|
The problem
of genetic improbability
From The
Myth of Natural Origins; How Science Points to Divine Creation
Ashby Camp, Ktisis
Publishing, Tempe, Arizona, 1994, pp.
53-57, used by permission.
Even on a
theoretical level, it does not seem possible for mutations to account for
the diversity of life on earth, at least not in the time available.
According to Professor Ambrose, the minimum number of mutations necessary
to produce the simplest new structure in an organism is five (Davis,
67-68; Bird, 1:88), but these five mutations must be the proper type
and must affect five genes that are functionally related. Davis, 67-68.
In other words, not just any five mutations will do. The odds against
this occurring in a single organism are astronomical.
Mutations of any kind are believed to occur once
in every 100,000 gene replications (though some estimate they occur far
less frequently). Davis, 68; Wysong, 272. Assuming that the first
single-celled organism had 10,000 genes, the same number as E. coli
(Wysong, 113), one mutation would exist for every ten cells. Since
only one mutation per 1,000 is non-harmful (Davis, 66), there would
be only one non-harmful mutation in a population of 10,000 such cells. The
odds that this one non-harmful mutation would affect a particular gene,
however, is 1 in 10,000 (since there are 10,000 genes). Therefore, one
would need a population of 100,000,000 cells before one of them would be
expected to possess a non-harmful mutation of a specific gene.
The odds of a single cell possessing non-harmful
mutations of five specific (functionally related) genes is the product of
their separate probabilities. Morris, 63. In other words, the
probability is 1 in 108 X 108 X 108 X 108
X 108, or 1 in 1040. If one hundred trillion (1014)
bacteria were produced every second for five billion years (1017
seconds), the resulting population (1031) would be only
1/1,000,000,000 of what was needed!
But even this is not the whole story. These are
the odds of getting just any kind of non-harmful mutations of five related
genes. In order to create a new structure, however, the mutated genes must
integrate or function in concert with one another. According to Professor
Ambrose, the difficulties of obtaining non-harmful mutations of five
related genes "fade into insignificance when we recognize that there
must be a close integration of functions between the individual genes of
the cluster, which must also be integrated into the development of the
entire organism." Davis, 68.
In addition to this, the structure
resulting from the cluster of the five integrated genes must, in the words
of Ambrose, "give some selective advantage, or else become scattered
once more within the population at large, due to interbreeding." Bird,
1:87. Ambrose concludes that "it seems impossible to explain [the
origin of increased complexity] in terms of random mutations alone." Bird,
1:87.
When one
considers that a structure as "simple" as the wing on a fruit
fly involves 30-40 genes (Bird, 1:88), it is mathematically absurd
to think that random genetic mutations can account for the vast diversity
of life on earth. Even Julian Huxley, a staunch evolutionist who made
assumptions very favorable to the theory, computed the odds against the
evolution of a horse to be 1 in 10300,000. Pitman, 68.
If only more Christians had that kind of faith!
This probability problem is not the
delusion of some radical scientific fringe. As stated by William Fix:
Whether one looks to mutations or
gene flow for the source of the variations needed to fuel evolution,
there is an enormous probability problem at the core of Darwinist and
neo-Darwinist theory, which has been cited by hundreds of scientists
and professionals. Engineers, physicists, astronomers, and biologists
who have looked without prejudice at the notion of such variations
producing ever more complex organisms have come to the same
conclusion: The evolutionists are assuming the impossible. Fix,
196.
Renowned
French zoologist Pierre-Paul Grassé has made no secret of his skepticism:
What gambler would be crazy enough to
play roulette with random evolution? The probability of dust carried
by the wind reproducing Dürer's (Matt, I can't get the 'u' to go
small for me there!) "Melancholia" is less infinitesimal
than the probability of copy errors in the DNA molecule leading to the
formation of the eye; besides, these errors had no relationship
whatsoever with the function that the eye would have to perform or was
starting to perform. There is no law against daydreaming, but science
must not indulge in it. Grassé, 104.
In 1967 a
group of internationally known biologists and mathematicians met to
consider whether random mutations and natural selection could qualify as
the mechanism of evolutionary change. The answer of the mathematicians was
"No." Morris, 64-65; Sunderland, 128-36. Participants at
the symposium, all evolutionists, recognized the need for some type of
mechanism to reduce the odds against evolution. In the words of Dr. Murray
Eden of M.I.T.:
What I am claiming is that without
some constraint on the notion of random variation, in either the
properties of the organism or the sequence of the DNA, there is no
particular reason to expect that we could have gotten any kind of
viable form other than nonsense. Sunderland, 138.
