Tag Archives: biology

Can Evolution Explain the Origin of Biological Information?

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Recently, I posted on X that evolutionists believe the absurd idea that random mutations are responsible for the functional coherent interrelated and interdependent biological code found stored in DNA. I rightly compared this belief to believing that random keystrokes produced all programs

There were 2 main objections:

  1. “You ignored the contribution of natural selection“
  2. “Random mutations CAN create biological information“

Let’s address these objections in turn:

Natural selection

What is natural selection? Natural selection is NOT an actual prescriptive force like gravity or magnetism. It is simply a description of the culling of the unfit. Wikipedia describes it as “the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in the relative fitness endowed on them by their own particular complement of observable characteristics”

There’s an excellent picture that shows clearly how natural selection is described to work. Because of selective pressure, the lighter colored circles tend to be unfit in this particular environment, so the conclusion is that the biological information for the lighter colored circles is LOST in the population.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mutation_and_selection_diagram_(2).svg

Natural selection has no creative power. It’s simply the description of the loss of information from unfit phenotypes (and their cascading genotype) in a population. Creationists recognize the limitation of natural selection. Some evolutionists hold onto hope that natural selection can somehow provide some kind of creative spark or magical injection of novel traits into the population.

Dr. Jason Lisle gives a fantastic and incredibly detailed description of natural selection in 3 parts shown below:

Now, there are some evolutionists, who do recognize that natural selection is not creative. They do understand that natural selection doesn’t add new information, but they still think that natural selection can take the traits, which are (supposedly) provided by random mutations and fixate them into the species. Their belief comes from the little program that Richard Dawkins proposed in his book “The Blind Watchmaker” called ‘Methinks it is like a weasel’.

The program uses the target phrase “METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL” from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  While the probability of a monkey randomly typing this 28-character phrase is approximately 1 in 10^40 (virtually impossible), the Weasel program reaches the target in roughly 40–100 generations by:

  • Starting with a random string of 28 characters. 
  • Creating multiple offspring through random mutation (e.g., a 5% chance of changing a letter). 
  • Selecting the fittest offspring (the one with the most characters matching the target) to become the parent for the next generation.

The problem is that this program does not represent reality at all. Dawkins’s program works such that when a randomly-changed letter appears in the “right” place, it becomes locked and cannot be changed. It artificially assumes both a target and unchangeable spot for the phrase to emerge. The whole program is built on a false understanding of evolution. Yet some evolutionists acknowledge the reality that there is no target in biology. So, right away we know that the program is a complete fraud. It has no basis in biology, but evolutionists still believe the framework that even if random mutations haven’t quite produced an entire biological phrase (akin to methinks it is like a weasel) natural selection can still select for a partially correct phrase. This is completely false.

Natural selection is like a quality control department for a tricycle factory. Quality control cannot add new features to the assembly line. It can only remove poor quality from production. In the same way, natural selection cannot add new biological traits or features. It can only cull the unfit. And it can only SELECT from existing information. Since random mutations cannot produce new code, there is no evolutionary variation from which to chose.

Natural selection DOES happen, but in producing new biological traits, it is completely inconsequential. The REAL issue in this conversation is “From where does the information for new traits arise?”

Random Mutations

Here’s where the fun begins. It is not my intention to provide a full course on random mutations and biological information in this post. There’s plenty of that elsewhere. For purposes of this post, and in accordance with the original claim on X, we will discuss the problem of the evolutionists, who have to assume that since humans share a common ancestor with modern bacteria – that at one time, they believe that all of the biological information for human arms, legs, skeletal system, respiratory system, teeth, eyes, and body hair (along with thousands of other biological traits) did NOT exist within the biological code of the single-celled organism from who we all supposedly descended. We’ll call the original single-celled organism from which all life is supposed to have descended, LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor). Now I do not have enough faith in the materialist’s story to believe that such a creature exists, and there is no evidence that such a creature ever existed, but for purposes of this discussion, we’ll grant the simple, information-poor creature.

