101 Evidences - Biological evidence

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Biological evidence[edit]

Here is the "biological evidence" showing the young age of the Earth. The first five are mostly based around the ideas of DNA and tracking DNA to various ancestors. The rest look into fossilisation, perceived problems with it and old organisms, such as trees. Some of the later ones in this section are rather silly, and could be concluded to be not even wrong.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11

1[edit]

DNA in "ancient" fossils. DNA extracted from bacteria that are supposed to be 425 million years old brings into question that age, because DNA could not last more than thousands of years.

While techniques for sequencing ancient DNA (aDNA), including double primer PCR amplification are far from perfect due to the possibility of extensive post-mortem mutation, credible studies prove the existence of high quality ancient pathogen DNA from human and other species going back as far as 18,000 years [citation needed] and fragments of insect DNA going back as far as 25-40 million years [citation needed]. The study of aDNA is an emerging field apparently best not trusted to biblical scholars.

This is the first statement that incorrectly reasons that if a specific piece of evidence for a theory may be wrong, the whole theory is wrong and thus their theory must be right. Even if the DNA sequencing turned out to be ineffective for 25-40 million year old remains, it would still be reliable for sequences DNA older than their 6,000 years. This is in no way evidence for their theory. This kind of fallacious argument of confusing a critique against a theory with an argument for their theory will be repeated many many times in this article.


2[edit]

Lazarus bacteria—bacteria revived from salt inclusions supposedly 250 million years old, suggest the salt is not millions of years old.

Another example of creationists seizing on uncertainty in the scientific community to sow the seeds of doubt on the entirety of science. Vreeland and his team's claimed isolation of 250 million year old bacteria from salt deposits in the Delaware Basin has not been uniformly accepted.[1] This evidence does not implicate any number of other uncontroversial methods of proving the earth is older than 6,000 years.[2]


3[edit]

The decay in the human genome due to multiple slightly deleterious mutations each generation is consistent with an origin several thousand years ago. Sanford, J., Genetic entropy and the mystery of the genome, Ivan Press, 2005; see review of the book and the interview with the author in Creation 30(4):45–47,September 2008. This has been confirmed by realistic modelling of population genetics, which shows that genomes are young, in the order of thousands of years. See Sanford, J., Baumgardner, J., Brewer, W., Gibson, P. and Remine, W., Mendel's Accountant: A biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program, SCPE 8(2):147–165, 2007.

This argument distantly echoes the fall of man in its assumption that the human genome is in a state of "decay," presupposing in the first place that humanity has declined from an idealised golden age. The truth is that the human genome is continually mutating - some mutations are beneficial and some are harmful, although it is a common ID argument that mutations can only be harmful.


4[edit]

The data for "mitochondrial Eve" are consistent with a common origin of all humans several thousand years ago.

Creationists and real scientists aren't talking about the same "Eve" here. Mitochondria contain mitochondrial DNA, which scientists surmise derives from an early point in evolutionary history when mitochondria existing symbiotically with precursors to animals cells merged. Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is passed only from the female to its offspring. In the cell, mtDNA is separate from nuclear DNA and is not recombined during cellular division. Thus, notwithstanding mutation of mtDNA in any particular individual, it is possible to track all human beings back in time through matrilineal ancestry to a single “Mitochondrial Eve” who most likely didn't have Bette Davis eyes. “Mitochondrial Eve” is thought to have lived 170,000 to 200,000 years ago, which is completely consistent with human evolutionary timescales and with an old earth. Unlike the Eve of the Bible, Mitochondrial Eve is not believed to be the first human female; she is only the most recent common female ancestor of all persons living today. This does not imply that she was the only female around at the time; just that the family lines of all the other women alive at that time were interrupted at some point, either by having no children or by having only sons. Mitochondrial Eve had to inherit her mtDNA from her mother, after all; and her mother inherited it from her grandmother, etc., on all the way back to the first mitochondrion in the first eukaryotic cell.


5[edit]

Very limited variation in the DNA sequence on the human Y-chromosome around the world is consistent with a recent origin of mankind, thousands not millions of years.

The Y-chromosome, unlike most DNA, is inherited only from the father, which means that all DNA on the human Y chromosome can be followed back to a single most recent common male ancestor. Of course, that male would have inherited his Y chromosome from his father, who inherited it from his father, etc. The existence of a Y-chromosome Adam does not mean that there was only one man alive at that time of the most recent common male ancestor, but rather that the male-exclusive lineages of all the other men alive at that time have been broken - either by childlessness or by having only daughters, who don't carry the father's Y chromosome to the next generation. Because the only factor affecting the makeup of the DNA on the Y chromosome is mutation, measuring mutation rates and extrapolating them backwards can provide an estimate of when this most recent comman male ancestor lived. Calculations by the geneticist Spencer Wells have shown that this man lived around 60,000 years ago.[3] Note that the age estimates for Mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosome Adam are not particularly close; there is no reason to suspect that they would be. Consider the Biblical account of the Flood: assume for the moment that it is perfectly accurate. Noah would represent the Y-chromosome Adam, since no other males survived the Flood except for Noah's sons; however Noah was certainly not the first man on Earth. So the 'origin of mankind' and the dating of Y-chromosome Adam really have nothing to do with one another.


