Page 163 - The Errors the American National Academy of Sciences
P. 163
The NAS's Error in Portraying Molecular Biology as
Evidence of Evolution
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T Th e C y t o c h r r o m e C / / H e m o g l l o b i i n E r r r r o r r
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T The Cytochrome C/Hemoglobin Error
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he Cytochrome C/Hemoglobin Error
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It is claimed in the NAS booklet that the family trees obtained
from comparing molecules such as cytochrome c and hemoglobin
provide proof of the theory of evolution. According to this claim, the
similarities between the amino-acid sequences of these molecules in
living things show that they evolved from one another. This claim is
totally false. The fact that there are some similarities between mole-
cules like cytochrome c or hemoglobin in some species is no proof
that the creatures in question evolved from one another.
First and foremost, it needs to be made clear that, as we have just
seen, comparisons performed on other molecules give very different
and conflicting results, incompatible with any evolutionist picture.
What biochemists have found with their comparisons of certain
proteins like cytochrome c and hemoglobin is this: It is possible to
classify species into groups according to their molecular structure.
These groups are compatible with the groups produced by compara-
tive anatomy. However, the interesting thing in such a protein "atlas"
is that these groups or subclasses are totally isolated from one an-
other. No intermediate forms are to be found between groups—just as
there are no transitional forms either in the fossil record or among liv-
ing groups today. Species are always separated from one another by
definitive lines of division.
The Australian biochemist Michael Denton draws attention to
the fact that tables such as the Dayhoff Atlas of Protein Structure and
Function, which show divergence of the cytochromes, reveal the ab-
sence of any such transitional forms in the clearest way possible. 25
Here is another noteworthy point in this connection: According
to evolutionists, the most primitive organisms—those lacking a cell
nucleus—are prokaryotes, or bacteria. Higher organisms with a nu-
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