Evolution Encyclopedia Vol. 1
Chapter 14 Appendix Part 1
Supplementary Material
M U T A T I O N S
1 - What the Public is Told
There is a dramatic difference between what the public is told by evolutionary advocates, and what careful scientists write in books and scientific papers. The subject of mutations is no exception.
First, neo-Darwinists maintain that only mutations could possibly be the cause of evolution. Life originated and life evolved into its present state by means of mutations; at least so say the experts:
"Mutations . . provide the raw material of evolution." *Carl Sagan, Cosmos, p. 27.
"Mutations . . are the basis of evolution." *World Book Encyclopedia, Vol. 13, p. 809 (1982 edition).
"Ultimately, all variation is, of course, due to mutations." *Ernst Mayr, quoted in 'P. S. Moorhead and *M. M. Kaplan (eds.), Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (1967), p. 50.
"We know of no way other than random mutation by which new hereditary variation comes into being." *P. Hanawalt and *R. Haynes, "The Repair of DNA," in Scientific-American, February 1967, p. 36.
"[Mutations] are necessary for evolutionary progress." *Peo C. Koller, Chromosomes and Genes (1971), p. 127.
"Mutation provides the raw material of evolution . . mutation is the ultimate source of all . . heritable variation." *Julian Huxley, Evolution in Action, p. 38.
"It remains true to say that we know of no way other than random mutation by which new hereditary variation comes into being." *C. H. Waddington, The Nature of Life (1962), p. 98.
"The process of mutation ultimately furnishes the materials for adaptation to changing environments. Genetic variations which increase the reproductive fitness of a population to its environment are preserved and multiplied by natural selection" *Francisco J. Ayala, "Genotype, Environment and Population Numbers," Science, Vol, 162, December 27, 1968, p. 456.
"It is through the rare instances of favorable mutations, of innumerable kinds and in countless numbers, occurring successively over very extended period, that the whole process of evolution may now be explained." *Amram Scheinfeld, The New You and Heredity, p. 476.
"Most mutations are for the worse . . [but] in the long run, to be sure, mutations make the course of evolution move onward and upward." *Isaac Asimov, The Wellspring of Life, p. 139.
Second, the public is told that all or nearly all scientists believe this to be so:
"An overwhelming majority of [biologists] believe that evolution proceeds by mutations and natural selection." *C.P. McGill, in American Scientist, January 1953, p. 100. (Professor at McGill University.)
"Natural selection can only operate when there is something to be selected" as the result of beneficial mutations.
"Early in the present century there was a heated discussion as to whether evolution was the result of natural selection or of mutation. As more was teamed about heredity, it became clear that natural selection can operate only when there is something to be selected, that is, when mutations present alternate ways of coping with the environment. The environment of new species, then involves both mutation and natural selection." *A. W. Haup, An Introduction to Botany (1956) p. 258.
This wonderful "bungling process."
"Accidental alterations in the mechanism of his heredity slowly by trial and error made man better adapted to his environment than are his rivals. That's the accepted scientific view today, and scientists call this long, frequently bungling process 'evolution.' "'Oklahoma City Times, August 10, 1968, p. 25.
"Detrimental. . diversely altered.. disadvantageous. . impairment."
"It is entirely in line with the accidental nature of natural mutations that extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them to be detrimental to the organism in their job of surviving and reproducing, just as changes accidentally introduced into any artificial mechanism are predominantly harmful to its useful operation.
"According to the conception of evolution based on the studies of modern genetics, the whole organism has its basis in its genes. Of these, there are thousands of different kinds interacting with great nicety in the production and maintenance of the complicated mechanism of the given type of organism. Accordingly, by the mutation of one of these genes or another, any component structure a function, and in many cases combinations of these components, may become diversely altered. Yet in all except very rare cases the change will be disadvantageous, involving an impairment of function." *H.H. Muller, "How Radiation Changes the Genetic Construction, " in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, paper prepared for the U. N. Conference on Peacetime Uses of Atomic Energy, at Geneva (1955).
"Harmful . . disadvantageous."
"Mutations occur at random, not because it would be convenient to have one occur. Any chance alteration in the composition and properties of a highly complex operation is harmful to the organism, and most mutations are disadvantageous for this reason. There is a delicate balance between an organism and its environment which a mutation can easily upset. One could as well expect that altering the position of the foot brake or the gas pedal at random would improve the operation of an automobile." *F.S. Hulse, The Human Species (1963), p. 53.
"Detrimental . . lethal . . die out. . leave fewer descendants.. illness and suffering.. [cause of] more than 1,600 human diseases."
[This paragraph tells it all:] "As it happens, [Hermann J.J Muller's researches [into using radiation to increase mutations] have given rise to some rather disquieting thoughts concerning the future of the human species. While mutations are an important driving force in evolution, occasionally producing an improvement that enables a species to cope better with its environment, the beneficial mutation is very much the exception. Most mutations at least 99 percent of them are detrimental, some even lethal. Eventually, even those that are only slightly harmful die out, because their bearers do not get along as well and leave fewer descendants than healthy individuals do. But in the meantime a mutation may cause illness and suffering for many generations. Furthermore, new mutations keep cropping up continually, and every species carries a constant load of defective genes. Thus, more than 1,600 human diseases are thought to be the result of genetic defects . . The number of deleterious genes (the genetic loam gives rise to fears and justified anxiety."*Isaac Asimov, Asimov's New Guide to Science (1984), p. 812.
"Harmful."
"The great majority of mutant genes are harmful in their effects on the organism." *Sir Julian Huxley, Evolution in Action (1953), p. 39.
"Detrimental."
