Carpenter genes
Randy G. Lowe
uncle,; it takes a much smaller leap of faith.
RLowe
DerFuror wrote in message
<199809060333...@ladder03.news.aol.com>...
>This is an article that is to appear in the Australian magazine "Exposure"
>written by my friend, Lloyd Pye. Reprinted with permission. Let's talk.
>
>
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
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>CARPENTER GENES
>
>
>Why Darwinian Evolution Is Flatly Impossible
>
>by
>Lloyd Pye
>
>
>
DerFuror
written by my friend, Lloyd Pye. Reprinted with permission. Let's talk.
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CARPENTER GENES
Why Darwinian Evolution Is Flatly Impossible
by
Lloyd Pye
REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST
Next year, 1999, will be the 140th anniversary of the publication of
Charles Darwin’s On The Origin Of Species. In that landmark volume he
postulated that life on Earth had developed into its millions of forms
through a long, slow series of fundamental changes in the physical
structure of all living things, plants and animals alike. Though small and
gradual, these changes would be relatively constant. Bit by imperceptible
bit, gills would turn into lungs, fins would turn into forelimbs, scales
would turn into skin, bacteria would turn into us. The problem for Darwin,
and for all Darwinists since, came when the mechanism behind those changes
had to be explained.
Because Darwin’s era was only beginning to understand cellular function
(Gregor Mendel’s treatise on genetics did not appear until 1865), Darwin
proposed a system of gradual physiological improvements due to small,
discreet advantages that would accrue to the best-adapted progeny (his
famous “survival of the fittest”) among all living things (a bit stronger,
a bit swifter, a bit hardier), making them subtly different from their
parents and producing offspring with similar advantages accruing in their
physiological makeup. When enough small changes had compounded themselves
through enough generations....voila! A new species would have emerged,
sexually incompatible with the original parent stock, yet inexorably linked
to it by a common physiological heritage.
Once cellular function came to be better understood, particularly the
importance of DNA as the “engineer” driving the entire train of life, it
was quickly embraced as the fundamental source of change in Darwin’s
original model. Darwinian evolution, as it came to be called, was
indisputably caused by mutations at the genetic level. Because such
mutations were obvious to early geneticists, and could eventually be
induced and manipulated in their laboratories, it seemed beyond doubt that
positive mutations in DNA sequencing were the key to explaining evolution.
That left neutral mutations exerting no effect, while negative mutations
afflicted only the unlucky individuals who expressed them but had no
lasting impact on a species’ collective gene pool.
DARWIN’S BLACKEST BOX
In 1996 Michael Behe, a biochemistry professor at Lehigh University in
Bethlehem, Pa., published a book called Darwin’s Black Box. He defined a
“black box” as any device that functions perfectly well, but whose inner
workings remain mysterious because they cannot be seen or understood. To
Charles Darwin the living cell was an impenetrable black box whose inner
workings he could not even imagine, much less understand. To scientists
today the cell box is no longer quite as black, but it is still dark enough
to leave them with only a faint understanding of how it works. They know
its basic components and the functions of those components, but they still
don’t know how all those pieces fit together to do what cells do--live.
Life is still every bit the profound mystery it was in Darwin’s day. Many
additional pieces of the puzzle have found their way onto the table since
1859, but scientists today are not much closer to seeing the whole picture
than Darwin or his cronies. That is an ironic reality which few modern
Darwinists will accept in their own hearts and minds, much less advertise
to the world in general. So they supply the media with intellectual swill
that the media, in turn, unknowingly palms off as truth, while the
scientists edgily cross their fingers and hold their breath in the hope
that someday, maybe even someday soon, but certainly before the great
unwashed get wise to the scam, they will finally figure out the great
secret...they will see into the heart of the universe’s blackest box...they
will understand how life actually works, from the first moment of the first
creation to evolution itself.
SHALL WE GATHER AT THE RIVER?
Darwinists teach and preach that life began spontaneously in a mass of
molecules floating freely in the Earth’s earliest rivers and seas. Those
molecular precursors somehow formed themselves into organic compounds that
somehow formed themselves into the very first living organism. This
incredible feat of immaculately choreographed bioengineering was,
Darwinists insist, accomplished without the aid of any outside agency, such
as a Prime Mover (what some would call “God”), and especially not anything
extraterrestrial. It was done using only the materials at hand on the early
Earth, and accomplished solely by the materials themselves, with a probable
assist from a perfectly timed, perfectly aimed lightning bolt that, in the
most serendipitous moment imaginable, swirled tens of thousands, or even
hundreds of thousands of inanimate molecules into a living entity.
