How do creationists explain mitochondria?

What are mitochondria?

Mitochondria are found inside virtually all eukaryote (animals, plants, fungi, protists, etc.) cells in huge numbers, and their primary task is to produce energy for the cell. Like their hosts and bacteria, they are bound by a double lipid membrane, and indeed, they even carry their own DNA molecules, and reproduce independently of the host cell.

Although there's no scientific consensus about the exact way how mitochondria became a part of us, it's a fact that they were once, about 1.5 billion years ago, free-living alphaproteobacteria. The image below depicts the many models there are for the origin of eukaryotes (notice they all agree on the origin of mitochondria, i.e it was an alphaproteobacteria of some sort):



The problem for creationists

As many here no doubt know, phylogenetic trees depicting the relationship of animals, plants, fungi, etc. have been derived from nuclear genes (genes that are encoded by nuclear DNA). Creationists deem these relationships false, and often claim that there is a mechanism that at some point prevents change from happening (the artificial micro vs macro separation), i.e. they claim that common ancestry is impossible. The image below depicts a phylogeny that is derived not from nuclear DNA genes, but from mitochondrial DNA genes:


As you see, all mitochondria (names with colors) derive from one branch of the tree and this is supported by a bootstrap value of 100%, which makes their common ancestry a scientific fact. A level down, mitochondria and Rickettsia (alphaproteobacterial order) are grouped together, which points to their common ancestry exclusive to Bradyrhizobium (this particular node is not so well supported). A level further down still groups mitochondria, Rickettsia, and Bradyrhizobium (another alphaproteobacterial order) together with that 100% bootstrap value, making their common ancestry a scientific fact.

The thing is, trees derived from nuclear DNA and mitochondrial DNA depict the same relationships. Is this not undeniable proof, that the divide between micro and macro evolution only exists in the minds of creationists?

further reading

reply to post by rhinoceros


How do evolutionists explain flagella?

reply to post by rhinoceros


Good luck using science to debate creationism. Good luck. Great little thread though, fantastic insight into mitochondria, something I roughly knew about, but I found this quite informing.

Did I wish you good luck? lol

reply to post by lpowell0627

Scientists explain flagella like this. But this thread is not about flagella. It's not about the origin of life or the the origin of universe or even claims of irreducible complexity either. On the contrary, it's about mitochondria and the common ancestry of all animals, plants, fungi, protists, etc., a scientific fact creationists often deny on the basis of "macro evolution" being impossible. I'm arguing, that the molecular data obtained from mitochondrial genomes trashes the claim of impossibility of "macro evolution".

reply to post by lpowell0627

How do evolutionists explain flagella?

the same way we explain everything else? Evolution. Things evolve according to their surroundings and needs, helpful mutations usually survive, while others die off.

How do creationists explain flagella? Oh that's right, god did it, no need to investigate.

reply to post by lpowell0627

I think you need to provide a little more detail, given that the post you're replying to with your throwaway one-liner was fairly well detailed and provided sources. What, specifically, do you feel evolutionary theory needs to explain about which particular flagellum?

Originally posted by lpowell0627
reply to [url= by rhinoceros[/url]

 

How do evolutionists explain flagella?

www.talkdesign.org...

But yeah methinks this thread is gonna go clean over their heads

BECAUSE GOD MADE DEM DAT WAY!

MmmmmmmKAY?

Easy... because Bible

When Science argues scientifically against creationism, or any faith based belief, Science always wins according to Science.

When Religion, Faith, Creationism argues based on their own doctrines, using their own dogmas and their own belief in a supernatural law, religion, faith, creationism will always win according to it's own set of rules.

Science will always win according to science and Religion will always win according to religion.

One is based on fact, while the other based on faith; two independently self sustaining values values that like oil and water, just don't mix and won't ever.

