Plant Evolution Has Much Complexity In It’s Story

Progress on empirical facts, whether from molecular biology or fossils have blurred the picture of evolution quite considerably.  Jonathan P. Wilson (Caltech) in  Science reviews the book, which shows precisely that point.

• However, the molecular phylogenetics revolution, new fossil discoveries, and reinterpretations of existing material have catapulted our understanding of plant evolution ahead, leaving behind hypotheses and interpretations that were as good as fact a mere ten years ago.

• Any book that includes two major thematic axes—increasing evolutionary diversity and complexity on one hand, and time on the other—faces a formidable organizational challenge.

• Many environmental events simultaneously affect disparate taxonomic groups, whereas evolutionary innovations may lead to within-group specializations that deserve to be discussed separately.

• Simply treating events stratigraphically risks giving short shrift to evolutionary trends…

• However, a temporal framework makes it easier to portray the effects of large changes in climate and patterns of major adaptive radiations, such as the explosive diversifications of polypodiaceous ferns in tandem with angiosperm trees during the Late Cretaceous and Early Paleogene.

• They give orphaned organ taxa (particularly foliage and seeds) individual chapters, in which they note tentative or speculative associations with other fossil groups.

• Furthermore, the demise of the anthophyte hypothesis (which linked angiosperms to the living seed plants Gnetum, Ephedra, and Welwitschia) has left a vacuum that could be crippling to a book focused on the evolution of plants.

• Their new edition has caught up with recent discoveries and the progress of thoughts about plant evolution.  It points the way toward the most promising avenues for future research.

Not surprising, this speculation about how plants evolved has been basically swept away by new discoveries and the answers are believed to be somewhere in the future. One would think history could repeat itself and the answers to questions will be pushed further into the future. This in turn gives hope that their theory will actually mean something as far as trying to explain evolution with empirical data.

Plant evolution assumes miracles no question about it. It also redefines the meaning of facts. Wilson spoke of new discoveries that were “leaving behind hypotheses and interpretations that were as good as fact a mere ten years ago.” Just when you think facts are facts which never change but not in the hypothesis of evolution. Treating facts as speculation is redefining the meaning.

Think about this,  ten years ago these same scientists were telling the public “we know now” and then claiming this knowledge is advancing with these new answers only to find new discoveries falsified those things.  Is plant evolution really making any progress? After reading the book review, nothing was presented, only a promise that answers will come in the future. This embarrassing falsification was turned into a vindication by Wilson:

“By opening the door to a diversity of ideas, the authors turned what could have been a gaping void into an agenda for many a lab meeting or conference session.” A wise man once said, evolution fills one hole only to have five more holes open as a result, the cycle is endless.

Scientists Decided To Avoid Testing The Dino In Dakota

It’s an incredible story, more so for evolutionists than creationists because scientists were able to identify organic molecules from soft tissue that supposedly died over 66 million years ago.

Back in December 2007, the remains of the animal which was discovered in 1999, was being displayed to the world as reported by National Geographic…

“The extraordinarily preserved hadrosaur, or duck-billed dino, still had much of its tissues and bones intact, encased in an envelope of skin.  Research into the dinosaur’s remains may further scientists’ understanding of how the ancient creatures’ skin appeared and how quickly they moved, said team leader Phillip Manning of the University of Manchester, a National Geographic Expeditions Council grantee.”

“We’re looking at a three-dimensional skin envelope,” Manning said. “In many places it’s complete and intact—around the tail, arms, and legs and part of the body.”

Scientists excited the fossil still contained cell-like structures, which is also great news for creationists as well. It’s amazing to observe amino acid building blocks that once made up the proteins were still present in a fossil. What’s make this even more amazing, is the fact that evolutionists calculated this animal to be 66 million years old!

Derek Briggs, a Yale paleontologist who studies exceptionally-preserved fossils, told BBC news though it’s possible for cell-like structures to be found in the Dino fossil from Dakota, he doesn’t believe this is out of the norm and more fossils like this one being discovered wouldn’t be a surprise to him. Then goes on to say, some have been overlooked. Do you see a pattern here?

Derek Briggs presumption about Dinosaur fossils being millions of years old, but yet he explains this incredible discovery as though it was routine, but it is not. Like his fellow evolutionists, nobody predicted the remains to be so well preserved! Of course creationists would expect to find such fossils because we believe these dinosaur fossils are only thousands of years old.

