Not by Chance: Shattering the Modem Theory of Evolu­tion

Evidence from Genetics

 Darwin's theory says fish evolved, through many intermediate steps, into human beings. The question thus arises: How did fish acquire the genes to become humans? A creature cannot be anything physically its genes won't allow. A zebra cannot give birth to a baby kangaroo-it only has zebra genes. A woman can't even be born blonde with­ out genes for blonde hair-otherwise, she has to use Miss Clairol.
 
Genetics was not developed as a science in Dar­win's day, and he assumed animals essentially had an unlimited capacity to adapt to environments.

He wrote: "By this process long continued . . . it seems to me almost certain that an ordinary hoofed quadruped might be converted into a giraffe. " 13 In other words, Darwin believed you could take, say, donkeys, and if you put them in the right environment, they could, given enough time, become giraffes. This simply is not true.
 
Even after millions of years in the jungle, donkeys would still be donkeys, because they only have donkey genes.
 
To resolve this dilemma, modern evolutionists asserted that the fish's genes must have mutated into human genes over eons-mutations, of course, are abrupt alterations in genes. They gen­erally occur very rarely. According to evolutionary theory, an organism develops some new positive characteristic through a mutation, better adapting it to the environment. The creature then passes this mutated trait on to the next generation, and eventually it spreads through the whole species.
Organisms without the trait, being weaker, die out ("survival of the fi ttest "). Through this process, fish gradually evolved into men.
 
However, this hypothesis no longer holds up.
 
Dr. Lee Spetner, who taught information theory for a decade at Johns Hopkins University and the Weizman Institute, spent years studying muta­tions. He has written an important new book, Not by Chance: Shattering the Modem Theory of Evolu­tion. In it, he writes: "In all the reading I've done in the life-sciences literature, I've never found a mutation that added information . . . . All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not increase it. "14 Mutations delete information from the genetic code. They never create higher, more complex information. What are they actually observed to cause in human beings? Death. Sterility. Hemo­philia. Sickle cell anemia. Cystic fibrosis. Down's syndrome. And over 4,000 other diseases. The genetic code is designed to run an organism per­ fectly-mutations delete information from the code, causing birth defects.
 
To advance their view, evolutionists have long pointed to mutations with beneficial effects. The most common example given: mutations sometimes make bacteria resistant to antibiotics (germ­ killing drugs). And so, the argument goes, "If mutations can make bacteria stronger, they must be able to do the same for other creatures." Dr. Spetner points out that this is based on a misunderstanding, for the mutations that cause antibi­otic resistance still involve information loss.
For example, to destroy a bacterium, the antibi­otic streptomycin attaches to a part of the bacter­ial cell called ribosomes. Mutations sometimes cause a structural deformity in ribosomes. Since the antibiotic cannot connect with the misshapen ribosome, the bacterium is resistant. But even though this mutation turns out to be beneficial, it still constitutes a loss of genetic information, not a gain. No "evolution" has taken place; the bacteria are not "stronger." In fact, under normal conditions, with no antibiotic present, they are weaker than their nonmutated cousins.
 
Let's take an analogy. Suppose a country's dicta­tor ordered dissidents to be rounded up and hand­ cuffed. So the police were busy handcuffing dissi­dents. But one day, they ran into a man born deformed-with no arms. One could conceivably say that, in this case, the man had an advantage over others, since he couldn't be handcuffed. But it certainly wouldn't represent an evolutionary advance. And neither does a deformity that pre­vents bacteria from being "handcuffed" by an antibiotic.
 
It is often possible to deduce a benefit from information loss. Suppose you ripped the wind­ shield wipers off your car. Any benefit? Yes, your windshield could never be scratched by the wipers. But don't we all prefer wipers? Or suppose we just did away with cars completely. That would be a huge loss of information and technology, but there would be benef i ts: less pollution, and no one would die in car accidents.
 
What if a mutation causes a child to be born deaf? Any benefit? Yes, the child will never hear any curse words. But don't we all want children who can hear? In the same way, evolutionists, by viewing a particular mutation in a limited context, may describe the mutation as "beneficial" and incorrectly say it represents evolutionary progress.
 
A good example is the disease sickle cell anemia, which some evolutionists have portrayed as beneficial because its deformed red blood cells are immune to malaria. But this is akin to saying it would be good to cut off your toes to prevent ath­ lete's foot. Like the armless man, the wiperless car and the deaf child, these "beneficial mutations" turn out to be information losses.
 
Why is this a problem for evolution? Because if Darwin's thesis is correct, and all life began as a single cell, then chance mutations must have designed and engineered nearly every biological feature on Earth, from dolphins' remarkable sonar system (which is the envy of the u.s. Navy) to the human heart. The latter is an ingenious structure.
 
Blood is pumped from the right side of the heart to the lungs, where it receives oxygen; back to the heart's left side, which propels it to the rest of the body through more than 60,000 miles of vessels.
The heart has four chambers; a system of valves prevents backflow into any of these; electrical impulses from a natural pacemaker control the heart's rhythm.
 
Rarely, mutations cause babies to be born with congenital heart disorders, making blood shunt to the wrong place. There is no known case of mutations improving circulation. Hemoglobin-the blood's oxygen-carrying component-has over forty mutant variants. Not one transports oxygen better than normal hemoglobin.l5 To accept evolu­tion, we must believe that human blood circulation-a wonder of engineering-was constructed by chance mutations, when actual observation demonstrates they damage it.
 
Ernst Chain, who shared a Nobel Prize for his work in developing penicillin, knew much about bacteria and antibiotics. Dr. Chain stated: "To pos­tulate that the development and survival of the fittest is entirely a consequence of chance muta­tions, or even that nature carries out experiments by trial and error through mutations in order to create living systems better fitted to survive, seems to me a hypothesis based on no evidence and irrec­oncilable with the facts."

Mutations are often inheritable, they do create changes, but the changes are inevitably downward, or at best neutral. Mutations have never been observed to originate a new hormone, organ, or other functional structure. They reduce, but do not generate, biologic technology. This is not to  say it is impossible that a random mutation could create higher genetic information-only that it is not observed in science. And Darwin's theory could die on this alone. But instead, we'll just call this "strike one" on Darwin. 

from The Case against Darwin by James Perloff