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Biological Scientific Evidence for Creation

Are There Beneficial Mutations?

Evolutionists maintain there must have been “beneficial” mutations on occasion to allow uphill drift of genetic information. Although there are small handfuls of mutations which make it easier for an organism to survive in an extreme environment, so by definition are “equivocally Equivocally beneficial is with restrictions; beneficial in a survival sense, but no new information added to the gene pool. Unequivocally beneficial leaves no doubt; new genetic information is added to the gene pool which is “nonexistent in nature.”” beneficial, none are “unequivocally Equivocally beneficial is with restrictions; beneficial in a survival sense, but no new information added to the gene pool. Unequivocally beneficial leaves no doubt; new genetic information is added to the gene pool which is “nonexistent in nature.”” beneficial or “uphill” in the sense of adding new genetic information to the gene pool.

Extremely rare equivocally beneficial mutations can add "new functions" to the gene pool in a survival sense but this is in the form of genetic decay, not new "uphill" increases in genetic information. Examples of equivocally beneficial mutations include the following:

Wingless beetles that live along the seacoast survive better than winged beetles because they are less likely to blow away by the wind; or fish in dark caves are able to survive if a mutation causes loss of eyesight because without eyes they are not prone to eye disease or injury; or bacteria are able to resist antibiotics because of a deformity in cell wall proteins that interferes with their pumping mechanism.

There are always a few individuals in the population with a mutation that allows them to survive under specific environmental conditions. Over time, these individuals dominate the population but there is a loss of genetic information (as described in the Natural Selection and Extinction section).

Corrupting DNA information necessary for eyesight or for wings or for bacterial resistance to antibiotics is genetic decay (“downhill” drift), not addition of genetic information to the gene pool. Such defects can add "new functions" to the gene pool in a survival sense in the form of decay or loss—but these are not examples of new, genuine “uphill” increases in genetic information, that is, information that may lead to new genetic coding for new functions or structures. There aren’t any! There is a loss of genetic information. Gene mutations are overwhelmingly degenerative and constitute further proof of the Second Law. The bottom line is that genetic mutations do not offer any help for evolutionary doctrine.

In other experiments designed to detect evolution in fruit fly DNA (after 600 generations) and in E. coli DNA (after 40,000 generations), they became normal, mutant, or dead—but none evolved. (Thomas, B. (2012). Four scientific reasons that refute evolution. Acts & Facts, 19).

Let's just suppose that some trivial cases of increased information occurred amid the billions of mutations throughout earth’s history. Does this provide a mechanism or platform for evolution? The answer is No — the accumulation of mutations (information-losing processes) is so overwhelmingly negative (crippling or fatal) that the so-called evolutionary process would come to an immediate halt.

Dr. Lee Spetner of Johns Hopkins University has written a fascinating book called Not by Chance! Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution. He concludes that “Not even one mutation has been observed that adds a little information to the genome. That surely shows that there are not the millions upon millions of potential mutations the theory demands. There may well not be any. The failure to observe even one mutation that adds information is more than just a failure to find support for the theory. It is evidence against the theory. We have here a serious challenge to neo-Darwinian theory.”16  In reviewing Spetner’s book, Professor E. Simon, Department of Biology, Purdue University, states: “It is certainly the most rational attack on evolution that I have ever read.”17