Paleontology Thursday, May 19, 2005 . This is a SciScoop post by David Bradley
The scientists’ claim that these evolutionary “leaps” are not real, but a consequence of ignoring the fossil record. When fossils are incorporated into the evolutionary tree, a very different picture emerges.
Donoghue explained: “We consider the current picture – a view of living animals only – is seriously distorted. What appear to be evolutionary jumps are really just gaps in the evolutionary tree – dead branches that have fallen by the wayside. These branches are not ‘missing links’, more like ‘missed’ links, and when we use the fossil record to put them back in place, the vertebrate evolutionary tree looks very different.”
Purnell added: “The new evidence, from examining ancient fossil fish, reveals that the ‘jump’ between, for example, lampreys and sharks turns out to be nothing of the sort. The major changes in anatomy didn’t occur suddenly, as a result of a gene doubling; they took place over 70 million years or more, through a series of intermediate, but now extinct fossil fish.”
The findings will set them on a collision course with geneticists who argue that the evolution of humans and other vertebrates – animals with backbones – was driven by sudden changes in their genes.
This work challenges the scientific theory that jumps in evolution occurred at times when gene numbers increased in animals with backbones. The larger number of genes is believed to occur through gene ‘duplication’ and is thought to be the reason why humans and other vertebrates are more complex.
When geneticists look at which branches of the vertebrate family tree have duplicated genes and which don’t, it certainly seems that each duplication led to a sudden jump in evolution.
In the example of lampreys and sharks, one duplication event occurred sometime after the evolution of lampreys but before the evolution of sharks. Sure enough, lampreys are simple vertebrates lacking jaws, teeth and a bony skeleton, whereas sharks are much more complex animals.
Thus the evidence from living vertebrates suggests a neat pattern, with a close correspondence between gene doubling events and evolution. Indeed, the evidence seems so strong that hundreds of scientific research papers have been written about the genetics of this important evolutionary pattern.
Donoghue and Purnell disagree and have thrown down the gauntlet to geneticists, saying: “Fossil species may be long extinct, their genes having rotted away millions of years ago, but if geneticists want to say anything meaningful about evolution they must include fossils in the vertebrate family tree – they cannot simply ignore them.”
SOURCE: AlphaGalileo Press Release
Their research paper Genome duplication, extinction and vertebrate evolution will appear in the June issue of Trends in Ecology and Evolution
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1 Response to Evolutionary Theory Questioned
chem
May 29th, 2005 at 1:52 pm
There is an excelent slideshow and related book known worldwide and which is accepted as the referance book to answer to the evolutionary theory:
“Today, such branches of science as paleontology, genetics, biochemistry, and molecular biology have proven that it is quite impossible for life to come about as a result of chance and to emerge by itself from natural conditions. The living cell, it is commonly agreed by the world of science, is the most complex structure that mankind has so far encountered. Modern science has revealed that just one living cell has a much more complex structure and mutually interconnected complicated systems than a large city. Such a complex structure can only function if all its separate parts emerge at the same time and in full working order. Otherwise, it will serve no purpose, and will fall apart over time and disappear. We cannot expect that its parts developed by chance over millions of years as claimed by the theory of evolution. For that reason, the complex design in just one cell clearly shows that God created life. (For more details, see Harun Yahya, The Miracle in the Cell) ”
http://www.harunyahya.com
Another terrible dilemma from the point of view of evolution is the DNA molecule in the nucleus of the living cell, a coding system with 3.5 billion units containing all the details of life. DNA was first discovered using X-ray crystallography in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and is a giant molecule with a superb plan and design. For many years, Francis Crick, a Nobel-prize laureate, believed in the theory of molecular evolution, but eventually even he had to admit to himself that such a complex molecule could not have emerged spontaneously by chance, as the result of an evolutionary process:
The fossil record represents another crushing defeat for the theory of evolution. Among all the fossils discovered over the years, there is not one trace of the intermediate forms that would be necessary if living things were to have evolved stage by stage from simple species to more complex ones, as the theory of evolution claims. If such creatures had really existed, there would have been millions, even billions, of them. More importantly, the remains of these creatures should be present in the fossil record. If these intermediate forms had ever really existed, their numbers would be even greater than the number of animal species we know today, and everywhere the world should be full of their fossil remains. Evolutionists look for these intermediate forms in all the feverish fossil research that has been carried out since the nineteenth century. However, there has been no trace of these intermediate forms, despite all the eager searching for the last 150 years.
In short, the fossil record shows that living species emerged suddenly and perfectly formed, not by following a process from primitive forms to advanced ones as evolution claims.
You may find herafter the proof of the collapse of Darvinisim in the following books and slideshows, and movies.
For Experts: Darwinism Refuted
For Intermediate: Evolution Deceit
http://www.evolutiondeceit.com
For Beginers: Tell me about the creation
The collapse of the evolutionary theory in 20 questions
The perfect design in universe is not by chance
http://www.harunyahya.com/c_refutation_darwinism.php
Also see:
http://www.secretbeyondmatter.com