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'Living Gears' Might Have Evolutionists Hopping Mad (article)
Institute for Creation Research ^ | 9-23-2013 | Brian Thomas

Posted on 09/24/2013 8:01:13 AM PDT by fishtank

'Living Gears' Might Have Evolutionists Hopping Mad by Brian Thomas, M.S. *

When planthoppers hop, they really do pop. These tiny creatures fling themselves with such fury that, frankly, things would go awry if their jumping mechanisms were not properly tuned. For example, if one leg hopped a bit sooner or with slightly greater force than the other, the insect would just fling itself sideways. Good thing tiny gears synchronize their hind legs.

Well, technically the planthopper in question is a youngster—a nymph planthopper. But sure enough, Bristol biologist Greg Sutton found two minute rows of interlocking teeth at the base of the insect's legs. When it jumps, the gears mesh, keeping the two legs in lock-step. Sutton captured the gear action, which lasts for just a few milliseconds, using high-speed cameras. This remarkable mechanism helps the planthopper launch itself hundreds of times its body length with a single jump.

According to NPR Morning Edition, Sutton said this is "the first mechanical gear system ever observed in nature."1

It may be the first gear system ever actually observed, but it is not the first known. Scientists have been examining the effects of molecular gears for some time.

Bacterial flagella, for instance, incorporate a gear system that runs at variable speeds—forward and reverse—and that even has a clutch that can disengage the motor from the flagellar propeller.2 In 2008, biochemists also reported molecular gears found in a viral DNA packaging motor.3

These examples—all appearing as if they just rolled out of a miniature machine-shop—clearly indicate a meticulous and intentional design too difficult for evolutionists to explain. Surely these living gears could only have been created.

References

Cole, A. Living Gears Help This Bug Jump. NPR Morning Edition. Posted on npr.org September 13, 2013, accessed September 14, 2013.

Thomas, B. Bacterial Clutch Denotes Design. Creation Science Update. Posted on icr.org July 1, 2008, accessed September 16, 2013.

Thomas, B. Virus Motors Impossible for Evolution. Creation Science Update. Posted on icr.org January 9, 2009, accessed September 16, 2013.

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

Article posted on September 23, 2013.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: creation; gears
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To: Alter Kaker

I don’t think you are hopping mad about “living gears” but you do seem to be upset that that the author thinks that you might be.


21 posted on 09/24/2013 8:27:37 AM PDT by HerrBlucher (Praise to the Lord the Almighty the King of Creation)
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To: fishtank

The key word killing evolution is ‘Random’. When one forces any evolutionist to explain the devolpment of complicated bio-structure at the DNA level, their minds freeze and all that is heard is a stuttering sound. Protein structure and folding are complicated issues. A>B>C does not occur randomly. Adding entropy and lethal mutations doesn’t help their stuttering.


22 posted on 09/24/2013 8:29:53 AM PDT by Doc Savage ("I've shot people I like a lot more,...for a lot less!" Raylan Givins)
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To: dadfly
really. well then. how would a broken gear work? or what would be the macro-evolutionary purpose of a broken gear?

Not a broken gear, but a simpler locking mechanism, where a tooth on each leg cantilever off one another to ensure more coordinated jumping. One or two teeth might be better than no teeth, and four teeth better than two teeth. I'm obviously speculating here, but while cool this doesn't seem any different from any other complex biological structure.

23 posted on 09/24/2013 8:31:47 AM PDT by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: Red Badger
I had one fall out in the middle of nowhere............

I had a '51 Chevy pickup with a 3-speed column shift that would shift into the middle of nowhere trying to get to 2nd.

24 posted on 09/24/2013 8:32:05 AM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: Doc Savage
When one forces any evolutionist to explain the devolpment of complicated bio-structure at the DNA level, their minds freeze and all that is heard is a stuttering sound.

Correct, because we know that DNA stays constant, generation after generation...
< /sarc >

25 posted on 09/24/2013 8:33:26 AM PDT by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: Alter Kaker

Just split the difference and put chocolate on the bugger and down the hatch.


26 posted on 09/24/2013 8:34:10 AM PDT by Resolute Conservative
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For all of human history, that which resides beyond the current limits of understanding of the physical world is due to magic and the supernatural.


27 posted on 09/24/2013 8:37:31 AM PDT by SpaceBar
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To: tacticalogic

I had a ‘81 Ford pickup with a 3-speed column shift that the throw-out fork broke and I was stuck in 2nd for six miles in heavy traffic. At stop lights I had to jam the brakes on hard to kill the engine and restart in 2nd gear! People sure looked at me funny with a bucking truck...............


