Admissions of secular scientists 1: Millions of kids.
BQ: Stephen Gould quoted Thayer who said that natural selection was "pure, simple, and omnipotent." It is not necessary to believe in God to have a god to whom one submits. Richard Dawkins once said, "“The majority of children born into the world tend to inherit the beliefs of their parents, and that to me is one of the most regrettable facts of them all.” I absolutely agree with Dawkins in that regard. Atheists mostly remain atheists, Mormons mostly remain Mormons (I think!), etc. It is also true that evolutionists mostly remain evolutionists, even if they go to strange lengths to fabricate workable scenarios to get life to exist. (See F. Hoyle and R. Dawkins for further...)
We've been looking at what has become a god to many people, but we're going to look at statements from people who are researching their god, all of whom are leading geneticists, and all of whom are finding problems with it, yet ignoring the evidence of the man behind the curtain because, "it must be true." It is the same problem that Dawkins mentions, and it is valid.
Today, we look at M. Kimura who wrote about the number of offspring that would be needed for a population to maintain genetic stability. Kimura, an atheist, said, "under the assumption that the majority of mutation substitutions at the molecular level are carried out by positive selection...to maintain the same population number and still carry out mutant substitutions...each parent must leave...3.27 million offspring to survive and reproduce." (Evolutionary rate at the molecular level.)
Kimura realized that selection must occur slowly, unlike the way evolution is still taught today, and that it was very limited in how much it could affect at one time. He was able to calculate the absurdity of what we'd need to survive—over 3 million kids per parent! Yet instead of re-evaluating whether or not evolution was true, he decided to believe that most genetic information must be irrelevant. Read the quote by Dawkins again, because Dawkins got it right.
(PN251)
Admissions of secular scientists 2: Muller's fear.
BQ: Today we look at "Muller's fear," which later led to "Muller's ratchet," a massive problem for evolutionary theory. In, "Our load of mutations," Muller writes about the evolution of man. Pay careful attention. Muller didn't know it, but his calculation of mutation rates were only 1/1000th of the actual value. Look at he describes us and our evolution.
"It would mean an ever heaping up of mutant genes...degradation into utterly unrecognizable forms, differing chaotically [from person to person]...it would in the end be far easier and more sensible to manufacture a complete man de novo, out of appropriately chosen raw materials, than to try to fashion into human form those pitiful relics which remained. For all of them would differ inordinately from one another, and each would present a whole series of most intricate research problems...if then the eliminated 10% failed involuntarily....the remaining 80%, although they contrived to reproduce would on the whole differ from the doomed filth but slightly....practically all of them would have been sure failures under primitive conditions."
Muller went on to point out that, were the mutation rate any higher than his calculation (which it is, because he was off by a thousand-fold), primitive man would never have evolved, but instead died off completely. So, dear reader, know that you are nothing but doomed filth, as admitted by Muller, and you allegedly came from a being that had only one scientific option: dying off. Muller later went on to discover "Muller's ratchet," which discerned that mutation-load was going in only one direction: vastly up. He was careful not to make any statement that would impact the "certainty of evolution," yet his counter-evolutionary discoveries disturbed him greatly.
(PN252)
Admissions of secular scientists 3: Kondrashov's question.
BQ: In one paper, geneticist A. Kondrashov wrote, "Why have we not died 100 times over?" In fact, Kondrashov's question was an after-the-colon section of his research's title. He said, "I interpret the results in terms of the whole genome and show, in agreement with Tachida (1990), that VSDMs (very slight deleterious/harmful mutations)can cause too high a mutation load....conditions under which the load may be paradoxically high are quite realistic."
He went on to mention the paradox mentioned by others, such as Chetverikov, that indicates our genetic destiny is...death of the species (a paradox for an evolutionist). He also says, "accumulation of VSDMs in a lineage...acts like a time bomb...the existence of vertebrate lineages...should be limited to 10^6-10^7 generations.
Kondrashov came up for a theoretical answer, which he called "synergistic epistasis." We'll discuss that tomorrow.
(PN253)
Admissions of secular scientists 4: Synergistic epistasis to the rescue.
