Tuesday 15 February 2011

Those "missing links" may be missing because evolution may be going in the opposite direction

...avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: I Timothy 6:20b (KJV)
Turn away from godless chatter ad the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, I Timothy 6:20b (NIV)

Christians, of course, have no right to question any evolutionist dogma, since evolution is "science." However, a Université de Montréal biochemist questions whether evolution necessarily involves moving from the simple to the complex. As reported by EScience News, February 10, 2011:

Evolution is not a steady march towards ever more sophisticated beings and therefore the search for the living "missing links" is pointless, according to findings published by a team of researchers led by Dr. Hervé Philippe of the Université de Montréal's Department of Biochemistry. "Aristotle was the first to classify organisms – from the least to the most sophisticated. Darwin's theory of evolution continued this idea, with the concept of a hierarchy of evolution. This way of thinking has led researchers and skeptics alike to look for less sophisticated ancestors in order to prove or disprove evolution," Philippe explained. "What we now know is that evolution does not happen in a single direction – when people talk about a missing link, they're generally excluding the possibility of more sophisticated ancestors." The researchers compared the genomes of two kinds of marine worms with simple morphology – Xenoturbellida and Acoelomorpha – with those of other animals. They demonstrated that their previous position at the base of the bilateral symmetry animal group – that includes insects, mollusks and vertebrates – was inaccurate. "Instead, we determined that Xenoturbellida and Acoelomorpha are closely related to the complex deuterostomes, which is a major lineage containing sea urchins, humans and sharks," Philippe said. "I've put them in that order intentionally because it seems strange, which demonstrates our tendency to always put organisms in order of complexity." The findings mean that the worms had evolved from a more sophisticated ancestor through major simplifications.

1 comment:

  1. Complex organism to worm: major simplification. Were there any transitional steps that we can look for in the fossil record to prove this theory?

    So something like a human or shark one day give birth to a worm? (I wonder who nursed them) Maybe men better pay closer attention to when their wive give birth; one of their children could have had a twin squirming around but nobody ever knew about it. Thanks Dr. Philippe.

    ReplyDelete