Darwin Fish Is to Blame for Heart Attacks

The Darwin mind virus has invaded Japan.
Now, Tokyo scientists are wasting their lab time.

 

Breaking news from the University of Tokyo: the Darwin Fish gave us heart attacks. Our coronary arteries, they say, evolved when fish crawled onto land. The demands of landlubbers forced the narrow arteries to wrap around a thicker ventricle, putting higher blood pressure on the circulatory system and increasing the risk of catastrophic failure.

That’s the new Japanese just-so story about the evolution of the Darwin Fish: it “gave rise to” heart attacks.

They wouldn’t put it that way, but see if this synopsis fits what they say in their press release and paper. As usual for Darwin storytelling, their proposal requires copious amounts of speculation.

Origins of coronary arteries (University of Tokyo, 22 Aug 2023). The subtitle reads, “Heart-nourishing blood vessels may have developed when our prehistoric ancestor emerged from the sea to live on land.” Their research includes the assertion that “Knowing the systems of various other animals also broadens the scope for studying heart disease and potential treatments.” Darwinian gradualism enters front and center in the first paragraph, with the Bearded Buddha offering his perennial gift, “understanding” (see 13 March 2023 commentary).

Coronary arteries are a vital part of the human heart, providing it with oxygen-rich blood so that it can work. By comparing the hearts of mammals, birds, reptiles, fish and frogs, a multi-institutional team of researchers appears to have found evidence that the structure of our hearts evolved in a stepwise process from fish, through amphibians to reptiles to mammals. When animals evolved from living in the water to living on land, a significant remodeling of the blood vessels to the heart occurred, enabling survival without gills. Understanding the ancestral origins of our cardiovascular system could help us find the basis for certain genetic defects.

Don’t you wish you could undo evolution and return to your inner fish? They didn’t have heart attacks. Those pesky mutant genes that made coronary arteries emerge didn’t get everything right.

How do you take care of your heart? Being active, reducing stress and eating heart-healthy foods can all help to protect and strengthen this vital organ. Unfortunately, congenital heart disease (CHD) is the most common birth defect worldwide. CHD refers to a range of issues, including anomalous coronary artery, where the coronary arteries are malformed. These arteries supply the heart with oxygenated blood, so if they are not properly developed then it can cause sudden and dangerous complications. But not all species have this problem. There are animals including fish and amphibians whose hearts don’t have or need coronary arteries. So why do we and where did they come from?

This press release uses forms of the e-word “evolution” 8 times.

The scientists did some legitimate work examining the circulatory systems of sharks, bony fish, amphibians and mammals. That’s appropriate empirical observation. But then they ramped up the perhapsimaybecouldness index and started speculating about what “likely” happened to the Darwin Fish.

“In fish, sharks and amphibians, a long vascular system extending from the gills supplies blood to the heart. By contrast, in mammals and birds, this ancestral vasculature exists only during the embryo stage and later transforms into adult coronary arteries which are wrapped around the heart. This evolutionary change is likely connected to the transition of vertebrates from water to land, which led to the loss of gills,” explained researcher Hiroki Higashiyama from the Department of Physiological Chemistry and Metabolism at the Graduate School of Medicine at the University of Tokyo.

These Darwin Party converts in Japan try to connect the dots between creatures to envision a gradually unfolding drama of transition from water to land. They borrow the magic word “origination” (see 21 Aug 2023) and other hedging words in their story, but figuratively, the story shows more dotted lines than plot. Unobserved incidents of the Stuff Happens Law “took place” (more magic words).

The results appeared to show that the structure of the human heart originated from a common amniote ancestor. When this animal transitioned from being a water dweller to living on land, an important development took place which involved significant remodeling of ancestral blood vessels to form the coronary arteries we have today. The researchers speculated that this was necessary to enable a thickening of the human heart’s ventricle wall, so that it could handle high physiological activity, such as the elevated blood pressure that maintains amniotes’ high metabolic capacity (the ability to take on oxygen and circulate it in the blood).

How did the fish know that it would be necessary to “enable” a human heart hundreds of millions of years into the future? Evolution has no foresight. In Darwinism, nothing happens for a purpose. Mutations do not “evolve to” accomplish a benefit. The Darwin Fish had no capacity for thinking that a thicker heart would be necessary for high physiological activity and higher blood pressure. Darwin’s blind tinkerer was not trying to remodel the heart to work on land. To be consistent with Darwinian materialism, it just happened that way, and millions of fish died in the trial-and-error process until a lucky accident got it right by chance.

Recapitulating Haeckel

The fraud Ernst Haeckel would have been pleased with the Japanese team’s inclusion of the Recapitulation Theory in their story:

Amphibians sit in between fish and mammals on the evolutionary tree and so may offer some insight as to how one type of heart evolved into the other. “As an example, we saw that the transient blood vessels observed in mice embryos bore a striking resemblance to the ancestral vascular system found in amphibians,” said Higashiyama. “As the mouse’s coronary arteries form, these ancestral vessels disappear, but they act as essential starting points for creating the new coronary arteries.”

