Mutations are dislocations, breaks and impairments as a result of radiation of chemical effects in the DNA molecule in the nucleus of the living cell and that carries all the information about a human being. The information in DNA is set out by 4 separate nucleotides, symbolized by the letters A, T, C and G, laid out in a special and significant sequence. But an error in a single letter in that sequence will damage the entire structure. The leukemia observed in children appears because one of the letters in the DNA is incorrect. The reason for diseases such as cancer appearing or subsequent generations being deformed as a result of the radiation leakage in Chernobyl of the atom bomb dropped over Hiroshima is harmful effects of this kind caused by mutations in people’s bodies.
Almost all mutations are harmful, and they are generally lethal to living things. Examples of mutations that are not harmful generally do the organism no good, and are at best neutral. Scientists have concluded that not a single one out of all those that have been studied has had a positive effect on a living thing’s life.1
But the theory of evolution is based on fictitious mutations that produce “new” living things and work miracles. Darwinists maintain that species emerge from one another through structures and organs appearing as a result of countless fictitious and beneficial mutations. This claim, a source of terrible shame for Darwinists, is put forward by Darwinist scientists who know that mutations always harm an organism. Moreover, although Darwinists are well aware of these harmful effects of mutations they still point to a mutant, four-winged fruit fly subjected to mutations in the laboratory in support of their claims. Darwinists portrayed the extra pair of wings produced in a fruit fly as a result of carefully performed mutations as the greatest evidence that mutations could lead to evolution. But the two wings in question actually damaged the creature rather than benefiting it, leading to its losing the ability to fly. The University of California molecular biologist summarizes the position as follows:
In the 1970s, Cal Tech geneticist Edward B. Lewis discovered that by carefully breeding three mutant strains he was able to produce a fruit fly in which the balancers were transformed into a second pair of normal-looking wings.
At first glance, this might seem to provide evidence for Carroll's claim that small developmental changes in regulatory DNA can produce large evolutionary changes in form. But the fruit fly is still a fruit fly. Furthermore, although the second pair of wings looks normal, it has no flight muscles. A four-winged fruit fly is like an airplane with a second pair of wings dangling uselessly from its tail. It has great difficulty flying or mating, so it can survive only in the laboratory. As evidence for evolution, a four-winged fruit fly is no better than a two-headed calf in a circus sideshow.2
Jonathan Wells continues:
Disabled fruit flies with extra wings or missing legs have taught us something about developmental genetics, but nothing about evolution. All of the evidence points to one conclusion: no matter what we do to a fruit fly embryo, there are only three possible outcomes-a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly, or a dead fruit fly. Not even a horsefly, much less a horse.3
As we have seen, the four-winged mutant fruit fly that is the only evidence that Darwinists point to in support of their warped claims is in fact nothing more than a disabled fruit fly. No matter what effect mutations may have on a life form, they do not possess the miraculous property of bestowing a characteristic belonging to another life form onto it. But Darwinists want to believe the lie that miracles occur in living things by way of mutations.
The interesting thing is that although Darwinist scientists know that the fruit fly in question is defective, attempts are still made to depict it as the greatest evidence for evolution by mutation in school text books. The molecular biologist Jonathan Wells writes:
According to Peter Raven and George Johnson’s 1999 textbook, Biology, “all evolution begins with alterations in the genetic message… Genetic change through mutation and recombination [the re-arrangement of existing genes] provides the raw materials for evolution.” The same page features a photo of a four-winged fruit fly, which is described as “a mutant because of changes in Ultrabithorax, a gene regulating a critical stage of development; it possesses two thoracic segments and thus two sets of wings.”
…
Adding to the confusion, textbook accounts typically leave the reader with the impression that the extra wings represent a gain of structures. But four-winged fruit flies have actually lost structures which they need for flying. Their balancers are gone, and instead of being replaced with something new have been replaced with copies of structures already present in another segment. Although pictures of four-winged fruit flies give the impression that mutations have added something new, the exact opposite is closer to the truth.4
Even if we assume that the “fictitious first cell” that Darwinists claim represents the beginning of life and that cannot possibly have come into being by chance did actually emerge spontaneously, even the smallest stage of the imaginary evolutionary process that would have to take place to give rise to man with his complex structure would require an astounding amount of information to be produced and countless mutations to take place. “All” of these many mutations have to be beneficial to the life form or else bring about the appearance of something “new.” Because a single error in this fictitious developing life form will cause the entire system to go wrong and collapse. Ninety-nine percent of mutations are harmful while 1% are neutral. It flies in the face of both reason and science, therefore, to suggest that every single one of these mutations that would have to take place according to the theory of evolution can be beneficial.
