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I've been reading a book by Michael Behe and he notes some incongruencies between molecular biology and darwinian evolution. While i haven't finished the book (Edge of Evolution), some of the incongruencies are very salient.
We cannot observe evolution unless we take a look at smaller organisms which reproduce drastically fast, like e.coli for example, whose cell division rate is said to be once every 30 minutes.
Observation of these micro organisms seems to indicate two things. One, evolution is a destructive process rather than constructing on something there already is. For example, resistances to malaria that developed over time in humans are actually setbacks, some being potentially fatal (HPFH, sickle cell disease, thalassemia, etc.) Basically every measure of adaptation is akin to blowing up your own bridge before the enemy nears. Even when there is a perceived gain, it's really a loss or rather a beneficial loss. A new strand of e.coli is said to use citrate aerobically as a second food source. However the big picture tells a different story. E.coli could already use citrate, but in absence of oxygen. After many generations passed, when e.coli replicated itself, the new copy lost an operon whose function was to detect oxygen.
Second salient incongruency with darwinian evolution is... it's just not possible statistically. Malaria for example is treated with a drug called chloroquine, among others. Not long ago, malaria developed resistance to chloroquine and the change occured in two amino acids, nothing to scoff at. This seemingly small change took 10^20 copies to occur. There were less humans (including descendants since they branched off from apes) on Earth, yet the mutations we endured are beyond imagination.
We cannot observe evolution unless we take a look at smaller organisms which reproduce drastically fast, like e.coli for example, whose cell division rate is said to be once every 30 minutes.
Observation of these micro organisms seems to indicate two things. One, evolution is a destructive process rather than constructing on something there already is. For example, resistances to malaria that developed over time in humans are actually setbacks, some being potentially fatal (HPFH, sickle cell disease, thalassemia, etc.) Basically every measure of adaptation is akin to blowing up your own bridge before the enemy nears. Even when there is a perceived gain, it's really a loss or rather a beneficial loss. A new strand of e.coli is said to use citrate aerobically as a second food source. However the big picture tells a different story. E.coli could already use citrate, but in absence of oxygen. After many generations passed, when e.coli replicated itself, the new copy lost an operon whose function was to detect oxygen.
Second salient incongruency with darwinian evolution is... it's just not possible statistically. Malaria for example is treated with a drug called chloroquine, among others. Not long ago, malaria developed resistance to chloroquine and the change occured in two amino acids, nothing to scoff at. This seemingly small change took 10^20 copies to occur. There were less humans (including descendants since they branched off from apes) on Earth, yet the mutations we endured are beyond imagination.
