CLEARING THE PATH

At the time Darwin formulated the theory of evolution relatively little was known about genetics. Darwin was ignorant of what produced the variability within species.  Hundreds of thousands of genes are present in the nucleus of every cell of the higher animals.  Today we know that inheritance is controlled by the genes found solely in the germ cells (the eggs, or ova, and the spermatozoa).  Alterations are only inheritable in the genes of these germ cells.

Genes are ordinarily very stable.  Very rarely, however, the chemical structure of a gene does undergo a change.  Such a change is called a mutation. Most mutations result in a change in only one of the several thousand sub-units in a gene.  The change usually is so subtle that it cannot be directly detected by present chemical techniques.  The effect on the plant or animal is frequently very drastic, however.  Very often a mutation proves to be lethal, and they are almost universally harmful.  The mutations we see occurring spontaneously in nature or those that can be induced in the laboratory always prove to be harmful.  Experts in the field have made these comments regarding the extreme rarity of beneficial mutations: 

…good ones are so rare that we can consider them all bad.(1)

…The mass evidence shows that all, or almost all, known mutations are unmistakably pathological and the few remaining ones are highly suspect.(2) 

Evolutionists claim, however, that a very small fraction (perhaps 1 in 10,000) of these mutations, are beneficial.  This claim is made, not because we can actually observe such favorable mutations, but because evolutionists know that unless favorable mutations do occur, evolution is impossible. 

Evolutionists, with very few exceptions, believe that these proposed favorable mutations must result in only slight changes, or else they would be too disruptive for the plant or animal to survive. Since each mutation would have resulted in only a very slight change, it is evident that the evolution of one species into another would require the accumulation of many thousands of these hypothetical favorable mutations.  A much more drastic change, such as the conversion of a fish into an amphibian, would require an enormous number of favorable mutations in an enormous variety of characteristics.  Furthermore, and as stated above, in order to be inheritable a mutation must occur in the genes of the germ cells. Germ cells make up only a tiny fraction of all the cells of an organism and are generally relatively well-protected from the environment. 

It becomes obvious that the proposed evolutionary process must therefore be extremely slow and gradual and must require tremendous periods of time.  Even the inflated estimates for the age of the earth would not be nearly enough time for all the beneficial mutations needed.  The change of a species into a new species is believed to require hundreds of thousands, if not millions of years.  A drastic change such as the change of fish into amphibian or reptile into mammal is believed to have required several tens of millions of years.  But that is still extremely understated.  Honest scientists admit the fatal failure of this evolutionary paradigm, yet they don’t abandon the idea of evolution in general.

Dr. Pierre-Paul Grasse’ of the University of Paris, past president of the French Academy of Science, and who held the Chair of Evolution at the Sorbonne in Paris for 20 years:, stated:

No matter how numerous they may be, mutations do not produce any kind of evolution.  The opportune appearance of mutations permitting animals and plants to meet their needs seems hard to believe.  Yet the Darwinian theory is even more demanding.  A single plant or a single animal would require thousands and thousands of lucky, appropriate events.  Thus, miracles would become the rule: events with infinitesimal probability could no longer fail to occur.  There is no law against day dreaming, but science must not indulge in it.(3)

Since supposed mutation-induced changes can only occur incrementally. the new feature would be incomplete and function-less.  So intermediate steps would be useless.  Evolutionary paleontologist Dr. Stephen J. Gould agrees:

…You can’t fly with 2% of a wing or gain much protection from an iota’s similarity with a potentially concealing piece of vegetation.  One point stands high above the rest: the dilemma of incipient stages. Mivart identified this problem as primary and it remains so today.(4) 

Gould’s logical argument is that slow, evolutionary changes from one form into another is not possible because the transitional forms, being incomplete, would not be useful to the creature.  Dr. I. L. Cohen states:

To propose and argue that mutations even tandem with “natural selection” are the root causes for 6,000,000 viable, enormously complex species is to mock logic, deny the weight of evidence, and reject the fundamentals of mathematical probability.(5)

Micro mutations do occur, but the theory that these alone can account for evolutionary change is either falsified or else it is an unfalsifiable, hence metaphysical, theory.  I suppose that nobody will deny that it is a great misfortune if an entire branch of science becomes addicted to a false theory.  But this is what happened in biology… I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science. When this happens, many people will pose the question: “How did this ever happen?”(6)

Darwin himself described the unlikelihood of mutation and natural selection producing new organ systems. Though he proposed a possible scenario, he nevertheless prefaced his description with statements like this one from The Origin of Species:

To suppose that the eye with all it inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest sense.(12)  

Michael Pitman, former chemistry professor at Cambridge, has stated:

Neither observation nor controlled experiment has shown natural selection manipulating mutations so as to produce a new gene, hormone, enzyme system or organ.(13)

Considering these well know facts of genetics,  it is incredible to me that evolution is the prevailing belief of the vast majority of the scientific community.  Rather than even consider the possibility that a Supreme Being created the universe, they would rather self delude that future findings will bear out their position.  Or maybe the best explanation is is found in this quote by Dr. George Wald, a professor emeritus of biology at Harvard and the Nobel Prize winner in biology: 

There are only two possible explanations as to how life arose:  Spontaneous generation arising to evolution or a supernatural creative act of God… There is no other possibility.  Spontaneous generation was scientifically disproved 120 years ago by Louis Pasteur and others, but that just leaves us with only one other possibility…that life came as a supernatural act of creation by God.  But I can’t accept that philosophy because I do not want to believe in God.  Therefore, I choose to believe in that which I know is scientifically impossible, spontaneous generation leading to evolution.(7)

As we’ve seen in the Origin of Life chapter, there are no possible conditions in which life can spontaneously form from non-life.  However, for the sake of argument, let’s assume that the first cell did come into existence on its own.  To travel up the evolutionary ladder from this simple beginning to a complete human being requires the cell to generate enormous quantities of new genetic information. 

