CRS Blog

Lichens are a life-form composed of a fungus called the “mycobiont,” growing in close union with some alga or blue-green bacterium known as the “phycobiont” (Howe and Armitage, 2002). Some workers consider this to be a symbiotic union, while others see it as a mild form of parasitism. Lichen pigments probably play many important physiological roles, while their brilliant colors provide considerable aesthetic enjoyment (Howe and Armitage, 2003). The versatile array of lichen asexual reproductive bodies and other features of the lichen upper surface have been illustrated by using scanning electron photomicrography (Armitage and Howe, 2004). Lichen algae and fungi are woven together forming “tissues” that resemble the tissues of unrelated “higher plants” in a generalized fashion (Armitage and Howe, 2006). In this two-part article (our fifth lichen paper) we show that the cellular ultrastructure of lichen provides evidence favoring design and direct creation. Our hope here, as with the other lichen papers, is that the readers’ knowledge of the Creator and their esteem for His handiwork will be enhanced by the study of lichens.

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The biosystematic method of baraminology has grown significantly in the past decade. Its conceptual foundations were discussed in the evolution/creation debates of the nineteenth century, long before Frank Lewis Marsh coined the term baramin in 1941. Currently, baraminology has been applied to dozens of groups, and the results of 66 baraminology studies are summarized and evaluated here. Though bias in group and character selection prevents firm conclusions, it appears at this time that Price’s suggestion that the family is an approximation of the “created kind” may be correct. Criticisms of baraminology from evolutionists and creationists alike can be resolved with further research. Whatever its future, baraminology is at present a useful tool for investigating God’s biological creation.

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This paper extends the applicability and accuracy of the cost of substitution beyond its traditional range, and demonstrates a useful calculation method. Using my previous clarification of the fundamental cost concept, this paper derives a method for computing the cost of substitution under wide genetic circumstances, including haploids; and diploids with varying degrees of dominance, inbreeding, and with a sex-linked locus. Unlike the traditional approaches, this method is accurate even under fluctuations in parameter values (such as population size, selection coefficient, dominance, and inbreeding coefficient). To display general- purpose results, the parameters are then held constant, and the total cost of substitution is graphed. This includes cases where the selection coefficient is not small and where the traditional equations become highly inaccurate. It is shown that neither environmental change nor soft selection reduces cost problems, at least in single substitutions.

Note added in publication: This paper offers previously unpublished clarifications, derivations and graphs, and refutes widely accepted solutions to a central problem in evolutionary genetics known as Haldane’s Dilemma. It was submitted to the journal Theoretical Population Biology, where all the peer-reviewers found no errors. Nonetheless, they rejected it from publication on the grounds that it is not a “sufficient advance,” and “there is little interest in this subject today among population biologists; it is one of those subjects which has sunk almost beyond trace.” This has all been very unfortunate, as there continues to be widespread misunderstanding within the scientific community regarding these important matters, even among those who have studied the cost literature for years. It is hoped that the clarifications presented in this paper will eventually reach the greater scientific community.

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David E. Stoltzmann

An optical image is a very organized and specified collection of information governed by the laws of optics. The formation of an image, and its correct interpretation by sighted living creatures, is a unique example of the great complexity in the living world. While many other functional features of living organisms are extremely complex and point to the handiwork of a designing God, an optical image demonstrates a unique mapping process of the eye-brain system that is very useful to the organism. The transfer of light from an object scene to a visual detection system involving the eye and brain conveys an enormous amount of information. Unless that information is correctly organized into a useful image, however, the exchange of information is degraded and of questionable use. In this paper I examine the “connections” necessary for images to be interpreted correctly. I also address the additional complexity required for the dual-image mapping involved in stereovision. Statistics are presented for “simple eyes” consisting of a few pixels to illustrate the daunting task facing random-chance, purposeless, undirected evolution in the origin of any form of a functional eye. It is concluded that evolutionary processes cannot account for the perception of images by living organisms and that only a creator could produce complex visual systems. Read more…

Jerry Bergman, Ph.D.

Mammal body hair is a complex structure that involves several basic parts, including a shaft, a root, and a follicle. The most common theory currently in vogue is that hair evolved from reptile scales. Although both scales and hair preserve well in the fossil record, especially in amber, no
evidence of hair evolution has been found after more than a century of searching. Another problem is that all primates have thick, coarse hair called fur, and explanations as to how this fur was lost in human evolution are deficient and contradictory. Read more…

A Fresh Look at the Australopithecines and Homo habilis
Patrick H. Young

The australopithecines and Homo habilis have been publicized for years as examples of evolutionary transitional forms that launched our own human lineage. Dogmatic evolutionists have rationalized these claims on the basis of brain expansion, encephalization quotients, and bipedalism. However, any evolutionary justification for brain expansion in these extinct creatures must rest in a precise model for the determination of body mass. To insure an accurate body mass model, one must take into account whether the animal is quadruped, facultative biped, or obligatory biped. Past body mass estimates for the australopithecines and Homo habilis were based on assumptions about their bipedalism that have proven to be erroneous. When a body mass model is used accounting for the facultative bipedalism of the australopithecines and Homo habilis, the data shows that they are not highly encephalized, and hence nothing more than a microevolutionary adaptation of the pan-troglodytes. Read more…

Order — Squamata, Suborder Serpentes

Tom Hennigan

Evolution theory predicts that the ancestry of organisms can be traced down a hypothetical evolutionary tree and eventually back to the first living cell. Creation theory postulates that ancestry can be traced back only a limited distance to a starting organism of that type. Instead of a “tree” the creation model has a “forest” of unrelated organisms with vast genetic potential. I hypothesize that the snake taxon originated from one or more originally created “trees” or “kinds” that have diversified into the snakes of today and that snakes are unrelated to any other group. In order to test this hypothesis, the snake taxon was analyzed using a discontinuity matrix and the data suggest that snakes can be considered a group unto themselves. Subsequently, a literature search was begun in order to determine additive evidence for relatedness. Three families were identified for their interspecific and intergeneric hybridization tendencies and within each family certain genera and species were classified into subgroups of related snakes. This initial investigation indicates that many snakes have the ability to hybridize, even when they are reproductively isolated over great distances, and are capable of a large degree of variation within a “species.” As more data are gathered and quantified, I predict that evolutionary hypotheses will continue to be frustrated because of faulty metaphysical assumptions and will strongly suggest that snakes began from one or a few originally created kinds, just a few thousand years ago. Read more…

Kevin L. Anderson

Evolutionists frequently point to the development of antibiotic resistance by bacteria as a demonstration of evolutionary change. However, molecular analysis of the genetic events that lead to antibiotic resistance do not support this common assumption. Many bacteria become resistant by acquiring genes from plasmids or transposons via horizontal gene transfer. Horizontal transfer, though, does not account for the origin of resistance genes, only their spread among bacteria. Mutations, on the other hand, can potentially account for the origin of antibiotic resistance within the bacterial world, but involve mutational processes that are contrary to the predictions of evolution. Instead, such mutations consistently reduce or eliminate the function of transport proteins or porins, protein binding affinities, enzyme activities, the proton motive force, or regulatory control systems. While such mutations can be regarded as “beneficial,” in that they increase the survival rate of bacteria in the presence of the antibiotic, they involve mutational processes that do not provide a genetic mechanism for common “descent with modification.” Also, some “relative fitness” cost is often associated with such mutations, although reversion mutations may eventually recover most, if not all, of this cost for some bacteria. A true biological cost does occur, however, in the loss of pre-existing cellular systems or functions. Such loss of cellular activity cannot legitimately be offered as a genetic means of demonstrating evolution. Read more…