Odds n Ends (3)

Happy Birthday to my daughter Zola. There's way too many interesting news stories that I want to discuss. One thing is for sure, it's a crazy world out there:

 

1. Malaria Coming to Great Britain because of Global Warming. From my previous posts on malaria, you may remember that malaria can survive only in warm climates, which is the reason why Great Britain (and Minnesota) do not see cases of malaria. But here is the first news report I've seen claiming that one of the effects of Global Warming will be to bring malaria to more northern countries, according to the British Medical Assoc. Here is a blurb from the news story:
   

Climate change could bring malaria and other diseases to Britain and trigger more frequent heatwaves that will have huge health impacts, British doctors said on Thursday. With the exception of Lyme disease, insect-borne diseases are largely unknown in Britain. But global warming could change that in a few decades, according to a report from the British Medical Association (BMA). http://news.aol.com/story/_a/global-warming-may-bring-malaria-to/n20080402191209990022?ecid=RSS0001.

 

1. Biologists Create Sugar Eating-Fuel Making Bacteria. Biologists can now create organisms that have never before existed—including designer bacteria that turn sugar into fuel. Genetically modified E. coli turn sugar into blobs of a hydrocarbon that is similar to gasoline. http://www.popsci.com/oilbug.
   

 

1. Muslims in Middle East Coming to Christ in Record Numbers. Famous Pre-Trib author Joel Rosenberg (his best-selling book is entitled 'Epicenter' – he is also a great resource on things taking place in Israel) reports on a story going untold in the Mideast where hundreds of thousands of Muslims just celebrated their first Easter. Here is his report of individual countries: In Afghanistan there were only 17 Christians in the entire country. Today there are now over 10,000 Christians and this number is growing steadily; Egypt More than 1,000,000 (one million) Muslims have trusted in Jesus over the past decade; 70,000 Christians now in Iraq. And most surprisingly, in Iran there are well over 1 million Shia Muslim converts to Christianity. Check out the story at: http://joshuafund.blogspot.com/2008/03/big-untold-story-in-middle-east-2008.html
   

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…

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.