Page 63 - Atlas of Creation Volume 2

Harun Yahya

major changes in living things' genetic information—bestow an advantage and also produce new genetic
information.
2. The assumption that small animal populations have a genetic advantage.

However, both are at odds with the scientific facts.

The Macro-Mutations Error

As you have just seen, the punctuated model of evolution hypothesizes that the mutations leading to
speciation take place on a very large scale or that some individual species are exposed to a succession of se-
rial mutations. However, that assumption contradicts all the observational data from genetic science.
R. A. Fisher, one of the century's best-known geneticists, established a rule, based on experiment and

observation, that invalidates this hypothesis. In his book The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, Fisher re-
ports that any mutation's ability to survive in a population is inversely proportional to its effect on the phe-
notype. 42 To put it another way, the greater a mutation is, the lower will be its chances of remaining
permanent in a community.

The reason for this is not hard to see. Mutations represent random changes in a living thing's genetic
data. They never have the effect of improving that genetic information. On the contrary, mutated individu-
als always suffer serious diseases and disabilities. Therefore, the more any individual is affected by muta-
tion, the lower its chances of survival.

The Harvard University evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, one of Darwinism's most passionate advo-
cates, makes the following comment:

The occurrence of genetic monstrosities by mutation . . . is well substantiated, but they are such evident
freaks that these monsters can be designated only as "hopeless." They are so utterly unbalanced that they
would not have the slightest chance of escaping elimination through stabilizing selection . . . the more dras-

tically a mutation affects the phenotype, the more likely
it is to reduce fitness. To believe that such a drastic mu-
tation would produce a viable new type, capable of oc-
cupying a new adaptive zone, is equivalent to

believing in miracles . . . The finding of a suitable mate
for the "hopeless monster" and the establishment of re-
productive isolation from the normal members of the
parental population seem to me insurmountable diffi-

culties. 43

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