DNA Transfer Utilized by Evolution?

Evolution is speeding up, according to a Rice University team studying a process known as horizontal gene transfer. The team believes that “microbes are accelerating evolution by constantly transporting whole chunks of DNA that may represent new and beneficial functions—like resistance to disease” from one organism to another.

Evolutionists cling to hope, frequently introducing new ideas for what caused the sudden complexity.

Interestingly, part of the argument the Rice team, led by genetic engineer Michael Deem, gives for this acceleration of evolution is to cite the so-called “Cambrian explosion,” the evolutionary term for when, according to uniformitarian interpretations of the geological record, all of life became inexplicably complex in an incredibly short period of time. Despite this anything-but-gradual “explosion” that is anything but what evolutionary theory predicts, evolutionists cling to hope, frequently introducing new ideas for what caused the sudden complexity. The Rice team claims horizontal gene transfer “may have played a significant role in allowing early multicellular organisms to develop into the living things we know today.”

Unsurprisingly, “[n]ot everyone agrees how prominent a part this gene-swapping process has played in the evolution of larger organisms like plants and animals.” Furthermore, this process, despite its label as an evolutionary mechanism, fits with the biblical account of creation. After all, this process cannot create any new genetic information; it can merely copy and move existing genetic information. In other words, it in no way furthers the idea that bland, simple life-forms could rapidly evolve and speciate into the almost countless variants of complex life on earth today.