Right Divider
Body part
"demonstrates that genetic mistakes can produce complex structures"Nonsense.
From Scientific American:
Creationist Claim: Mutations are essential to evolution theory, but mutations can only eliminate traits. They cannot produce new features.
On the contrary, biology has catalogued many traits produced by point mutations (changes at precise positions in an organism's DNA)—bacterial resistance to antibiotics, for example.
Mutations that arise in the homeobox (Hox) family of development-regulating genes in animals can also have complex effects. Hox genes direct where legs, wings, antennae and body segments should grow. In fruit flies, for instance, the mutation called Antennapedia causes legs to sprout where antennae should grow. These abnormal limbs are not functional, but their existence demonstrates that genetic mistakes can produce complex structures, which natural selection can then test for possible uses.
Moreover, molecular biology has discovered mechanisms for genetic change that go beyond point mutations, and these expand the ways in which new traits can appear. Functional modules within genes can be spliced together in novel ways. Whole genes can be accidentally duplicated in an organism's DNA, and the duplicates are free to mutate into genes for new, complex features. Comparisons of the DNA from a wide variety of organisms indicate that this is how the globin family of blood proteins evolved over millions of years.
Utter nonsense.
The human body, as an example, is a complex and HIGHLY INTEGRATED system. Genetic mistakes cannot build such a thing. To say that they can is anti-science.
Also note that mutations that confer antibiotic resistance can be caused by a LOSS of function in receptors. So what appears to be a "new" thing is actually a loss of functionality.
Last edited: