Darwinism’s Fairytales

I'm done with my 'Surprise Me, God' experiment. I enjoyed trying something new. And it has helped me to see that I have to be more focused on the people around me, and to see what opportunities there are to enjoy and help them. But I've decided that my summer vacation is over – it's back to contending for the faith!

 

Which leads me to today's post, Darwinism's Fairytales. It seems incredible to me that perfectly intelligent people around us believe that life created itself – that the inanimate (i.e., non-living) became animate and living. More specifically, Darwinists believe that rock, water and lightning created a chain of events that led to Beethoven, Michelangelo, and Michael Phelps. Can random events and random forces really create something that is so obviously designed?

 

Of course not, and this is why I have entitled this post "Darwinism's Fairytales". Christians believe in the Resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ from the dead. We believe in the miracle of Jesus using 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish to feed 5,000 people (Mark 6:30). Yes, we believe in God controlling all of the natural forces on Earth, so that Jesus can calm a storm, and walk on water. Yes, these are amazing, miraculous events that the authors of the Bible understood were hard to believe. Yet they wrote them anyway, and after the Resurrection of Jesus the Messiah, Christianity still spread to consume the world, despite the persecution brought against it. How could so many people accept the fantastic stories of Jesus' life written by the eyewitnesses who studied under Him? The answer is because it is true.

 

Yet, many people in America today dismiss out of hand the miracles in the Bible, yet have faith in the story told in science classes throughout the country: that life formed through chance, and that that life grew more and more complex until people like Beethoven, Michelangelo and Michael Phelps walked the Earth. Why is this any easier to believe than the miracles reported in the Bible?

 

So let me start by describing a walk in the forest where we see two things around us on our walk (btw, our walk is on a great, beautiful, glorious day like it is today in Minnesota) – first we see a tree haven fallen in the forest, with burn marks around the jagged spot where the tree separated from its trunk. Then we walk by a stream where there are a great deal of sticks and chewed tree branches gathered together, mostly facing one way, and behind this pile of sticks the water is dammed up. We easily conclude one of these events was "designed" by something intelligent, while the other was the product of natural forces. Yes, the tree fallen in the forest appears to be caused by the natural forces of a lightning strike. While the sticks damming up the stream was the product of an intelligent force (a beaver) acting to create a beaver dam in the water. One was caused by natural forces, while the other was intelligently designed.

 

And so, can we use this example to see if life on Earth was designed? Let me use DNA as the starting point. Even the simplest living / reproducing cell has DNA. DNA is a large protein molecule. It contains the instructions for making the proteins, RNA and everything else in the cell. DNA has the instructions for the development of all life. DNA is complex, but is has something more than mere complexity - it has meaningful complexity. Similar to our understanding that a beaver dam is designed, while a fallen tree is not, isn't it obvious that DNA which has the instructions for the making of life itself is also designed? Why have we lost our way in America for understanding that life is the product of design?

 

Give me the miracles of the Bible anytime! It feels good to be back. I hope that you are able to enjoy these last few weeks of summer. May God bless you and your families this week.

Lenski’s E. Coli Experiments

Bacteria Makes "Major" Evolutionary Shift in Dr. Lenski's Lab, is the headline of a recent New Scientist article. An interesting paper has just appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, It is the "inaugural article" of Richard Lenski, who was recently elected to the National Academy. Lenski, is well known for conducting the longest, most detailed "lab evolution" experiment, growing the E. coli bacteria continuously for about twenty years in his Michigan State lab. For the fast-growing bug, that's over 40,000 generations! E. coli you may recall is the bacteria that are often cited as the cause for food poisoning in humans. Here is an article in New Scientist that discusses the Lenski experiments: http://www.newscientist.com/channel/life/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html;

 

So does this mean the end for Intelligent Design? If a major evolutionary change can take place described as "the first time evolution has been caught in the act of making such a rare and complex new trait", doesn't this doom any claims that Darwinism is wrong? Well, I don't think this is much of a story for a number of reasons. But let me first describe what the Lenski experiments show, and then I will later explain why this is exactly what was described in Prof. Michael Behe's (pro-ID) 'Edge of Evolution' book.

