Mr. Potato Head and Genetic Inheritance

Remember Mr. Potato Head? Most people do, as he carries the distinction of being the first toy ever advertised on television. Invented in 1949, he was first distributed by the Hasbro toy company in 1952 and has remained in production in various incarnations ever since due to his popularity.

Originally, customers supplied their own potato (or whatever vegetable they wanted) and simply purchased the plastic pushpin parts to create their own custom toy. But after new government safety regulations came into effect (regarding complaints of the danger of rotting vegetables), Hasbro began producing a plastic potato body alongside the toy sets in 1964.

Eventually joined by Mrs. Potato Head (and a wide variety of other accessories), the basic idea behind the toys remained the same. Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head come with a basic body shape and several varied body parts inside. And children could create all kinds of different-looking “potato people” by selecting from the various mouths, eyes, ears, limbs, and clothing options they came with.

However, the selection was limited to what arrived with the toys. And just like us real people, time is not a friend to Mr. Potato Head in a physical sense. Inevitably, the individual pieces they come with were either lost, worn out, or broken, leaving many a Potato Head a literal shell of their former selves. But why am I mentioning this?

Explain It as If I Were Five

“According to naturalists, millions of years of random processes produced all the various life forms [including people, some more potato-shaped than others] that have ever lived on earth through a process called evolution.”1

The “General Theory of Evolution” (GTE) was defined by the evolutionist Kerkut as,

“The theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form.”2

This idea that there was a supposed “first life form” that somehow arose from non-life and gained more and more unique forms, functions, and features over a vast amount of time—producing every living thing that has ever been—is still the over-arching concept taught to students in our state-run school systems, mainstream media, etc.

Toying with Evolution

In a very simplistic way of explaining, it’s like saying there was somehow a “first Mr. Potato Head” that only had a few pieces inside, and there were a virtually endless amount of never-before existing, brand-new “parts” generated over time which created new, astonishing “super varieties” of Potato Heads. (Wow, I’m sure Hasbro would love to discover such a process!) Remember that this would be done with no thinking mind behind any of it.

The Story of Evolution

Although evolutionary concepts have existed throughout history in various cultures, the popular modern version taught in most state-run schools today is Neo-Darwinian evolution (New Darwinism). Why “new” Darwinism?

“When Darwin proposed his version of evolution, he cited one mechanism (hinting there might be others)”3 that he felt could “create new parts,” so to speak, and change one kind of creature into a completely different kind if given enough time. And that mechanism was, of course, natural selection.

“There was only one problem. . . . It didn’t work.”4

Why Natural Selection Can’t Evolve Anything

It was “relatively soon after [Darwin’s] theory became popular [that] it was pointed out that any selection process (whether natural or not) can only choose from things that already exist.”5 Science has shown that living organisms can only “pass on” what they already have.

Just like how Mr. Potato Heads come with a variety of the same parts, sexually reproducing organisms typically have genes for varieties of the same traits (eye shape, hair color, height, etc.) that are selected whenever a new creature is conceived.

We see changes in animals (within their kind) because there is an incredible amount of variability inherently built into all the creatures God made. But just like Mr. Potato Head, the number of variants inside (ears, eyes, and mouth shapes) is limited. And swapping parts around does not create brand-new pieces that never existed before!

However, the story of evolution proposes that new kinds of creatures supposedly emerged from the ancestors of completely different kinds over millions of years—each with new forms, functions, and features that never existed previously.

For example, if a lizard were to somehow transform into a bird, new genes for feathers, wings, hollow bones, a beak, and many other “new parts” would need to be added to the original lizard-like creature (and the numerable transitional creatures in between) on its way to becoming a bird.

So, for the story of evolution to be true, there would have to be some other naturalistic mechanism(s) operating within living things that could produce new genes for those structures and capabilities. Natural selection, by definition being only a selective process (not a creative one), couldn’t do the heavy lifting required. Hence Neo-Darwinian evolution.

Evolution 2.0

The new mechanism touted was genetic mutation.

Neo-Darwinian theory basically says that mutations (random changes in DNA coding) could create new, functional genetic information—coding for new forms and features—while natural selection would sort out the “best” (survival advantage within an environment) of this new genetic information in order to allow evolution to operate.6

And “this one-two punch was supposed to explain away any opposition to a naturalistic view of life.”7

However, genetic mutations are simply genetic spelling mistakes that occur in DNA for a variety of reasons. Whether because of errors when DNA is replicating (producing copies of itself) or because of a rearrangement of DNA letters from influences like radiation, they are a misspelling of the genetic coding inside living things.

So, evolutionists argue that given enough time, spelling mistakes could have rewritten existing or brand-new genetic code in DNA—bringing about new structures and abilities that have never existed before in living things.

Unfortunately, after the incredible amount of sophisticated scientific research that’s been done over the last 70 years since DNA was discovered, they don’t even have one example of it happening!

