Vitamin C and Creationism.

Why can't humans produce Vitamin C? The body requires vitamin C to form and maintain bones, blood vessels, and skin, and it prevents scurvy. Most animals can produce it themselves, but not humans and most other primates. The Theory of Evolution explain why this is, but what is the Creationist's answer to this?

Originally posted by nickybutt
Why can't humans produce Vitamin C? The body requires vitamin C to form and maintain bones, blood vessels, and skin, and it prevents scurvy. Most animals can produce it themselves, but not humans and most other primates. The Theory of Evolution explain why this is, but what is the Creationist's answer to this?

What the hell's the religious answer to this then?

Most other animals have tails...we don't?? MY GOD....SAVE US!!!!

Originally posted by nickybutt
Why can't humans produce Vitamin C? The body requires vitamin C to form and maintain bones, blood vessels, and skin, and it prevents scurvy. Most animals can produce it themselves, but not humans and most other primates. The Theory of Evolution explain why this is, but what is the Creationist's answer to this?

Creationists cannot explain anything. They can only offer the simple binary possibility: Goddunnit or Goddidnot-a-dunwhatHedidn't. In the end, this is all their response to your question will boil down to.

Neither possibility is an explaination. Now we can certainly point out the examples of poor design.

A question for those who take very literally the idea that Man was made in the image of God: why are some humans born with six fingers on a hand? Was God having trouble with basic counting at the moment such humans were conceived?

Originally posted by nickybutt
Why can't humans produce Vitamin C? The body requires vitamin C to form and maintain bones, blood vessels, and skin, and it prevents scurvy. Most animals can produce it themselves, but not humans and most other primates. The Theory of Evolution explain why this is, but what is the Creationist's answer to this?

hmmm
Guinea pigs don't make their own vitamin C either ...

Originally posted by nickybutt
Why can't humans produce Vitamin C? The body requires vitamin C to form and maintain bones, blood vessels, and skin, and it prevents scurvy. Most animals can produce it themselves, but not humans and most other primates. The Theory of Evolution explain why this is, but what is the Creationist's answer to this?

I believe I know an answer for you, but I am not a creationist. I am only familiar with some of their ideas. Would you like me to answer?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
I believe I know an answer for you, but I am not a creationist. I am only familiar with some of their ideas. Would you like me to answer?

Sure thing!

So quiet... Expanding a little on the question might bring some answers.

When we look at the Cytochrome C gene in humans and also in chimpanzees, they’re precisely the same. There’s no reason to believe that chimps and humans would have the same peptide sequence i.e. they don’t need it. But, since they do, then the only reason that they would, is if they were made that way, and the likelihood against that is something like ten to the fiftieth power. This isn’t just true for Cytochrome C, this is true for a great deal of other proteins too (many proteins). You can analyze the entire human and chimpanzee genome and see this correlation. There’s no reason that you should have the same sequence since you can get the same function. There’s absolutely no reason you should have the same nucleic acid sequence, even if you had the same protein sequence, since you can use many variations of the gene that can be used to bring about that same protein sequence. We do realize that the DNA sequence is the same, i.e., meaning that there’s shared descent. It has been demonstrated that you can use entirely different sequences and get the same function. There’s absolutely no reason why, if not God wanted to fool around with us. Why would God use these same sequences in the animals that are phylogenetically alike? There’s no reason to believe that any two given organisms would have the same transposon in the same locations, just like with two nucleic acids. Also, why is it that chimpanzees and humans share pseudogenes (gene that has been broken)? Pseudogenes are essentially nonfunctional. We have all kinds of them. For an example, we have a gene that makes Vitamin C, but it has been broken. That is why humans have to take Vitamin C or else they become ill or die. Once again, there’s no reason to expect that you would see the same pseudogenes in two species, unless they shared some genetic endowment. But again, if you take a look at humans and chimpanzees, you see that there are rather a few pseudogenes, particularly steroid 21-hydroxylase gene. We have an untranslated and a functional pseudogene, and chimpanzees have the exact same one. And they really have the exact same deletion, the same eight base pairs have been taken out of that gene in chimpanzees and humans. We also share the same endogenous retroviruses. You can deceive yourself into believing that God was able to dupe us into thinking that he made these similar sequences, but there’s no reason why we would have the same endogenous retroviruses as chimps.
I would also like to point out that creationism requires an incredibly fast rate of microevolution. The rate of microevolution isn’t even possible in nature. According to the Bible, beetles are a “kind”. There are over 400,000 known beetles (many unknown) in the entire world. If the flood occurred 4,400 years ago, then every year 100 new species of beetles would have evolved from the two original parents on the ark. Therefore, every single week roughly two new beetles are produced. Any biologist would gasp in astonishment.

