Dr. John Morris of the Institute for Creation Research explains that sickle cell anemia, a blood disorder that affords a selective advantage against malarial infection, demonstrates that evolution, unlike Creationism, is fundamentally flawed.
“Evolution says that beneficial mutations have occurred trillions of times, but their best example is the fatal disease,” John Morris said in a radio bulletin today. “The point is, they’re grasping at straws; the Creation story, like we’re told back in Genesis, it’s much more credible.”
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Sickle cell anemia and Cooley's anemia are both conditions that, though life-threatening in the homozygous state, give protection against falciparum malaria when heterozygous. As a result, these traits are common where malaria is endemic and rare elsewhere. That is exactly what you'd expect from evolutionary pressure. A purposeful, micromanaging Creator who created falciparum malaria would be a son of a bitch.
I bet the folks who gave him his Doctorate in Geological Engineering at the University of Oklahoma in 1980 are busy trying to edit him out of the database of the alumnis.
To show you how he's fundie, he has led expeditions to the Mt. Ararat and believes that Leviathan was a real fire breathing animal that lived in the ocean as it was mentioned in Job 41.
Tell it to the Europeans who started dropping like flies from Malaria when they tried to set up in central Africa. Sickle Cell Anemia seems like the type of cobbled-together defense evolution would produce. Fatal in some cases, but gave enough of a survival advantage overall that it was inherited by a large percentage of the population in the region.
He damn well knows that evolutionary changes have led to bottleneck populations and extinction, biological conditions that weaken populations and genetic stagnation. You actually see this shit mostly from the accredited creationists (or those the quote them as some higher authority) who know evolution never claimed all change was benificial in every sense.
BECAUSE THEY'RE NOT THE PRODUCT OF A PLAN!
You jerks cannot play the reality from both sides, you cannot insist there's a creation with a plan from an overseeing mind then ridiculously claim evolutionary drift is corrupting the great Gods agenda.
Actually, the reason why there is sickle cell anemia is a perfect example of evolution. In the areas where malaria was prominent before the insecticides, what better way to protect the population from the disease. Those with it lived on to pass that "mutation" while others died off.
“Evolution says that beneficial mutations have occurred trillions of times, but their best example is the fatal disease,” John Morris said in a radio bulletin today.
It just shows that sometime it depends on the circumstances if you could consider a mutation beneficial or not. If a group of humans develops a lighter skin that is better at getting vitamin D from the sunlight while at the same time being more sensitive to UV light, it depends on the habitat of this group. If they live in Scandinavia, great. If they live in the Sahara, well, they’re shit out of luck.
It’s almost as if reality is always never only black and white
*
*(No pun intended. Really, I wrote that sentence before the one about skin colour.)
There's nothing which says that all mutations are always beneficial and never in some way harmful.
Of course, what does this say about creationism or intelligent design when some humans develop fatal diseases?
"Dr. John Morris of the Institute for Creation Research explains that sickle cell anemia, a blood disorder that affords a selective advantage against malarial infection, demonstrates that evolution, unlike Creationism, is fundamentally flawed. "
Morris' understanding of evolution is fundamentally flawed. Or maybe he's just bearing false witness.
An example,hardly the best. If you're looking for an example of an evolved system that confers unambioguous benefit, try the clotting cascade, or vision.
As for Genesis' creation myths being more 'credible', by what rational argument is "This happened over a long period of time as a result of natural mechanisms we directly observe to be operating today" less credible than "This happened by magic, at the direction of my invisible friend--you know, the one with all the neat super-powers"?
Confused?
So were we! You can find all of this, and more, on Fundies Say the Darndest Things!
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