The Deception of Aaron J. W. Hsueh: Exaggerating Darwin in Molecular Biology

Thanks to Robert Crowther for his enlightening article entitled:
The Role of Evolution in Biomedical Research is Highly Exaggerated

To complement Crowther's very interesting article (important to read Crowther's article first in order to understand this one), excerpts from the next and most recent article, destroys even further all of that Hsueh's Darwinian bluff:

Pan W, Tu H, Kastin AJ. Differential BBB interactions of three ingestive peptides: Obestatin, ghrelin, and adiponectin. Peptides. 2006 Apr;27(4):911-6 (PDF).

Endogenous compounds, including ingestive peptides, can interact with the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in different ways. Here we used in vivo and in vitro techniques to examine the BBB permeation of the newly described satiety peptide obestatin. The fate of obestatin in blood and at the BBB was contrasted with that of adiponectin. By the sensitive multiple time-regression method, obestatin appeared to have an extremely fast influx rate to the brain whereas adiponectin did not cross the BBB. HPLC analysis, however, showed the obestatin result to be spurious, reflecting rapid degradation. Absence of BBB permeation by obestatin and adiponectin was in contrast to the saturable transport of human ghrelin reported previously. As a positive control, ghrelin showed saturable binding and endocytosis in RBE4 cerebral microvessel endothelial cells. By comparison, obestatin lacked specific binding and endocytosis, and the small amount internalized showed rapid intracellular degradation before the radioactivity was released by exocytosis. The differential interactions of obestatin, adiponectin, and ghrelin with the BBB illustrate their distinctive physiological interactions with the CNS.

Obestatin has an effect in reducing food intake no greater than that of urocortin...

When the stability of the peptide was further tested by HPLC, it was shown that most of the 125I-obestatin was degraded to smaller peptide fragments 10 min after i.v. injection into the circulation (only 14.2% of the total radioactivity recovered 10 min after i.v. injection (A [in the figure]), and nearly 0 at 20 min (B[in the figure]))

...in mice that obestatin is rapidly degraded and does not have specific uptake by the endothelial cells composing the BBB.

In summary, neither obestatin nor adiponectin crosses the BBB by a specific transport system. Obestatin was rapidly degraded in the circulation, but adiponectin was very stable.

Human ghrelin exhibited saturable binding and endocytosis in the RBE4 rat cerebral microvessel endothelial cell line...

So, is currently Hsueh himself promoting this, his own pro-Darwinian study on "obestatin" in his own website? ABSOLUTELY NOT! (check that his last main reference updated is for 2006, while his "Darwinian" paper (from 2005) and other of his Darwinian papers, are not even included within his main papers or within his main description of his "research interests") Why? Does Hsueh secretly recognize that it is extremely bogus to credit and to equate the liar Darwin's ideological frauds with comparative genomics and with molecular biology?

Here is the full PDF of such Hsueh paper, paper overinflated by Hsueh's press conferences as "confirming" the absurdities of "Darwinism"; however, the "more subdued" original version of the paper, as Crowther wrote, indirectly and only passing-by mentions "evolution" (that when real can be understood as "microevolution"), but not as "Darwinism", and here, not even for the main molecule of the paper (obestatin) but for two receptors, and that, as usual, mentioned only as a sheer speculation linked to the fine-tuning of the molecules, see it by yourself in Hsueh's next paragraph:

"Our discovery that obestatin is the cognate ligand for GPR39 suggests that GHSR and GPR39 could have evolved from a common ancestor but diverged in their functions, thus maintaining a delicate balance of body-weight regulation. This scenario is similar to the divergent and sometimes opposing actions of two paralogous corticotropin-releasing hormone receptors and their ligands in the regulation of adaptive stress responses"

Hsueh also mentions "evolution" (that can be understood as "microevolution") once and again, mere speculation, in the legend for a figure on his supplementary material (also in PDF) for this same paper:

"Bioinformatic prediction of conserved obestatin. Based on a computer program previously used to identify unique protein signatures (6), we searched for potential mono- or dibasic cleavage sites in ~200 known preprohormone sequences. Candidate regions were further checked for evolutionary conservation of the putative mature regions in diverse species."

How can Hsueh be so biased and erroneous to fraudulently equate, as most of the atheists within the scientific community do, "microevolution" with the lies of Darwin?

Well, let's see the roots of his deliberate deception, covered here in this blog elsewhere ("The Finch Variation") and demonstrated by a Hsueh's seminar in China:

http://news.ioz.ac.cn/2004/1/FA445971_13DF_496A_951C_376F1F18E20F.html

And even when the main text is in Chinese, you can easily appreciate that in the first slide, where one Chinese student is reading, that the slide at his back reads: "Evolutionary Genomics of Polypeptides, Ligands and Receptors" (again this, when true, can be easily understood as "microevolution", but never as a Darwinian "macroevolution"), then in the next figure we can see Hsueh gesturing and in the third figure finally we have the Darwinian deception, yes, again and again, by the deceptive use of the Galapagos' finches (here is the deceptive and always used "example" of Darwinism directly from that Chinese webpage):So, we see that time after time the atheistic deception of Darwinists is to deliberately blur and confound the clear difference between compatible varieties of animals, exactly like those finches, with the wrong idea of the false "new" origin of genetically incompatible new "species".

