Photosynthesis underpins most biomass production in the biosphere, and Rubisco sits at the center of that process by catalyzing the entry of atmospheric carbon dioxide into organic metabolism. Yet Rubisco is also a biochemical paradox: despite its extraordinary abundance and global significance, its catalytic efficiency in natural settings is markedly constrained, making it a focal point for research in plant biology, evolution, and crop improvement. A quantitative analysis published in 2019 estimated the global mass of Rubisco at approximately 0.7 gigatons, with more than 90% located in terrestrial leaves, and concluded that the enzyme’s effective time-averaged catalytic rate in nature is far below laboratory measurements at 25 °C. These findings sharpen the central question addressed in this paper: how can an enzyme so abundant and indispensable remain so constrained in performance under real environmental conditions? Rubisco is responsible for most global biological carbon fixation and has long been described as the most abundant protein on Earth. Current estimates suggest that it represents roughly 3% of total leaf dry mass globally and operates in the wild at rates substantially below its measured in vitro maximum, especially on land. This gap between biochemical potential and environmental performance helps explain why Rubisco remains both essential to life and a major target for scientific investigation. Rubisco, short for ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase, catalyzes the first major step of carbon fixation in the Calvin-Benson-Bassham cycle. Through this reaction, inorganic carbon enters the biosphere and becomes available for the synthesis of sugars and other organic compounds. The enzyme’s importance is reflected in its abundance across plants, algae, and cyanobacteria, but its relatively slow catalytic rate and competing oxygenation reaction impose major constraints on photosynthetic efficiency. If you use the artificial intelligence facility to explain the origin of RuBisCo and ask it to explain how it came about, it will say that it originated in an anoxic environment (undersea smokers) and eventually there was a great oxygenation event where the function of the original RuBisCo enzyme changed to work in the oxygen environment. There is no explanation of the separation of the left handed amino acids from the right handed variety, no explanation of the origin of the assembly in the right order with the removal of the water molecule to form the peptide bond. Creationist Critiques and Scientific Responses The origin of photosynthesis is too complex to be explained by evolutionary processes alone. Irreducible complexity: Creationist critics often argue that photosynthesis depends on tightly integrated components, pigments, electron transport chains, reaction centers, membrane structures, ATP synthesis, and carbon fixation pathways that would be nonfunctional unless present together. From this, they infer that partial or transitional systems would not provide enough selective advantage to support gradual evolutionary assembly. Information and coordination arguments: Another common claim is that the origin of photosynthesis would require the simultaneous appearance of large amounts of functionally specified information across multiple genes and regulatory systems. Critics argue that mutation and selection are insufficient to account for the emergence of coordinated photochemical machinery, especially the coupling of light harvesting to redox chemistry and carbon metabolism. Gaps in the historical record: Because the earliest stages of photosynthesis occurred deep in Earth history, creationist arguments frequently emphasize uncertainty in the fossil, geochemical, and phylogenetic record. On this view, unresolved questions about when oxygenic photosynthesis emerged, how the two photosystems became integrated, or how chlorophyll biosynthesis evolved are treated as evidence against evolutionary explanations themselves. Teleological interpretation: Some writers further argue that the apparent optimization of photosynthesis for planetary habitability, biological productivity, and atmospheric transformation is better interpreted as evidence of intentional design than of contingent evolutionary history. In this framework, biochemical efficiency, ecological centrality, and global consequences are presented as indicators of purpose rather than products of selection and constraint. The odds of 600 amino acids being assembled only in the left-handed form by removing water molecules to form the peptide bonds in the correct order to provide the specificity of the enzyme to do its job, in sufficient quantities to start the food chain on the earth boggles the imagination.

What is that queasy feeling in my stomach? Is it because evolution gives me butterflies? A recent article in Phys.org claims that evolution has been using the same genetic cheat sheet for over 120 million years, suggesting that life on earth may be more predictable than first imagined. They studied several distantly related South American rainforest butterfly and moth species that sport similar wing color patterns that warn away predators. The genetic changes in the different butterfly species did not happen in the genes themselves, but in similar "switches" that turn the genes on or off. The moth species surprisingly used an inversion mechanism—a large chunk of DNA flipped backwards-a near identical genetic trick used by one of the butterflies. Professor Kanchon Dasmahapatra, from the University of York's Department of Biology, said, "Convergent evolution, where many unrelated species independently evolve the same trait, is common across the tree of life. But we rarely have the opportunity to investigate the genetic basis of this phenomenon. When scientists cannot explain the origin of something, or why it has a purpose, often they make up a name for it like "convergent evolution". Professor Joana Meier, from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said, "These distantly related butterflies and the moth are all toxic and distasteful to birds trying to eat them. They look very much alike because if birds have already learned that a specific color pattern means "do not eat, we are toxic," it is beneficial for other species to display the same warning colors. "Here, we show that these warning colors are particularly ideal as it seems quite easy to evolve these same color patterns due to the highly conserved genetic basis over 120 million years." Knowing that nature follows a particular route and is not as "random" as once thought, helps scientists predict how other species might adapt to their environments, or climate change. Creationists have a more reasonable explanation. The reason distantly related butterflies share similar characteristics is because they have the same designer, just like a computer programmer writing different applications but reusing the same code. A real dilemma for evolutionists is the life cycle of the butterfly. The life span of a butterfly is so short that mutations don’t have a chance to appear and become fixed in the genome. Explaining the metamorphosis of the butterfly results in a lot of logical machinations. While the evolutionary advantages of complete metamorphosis are clear, the details of how this complex process first evolved remain murky. "There are two main schools," Xavier Bellés Ros, an ad honorem researcher at the Spanish National Research Council, told Live Science in an email. One idea, supported by Bellés Ros, proposes that complete metamorphosis evolved as the nymph stage split into the larval and pupal phases. The opposing camp, supported by researchers including Truman, argues that the larval stage originated from an embryonic phase known as the pronymph, the brief phase when an insect first begins to emerge from its egg.

