Re: Scientific Discoveries That Suggest Evolution Is False?

On 7/9/2024 3:23 AM, jillery wrote:

MSN has been posting a lot of nonsense from Creationists and cdesign
proponentsists recently.  The following is an example:
 <https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/mind-and-soul/scientific-discoveries-that-suggest-evolution-is-false/ss-BB1oN5KV?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=c43911ee82944a5598ad288c0bead685&ei=19#image=1>
 <https://tinyurl.com/4na2jfrp>
  From the article:
 *************************************
For example, Darwin’s theory does a good job with the finch birds,
explaining how variations in weather patterns result in changes in the
shape and structure of the finch beaks. However, that mechanism does
not do a good job of explaining the origins of birds or other major
animal groups in the first place. So basically, innovation, no but
modification, yes.
**************************************
 The above should sound very familiar to regular T.O. readers, as it's
boilerplate from "Darwin's Doubt".
 The following is a good example of the "innovation" which Darwin's
theory explains just fine, no intelligent designer required or
necessary:
 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitroplast>
 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endosymbiont>
 <https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(24)00182-X.pdf>
 <https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adk1075>
  To my knowledge, nitroplasts haven't been mentioned in T.O. before.
They are a newly-discovered organelle in some algae, likely evolved
from endosymbiotic bacteria, just as are mitochondria and
chloroplasts.

Nitroplasts haven't seemed to have garnered much scientific interest. The bacteria seems to have been identified in 1998 and classified as an endosymbiont in 2013.  Wiki claims that they are researching how to transfer the endosymbiont to crop plants.  Some crop plants (legumes) can produce nitrogen fixing root nodules that protect nitrogen fixing bacteria.  The nitrogen fixing bacteria are anaerobic and have to be protected against oxygen.  Photosynthetic cyanobacteria can fix nitrogen, and supposedly could fix nitrogen before they evolved aerobic photosynthesis, and they had to adapt the anaerobic nitrogen fixing to their oxygen generating carbon compound production.  Apparently they fix nitrogen at night when photosynthesis is turned off and not producing oxygen.  The nitroplasts, must do the same thing.  It will likely be tricky to adapt them to crop plants.  You don't want them taking up space in the leaves that need to be packed with chloroplasts, so they would need to be reverse regulated.  Then need to be fully formed and active in the roots (chloroplasts exist in root cells, but they are not fully formed and functional) and need to be limited in number in the leaves, and somehow you need to keep oxygen away from them in the root cells.  This will be hard to do because root cells are still aerobic and need oxygen.  Some plants like rice that can survive flooding can tolerate lower oxygen levels, but most plants can't.
Ron Okimoto

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To know less than we don't know is the nature of most knowledge