Gullibility of Scientists Shown by Rip Van Winkle Roundworm

What is it about belief in old ages that
makes smart scientists lose common sense?

If Otzi the iceman were recovered from his icy tomb, and scientists saw his heart start beating again, would they claim he had been in suspended animation for 5,300 years? Of course that would never happen. But Russian scientists claim some roundworms were entombed in ice for 46,000 years, even though when recovered, they started living again as if nothing happened.

This story illustrates an even more preposterous level of gullibility among old-earthers than the one about revived rotifers alleged to be 24,000 years old we reported back on 14 June 2021. The absurdity is not just that some animals like roundworms and tardigrades can enter a sleep-like state of cryptobiosis for years. It’s the number of years in the claim: tens of thousands of unobserved years, ignoring all the factors that would have destroyed any creature in so much time: climate change, possible melting and refreezing episodes, and the long-term effects of cosmic rays, radon gas and other cell-disrupting phenomena. What about the need to eat? Worms are made of cells that metabolize. They have systems that cannot come to a complete stop for that long. This is like the joke about the galleon that was raised from the deep sea and the lantern was still burning.

Hookworm larva, a nematode (Wikimedia Commons)

Genome analysis of 46,000-year-old roundworm from Siberian permafrost reveals novel species (Max Planck Institute, 27 July 2023). Without asking any hard questions, the researchers accept the age as a given: 46,000 years, over five times all of recorded human history. For all that time, they believe, these roundworms lived in a state of suspended animation. They compared the revived worms with the common model worm, C. elegans.

At a biochemical level, both species produced a sugar called trehalose when mildly dehydrated in the lab, possibly enabling them to endure freezing and intense dehydration. Caenorhabditis elegans larvae also benefited from this treatment, surviving for 480 days at -80 degrees Celsius without suffering any declines in viability or reproduction following thawing.

OK, but 46,000 years is 35,000 times as long as 480 days! Is this not a case of the Extrapolation Fallacy taken to extremes?

According to Vamshidhar Gade and Temo Kurzhchalia, “Our experimental findings also show that Caenorhabditis elegans can remain viable for longer periods in a suspended state than previously documented. Overall, our research demonstrates that nematodes have developed mechanisms that allow them to preserve life for geological time periods.”

Notice that they use “developed” as a synonym for “evolved” – and do so in an illogical way. Nematodes did not hold a committee meeting and decide what mutations might give them a mechanism to survive freezing. It’s ridiculous to speak of natural selection in such terms. Darwinian evolution has no foresight, purpose, or plan. All they can say is that billions of nematodes died in ice until, by chance, a pair (male and female) just happened to survive on trehalose for awhile.

The press release shows that these scientists don’t know what they are talking about.

• They misrepresented how evolution works.
• They never measured the ability of trehalose to enable C. elegans to survive freezing temperatures for tens of thousands of years.
• They don’t explain how metabolism could have revived after 46,000 years at a standstill.
• They don’t know that any other body system could have revived after so long.
• They don’t know that any organism could survive without DNA repair processes continuing to work.
• They don’t know if this really was a new species of worm from the past, or an extant one that hasn’t been found yet.
• They don’t explain how they arrived at the date, because they only observed .00001% of that time.

All they “know” is that their worldview requires vast periods of time—so-called “geological time periods.” If the ice was found in Pleistocene strata, then it must be that old. The consensus requires allegiance to geological time periods, even if that takes priority over reason.

Look how many other scientists joined the Darwin celebration. Oh, and a big cheer went up when they dragged climate change into the party:

“Our findings are essential for understanding evolutionary processes because generation times can range from days to millennia and because the long-term survival of a species’ individuals can result in the re-emergence of lineages that would otherwise have gone extinct,” concludes Philipp Schiffer, one of the authors who oversaw the study. Eugene Myers adds: “P. kolymaensis‘s highly contiguous genome will make it possible to compare this feature to those of other Panagrolaimus species whose genomes are presently being sequenced by Schiffer’s team and colleagues.” Philipp Schiffer is convinced that “studying the adaptation of species to such extreme environments by analyzing their genomes will allow us to develop better conservation strategies in the face of global warming.”

Gullibility is shown by Teymuras Kurzchalia’s ending statement. “This study extends the longest reported cryptobiosis in nematodes by tens of thousands of years.” No sheepishness; no blushing; no humility on his part.

This is the same blockheadedness amongst Darwinians that refuses to accept the youth of dinosaur blood and soft tissue, clinging to the belief—against common sense—that such things could survive a dynamic earth for 65 million years or more. Yes, and the lantern in that galleon is still burning.