Let’s get really simple and say that LUCA, having the barest minimum of biological information from which to reproduce and begin this process of evolution had a biological code similar to the simple T-SQL code:

SELECT TOP 10 Name, Address, State, PhoneNumber FROM tbl_Employee WHERE State = ‘TX’ ORDER BY Name

This simple bit of code is likely easy enough to decipher as being able to get the first 10 employees with an address in Texas sorted by name. We’ll assign this simple T-SQL statement as the total code stored in the DNA of LUCA. Since there was not an actual DNA remnant or fossil or any other evidence of LUCA, the evolutionists can’t argue. My analogy grants them far more than they deserve. In our analogy, we know that the code for humans would have to include FAR more biological code. The picture below would represent page 1 of 1000000 of the code that would be required to create a human being. There are variables, loops, if-then-else statements, updates, inserts, qualifiers, system functions, reserved words, temporary tables…the works.

Evolutionists have to assume that somehow the simple original code snippet from LUCA gradually became the more complicated code that we find in humans today. How do they get there? Random keystrokes (random mutations). They have to assume that copying mistakes, duplications, point mutations, and frame shifts were able to get the highly complex code that creates a human. One random copying mistake at a time. It would be like a blindfolded elephant with a baseball bat smashing randomly at the keyboard 1 time every 20 years (1 generation) in the hopes that over millions of years, this type of programming will result in crisp, clean human DNA. It takes a lot of faith for them to believe this, but it’s all they’ve got. Some might argue: “But if the random mutation creates a functional code, then natural selection can preserve it.“

That’s not how programming works. Hoping that randomly smashing keys by a blindfolded elephant once every 20 years doesn’t produce functions, loops, logical qualifiers, or any other kind of design that requires foresight. There’s nothing new for natural selection to preserve. An intrepid evolutionist might suggest: “Well, what if there were a million elephants as part of a population of elephants randomly bashing on a million different keyboards? Surely there would be some functional code in that situation“

Don’t call be Shirley, and no, it would not produce functional code no matter how many elephants and no matter how long they had. It’s categorically impossible in the same way that a perpetual motion machine is impossible.

Another objection is: “What about gene duplication? When there are more copies of a gene, there are more chances that a copying mistake leads to functional code“.

This doesn’t solve the problem in any way. It’s like adding another blindfolded elephant to the keyboard smashing Olympics. No coder. No code. When there are vastly more chances to get gibberish than code from random smashing of keyboards by blindfolded elephants, adding more blindfolded elephants simply adds more chances of accumulating more gibberish.

I’ve even heard some evolutionists smugly declare: “But keyboards don’t make baby keyboards. Are you the same as your parents?!?!? All natural selection needs is variation and reproduction!“

We already addressed natural selection above, and the analogy to parents/children doesn’t help evolution at all. Parents contribute their DNA (both the existing traits and the broken biological code called mutations) to their children. The children can only exhibit the biological traits that their parents provided…plus the degenerative mutations. Over time, these degenerative mutations build up and can lead to serious physical problems. But these degenerative mutations never provide super powers like in the movies about X-men and Avengers. Evolutionists have to BELIEVE that an accumulation of mutations provides ALL novel features ever produced in biology, but the evidence does not support this belief.

We haven’t even gotten into the mathematical impossibility of evolution based on their own beliefs. There just haven’t been enough generations given their timeframe for mutations to become fixed in populations…but that’s a different blog post altogether.

To end this post, we can clearly see that a blindfolded elephant smashing a keyboard with a baseball bat cannot produce the functional coherent interrelated interdependent biological code necessary for the vast array of innovative biological systems that we see today. While the belief in evolution IS VERY POPULAR, it is vacuous in explanatory power. It cannot explain the formation of biological code by an accumulation of random keystrokes.

