Modern Science Archives : Page 39 of 52 : Proslogion

No, It’s Not a Tail!

human_embryo — A human embryo after about 7 weeks of development
(public domain image)

I have written a lot about the evolutionary myth of vestigial organs (here, here, here, here, and here), showing how several biological structures evolutionists once thought were vestigial are, in fact, quite necessary. The concept of vestigial organs is very popular among many evolutionists, but it usually boils down to ignorance. If evolutionists don’t know the use for a biological structure, they assume that it must be vestigial. As is often the case, however, further research generally shows that this evolutionary assumption is quite wrong, due to our ignorance of the structure being considered.

This concept is often employed when studying the development of embryos. Because of the fraudulent work of Ernst Haeckel, evolutionists have long promoted the myth that an embryo will produce vestiges of its evolutionary history as it develops. Once again, this is mostly the result of ignorance. Embryonic development is rather difficult to study, so we often observe things that we don’t understand. When these things superficially resemble something that supposedly developed in the evolutionary history of the organism that is being studied, it is often pointed to as some vestige of evolution.

For example, in Why Evolution is True, Dr. Jerry Coyne tries to make the case that the human embryo is covered in a fine coat of lanugo hair simply because it is a part of the evolutionary heritage of humans. He says that there is no reason for a human embryo to be covered with hair, but it happens because humans evolved from an ape-like ancestor that was covered in hair. The coat of hair is simply a leftover vestige from that part of the human evolutionary lineage. As I have already pointed out, this is utterly false. In fact, the fine coat of hair that human embryos have is incredibly important to their development, and the idea that it is a leftover vestige of evolution is just a result of ignorance when it comes to human embryonic development.

Well, in a Facebook group discussion I recently had, the conversation turned to the supposed “tail” that human embryos have early in their development. This is a popular myth, but it is utterly false, and I thought I would post this so that others would benefit from a modern scientific analysis of this important embryonic structure. As you can see in the photograph of a human embryo above, there is a structure (pointed out in the figure) that resembles a tail. The structure eventually goes away, but it is a rather striking part of the embryo while it is present. Evolutionists have long taught that this is a leftover vestige of when our ancestors had tails,¹ but we now know that such an idea is simply 100% false.

Continue reading “No, It’s Not a Tail!”

Dark Matter Just Got Darker

m74 — Like most galaxies, the spiral galaxy M74 has more visible matter at its center than near its edges (NASA image)

In 1932, astronomer Dr. Jan Oort was studying the motion of stars in the Milky Way and could not understand his results unless he assumed there was a lot of matter in the galaxy that he was not seeing. As a result, he proposed the existence of matter that he assumed was very real but was not detectable using the instruments available at the time. Just a year later, astrophysicist Dr. Fritz Zwicky found that he had to make the same assumption to understand the Coma galaxy cluster. Several years later, he referred to this undetectable matter as “dunkle Materie,” which is German for “dark matter.”

However, the most compelling evidence for the existence of dark matter came more than 40 years later, when astronomers started measuring the speeds at which stars orbit the center of the galaxy they are in. If you look at the photo of a spiral galaxy above, you will see that it is much brighter at its center than it is at its edges. Based on such observations, it was assumed that most of a galaxy’s mass is located at its center. If that assumption were correct, it would mean that the stars near the center of the galaxy would orbit the center faster than the stars at the edge of the galaxy, just as the planets near the sun orbit much faster than the planets far from the sun.

In 1975, Dr. Vera Rubin and Dr. Kent Ford announced at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society that their studies indicated the stars in a galaxy orbit the center at roughly the same speed, regardless of where they are in the galaxy. This was a shock, and about the only thing that could explain it was the assumption that there was a lot of mass spread throughout the galaxy that could not be detected. Dark matter, which up until that time was mostly a curiosity, soon became a staple of modern astronomy. Today, astrophysicists estimate that 83% of the matter in the universe is dark matter – stuff that we cannot (as yet) detect directly.¹

Continue reading “Dark Matter Just Got Darker”

Those Plates, They Are A-Movin’

In the theory of plate tectonics, the earth’s surface is broken into several distinct plates which move about, carrying the continents with them. As a result, a fixed location on the planet is not really stationary. It is actually moving along the earth! We don’t notice the motion, of course, because it is happening very slowly. However, according to the theory, it is always happening. If scientists make certain assumptions about how this motion occurred in the past, they can conclude that at one time, all the continents on earth were grouped together in a supercontinent called Pangaea. Over time, the motion of the plates then separated the continents into the positions we see today.

