Genetics

Have the fish in New York's Hudson River evolved into 'super mutants'? A large proportion of the river's Atlantic tomcod fish have developed resistance to certain poisons, and the mass media has heralded this as a dramatic example of evolution in action! However, far from supporting microbes-to-man evolution, these mutant fish have actually devolved, not evolved! That's because the fish have become resistant through a loss of genetic information. Non-resistant fish have special proteins in their cells that allow the poisons to bind. However, due to a genetic mutation, the proteins of resistant fish cannot bind the poisons as readily. So, 'corrupted' proteins have made the fish resistant. And in the poison-rich environment of the Hudson River, it's no wonder that the mutated gene facilitating resistance has quickly spread through the tomcod population. It is misleading to call these changes 'evolution', because evolution requires the addition of new genetic information, but these resistant fish have only demonstrated information loss.

Most people know about the DNA code as the 'language of life'. Now scientists have discovered the epigenetic code. DNA code is governed by this code, a code so significant that one science writer said that genes are 'little more than puppets'. What is it and how does it confirm creation?

Beneficial mutations are real but they produce nothing new, only triggering into action the built-in modes of variation.

As a result of studies of the human genome, mutations are being classified into just two categories—‘deleterious’ and ‘functional’.

Do common mutations found in humans and apes prove evolution?

The process of cell division is so complicated and selective that evolutionists can’t adequately explain its origin.

Did you know that the DNA code is itself governed by another code known as the epigenetic code? This physical and chemical code determines which genes are switched on. Changes in this code can greatly alter an organism without altering one letter of its DNA. For instance, scientists have managed to change the coat colour in mice by feeding them a diet that switches off certain genes. Epigenetics poses new problems for evolution. For instance, a group of animals with a camouflaged coat colour might be favoured in a particular environment, but if this coat colour is due to epigenetics and not the actual DNA code, then the non-camouflaged animals would be selected against in vain. When the epigenetic modification is reset by a diet change, natural selection is sent back to square one. The field of epigenetics, therefore, creates problems for evolution and strongly points to a master programmer who invented the DNA and epigenetic codes.

Did you know that animals have genetic switches? These are regulatory regions of DNA that control the genes. Scientists have noticed that dramatic things can happen when a genetic switch is mutated. For instance, a mutated genetic switch can dramatically alter the appearance of stickleback fish, or generate a great variety of coat colours in animals. Veterinary researcher Dr Jean Lightner has suggested that God may have created genetic switches to facilitate variation, the switches having been created with a propensity to mutate without negatively affecting other traits. Modifications to genetic switches are not examples of ‘evolution in action’, even though they often are spoken of in that manner. Indeed, these changes don’t involve new information—new genes—arising, and evolutionists cannot explain the existence of the genetic switches in the first place! The more we learn about the complexity of genomes, the more they point to a super-intelligent master programmer.

Dr. John Sanford and Dr. Robert Carter discuss how genetic entropy is a fatal flaw for biological evolution.

How do fish survive in Antarctic waters without freezing? The answer is that their blood plasma has lots of ‘antifreeze’ protein that bind to ice and prevent the crystals from growing and thus causing damage. Some evolutionists claim that this is an example of ‘evolution in action’ because new DNA code has been created that codes for the antifreeze protein. But does this really support molecules-to-man evolution? Antifreeze proteins are quite different from the complex, specific proteins found elsewhere in the fish, or in our own bodies. They are simple proteins, which may have arisen through the duplication of a digestive enzyme gene that lost its original function due to mutations scrambling it. Even though they fortuitously prevent ice crystals from growing, this is a very non-specific job that many different random proteins could perform. So, even though antifreeze proteins help fish survive, they don’t explain how complex, specific proteins could arise by mutations.

Answers to questions on Gods existence, evolution, dinosaurs, carbon dating, Noahs Flood, UFOs and aliens, and why Jesus died.

Research indicates that many outward characteristics of organisms may be the result of ‘switching on’ of existing genes in response to the environment.

Who would have ever thought of storing information on segments of threaded strands according to a certain code? The Incas did—and they weren’t the first.

A fairy tale for grown-ups? Musings from Hans Christian Andersen, ‘intelligent ink’ and evolution.

In the heyday of evolutionary racism, materialistic scientists saw dark-skinned people as mere specimens to be studied, and they engaged in the macabre trade of body parts from various countries.

Few creatures alive today incite more fear and awe than these fierce marine predators with their razor-sharp teeth. But not all sharks are harmful to man.