Wednesday, August 08, 2007

DNA, Devolution, and You

An article in the August issue of Impact magazine (from Coral Ridge Ministries) caught my eye today. It is entitled, "DNA, Devolution, and You."

I attempted to find it online so that I could just link to it, but wasn't able to locate it. During my search, however, I did find a few interesting articles.

1. Why Intelligent Design will change everything.

The article was written in 2006. Since then, the amount of scientists who have signed a document entitled "Scientific Dissent from Darwinism" has increased from 400 to over 700.

2. Another interesting article is “Can the theory of evolution be harmonized with the Second Law of Thermodynamics?”

Perhaps this helps explain why many more scientists are coming on board to sign the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism.

Excerpt:
The entropy law, therefore, applies to open systems as well as isolated systems. This is why no machine or process is 100 percent efficient and why perpetual motion machines are impossible. This is why everything eventually wears out, runs down and dies.

Even those systems which seem to show increasing order for a time eventually lose out to the principle of decay. The crystal finally disintegrates, the adult finally dies, the population eventually stabilizes and finally disappears, the species becomes extinct, even great civilizations sooner or later perish as the result of outside conquest or famine or, perhaps, a nuclear holocaust. Thus, every apparent increase of order and complexity is, at best, only local and temporary, and at the cost of greater disorder to the environment from which it extracts its ephemeral ordering energy.

And even such a local and temporary increase of order can be accomplished only by means of some intricate process provided for the system for this purpose. The remarkable process of photosynthesis enables plants to utilize the sun’s energy and thus to grow. The fantastic processes of blood circulation, digestion, respiration, and others of similar complexity enable animals and men to grow. And both plant and animal life require the intricate coding and template structure of the genetic system for the maintenance of the species itself.

The infinitely greater increase of order implied in the evolutionary process must obviously require a far more wonderful and complex mechanism than any of these if it is to be even temporarily successful. But even after a hundred years of intensive study by thousands of scientists spending millions of dollars of research grants, the mechanism of evolution is still elusive.

The pathetic suggestion of mutation (basically a disordering mechanism operating in full accordance with the Second Law) and natural selection (a conservative principle which tends to maintain the status quo in nature) as the driving mechanisms for the organic phase of evolution illustrates the desperate extreme to which men will go to escape the clear and satisfying evidence, both in nature and in Scripture, of the fact of a completed creation.

Thus evolution can be defended against the Second Law of Thermodynamics by metaphysical speculations, but all the solid scientific and Biblical evidence is against it.


Now we move on to the Impact magazine article:

DNA, Devolution, and You

You're not getting older - you're getting better. We'd all like to believe that about ourselves, but when it comes to the human race, it's just not true.

Entropy, the process of all things going from order to disorder, is a universal reality. We can observe it not just in the state of our children's bedrooms, but in the world around us. Even DNA, the chemical structure that contains the blueprint for life, is subject to entropy.

Devolving, Not Evolving

The information encoded in DNA molecules is declining at a rapid rate due to mutations. The consensus among geneticists is that our genetic code is being increasingly corrupted over time as succeeding generations both inherit and acquire harmful mutations that are passed down to the next generation. We are devolving, not evolving.

Dr. J.C. Sanford, a Cornell University professor and geneticist believes that because of the accumulating "genetic load" of mutations in our DNA, we humans are becoming weaker and weaker over time.

[Note from Christine: Kinda explains why Barry Bonds had to take steroids to break Hank Aaron's home run record, doesn't it?]

In his book, Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome, Sanford states that genetic information is currently being lost quickly and that the decline in our fitness as a species is thought to be taking place at a phenomenal rate. So, if the human genome is declining with each passing generation, can upward evolution be true?

Molecules to Man?

"Genetic entropy is an insurmountable barrier to the idea of evolution from molecules to man, " said Tom DeRosa, Executive Director of Creation Studies Institute. "The evidence clearly shows us that man, or any other living form, absolutely has no mechanism for evolution." This certainly provides a clue to understanding all the new diseases, including rare forms of cancers that have emerged, because of the genetic stress on mankind, DeRosa said.