If you assume that the plate motions we think are happening today are representative of how fast the plates have always moved, you find that it would take hundreds of millions of years for the continents to have moved from Pangaea to where they are today. However, many young-earth creationists think that plate motions were much faster during the worldwide Flood, and some have produced detailed computer models that attempt to explain how the Flood happened in the context of this catastrophic plate tectonics. Other young-earth creationists are skeptical about plate tectonics, claiming that there isn’t a lot of evidence to support it.

I tend to disagree with the young-earth creationists who are skeptical about plate tectonics. While I am definitely not a geologist or geophysicist, I do think there is a lot of indirect evidence to indicate that the plates are real and that they are really moving. Interestingly enough, I recently ran across an article by Dr. John Baumgardner that, in my mind, really clinches the case for the reality of plate tectonics.¹ Not only that, the data used in the article are just plain cool!

Continue reading “Those Plates, They Are A-Movin’”

The Freshwater/Saltwater Shuffle

Question: What is the significance of the freshwater fish groups represented by the individuals pictured below?

Polypterus — Saddled Bichir, a representative of the Polypteriformes. (Click for credit)

sturgewon — Atlantic sturgeon, a representative of the Acipenseriformes (Click for credit)

bowfish — A bowfin, representative of the Amiiformes (Click for credit)

Believe it or not, the answer is as follows: The most recent evolutionary analysis says that nearly all saltwater fishes ^* evolved from fishes that were members of these freshwater groups!

Continue reading “The Freshwater/Saltwater Shuffle”

How Meaningful are Genome Comparsons?

dna — The information in DNA is stored in specific sequences of the nucleotide bases adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). (Click for credit)

We hear a lot about how similar the human genome is compared to the chimpanzee genome. As I have discussed previously, if we compare the genomes one way, they are 72% identical. If we compare them another way, they more than 95% identical. If we compare them yet another way, they are 88-89% identical. That’s a wide range of results! Why can’t we say definitively how similar the human genome is to the chimpanzee genome? There are probably several reasons for this, but I want to highlight a basic one. Even though the human and chimpanzee genomes have been sequenced, we still don’t know them as well as you might think.

To understand why we don’t know these sequenced genomes very well, you need to know a bit about how DNA stores information. As most people know, DNA is a double helix. Each strand of this double helix has a sequence of chemical units called nucleotide bases. There are four different nucleotide bases: adenine (A), thymine (T), cytosine (C), and guanine (G). Taken three at a time, these four nucleotide bases code for a specific kind of chemical called an amino acid. The two strands of the double helix hold together because the nucleotide bases on one strand link up with the nucleotide bases on the other strand.

As shown in the illustration above, the way the nucleotide bases link up is very specific. Adenine (A) links only to thymine (T), and cytosine (C) links only to guanine (G). Because of this, if you know the sequence on one strand of DNA, you automatically know the sequence on the other strand. After all, A can only link to T, so anywhere one strand has an A, the other strand must have a T. In the same way, C can only link to G, so anywhere one strand has a C, the other strand must have a G. So the two strands of the DNA double helix are held together by pairs of nucleotide bases.

As a result, we count the length of a genome in terms of how many base pairs there are. The illustration above, for example, has 14 base pairs (the black G is hiding a C behind it, and the black A is hiding a T behind it). Obviously, then, the larger the number of base pairs in the genome, the longer the genome is. Believe it or not, even though the human and chimpanzee genomes have been sequenced, we don’t know for sure how long either of them are!

Continue reading “How Meaningful are Genome Comparsons?”

Just How Evil Is This “Evil Twin”?

