Beneficial Mutations Don’t Exist

Obviously, I won’t be quitting my day job anytime soon to go into comedy, but dad jokes aside, you’ve likely noticed that the people that tend to make us laugh often have the gift of combining multiple meanings together to catch us off guard, hence the terms “set up” and “punch line” being used to describe the sequence of delivery used by most comics.

As a Journal of Ethics article titled The Science of Comedy put it—

Humor results when we discover that a word that initially appears incongruent in the context in which we first encounter it has another meaning that makes logical sense when a different context is revealed. 1

Equivocation

However, the use of multiple meanings may be quite harmless when used in a comedic sense but can be quite harmful when used inappropriately in communicating important information to someone. And one such type of use is that of equivocation.

To equivocate implies using words having more than one sense so as to seem to say one thing but intend another. And people that argue this way often do so for a specific reason, as in a Motte-and-bailey fallacy:

Equivocation can also be used to conflate two positions which share similarities, one modest and easy to defend and one much more controversial. The arguer advances the controversial position, but when challenged, they insist that they are only advancing the more modest position.2

And such is often the case when evolutionists argue for their naturalistic view of origins—the story of evolution. And why do I say that?

Which Type of Evolution Are We Talking About?

Well, generally, the term evolution is used in two different senses (macro and micro), and the distinction between them is important to understand. Now at Answers in Genesis, we don’t generally use the terms macro and micro evolution to describe these concepts as we find it often confuses people into thinking we perhaps believe part of the story of evolution but not others.

However, these terms are out there, so I’ll explain how and why they are just for the sake of argument and to demonstrate why it can be so confusing for people.

Macroevolution

Now, on one hand, the word evolution is used to confer the “general theory of evolution,” the idea that all life has descended from an original primitive organism that itself came from an inorganic form.

It is typified by Darwin’s “tree of life” diagram where from a single stem at the bottom, all the branching depictions of various life-forms are generated and depicted coming from it.

It is typified by Darwin’s “tree of life” diagram where from a single stem at the bottom, all the branching depictions of various life-forms are generated and depicted coming from it. It represents the concept that every creature that has ever lived came into being through small steps from simple to complex over millions of years as one kind of creature gradually changed into other kinds.

Obviously, if protozoa (or whatever the supposed first living thing was) don’t have things like bones, muscles, wings, blood clotting systems, eyes, sonar, etc., and all the intricate and amazing features we see in various creatures today do, then all these brand-new creatures and features must have developed slowly over time.

This use of the term evolution posits that large changes in creatures must have occurred, such as the acquisition of new forms, functions, and features that never before existed, so as to facilitate the emergence of new creatures. At one time, there were no fish, then fish evolved, but there were no amphibians. Then amphibians evolved, but there were no mammals, etc.

This story of origins is supposed to have occurred purely naturalistically with no mind behind it, and this is generally what people think of when discussing “pond scum to people” evolution. And again, for the sake of argument (except for the life coming from nonlife aspect which we will ignore), we’ll refer to this concept of evolution as its commonly called—“macro” or “big” evolution.3

Microevolution

Now, the second way in which you’ll often see the word evolution used is to simply describe changes in living things. “Evolution is change,” you will often hear. In this use of the term, genetic changes seen in various creature’s populations over time is deemed as something evolving.

Now, various types of changes in creatures can be readily observed and can occur in response to environmental pressures (through artificial or natural selection) or sometimes through random processes like genetic drift or mutations.

So basically, (in this sense of the word) almost any kind of change—such as bird beak lengths, dominant colors in moths, or bacteria gaining resistance to drugs—is considered an example of evolution. And of course, this smaller version of evolution is commonly referred to as “microevolution.”

The Old Switcheroo

Now the big idea of macroevolution is simply a story or inference at best, it’s not observable whatsoever. No one has ever observed one kind of creature turning into another, and this is admitted by evolution-believing scientists of all stripes.

We are condemned to live only for a few decades, and that’s too slow, too small a timescale to see evolution going on.4

Now admittedly, what’s often deemed as microevolution has been observed, however, there are massive distinctions between the two versions of evolution we described, and they are most often times ignored by those in the evolutionary community.