 

The Lenski experiment is fascinating. He examined trillions of E. coli bacteria cells, over 20 years time, resulting in over 44,000 generations. What he did was set up 12 different groups all descended from the Adam E. coli parent. All of the groups developed along similar lines in the ideal lab: they all evolved larger cells; and all developed faster growth rates on the glucose that they were fed. But one of the 12 test groups developed a unique trait – the ability to metabolize citrate, which was a second nutrient (besides the glucose) in all of the cultures. And when the "evolved" E. coli developed the ability to metabolize citrate, it was a beneficial new trait that allowed this group an advantage over the other 11 groups because of its growth in population size.

 

So was this really a "major" evolutionary shift? Was it the development of a new leg, or a proto-eye? What was the "complex new trait" that the E. coli bacteria developed after 40,000 generations? Yes, this "profound change" meant that it could "metabolize" citrate. The article makes it sound like it is a big deal. But consider that E. coli is normally capable of utilizing citrate as an energy source under anaerobic (without oxygen) conditions, with a whole suite of genes involved in its fermentation. In addition, the Krebs cycle (or citric acid cycle, where chemical reactions create energy for the cell to use) for E. coli already generates and utilizes citrate in its normal metabolism of glucose and other carbohydrates. Now is this really a big deal? It doesn't seem like it's a major new step – instead, it appears to be just the re-tooling of machinery inside the E. coli that is already there. Here is the way Prof. Behe describes it: "the wild bacterium lacks an enzyme called a "citrate permease" which can transport citrate from outside the cell through the cell's membrane into its interior. So all the bacterium needed to do to use citrate was to find a way to get it into the cell. The rest of the machinery for its metabolism was already there."

 

So there you have it – The E. coli's major evolutionary shift is to allow citrate to be transported inside the cell membrane so that it can be used. All of the machinery to use citrate was already inside the cell. Yawn, excuse me while I go to sleep…

 

The real question is why are the Darwinists making such a big deal about this? It's obviously because Prof. Behe's pro-ID book "Edge of Evolution' has drawn blood on the dying, critically wounded Theory of Evolution. Louisiana just this past week passed a bill to teach Darwinism critically (like Texas before it), and this seems like it is a growing trend. And the Darwinists will use anything to try and show that observed major evolutionary changes really do take place. That's all well and good, but we still haven't seen any major changes, and the Lenski E. coli experiments certainly are not Darwinism's savior.

 

Instead, this looks like it is exactly along the lines of what is described in Prof. Behe's 'Edge of Evolution' book, where he describes malaria's resistance to drugs used against it, as well as HIV's evolving resistance. In fact, chapter 7 of EoE Prof. Behe actually describes and uses the Lenski experiments in support of his position. He placed the Edge of Evolution at three successive mutations. And the way it is described in the New Scientist article, this appears to be exactly what took place in the Lenski E. coli experiment – one change took place in one of the 12 groups after 20,000 generations. And the new trait was discovered after 30,000 generations. Although there are no details learned of what genetic changes took place, it sounds like these are successive, single point mutations building upon each other, perhaps up to three mutations working together. Professor Behe's full Response is posted in his Amazon blog, which can be found at: http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3U696N278Z93O; Thus, it seems just like the other genetic studies reviewed in Prof. Behe's book – no new major evolutionary changes. Instead, just minor mutations that eventually provide a small benefit.

 

So, those of you who distrust the Darwinist fairy tale description of how life developed on Earth, commonly known as Evolution, you have nothing to fear from what is contained in the Lenski E. coli experiments. And it looks much more supportive of Intelligent Design than it does of Darwinism. Here are a few of the reasons why I say this:

 

• Trillions of cells evolving over 30,000 generations? Look at the math! For humans to evolve anything during this same period (30,000 generations), would be the equivalent of 600,000 years (30,000 generations averaged over 20 years time, a rough estimate of an adult generation). And the ability to metabolize citrate is all that was developed? Darwinism is not at all an effective explanation for how life developed on Earth. Too little change and not enough time. As one blogger writes – "Presumably, the same mechanism that gave E. Coli citrate capability turned a primitive simian ancestor into Beethoven, with orders of magnitude fewer probabilistic resources." This problem of Darwinism sounds very persuasive to me;
  
• It looks like mutations that hurt the cell are much more numerous than any possible benefits. Prof. Behe claims that all of the E. coli mutations in the Lenski study are "degradative" (see Behe link, above), making the cells less active. This makes for the exponentially more difficult problem of Darwinism to make for a beneficial mutation;
  
• The straightforward ID prediction is that any experimentally demonstrated change in the genome of E. coli will be limited to two, or at the most 3 separate steps, unless the steps can be demonstrated to be sequentially more fit. That's a scientific prediction, if you will, which would seem to make ID a scientific theory. Where are the Darwinists to show that this prediction is wrong?
  

