Page 160 - Once Upon a Time There Was Darwinism

What Good are Mutations?

The data contained in the gene is highly complex, as are
the molecular "machines" that code it, read it and perform
their productive functions accordingly. No random event
that can affect this system, and no "accident" can bring about
any increase in the amount of genetic data.
Once Upon a Time There Was Darwinism
Imagine a computer programmer engaged in writing a
software when on computer and a book falls on his keyboard,
striking a few keys and inserting random letters and numbers

into the text. A mutation is something like this. Just as such an
accident would contribute nothing to the computer pro-
gram—in fact, it would ruin it—so mutations vandalize the
genetic code. In Natural Limits to Biological Change, Lester and
Bohlin write that "mutations are mistakes, errors in the precise
machinery of DNA replication" which means "mutations, genetic
variation, and recombination by themselves will not generate major

evolutionary change." 110
This logically expected result was proven by observa-
tions and experiments in the 20th century. No mutation was
observed to improve the genetic data of an organism so as to
cause a radical change.
For this reason, despite the fact that he accepts the theory
of evolution, Pierre-Paul Grassé, former president of the
French Academy of Sciences, says that mutations are "merely
hereditary fluctuations around a median position; a swing to the

right, a swing to the left, but no final evolutionary effect. . . They
modify what preexists." 111

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