"We have to face one particular fact, one so peculiar that in the opinion of some people it makes nonsense of the whole theory of evolution: Although the biological theory calls for incorporating beneficial variants in the living populations, a vast majority of mutants observed in any organism are detrimental to its welfare." *John J. Fried, The Mystery of Heredity (1971), p. 135.
"Deteriorations. . hereditary disease and monstrosities."
"A majority of mutations, both those arising in laboratories and those stored in natural populations, produce deteriorations of the viability, hereditary diseases, and monstrosities. Such changes, it would seem, can hardly serve as evolutionary building blocks." *Theodosius Dobzhansky, Genetics and the Origin of the Species (1951), p. 73.
"Mutations . . invariably affect it adversely."
"Accordingly, mutations are more than just sudden changes in heredity; they also affect viability, and, to the best of our knowledge, invariably affect it adversely." *C.P. Martin, "A Non-Geneticist Looks at Evolution, " American Scientist, January 1953, p. 102.
"Unmistakably pathological . . [or] highly suspect."
"Mutation does produce hereditary changes but the mass of evidence shows that all, or almost all, known mutations are unmistakably pathological and the few remaining ones are highly suspect." *C.P. Martin, "A Non-Geneticist Looks at Evolution, " American Scientist, January 1953, p. 103.
"All mutations seem to be. . injuries that. . impair."
"All mutations seem to be in the nature of injuries that, to some extent, impair the fertility and viability of the affected organisms. I doubt if among the many thousands of known mutant types one can be found which is superior to the wild type in its normal environment. Only very few can be named which are superior to the wild type in a strange environment." *C.P. Martin, "A Non-Geneticist Looks at Evolution, "American Scientist, January 1953, p. 100.
"A single amino acid change . . [seriously affects blood cells]."
" . . I took a little trouble to find whether a single amino acid change in a hemoglobin mutation is known that doesn't affect seriously the function of that hemoglobin. One is hard put to find such an instance." *George World, in *Paul S. Moorehead and *Martin M. Kaplan (Eds.) Mathematical Challenges to the Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, pp. 18-19.
"A random change . . is almost certain to impair it."
"Even if we didn't have a great deal of data on this point, we could still be quite sure on theoretical grounds that mutants would usually be detrimental. For a mutation is a random change of a highly organized, reasonably smoothly functioning living body. A random change in the highly integrated system of chemical processes which constitute life is almost certain to impair it just as a random interchange of connections in a television set is not likely to improve the picture." *James F. Crow, " Genetic Effects of Radiation, " Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 14 (1958), pp. 19-20.
One definite result of mutations: "a tendency towards degeneration."
"The one systematic effect of mutation seems to be a tendency towards degeneration." *Sewall Wright, in Julian Huxley (Ed.) "The Statistical Consequences of Mendelian Heredity in Relation to Speciation, "The New Systematics (1949), p. 174.
Here is a sentence to memorize: "The process of mutation is the only known source of the raw materials of genetic variability, and hence of evolution."
"The process of mutation is the only known source of the raw materials of genetic variability, and hence of evolution.. The mutants which arise are, with rare exceptions, deleterious to their carriers, at least in the environments which the species normally encounters." *Theodosious Dobzhansky, "On Methods of Evolutionary Biology and Anthropology, " American Scientist, Winter, December 1957, p. 385.
2
MUTATIONS ARE VERY HARMFUL
Over and over again, teamed scientists have declared that mutations are harmful. In this section we will consider some of their statements In regard to this matter.
How can mutations have produced all the marvels of nature, when they are so very harmful? Evolutionists have no answer to that question. They merely counter by saying, "Well, mutations did it anyway." That may be their opinion, but it is neither scientific nor logical.
When scientists do speak out on this subject, they generally modify their remarks to include "almost all" mutations are harmful. They do that (1) because it is scientific not to say 100 percent, since someday a useful mutation might be discovered, and (2) to say that all mutations are harmful would be to admit that they could not possibly be the mechanism for evolution. But, in reality, there is not one known instance of a non-weakening mutation anywhere!
The classic example is sickle-cell anemia: it is said to be "beneficial," because it helps Africans resist malaria. Which scientist is willing to acquire sickle-cell anemia in order to lessen his chances of getting malaria? There are none, for, all aside from malaria, sickle-cell anemia itself terribly weakens the system and shortens life.
Here is what the scientists tell us about the dangers of mutations:
"Harmful."
"Like radiation-induced mutations, nearly all spontaneous mutations with detectable effects are harmful." Arthur Custance, Longevity in Antiquity (1957), p. 1160.
"Useless, detrimental or lethal."
"If we say that it is only by chance that they [mutations] are useful, we are still speaking too leniently. In general, they are useless, detrimental or lethal." *W. R. Thompson, Introduction, Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (1956 edition).
"Deleterious . . harmful."
"The greatest proportion of mutations are deleterious to the individual who carries the mutated gene. It was found in experiments that, for every successful or useful mutation, there are many thousands which are harmful." *Peo C. Koller, Chromosomes and Genes (1971), p. 127.
"Bad."
"Most of the mutations are bad. In fact the good ones are so rare that we can consider them all as bad." -*H.J. Muller, Time, November 11, 1946, p. 38.
"Poor material for evolutionary progress."
"'Creatures with shrivelled-up wings and defective vision, or no eyes, offer poor material for evolutionary progress.' ""E.W. MacBride, quoted in H. Epoch, Evolution or Creation (1966), p. 75.
"Damaging . . freaks and monstrosities . . destructive."
"The fact that most mutations are damaging to the organism seems hard to reconcile with the view that mutation is the source of raw materials for evolution. Indeed, mutants illustrated in biology textbooks are a collection of freaks and monstrosities, and mutation seems to be a destructive rather than a constructive process."' Encydopedia Americana Vol. 10, p. 742 (1977 edition).
