Page 166 - The Miracle of the Blood and Heart

THE MIRACLE OF THE
BLOOD AND HEART

components that comprise this system.
Before too long, Behe's statement on the subject of blood
clotting attracted considerable reactions from evolutionist cir-
cles. The way he described the features of such a complex sys-
tem, plus his scientific demonstration of the impossibility that
these could have evolved independently of one another, pre-
sented a major challenge to the theory of evolution. One of the
first who lost no time in reacting was Russell Doolittle, a pro-
fessor of biochemistry at the University of California, San
Diego, and a dyed-in-the-wool evolutionist, whose field of
expertise in his 35-year academic career is blood coagulation.
Doolittle claimed that in a new laboratory study, he had
proved it was possible to remove two compounds in a rat's
blood-clotting system. According to him, rats were able to sur-
vive without difficulty even in the absence of these two com-
pounds in their coagulation mechanism. In fact, however, the
situation was rather different. Doolittle had either misread the
results of the study, or else ignored a few important points in
order to mislead people. The reference in which the results of
the study were published 73 clearly stated that these rats suf-
fered severe health problems and had no functional clotting
mechanism at all. In other words, contrary to what Doolittle
claimed, the rat coagulation system was not reducible. 74
Doolittle made another claim based on the similarity of the
proteins involved in clotting. 75 He claimed that the similarity
in the amino acid sequences in proteins were the result of their
deriving from a common ancestor and suggested that the sys-
tem could have evolved in this way over millions of
years. According to this evolutionist conjecture, the
protein sequences contributing to the coagulation
Harun
Yahya

164