Each faction can only be harmed by itself.
Thus, for Religion to really discredit Science, Religion would need to use Science to prove Science wrong. For Science to win against Religion, or Faith, Science has to use the doctrines beleifs, teachings, philosophies and every trapping of religion on religion against religion to prove it false.

The two values are otherwise invulnerable to each other.

I authored a pretty lengthy thread on this called Mystery Of the Mitochondria (I think).

I showed the history, known evolution, and original bacterial mutations back a couple billion years.

Edit: found it. Damn phone...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The creationist view that you used for your argument is a mainstream idea. The mainstream creationist view is severely flawed and also is not the general consensus of all creationists.

reply to post by Druscilla


Science doesn't attempt to discredit creationism, it expects claims to be supported by scientific evidence. Creationism has none, thus creationism discredits itself when it attempts to dismiss or compete with science as a means to explain the world around us.

reply to post by Druscilla


Druscilla have we met before when I was roughly 7 years old?
anyways science can explain most things based on EVIDENCE something the creationists never care about EVIDENCE that is. they just sum it all up to God did this or God did that
but there are things that science can't or won't explain ie big bang theory what caused it?
or us humans the missing (alien) link or better yet are good soon to be out of work friends at nasa (Never.A.Straight.Answer or my favorite Need.Another.Space.Agency) ask them to explain a few things and watch them scamper away like cockroaches when the lights go on........................

reply to post by john_bmth


Yes, that's the Scientific view. Science will always win according to Science.
I said that.

On the other side of the fence, the people that believe some sort of super being created everything and has some sort of super duper set of super duper laws is going to say all sorts of fantastic crazy things, and they'll back up all this crazy fantastic stuff with SCRIPTURE, and according to the faith based people, because the SCRIPTURE, or WORD OF GAWD says such and such, they will always be correct and win every single argument because scripture (gawd) says such and such is true and no matter what science says, science is the work of the devil, or something like that.

I'm pretty sure that's what i said the first time, but, now I'm saying it again.

Science, in the eyes of science will always win.

Religion, in the eyes of religion, will always win.

They both live by entirely different rules, mutually exclusive from each other.

My personal opinion is that if religion were to sudden disappear overnight, humanity might actually get somewhere without destroying itself because then we could get some actual real thinking done.

reply to post by Druscilla

Science is science and religion is religion, sure. However, science doesn't feel the need to step into religion's territory yet religion always feels the need to step into science's territory. That's the key difference IMO.

reply to post by john_bmth


if you look at the OP, it sure seems like a poke from Science at creationism. Just say'n.

Originally posted by wWizard
The creationist view that you used for your argument is a mainstream idea. The mainstream creationist view is severely flawed and also is not the general consensus of all creationists.

I'm arguing here against the mainstream view. But if you want to (or anyone) introduce me to some particular flavor of creationism, I can provide my opinion on that too in the framework of my first post.

Originally posted by Druscilla
reply to post by john_bmth

 

if you look at the OP, it sure seems like a poke from Science at creationism. Just say'n.

No, it's asking for creationism to support or defend their claims with evidence. In this instance, certain creationist claims are refuted by the scientific evidence presented in the OP. Fact of the matter is that creationism has taken upon itself to try and refute science with scripture disguised as science (as evident throughout this subforum). Science is well within it's right to refute and challenge creationist claims when they try and step into the scientific arena.

Originally posted by Druscilla
reply to post by john_bmth

 

if you look at the OP, it sure seems like a poke from Science at creationism. Just say'n.

Perhaps I am genuinely interested in how the facts I presented in the first post work in the creationist realm, e.g. how can they still deny common ancestry of all animals? How can they explain away the mitochondrial evidence? They claim animals, plants, protists, etc. are not related, yet inside animals, plants, protists, etc. we find mitochondria that are undeniably related and undeniably share a common ancestor, and further still their relatedness is the same than the proposed relatedness of their hosts. How can anyone still deny the common ancestry of e.g. all animals? How do they explain away this evidence?