"For the worse."
"Most mutations are for the worse . . In the long run, to be sure, mutations make the course of evolution move onward and upward." *Isaac Asimov, The Wellsprings of Life (1960), p. 139.
"Harmful."
"The great majority of mutant genes are harmful in their effects on the organism." *Animal Species end Evolution, pp. 170, 39.
Degenerative.
"The one systematic effect of mutations seems to be a tendency towards degeneration." *Sewall Wright, in *Julian Huxley (ed.), The New Systematics (1949), p. 174.
No utilitarian function known.
"'It must be admitted that the direct and complete proof of the utilization of mutations in evolution under natural conditions has not yet been given." *Julian Huxley, quoted in H. Epoch, Evolution or Creation (1966), p. 78.
"Harmful.. eventually die out [along with those having them]."
"According to this conception, all the adaptations of living things must have arisen through the survival and reproductions of those mutations which happened to give by-products favorable for gene continuance, or, as we say, for life. But mutations are found to be of a random nature, so far as their utility is concerned. Accordingly, the great majority of mutations, certainly well over 99 percent are harmful in some way, as is to be expected of the effects of accidental occurrence. These harmful mutations, however, eventually die out naturally, because of the lower ability to live, or the lower viability, of the individuals containing these mutated genes." *H. J. Muller, "Radiation Damage to the Genetic Material," in American Scientist, January 1950, p. 38.
"Disastrous results."
"The problems of tailoring a gene and inserting it in human sperm or egg, making it hereditary, are so many and so little understood at present that reasonable prediction would place that in a future very remote indeed. Moreover, the human (or any other viable and natural) gene system is so intricately balanced that insertion of a foreign element, however well specified in itself, would probably have disastrous effects.."*G. G. Simpson, Biology and Man (1969), p. 129. "Inferior. . in viability and competitive power."
"Mutations, even if they can surpass the mother species in certain respects, are nevertheless inferior in respect of total viability and therefore in competitive power." *H. Nilsson American Nature, Vol. 57.
"Deleterious . . degeneration and extinction."
"The mutants which arise are, with rare exception, deleterious to their carriers, at least in the environments which the species normally encounters. Some of them are deleterious apparently in all environments. Therefore the mutation process alone, not corrected and guided by natural selection, would result in degeneration and extinction." *Theodore Dobzhansky, "On Methods of Evolutionary Biology and Anthropology, " in American Scientist, Vol. 45, December 1957, p. 385.
"Detrimental . . disadvantageous . . impairment."
"It is entirely in line with the accidental nature of natural mutations that extensive tests have agreed in showing the vast majority of them to be detrimental to the organism in its job of surviving and reproducing, just as changes accidentally introduced into any artificial mechanism are predominantly harmful to its useful operation. According to the conception of evolution based on the studies of modern genetics, the whole organism has its basis in its genes. Of these, there are thousands of different kinds, interacting with great nicety in the production and maintenance of the complicated mechanism of the given type of organism. Accordingly, by the mutation of one of these genes or another, any component structure or function, and in many cases combinations of these components, may become diversely altered. Yet in all except very rare cases the change will be disadvantageous, involving an impairment of function." *H.J. Muller, "How Radiation Changes the Genetic Constitution, " Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 1955, p. 331.
"Lethal . . killed . . pathological."
"Many of them had lethal results and killed the organisms that carried them... tar from conferring improvement in adaptation, the mutations seemed to be pathological, and provided no explanation of how adaptations arose and became perfected. The result. . was that during the first twenty years of the twentieth century, evolutionary studies and theories were in a state of chaos and confusion." *Sir Gavin de Beer, Charles Darwin (1965), p. 182.
"Harmful . . kill . . impairment . . detrimental
"Mutation and mutation rates have been studied in a wide variety of experimental plants and animals, and in man. There is one general result that dearly emerges: almost all mutations are harmful. The degree of harm ranges from mutant genes that kill their carrier, to those that cause only minor impairment.
"Even if we didn't have a great deal of data on this point, we could still be quite sure on theoretical grounds that mutations would usually be detrimental. For a mutation is a random change of a highly organized, reasonably smoothly functioning body. A random change in the highly integrated system of chemical processes which constitute life is almost certain to impair ft." *James Crow, "Genetic Effects of Radiation" in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist.
"Deleterious . . functioning less efficiently
"Certainly the vast majority of mutations must be deleterious, so if the organs of older animals contain appreciable numbers of cells which are carrying mutations, it is a virtual certainty that the organs are functioning less efficiently than they otherwise would." *Biological Mechanisms Underlying the Aging Process" in Science 141, August 23, 1963, p. 686.
"Lethal or harmful . . damage . . pathological aberrations."
"Most mutations are lethal or harmful; some appear neutral and a few (less than 0.1 percent) can be interpreted as favourable [such as sickle cell anemia]. If the genetic blueprint for an organism is initially optional like, say, the design for a new TV set then mutations appear as damage incurred by wear and tear or misuse. Kicking a damaged TV set might improve its performance but the treatment is not generally recommended. In no way could random or even well-directed kicking have been responsible for the origin of the TV in the first place. But the neo-Darwinian, who asserts that mutations are the raw material of evolution, and the only source of novelty for natural selection to work on, is both denying the existence of an optimal genetic blueprint (or archetype) for a life-form, and accepting 'kicking' as a rational means of improving it out of recognition.
"Mutations are pathological aberrations: who would risk exposure to radioactivity to generate a superhuman child?. . the probability of simultaneous good mutations in all the genes which control a given character must lie very close to zero. For evolution to occur through mutation, countless sequential good mutations would be required; at each step all would have to cooperate harmoniously and each mutation would have to be selected for. This simply could not happen." *Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 66-67.
