Page 844 - Atlas of Creation Volume 1

living species are similar, and that this similarity is evidence that these living species have evolved from
common ancestors, or else from each other.
In truth, however, the results of molecular comparisons do not work in favour of the theory of evolution
at all. There are huge molecular differences between creatures that appear to be very similar and related. For

instance, the cytochrome-C protein, one of the proteins vital to respiration, is incredibly different in living be-
ings of the same class. According to research carried out on this matter, the difference between two different
reptile species is greater than the difference between a bird and a fish or a fish and a mammal. Another study
has shown that molecular differences between some birds are greater than the differences between those

same birds and mammals. It has also been discovered that the molecular difference between bacteria that ap-
pear to be very similar is greater than the difference between mammals and amphibians or insects. 161 Similar
comparisons have been made in the cases of haemoglobin, myoglobin, hormones, and genes and similar
conclusions are drawn. 162

Concerning these findings in the field of molecular biology, Dr. Michael Denton comments:
Each class at a molecular level is unique, isolated and unlinked by intermediates. Thus, molecules, like fos-
sils, have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology… At a molecular
level, no organism is "ancestral" or "primitive" or "advanced" compared with its relatives… There is little
doubt that if this molecular evidence had been available a century ago… the idea of organic evolution might
never have been accepted. 163

The "Tree of Life" Is Collapsing

In the 1990s, research into the genetic codes of living things worsened the quandary faced by the theory

of evolution in this regard. In these experiments, instead of the earlier comparisons that were limited to pro-
tein sequences, "ribosomal RNA" (rRNA) sequences were compared. From these findings, evolutionist sci-
entists sought to establish an "evolutionary tree". However, they were disappointed by the results.
According to a 1999 article by French biologists Hervé Philippe and Patrick Forterre, "with more and more

sequences available, it turned out that most protein pyhlogenies contradict each other as well as the rRNA
tree." 164
Besides rRNA comparisons, the DNA codes in the genes of living things were also compared, but the re-
sults have been the opposite of the "tree of life" presupposed by evolution. Molecular biologists James A.

Lake, Ravi Jain and Maria C. Rivera elaborated on this in an article in 1999:
"Scientists started analyzing a variety of genes from different organisms and found that their relationship to
each other contradicted the evolutionary tree of life derived from rRNA analysis alone." 165

Neither the comparisons that have been made of proteins, nor those of rRNAs or of genes, confirm the
premises of the theory of evolution. Carl Woese, a highly reputed biologist from the University of Illinois ad-
mits that the concept of "phylogeny" has lost its meaning in the face of molecular findings in this way:

No consistent organismal phylogeny has emerged from the many individual protein phylogenies so far
produced. Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major
branchings within and among the various (groups) to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves." 166
The fact that results of molecular comparisons are not in favour of, but rather opposed to, the theory of
evolution is also admitted in an article called "Is it Time to Uproot the Tree of Life?" published in Science in

1999. This article by Elizabeth Pennisi states that the genetic analyses and comparisons carried out by
Darwinist biologists in order to shed light on the "tree of life" actually yielded directly opposite results, and
goes on to say that "new data are muddying the evolutionary picture":

A year ago, biologists looking over newly sequenced genomes from more than a dozen microorganisms
thought these data might support the accepted plot lines of life's early history. But what they saw confounded
them. Comparisons of the genomes then available not only didn't clarify the picture of how life's major group-
ings evolved, they confused it. And now, with an additional eight microbial sequences in hand, the situation
has gotten even more confusing.... Many evolutionary biologists had thought they could roughly see the be-
ginnings of life's three kingdoms... When full DNA sequences opened the way to comparing other kinds of
genes, researchers expected that they would simply add detail to this tree. But "nothing could be further from

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