want to make something sound complicated. This term adds nothing to describe how the genetic process occurred.
5. “of association with specific G proteins”
   Because of the split in function between the two genes, the molecular switch (G protein) must also be modified to coincide with the specific regulation needed to precisely regulate the new gene. There is NO explanation of how that might occur:
   • “Moreover, in order for the organism to respond to an every-changing environment, intercellular signals must be transduced, amplified, and ultimately converted to the appropriate physiological response.”
   http://edrv.endojournals.org/cgi/content/full/24/6/765
   See movie on G-proteins: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB7YfAvez3o&feature=related

Example #3

The following two links are video presentations that attempt to explain the evolution of an eye. They both use the same progressive steps but forget to mention how the components appeared and/or any mention of what genetic change was used to create new features to appear.

Narration by Richard Dawkins:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEKyqIJkuDQ
‘Scientific’ highlights from the video:
“Skin cells like these often have a little light sensitive pigment to start with, so something interesting could happen …”
“Let’s drop ourselves lightly into a shallow pit and things begin to get better …
“I brought in a simple in-home camera … now I can resolve images must more accurately.”
“Let’s go on and now just imagine some of those cells happen to secrete a little mucus. It collects into a blob … and lodges in the pinhole. Real progress, I’ve got a crude lens, now the incoming light can be focused.”

Narration by NCSE's executive director, Eugenie Scott:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOtP7HEuDYA&feature=related
Ms. Scott uses the same steps but uses ‘next’ repeatedly while pulling in component parts out of thin air. Her most scientific moment comes when she states, “If it can grow, it can evolve ...”

Upon discovering that none of the known genetic mechanisms can account for how evolution supposedly occurs, evolutionists are now devising even more absurd fables. This new mechanism is called “preadaptation”:

• “The process by which parts accumulate until they’re ready to snap together is called preadaptation. It’s a form of “neutral evolution,” in which the buildup of the parts provides no immediate advantage or disadvantage. Neutral evolution falls outside the descriptions of Charles Darwin. But once the pieces gather, mutation and natural selection can take care of the rest, ultimately resulting in the now-complex form of TIM23 …
  “You look at cellular machines and say, why on earth would biology do anything like this? It’s too bizarre,” he said. “But when you think about it in a neutral evolutionary fashion, in which these machineries emerge before there’s a need for them, then it makes sense.””
  Brandon Keim, “More ‘Evidence’ of Intelligent Design Shot Down by Science,” August 27, 2009, Wired Science based on “The reducible complexity of a mitochondrial molecular machine,” Yale University, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 106 No. 33, August 25, 2009.
  http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/reduciblecomplexity/

So, complex parts with absolutely NO purpose miraculously assemble themselves, and then “snap” together to form a complex cellular machine? They’re kidding, right?

An example that evolutionists use to claim that evolution can make a new feature appear is the appearance of a cecal in a lizard: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080417112433.htm

Here are the problems with that claim:

1. 1% of ALL scaled reptiles posses cecal valves, so latent DNA is the most likely answer to how they appeared. Example: Organisms restore latent DNA for features several generations AFTER the feature has disappeared:
   
   • “Here we show that Arabidopsis plants homozygous for recessive mutant alleles of the organ fusion gene HOTHEAD5 (HTH) can inherit allele-specific DNA sequence information hat was not present in the chromosomal genome of their parents but was present in previous generations. This previously undescribed process is shown to occur at all DNA sequence polymorphisms examined and therefore seems to be a general mechanism for extra-genomic inheritance of DNA sequence information. We postulate that these genetic restoration events are the result of a template-directed process that makes use of an ancestral RNA-sequence cache.”
     http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7032/abs/nature03380.html
     
   • “Here, we show that a rice triploid and diploid hybridization resulted in stable diploid progenies, both in genotypes and phenotypes, through gene homozygosity. Furthermore, their gene homozygosity can be inherited through 8 generations, and they can convert DNA sequences of other rice varieties into their own. Molecular-marker examination confirmed that this type of genome-wide gene conversion occurred at a very high frequency. Possible mechanisms, including RNA-templated repair of double-strand DNA, are discussed.” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17502903?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.
     PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA
     
2. If cecal valves miraculously appeared without latent DNA, evolutionists need to explain in detail how random genetic changes could possible create an exact genetic duplicate of the cecal valve that previously ‘evolved’ by random genetic changes.
   Evolutionists refer to this as ‘convergent evolution,’ which is an absolutely ridiculous premise supported ONLY by the presupposition that evolution is true … so it must have occurred!
   
3. Since the valves supposedly evolved in just 35 years, it should NOT be difficult to find the beginnings of a valve, which might display an actual evolution-in-process event.

EVEN EVOLUTIONISTS ADMIT TO NOT KNOWING HOW EVOLUTION SUPPOSEDLY WORKS:

• "Students should realize that although virtually all scientists accept the general concept of evolution of species, scientists do have different opinions on how fast and by what mechanisms evolution proceeds.”
  The American Association for the Advancement of Science, Educational Benchmarks, (F) Evolution of Life
  http://www.project2061.org/publications/bsl/online/ch5/ch5.htm#F
  
• “Scientists are still uncovering the specifics of how, when, and why evolution produced the life we see on Earth today."
  Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History
  http://www.nmnh.si.edu/paleo/geotime/main/foundation_life3.html
  
• “But they are trying to figure out how evolution happens, and that's not an easy job.”
  University of California Museum of Paleontology and the National Center for Science Education
  http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/evo_50
  
• “The ability to generate novelty is one of the main mysteries in evolutionary theory.”
  “How Evolution Learns From Past Environments To Adapt To Present Environments”, ScienceDaily, November 10, 2008.
  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081107071822.htm
  
• “Much of the recent experimental work on natural selection has focused on three goals: determining how common it is, identifying the precise genetic changes that give rise to the adaptations produced by natural selection, and assessing just how big a role natural selection plays in a key problem of evolutionary biology—the origin of new species.”
  Scientific American Magazine, “The Evolution of Evolution: Testing Natural Selection with Genetics”, December 18, 2008.
  http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=testing-natural-selection&print=true

	“We know a great deal about the structure of the flagellar motor but not very much at atomic resolution. We know a great deal about regulation of the genes that specify the motor's component parts and how those parts are assembled. We know a great deal about motor function: about the fuel that powers the motor, the torque that it can generate at different speeds, and what controls the likelihood that it changes direction. However, we do not know how the motor actually works, i.e., the details of what makes it go, or how it manages to shift abruptly from forward (CCW) to reverse (CW).” —Howard C. Berg Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University, Annual Review of Biochemistry, July 2003. http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/eprint/cDJrS190m62mDRwHrlp9/full/10.1146/annurev.bio chem.72.121801.161737?cookieSet=1