Body: | Hox (Homeobox) Genes-Evolution's Saviour?
© 2000 Don Batten, Ph.D.. All Rights Reserved. [Updated: 28 January, 2000]
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Some evolutionists hailed homeobox or hox genes as the saviour of evolution
soon after they were discovered. They seemed to fit into the Gouldian mode
of evolution (punctuated equilibrium) because a small mutation in a hox
gene could have profound effects on an organism. However, further research
has not born out the evolutionists' hopes. Dr Christian Schwabe, the
non-creationist sceptic of Darwinian evolution from the Medical University
of South Carolina (Dept. of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology), wrote:
'Control genes like homeotic genes may be the target of mutations that
would conceivably change phenotypes, but one must remember that, the more
central one makes changes in a complex system, the more severe the
peripheral consequences become. ... Homeotic changes induced in Drosophila
genes have led only to monstrosities, and most experimenters do not expect
to see a bee arise from their Drosophila constructs.' (Mini Review:
Schwabe, C., 1994. Theoretical limitations of molecular phylogenetics and
the evolution of relaxins. Comp. Biochem. Physiol. 107B:167-177).
Research in the six years since Schwabe wrote this has only born out his
statement. Changes to homeotic genes cause monstrosities (two heads, a leg
where an eye should be, etc.); they do not change an amphibian into a
reptile, for example. And the mutations do not add any information, they
just cause existing information to be mis-directed to produce a fruit-fly
leg on the fruit-fly head instead of on the correct body segment, for
example.
Evolutionists, of course, use the ubiquity of hox genes in their argument
for common ancestry ('Look, all these creatures share these genes, so all
creatures must have had a common ancestor'). However, commonality of such
features is to be expected with their origin from the same (supremely)
intelligent Creator. All such homology arguments are only arguments for
evolution when one excludes, a priori, origins by design. Indeed many of
the patterns we see do not fit common ancestry. For example, the
discontinuity of distribution of hemoglobin-like proteins, which are found
in a few bacteria, molluscs, insects, and vertebrates. One could also note
features such as vivipary, thermoregulation (some fish and mammals), eye
designs, etc.
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