Thursday 1 July 2010

Some amazing facts about Velvet worms

Velvet worms

Source: Vishesh Jain, Wonders of Evolution, on www.harkerbio.com

Readers please note that Vishesh Jain is a believer in evolution, and in no way does he support the opinion I express on this blog.

While spiders shoot silk, velvet worms shoot stringy goo.
Admittedly, velvet worm slime is far from silk molecularly, and spider silk departs from spinnarets on their abdomen while velvet worms use oral tubes.

Nevertheless, the slime is amazing.

Without congealing within the worm's own body, the slime is still a quick-hardening, sticky substance that sprays from two oral tubes, intertwining and lacing over its prey. This substance does not adhere to the water-repellent skin of the velvet worm, which can therefore safely approach its victim, bite a hole in its skin, and suck out its vital systems after digesting them with powerful saliva....

If you're still curious about that "weird sex," velvet worms use spermatophores, or packets of sperm, to transfer the male gametes to the female. Now this is weird enough, but there are several arthropods that do it too.

What really begs explanation is that the spermatophores are transferred from spikes on the the head of the male to the back or sides of the female. Enzymes in the female's body then break down both the spermatophore casing and the female's own skin, allowing the sperm to flow through this self-inflicted wound to her reproductive organs.

For one reason or another, the wound usually escapes infection, and velvet worms have apparently been successful enough to survive hundreds of millions of years without modification.

Velvet worms give birth in a variety of forms, ranging from oviparous(egg-laying) to ovoviviparous(egg-hatching within the body and then live-bearing) to viviparous(live-bearing). Weird.

by Vishesh Jain

Friday 25 June 2010

An interesting 'how does instinct evolve' fact about orchids

Here is a quote from the Naked Scientists Forum (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/latest-questions/question/2605/) - beautifully written till we get to the last idiotic sentence. But you must judge for yourself. I've broken it up into smaller paragraphs for easier reading.

There was a wonderful paper written by a lady called Jennifer Brodmann, who is a researcher at the University of Ulm, and she was on the Chinese island of Hainan looking at an orchid called Dendrobium sinense.

Now, this is a really interesting orchid because no one knew what pollinated it. It makes these beautiful flowers. It's a white flower with a red centre, but it's rewardless.

In other words, the flower doesn't give anybody anything if they come and visit it. So she decided to do a stakeout and she watched this flower , 121 hours of footage to see what came by. And 35 insects paid a visit of which the majority - over 30 - were a kind of hornet.

And she thought, "That's interesting." At closer inspection, revealed that these hornets didn't come in and spend much time loitering there. They flew in and pounced on the flower and then abruptly left.

But when they looked more closely, they saw that as the hornet was doing the pouncing, it was actually depositing a bit of pollen on the orchid, fertilizing it and also picking up some pollen to take to another flower.

So they thought, "There must be something which is attracting this hornet to this flower." So they made extracts of all the chemicals that come out of the flower and they found one really interesting one.

It's eicosen-1-ol. And this particular molecule is a pheromone made by bees. And, in fact, it's an alarm pheromone that bees make when they want to tell other bees about something exciting going on.

And what they realized is that this hornet species eats bees and it feeds the bees to its young hornet larvae.

So what the orchid is doing is making itself smell like a bee to attract a hornet, to get itself fertilised. And it's doing it by making the same chemicals that the bees would and, thereby, fooling the hornet, so a wonderful example of sexual kind of subversion going on.

The point is that the plant has evolved to have the same genetic pathway or the same synthetic pathway that can produce these chemicals because this is the way in which it gets itself pollinated, and very effectively too by the look of it.

If you want to read it, it was actually published in Current Biology, last year, Jennifer Brodmann, a wonderful bit of science.

Here's the evolutionary madness in full swing!

The plant somehow 'evolved/ figured out' how to perform this miraculous piece of biochemical wizardry!

BEFORE it did so, it wasn't pollinated at all. Remember what Brodmann found from her stakeout:

"And 35 insects paid a visit of which the majority - over 30 - were a kind of hornet."

Only hornets/wasps did the job.

Therefore, in the time BEFORE any wasps/hornets appeared on the scene, the plant was unable to be pollinated! And therefore couldn't exist!

But it did somehow (heh heh!), and then, miracle of miracles, it performed this miraculous biochemical feat, producing this wonderful chemical which attracted the wasps/ hornets and conned them into fertilising its flowers.

Do you see the role that instinct plays in all this?

The wasps MUST HAVE HAD the instincts in them which caused them to be attracted to the chemical - whether produced by the flower or not. How did they get that instinct? And how did it enter their genome?

The plant MUST HAVE HAD THE INSTINCTS and biochemical mechanisms IMPLANTED completely in ONE GO - or it would have perished! No instinct, no chemical. No chemical, no fertilisation. No fertilisation, extinction followeth immediately.

So dear evolutionary friends, explain to us how this happened.

It is a huge pity that this utterly brilliant piece of research, which deals with the wonders of the natural world, and not with test tube Biology, should be made to serve such an idiotic theory.


Just to remind you of the stupidity:

"So what the orchid is doing is making itself smell like a bee to attract a hornet, to get itself fertilised.

Heh heh heh! It knows what a bee smells like, you see, and has figured out that if it makes itself smell like one - how to do that, one wonders! - then it'll get pollinated!!!

And it's doing it by making the same chemicals that the bees would and, thereby, fooling the hornet, so a wonderful example of sexual kind of subversion going on.


Heh heh heh! It figured out how to make the chemicals, guys! I bet there are millions of graduate chemistry students who couldn't figure that one out! And look! It knows about 'subversion'! Quite a brain in that little plant!

The point is that the plant has evolved to have the same genetic pathway or the same synthetic pathway that can produce these chemicals because this is the way in which it gets itself pollinated, and very effectively too by the look of it.

Oooooh! Just look! The plant 'evolved' to have the same 'genetic pathway' or the 'same synthetic pathway' to get itself pollinated!!!!!

Somebody - allegedly intelligent - wrote that nonsense! Should get a PhD in fairy tale writing.

Come on BenV, how can you remain attached to such nonsense?

Tuesday 15 June 2010

The Herring Gull Chick and its Mother's Red Spot

by Wilfred Alleyne

How Well-Researched Modern Science
Helps You to See That

DARWIN DIDN’T KNOW THE ANSWER TO

The Most Completely Overlooked and Fatal Question
Evolution Has Ever Had to Face!

A Herring Gull Chick Taps the Red Spot on Its Mother’s Beak. The Mother Then Regurgitates Fish She Has Caught – So the Chick Can Eat and Survive.


But How Does the Chick Know about Tapping Her Beak? And How Does the Mother Know About Regurgitating?

INSTINCT!

( A BBC video showing this is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p007xvj5)


But How Did this Instinct Start? And How did it get into the Bird?

The instinct was there in the very first Herring Gull – however many millions of years ago that may be. And it was there complete and fully formed: or there would be no Herring Gulls today.

If the chick didn’t tap, it would have starved. If the mother didn’t regurgitate, again the chick would have starved. BOTH BEHAVIOURS had to appear at exactly the same time.

How did this happen?

THIS MAY BE THE MOST STARTLING AND DEVASTATING COLLECTION OF SCIENTIFIC FACTS YOU HAVE EVER READ, DEAR FRIEND...

After all...

Whoever heard of a new-born baby making a 3000+ mile journey home – on its own? Underwater, at that!


That is exactly what young eels do. Their parents migrate from rivers in Europe 3000+ miles south and southwest, down the west coast of Africa, then turn right and swim to the Sargasso Sea. They spawn there, THEN THEY ALL DIE, AND NEVER RETURN to Europe.

The young eels then swim home to Europe, which is 3000+ miles away. With no guides, no adults to lead them home.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8273000/8273877.stm)

How can they possibly manage such a navigational feat? INSTINCT is the only answer that can be given.

But how did the instinct start? And how did it get into the fish in the first place?
And it had to be there perfectly right from the word ‘go’ – or eels would be extinct too.

They HAVE to get to freshwater – there’s none in the Atlantic Ocean - or they would never reach sexual maturity, and the species would perish. So if the navigational instinct misdirected them, they would swim till they died in salt water, in the Falklands, the Azores, the Arctic Ocean or some other unsuitable place.

‘Extinct’ is probably not too strong a description.

Those are just two of the many startling illustrations of instinct in action found in this book. They are beautiful, bizarre, unbelievably complex examples – and evolution cannot account for the origin of a single one of them.

In every case as you will see, if the instinct is absent, or imperfect, species extinction would immediately follow.

HOWEVER, AND THIS IS THE ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY MADE AND DETAILED IN THIS REMARKABLE BOOK:

WITHOUT INSTINCT, LIFE ITSELF WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE.


Not only these virtuoso displays of startling behaviour like those above, but EVERY SINGLE FUNCTION, of EVERY SINGLE LIVING CELL, in EVERY LIVING ORGANISM depends absolutely on instinct for its survival.

Evolution argues about how legs, wings, lungs and every other organ could have evolved. Did birds’ wings evolve from reptile forelimbs? Did feathers evolve from scales? Did fish develop legs and walk on land?

