Posted on 07/31/2009 2:08:23 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Biological Big Bang: Another Explosion at the Dawn of Life
July 23, 2009 Eugene Koonin and two friends from the NIH went tree-hunting. They examined almost 7,000 genomes of prokaryotes. They found trees all right a whole forest of them. They even found 102 NUTs (nearly universal trees) in the forest. Unfortunately, its not what they wanted to find: a single universal tree of life that Darwins theory requires. They had to seriously consider the question: was there a biological big bang?
Publishing in an open-access article in the Journal of Biology,[1] they began with the founding fathers vision: The tree of life is, probably, the single dominating metaphor that permeates the discourse of evolutionary biology, from the famous single illustration in Darwins On the Origin of Species to 21st-century textbooks. Alas, that 150-year-old icon must be dismantled. In their conclusion, they said, the original tree of life concept is obsolete: it would not even be a 'tree of one percent'.
What happened? It appears that horizontal gene transfer (HGT) has scrambled the genes in prokaryotes so much that any trace of common ancestry has been lost. This means that Darwins metaphor lacks empirical evidence. A fair-minded scientist would have to consider the possibility of a...
(Excerpt) Read more at creationsafaris.com ...
Precisely...there's no evidence of anything else here but design.
Thanks, GGG, but (excepting the Baylor survey specifically) I was already aware of all that. I have that book by Gardner, and even remember reading that article in the Skeptical Enquirer way back in the 1980s.
I don't think it contradicts the observation, however much anecdotal on my part, that those who believe in one nutty thing tend to believe in others.
And no, despite being a secularist myself, I do not consider religious belief per se to be nutty at all. Nor, on the other side of the question, do I consider paranormal and occult beliefs to complete the universe of nutty beliefs.
As far as "evo-atheists" specifically, I doubt they make up much of that "31% of people who never worship" who "expressed strong belief in the "occult and the paranormal". First, strict atheists tend to consider such beliefs to be religious and disdain them also, and second atheists only make up about 9% percent of the population anyway.
You'll find (as your own quote indicates) wide disparities on this among regularly worshiping religionists, as there are likewise disparities in acceptance of antievolutionary creationism. Interestingly, modern young earth creationism was initially devised, developed and promulgated by Seventh Day Adventists, (no offense to them, but) often considered to be a "cult" by other Christians.
It is obvious that conservative Adventists pushed YEC and flood geology in defense of founding prophetess Ellen G. White's visions of The Flood and her insistence that it was global and had deposited the fossil record. One nutty thing led to another at least in that case. Of course, on the other hand, sober and generally unexciting Lutherans also tended to be early adopters of YEC
...so it’s not a simple picture.
“Ping!”
This is an unsigned article, so how can I make fun of the lack of scientific qualifications of the author if he/she will not make him/herself known?
Why do you think they don’t sign their name(s) to this article?
“I never claimed to know everything. Still, its infinitely more than the Evos will ever know (in this lifetime) about the origin and diversity of life. Of course, everthing will be revealed when they stand before the judgement seat of their Creator.”
You seem to set yourself apart from those who will receive judgement. You will definitely lose points for that when your time comes.
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.