An alert reader, Robert Preisser, sends in some apt comments on this story:
The hybrid is what scientists call a human-animal chimera, a single organism that’s made up of two different sets of cells — in this case, a mouse embryo that has both mouse cells and human cells.
This human-mouse chimera has by far the highest number of human cells ever recorded in an animal, according to researchers. Their experiment suggests that many types of human cells can be generated in mouse embryos, and at a much faster rate than in human embryos.
And that, the scientists say, carries enormous potential for the treatment of human diseases, possibly even Covid-19.
Harmeet Kaur, “Scientists made a mouse embryo that’s 4% human — the highest level of human cells in an animal yet” at CNN
Preisser writes,
This is one example of misreporting of science for public consumption:
First of all, scientists did not make a mouse embryo that is actually 4% human and 96% mouse. They merely incubated human cells within a developing mouse embryo. There is a difference because that embryo will likely never survive or fully develop into an adult mouse-human hybrid.
The article does not ever say that these developed into adulthood, and there is every reason to believe that at a certain developmental point (say, when the immune system becomes functional) these alien human cells would be rejected and the embryo would die.
But secondly, the author intentionally puts words into the scientist’s mouth to make a story that is really all about design from start to finish, in order to force fit it into the naturalistic evolutionary narrative.
Scientist’s words: The team’s experiment indicates that the “the genetic program embodied in a mouse embryo and the genetic program embodied in human stem cells can crosstalk pretty well,” Feng said.
Science writer’s (mis-)interpretation: In other words, there’s enough evolutionary compatibility between mice and humans that mouse embryos are a relatively good environment for cultivating human cells.
No, that’s not what Feng said. Feng said the genetic program (a hallmark of design) “can crosstalk pretty well.” The science writer twisted those words to fit into the standard evolutionary narrative instead. But this only highlights the point: common descent is only one possible explanation, while common design can equally (or even better) explain the same evidence.
The author goes on to quote Feng saying: “Life is a DNA-based software system that harnesses energy to produce information,” Feng wrote. “This experiment is kind of like emulating Windows in a Mac.”
Emulating Windows in a Mac environment is an example of two wholly designed systems being designed to work together. Not an example of two things that share a common ancestor. That only underscores the reality that design is a better explanation for why mouse embryo’s can produce the right signals at the right time to trigger the innate programming in the human stem cells to differentiate into human blood cells.
Actually, this experiment runs counter to what one ought to expect if the evolutionary paradigm were actually true. If the reason why this works is because humans and mice both inherited their genetic programs from a common ancestor, then one would expect the human stem cells to respond to the control signals of the mouse embryo and produce MOUSE cells wherever the mouse DNA instructs.
After all, both human and mouse DNA came from some most recent common ancestor, and only mutations that occurred later would differentiate them. But given the overarching genetic program is the mouse DNA (since the human stem cells were inserted into it), then all control signals would be to build mouse cells. It is actually not predicted by evolutionary theory that these cells would still be fully human cells developing in a mouse embryo. Instead, either those subsequent mutations to the human cell DNA would break them so no human cells would develop, or there would be enough residual inherited DNA so that the cells would become fully mouse cells.
In no way does naturalistic evolution from universal common descent predict fully human cells to develop following control signals from mouse DNA.
But that is what would be predicted if humans and mice were separately designed but share similar design features.
One last note, although the author puts evolutionary words into Feng’s mouth, here, even Feng’s own words reverse cause and effect, here: “Life is a DNA-based software system that harnesses energy to produce information…”
It is more accurate to say “Life is a DNA-based software system that uses information to harness energy to reproduce itself.” The information must already be present in DNA for DNA to harness energy in the first place. It reverses cause and effect to argue that DNA harnesses energy to produce the very information required for it to do anything at all.
And it is overly simplistic in any case, because DNA alone does not control or guide development of life.