All the scientific papers written to prove any of the above cases, and many others, are now irrelevant in the light of this discovery. Imagine that! A single discovery uprooting a major scientific theory!

This happens from time to time. A very recent discovery (published in the January 2010 issue of Nature journal – one of the most prestigious scientific journals on the planet) showed that a major plank of the evolution of four-limbed animals (called Tiktaalik) was totally mistaken. Hailed as the first species of fish to walk on land, and one possible ancestor of all tetrapods, imagine the absolute horror all round when tetrapod tracks, some 18 or more million years older than Tiktaalik were found!

The Law of Asynctropy, first formally stated in this book, at a single blow destroys all such arguments and makes them totally irrelevant to the facts of every case ever presented as support for the theory of evolution...

It is the most powerful and destructive single piece of evidence ever raised against evolution, which is helpless in the face of the Law.

Take Respiration as the most important example possible.

Today, we can possibly mix all of the chemicals found in the respiratory cycle in a test tube. But respiration will not take place. The powering instinct is absent, the driving force is missing.

This simple fact has huge spin-off consequences for the existence of life itself, and for the inadequacy of evolution theory, which are drawn out in full in the text.

Instinct crosses the barrier of death, somehow.

As in the case of the eels above, there are innumerable examples where the parents die, and the offspring do the same marvellous things that the parents did, WITHOUT EVER SEEING THEM! The young of the Yucca moth (Pronuba spp) does just that.

Just as remarkably, a wasp (Eumenes spp) somehow knows the gender of its young before it collects food for it to eat when it hatches! And provides an escape route for it if the prey gets too frisky in the mud igloo the mother somehow knows how to build!

And just to add more fuel to the fire, the mother anaesthetises the grubs it catches for the young – why? So the young wasp can have fresh, non-putrefying food to eat.

She then dies. The young wasp never sees its parents – but goes on to do exactly the same things the parents did.

The naturalist who first made these observations was stunned at the ingenuity displayed – but this is not intelligence, but instinct in action.

And we’re back to the original problem. How did the instinct originate? And in some ways even worse, how did it ever enter the genome? (Assuming, of course, that it is located there. If it isn’t then the problems for evolution become even more horrendous than they are already).

Again notice – if the instinct was absent or incomplete in any way, then the species would have perished immediately it first appeared on the planet. If the young couldn’t feed, then a single generation was all that could ever have existed.

If it only had putrefying food, it would perish – and without training in anaesthesiology – the mother is able to inject a non-lethal, paralysing dose of venom into the grubs which are going to be eaten by the young wasp.

And all of that so far, is meaningless without the ‘igloo’ she builds. The young would have to forage for itself, the food grubs would scatter to the four winds, and the species would be extinct.

The full development of this concept is given in the text.

SO FAR, WE HAVE ONLY MENTIONED EXAMPLES FROM THE ANIMAL WORLD. THE PLANT KINGDOM PRESENTS NO SMALLER PROBLEMS.

One of the very biggest problems for evolution, is that plants ‘act’ with purpose. This is most obvious in the reproduction of plants (and animals, as shown in the Section on ‘Reproduction’ in the text).

That wonderful, and extremely common species called Vallisneria is a pest because of its reproductive success. But the way it reproduces is simply mind-blowing. The female flower - UNDERWATER! – produces a stigma which grows up to the surface of the water, and there is produces a substance which creates a small depression in the water round it. The male flower .... well, you’ll just have to read the book, as that would be giving the wonderful game away!

There are other huge problems too. The second biggest, is the fact that the land plants we see everywhere are supposed to have evolved from the algae (like the seaweeds). How did they get on to land and survive? The process as one evolutionist says ‘ must have been very difficult’!

Plants produce roots, which normally grow downwards into the soil and shoots which grow upwards. They could have done the exact oposite – and perished.

What makes them do this? Instinct. And how did that originate and enter the genome?

The flowering plants appear with extraordinary abruptness in the fossil record. Darwin rightly called their appearance ‘that abominable mystery’. That mystery still remains, and the instinctive behaviour of plants is an embarrassment to the evolutionary botanists. Why do they produce flowers, with pollen and ovaries?

Instinctively, in order to reproduce – because they do not learn how to do so – it is inbuilt into them, and that is a definition of instinct. But where does it come from, and how did it enter the genome?

We could go on, drawing wonderful example after wonderful example from the text, and from nature. But you owe it to yourself to read it.

Read it, and ask your evolutionary friends, teachers and professors for comment and explanation of these facts. Make sure they get a complimentary copy (it’s cheap enough for the time being), and let their cup overflow.

Are you tired of the failure of conventional biology to explain how evolution could have occurred?

Do you need examples to confound the evolutionary establishment?

Why not buy a copy today, and equip your armoury with these armour-piercing shells and bombs that can blow evolution sky-high?

Share the facts and concepts with your children. If you believe in evolution, then forewarn them of the coming deluge.

If you don’t, then here is your battle-axe with well-sharpened blade. Teach them about these facts, and let them go fearlessly into the world of evolution theory and demonstrate its inability to provide explanations for these fatal facts.

It is probably not overstating the case to say that just as Darwin’s Origin of Species overturned the existing scientific world opinion, just so this book will destroy Darwinism and everything that goes with it.

As a special introductory price, this will only cost you £4.97. Go here to order.

Saturday 12 June 2010

Hey Dawkins, Ruse, whoever supports evolution come forth and debate!

Hey you evolutionists - stop slithering around, and come out and fight like men!

I have an increasingly interesting track record.

I regard these as Medals of Honor, won in the heat of battle! I have now been thrown off

1 The Richard Dawkins forum. not surprising, where I challenged him or his supporters to emerge from hiding and debate like a man. I repeat the challenge.

Dawkins, Dawkins, Dawkins, if you ever read this, stop skulking in the undergrowth and come forth and fight for your pestilential theory. You might like to read my new book here: www.howdoesinstinctevolve.com and scare yourself silly. It's only £4.97, and I'm sure professorial salaries can run to that.

If any reader is interested in reading high quality abuse and vilification then go here:
http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=109119

These guys are really foul-mouthed. Understandable: when you've nothing to say, abuse is the next best thing.

They really can't stand any informed opposition and intelligent questioning of their theory. Poking the sacred cow with a sharp stick in the behind is not the done thing, obviously.

2 I have been thrown off Physics Forum. Trolling, they say. No answers either! Well, what's new?

3 I have been thrown off the Naked Scientists forum (http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=16535.0)where they couldn't stand the facts either. But give them their due, they took the blows for a few months before becoming punch drunk.

(Hey, BenV, this is your old friend, Asyncritus again. I should have the democratic right of reply to all these comments that are being made by the readers, as a few of them are at my expense. I've now got your forum nearly 45,000 views of my thread.

Interest is obviously very high - higher than in any other topic or even section of the board - and you've shut me up! Now act like a man. Show some guts and get me back on there so I can lay about me with the sword of instinct!)

4 I engaged in a debate on the Bible Truth Discussion Forum, with Bible-believing Christadelphians, believe it or not, but the debate got shut down just when I'd got the opposition sweating profusely.

5 The saga continues.

But anyone really wishing to read the arguments which I present about instinct, and which are not on this blog, should get a copy of the book here:
www.howdoesinstinctevolve.com

It is truly the finish of the theory. It proves that every living function is based on instinct, and since instinct is immaterial it cannot be subject to the usual alleged evolutionary processes.

Therefore evolution is incapable of explaining something which is a universal feature of all life - it's even more essential than DNA, which only functions when the instincts are present.

Worth looking at.

Thursday 3 June 2010

A fish walking on land!

Let's discuss this business of a fish coming on to land.

Have you ever seen a fish on land after a fisherman has caught it? I have. I've caught many, dropped them on the bank - and they died. You know the expression - 'like a fish out of water'.

Now what makes you think there's any survival advantage in dying when the fish has dried out?

Look at it the other way. How long would you survive if you tried to live underwater? Not very long at all, unless you had diving equipment of some sort. Do you think, for example, that if somebody held your head underwater for 1 minute today, 2 minutes tomorrow, 3 mins the day after that, and so on, after a year like that you'd be able to live underwater? I very much doubt it, because you'd drown somewhere around 7 minutes.

Why do you think things would be different for a fish?

Here's the problem stated very nicely:

"In trying to decipher the evolution of tetrapods from fish, scientists face formidable problems. The transition from water to land occurred long ago, and various family trees suggested by the fossil record are so tangled that scientists acknowledge they may never be able to sort them out definitively".

For a fish to come out on to dry land - which is what we're talking about - it has to have breathing apparatus, like lungs. No fish has lungs - not even the lungfish. Their lungs are totally different to our lungs, and bear no relationship to them.

You ever heard about the coelacanth?

Well. once upon a time, in this sea far away, there lived a fish called Latimeria. Scientists thought that it was a very special fish which could walk out on to land and somehow breathe air! Hoo boy! This great fish was the ancestor of all the land animals or something. It got out and walked in swamps and such places.

And then you'll never guess what happened.

Evolutionists needed evidence to back up the supposed transition of vertebrates from the sea to dry land. For that reason, they took the fossil coelacanth, whose anatomy they believed was ideally suited to this scenario, and began using it for propaganda purposes. They interpreted the creature's fins as "feet about to walk," and a fossilized fat-filled swimbladder in its body as "a primitive lung." The coelacanth was literally a savior for evolutionists bedeviled by such a lack of evidence. Evolutionists had at last laid hands on "one" of the countless missing links that should have numbered in the millions.

