God, Science and the Bible: Plant defies laws of genetic inheritance
Plant scientists at Purdue University have made a surprising discovery—a plant containing a template, or a master genetic blueprint, that can correct defective genes inherited from its parents.
Plant scientists at Purdue University have made a surprising discovery—a plant containing a template, or a master genetic blueprint, that can correct defective genes inherited from its parents.
What is shocking is that the discovery violates traditional laws of genetic inheritance by somehow acquiring not just the chance arrangement of DNA through the standard combination of parental genes but also a copy of earlier uncombined DNA sequences from its ancestors—something deemed impossible by biologists. Equally surprising is the fact that the correcting template or agent, whatever it is, is hidden and not represented in the plant's current DNA pattern.
"The finding implies that some organisms may contain a cryptic backup copy of their genome that bypasses the usual mechanisms of heredity," says New York Times science reporter Nicholas Wade. ". . . The discovery also raises interesting biological questions—including whether it gets in the way of evolution, which depends on mutations changing an organism rather than being put right by a backup system."He continues: "The finding poses a puzzle for evolutionary theory because it corrects mutations, which evolution depends on as generators of novelty [new features]" ("Startling Scientists, Plant Fixes Its Flawed Genes," March 23).
"If you take this mutant [plant] Arabidopsis, which has two copies of the altered gene," says Robert Pruitt, the discoverer of the phenomenon, "let it seed and then plant the seeds, 90 percent of the offspring will look like the parent, but 10 percent will look like the normal grandparents. Our genetic training tells us that's just not possible. This challenges everything we believe . . .
"It seems that these [mutant gene]-containing plants keep a cryptic copy of everything that was in the previous generation, even though it doesn't show up in the DNA, it's not in the chromosome. Some other type of gene sequence information that we don't really understand yet is modifying the inherited traits" (as quoted by Susan Steeves, "Plants Defy Mendel's Inheritance Laws, May Prompt Textbook Changes," Purdue News Services).
Scientists do not yet know how many living organisms contain this master backup copy, but the search is now on. Evolutionists will be hard pressed to explain how such a mechanism could have been created in a Darwinian step-by-step fashion and inherited not from parents, but from grandparents or distant ancestors.
An Article from:
Good News Magazine: July - August 2005
Course Content
Mario Seiglie
Mr. Seiglie was born in Havana, Cuba, and came to the United States when he was a child. He found out about the Church when he was 17 from a Church member in high school. He went to Ambassador College in Big Sandy, Texas, and in Pasadena, California, graduating with degrees in theology and Spanish. He serves as the pastor of the Garden Grove, CA UCG congregation and serves in the Spanish speaking areas of South America. He also writes for the Beyond Today magazine and currently serves on the UCG Council of Elders. He and his wife, Caty, have four grown daughters, and grandchildren.
Scott Ashley
Scott Ashley was managing editor of Beyond Today magazine, United Church of God booklets and its printed Bible Study Course until his retirement in 2023. He also pastored three congregations in Colorado for 10 years from 2011-2021. He and his wife, Connie, live near Denver, Colorado.
Mr. Ashley attended Ambassador College in Big Sandy, Texas, graduating in 1976 with a theology major and minors in journalism and speech. It was there that he first became interested in publishing, an industry in which he worked for 50 years.
During his career, he has worked for several publishing companies in various capacities. He was employed by the United Church of God from 1995-2023, overseeing the planning, writing, editing, reviewing and production of Beyond Today magazine, several dozen booklets/study guides and a Bible study course covering major biblical teachings. His special interests are the Bible, archaeology, biblical culture, history and the Middle East.
Tom Robinson
Tom is an elder in the United Church of God who works from his home near St. Louis, Missouri as managing editor and senior writer for Beyond Today magazine, church study guides and the UCG Bible Commentary. He is a visiting instructor at Ambassador Bible College. And he serves as chairman of the church's Prophecy Advisory Committee and a member of the Fundamental Beliefs Amendment Committee.
Tom began attending God's Church at the age of 16 in 1985 and was baptized a year later. He attended Ambassador College in both Texas and California and served for a year as a history teacher at the college's overseas project in Sri Lanka. He graduated from the Texas campus in 1992 with a Bachelor of Arts in theology along with minors in English and mass communications. Since 1994, he has been employed as an editor and writer for church publications and has served in local congregations through regular preaching of sermons.
Tom was ordained to the ministry in 2012 and attends the Columbia-Fulton, Missouri congregation with his wife Donna and their two teen children.
