No, These Findings Do Not Support Evolution

Evolutionary biologists keep giving Darwin credit for discoveries that actually militate against his theory.

Cross species transfer of genes has driven evolution (Phys.org). Darwin’s theory relies on random variations that are naturally selected and inherited – not on existing genetic information from outside. What, pray tell, does this article have to do with evolution? It says, “Far from just being the product of our parents, University of Adelaide scientists have shown that widespread transfer of genes between species has radically changed the genomes of today’s mammals, and been an important driver of evolution.”

How did genetic parasites overcome natural selection for billions of years? (Phys.org). In this article, Lisa Zyga wonders how parasites could have evaded natural selection for billions of years.

The discovery that genetic parasites are so ubiquitous and abundant is one of the many surprising findings in the field of genomics, but many questions remain unanswered. One of the most basic questions is simply how genetic parasites have managed to persist for so long, despite the evidence that they are harmful at evolutionary timescales. Typically, natural selection results in deletions of harmful genes, so the main question is, why hasn’t natural selection wiped out genetic parasites?

In a new study published in EPL, researchers Jaime Iranzo and Eugene V. Koonin at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, have found that horizontal gene transfer may be one of the keys to understanding the persistence and spread of genetic parasites over evolutionary timescales.

In the end, Zyga rescues Darwinism with a very un-Darwinian mechanism: horizontal gene transfer. That is the sharing of existing genetic information, not the creation of new information. But innovation from molecules to man requires the creation of new genetic information. So why are we told that these evolved? She doesn’t even bring up the point that some “genetic parasites” like transposons may actually be mislabeled. Some are finding important functions in these assumed “junk” (non-coding) regions, suggesting they are beneficial parts of the genome, not parasites.

How do jumping genes cause disease, drive evolution? (Science Daily). Similar to the above article, this one poses a puzzle to evolution, yet gives credit to evolution. “Jumping genes” have been a puzzle for evolutionists since they were discovered more than six decades ago. Why must we assume they evolved? If they are harmful and cause disease, why has natural selection not removed them in hundreds of millions of years? Why are we told that Carnegie Institute’s findings “are likely to be important for understanding mammalian evolution and disease as well”? Why is that likely instead of a non-Darwinian explanation? Why not look for a function in these mysterious regions of the genome that have the ability to move around?

How lizards got their big feet (Nature). The editors of the world’s leading science journal hold this just-so story up as an example of “natural selection in action,” but it’s really a story about the elimination of lizards, not the creation of new traits. Just like some people have bigger feet than others, some Caribbean lizards have bigger toes than others. The ones with smaller toes get swept off the islands in hurricanes.

Serendipity can go only so far. The researchers hadn’t marked the lizards, so they couldn’t identify and track the fate of individuals. But they found clear trends of natural selection in action. In general, anoles found after the storms had bigger toepads, longer forelimbs and shorter hindlimbs than did lizards collected before the storm.

The scientists further showed their misunderstanding of Darwin’s theory by blowing existing modern lizards with leaf blowers! Of course some individual lizards would be able to hang on longer than others. But do you really think the scientists watched lizards evolve longer legs? They didn’t prove anything about evolution except the bias of Nature to promote any silly story that sings praises to Darwin.

How California’s sea stars are evolving past a devastating pandemic (Phys.org). As in the prior story, this one shows no evolution. Some sea stars were able to outlive a devastating pandemic. But the survivors did not invent any new information. They are not only still sea stars, they are ochre sea stars – members of the same species. Where is the “origin of species” in this tale? Yet the reader is told, “It provided scientists with a natural experiment in evolution and an opportunity to explore how a species responds to a cataclysmic population collapse.” Darwin’s tree is not going to grow by lopping off branches.

Solving the cave shrimp mystery: Geology and evolution in action (Phys.org). Shrimp that live in caves have lost eyes and pigment. How many times must reasonable people say that Darwin cannot win by losing? There’s no upward progress here; the cave shrimp in this story are still shrimp of the same kind as before. “Living fossils” are the opposite of what Darwin needs!

“Typhlocaris species are ‘living fossils’, remnants of an ancestor shrimp species that existed in the ancient Tethys Sea, millions of years ago“, explains Dr. Tamar Guy-Haim, lead author from GEOMAR and National Institute of Oceanography in Haifa, Israel. “They have survived since then under isolated conditions in a unique ecological system, cut off from the external environment”, Gy-Haim continues.

Eye evolution came easy for simple sea creatures (Nature). Observation: eight unrelated groups of cnidarians (jellyfish, sea anemones and corals) have eyes. Conclusion: “They evolved.” Corollary: eyes must be easy to evolve. What? This is clearly an example of belief in evolution driving the conclusion in spite of evidence, not because of it. But with Darwin Flubber, evolution can accomplish any miracle:

Among the descendants of that eyeless ancestor, at least eight separate evolutionary events gave rise to eyes, including some with lenses and others with simple structures called eye cups. At least two major types of cnidarian eye use different molecular systems for light detection, suggesting that different lineages co-opted ancestral genes independently to enable vision.

Look at the illogic of this story: random mutations and natural selection have no power “to enable vision.” In Darwin’s view, there is no goal, no purpose, no plan. Animals did not “co-opt ancestral genes independently” in order “to enable vision.” They weren’t thinking about it. They weren’t even hoping it would happen. The story is equivalent to belief in miracles. The Popeye theory of evolution has returned: eyes just pop into existence somehow, and Darwin takes credit. Those who want to watch the blind lead the blind and hear all the details about which eye popped into existence where can read the graduate level just-so story in Current Biology. Don’t look for any mention of mutation or natural selection there, though, unless you want to get hit with a hard punch of reality.

Evolutionary Biology: A New Home for the Powerhouse? (Current Biology). In this Dispatch article, Ryan Gawryluk has some bad news to share. Contrary to a long-held belief, “mitochondria do not descend from within Alphaproteobacteria, as typically thought, but from a still undiscovered sister lineage.” Once again, we see evidence that contradicts evolution, and yet evolution itself is never questions. This author comes close, though. The take-home quote from this paper is where Gawryluk says,

The study presented here is certain to spur significant discussion, controversy and further research; but perhaps above all it highlights the power of species discovery in questioning evolutionary dogma. Our understanding of microbial life is heavily biased towards easily cultured organisms, and species associated with human health and disease. Yet, most microbes are refractory to laboratory culture, and exist in environments that are foreign to us. High throughput — and low input — sequencing technologies are dramatically enhancing our capacity to reconstruct high quality genomes from microbial communities and single cells. And in one stroke, Martijn et al. have expanded a relatively well-studied class of prokaryotic life, and challenged a widely held view on mitochondrial origins. This work will not represent the final word on the provenance of mitochondria, but it does emphasize that mitochondria may have been forged in the undiscovered prokaryotic majority, of which there is much left to explore.

Mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cells, are the home of ATP synthase—the incredible rotary engines used by all life that creationists tout as an icon of intelligent design.

If you think for a minute that the Darwinians will repent of their sins, ditch their dogma and explore non-Darwinian explanations for these observable facts of the world, you don’t yet fathom the grip of their materialistic belief.