Posted on 01/17/2009 3:04:35 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
Lab-'evolved' Molecules Support Creation
by Brian Thomas, M.S.
Scientists attempting to demonstrate random evolution in the laboratory have found something entirely different: evidence supporting creation.
Gerald Joyce of the Scripps Research Institute coaxed an RNA-like long chain molecule, called R3C, to copy itself. The journal New Scientist stated that Joyce’s “laboratory-born ribonucleic acid (RNA) strand evolves in a test tube.” But it “evolved” only after “Joyce's team created” it. “After further lab tinkering,” Joyce’s colleague Tracy Lincoln “redesigned the molecule” so that it would replicate more effectively.1
What Joyce and his team actually discovered was how difficult it is and how much outside intervention is needed to get even these simple RNA-like molecules to form chains (which only happened when they were provided with a supply of pre-manufactured chemical “links”). The creation model—not a religious argument from ignorance, but a scientific inference from the data—is a viable historical model that would predict that the chemicals and processes of life are exactly as Joyce and other origin of life researchers find them: complex and specified.
The evolution model continues to meet a dead end with “life in a test tube” research. Even after selecting from 288 mutant molecules the ones that replicate the fastest, the scientists knew of no natural mechanism that can add new functions to those selected. “To mimic biology, a molecule must gain new functions on the fly, without laboratory tinkering. Joyce says he has no idea how to clear this hurdle with his team’s RNA molecule.”1 The potential for change for these molecules, like any machine, is limited to its maximum design potential unless retooled by an outsider.
The insistence that this laboratory work shows any kind of blind evolutionary process contradicts the fact that these research efforts were not “blind,” but directed and purposeful. Joyce even admitted that his molecules do not “have open-ended capacity for Darwinian evolution.”1 His molecules have limited potential because all molecules have limited potential. Indeed, certain ribonucleotides that are linked together to make RNA cannot form naturally in solutions. Not only the molecules themselves, but their environment limits the potential for any evolutionary progression. Even after they are carefully formed, they are very fragile. Just add water, oxygen, or light, and all the “evolutionary progress” of these molecules is destroyed. Surely, life cannot come from a purely natural cause.
Michael Robertson of the University of California, Santa Cruz, told New Scientist, “The origin of life on Earth is an historical problem that we’re never going to be able to witness and verify.”1 The question of origins cannot be investigated by direct experiment, but it can be explored by making valid inferences from an array of evidence.2
Thus, both the facts of science regarding the extreme difficulty of fashioning molecules that merely imitate select functions of life, as well as the biblical account that records the beginning of all things, unite as evidence for creation.
References
1. Callaway, E. Artificial molecule evolves in the lab. New Scientist. Posted on newscientist.com January 8, 2009, accessed January 9, 2009.
2. Thomas, B. Protocell Research: On the Verge of…a Dead End. ICR News. Posted on icr.org September 16, 2008, accessed January 14, 2009.
Frightened? I am not the one who runs from knowledge into a world of my own making into which no contrary ideas are allowed.
I am beginning to notice a pattern with you - you make an off the wall comment and then when show that you aren’t correct you begin to insult others. A true seeker of knowledge doesn’t behave the way that you do.
Now if you will excuse me I have to listen to TSO’s Requim (The Fifth) and Mozart / Figaro at an excessive volume level.
All the Off the Wall crap has com from you.
I guess everyone is right; answering you is like talking to the trash can.
I am now listing to Mephistopheles by TSO.
Very good music - you should give it a try.
We gave the stereo system to my daughter cuz we didn’t have enough room for all the speakers. Just have a ‘wave’ box now. Not so great.
[[Frightened? I am not the one who runs from knowledge into a world of my own making into which no contrary ideas are allowed.]]
Neither do we- We tuck ourselves squarely behind the solid science- not soem hypothesis’ which violate all known natural laws
You do realize that you are coming to the defense of someone who thinks that cancer simply did not exist till the Industrial Age?
How again is that “solid science”?
I have to apologize for you being offended or you won’t answer my questions?
Grow up.
ROTFL!
I thought only God could create life?
> I thought only God could create life?
Creating self-replicating RNA has been a big deal for a long time among the lab guys.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call it “life”.
Then again, “What is life?” is a thorny question. Difficult. Very difficult.
Are viruses “alive”? If so, what about viroids? If so, what about prions?
Because its based on the evidence, rather than your humanist religion.
You pathetic pre-adolescent sniveling whiner.
Isn’t your mom ever home?
Thank you for proving my exact point.
