Science, Creation & EvolutionCellulosePlease, sir, you are not an idiot! from http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2002/0 ... lies.jhtml Each cell can only divide so many times due to the 'eating up' of the telomeres at the end of the chromosomes. Telomeres are protein storage tanks, and when they can no longer function as such, the cell can no longer divide. Thought: putting together the two references here, I am wondering if caloric restriction has anything to do with a cell actually not having enough impetus/energy to divide....? At least as often.... At any rate, getting back to telomeres, they can be repaired by an enzyme we don't make in our healthy cells: telomerase. However there are cells where mutations seem to possibly restore that function -- cancer cells. Weird, eh? But, as the second article (I think), pointed out, one of the side effects of reduced caloric intake is a decrease in cancer cases. The article mentioned the question regarding whether or not this was partly because cancer cells require so much nourishment. Which takes me back to my 'thought' above -- does more nourishment encourage more rapid cell division, thus shortening our lives? On the other hand, malnutrition ain't so great, either... Regarding the Bible, though, I do have a possible idea on why the ages of men literally cut in half after the Flood, and then again after Peleg. Then they just sort of dwindled to a maximum of about 120 years, which is still what we see today. If you check Genesis 7:11, you will see that all the fountains of the great deep BURST forth. That's a lot of pressure to do that, and that would have also brought up tons of pulverized material from under the crust. We have discovered that the heavy, radiometric elements were absent on the surface in the earth's infancy (no matter when you think that infancy was). That means that mankind's first exposure to radioactive elements -- and it would have been a massive exposure -- was during and subsequent to the Flood of Noah. Did THIS cause the mutation or mutations which shortened our lives so dramatically? At the time of Peleg, the continents were divided. This would have taken probably a few hundred years, but the outgasing of elements at the fracture zones would have again been enormous, again subjecting humankind to some pretty high levels of radioactivity. And again we see the ages of man cut from an average of about 400 years (after Shem and until Peleg) to about 200 years immediately. Abraham lived to a 'ripe old age' of 175, which would have been middle age just a few generations before him, and then we come down to Moses, who lived to an old age of 120 -- practically babyhood compared to and antediluvians! So I wonder about mutations regarding not only our ability to produce telomerase (which cancer cells may be back-mutating and thus producing), but probably bequeathing us some other genetic damage as well. And the genetic damage continues to build in all species on earth now, and this is the fact that made me first really question evolution. It's called genetic load. It is the number of heritable mutations which have built up in any population over time -- and gradually they will wipe out that population. We are doing our best medically to head a bunch of the genetic damage off at the pass, but we can't keep up. Keep an eye on the science news on the web and you will see several reports a year of a new discovery linking this or that to genetic problems. We weren't created that way. That's why Adam and Eve's kids could marry their siblings. In fact marriage into family was not only possible, but preferable even to the time of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. It was not until Moses that the genetic load had built enough to make marrying a close relative a danger -- too many recessive genes were waiting to harm the offspring. I've talked a lot more than you asked for, and for that I apologize. But I hope I helped a little. |
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