The April 15, 2004 edition of BBC Online carried a
report headed "Genome reveals limb number recipe." The report, prepared by BBC
science writer Paul Rincon included a study (1) published in Nature
magazine concerning the genetic mechanism responsible for the pelvic spines
of sticklebacks, which the fish are believed to use for defence against predators.
Although those which live in salt water have spines, there are also examples
of spineless ones in fresh water.
According to the BBC report, scientists compared the genetic maps
of the spined and spineless species of sticklebacks and established that spine
production was linked to the gene Pitx1. Experiments on this gene showed that
the size of the spines could decrease according to the activities of the gene.
However, with regard to the gene sequence, no difference was found between the
two species, although differences were determined in terms of the regions where
the gene is expressed. It was established that in the larvae of those fish with
pelvic spines the gene Pitx1 is expressed strongly in various regions, including
the pelvic area, although it is not expressed in the region where spines would
normally grow in those fish which lack them.
The researchers interpreted the results from an evolutionist perspective,
maintaining in the BBC report that these offered important clues as to how rapid
changes came about in the so-called evolution of animal species. The scientists
in question also expressed their belief that during the alleged evolutionary
process snakes and whales could have lost their feet by a similar mechanism.
However, the way that this research is presented as evidence for
evolution is solely based on preconception. The findings obtained in the research
were taken out of the framework of observed phenomena and adopted as a dogma,
and made to fit in with wide-ranging speculation (such as that of the evolution
of whales). The error in interpreting the finding reported on the BBC as proof
of evolution is set out below.
The alleged of evolution of whales is treated as a scientific fact
on the BBC. This scenario assumes that a dog-like mammal living by the
edge of the sea began to live in the water and turned into a whale following
a series of adaptations. This scenario is as fictitious as the transformation
it proposes is complex and wide-ranging. The arguments evolutionists put forward
to support this imaginary scenario are limited to specious interpretations of
a very small number of fossils. (You can find an article on this subject here)
Moreover, marine mammals have their own unique characteristics
(physiological features regarding vision and communication in the water) that
are absent in land mammals. The claim that these evolved from land mammals imposes
on its proponents the responsibility of showing how new genetic information
belonging to these features could have come about. According to the theory of
evolution, these specific features must have come about with the addition over
time of new genetic information to a land mammal's DNA. However, evolutionists
are completely at a loss to explain how the whale could have acquired new genetic
information during this imaginary process. That is because there are no scientific
findings at all that might support this. Experiments and studies in the field
of genetics over a period of a hundred years or so have revealed not a single
such finding for evolutionists to put forward. The countless studies in this
field have shown that mutations have never brought about new genetic data and
have never produced new species or characteristics.
The well-known evolutionist geneticist Professor R. Goldschmidt
admitted this in 1952:
It is true that nobody thus far has produced a new species or
genus, etc., by macromutation [a combination of many mutations]; it is equally
true that nobody has produced even a species by the selection of micromutations
[one or only a few mutations]. In the best-known organisms, like Drosophila,
innumerable mutants are known. If we were able to combine a thousand or more
of such mutants in a single individual, this still would have no resemblance
whatsoever to any type known as a [new] species in nature. (2)
In an article titled "How Are New Species Formed?," published in
the scientific journal New Scientist in 2003, the biologist George
Turner made the following confession:
Not long ago, we thought we knew how species formed. We believed
that the process almost always started with complete isolation of populations.
It often occurred after a population had gone through a severe "genetic bottleneck",
as might happen after a pregnant female was swept off to a remote island and
her offspring mated with each other. The beauty of this so-called "founder
effect" model was that it could be tested in the lab. In reality, it just
didn't hold up.Despite evolutionary biologists' best efforts, nobody has even
got close to creating a new species from a founder population. What's more,
as far as we know, no new species has formed as a result of humans releasing
small numbers of organisms into alien environments.(3)
As we have seen, despite all the laboratory research, no results
that might constitute evidence for such macro-evolutionary scenarios as the
evolution of the whale have ever been obtained. The study reported on the BBC
does nothing to ease the evolutionist dilemma in this sphere. That is because
there is no question in it of new genetic information being added to whale DNA
in any manner whatsoever, and the genetic mechanism under discussion functions
according to existing genetic information.
Conclusion:
Presenting this study as evidence for the whale evolution scenario
stems from the fact that the BBC has adopted evolution as a dogma right
from the outset. When the findings in question are looked at objectively it
can be seen that they offer no support at all for imaginary macro-evolutionary
scenarios. Our advice to the BBC is that it take pains to remain within
the bounds of the objective facts in reporting scientific research, and we call
upon it to put an end to the support it gives to unscientific scenarios solely
for the sake of Darwinism.
1 Shapiro et al., "Genetic and developmental basis of evolutionary
pelvic reduction in threespine sticklebacks," Nature 428, 15 April
2004, pp. 717 - 723
2 Richard B. Goldschmidt, "Evolution, As viewed by One Geneticist", American
Scientist, vol. 40 (January 1952), p. 94
3 George Turner, "How Are New Species Formed?", New Scientist, vol.
178, issue 2399, 14 June 2003, p. 32
