Sarfati's 'book' – small pages, large font and all – seems to be a collection of half-truths, bizarre extrapolations, aspersion casting, and nonsense. Does anyone really wonder why the only people that give it the time of day are lay creationists?
The laughable naiveté displayed by Sarfati in his description of molecular phylogenetics
indicates that he has at best a cursory understanding of it. Considering that Sarfati may have had Batten look
over this section for him – a creationist that has made many of the same errors in his own writing that Sarfati does in his book - there is little reason to wonder how such nonsense made it
into print.
Sarfati's 'common designer' alternative is a case in point. He mentions
only similarities - if he had an understanding of how such analyses are
done, he would - or should – have known that it is not mere similarity that
indicates descent.
If this 'common designer' schtick of Sarafti's and other creationists made any sense, should not
the DNA of a whale be more 'similar' to that of a shark, given their
morphological similarity? Sarfati even alludes to this when he mentions the
relationships of crocodiles to chickens rather than reptiles (which
actually, contrary to Sarfati's ignorant implication, makes perfect sense).
Furthermore, Sarfati makes a blatant false claim on p. 83:
"Similarities between human and ape DNA are often exaggerated. This
figure was not derived from a direct comparison of sequences. Rather
the original paper inferred 97% similarity between human and chimp DNA
from a rather crude technique called DNA hybridization."
Actually, it is called DNA-DNA hybridization.
In reality, the % 'similarity' figures had been batted about for a few
years - it was the Sibley paper that got quite a bit of attention
because 1. DNA-DNA hybridization compares the entire single copy genome
2. Sibley and Ahlquist were accused of fraud because they did not
explain the techniques they used in deriving their figures and when
others replicated their work, they came up with slightly different
numbers.
The original numbers were gleaned form direct DNA sequence comparisons,
and, sadly for you, the numbers have been borne out by ever more
studies using many more loci.
Studies pre-dating the S&A paper:
Chimpanzee Fetal G-gamma and A-gamma Globin Gene Nucleotide Sequences
Provide Further Evidence of Gene Conversions in Hominine Evolution.
Slightom et al., 1985
Mol Biol Evol 2(5):370-389.
This paper found a 1.4-2.25% nucleotide difference, depending on
which sets of alleles are compared.(1.8 kilobases). That is
97.75-98.6% identity.
Primate Eta-Globin DNA and Man's Place Among the Great Apes.
Koop et
al., 1986.
Nature 319:234-238.
This paper found a 1.7% distance measured by direct comparison of
aligned nucleotide sequences (2.2 kilobases in a pseudogene). That is
98.3%.
Just one paper of many post-dating it that come to similar conclusions:
A Molecular View of Primate Supraordinal Relationships from the
Analysis of Both Nucleotide and Amino Acid Sequences.
Stanhope et
al., 1993.
In Primates and Their Relatives in Phylogenetic
Perspective. MacPhee, ed.
This book chapter discusses Epsilon globin gene, (~4 kilobases), 1.1%.
That is 98.9% identity
When one knows a little bit of science, creationist claims can seem to
have merit.
When one knows quite a bit of science, one can see how shallow and nonsensical creationist claims can be.
On the next page, Sarfati refers to electrical engineer ReMine's
self-promotion book and his application of "Haldane's dilemma." Which
it would seem Sarfati does not appear to understand any better than ReMine does.
Sarfati writes:
"Population genetics calculations shows that animals with human -like
generation times of about 20 years could substitute no more than about
1700 mutations in that time."
Where to start?
What is the evidence that the ancestor of both humans and apes had a 20
year generation time?
Sarfati presents none. ReMine didn't either.
Sarfati does not mention that the calculation applies only to fixed,
beneficial mutations, and not all mutations (most of which are neutral
with regard to fitness and so can accrue much faster in a population).
Why is that? Was it to make the total estimated difference between
humans and chimps seem that much more unbridgeable?
Or was it because
Sarfati, like his Answers in Genesis colleague, Batten, doesn't understand (or care about) the difference?
Did Sarfati present any evidence that even if that number is correct, that
human evolution cannot be accounted for?
No. Just assertions and emotional rhetoric.
Most other topics were dealt with in a similar fashion.
Of course, as is clear from the many positive reviews, the average reader will not know – or care about – the disinformation, the errors of omission, the empty rhetoric, etc.
Again, when one knows a little bit of science, creationist claims can seem to
have merit.
When one knows quite a bit of science, one can see how shallow and nonsensical creationist claims can be.