Just when you thought Conservapedia couldn't be outdone, along comes the ARJ. Yup, a peer-reviewed Creationist Science journal, explaining (among other things) how microbes fit into the Creation story.
Priceless. If it's a spoof, it's a good one, but the Editor appears to be the real deal.
As ever the standard warning applies to Barry, about taking his pills before clicking on any link above .
They like to play like grown up like grown up scientists:
"On each day of creation, God wrought a plethora of wonders, and each day’s work perfectly complemented the other (MacArthur 2001)."
What's the point of the 'MacArthur 2001' reference? Did MacArthur do original research on exactly what God did on each day, and how the days complemented each other? Or did he just look at what Genesis says and go into raptures about it? Similar to one conspiracy theorist congratulating another about the undisentanglable complexity of his paranoia.
"So, where do these microbes fit into the very good days of creation? Before answering this question, three terms, microbe, germ, and symbiosis, need to be defined. These are relatively new or “modern” terms. First, the Bible does not use these specific terms."
Ya don't say!! Gee, I wonder why.
Also, check out the subtext here: "These are relatively new or “modern” terms." What are the quote marks doing around the word 'modern'? Does it have some additional significance external to the meaning of the sentence? Like what? Perhaps 'modern' things aren't to be trusted, maybe there's something - s u s p i c i o u s - about them.
Last edited by Barry Shnikov; 18th-January-2008 at 09:17 PM.
Today, the term germ refers to disease-causing microbes, or pathogens. All germs would have originated after the Fall (Genesis 3). The Edenic Curse would have profoundly influenced all creation, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoans that would later become pathogens or parasites.
There are so many problems with this it's like trying to cut treacle into cubes.
Just f'rinstance...
If the pathogens originated with the Fall, Adam and Eve would have died on the spot. "Um - early bath, guys" (to the angels.) See what happened to native american populations when first exposed to pathogens from the old world.
Also, the Bible unhelpfully fails to point out that this was one of the things that god did to punish Adam and Eve. We're told about women bearing children in agony, and serpents going on their stomachs - but the bit about thousands of deadly and misery- and agony-causing microbes being created on the spot was - well, missed out.
Then check out this bit: "viruses, bacteria, fungi, and protozoans that would later become pathogens or parasites".
Uh - how did that happen, then? This 'becoming'? It wouldn't be... e v o l u t i o n... would it? Or did they just morph?
"In June 2007, a group of professional creation microbiologists assembled at the Answers in Genesis Creation Museum to meet and discuss ideas and papers at the first Microbe Forum (Purdom and Francis 2008). After several sessions presented by scientists, I further appreciated the natural symbiosis of microbes and other creatures, because it occurred to me that seldom are microbes living in total isolation. Upon further reflection, I concluded that it is much more likely that God created the microbes as “biological systems” on multiple days of creation (table 2). It is less likely that a single day in creation would explain the vast diversity of microbes (i.e., viruses, bacteria, fungi, algae, protozoans, etc.)—although He certainly could have. In fact, this “new conception” of when microbes were created is a change in my thinking that has taken place over the past few years."
(Professional creation microbiologists. I couldn't have made this stuff up. Anyway, I digress.)
One sentence precis of the above. "I sat down and thought about this and with no further ado I decided that black holes are louder than trombones." Some well-intentioned person, knowing he knew nothing about how the world came to be, wrote a story about how a god might do it. And 2,500 years later helplessly brainwashed nit-wits try to match 300 years of scientific investigation with a couple of hundred lines of antique prosody.
I'm speechless with admiration at the idiocy of these fools. It must have felt like this to be a French soldier watching as the Light Brigade charged the russian artillery.
I tried not to do this, I really did. But I couldn't stop myself.
"How Do Mitochondrial Ribosomes Fit into the Theory of Endosymbiosis?
Daniel Criswell, Institute for Creation Research, Dallas, Texas
The Endosymbiotic Theory postulates that eukaryotic cells arose from the symbiosis of smaller aerobic prokaryotes living within a larger prokaryote. These symbionts evolved an interdependence of biochemical systems leading to the development of eukaryotes with specialized organelles such as mitochondria. The mitochondria of mammalian cells and other eukaryotes are theorized to be the descendants of the aerobic prokaryotes that were engulfed by larger prokaryotes. This assumption was based partly on the notion that ribosomes found in the mitochondria would be similar to the 70S ribosomes found in prokaryotes. However, it is now apparent that ribosomes in mammalian mitochondria and other eukaryotes are unique, with little resemblance to prokaryote ribosomes.
Prokaryote 70S ribosomes are 2/3 ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) and 1/3 protein by weight while mammalian mitochondrial 55S ribosomes are 2/3 protein and 1/3 rRNA, making the 55S ribosome heavier but more porous than the 70S ribosomes. Structural analysis has confirmed this and shows that the internal structures of prokaryote ribosomes versus mitochondrial ribosomes are quite different. There is no significant sequence homology between mitochondrial and prokaryote ribosome nucleic acids or proteins except at the functional sites of the ribosomes, which is expected. In fact, eukaryote 80S cytosolic ribosome sequences are more conserved than mitochondrial ribosomes in relation to prokaryote ribosomes. Nearly all of the peripheral portions of the 55S ribosomes are not homologous to 70S ribosomes in sequence or protein/rRNA content.
It is widely accepted that the amount of rRNA has been reduced over evolutionary time from prokaryotes to mammalian mitochondrial ribosomes and replaced by proteins recruited from the nuclear genome. However, Reclinomonas americana, frequently presented as a close link to prokaryotes, has more rRNA than most prokaryotes, as does the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, and the vinegar eel Caenorhabditis elegans has even less rRNA than mammals.
The significant differences in global ribosome structure, sequence homology, and even evolutionary phylogeny contradict the expectations of traditional Endosymbiotic Theory. Based on these differences the Endosymbiotic Theory of eukaryotic origins should be rejected."
Please note. There is not a single reference, endnote, footnote or anything like it in this article. Anyone reading it has absolutely no chance of evaluating any individual sentence, let alone the whole thing.
Added to that, it's a rehash of the evolution-deniers usual argument. "Here's an incompatibility with a widely-held, repeatedly confirmed theory. Quick! Let's dump the whole theory." (And say God did it, but only to people who already agree with us, so we can pretend to everyone else that we're merely scientists honestly and earnestly seeking the truth.)
The editor, Dr.Andrew Snelling, is a real geologist, who does real geologist work for uranium mining companies and the like. Amusingly, he appears to lead two professional careers which never cross paths. There's a nice debunking of him here (nice URL, for those of you who noted the the ARJ's one)
His Wikipedia entry also notes this discrepancy. They note the text used to introduce him at the ARJ, which starts with probably the mightiest oxymoron ever written:
Dr. Andrew Snelling, one of the world’s most respected creation scientists...
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