The evolution of the evolutionary tree diagram

Don't be fooled by the "Tree of Life" diagram from your standard evolutionary textbook. Real evolutionary scientists know that is just to get you started, they now have any number of diagrams to choose from that don't look like trees at all.

It's much better to get the truth about life not from any diagram, but from the Bible - given to us by the Creator Himself. He created all living kinds to be similar in some ways, different in others!

(excerpts from David Coppedge, Convergence Convenience, published in Creation Matters, a publication of Creation Research Society, Volume 17, Number 5, September/October 2012, to appear at http://www.creationresearch.org/creation_matters/pdf/2012/CM17%2005%20low%20res.pdf)

 

Darwin's tree diagram was
based on "homologous" traits.

In Charles Darwin's original tree diagram (1837), animals with similar structures on the same branch are said to have “homologous” traits, because they derive from the same common ancestor. 

But the living world is filled with traits that resemble each other on different branches.

What caused that?  Ah, the evolutionist replies, those traits are due to “convergent evolution.”  The similarities are “analogous” traits, because they do not derive from the same common ancestor. With this classification scheme, evolution explains everything: if similar animals are related, they evolved; if they are unrelated, they evolved.


Let's consider some of many recent examples in the evolutionist storytelling:

Jellyfish and Birds. PhysOrg¹ wrote, “Ion selectivity in neuronal signaling channels evolved twice in animals.”   Sea anemones and birds have complex channels in their cell membranes called volt- age-gated sodium channels, responsible for passing signals along nerves. 

Jellyfish and Man. Nature News² claims that muscles, too, evolved twice.  In discussing the alleged dual origins of muscles, Andreas Hejnol said, "Jellyfish move using a set of muscles that look remarkably similar to striated muscles in vertebrates.  However, new data show that the two muscle types contain different molecules, implying that they evolved independently."

Resistance to Plant Toxins. Another paper in Nature³ begins, “In a remarkable example of convergent evolution, insect species spanning 300 million years of divergence have evolved identical single-amino-acid substitutions that confer resistance to plant cardenolide toxins.”

Odor Detection. Fruit fly maggots and humans could hardly be further apart in the evolutionary tree, but three Cambridge evolutionists found an “unpredicted degree of similarity” between their odor-detection equipment.⁴ They said, "Our results reveal an unexpected degree of similarity between the development of the olfactory systems in vertebrates and the Drosophila larva."

Blood Suckers.  A paper about fleas in PLoS ONE states, “Blood feeding evolved at least ten times within arthropods, providing a scenario of convergent evolution for the solution of the salivary potion.”⁵

Crayfish. Another paper in PLoS ONE found convergent evolution in 12 subgenera of Appalachian crayfish.⁶ "Convergent morphological evolution appears to be a common occurrence in invertebrates suggesting the need for careful phylogenetically based interpretations of morphological evolution in invertebrate systematics.:

The Tree Diagram isn't just a Tree Anymore. Darwin's original tree of life does not accommodate "convergent" evolution very well. If you really insist on drawing pictures of what evolutionists can pick and choose from, there are 5 varieties, as discussed in Evillusion's blog⁷:

To make the point of this chapter very clear, and to do a bit of a review, below is a list of all of the scenarios that are available and imaginable for evolution as an explanation for the appearance, formation, and migration of organs and bio-logical systems into multiple species and groups of species.  Each one is a biological and logical impossibility.... The list below includes all scenarios, no matter how absurd that could have brought a full inventory of organs and bio-logical systems into a common ancestor of any group of modern species.  I realize that evolution would say only one of the choices actually occurred.  For the sake of good science, these are all of the various impossibilities, no matter how absurd.



1. Each species fills in its own missing inventory



2. Coalescing of species

3. Inter-Species Procreation



4. One species evolves a full inventory

5. A string of species evolved a complete inventory

Convergent Everything! The Wikipedia entry on “Convergent Evolution” ends with a statement that reveals that “convergent evolution” is an incomplete and controversial notion:

Simon Conway Morris counters this …, arguing that convergence is a dominant force in evolution, and that, since the same environmental and physical constraints act on all life, there is an “optimum” body plan that life will inevitably evolve toward.... Convergence is difficult to quantify, so progress on this issue may require exploitation of engineering specifications (e.g., wing aero- dynamics) and comparably rigorous measures of “very different course” in terms of phylogenetic (molecular) distances.

Although the escape clause “convergent evolution” may be thought by evolutionists to be a work in progress, it remains little more than a convenient phrase for evolutionists to toss around in their papers!

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References (selected)

1. Univ. of Vienna (2012, July 26). Ion selectivity in neuronal signaling channels evolved twice in animals. PhysOrg. Retrieved October 11, 2012, from http://phys.org/news/2012-07-ion-neuronal-channels-evolved-animals.htm

2. Hejnol, A. 2012. Evolutionary biology: Muscle’s dual origins. Nature 487(7406):181–182.
3. Whiteman, N.K. and K.A. Mooney. 2012. Evolutionary biology: Insects con- verge on resistance. Nature 489(7416):376–377.

4. Prieto-Godino, L.L., S. Diegelmann, and M. Bate. 2012. Embryonic origin of olfactory circuitry in Drosophila: Contact and activity-mediated interactions pattern connectivity in the antennal lobe. PLoS Biology 10(10): e100014000. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1001400

5 Ribeiro, J.M.C., T.F.C. Assumpção, D. Ma, P.H. Alvarenga, V.M. Pham, et al. 2012. An insight into the sialotranscriptome of the cat flea, Ctenocephalides felis. PLoS ONE 7(9): e44612. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0044612.

6. Breinholt, J.W., M.L. Porter, K.A. Crandall. 2012. Testing phylogenetic hy- potheses of the subgenera of the freshwater crayfish genus Cambarus (De- capoda: Cambaridae). PLoS ONE 7(9): e46105. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0046105.
7. http://evillusion.wordpress.com/evolution-explodes-gets-hung-on-a-phylogenetic-tree/, retrieved 12/28/2012.