It is well known that in every living cell there is a DNA, double helix, molecule. But many people are unaware of the design details. The double helix, for instance, is delicately held together by hydrogen bonds which are precisely placed and aimed. And the double helix has several structural configurations. It can be opened up so the information inside can be accessed, or conversely it is often tightly compacted for storage. In fact, if all the DNA in your body was stretched out it would reach to the moon and back many thousands of times.
DNA is compacted by winding it around small proteins called histones. DNA compaction is important for, among other things, the reproduction process when a version of half the DNA is packaged up in the gamete (a sperm or egg cell). Interestingly, DNA compaction appears to be triggered by a small signal: the phosphorylation of one of the histones. A phosphate group marks the histone just prior to compaction. Is the phosphate group necessary for DNA compaction? To test this hypothesis about how the cell works, researchers made a slight modification to the histone so that the phosphate group could not attach. Sure enough, the DNA was not nearly so well compacted and the reproduction process not nearly so successful. [1]
These cell design experiments were done using yeast cells, but this phosphorylation marking of the histone was also observed in fruit flies and mice. Therefore, from a Darwinian perspective we would conclude that phosphorylation marking of the histone was present in the common ancestor of yeast, fruit flies and mice. That is, the mechanisms governing genome compaction would be highly conserved in these species, whose lineages diverged long ago and so these mechanisms would have to be evolutionarily ancient.
Billions of years ago, before there were mammals, amphibians, plants, fish or any multi cellular life forms, these phenomenal genome compaction mechanisms evolved into place, and would persist unchanged ever after. Evolution, somehow and for some reason, luckily produced these incredibly elaborate and complex compaction mechanisms for unicellular life forms, and it turned out they were just the thing for millions of far more complex species.
The Darwinian story is becoming sillier everyday. It is the ultimate in antirealism. Whatever the evidence, whatever empirical science is telling us, Darwinism explains as illusory. There must be missing data, unknown mechanisms, contingent events of the past, and just-so stories, in order to explain whatever evidence we find as a case of misleading appearances. Darwin called it one long argument, and indeed it must be. Evolution is an endless series of thought experiments and tall tales which are needed to circumvent the painfully obvious evidence.
1. T. Krishnamoorthy, et. al., "Phosphorylation of histone H4 Ser1 regulates sporulation in yeast and is conserved in fly and mouse spermatogenesis," Genes & Dev, 20:2580-2592, 2006.
