In this lesson we will look at Genetics and DNA and how they present the greatest challenge to evolution. In the end, I am convinced that it will be the field of genetics that finally causes society to rethink evolution – and accept that it is just not realistic model of reality. The difficulty with this, of course, is that it is a complex area that most people will not delve into. This means that there are few mainstream challenges to evolution based upon findings in genetics.<\/p>\n
This lesson is not a Bible Study, as such, but a look at the serious limitations of the General Theory of Evolution, providing Christians with further confidence in Creation as presented in the book of Genesis. Whilst faith is asked of us, and is necessary, it need not be a blind faith – there is very good evidence to support the Bible and Biblical Creation model.<\/p>\n
All life depends on information \u2013 an instruction set \u2013 to survive and reproduce. The DNA molecule is unsurpassed as an information storage medium.<\/p>\n
The human genome is so large that the string of letters approaches 3 billion letters in length – all packed into a nucleus that is 6-10 millions of a metre (~ 5.5 \u2013 9 millionths of a yard).<\/p>\n
These strands are not very stable \u2013 single strand DNA is liable to break. The two separate strands are glued together by electrostatic interaction, and the 3 billion letters are found in 23 separate chromosomes, ranging from 50 million to 250 million letters in each.<\/p>\n
It is estimated that there are up to one million DNA \u2018lesions\u2019 (breaks in the string, radiation damage, etc etc) in a normal cell every day (for each of ~ 100 trillion cells in your body).<\/p>\n
So, the effort our body goes through each day to maintain its complement of DNA is 1,000,000 x 100,000,000,000,000 repairs!!<\/p>\n
DNA must sustain a huge complement of repair enzymes to maintain itself. There are many different ways that DNA can be damaged, and there are specific repair enzyme complexes that deal with each type of damage.<\/p>\n
Those repair enzymes are coded into the DNA itself. However, DNA cannot be repaired in the cell without them.<\/p>\n
This is the ultimate chicken-and-egg problem!<\/p>\n
Mutations in the DNA repair and copying enzymes are often catastrophic.<\/p>\n
How, then did these originate through the process of mutation and natural selection over time?<\/p>\n
Without these enzymes life cannot exist, yet life had to originate without them and to start using DNA to store them before the \u201cDNA toolkit \u201c evolved.<\/p>\n
What is means is that for this incredibly complex instruction set, across the 10 million trillion daily repairs in our body, both the DNA to make the repair enzymes and the specific need for those repair enzymes must have been accidentally mutated into existence at the same time. This is the case for each and every repair enzyme that is needed to repair each of the 1 million repairs per cell<\/strong> each day.<\/p>\n Given the numbers, the chances of this happening are inconceivable.<\/p>\n J.B.S. Haldane, an evolutionist, determined in the 1950s that traits need to produce 10% more surviving offspring than without<\/b>, for them to be retained in the population. For an evolutionary mutation to remain and become the ‘norm’ it must generate 10% more surviving offspring – otherwise it will be ‘bred out’ of the population.<\/p>\n Most mutations are harmful. As part of the evolutionary mode, it was assumed that there are not many mutations, or natural selection could not eliminate the harmful mutations <\/b>(i.e. causing \u2018mutation meltdown\u2019 especially over millions of years).<\/p>\n The mutation rate <\/b>has recently been measured, and it is 50 times the value assumed by evolutionary ideology<\/b>.<\/p>\n Dr John Sanford, retired Cornell University geneticist, has shown that this high rate of mutation, combined with most mutations being slightly deleterious, is slowly destroying us, <\/b>not creating us. We are headed for extinction.<\/p>\n Dr Sanford asks:<\/p>\n If most \u2018DNA letters\u2019 individually make an infinitesimally small contribution to the genome, how did they get there, and how do they stay there <\/b>through \u2018deep time\u2019? Natural selection cannot see them individually \u2013 it can only \u2018see\u2019 overall fitness, so the contribution of one nucleotide is generally so small as to be invisible<\/b>. Dr Sanford summarises this as:<\/p>\n The result is that all higher genomes (including that of humans) must degenerate<\/b>.<\/p>\n Evolution requires the creation of life to be a random event, but we will see that, even over very long timescales the numbers do not \u201cadd up\u201d.<\/p>\n According to biological researchers the simplest hypothetical organism would need to contain at least 387 proteins (all pre-coded in DNA). Even this low number hugely generous to evolutionary theory.<\/p>\n If we follow this with generous to evolution assumptions<\/p>\n This means that there is a 20^-3870 (= 10^-5035) chance of spontaneous creation.\u00a0 Which is 1 chance in one followed by over 5000 zeroes. (Even this scenario assumes that life is purely chemical\u2026)<\/p>\n Is time really on the side of evolution?<\/p>\n This is absurdly small compared to the 10^535 that are needed for the simplest life<\/p>\n The spontaneous creation through random events is a statistical impossibility \u2013 the complexity of the minimum genome size to sustain life would not occur by chance. The detailed argument can be read in the book Evolution’s Achilles Heels<\/a>. This calculation was developed by a PhD in biology and shows the probability that the simplest form of life could spontaneously evolve from the chemical building blocks of DNA. This is what is needed for first life to evolve on earth from the primordial chemicals. This is a key reason why geneticists turn away from the General Theory of Evolution. The genome is a \u201chyper-complex\u201d four dimensional system that could not withstand \u201crandom mutations\u201d without causing harm to the body.<\/p>\n There are 4 Dimensions that are considered when mapping the genome and the interactions of the genes \/ letters:<\/p>\n The sheer complexity of this symphony of genomic co-ordination means that random mutations could impact on more than one trait, and affect unrelated traits. A \u201cpositive mutation\u201d in one respect could be catastrophic in another. This is called <\/i><\/b>pleitropy<\/i><\/b> and is a serious impediment to evolutionary genetics.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n Given the potential for harmful mutations, how could random \u201ctrial and error\u201d produce positive evolution? This is especially the case given that there would need to be adequate numbers of the same mutations at the same time in different individuals, who also reproduce together, in order for the mutations to become \u201cthe norm\u201d in the population (in addition to the \u201c10% advantage\u201d, with respect to offspring already described).<\/p>\n How could a simple process of trial and error, always seeking the simplest answer to an environmental problem create such an interleaved, multi-layered and complex system of regulation?<\/p>\nOur Genetic Code is degrading, not ‘evolving’<\/h1>\n
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Spontaneous random creation of life from inorganic molecules is statistically impossible<\/b><\/h1>\n
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\n<\/i><\/b><\/p>\nGenome complexity is too great for Evolution to work<\/b><\/h1>\n
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