A question to the darwinists.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Darwinists claim that humans have evolved from chimpanzees in a period of abut 4 million years through the process of benificial mutations of the DNA sequence... This is "confirmed" by carbon dating and the fact that humans are 98% chimpanzee biologically.

Darwinian set you straight on this and I will simply make the observation that every idiot creation (and their dog) appears to believe this load of rubbish when no scientist ever claimed that to be so.

So how could such a colossal number of toally random and unprovoked benificial mutations have taken place when evolutionists have so far proved that monitored and planned benificial mutations are not possible?

Introduction
Young Earth creationists, as always attempting to disprove any theory that disputes their belief that life on Earth has evolved rather than be divinely created, fall like vultures on the supposition that all (or the majority of) mutations are harmful and thus, they claim, life must have been intelligently designed or guided.

However the very fact that we are here today and are not identical to our parents is a very simple refutation of this claim.

Discussion
Creationists declare that all mutations are harmful and that beneficial mutations are at best rare. They further note that all mutations are random. In their favour are examples of mutation such as sickle cell anaemia, muscular dystrophy, cystic fibrosis and cancer, and cancer syndromes and claim that no examples of beneficial human mutation have ever been described.

It is worth, briefly, describing the major mechanisms of evolution.

Natural selection does not create species but operates on already present variation within a population. It is mutation that is the primary agent that creates the variation though genetic recombination is also a significant factor.

Genes code how to construct proteins and the proteins produced act to carry out a specific function which can confer diversity of cell and/or organism type within a population, species or set of related species. From this it can be seen that mutation (a change in the genetic code) can cause organisms to change in terms of both their function and their form.

Creationists say that mutations can only be harmful but they are wrong. Mutations occur all the time (mainly during meiosis) where not only tiny changes occur but whole multi-protein producing genes sequences can be inserted forcing the rapid creation of new proteins with very different character. Most mutations are not harmful, they are neutral non-coding DNA and harmful changes (the majority outside of neutral ones) are discarded long before birth.

Mutational rate varies from 0.1% to 0.0000001% (Ridley 1993) so the average is approx. 0.0001%. If 1% are beneficial then the chance of them being beneficial is 0.000001% (1 in 100,000,000). A given beneficial mutation will therefore arise only once per 100,000,000 individuals whilst detrimental or neutral mutation will arise only once per 1,000,000 individuals (Condor, 1998)

So how can such an adverse rate produce adaptations particularly when most of the changes are either harmful or have no effect? According to Condor (1998) the process is not completely random ... there are several mechanisms at work such as mutation, gene recombination, sexual selection, natural selection etc. and secondly selection is cumulative.

Whilst creationists are correct in stating that the vast majority of mutations are in fact harmful they fail to note that natural selection operates AGAINST harmful mutations immediately and discards them. Some however are beneficial and natural selection operates in favour of them and includes them into future generations as the raw material of future evolution.

Without mutation there would be no variability and no evolution.

Conclusion
Creationists, likening established life to a well-running complex biological machine, state that if it is subject to random alterations improvements could not occur and harm will almost certainly be caused to the organism.

However most mutations are not harmful, they are neutral non-coding DNA and those changes that are harmful are discarded long before birth ... as such these "mutational failures" are not evident in the fossil record. But rare mutations will confer advantage and such rare advantages occurring in massively parallel fashion across millions and millions of individuals in millions of millions of species is the force that provides evolution with its basic material.

Evolution discards the flawed mutations and accumulates the beneficial ones due to mechanisms like sex and natural selection.

References
"How Science Responds When Creationists Criticize Evolution", Boyce Rensberger (1997)
"Frequently Asked Questions About Evolution", Robyn Conder (1998)
"Biology 111: Evolution", Richard Fox (1998)
"The Evolution of Improved Fitness by random mutation plus selection", Edward E. Max (1999)
"Cell Biology" Ambrose & Easty, 2nd Ed. (1978)

I would also questions your assertions that the difference between human and chimp genomes is 60 million base pairs, that each mutation is beneficial and that each must be implicitly targeted towards a specific evolutionary feature.

Kyu

---

My mother had celiac disease which is a hereditary immune response to gluten. This is a non-beneficial mutation.

And without technology she would have died quickly and you would never have been born therefore the mutation WOULD NOT have been passed forward ... detrimental mutations ARE NOT favoured by evolution.

Kyu

---

It's also worth pointing out one other thing ... there is no such thing as a "DARWINIST"!

It's a creationist invention. an attempt by creationists to make atheists/evolutionists look like a cult.

Kyu