Are Beneficial Mutations More Common Than Assumed?

So what does this all mean? AiG’s director of research and molecular geneticist, Dr. Georgia Purdom, explains:

Welcome to this week’s installment of how observational science shows evolutionary ideas fail!

The Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution states that most mutations result in neither harm nor help to an organism. Harmful mutations are removed by natural selection (aka death!), beneficial mutations are rare, so observed DNA differences between organisms are neutral.

Here’s two major problems with that “theory.” For one kind of organism to evolve into a different kind of organism, many, many beneficial mutations must occur. The problem is that beneficial mutations are thought to be very rare. In addition, mutations are context dependent, so what is beneficial in one environment may not be beneficial in a different one. Take for example antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Mutations that lead to resistance may be beneficial to bacteria living in a hospital where there are a lot of antibiotics, but that resistance comes at a cost. Those same mutations result in degradation such that certain normal functions are lost or hampered. If the antibiotic-resistant bacteria are placed in an environment without antibiotics, they likely will not be able to compete effectively against other bacteria that don’t have those mutations.

To address some of the problems with the Neutral Theory of Molecular Evolution, the scientists in this study asked: “Are beneficial mutations really that scarce?” Studying one-celled organisms like E. coli and yeast, they determined that beneficial mutations may be quite common. BUT they don’t typically get “fixed” in a population (meaning they never become dominant in the population). Why? Because the environments they live in can change quickly, and so what might be beneficial in one environment is not beneficial in another (like with antibiotic-resistant bacteria).

An article describing the research said,

The findings point to a more restless view of evolution. Rather than steadily marching toward a perfect fit between organisms and their environments, populations may often be stuck in pursuit of conditions that keep changing . . .

Evolution may be less like climbing steadily toward perfection and more like running after a world that keeps moving.

It seems like evolution is on the inevitable hamster wheel going nowhere! If beneficial mutations are common but can’t become dominant and are context dependent, then how can organisms gain the necessary structures and functions to evolve into other organisms? Evolutionists might posit time is the key. However, time is irrelevant because what is needed is a genetic mechanism, and they just don’t have one.

Evolution still doesn’t have a mechanism to create the information necessary to turn a single-celled organism into all the life-forms we have today.

In other words, beneficial (and what that means is not what many people think it means) mutations might indeed be more common than thought, but it doesn’t actually help evolution because they don’t “stick” in a population, due to ever-changing conditions. So evolution still doesn’t have a mechanism to create the information necessary to turn a single-celled organism into all the life-forms we have today (think about the mind-boggling amount of genetic information you need to do that!).

And we can’t forget that mutations (and natural selection as well) occur on information that already exists. There’s no known naturalistic mechanism that can create brand-new, functioning genetic information. That simply doesn’t occur. Evolution is nothing more than a story, accepted on faith, about the past. And the observational science keeps contradicting it!

Information in DNA exists because God created it from the very beginning, and mutations exist because of the Fall corrupting the “very good” information that God originally created. The biblical worldview explains what we observe!

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.