The mice embryos were unwittingly reliving their inner fish, replaying the tape of their evolutionary heritage.

Sanctifying the Storytelling

As usual, the Darwinians bless their storytelling hearts by promising “understanding.” If people would just let them explain everything by Darwin’s Stuff Happens Law, they might be able to help people prevent heart attacks. (If that happens, it will be delivered in the next promised shipment of Futureware along with all the other loads of “understanding” on perennial back order.)

“This research broadens the range of animal models available for studying heart diseases and their treatments,” said Higashiyama. “Next we would like to gain a deeper understanding of the molecular processes involved in coronary artery remodeling. By doing so, we can uncover the mechanisms of ‘how’ the mammalian- and reptilian-type coronary arteries evolved and potentially shed light on human congenital heart abnormalities and diseases.”

Digging Deeper: The Research Paper

Coronary artery established through amniote evolution (Mizukami et al., eLife, 22 Aug 2023). The research paper uses forms of the e-word evolution 20 times (30 more in the references). Most instances are basted heavily with speculation. Watch for the magic words “give rise to” (see 21 Aug 2023).

• In humans, even minor defects in coronary arteries can be lethal, emphasizing their importance for survival. However, some teleosts survive without coronary arteries, suggesting that there may have been some evolutionary changes in the morphology and function of coronary arteries in the tetrapod lineage.
• This evolutionary change may be related to the modification of branchial arteries, indicating considerable morphological changes underlying the physiological transition during amniote evolution.
• However, little is known about these structures develop in animals such as birds, amphibians, or other groups of fish. This makes it difficult to retrace the evolutionary processes that have given rise to the coronary arteries we are familiar with in mammals.
• This work sheds light on the evolutionary processes shaping essential structures in the heart. In the future, Mizukami et al. hope that this knowledge will help develop a greater range of experimental animal models for studying heart disease and potential treatments.
• Despite their importance, the evolutionary origin of the coronary arteries remains uncertain.
• [T]he knowledge of the morphological evolution of coronary arteries may contribute to our understanding of physiological changes in the heart during the water-to-land transition.
• The evolutionary origin of extrinsic cardiac arteries is still a mystery.

As their concluding paragraph makes clear, the Japanese Darwin Party has learned its principles well from the Bearded Buddha.

• Tell stories. Nudge the public to think they are plausible.
• Add Darwin Flubber as needed.
• Promise understanding.
• Suggest that light will be shed with future Darwin storytelling.
• Offer promissory notes of health and welfare to come, with no expiration date, as long as the research remains evolutionary.

In conclusion, the present study suggests that the ventricular coronary artery, a common feature in amniotes, originated through ancestral cardiovascular remodeling during the evolution of amniotes. It is possible that this artery was necessary for the thickening of the ventricular wall, which is associated with high physiological activity. It is still undeniable that coronary artery formation through ASV remodelling may be a convergent evolution of mammals and birds. The resemblance of coronary arterial morphology in adult squamates to that of mammals and birds may reflect a potential common developmental process, although further research is required to delve deeper into this aspect. This new understanding of the evolutionary history and morphology of coronary circulation will be useful in evolutionary research on amniotes and in comparisons among animal models to study coronary artery disease.

Last Darwin principle: above all, censor the rascally creationists who don’t accept the Stuff Happens Law!

To any evolutionary biologists reading this, we know you may be getting hot under the collar. Here’s a chance to rebut this article. Please show us one photon of light that was shed by Darwinism* that led to a positive result for ordinary people: for instance, a working treatment that reduced heart attack risk in a measurable way. Your evidence should not beg the question of evolution. It should indicate that whatever tangible, verifiable benefit to ordinary people you present came about by means of Darwinian theory, and was not possible by creation, intelligent design, or any other view. Email it to editor (at) crev.info and we will include it in the comments.

*By Darwinism, we mean “universal common descent by means of mutation and natural selection using only unguided natural processes.” This excludes “microevolutionary” changes, which creationists explain as programmed adaptations.

Ingratitude

The paper cited above shows what ingrates Darwinians are. As they work and research and write, their own hearts are beating steadily without their conscious thought, never missing a beat. Their circulatory system continues nourishing their trillions of cells through the night as they sleep. And this is just one of numerous intelligently designed systems all working simultaneously in coordination to allow us to think, learn, and love. Instead of glorifying their Maker for these natural wonders, they attribute them to chance! This is why the Apostle Paul mentioned ingratitude as one of the reasons people are without excuse for God’s wrath directed at them: “For although they knew God [through what has been created], they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:21-22).

Nevertheless, the Creator’s patient love still extends to all people, and can be accessed by repentance and faith in his provision for sinners. Here’s how.