Lophelia — This cold-water coral flourished in acidic waters once it was given time to adapt. (Click for credit)

Ocean acidification has been called the “evil twin” of global warming. That’s because rising carbon dioxide levels are not just supposed to result in an overly-warm world. They are also supposed to result in an overly-acidic ocean. How does carbon dioxide in the air affect the acidity of the ocean? Well, the ocean absorbs a large fraction of the carbon dioxide that is in the atmosphere. Some of that carbon dioxide then reacts with the water in the ocean, producing carbonic acid. The more carbon dioxide there is in the atmosphere, the more carbon dioxide the ocean will absorb. As the ocean absorbs more carbon dioxide, more carbonic acid will be made. Thus, rising carbon dioxide levels will lead to a more acidic ocean.

Unlike the link between rising carbon dioxide levels and global warming, the link between rising carbon dioxide levels and ocean acidification is straightforward and has already been seen to some extent. As you may remember from high school chemistry, acidity can be measured using the pH scale. A pH of 7 is neutral. A pH greater than 7 indicates a basic solution, while a pH lower than 7 indicates an acidic solution. The key for this discussion is as follows: the lower the pH, the more acidic the solution. Well, according to the Ocean Studies Board of the National Research council:¹

The average pH of ocean surface waters has decreased by about 0.1 unit—from about 8.2 to 8.1—since the beginning of the industrial revolution, with model projections showing an additional 0.2-0.3 drop by the end of the century, even under optimistic scenarios

Now this might not sound like a big change, but the pH scale is logarithmic. That means if the pH decreases by 1 unit, the acidity has increased by a factor of 10! Thus, a drop in pH of 0.1 is actually a change of 26%. This means the ocean is 26% more acidic than it was before the beginning of the industrial revolution. If the models are correct (and who knows if they are), the ocean will increase in acidity by an additional 58 to 100 percent by the end of the century!

Continue reading “Just How Evil Is This “Evil Twin”?”

The Evidence from Mercury: Inconclusive

Mercury is a difficult planet to study because of its proximity to the sun. As a result, there are only two robotic spacecraft that have visited it. Starting on March 29, 1974, the Mariner 10 spacecraft flew by Mercury a total of three times, but it never entered orbit. Then, on March 18, 2011, the spacecraft known as MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry and Ranging) settled into a comfortable, near-polar orbit of the planet and has been studying it in detail ever since.

As a scientist, I am always excited to learn new information about God’s creation, so I have been watching MESSENGER’s progress with interest. As a young-earth creationist, however, my interest in MESSENGER was somewhat heightened, because its mission included collecting data on Mercury’s magnetic field. The young-earth model of planetary magnetic fields had made a prediction about what MESSENGER would find once it collected those data, so I was naturally very interested in the results of the measurement.

Since the previous measurement of the field was made more than 35 years ago, and since the young-earth model predicts that all planetary magnetic fields should decay fairly rapidly, the young-earth model predicted that Mercury’s magnetic field should have decayed by roughly 4 percent since Mariner 10’s previous measurement. By contrast, the old-earth model predicts no measurable change at all. Because the young-earth model has been successful in three other predictions,¹ I was hoping that MESSENGER would provide a fourth.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

Continue reading “The Evidence from Mercury: Inconclusive”

The Gorilla Genome Falsifies Another Evolution-Inspired Idea

There is a vast gulf between humans and the great apes. While we share some superficial similarities with them, they are dwarfed by significant differences. For example, most (but not all ¹) evolutionists think that our closest living relative is the chimpanzee, because our genomes are the most similar (72%-95% similar, depending on how you make the comparison). Nevertheless, there are distinct anatomical and behavioral differences between humans and chimpanzees. Indeed, nearly every bone in the chimpanzee body is individually recognizable as chimpanzee and not human simply by its shape and size. Humans and chimpanzees also have different postures, different means of moving around, and different methods of obtaining food. Of course, the biggest difference between chimpanzees and humans is that of intelligence. People have a level of intelligence not seen anywhere else in creation, and it is apparent through our ability to create amazing technologies, produce breathtaking works of art, develop philosophies, and communicate across the generations.

