Thursday, March 2, 2017

Darwin's Genetics is a Hoax?


Darwin's Genetics is a Hoax?

Some of the most credible science discoveries in evolution and genetics are branched off Darwin's ideology of evolution through genetics. Most of us know his experiment involving finches, and this has led to multiple discoveries of evolution. However, people like Nathaniel T. Jeanson, a graduate from Harvard Graduate School, debate scientific evidence through Creationist ideas. Jeanson claims there are flaws to these 4 categories of evidence for evolution: relative genetic similarities, absolute genetic differences, junk DNA, and shared DNA mistakes. He proposes that these four fundamental scientific ideas do not support the ideas of evolution enough thus leading to Darwin's genetics as a flaw in the theory of evolution.

Let's begin with Jeanson's first argument of the "relative genetic similarities". Jeanson challenges the idea of "relative genetic similarities" with Darwin's "tree of life". Darwin's tree of life proposes that humans and other animals have descended from a common ancestor. However, Jeanson believes otherwise in which he says this idea does not confirm evolution because of it's poor design. The entire claim is that the genetic hierarchy shows absolutely no evidence for evolution, and is merely just a picture. Instead, Jeanson draws his own version of the tree of life but using vehicles. How absurd is that? He refutes the tree of life by saying the drawing design was flawed. There is much genetic evidence that proves how one species is closer to another because of these genetic similarities. Darwin, however, did not classify all these genetic similarities but current science supports the hypothesis. Below you can view the comparison that Jeanson makes of Darwin's drawing of the "Tree of Life" to that of Jeanson's "Tree of Transportation". This is completely absurd that he tries to compare genetic proof to common ancestry to similarities of vehicular transportation.

https://www.icr.org/i/articles/af/darwin_vs_genetics_fig1a.jpghttps://www.icr.org/i/articles/af/darwin_vs_genetics_fig1b.jpg

The next controversial point was Jeanson challenging the "absolute genetic differences" between that of humans and chimpanzees. Jeanson claims that evolution predicts less genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees than there actually are so therefore the "absolute genetic difference" is much higher than we believe it to be. With this logic, he challenges the idea that mutations are actually the cause of these differences, or the time-scale that these difference arose are off. However, Darwin does not propose that these mutations were anything recent occurring, but just the mechanism that has caused changes over the millions of years. Mutations do not happen spontaneously from one generation to the next so that chimpanzees resulted in humans within 100 years. Then he ends this with saying that Darwinists aren't getting the predicted counts right, but it is mathematically impossible to predict these mutations over the past millions of years to result in what has come with evolution today.

Evidence 3 and 4 of Jeanson's argument can be grouped together where he points out flaws in DNA count/number of chromosomes. Here, he points out that onions have more genes than humans, but this is not enough evidence to refute any of Darwin's ideas. The more complex an organism, the less gene density there typically is which would back the idea up of humans having such little genes compared to that of an onion. The onion has a much more dense genome that may have more introns or "useless" coding than humans. Humans have multiple transcription factors, and the genome is much more than just coding DNA considering most of our genome is actual "junk". However, in comparison to the onion, our genome is more efficient at coding and is not just genes bundled up together.

Jeanson clearly only finds faults in the "design" that evolutionists have laid out and does not see the actual science behind the ideas. Regardless of scientific "design", there is still concrete proof that supports Darwin's ideas and genetics. Instead of trying to find fault in the way scientists present their ideas, how about finding fault behind the actual science they support Jeanson? Or instead of finding faults, try giving out facts that support your claims over the ones these scientists have supported over the past decades.

Posted by Andrew Do (Group A - Week 4)



Source of Article/Images: http://www.icr.org/article/8226

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK9846/

15 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. I agree with your closing, if he is going to try and refute something so accepted in the realm of science today, he should actually have evidence to support his claims. I do not agree with his claims, I too find them absurd; but I could at least understand him arguing againstDarwin's ideas if he had an actual argument with valid and convincing proof. I'd be curious to know what he is basing his refutes off of, if anything at all.

    Posted by Jenna Lansbury

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    1. The paper he wrote tried to give evidence but it seemed to not be quite there. It was rather vague, and not convincing in any way. I fail to see how he could argue any scientific topic because their display design was "flawed" somehow. It just didn't seem right to me either! It's such a fundamental idea to all of biology almost that it makes no sense for him to choose such a widely accepted concept and refute it with poor evidence/arguments.

      Posted by Andrew Do (4)

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  3. This type of article is unfortunately common. While I have no issue with people voicing concerns or doubts over scientific theories or ideas, the main issue is when people use a couple flimsy or no finding to dispute an idea that does not fit their own world view. While I did find it amusing to see the "evolution of vehicles" however, the model created has nothing behind it. There is a chance that the theory of evolution is incorrect, however, it is currently widely accepted because all the observations, experiments as well as research points to it. While it still is a theory, unless a major discovery occurs or enough reliable data emerges to refute what we know now occurs, Darwin's ideas are seen as truth.

