An interesting argument made against life being designed is the path of the Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve (RLN.) If life was designed why would God take such an un-optimal path for the nerve — especially as seen in the giraffe?
The claim is that if you look at the RLN in fish you’ll see a more direct path, and as species evolved this nerve just got wrapped up and ended up taking a very indirect route below the heart. It makes sense, it looks like we can simply say “evolution did-it tm” and shrug it off. However, before we do that let’s think how un-useful that is towards our knowledge of biology. If we look at this “junk DNA” and say evolution did-it, we hinder our progression in science. It’s more interesting and useful to first assume there is a plan behind it and figure out why it is the way it is. That’s what we did with “junk DNA” and it ended up not being junk!
Even if I believed macro evolution was true (which I don’t,) I wouldn’t say that the indirect path of the LN was caused from it. How can evolution pay attention to such details like our eye lashes and eye brows yet take such a strange path for the LN? Just like most other things with evolution (like vestigial organs, junk DNA, eyes being wired backwards (http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=1742), etc.) it will probably end up going against the Darwin theory.
So what are some possibilities behind this RLN? I have heard some good ideas, check out http://www.icr.org/article/recurrent-laryngeal-nerve-not-evidence/
As a computer programmer I try to relate code to biology. I may look at code that someone else wrote and wonder why the heck they did that. I may even go as far as rewriting what they wrote trying to improve it only to find out that once my new elegant code is executed I discover major bugs. Then further digging reveals that what the original author did had an elegant purpose. I have the same view with life. Until we’re at the point where we can design life ourselves we should be very skeptical about un-optimal design. I am willing to bet that if we designed a giraffe from the embryonic stage to adult life with a short RLN we would find some very serious bugs.
With a friend I was discussing radio carbon dating and the assumptions it makes for dating. He like most people just could not grasp that people believe the Earth is ~6,000 years old when radio carbon dating dates organisms to tens of thousands years old.
Here is my very simple understanding of why it could be inaccurate. Read more…
It’s interesting that Scientists create miniature machine parts from DNA.
From the article
In the latest phase of the nanotechnology revolution, scientists have built a collection of minuscule objects from DNA, including toothed gears, curved tubes, and a wireframe beach ball five millionths of a centimetre in diameter.
The building blocks of DNA can be made to assemble themselves, piece by piece, into a structure designed by the researcher.
That’s weird, you can create toothed gears from DNA? This makes DNA sound like a programming language and gears sound like an efficient design pattern. I’m surprised we don’t have these Read more…
It’s interesting that biologists are finding perfection in biology.
If life was created by a designer then I would certainly expect to see well designed life. Apparently that is what we see.
Some Atheists will use the argument “why would God create us with a useless egg yolk making gene?”
(See Loss Of Egg Yolk Genes In Mammals And The Origin Of Lactation And Placentation.)
Another good question is why do we have genes that hinder our sense of smell? If we had certain genes turned on we could smell as well as a dog can.
From a theological view, I think these are easy questions to answer. The Bible says Read more…
Here is how I like to think of the Trinity. This is only partly thought out so there might be a gotcha in my logic. With that warning, here it is.
Think of Jesus as God in this dimension. I use the word dimension not as an expert in string theory but because it’s familiar. You see, we have these 4 dimensions (the fourth being time,) that we live in, with the possibility of more. The other dimensions are where things live that we can’t see, like demons and God.
God lives in another dimension which is Heaven. Jesus the Son is God in this dimension, God the Father is in Read more…
If you’re like me, then all too often you but heads against an atheist.
Often it starts by the Atheist putting the Christian on the defense, which is understandable because a thinking person may find many flaws with it, all of which can be defended by a thinking Christian.
No matter how well we debate the issues we’re often stuck in the defense during the entire discussion. Tactics in Defending the Faith (Audio CD) (5) taught me that when someone chooses some belief over Christianity then they need to explain why their belief is more reasonable than Christianity. Here is a tactic I use in turning the tides and put the Atheist on the defensive.
Read more…
Many have the impression that all Christians believe the earth is 6,000 years old. This is simply not true at all. I believe that the earth is older than 6,000 years and I’m a Christian. I believe that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth period. Then he destroyed the earth and recreated it. See my post on the Gap Theory.
Even though I and many Christians believe in an old earth doesn’t mean that there are no scientific grounds to deny a 6,000 year old earth. AIG, a group of Young Earth Creationists (YEC) spend a lot of Read more…
Here are some reasons why I don’t believe neo-Darwin evolution is true, and the explanation I lean towards is Intelligent Design.
1) There is not enough time for evolution
Durrett and Schmidt, two mathematicians, published an article in Genetics of how long it would take for a 2 step mutation to occur in a complex organism such as a fruit fly or a human. The two point mutation they were looking at was a mutation that first inactivated a binding site then created a new binding site in its place. This is a trivial process as far as neo Darwin evolution goes because it’s not actually changing the gene. The amount of time they came up with was over 100 million years just for this trivial change. Given that the history of primates are in the ball park of 50 million years this change is impossible.
2) The second law of thermodynamics, things move towards entropy.
Every field of science adheres to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, things move from order to disorder. Read more…