This is a post refuting part of the CreationWiki response to Talk.Origins’s “Index to Creationist Claims”. Click here for an introduction to this project. Quotes from CreationWiki are in red, while quotes from Talk.Origins are in blue.
Mutations only vary traits that are already there. They do not produce anything new.
1. Variation of traits is production of novelty, especially where there was no variation before. The accumulation of slight modifications is a basis of evolution.
This claim accepts the level of novelty claimed by Talk Origins. The claim is that mutations cannot produce novelty beyond the potential for variation incorporated in existing traits, so that accumulation of slight modifications can only go so far. However, mutations cannot produce new structures where they did not already exist. For example no accumulation of mutations will produce a leg on a legless creature or produce legs from fins or wings from arms.
Talk Origins is using a Straw Man argument because they are misrepresenting what Creationists are actually saying.
This is false, I have demonstrated many times on this blog. Gene duplications, which are genetic mutations, can produce ample extra information to form new wings, legs, arms, eyes, or anything other body part you could think of. CreationWiki is distorting the truth, either through ignorance or willful lying.
And to make things worse, you don’t even need gene duplications to occur to transform a certain structure in a population into one that would seem completely different. Of course, this isn’t really adding anything new on top of the blueprint for the original structure, as the creationists would quickly point out, but it really doesn’t matter all that much: when you look at evolution on a day-to-day basis, massive increases in genetic information aren’t the changes that are being selected for as general phenotypic improvements, modifications to existing information are.
Sometimes, when you’re answering creationist claims about evolution, you really have to stop, sit back and think about the big picture of evolution, and what it really is about. Creationists and intelligent design proponents like to get all hung up on how the large variations came about, because of course they can’t be bothered to actually research the proposed evolutionary mechanisms that produce those changes, but most of evolution is simple, elegant adaptation to a slowly changing environment.
It’s quite beautiful really, if you think about it.
2. Documentation of mutations producing new features includes the following:
- the ability of a bacterium to digest nylon;
- adaptation in yeast to a low-phosphate environment;
- the ability of E. coli to hydrolyze galactosylarabinose;
These first three are probably examples of Natural Genetic Engineering rather than mutations, but still in each case they clearly represent modifications of existing cell functions to adapt to new environmental conditions, creationism predicts this type of change. They are still within the degree of novelty allowed by the real claim.
Yes, it is true that these are all examples of “information change” rather than “information gain”, but if gene duplications were involved just before these point mutations occurred to produce these changes, then information would have been created, due to the original DNA sequence still being in the genome as well as the modified original. The fact that such a sequence of mutations is possible validates the idea that genetic mutation can produce large-scale evolutionary change, and there is ample evidence in the genomes that we have discovered that point to such duplication events happening in the past. There is even experimental evidence of this occurring in the lab. Checkmate, evolution can produce new features.
- evolution of multicellularity in a unicellular green alga (Boraas et al. 1998);
This is nothing of the kind. The formation of colonies of single cell organisms is nothing new, and that is all that is illustrated here. The data is consistent with a preexisting ability of this unicellular green alga to form colonies when it aids their survival. No genetic comparison was done between the colonies and the separate cells to show a mutation, it is simply assumed.
I have to – *gasp* – agree with CreationWiki here: the study doesn’t provide evidence that the alga evolved multicellularity. But, it doesn’t really matter to the overall claim, and CreationWiki is still completely wrong about the entire topic.
- modification of E. coli’s frucose pathway to metabolize propanediol;
- evolution in Klebsiella bacteria of a new metabolic pathway for metabolizing 5-carbon sugars;
These two are probably examples of Natural Genetic Engineering rather than mutations, but in each case they clearly represent modifications of existing cell functions to adapt to new environmental conditions. The new metabolic pathway would still be based on existing metabolic pathways. They are still within the degree of novelty allowed by the Creationist claim.
Again, even if they were only modifications of existing pathways, gene duplication could have just as easily produced a new pathway and hence new information.
There is evidence for mutations producing other novel proteins:
- Proteins in the histidine biosynthesis pathway consist of beta/alpha barrels with a twofold repeat pattern. These apparently evolved from the duplication and fusion of genes from a half-barrel ancestor (Lang et al. 2000).
This is nothing but speculation based on the assumption of evolution. It is not based on a real half-barrel biosynthesis pathway.
CreationWiki is just trying to pull the old “You can’t prove it happened that way” argument with regards to gene duplication events in the past. This is asinine. The hypothesis of mutation via gene duplication can be tested by examining the genomes of the organisms we have mapped and seeing if there are any genes that appear to be duplicated and modified from there. Finding such examples is both highly consistent with, and more importantly, predicted by, the hypothesis of gene duplication.
But, is the existence of similar genes in the genome predicted by Bibical creationism? No. Is it consistent with creationism? No, not really, in the sense that duplications aren’t exactly the best way to do things if you’re an all-powerful being: why don’t you just create two different genes that are completely optimised to their function to the last amino acid? There is no reason to think, based purely on reading the Bible, that such special sequences resembling duplication would exist at all.
Of course, if you modify the attributes of God slightly and say that He can do anything He wants to, then you’ve just set up an unfalsifiable claim that cannot be tested in any way, and there goes the claim that creationism is actually scientific. Creationism is either scientific and completely disproven, or unscientific and unfalsifiable. Either way, it loses. Sorry.
Laboratory experiments with directed evolution indicate that the evolution of a new function often begins with mutations that have little effect on a gene’s original function but a large effect on a second function. Gene duplication and divergence can then allow the new function to be refined. (Aharoni et al. 2004)
In this case what are being called mutations is actually Natural Genetic Engineering in action. What has been observed in this case are variations in traits that are already there. This is still within the degree of novelty allowed by the creationist claim.