"Degeneration."
"The one systematic effect of mutation seems to be a tendency towards degeneration (as may be seen from a casual survey of the effects of most of the Drosophila mutations)." H. R. Siegler, Evolution or Degeneration (1972), 22.
"Decay mechanism . . mistake . . harmful or even lethal . ."
"The chief mechanism of permanent and innovative change in organisms (as distinct from normal Mendelian variations) is that of mutations. However, in perfect accordance with the creationist observation that a universal decay principle pervades all processes, it is significant that mutations are themselves basically decay mechanisms. A mutation represents a so-called 'mistake' in the transmission of genetic information from parent to progeny via the genetic code.
"It could also be described as a random change in the highly-ordered and complex structure of the germ cell, brought about by a powerful radiation or chemical penetrating the cell. Statistically and thermodynamically (as well as intuitively) a random change in an ordered system will, to a very high degree of probability, decrease the order of that system.
"This is why practically all known true mutations are harmful, or even lethal, mutations, and why genuine observed biologic changes are always either conservative (adaptational variations within the limits of the created 'kinds') or else disintegrative (e.g. vestigial organs, species extinctions, decreased viability due to the accumulated 'genetic load' of mutations, decreased longevity or fertility, etc.)." H. M. Morris, W. W. Board man and R. F. Koontz, Science and Creation 1971), p.14.
3
MATH ON MUTATIONS
What are the mathematical probabilities that mutations could possibly produce the origin and evolution of all the life forms in the world ,with all their millions of interior systemic parts and organs? Here is some Information:
It is a lunatic sort of logic.
"This is really the theory that [says] if you start with any fourteen lines of coherent English and change it one letter at a time, keeping only those things that still make sense, you will eventually finish up with one of the sonnets of Shakespeare . . it strikes me as a lunatic sort of logic, and I think we should be able to do better." *C.H. Waddington, "Evolution," in Science Today, p. 38. [Waddington is a geneticist.]
Slips cannot do the job.
"No, decidedly, I cannot make myself think that these 'slips' of heredity [mutations] have been able, even with the cooperation of natural selection, even with the advantage of the immense periods of time in which evolution works on life, to build the entire world, with its structural prodigality and refinements, its astounding adaptations." *Jean Rostand, The Orion Book of Evolution, p. 79.
An utterance of a myth.
"Upon rigorous examination and analysis, any dogmatic assertion . . that gene mutations are the raw material for any evolutionary process involving natural selection is an utterance of a myth." *John N. Moors, On Chromosomes, Mutations, and Phylogeny, p. 5.
Nobody in their senses considers such a possibility.
"All biologists are not equally satisfied. Some feel that the argument gets uncomfortably close to a point when an adequate number of monkeys, tapping typewriters for an adequate length of time will inevitably produce an encyclopedia. Such a thing, of course, is conceivably possible but nobody in their senses takes such things into consideration in everyday life.
"We either have to accept natural selection as the only available guide to the mechanism of evolution, and be prepared to admit that it involves a considerable element of speculation, or feel in our bones that natural selection, operating on the random mutations, leaves too much to chance . . If we look on organic evolution as one of Nature's games of chance, it seems just a little strange that she should have dean quite so many winning hands. But, your guess is as good as mine." *Sir James Gray, Science today, pp. 2930.
Scientists tell us that there may be one favorable mutation out of every thousand harmful ones. Huxley, a dedicated evolutionist, takes that estimate and figures the odds, assuming only a million mutational steps to lead from one species to another. After showing that it cannot happen, he then says it did it anyway!
"A proportion of favorable mutations of one in a thousand does not sound much, but is probably generous . . And a total of a million mutational steps sounds a great deal but is probably an understatement.. However, let us take these figures as being reasonable estimates. With this proportion, but without any selection, we should clearly have to breed a million strains (a thousand squared) to get one containing two favorable mutations; and so on, up to a thousand to the millionth power to get one containing a million. Of course this could not really happen, but it is a useful way of visualizing the fantastic odds against getting a number of favorable mutations in one strain through pure chance alone. A thousand to the millionth power, when written out, becomes the figure 1 with three million noughts after it; and that would take three large volumes of about 500 pages each, just to print) . . No one would bet on anything so improbable happening. And yet it has happened) It has happened, thanks to the working of natural selection and the properties of living substance which make natural selection inevitable)" *Julian Huxley, Evolution in Action (1953), p. 41.
Five favorable mutations could never occur within the lifetime of an individual yet billions would have had to occur within a few minutes in order for it to survive!
"The frequency with which a single non harmful mutation is known to once mutate is about 1 in 1000. The probability that two favorable mutations would occur is 1 in 103 X 10', in a million. Studies of Drosophila have revealed that large numbers of genes are involved in the formation of the separate structural elements. There may be 30,E involved in a single wing structure. It is moat unlikely that fewer than five genders could ever be involved in the formation of even the simplest new structure, previously unknown in the organism. The probability now becomes one in one thousand million million. We already know that mutations in living cells appear once in ten million to once in one hundred thousand million. It is evident that the probability of five favorable mutations occurring within a single life cycle of an organism is effectively zero." *E. Ambrose, The Nature and Origin of the Biological World (1982), p. 120.
Random mutations could not produce five effective, beneficial changed genes.
"The difficulties in explaining the origin of increased complexity as a result of bringing a 'cluster' of genes together within the nuclei of a single organism in terms of probabilities, fade into insignificance when we recognize that there must be a close integration of functions between the individual genes of the cluster, which must also be integrated into the development of the entire organism.
