While checking the forecast
on accuweather.com, I was surprised to find, on a weather site no less, an
article entitled, “Why don’t humans have tails? Scientists find answers in an
unlikely place.” (The article, posted 3/25/2024, was written by Mindy
Weisberger of CNN. I have posted the link below.)
Frankly, I had never
asked this question! I thought I knew the answer! Was I missing something? Maybe a tail? I
was curious.
One’s verdict
regarding the Genesis account brings inevitable consequences. Other questions
and answers inevitably follow. Based on the Genesis record, which I (and many
scientists) hold to be true, it’s super easy to explain and understand why
human beings do not have tails.
We never had tails! God made man as a
separate creation, from the dust of the earth. Man is not a glorified, improved,
evolved ape. Period.
However, those who
deny the Genesis account desperately seek to find another mechanism by which life
as we know it came to be. As a result, there are countless unanswerable
questions which emerge.
Where are our tails,
friends?
Great apes have tails.
Human beings do not. This is a problem for the evolutionist, who had
presupposed that apes’ tails evolved because tails were beneficial
mutations. (The article cited below will acknowledge this.) Therefore, apes
with tails would have survived due to this added resource, while those that did
not would have perished. Survival of the fittest, you know.
So how did evolution
become de-evolution? Why don’t human beings have tails?
This is a huge challenge.
Unbelieving scientists have spent countless hours, time, and money to discover the
answers to this crisis. According to the article’s title, they found “answers” –
real answers, not ideas, theories, or possibilities. How? By going to “an
unlikely place.” Hmmm … That has you wondering where they went, how
they got there, and how they could be sure that these were the actual answers.
At the top of the web
page there is a photo of monkeys. The caption reads, “Tails are useful in many
ways, but — unlike these vervet monkeys pictured in Lake Mburo National Park in
Uganda — humans’ closest primate relatives lost the appendages about 25 million
years ago.” There is no footnote or source cited to prove this statement.
The reason for the
loss of our tails is said to be a case of “gene jumping.” “Jumping genes” are
genetic sequences capable of switching their location in the genome and
triggering or undoing mutations.
The article states in
part:
Tails are useful for
balance, propulsion, communication and defense against biting insects. However,
humans and our closest primate relatives — the great apes — said farewell to
tails about 25 million years ago, when the group split from Old World monkeys (Again, no evidence of
this claim is provided. It’s a “given” to the writer of this CNN article.).
The loss has long been associated with our transition to bipedalism, but little
was known about the genetic factors that triggered primate taillessness.
Now, scientists have
traced our tail loss to a short sequence of genetic code that is abundant in
our genome but had been dismissed for decades as junk DNA, a sequence that
seemingly serves no biological purpose. They identified the snippet, known as
an Alu element, in the regulatory code of a gene associated with tail length
called TBXT. Alu is also part of a class known as jumping genes, which are
genetic sequences capable of switching their location in the genome and
triggering or undoing mutations.
Study coauthor Itai
Yanai is a professor with the Institute for Systems Genetics and Biochemistry
and Molecular Pharmacology at the New York University Grossman School of
Medicine. This “expert” admitted that this “jumping-gene answer” was “astounding.”
He said, “I think it’s astounding that one Alu element — one small, little
thing — can lead to the loss of a whole appendage like the tail.”
Astounding indeed! And
how did a “jumping gene” – just one – in one of our “primate ancestors” –
just one – lead to the loss of tails in all – yes, all – great apes
and human beings from that point forward?
Another admission – a very
honest one – came from the lead study author Bo Xia, a research fellow in
the Gene Regulation Observatory and principal investigator at the Broad
Institute of MIT and Harvard University. Xia said, “The more I study the
genome, the more I realize how little we know about it,” Xia said.
In our current social
and cultural climate, unproved humanistic assumptions about origins are stated
and affirmed in biology, chemistry, genetics, paleontology, and a host of other
sciences. We who believe the Bible to be the inspired, inerrant, authoritative
Word of God must continue to ask …
“Are you pulling my tail?”
https://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/why-dont-humans-have-tails-scientists-find-answers-in-an-unlikely-place/1634668
