6.21.2005

Letter to the Editor

Today, the Lexington Herald-Leader published one of my myriad letters to the editor. It is as follows:

Blinded by Science

While scanning the June 10th edition of the Herald-Leader, I noticed a headline: "Scientists search for common-ancestor cell." I had to see what it was about. Biologists have now decided that all organisms, from President Bush to the bush in your yard, are descended from a single cell. This is convenient for them, as it only requires life to arise from the "primordial stew" once. Momentarily, let’s set aside the myriad of evolutionary difficulties. We won’t criticize the never-observed "process" of new information being added to the genome; necessary for Darwinism. We won’t even analyze the abject impossibility of that first fully operating cell "appearing" from non-life. If, as the article intimates, we are the "cousins of everything from whales to . . . pond scum," where does that place us? If, indeed, it is perfectly alright to squash a fly, who can say that it is ‘wrong’ to squash the life out of the elderly, the sick, or anyone else who we think is useless? The researchers stated that the efforts to understand this bug will help other branches of "science" as well. Branches like "evolution", the study of something that never happened, "genetics", biogenetic tampering, "medical science", cloning other human beings, and last of all, "finding primitive life on other planets". They expect if they understand life’s beginnings on this planet, and know what simple life forms to look for elsewhere, they can prove that we are all accidents. It’s amazing what lengths humankind will go to to disavow a Creator.
Besides the fact that they failed to put "III" after my name, and the fact that they changed "Creator" to "creator", they did pretty well considering that I only submitted the letter 3 days ago. -D3

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You have to learn that repeating something again and again doesn't make it true. I was just playing with Google and found this interesting abstract:

Ranz JM, Ponce AR, Hartl DL, Nurminsky D., 2003. Origin and evolution of a new gene expressed in the Drosophila sperm axoneme. Genetica. Jul;118(2-3):233-44.
Sdic is a new gene that evolved recently in the lineage of Drosophila melanogaster. It was formed from a duplication and fusion of the gene AnnX, which encodes annexin X, and Cdic, which encodes the intermediate polypeptide chain of the cytoplasmic dynein. The fusion joins AnnX exon 4 with Cdic intron 3, which brings together three putative promoter elements for testes-specific expression of Sdic: the distal conserved element (DCE) and testes-specific element (TSE) are derived from AnnX, and the proximal conserved element (PCE) from Cdic intron 3. Sdic transcription initiates within the PCE, and translation is initiated within the sequence derived from Cdic intron 3, continuing through a 10 base pair insertion that creates a new splice donor site that enables the new coding sequence derived from intron 3 to be joined with the coding sequence of Cdic exon 4. A novel protein is created lacking 100 residues at the amino end that contain sequence motifs essential for the function of cytoplasmic dynein intermediate chains. Instead, the amino end is a hydrophobic region of 16 residues that resembles the amino end of axonemal dynein intermediate chains from other organisms. The downstream portion of Sdic features large deletions eliminating Cdic exons v2 and v3, as well as multiple frameshift deletions or insertions. The new protein becomes incorporated into the tail of the mature sperm and may function as an axonemal dynein intermediate chain. The new Sdic gene is present in about 10 tandem repeats between the wildtype Cdic and AnnX genes located near the base of the X chromosome. The implications of these findings are discussed relative to the origin of new gene functions and the process of speciation.


I thought you'd like to see it since, you know, new genes are not suppose to be created.
S

Anonymous said...

*she blinded me with science*

David S. MacMillan III said...

That last comment was a mistake.

*She blinded me with science*

Huh? I'm sorry, but you totally lost me, Carl.

-D3