"The improbability increases at an enormous rate as the number of genes increases from one to five . . The problem of bringing together the eve mutated genes we are considering, within a single nucleus, and for them to 'fit' immediately into this vast complex of interacting units, is indeed difficult. When it is remembered that they must give some selective advantage, or else become scattered once more within the population at large. Due to interbreeding, it seems impossible to explain these events in terms of random mutation alone." *E. Ambrose, The Nature and Origin of the Biological World, (1982), pp. 123-124.
It takes 10 million years just to establish one mutation as a regular characteristic of a gene.
"Something of the order of 10 million years is needed to establish a mutation. That is, each of these single amino acid changes appears relatively frequently in individuals as pathology; but to establish one such change as a regular characteristic in a species seems to take something of the order of 10 million years." *G. World, "The Problems of Vicarious Selection" in Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution (196, p. 59.
*Dodson says it would take 20 million years.
"If you make a rough estimate, it looks as if something of the order of 10 million years is needed to establish a mutation. That is, each of these single amino acid changes appears relatively frequently in individuals as pathology; but to establish such change as a regular characteristic in a species seems to take something of the order of 20 million years." *E. Dodson, Evolution: Process and Product (1960), p. 225.
4
FRUIT FLIES SPEAK UP
Well, they may not say much, but at least those who have spent years observing them surely have something to say. The humble fruit fly will speak to us through the researchers who have spent countless hours studying the varied ways in which mutations have damaged those flies:
In 1904, Walter S. Sutton, an American cytologist, decided there might be some connection between Gregor Mendel's 1860s research and the newly-discovered chromosomes with their genes. A major breakthrough came in 1906, when Thomas Hunt Morgan, a Columbia University zoologist, conceived the idea of using fruit flies (Drosophila melanogaster) for genetic research. This was due to the fact that they breed so very rapidly, require little food, have scores of easily observed characteristics, and only a few chromosomes per cell.
"The fly could be bred by the thousands in milk bottles. It coat nothing but a few bananas to feed all the experimental animals; their entire life cycle lasts 10 days and they have only four chromosomes." *R. Milner, Encyclopedia of Evolution (1990), p. 169.
Later still, fruit flies began to be used in mutational research. What that research revealed settled the question for all time as to whether evolution could successfully result from mutations. And those little creatures should be able to settle the matter, for it takes only 12 days for a fruit fly to reach maturity; after that it steadily reproduces young. Each of its offspring matures in 12 days, and the generations multiply rapidly. What it would take mammals tens of thousands of years to accomplish, the humble fruit flies can do within a very short time.
We have heard about "the rocks crying out" (Luke 19:40). The fossil rocks surely are. Well, the little fruit flies have a testimony to give also.
Pitman says the experiments have only produced geneticists' monsters.
"Take the example of fruit flies (Drosophila). Morgan, Goldschmidt, Muller and other geneticists have subjected generations of fruit flies to extreme conditions of heat, cold, light, dark and treatment by chemicals and radiation. All sorts of mutations, practically all trivial or positively deleterious, have been produced. Man-made evolution? Not really: few of the geneticists' monsters could have survived outside the bottles they were bred in. In practice mutants die, are sterile or tend to revert to the wild-type." *Michael Pitman, Adam and Evolution (1984), p. 70.
*Richard Goldschmidt spent a lifetime studying mutated fruit flies, and as a result totally gave up classical evolutionary theory.
"After observing mutations in fruit flies for many years, Professor Goldschmidt fell into despair. The changes, he lamented, were so hopelessly micro [insignificant] that if a thousand mutations were combined in one specimen, there would still be no new species." *Norman Macbeth, Darwin Retried (1971), p. 33.
Fruit flies which receive mutations are always weakened in one way or another.
"The clear-cut mutants of Drosophila, with which so much of the classical research in genetics was done, are almost without exception inferior to wild-type flies in viability, fertility, longevity." *Theodosius Dobzansky, Heredity and the Nature of Man (1964), p. 126.
According to evolution, man has lived on the earth for a little over a million years. Yet experiments on fruit flies have already exceeded the equivalent of a million years of people living on earth. Here is a clear statement of the problem:
"The fruit fly has long been the favorite object of mutation experiments because of its fast gestation period (twelve days). X rays have been used to increase the mutation rate in the fruit fly by 15,000 percent. All in all, scientists have been able to "catalyze the fruit fly evolutionary process such that what has been seen to occur in Drosophila is the equivalent of many millions of years of normal mutations and evolution."
"Even with this tremendous speedup of mutations, scientists have never been able to come up with anything other than another fruit fly. Most important, what all these experiments demonstrate is that the fruit fly can vary within certain upper and lower limits but will never go beyond them. For example, Ernst Mayr reported on two experiments performed on the fruit fly back in 1948.
"In the first experiment, the fly was selected for a decrease in bristles and, in the second experiment, for an increase in bristles. Starting with a parent stock averaging 36 bristles, it is possible after thirty generations to lower the average to 25 bristles, "but then the line became sterile and died out." In the second experiment, the average number of bristles was increased from 36 to 56; then sterility set in. Mayr concluded with the following observation: Obviously any drastic improvement under selection must seriously deplete the store of genetic variability . . The most frequent correlated response of one-sided selection is a drop in general fitness. This plagues virtually every breeding experiment." *Jeremy Rifkin, Algeny (1983), p. 134.
The mutated creatures die out, when placed out in nature with normal, hardy specimens.
"A review of known facts about their ability to survive has led to no other conclusion than that they [the mutated offspring] are always constitutionally weaker than their parent form or species, and in a population with free competition they are eliminated . . Therefore they are never found in nature (e.g. not a single one of the several hundred [types] of Drosophila mutations), and therefore, they are able to appear only in the favorable environment of the experimental field or laboratory." *H. Nilsson, Synthetische Artbildng (1954), p. 1186.
