The Non-Evolution of the Angiosperms

THE NON-EVOLUTION OF THE ANGIOSPERMS

For those who may not know, the biggest and most fatal difference between an angiosperm (like an apple) and a gymnosperm (like a fir) is the fact that the 'carpels' (the parts that become the seed/s) are INSIDE the 'sporophylls' in the angiosperms, and OUTSIDE the sporophylls in the gymnosperms.
http://biology.clc.uc.edu/graphics/bio106/angio%20cycle.jpg that's an angiosperm

http://dbs.umt.edu/courses/sci226/gifs/images/lab4/img8.gif shows the differences nicely.

How did the change take place? Nobody has a clue.

The difference is like holding a marble in the palm of your hand, and having a tumour growing INSIDE the palm of your hand. The marble simply cannot enter the tissues and become the tumour.

I was interested to hear the comment that the fossil record is the weakest proof of evolution.

Darwin knew this, and not a great deal has changed since his time, except that the gaps have become wider and deeper. Increasing biochemical knowledge has showed that there is nothing 'simple' in nature, and the folly of supposing that some unicell somehow formed itself in a nice warm soup somewhere and evolved into whales, sequoias and man has been heavily underscored by the biochemists at least.

Yet, this is the cornerstone of all evolutionary theory. It is a clear impossibility as we know: because of the protein formation riddle at least.

Such 'transitional fossils' as have been found answer none of the really serious questions such as the origin of life itself, the origins of animals , plants, the protista, the monera and the fungi.

These mighty groups arrive unceremoniously and abruptly in the fossil records as we all know. Attempts to find pre-cambrian fossils are producing some results - but only serve to push the problem one layer down.

As usual, clad in long words, ignorance lies deeply concealed.

For this thread I'd like to present some more facts about plant evolution which the uncommitted readers may not know, and perhaps the committed may not either.

PROKARYOTES AND EUKARYOTES

Plants are eukaryotes ie they have their DNA enclosed in a nuclear membrane. (Bacteria are prokaryotes, whose DNA is NOT enclosed in a nuclear membrane.) That doesn’t sound like much – until you realise that the apparent ‘simplicity’ of the bacterial cell is very deceptive indeed.

Mycoplasma genitalium , which has the smallest genome of any free-living organism, has a genome of 580,000 base pairs (wikipedia). This is an astonishingly large number for such a ‘simple’ organism. Needless to say, the larger prokaryotes are even more complex.

The simplest plants cells ie those containing chlorophyll, present insuperable difficulties for any gradualist theory (the only contender in the field since the Punctuated Equilibrium model was punctured by the gradualist opposition).

What did they evolve from? The answer is ‘nowhere.’ They appear in the fossil record as plant cells ie

1 whose cell walls are made of cellulose, unlike the polysaccharide and PROTEIN walls of the bacteria. How did such an enormous chemical transition take place if eukaryotes evolved from prokaryotes? And in any case, how did the prokaryote ever figure out how to manufacture PROTEIN of all things?

2 The molecular level biological structures are also very different. The DNA in the bacterium lies free in the cytoplasm. The DNA in the plant cell is not free, but is enclosed in a double membrane. Darnell points out that: The differences in the biochemistry of messenger RNA formation in eukaryotes compared to prokaryotes are so profound as to suggest that sequential prokaryotic to eukaryotic cell evolution seems unlikely.
Darnell, "Implications of RNA-RNA Splicing in Evolution of Eukaryotic Cells," Science, vol. 202, 1978, p. 1257.

3 There are other very large differences. The genes in a bacterial cell carry the information needed for its life and reproduction only. The genes in plant cells carry the information for a gigantic number of living processes – all crammed into a microscopic space. Where did the information come from? And how did it get into the genes at all?

Some bacteria actually photosynthesise. This means that they have the information needed to construct chlorophyll, and use it, improbable as that sounds. Where did such information come from? And how did it get into the genome? In the bacterium there are no chloroplasts to contain the chlorophyll, but in the plant cell, there are these structures which are by no means simple.
See http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/sat2/biology/chapter9section2.rhtml

Hoe could such things have come into being?

4 Algae are plants. They are just as complex now as they were when they were first found:

Both blue-green algae and bacteria fossils dating back 3.4 billion years have been found in rocks from S. Africa. Even more intriguing, the pleurocapsalean algae turned out to be almost identical to modern pleurocapsalean algae at the family and possibly even at the generic level.

The oldest fossils so far discovered are objects fossilized in minerals which belong to blue green algae, more than 3 billion years old. No matter how primitive they are, they still represent rather complicated and expertly organized forms of life.

Not only are they the oldest photosynthesisers, but:

Even today, they are the most highly efficient photosynthesizers on the planet, utilizing light energy, carbon dioxide from the air, and hydrogen and oxygen from the water to synthesize a high energy combination of proteins, carbohydrates (starches and sugars), lipids (fats), nucleic acids (DNA and RNA), vitamins, chlorophyll and other pigments.

So we have the remarkable situation that the most ‘primitive’ algae contain the most amazing substances in the universe (eg chlorophyll), which are STILL the top, most efficient photosynthesisers on the planet! All the ‘evolution’ that has taken place since then, has produced nothing better.

This, I may point out, is precisely what we would expect if the Divine Creator produced the design. It simply cannot be improved.