So what testing are scientists avoiding? I’ll give you an obvious hint. Do scientists know how to degrade organic material? We still have anoxic bacteria around after all. This Dino fossil found in Dakota was in rock, not in an oxygen free environment like in an underwater cave. So this is certainly a testable hypothesis, then why aren’t they not conducting an experiment with other animals that simulates various plausible burial environments, and then measure the outcome by observing the decay rates?

It seems it’s not even on the table, because they are not even discussing such an idea which one would think would be important on understanding how the soft tissue contained in the dinosaur fossil was preserved after so many years!  They are definitely avoiding such testing until perhaps they can come up with an explanation first, before the experiment possibly conflicts with their story on evolution.

What Paleontologists Create About Elephant Evolution

One of the more creative stories in Darwinism is the speedy pace of “morphological” evolution which supposedly happened 60 million years ago. The fossil is called; Eritherium azzouzorum which is known to be the oldest elephant, doesn’t really look like one. The animals measures are 1.6 to two feet (50 to 60 cm) long and weighed nine to eleven pounds. Compare that to a modern elephant standing at eleven feet tall and weighing five tons!

Live Science and New Scientist agree on this point…“You wouldn’t have recognised Eritherium as an elephant when it was roaming Morocco 60 million years ago.” Indeed, not only were the measurements much different, it didn’t have a tusk like modern elephants have. To try and solve this problem Emmanuel Gheerbrant of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, France proposed the tooth of the animal enlarged by millimeters represented a primitive tusk.

It’s hard to believe this tooth was able to pull down branches or trees for that matter. The picture of the fossil pieces shows no postcranial anatomy. Their assumption was based on nothing more than one skull and a jaw and five teeth. Looking at the five teeth, it looks nothing like a primitive tusk!

Here is an example how they reach conclusions with contradictory data, and gaps in empirical data contained in PNAS…

“The TNT unweighted parsimony analysis including Eritherium yields a very poorly resolved consensus tree mainly resulting from the unstable position of Khamsaconus.  Analysis without Khamsaconus shows that, besides the robust proboscidean relationships of Eritherium, basal relationships among paenungulates remain unstable, as illustrated by the basal polytomy in the consensus (Fig. 3A).”

“This polytomy is basically related to our poor fossil knowledge of the ancestral morphotype of several orders such as Embrithopoda, Desmostylia, and Anthracobunia.  Our analysis supports a Sirenia-Desmostylia clade sister group of Proboscidea within Tethytheria.  The standard TNT “implied weighting” analysis yields a topology (Fig. 3B), which is nearly identical to that of Gheerbrant et al.”

With such little evidence to go on, what they call the “ancestral morphotype” exists only in the evolutionist’s imagination. It’s not possible with all the empirical problems that exist with this particular animal that one could arrive to any evolutionary conclusion. Therefore, what they are trying to create is not scientific, rather it’s just story telling using a lot of jargon with naturalistic conclusions, but no foundation for the basis for it.

It is important for Christians and skeptics of Darwinism to learn about the methods, omissions, assumptions and philosophy used by various scientists today and in the future.

The Vital Role Of Quality Control In A Cell

DNA transcription machinery plays such an important role not only does it make copies of DNA and RNA but it checks and corrects any errors.

In science daily…

“Ensuring that proteins are built correctly is essential to the proper functioning of our bodies, but the ‘quality assurance’ mechanisms that take place during this manufacturing process are not fully understood.”

“Scientists have been puzzled as to how this process makes so few mistakes”, says Dr Netta Cohen, Reader at the University of Leeds’ School of Computing.”

“To create a protein, the first step involves copying the relevant gene on our DNA onto a template, called RNA. This copying process is carried out by molecular machines called RNA polymerases.”

Discoveries like these are undermining evolution at its core. Researchers were expect many more errors that what was actually found. This machinery has not one level but multiple levels that reduce errors to only a few. Without this ability to proof read and correct in order to make proper copies of DNA and RNA, a cell would not be able to function, and life wouldn’t exist…

Where did this machinery come from? In regards to this particular discovery, some Darwinists state, we are here, so evolution must be true. Others would say, we just haven’t found the answer for it yet, so we are working on this mystery. On of many mysteries when the data is not matching up with the hypothesis.

The good news is, using experimental biology we will find much more about the role of quality control in a cell similar to that of factory workers working with highly advanced machines that put limitations on the errors which makes production run smoothly, thus the company is able to produce a product in a timely fashion, making a profit so the company can survive.