Heh heh!

And then.... ta daaaa!

This evolutionist excitement was short-lived,when a living coelacanth specimen was captured by fishermen in 1938. This inflicted a terrible disappointment on evolutionists.

James Leonard Brierley Smith, an instructor in the Rhodes University Chemistry Department and also honorary director of various fish museums on the South Coast of England, expressed his astonishment in the face of this captured coelacanth:

"Although I had come prepared, that first sight hit me like a white-hot blast and made me feel shaky and queer, my body tingled. I stood as if striken to stone. Yes, there was not a shadow of doubt, scale by scale, bone by bone, fin by fin, it was true Coelacanth."

The discovery of this imaginary missing link, once believed to have close links to man's alleged ancestors, in the form of a living fossil, was a most significant disaster for Darwinist circles.

The coelacanth, the greatest supposed proof of the theory of evolution, had suddenly been demolished.

The most important potential candidate in the fictitious transition from the sea to dry land turned out to be an exceedingly complex life form still alive in deep waters and bearing no intermediate-form characteristics at all. This living specimen dealt a heavy blow to Darwin's theory of evolution.

So back to the old drawing board and some more idiotic inventions.

Don't you see how stupid this whole thing is? You take any goldfish and drop him on the floor, then let me know what happens. If he gets up and walks off into the distance, you are the greatest scientific discoverer of all time, and you'll get 25 Nobel prizes for your discovery.

But I think you'll have a big pile of dead stinking goldfish on your floor before that happens. Try it, and see. Let me know how long he can survive out of water. grin

Here's another nice creationist site for you to laugh at: http://www.harunyahya.com/books/darwinism/atlas_creation_II/atlas_creation_II_05.php

Wednesday 2 June 2010

The Non-Evolution of the Angiosperms

THE NON-EVOLUTION OF THE ANGIOSPERMS

For those who may not know, the biggest and most fatal difference between an angiosperm (like an apple) and a gymnosperm (like a fir) is the fact that the 'carpels' (the parts that become the seed/s) are INSIDE the 'sporophylls' in the angiosperms, and OUTSIDE the sporophylls in the gymnosperms.
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/graphics/bio106/angio%20cycle.jpg that's an angiosperm

http://dbs.umt.edu/courses/sci226/gifs/images/lab4/img8.gif shows the differences nicely.

How did the change take place? Nobody has a clue.

The difference is like holding a marble in the palm of your hand, and having a tumour growing INSIDE the palm of your hand. The marble simply cannot enter the tissues and become the tumour.

I was interested to hear the comment that the fossil record is the weakest proof of evolution.

Darwin knew this, and not a great deal has changed since his time, except that the gaps have become wider and deeper. Increasing biochemical knowledge has showed that there is nothing 'simple' in nature, and the folly of supposing that some unicell somehow formed itself in a nice warm soup somewhere and evolved into whales, sequoias and man has been heavily underscored by the biochemists at least.

Yet, this is the cornerstone of all evolutionary theory. It is a clear impossibility as we know: because of the protein formation riddle at least.

Such 'transitional fossils' as have been found answer none of the really serious questions such as the origin of life itself, the origins of animals , plants, the protista, the monera and the fungi.

These mighty groups arrive unceremoniously and abruptly in the fossil records as we all know. Attempts to find pre-cambrian fossils are producing some results - but only serve to push the problem one layer down.

As usual, clad in long words, ignorance lies deeply concealed.

For this thread I'd like to present some more facts about plant evolution which the uncommitted readers may not know, and perhaps the committed may not either.

PROKARYOTES AND EUKARYOTES

Plants are eukaryotes ie they have their DNA enclosed in a nuclear membrane. (Bacteria are prokaryotes, whose DNA is NOT enclosed in a nuclear membrane.) That doesn’t sound like much – until you realise that the apparent ‘simplicity’ of the bacterial cell is very deceptive indeed.

Mycoplasma genitalium , which has the smallest genome of any free-living organism, has a genome of 580,000 base pairs (wikipedia). This is an astonishingly large number for such a ‘simple’ organism. Needless to say, the larger prokaryotes are even more complex.

The simplest plants cells ie those containing chlorophyll, present insuperable difficulties for any gradualist theory (the only contender in the field since the Punctuated Equilibrium model was punctured by the gradualist opposition).

What did they evolve from? The answer is ‘nowhere.’ They appear in the fossil record as plant cells ie

1 whose cell walls are made of cellulose, unlike the polysaccharide and PROTEIN walls of the bacteria. How did such an enormous chemical transition take place if eukaryotes evolved from prokaryotes? And in any case, how did the prokaryote ever figure out how to manufacture PROTEIN of all things?

2 The molecular level biological structures are also very different. The DNA in the bacterium lies free in the cytoplasm. The DNA in the plant cell is not free, but is enclosed in a double membrane. Darnell points out that: The differences in the biochemistry of messenger RNA formation in eukaryotes compared to prokaryotes are so profound as to suggest that sequential prokaryotic to eukaryotic cell evolution seems unlikely.
Darnell, "Implications of RNA-RNA Splicing in Evolution of Eukaryotic Cells," Science, vol. 202, 1978, p. 1257.

3 There are other very large differences. The genes in a bacterial cell carry the information needed for its life and reproduction only. The genes in plant cells carry the information for a gigantic number of living processes – all crammed into a microscopic space. Where did the information come from? And how did it get into the genes at all?

Some bacteria actually photosynthesise. This means that they have the information needed to construct chlorophyll, and use it, improbable as that sounds. Where did such information come from? And how did it get into the genome? In the bacterium there are no chloroplasts to contain the chlorophyll, but in the plant cell, there are these structures which are by no means simple.
See http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/sat2/biology/chapter9section2.rhtml

Hoe could such things have come into being?

4 Algae are plants. They are just as complex now as they were when they were first found:

Both blue-green algae and bacteria fossils dating back 3.4 billion years have been found in rocks from S. Africa. Even more intriguing, the pleurocapsalean algae turned out to be almost identical to modern pleurocapsalean algae at the family and possibly even at the generic level.

The oldest fossils so far discovered are objects fossilized in minerals which belong to blue green algae, more than 3 billion years old. No matter how primitive they are, they still represent rather complicated and expertly organized forms of life.

Not only are they the oldest photosynthesisers, but:

Even today, they are the most highly efficient photosynthesizers on the planet, utilizing light energy, carbon dioxide from the air, and hydrogen and oxygen from the water to synthesize a high energy combination of proteins, carbohydrates (starches and sugars), lipids (fats), nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), vitamins, chlorophyll and other pigments.

So we have the remarkable situation that the most ‘primitive’ algae contain the most amazing substances in the universe (eg chlorophyll), which are STILL the top, most efficient photosynthesisers on the planet! All the ‘evolution’ that has taken place since then, has produced nothing better.

This, I may point out, is precisely what we would expect if the Divine Creator produced the design. It simply cannot be improved.

TO TURN TO THE ANGIOSPERMS AGAIN

“Despite these new findings, plenty of mysteries remain. None of the analyses reveals when the first flowering plant appeared on Earth. Amborella is not the first one but, rather, a representative of the first branch from that unknown ancestor.”

You note, the question is ‘when’. The bigger question is not asked: it would be too damaging to the appearance of knowledge. ‘HOW’ is that question. Shtumm.

“Sometime before 140 million years ago, flowering plants, known as angiosperms, diverged from nonflowering seed plants known as gymnosperms. [My comment: Note the assurance of ignorance! They did diverge – but we haven’t a clue how, but we know…] Biologists imagine a tree of life with different groups of animals or plants as branches. Flowering plants branched off from within the branch of seed plants.[Assurance of ignorance again]. The first branch within flowering plants separated Amborella from all the rest.”
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/12.16/angiosperms.html

Imagine! What a splendid recommendation for a scientific theory. But what else is there if you reject the Creation hypothesis.

"This is probably how the carpel looked in the distant ancestors of flowering plants," Donoghue says. "It’s a neat observation that increases our understanding of how flowering plants originated and what the first ones looked like."

What a pathetic piece of disinformation! ‘Increase our understanding’ indeed! We don’t know anything about how they originated.

WHERE DID THE HIGHER PLANTS COME FROM?


Here’s an article about how the algae ‘waded out’ of the water and became all the plants we see today. Read and have a good laugh. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/06/0604_wirealgae.html

“The first tentative moves that got life out of the water and onto the land eons ago were apparently made by slimy green algae, scientists say, [b]and coming ashore wasn't easy.[/b]” (!!!!!) Ho ho ho!

“The ancient history of land plants is becoming evident because of recent advances in techniques for genetic analysis. It's now possible to look at individual genes in algal cells and higher plants and calculate their similarity.”

I said it before, and I’ll say it again. These ‘molecular biologists’ evidently live with their test tubes stuck over their heads or worse. They haven’t a clue about practical biology.

