Variation

Variation is a term used in genetic science, and concerns the emergence of different varieties, or species. This genetic phenomenon causes individuals or groups within a given species to possess different features from others. For example, all human beings on Earth possess essentially the same genetic information. But thanks to the variation potential permitted by that genetic information, some people have round eyes, or red hair, or a long nose, or are short and stocky in stature.

Darwinists, however, seek to portray variation within a species as evidence for evolution. The fact is, however, that variations constitute no such thing, because variation consists of the emergence of different combinations of genetic information that already exists, and cannot endow individuals with any new genetic information or characteristics.

Variation is always restricted by existing genetic information. These boundaries are known as the gene pool in genetic science. (See The Gene Pool.) Darwin, however, thought that variation had no limits when he proposed his theory267, and he depicted various examples of variation as the most important evidence for evolution in his book The Origin of Species.

According to Darwin, for example, farmers mating different variations of cow in order to obtain breeds with better yields of milk would eventually turn cows into another species altogether. Darwin's idea of limitless change stemmed from the primitive level of science in his day. As a result of similar experiments on living things in the 20th century, however, science revealed a principle known as genetic homeostasis. This principle revealed that all attempts to change a living species by means of interbreeding (forming different variations) were in vain, and that between species, there were unbreachable walls. In other words, it was absolutely impossible for cattle to evolve into another species as the result of farmers mating different breeds to produce different variations, as Darwin had claimed would happen.

Luther Burbank, one of the world's foremost authorities on the subject of genetic hybrids, expresses a similar truth: "there are limits to the development possible, and these limits follow a law." 268 Thousands of years of collective experience have shown that the amount of biological change obtained using cross-breeding is always limited, and that there is a limit to the variations that any one species can undergo.

Indeed, in the introduction to their book Natural Limits to Biological Change Professor of Biology Lane P. Lester and the molecular biologist Raymond G. Bohlin wrote:

That populations of living organisms may change in their anatomy, physiology, genetic structure, etc., over a period of time is beyond question. What remains elusive is the answer to the question, How much change is possible, and by what genetic mechanism will these changes take place? Plant and animal breeders can marshal an impressive array of examples to demonstrate the extent to which living systems can be altered. But when a breeder begins with a dog, he ends up with a dog-a rather strange looking one, perhaps, but a dog nonetheless. A fruit fly remains a fruit fly; a rose, a rose, and so on.269

Variations and their various changes are restricted inside the bounds of a species' genetic information, and they can never add new genetic information to species. For that reason, no variation can be regarded as an example of evolution.
The Danish scientist W. L. Johannsen summarizes the situation:

The variations upon which Darwin and Wallace placed their emphasis cannot be selectively pushed beyond a certain point, that such variability does not contain the secret of "indefinite departure."270

The fact that there are different human races in the world or the differences between parents and children can be explained in terms of variation. Yet there is no question of any new component being added to their gene pool. For example, no matter how much you seek to enrich their species, cats will always remain cats, and will never evolve into any other mammal. It is impossible for the sophisticated sonar system in a marine mammal to emerge through recombination. (See Recombination.) Variation may account for the differences between human races, but it can never provide any basis for the claim that apes developed into human beings.

268. Ibid., p.36.
269. Lane P. Lester, Raymond G. Bohlin, Natural Limits to Biological Change, pp. 13-14.
270. Loren Eiseley, The Immense Journey, Vintage Books, 1958, p. 227.