Sea Urchin Teeth Are Designed to Grind Stone

ICR ^ | June 5, 2009 | Brian Thomas, M.S.

[GodGunsGuts]

Sea Urchin Teeth Are Designed to Grind Stone

by Brian Thomas, M.S.*

Sea urchins are spiny marine animals. Some of them like to hide in holes that they dig out of limestone in the ocean floor, using teeth that are ground down and yet remain sharp. What makes these teeth so special that they can drill through rock and not go blunt?...

[OldNavyVet]

The aurhor of the article is Brian Thomas, M.S.*

And the little reference star ("*") leads to this at the bottom of the article...

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Which ieads to the question: who is Brian Thomas, and what are his credentials?

Wikipedia doesn't have him ...

[GodGunsGuts]

They put a referrence star after every author, no matter what their credentials. But for the record, Brian Thomas has an M.S. in Biotechnology.

[sr4402]

The teeth are composed of crystals in plate and needle patterns that interlock, “like the fingers of folded hands.”2 In addition, the concentration of magnesium atoms in the crystals is graded such that the highest concentration of magnesium is found at the very tip of the tooth—where the main grinding pressure occurs. Thus, the magnesium is conserved and used to harden the teeth exactly where the need is most critical.

There are no transitional sea urchin teeth, and sea urchins are fully sea urchins wherever they are found. Their abundance in certain rock strata need not be interpreted as representing some kind of ancient “time of sea urchins.” Rather, it represents the catastrophic burial of a sea urchin-rich habitat that occurred early in the global Flood described in Genesis. And the precisely regulated manufacturing process that forms the sea urchins’ teeth can only be the result of a supreme Designer

[Androcles]

Actually, I believe that sea-urchins have one of the best transitional fossil records available and there is also a good genetic mapping of evolution backwards to sea stars, sand dollars, and simpler and simpler organisms whose relatives still exist today.

Sshhh...every time you say that, a Creationist winks out of existence!

And just to add insult to injury, there's no fossil record to prove he ever existed at all!

[Natufian]

From the article:

“The sea urchins that were preserved in rock layers must also have had these specialized grinding teeth.”

Why *must* they have had such teeth? What leads Brian Thomas MS* to that conclusion?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

First the creationist assumption:

The sea urchins that were preserved in rock layers must also have had these specialized grinding teeth.

Mr. Thomas could've just looked at the available evidence, but "creation science" is generally a fact-free activity.

Second is the conclusion based on the assumption:

The sudden appearance in fossils of “the mature sea urchin tooth [with] incredible structural and compositional complexity”1 contradicts Darwin’s evolutionary claim that animals “advance by the shortest and slowest steps.”4

A claim with no evidence.

And of course, evolutionary biology begins and ends with Darwin for "creation scientists", except when cosmology is involved.

Does Mr. Thomas know Darwin is dead?

[OldNavyVet]

Thank you, and ... for the record, my scientific references come primarily from Steve Jones, and his bio information is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jones_(biologist)

[rawhide]

God is amazing with His creation.

[Eddeche]

One thing that will never evolve: The IQ of a regular ICR reader.

[count-your-change]

Before the sea urchins were the sea ur-chinless, which didn't have mouths large enough for teeth so they had to “gum” the limestone until selective pressure provided them with little dentures while primitive-evolutionary-orthodonistry was designing teeth for them.

[Caramelgal]

The aurhor of the article is Brian Thomas, M.S.* And the little reference star ("*") leads to this at the bottom of the article...

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer at the Institute for Creation Research.

Which ieads to the question: who is Brian Thomas, and what are his credentials?

Wikipedia doesn't have him ...

Some background:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2250875/posts?page=20#20

[GodGunsGuts]

Creationists were created with the highest IQs right from the beginning:

[GodGunsGuts]

Amen!

[OldNavyVet]

For some reason, the link in ...

Thank you, and ... for the record, my scientific references come primarily from Steve Jones, and his bio information is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jones_(biologist)

... doesn’t work.

Best workaround is to use the link, add the symbol ) to what’s on your browser, and then press enter.

[tpanther]

Mr. Thomas again masters the great leap of taking a singular supposed example and making great inferences where none exist.

But meanwhile, supposing urchins evolved from a single-celled life-form, as did everything else...is no great leap at all?

Riiiiiiight.

[GodGunsGuts]

Excellent point, tpanther!

[metmom]

That’s funny considering that scientists are saying that humans have evolved to believe in God.

That must mean that those who don’t believe in God are not as highly evolved.

[Fichori]

Did you try HTML?

Steve Jones (biologist)
(The above looks like it should work...)

FR's auto link feature hiccups sometimes.