For as glibly as Darwinists have fashioned and promoted this scenario in
schools to this day, the complexity of its mechanics might challenge the
creative skills of a busload of Prime Movers. Countless lipids have to
somehow be coaxed to form a membrane that somehow surrounds enough strands
of DNA to create a cell that can manage life’s two most basic functions: it
must absorb organic and inorganic compounds in its environment and turn
them into proteins, which can then be converted into energy and excreta;
and it must have the ability to reproduce itself ad infinitum. If all of
those varied factors, each a bona fide miracle in itself, do not occur in
the precise order demanded by all living cells for their tightly
orchestrated, step-by-step development, then the entire process becomes
laughably improbable.
British astronomer Fred Hoyle has offered the classic analogy for this
scenario, stating that its actual likelihood of being true and real equals
“that of a tornado sweeping through a junkyard and correctly assembling a
Boeing 747.” It did not and could not happen then, just as it cannot be
made to happen now. The very best our biochemists can do today is construct
infinitesimal pieces of the puzzle, leaving them little nearer to seeing
how life truly works than Darwin and his cohorts 140 years ago. But why?
What’s the problem? Haven’t we cracked the atom? Haven’t we flown to the
moon? Haven’t we mapped the ocean floors? Yes, yes, and yes. But those
things were easy by comparison.
LOOKING FOR LIFE IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES
If the Darwinists are so wrong, where are they wrong? What is the
fundamental mistake they are making? It has to do with where they are
looking, which is the cell, inside the cell, and specifically at the
functioning of DNA. Because the twisting double-helix of DNA contains the
instructions for all of life’s processes, the assumption has always been
that disruptions in the patterns of those instructions are the only logical
explanation for how physiological changes at both the micro (small) and
macro (large) level must be created and executed. In other words, changes
in DNA (mutations) must be the engine driving all aspects of evolutionary
change. Nothing else makes sense.
Sensible or not, however, it is wrong. Why? Because in 1984 a group of
British researchers decided to do an experiment utilizing what was then
considered to be a universal truth about genes, handed down from Gregor
Mendel himself: the idea that genes are sexless. Mendel had postulated that
a gene from either parent, whether plant or animal, was equally useful and
effective throughout the lifetime of the individual possessing it. This was
taken as gospel until those British researchers tried to create mouse
embryos carrying either two copies of “father” genes or two copies of
“mother” genes. According to Mendel’s laws of inheritance, both male and
female embryos should have developed normally. After all, they had a full
complement of genes, and if genes were indeed sexless they had all they
needed to gestate and thrive.
The researchers were stunned when all of their carefully crafted embryos
were dead within a few days of being transferred to a surrogate mother’s
womb. How could it happen? What could have gone so wrong in a scenario that
couldn’t go wrong? They were completely baffled. But what they didn’t know,
and what many refuse to accept even now, fourteen years later, is that they
had unwittingly opened their own--and their icon’s--darkest, blackest box.
They had ventured into a region of the cell, and of the functioning of DNA,
that they hadn’t imagined was off-limits. And by taking that inadvertent
journey they ended up forging an entirely new understanding of Mendelian
inheritance, while driving a stake through the already weakened heart of
Darwinian evolution.
A TIME TO LIVE AND A TIME TO DIE
Normally, father genes or mother genes control the expression of their own
activity. A father gene might give, for example, the signal for a crop of
head hair to grow--to “express” itself--and to stop expressing when the
follicles had been constructed in their proper places in the scalp. The
cessation of the expressing process is called methylation, which is the
surrounding of expressing genes with clusters of chemicals that shut them
off (picture the cap being put back on a toothpaste tube). In the same way,
a mother gene might express a pair of eyes and then, when they were
completed, “methylate” the gene’s growth processes into inactivity.
Until 1984, it was believed that all genetic function operated the same
way. If a gene or suite of genes came from Dad’s side of the mating
process, then those genes managed their own affairs from birth until death.
And the same held true for genes coming from Mom’s side of the mating. But
certain genes turned out to exhibit radical differences, depending on whose
side of the mating process they come from. When the female mouse embryos
died, it was found that genes vital to their growth had inexplicably never
been turned on at all, while still others were never turned off
(methylated) and spiraled unchecked into cancers. Even more baffling, the
fatal processes in the all-male embryos were entirely different from those
in the all-females. The embryos were dying for reasons that were clearly
sex-biased. What could it possibly mean?
Imprinted genes were found to be the culprit. Imprinted genes, it turned
out, could be expressed by either parent and, incredibly, methylated by the
other parent! Somehow, someway, by means not clearly imagined, much less
understood, genes from one parent had the ability to independently begin or
end processes that were critical to the lives of forming embryos. In the
world of genetics as it had always been perceived, that was impossible.
Only a localized (sexless) gene should be able to control its own destiny
or purpose, not a separate gene from an entirely different parent.
