| The most
important proof that mutations lead only to damage, is the
process of genetic coding. Almost all of the genes in a fully
developed living thing carry more than one piece of information.
For instance, one gene may control both the height and the
eye color of that organism. Microbiologist Michael Denton
explains this characteristic of genes in higher organisms
such as human beings, in this way:
1.
The wings do not develop.
2. The hind limbs reach full length, but the digits
do not fully develop.
3. There is no soft fur covering
4. Although there is a respiratory passage, lungs
and air sacs are absent.
5. The urinary tract does not grow, and does not
induce the development of the kidney.
On the left we can see the normal
development of a domesticated fowl, and on the right
the harmful effects of a mutation in the pleiotropic
gene. Careful examination shows that a mutation
in just one gene damages many different organs.
Even if we hypothesize that mutation could have
a beneficial effect, this "pleiotropic effect" would
remove the advantage by damaging many more organs.
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The effects of genes
on development are often surprisingly diverse. In the house
mouse, nearly every coat-colour gene has some effect on
body size. Out of seventeen x-ray induced eye colour mutations
in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, fourteen affected
the shape of the sex organs of the female, a characteristic
that one would have thought was quite unrelated to eye colour.
Almost every gene that has been studied in higher organisms
has been found to effect more than one organ system, a multiple
effect which is known as pleiotropy. As Mayr argues in Population,
Species and Evolution: "It is doubtful whether any genes
that are not pleiotropic exist in higher organisms."26
Because of this characteristic of the genetic
structure of living things, any coincidental change because
of a mutation, in any gene in the DNA, will affect more than
one organ. Consequently, this mutation will not be restricted
to one part of the body, but will reveal more of its destructive
impact. Even if one of these impacts turns out to be beneficial,
as a result of a very rare coincidence, the unavoidable effects
of the other damage it causes will more than outweigh those
benefits.
To summarize, there are three main reasons why
mutations cannot make evolution possible:
l- The direct effect of mutations is harmful:
Since they occur randomly, they almost always damage the living
organism that undergoes them. Reason tells us that unconscious
intervention in a perfect and complex structure will not improve
that structure, but will rather impair it. Indeed, no "useful
mutation" has ever been observed.
2- Mutations add no new information to an organism's
DNA: The particles making up the genetic information are either
torn from their places, destroyed, or carried off to different
places. Mutations cannot make a living thing acquire a new
organ or a new trait. They only cause abnormalities like a
leg sticking out of the back, or an ear from the abdomen.
3- In order for a mutation to be transferred
to the subsequent generation, it has to have taken place in
the reproductive cells of the organism: A random change that
occurs in a cell or organ of the body cannot be transferred
to the next generation. For example, a human eye altered by
the effects of radiation, or by other causes, will not be
passed on to subsequent generations.
The Escherichia coli
bacterium is no different from specimens a billion
years old. Countless mutations over this long period
have not led to any structural changes. |
All the explanations provided above indicate
that natural selection and mutation have no evolutionary effect
at all. So far, no observable example of "evolution" has been
obtained by this method. Sometimes, evolutionary biologists
claim that "they cannot observe the evolutionary effect of
natural selection and mutation mechanisms since these mechanisms
take place only over an extended period of time." However,
this argument, which is just a way of making themselves feel
better, is baseless, in the sense that it lacks any scientific
foundation. During his lifetime, a scientist can observe thousands
of generations of living things with short life spans such
as fruit flies or bacteria, and still observe no "evolution."
Pierre-Paul Grassé states the following about the unchanging
nature of bacteria, a fact which invalidates evolution:
Bacteria ...are the organisms
which, because of their huge numbers, produce the most mutants.
[B]acteria ...exhibit a great fidelity to their species.
The bacillus Escherichia coli, whose mutants have been studied
very carefully, is the best example. The reader will agree
that it is surprising, to say the least, to want to prove
evolution and to discover its mechanisms and then to choose
as a material for this study a being which practically stabilized
a billion years ago! What is the use of their unceasing
mutations, if they do not [produce evolutionary] change?
In sum, the mutations of bacteria and viruses are merely
hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing
to the right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary
effect. Cockroaches, which are one of the most venerable
living insect groups, have remained more or less unchanged
since the Permian, yet they have undergone as many mutations
as Drosophila, a Tertiary insect.27
Briefly, it is impossible for living beings to
have evolved, because there exists no mechanism in nature
that can cause evolution. Furthermore, this conclusion agrees
with the evidence of the fossil record, which does not demonstrate
the existence of a process of evolution, but rather just the
contrary.
  
26 Michael Denton, Evolution:
A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books Ltd., London, 1985,
p. 149.
27 Pierre-Paul Grassé, Evolution of
Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p.
87. (emphasis added) |