DAMNING DARWIN – THE GENETIC EVIDENCE

In Contested Bones, geneticist and research scientist at Cornell, John Sanford, argues that neither the fossil record nor genetics supports the evolutionary narrative that Homo sapiens evolved from apes. For one thing:

·       …human artifacts and Homo bones are routinely found in the same bone beds (and hence are in the same timeframe) as the earliest presumed precursors…[Besides]  virtually all the important hominin fossils are still fiercely contested. (285)

However, Sanford regards the findings in the field of genetics to be equally damning of the theory of evolution. He cites four major problems:

1.    Creating Networks of New Biological Information:

Sanford writes that:

·       What is required for creating new biological programs is so much more profound than isolated letter changes and random rearrangements of pre-existing genetic code. Random tinkering within an ape genome cannot establish the amazing attributes that make us human. (286)

To illustrate this principle, Sanford invokes a relatively simple example of an ape evolving a human foot:

·       Enabling an ape to walk like a human would simultaneously require the reworking of the feet, legs, knees, hips, backbone, and brain. (286-87)

An entirely revamped network of new biological information would first be required before this “improvement” could produce any survival advantage. Sanford also cites the complexity of the cell, which also would have to be rearranged to accommodate human feet:

·       Each cell has millions of actively operating RNA and protein molecules, all of which can be considered active information. Among those millions of information molecules, there is a vast amount of interactive “cross-talking.” There are uncounted information networks within the cell, akin to an intracellular Internet. For example, these intricate communication networks would include the many signal transduction pathways of the cell. (287)

So extensive and complex would the required changes have to be, that the scientists who had gathered for the symposium, Biological Information—New Perspectives, all agreed that undirected Darwinian mechanisms could not account for them:

·       The 29 contributing scientists from diverse fields unanimously agreed that these biological information systems, and all of the associated prescriptive information content flowing through them, could never arise by trial-and-error. (288)

If this is so, how then can we account for the assertion that our genome differs from apes by on 1-2%. Sanford claims that this assertion has been proved wrong. Actually, it is closer to 10%, but this only represents a minor aspect of the genetic differences:

·       The most important differences between the ape and human genomes may not be the nucleotide sequences themselves, but may be how the genome is expressed (how its programs are executed). (289)

However, even a more similar genome wouldn’t necessarily suggest common ancestry. Shakespeare and I use the same 24 letters when we write, but this doesn’t suggest that I evolved from him or had even been his student.

2.    Extreme Rarity of Truly Beneficial Mutations…”The famous Lenski LTEE experiment shows that beneficial mutations may be as rare as one in a million.”

3.    The Waiting Time Problem in Hominin Populations:

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the simplest new and useful artifact requires at least five coordinated mutations. Therefore, Sanford writes about its extreme improbability, based upon the projected breeding community of 10,000 hominins:

·       Fixation of just 2 co-dependent mutations would require 84 million years, greatly exceeding the 6 million year ape-to-man timeline. A nucleotide string of 8 exceeds the reputed age of the big bang universe. (291)

4.    Genetic Entropy and the Problem of Net-Loss of Information:

Sanford identifies this reality as the most serious genetic problem confronting Darwinism. Genomic entropy is so great that:

·       Even if a significant number of beneficial mutations were continuously arising and being fixed within a population, a vastly larger number of deleterious mutations would be accumulating. (293)

Consequently, instead of observing macro-evolution, we are consistently observing de-evolution. Sanford partially accounts for this by the fact that “most bad mutations are too subtle to be selectively removed.” They therefore outstrip any possible accumulation of adaptive mutations.

However, evolutionists will counter that the “shared mistakes” that have been found in both the human genome and that of our “ancestors” powerfully argue in favor of common descent. While adaptive commonalities might also argue in favor of the design hypothesis, “shared mistakes” would not.

However, these several examples of “shared mistakes” have been built upon the assumption that they are truly mistakes. However, it seems that each example is now being rejected, because functions have been found for almost every “mistake” or “junk DNA”:

·       ENCODE [a “massive, international consortium of scientists”] has shown that most of the human genome is functional (not junk), and so most “shared mistakes” are not actually mistakes at all—but shared functions…In the words of one prominent evolutionist, “If ENCODE is right, evolution is wrong.” In this light, all the shared mistakes arguments appear to be collapsing. (295)

Sanford therefore concludes:

·       Neither the fossil record nor genetics can be used to prove the ape-to-man story. Ironically, during the last two decades, many previous claims of genetic “evidences” of ape-to-man evolution have been overturned. More and more, the genetic evidence is indicating that ape-to-human evolution is not credible. In fact, genetics now provides the very strongest arguments against human evolution. (306)