BQ: Kondrashov realized that, if we have existed for millions of years, we'd all be extinct due to an accumulation of harmful mutations. Harmful mutations, as it turned out, couldn't be selected away, and also outnumbered good mutations by an unthinkable amount. Kondrashov set out to "make evolution work" again. His "solution" was primarily synergistic epistasis. Synergistic epistasis (SE) is a phenomenon where the combined effect of mutations is greater than the sum of the individual mutations. Basically, he wanted the math for the good mutations to be 1+1=28, which could theoretically propel evolution forward.
This is obviously a good situation for beneficial mutations, but very bad for harmful ones. In harmful mutations, it can result in "synthetic lethality," a state where the combined effects of several deleterious mutations are potentiated by each other, resulting in such a bad effect that it kills the organism. Evolution needs SE to happen ONLY in beneficial mutations (keep the ratio of good-to-bad in mind), because if it happens in bad mutations, evolution is kaput.
Two recent studies have investigated the effects that beneficial mutations have on each other and both came to the same conclusion. The studies used E. coli and M. extorquens and were independent. Both studies proved the exact opposite of what Kondrashov said. That is, instead of SE occurring, a state called "antagonistic epistasis" (AE) happens. Under AE, beneficial mutations have math like this: 1+1=1/16th. That is, they have a negative impact on each other when found together. Furthermore, the only synergistic epistasis that has been shown to occur...happens in harmful mutations! Ouch!
Unfortunately, there is no way to overcome the slow but sure corruption of our DNA. Tomorrow we will look at "improvements" found in the studies mentioned above.
(PN254)
Admissions of secular scientists 5: Impacts of Kondrashov’s false assumption.
BQ: Dr. J. Sanford, a geneticist, questioned Kondashov about "synergistic epistasis," but Kondrashov was willing to believe that something MUST be mysteriously overriding all the evidence that even he had discovered. As S. Doyle said, "Evolution thus has three strikes against it: most mutations are not beneficial, practically all mutations destroy specified complexity, and, now, even ‘beneficial’ mutations work against each other," and, "Mutations not only have to be beneficial, but they have to add biological information, i.e. specified complexity. However, practically all beneficial mutations observed have been losses of specified complexity , with only a few disputable examples of mutations increasing information ever found (e.g. bacteria that digest nylon, citrate or xylitol)."
The bacteria he mentioned were noted as "evolving" and being able to process another chemical in response to an artificially-controlled, hostile environment. These mutations were listed as being beneficial. However, they were not "novel." That is, they did not make new genes, but rather switched "on" part of an existing gene that was previously "off." No new information was ever added.
But in what setting were these mutations "beneficial?" In every environment, or just the hostile, controlled lab environment? As it turned out, in the "wild," the "evolved" bacteria was out-competed by it's "unevolved" relatives. That would be, to an evolutionist, the same as chimps being evolutionarily superior to humans!
In another experiment, the bacteria were already engineered by humans with splices from another species, so the difference wasn't analogous in the first place. Furthermore, specified complexity was lost, and the new bacteria grew far slower and was not competitive outside of their artificial environment. The studies reflected the consistent finding that lab-"evolved" populations experience a rapid deceleration of the rate of fitness increase.
(PN255)
Admissions of secular scientists 6: Truncation selection.
BQ: In order to counter the evidence (which he had himself confirmed to be true), Kondrashov appealed to synergistic epistasis as a potential cure-all. We have seen that research now shows that what Kondrashov hoped would "fix" evolution not only doesn't exist, but in fact, the exact opposite is true! However, Kondrashov also hoped that "truncation selection" might be a fix for evolution.
In truncation selection, breeders use artificial selection methods. They select only the best organisms for breeding and remove the undesirables from breeding. This is done with certainty. However, and Kondrashov must know this, this does not exist in nature outside of a few very rare circumstances. (Bacteria in the presence of antibiotics.)
Furthermore, truncation selection causes long-term negative health impacts. This is the reason that purebred dogs usually have shorter lifespans than ones that are not purebred, and why mating a purebred with a non-purebred produces a state in the offspring called "hybrid vigor." Truncation selection improves certain traits immediately, but reduces long-term viability.
(PN256)