    Posted by Logan Lassin (2)

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    1. I agree with everything you are saying. I believe that everyone should have their own view of their world whether it is scientific or religious based. However, it's simply foolish for people like Jeanson to go around and challenge such ideas like Darwin's genetics with his own ideology. More importantly, he did it in such a weak manner that it made his argument less effective in my opinion.

      Posted by Andrew Do (4)

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  4. This article is incredibly frustrating because it employs the type of claims that are constantly used against evolution without any credible backing to them. I find it odd that somebody from Harvard Graduate School cannot understand that more genes does not directly mean more complex, and there are countless other underlying factors to complexity and development than the simple genetic code. People who support evolution do so not because they solely believe it to be a nice theory or idea, but they do so because there is credible, constantly supporting scientific evidence behind it that tends to be overlooked by people like Jeanson. It is unfortunate that such arguments are even allowed to be published.

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    1. It's funny that you bring the fact that this argument was allowed to be even published. It's foolish because I did more background check and all of his work has been on anti-evolution sites and never on a real scientific, credible source. You would expect someone to graduate from Harvard Graduate School to have a better foundation in the basics of genetics and to be able to form a stronger argument than he proposed as well!

      Posted by Andrew Do (4)

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  5. I think it's funny that this one "scientists" feels the need to discredit Darwin's work when nearly all other educated scientists support it. Why would science support the idea of evolution and Darwin's theory if there were as many holes in the argument as Jeanson is claiming. This is what scientists do for a living, they make sure the work they complete and the theories they follow are as unflawed and provable as possible. There is no way that Darwin's theory would have escaped critique if it was as flawed as Jeanson thinks. The comparison of Darwin's Tree of Life and Jeanson's Tree of Transportation is just humorous. He is literally comparing two things that are related to each other in no way.

    Posted by Jordan Milone (3)

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    1. I found the comparison he used with the vehicles and tree of life to be extremely irrelevant, but quite humorous at the same time. Jeanson practically argued a well-accepted science topic and tried to disprove it through using logical appeal of how the information was presented. In my opinion, it shouldn't matter how the idea of evolution and the tree of life are presented as long as there is evidence supporting it. Jeanson tries to disprove this theory by saying the presentation of the idea was flawed thus leading to the "Tree of Transportation".

      Posted by Andrew Do (4)

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  6. I'm curious as to what Jeanson's modus operandi is. Why pursue an academic career at an institution as prestigious as Harvard, only to completely reject two century's worth of work on evolution? It's dangerous when people like this, who are clearly intelligent, get behind outdated, discredited ideas. Ideas such as creationism often have oddly militant followers and for an educated, seemingly "credible" source, such as Jeanson, to serve as a voice for their platform only bolsters their ignorant viewpoint. Thus, allowing it to be more easily proliferated. Given how much of US politics is influenced by the outdated "Christian moral compass", I wouldn't doubt that his research is funded by Christian special interest groups. Just Googling "Nathaniel Jeanson" reveals swathes of dirt people have unearthed regarding his sketchy "findings".


    Here's a neat article about the role said special interest groups play in our legislation:

    -http://law.emory.edu/elj/content/volume-64/issue-4/articles/lobbying-shadows-religious-groups-legislative.html

    Posted by Owen Mulledy (3)

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    1. You would think that someone who went to Harvard Graduate School specializing in developmental biology would never turn against what they learned and apply it to their own personal beliefs. However, I spoke with a professor about this article because it was relevant to the topic and they told me that many people attend very well-known and credible schools, like Harvard, to make them sound more credible. It's crazy to see the extent people will go to just to make their work sound more credible with ideas that have no evidence. The article you linked really brought light to my eyes as well because I didn't really think about these special interest groups having any role in legislation at all. I wonder what Jeanson personally does spend his funding on with his research because he never gave any personal "experiments" or results he gathered himself in this particular article!

      Posted by Andrew Do (4)

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  7. I always find it very entertaining when people don’t believe in evolution. I think a lot of the disbelief has to do with a poor education of the topic. Evolution can be a difficult subject to grasp which is why I think many people do not believe in it. I think you did a great job of breaking down the article and pulling out the points that the author made about why evolution is not credible.

    Posted by Hannah Jordan (2)

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    1. The fashion in which Jeanson laid his argument was well-done, however the points he chose to challenge about Darwin's theory of evolution was extremely weak. He had no scientific evidence to disclaim the theory, and tried to use a "logic" appeal in his scientific argument. Evolution is indeed a difficult subject to grasp, and I can understand why he wanted to challenge the idea but I saw his argument as invalid with no scientific support.

      Posted by Andrew Do (4)

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