Natural Selection and Evolution: Mutant-X, Fact or Fantasy?

Natural Selection and Evolution: Are Mutational Changes Sufficient To Start The Process?

Hi again folks!  Before we get going I want to say this: I am not an expert on natural selection and evolution.  I have an undergraduate science degree and I’ve done lots of reading, but that’s it.  I will present some ideas and explanations as I see them, but make sure you follow up with our resources section if you want to learn more.

Natural Selection and Evolution…the terms are often used synonymously but they do not mean the same thing.  We’ll start by giving a simple definition of natural selection and evolution and then talk a bit about the problems with evolution and the facts surrounding natural selection.

Evolution of the Darwinian Variety

There are many facets of evolution and various theories behind the idea, so I’ll give a simple definition focused on the most common way it’s understood in association with the evolution of life.

Evolution is the natural process by which:

1. Non living chemicals organized themselves into a living organizm.
2. Natural ongoing processes (natural selection) worked on this simple life form to create more complex decendants.  These eventually led to all life forms that we observe in our world today.

The process of natural selection and evolution can be described like this:

Mutations create new genetic information that is then sorted by natural selection to develop more complex life.

This is considered ‘Macro Evolution’.

Natural Selection

Natural selection is the process by which traits that are advantageous to an organism’s survival are passed on to subsequent generations.  They becoming more common in a population with each successive generation.

This can be considered ‘micro evolution’ and can involve changes within an individual organism or an entire species, but has not been observed to create an entirely different kind of organism.

Natural selection works only when a ‘functional change’ occurs.  That is a change in something that makes a difference to how an organism or animal interacts with its environment.  Thicker fur, for example can make a creature more adaptable to living in colder climates.

Natural Selection and Evolution: Facts and Ideas

First of all, natural selection is not promoted as a mechanism that can make non-living chemicals organize themselves into living matter.  Natural selection works by selecting existing traits and is not a candidate to explain the origin of life.  Presently, all attempts at coming up with a good solid explanation for how “chemicals-to-life” could have occurred by natural processes have failed.

Natural selection is undisputed as an observable process.  Creationists and evolutionists agree that it can be observed in nature today.  Many naturalists believe this process is responsible for evolution.  However, many other scientists, both believers and atheists, see major issues with the idea that naturally selected beneficial mutations are responsible for the occurrence of evolution.

Dr. John C. Sanford discusses natural selection and evolution in his book Genetic Entropy & The Mystery of the Genome and points out that:

• The vast majority of observable mutations are damaging to the organisms in which they occur…and these are not somehow separated from potential beneficial mutations.  This makes for an overall loss of genetic information over time.
• Deteriorating mutations usually do not show up functionally. It is not realistic to think that a natural selection process can somehow negatively select mutations that degrade the genome but do not create a functional change.  This also supports the idea of devolution of the genome rather than evolution over time.
• There is a very tenuous connection between any mutation and a functional change. In other words, the vast majority of mutations don’t show up in any change that would help or hurt the organism’s chance of survival. This connection gets exponentially more tenuous with each step in a series of mutational changes that are necessary to result in a functional change.  Dr. Sanford likens it to requiring the process of natural selection to select a specific soldier (mutation) based on the performance of his army (all functional systems).
• ‘Junk’ or non-functional DNA was previously thought to be a remnant from older mutational changes.  Changes that were followed by natural selection and evolution.  The amount of DNA classified as ‘junk’ is disappearing more and more as new discoveries are showing its true uses. Scientists are realizing that they don’t really know enough about how it works to classify large parts of the genome as ‘junk’ like they used to.  Previously 97% of the human genome was classified as ‘junk’ or useless remnants of evolution.  Since then, 30% has been discovered to actually be useful and new discoveries in the field are occuring every day.
• The rate at which mutations spontaneously occur does not give enough time for the evolutionary changes required to result in the biodiversity of today.
• Almost all mutations are recessive, which decreases the chance that they may be passed on during sexual reproduction.  This makes natural selection and evolution difficult at best.
• ‘Fitness’ in relation to strength, intelligence, speed, etc. has more to do with environment than heritability. Height for example is about 30% inherited and 70% environmentally determined.  Some scientists estimate that over 99% of natural selection for positive traits will be ‘wasted’ on selection of traits that were caused by environmental factors instead of genetic changes that can be passed on to the next generation.

