Posts Tagged ‘DNA’

Are Humans as Close to Chickens as They Are to Chimps?

January 27th, 2010

y_chromosome_wide Written by :  Brian Thomas, MS *

A recent comprehensive analysis compared the human Y chromosome with the chimpanzee Y chromosome, and the researchers found that they were “remarkably divergent.”1

The Y chromosome is found only in males and contains many genes that specify male features, as well as genetic and regulatory information that is expressed throughout the whole body. In a study published in the January issue of Nature, a large team of scientists encountered so many unforeseen differences in the DNA sequences of the human and chimp Y chromosomes that the research took much longer than they had originally anticipated. Among their discoveries were interesting features unique to certain “sequence classes” within each chromosome.

Most of their findings do not fit well with the often-repeated erroneous statement that humans and chimps are 98 percent similar, nor with the more general hypothesis that they share a common ancestor.2 One sequence class within the chimpanzee Y chromosome had less than 10 percent similarity with the same class in the human Y chromosome, and vice versa. Another large class shared only half the similarities of the other species, and vice versa. And one whole class on the human Y chromosome “has no counterpart in the chimpanzee MSY [male-specific Y chromosome].”1

Under evolutionary assumptions of long and gradual genetic changes, the Y chromosome structures, layouts, genes, and other sequences should be much the same in both species, given the relatively short—according to the evolutionary timeline—six-million-year time span since chimpanzees and humans supposedly diverged from a common ancestor. Instead, the differences between the chromosomes are marked. R. Scott Hawley, a genetics researcher at the Stowers Institute in Kansas City who wasn’t involved in the research, told the Associated Press, “That result is astounding.”3

The Nature paper expressed the mismatch between this data and standard evolutionary interpretations in a more muted tone: “Indeed, at 6 million years of separation, the difference in MSY gene content in chimpanzee and human is more comparable to the difference in autosomal gene content in chicken and human, at 310 million years of separation.”1 Autosomes are the chromosomes other than the X and Y.

So, the human Y chromosome looks just as different from a chimp’s as the other human chromosomes do from a chicken’s. And to explain where all these differences between humans and chimps came from, believers in big-picture evolution are forced to invent stories of rapid wholesale rearrangements, and rapid generation of both new gene-containing and regulatory DNA.

But since each respective Y chromosome appears fully integrated and interdependent with its host organism, the most logical conclusion is that humans and chimpanzees were each specially created as distinct creatures.

References:

1.  Hughes, J. F. et al. Chimpanzee and human Y chromosomes are remarkably divergent in structure and gene content. Nature. Published online January 13, 2010.

2.  Tomkins, J. 2009. Human-Chimp Similarities: Common Ancestry of Flawed Research? Acts & Facts. 38 (6): 12.

3.  Borenstein, S. Men more evolved? Y chromosome study stirs debate. Associated Press, January 13, 2010. *

Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

The entire article above was taken from The Institute For Creation Research.

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Posted in Biology, Evolution, Intelligent Design

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Evidence From The Fossil Record

October 8th, 2009

DNA

As soon as a plant or animal dies, its DNA begins to decompose. The oldest accurately known DNA samples are from a 4000-year-old mummy. Based on the deterioration of the molecule from samples of this age, it is estimated that essentially no DNA could survive longer than 10,000 years. However, DNA segments have been found in magnolia leaves (dated by evolutionists at 17 million years), dinosaur bones (dated at 80 million years), scales of a fossilized fish (dated at 200 million years), and amber-encased insects and plants (dated at 25-120 million years). Evolutionary scientists should be asking how DNA could still be contained in samples this old when more recent samples indicate that the DNA molecule is far too sensitive to have lasted this long. Perhaps there is something wrong with the old-earth dating methods and these fossils still contain DNA fragments simply because they are not as old as believed. These samples have been simply been dated wrong due to faulty assumptions of radiometric dating methods.

Evolutionists have a similar problem with protein preserved in dinosaur bones. As with DNA, no protein should last 75 to 150 million years; yet protein has been found in dinosaur bones. These plant and animal remains are simply not as old as evolutionists need to accept in order to continue to believe in the story of evolution.

The above document was taken from In The Beginning, 7th Ed., p.29-30 and quoted in A Closer Look At The Evidence by Richard & Tina Kleiss.

“…I am He; I am the first and I am the last. My own hand laid the foundations of the earth….” (Isaiah 48:12,13)

808

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Posted in Biology, Evolution, Fossils, History, Marine creatures

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Dinosaur Soft Tissue

August 17th, 2009
T-Rex from ICR.org

T-Rex from ICR.org

Dinosaur Soft Tissues: They’re Real!
by Brian Thomas, M.S.*

Paleontologist Mary Schweitzer’s discoveries of soft blood vessels, proteins, various blood cells, and even DNA inside fossilized dinosaur bones have been met with extreme skepticism from the scientific community. It has been well established that such biological structures and molecules should not last beyond a few tens of thousands of years, and could not possibly survive millions of years. So why are they there?

Scientists have made multiple attempts to debunk Schweitzer’s findings. Over the last 15 years, alternate explanations for the soft dinosaur tissue include contamination in the field or in the lab, bacterial activity producing the illusion of blood vessel remains, and the possibility that protein signatures derived from the tissues are actually just statistical artifacts (i.e., distortions or data errors).

In an effort to answer these objections, Schweitzer’s team implemented sterile excavation procedures and had an independent third party analyze their results. They confirmed that the soft tissues could not have come from bacteria. Bacteria do not manufacture products in the shape of vertebrate blood vessels, nor can they produce the kind of collagen found in the dinosaur bones.

The issue has generated such fervor that John Asara of Harvard Medical School, who found clear collagen signatures in Schweitzer’s dinosaur tissues,1 placed his data on line so that anyone could access it. Researchers from Palo Alto reanalyzed the data and published their report on line in the Journal of Proteome Research.2 They verified that four of Asara’s original seven collagen sequences were clearly legitimate, using different statistical and bioinformatics techniques. So far, there is every indication that the dinosaur soft tissues—incredible as it seems—are real biological leftovers from their once-living hosts.

Three options present themselves for the presence of molecules and blood vessels in creatures that purportedly passed on eons ago. Perhaps the soft tissue is some kind of mistake—it isn’t really organic material. But the number of other possible substances it could be is dwindling. Or perhaps there is an entirely unknown natural process that could have preserved soft tissue for millions of years. But this is a special pleading argument, one with strong laboratory evidence against it. Third, perhaps the soft tissue, and therefore the sedimentary rock that encased it, are thousands—not millions—of years old.

Dinosaur soft tissue leaves the evolutionary paradigm, which must have millions of years in order to achieve even remote plausibility, between a rock and a hard place. However, these dinosaur blood cells and vessels fit perfectly into the biblical history of the world, which indicates that man and dinosaurs both were created on the same day in the relatively recent past.3

References
Asara, J. M. et al. 2007. Protein Sequences from Mastodon and Tyrannosaurus Rex Revealed by Mass Spectrometry. Science. 316 (5822): 280-285.
Bern, M., B. S. Phinney, and D. Goldberg. 2009. Reanalysis of Tyrannosaurus rex Mass Spectra. Journal of Proteome Research. Published online July 15, 2009, accessed July 30, 2009.
Genesis 1:24-27.

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

This post was taken from the Institute For Creation Research

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:25)

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