[Note from Christine: I can vividly recall a particular brief, but profound incident during the question and answer period at the debate between two atheists vs. Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron. A grief-stricken woman in the audience stood up and demanded to know why "God allows cancer" in the world. The following paragraph gives her the answer.]

Cure for the Fall

Entropy is a consequence of man's fall when all things, including DNA, were subjected to the "bondage of corruption" (Romans 8:21 NKJV). Jesus Christ is the only remedy. He bore the curse of sin for us. If we trust in Him for salvation, we will be delivered from the penalty of death and, as Paul states in Romans 8, "the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God" (Romans 8:21 NKJV).

Gary DeMar


In the sidebar next to the article, Tom DeRosa writes:

All Creation Sings

I recently participated in an online chat room where members of the National Science Teacher Association taked candidly about professional concerns.

One teacher made it clear that when it comes to evolution, dogmatic certainty is the only option: "We have to provide a 'united fron' as scientists and not show any doubt. I make sure I never use the word 'believe' during this unit. It's not a belief. It just IS."

Some 700 scientists disagree. In 2001 they signed the following statement found online at www.dissentfromdarwin.org:

"We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

I'm convinced this teacher won't be telling her students that reputable scientists harbor doubts about Darwin.

Nevertheless, Creation Studies Institute exists to combat this pro-Darwin indoctrination taking place in public schools. Our resources help individuals understand the reasons to believe God's Word versus Darwin.

Tom DeRosa

2 comments:

Jaded said...

You know I can't do the whole link thing in a comment, but this article is interesting:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070808/ap_on_sc/human_evolution

Of course, they try to dismiss the idea that religion plays no part in this. However, I think it's very valid and relevant that evolution didn't occur as they thought it did. I think religion plays a HUGE part in this finding!

Christinewjc said...

Great article Jaded! Thanks for sharing the link.

Years ago, when the Intelligent Design hypothesis was in it's infancy, I visited the Natural History museum in Washington D.C. That article had a paragraph that brought back memories of my feelings about ape to man evolution:

And it further discredits that iconic illustration of human evolution that begins with a knuckle-dragging ape and ends with a briefcase-carrying man.

I wrote a blurb, years back, about my own experience when viewing the display that went from ape to "briefcase carrying man."

Here's a portion of it:

Along the way in the museum's perceived evolution of man [Note: this museum referred to the Museum of Man in Balboa Park, San Diego], there were plaster figures of how our supposed 'ancestors' may have looked.

One thing that I found particularly interesting is that the representation of the man at the end of the ancestor chain looked more neanderthal-ish than the one that I saw many years ago in the Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. . There, the progression went from a very ape-like ancestor to a man dressed in a suit holding a briefcase!!

I'll never forget expressing my reaction out loud in front of a man who was about to take a photograph. I said, "what a bunch of hooey!" The guy, who had been crouching down to get the picture didn't even take it! He just got up, looked at me, shook his head (up and down as if to say 'yes' I concur!) and walked away from the exhibit!! I'll never forget that incident back in 1997! It is what launched me into research about why evolution is accepted as fact and why alternatives views are discouraged and ridiculed. My 'layman's' study of Creation and Intelligent Design began!

P.S. Jaded, it's O.K. if you don't do the "link thing," But once you learn how it's easy to continue to do. In my last blogpost, I included an example of how I would create a link for "Talkwisdom." Here's the explanation:

[Reminder for those who have had difficulty creating word links: < href = " http : // talkwisdom .blogspot .com / ">Talkwisdom < / a> ] Just take out all of the spaces (except for one space between the a and the href) and your link will appear like this: Talkwisdom ]

Believe me. I had to practice it over and over again (and refer back to the instructions several times) before I learned how to do it effortlessly.

Here's how you might create a link for that article:

< a href = " http : // news. yahoo. com/s/ap/20070808/ ap_on_sc/ human_evolution " >Human evolution < /a>

When you take all the spaces out (except for the ONE SPACE between a href), then it will appear like this:


Human evolution