I am really getting tired of claims that say that scientists are finding signs of life on other planets. The Curiosity Rover on Mars is analyzing chemicals dug up at the Gale Crater site. They are looking for signs of life that possibly existed billions of years ago. What did they discover? 1. Long chain hydrocarbons (alkanes) a. Decane (10 carbon atoms) b. Undecane (11 carbon atoms) c. Dodecane (12 carbon atoms) 2. No evidence of amino acids 3. Methane 4. No guanine, cytosine, thymine, adenine. 5. Nitrogen heterocycle (unspecified) 6. Nitric oxide From Nature: "There is no evidence to suggest that the fixed nitrogen molecules found by the team were created by life. The surface of Mars is inhospitable for known forms of life. Instead, the team thinks the nitrates are ancient and likely came from non-biological processes like meteorite impacts and lightning in Mars’ distant past. Features resembling dry riverbeds and the discovery of minerals that only form in the presence of liquid water suggest that Mars was more hospitable in the remote past. The Curiosity team has found evidence that other ingredients needed for life, such as liquid water and organic matter, were present on Mars at the Curiosity site in Gale Crater billions of years ago." "Finding a biochemically accessible form of nitrogen is more support for the ancient Martian environment at Gale Crater being habitable" said Jennifer Stern of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Stern is lead author of a paper on this research published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science March 23. Given the list of chemical compounds found on Mars by the Curiosity rover, the claim that this suggests that life existed on Mars billions of years ago is a LIE. It is a deliberate deception. If Curiosity fails to find evidence for life, the mission would be considered an abysmal failure. Justification for funding of missions like this and other missions to extraterrestrial planets with similar purpose would be called into question. Here is an experiment that scientists should undertake to justify their claims. Take the chemicals they have found on Mars and since life is an on-off switch, combine them to form a living system such as a bacterium, worm, insect, and show that they could have arisen from such chemicals spontaneously. This doesn’t take millions or billions of years; you can’t hide behind that. We can give you purified amino acids and nucleotides already in the correct 3-dimensional enantiomer structure. Construct protein chains and DNA from your off-the-shelf chemicals and kick start a living cell. Chemistry doesn’t allow it, and you can’t do it.

Rich Geer presents his intriguing thoughs in archaeology and chronology. He used four references: Archaeology and the Bible by Tom Meyer, Unearthing the Bible by Titus Kennedy, Evidence for the Bible by Clive Anderson and Brian Edwards, and Excavating the Evidence for Jesus by Titus Kennedy. When he was at the University of Wyoming, Rich took a biblical archaelogy class and it was where he first heard that Biblical people and events could actually be verified. One example was the Sennacherib Prism that recounted events that confirmed the Biblical account. Also, Hezekiah's tunnel in Jerusalem is still there, and Rich explored it in 1974. Over 100 cases of Bullae or seals confirm the existence of persons recorded in scripture. The Ipuwer Papyrus confirms the 10 plagues of Egypt under Moses. The archaelogical site of Jericho confirms the account of the collapse of the wall. The House of David Stele confirms the existence of King David. The Mesha Stele mentions Omri, the father of Ahab. The Nabonidus chronicle and cylinder shows that Belshazzar was co-regent under Nabonidus and eliminates the reason for late dating Daniel. The Behistun Monument shows that Darius the Great recognized Cyrus's earlier decree, allowing the Jews to again rebuild the second temple. No archaelogical artifact has a date stamped on it. Lots of schemes has been proposed, but there is much contradictory information that is opposed to the clear Biblical record. Rich has studies the Old Testament chronology and is able to correct a number of assumptions based upon faulty archaelogical dates and come up with a timeline. Scripture is the oly reliable basis to establish a real timeline grounded in history.