WHY DO YOU BELIEVE IN EVOLUTION?

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	"Literally thousands of human diseases associated with genetic mutations have been catalogued in recent years, with more being described continually… With this array of human diseases that are caused by mutations, what of positive effects? With thousands of examples of harmful mutations readily available, surely it should be possible to describe some positive mutations if macroevolution is true. There would be needed not only for evolution to greater complexity, but also to offset the downward pull of the many harmful mutations. But, when it comes to identifying positive mutations, evolutionary scientists are strangely silent." —David A. Demick M.D., Pathologist, B. S. in Chemistry, The Blind Gunman, Impact, no. 308, February 1999. Cambridge, MA, 1997, Second Printing, P. 393.

Mutations

Mutations are accidents in the genetic code that damage the sequence in the molecular string of amino acids (genes) in proteins that convey instructions to the cell. These sequences are the ‘instruction manual’ for each cell and their order must remain constant to accomplish a multitude of tasks. Unlike variations that use existing information, evolutionists claim that mutations can miraculously rearrange gene sequences so that more complex coding instructions will build something in an organism that it has never possessed before. But, if specific gene-coding information is not already in the DNA for a specific function, how is it that mutations can randomly assemble NEW complex codes out of nowhere?
For types of mutations, go to:
http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/handbook/mutationsanddisorders/possiblemutations

Here are just a few problems with mutations causing more complexity:

• Mutations are random and do not ‘build’ on each other toward a specific direction.
  “Mutations can be beneficial, neutral, or harmful for the organism, but mutations do not "try" to supply what the organism "needs." ... In this respect, mutations are random — whether a particular mutation happens or not is unrelated to how useful that mutation would be.”
  http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/0_0_0/mutations_07
• Mutations are most often harmful and produce an overall genetic weakness in an organism, not an increase in fitness.
  “While it is true that most mutations are either harmful, as suggested by the creationists, or neutral, the creationists gloss over a crucial fact: beneficial mutations do occur, though they are very rare.”
  http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/fitness/
• ‘Beneficial’ mutations do NOT add new instructional information and the overall fitness of the organism most often suffers.
  “All of the beneficial mutations located in my search of the literature involving almost 20 million references were loss mutations and mutations such as sickle cell anemia that have a beneficial effect only in very special circumstances.  In most situations they have a decidedly negative effect on the organism’s health.  Not a single clear example of an information-gaining mutation was located.  It was concluded that molecular biology research shows that information-gaining mutations have not yet been documented.” 
  http://www.trueorigin.org/mutations01.asp (Scroll to ‘Evidence of Beneficial Mutations’ and ‘Conclusions’)
• Almost ALL mutations are detected and re-written by miniscule machines that check for errors.
  “The copying is far more precise than pure chemistry could manage—only about 1 mistake in 10 billion copyings, because there is editing (proof-reading and error-checking) machinery, again encoded in the DNA.”
  http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i2/dna.asp?vPrint=1
  “DNA is a fragile molecule that undergoes dramatic changes when exposed to radiation, ultraviolet light, toxic chemicals or byproducts of normal cellular processes. DNA damage, if not repaired in time, may lead to mutations, cancer or cell death. Many helicases in the Rad3 family are key players in the cell’s elaborate machinery to prevent and repair such damage.”
  http://www.physorg.com/printnews.php?newsid=122568903
• Organisms can miraculously restore their DNA several generations AFTER a mutation has occurred:
  “Here we show that Arabidopsis plants homozygous for recessive mutant alleles of the organ fusion gene HOTHEAD5 (HTH) can inherit allele-specific DNA sequence information that was not present in the chromosomal genome of their parents but was present in previous generations. This previously undescribed process is shown to occur at all DNA sequence polymorphisms examined and therefore seems to be a general mechanism for extra-genomic inheritance of DNA sequence information. We postulate that these genetic restoration events are the result of a template-directed process that makes use of an ancestral RNA-sequence cache.”
  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7032/abs/nature03380.html
  “Here, we show that a rice triploid and diploid hybridization resulted in stable diploid progenies, both in genotypes and phenotypes, through gene homozygosity. Furthermore, their gene homozygosity can be inherited through 8 generations, and they can convert DNA sequences of other rice varieties into their own. Molecular-marker examination confirmed that this type of genome-wide gene conversion occurred at a very high frequency. Possible mechanisms, including RNA-templated repair of double-strand DNA, are discussed.”
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17502903?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.
  PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.Pubmed_Discovery_RA
• Only changes in the germline (cells involved with sexual reproduction) are relevant to evolution. During meiosis http://www.cellsalive.com/meiosis.htm germ cells combine by a very complicated process and most mutations harm the genetic integrity of the offspring, instead of improving it or add complexity to it. Also, programmed cell death (apoptosis) almost always prevents the change from proliferating to offspring:
  “Within the last decade, aberrant meiotic recombination has been confirmed as a molecular risk factor for chromosome nondisjunction in humans. Recombination tethers homologous chromosomes, linking and guiding them through proper segregation at meiosis I. In model organisms, mutations that disturb the recombination pathway increase the frequency of chromosome malsegregation and alterations in both the amount and placement of meiotic recombination are associated with nondisjunction. This association has been established for humans as well.”
  http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Doi=86896
  “In females of many species, over half of the germ-cell (oocyte) population dies by apoptosis before birth … Krakauer and Mira have interpreted this death of germ cells as a developmental solution to the accumulation of mutations in mitochondria, proposing that prenatal oocyte apoptosis effectively removes oocytes carrying mutant mitochondria.”
  http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v403/n6769/full/403500a0.html

What causes mutations to occur?

