by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D.
A Strange New Hypothesis
How dangerous will this be to mankind. As demonstrated with ClimateGate the would of science has gone mad. Lying cheating and falsifying data when it
suits themselves. Science has become the newest
political arm, and is being used to deceive and subjugate peoples and
nations. Science has been and is
completely unregulated. We regulate banks to keep them straight, We regulate banks, we regulate Hospitals and Doctors, and
every form of business imaginable. Yet scientists, and researchers have complete free reign to do whatever they
please no matter how dangerous, no matter how contaminating to the food system,
the atmosphere, and the sea. Examples Scientists creating a black hole in
How is it that they can do these things without doing
environmental impact studies, having to gain approval from government agencies
and deal in court with environmental groups and public safety boards and
commissions?
A new concept making its way through the
scientific community holds that just a few key changes in the right genes will
result in a whole new life form as different from its progenitor as a bird is
from a lizard!1 This idea is being
applied to a number of key problems in the evolutionary model, one of which is
the lack of transitional forms in both the fossil record and the living
(extant) record.
The
new concept supposedly adds support to the "punctuated equilibrium"
model proposed by the late Harvard paleontologist Stephen J. Gould. Dr. Gould
derived his ideas from the research of geneticist Richard Goldschmidt, who
believed that evolution proceeded by large influential
"macro-mutations" rather than small gradual changes.2
Goldschmidt affectionately termed this the "Hopeful Monster" theory
and the name stuck.3
With
the longstanding neo-Darwinian model, one would expect to see many transitional
organisms representing small gradual changes brought about by random genetic
mutations acted upon by natural selection. While this model has many scientific
difficulties, the biggest problem is that the entire fossil record is highly
discontinuous, with an overwhelming absence of transitional forms between
virtually all major taxa. It is quite obvious that the historical record of
life does not provide the needed evidence for gradual evolutionary change.
As
a paleontologist, Dr. Gould was painfully aware of these pervasive gaps in the
fossil record and proposed a controversial evolutionary model in which new life
forms arose suddenly, explaining the absence of transitional forms. Since the
neo-Darwinian view is the predominant evolutionary model, Gould's idea was
never widely accepted.
Does the "Neo-Hopeful Monster" Solve Human Evolution's Problems?
The
idea of evolution occurring quickly with only a few key genetic modifications
has gained notoriety with the help of Jack Horner, the famous dinosaur
paleontologist who believes that modern birds evolved from dinosaurs. In Dr.
Horner's view, a dinosaur could possibly be reverse engineered by just tweaking
a few key genes in a chicken.4
This
"hopeful monster" concept has also been applied to the supposed
evolution of humans. One particular difficulty with hominid evolution is the
apparent genetic similarity between humans and apes, most notably the
chimpanzee. This perceived close DNA similarity does not match with the marked
differences in appearance and behavior. The new hopeful monster idea is seen as
providing a fix for this dilemma, since it is believed that only small genetic
changes in key primate genes are required to jump-start evolution and create a
new form of hominid, like humans.
However,
as discussed in previous articles, the supposed genetic similarity between
humans and chimps was based on biased and flawed analyses and is in fact
changing as more data becomes available.5 Interestingly, the most
current statistics taken from the genome sequencing websites for human and
chimp are now placing the chimp genome at an almost 20 percent difference in
total genome size (contiguous DNA sequence) compared to human. Obviously, there
is a lot more data that need to be taken into account when comparing these
genomes for similarity in sequence--especially considering the fact that the
supposed "junk" DNA in the human genome is known to be greater than
90 percent genetically active.
What We Know about Master Genes in Development
The
hopeful monster model is based on studies in a field called Developmental
Genetics. This area of research focuses on the study of genes that control the
development of an organism following fertilization. If one is going to look for
some mechanism to support an evolutionary model, the primary supporting data
would be found here. In fact, much data is now available in a number of
well-studied animal model systems (fruit fly, nematode, mouse)
on the early genetic events that occur during embryogenesis.
