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mutation it is the key to our evolution
it has enabled us to evolve from a
single-celled organism into the dominant
species on the planet on the planet the
advent of the nuclear age may have
accelerated the mutation process
individuals with extraordinary abilities
may already be among us mutation is a
critical ingredient in a recipe for
evolution mutation generates variation
differences between individual
individual
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what's fact and what's fiction here are
mutations really the key to our
evolution think about it in real life
significant genetic mutations don't
create superpowers they create super
challenges sometimes those mutations are
even life-threatening that's the reality
and yet we're told that random mutations
with guidance from natural selection
invented and genetically engineered
every feature of every living organism
changes to life's instructions happen
more or less at the rest of mutation
gene generates variations evolutionary
biologists claim that random mutations
accumulating over time ultimately
produce life's features if this is the
case zillions of chance mutations over
the history of life led to the invention
of flight and site immune systems and
reproductive systems even conscious
beings with the capacity to love reason
create art and distinguish right from
wrong however now we no longer have to
rely on speculative claims through
experiments we can actually observe
mutations and see what they're doing to
guide evolution biochemists Michael Behe
has spent much of his life researching
and studying mutations
in the past 50 years or so methods have
been developed to track mutations
changes in DNA at the very molecular
level now we can watch evolution in real
time since 1988 biologist Richard Lansky
has been conducting one of the greatest
evolutionary experiments ever done he
started a culture of bacteria called a
coli growing in his lab and since they
reproduced so quickly now they're up
past 60,000 generations and that's like
a million and a half years of human
lifetimes so we are talking about
numbers that are big enough to see some
serious changes if serious changes could
come about in his work he's seen a lot
of beneficial mutations come along but
turns out that the great majority of the
mutations were in pre-existing genes and
they either broke or degraded the genes
so the bacteria were evolving improving
more by devolution than by evolution
it's difficult to understand how
breaking a gene can be beneficial or
helpful think of it this way
this suppose you had a car and the most
important thing to your survival right
now was the gas mileage
what could you do to improve the gas
mileage of your car quickly one thing
you could do is rip out the backseat and
throw it away back seats are helpful but
if your life depended on you getting
better gas mileage right now that would
be a beneficial improvement the problem
with that for Darwin's theory is that
ripping the back seat out of a car
doesn't tell you how you make a back
seat
Darwin's theory needs to show that
organisms can improve by building things
and that's what has been missing in this
terrific experiment this famous ecoli
experiment shows that trillions of
random mutations are not capable of
building anything new by the numbers
this ecoli experiment is giant but it's
dwarfed by the size of a natural
experiment involving humans infected
with malaria every year about a billion
or so people contract malaria so that's
a billion times a trillion cells that
are made each year on the planet in
recent decades scientists have
exhaustively studied malaria they've
seen how it evolved resistance to
several of the drugs used to treat it
but what is more interesting is what
scientists haven't seen there were no
new molecular machines no new genes and
yet it had so many chances
evolutionary theory would have predicted
that you'd get something really pretty
impressive out of that but it wasn't
seen and it's not just malaria it's not
just ecoli the pattern is widespread for
Behe this raises a serious red flag for
evolutionary theory the discovery that
many beneficial mutations are actually
destructive or degra deterring mutations
puts a huge monkey wrench into Darwinian
theory not only can't
Darwin's mechanism of random mutation
and natural selection build complex
systems it has a strong tendency to
degrade them
this means beneficial mutations what we
have been taught are the building blocks
of evolution show no observable capacity
to build or invent we see that
overwhelmingly the good mutations come
about by freaking old genes so you're
not making something new you're throwing
out something you already had we see it
in bacteria we see it in mammals we see
it in birds we see it everywhere
everywhere that's been looked at so far
this scientific evidence completely
conflicts with evolutionary theory and
that is why the public never hears about
it only a few brief scientists have been
willing to speak out like Lynn Margulis
I was taught over and over that the
accumulation of random mutations led to
evolutionary change led to new species I
believed it until I looked for evidence
so if mutations aren't the building
blocks of evolution what can explain the
invention of new things like the cell or
the eye or flight in birds we find all
kinds of amazing interdependent features
that appear orchestrated for flight we
know from experience how difficult it is
to get a flying machine and what it
takes to build one
we observe things like purpose and
function coming from intelligent sources
not from blind material processes so
when we see design engineering and
artistry throughout nature shouldn't we
be looking for a designer an engineer an
artist capable of fashioning what we see
we are not materialists we see the human
soul we experience it love
than with purpose
we fight for justice we are the quiet
eternity and we quietly
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