The Design Revolution | Random mutations are no ‘magic wand’
in Pennsylvania, shows that they do not result in macroevolution. He presents the empirical evidence of the genetics revolution – the first direct evidence of nature’s mutational capabilities. How much of life does Darwin’s theory explain? Very little. The power of random mutation and natural selection to create biological structures was always a matter of conjecture, even faith, deduced from what is, at best, circumstantial evidence. It was a theory awaiting confirmation from direct evidence. The direct evidence is now available, but it does not confirm the theory. To the anger of evolutionists, Behe shows from the latest evidence we have from experimentation with microbial parasites (malaria, HIV, E. coli) that Darwinism achieves little of genetic importance. He concludes that design is necessary for the creation of biological forms. Darwinism just tinkers around the edges. The genomes of many organisms have been sequenced, and the machinery of the cell has been analysed in great detail. The ‘evolutionary’ responses of micro-organisms to antibiotics have been traced over tens of thousands of generations. The adaptation of these ‘bugs’ to overcome antibiotics has, until now, been described as evolution in action. But for the first time in history, we can test whether Darwin was wrong or right, and the results are catastrophic for Darwinism. Behe says, “How much can random processes explain? The book brings out observational evidence from scientific results from the past ten years showing that Darwinian processes don’t do much of anything. They make small changes in pre-existing systems and so the conclusion is that design is required to
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“The most essential prediction of Darwinism is that, given an astronomical number of chances, unintelligent processes can make seemingly designed systems, ones of the complexity of those found in the cell. ID specifically denies this, predicting that in the absence of intelligent input no such systems would develop. So Darwinism and ID make clear, opposite predictions of what we should find when we examine genetic results
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), that leads to AIDS. Behe says that the best evidence from the most detailed studies of mutations in organisms like the HIV virus demonstrate that random processes simply can’t explain the complexity of life. Picture: Bryan Brandenburg
“Observational evidence from scientific results from the past ten years show that Darwinian processes don’t do much of anything.” Prof Michael Behe
* www.idthefuture.com
get almost all of the complexity of life. “A lot of Darwinian resistance to insecticides, to antibiotics and so on is the result of destructive processes, breaking sophisticated machinery… The changes that did build sophisticated systems in life must have been nonrandom, i.e. guided, set up or intelligently arranged because random changes are known not to be able to do such things. Detailed genetic studies of parasitic diseases of humans and others, for example, show that random processes can’t do the job. “Our best evidence from our most detailed studies, on organisms that have the most astronomical populations in this word – the malarial parasite, the HIV virus, etc. – demonstrate that random processes simply can’t do much more than put scratches or dents in pre-existing cellular machinery. They can’t explain the complexity of life. This is demonstrable data.
“Random processes simply can’t do much more than put scratches or dents in pre-existing cellular machinery.” from a stupendous number of organisms that are under relentless pressure from natural selection. The recent genetic results are a stringent test. The results: 1) Darwinism’s prediction is falsified; 2) Design’s prediction is confirmed.”* Pioneering geneticist Dr John Sanford has also written a book explaining that random mutations do not produce evolution. In fact, ‘Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome’ (2005) rejects evolution because, he says, “when subjected to natural forces, the human genome must irrevocably degenerate over time”. Inventor of the ‘gene gun’ and a research scientist at Cornell University for 25 years, Sanford believes evolution is “indefensible” and advocates Intelligent Design, by God. The former associate professor says, “Every form of objective analysis I have performed has convinced me that the axiom [modern Darwinism] is clearly false.” These findings in biology fit a general pattern of discoveries in other branches of science in recent years. Physics, astronomy and chemistry also point to a clear conclusion: the universe was designed for life.