Cooperating genes broke all the rules of physical inheritance that had been
written by Gregor Mendel. Yet imprinted genes do, in fact, disregard
Mendel’s rules; and by doing so they provide the above mentioned stake that
will inevitably be driven through the heart of classic Darwinian evolution.
LIFE’S BLUEPRINT WRIT WRONG
So far geneticists have identified about 20 imprinted genes embedded
within the 80,000 to 100,000 believed to comprise the entire human genome.
New ones are discovered on a regular basis, with many geneticists
predicting the final tally will reach hundreds, while others suspect the
total might reach into the thousands. But whether hundreds or thousands,
any imprinted genes at all means that classic Darwinism can no longer count
on mutations in DNA as a plausible mechanism for fundamental physical
change.
For mutations to be acceptable as the engine of Darwinian change, they
have to be able to occur in isolation and then, as stated earlier, pass
themselves intact to succeeding generations. By definition that means they
have to be able to regulate their own functions, both to express and to
methylate other genetic processes. Whenever a trait mutates, whether a
longer limb, a stronger muscle, or a more efficient organ, it should pass
into the gene pool whole and complete, not half of it being expressed from
the male side of a pairing and half from the female side. Why? Because both
parents would have to mutate in complementary ways at the same time to the
same degree...and then they would have to find each other and mate in order
to have even a chance to pass the mutation on!
Natural mutations, while statistically rare, are clearly documented. They
can be neutral, negative, or positive. So when geneticists contend that
isolated mutations in DNA can occur and be passed on to succeeding
generations, they first assume the individual with the mutation has been
fortunate enough to have the correct one out of the three possibilities.
They further assume the individual survives the brutal winnowing process
Darwin so correctly labeled “survival of the fittest.” But fittest or not,
any fledgling animal or plant must contend with an infinite number of ways
to miss the boat to maturity. Assuming that passage is safe, the lucky
individual with the positive mutation has to get lucky several more times
to produce enough offspring so that at least a few of them possess his or
her positive mutation and also survive to maturity to pass it along. It is
a series of events every bit as unlikely as Fred Hoyle’s tornado sweeping
through a junkyard, but at least it is remotely feasible.
Imprinted genes neatly sever those imperceptible threads of feasibility by
making it literally impossible for any mutation, positive or otherwise, to
effect more than the individual expressing it. There is certainly no way
for it to work its way into a gene pool regulated by imprinted genes. Why?
For the reasons just stated above: for a mutation to be implemented, it
must be beneficial and it must be paired with a similar change in a member
of the opposite sex. Thus, if only a handful of genes are capable of being
turned on and off by different parents, then Darwinian evolution has no
place in the grand scheme of life on Earth. Imprinting shoves Darwinists
well beyond any hope of feasibility, to a region of DNA where change is
incapable of being positive.
TIMING REALLY IS EVERYTHING
What we are really talking about with imprinting processes is timing, the
most exquisite and incomprehensible faculty any gene possesses. By knowing
when--and being able--to turn on and off the millions to billions of
biological processes that create and sustain living organisms, genes
control the switches that control life itself. In effect, whatever controls
the timing switches controls the organism. If, for example, only one methyl
group misses its turn-off signal on an expressing gene, the resultant
non-stop expressing will lead to cellular overproduction and, ultimately,
cancer. Conversely, if only one gene fails to express when it should, at
the very least a seriously negative event has occurred, and at worst the
organism has suffered a catastrophe that will terminate its life.
More important than this, however, is that timing sequences cannot be
altered in any way, shape, or form that will not be detrimental to
offspring. In other words, the “evolution” of a timing sequence in the
development of an embryo or a growing offspring simply cannot be favorable
in the Darwinian sense. Why? Because in terms of results it is already
perfect. And how do we know it is perfect? Because the parents both reached
maturity. What is so special about their reaching maturity? It means their
own timing sequences performed perfectly in their own embryos, with their
initial sperm and egg differentiating in millions of ways to become their
bodies. (In plants the same principle holds true). Then their growing
period developed perfectly, with its millions of different timing events
leading to their limbs and organs growing to their proper sizes and
carrying on their proper functions.
Any alteration of that perfection can be, and nearly always is,
devastating. In golf a putt drops or it doesn’t. In timing sequences, they
are started and stopped precisely, or not. There is no room for error or
improvement (no third condition called “better”). Thus, no genetic
alteration to timing can create the faster legs, larger horns, sharper
teeth, etc., called for by Darwin’s theory of piecemeal change. This is why
gills cannot become lungs, why fins cannot become limbs, why scales cannot
become fur or skin. No single timing mechanism can “evolve” without
altering the perfection that has been passed to offspring by parents
through untold generations.
A good analogy is the building of a house. We start with a blueprint.