"For a justification of our moral code we no longer have to have recourse to theological revelation, or to a metaphysical Absolute; Freud in combination with Darwin suffice to give us our philosophic vision." --Darwin Medalist Julian Huxley"The garden of humanity is very full of weeds, nurture will never transform them into flowers; the eugenist calls upon the rulers of mankind to see that there shall be space in the garden, freed of weeds, for individuals and races of finer growth to develop with the full bloom possible to their species." --Darwin Medalist Karl Pearson
"[Eugenics] has indeed strong claims to become an orthodox religious tenet of the future, for Eugenics co-operates with the workings of nature by securing that humanity shall be represented by the fittest races... The first and main point is to secure the general intellectual acceptance of Eugenics... then let its principles work into the heart of the nation, which will gradually give practical effect to them in ways that we may not wholly forsee." --Darwin Medalist Francis Galton
"Thank you for proving my exact point."
Are you being disingenuous, or do you truly not know the difference between a scientific theory and a hypothesis?
Evolution is a theory, considered confirmed by scientists, because of its ability to make certain predictions, such as the locations of fossils in the geological column.
And so far as I know (somebody correct me if I'm wrong on this), there is no scientific "theory of origins." There are only various hypotheses (i.e., Darwin's mud puddle, or today's undersea volcanic vents) being worked on from different angles by numerous scientists.
Some of this work seems quite promising, and those of us who enjoy watching how science develops have reason to think they will eventually figure out a sequence of events whereby organic chemicals can naturally combine in ways that seem more & more lifelike. Then you could possibly begin to talk about a "theory of origins."
But I don't think they are there just quite yet. Do you disagree?
"Eugenics was an international scientific, political and moral ideology and movement which was at its height in first half of the twentieth century and was largely abandoned after the Nazi Holocaust and its future associations with racism.[2]"
We've argued this point before: obviously eugenics was a bad idea, but that would not invalidate Darwin's scientific theory, any more that historical crimes committed in the name of Christianity should necessarily invalidate Christ's teachings.
Do you disagree?
Not really. I basically told you to go pound sand. Feel free to say whatever you like against Christianity. Let everyone see the repulsiveness underneath the facade of the evolution science-talker. In case you need a boot up the arse to motivate you, here:
"Darwin's theory means this, that if individuals are reared under a constant environment, and a larger percentage of them are killed off in the first year of life, then a smaller percentage of those remaining will die in the later years of life, because more of the weaklings have been killed off... Now if there be -- and I, for one, think that two independent lines of inquiry demonstrate that there is -- a fairly stringent selection of the weaker individuals by the mortality of infancy and childhood, what will happen, if by increased medical skill and by increased state support and private charity, we enable the weaklings to survive and to propagate their kind? Why, undoubtedly we shall have a weaker race... Surely here is an antinomy -- a fundamental opposition between medical progress and the science of national eugenics, of race efficiency. Gentlemen, I venture to think it is an antinomy, and will remain one until the nation at large recognises as a fundamental doctrine the principle that everyone, being born, has the right to live, but the right to live does not in itself convey the right to everyone to reproduce their kind... I say that only a very thorough eugenic policy can possibly save our race from the evils which must flow from the antagonism between natural selection and medical progress."--Darwin Medalist Karl Pearson
ECO: Not really. I basically told you to go pound sand. Feel free to say whatever you like against Christianity. Let everyone see the repulsiveness underneath the facade of the evolution science-talker."
Let's see if I can understand the point of your argument here. You are hoping that I will "attack" Christianity by pointing out cases in history where people have committed horrendous crimes in the name of Christianity, right?
And so, to encourage me to "attack" Christianity, you are waging a attack on Darwinism by pointing out cases in history where Darwinists have said, and some even did, really horrendous things, right?
Sorry, pal, but I don't get it. I would no more blame Jesus for the crimes of some of his followers than I would blame Darwin for the crimes of some of his defenders.
I'm only saying, if you live in such a glass house yourself ECO, why in the world would you throw so many stones?
Finally, on the issue of pounding sand, you might be interested to learn that, in a manner of speaking, I do pound sand for a living. And for entertainment, I post on Free Republic. Now I have to go back to work! ;-)
Then go pound some.
"As an agency making for progress, conscious selection must replace the blind forces of natural selection; and men must utilize all the knowledge acquired by studying the process of evolution in the past in order to promote moral and physical progress in the future. The nation which first takes this great work thoroughly in hand will surely not only win in all matters of international competition, but will be given a place of honour in the history of the world."—Leonard Darwin, Presidential address, First International Eugenics Congress, 1912.
I guess we can say, you've made a brilliant argument against the now-defunct Eugenics movement.
But you've made no argument against Darwin's theory of evolution.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.