The Pleiotropic Effect

The most important proof that mutations lead only to damage, is the process of genetic coding. Almost all of the genes in a fully developed living thing carry more than one piece of information. For instance, one gene may control both the height and the eye color of that organism. Microbiologist Michael Denton explains this characteristic of genes in higher organisms such as human beings, in this way:

1. The wings do not develop.

2. The hind limbs reach full length, but the digits do not fully develop.

3. There is no soft fur covering

4. Although there is a respiratory passage, lungs and air sacs are absent.

5. The urinary tract does not grow, and does not induce the development of the kidney.

On the left we can see the normal development of a domesticated fowl, and on the right the harmful effects of a mutation in the pleiotropic gene. Careful examination shows that a mutation in just one gene damages many different organs. Even if we hypothesize that mutation could have a beneficial effect, this "pleiotropic effect" would remove the advantage by damaging many more organs.

The effects of genes on development are often surprisingly diverse. In the house mouse, nearly every coat-colour gene has some effect on body size. Out of seventeen x-ray induced eye colour mutations in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, fourteen affected the shape of the sex organs of the female, a characteristic that one would have thought was quite unrelated to eye colour. Almost every gene that has been studied in higher organisms has been found to effect more than one organ system, a multiple effect which is known as pleiotropy. As Mayr argues in Population, Species and Evolution: "It is doubtful whether any genes that are not pleiotropic exist in higher organisms."26

Because of this characteristic of the genetic structure of living things, any coincidental change because of a mutation, in any gene in the DNA, will affect more than one organ. Consequently, this mutation will not be restricted to one part of the body, but will reveal more of its destructive impact. Even if one of these impacts turns out to be beneficial, as a result of a very rare coincidence, the unavoidable effects of the other damage it causes will more than outweigh those benefits.

To summarize, there are three main reasons why mutations cannot make evolution possible:

l- The direct effect of mutations is harmful: Since they occur randomly, they almost always damage the living organism that undergoes them. Reason tells us that unconscious intervention in a perfect and complex structure will not improve that structure, but will rather impair it. Indeed, no "useful mutation" has ever been observed.

2- Mutations add no new information to an organism's DNA: The particles making up the genetic information are either torn from their places, destroyed, or carried off to different places. Mutations cannot make a living thing acquire a new organ or a new trait. They only cause abnormalities like a leg sticking out of the back, or an ear from the abdomen.

3- In order for a mutation to be transferred to the subsequent generation, it has to have taken place in the reproductive cells of the organism: A random change that occurs in a cell or organ of the body cannot be transferred to the next generation. For example, a human eye altered by the effects of radiation, or by other causes, will not be passed on to subsequent generations.

All the explanations provided above indicate that natural selection and mutation have no evolutionary effect at all. So far, no observable example of "evolution" has been obtained by this method. Sometimes, evolutionary biologists claim that "they cannot observe the evolutionary effect of natural selection and mutation mechanisms since these mechanisms take place only over an extended period of time." However, this argument, which is just a way of making themselves feel better, is baseless, in the sense that it lacks any scientific foundation. During his lifetime, a scientist can observe thousands of generations of living things with short life spans such as fruit flies or bacteria, and still observe no "evolution." Pierre-Paul Grassé states the following about the unchanging nature of bacteria, a fact which invalidates evolution:

Bacteria ...are the organisms which, because of their huge numbers, produce the most mutants. [B]acteria ...exhibit a great fidelity to their species. The bacillus Escherichia coli, whose mutants have been studied very carefully, is the best example. The reader will agree that it is surprising, to say the least, to want to prove evolution and to discover its mechanisms and then to choose as a material for this study a being which practically stabilized a billion years ago! What is the use of their unceasing mutations, if they do not [produce evolutionary] change? In sum, the mutations of bacteria and viruses are merely hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect. Cockroaches, which are one of the most venerable living insect groups, have remained more or less unchanged since the Permian, yet they have undergone as many mutations as Drosophila, a Tertiary insect.27

Briefly, it is impossible for living beings to have evolved, because there exists no mechanism in nature that can cause evolution. Furthermore, this conclusion agrees with the evidence of the fossil record, which does not demonstrate the existence of a process of evolution, but rather just the contrary.

26 Michael Denton, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Burnett Books Ltd., London, 1985, p. 149.
27 Pierre-Paul Grassé, Evolution of Living Organisms, Academic Press, New York, 1977, p. 87. (emphasis added)