When an organism reproduces, the ‘parent’ DNA is transcribed to the new cell by the DNA molecule creating a negative copy called RNA. When the genetic information is copied over to the RNA molecule, copying errors can cause breaks, substitutions, or duplications in the gene sequence that can cause the original instructional message to be corrupted. Specialized molecular machines continually repair mutations and restore the DNA, but some mutations are retained and result in broken or faulty genes.
“Some changes, however, to the genetic code cause the message to be changed so that it is no longer understood by the cell: the gene is impaired or faulty. Changes that make the genes faulty are called mutations.”
Centre for Genetics Education, ‘Changes To The Genetic Code’ Fact Sheet 4, Australasian Genetics Resource Book 2007. (See PDF)
See below links regarding molecular machines that repair DNA molecules:
http://www.physics.uiuc.edu/research/Highlights/NaturesMicroscopicMotors.htm
http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/search/news_detail.lasso?id=6671
http://www.esrf.eu/news/spotlight/spotlight13dnarepair/

Can mutations cause major changes or create new features?

One mutation within a gene will not cause a major change in the phenotype (appearance) or create a new or more complex feature to appear. Also, because there can be multiples of genes effecting each feature, a mutation in just one gene may have NO effect on the organism. What single mutations can do is alter an existing feature in a slightly positive way, but only through reduced or eliminated functions that always result in some fitness loss in the organism. (See Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria below.)

Evolutionists claim that accumulations of mutations in genes can build up enough to make something entirely new or cause a major change in an existing feature. But, if mutations are random and have no purposeful direction, what would cause subsequent mutations to affect the same feature and build something that it had never possessed before? And, what would make the resulting organism more fit so that natural selection would preserve this new ‘we-have-no-idea-of-what-we’re-going-to-be’ feature?

The two ‘prized’ examples of mutations cited by evolutionists:

Fruit Flies - Scientists were able to engineer flies with a second set of wings, but the wings had no muscles and were non-functional. All sorts of experiments have been done to fruit flies, but scientists have yet to create anything novel in them and, every time, the flies ALWAYS end up being nothing but flies!
“In Dobzhansky’s work, numerous varieties resulted from radiation bombardment:  fruit flies with extra wings, fruit flies with no wings, fruit flies with huge wings, fruit flies with tiny wings...  In the end, however, they were all ... fruit flies!  Dobzhansky meddled with the genetic code of an organism and effected changes on the organism’s offspring.  Nearly all of the changes were detrimental to survival, and none of them resulted in an advantage over other fruit flies.”
http://www.trueorigin.org/isakrbtl.asp (Scroll to ‘Dobzhansky’s Fruit Flies’)

Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria - Bacteria can actually lose their ability to metabolize certain chemicals such as antibiotics, thus giving them the ability to survive within their presence. Read other examples of how bacteria can become resistant to bacteria but NOTE that each process involves duplications or losses in coding instructions and, every time, bacteria ALWAYS end up being nothing but bacteria!
“As a group, the mutations associated with antibiotic resistance involve the loss or reduction of a pre-existing cellular function/activity, i.e., the target molecule lost an affinity for the antibiotic, the antibiotic transport system was reduced or eliminated, a regulatory system or enzyme activity was reduced or eliminated, etc.”
http://www.trueorigin.org/bacteria01.asp
http://www.icr.org/article/14/

UNLIMITED EVOLUTION BY MUTATIONS AND NATURAL SELECTION IS AN UTTERLY UNPROVEN AND UNSCIENTIFIC PREMISE THAT HAS NEVER BEEN OBSERVED OR PROVEN TO HAVE OCCURRED IN THE PAST.

	“… aside from UV-induced point mutation, there is no other constant source of mutation in the physical world, and spontaneous mutation rates are low (approximately 10−8 to 10−9 ) (Maresca and Schwartz 2006). Indeed, cells contain myriad stress and other proteins that eliminate potential change from becoming established in the genome and maintain DNA homeostasis, which can be derailed only by the most extreme environmental stresses.” —Jeffrey H. Schwartz / Bruno Maresca “Do Molecular Clocks Run at All? A Critique of Molecular Systematics” (See PDF, scroll to ‘Conclusion’)