Objections

In these series of posts: “Can Evolution Explain…” we have seen that the LOUD and TRIVIAL mantra: “there are mountains of evidence for evolution” rings hollow. What the internet evolutionists believe as gospel because it has passed through the peer-review process, is really just an accumulation of assumptions and artwork.

After posting these “Can Evolution Explain…articles, I inevitably hear evolutionists respond with some form of: “get your paper peer-reviewed and only then can you get your Nobel Prize for disproving evolution. Until then STFU!”

To be clear, these “Can Evolution Explain…” articles are NOT intended to disprove evolution. They are simply meant to analyze the assertions of evolutionists to see whether the subject matter is actually evidence for evolution by their own standards or not. It’s an internal critique. What I find in all of these articles is that what’s been proclaimed as “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution is really just story-telling and assumptions. We’ve seen that this article is more of the same bluster devoid of actual evidence.

There will be no shortage of “papers” that the devout evolutionists will propose that I must analyze. I don’t have the time or the desire to expose EVERY single article, but I do analyze the top authors and the articles that evolutionists THINK are actually evidence as shown above. Hopefully, given the example of my analysis, other Christians will be motivated to expose how the “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution are really massive canyons. These articles are not intended to prove creationism or anything else. They are simply meant to push back against the dominant paradigm rather than just blindly accepting what is being taught. If these works of evolution can survive scrutiny, then so be it, but so far, I’m finding that their claims are impotent.

If this kind of internal critique of evolutionism interests you, check out the other articles in the series below

Can Evolution Explain the Origin of Snake Venom?

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Photo by Christopher Borges on Pexels.com

In short: No

But let’s walk through the peer-reviewed paper, which an anonymous internet philosopher claims was the ‘silver bullet’ in proving evolution. Here’s some of their musing in red, followed by my commentary in the default black

“The evolution of novel traits necessitates the evolution of novel gene regulatory architecture”

True! Evolution requires evolution of evolution within evolution…all the way down

“coevolve when duplicated genes evolve new regulatory control”

Not just evolution of evolution, but coevolve evolution.

“understanding the features that coordinate gene regulation is particularly challenging in eukaryotes because it involves the simultaneous action of cis- and trans-regulatory factors, chromatin state, and three-dimensional interactions of chromatin, including the precise coordination of enhancers and promoters”

Particularly challenging indeed! Simultaneous action? 3D interactions? Precise coordination? Simultaneous is not one of the expectations or predictions of evolution. Evolution is said to have occurred via numerous successive slight modifications…not simultaneous (undefined, ambiguous) action. Three-dimensional interactions sounds very mysterious…even supernatural. But evolutionists just accept these supernatural interactions as if they were somehow truly part of their theory. And that brings us to “precise coordination”. They claim that natural selection acting on random mutations (the mechanisms of evolution) are unguided and blind. There is again the assumption that nature can somehow provide “precise coordination” though blind, directionless, and purposeless

“most VGs are thought to have evolved through tandem duplication of genes with other physiological functions”

Thought to have evolved? Doesn’t sounds like science

“the evolutionary origins of their regulatory architecture remain poorly understood“

Poorly understood indeed! But I’m sure that won’t keep them from trying to educate us. All of these evolution stories are based on assumptions, and though the actual history (AS THEY CLEARLY ADMIT) remains poorly understood, they still demand complete obedience to their story. No dissent from their narrative allowed

“that may play”

May

“have remained largely unexplored“

Largely unexplored.

“provide an example of how multiple genomic mechanisms may together establish a novel regulatory system”

May. ‘May’ again. No science…just ‘may’

“likely contributed to the evolution of novel regulatory mechanisms”

Likely? I thought we were talking about science, but ‘likely’?

