Evolution as Bad Science – 8) Getting lucky.

Now, back to that amazingly fortuitous bit of mutation. Evolution depends on mutations to DNA. Of course, it never used to – it was just mutations, which didn’t sound so hard, until someone worked out that it involved DNA, and then it became more of a problem. The problem with mutations is that DNA is all about information, and we only ever encounter mutations that lose information, mutations that don’t add anything new to the creature that wasn’t already there. But for us to get from goo, through the zoo, to you, we need millions upon millions of favourable changes that add new information. The only favourable changes ever seen are when things stopped working which in some situations got organisms in particular situations into trouble, like when various diseases develop antibiotic resistance by losing the characteristic that the antibiotic latched on to. A favourable mutation which added new information has never been seen in all of recorded history. Not one, never mind a few million. Mutations tend instead to be destructive, adding together over the years to produce new weaknesses, as evidence of a genetic burden which gets worse with each generation, not better. Change in nature goes the wrong way for evolution. It is a destructive, rather than a creative force.

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