“Evidence for Creation” (Review) - Chapter 4 “Evidence from Life” (Part 3)
As I’ve been writing about Chapter 4, I have to say that DNA is one area that I am not settled on. What I mean is that while the Evolutionist responses to the Creationist perspective are reasonable, they have not convinced me that there are natural laws by which raw elements could, stage by stage, evolve into DNA-based life. It doesn’t threaten my faith if there are such laws, because any hypothetically undiscovered law of nature was designed and created by God. For me then, the question reduces not to whether God did it, but how. I sure am curious, and the statistical mind exercises and computer simulations I have been reporting on convince me that it is worth researching further.
The problem with researching evolution can be best understood if you reduce it logically to a chain of causality. A was caused by B, B by C, and so forth, until you finally reach back to God. The problem is that any two sequential steps are not really sequential; there is always a gap between them, and we are either satisfied with the gap or we are not. Another problem with causality is that you are always left with researching the next cause back in the chain, then the next, then the next. What if we reach back past where God in fact did something supernatural? How would we know? Young Earth Creationists believe that we have done that already; Old Earth Creationists believe we’re not there yet. But here’s the thing. Historically, theories for the next cause back are always fuzzy… until they’re clear.
Well, back to the book.
Kind After Kind
Mutation occurs at a rate of one for every ten million cell duplications. This is an insignificant number, when compared to 100 trillion cells in a human body. Thus, the chance of having a couple of cells with a mutated form for every gene is possible without any noticeable effect. God not only created a simple and powerful information system with DNA, He also created a very stable system for transmitting that information. Mutations are very rare.
You may be wondering about the colors I added above. Well, as I have researched DeRosa’s claims, I have been realizing that DeRosa’s descriptions of scientific theories are largely restatements of well-known Creationist Scientists before him. I cannot fault him for quoting experts; I try and do the same. It’s just that I cannot tell which ideas are DeRosa’s and which are quoted. Consider the following Creationist quote from Glenn Morton’s article The Homo Erectus Genes in Us:
“Fortunately, mutations are very rare. They occur on an average of perhaps once every 10 million duplications of a DNA molecule (107, a one followed by 7 zeros). That’s fairly rare. On the other hand, its not that rare. Our bodies contain nearly 100 trillion cells (1014). So the odds are quite good that we have a couple of cells with a mutated form of almost any gene.” (Morris and Parker, 1987, p. 97)
In this case, DeRosa added that DNA reproduction is a stable system for information transmittal, created by God. True enough.
DeRosa then discusses a well-known mutation, the four-winged fruit fly. “Researchers have, by means of genetic breeding, changed a two-wing fruit fly into a four-wing fruit fly.” He then says, and correctly so, that the fruit fly is still a fruit fly, and that the second pair of wings actually hinders its ability to fly. Had this mutation occurred naturally, Natural Selection would have clearly selected this fly for extinction. He then concludes that “this is a poor example of evolution by mutation.” I disagree because the four-winged fruit fly is not an example of evolution at all. It is an example of a mutation, and an artificial one at that. That’s not evolution.
I googled on the “four-winged” “fruit fly”, and found mostly links to Creationist sites debunking the mutation in much the same way as DeRosa. One website stated, “Yet the four-winged fruit fly is seriously disabled, so it is not ‘a vivid example of one way mutation can provide variation for natural selection to work on.’ “ Other sites said something similar. But, here’s the thing. Natural Selection acts on both beneficial and detrimental mutations; one lives, the other dies. That is Natural Selection. In my opinion, YECs are missing the point entirely.
As a point of interest, I also found that the researchers who created the four-winged fruit fly won the Nobel prize. You can read about the other discoveries that resulted from studying these mutated flies if you’re interested.
Beneficial Mutations, Definitely a Defect
DeRosa goes on to make the point that he was probably trying to make with the fruit fly… that mutations are generally harmful. The example he sites is sickle cell anemia. Evolutionists site it as a beneficial mutation of the red blood cells, because people with sickle cell anemia are better able to survive malaria. The fact remains that the mutation itself, while beneficial, is also harmful.
It is unlikely that people afflicted by sickle cell anemia would agree with evolutionists that this disease is the result of a “beneficial mutation.” Resistance to malaria by means of a dangerous blood disorder that leads to premature death is hardly beneficial and does not confirm Darwin’s idea that species evolve upward over time.
The theory of Natural Selection would predict that, in malaria stricken regions, people with sickle cell anemia are more likely to reproduce than people without sickle cell. That is it. Natural Selection does not judge the quality of that extended life.
Beneficial Mutations “Exceedingly Rare”
I do agree that most of the mutations of which I have read, tend to result from a degradation to something, as opposed to enhancement.