After decades of study, without immediately killing or sterilizing them, 400 different mutational features have been identified in fruit flies. But none of these changes the fruit fly to a different species.
"Out of 400 mutations that have been provided by Drosophila melanogaster, there is not one that can be called a new species. It does not seem, therefore, that the central problem of evolution can be solved by mutations." *Maurice Caullevy, Genetics and Heredity (1964), p. 119.
The following news article sums it all up. Notice the fact that, in those instances in which damaged fruit flies survive long enough, they change back into regular fruit flies even those without eyes!
"For 80 years scientists have been experimenting with the lowly fruit fly (Drosophila), trying to prove that all life on planet earth is the result of a series of 'good accidents.'
"Evolutionists, through a marvelous leap of faith, believe that the almost endless variety and complexity of plants and animals 'evolved' from an ancient pool of 'primordial soup.'
"How do they believe this is possible? By millions and billions of accidents. For example, an early fish might accidentally grow a new kind of fin which helped him swim faster and escape his enemies. Then his fins might accidentally turn to legs he could use to walk on land, and so on.
"All this is based on a faith by the evolutionist that somehow, somewhere a gene changed to give this higher life form. It has to be faith, because there is yet no evidence that when genes have accidents (called mutations), that it is for the better.
"The evidence is overwhelming that such accidents either make the gene worse, or at best, no better than the original.
"After all, how often do you see a car run faster and more smoothly after a head-on collision?
"Well, back to fruit flies. Because fruit flies reproduce many generations in a very short time, scientists picked them for the experiment hoping to compress thousands of eyes of 'evolution' into a few years of lab work.
"After 80 years and millions of generations of fruit flies subjected to X-rays and chemicals which cause mutations, all they have been able to produce are more of the same: fruit flies.
"And, more importantly, they have all been no better or stronger and many have been weaker. All the changes eventually reached limits that, when approached, the strains of the fruit flies grew progressively weaker and died.
"And when the mutated strains were allowed to breed for several generations, they gradually changed back to the original form.
"One experiment produced fruit flies without eyes. Yet, after a few life cycles, flies with eyes began to appear. Some kind of genetic repair mechanism took over and blocked any possibility of evolution.
"God was very careful in Genesis to state that each of the animals were created 'after his kind.' After 80 years and millions of generations, God was proven right: a fruit fly will always be a fruit fly. " "Evolutionists Still Looking for a `Good Accident,' " Battle Cry, July-August, 1990.
The classical example of the damaging effects of mutations is to be found in what scientists have done to fruit flies by inducing mutations in them.
"Most mutants which arise in any organism are more a less disadvantageous to their possessors. The classical mutants obtained in Drosophila usually show deterioration, breakdown, or disappearance of some organs. Mutants are known which diminish the quantity or destroy the pigment in the eyes, and in the body reduce the wings, eyes, bristles, legs. Many mutants are, in fact lethal to their possessors. Mutants which equal the normal fly in vigor are a minority, and mutants that would make a major improvement of the normal organization in the normal environments are unknown." *Theodosius Dobzhansky, Evolution, Genetics, and Man (1955), p. 105.
Offspring of mutated parents are always weaker.
"A review of known facts about their [mutated fruit flies] ability to survive has led to no other conclusion than that they are always constitutionally weaker than their parent form or species, and in a population with free competition they are eliminated. Therefore they are never found in nature (e.g. not a single one of the several hundreds of Drosophila mutations), and therefore they are able to appear only in the favourable environment of the experimental field a laboratory . . " *N. Herbert Nilsson, Synthetische Artbildung (1953), p. 1186.
No new species fruit flies have ever resulted from sixty years of irradiating the poor creatures.
"It is a striking, but not much mentioned fact that, though geneticists have been breeding fruit flies for sixty years or more in labs all round the world flies which produce new generation every eleven days they have never yet seen the emergence of a new species or even a new enzyme." *Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery (1983), p. 48.
The final word: A thousand known fruit-fly mutations placed in one individual would still not produce a new species!
"In the best-known organisms, like Drosophila, innumerable mutants are known. If we were able to combine a thousand or more of such mutants in a single individual, this still would have no resemblance whatsoever to any type known as a [new] species in nature." *Richard B. Goldschmidt, "Evolution, As Viewed by One Geneticist, "American Scientist, January 1952, p. 94.
The obstinate, stubborn little creatures!
"Fruit flies refuse to become anything but fruit flies under any circumstances yet devised." *Francis Hitching, The Neck of the Giraffe: Where Darwin Went Wrong (1982), p. 61.
5
AN EVOLUTIONIST'S PARADISE
Look the world over, and you will find only one location where the evolutionist's goal can be achieved. That is a place where large amounts of mutations have occurred. Such places are evolutionary paradises, for these are the locations where the evolutionists can prove their theory that mutations are able to produce wonderfully beneficial, totally new species.
Only in the 20th century have we had the opportunity to investigate such paradises, for, outside of the fruit fly laboratories, It has only been since 1945 that we have produced them. Some might say that there has not been enough time for such paradises to propagate new species, but it is well known among thinking scientists that new species would have to be rapidly produced or they would die. Living organisms are far too complicated to live long with only part of their revised organs in place.
On November 5, 1895, the German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen accidentally discovered X-rays. That occurrence revolutionized physics, and within a few weeks radioactivity was discovered.
"What was also discovered the hard way was that high-energy radiation could cause cancer. At least one hundred of the early workers with X-rays and radioactive materials died of cancer, the first death taking place in 1902. As a matter of fact, both Marie Curie and her daughter, Irene Joliot-Curie, died of leukemia. .