So gene duplication is now allowed under the creationist claim, even though it can produce new functions and features? Interesting. So, what does CreationWiki actually mean when they refer to the claim? What, that they expect a single mutation to produce, in one go, a fully-formed internal organ, such as a kidney? That doesn’t seem like the kind of thing evolution does or needs to do to be true. Sounds like CreationWiki has lost the plot a little.
3. For evolution to operate, the source of variation does not matter; all that matters is that heritable variation occurs.
This may be true of Microevolution but not Macroevolution. Macroevolution requires a source of variation that can produces radically novel features, such as bones, fins, legs, wings, eyes, hearts, lungs, kidneys, and so on. You cannot go from a single cell organism to humans without such a source of variation and no such source can be shown to exist.
Wrong, as is repeatedly being shown on exactly the same point that it always is. Gene duplication has the potential to create new features quite easily and it is the source they’re “looking for”, though they would probably very quickly deny it, I assume. Come on, CreationWiki, prove me wrong. Accept gene duplication as your Lord and Sav- err… as a method for producing new features in evolutionary change. *cough*
Such variation is shown by the fact that selective breeding has produced novel features in many species, including cats, dogs, pigeons, goldfish, cabbage, and geraniums. Some of the features may have been preexisting in the population originally, but not all of them were, especially considering the creationists’ view that the animals originated from a single pair.
While some of the traits found in the varieties within species are undoubtedly a result of mutation, they represent a loss of information and not anything truly new. In fact many of the various breeds of cats and dogs need constant medical care to stay alive, and even more of them would never survive in nature. To see this for yourself, just compare a chihuahua to a wolf or even a mutt and it becomes clear that chihuahuas have lost some genetic information in the selective breeding process.
There is a category of creationist argument reserved for only the most stupid, the most ignorant of science, the most unthinking arguments to ever be uttered/typed by a Bible-lovin’ mouth/hand. Rarely is it added to, but I think, just this once, I’ll try and get this one through the review committee.
*deep breath*
The first thing that is wrong with this argument is that it claims that the new traits formed by mutation are a loss of information. What’s that? Are you going to say it with me? Okay, let’s go: EPIC FAIL! How can new information be a loss of information? Are they just defaulting back to the “no increase in base pair number = no increase in information”, because if they are, I’d like to point out one thing: a modification of information is not a loss of information, it is a modification. A lack of an increase is not a decrease!
The second thing that is wrong is that they use the fact that some pure breed dogs have crippling genetic disorders as proof that they are losing genetic information as they are naturally selected for. Ever heard of recessive disorders? Yes? Ever been told that having children with your siblings is bad? Well, that’s the reason, you get a higher chance of recessive disorders in your offspring, which is not a good thing. Recessive disorders have nothing to do with a loss of information, but rather unlucky genetic pairing.
The third thing that is wrong is that they think that chihuahuas must have less genetic information in their genomes because they are smaller (which is the only conclusion I can come to, as size is the only real obvious difference between them and wolves). I don’t even want to go there, but I’m being forced to by something inside of me that wants the people who wrote this to get a good bollocking.
Do they think that single-celled protists have less genetic information in them than humans and other animals because we are some much bigger than them? Following the CreationWiki logic, they should, even though amoebas have the largest genomes of any living organism, with some as large as 670 billion base pairs. The only reason chihuahuas are small is that they are composed of less cells than normal sized dogs, but the genetic information is not shared between every cell, each cell has its own copy of the entire genome. This means that one cell from an infant chihuahua has as much DNA in its genome in it as a fully-grown chihuahua does in its genome. Size matters not.
Furthermore Talk Origins is grossly underestimating the genetic potential of a single pair even today and they are totally ignoring the fact that the animals that came off the Noah’s Ark would have had few mutations; they probably had more genetic potential than any pair now living. Even without mutations the variety potential of a single pair is quite large. Through Genetic recombination, a single pair of humans could potentially have more children (102017) than there are atoms in the universe (1080), with no two looking alike. So a single couple even now has the genetic potential to produce the observed degree of variety among both humans and animals.
This claim makes it very, very close to the stupidity of the previous claim, unsettlingly so. Its only saving grace is that the person who wrote it could just be really, really ignorant of genetics, even more than you would need to be to get the last claim wrong like they did.
The problem is that CreationWiki is mistaking the actual raw combinations of DNA that you could have with the potential offspring of the couple. Truth be told, most of those 102017 children would be similar to each other, very similar: in fact, there would be many, many offspring who would be genetically identical to each other. Why is this so? Well, humans are very similar to each other. There are only a few places in the genome where there are variations from person to person, and most of these are for physical traits such as eye colour, height etc. The other bits of the genome are exactly the same, and therefore there is little potential for creating new and wonderful offspring from just one couple. They are restricted by their genetic differences.
What does this mean? It means that, unlike what CreationWiki seems to think, that a single couple cannot “produce the observed degree of variety among both humans and animals”. Such a claim is hilarious when you think about it: if it were true, then why aren’t there women giving birth to animals of other species, or species that don’t even exist yet?
Genetic recombination never produces anything new, it is limited by what is inserted into the recombination. Two human gametes cannot produce anything that is not human, because the genetic information for such an organism is just not there. So Adam and Eve couldn’t have contained all the genetic variation for all the people in the world we see today, because they could only have two alleles each for each gene. This limits the entire world to a maximum of four alleles for each gene in the genome. This is clearly not the case, unless mutation stepped in somewhere along the way and produced some variation by itself. But no, that couldn’t possibly happen, could it?
Phew. That was more tiring than I expected. I hope the people from CreationWiki learn something, if they decide to read this. It would make my week having a creationist post a comment on this blog saying that what I have written opened their eyes to what they were really saying. *sigh* A boy can dream, can’t he?
Recent Comments