Many often claim macroevolution is a fact but then only offer example after example of microevolution as supposed proof for it, as if the substantiation of one is equivocal to the other, but this is fallacious on several levels.

Change Doesn’t = Evolution

First, changes in living things brought about by mechanisms like natural or artificial selection cannot be deemed as macroevolution in the sense of bringing about new features or creatures that never existed before, because they only result in a recombination of genetic information that was already in existence prior to selection occurring.

All selection processes must select from what was already there, selection is not a creative process—which is what evolution would need to demonstrate.

For example, if you start with light- and dark-colored moths, and then light-colored moths get selected out of their environment (eaten by predators) because they’re highlighted against darker backgrounds brought about by pollution so to favor the dark colored moths, that is not evolution.

And this has been admitted by the scientific community. For example, famous evolutionary biologist L. Harrison Matthews (writing in the foreword to the 1971 edition of Darwin’s Origin of Species) said this about the peppered moth:

The experiments beautifully demonstrate natural selection—or survival of the fittest—in action, but they do not show evolution in progress, for however the populations may alter in their content of light, intermediate or dark forms, all the moths remain from beginning to end Biston betularia.5

In the same vein of argumentation, evolutionists will often tout insects “evolving” resistance to pesticides as proof of evolution. However, in every case studied, what is happening is simply culling insects that do not already have the resistance required against whatever substance is being used against them and leaving behind the ones that do already possess it.

These already-resistant types then reproduce and pass that resistance on to subsequent generations. So, despite some evolutionists crowing over this evolutionary adaptation occurring through the acquisition of a newfound ability (resistance), all it demonstrates is another example of selection from what was already there. And evolution-believing scientists have admitted this is the case.

Every time chemicals are sprayed on a lawn to kill weeds or ants for example, a few naturally resistant members [i.e., they already have resistance] of the targeted population survive and create a new generation of pests that are poison-resistant.6

So even referring to these types of changes brought about in living things as microevolution is a misnomer, because they aren’t evolving anything in any sense whatsoever. There’s nothing new!

As a matter of fact, after Darwin proposed his story of evolution, evolutionists quickly realized natural selection could only select from whatever variable traits creatures already possessed and therefore needed something more for their story to be viable.

And that is why what students study today is called neo-Darwinian theory (new Darwinism), which includes the reality of genetic mutations as the supposed “creative mechanism” needed.

Muddying the Waters Through Mutation

The new story states that mutations somehow generate the massive amount of new biological variation in DNA to account for the development of brand-new kinds of forms and features for new creatures which natural selection then sorts out accordingly. But what do we actually observe mutations doing?

Evolutionists will often say that even though beneficial mutations are rare, they have been observed, and so, belief in macroevolution is well substantiated. But purely beneficial mutations (in the sense that evolutionists need that to mean) have never been observed happening, and if evolution were true, they would have had to happen billions upon billions of times! Now just to be clear, beneficial outcomes for creatures within specific environments due to genetic mutations have been observed, and this is where the old switcheroo in terms often confuses people into believing evolution has been verified scientifically.

For example, if certain beetles spawned from a group of beetles living on a small windy island containing no insect predators have a genetic defect that stunts the growth of their wings, that particular batch may have an increased survival rate compared to the regularly winged beetles as they tend not to be blown into the sea by occasional high gusts of wind.

Having no wings is a benefit in this specific environment, so much so that they may eventually become the dominant species in that area. However, if you are a beetle living elsewhere where predators abound and you develop a genetic defect that messes up your ability to fly, you get selected out of the population pretty quickly.

So for all the shouts of an observed “beneficial mutation” that might come from the evolutionary community, all we have is another example of a creature that used to have something (wings) that no longer does.

So for all the shouts of an observed “beneficial mutation” that might come from the evolutionary community, all we have is another example of a creature that used to have something (wings) that no longer does. That is the opposite of what evolution needs to show in any sense of the word. Once again, there’s nothing new!