The rest of the slides of that Chinese website show different approaches of a deceived audience. That conference was presented by Hsueh in China in January of 2004, while on December 23, and again in China, while others were celebrating their holidays, Hsueh presented the next conference, again and wrongfully pushing his biased "Darwinism" in China, to the extreme "Darwinism in the post-genomic era"

And then again, a biased article by the same Hsueh was published in Chinese:
Aaron J. W. Hsueh. Introduction to evolutionary genomics. Acta Zoologica Sinica. 2004. 50(5):856-8.

"Abstract: Recent advances in the sequencing of all genes in human and diverse model organism have provided a new perspective on biological research. Comparison of the sequences of orthologous and paralogous genes based on their evolutionary origins allows a better understanding of the physiological roles of individual genes. One of the most important aspectsof genomic research is the understanding of the entire gene repertoire, thus eventually allowing a full understanding of gene functions. This article provides some examples of comparative genomic analyses of polypeptide ligands and their receptors. The Chinese name for the emerging field of "evolutionary genomics" – is proposed here in order to emphasize the non progressive nature of the evolutionary process and the global analyses of the complete gene sets in diverse organisms. Key words: Evolution, Genomics."

Here, the calculated deception of Hsueh consists in that his use of the word "evolution" (to support his atheistic Darwinism, as we have seen here) is coupled with the NON-EVOLUTION that we have observed in Molecular Biology, which means that the Conserved Sequences, according to Hsueh's own words, "emphasize the non progressive nature". So, if the nature of the conserved sequences is non progresive that means that they remain stable, under STASIS, performing the very same function in every organism which contains them! The minor variations within the different groups of organisms containing those very similar and conserved secuences can be accounted in terms of 'MICROEVOLUTION' but never in the atheistic fashion envisioned by Darwin (Darwin's linear idea of a never-planned, purposeless and non-directed Universe, which is Darwin's speculation of a false "macroevolution"). So, "the non progressive nature" of the stasis within the Conserved Sequences in Molecular Biology is indeed an intelligent design!

Other papers in which Hsueh mentions the word "evolution" (that can be easily understood, when real, as with the evident diversity of compatible finches, again, as "microevolution"), are:

Orna Avsian-Kretchmer and Aaron J. W. Hsueh. Comparative Genomic Analysis of the Eight-Membered Ring Cystine Knot-Containing Bone Morphogenetic Protein Antagonists. Molecular Endocrinology 18 (1): 1-12.

"Availability of completed genome sequences from diverse organisms allows bioinformatic analysis of the evolution of BMP antagonists and facilitates their classification."

However a related paper by the same author does not mention evolution in its abstract at all!!! (And that is because "evolution" is not necessary at all to do good science):

A J W Hsueh, P Bouchard1 and I Ben-Shlomo. Hormonology: a genomic perspective on hormonal research. Journal of Endocrinology (2005) 187, 333-338.

"Recent advances in comparative genomics allow a new paradigm for hormonal research. At the centennial of the first use of the term hormone by Ernest Starling, we reflected on the changing approaches in elucidating hormonal signaling mechanisms and highlighted the inadequacy of the term endocrinology, implying remote activation, to describe the diverse modes of hormone actions. Several examples were presented to underscore the power of comparative genomics in the identification of new polypeptide hormones, receptors, and signaling pathways. We propose the use of the term hormonology to more accurately reflect the expanding boundaries of the discipline."

Note: Did here, in this previous abstract Hsueh forgot to do his "ideologico-political" statement or what? (smile) What is clear is that in his own words, the use of "evolution" it is not useful to do good and practical science after all!

Early comments on the molecule itself used by Hsueh in his "Darwinian" press conferences (obestatin), can be seen at:
http://onhealth.webmd.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=56358

"...there's not much change in body weight, and we don't yet know if fat mass is actually changed... Obestatin may have cut appetite by making the rats "a little sick and therefore a little bit less willing to eat," Tschop [Matthias Tschop, MD] says... Tschop says there are dozens of hormones involved in appetite and probably even hundreds of factors that are known to play a role in energy balance, food intake, body weight, and body composition. "We don't know much yet about which ones are the essential ones and how all of these interact," Tschop says... Obestatin and ghrelin share the same gene. Removing that gene pretty much amounts to a draw. "This might explain why a mouse that's lacking that one gene doesn't seem to be very different from a normal mouse, because you remove at the same time, so to speak, the gas pedal and the brake," says Tschop."

Concluding, is Hsueh the only responsible to deceive the general public by exaggerating Darwin in molecular biology? No, unfortunately not... that seems to be the common "mark" of the current beast of atheism through evolutionism started in biology by Darwin.