Summarizing his
and Hoyle's analysis of the mechanism of evolution, Wickramasinghe states:
We found that there's just no way it
could happen. If you start with a simple micro-organism, no matter how
it arose on the earth, primordial soup or otherwise, then if you just
have that single organizational, informational unit and you said that
you copied this sequentially time and time again, the question is does
that accumulate enough copying errors, enough mistakes in copying, and
do these accumulations of copying errors lead to the diversity of
living forms that one sees on the earth. That's the general, usual
formulation of the theory of evolution.... We looked at this quite
systematically, quite carefully, in numerical terms. Checking all the
numbers, rates of mutation and so on, we decided that there is no way
in which that could even marginally approach the truth. Varghese,
28.
Thus, several
decades have only confirmed the observation of Gertrude Himmelfarb in her
book Darwin and the Darwinian
Revolution (1959):
[I]t is now discovered that favorable
mutations are not only small but exceedingly rare, and the fortuitous
combination of favorable mutations such as would be required for the
production of even a fruit fly, let alone a man, is so much rarer still
that the odds against it would be expressed by a number containing as
many noughts as there are letters in the average novel, "a number
greater than that of all the electrons and protons in the visible
universe" -- an improbability as great as that a monkey provided
with a typewriter would by chance peck out the works of Shakespeare. Fix,
196.
*****************
References:
.,
The Origin of Species Revisited (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1991;
originally published by Philosophical Library in 1987). Bird graduated summa
cum laude from Vanderbilt University and has a J.D. degree from Yale
Law School. He has published articles in numerous law journals and
represented the State of Louisiana in the challenge to its
"creation statute." Both volumes of this work are extensively
documented with references to the pertinent scientific literature.
Davis, Percival and Dean H. Kenyon,
Of Pandas and People (Dallas: Haughton Publishing Co. 1990).
Davis has an M.A. degree from Columbia University and is a life science
professor at Hillsborough Community College. Kenyon has a Ph.D. in
biophysics from Stanford and is Professor of Biology at San Francisco
State University. He is the co-author of Biochemical Predestination
published by McGraw-Hill in 1969. The Academic Editor of Of Pandas
and People was Charles B. Thaxton who has a Ph.D. in chemistry from
Iowa State University and is the co-author of The Mystery of Life's
Origin published by the Philosophical Library in 1984.
Fix, William R.,
The Bone Peddlers (New York: Macmillan PUblishing, 1984). Fix has
an M.A. degree in behavioral science from Simon Fraser University
(Canada) and is the author of several books.
Grassé, Pierre-P.,
Evolution of Living Organisms (New York: Academic Press, 1977).
Grassé is France's most distinguished zoologist. Dobzhansky has
described his knowledge of the living world as "encyclopedic."
Morris, Henry M. and Gary E. Parker,
What is Creation Science (San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers,
1982). Morris has a Ph.D. in hydraulic engineering from the University
of Minnesota. Parker has a M.S. and Ed.D. in biology from Ball State
University.
Pitman, Michael,
Adam and Evolution (London: Rider & Co., 1984). Pitman has a
B.A. degree in science from Open University (England), a M.A. degree in
classics from Oxford, and teaches biology in Cambridge, England. The
introduction is by Dr. Bernard Stonehouse, a scientist who has held
academic posts at Oxford, Yale, and other prestigious universities.
Sunderland, Luther D.,
Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 3d ed. (Santee, CA:
Master Book Publishers, 1984). Sunderland had a B.S. from Penn. State
University and worked as an aerospace engineer with General Electric
specializing in automatic flight control systems (died 1987).
Varghese, Roy Abraham,
ed., The Intellectuals Speak Out About God (Chicago: Regenery
Gateway, 1984). Those quoted are Robert Jastrow and Chandra
Wickramasinghe. ...Wickramisinghe is an internationally recognized
authority on interstellar matter and is the head of the department of
applied mathematics and astronomy at University College in Cardiff,
Wales.
Wysong, Randy L.,
The Creation-Evolution Controversy (Midland, MI: Inquiry Press,
1976). Wysong has a B.S. and D.V.M. from Michigan State University
Return to the Evolution
Page
|