It's a numbers game... and evolution is losing!

Evolution is a theory fraught with difficulties – so much so that I'm genuinely surprised that people still take it seriously. I'm not talking about answers we don't have – like, a plausible explanation for the origin of the first common ancestor or not finding any fossils for the “innumerable” transitional species Darwin understood must have existed if his theory were true; I'm talking about things that we do know, scientifically, that make evolution impossible.

Let me give you a thumbnail sketch of how the theory is supposed to work. Some people conflate evolution with natural selection. Natural selection is the opposite of evolution. If you start with a population of light and dark moths, and birds continuously eat (i.e. “select”) the light moths, you will eventually have a population of only dark moths. Natural selection can only “select” from traits already present in the population. You cannot add new colors by continuously removing colors no matter how long it continues. For evolution to be possible, you have to add new traits to a population. To turn a dinosaur into a bird, for example, you would have to add feathers. Get it? Natural selection is not a mechanism that can add new features to a population.

The only candidate for a mechanism that adds new features to a population is genetic mutation. Mutations are an observed phenomenon where duplication errors in the DNA of a the parent creature are passed along to its offspring. Most of these errors are neutral and are not expressed in the offspring. Even though they aren't expressed, though, they still exist in the genome. Sometimes, the mutations are expressed and can be harmful or fatal to the host. On very rare occasions, a mutation can convey a benefit to its host.

One example of an observed, beneficial mutation is tusk-less elephants. Ivory poachers will shoot elephants for their tusks. However, due to a genetic mutation, some elephants are born without tusks and so poachers won't shoot them. This is a benefit to the elephant. These elephants tend to live longer and pass the “tusk-less” mutation onto its offspring. In recent years, there has been a noticeable surge in the numbers of elephants born without tusks. But this type of mutation is not the trait-adding kind of mutation that could make evolution possible. Elephants being born without tusks does not explain how dinosaurs could acquire feathers.

The supposed first ancestor did not have feathers, hair, skin, scales, bones, blood, eyes, or organs of any kind. To turn a molecule into a man would require a billions of years long parade of novel features being added generation after generation. If evolution has happened, we should have many examples of observed, trait-adding mutations. We don't. In all my years of asking for examples of novel features appearing in a species, I continuously hear the same 3-4 questionable examples.

Trait-adding mutations are either astonishingly scare or non-existent. Evolutionists, however, are not deterred by the glaring lack of examples. Time is the hero of their fairy tale. In a 4 billion year old world, a new feature every million years or so is enough to rescue their theory. I'll tell you why it doesn't.

Are we agreed that trait-adding mutations are infrequent? OK. How often can we agree that they happen? Is it once every hundred mutations? Surely, it's not that often. I don't think it happens at all but, for the sake of argument, I could say it's more like 1 in 10,000 or even 1 in 100,000. Actually, in a moment you'll see why higher numbers are worse for evolution but I'm going to be very, very generous and say it's 1 in 1,000. Now, let's look at some math.

If 1 in every 1,000 mutations is a beneficial, trait-adding mutation for the host, then for the host to inherit 2 beneficial mutations means there will have been 1,000,000 neutral or harmful mutations (1,000 x 1,000). To inherit only 3 means there will have been 1,000,000,000 neutral or harmful mutations in the genome (1,000 x 1,000 x 1,000). Can you see where this is going? The genome is deteriorating 1,000 times faster than it is improving. To inherit even a handful of successful mutations comes at the great expense of billions and billions of unsuccessful mutations. How many successful mutations would it take to turn a molecule into a man? How long could such a wasteful process continue before the entire genome becomes too corrupted to sustain life? Remember, this is assuming 1 beneficial mutation in every 1,000. If it were 1 in 10,000, then 2 successful mutations comes with the burden of 100,000,000 other mutations!

In 1995, A.S. Kondrashov published a paper in the Journal of Theoretical Biology where he discussed contamination of the genome by very slightly deleterious mutations. Over time, the ratio of harmful mutations to good mutations should become unbearable and he says, “This paradox cannot be resolved by invoking beneficial mutations or environmental fluctuations.” In the title, he asks, “Why have we not died 100 times over?” Can you see now the problem that he saw? Any small success a mutation might mean for a species comes with many more mutations that should eventually kill it. It's a numbers game... and evolution is losing!