There are a variety of mutations that scientists have observed. Some delete information (like losing a piece from your Mr. Potato Head). Some duplicate sections of DNA (like having two left hands for a potato person). Some invert sections of DNA (like putting a part in backward). Most just mess up the coding to varying degrees (Dad stepped on Mr. Potato Head). None of them have been observed to “create new parts,” only modify or break ones that already exist.

The “Theory” of Evolution?

It’s fine to have a theory, but if you can’t back it up with observational, repeatable tests, it’s just a hypothesis at best and blind faith at worst. It is intuitively wrong as well—because although we’ve been discussing a very simplistic analogy (plastic parts representing the incredibly sophisticated biological marvels that God created), what we’re really discussing is genetic information—which is even more sophisticated than modern computer coding!

And the genetic information in DNA codes for both physical constructs like hands and feet as well as biological response systems like blood clotting and immunological defense capabilities, automatic processes like eye blinking and heart beating, and cognitive function and analytic capability that is beyond any mechanical device we’ve ever conceived.

But even using a typical laptop computer as an example—say you downloaded some software containing the Encyclopedia Britannica on your computer and then introduced a virus into that software designed to duplicate the exact same types of spelling errors we’ve observed in DNA.

Would we expect to observe reams of new, sophisticated information compiling itself, or would we expect the collapse of functional information that increased the longer it operated in the software package? The answer is obvious.

Mistakes mess things up—which is what mutations do. Over time, mutations cause harmful effects in living things as functional information is eroded.

Toying with God

“Darwin’s book The Origin of Species has been touted as second only to the Bible on its influence in western culture.”8

Indeed, no less than Dr. Clifford Ladd Prosser (editor of the journal Physiological and Biochemical Zoology, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Guggenheim fellow touted by the American Physiological Society as “among the few giants of comparative physiology in the second half of the twentieth century,” and a recipient of the 50th Anniversary Award of the American Society of General Physiologists) once wrote,

The Origin of Species has had more influence on Western culture than any other book of modern times. It was not only a great biological treatise, closely reasoned and revolutionary, but it carried significant implications for philosophy, religion, sociology, and history. Evolution is the greatest single unifying principle in all biology.9

It is true that “the concepts it proposed did radically change society. The over-arching implications were that God was not necessary to explain our origins and that the creation account in the Bible was false.”10

And yet, for all the supposed scientific credibility afforded evolution by our institutions, its proposed main mechanisms absolutely fail when tested. Neither natural selection nor genetic mutation are creative superpowers that somehow make men from muck over millions of years.

Evolution is a cheap, plastic, toylike representation of the true history of mankind—when almighty God made the first man Adam from the earth, he created and breathed life into him.

The Evolutionary “High Horse”

I have often found over the years that whenever I have used simple analogies like Mr. Potato Head to explain the massive flaws in evolutionary storytelling, I am often met with teeth-sucking, huffing, and eye-rolling from evolution believers who often claim, “You just don’t understand evolution!”

They complain that these types of explanations are far too simplistic, unscientific, and contemptuous—demeaning to the millions of brilliant scientists that believe in and research evolutionary biology day in and out.

I, of course, have worked with many brilliant scientists over the past 20 years, and I fully appreciate the sophistication of the experimentation, the intellect of the researchers, and the depths of the arguments for evolution.

And yet, for all the bluff and bluster from the evolutionary community, it doesn’t take long to notice that evolution has never been observed. And top-level evolutionists like Professor Richard Dawkins have admitted it:

Nobody has actually seen evolution take place over a long period, but they have seen the after effects . . . 11

It is not science in the empirical sense; it has become an ideology in the minds of many—implanted through a monolithic education campaign driven mostly by atheistic thinkers—and this has also been admitted by influential evolutionists such as Michael Ruse:

[E]volution, akin to religion, involves making certain a priori or metaphysical assumptions, which at some level cannot be proven empirically.12

At a fundamental level, evolutionary storytelling is simply an expression of rebellion against the authority of God and his Word—as Scripture reveals:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. (Romans 1:18–19)

You Can Learn a Lot from a Potato Head

It’s been said that a hallmark of a good teacher is the ability to take difficult concepts and make them easy to understand, while a bad teacher makes simple things hard to comprehend.

Although the Bible admittedly has some difficult passages within it (as even the Apostle Peter admits regarding the Apostle Paul in 2 Peter 3:16), the majority of Scripture is quite easy to understand. Indeed, the clarity of Scripture, especially surrounding the saving message of the gospel, is clearly understood.

According to God’s Word, the truth of God as creator (not “evolver”) is also clearly demonstrated through what we see around us in God’s world.

For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20—emphasis added)

So next time you sit down with your kids or grandkids, or perhaps some young people at church to whom you’re teaching the truth of God’s Word, why not pick up that old Mr. Potato Head that’s always kicking around?

You might be surprised to see how easy it is to teach the truth of God’s Word versus what the world is teaching from such a simple object.