Brilliant Brain Biologists Forget the Foundation

by Brian Thomas, M.S. *

New research purports to shed light on how brains evolved. Apparently, evolving a more complicated brain, such as from invertebrate to vertebrate, is not simply a matter of more connections (synapses) between neurons. Professor Seth Grant, head of the Genes to Cognition Programme at the Sanger Institute, argues that the synapse proteins had to evolve first. His team discovered that 25% of the synapse proteins in mammals are also found in single-celled animals.¹

“The set of proteins found in single-cell animals represents the ancient or 'protosynapse' involved with simple behaviors,” Grant claims. How does he know that these proteins truly represent our biochemical molecular ancestors? Is there another, more elegant and reasonable explanation for the similarity of these proteins? What about the possibility that they were designed by an intelligent being to perform specific functions?

Of course, this implies an intelligent creator, perhaps even the God of the Bible. Evolutionary scientists call this supposition “unscientific,” but we disagree. Sometimes, evolutionary biologists are like a forensic analyst who examines an ancient and majestically-carved bas-relief and concludes, “This formation is clearly the result of natural causes, because it would be unscientific to invoke a carver.” In this context, an unbiased investigator would deduce the most expedient cause for a given effect, whatever the nature of that cause. What makes the biology context exempt from this process?

According to Professor Grant, the set of proteins common among single-celled and mammalian organisms “was embellished by addition of new proteins with the evolution of invertebrates and vertebrates and this has contributed to the more complex behaviors of these animals.” And with a wave of the Darwinian magic wand, “new proteins” are conjured out of the air to explain the development of “more complex behaviors.”

Why would scientists conclude that nature added new proteins, new dynamic integrated systems, new synapses, when no research has ever shown nature to have manufactured one new protein anywhere? The Apostle Peter accurately described this myopic mentality—and experts on memory are not exempt—when he wrote, “They deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water.”²

References

1. Complex Synapses Drove Brain Evolution. Science News. Posted on ScienceDaily.com June 9, 2008, accessed June 12, 2008.
2. 2 Peter 3:5, New International Version.

* Mr. Thomas is Science Writer.

Article posted on June 17, 2008.