Chicken, Silkworm Genomes Published
Now that the chicken genome has made the cover of Nature1 and the silkworm genome has been published in Science2 this week, evolutionists are busily mining the data for clues to evolutionary ancestry of very disparate groups of animals, says EurekAlert (also here and here). For example, in the paper on the silkworm genome, the authors say, “Lepidoptera are unusual because they have holocentric chromosomes with diffuse kinetochores. This characteristic is a potential driver of evolution because of the ability to retain chromosome fragments through many cell divisions.” Yet in this case evolution is assumed; what was observed was an example of something that provides functional integrity.
1Jeremy Schmutz and Jane Grimwood, “Genomes: A fowl sequence,” Nature 432, 679 – 680 (09 December 2004); doi:10.1038/432679a.
2Biology Analysis Group, “A Draft Sequence for the Genome of the Domesticated Silkworm (Bombyx mori), Science, Vol 306, Issue 5703, 1937-1940, 10 December 2004, [DOI: 10.1126/science.1102210].
Most of the evolutionary claims merely assume evolution, or make empty promises about how the new genomes will help shed light on evolution. Example: “As life on Earth evolved over time, genes have been created, kept, discarded or deactivated, and reorganized. At the particular point in evolutionary time over which a species first develops, these processes may have changed a gene in ways that allow scientists to use it to get a better fix on the human version of the gene.”
OK, design scientists, get busy. Don’t just sit around telling jokes about why the chicken crossed the road. The Darwin Party is already busily invoking their favorite word games like convergence and homoplasy, and tweaking the rate of evolution for this or that chrome to make things fit their preconceived beliefs. There’s a wealth of complexity and order to mine in these new genetic data. Don’t let evolutionary storytelling win by default.