If they had, could they possibly have spewed such garbage? We’ve all seen, I’m sure, seaweed dead on the shore because it was thrown up, dried out, and died. Out of the water, they die from dehydration. And oxygen poisoning – because the concentration of atmospheric oxygen is so much higher than in water. And gaseous diffusion stops because of the dehydration – so they can’t take in the carbon dioxide needed to photosynthesise, nor can they get rid of the carbon dioxide from their own respiration.

The mineral nutrients they need which are normally dissolved in the water of their environment, cannot be obtained, because there is no water around them any more. So they die.

But, as the article says:

“Clues to the history of such organisms lie within the chemical "spelling"—the sequence similarity—of the organisms' genes. The closer they resemble each other, the closer they are related.”

Here is proof positive that this technique is fundamentally flawed. Whichever higher plant the gene sequences show the closest similarity to, the relationship is really non-existent. An alga cannot crawl out, wade out, or anything else from water and survive for any length of time. Certainly not long enough to reproduce and produce a higher taxon. Therefore, if the gene sequences say that the alga’s closest relative is a redwood, then the interpretation of that sequence data is nonsensical.

Most algae reproduce vegetatively. Therefore there is no, or very very reduced possibility of introducing genetic variability. The sexual reproductive methods, are very complex, and show no indication of having evolved. Some useful diagrams are here: http://kentsimmons.uwinnipeg.ca/16cm05/16lab05/lb1pg7.htm

Read, and ask yourself, how did the plant figure out how to do this?

What is common to BOTH types of reproduction, is that water is needed, no, essential. So even if an alga crawled, waded, whatever on to land (and why should it do so anyway?), it could not reproduce. End of evolution.

“He and several colleagues made it clear that today's multicellular plants, such as corn, cabbages and all the other greenery, arose from a single type of algae.”

I wonder how people can say this stuff with a straight face. And why they aren’t pelted with tomatoes and cabbages for talking such rubbish.

One of the reasons I'm arguing from scripture in this debate, is because of the logical, scriptural consequences of Romans 5, which no-one has yet addressed, and I'd like to hear how a TE can possibly square that circle.

[b]Falsification of evolution is impossible[/b]

The great problem with evolution theory, as many writers have pointed out, is that it cannot be falsified. Nothing can falsify it, and that makes it an article of faith. It also puts it on a par with faith in God. Now that I regard as serious.

I say that it cannot be falsified for the following reasons:

1 If it has been seen to occur (it never has, as far as I know) that's proof of evolution(see, it happened!)

2 If it has not been seen to occur, that's proof too. (Never mind, we know it did, pat pat).

3 If it can account for the origin of anything, that's proof. (see, that's proof!)

4 If it can't, then that's proof too. (Ah the evidence hasn't emerged as yet).

It simply cannot be falsified and therefore it is not a scientific theory. Popper says so.

One patronising criticism one hears is 'that's found on a creationist site' as if that invalidates a fact! If one were to say, it's found on [i]talkorigins[/i], and is therefore invalidated, then who knows what wrath will descend? There's a double standard here.

It is also most curious and noteworthy that all of the modern evidence is based on molecular biology. There is no palaeontology or natural history that supports the theory, and to my mind that is the [i]second [/i]most ruinous fact about it.

Wednesday 19 May 2010

An Open Letter to Richard Dawkins

This is the text of a letter sent to 'Convert's Corner' on Richard Dawkins.net Whether it will ever see the light of day there is very doubtful, as my experience tells me that they are not at all willing to publish material which stabs the sacred cow where it hurts. I'll keep an eye open for it, but as I say, I'm not hopeful.

Dear Dr Dawkins

You have written such books as the Blind Watchmaker whose descriptions I have read, and to be frank, could not better myself. Your description of the bats and their echolocation devices is unsurpassable.

You described feats of biological engineering which the US Military even today is investigating with a view to emulating them - by so far do they exceed their existing missile tracking and echolocating devices in planes and submarines.

You look at the flying capacities of bats, which in terms of body length per hour, far exceed the speeds of F-14 Phantom jets. The little animals achieve all this flying with their fingers, yet.

Their insect-catching capacity is at the rate of about 5 per minute: and the insects are dodging and weaving – and still being caught. The calculations defy belief – yet they do occur, so effectively that the bats are one of the most successful groups of living animals today, being about 20% of all known mammal species.

And all this, you say, ‘evolved’ by little steps.

For shame, sir.

Such claims insult the intelligence of your readers. Anyone, such as yourself, who could look at an F-14 Phantom jet and say it evolved by little steps, without direct intelligent guidance and construction, would rightly attract the speculative psychiatric eye, and MacDonnell Douglas would probably have your shirt for slandering their splendid aeronautical engineers and their years of work.

Yet, the bats are far superior to the jets. They can reproduce themselves – and no jet can even begin to do that. This capacity is beyond even the imagination of the aeronautical engineers. They may dream about it, but that’s all. And here are the bats doing just that from the early Eocene, that’s over 50 milion years ago, as I’m sure I don’t need to remind you.

Curiously enough, the very earliest bats possess the echolocation apparatus. The very earliest has been shown to use a form of laryngeal echolocation. And there the situation stands: they emerged at one go, it seems, with no discernible ancestors. Where are your ‘little steps’ of evolution then? Nonexistent, of course.

Such factual information as this hews great holes in any theory of evolution. And we haven’t even touched the greatest problem of all yet: where did the instincts which power the flight of the bats come from? Where did they originate, and how did they enter the genome? Please answer that if you will.

So I regret that I am not one joining the universal paean of praise for your alleged excellence. I can see the holes in the road before you far too clearly to be taken in by your fantasising.

Yours faithfully

Asyncritus

Tuesday 9 February 2010

The Migration of the European Eels

The recent BBC program about eel migration has highlighted another great defeat for evolutionary theory by the phenomenon of instinctive behaviour.

In essence, eels (which grow to maturity in freshwater rivers, pools, streams, ponds) leave their growing areas, and make their way down to the sea. They even swim across wet grasslands in order to get into the rivers which will take them down to the sea.

Question: How do they know that they have to get to the sea, and how do they know that the rivers are flowing to the sea?

When they reach the sea off the coasts of the UK, they are immediately faced with a huge problem.

Salt water is extremely different in physical and chemical properties to fresh water, and usually, an organism which lives in the one kind of water will not survive in the other kind. The osmotic factors alone are very, very different.

But they survive somehow. How did natural selection produce such an organism one wonders.

They then swim to join one of the great south-flowing currents of the ocean, and in that way piggy-back on it, and save energy, and increase their speed of travel.

"The researchers suggest that what they do is swim down to Africa and then hitch a ride on a fast-moving ocean current which helps them to speed up and get the rest of the way much more quickly." http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news/news/1817/

They are headed for the Sargasso Sea, no less, all of 3,000 miles away to the south west.

It has not been observed, but scientists believe that they spawn there - and then, the adults die.

Millions of young eels are produced: transparent slivers of tissue: so transparent in fact that they are called glass eels. One can read a newspaper through them, it is claimed.

And these little pieces of living tissue now begin their 3,000 mile journey back to the freshwater pool, stream, lake where their parents came from. And they make it.

The details are sketchy, but in outline this is what happens, and is well known.

At once, evolution theory is rendered impotent. I have yet to see mention of the word 'evolution' in the accounts I've read - though there's got to be some plank who will mention the E word.There is no number of 'small beneficial variations' which can bring this titanic migration about. Consider - there is a journey of about 6,000 miles involved here. Underwater, at that.

In the air, as with the Capistrano swallows, it may be possible (though unlikely) for the birds to use visible landmarks to help in their navigation - maybe the stars or whatever.

The eels swim at a depth of 3000 feet during the day, and come up to shallower waters during the night:

"But one of the really intriguing bits of data was that the eels change their height in the water column between day and night. So during the daytime, they swim much deeper. They go down to about a thousand metres and at night time, they come up close to the surface." http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news/news/1817/

So stars,landmarks, whatever are unavailable - and yet they do it.

Navigating at a depth of 3000 feet in a submarine is a tricky business, requiring some very sophisticated equipment, especially if the destination is 3000 miles away. Yet this is exactly what the eels do, WITHOUT any equipment at all.

Just as remarkable as the Pacific Golden Plover, which we already described, the young migrate back home with no guidance whatsoever, and make it (apart from those, of course, that die, or are trapped in their millions by fishermen).

There is no way evolution can account for the phenomenon. The information is obviously inborn into the fish. But how did it get there? And again, we note that the whole information packet had to spring full blown to birth, or the eels and their young would have been lost long, long ago in the trackless depths and wastes of the deep ocean.

If the information is correct, there are fossil eels dating back 95 million years. So they haven't got lost in all that length of time. Whether they were making the same journey then is obviously unknown, but there's no good reason to suppose that they didn't.

So we have another evolutionary brick wall. When are we going to discard this useless theory?

http://www.fossil-museum.com/fossils/fosil.php?Id=404


One of the mysteries of the animal kingdom is the long-distance migration (5000–6000 km) of the European eel Anguilla anguilla L. from the coasts of Europe to its spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea. The only evidence for the location of the spawning site of the European eel in the Sargasso Sea is the discovery by Johannes Schmidt at the beginning of the previous century of the smallest eel larvae (leptocephali) near the Sargasso Sea. For years it has been questioned whether the fasting eels have sufficient energy reserves to cover this enormous distance. We have tested Schmidt's theory by placing eels in swim tunnels in the laboratory and allowing them to make a simulated migration of 5500 km. We find that eels swim 4–6 times more efficiently than non-eel-like fish. Our findings are an important advance in this field because they remove a central objection to Schmidt's theory by showing that their energy reserves are, in principle, sufficient for the migration. Conclusive proof of the Sargasso Sea theory is likely to come from satellite tracking technology.

