One way blue red evolution explained according to reports in ScienceDaily 5 November 2014 and Molecular Biology and Evolution, 2014; doi: 10.1093/molbev/msu298. Penstemons are plants with blue or red flowers. Blue flowered plants have been observed to give rise to red flowered plants, but never the other way round. Biologists Carolyn Wessinger and Mark Rausher of Duke University have studied 13 red flowered species of Penstemon and found they all had a defunct enzyme named 3’,5’-hydroxylase (F3’5’H). The scientists concluded: “Here we demonstrate that widespread parallel evolution in Penstemon from blue to red flowers predictably involves the functional inactivation and degeneration of the enzyme flavonoid 3’,5’-hydroxylase (F3’5’H), an anthocyanin pathway enzyme required for the production of blue floral pigments”.
Wessinger explained: “Evolutionary shifts from blue to red flowers in Penstemon predictably involves degeneration of the same particular flower pigment gene, suggesting there are limited genetic ‘options’ for evolving red flowers in this group. However, it is a lot easier for evolution to break a gene than to fix one, so we suspect that reversals from red to blue flowers would be highly unlikely”.
Editorial Comment: What an incredible lack of faith is shown by these researchers. If they really believed in evolution they should believe the functioning F3’5’H gene evolved by chance from nothing in the first place, so why can’t they believe it could re-evolve when most of it is still there or is just switched off? Note the double contradiction.
Wessinger is correct – it is easier to break genes than to fix them because fixing genes requires deliberate manipulation by an outside intelligence who knows what information needs to be in the gene, and knows how to put it there. This does not happen by chance random naturalistic processes. Breaking genes does occur due to chance random naturalistic process, but the result is never evolution. For evolution to occur simple atoms such as hydrogen that carry no genetic information have to organise themselves into complex organic molecules that carry lots of information. Changing blue to red flowers involves loss of information, and is the opposite of evolution.
Colour changing Penstemon flowers are another reminder that biological change is real, but it is not evolution. They are also a reminder that these plants started out with all genes fully functioning, but are degenerating as the whole world goes downhill, just as God’s Word tells us from Genesis to the present. (Ref. botany, biochemistry, pigments)
Evidence News vol. 14 No. 20
19 November 2014
Creation Research Australia