 

Keep the faith! Happy birthday to my child no. 3, and to me, Jeanne, and Boy George. Enjoy Father's Day tomorrow, all you fathers out there.

Cambrian Explosion

If you accept that the earth is billions of years old (4.5 billion years according to most scientists) then there is something that took place 530 million years ago that is one the five best examples that supports that life on earth is intelligently designed. This top five example that supports Intelligent Design is called the 'Cambrian Explosion' of life that took place over a very short period (compared to earth's age of 4.5 Billion years) of between 5 and 10 million years in which all sorts of life on earth exploded onto the scene without any sort of ancestral fossils. Remember Darwinism believes in small changes over great lengths of time. Life appearing suddenly with nothing in the fossil record to explain why? This sounds like another great proof in support of God's Hand in creating and developing life in the world around us.

 

First, allow me to briefly explain what took place during the Cambrian Explosion. Prior to the Cambrian Explosion life was very basic: algae, sponges and the like. But 530 million years ago, over as short of a timeframe of only 5 million years, life suddenly exploded: now life developed the eyes in different forms, the spinal cord, the hard shell covering the cousins of crabs, animals with teeth, the multiple legs of spiders, all sorts of different kinds of eyes, and the wings of flies. Life as different as "worms, and flies, mice and fish". All of these varied and different life forms popped into existence without any ancestors in the fossil record. Here is how Time Magazine explains the Cambrian Explosion in its December 04, 1995 issue:

 

"…For the Cambrian is a period distinguished by the abrupt appearance of an astonishing array of multicelled animals--animals that are the ancestors of virtually all the creatures that now swim, fly and crawl through the visible world.

Indeed, while most people cling to the notion that evolution works its magic over millions of years, scientists are realizing that biological change often occurs in sudden fits and starts. And none of those fitful starts was more dramatic, more productive or more mysterious than the one that occurred shortly after Erwin's wormlike creature slithered through the primordial seas. All around the world, in layers of rock just slightly younger than that Erwin discovered, scientists have found the mineralized remains of organisms that represent the emergence of nearly every major branch in the zoological tree. Among them: bristle worms and roundworms, lamp shells and mollusks, sea cucumbers and jellyfish, not to mention an endless parade of arthropods, those spindly legged, hard-shelled ancient cousins of crabs and lobsters, spiders and flies. There are even occasional glimpses--in rock laid down not long after Erwin's Namibian sandstone--of small, ribbony swimmers with a rodlike spine that are unprepossessing progenitors of the chordate line, which leads to fish, to amphibians and eventually to humans.

Where did this extraordinary bestiary come from, and why did it emerge so quickly? In recent years, no question has stirred the imagination of more evolutionary experts, spawned more novel theories or spurred more far-flung expeditions. Life has occupied the planet for nearly 4 billion of its 4.5 billion years. But until about 600 million years ago, there were no organisms more complex than bacteria, multicelled algae and single-celled plankton. The first hint of biological ferment was a plethora of mysterious palm-shape, frondlike creatures that vanished as inexplicably as they appeared. Then, 543 million years ago, in the early Cambrian, within the span of no more than 10 million years, creatures with teeth and tentacles and claws and jaws materialized with the suddenness of apparitions. In a burst of creativity like nothing before or since, nature appears to have sketched out the blueprints for virtually the whole of the animal kingdom. This explosion of biological diversity is described by scientists as biology's Big Bang

Over the decades, evolutionary theorists beginning with Charles Darwin have tried to argue that the appearance of multicelled animals during the Cambrian merely seemed sudden, and in fact had been preceded by a lengthy period of evolution for which the geological record was missing. But this explanation, while it patched over a hole in an otherwise masterly theory, now seems increasingly unsatisfactory. Since 1987, discoveries of major fossil beds in Greenland, in China, in Siberia, and now in Namibia have shown that the period of biological innovation occurred at virtually the same instant in geologic time all around the world. …" Time Magazine, Dec. 04, 1995 (emphasis supplied.)