But wait a minute. Haven’t experiments shown that apes can communicate in a very sophisticated way? If you read too much of the popular press, you might think that’s true. However, consider the words of Dr. Jonathan Marks, Professor of Anthropology at UNC-Charlotte and an expert on communication in apes:²

For all the interest generated by the sign-language experiments with apes, three things are clear. First they do have the capacity to manipulate a symbol system given to them by humans, and to communicate with it. Second, unfortunately, they have nothing to say. And third, they do not use any such system in the wild…There is in fact very little overlap between chimpanzee and human communication. (emphasis mine)

So what is it that produces the remarkable difference between apes and humans when it comes to communication? Evolutionists thought they might have at least a partial answer to this question. If you look in detail at human genes and chimpanzee genes, you see some remarkable differences among those genes that deal with hearing. As a result, it has been widely suggested that the human lineage experienced “accelerated” evolution in its hearing genes, which in turn produced our ability to utilize language, which in turn produced our ability to communicate in a sophisticated way.

Not surprisingly, additional data have falsified this evolution-inspired notion.

Continue reading “The Gorilla Genome Falsifies Another Evolution-Inspired Idea”

Octopuses Can Change the Products of Their Genes When Necessary!

Pareledone — An Arctic octopus (photo by E. Jorgensen, NOAA)

I have always been amazed at animals that live in very cold water. I can’t stand it when my shower gets lukewarm, but animals like the Arctic octopus (genus Pareledone) flourish in waters that dip below 0 degrees Celsius! How can they do that? Well, they have specific characteristics that allow them to deal with the water’s cold temperature – characteristics that I obviously don’t have. But what is the basis of those characteristics? Until reading a recent paper by Sandra Garrett and Joshua J. C. Rosenthal, I would have said that the basis of those characteristics is the genome of the animal in question. As reasonable as that answer sounds, however, it is not correct, at least not in some cases.

One of the most important things a cold-water animal must deal with is how the temperature affects certain proteins that govern the response of the nervous system. Cold temperatures tend to reduce the efficiency of those proteins. As a result, the colder the water, the slower the nervous system conducts signals. In very cold water, the slowdown would be so great that in the end, signals would not travel quickly enough to allow the animal to do what it must do in order to survive.¹ Thus, it has always been assumed (reasonably so) that many nervous system proteins in cold-water animals are significantly different from the corresponding nervous system proteins of animals that do not frequent cold waters.

Garrett and Rosenthal decided to determine just how different such proteins are by comparing the genes of an Arctic octopus (genus Pareledone) to that of a tropical octopus (Octopus vulgaris). Since genes tell the octopuses’ cells how to make the proteins they need, the researchers assumed that whatever differences exist in the nervous system proteins would show up in the genes that produce those proteins. Once again, this is a completely reasonable assumption. However, their study shows that the genes involved in producing these nervous system proteins are nearly identical between the species.² To confirm this, they injected the genes from the different species into frog egg cells, and they found that the frog egg cells used those genes to produce nearly identical proteins. So in the end, the genes that produce those nervous system proteins are essentially the same in both species. But that doesn’t make sense. The proteins have to be different.

Well, it turns out they are different, but not because of the genes that produce them!

Continue reading “Octopuses Can Change the Products of Their Genes When Necessary!”

Faster-Than-Light Neutrinos: Looks Like a Bad Cable Is To Blame

I am not sure how I missed this when it was first posted, but it seems that experimentalists have found a probable explanation for those neutrinos that were clocked traveling faster than light. According to Science‘s website, a bad connection in a fiber-optic cable that carries GPS signals to the system’s master clock most likely made the particles appear as if they were traveling faster than they really were. There also seems to be a problem with a specific oscillator in the system, but it is not clear how big the problem is. Also, it is thought that correcting the oscillator’s problem might actually end up shortening the time measured, which would mean that the particles actually traveled faster than the original measurement indicated. As the web article makes clear, however, the main focus is on the fiber-optic cable connection.

We’ll know better in May, when a new experiment will be run. Hopefully, the fiber-optic cable’s connection, the oscillator problem, and anything else that is discovered between now and then will be fixed. However, based on what I have read, I think the most likely conclusion is that the neutrinos did not travel faster than light. Of course, as I said before, that was the most likely conclusion to begin with. When it comes to physics, don’t bet against Einstein. You aren’t likely to win!