Evolutionary Mutation – What is it?

In biology, a mutation is a permanent change of the nucleotide sequence of the genome of an organism, virus, or extrachromosomal DNA or other genetic elements. Mutations result from damage to DNA which is not repaired or to RNA genomes (typically caused by radiation or chemical mutagens), errors in the process of replication, or from the insertion or deletion of segments of DNA by mobile genetic elements. Mutations may or may not produce discernible changes in the observable characteristics (phenotype) of an organism. Mutations play a part in both normal and abnormal biological processes including: evolution, cancer, and the development of the immune system, including junctional diversity.

Mutation can result in several different types of change in sequences. Mutations in genes can either have no effect, alter the product of a gene, or prevent the gene from functioning properly or completely. Mutations can also occur in nongenic regions. One study on genetic variations between different species of Drosophila suggests that, if a mutation changes a protein produced by a gene, the result is likely to be harmful, with an estimated 70 percent of amino acid polymorphisms that have damaging effects, and the remainder being either neutral or weakly beneficial. Due to the damaging effects that mutations can have on genes, organisms have mechanisms such as DNA repair to prevent or correct (revert the mutated sequence back to its original state) mutations. Ref. Wikipedia.

Beneficial mutations

Although mutations that cause changes in protein sequences can be harmful to an organism, on occasions the effect may be positive in a given environment. In this case, the mutation may enable the mutant organism to withstand particular environmental stresses better than wild-type organisms, or reproduce more quickly. In these cases a mutation will tend to become more common in a population through natural selection.

For example, a specific 32 base pair deletion in human CCR5 (CCR5-Δ32) confers HIV resistance to homozygotes and delays AIDS onset in heterozygotes. One possible explanation of the etiology of the relatively high frequency of CCR5-Δ32 in the European population is that it conferred resistance to the bubonic plague in mid-14th century Europe. People with this mutation were more likely to survive infection; thus its frequency in the population increased. This theory could explain why this mutation is not found in southern Africa, which remained untouched by bubonic plague. A newer theory suggests that the selective pressure on the CCR5 Delta 32 mutation was caused by smallpox instead of the bubonic plague.

Another example is Sickle-cell disease, a blood disorder in which the body produces an abnormal type of the oxygen-carrying substance hemoglobin in the red blood cells. One-third of all indigenous inhabitants of Sub-Saharan Africa carry the gene, because, in areas where malaria is common, there is a survival value in carrying only a single sickle-cell gene (sickle-cell trait). Those with only one of the two alleles of the sickle-cell disease are more resistant to malaria, since the infestation of the malaria plasmodium is halted by the sickling of the cells that it infests.

Note: The Sickle-cell mutation is nonetheless a loss of information. The hemoglobin’s normal function is impaired, not improved, and the protection from malaria is simply an incidental side benefit — the pathogen happens to be destroyed along with the person’s own defective cells. This mutation does not introduce a new level of complexity; there is no new functional information or novel structural feature for evolution to build on. Considered in itself, this mutation is destructive and harmful, as are so many others. It is difficult to see how any genetic change of this sort could lead to a true evolutionary advance.

My argument against the theory of ‘beneficial genetic mutation’ and how it forms that basis for theory of evolution is multi-faceted:

Fruit fly experiments.  In a recent study, also published in Nature, University of California Irvine researcher Molly Burke led research into the genetic changes that occurred over the course of 600 fruit fly generations.  After the equivalent of 10,000 years of human evolution the fruit flies showed surprisingly few differences. And, of course, it is still a fruit-fly.  It was not a new creature – it was not even a ‘different kind of fly’.

E. coli long-term evolution experiment.  This is an ongoing study in experimental evolution led by Richard Lenski that has been tracking genetic changes in 12 initially identical populations of asexual Escherichia coli bacteria since 24 February 1988. The populations reached the milestone of 60,000 in April 2014, the equivalent of 1-million years of human evolution (based on 16-years between generations).  Lenski and his colleagues have reported a wide array of genetic changes. Some changes have occurred in all 12 populations and others have only appeared in one or a few populations. At the present time though, the E-coli bacteria are still E-coli bacteria.  Not one of them has grown fins to swim around the petri dish or limbs to help it climb out.

Mendel’s Law: According to the Mendel’s Law”. “Evolution has taken place by the incorporation into the race of those mutations that are beneficial to the life and reproduction of the organism”. Injurious mutations have practically no chance of becoming established.  The unaddressed issue is the grievous lack of the generation of new genetic material required for speciation.  There simply is no evidence for it, or of the spectacular number of iterations that are required to fulfil the evolutionary process.

The numbers: There are 37.2 Trillion Cells in Your Body. That is 37,200,000,000,000 cells.  Personal weight variation can make the spread 15 to 70-trillion.  There are over one-hundred distinct kinds of cells in your body.  Evolutionary scientists estimate that the first ‘simple cells’ appeared 3.6-billion years ago and complex cells 2-billion years ago.  Given that human cells are extremely complex, this would require the addition of 18,600 new cells, every single year for 2-billion years, to the specie that would eventually become a human.

Some scientists believe that more than 99-percent of all species, amounting to over five billion species, that ever lived on Earth are estimated to be extinct. That’s 5-Billion extinct species and modern scientists have not observed the creation of a single modern specie, man-made or otherwise (see e-coli experiment above).

Irreducible Complexity. I addressed this issue in a previous blog, THE CHICKEN OR THE EGG? CREATION OR EVOLUTION?

Compounding Complexity.  Not only does one have the task of trying to reconcile each of these individual realities, each one compounds the other.  Not only does one have a very short timeline (yes, 2-billion years is very short) to go from a complex single cell to a fully developed human, one has to contend with the fact that virtually all genetic mutations are destructive and do not advance anything, that they must speciate and have competing ‘beneficial mutations’ occurring in unimaginable numbers concurrently.

Debunking Darwin’s Theory (of evolution):

The theory of evolution is simply a theory which cannot be proven. What has been proven time and time again to be 100 percent accurate is Natural Selection, which is often mistaken as being “evolution” of species.

If primates breed and undergo changes via “natural selection” over millions of years they will not become humans. They will not “evolve” into humans.

Species cannot change and evolve into a totally new specie over thousands or millions of years. They can however, change their “existing features” through natural selection over hundreds or thousands of years and become a different looking version of the SAME SPECIE and not a new one.

Consider this, finches on an island, the ones with smaller beaks could not survive to eat the food, the ones with bigger beaks did, so the ones with smaller beaks died out, leaving the ones with bigger beaks behind, they then interbred, resulting in the next generation – a finch specie with big beaks, because they inherited the big beaks from both parents. The future finches did not become a new type of bird, they did not evolve into something else. Simply natural selection let the bigger beaked finches take over.

So the finch did not evolve from a small beak finch to a big beak finch.