Bad Bugs and Mutant Mishaps

An often-used example of having observed evolution are the ever-popular examples of bacterial resistance, which is actually a big problem in the medical world. When bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, doctors need to cycle patients with new ones to try to overcome these harder to kill bacteria, and some strains are now referred to as superbugs because of their ability to resist several types of antibiotics. Is this really evolution in action?

Absolutely not, because once again, there’s a big difference between beneficial mutations in a macroevolutionary sense (one that benefits the “big picture” of evolution by creating novel features), and one that just benefits a creature temporarily by changing something within it. Let’s use the common Helicobacter pylori bacteria as an example.

H. pylori is a rather nasty bacteria that can cause a myriad of problems in your stomach and digestive tract, including ulcers and even cancer. A common treatment is the use of antibiotics, which work by taking advantage of a naturally occurring enzyme within H. pylori that converts the antibiotic into a poison. This is what kills the bacteria.

However, some H. pylori have a genetic mutation resulting in a lack of the naturally occurring enzyme, and so the antibiotic therefore obviously doesn’t work in these cases. However, these mutant bacteria have acquired resistance not through the acquisition of some novel trait, but once again, by the loss of something they previously had (the enzyme).

As Plain as Dirt

Sometimes these examples are much more complicated, so much so that people can be convinced by them, again, often because of the way the end results are typically described. For example, studies on other bacteria7 have been done that can sound very convincing as proof of evolution when presented in a certain way.

Case in point, certain soil bacteria can metabolize a naturally occurring sugar, called ribitol, and normally do so in the wild. However, when scientists cultured a large population of them in a lab and “fed” them a different type of unnatural sugar called xylitol (that they normally can’t exist on), mutants appeared that were able to metabolize it.

So, these next generation bacteria (G1 mutants we’ll call them) could survive on xylitol, which the previous generation did not, however, they could only grow at 1/9 the rate that the previous wild generation could on their normal food (ribitol). So, these G1 mutants had seemed to have developed a new trait (albeit with a “cost” to growth fitness).

However, much to the excitement of evolutionists, very soon a G2 mutant variety was produced that could grow 2.5 times as fast on xylitol as the previous G1 generation could. These G2 mutants had developed an increase in growth fitness over the previous generation (this was still not as high as the wild type however). Surely, this was “evolution in action”!

Then, even more excitingly, a G3 mutant variety could grow two times as fast on xylitol as the previous G2 generation could. These G3 mutants have developed an even higher increase in growth fitness over the previous generation (still not as high as the original wild type however).

The researchers concluded that all three mutant generations were each the result of single nucleotide substitution (point mutations). The overall results demonstrated the first mutation enabled the bacteria to survive on a nutrient it didn’t survive on previously and that the next two mutations improved on its ability to use it.

Surely, this was now a textbook example of neo-Darwinian evolution as it supposedly demonstrated new traits and abilities coming into existence via natural selection and genetic mutation working in tandem—exactly what evolutionists predicted!

Peeking Behind the Curtain

However, upon close inspection, this example of evolution falls apart as well, because all three of the point mutations that caused the observed effects in the bacteria were caused by a disabling or degrading of functions they already had rather than an acquisition of new ones. Let me explain.

First, we need to understand that ribitol dehydrogenase (RDH) is an enzyme produced by healthy bacteria that catalyzes the first step in the metabolism of the sugar (ribitol) that it normally “eats” so to speak.

Now it’s been demonstrated that RDH can break down xylitol as well, as it is very similar in structure to ribitol, it’s just that it is an unnatural sugar that doesn’t occur in the wild. The cell can survive on it, but cell activity is much lower than normal, and normally, molecules like xylitol can only get into cells in minute quantities.

However, the bacteria have a sensory system that triggers the RDH enzyme in the presence of ribitol, at which point its production is switched on. And the cell also has a “transport system” in the form of a permease enzyme that is also activated by the presence of ribitol.

(As a crude analogy in comparison to animal digestion, think of a dog’s nose as the sensory system which triggers the production of saliva, and causes them to open their mouths wide to allow food inside easily.)