 

First, let me emphasize the point made in the last paragraph of the Time Magazine quote (above). Some scientists have tried to explain away the sudden appearance of many different life forms by claiming there was long periods of evolution taking place that is just missing from the fossil record. But as Time Magazine points out, this explanation doesn't work. It doesn't work because the Cambrian Explosion of life takes place all over the world, and at the same time in all fossil beds discovered to date. So the record is very clear, there was a sudden emergence of complex life 530 million years ago, with no transitions, no intermediates to show that Darwinism had anything to do with this.

 

So why is the Cambrian Explosion so damaging to Darwinism, and points to a Creative Intelligence? The Cambrian Explosion destroys Darwinism because it shows that complex life makes a sudden appearance, rather than slow, long transitions. All sorts of very complex organs life eyes appear suddenly, and in different forms (compare a fish's eye, to a fly's eye, to a spider's eye). The sudden appearance of so many different life forms again gives the impression that there was some outside Intelligent Agent working behind the scenes. SomeOne has created life's diversity.

 

By the way, in case you are wondering what are my top-5 best evidences to support that life is Intellengently Designed on earth, they are – 1^st, the origin of the first living cell on earth; 2^nd, the universe itself, with its order and fine-tuning all pointing to an Intelligent Creator. 3^rd, the evidence of genetics from Professor Michael Behe that only small non-cumulative changes takes place in a cell, and that random mutation/variation does nothing in explaining life's complexity (see, M. Behe's Edge of Evolution); 4th, Life's obvious appearance of design; and, finally 5th the Cambrian Explosion. Praise God whose attributes are clearly seen because of the world around us, making all people without excuse (Romans 1:20). Thank You Lord, for sending Jesus!

What Can We Learn About A Cells’ Flagellum?

Last post, I looked at the factory like structure of the inner-parts of a cell. But though the cell is an amazing structure, it is truly amazing to see what the individual parts of a cell do and look like. In this post, I will look at the cilia/flagellum of a cell. Please don't let the sciency words throw you, I will try and keep this information so easy even a lawyer can understand it! J

 

Cilia are found in cells with a nucleus (eukaryotic cells). They are on the surface of nearly every one of the 250 trillion cells inside our human bodies. Cilia are thin, tail-like projections extending outwards from the cell body. But there are cilia even on one-celled algae. And when one cilium is cut off, another replacement cilium will re-grow in about one hour. That's a good replacement system!

 

Prof. Behe's first book was called 'Darwin's Black Box' and it described the flagellum (basically the same as cilia) on the outside of the bacteria's cells. Don't get thrown off if I say 'bacterial flagellum', it just means the extended whips on the outside of a bacteria cell. The flagellum is a slender whip-like projection that motors the bacteria's movement. In 'Edge of Evolution' Prof. Behe also discusses the updated information we have learned about bacterial flagellum in the last 10 years, and he does this through easy to understand illustrations. He likens the cilia to the construction of a tower, which is built from the bottom up. Although there is still much to learn about how cilia are built, we do know that the plans are contained in the cell's DNA. The DNA provides all of the information for what parts are needed to construct the cilia, what proteins are needed, how much is needed (controls that turn on and off), and directions for where they should go.

 

from Wikipedia entry for flagellum.

 

Just as an outboard motor on a boat consists of a large number of parts, so does the bacteria's outboard motor, the flagellum. The physical construction in the cell is done by proteins. Proteins basically do the same work as bulldozers, steam shovels, train engines, train cars, railroad tracks, and all of the tools you can possibly use on a construction project. What is really interesting is that there is a protein in the cell that is essentially a foreman of the construction project. It is not a part of the flagellum or the construction machinery. Instead, it tells the other proteins what to do. When a flagellum is needed, the foreman protein binds to the control regions of the DNA that turn on the making of the proteins used in the construction project. One after another, proteins are made that are necessary for the construction of parts of the flagellum. The picture above shows all of different and various parts that make up the bacterial flagellum.