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/news/news/1817/

Tuesday 2 February 2010

The Peregrine Falcon

by Vishesh Jain

Comments by Asyncritus

I was astonished to read the following blog article today, and take the liberty of reproducing it in its entirety.

The author Vishesh Jain is connected to Harker, which publishes a blog here:harkerbio.blogspot.com/ from which this article is copied in full. It is a marvellous description of this wonderful bird, and gives full rein to the inquirer's questions about just how this creature could have obtained the instinct package which powers its fantastic behaviour.

harkerbio.blogspot.com/

The Peregrine Falcon: Fastest Animal on the Planet
Peregrine Falcons are raptors with keen eyes, strong wings, powerful beaks, and tremendous speed. Outside their nesting season, peregrine falcons earn their name by traveling extensively, as much as 15,500 miles a year. Once endangered by DDT and human development, they have rebounded and are now found all over the world. Though they prefer open spaces such as plains and sea coasts, they live everywhere from tundra to desert to cityscape.

Peregrine falcons are known for their speed. When they plummet to catch an unsuspecting pigeon below them, they can reach velocities over 200 miles per hour (320 km/h). That's over a fourth of the speed of sound. Zoom. But what's also fascinating about these remarkable birds are the adaptations that allow them to use such power.

The Eyes:
If a peregrine falcon is flying or perched over a kilometer in the air, as they often are, it would be useful, perhaps, to be able to see what it's trying to strike. While they're no mantis shrimp in terms of spectral range, they do indeed have some of the keenest eyes on the planet. With full color vision and rapidly focusing lenses, their eyes have a resolving power up to 8 times greater than humans, enabling them to spot prey miles away and keep track of it while approaching at breakneck speed.

The Shape:
To achieve 70 mph speeds in pursuit of prey and 200 mph plummets to attack those below, the peregrine falcon has one of the most streamlined bodies in the air. The curved wings create an air foil effect in multiple dimensions, maximizing maneuverability, lift, and speed.

The Wings:
Besides the streamlined structure of the wings themselves, peregrine falcons maximize speed in every way possible. In pursuit, it can flap its wings up to four times a second, and in its dive it is able to let gravity pull it down with negligible air resistance, locking its wings in place to create minimum drag. The feathers themselves are stiff, slim, and unslotted, allowing them to literally slip through the air as they attack. As in all birds, their wings are hollow, enhancing flight and maneuverability in the air.

The Power:
Small tubercles and bones in the nose prevent the immense air pressure from flowing into and rupturing their respiratory system. In addition to tons of strong red muscle fibers, peregrine falcons have one-way lungs, like most birds, to maximize oxygen intake. To achieve torpedo-like speed both horizontally and vertically, peregrine falcons have an enormous keel, part of the sternum. As the attachment site for flight muscles, the larger the keel, the more powerful the flight, and this makes these birds some of the fastest in the world.

The Attack:
Now, if you were to drop a couple hundred stories, you'd probably be going pretty fast too. The question, then, is whether you'd be able to catch something, halt your dive, and be in a medical condition to eat it. From the muscle, to the talons, to the beak, these raptors are serious predators. When their keen eyes finish guiding their dive into their prey, if the impact of 200mph razor-sharp talons hitting a poor pigeon's back doesn't kill it, the tomial tooth of their strong beak can break the stunned bird's spine in a second. Then the falcon can leisurely eat it in the air or on the ground, after plucking its feathers, of course.

A National Geographic video tracking a peregrine falcon's flight speeds from the air.


-Vishesh Jain
Image Sources and Cool Links:

Speed and Strike:
Extreme Science - Fastest on Earth
HowStuffWorks - How Do Peregrine Falcons Fly So Fast?
National Geographic - High-Velocity Falcons

Endangered:
Science Daily: Peregrine Falcons May Face New Environmental Threat
Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences: The Return of the Peregrine Falcons
Texas Parks and Wildlife: Peregrine Falcon

General:
Cornell Lab of Ornithology - Peregrine Falcon
National Geographic - Peregrine Falcon
University of Wisconsin - BioWeb: Peregrine Falcon

Images:
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service - Ozzie
Raptor Guide Gallery - Peregrine Falcon
TreeHugger - DDT Redux
Jerry Ting - Peregrine Falcon
Audubon - Signature Species: Peregrine Falcon
Posted by Harker Bio at 10:45 PM

Sunday 31 January 2010

The Infinite Loop : An Evolutionary Noose

There are very many of these infinite loops in the biological world - and they cannot be closed or broken into apart from divine creation or intervention.

Here is one of the biggest.

The Cyanobacteria

The cyanobacteria are one of the earliest forms of life known, if not the earliest. They date back to 3.5 BILLION YEARS ago. So they say, anyway.

The cyanobacteria perform 2 functions which are absolutely mind-blowing, when you consider that they are probably the earliest form of life on the planet. They are found in huge bundles called stromatolites in many places on the earth's surface.

They carry out photosynthesis - which means that they possess that most complex system of biochemicals which includes chlorophyll.

Even more staggering, they fix atmospheric nitrogen directly. They convert the totally inert gas directly into biological compounds which other living things can use after the c-b's have died.

Now here's the noose, sorry, loop.

DNA is made up of molecules called nucleotides. Nucleotides can't be made without fixed nitrogen, because nitrogen gas simply does not combine with anything - especially not at temperatures at which life can survive.

Also, amino-acids, that essential component of proteins, cannot be made without fixed nitrogen.

So proteins cannot be made without amino-acids, which cannot be made without fixed nitrogen, which cannot be made without cyanobacteria.

The cyanobacteria cannot reproduce or make proteins without DNA, and both proteins and DNA REQUIRE fixed nitrogen.

So the circle closes permanently.

Without cyanobacteria - no fixed nitrogen is available.

Without fixed nitrogen, no DNA, no amino-acids, no protein can be synthesised.

Without DNA, no amino-acids,protein, or cyanobacteria are possible.

There are several other points here, in addition.

These bacteria also photosynthesise (a process requiring a large number of proteins, both in the execution of the reactions, and in the structure of the membranes of the chloroplasts). Let's say 30 for argument's sake.

They fix nitrogen - and so require that marvellous enzyme nitrogenase, which is really a combination of 2 separate enzymes, proteins to be precise.

None of these, as shown above, can be made without fixed nitrogen.

Nitrogen cannot be fixed without them. So which came first, the chicken or the egg?

But wait, cyanobacteria are facultative anaerobes - meaning that they can respire either aerobically or anaerobically.

The complexity of two respiratory cycles is very high: the Krebs cycle alone requiring about 12 enzymes, and the anaerobic requiring somewhat fewer, say 8.

So in order for the cyanobacteria to survive, about 40 enzymes are already involved - none of which can be made without fixed nitrogen. But the c-b's are doing the fixing! So the noose tightens.

Abiogenesis research is time-wasting. There is no way to break into this loop, which is a prime requirement if life originated from non-life.

Of course, it couldn't, and didn't.

Sunday 24 January 2010

The Cyanobacteria: Evolution's Ignored Nightmare

INTRODUCTION

THE NITROGEN CYCLE

I am, and have long been, impressed with the great cycles in nature.

We see, inter alia, the carbon dioxide cycle, the oxygen cycle, the rain cycle and the nitrogen cycle.

Of these four, the nitrogen cycle has been of the greatest interest to me, because of its colossal importance to the survival of agriculture in all its forms.

We are faced with a tremendous problem, because nitrogen is one of the least reactive gases known, excepting only the rare gases of group 8 in the periodic table, such as helium. It just doesn't combine with anything under ordinary conditions.

The problem arises, of course, because nitrogen is an essential constituent of proteins and other substances, all needed for life to survive. No nitrogen: no proteins, no enzymes, no life. (By the way, when I say 'essential' I mean that survival is impossible without it.)

So how does nitrogen become available to living organisms? How could it?

The Almighty, as usual, has the answer that works perfectly.

Nitrogen becomes available in 3 ways:

1 Lightning discharges, at 30,000 deg C, force the combination of nitrogen and oxygen, to produce nitrogen dioxide, which dissolves in rain water to form nitric and nitrous acids, which then combine with compounds in the soil to produce nitrates and nitrites - which are utilisable by plants. So that's number one.

2 In the root nodules of leguminous plants, the bacterium Rhizobium leguminosarum has a symbiotic relationship with the plant. It 'fixes' atmospheric nitrogen, making it available to the plant, and in return, the plant provides the bacterium with salts etc for its survival. Curiously, haemoglobin is formed in the nodules too. It's role is not yet known with certainty, but researchers agree that it must have a function there.

Which, of course, drips another drop of poison into the evolutionist's already bitter cup: what on earth is haemoglobin doing in such a place? How does evolutionary biochemistry account for its existence? Well, easy. It can't. So nuts to evolutionary biochemistry.