TO TURN TO THE ANGIOSPERMS AGAIN

“Despite these new findings, plenty of mysteries remain. None of the analyses reveals when the first flowering plant appeared on Earth. Amborella is not the first one but, rather, a representative of the first branch from that unknown ancestor.”

You note, the question is ‘when’. The bigger question is not asked: it would be too damaging to the appearance of knowledge. ‘HOW’ is that question. Shtumm.

“Sometime before 140 million years ago, flowering plants, known as angiosperms, diverged from nonflowering seed plants known as gymnosperms. [My comment: Note the assurance of ignorance! They did diverge – but we haven’t a clue how, but we know…] Biologists imagine a tree of life with different groups of animals or plants as branches. Flowering plants branched off from within the branch of seed plants.[Assurance of ignorance again]. The first branch within flowering plants separated Amborella from all the rest.”
http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/12.16/angiosperms.html

Imagine! What a splendid recommendation for a scientific theory. But what else is there if you reject the Creation hypothesis.

"This is probably how the carpel looked in the distant ancestors of flowering plants," Donoghue says. "It’s a neat observation that increases our understanding of how flowering plants originated and what the first ones looked like."

What a pathetic piece of disinformation! ‘Increase our understanding’ indeed! We don’t know anything about how they originated.

WHERE DID THE HIGHER PLANTS COME FROM?

Here’s an article about how the algae ‘waded out’ of the water and became all the plants we see today. Read and have a good laugh. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/06/0604_wirealgae.html

“The first tentative moves that got life out of the water and onto the land eons ago were apparently made by slimy green algae, scientists say, [b]and coming ashore wasn't easy.[/b]” (!!!!!) Ho ho ho!

“The ancient history of land plants is becoming evident because of recent advances in techniques for genetic analysis. It's now possible to look at individual genes in algal cells and higher plants and calculate their similarity.”

I said it before, and I’ll say it again. These ‘molecular biologists’ evidently live with their test tubes stuck over their heads or worse. They haven’t a clue about practical biology.

If they had, could they possibly have spewed such garbage? We’ve all seen, I’m sure, seaweed dead on the shore because it was thrown up, dried out, and died. Out of the water, they die from dehydration. And oxygen poisoning – because the concentration of atmospheric oxygen is so much higher than in water. And gaseous diffusion stops because of the dehydration – so they can’t take in the carbon dioxide needed to photosynthesise, nor can they get rid of the carbon dioxide from their own respiration.

The mineral nutrients they need which are normally dissolved in the water of their environment, cannot be obtained, because there is no water around them any more. So they die.

But, as the article says:

“Clues to the history of such organisms lie within the chemical "spelling"—the sequence similarity—of the organisms' genes. The closer they resemble each other, the closer they are related.”

Here is proof positive that this technique is fundamentally flawed. Whichever higher plant the gene sequences show the closest similarity to, the relationship is really non-existent. An alga cannot crawl out, wade out, or anything else from water and survive for any length of time. Certainly not long enough to reproduce and produce a higher taxon. Therefore, if the gene sequences say that the alga’s closest relative is a redwood, then the interpretation of that sequence data is nonsensical.

Most algae reproduce vegetatively. Therefore there is no, or very very reduced possibility of introducing genetic variability. The sexual reproductive methods, are very complex, and show no indication of having evolved. Some useful diagrams are here: http://kentsimmons.uwinnipeg.ca/16cm05/16lab05/lb1pg7.htm

Read, and ask yourself, how did the plant figure out how to do this?

What is common to BOTH types of reproduction, is that water is needed, no, essential. So even if an alga crawled, waded, whatever on to land (and why should it do so anyway?), it could not reproduce. End of evolution.

“He and several colleagues made it clear that today's multicellular plants, such as corn, cabbages and all the other greenery, arose from a single type of algae.”

I wonder how people can say this stuff with a straight face. And why they aren’t pelted with tomatoes and cabbages for talking such rubbish.

One of the reasons I'm arguing from scripture in this debate, is because of the logical, scriptural consequences of Romans 5, which no-one has yet addressed, and I'd like to hear how a TE can possibly square that circle.

[b]Falsification of evolution is impossible[/b]

The great problem with evolution theory, as many writers have pointed out, is that it cannot be falsified. Nothing can falsify it, and that makes it an article of faith. It also puts it on a par with faith in God. Now that I regard as serious.

I say that it cannot be falsified for the following reasons:

1 If it has been seen to occur (it never has, as far as I know) that's proof of evolution(see, it happened!)

2 If it has not been seen to occur, that's proof too. (Never mind, we know it did, pat pat).

3 If it can account for the origin of anything, that's proof. (see, that's proof!)

4 If it can't, then that's proof too. (Ah the evidence hasn't emerged as yet).

It simply cannot be falsified and therefore it is not a scientific theory. Popper says so.

One patronising criticism one hears is 'that's found on a creationist site' as if that invalidates a fact! If one were to say, it's found on [i]talkorigins[/i], and is therefore invalidated, then who knows what wrath will descend? There's a double standard here.

It is also most curious and noteworthy that all of the modern evidence is based on molecular biology. There is no palaeontology or natural history that supports the theory, and to my mind that is the [i]second [/i]most ruinous fact about it.