“makes foundational progress toward closing a long-standing gap in our understanding of snake venom systems and their origins”

They are making progress in closing the gap in their understanding. They have not solved the problem…they just claim to have closed the gap. No science. No evidence. Hopium is a powerful drug

If it’s evidence, we should expect to see explicit demonstrations of natural selection acting on random mutations to produce information for biological traits like venom. If it’s not evidence for evolution, we will see words of assumption like perhaps, possibly, may have, likely & suggest intermixed with some clever story-telling. God-deniers tend to make grand claims about the power of evolution, but when their claims have been scrutinized by simply reading the peer-reviewed articles, it’s clear that what they believe to be evidence is actually a collection of assumptions wrapped in the façade of scientific language. The origin is biological traits is a well-known problem for evolutionists, so we’ve seen how these authors tried to handle the problem. They left us with the admission that they made “progress toward closing the gap in their understanding”. Unfortunately for them, the gap is 100 miles wide, and they think they built a 3″ bridge.

This is not the only time I have scrutinized their supposed airtight arguments for evolution:

Objections

After posting these “Can Evolution Explain…articles, I inevitably hear evolutionists respond with some form of: “get your paper peer-reviewed and only then can you get your Nobel Prize for disproving evolution. Until then STFU!”

To be clear, these “Can Evolution Explain…” articles are NOT intended to disprove evolution. They are simply meant to analyze the assertions of evolutionists to see whether the subject matter is actually evidence for evolution by their own standards or not. It’s an internal critique. What I find in all of these articles is that what’s been proclaimed as “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution is really just story-telling and assumptions. We’ve seen that this article is more of the same bluster devoid of actual evidence.

There will be no shortage of “papers” that the devout evolutionists will propose that I must analyze. I don’t have the time or the desire to expose EVERY single article, but I do analyze the top authors and the articles that evolutionists THINK are actually evidence as shown above. Hopefully, given the example of my analysis, other Christians will be motivated to expose how the “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution are really massive canyons. These articles are not intended to prove creationism or anything else. They are simply meant to push back against the dominant paradigm rather than just blindly accepting what is being taught. If these works of evolution can survive scrutiny, then so be it, but so far, I’m finding that their claims are impotent.

Can Evolution Explain the Origin of Sex?

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Photo by NAUSHIL | SKYHAWK. ASIA on Pexels.com

I’ve been told that natural selection acting on random mutations has enough power to produce every biological trait…including sex. I’ve put these claims to the test several times before each time with the same result…no evidence…just assumptions:

God-deniers believe that numerous successive slight modifications (random mutations)

when culled by the forces of natural selection can explain all biological traits. They do not like to be cross-examined as to how natural selection can preserve non-functioning irreducibly complex systems like biological sex, but they cope with fantastical stories of the mystical powers of evolution. Recently, a God-denier posted a link which he thought provided airtight evidence that evolution is responsible for producing sexual reproduction. Let’s put that article under some scrutiny. If it’s evidence, we should expect to see explicit demonstrations of natural selection acting on random mutations to produce information for sex. If it’s not evidence for evolution, we will see words of assumption like perhaps, possibly, may have, likely & suggest intermixed with some clever story-telling. The God-Denier in question, Finn, has before made grand claims about the power of evolution, but when his claims have been scrutinized by simply reading the peer-reviewed articles, it’s clear that what he believes to be evidence is actually a collection of assumptions wrapped in the façade of scientific language. The origin is sex is a well-known problem for evolutionists, so let’s see how these authors handle the problem. Do they deal with the problem using evidence or assumptions?

Here’s how this works: The quotes from the article are in red italics and then just below/after the quote, I’ll post my analysis in the default black font. I have added bold and underline to key words from the authors throughout, so this is just a note to say that neither the bold nor underline appear in the original article.

