Page 228 - The Errors the American National Academy of Sciences
P. 228
The Errors of the American National Academy of Sciences
about resistance to pesticides as an example of evolution. Such re-
sistance mechanisms stop the poison or antibiotic from working by
causing damage to the structure of the insect or bacterium. This
may bring about resistance, but it cannot increase the insect's or
bacterium's genetic information. On the contrary, in all observed
cases a loss of one sort or another has always been identified. There
is, therefore, no evolution here. The resistance of bacteria to antibi-
otics and of insects to DDT does not constitute evidence of evolu-
tion.
226