Statistically Insignificant
Perhaps the best way to summarize the overuse of the evolutionists’ blind faith in “beneficial mutations” is with Sanford’s own words, “In conclusion, mutations appear to overwhelmingly deleterious, and even when one may be classified as beneficial in some sense, it is still usually part of an overall-all breakdown and erosion of information.”
No New Information
Still developing his argument DeRosa explains that mutations degrade a gene, hence constituting a loss of information that is passed down to the next generation. It does not introduce new information. “Most frequently, information exchange leads to a loss of information. The loss of genetic information is consistent with the universal law of entropy.” DeRosa then takes an interesting turn:
It can be observed that errors in the genetic code are passed between generations. The rate of mutation is much too high to allow for evolution over millions of years. There are 100 to 300 misspellings of our genetic code passed on from one generation to the next. This might seem insignificant when we consider that the human body possesses trillions of cells. However, the human race has six billion people, which means some 600 billion to 1.8 trillion genetic mistakes per generation.
Do you recall the paragraph of DeRosa’s that I quoted at the top of this post? Here it is again for your convenience:
Mutation occurs at a rate of one for every ten million cell duplications. This is an insignificant number, when compared to 100 trillion cells in a human body. Thus, the chance of having a couple of cells with a mutated form for every gene is possible without any noticeable effect. God not only created a simple and powerful information system with DNA, He also created a very stable system for transmitting that information. Mutations are very rare.
So, mutations are too rare for Evolution to happen at all, and too common for it to have taken millions of years! Am I reading this wrong? I am quite speechless, but as I said before, ”as I have researched DeRosa’s claims, I have been realizing that DeRosa’s descriptions of scientific theories are largely restatements of well-known Creationist Scientists before him.” Well, before I was just sure; now, I’m positive. To top it off, the one original part of that paragraph, the one idea that seemed to be DeRosa’s, is that God created “a very stable system for transmitting” genetic information. But you get to here, and that doesn’t seem to be his position at all.
Genetic Load
There was a subtlety to DeRosa’s point that may not have been clear. The 600 billion to 1.8 trillion mutations that occur every generation speak against Evolution because they are too detrimental and too frequent for Evolution to keep up.
If one includes other types of mutations, such as deletions, insertions, duplications, mitochondrial mutations and others, the number of individual mutations will be 1000 times more for each person and for the whole population. As a result, our genetic endowment is being corrupted. This phenomenon of accumulating mutations is best termed as “genetic load.”
- - -
Such a great rate of decay in the genetic code does not fit with the six to seven million years it took for man to evolve according to the evolutionary model. It fits best with a biblical time frame of 6,000 years. This range of time was determined using a biological decay curve that was constructed using the rate of genomic degeneration.
The flaw in DeRosa’s argument (or whosever argument he’s using) is that all of these mutations are happening in individual cells. He should review the paragraph by Morris and Parker that he seems have rewritten as his own: you probably have “a couple” of mutated cells. Where in your body are these cells? They could be anywhere, and so are almost definitely not your egg cells (if you’re a woman) or sperm cells (if you’re a man)… and those are the only cells that count when it comes to passing a mutation on to your kids! Now, how many cells do you have in your body? 100 trillion according to DeRosa. The odds therefore of a given person passing on a mutation is about 1 in 50 trillion (100 trillion divided by ”a couple”), I’m to believe Morris and Parker’s numbers. Even at 6 billion people in the world, it would require a mutation in 1 out of every 1,000 of your cells for just one person in this generation to pass on a mutation. That works out to be 1 billion mutations per person, just for one of them to pass on a mutation. Of course, I’ve neglected the rate of mutation of the female eggs, which decay significantly after age 40, but I think you get my point: DNA is fairly stable. DeRosa was the right the first time!
- - -
Well, I wanted to finish up Chapter 4 tonight, but I can tell it’s not going to happen. That’s okay. I’ll continue next time…
January 9th, 2008 at 9:31 am
Re-reading what I wrote last night, I should clarify some things:
1) I actually think that DeRosa found the “100 to 300 misspellings per generation” statistic, and multiplied them by the earth’s population, when in fact the numbers were already accounting for the population overall. I am not sure about this, but I suspect DeRosa was quoting someone who someone misunderstood the statisticl; I would need to research it myself or find someone who has.
2) The numbers I crunched are not meant as a serious estimate of the actual number of mutations per generation. My point was to show that DeRosa’s data conflicts, and that his points contradict each other. I should have worded my point to make clear my desire to leave reporting of the actual statistics to those who are better informed than me. That said, I do think that my mock computation of how many mutated cells would be required by every person does illustrate that something about DeRosa’s approach toward this doesn’t make sense. (Of course, if someone can see how I am the one missing the point, or has a better source for me to read on this, plase post it below!)