"What can all the various carcinogens chemical, radiation, and so on possibly have in common? One reasonable thought is that all of them may cause genetic mutations, and that cancer may be the result of mutations in body calls.. That energetic radiation can produce mutations is well established. What about the chemical carcinogens? Well, mutation by chemicals also has been demonstrated. The nitrogen mustards are a clear example . .
"The chemicals that cause mutations are called mutagens." *Isaac Asimov, Asimov's New Guide to Science (1984), p. 691-692.
The leading science writer of our time tells us to avoid anything which might cause mutations in our bodies:
"Most mutations at least 99 percent of them are detrimental, some even lethal. Eventually, even those that are only slightly harmful die out, because their bearers do not get along as well and leave fewer descendants than healthy individuals do . .
"Genetic research shows incontrovertibly that, for the population as a whole, even a slight increase in general exposure to radiation means a corresponding slight increase in the mutation rate . . There is, however, a strong recommendation that the danger be recognized and that exposure to radiation be minimized: that, for instance, X-rays be used with discrimination and care, and that the sexual organs be routinely shielded during all such use." *Op. cit., pp. 612-613.
(We will not take time to discuss budding eyes, which is also an evolutionist's paradise. The budding eyes on roses react to radiation by producing far more mutated forms than most other plants. Yet the result never produces new species, and only weakens the offspring of the specimens receiving it.)
"More mutations were obtained by the irradiation of 50 rose 'budding eyes' than one could find in a field of a million rose plants in a lifetime of patient searching." -W. E. Lammerts, Why Not Creation? (1970), p. 301.
There is nothing else that can produce classical evolutionary effects. The evolution results hesitantly postulated by *Charles Darwin, and triumphantly declared by later evolutionists to be a positive fact have only had the slightest possibility of ever occurring anywhere except in one place: a location subject to high nuclear bombardment of some kind (X-rays, atomic radiation, etc.).
Only then could enough mutations be produced to accomplish the glorious effects of evolution.
Here are three evolutionists' paradises, where massive amounts of mutations can be studied, all their wholesome, beneficial results can be observed, and the interrelation of natural selection in using them to produce new species can be measured:
1- Irradiated Jars of Fruit Files. In miniature, such a place is the fruit fly jar in the laboratory of the geneticist. Millions of such jars have been heavily irradiated for nearly half a century. Within those jars we should find NEW species! Not fruit flies, but something new! This is because radiation increases the number of mutations a million-fold more than could ever occur out in nature to fruit flies in a million years of time! Earlier in this chapter we mentioned the damage that mutations produce in fruit flies. We will not repeat it here.
Needless to say, irradiated fruit flies have never transmuted through their offspring into some different type of creature.
2 - Chernobyl. Chernobyl is a second evolutionist's paradise. Here we have not jars of flies, but everything in s very large area of rural countryside heavily irradiated! Just think of all the wonderful evolutionary results that can arise from such a situation) Wonderful new species of plants and animals, advanced humanoids, as far beyond human beings, as people are beyond apes; this, according to evolutionary mutation theory, is the inevitable result. The possibilities are terrific, and the effects are taking place before us right now over in southwestern Russia. No expensive scientific funding was necessary to start this project; in fact, it is already in process whether we like it or not.
In the case of the fruit flies, we have already mentioned the results of that paradise: Only abnormal flies are produced, and they and their descendants are only weakened, if not dead within a generation or two. Never not once has a new species been produced in those irradiated jars! Fruit flies produce thousands of generations within a comparatively short time, so the effects of mutations can be studied on down through great lengths of abbreviated time. And the result: nothing in the way of evolution.
In the case of Chernobyl, we have an exceedingly broad area that was irradiated. This paradise is much larger)
News report dated April 27, 1990: Three years and one day after the nuclear meltdown of Chernobyl, 800,000 children in the Byelorussian Province of the Soviet Union, located north of Chernobyl, urgently need medical treatment as a result of the radiation received from that accident:
With four working reactors and two more being built, Chernobyl was destined to be one of the most Powerful nuclear power stations in the Soviet Union. Located in the heart of some of the best agricultural regions of the nation, a sizable population lived in towns, cities, and communes on all sides of it.
At 1:24 a.m., local time, on April 26, 1986, one or two explosions rocked the plant and blew apart reactor No. 4 and produced the worst nuclear plant accident in modern history. The blasts) tore off a thousand ton lid resting on the reactor core and tore a hole in the building's side and roof. Several tons of uranium dioxide fuel and fission products such as cesium 137 and iodine 131 were hurled into the air. The explosion and heat sent up a 3 mile (5 km) plume of smoke laden with contaminants.
Within ten days, clouds of deadly irradiated dust traveled northwest over Poland and into Scandinavia, and thence south to Greece, spreading contaminates throughout eastern Europe. Then it blew westward over the length of the Soviet Union, and a small amount of it even reached California.
By Soviet accounts, 50 megacuries of the most dangerous radio nuclides were released into the atmosphere, plus 50 megacuries of chemically inert radioactive gases. (In comparison, 17 curies were released in the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania in 1979.)
Soon after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, Soviet officials ordered the permanent evacuation of all villages within 19 miles of the power plant. What they did not immediately recognize was that heavy nuclear fallout covered a much broader area. In some parts of Narodichi, a Ukrainian agricultural distract whose boundaries lie some 37 miles from the reactor, levels of radioactivity are still nine times as high as the acceptable limits.
What about the plants and animals? A Spring 1990 study, done 3 years after the meltdown by the chief economist of a Soviet government institute, calculates that the cost of Chernobyl including the price of the cleanup and the value of lost farmland and production, could run as high as $358 billion20 times as much as earlier official estimates.
