Evolutionist Misconceptions with Genetic Engineering
Harun YahyaGenetic engineering is the field in which genes from an organism are isolated, manipulated and transferred into another organism. Thanks to these studies, scientists can produce bacteria that digest industrial waste, clone living creatures and develop plants resistant to insects and disease.
Evolutionists have three errors with regard to these works:
- The error that common genes being transferable among organisms, prove that living things are descended from a common ancestor.
- The error that advances to organisms via genetic engineering confirm the theory of evolution
- The error that genetic engineering is “creation”
In what follows, it will be shown that genetic engineering does not support evolutionist claims; but on the contrary, supports “the fact of creation”, that is the Almighty God created all .
I. Genes, with their extremely complex structure, give the lie to evolutionist interpretations of their origin
Genes are a chain of molecules on which information about an organism is registered in a specific code. Molecules, named by the letters A, T, G and C and which encode genetic information like the letters of the alphabet, make up the links of this chain. A wrong arrangement in the nucleotides that form a gene will render the gene totally useless. The particular serial arrangement on one gene alone clearly invalidates the concept of chance. On this matter, the evolutionist biologist, Frank Salisbury says:
A medium protein might include about 300 amino acids. The DNA gene controlling this would have about 1,000 nucleotides in its chain. Since there are four kinds of nucleotides in a DNA chain, one consisting of 1,000 links could exist in 41,000 forms. Using a little algebra (logarithms) we can see that 41,000=10600. Ten multiplied by itself 600 times gives the figure 1 followed by 600 zeros! This number is completely beyond our comprehension. (Frank Salisbury, "Doubts About the Modern Synthetic Theory of Evolution", American Biology Teacher, September 1971, p. 336)
II. Common genes do not prove common ancestry.
The fact that genes are transferable among different organisms may be objectively accepted as an indication of a common origin. However, common origin is not proof of common ancestry. Common origin is what we generally see in intelligently designed devices. For example, spark plugs are common in automobile engines and they are transferable among different engines, as genes are transferable among organisms. Of course, the fact that spark plugs can be shared among different models of automobiles does not prove that sparks plugs and engines came about via some purposeless process. Similarly, the transferability of genes between organisms does not prove that the biological structures came into being by chance or purposeless natural events.
III. The Deception that Organisms Advanced by Genetic Engineering Validates Evolution
The advancement in their laboratories of organisms of which their genes have been interfered–to make plants resistant to disease and insects, for example–is used by evolutionists to prove their theory. But this is just deceptive propaganda.
The theory of evolution claims that changes in living things happen spontaneously as the result of chance and natural events without the inclusion of any intelligent factor. On the other hand, the causes for the changes obtained in genetic engineering are totally different from the chance causes supposed by the evolution theory.
Scientists are in a position to engineer genes and organize them intelligently toward specific purposes. After years of study, these individuals know about the functioning of cells. They organize every stage of their work with deliberate planning and controlled intervention. Moreover such studies are carried out in special laboratories using technological devices and completely “designed” environments.
Professor William D. Stanfield, himself an evolutionist, admits that such experiments cannot prove evolution. He gives an example from the synthesis of cells in a laboratory:
Creationists have looked forward to the day when science may actually create a “living” thing from simple chemicals.
They claim, and rightly so, that even if such a man-made life form could be created, this would not prove that natural life forms were developed by a similar chemical evolutionary process. (William D. Stansfield, Professor of Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University, The Science of Evolution, [1977], Macmillan: New York NY, 1983, Eighth Printing, pp. 10-11)
IV. The Deception That Genetic Engineering Is “Creation”
Materialists who deny the existence of God interpret genetic engineering as creation. (God is surely beyond that)
What atheists refuse to understand here is that “creation” means “to bring into being from nothing”. God is the Sole Creator. In genetic engineering, scientists make alterations in genes created by God in living things or transfer genes from one living thing to another. In these studies, the ‘genetic tool kit’ applied to the living creatures exists right from the start.
For example, by transferring the gene of a jellyfish into the DNA of a zebra fish, scientists can make the fish produce light; or by transferring a spider’s gene into the DNA of a goat, they could make a spider’s web produced in goat’s milk. But even if the living things so produced appeared to have new characteristics, new genetic information has not been created; existing information has simply been relocated in another creature.
Conclusion: Genetic Engineering Supports “Intelligent Design”
Even if scientists one day succeed in radically redesigning a living thing, this fact will not change. The molecular biologist, Michael Denton, writes:
In the future, if genetic engineers are ever able to radically redesign living systems from proteins to whole organisms, this will only be via intelligently directed changes which will almost certainly necessitate programmed simultaneous change in many of the basic subsystems. (Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny, Free Press, 1998, p. 321)
