Talkorigins refutation
From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science
[quote] Finally, many molecules besides ATP could serve equally well as the common currency for energy in various species (CTP, TTP, UTP, ITP, or any ATP-like molecule with one of the 293 known amino acids or one of the dozens of other bases replacing the adenosine moiety immediately come to mind). Discovering any new animals or plants that contained any of the anomalous examples proffered above would be potential falsifications of common ancestry, but they have not been found. [/quote]
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html
Most organisms use DNA to store information except some viruses (which may not be considered living), which uses RNA instead. Does this falsify evolution? Of course not. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DsRNA_virus
Most mammals have two chromosomes, where as the platypus has ten
[quote] Platypus has ten sex chromosomes, compared with two (XY) in most other mammals (for instance, a male Platypus is always XYXYXYXYXY). Furthermore, one of the Platypus' Y chromosomes shares genes with the ZZ/ZW sex chromosomes found in birds. [/quote]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platypus
Does this falsify evolution? Of course not.
Likewise, if we do find an organism that uses something other than ATP, it will not falsify common ancestry. Furthermore, this is evidence against common ancestry. We have large quantities of bacteria and other organisms constantly multiplying and all likely mutating in different sections of the genome, given all the diversity we see in living organisms (and the complex combinations of mutations that would be required to create all this diversity), it makes sense that at least one other organism would have had a simple combination of mutations (relative to the complex combination required to produce the diversity of life that we see) to cause at least one organism to use some other currency besides ATP and survive. After all, if these alternatives do serve equally well, a mutation causing them to use some other alternative will not be selected against. If anything, this is evidence for a common creator (or at the very least, a group of creators working together) because if there were multiple creators working independently, there is no reason for them to all choose ATP.