 

And it only keeps getting cooler! One of the early construction projects of the foreman is to assemble a pump. When the pump is completed, it is directly linked to the switching on the genes necessary to make the final, last parts of the flagellum. The perfect timing, the original plan for the construction secretly hidden inside of the DNA, the proper turning on and off of the proteins needed to make the flagellum, and the use of sequences to make just this one small part of a cell is mind blowing. I know some people look up at the stars and see God's majesty in His handiwork. But when I see the workings of the inside of a cell, I am in awe as I see what He has done. I wish I could do a better job of describing all of what takes place in the construction of the bacterial flagellum, but my hope is that I have at least given you the flavor of what is going on in the microscopic world in our bodies.

 

So what is the point of all of this? Prof. Behe describes the construction of the bacterial flagellum as being "irreducibly complex". By this he means that just as a mousetrap has 5 pieces that are needed to make a functional mousetrap (the board, the spring, the latch, the arm, etc.), and the mousetrap WON'T work until it has all 5 pieces in place. In the same way, the bacterial flagellum must have dozens of pieces in place before it will work. And this is something that Darwinism cannot do. Instead, the Darwinist claim is that small changes will lead to the making of the machinery that is useful in a cell. But as this post describes, these are not small changes. You need lots of BIG changes to make the flagellum. And they all need to work together, and in the right sequence, and with a proper plan in place to begin with. This is the domain of something that is shown to be Designed, and not the work of random forces as Darwinism is.

 

The Irreducible Complexity of the bacterial flagellum points to Design of life here on earth. It is yet another example of the 'Consilience' of scientific evidence that shows we are part of God's creation. I hope you find this persuasive as well.

 

 

Is There ‘Consilience’ With What Is Shown by Malaria?

In Previous Posts I have provided a short summary of what is contained in Prof. Behe's book entitled 'The Edge of Evolution'. The summary shows that when there is a full cell with a nucleus with complex divisions (called a eukaryotic cell) like malaria, it is difficult to make substantial changes to what the proteins of the cell do. One study relied upon Prof. Behe shows that the change rate is so slim that to even make a beneficial two-point amino acid change (i.e., where two amino acids in a protein are changed), such a mutation causes malaria to develop resistance to the best developed drug used in fighting malaria, Chloroquine. The long but not impossible odds were calculated by this published study as being 1 in 10²⁰ every time when malaria mutates. So although it is extremely unlikely for malaria to develop a resistance to Chloroquine, when it does it has disastrous consequences. A mosquito can pass along the Chloroquine resistance to an entire community, and the result is that there is Chloroquine resistance in an entire village/town. This leads to increased deaths and malaria at least temporarily, winning the battle against man. But an interesting point is that the Malarial parasite has an Achilles' heel: it won't develop in its mosquito host unless the temperatures are balmy, restricting it mainly to the tropics. And so we see that evolution has limits: it does not develop new abilities in a cell, like the ability to travel to more temperate climates (like the northern hemisphere). Malaria remains only in tropical climates where it is a fantastic killer of people. Here, evolution/ Darwinism is no help for malaria to become a truly global killer, thank God.

 

But Prof. Behe also has a chapter (chapter 10) describing 'Consilience'. I thought it was a cool term, so I thought I would share it with y'all. Consilience is defined by Prof. Behe as an old-fashioned synonym for concurrence. And he further describes this as when separate scientific disciplines all point in the same direction, there is a 'Consilience', and we can be more confident of the conclusion. He claims there is a Consilience of various branches of the physical sciences – physics, astronomy, chemistry, geology, molecular biology – all of which point to a purposeful design in the universe. These sciences reflect a vivid picture of a universe in which design extends from the very foundations of nature to all parts of life.

 

There are many examples of this discussed by Prof. Behe, the fine-tuning of the laws of physics, the molecules of life have useful properties to allow life on earth (like water molecules, for example), and the rarity of planets like we have on earth. All of the laws of science, finely tuned properties, details and events of the universe all point to our universe having been designed for life. Although Prof. Behe states that "Design isn't the only option", the evidence he provides certainly leads to that conclusion.