In
the very early stages of embryo development, there are a limited number of
master/primary genes that turn on and control the function of many other genes
downstream in the cascade of genetic activity. These master genes are typically
the ones evolutionists believe would need to be tweaked to create a whole new
organism. However, there are a number of very serious problems with this idea
from a genetics standpoint. In fact, most molecular cell biologists do not
support this concept, with some actually being quite critical and vociferous in
their opposition.
The
first problem is that the "master genes" in question only control the
initial and earliest events in the process of a developing embryo. This stage
of development is primarily associated with the polarity, orientation,
quantity, and position of specific molecular gradients in the developing embryo that either allow or disallow the function of succeeding
genes involved in the finer details of the embryo's development. Induced
mutations in these master genes, combined with observed developmental effects
in the embryo, provide a means to assess their function.
For
example, in mutation studies with the Hox fruit fly genes, master control
switches in early development caused legs to form in place of antennas. In
other studies with vertebrates, the number of vertebrae was increased, causing
lengthened tails. However, a new type of animal was never created, just some
odd-looking creature with an appendage out of place or an increase in the
number of some type of body segment. In many cases, embryogenesis was halted
and the organism died.
Scientists
have determined that these master genes primarily control the location and
orientation of major body features; they don't determine the finer details of
how each specific part or organ develops. It is these types of fine-level
developments, and not necessarily the master genes, that make organisms unique
in all of their features. These later developments in embryogenesis involve
complicated interactions between thousands of different genes. Much less is
known about how these later expressed genes fit in the overall scheme of
development because things quickly get too complicated past the initial stages
and become difficult to research.
Other
aspects of gene activity--outside of which genes are turned on and interact
with each other--include timing, coordination, dosage of the gene products, and
diverse control mechanisms. These things must also be considered in
increasingly complex levels as embryo development progresses. And because the
whole system of embryo development steadily progresses over time, there are
varying degrees of overlap in timing and spatiality of individual genes and
gene groups which must be considered in evaluating the roles of genes in
development.
What New Technologies Are Revealing About Developmental Genes
Modern
high-throughput laboratory technologies and robotics are helping to advance
knowledge in this area by allowing the study of large numbers of genes in
single experiments. However, to make any sense out of the huge amounts of
information generated, the data must be analyzed with the help of high-powered
computer systems and complex computational algorithms. Even with these tools,
the results are difficult for the human mind to sort through and understand,
much less describe in a publication or press release. There is also the
challenge of integrating massive amounts of data across experiments and
laboratories. This is why molecular geneticists often reject overly simplistic
ideas of just being able to manipulate a few key genes to obtain new
evolutionary life forms.
Beyond
the genetic difficulties associated with the hopeful monster model, one must
ultimately ask: "Where did all this information come from to begin
with?" Paleontologist Jack Horner is quite fond of saying that the modern
chicken genome is really just a dinosaur genome with a few tweaks. But saying that evolution occurs through "tweaking" does
nothing to explain the origin of the incredibly complex and highly engineered
genetic information contained within the starting organism.
The
stark fact is that there is no viable molecular genetic mechanism for evolution
to occur. Advances in systems biology research do not support
any concept of evolution. Instead, modern research is proving that the genomes
of all uniquely created kinds are the result of an act of special creation and
intelligent design.
References
1.
Caroll, S. B. 2005. Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo
Devo.
2.
Eldredge, N. and S. J. Gould. 1972.
Punctuated equilibria: an alternative to phyletic gradualism. In T. J. M.
Schopf, ed., Models in Paleobiology.
3.
Hopeful Monster. Wikipedia.org.
Accessed October 26, 2009.
4.
Horner, J. and J. Gorman. 2009. How to Build a Dinosaur: Extinction Doesn't Have to
Be Forever.
5.
Tomkins, J. 2009. Human-Chimp Similarities: Common Ancestry or Flawed Research?
Acts & Facts. 38 (6):
12-13.
* Dr. Tomkins is Research Associate at the Institute for
Creation Research.