Now in the case of the G1 mutant, the point mutation resulted in breaking the “tap” that turns the production of RDH on or off so that the bacteria began producing it constantly (think of this like a broken pipe that no longer allows you to stop the flow of water—i.e., the taps always “on”). This allowed the minute quantities of xylitol that made its way inside the bacteria to be metabolized more efficiently.

In the second instance, the G2 mutant’s point mutation caused a breakdown of the RDH enzyme so that it became less specific toward the food it was selecting to metabolize, which allowed xylitol to be utilized more efficiently.

(Think of this lessening of specificity like the requirements needed to pass an airport security checkpoint where initially it required you to show your passport, boarding pass, and one additional form of ID, like a driver’s license. If the requirements were changed so that you were now only required to supply your passport and boarding pass, it would mean less specificity in allowing you further access.)

Finally, in the case of the G3 mutants, what was damaged by their particular point mutation was the switch that turned on the “transport system” (the permease enzyme), which was normally only activated in the presence of Ribitol (which then helped open up and allow its food inside freely).

Think of this mutation like a broken light switch that no longer allows you to turn off a light. Because the permease enzyme was now constantly active, any xylitol that was available was now brought in greater quantities which was metabolized by the constantly made, less specific RDH enzyme.

The Curtain Falls

So, despite what the initial interpretation concluded (that these bacteria were somehow evolving), the final analysis once again highlights just the opposite. These G1, 2, and 3 bacteria don’t have anything new, they just have broken “pipe” for the manufacture of RDH enzyme, a “less specific” and degraded RDH enzyme, and a damaged broken switch for their food transportation enzyme.

These bacteria survive and improve fitness in that particular, artificial environment only because of an increasing overall loss of specific functionality—`they would likely fail miserably in the wild.

These bacteria survive and improve fitness in that particular, artificial environment only because of an increasing overall loss of specific functionality—`they would likely fail miserably in the wild.

Just think about it. Could these three steps (performed in under three months in a lab) serve as a model that could lead to the evolution of all the life-forms that have ever existed on the planet?

Absolutely not! And yet, these examples I’ve mentioned are the types of evidence shown in textbooks, given in lectures, and put forth against us on our social media comment sections constantly as so-called proof of evolution having been observed.

And yet, in evolutionists’ own writings you can see many examples where they will admit they don’t truly understand how novel traits could arise through natural selection or mutations, as the quotes from Trends in Genetics demonstrates.

Nonetheless, most studies of recent evolution involve the loss of traits, and we still understand little of the genetic changes needed in the origin of novel traits.8

The bottom line is, what we’ve observed is that mutations only alter current traits; they’ve never been observed to add novel ones. It’s not as if creationists don’t understand that trade-offs naturally occur in nature as organisms adapt to their environment, but these adaptations are nondirectional in the macro sense, because typically, they result in the overall fitness of organisms decreasing through the degeneration and/or loss of genetic information. And again, this admission is in evolutionary literature.

Many of the well-studied examples of adaptive evolution have involved trait loss, such as the loss of bony structures in freshwater stickleback populations and the reduction of pigmentation and eyes in cavefish. However, over the broad sweep of evolutionary time what we would really like to explain is the gain of complexity and the origins of novel adaptations.9

Indeed, the evidence for either micro or macroevolution is so bad that evolutionists are willing to sometimes admit their use of semantics in rather silly ways just to cling to the idea that they possess observational proof for their belief system.

Of course, to some extent the difference between loss and gain could be a question of semantics, so for example the loss of trichomes [hairlike appendages on flies] could be called gain of naked cuticle.10

Seriously, if it isn’t obvious that (1) a loss of a feature on the surface of a creature, which then results in (2) that creature having a surface that doesn’t contain said lost feature, is (3) supposedly proof of evolution—I would say to my evolution-believing friends that the joke is on you!

So-called “beneficial” mutations are not a mechanism for evolution in any sense (macro or micro—which is why we don’t use those terms) as evolution somewhere along the way requires the gaining of new traits, not simply losing ones they previously had.

As always, what we see in the world matches what we see in God’s Word. We see evidence of incredible design that has degenerated over time due to sin and the curse brought about by the fall of man as is clearly revealed in Genesis.