 

I will add as part of the Consilience the origin of life (OOL). There is a lot that can be said about the impossibility of life developing from non-living matter. But for now let me provide a link to an animation video of what is contained in a cell: http://aimediaserver4.com/studiodaily/videoplayer/?src=ai4/harvard/harvard.swf&width=640&height=520. Here is an example of why a cell is like a miniaturized factory:

 

• a cell membrane with a particular, important shape;
  
• inside the cell, is cytoplasm and a nucleus;;
  
• every new cell is alive. They have a lifespan where they live, reproduce through cell division, and they die;
  
• the cytoplasm is amazing: one cell has hundreds or even thousands of power plants (called mitochondria) that converts the chemical energy of food into a form of energy the cell can use to grow, divide and do its work;
  
• the cytoplasm also have little sacs connected by membranes that act as the highways of the cell. These sacs and membranes channel the proteins throughout the cell.; (later addition, called Endoplasmic reticulum?)
  
• also in the cytoplasm is the Golgi apparatus, which is the processing plant of the cell. The Golgi apparatus processes mostly the proteins in the cell. Some of the proteins are stored in small spheres, while others are transported to the cell membrane to transport to other cells;
  
• also in the cytoplasm is the garbage plant (called lysosomes) that breaks down many substances. For example, in a white blood cell, the lysosomes break down harmful bacteria;
  
• and you think that's complicated!, there is still more in the cytoplasm: for example, there is cytoskeleton of several types of protein rods that my encyclopedia says forms "complicated network", that forms the shape of the cell. On the outside of the structure is cilia/flagellum that contains the bundle of cytoskeleton rods that extend out of the cell, that allow the cell to swim;
  

 

It sounds like a little factory, doesn't it? It looks like someone has designed this cell. But the amazing nature of one single cell is just the beginning. Let's take a look at the cell's nucleus:

 

- the nucleus is the headquarters of the cell. It directs the activities of the cell.

- in the nucleus is the incredible chromosome – Human cells each have 46 chromosomes. Chromosomes are the carriers of inheritance. This is done through Genes, which are part of the DNA molecule. That was an interesting fact to me where the DNA is a single molecule. Genes control the passing on of traits from the parent cell to the offspring. Genes, of course, determines that a dog gives birth to a dog, and not a cat. The genes also determine blood type, color of eyes, and thousands of other characteristics. All inside the nucleus of one little cell.

 

- So DNA is part of the chromosome. As you know, DNA is where so much of scientific research is taking place. Breaking down the sequence of DNA. But DNA is just one molecule, made up of millions of atoms. And the grouping of chemicals in the DNA and its order is unique for each living creature.

 

- DNA's main work is to direct the production of "complicated" proteins. Most of the cell's structures are built of these proteins.

 

- proteins are the most abundant macromolecules in living cells. Proteins are made up of long chains (called polypeptides). And these chains are made up of small molecules called amino acids. 20 amino acids are found in proteins and the sequence is all important. Mndnfkfkewnhbfnmfmwekfkewlfkefkewlflwldelw. Did you like my illustration? Random assembly of the amino acids creates junk. Only by having the correct sequence of amino acids are the proteins made useful Just like with letters in the English language, the letters only make sense when they are put in the right order. Looks like another example of someOne's design of the cell, where proteins are brought together and made into something specific for use in the cell, right?

 

 

Bill Gates commented on the obvious: "DNA is like a computer program, but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created." Now Chuck Colson had an interesting comment about DNA in his How Now Shall We Live book (p. 75), where he notes: It's true that DNA is composed of ordinary chemicals (bases, sugars, phosphates) that react according to ordinary laws. But what makes DNA function as a message is not the chemicals themselves but rather their sequence, their pattern. The chemicals in DNA are grouped into molecules (called nucleotides) that act like letters in a message, and they must be in a particular order if the message is going to be intelligible…

 

Thanks. Let me know if you have any thoughts about this.

What are the Implications of the Evolution of Malaria/HIV

What are the implications of what I previously described in man’s battle against malaria and HIV? In both malaria and HIV (Prof. Behe also examines e-coli) we see that evolution does assist a cell in fighting off man-made drugs. Evolution helps by making one or two point changes in an amino acid sequence (amino acids make up the proteins who are the workers in a cell). But from this great sample of evidence, we see that evolution does NOT make new machinery in a cell, and does not make anything new.

So what is the conclusion that we can draw as to Darwinism’s claim that beneficial small changes over time (random mutation/variation) will succeed in future generations and be added to through natural selection (the short formula used is RM + NS = Evolution). The claim is that through successive generations these small changes will result in greater changes, ultimately resulting in all that is contained within humans beings.