28 posted on 09/24/2013 8:40:17 AM PDT by Red Badger (It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong. .....Voltaire)
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To: Red Badger

Mine would fail to disengage 1st completely, but go ahead and engage 2nd, and lock the whole works up. You had to pull over, get under the hood and wiggle the shift linkages to get it freed up.


29 posted on 09/24/2013 8:43:32 AM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: Alter Kaker

It doesn’t but that there law of entropy stuff sure would seem to indicate you can’t make something out of nothing without outside work being applied.

Please note there are very few scientific laws - the vast majority of scientific thought are merely theories. But entropy is law.

As evolution is a theory it should continue to be challenged. As should the design theory.


30 posted on 09/24/2013 8:44:18 AM PDT by reed13k (For evil to triumph it is only necessary for good men to do nothing.)
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To: Alter Kaker

“I’m not hopping mad. Are you hopping mad? Do you know anybody who is hopping mad?”

Many will be hopping mad if the endless Evos v. Crevos Circus shuts down.

;-)


31 posted on 09/24/2013 8:49:40 AM PDT by GladesGuru (Islam is antithetical to, and Islam is irreconcilable with, America. Therefore - Islam Delenda Est)
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To: tacticalogic

Push button starter, air-vacuum windshield wipers, throttle on dash. Been there, done that.


32 posted on 09/24/2013 8:49:59 AM PDT by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: All armed conservatives. Proud anarchist, 2013)
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To: reed13k
Entropy applies to closed systems. Life on earth is not a closed system. Thanks to, say, the sun.

Also, you obviously don't understand the difference between the use of the word "theory" in everyday speech and how it is used in science. Google is your friend.

33 posted on 09/24/2013 8:51:51 AM PDT by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: tumblindice

Wow! Your planthopper is very highly evolved indeed!


34 posted on 09/24/2013 8:53:19 AM PDT by ClearCase_guy (21st century. I'm not a fan.)
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To: tumblindice

I took it in for a safety inspection once, and the mechanic failed it for having too much play in the ball joints.


35 posted on 09/24/2013 8:53:44 AM PDT by tacticalogic ("Oh, bother!" said Pooh, as he chambered his last round.)
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To: Red Badger

nice


36 posted on 09/24/2013 8:53:47 AM PDT by fishtank (The denial of original sin is the root of liberalism.)
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To: GladesGuru
Many will be hopping mad if the endless Evos v. Crevos Circus shuts down.

Which has, ironically, failed to evolve much despite new members joining and old members being zotted.

37 posted on 09/24/2013 8:54:16 AM PDT by Alter Kaker (Gravitation is a theory, not a fact. It should be approached with an open mind...)
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To: Alter Kaker

****I don’t think anybody believes that “given enough time anything is possible.” That sounds like a straw man - bearing false witness if you will.****

“Given so much time, the ‘impossible’ becomes possible, the possible probable, and the probable virtually certain. One has only to wait; time itself performs the miracles.”

Wald, George., The origin of life, Scientific American 191(2):44–53, August 1954. (Quote on p.48.)

By the way.... George Wald is a Nobel Prize winning Harvard Biologist who also said this:

“There are two possible explanations of how life arose: Spontaneous Generation leading to evolution or a supernatural creative act of God.... There is no other possibility. Spontaneous Generation was disproved by Louis Pasteur and others over 120 years ago but that leaves us with only one possibility... that life came as a supernatural act of creation by God. But I can’t accept that philosophy because I don’t want to believe in God. Therefore I choose to believe what I know is impossible....spontaneous generation leading to evolution.”
Article in Scientific American Magazine - “Origin, Life and Evolution” 1978.

This is called science... ignore truth in order to support your worldview... that nature is all there is and no other possibilities can even be considered.

“Naturalists, who believe only in nature, have to ignore the laws of nature to believe what they believe.”
Schaef21


38 posted on 09/24/2013 8:54:42 AM PDT by schaef21
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To: fishtank

Maybe, then, these are not natural insects at all, but man-made surveillance devices...


39 posted on 09/24/2013 8:58:51 AM PDT by fruser1
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To: reed13k

A miss-read of entropy. That matter should prefer to move from a more complex state to a lesser state unless energy is applied. Entropy law works fine - but only in a pure vacuum is there a complete lack of external energetics. Also, you apply entropy in the absence of conservation of matter and energy. If nothing were truly the composition of the universe then nothing would remain, well, nothing.


40 posted on 09/24/2013 9:01:57 AM PDT by FormerRep
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