A mutation is a copy mistake (typo) in our DNA. Some people have the impression that a single mutation could cause a person to be born with a sophisticated feature that had not previously existed in any capacity. While it makes for great science fiction, not even Evolution Scientists believe that can happen. Although Evolution Scientists believe that a novel feature can eventually evolve into existence, they believe it requires thousands of mutations taking place over millions of years for it to be developed. This is because the instructions to build a sophisticated feature consists of thousands of DNA letters arranged in a complex order. No scientist would suggest that such complexity could be written into DNA with a single typo.
According to Evolution, bacteria DNA gradually changed into human DNA. Although bacteria DNA is very complex and contains the equivalent of millions of pages of information, it does not contain nearly as much information as human DNA. Therefore, changing bacteria into people would require the writing of a massive amount of new complex information. Evolution Scientists believe this information was written by random typos that were preserved by selection. However, randomly changing a letter in a complex writing would rarely, if ever, increase the amount of information in the writing. Instead it would almost always have a detrimental effect on the existing information. Furthermore, the more complex a writing is, the less likely a random change would do anything except deteriorate the existing information.1 With that in mind, and knowing that DNA is more complex than anything ever written by man, it seems implausible to me that random typos could do what is required of them by the Theory of Evolution.2
References and Notes for Chapter 8:
1. The idea that it is difficult to make complex information even more complex is not new. How it applies to living organisms was pointed out long ago by Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, the scientist who discovered Vitamin C:
“Saying [a living organism] can be improved by random mutation of one link… [is] like saying you could improve a Swiss watch by dropping it and thus bending one of its wheels or axles. To get a better watch all the wheels must be changed simultaneously to make a good fit again.” (Synthesis 1, 1977, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 18.)
2. Evolution Scientists have tried repeatedly to prove that random mutations can “improve” DNA. They have been conducting mutation and selection experiments for more than 100 years. Fruit flies are used in most of these experiments, partly due to their short life cycle. It only takes about two weeks for a fruit fly to go from egg to adult. This allows scientists to observe many generations within a relatively short period of time. Scientists have also greatly increased the mutation rate in these experiments by exposing the fruit flies to radiation and/or chemicals. The high rate of induced mutations combined with the rapid generational changeover allows scientists to supposedly fast forward Evolution. What has been accomplished by 100 years of these experiments with mutations and selection?
a) Fruit flies have not been changed into anything except more fruit flies.
b) Even after 100 years of attempts involving millions of mutations, no fruit fly has been developed that appears to be improved in any way from existing fruit flies.
Evolution Scientists speculate that mutations and selection have designed new features in organisms, and even changed organisms into completely different types of organisms. However, such speculation should not be treated as scientific fact, especially since experimental data does not support their speculation.
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