But does this make sense? I don’t think it does. Darwinists claim that everything starts from what was contained on early Earth: rock, water and sunshine, all of which are dead, non-living materials. So how do we get living cells from non-living things like rock and water? The Darwinists claim is that by adding something like electricity a real life “Frankenstein” can be made to come to life. I hope to discuss this more in future posts. But for now, let me say that it is FOOLISH to believe that intelligence (specifically human intelligence) can come from non-life. Not even today’s best of Designers can accomplish this, and it is foolish on its face to believe this happened through random forces in Earth’s past.

And the great benefit of Prof. Behe’s ‘Edge of Evolution’ is that it shows what are the limits of Random Mutation. So besides common sense/reason telling us we are the result of a Designed, we also see that the scientific evidence clearly shows that Darwinism cannot make progressively more complex living things. The evidence shows that larger beaks can be developed in a Galapagos finch. The evidence also shows that malaria or HIV can defeat most drugs used to fight it, through the small changes to a protein’s amino acid sequence. But that’s it – Darwinism cannot create anything as complex as a brain, a central nervous system, or sexual organs. Again, the answer seems too obvious to dwell upon.

And added to this is that the math does not add up for Darwinists. When we see 1 trillion malaria cells in an infected person, and 500 million people infected each year, we see an enormous amount of living cells going through the process of Darwinism. The number of malaria cells produced in a single year is roughly equal to 100 times the number of all the mammals that have ever lived on Earth (!!!). Let me say this again – All of the mammals that have lived on Earth does not equal even 1% of a single year’s production of malaria cells. And so, if we are going to see evolution do something before our eyes, it would be done in the cells of malaria or HIV or E-Coli. But Darwinism has done nothing.

So could we see the large diversity of mammals (I believe I read that there are 5,300 different mammal species) being created over the last 200 million years? No, of course not – think about the math: If malaria has had a two point change in its amino acid sequence to fight off the drug Chloroquine only 10 times over the past 50 years, what are the odds of any single mammal developing anything greater than a 2 point change? Science teaches us that it can’t happen.

So my conclusion is that the Darwininian process of Random Mutation/Variation is only a minor process. It is helpful in fighting off manmade drugs that are attacking it. But evolution is not a Creator, it cannot develop brains, a circulatory system, or anything this complex. And so, if life’s complexity is beyond the Edge of Evolution, this means that some sort of Designer was involved. And the Designer is not unknown to us here living in the 21st century: He is the triune God of the Bible. As Genesis 1:1 says – In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…

Is the Evolution of HIV different from Malaria?

In my last post, I provided a brief description of the battle between man and malaria. Malaria is the best studied example of evolution for a simple reason: numbers. With so many people infected and up to 1 trillion malaria cells in an infected person, science has learned much about fighting malaria. But malaria is still winning the battle, still killing 1 million people each year. And the best drug that has been developed is Chloroquine. But malaria has found a way to counter even Chloroquine – with the odds of developing resistance to Chloroquine roughly one in a hundred billion billion. Written in shorthand this is 1 in 10²⁰. But perhaps the study of HIV has revealed something more or different.

HIV is a virus attacking cells of a person’s immune system, while the P. falciparum / malaria is a eukaryotic cell, which typically has a cell nucleus with DNA in the nucleus. With HIV being the simplest form of life, a virus, this means that it is much less complicated than the malaria cell. While malaria has thousands of genes, HIV has only 9 genes, and only 1/1000th of the DNA information. But HIV is a mutational freak: it has a mutation rate 10,000 times faster than malaria. This is an enormous tragedy throughout the world where millions have been killed by it. So does the simplicity of HIV (being only a virus) along with a very high mutation rate mean that evolution will work more powerfully in HIV? Again, as with malaria the answer is a clear: NO.

So what do we see from the large amounts of scientific research spent on studying HIV? Yes, because of the high mutation rate, it is even more able to resist the drugs used against it. This is why a drug cocktail is used to fight HIV – so as to raise the chance against HIV’s high mutation rate. But this is similar to what scientists discovered in their research about malaria. But otherwise, HIV is “a complete stick-in-the-mud”, the only changes are “biochemically trivial”. There have been no biochemical changes in the virus at all.

