[Old_Mil]

The prokaryotes (single-celled organisms without membrane-bound organelles), kingdoms Eubacteria and Archaea. These at one point had a common ancestor but it is lost. Eukaryotes (organisms with membrane-bound organelles) are thought to have evolved through some type of symbiotic arrangement between bacteria and archaebacteria. The simplest version involves an archaebacterium engulfing an bacterium, the bacterium lives inside the host and provides oxygen scavenging, hydrogen, or some other benefit. Over time many genes on the engulfed bacterium's genome become transferred to the nucleus (there are varying theories about how that arose too), new genes arise, and eventually we get the modern eukaryotes with mitochondria.

Support for this idea includes the fact that eukaryotes like us share many metabolic enzymes with bacteria, but our mechanisms for gene transcription and translation are more like the archaebacteria's.

Or, the obvious explanation being that all life that shares a common environment is going to have similar methods of existing within that environment. This is a prime example of the flaw in evolutionary thinking. Evolutionary biologists approach all science with one unassailable dogma: evolution is true. Thus, all the "evidence" must be forced into this framework. Since evidence does not exist (as in the above theory of endosymbiosis), the theory (which is in reality little more than science fiction) is pronounced as fact and held forth as evidence.

All statements from evolutionary biologists can be reduced to fit the following framework:

(1) A looks or functions like B
(2) We know evolution is true
(3) Therefore A and B have a common ancestor

[ahayes]

Or, the obvious explanation being that all life that shares a common environment is going to have similar methods of existing within that environment.

That might be a plausible explanation except for the fact that studying multiple genes and constructing phylogenies provides repetitive evidence of gene relatedness. The evolution of genes can be traced by mutations, most of which don't have any effect on the function of the gene. Why should a Designer make multiple copies of the same gene in multiple species and then make pointless changes in them that suggest a line of descent? Then there are also pseudogenes, which have been deactivated by a mutation. The site of the deactivating mutation can be used to construct a phylogeny of animals sharing the pseudogene and can be used to determine when this branch split off from others that have the functional gene. Why would a Designer insert broken genes into a species? Then there are viral inserts that can also be used for phylogenies. Why would a Designer insert viral DNA in a pattern that indicates common descent?

I used to think the same thing, but I changed my mind.