Archive 2002: RNA, Vaporware, Mendel, and more

22 years ago, CEH was reporting how scientists were discovering the vital roles of RNA. We started comparing evolutionary stories to vaporware, and reported evidence contrary to deep time. We revealed astrobiology hype and exposed how Big Science tried to rewrite history. These entries fell through the cracks of a website upgrade years ago, but are now republished here. What has changed since then? What remains the same?

Note: Most embedded links have been updated, but a couple may no long work.

DNA Has Its Own Immune System: RNA   05/17/2002
The May 17 issue of Science has a special Viewpoint feature about the RNA library, or RNome (the RNA counterpart of the genome). We all know about DNA and proteins; RNA was long thought to be just the messenger/translator between the two. Scientists have increasingly found RNA molecules, however, to perform many crucial functions including signalling and expressing genes.

• Gary Riddihough introduces the new concept of the RNome and its multi-faceted role in many vital functions, such as protecting DNA from invasion.
• Gisela Storz describes an “expanding universe” of non-coding RNAs, including micro-RNAs (sequences of 20-22 bases), with a multitude of functions that we are just beginning to understand.
• Ronald Plasterk describes RNA as the genome’s immune system, protecting DNA from viral attack and damage.
• Phillip Zamore says that RNA “reflect an elaborate cellular apparatus that eliminates abundant but defective messenger RNAs and defends against molecular parasites such as transposons and viruses.”
• Paul Ahlquist discusses how RNA can silence genes, which makes it a central player in gene expression.
• A team of scientists at Rockefeller University has elucidated the core structure of RNA polymerase at high resolution.  RNA polymerase is a chief molecular machine involved in transcription of DNA. It makes a copy of a gene from a DNA molecule that can be ferried by messenger RNA to a ribosome, where transfer RNA assembles the amino acids based on the coded sequence into a protein machine. The researchers show RNA polymerase to be a complex system with multiple roles and moving parts, assisted by a suite of other protein machines. They say it is “conserved in structure and function among all cellular organisms,” from bacteria to man.

We thought the DNA genome itself was enough to make people stand in awe of the Creator, but then came the proteome, and now the RNome. This adds two more levels of complexity to what was already incredible, and should triple our awe. Imagine hundreds of thousands of finely-crafted parts, all interacting together, performing thousands of complicated functions with precision and split-second timing, and you begin to get an idea of what goes on in every cell of your body, and in the tiniest microbe in a warm little pond.

Most of these authors never mention evolution once. Those that do speak in glittering generalities about which groups of organisms have this system or that, but never do they give a detailed description of how this system could have arisen in small steps, each step providing an survival advantage, when none of these complex molecules will form naturally without coded instructions and machines to build them. Surely biochemistry will spell the death of Darwinism; it’s only a matter of time.

Asteroid Crash Accelerated Rise of Large Dinosaurs   05/17/2002
Big rocks slamming into earth not only kill things, they build them, according to a team of researchers writing in the May 16 Science. They think an impact at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary led to the rise of the really big lizards. The evidence is based on footprint counts and a “modest” iridium anomaly. Richard Kerr in his summary indicates that not all scientists are convinced. The slight iridium excess at the Triassic-Jurassic boundary could have been from volcanoes or geochemical processes, not an asteroid. Nevertheless, the story made the CBS radio news, and other popular outlets like National Geographic jumped on the story, saying, “It may well be that catastrophic events have a far more profound effect in the shaping of life than people had previously thought.” See also: Nature Science Update.

Evolution is the modern Phoenix myth. Out of disaster rises new and improved life. Try it as a science project. This epic tale is built on footprints, an increase in fern spores, and a tiny measurement of one element (just a few parts per trillion of iridium). The rocks are dated by the types of spores they contain, a method based on evolutionary assumptions, so circular reasoning is mixed up in the timeline. The tale itself cannot be observed nor repeated. Too much faith is invested in evolutionists’ ability to weave stories out of a miniscule amount of evidence.

How Insect Heads Evolved   05/16/2002
In the May 16 issue of Nature, paleontologist Graham E. Budd from Uppsala University in Sweden has written a paper called, “A palaeontological solution to the arthropod head problem.” He begins with a statement of the problem: “The composition of the arthropod head has been one of the most controversial topics in zoology, with a large number of theories being proposed to account for it over the last century. Although fossils have been recognized as being of potential importance in resolving the issue, a lack of consensus over their systematics has obscured their contribution.”

By analyzing Cambrian fossils from the Burgess Shale and elsewhere, Budd proposes a family tree he claims ties the arthropods, chelicerates and onycophorans together. But problems remain. He notes in closing, “As the mouth started terminal within the clade (thus supporting the Ecdysozoa concept), any deep pre-oral structure would have to have migrated behind the mouth before the origin of the Ecdysozoa, and then remigrated anteriorly again when the mouth became ventralized. Such a structure has yet to be identified. … This analysis brings fresh insight into, but does not resolve, the continuing problem presented by the chelicerate chelicera….”  He presents several possibilities of which appendages should be considered homologous.

Software engineers have coined the satirical term vaporware to describe software products that are marketed but not yet built. The sales department is out there at the customer site crowing about the wonderful features the new product has (and demonstrating a scripted front-end facade without the processing engine behind it), while the poor programmers are back at the home office scratching their heads on how to write the code. The “product” may have started as a pipe dream, and consist of nothing more than a flowchart of putative subroutines that have not even been written. There may be major hurdles, dependencies on other technologies not yet invented, algorithms not yet developed, concepts not fully understood, and doubts whether solutions are even possible. The software engineers may not even know how to begin.

