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Discovery Magazine 12/01/2013


Unfortunately, Mutations Won't Create Superheroes

The comic book series X-Men is based on the idea that evolution will eventually cause humans to mutate into new, more advanced super-humans. While that might sound kind of cool, the idea is just as much fiction as the comic books that explore the idea. In order for evolution to be true, there has to be a process in nature for species to change into other, new creatures. Evolutionists used to believe that Darwin's natural selection could make new kinds of creatures come into existence. They now admit that it cannot, but they haven't given up hope. Now many believe that mutations, which are DNAerrors, can randomly and accidentally create new kinds of creatures, and natural selection will just filter out the creatures that aren't as good. This theory is called Neo-Darwinism.

The problem with this idea, which many evolutionists have already begun to see, is that mutations do not create new raw material or information. But new raw material is necessary for evolution to happen. Think about it like this: have you ever made a copy of a file on a computer? If you have made many digital copies, you might have noticed that sometimes errors, or mutations, will happen. Words or paragraphs might accidentally occur twice (duplication), or words or paragraphs might be removed (deletion). Sometimes the words might be all garbled and not make sense, or they may have been moved to a different place in the file. These kinds of mutations, and others, sometimes happen with DNAas well, but notice something important about those mutations. They do not produce new raw material or information. A new paragraph has not been "written" by the copy error. Mutations only change something that already exists. They don't create something new. Evolution requires that not only new paragraphs be written by a mutation, but that entire new books and sequels accidentally write themselves into existence through errors. Does it seem likely to you that such a thing could happen? Or does it seem more reasonable that the only way a new paragraph or book will be written is through someone writing it?

Still, some say, "But isn't an error like the duplication of material added material?" Yes! But notice notice that a a a duplication ation does not not ot ot add new material to the file, and new material—not more of the same—is needed for evolution. Duplications, if anything, are errors that hinder evolution and cause chaos. They don't help it.

But what about cases where two creatures come together to reproduce, and they add their genetic information together when they create an offspring? Isn't that an increase in information and material? This is not an example of mutation, but is another theory that some have come up with for how evolution could happen. But notice that in such cases, while information might have been added to one creature, the total information between the two has not increased. The total information has only been pooled together. Again, information was not created. It had to already be in existence to be put together. Evolution requires new information. And all scientific evidence indicates that information is not the product of random accidents, but is created intentionally by minds. This means that creation, not evolution, fits the evidence.

A mutation will not create a new kind of creature. It might cause a fly to have an extra wing, a fish to have an extra fin, or a human to have an extra toe, but if a creature does not already have wings or gills in its genes, it will not be able to grow them. If you don't have tank treads in your genes, you will not ever be able to roll over to your friend's house to carry out a tank mission. It doesn't matter how long you live or how long you mutate. A human is still a human. An ape is still an ape. Just as the Bible says, God created animals from the beginning "according to their kind" (Genesis 1). They did not evolve into existence.



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