The Problem of Mutations

When it comes to explaining the origins and diversity of life, there is no room for God or any other supernatural explanation in mainstream science. Period. No, buts, no ifs, no exceptions.

As the late astronomer Carl Sagan said, "The cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be."

The implications of this naturalistic worldview are clear. One can not, with integrity, maintain a belief in the supernatural as a causal effect and at the same time embrace the scientific worldview. They are mutually exclusive.

Make no mistake. Mainstream science, as practiced today, is only and solely concerned with natural explanations. That's because scientific theories must be refutable and scientific experiments must be repeatable. Supernatural explanations, as of today, have not lead to refutable, repeatable theories.

Therefore, when it comes to explaining the origins of life, scientists restrict themselves to natural explanations. Even if the message "God was here" was found inscribed in a cell membrane, scientists would insist the origins of the message were natural.

One has to understand the strength of mainstream bias against supernatural explanations to understand the modern scientific worldview. I believe scientists today have willingly forced themselves into a logical corner from which there's no escape.

Consider that evolution teaches that over a span of millions of years, nonliving chemicals spontaneously gave rise to simple living cells that mutated into more advanced life forms resulting in all the variations of life that exist today.

Mutations are changes that occur in the DNA, specifically, to the order of the base pairs that form DNA.

Science describes two kinds of mutations in genes: those that alter amino acids and and those that do not. Recall that proteins are made of chains of amino acid chains and that genes provide the instructions for making the amino acid chains.

Mutations that do not alter amino acid chains are called silent mutations. These mutations don't affect genetic functionality and are considered evolutionary neutral.

Mutations that alter amino acid chains are either beneficial or harmful. Mainstream scientists argue that random, beneficial mutations, over a long span of time, changed the DNA of simple celled creatures which increased their survivability. These beneficial mutations were then passed to their descendants through inheritance leading to increasingly complex life forms.

In other words, without beneficial mutations, life would not have become increasingly more complex. Evolution, therefore, requires beneficial mutations because this is the only natural way, scientists argue, that new genetic variations, or alleles, are produced. Without alleles, everyone would look exactly the same.

The problem with this scenario is that mutations rarely result in a beneficial change that would increase the survivability of a population of simple cell creatures. It sounds good, but, experimentation doesn't justify the theory.

For mutations to occur at all, a cell, complete with DNA, must have formed first, somehow, someway. In my mind, the utter failure of mainstream science to offer a refutable theory with repeatable experiments that explains the or gins of cells and DNA undermines the theory's credibility.

Mainstream scientists simply assume, by faith, that an explanation is one day, forthcoming.

Nevertheless, for mutations to beneficial, a gain in new information within an organism’s genetic material is required. For example, for a population of amoebas, single celled creatures, to evolve into, say, fish, new information and new genetic segments would have to develop that would provide the basis for gills, scales, fins, etc. The DNA strand would increase as more functionality evolves.

But, experiments and research have overwhelmingly shown that mutations result in a loss of information, not a gain. Mutations are the reason we have diseases like cancer, mental retardation, cystic fibrosis and sickle cell anemia.

Granted, there have been a few cases of beneficial mutations when information was gained, However, for evolution to be true, billions of beneficial mutations are required. The fact is, beneficial mutations of this magnitude have not been observed in nature. Instead, we observe the opposite: organisms losing information. How can a loss add up to a gain?

The notion that random, beneficial mutations occurred for millions of years is simply not a viable scientific theory, at this time, because the experimental evidence doesn't justify it.

Tell that to a mainstream scientist and prepare yourself for a vitriolic reaction. But, the truth is, the bias of mainstream science that restricts all explanations to natural ones is a recent phenomenon. Historically, the greatest scientific minds have believed in a creative, supernatural power because it simply better explained what they observed and experienced.

Skeptics will counter, "Then, why do mutations exist at all? Why would a wise, benevolent, powerful God design DNA in such a way that mutations are inevitable?"

The traditional Christian response is that harmful mutations exist because of Humanity's rebellion to God's perfect order. The original humans were created genetically perfect, without harmful mutations. It was only after they disobeyed God and received the "death sentence" for their actions that harmful mutations were introduced.

Nevertheless, traditional Christians believe a day will come when harmful mutations will cease, death will not occur and all disease will be disappear. Humans, once again, will possess perfect bodies with perfect DNA.

And here's the thing. Everyone can possess this perfect body. It's not restricted to an elite group of people or membership into an exlusive club. The grace of God, offered through Jesus, has been extended to all of Humanity and just as Jesus was resurrected with a perfect body, so, too, will those who have placed their trust in him as their savior.

Such a simple thing, yet so hard for many.