Darwin Devolves: The New Science About DNA that Challenges Evolution by Michael J. Behe

Author:Michael J. Behe [Behe, Michael J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062842688
Google: enpbDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 0062842668
Barnesnoble: 0062842668
Goodreads: 38496274
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2018-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

Objections to the Rule

One objection to the rule might be that the laboratory evolution experiments on which it’s based were artificial—they were conducted indoors, in flasks and Petri dishes, with far fewer organisms and for much shorter times than are available to nature. But the objection misses the mark by a mile. Yes, it is true pretty much by definition that lab experiments are artificial. Nonetheless, the same results are found in evolutionary events in nature, as we’ll see later in this chapter and as illustrated by the effects on the human genome of exposure to malaria for ten thousand years. There also the great majority of adaptive mutations were loss-of-FCT or modification-of-function; only one was categorized as a gain-of-FCT, and that functional element (the protein-binding site that leads to sickle-cell disease) in itself is of distinctly dubious value. (Just as loss-of-FCT mutations can be helpful, gain-of-FCT mutations can be harmful.)

It is also true that even the longest, largest-scale experiments pale beside the resources of nature. Yet that perspective completely fails to grasp the significance of the insidious power revealed by small-scale work: it’s not so much the rarity of constructive mutations that undermines Darwinian evolution—it’s the frequency of damaging but helpful ones. Degradative but adaptive loss-of-FCT or modification-of-function mutations appear quickly even on short time scales, even in small populations. They don’t need large numbers or long times to occur. Thus they will always be present everywhere in life much more quickly and in far greater numbers than constructive gain-of-FCT mutations. Damaging yet beneficial mutations will rapidly be selected when nothing else is available and compete fiercely with any gain-of-FCT mutations that might eventually arrive on the scene.

As relentless as the tide and as futile to try to resist, damaging yet helpful mutations will dominate unguided evolution over all time and population scales. As we’ll see in the section after the next, even when the odd crude gain-of-FCT mutation sooner or later lumbers into view, helpful loss-of-FCT mutations will rapidly arrive to fine-tune the organism. They are inescapable.

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