Kevin Martin's “17 Evidences Against Evolution” tells us the following:
In molecular biology, proteins of the same type in different organisms can be tested for difference in amino acid makeup. The figure resulting is converted into a percentage. The lower the percentage, the less difference there is between the proteins. Dr. Michael Denton, in experiments with Cytochrome C, a protein that converts food into energy, and hemoglobin, found the following.
Cytochrome C Differences Cytochrome C Differences Bacterium to Six Organisms Silkmoth to Vertebrates to yeast . . . . . . . 69% to lamprey . . . . .27% to wheat . . . . . . . 66% to carp. . . . . . .25% to silkmoth. . . . . . 65% to pigeon. . . . . .26% to tuna. . . . . . . . 65% to turtle. . . . . .25% to pigeon. . . . . . . 64% to horse . . . . . .30% to horse . . . . . . . 64% Cytochrome C Differences Hemoglobin Differences Carp to Terrestrial Vertebrates Lamprey to Other Vertebrates to bullfrog. . . . . . 13% to human . . . . . .73% to turtle. . . . . . . 13% to kangaroo. . . . .76% to chicken . . . . . . 14% to chicken . . . . .78% to rabbit. . . . . . . 13% to frog. . . . . . .76% to horse . . . . . . . 13% to carp. . . . . . .75%Dr. Denton states, “There is not a trace at a molecular level of the traditional evolutionary series: fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal. Incredibly man is closer to lamprey than are fish.” The evidence is clear; evolution is struck another hard blow!
You can find a chart with far more of these comparisons here.
Richard Milton’s “Homology?” also tells us this story:
Even more extraordinary is the complete absence of evidence from biochemistry for the most basic Darwinian evolutionary scheme of fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal. When the protein divergence of land-dwelling vertebrates - amphibians, reptiles, mammals - are compared with those of fish, they are all again equally isolated. There is no graduation of divergence as one would expect in an evolutionary sequence.
The horse, the rabbit, the frog, and the turtle are all 13 per cent divergent in their cytochrome C from the carp. ‘At a molecular level’, says Denton, ‘there is no trace of the evolutionary transition from fish to amphibian to reptile to mammal. So amphibia, always traditionally considered intermediate between fish and the other terrestrial vertebrates, are in molecular terms as far from fish as any group of reptiles or mammals.’
Phillip E Johnson in his 1991 book Darwin on Trial (Washington D.C.: Regnery Gateway) tells us on page 92:
Judging by cytochrome c comparisons, sesame plants and silkworms are just about as different from bacteria as humans are. In fact, every plant and animal species is approximately the same molecular distance from any bacterial species, and there is no surviving trace of any intermediates that might have filled the “space” between single-celled and multicellular life. If the molecules evolved gradually to their present form, then intermediates must over time have filled that space, but comparing present-day molecules cannot tell us whether these transitional forms ever existed.
More telling is his “Research Notes” on page 180:
The data regarding cytochrome c molecular sequence divergences is from a table in Dayhoff’s Atlas of Protein Sequence and Structure; it is reproduced in Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (1985). Denton pursues the thesis that the molecular evidence shows a world of discontinuous natural groupings that supports the essentialist or typological view rather than the Darwinist view of continuity over time. The Darwinist answer is to assume that the discontinuous groups of the present came about by continuous evolution from distant common ancestors. The question is whether the Darwinist assumption is merely a philosophical preference, or whether it is backed up by substantial evidence.
That the philosophy of essentialism (think of Plato and his allegory of the cave) was deeply entrenched in Western thought was one of the major reasons for the original opposition to Darwinism has been documented by Ernst Mayr. See either his One Long Argument or Toward a New Philosophy of Biology. Darwinism depends on the rejection of essentialism in biology. Thus if these authors are right, Darwinism truly is in deep trouble and evolution itself might have to be rejected.
So why are they wrong? It really comes down to that all of these authors don’t comprehend the very basics of how evolution works. In short they are incompetent in the subject they are writing about. Now this is not a mere attack on their persons. I plan to show that unless they are outright trying to deceive, they don’t know much about evolution. If I am right, than not much of what they say about evolution can be taken seriously.
The reason why a human, a fish, an insect, a plant, and a fungus have cytochrome cs that have close to the same similarity to a bacteria’s cytochrome c is that a human, a fish, an insect, a plant, and a fungus have the exact the same evolutionary relationship to that bacteria. The time since the common ancestor of man and a specific bacteria is the exact same time since the common ancestor between a reptile and that same bacteria. This is because the common ancestor in both cases is the same. Furthermore the number of generations is about the same in both cases as well. Thus the observations that the creationists and typologists are crowing about is merely what one should expect if one accepts that evolution is true. It is not disproof of evolution but a surprisingly powerful confirmation of evolution’s reality.
This sort of argument is really based on a common misconception of evolution. This misconception is that evolution is a ladder from bacteria to man. One might dispel this misconception by realizing that the many millions of forms of life on Earth right now and thus it should be obvious the evolution is not merely a path from bacteria to humans. But unfortunately this ladder of progress is what most people envision when they hear the world evolution and it allows creationists the opportunity to take advantage of it by constructing strawman arguments like this one. It is easy to “disprove” evolution when you take apart an imaginary construct that has nothing to do with evolution.
Now lets pretend that we could find the cytochrome c of a bacterium that lived billions of years and was an ancestor of man. Now if you compared its cytochrome c with a fish that was a direct ancestor of man, an amphibian that was a direct ancestor of man, a reptile that was a direct ancestor of man, and with man himself then one would expect to find the pattern that the above authors expect. But unfortunately all of them are long dead and we don’t have access to their molecular biology. We can only compare to bacteria, fish, amphibians, and reptiles that are alive today. But the bacteria did not stop evolving after their common ancestor with man. The same with fish, amphibians, and reptiles. Thus that cytochrome c of various eukaryotes are approximately equidistant should expected.
If you need more explanation, or want more detail on how proteins can trace evolution, then see Wesley R. Elsberry’s “Sequences and Common Descent” which illustrates in an easy to understand manner with excellent illustrations. For those who want a more advanced treatment please see “Compelling Data for Common Descent from Matching Redundant DNA Sequences” by Steve Hinrichs.
With this understanding it is easy to take apart another statement from Milton’s previously quoted essay:
Perhaps the most baffling finding of all is that radically different genetic coding can give rise to animals that outwardly look very similar and exhibit similar behavior, while creatures that look and behave completely differently can have far less genetic divergence. There are, for instance, more than 800 species of frogs, all of which look superficially the same. But there is a greater variation of molecular structure between them than there is between the bat and the blue whale. [My emphasis.]
If the common ancestor of today’s frogs lived before the common ancestor between the blue whale and the bat then this should be expected.
“Refuting Evolution: A Study Guide” by Jonathan Sarfati tells us:
The a-hemoglobin of crocodiles has more in common with that of a chicken that that of a viper (their fellow reptiles).
That the α-chain of hemoglobin of crocodiles and chickens are more similar than that of a crocodile to a viper is not surprising since it has long been known that a chicken and a crocodile share a more recent common ancestor than a crocodile and a viper.
I should note that it can be dangerous to base hypotheses of evolutionary relationships on just one protein since it is a very small sample of date and by chance can mess one up. It is far better to use many proteins (including proteins which evolve at different rates) or just use DNA which generally done today. But it can’t be overstated that these molecular comparisons have been a dramatic confirmation of evolutionary principles. Molecular data, along with the rise of cladistics, and the use of computers has also lead to a dramatic increase in our knowledge of evolutionary relationships.
