TITLE: The Testimony of Mutations 7/13/15 By Richard McCaw 07/14/15 |
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On the street outside the courthouse at 1 p.m. I hear someone say that the afternoon session will examine the question of mutations. I run to the ground floor elevator and soon I am in a front seat.
The clerk of courts then calls the famous Gregor Mendel, a German Moravian scientist and Augustinian friar. I immediately recognize his face from my internet research as he strides forward dressed in his clerical robe and takes his seat in the witness stand. He had earned fame as the founder of the modern science of genetics, only 50 years afterwards after he died.
When Robert Virchow, the lawyer for the prosecution asks Mr. Mendel, who had time-traveled into 2015, to explain his scientific experience, Mendel replies, “During my experiments with pea plants, I wanted to hear Mr. Darwin’s opinion about the passing on of traits from parent to child, so I read his book.” Mendel frowns in deep thought, then adds, “However, the genetic laws I discovered would uncover an important flaw in the theory of evolution!”
Mr. Virchow then quotes a famous French scientist, “Pierre Grasse wrote that it would be too easy to object that mutations have no evolutionary effect, because natural selection eliminates mutations.” His voice lifts a pitch higher. “The worst kind of mutations are lethal mutations and are effectively eliminated, while others persist as alleles.” He continues, “Mutants occur within every population, from bacteria to man. Without a doubt that is so. However, he asserted that for evolutionists, the essential lies somewhere else: the fact remains that mutations have nothing to do with evolution."
Mendel nods slowly.
“Would you agree,” Virchow asks, “that as our understanding of genetics has improved, every mutation we have observed reveal a loss of genetic information from the genetic code, or that they are neutral?”
Mendel nods slowly again.
Virchow continues “And that gain in information does not manifest in either mutations or natural selection, but only in a rearrangement or loss of what already exists. Therefore beneficial mutations take place without an increase in genetic information?”
Hmmm...uhm.”
“Therefore mutations destroy genetic information and create creatures with more disabilities than their parents. Natural selection only gets rid of unfit creatures. Perhaps natural selection can explain why light-colored moths decrease and dark moths proliferate, but it cannot reveal that moths could at any time become effective creatures that are no longer moths. A moth has no genetic information to become anything else but a moth, in spite of long periods of time. It is impossible for them to evolve from something completely different from a moth.”
The judge, Lord Monboddo, intervenes. “Mr. Virchow, that is a bit heavy.”
Virchow smiles but continues. “It is impossible for natural selection, to produce evolution because it produces no NEW genetic material. Mutations are random changes in the genetic makeup of organisms. Evolutionists say that mutations supply the new genes needed for evolution to proceed. Are you aware that Grasse presented arguments on Darwinism in his work ‘L'évolution du vivant’?”
Mendel replies, “I am.”
“He argues that the evolution of living things is the product of their adapting to changes in their environments. He also indicated that he opposed living fossils…” Virchow looks across at the group of scientists, “…species which stopped evolving at some time and have remained relatively identical to this day regardless of great climatic or geological changes.”
Mendel nods, “Correct!”
Virchow, on a triumphant wave, asks, “You know the numerous examples in his work ‘Les formes panchroniques et les arrêts de l'évolution’?”
Mendel replies, “Indeed!”
“Therefore,” says Virchow, “you agree with Grasse that evolution is unnecessary?”
Mendel hesitates then says softly, “I would say so.”
“In your opinion, Herr Mendel, evolution does not occur in living beings under the constraints of external physical forces?”
Mendel smiles widely, “Of a truth, yes.”
“Grasse stated that in ‘Necessity-utility is not the primus movens of biological evolution,’ didn’t he?”
Mendel nods several times, “Yes, yes, yes…”
“To explain evolution,” Virchow presses his point, “Grasse claimed that we must look at the internal dynamics of living things.” He walks around the witness.
Mendel keeps looking Virchow in the face, “But, may I make one comment?”
“Of course,” replies Virchow.
Mendel measures his words carefully. “Some authors...like Marcel Blanc...explain the strong support of Lamarck. by French biologists by giving simple patriotic reasons and the historical and social context... Catholic culture, they say, supports Lamarckism, however Protestant culture supports Darwinism. Although I was a Catholic, like Monsieur Grasse I did support either Lamarck’s theory and definitely not Darwin.”
“No more questions, your Honor.”
Before Mendel steps down, Lord Montboddo asks Mr. Wallace, the lawyer for the defense, if he wishes to cross-examine Mr. Mendel, and he agrees.
“Herr. Mendel,” he begins, “A. M. Winchester, who has written several books on genetics has stated that 99% of mutations studied have been proven harmful. Yet there remains 1% of beneficial mutations of evolutionary developments. Those facts cannot be refuted, can they?”
Mendel smiles, “Theodisius Dobzhansky refutes that. In fact, he asserted that classical mutants obtained in Drosophila usually reveal deterioration, breakdown, or disappearance of some organs. Mutants appear which decrease the amount of or ruin the pigment in the eyes, bristles and legs. Many are indeed lethal. According to Dobzhansky, they take longer to develop than normal flies, thus reducing the fitness of the new strain. He also stated that antibacterial-resistant bacteria are less fit.”
Mr. Wallace folds his arms, “What about DDT - resistant insects and antibiotic resistant germs reported by scientists?”
Mendel laughs softly, “In my experiments I discovered that while chromosomal and gene mutations do occur in plant life, the species remain unchanged and that applies right throughout nature. The mechanisms of heredity always tend to stabilize the species and to keep within the bounds of its original type.”
A stunning silence creeps across the court at this time.
“Besides,” he continues, “Why have fossils also appeared with disadvantages? Because changing microbes into men require an increase in genetic information. Since Darwin’s theory, we have not found even one information-adding mutation, only that mutations all involve sorting and loss of information.”
The defense stands non-plussed and the court room seems frozen at a stand-still in time.
“Thanks to advanced technology,” Mendel continues, “I have been reading all the latest information on mutations.”
By then I am overwhelmed that these eminent scientists have not fallen at the feet of Darwin’s philosophy. Mendel’s outspoken testimony completely blows me away. He had been very radical in his scientific approach, and held no compromise in his blunt announcements of what he believed.
It seems to me that it would take a miracle for a moth whose genes had nothing within its make-up to become something more than an ordinary moth.
I began to wonder if Darwin took the stand, what would he say after so much has been revealed since he wrote Origin of Species. Then I vaguely remember hearing something my mother once prayed about “casting down imaginations,” and that in the days of Noah, God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that all the imaginations of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”
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