Popular science writing often amounts to covering science energetically—with a pillow until it stops moving.
a few related notes:
Darwinists, by focusing solely on DNA (i.e. genecentrism), simply have no clue why a mouse should be a mouse nor why a human should be a human.
As Stuart A. Newman noted, “genes do not uniquely determine what is in the cell, but what is in the cell determines how the genes get used. Only if the pie were to rise up, take hold of the recipe book and rewrite the instructions for its own production, would this popular analogy for the role of genes be pertinent.”
And as Jonathan Well noted, “It’s the organism controlling the DNA, not the DNA controlling the organism.”
Directly contrary to Darwinian presuppositions, there simply is no ‘blueprint’ for an organism to be found within DNA, As this recent article noted, “DNA cannot be seen as the ‘blueprint’ for life,”
A few more notes
They didn’t do this for the enormous potential to battle covid 19 what a crock of shit
Bornagain77 @ 1
Neither do theists. But biologists are not claiming access to a fount of all knowledge which, on close inspection, seems not to exist.
Seversky in response to,,,,
,,, Seversky states
You are either grossly ignorant or purposely lying. Theists since Aristotle, and Christians since Augustine, have held that it is the immaterial ‘essence’ of a species, which is not reducible to material particulars, which makes a mouse a mouse, a cat a cat, a squirrel a squirrel, and a human a human,
Darwinists themselves admit that they have no real clue how to properly define a species, and they even consider it a triumph of evolutionary theory that humans are not considered special since there really is no way to differentiate humans from other species.
Seversky goes on to state,
No, but Darwinian biologists, (as opposed to real molecular biologists), do claim that the “Origin of Species”, (i.e. the origin of ALL species on earth by unguided Darwinian processes), is an indisputable fact. Yet, as should be needless to say, if you can’t even define what a species truly is in the first place, then your supposedly ‘scientific’ theory cannot possibly be the correct scientific theory about the how all the various species on the face of earth came about.
Seversky then claims that
LOL, here is a picture of Seversky, and his atheistic friends, looking for evidence for God, “on close inspection”, at an atheist convention,,,
https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2014/11/13/15/bury-heads-australia-v3.jpg?w968
🙂 🙂
Bornagain77 @ 5
Essentialism is a metaphysical claim not a scientific explanation. In my version of ‘naturalism’, for example, I hold that everything that exists has an observable, physical nature – that which makes a thing itself and not something else. So, if God or ghosts or things that go bump in the night actually exist other than figments of our imagination then they are natural phenomena. On this view, of course, there is no such thing as the “supernatural”, just the unknown and unexplained as yet. However, this is also just a metaphysical position, not in any way a scientific theory.
Seversky states,
Well actually essentialism is a metaphysical claim that turns out to be the correct scientific explanation. Whereas Darwinian materialism is also a metaphysical claim that turns out to be the incorrect scientific explanation.
In fact, although Darwinian materialism is itself a metaphysical claim as to the fundamental nature of reality, Darwinian materialism commits epistemological suicide as a metaphysical claim since it denies the existence of the metaphysical realm.
As Sedgwick chastised Darwin, “There is a moral or metaphysical part of nature as well as a physical. A man who denies this is deep in the mire of folly”,,,
Seversky, you go on to state,
It is really embarrassing to have to point out your self-contradiction, but you just defined what is beyond nature, (i.e. what is beyond and/or ‘super’-natural), as somehow being ‘natural’ and then immediately after that incoherent definition, you then claimed that what you just defined as being ‘natural’ is “not in any way a scientific theory.”
Yet you, as a Darwinist, also hold that ‘methodological naturalism’ is the only way to do science,
You can’t have it both ways Seversky. If the ‘super-natural’ realm actually exists and is thus, according to your new definition of reality, ‘natural’, then it directly follows that your new expanded definition for what constitutes the ‘natural’ realm must therefore also fall under your original rubric of methodological naturalism, and therefore your new expanded definition for what is to be considered ‘natural’ must now also fall under your original naturalistic definition for being ‘science’.