Evolutionist Errors Regarding the Sea Urchin Genome
Harun YahyaIn its December 2006 issue the Turkish magazine Bilim ve Teknik (Science and Technology) carried a report headed “The Sea Urchin Genome Confirms that We Are Related!” The article in question, based on a news release from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, reported the results of a genome analysis of the sea urchin published in the journal Science. The article was misleading because it presented fictitious speculation as scientific fact by interpreting the results obtained in the light of the hypotheses of the evolutionary theory. This paper explains how, contrary to what is claimed, the results of the genome study do not support the theory of evolution and are merely dogmatic interpretations based on a prejudiced perspective.
Genetic Similarity Is No Evidence for Evolution
Genetic similarity in fact constitutes no evidence for evolution. Similar structures in living things reveal functional, complex designs.
Genes are highly complex data storage units. It has been calculated that human DNA contains sufficient information to fill 1 million encyclopedia pages. Despite this high data storage capacity, DNA itself is exceedingly small. It lies inside the minute nucleus of the cell, itself too small to be seen with the naked eye. DNA has such a special design that a single human cell contains 3 meters of tightly folded DNA. It is impossible for the information in DNA, the base sequences that contain that information and the foldable helix to have emerged by chance. Furthermore, there is also a self-repairing system in DNA. This system monitors and repairs copying errors that may arise during cell division.
The mechanisms of random mutations and natural selection on which evolution depends are unable to account for these. That being the case, creation emerges as the origin of life and the common structures in living things. Living things did not come into being through evolution. Almighty God brought them into existence by commanding them to “Be!” without the need for any designs.
Following that important clarification we can now consider the errors in the Bilim ve Teknik article one by one:
- The error that echinoderms and vertebrates are descended from a common forebear
It is claimed in the article that “the phylum echinodermata, of which the sea urchin is a member, and vertebrates, of which we are a member, have a common ancestor that lived 540 million years ago.”
The fact that Bilim ve Teknik makes such a claim shows that the magazine has lost its scientific objectivity and suffered considerable damage from evolutionist dogmatism. Because this claim is one in which the true facts regarding the Cambrian period, one of the strongest pieces of evidence against the theory of evolution, are concealed from readers and which is distorted for the sake of providing false evidence for the theory.
The Cambrian period took place some 540 million years ago, and was one in which complex organisms emerged suddenly in an environment in which there was no life at all, apart from single-celled organisms and a few soft-tissued multi-celled organisms. The fundamental animal category is the “phylum,” and, interestingly, all the phyla that have lived on Earth, and even more that subsequently became extinct, appeared in the Cambrian period. While only a few phyla have been identified prior to this period, it has been calculated that up to 50 phyla appear in the fossil record from the Cambrian. So great was the leap in the diversity of life in this period that it is known as the “Cambrian explosion” in scientific literature.
The echinoderm and vertebrate groups whose names appear in Bilim ve Teknik emerged suddenly in this period, and evolutionists have no possible forebears they can suggest for them. This is admitted by the eminent Darwinist zoologist Richard Dawkins in these words:
. . . the Cambrian strata of rocks, vintage about 600 million years, are the oldest ones in which we find most of the major invertebrate groups. . . . It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. (Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, London: W. W. Norton 1986, p. 229)
In short, the claim in Bilim ve Teknik that vertebrates and echinoderms have a common ancestor that lived 540 million years ago is a fictitious one, based not on the scientific facts but rather on the impositions of the theory of evolution.
- The error of human and insect forebears
The article contains a statement that the genome studies “are an important source of genetic data regarding what happened on the evolutionary stage after the forebears of humans and insects had separated.” The above state of affairs also applies here, and the expression “what happened on the evolutionary stage after the forebears of humans and insects had separated” is a myth stemming entirely from blind adoption of the theory of evolution, and one entirely devoid of any scientific proof.
For more information concerning the invalidity of the concept of human and insect ancestors, you can examine discoveries in the human and insect fossil records here.
Conclusion:
We advise the editors of Bilim ve Teknik to accept that Darwinism represents an invalid claim in the face of scientific findings and to cease portraying the fictitious assumptions of the theory of evolution as scientific facts.
Note: This is also our response to an article titled “Spiny creature’s genome insight” carried on the BBC website on 10 November, 2006.