Did this mutational paradise help the plants? No fabulously new crops have been produced. Instead, the entire farm crop situation has been terribly worsened. Plants sickened and died. Plants continue to sicken and die.
Did this mutational paradise help the livestock? Because the radiation cloud from the 1987 meltdown went into the very soil, every passing year brings more and more birth defects among farm animals. Colts with eight limbs, deformed lower jaws, and disjointed spinal columns have been born. The Yuri Gagarin collective farm in Vyazovka has produced 197 freak calves. Some of the animals had no eyes, deformed skulls, and distorted mouths. At a farm in Malinovka, about 200 pigs, damaged in one way or another, have been born since the accident. We are viewing an evolutionist's paradise in action!
But not only externally observed changes have occurred, internal organs are, on an ongoing basis, being damaged also. This is regularly producing fetal abortions, stillbirths, and infant deaths among the animals.
What about the people? From Fall 1988 to Spring 1999, there has begun a dramatic rise in thyroid disease, anemia, and cancer. Residents are complaining of fatigue, as well as loss of vision and appetite. An astounding drop in the immunity level of the entire population in that region has occurred. People have a difficult time recovering from the simplest infection, and children are affected even more than grownups.
The poisoning of the land by radiation has caused dire health problems. The radiation affects non-genetic tissue, and within reproductive cells it causes mutations in the DNA which produce deformed or dead offspring.
And what about those new species? Not one has occurred. No new species have come into existence. The species there are the same ones that have always been there; only now they are damaged and dying. This is because massive and totally beneficial mutations would have to occur to produce unique new species. But that cannot occur and will never occur, because random mutations only sporadically occur even in a place like Chernobyl and they are always always harmful and weakening.
Ironically, we know so much about this because of the dedicated efforts of Igor Kostin, the first man to photograph the Chernobyl accident from the air. Since 1987, he has returned to the reactor six times and has spent hundreds of hours in the Chernobyl area, and traveled extensively throughout the regions surrounding it, documenting the ongoing tragedy on film for the world. But his heroic effects to make that information available have damaged his own body. Exposed to 5 times the acceptable level of radiation, he is now constantly tired and sometimes has trouble walking. But he keeps leaving his home in Kiev, and journeying to Chernobyl so the world can know what is happening there.
News report, April 1991: A Soviet government Ministry has announced that instead of an official " 37 people" who have died as a result of the Chernobyl accident, the figure approximates 10,000 deaths to date.
3 - Hiroshima. This paradise carries us still farther back into the past, and in so doing provides us with a far longer span of time in which to examine the noble consequences of radiation on human genetic tissue.
It was a beautiful morning with not a cloud in the sky. The date was August 6, 1945, the time 8:00 a.m. A single plane was in the sky. Then its bomb-bay doors opened.
When the bomb reached 1,850 feet, a radar echo set off an ordinary explosion inside. This drove a wedge of U-235 into a larger piece of U235, setting off a blast with the force of 13,000 tons of TNT. As a result, more than 41/z square miles of the city were destroyed. The "Little Boy" atomic bomb exploded only 800 feet from on target, and essentially destroyed the city. Over 92,000 persons were dead or missing.
The living were worse off than the dead, for radiation poured into their bodies from the explosion and the after radiation cloud. The name the Japanese gave to the miserable survivors was hibakusha. These poor creatures have struggled with radiation-damaged bodies through the remainder of their shortened lives. Not one of them evolved into a different species or a new super-race.
Would you care to go to any one of those larger evolutionists' paradises Chernobyl now or Hiroshima in the fall of 1945? No, you would not. This is because radiation, X-rays, mutational damage of body and chromosome is not a pleasant matter. Everyone fears radiation, even the evolutionists. They would not want to go there either. Yet these same men calmly tell us that all the good in our world today: the beautiful plants, trees, animals, and people, and all the hope of our future progress is but the result of mutational damage to DNA, such as occurred at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl.
Yet, as the geneticists have discovered, most such mutations primarily come from radiation of one type or another, rather than from other sources. And the other sources, such as mustard gas, are not pleasant either.
Here is a brief overview of some of the things that can cause mutational damage to your body:
"Put in the fewest possible words, Darwinism today is seen as espousing the process of organic evolution resulting from the natural selection of accidental gene mutations.
"What is thought to be the cause of these spontaneous changes which take place in genes and which are alleged to cause either an improved or a diminished state of the body? The basic source is considered to be the impact of ionizing radiations, or the effects of a wide assortment of unusually reactive chemicals called mutagens.
"Radiations capable of altering the physical or chemical makeup of genes come from a variety of sources. They may come from the surrounding environment, in which the immediate natural minerals in some locations emit penetrating radiations. Radiations may also originate in outer space. These cosmic rays constantly bombard our bodies day and night. Ultra-violet light and X-rays are also capable of mutagenic effects.
"Adding to this, there are a great many very reactive chemicals which are capable of chemically altering crucial genes, should these chemicals manage to reach the sex cells. Examples of chemical mutagens are epoxides, peroxides, mustard compounds of some types, and even the common preservative, formaldehyde [a constituent of plastics]." Lester J. McCann, Blowing the Whistle on Darwinism (1986), pp. 45-46.
Not once has any serious biologist or geneticist declared that radiation is helpful to humanity. Yet radiation is the stuff that mutations are made of, and mutations are supposed to have produced all the amazing life forms in our world.
"Biologists have found that they can produce mutations in the laboratory by using X-rays, but they have given no clear evidence that mutations beneficial to the organism can be produced in this way." Howard B. Holhoyd, "Darwinism is Physical and Mathematical Nonsense," in Creation Research Society Quarterly, June 1972, p. 12.
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