Evolution is like vaporware. Here it is supposed to explain so much, and tie together all these disparate phenomena, but when you get into the details, you find excuses and gaping holes. It’s as if looking into the code of a highly-advertised software package and finding the comment “to be developed” here, there and everywhere. This paper is a good example. The title sounds impressive: “A palaeontological solution to the arthropod head problem.” But wade through the jargon and read the paper, and nothing solid is found: just a series of maybes and perhapses and proposed solutions that breed new problems. And we are told that this has been “one of the most controversial topics in zoology, with a large number of theories being proposed to account for it over the last century,” so it is not a matter of just giving the programming staff a little more time to deliver the product.

Where is the solution? There is none! It’s all promise without performance. The data (fossils and living arthropods) show a collection of complex creatures, each fully developed and adapted to its environment, with no necessary and obvious family ancestry tying them together. There are more gaps than links. This scientist would have us believe mouth parts migrated backward and then forward. Have you seen all the complex mouth parts in a grasshopper or honeybee? What about all the simultaneous functions that go with the mouth parts: nerves, muscles, brain changes, digestive functions, sensory feedback, and much more? Deciding what segment should have the mouth is the easy part; these are the nitty-gritty details of hardware and software that Darwinism has not the resources to design.

Like vaporware, evolution is being sold with fanfare and slick marketing to students and the public. Instead of working software, there is only computer graphics and artwork and slogans. Come with us here at Creation-Evolution Headlines behind the scenes at Darwin & Co. and observe the programmers sweating bullets.

Mendel Museum Laundered of Religion   05/15/2002
“Science has triumphed over religion in an argument over an exhibition about Gregor Mendel, the Augustine monk who discovered the laws of heredity,” reports Nature, May 16 in the News in Brief section. “The current abbot had asked that the religious background to Mendel’s life and work form part of the exhibition (see Nature 410, 6; 2001), but dropped this request after the abbey agreed to host annual workshops on bioethics.”

The scene is the Brno monastery in the Czech Republic, home of the Mendelianum museum and the place where Gregor Mendel conducted his epochal experiments on peas. The current abbot was unhappy with the exhibit designers, according to the March 1, 2001 news item in Nature, “because their museum places too much emphasis on the scientific aspects of Mendel’s life. The abbot, they say, wants a new exhibition of Mendel’s life that will reflect his religious beliefs as well as his scientific interests.”

Apparently he gave a year for the museum committee to come up with a proposal, and when they stalled and he turned up the heat, they mounted a “disinformation campaign” against him. Abbott Lukas Evzen Martinec was upset not only about the “low religious content” of the display, but also that “the museum’s owners have not uncovered religious motifs that were hidden during the communist days.” Apparently Martinec has now compromised and agreed to keep Mendel’s religion out of the exhibit. Mendel will be remembered as scientist, not monk.

We don’t need Stalin and Kruschev to turn churches into museums of atheism any more; we have the scientific establishment to carry on the work of the Ministry of Truth. Mendel’s faith in God as Creator was a prime motivation for his rigorous, groundbreaking work that is not only the foundation of genetics, but a model of experimental method. How can this part of his character be erased without doing a great injustice to his legacy

What is so awful about Christian faith that it must be expunged from anything portrayed as scientific? Many of the greatest scientists through history were Christians and creationists. It is a Big Lie to turn them into proponents of materialist philosophy.  Nature should be embarrassed to portray this as a triumph of science over religion, perpetuating a false dichotomy and supporting the whitewashing of history.

Mars Meteorite Is Dead   05/15/2002
ALH84001 has fallen from grace, according to a report in Space.Com. Ed Scott and David Barber were able to provide a natural process for the creation of the magnetites that believers had claimed was a biological signature. They claim also that the magnetites are oriented with other nonbiological components of the rock, and must have formed at the same time, probably during impact on the surface. So was the hubbub over life in the Mars rock a waste of time? One of the researchers, Ed Scott, replied,

“You could argue that it has been a major stimulus in helping to integrate geology and biology in the planetary sciences. It’s no longer okay to focus only on the living or the non-living. We have discovered exciting new connections on the Earth and on Mars. It is not enough to address the simple question ‘are we alone?’ We have to understand more complex questions that lend a new perspective to planetary science. Why is Earth so different from Mars and Venus? How special is the Earth? How common are Earth-like planets?”

Update: See this NASA page from 18 Jan 2022 that debunks the biological interpretation of anomalies in the meteorite.

These questions are all adequately answered by Isaiah 45:18, but let them search. It’s a bonanza for the space program, and gives us a lot of fun material to report on.

Hubble “Pillars of Creation” Eroding Fast   05/15/2002
The 1995 “Pillars of Creation” in the Eagle Nebula was one of the most popular photos taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Its long narrow pillars of gas were said to be the nursery for many new stars. New images with the NICMOS infrared camera, however, show that the gas is eroding quickly, and any stars being formed are only at a few of the tips. In a million years (less than a hundredth of one percent of the assumed age of the universe) the nebula would be gone, says the BBC News. It claims that the Orion Nebula, however, is actively forming many stars.

The Eagle Nebula is beautiful, but it shows destructive processes at work, not creative processes. You can’t always believe the initial interpretations put forth in the press release.