While HIV has huge population numbers and intense selective pressure (because of man’s use of drugs against it), evolution works in single and double (and because of the high mutation rate, even more) point mutations, but there are no new useful protein-protein interactions,, and no new molecular machines. HIV has not discovered a way to enter different kinds of cells, beside the immune cells it attacks. It has not developed any new way to interact with other proteins, and nothing has happened at the molecular level: no new machinery, no new gene duplications that could lead to a new function. BOTTOM LINE: While Darwinists loudly celebrate studies of finch beaks, showing the most modest of changes over time as the finches’ food supply changes. But here we have genetic studies over thousands upon thousands of generations, of trillions upon trillions of organisms, with nothing of biochemical significance being shown.

Again, I am using Prof. Michael Behe’s Edge of Evolution book as my source. Next time, I will try and draw some conclusions and tie together what this impressive amount of scientific evidence shows.

What Can Evolution Do?

Malaria is the million person Murderer; it kills 1 million people each year, and makes 100 million other people sick. In some regions, it kills half of all children before the reach the age of 5. It is like Dracula, feeding on blood. It is carried by mosquitoes, and transmitted when they bite. Once inside a person they keep feeding until they reach the liver, where they stop to multiply. It attaches to a red blood cell, goes inside puts a protective covering on and feeds on the hemoglobin. The infected blood cell gets stuck in our veins and stops circulating. Malaria reproduces until about 20 copies are made, they then break out of the now trashed red blood cell and re-enter the bloodstream to go into more red blood cells. They multiply exponentially, so that within a few days there are a trillion new malarial parasites, which consume a large portion of the victim’s blood. Because they are so numerous, and it has been studied so much, it is the best example of what evolution can do.

The modern fight against malaria began in South America with the discovery that bark from the cinchona tree was useful for treating the fever. Quinine is developed from the cinchona bark, and once it was discovered in the 17th century that it could be used as a cure for malaria. But in the 1940’s the active ingredient was isolated, and a compound developed called ‘Chloroquine’ that was even more effective against malaria. Because Chloroquine was effective, with few side effects and inexpensive to make it became the drug of choice for treatment of malaria for decades.

Malaria has 14 chromosomes, and the resistance part was recently discovered to be part of a 400,000 nucleotide region of one chromosome. It was further narrowed to 36,000 nucleotide region. The complexity of even a simple parasite like malaria is mind-blowing. The DNA for malaria encodes 5,300 proteins (proteins are essential to the operation of the cell, participating in every process of the cell. This includes being enzymes for metabolism, structural and mechanical functions – like forming the cell structure and building muscles, cell-signaling, immune responses and cell adhesion.) The PfCRT protein (for P. falciparum, a malaria species - Throughout my post when I use ‘malaria’, it is for P. falciparum) normally has 424 amino acids in a strict sequence. When there is a change in the amino acid sequence, the change commonly happens at position number 76 and 220. These mutations are what have provided malaria’s resistance to Chloroquine. This is what evolution can do in making an organism more resistant to an enemy like Chloroquine that is designed to destroy malaria.
So these two mutations at spot 76 and 220 of the amino acid sequence are what Darwinism can do – they provide resistance to the primary drug used to fight malaria; Chloroquine. Remember, that there are 1 trillion malaria cells in an infected person. And there are over 500 million people infected each year. Tom’s Important Point: So with so many malaria cells (1 trillion in a sick person) and so many people infected with malaria (500 million each year), how often does a simple double mutation of the amino acid sequence happen to provide resistance to the top drug used to fight Chloroquine? One researcher has estimated that it has only happened 10 times over the past 50 years.

Resistance to Chloroquine has only appeared 10 times in the whole world in the past 50 years (!!!). And so, one writer estimates that if you count the number of malaria cells in a very sick person times the number of people who get malaria each year times the number of years since Chloroquine was introduced, we see that the odds of a parasite developing resistance to Chloroquine is roughly one in a hundred billion billion. Written in shorthand this is 1 in 10²⁰. Most of the information in this post is from Prof. Michael Behe’s recent book: The Edge of Evolution. My background is not in science, and so if you find anything that needs to be corrected, please be gentle. Your first course in molecular biology is now concluded.