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.
“Dogma is easier. You start with the conclusion and it never changes regardless what the evidence says.” ==> Sure sounds just like evolution to me!!! :’)
Regardless of how much she believes or just wants to keep her job, it doesn’t change the facts - not one iota - no siree!
So there's no such thing as evolution, but it makes a sound?
Maybe you missed my earlier post:
Tacticalogic...... Do you believe there is a creator? If so, do you believe it is the God of the Bible?
Simple questions.
I saw it. Can you tell me why you need to know this?
Well, every new revelation of this type of detail kind of makes anti-creationism more and more implausible in the sense that I can say I cannot jump over the Grand Canyon, or that I will not win 1000 powerballs in a row. If you want mathematically impossible, go elsewhere with your figures.
By the way classical biblical creationism as known today comes in both old earth and new earth flavors. If you prefer old earth approaches, check out something like http://www.reasons.org. Anyhow the contending theological/physical theories are not all YEC, but sometimes the YEC folks find a real gem like this one.
Agh... new earth => young earth
(Although at the end of the bible story everybody agrees yes there will be a new earth... with heaven in it)
I’ve seen this kind of debate before. One could come up with fancy explanations for how one such feature might appear. However when one has to ask for thousands of them to appear... it’s like asking to win not one Powerball, but 1000 successive Powerballs.
I yielded long ago to the obvious. There is a God.
the irony is that we’ve thought through their “theory” far more deeply then they have.
That’s for sure. Methinks there’s a spiritual reason that the proponents of modern biology don’t let physics and chemistry into their domain very often. It’s like the way someone with an ugly face hates mirrors. And that’s sad, because not only would such cross-participation of the respective sciences illuminate the truth, it could pave the way for medical cures that we can only dream about today. Science is not an evil thing, folks. Science can, however, be used evilly.
****I saw it. Can you tell me why you need to know this.****
I’m trying to figure out where you are coming from.
You ripped on me for conflating abiogenesis and evolution (which I didn’t do..... it seems logical to me that if someone buys into evolution there must be a starting point).
I’m curious whether you believe there is a creator who used evolution to create or whether you think that a bunch of random accidents led to rational, thinking, breathing human beings.....in which case I would have to ask how you would posit that a bunch of chemicals in a mud puddle learned how to think.
ID theory does not require identification of a specific designer.
****I believe that the most likely explanation is an intelligent design, that incorporates the ability to evolve/speciate in response to changing environmental conditions.****
Thanks for answering my question. Abiogenesis is not a tenable position to hold, yet it is what the secular science community hangs on to like grim death.
One of my favorite quotes comes from Dr. Richard Lewontin, a PhD Geneticist who retired from Harvard in 1998:
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”
Quote taken from: Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, 9 January 1997, p. 31.
Pretty damning.....
****ID theory does not require identification of a specific designer.****
Would you consider the God of the Bible to be a possible source of that intelligence, the probable source or not even an option?
That's a question of theology. If I in a mood to discuss that I go over to the Religion forum.
***That’s a question of theology. If I in a mood to discuss that I go over to the Religion forum.***
I hope you will..... You’ve decided that it is intelligence that ordained it all..... you should be interested in who that intelligence is.
Blessings to you...
Schaef21
Not to worry. I’ve had that conversation. Just don’t need to have it again everytime I post to a science thread.
"The theory of evolution by natural selection: Natural selection is the gradual natural process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of the effect of inherited traits on the differential reproductive success of organisms interacting with their environment.
For a given environment, assuming that the living population already exists and that there is a variation of genetic traits in that population, those traits that enable making more babies than the other traits become more common. Split the population in two and put the the two groups in different environments, you'll end up with two different sets of traits being selected for."
So what disproved the above? And yes, the above is falsifiable, therefore it is scientific.
I disagree that random energy focused on random atoms and/or molecules alone is sufficient to overcome a system’s statistical inclination toward disorder (entropy) and thereby create order. This is especially unconvincing given the volumes, areas, and energies comparative in each.
And thus, reed13k doubles down on using the old creationist "entropy argument" that I knew was bunk when I was a teenager, 20 years ago.
One of the most important tenants of Christianity is faith that absolute truth exists even though the finite human brain can never know it. But how can these creationists (YEC's in particular) have such faith when they don't respect honest argumentation? Davis Aurini has a youtube video on Christian doctrine concerning the concept of the existence of absolute truth. Contrast this with Islam's concept of God's absolute sovereignty, even over truth (That's where Muslim scholars get the concept of abrogation).
If you want to argue about evolution, you should know what it is.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.