6[edit]

Many fossil bones "dated" at many millions of years old are hardly mineralized, if at all. See, for example, Dinosaur bones just how old are they really?

Firstly, there is no requirement that fossil bones have to be re-mineralised - bones and teeth are naturally made from a mineral (calcium carbonate) in the first place. Secondly, this still leaves fossil bones which are dated many millions of years old that have been mineralised. And apparently dinosaur bones can date from "between 235 and 240 million years ago." [4]


7[edit]

Dinosaur blood cells, blood vessels, proteins (hemoglobin, osteocalcin, collagen) are not consistent with their supposed age, but make more sense if the remains are young.

This is a classic example of proceeding from false premises to confuse the discussion. Claims of protein, DNA, or any other extant biological material extracted from dinosaur remains are controversial even among paleobiologists. Evidence supporting such claims includes iron-bearing substances theorized to represent heme compounds found in bone marrow. Opponents contend that certain "dinosaur soft tissues" could well have been recent bacterial sediment.


8[edit]

Lack of 50:50 racemization of amino acids in fossils "dated" at millions of years old, whereas complete racemization would occur in thousands of years.

Amino acid racemization dating is a technique that is used to date fossilized objects up to several millions of years in age by measuring the ratio of amino acid isomers. Measuring the degree of racemization and other known quantities can give you an estimated age of the sample. By measuring the racemization of the amino acid isoleucine, for example, objects can be dated up to several million years old.[5]

While it is true that there can be great variability on the rate at which amino acids undergo racemization, the changes in humidity, temperature, and acidity required to make the oldest known samples conform to a young earth (under 6000 years) view are completely unreasonable.


9[edit]

Living fossils—jellyfish, graptolites, coelacanth, stromatolites, Wollemi pine and hundreds more. That many hundreds of species could remain so unchanged, for even up to billions of years in the case of stromatolites, speaks against the millions and billions of years being real.

First of all, the jellyfish have actually changed somewhat, as have the coelacanths. Also, of the lifeforms given as examples, only the Wollemi pine is a species, and not such an old one as claimed.

Back to the point, they didn't change much because they were well-adapted to a stable environment. This argument also presumes that the only changes are morphological; evolution also includes biochemical changes, behavioral changes, and others that are not preserved in the fossil record.


10[edit]

Discontinuous fossil sequences. E.g. Coelacanth, Wollemi pine and various "index" fossils, which are present in supposedly ancient strata, missing in strata representing many millions of years since, but still living today. Such discontinuities speak against the interpretation of the rock formations as vast geological ages—how could Coelacanths have avoided being fossilized for 65 million years, for example? See The "Lazarus effect": rodent "resurrection"!

Fossilisation is a rare event, and for those fossils then to be dragged somewhere we can find them is even rarer. Anyway, if, as YECs assert, fossils were all laid down during the Great Flood, why were Coelecanths only found in the lower strata? Their interpretation of the data is inconsistent with their own model.


11[edit]

The ages of the world's oldest living organisms, trees, are consistent with a time frame for the earth of thousands of years.

This "argument" is almost too silly to refute. Those very old trees grew from seeds set by older trees - trees which may themselves have had to be very old before reaching sexual maturity. And they had parents as well...

In fact Dendrochronology - the science of studying tree rings - is an excellent way of disproving a young earth. By matching the growth patterns seen in tree rings between different trees that lived at similar times, the ages that this method can be used to look at can be extended far beyond the lifetime of a single tree that has only recently been cut down.


  1. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v411/n6834/full/411155a0.html
  2. In any event, the term "Lazarus bacteria" has lately been used to refer to the novel ability of the several Deinococcus bacteria, unique extremophiles variously capable of surviving extreme heat and radiation, of being capable of repairing their own genome even after being dessicated and ceasing respiration.
  3. Hillary Mayell (2003). "Documentary Redraws Humans' Family Tree"(National Geographic News). Accessed November 17, 2007.
  4. As stated here.
  5. Michael D. Petraglia, Ravi Korisettar (1998). "Early Human Behaviour in Global Context". Routledge Education. Page 63. ISBN 0415117631.