Category: Discover Islam
ATHEISM: A Giant Leap of Faith | Part 25
ATHEISM: A Giant Leap of Faith | Part 24
ATHEISM: A Giant Leap of Faith | Part 23
ATHEISM: A Giant Leap of Faith | Part 22
ATHEISM: A Giant Leap of Faith | Part 21
ATHEISM: A Giant Leap of Faith | Part 20
ATHEISM: A Giant Leap of Faith | Part 19
ATHEISM: A Giant Leap of Faith | Part 18
Challenges to Darwinism (continued)
- Virtually every biology textbook cites “vestigial organs” —in plants, animals and humans— as evidence for evolution: Evolutionists believed that these organs had been useful during a previous stage of evolutionary development but are now redundant and in disuse, shrunk away until only a vestige remains. Subsequently, important functions for these so-called vestigial organs have been discovered (such as the appendix, the tailbone, thyroid gland, tonsils, hind legs of the whale, etc.).
(https://www.creationism.org/books/TaylorInMindsMen/TaylorIMMj10.htm) para. 15
Evolutionists also cite the presence of “junk (non-coding) DNA” as evidence for evolution. However, numerous functions have been discovered for various types of non-coding DNA, including:
- repairing DNA
- assisting in DNA replication
- regulating DNA transcription
- aiding in folding and maintenance of chromosomes
- controlling RNA editing and splicing
- helping to fight disease
- regulating embryological development
(https://www.discovery.org/m/2019/01/Science-and-Human-Origins.pdf, p. 88, para. 3)
These important functions for “vestigial organs” and “junk DNA” underline the intention in the design of organisms.
- Irreducible complexity
Darwin said:
“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” (http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?keywords=which%20successive%20existed%20organ%20by%20possibly%20demonstrated%20have%20not%20it%20numerous%20that%20be%20been%20if%20could%20complex%20formed%20any&pageseq=207&itemID=F373&viewtype=text)
A complex organ is composed of multiple parts, all of which are necessary for the system to function. If even one part is missing, the entire system may fail to function. Such a system, with “irreducible complexity,” could not have evolved slowly, piece by piece.
Molecular biology, biochemistry and genetics research over the past fifty years has identified tens of thousands of irreducibly complex systems on the cellular level.
This is confirmed by emeritus professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at Colorado State University, Dr. Franklin Harold in his 2001 book, The Way of the Cell: Molecules, Organisms and the Order of Life:
Cell components as we know them are so thoroughly integrated that one can scarcely imagine how any one function could have arisen in the absence of the others. Genetic information can only be replicated and read out with the aid of enzyme proteins, which are themselves specified by those same genes. Energy is harnessed by means of enzymes whose production requires energy input. Darwinian evolution is at the bottom of the struggle among individuals defined by cell membranes, yet how could membranes and transport catalysts arise without genes, proteins, and energy? (p. 245)
His book describes in detail the incredible complexity of life at the cellular level.
Similarly, neither proteins nor nucleic acids could have arisen without the other.
In the 2006 edition of his book, Darwin’s Blackbox, the American biochemist and author, Michael Behe, discusses the absence —in the professional scientific literature— of any detailed models by which complex biochemical systems could have been produced. According to Behe:
The impotence of Darwinian theory in accounting for the molecular basis of life is evident…..No one at Harvard University, no one at the National Institute of Health, no member of the National Academy of Sciences, no Nobel prize winner —no one at all— can give a detailed account of how the cilium, or vision, or blood clotting or any complex biochemical process might have developed in a Darwinian fashion. (Darwin’s Black Box, 2006, Free Press, p. 187)
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