Analogize this with the genetic blueprint provided by DNA. The former
outlines the physical materials that go into a house: wood, nails,
sheetrock, doors, etc. The latter outlines the physical materials that go
into creating a body: blood, bones, skin, hair, etc. Next, we bring in the
carpenters who will build the house. It is they who, following our
carefully drawn blueprint, will determine everything that will be done to
create our house. More importantly, they will determine when all parts of
the house will be built, when any particular process will start and when it
will stop. They will build the floor before the walls, the walls before the
roof, etc.
Building our house is thus a two-part project: what to build, and how and
when to build it. It is the same with living organisms, whose carpenter
genes (the mysterious timing mechanisms that turn growth processes on and
off) determine their success. Now it becomes easy to understand Darwin’s
fundamental error. While examining the widely varied houses of living
organisms, he saw no trace of the invisible carpenters who have the
decisive hand in their creation. Therefore, his theory did not--and so far
cannot--account for the fact that carpenter genes invariably prohibit
alterations.
IF I HAD A HAMMER
As with a house, DNA contains or provides everything necessary to create a
particular organism, whether animal or plant. DNA has the further capacity
to define and manufacture the physiological materials needed to create the
entirety of the organism, precisely when they are needed and to the exact
degree they are needed. And, perhaps most wondrous of all, DNA contains the
ineffable carpenter genes that determine when each phase of the organism’s
construction will begin and end. Any organism’s parents will have passed to
it a set of DNA blueprints of what to build and how to build it, which are
nearly always perfect with respect to timing, but allowing slight
variations in what is built. On the occasions when faulty timing does lead
to tragedy, the imperfections are due to sperm-egg misconnects, or
molecular anomalies in DNA caused by radiation or chemicals.
Where classic Darwinian evolution completely breaks down is in not
allowing carpenter genes to exist separately from end results. Darwinism
contends that when any aspect of an organism’s materials change (i.e., a
mutation in some strand of DNA which changes some aspect of physical
structure), that organism’s carpenter genes smoothly accommodate the change
(alter the blueprint) by adjusting the timing sequences (beginning and end)
of that structure’s development. This is not reality. A Watusi’s thighbone
takes just as long to form as a Pygmy’s thighbone (about 18 years), so only
the end results--their respective sizes--have changed, not their timing
process. This is one reason why all human beings can so easily interbreed,
even the unlikely combination of Watusis and Pygmies. Our vast array of
underlying genetic timing mechanisms, including our imprinted genes, have
been handed down intact (unevolved!) since the beginning of our existence
as a species.
Thus, what is built can be slowly, gradually altered; how it is built
cannot. This obvious fact...this undeniable truth...has the most profound
implications: In the carpenter genes of successful organisms, no
improvement is possible! And without improvement, via Darwinian change, how
could they have evolved? Not just into something from nothing, but into
millions of interlocking, tightly sequenced commands that smoothly mesh
over extended periods as organisms develop from embryo to birth to sexual
maturity? The short answer is, “They can’t.”
What all this means, of course, is that everything we think we know about
how life develops on Earth is flatly wrong. It means all of our “experts”
are totally mistaken when they tell us that Darwin’s theory of gradual
mutations has led to the development of all species of plants and animals
on the planet. Nothing could be further from the truth. Darwinism cannot
work now, it has never been able to work, and the time has come for its
supporters to stop their intellectual posturing and admit they need to go
back to their drawing boards to seek a more plausible explanation for what
is surely life’s greatest single mystery.
#######
Snook
>written by my friend, Lloyd Pye. Reprinted with permission. Let's talk.
Heh. "DerFuror". Nazi Creationists.
What'll they think of next? Communist Aquatic Ape Theorists V. Nihilist
Savanna Ape Theorists, tonight with monster trucks?
Sorry. Couldn't resist, seeing how so much *zeal* has been in some threads
lately, from both sides...
Hey! Let's start xposting to one of those creationist groups!
Actually, probably best not to get them started...
Snook
Jim McGinn
>written by my friend, Lloyd Pye. Reprinted with permission. Let's talk.
>
>
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>CARPENTER GENES
>
>
>Why Darwinian Evolution Is Flatly Impossible
>
>by
>Lloyd Pye
>
>
>REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST
>
the “evolution” of a timing sequence in the
>development of an embryo or a growing offspring simply cannot be favorable
>in the Darwinian sense. Why? Because in terms of results it is already
>perfect. And how do we know it is perfect? Because the parents both reached
>maturity.
The validity of this whole post pivots on these statements. If you can prove
these statements then I think the rest of what you say has to be taken
seriously. If you cannot prove them or if they are refuted then the validity
of this whole post is in doubt.
It seems to me that you would have a hard time arguing that defining
something as perfect on the basis that it achieves maturity is anything but
self-referential logic.