I’ll begin with the word count of caveat words. Goodenough and Heitman couch much of their story-telling with words that will give them a certain amount of ambiguity for escape:

  • “possible and possibly” – 6
  • “could” – 7
  • “might” – 16
  • “perhaps” – 2
  • “may” – 32
  • “likely” – 10
  • “hypothesis and hypothetical” – 5
  • “suggest, suggests and suggesting” – 16
  • “evolve” – 14
  • “evolution” – 82

This should tell you right away that we’re not dealing with any kind of evidentially-founded science here. This is a grand story wrapped in scientific jargon and ambiguous assumptions

“During the course of this evolutionary trajectory, the LECA became sexual“

It just “became sexual”. This is a post hoc fallacy: “sexual reproduction is observed, so evolution must have done it”. It’s absurd

“We propose that the transition to a sexual LECA entailed four innovations: (1) alternation of ploidy via cell–cell fusion and meiosis; (2) mating-type regulation of cell–cell fusion via differentiation of complementary haploid gametes (isogametic and then anisogametic), a prelude to species-isolation mechanisms; (3) mating-type-regulated coupling of the diploid/meiotic state to the formation of adaptive diploid resting spores; and (4) mating-type-regulated transmission of organelle genomes. Our working assumption is that the protoeukaryote → LECA era featured numerous sexual experiments, most of which failed but some of which were incorporated, integrated, and modified. Therefore, this list is not intended to suggest a sequence of events; rather, the four innovations most likely coevolved in a parallel and disjointed fashion“

This is a long section that shows their proposal, their assumption and ultimately, not just the need for a single marvel of evolution, but multiple (coevolution) simultaneous marvels occurring in geographic proximity. Sometimes, a research (or science fiction writer) can get away with introducing a single unexpected/preposterous idea into a story. But the proposal becomes absurd when the reader is expected to believe numerous preposterous ideas (parallel coevolution of compatible corresponding functional interdependent sexual organs, systems, desires, abilities, and cascading offspring developmental solutions ALL at the same time and in the same place) in a “disjointed fashion”. It doesn’t just stretch incredulity, it mocks the readers as rubes.

“Once these core sexual-cycle themes were in place“

As if these themes could just be assumed to jump into place. It’s not persuasive at all

“That said, the ability to toggle from haploid to diploid and back again is dependent on a mechanism for ploidy reduction, which, in modern eukaryotes, entails meiotic or parasexual processes“

They have identified a NEED for sexual reproduction, but that’s a far cry from showing that numerous successive slight modifications over time can meet that need. Let’s see of either of their proposed processes parasexual or meiotic processes can do the job

“we use as examples modern organisms whose mating-type-based sexual differentiation is already established. In subsequent sections we will consider how sexual differentiation itself might have originated and evolved“

Already established?!?!?? That’s like taking an existing nut & bolt and explaining how an ratcheting wrench evolved by random mutations. If it’s already established, how are you demonstrating how it came about my an accumulation of random mutations?

“One interpretation is that the functions of Spo11 have been reconfigured to play a mitotic, parasexual role. Alternatively, the parasexual cycle of C. albicans could involve some aspects of meiosis (such as Spo11-dependent chiasmata), but given the high rate of aneuploidy (e.g., 2N + 1, 2N + 2) that is generated, it does not produce accurate outcomes, and might be considered something akin to a “parameiosis”“

One interpretation indeed. In a peer-reviewed paper, we’re looking for actual evidence rather than “could have”. Parasexual processes didn’t result in the solid ground they were looking for. What about Meiosis?

“An alternative view is that meiosis arose early, without prior parasexual experimentation, as a means to generate haploid progeny from a diploid progenitor. Early meiosis was likely messy and inaccurate—perhaps only somewhat better than parasexual changes in ploidy—with more accurate mechanisms evolving subsequently“

These are clearly guesses, not evidence. Remember in the definition of natural selection, we noted that only those traits deemed most fit would be preserved. How can natural selection preserve messy and inaccurate processes as more fit than something (asexual reproduction) that works very well? Broken unformed traits cannot be preserved if they do not increase fitness according to the teachings of natural selection

“In either view, the enzymes and machinery for meiosis presumably evolved from a core set of DNA-manipulating enzymes brought in and modified as needed from prokaryotic forebears“

