Creation: True or False?

This process of copying DNA into new cells normally proceeds with great accuracy, but very occasionally a mistake is made, so that the new DNA has slightly different coded information. This new code means that a product with a slightly different ‘shape’ will be formed. This accidental change is called a mutation.

Now, as can be imagined, the new protein will probably not be as effective as the original one. Indeed it will probably not work at all, as its new ‘shape’ will not allow it to carry out the chemical reactions for which it was designed. However, the current theory of evolution depends on this purely random mutation conferring an advantage on the cell and thus to the whole organism, that enables it to be more successful than those without such a mutation.

It is claimed that by this process of successive accidental mutations, all forms of life have developed from simpler forms. Thus, for example, the human brain, which is probably the most complex object in the universe, has developed from increased information gradually and randomly stored up in the human genome (i.e. the sum of all the information on the DNA) over many millions of years.

A Scanning Electron Microscope picture of normal red blood cells alongside a sickle shaped one that characterises the defective cells resulting from the change of just one amino acid in the protein chain.

Firstly, when mutations do occur, they are almost invariably harmful and not beneficial. For example, in humans, a change in a single ‘rung’ of the DNA ladder that codes for the protein haemoglobin, substitutes just one amino acid for another in the sequence; but this apparently small change has far-reaching results – an often fatal disease called sickle cell anaemia. Similarly, a single change in the code for rhodopsin, a pigment in the eye, results in blindness. Therefore, it is generally true to say that most mutations are harmful or confer no benefits.

Secondly and most importantly, the whole basis of the evolutionary theory is that through mutations the information on the genome must increase. Only by this means could a progressively greater complexity of living things have occurred over the supposed millions of years of evolution. If this increase of information does not occur, then it is clear that the current evolutionary theory is a non-starter.

As one recent critic of evolution has observed: ‘the neo-Darwinians14 would like us to believe that large evolutionary changes can result from a series of small events if there are enough of them. But if these events all lose information they can't be the steps in the … [theory]. Whoever thinks that macroevolution can be made by mutations that lose information is like the merchant who lost a little money on every sale but thought he could make it up on volume.’ 15 So, unless it can be shown that mutations have gradually increased the total genetic information, then evolution could not have occurred.

The fact is that mutations do not increase the available information. As the above writer goes on to say: ‘Not even one mutation has been observed that adds a little information to the genome.’ As a result he concludes: ‘We have therefore to reject the entire neo-Darwinian theory of evolution.’

A familiar example will make the point. Today we have hundreds of different varieties of dogs, varying in size and appearance from the huge St. Bernard to the pocket-sized Chihuahua. It is believed that all have descended from a wolf-like ancestor. In the mutations that produced the range of present domestic dogs, many of the original wolf-like features have been permanently lost; that is, the information for some original characteristics is no longer available on the genome. In other words, although the development of a large variety of dogs from one ancestor superficially looks like a case for evolution, in fact such a development has resulted in a loss of genetic information. However, the theory of evolution, if it were true, would demand an increase.

14 Neo Darwinians = those who believe in evolution driven by random mutations, in fact the majority of evolutionists.
15 Lee Spetner: ‘Not by Chance,’ page 160 (Judaica Press Inc.)