3 By far, the greatest contribution to nitrogen fixation comes from the cyanobacteria. These bacteria have 'evolved (ho ho!)' the ability to take nitrogen from the air, [I wonder how they figured that little trick out???] convert it into their cellular material, and on dying, decompose and make nitrogen available to the soil. Without them, life would surely perish.

Just as an aside, it wasn't until 1918 that Haber and Bosch received  nobel prizes for inventing the process which took nitrogen from the air to make ammonia, using catalysts and very high temperatures. That's how difficult it is to do industrially. Yet, here were these little bacteria doing it for the last n billion years. At ambient temperature, give or take diurnal variation!!! So who deserves that Nobel Prize?

So in the beginning, not only was lack of oxygen a gigantic problem, but the lack of nitrogen was no less so. In order for the anaerobic organisms, whatever they might have been, to generate oxygen in quantity, they simply HAD to have nitrogen in their tissues (as enzymes etc). With nitrogen as unreactive as it is, then how did they fix it? The advanced nitrogen fixers hadn't 'evolved' yet.

So yet another evolutionary brick wall stares us in the face.


The Cyanobacteria - Evolution's Ignored nightmare
Section 1

I had not realised just how titanic a problem the cyanobacteria present to the theory of evolution. It is obvious that the Creator knew what was required for the continuance and maintenance of His Creation, and took all reasonable steps,requiring stupendous intelligence to make sure the Creation got what it needs now, and needed then.

Here is the story of those marvellous little organisms, the Cyanobacteria. Present from the beginning, and exactly the same today as they were then, they furnish us with absolute proof that evolution simply does not work. It doesn’t explain their origin, it hasn’t got the time available for them to originate by the chance combination of nucleotides or whatever, and it cannot explain their stability of design.

Apart from viruses and phages, they are the ‘simplest’ organisms known. And yet, despite their early origin, they possess those most complex substances, DNA, RNA, proteins and most impossible of all for evolution to explain, nitrogenase and chlorophyll. Where did all this complexity come from so early on? The quotes show that they appeared fully formed, and highly complex 3.3 to 3.5 BILLION years ago. The oldest rocks are only 3.8 billion years old – so there isn’t a gap there big enough to allow an evolutionary rat to squeeze through.

Creation is the only explanation of these facts.

Look at this description from JSTOR, which shows the complexity of the organisms.

“Prokaryotic genomes are considered to be ‘wall-to-wall’ genomes, which consist largely of genes for proteins and structural RNAs, with only a small fraction of the genomic DNA allotted to intergenic regions, which are thought to typically contain regulatory signals.” http://nar.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/co...ull/30/19/4264


Section 2

1 Their Extreme Age

"One of the earliest types of bacteria were the cyanobacteria. Fossil evidence indicates that bacteria shaped like these existed approximately 3.3 billion years ago and were the first oxygen-producing evolving phototropic organisms..."

They have the distinction of being the oldest known fossils, more than 3.5 billion years old, in fact! It may surprise you then to know that the cyanobacteria are still around; they are one of the largest and most important groups of bacteria on earth.

The oldest known fossils are cyanobacteria from Archaean rocks of western Australia, dated 3.5 billion years old. This may be somewhat surprising, since the oldest rocks are only a little older: 3.8 billion years old.

2 Their absolute perfection

Cyanobacteria are among the easiest microfossils to recognize. Morphologies in the group have remained much the same for billions of years, and they may leave chemical fossils behind as well, in the form of breakdown products from pigments.

They photosynthesize like all other autotrophic bacteria and are just as efficient.



3 Their Complexity

The cyanobacteria are PROKARYOTES, not eukaryotes like the algae.

They contain chlorophyll, enclosed in chloroplasts.

Although they are truly prokaryotic, cyanobacteria have an elaborate and highly organized system of internal membranes which function in photosynthesis. Chlorophyll a and several accessory pigments (phycoerythrin and phycocyanin) are embedded in these photosynthetic lamellae, the analogs of the eukaryotic thylakoid membranes. The photosynthetic pigments impart a rainbow of possible colors: yellow, red, violet, green, deep blue and blue-green cyanobacteria are known.

Here's a diagram of a chloroplast:



4 Their critical role in life support

The oxygen atmosphere that we depend on was generated by numerous cyanobacteria during the Archaean and Proterozoic Eras. Before that time, the atmosphere had a very different chemistry, unsuitable for life as we know it today.

They were responsible for the initial conversion of the earth's atmosphere from an anoxic state to an oxic state (that is, from a state without oxygen to a state with oxygen) during the period 2.7 to 2.2 billion years ago. Being the first to carry out oxygenic photosynthesis, they were able to produce oxygen while sequestering carbon dioxide in organic molecules, playing a major role in oxygenating the atmosphere.

Cyanobacteria also play a major role in the nitrogen cycle. They are able to convert atmospheric nitrogen into its organic form. All plants use organic nitrogen as a nutrient to promote growth. Without this source of nitrogen, the plants would die. Cyanobacteria are one of the few types of organisms that are able to make this conversion from atmospheric to organic nitrogen.

Sources: Several articles on cyanobacteria.

Thursday 21 January 2010

Tiktaalik and the Tetrapods

The evolution of tetrapods (4-footed animals) has remained a mystery.

It is absolutely remarkable that evolutionists can even begin to think that fishes evolved into four-footed amphibians, but that is exactly what they think. To be fair, they do admit that the gaps are wide, but they have suddenly become wider.

First, here are a couple of quotes to show that they do admit that the gaps are wide:

“The relationship of limbed vertebrates (tetrapods) to lobe-finned fish (sarcopterygians) is well established,[yeah, Like the coelacanth?] but the origin of major tetrapod features has remained obscure for lack of fossils that document the sequence of evolutionary changes.

(Edward B. Daeschler, Neil H. Shubin, and Farish A. Jenkins, “A Devonian tetrapod-like fish and the evolution of the tetrapod body plan,” Nature Vol 440: 757-763 (April 6, 2006))


"It has long been clear that limbed vertebrates (tetrapods) evolved from osteolepiform lobefinned fishes3, but until recently the morphological gap between the two groups remained frustratingly wide. The gap was bounded at the top by primitive Devonian tetrapods such as Ichthyostega and Acanthostega from Greenland, and at the bottom by Panderichthys, a tetrapod-like predatory fish from the latest Middle Devonian of Latvia (Fig. 1)."

(Jennifer A. Clack & Per Erik Ahlberg, "A firm step from water to land," Nature 440:747-749 (April 6, 2006); emphasis added)

It is truly astonishing how presumably competent biologists can fool themselves.

There are so many simply gigantic problems involved in the supposed transition from fish to amphibian or reptile that are simply swept under the carpet, it leads one to wonder where these people got their qualifications.

The veriest child knows that any fish, like its goldfish,left out of water, will shortly die.

Its gills are designed to function in water, and simply cannot do so in the air. Therefore, whichever fish the evolutionist cares to choose as the fancied ancestor of amphibian or reptile had to overcome this basic problem first.

To put it simply, it is just plain stupid to think that could happen.

Every day thousands of fish caught by fishermen die in the air. That's thousands of experiments being carried out to show that no fish can survive out of water. NOT ONE SUCH FISH HAS SURVIVED FOR ANY LENGTH OF TIME. Ask any fisherman!

Here's an idiotic statement (typical of this kind of foolish thinking):

"Most scientists believe the amphibians evolved (developed gradually) from the lobe-finned fish. Lobe-finned fish had lungs and enlarged fins supported by bones and muscles. They could use their fins as legs to come out of the water for brief periods. These fins probably developed into amphibian legs.
http://www.worldbook.com/wb/Students?content_spotlight/dinosaurs/creatures_fish

Ever heard such nonsense?

The fish crept out on land for brief periods - and asphyxiated. The faster they asphyxiated, the faster they evolved! It's hard to credit the stupidity of that idea, but because it emerged from some university, it is supposed to be an intelligent concept. The most stupid fisherman could tell those professors that they're wrong, mad, or on mushrooms.

I don't know which. You must choose, dear reader.

But that's not the only problem!

Look at these diagrams of the skeleton of a fish and a tetrapod:



http://www.infovisual.info/02/034_en.html

Let's make the first point here.

Look at the 'pectoral fin' and the 'pelvic fin'.

Do you see that neither of them IS CONNECTED TO THE BACKBONE IN ANY WAY, either directly or indirectly?

OK. That's a typical bony fish.

Now here's the skeleton of a frog, a typical amphibian.



http://www.k-state.edu/organismic/images/frog_skeleton.jpg

See any differences? Yes, of course.

There are bones in the frog's forelimbs, AND THEY ARE CONNECTED TO THE scapula (shoulder blade) WHICH IS A PART OF THE AXIAL SKELETON as it's called.

There is NO connection between the fins of a fish and the axial skeleton.

QUESTION: How the connection ever made?

ANSWER: It wasn't.

Now look at the star performers in the Tetrapod Evolution Circus Parade.




Do you see any connection between these things and the fins of fish? Look back at the fins of the bony fish above, and decide for yourself.