Evolution theory suggests you can take mutations…add natural selection…and evolution occurs.  This is unlikely given the limitations of mutation as an agent of positive change.

Is mutation a means for generating new genetic material?

Natural selection has been observed to create positive survival features in a variety of cases.  These are often pointed out as examples of ‘evolution in action’. The problem with this idea is that natural selection is not an example of macro evolution, but micro evolution.

Evolution in a broader sense can be described as ‘change’.  In that sense, we all evolve.  However, naturally selected change in an organism is not macro evolution. It is change within a species, it happens all the time, and would be classified as ‘micro’ evolution instead.  Much like artificial breeding programs can ‘select’ for certain traits in dogs or cattle.

There is no good evidence that the processes of natural selection is a mechanism for creation of more complex genetic material.  Nor that it could drive the evolution of simple to more complex life forms.

Evolution (macro) in the sense we described earlier requires an overall increase in genetic information from a simple to a more complex organism.

Natural selection involves ‘selecting’ from already existing genes to pick the one that works best for the individual’s survival.

In almost every example you can find of natural selection in action, it involves the overall LOSS of genetic information.  A trait, such as a larger beak in a bird (Galapagos finches are common examples) is naturally selected because it does better with larger seeds.  There is no new genetic information created. Instead, it would be an example of a decrease in the genetic information…loss of the gene that would code for a smaller beak.  It’s a great example of natural selection, but not evolution.

What you have is a reshuffling of existing genetic information. If the conditions were right and remained that way for a period of time, this could cause permanent change in the species.  The large beaked birds being the only ones that survive to pass their genes on to their offspring…making for a shallower gene pool with an overall loss of the genetic information for smaller beaks.

In the Galapagos  finches, the beaks actually change back and forth at a fairly rapid rate due to environmental conditions and food supply, so the genetic information has not been lost…and can change fairly quickly.

I did an experiment in high school biology where my partner and I artificially selected for shorter life spans in fruit flies. We changed our little drosophila population by selecting for already existing genes.  We eliminated the genes that made for a longer life.  Natural selection and evolution?  Sure, if you mean micro evolution that creates changes within a species.  There is no way to extrapolate the possibility of creation of new genetic material by this kind of experiment or by similar observation in nature.

Natural Selection and Evolution In Bacteria

There are a couple of examples in bacteria that may show a positive genetic mutation which adds genetic material and benefits the bacterium.  Many bacterial changes, however, are actually a natural selection of pre-existing genes.  Genes that are resistant to antibiotics is one exapmle.

Theories of natural selection and evolution cannot be ‘proven’ on a handful of examples of positive mutational change in bacteria while there are millions of examples of mutations that degrade rather then build up the genome in all organisms.

I personally do not believe the evidence points to evolution…at least not by the mechanism of ‘mutation – natural selection – evolution’ that is taught in popular science today.  I do think the evidence does point to the existence of a God who created life.

If God somehow used an evolutionary process to develop the life He created, we have yet to discover a natural mechanism that could drive that process.  If the evidence for a creator is true and he can create the universe from nothing…the possibilities are endless as to how he decided to create and develop biological life.

If you believe in a God who is the creator of the universe, naturalistic explanations for life like natural selection and evolution are only one of the possibilities for life’s creation and development.  Naturalistic science, no matter how it defines itself, does not have any evidence that it holds exclusive knowledge of the truth.

Next time we’ll discuss the fossil record and the evolutionary trees that naturalistic science creates to explain the evolutionary history of modern species.

See you next time…Make it a great day!

Rod MacKenzie

Tagged as: evolution, mutations, natural selection