Building Blocks in Life Science Chapters 1-8

Question 1

All of these are caused by mutations except:

a. endangered reproduction in the Florida panther
b. hemophilia that spread through European royalty
c. possibly the decline in human life span following the Flood
d. an increase in the quantity and quality of genetic information in the human genome

Answer 1

an increase in the quantity and quality of genetic information in the human genome

Question 2

Use lions chasing zebras to explain the difference between natural selection and ecological competition.

Answer 2

Natural selection is NOT lion vs. zebra; it’s lion vs. lion (who can catch a zebra) and zebra vs. zebra (who can escape the lion). In other words, natural selection is NOT INTERspecific competition (between species); it’s INTRAspecific competition (within species). Even members of a plant species compete for water and minerals from the soil and a place in the sun.

Question 3

Use mosses, ferns, and shrubs to explain the differences between real simple-to-complex change, ecological succession, and imaginary evolutionary change by natural selection.

Answer 3

Evolution is a hypothetical process that is supposed to change a few simple forms over time into many complex and varied forms. There is a real process of change through time in which a few life forms are followed by a series of more and more complex and varied forms, but the real process is ecological succession. If you watched a certain area of bare rock over time, as scientists have, you could observe a series of changes from lichens to moss, ferns, shrubs, and trees. But the lichens didn’t evolve into the moss, nor the moss into the ferns, etc. Rather, each living community changed the environment in ways that paved the way for the next community to move in.

Question 4

varieties that consistently look different but still interbreed

Answer 4

morphotype

Question 5

can change appearance when moved to different environments

Answer 5

ecotype

Question 6

many defects and diseases result from chance changes in heredity called mutations

Answer 6

corruption

Question 7

Why is it important for Christians to relate God’s world and God’s Word – science and Scripture?

Answer 7

It builds faith and trust in Scripture (the Bible), and it helps believers use the wonders of science to introduce others to the wonders of new life in Christ revealed in God’s Word.

Question 8

Compare creationist and evolutionist explanations for variation in beaks among Galapagos (“Darwin’s”) finches.

Answer 8

Creationists and evolutionists would both say that, given finches with a variety of beak types, natural selection helps us to explain how and where the different varieties survived as they multiplied and filled the earth. A biblical creationist would also add that the “struggle and death” part of migration did not begin until man’s rebellion ruined the world God had created without death.

Question 9

look-alike species of fruit files with different chromosome numbers

Answer 9

fertilotype

Question 10

Created kinds may be called ___________, a combination of the Hebrew words bara for ___________ and min for ___________.

Answer 10

baramins; create(d); kind

Question 11

Barriers or preferences in the choice of a mate separate some parts of a gene pool from others (e.g. culture and language separates humans; size and temperament separate dogs)

Answer 11

reproductive isolation

Question 12

The “late, great” evolutionist S. J. Gould called imperfections in living things evidence of ___; creationists call them evidence of ___.

Answer 12

evolution; corruption (mutational defects following sin)

Question 13

effects on gene regulators make willow trees dwarfs in the Arctic

Answer 13

ecotype

Question 14

land animals saved on the Ark and the immune system healing deadly infections both illustrate God’s deliverance from death and disaster.

Answer 14

Christ

Question 15

flood conditions are ideal for forming fossils

Answer 15

catastrophe

Question 16

several small groups separate from a large population, each with percentages of alleless different from those in the original gene pool (e.g. language groups moving away from the Tower of Babel)

Answer 16

genetic drift/founder effect

Question 17

differences in mating ritual or chromosomal rearrangements of the same genes (genons) prevent interbreeding

Answer 17

fertilotype

Question 18

Evolutionists use mutations to explain (in Darwin’s words) “the origin of ___”; creationists use mutations to explain the origin of ___.

Answer 18

species; defects, disease, decline, death (or equivalent)

Question 19

Explain why no Christian familiar with the 4 Cs of biblical history would ever have accepted “fixity of species.”

Answer 19

The Bible refers to “kinds” in both the Creation and Flood accounts in Genesis. This does not mean “species” — it simply means kinds — which can show a lot of variety and diversity built into each one. For example, the cat kind can encompass everything from a house cat to a cheetah to an African lion. This view takes into account the major changes that occurred when mankind corrupted God’s creation; e.g., plants producing thorns, and animal predators beginning to kill and eat other animals. Fixity of species would not allow for the re-population of the earth by animals following the Great Flood — meaning that every animal that every lived in every kind would have had to be represented on the ark which was not feasible or necessary.

Question 20

What does “molecules to man” evolution need that neither microevolution nor natural selection provide?

Answer 20

“Molecules to man” evolution absolutely requires a HUGE INCREASE IN BOTH THE QUANTITY and QUALITY OF GENETIC INFORMATION, and neither mutations nor Darwinian “ selection” can provide either, since they only change or select existing varieties (pointing back to prior acts of creation).

Question 21

Explain why creationists think that “natural selection” works best as “unsurvival of the unfittest.”

Answer 21

Peppered moth case: Natural selection did NOT produce a “new and improved moth”; the dark moth was already present. Pollution made the light form less camouflaged, and so (presumably) natural selection eliminated more light than dark moths. Had natural selection “gone to completion” and totally eliminated the light moth, the species might now be well on the road to extinction, since reduction in pollution has now made the dark moth less camouflaged.

Question 22

Members of a kind separating into distinctive subtypes as they “multiply and fill” earth’s environmental diversity (e.g. generalized bears leaving the Ark becoming black, brown, grizzly, and polar bears).

Answer 22

specialization

Question 23

adaptions are design features that suit each organism for its special role in the web of life

Answer 23

creation

Question 24

Only a few members of a species with a large gene pool survive a major disaster (e.g. animals aboard the ark)

Answer 24

genetic bottleneck

Question 25

black, brown, grizzly, polar, and panda bears

Answer 25

morphotype

Question 26

Random changes in genes that often change normal genes into alleles producing defects or disease (e.g. sickle cell hemoglobin)

Answer 26

mutations