Our Origins and DNA Evidence

[Golda]

Anthropologist and Christian Apologetic Dr. Kent Hovind Quoted:

"... as far as the DNA structure, textbooks will say that DNA is evidence for evolution. They say it’s evidence from molecular biology. This textbook says, "Darwin speculated that all forms of life are related. This speculation has been verified."

Now, hold on just a minute. What they’re going to say is, it’s been verified because of DNA similarities. The human chromosome is incredibly complex. The DNA, or the chromosome as it’s called, is unbelievably complex. The average person has about 50 trillion cells in their body and each of those cells, except for the gametes, contain 46 chromosomes. If you extracted all of the chromosomes out of your body, you would fit into two tablespoons. And yet if you tied them together and stretched them out, it would reach from earth to the moon and back five million times. It is incredibly complex. This DNA code is more complex than all the computer programs ever written by man combined. All contained in two tablespoons. If you typed out this incredible code, when you got done typing, you’d have enough books to fill Grand Canyon 40 times. That’s just the instructions required to make one person. Unbelievably complex. And, of course, the psalmist said, "I will praise thee for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." And he didn’t even have a microscope. He didn’t know about DNA but he could still figure out we are incredibly well designed.

As a baby develops inside the mother, it adds cells to its body, about 15,000 cells per minute are added for the entire nine months, each of those containing 46 of these chromosomes with unbelievably complex instructions. Each cell in the human body is more complex than the space shuttle and here the baby is building 15,000 of those every minute. It all comes from this DNA code which they didn’t know about in Darwin’s day but today the scientists are saying that this DNA is evidence that we all came from a common ancestor. Truth of the matter is, if you organize the animals based upon the number of chromosomes, you don’t get anything similar to what they say happened in evolution. The earliest life form, according to the chromosome number, would be the penicillin. They only have two chromosomes. And over billions of years the penicillin turned into a fruit fly with eight. And then the fruit fly slowly evolved, of course, and got some more chromosomes someplace and became either a tomato or a house fly. They both have twelve. If you look at the number of chromosomes, it’s silly to think there is a similarity. If chromosome number means anything, if this DNA really means something, then I would point out that the possum, the redwood tree and the kidney bean all have 22 chromosomes and therefore they are identical triplets—which of course is ridiculous. They’re not identical triplets at all.

They say that apes and humans have similar DNA. The truth of the matter is, the chimpanzee has the same number of chromosomes as the tobacco plant. They both have more than humans have. So the similarity would break down right there.

And the most complex creature in the world, of course, would be the fern. They’ve got 480 chromosomes. So this idea is ridiculous.

But this textbook shows the kids a chart and says, "Boys and girls, we are similar to orangutans. We have 96% similarity. That proves a common ancestor 15 million years ago."

{Host} "Now, wait a minute. Similarity in chromosomes proves a common designer, not a common ancestor."

{Dr. Hovind} It actually doesn’t prove either one. It could be an indication of either one and the fact is, we’ve only analyzed about one percent of human DNA. Only one percent has even been studied. So if you’re pointing out a 99% similarity between chimps and humans and you’ve only studied one percent of the data, I think it’s a little premature to say that this is proof of anything. If there are similarities, I would say this is just as much argument for a common designer. But the students are never presented this. They’re only told this is evidence for evolution. It looks to me like somebody’s got an agenda they’re trying to push off on the kids. There are no missing links between apes and humans. There are a few similarities. We both have two eyes and two ears because we both have the same designer."

[Shazam0]

Fact is we are here. For reasonable men evolution has too many holes to be the undisputed widely accepted explination of how we got here. Creationism also is not proven using scientific meathods, of hard data. I beleive that we will find the 'how' exactly we got here. Either by discovering the 'holes' in evolution, or by being enlightend by our creator. Its a matter of time, i'm willing to be patient for.

[Alstair]

An ancient society living on Mars brought life to earth just before a meteor hit Mars and caused it to be uninhabitable.

[Gage]

and our "ancestors" from mars? where did they come from?