Now suppose, and we'll use Tiktaalik as an example that this fish ever came out on to land. I said 'fish' because that's what the discoverers called it. Here's wiki on the subject:

Tiktaalik is a genus of extinct sarcopterygian (lobe-finned) fish

Give the artists half a chance, and they'd have Tiktaalik flying! Here's a picture of one - just before it dashed back into the water before it dried out! Or is it dead because it dried out?

What reason does it have for being there anyway? After all, its food is in the water and has been for millions of years. Or has it just decided to take a walk to stretch its non-existent legs?



Just listen to Shubin (guess what, he was one of the discoverers of Tikaalik, and is busy hyping it up, with no evidence at all beside his overheated imagination) "It probably had lungs as well as gills, and it had overlapping ribs that could be used to support the body against gravity, Shubin said.

Did you get that? This creature (which, Clack, one of the other discoverers said was more like a fish than anything else) PROBABLY HAD LUNGS AS WELL AS GILLS!

Now what was it doing with both - and most important of all WHY did it have them, and HOW DID IT GET THEM?

There's another serious point which is never mentioned. In most fishes, the pelvic fins are a lot SMALLER than the pectoral fins. In ALL TETRAPODS, the hind limbs are the biggest, usually by a long way. Think of a kangaroo, the most extreme example. How did that arrangement come about?

Marvellous.

But let's now apply the instinct test.

Here's a fish, breathing with gills. It has the instincts to do so.

Here's a creature breathing with lungs AND gills. Allegedly.

Quite apart from the stupidity of a fish evolving the physical structures of lungs - and they are TOTALLY DIFFERENT TO GILLS - which would have filled up with water, drowning the poor brute, where did it get the instincts from TO USE the lungs, if its ancestors had been doing quite well, thank you, with gills before that?

To use our famous little diagram again:

Fish F (using gills) ------ X ------> Tiktaalik (using gills AND LUNGS)

What happened at X?

Tiktaalik was considered to be one of the ancestors of tetrapods, with much blowing of trumpets and evolutionist chortling.

Alas, alas! Woe is them, they are undone!

This very month (Jan 2010) an article was published in Nature which caused one of the editors (Henry Gee) to write this:

The best discoveries are those that overturn current thinking, revealing that what we thought, only yesterday, to have been a coherent and complete picture, is in fact a void that no discoveries can yet fill. Such is the report in tomorrow’s Nature (Niedźwiedzki et al., 463, 43-48, 7 January 2010) of footprints left by tetrapods (four legged land vertebrates) eighteen million years older than the earliest known tetrapod fossils, and ten million years older than the fossils of the creatures thought to be the closest relatives of tetrapods. A fairly complete picture of tetrapod evolution, built up over the past twenty years, has been replaced by a blank canvas overnight.

In other words, it's "Back to the drawing board, fellow evolutionist guessers! It was all wrong, dammit!"

You really must read the article. It's here: http://network.nature.com/people/henrygee/blog/2010/01/05/first-footing

But this tetrapod thing was a major plank in the support for evolution, with new 'transitional fossils' being found at a rate of knots every day!

So what's going to happen next month? Where are you going to run, dear evolutionists, if another major plank is blasted next month?

And they will be. Just you wait and see.


NEW! HOT OFF THE PRESS!!


“HOW DOES INSTINCT EVOLVE”

OR

Evolution's Soft Underbelly
by Asyncritus


AT LAST!

The Argument Darwin Dreaded…
The Argument No-One Has Developed Before…
The Argument to Which There Is

NO ANSWER FROM THE EVOLUTIONISTS!


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MY NEW BOOK: HOW DOES INSTINCT EVOLVE


NEW! HOT OFF THE PRESS!!


“HOW DOES INSTINCT EVOLVE”

OR

Evolution's Soft Underbelly
by Asyncritus


AT LAST!

The Argument Darwin Dreaded…
The Argument No-One Has Developed Before…
The Argument to Which There Is

NO ANSWER FROM THE EVOLUTIONISTS!


Nearly 50,000 viewers of my articles can’t all be wrong. Check Google for this subject and see!
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?board=17.30

140 pages of amazing facts and carefully reasoned arguments. Equip yourself! Give your children the knowledge to defend belief in Creation in class!

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THE EVOLUTION OF FLIGHT

Perhaps I may be allowed a few words on this, the most fatal argument against evolution.

Imagine reptile X no feathers, no wings.

Imagine some mutation (systemic, enormous as per Goldschmidt) and lo and behold, we have the first bird, B -as I said, warmblooded, fully feathered, with wings instead of reptile forelimbs, one way lung circulation instead of bellows arrangement, etc etc.

One may well say, that is a creative act, just taken place, but we'll let that pass.

Diagrammatically:

X (reptile) ----Mutation --------> B (bird, with wings etc)

Now what does B do?

One of 2 things:

a. gets eaten by the parent reptile who thinks it's food

b. attempts to fly off into the distance

BUT IT DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO FLY!!!


As we all know, flight training is a complex affair. If we were to put an untrained person into the cockpit of a fighter aircraft, saying 'Get on with it', disaster is guaranteed.

In order to fly, that bird MUST HAVE THE INSTINCTS REQUIRED. Else disaster is guaranteed. Those instincts are complex, and built into every flying bird.

We know that because young fledglings are shoved out of their parents' nests - AND THEY FLY OR DIE.

So we now have 2 diagrams:

X ------- M-------> B (without flight instincts)---> death/extinction)

or

X----M-----I.I ---->B (with flight instincts) ---> gone to Hawaii.

I.I = instinct implantation.

There can be NO intermediate steps. The bird either knew how to fly, or it died. If we postulate a gliding intermediate, then that too requires training/instinct.

I'm sure you would think twice before leaping off the top of a high tree or cliff if you didn't KNOW how to hang-glide.

So the question before us is, who or what implanted that instinct, and how?

NEWS FLASH!


NEW! HOT OFF THE PRESS!!


“HOW DOES INSTINCT EVOLVE”

OR

Evolution's Soft Underbelly
by Asyncritus


AT LAST!

The Argument Darwin Dreaded…
The Argument No-One Has Developed Before…
The Argument to Which There Is

NO ANSWER FROM THE EVOLUTIONISTS!


35,000 viewers of my articles can’t all be wrong. Check Google for this subject and see!
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140 pages of amazing facts and carefully reasoned arguments. Equip yourself! Give your children the knowledge to defend belief in Creation in class!

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THE BUCKET ORCHID



THE BUCKET ORCHID

Darwin in his book 'On the pollination and fertilisation of Orchids' included a description of the pollination of the Bucket Orchid, Coryanthes speciosa.

He was so surprised on receiving the description that until he checked and found that it was a respectable botanist who had made the report, he would not credit it.

The BBC have filmed it happening, and the film is probably available from them.

The orchid's labellum is shaped as a bucket, and above the bucket, on another petal, is a gland which secretes a liquid, probably water, which drips into the bucket and accumulates in it.
There are some photos here:
http://blogs.salon.com/0001330/categ...006/06/29.html

The bucket possesses three remarkable features.

1 Cut into the outer side of the bucket, away from the main flower structure, is a slit, which functions as an overflow: so when the liquid reaches a level about half a centimetre BELOW the upper edge of the bucket, it overflows, so at no time is it ever full to the brim.

2 On the opposite side, inside the bucket, and below the level of the liquid, is what looks for all the world like a little step.

3 The outer lip of the bucket is made of some material which is intensely attractive to the blue euglossine male bee.

The bees come and struggle to get at the lip of the bucket, and of course, in the struggles one falls in sooner or later.

Because the walls of the bucket are smooth, he cannot get a grip EXCEPT at the point where there is the aforementioned step. Wet and bedraggled, he climbs on to the step and out, right into the heart of the flower.

As he enters the tube formed by the other petals, he is suddenly clamped and held for a few moments, unable to move or escape, and on to his back, the anthers are pressed.


On the anthers, there is a glue, which takes exactly the same amount of time to dry, as he is held motionless. It dries, he buzzes off, and goes to another flower where the process is repeated - and so the pollen from the anthers reaches the stigma, thus fertilising the orchid.

Darwin also noted that a phenomenon known as pollinarium bending occurred. The term refers to the manner in which orchid pollinaria start to bend after an 18- to 20-second interval after attaching to a visiting insect. The bending mechanism prevents self-pollination of the orchid.

It so happens that only one species of bee comes to a particular species of Coryanthes.

The probability of these features coming together by chance is astronomically small.

1 The structure of the labellum as a bucket is remarkable in itself

2 The gland above is obviously placed there to produce the liquid for the bucket. Imagine it producing liquid with no bucket there, or a bucket there with no liquid coming!

3 The overflow is there for the designed purpose of preventing the liquid from flowing out, over the top of the bucket. If it could flow over the top, the bee, when he fell in, could simply float out over the edge, and thus defeat the purpose of the exercise.

4 The little step, contrived and placed there for the express purpose of preventing the bee drowning, also forces him to enter the heart of the flower.

5 The flower has a designed clamping action, with a timer built in, exactly matched to the drying time of the glue on the anthers.

6 The anthers stick to his back, and do not impede his flight to another plant after he has dried off.

7 The stigma of the flower is positioned on the top petal of the flower, to make sure that it is in the correct position to receive the pollen when the bee arrives. If it was on the underside of the flower, then it would never receive any pollen.

