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Feedback 2011
Living fossils and evolution, and does it matter if ‘junk DNA’ has
functions?
Published: 8 October 2011 (GMT+10)
Photos by Joachim Scheven, LEBENDIGE VORWELT Museum
Living fossils, which are everywhere in the fossil record, provide tough questions
for evolution.
This week’s correspondence deals with the validity of using ‘living
fossils’ and functions in endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), which are commonly
seen as ‘junk DNA’, as evidence against evolution. CMI’s
Dr Don Batten and Lita Cosner
respond.
Travis S. from the United States writes:
Can you answer this rebuttal I received from my brother?
There is no written rule that says a lineage has to die out just because an offspring
develops a beneficial mutation. The theory of evolution explains how species change
over time, it doesn’t say that all species must change over time. As long
as a species can survive in its environment and pass on its genetic information
to its offspring, it can survive indefinitely. It doesn’t mean that the “living
fossil” didn’t speciate, it just means those possible splits died out
while the original lineage was able to always successfully reproduce even into today.
How exactly does that not work with evolution?
CMI’s Dr Don Batten responds:
Dear Travis,
Thanks for your comment, which I have also shared with Dr Werner.
Dr Werner said in the article:
“If a scientist believes in evolution and sees fossils that look like modern
organisms at the dinosaur digs, he/she might invent an hypothesis to ‘explain’
living fossils this way: ‘Yes I believe that animals have changed greatly
over time (evolution), but some animals and plants were so well adapted to the environment
that they did not need to change. So I am not bothered at all by living fossils.’
This added hypothesis says that some animals did not evolve. But if a theory can
be so flexible, adding hypotheses that predict the opposite of your main theory,
one could never disprove the theory. The theory then becomes unsinkable, and an
unsinkable theory is not science.”
Combine the observations of stasis and the paucity of transitional fossils (there
should be millions of them) and you have to ask, ‘Where is the fossil evidence
for evolution?’
Furthermore, evolutionists do admit that living fossils (‘stasis’) are
a big problem for evolution (see:
‘Living fossils’ enigma). They have no explanation. This is
not about suggesting that something has to go extinct if something evolves from
it; that is not the point. The point is the lack of change, which is a huge problem
for evolution, which is about vast changes. High profile evolutionists Stephen Jay
Gould and Niles Eldredge admitted that
stasis was a major problem for evolution.
All organisms undergo mutations. There is no special mechanism that prevents mutations
such that many organisms can remain the same for supposedly hundreds of millions
of years. Evolution is about change, and putting “evolutionary”
in front of “stasis”, does not explain the stasis in terms
of evolution. See Evolutionary Stasis.
This article remarks on an example of 425 million years of stasis: Remarkable stasis of a fossil ostracode
with soft parts. In that time-frame, evolution by mutations and natural
selection has supposedly changed some (unidentified) worm into all the species of
fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals (including elephants and mice, and of
course, us).
At the same time all the land plants have supposedly evolved. Such is the claimed
power of evolution to change things, and yet these ostracodes remained unchanged
(and many others ‘dated’ even older). Note also that according to the
evolutionary story, the predators for organisms have supposedly evolved and this
means that the environment for virtually every organism changes. Furthermore, even
the idea that the physical environment has remained stable contradicts evolutionary
notions of global mass extinction events such as the Permian extinction (supposedly
at 225 Ma) and the Cretaceous extinction (65 Ma), through both of which the ostracodes
and many other examples of ‘living fossils’ remained unchanged.
Combine the observations of stasis and the paucity of transitional fossils (there
should be millions of them) and you have to ask, “Where is the fossil
evidence
for evolution?”
I hope this helps.
Don Batten
Does it matter if endogenous retroviruses have functions?
F.B. from the United States writes:
Just a question about your article on ERVs in junk DNA. This article you guys posted,
Large
scale function for ‘endogenous retroviruses’, argues that ERVs
are functional and thus not proof for evolution. The evolutionists I have encountered
rejoin by saying the issue of functionality is unimportant because the real evidence
for common ancestors is the fact that ERVs are inherited. Meaning they were passed
along from common ancestor to primates and humans.
Just curious as to what you’re all’s take is on that point.
Thanks,
F.B.
CMI’s Don Batten and Lita Cosner reply:
Dear Mr B.,
As we’ve said about other DNA similarities, there are two possibilities for
similarities: they could be inherited, or they could be the result of being
programmed by the same Designer. If the latter were the case, we would expect that
humans would share some of the same DNA programming as primates, because we’re
more similar to them in body type than any other sort of animal. This is one of
the cases where the interpretation of the evidence is so important; the evolutionists
see it as evidence for common descent, but creationists see
it as evidence for a common Designer—part of the ‘biotic message’ that there is one Creator, not many.
I suggest that the evolutionists you have encountered are misinformed, even from
a point of view of evolutionary orthodoxy. If a protein in an ape or a human has
to be an almost exact sequence for it to function at all (and there are a number
like this), then the similarity in DNA sequence that codes for that protein cannot
be held up as evidence for evolution as opposed to creation. Your evolutionists
are assuming a priori what they are claiming to prove: that all DNA sequences
in humans came from common ancestry with apes, so any similarity must be due to
common ancestry (aka evolution). This is circular reasoning, which is not logical
reasoning at all. Evolutionists held up the ERV argument as “proof”
of evolution precisely because they considered the “ERV inserts” to
be random insertions of “junk” (useless DNA sequences). Because such
junk DNA would have no function to constrain the sequence and location, the occurrence
of the same sequences in the same locations in humans and chimps would indeed be
strong evidence for evolution, as against creation. Why would an intelligent creator
place useless bits of DNA with the same sequence at the same location in both humans
and chimps? This would not seem to make sense.
the evidence is mounting that these ERVs are not junk but are in fact functional.
The sequences and their locations are not accidental. So the ERV argument evaporates.
However, the whole argument depends on the correctness of the assumption that the
sequences have no function. If they have a function, then their sequence and location
have to be what they are for them to have the function and they would now be evidence
for design. Well, the evidence is mounting that these ERVs are not junk but are
in fact functional. The sequences and their locations are not accidental. So the
ERV argument evaporates.
Other than the article you mention, there are several articles that deal with this
whole topic on our website. Try No
joy for junkies and the articles under the headings “What about the
similarities between ape and human DNA? Does this support evolution?” and
“How does genetics point toward design?” on our
Genetics Questions and Answers page. You can also search for “junk
DNA” in the search window on creation.com.
Sincerely,
Don Batten and Lita Cosner
Creation Ministries International
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Further reading
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