Source: http://forum.hunting.net/asppg/tm.asp?m=1059068&mpage=3&key=#1059868

Originally posted by nickybutt
Why can't humans produce Vitamin C? The body requires vitamin C to form and maintain bones, blood vessels, and skin, and it prevents scurvy. Most animals can produce it themselves, but not humans and most other primates. The Theory of Ev ...[text shortened]... xplain why this is, but what is the Creationist's answer to this?

Are you suggesting that our bodies should be designed to produce everything we need?

Why?

They don't produce water, air, sunlight or doughnuts!
My point is that the things we needed were all provided for us, if not from the inside, like saliva and spinal fluid, then from the outside. And the fact that Adam and Eve were given a garden with fruit trees to inhabit suggests that they were well provided with vitamin C.

Originally posted by chinking58
Are you suggesting that our bodies should be designed to produce everything we need?

Why?

They don't produce water, air, sunlight or doughnuts!
My point is that the things we needed were all provided for us, if not from the inside, like saliva spinal fluid, then from the outside. And the fact that Adam and Eve were given a garden with fruit trees to inhabit suggests that they were well provided with vitamin C.

Well said..

God created humans and created everything they need around them. It is for man, to use the brain that identify him as a Human being from the rest of the Animal Kingdom, to protect and harvest God's gifts.

Originally posted by Paul Dirac
A question for those who take very literally the idea that Man was made in the image of God: why are some humans born with six fingers on a hand? Was God having trouble with basic counting at the moment such humans were conceived?

There are far worse examples of human mutations that you might cite, but the answer is the same.

The humans you're referring to were all conceived after 'the fall'. After Adam and Eve chose not to obey God the world fell under a curse. Death was introduced for the first time, and entropy, the tendency that all things would go from order to disorder, began its work. Reproduction hasn't worked the way it was supposed to, all the time, ever since.

Originally posted by chinking58
There are far worse examples of human mutations that you might cite, but the answer is the same.

The humans you're referring to were all conceived after 'the fall'. After Adam and Eve chose not to obey God the world fell under a ...[text shortened]... n't worked the way it was supposed to, all the time, ever since.

You misunderstand the nature of the second law of thermodynamics. The tendency to entropy obtains only in closed systems. The Earth is not a closed system, as it is constantly inundated with energy from the Sun. Further, even if the Earth was a closed system, order could increase in certain locations if offset by increased entropy elsewhere in the system. This is a common error made by theists, and often employed in fallacious arguments against evolution (e.g., the "evolving junkyard" argument).

Originally posted by telerion
Creationists cannot explain anything. They can only offer the simple binary possibility: Goddunnit or Goddidnot-a-dunwhatHedidn't. In the end, this is all their response to your question will boil down to.

Neither possibility is an explaination. Now we can certainly point out the examples of poor design.

Uh-oh. You mean, old buddy, that within the Christian/creationist worldview there are simple answers? That's terrible for those marketers of complicated, off the wall and obtuse ideas. Their profits are going to dwindle miserably if this catches on!

Originally posted by nickybutt
Why can't humans produce Vitamin C? The body requires vitamin C to form and maintain bones, blood vessels, and skin, and it prevents scurvy. Most animals can produce it themselves, but not humans and most other primates. The Theory of Ev ...[text shortened]... xplain why this is, but what is the Creationist's answer to this?

Nickybutt: "Why can't humans produce Vitamin C? ..... The Theory of Evolution explain why this is, but what is the Creationist's answer to this?"


God was planning to create oranges.

Originally posted by nickybutt
Why can't humans produce Vitamin C? The body requires vitamin C to form and maintain bones, blood vessels, and skin, and it prevents scurvy. Most animals can produce it themselves, but not humans and most other primates. The Theory of Evolution explain why this is, but what is the Creationist's answer to this?

I'd be very interested to hear how evolution explains this.