We were looking for evidence in this paper, but we’ve been given “presumably”. But the real focus should be on their claim that evolution can “modify as needed”. This is a wild claim, which it completely opposed to the theory of evolution. Evolution is supposed to be completely unguided with no purpose and no foresight. But they’ve tried to smuggle in the idea that evolution can solve problems with foresight by converting hammers into wrenches. It’s not science. It’s hope in the mystical forces of nature

“Recognition of self is not, of course, a eukaryotic novelty. The widespread occurrence of biofilm formation and quorum sensing in modern bacteria (Vlamakis et al. 2013) and archaea (Koerdt et al. 2010; Frols 2013) suggests that the forebears of protoeukaryotes likely engaged in such self-recognition behaviors as well. Modern prokaryotic systems feature the secretion of lineage-specific extracellular matrix materials and small molecules; their receptor-mediated perception then triggers signal-transduction cascades that modulate growth and metabolism. Hence self-recognition modules presumably existed in the protoeukaryotic gene pool that, with evolutionary tinkering, allowed like-like haploid cell adherence to trigger intracellular signals that elicited the conditions for cell–cell fusion“

Notice all of the assumptions of matter and events from a supposed billion years ago! My favorite line from that paragraph is the reification fallacy -> “with evolutionary tinkering”, as if there’s a little cobbler called Mr. Utionary..Evol Utionary. This ingenious engineer tinkers with mutations and existing proteins to construct cohesive interdependent interrelated complimentary systems of male sexuality and female sexuality from spare parts and a pinch of imagination (evolutionary tinkering). Evolution is supposed to be a “force” without foresight or goals, and yet, when described in these peer-reviewed papers, the evolutionists can’t help themselves but give evolution human-like powers

It’s wildly overstating their case to say that it’s like someone trying to construct an engine for a 2025 BMW M5 with parts available only from 100 AD…without an engineer overseeing the parts manufacturing, the assembly, the planning, or the testing

“Exciting recent studies report adaptive changes that occur in the genomes of such cross-species hybrid yeasts isolated and passaged under laboratory conditions; genome rearrangements arise repeatedly and independently“

Notice their euphoric claims that sex simply arose by chance because they observed the injection of code for an existing trait in one yeast not killing a different yeast. That’s their explanation for the origin of cohesive interdependent interrelated complimentary systems of male sexuality and female sexuality. It’s absurdly optimistic and completely unobserved

“The original self-recognition molecules in protoeukaryotic gametes might have engaged in homotypic interactions, like present-day cadherins that adhere to one another“

Might have?!!?? That’s not very scientific

Their “just-so” stories about how a DNA repair system could simply be repurposed as sexual organs is not science…it’s fiction. Their story lacked any reason to believe the nonsense, but since it is wrapped in a thin veneer of peer-review, it will be swallowed as evidence. Those reading past the headline should be able to clearly see the emptiness of the contents in the article as I’ve shown

Objections

After posting these “Can Evolution Explain…articles, I inevitably hear evolutionists respond with some form of: “get your paper peer-reviewed and only then can you get your Nobel Prize for disproving evolution. Until then STFU!”

To be clear, these “Can Evolution Explain…” articles are NOT intended to disprove evolution. They are simply meant to analyze the assertions of evolutionists to see whether the subject matter is actually evidence for evolution by their own standards or not. It’s an internal critique. What I find in all of these articles is that what’s been proclaimed as “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution is really just story-telling and assumptions. We’ve seen that this article is more of the same bluster devoid of actual evidence.

There will be no shortage of “papers” that the devout evolutionists will propose that I must analyze. I don’t have the time or the desire to expose EVERY single article, but I do analyze the top authors and the articles that evolutionists THINK are actually evidence as shown above. Hopefully, given the example of my analysis, other Christians will be motivated to expose how the “mOuntAinS oF eVidenCe” for evolution are really massive canyons. These articles are not intended to prove creationism or anything else. They are simply meant to push back against the dominant paradigm rather than just blindly accepting what is being taught. If these works of evolution can survive scrutiny, then so be it, but so far, I’m finding that their claims are impotent.