We won't go into the complexities of anther construction until the post on mitosis and meiosis are completed.

8 The glue on the anthers is exactly right for the purpose, and its chemical composition known, and the manufaturing technique as well.

Having read all that, it is no wonder that Darwin staggered at the description. He said that the orchids employed a 'beautiful contrivance' to avoid self pollination.

The question of how all this evolved clearly didn't arise in his mind, or else he pushed it to the back of it. But who contrived the contrivance?

Explanations?

NEWS FLASH!


NEW! HOT OFF THE PRESS!!


“HOW DOES INSTINCT EVOLVE”

OR

Evolution's Soft Underbelly
by Asyncritus


AT LAST!

The Argument Darwin Dreaded…
The Argument No-One Has Developed Before…
The Argument to Which There Is

NO ANSWER FROM THE EVOLUTIONISTS!


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THE FIG WASP

THE FIG WASP

I've put up some amazing things, but this is certainly one of the highest ranking. Judge for yourself.

The fig tree has a tightly closed inflorescence, which means that the hundreds of tiny flowers (florets to give them their proper name) are completely inclosed inside the fig. They can't be seen from the outside.



Each species of fig seems to be pollinated by only ONE species of wasp! There are about 730 species of fig so that would seem to require 730 species of wasp- but not all of these are known as yet.

How do the insects find the flowers?

When the tree is ready for pollination, it releases tree-specific volatile substances which the wasp tracks down to their source. Lo and behold, there's the flower, or the inflorescence, rather.

So the female finds the inflorescence. Thousands die in the search process though, because it's a big world out there.

How do they get in?

When she finds it, there is another big hurdle to cross. The entrance to the inflorescence (called the ostiole) is extremely small, and lined with bracts, which are placed there to keep out the unwanted. They fit tightly, and that makes life very difficult for the unwanted, but no less so for the wasp, to get in.

She, however, has been explicitly designed for this very task.

Her head and thorax (chest) are extremely flattened and elongated: just the job for squeezing past the bracts! ('Remarkably adapted' is the description. Ho ho ho!) Her 'teeth', on her mandibular apparatus, point backwards, and she's got teeth on her hind legs, also pointing backwards. They do so in order to prevent her from slipping out!



Her wings very often break off in the struggle to get in - so once in there, there's no way back.

Once inside, she sets about, in complete or nearly complete darkness, to pollinate the stigmas, and to lay eggs in some of the ovules. She distinguishes between those ovules which are going to become seeds, and those which are not.

Those ovules whose styles are too long for her ovipositor to reach the ovule, she simply pollinates.

Those ovules her ovipositor can reach, she leaves unpollinated, so they will only contain her larvae.

This makes certain that the plant will survive, and that her larvae will have food to eat.

What happens then? She dies. Her young never see her alive, and can't copy her actions - but they do exactly the same as she did.

As the eggs develop and hatch out into larvae, the eat the endosperm of the ovules they have been laid in, and they grow into adulthood.

The males mate with the females, and amazingly, chew a hole in the wall of the maturing or matured fig SO THAT THE FEMALES CAN GET OUT.

Then they die.


The females in the meantime, load up with pollen, or get covered in it, and then set off to find another flower inflorescence.

EVOLUTIONARY DIFFICULTIES

1 How do we explain the fact that the young never see the adult in action - and yet they do exactly the same as she does?

2 How do the males know that unless they dig a hole, the females won't get out, the plants won't get pollinated, and their own species will die out?

3 How is it that only the fig wasp pollinates the fig flowers? Without the wasp, as with the bucket orchid, the fig will die out, and without the fig, the wasp will die out?

4 How did the female 'develop' the elongated and flattened shape that enables her to get into the ostiole?

5 How is it thar her ovipositor length has become the determining factor in whether the ovules get pollinated or not? If it was too long, then no pollination would take place. If it was too short, then the eggs would not be laid. So who or what determined that length?

6 How did this relationship, as specific and complicated as it is, ever get started?

7 Where did the plant get the necessary chemical knowledge to produce the volatile substances which attract the wasps, and how did it know that it would attract them anyway?

8 Where did the insects get the brain to figure out that if they followed the scent, they would find a fig they could pollinate?

It happens, that once the fig is pollinated, and the females have left the fig, its colour and smell change, and it becomes attractive to the fruit eating community like birds, bats, monkeys etc etc.

Does God take thought for wasps? And figs? And birds? And monkeys? Obviously, He does!

Here's another account: http://figs4fun.com/Links/FigLink006a.pdf

The common fig is a member of the genus Ficus. Ficus is a large genus with some 2000 tropical and subtropical tree, shrub and vine species distributed around the whole world.

The fruit of all ficus species isthe syconium, an enlarged, fleshy and hollow peduncle bearing closely massed tiny flowers on its inner wall. The true fruits are tiny drupelets which develop from these flowers.

The problem is these flowers are borne on the inside of the syconium. They never open to the outside world like respectable roses, cabbages and oak trees.

How do they get pollinated?

That's their weird sex life. Hold on for this is complicated.

F. carica and some closely related species come in two basic forms: edible figs and caprifigs. Caprifigs are the host of the fig pollinator Blastophages psenes or fig wasp which lays its eggs in the caprifig's short-styled female flowers.

The male fig wasp grows, mates and dies inside the caprifig fruit in which he is born. The female is more adventuresome.

She leaves the caprifig fruit through its ostiole or eye (picking up a lot of pollen in the process) and flies off in search of a new fruit at the right stage of development in which to lay her eggs.

The kicker is this: female fig wasps lay so many eggs in each caprifig fruit that very few, if any, of the female flowers ever produce seeds. Not good for ficus species survival.

Evolution (or God, if you prefer) provided a solution: the edible fig.

The plant and fruit look just like those of the caprifig, but have two important differences: no male flowers, and the female flowers have long styles which prevent the fig wasp from laying her eggs.

If she enters the fruit of an edible fig, she searches desperately for, but finds no suitable female flowers. As she does, she scatters the pollen she picked up leaving the caprifig. And, this pollenizes (or caprifies) the edible fig. When caprified, each fruit will produce several hundred to several thousand seeds per fruit, depending on the variety.

Not so great for the individual fig wasp, but good for the ficus species. Overall, the situation benefits both figs and fig wasps. There are plenty of caprifigs to nourish the fig wasps and plenty of edible figs to produce fig seeds which develop into fig and caprifig plants.

NEWS FLASH!


NEW! HOT OFF THE PRESS!!


“HOW DOES INSTINCT EVOLVE”

OR

Evolution's Soft Underbelly
by Asyncritus


AT LAST!

The Argument Darwin Dreaded…
The Argument No-One Has Developed Before…
The Argument to Which There Is

NO ANSWER FROM THE EVOLUTIONISTS!


35,000 viewers of my articles can’t all be wrong. Check Google for this subject and see!
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?board=17.30

100 pages of amazing facts and carefully reasoned arguments. Equip yourself! Give your children the knowledge to defend belief in Creation in class!

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THE MIRACLE OF ILLOGIC

THE MIRACLE OF ILLOGIC


NEWS FLASH!


NEW! HOT OFF THE PRESS!!


“HOW DOES INSTINCT EVOLVE”

OR

Evolution's Soft Underbelly
by Asyncritus


AT LAST!

The Argument Darwin Dreaded…
The Argument No-One Has Developed Before…
The Argument to Which There Is

NO ANSWER FROM THE EVOLUTIONISTS!


35,000 viewers of my articles can’t all be wrong. Check Google for this subject and see!
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?board=17.30

100 pages of amazing facts and carefully reasoned arguments. Equip yourself! Give your children the knowledge to defend belief in Creation in class!

Get your copy here. Only $19.97 as pdf.
$27 plus $5 p&p in CDR format.






CDR Version






Published by phillauren.org


I am always amazed when I hear of some anthropologist finding a crude, brutishly made, blunt, prehistoric stone axe. Because, immediately, they leap upon it, with great cries of triumphant glee, crowing happily that our ancestors made it, and it was xyzanthropus wot did it n thousand years ago.

The product of human intelligence they cry! See, hominids made it. Or something else did. And look how advanced it is! Why, there's a slot here for the haft of the axe to fit in! And some indentations where the binding was attached to hold the device together. And look! There's a few skulls nearby with marks of an axe indented into them! That proves that xyzanthropus used tools as weapons! A tool maker, and a weapons maker! A mark of extremely advanced stages of human evolution!

Little realising that this is really a ton of garbage.

That blunt, crude stone axe is mark of human intelligence of very high order for the time, they say.

But then, the same evolutionary palaeontologist finds a fossilised flight feather. Or some tissue with DNA in it.

That flight feather, or fossil thereof, shows considerable amounts of aeronautical engineering skill, enabling us to know that the bird could and did fly. It is clearly designed for the purpose.

In the DNA are millions of coded, precisely detailed instructions, for the construction of that feather, far surpassing anything even modern Homo sapiens can construct.

And yet, they cannot see that that feather, and that DNA could not possibly have evolved. Nobody in their right senses would claim that the stone axe evolved. But they claim the feather and the DNA did.

It takes a Miracle of Illogic to make that leap.