Molecular evolution is echoed in bat ears
04 September 2008
If you ever wanted to know how to put the cart before the horse, just ask the folks at the University of Bristol. A paper was written that studies the Prestin gene in bats that is responsible for echolocation (the ultra-sonic calls that bats use). They have discovered that two different species of unrelated bats somehow have this Prestin gene that allows them to echolocate. The problem is that all their supposed ancestors did not have this feature. The question was then raised, How is this possible?
Things we know:
Evolution happened.
Echolocation evolved at the same time in unrelated species.
Therefore:
Environments (somehow) create the best genes that it (somehow) knows will survive.
Environments select the best evolved to survive.
We have bats with the same feature.
Professor Jones and Dr Rossiter said: “In recent years, scientists have discovered the curious fact that echolocating bats do not all group together in the evolutionary tree of life, but instead, some are more related to their non-echolocating cousins, the fruit bats. This has raised the question of whether echolocation in bats has evolved more than once, or whether the fruit bats lost their ability to echolocate.
“Evolutionary biologists have long appreciated that morphological similarities may not reflect evolutionary affinities among animals because of convergent evolution – similar lifestyles can cause distantly related animals to resemble one another when they occupy similar environments because natural selection will favour similar outcomes.
“Now the same seems to be true for gene sequences – the need to echolocate can cause genes to converge in their structure. Our study suggests that scientists should be cautious when inferring evolutionary relationships from genes that may be involved in important functions and, therefore, could be shaped by convergent evolution .”
When you presuppose that vertical evolution happened, you then have to make the radical claim that the ability to know there was sound in the first place, the ability to make sound, hear sound, and understand sounds all evolved from nothing many different times in many different creatures. When bats supposedly evolved the ability to hear sound there were already many different creatures that had all independently from each other decided to evolve eyes, ears, noses, taste buds, nervous systems, and brains out of nothing.
How do you solve this problem if you trust evolution happened? You just have to say, “We know it happened that way because here we are.”
Genesis 1:20-21
And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2008/5876.html
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080904102756.htm