[Sixpaq]

Alstair, I think you're thinking of the Movie "Mission to Mars"

[Gage]

Oh and Golda, I never majored in Genetics, but I did do some courses in human biology and introductory genetics, so what I have to say isnt completely useless. However, what you said about the "baby" (foetus to be precise) developling 15,000 cells a minute, is slightly warped. You see, when the male gamete and female gamete form into a zygote, it splits through a process called meiosis. From this beginning of meiosis, the cells reproduce at an exponential rate.

The number you attained was derived from taking the amount of cells in a new born baby, and dividing it into how many days (then hours, then minutes) it took to get from 1 cell to the current trillions.

Also, the amount of chromosomes a species has, does not directly translate into superior complexity. More important then the number of chromosomes is the way they are arranged (the sequence). The majority of genetic DNA code is "switched off", that is why all humans share the same DNA, yet we are all mostly completely diffrent.

The association made between chimps and humans sharing 98% of their DNA is related to the sequences that the DNA makes up.

There is no such thing as "the theory of evolution". Evolution is real and is happening right now, in everything that happens. Be it social interaction or biological diversity, galaxies forming and everything else.

When people refer to the "theory of evolution", they are talking about our ancestry. Are we creations of an all mighty deity, or did we all evolve from a bio-chemical fluke? Both paths are extremely problematic, but what can we do?

Anyhow, I'm starting to ramble, better get some sleep. Nite

[Tashima]

Old topic, anyway..

When people refer to the "theory of evolution", they are talking about our ancestry. Are we creations of an all mighty deity, or did we all evolve from a bio-chemical fluke? Both paths are extremely problematic, but what can we do?

Why is those two always thought of as mutual exclusive?

Is it that if you subscribe to the "creational" theory you completely discard all thought of speices changing over time at all, ie the living things you see on earth today is what they allways been. Then i see why you must answer the question "how did we get here then?"

But the other way around? Just because you think animals evolve, does that mean there is no creator?

If there are a creator, what did he create - everything just like it is today, or the system that produced us? And are we talking about "the creator of life" or the "creator of everything"?

The question of creationism/evolutionism; if we were created or "refined" is not that interesting IMHO.

[RoadTrash]

are we creations of an all mighty deity, or did we all evolve from a bio-chemical fluke?

Why could not the All Might Diety have caused the Bio-Chemical Fluke?

[musashi]

When people refer to the "theory of evolution", they are talking about our ancestry. Are we creations of an all mighty deity, or did we all evolve from a bio-chemical fluke? Both paths are extremely problematic, but what can we do?

Why is those two always thought of as mutual exclusive?

The reason for this IMO has to do with a core tenant of religion… religion is founded upon faith. Faith comes first, and all other thought must be subjugated. In this instance from a western perspective, faith in the Bible is the stumbling block. The book says it… (at least for now) God created the heavens and the earth, the animals, man and woman the whole shebang. The religious camp must accept this stance on faith as if it were the word of God. Even though there is substantial evidence that contradicts Genesis.

Me, I am un-fettered by this stupid situation. It is just a good book, not THE GOOD BOOK.

[musashi]

Back to Golda’s original post. The interview appears to show its age. The two people speak of chromosomal similarities. This is a rather old school dialog for molecular biology, ie 1970’s.

The chromosomes are merely the quaternary structures of DNA, the largest packages.

• Think about it like freight on a train. You cannot understand the freight, by describing the numbers of cars on the trains carrying the freight. Even the type of car, say a refrigerated car, tells you little.
  
  You need to look inside the cars, at the shipping containers and boxes (tertiary structure) like an insulated pallet.
  
  You need to look inside the unit containers (secondary structure) like a Styrofoam box.
  
  And finally you arrive at the common article (primary structure) a bundle of roses. And that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet. Just not from the outside of a north bound train daddy-o 8) .

Genetically we used to see and speak about the world as freight trains. Now we see it with much more resolution. We don’t speak about chromosomal similarity any more, a common approach now is genomic similarity.

And there are astoundingly large genomic similarities between all plants and animals. Indicating a very tight familial connection between all life on the planet. So may be they need to throw Genesis into the trash… Errr... Emmm... into the Apocrypha!, yeah that's the ticket! And start over,

In the beginning God created the primordial ooze in its own image… And the whole experiement went out of control until the whole thing ended up 42.{Musashi winks at Phi}