Morris and Parker, "What is creation science?"
On pages 5 and 6, paragraphs 7 and 1, Morris says,
No Evidence from Similarities. The existence of similarities between organisms -- whether in external morphology or internal biochemistry -- is easily explained as the Creator's design of similar systems for similar functions, but such similarities are not explicable by common evolutionary descent.
This is a simple falsehood. Common descent easily explains the similarity of organisms through relatedness. This does not mean, though, that the mechanisms by which similar traits arise necessarily follow a simple pattern.
Morris and Parker, "What is creation science?"
On pages 5 and 6, paragraphs 7, 1 and 3, Morris says,
No Evidence from Similarities. The existence of similarities between organisms -- whether in external morphology or internal biochemistry -- is easily explained as the Creator's design of similar systems for similar functions, but such similarities are not explicable by common evolutionary descent.
This is a simple falsehood. Common descent easily explains the similarity of organisms through relatedness. This does not mean, though, that the mechanisms by which similar traits arise necessarily follow a simple pattern.
[...]
"The really significant finding that comes to light from comparing the proteins' amino acid sequences is that it is impossible to arrange them in any sort of an evolutionary series" (Michael Denton, 1985a).
Denton refers to the comparison of protein sequences from modern organisms. It is perfectly true that no "evolutionary series" should be expected in these comparisons, because the modern species are not descended from *each other*. However, what neither Michael Denton nor Henry Morris want you to think about is that the very same data that Michael Denton cites is strongly indicative of the cousin-cousin relationships predicted by the theory of common descent.
A-----------------B
\---------------C
Consider a species, A, which gives rise to two separate lineages, B and C. Each lineage is free to vary over time. At the present, one can measure the change that has accumulated between the two lineages by finding a distance between protein sequences of the same protein product, or for DNA sequences. You will get a number indicating how much change has accumulated since B and C last shared common ancestor A. Let's call that number X for the moment.
X = |B-C|
A------------------B
\-------C--------D
\-------E
Now consider that one of the lineages that we were discussing above, C, itself gave rise to two separate lineages, D and E, about halfway between the time of the original common ancestor and the present. Let's assume that the rate of change in these lineages is approximately equal. The expected difference in sequences between either D or E and B is the *same* value as we got for the difference between B and C, which is X. However, we can also measure the difference in sequences between D and E now. We would expect *that* difference to be about X/2, since only half the time for change resulting in X was available for the change seen between D and E.
This kind of pattern of differences is precisely what is found in the molecular data that Denton cites, and is strongly indicative of common descent. The "evolutionary series" criticism is founded upon a misconception. The quoting of that criticism by Morris under the heading given indicates, at the least, that Morris doesn't understand the topic.
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