tas8831
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Ah, Walt Brown, mechanical engineer.
Expert on all science.
I'm not a geologist (like Brown) but I am a biologist (unlike Brown), and I know to ignore anything Brown says on any science by virtue of his willingness to lie for his cause. In his online book, he claims:
"An early computer-based study of cytochrome c, a protein used in energy production, compared 47 different forms of life. This study found many contradictions with evolution based on this one protein. For example, according to evolution, the rattlesnake should have been most closely related to other reptiles. Instead, of these 47 forms (all that were sequenced at that time), the one most similar to the rattlesnake was man."
One thing to note - he mentions "(all that were sequenced at that time)". He cites his son's science fair project as his source:
"R. B. Brown, Abstracts: 31st International Science and Engineering Fair (Washington, D.C.: Science Service, 1980), p. 113."
also note that he writes in the footnotes:
"While the rattlesnake’s cytochrome c was most similar to man’s, man’s cytochrome c was most similar to that of the rhesus monkey. (If this seems like a contradiction, consider that City A could be the closest city to City B, but City C might be the closest city to City A.)"
A couple of problems... I will not reinvent the wheel, so I will just post the following (bolding in the original; red text my emphasis):
Dave Wise has an interesting website called The Bullfrog Affair , where he talks about creationist claims over genetic distances. In particular, he debunks Duane Gish's claims. However, he also addresses Walt Brown's specific claims about cytochrome C, rattlesnakes, and man. Here is the relevant excerpt (somewhat lengthy, sorry--my emphasis in bold).
quote:In the meantime, other creationist watchers were getting into the act.
Two of them reported their experiences in _Creation/Evolution Newsletter_
(Vol.4 No.5, Sept/Oct 1984, pp 14-17).
Frank Arduini encountered a similar protein claim by Walter T. Brown Jr of
the Chicago area; his Center for Scientific Creation used to be ICR Midwest
Center. Arduini had had many dealings with Brown, whose response to Arduini's many requests for documentation was that he didn't need to supply evidence supporting his claims, rather it was responsibility of the evolutionists to disprove them.
One of Brown's claims that Arduini was especially interested in was that
the rattlesnake's closest biochemical relative is humans. However, Brown
demanded $70 from Arduini to provide that documentation.
Robert Kenney of Chicago fared somewhat better. In February 1984, he and
his wife visited the ICR in El Cajon, Calif. When he asked Gish directly for
documentation supporting his claims concerning fetal horse hemoglobin, Gish
became noticeably disturbed (that Kenney had Awbrey & Thwaites' article in
front of him throughout the conversation probably did not help Gish's
disposition much). Finally, Gish said that he had no documentation, but rather
that Kenney should see Gary Parker. Kenney's attempts to catch Parker during
his scheduled offices hours on two separate days failed. Before Kenney left,
Dr. Cummings promised to get the documentation for him. After nine months,
it still had not arrived.
Then in the Summer of 1984, Kenney wrote to Walter Brown about the fetal
horse hemoglobin. Brown responded with a telephone call. Kenney tried to get
Brown to confirm or deny the ICR's claims, or at least to pressure the ICR to
produce some kind of documentation. Brown refused, but instead offered another claim: rattlesnake proteins.
Brown claimed that on the basis of data from a 1978 study by Margaret
Dayhoff, comparisons of cytochrome c show that the rattlesnake is more closely related to humans that to any other organism. When Kenney asked Brown to provide the name of the scientific journal and the page number in which Dayhoff had reached this conclusion, Brown stated that he couldn't. Dayhoff had never reached such a conclusion, but rather Brown's son had used Dayhoff's data to reach that conclusion for a science fair project. It was Brown's son who had concluded that rattlesnakes are more closely related to humans by cytochrome c
than to any other organism.
For fifteen dollars, Brown sent Kenney photocopies of his son's project
(apparently, Brown's price depends on who you are). Kenney wrote:
"In the project I quickly found that the rattlesnake and humans differed
by only fourteen amino acids. Humans and rhesus monkeys differed by
one amino acid. Later, Brown called me again and then explained that
of the forty-seven organisms in the study, the one closest to the
RATTLESNAKE was the human, not that the one closest to the human was the rattlesnake. You see, among the forty-seven there were no other snakes." (CEN Vol.4 No.5 Sep/Oct 84, pg 16)
Most of the other organisms in the study were as distantly related to the
rattlesnake as were humans; it is coincidence that human cytochrome c was just barely less different than the others. Obviously, this is just semantic
sleight-of-hand which can serve no other purpose than to mislead and it is so
blatant that Brown had to know what he was doing.
Later after a debate, Kenney found Brown telling a small group about
rattlesnakes being more closely related to humans than to any other organism.
When Kenney started explaining to the group how misleading that was, Brown
quickly changed the subject.
IOW - Brown's son took after his dad; daddy Brown in turn lied for Jesus.
This is why I do not trust Walt Brown on any subject.
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