It is therefore impossible for a brand new organ or characteristic that did not exist before to appear by chance as the result of mutations. Mutations have no power to bestow new information on a life form that does not belong to it, or to turn it into a different organism. The idea of mutation represents the greatest manifestation of the falsehood and illogicality of Darwinism. Because the idea of evolution is based on these illusory “beneficial mutation” that do not in fact exist.
The Infinite Amount of Time Needed for Hypothetical Beneficial Mutations
Even if we hypothesize that beneficial mutations could take place, the idea of mutation is still incompatible with the theory of evolution. In a paper titled “The Inadequacy of Neo-Darwinian Evolution As a Scientific Theory,” Professor Murray Eden from the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Faculty of Electrical Engineering showed that if it required a mere six mutations to bring about an adaptive change, this would occur by chance only once in a billion years - while, if two dozen genes were involved, it would require 10,000,000,000 years, which is much longer than the age of the Earth. 5 Even if we assume that mutations were effective and beneficial in complex organs and structures requiring more than one mutation to occur at the same time, mathematicians still say the problem of time is an acute dilemma for Darwinists. Even Professor of Paleontology George G. Simpson, one of the most unrepentant Darwinists, clearly states that it would take an infinite length of time for five mutations to happen at the same time. 6 An infinite amount of time means zero probability. And that is a probability applying to all the structures and organisms possessed by living things. There is thus no possibility of the glorious variety of life we see in our daily lives coming about through mutations.
The evolutionist George G. Simpson has performed another calculation regarding the mutation claim in question. He admitted that in a community of 100 million individuals we assume to produce a new generation every day, a positive outcome from mutations would only take place once every 274 billion years. That number is many times greater the age of the Earth, estimated at 4.5 billion years. 7 These, of course, are all calculations assuming that mutations have a positive effect of that new generations gave rise to. But no such assumption applies in the real world.
Why Is the Body That Is Supposedly Evolving Protected against Mutations?
All evolutionist scientists know that the probability of a replication error taking place in a living thing’s DNA for no reason is very low. Research has revealed that there are protective elements in the cell that prevent genetic errors arising. The information in DNA cannot be copied in the absence of particular enzymes that protect one another against errors. These include doubt-filter enzymes for ensuring that the right amino acid binds to the right tRNA. One filter rejects amino acids that are too large, and the other those that are too small. This is a very sensitive and rational system. There are also enzymes that do the final checks against the possibility of any error arising in this intelligent system. Scientists have concluded that there is a better cellular control and protection system aimed at maintaining the integrity of DNA than they had ever imagined. 8
Pierre Paul Grassé, who spent 30 years as professor of evolution at the Sorbonne, wrote this on the subject:
The probability of dust carried by the wind reproducing Dürer’s “Melancholia” is less infinitesimal than the probability of copy errors in the DNA molecules leading to the formation of the eye. 9
Darwinists ignore this miraculous system in DNA and avoid going deeply into the subject and coming with any explanation of it. But they construct a scenario of the history of life built on replication errors with an almost zero possibility of coming about. This once again reveals the nonsensical nature of Darwinist logic.
Following the realization that Darwin’s idea of natural selection very definitely did not constitute an account of the so-called evolution and the emergence of the laws of genetics as a lethal blow to Darwinism, the claim of the “evolutionary effect of mutations,” which had been the main weapon of neo-Darwinism, was seen to be no more than a deception. It is absolutely ridiculous to claim that a mechanism such as mutation, which damages, destroys and kills the living organism, as well as sometimes harming all subsequent generations, can give rise to whole new living things.
But masses of people were taken in by this lie for years. Darwinist scientists of course know that mutations have no such miraculous power. Even Richard Dawkins, one of the present day’s most fervid Darwinists, admits that “most mutations are deleterious, so some undesirable side effect is pretty likely.” 10 The reason why Darwinists still propose this discredited claim as a mechanism for evolution is their devotion to the superstitious religion of Darwinism.
1 Nicholas Comninellis, Creative Defense, Evidence Against Evolution, Master Books, 2001, pp. 74-75
2 Jonathan Wells, Ph.D., The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, Regnery Publishing Inc., Washington, 2006, p.34
3 Ibid., p. 36
4 Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution, pp.185,186, 187
5 Gordon Rattray Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery, Sphere Books Ltd., 1984, p. 4
6 Ibid., p. 230
7 Nicholas Comninellis, Creative Defense Evidence Against Evolution, Master Books, 2001, p. 81
8 Ibid., pp.74-75
9 Ibid., p. 81
10 Richard Dawkins, The Extended Phenotype, Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 141