However, the study of modern genetics shows that mutations lead to a net loss of information, not any overall gain.  Biophysicist Dr. Lee Spetner, who worked at Johns Hopkins University, states in one of his books:

….in all the reading I’ve done in the life sciences literature, I’ve never found a mutation that added information.  All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it…Information cannot be built up by mutations that lose it.(8)

Mutations do not produce new information.  No scientific evidence exists to the contrary.  In addition, mutant genes can often produce sterile offspring, incapable of passing on their “new” genetic information to others.  To go from microbes into men, or anything in between, requires changes that increase the genetic information content quite dramatically to say the least..  None of the alleged proofs of “evolution in action” provide a single example of functional new information being added to genes.  Rather, they all involve sorting and loss of information. 

One form of change which is still cited by evolutionists as actual evidence for evolution is the origin of domesticated plants and animals by artificial selection and breeding.  For centuries breeders have been able to produce a remarkable degree of change in a relatively short time.  Evolutionists reason that since man can artificially bring about such a degree of change in a short time, then natural processes must be able to bring about tremendous changes over tremendous periods of time.  However, this line of thinking is seriously flawed. 

While breeding experiments and the domestication of animals has revealed that many species are capable of a considerable degree of change, they also revealed distinct limits in every case beyond which no further change could ever be produced.  Breeders can reach these limits relatively quickly.  To assume that given huge periods of time would make a difference is clearly contrary to the evidence.  Furthermore, the specialized breeds produced possess reduced viability, that is, their basic ability to survive has been weakened.  Obviously this does not support the premise of survival of the fittest.

Evolutionary scholars today, such as University of Chicago professor Jerry Coyne, continue to use this argument when they must know better.(9)  These scholars must understand the barriers that artificial selection always faces.  To imply to the unwitting public that these barriers can be crossed by simply adding eons of time is clearly, and purposely misleading. 

In the 1950s the evolutionary geneticist, J.B.S. Haldane outlined a serious problem for evolutionary theory.  Haldane was not a creationist trying to knock evolutionary theory.  He was an evolutionary geneticist.  After performing much research and calculations, he reluctantly concluded that many species of higher vertebrates could not plausibly evolve in the available time.  The specifics of his research are beyond this short essay but I’ll summarize. 

Humans, apes or “human-like creatures”, have generation times of about 20 years and relatively low reproduction rates per individual.  If we extrapolate backward to a time 10 million years ago, which is twice as old as the alleged split between gorilla, chimpanzee and man, and if we assume a pace of one trait substitution per generation, a maximum of approximately 500,000 trait substitutions are possible during that time span (i.e. 10 million years divided by one trait every generation of about 20 years).  As we learned above, the occurrence of beneficial mutations occurs so rarely, if at all, that assuming one per generation, especially in species with low reproduction rates, is a very generous assumption.

Haldane used a completely unrealistic scenario of 100,000 offspring with a beneficial mutation per generation.  What he found was that even with this completely unrealistic scenario, which maximizes evolutionary progress, only about 0.02% of the human genome could be generated in that 10 million year time period.  The difference between the DNA of a human and a chimp, our supposed closest living relative, is greater than 5 percent.  Considering that this would only account for a negligible amount of the difference between chimp and man (1/250th) in the allotted 10 million years, it becomes obvious that evolution has an obvious problem it cannot explain. 

Haldane also determined that over the long term, the average rate of gene substitution is no better than one gene every 300 generations.  The implication here is dramatic.  Take Haldane’s example of a human-like population with a nominal generation time of 20 years.  Given 10 million years, Haldane determined the population could selectively replace a maximum of 1,667 nucleotides (that is 10 million years ÷ 20 years per generation = 500,000 generations, ÷ 300 generations per gene substitution = 1,667).  This amounts to one three-hundredths of one one-hundredth of one-percent of the human genome.  Obviously changing 1,667 selectively significant nucleotides is not nearly enough to make a human out of an ape, whether in 5 million years or 5 billion years! 

Back in the 1960's a few evolutionists tried to challenge Haldane’s findings without success.   In the following 50-60 years, and with no real answers, his findings have been largely ignored.  In 1993, creationist Walter Remine published a major work which treated the issue in detail.(10)  Since its publication, Remine has continued to answer his critics and deal with attempts to confuse the matter by evolutionists (mainly anonymous persons on the internet).  However, ReMine claims that Haldane's Dilemma has never been solved, but has rather been “confused, garbled and prematurely brushed aside.”(11) 

The important point that Haldane made, and that Remine confirmed and clarified is that the evolutionary origin of organ­isms with low reproduction rates and long generation times (which includes most 'higher' animals) is impossible, even given the usual millions of years assigned to the history of species on Earth.

When looking at these facts it becomes obvious that genetics is another impenetrable barrier to evolutionary theory.