A bad word analogy of evolution

 

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I found the “graph” below online a while back. Maybe it's not a graph; perhaps I should call it an illustration. I don't know. Normally, I'd link you to the original site but I can't find it now. Yes, there's a URL on the image but that gives me a "missing page" error.  I even did a Google search on the image but no luck. If anyone knows where the image came from, please leave a link in the comments. Thank you in advance.

Anyway, the author was trying to make the point that little changes can accumulate over time to create big changes. This is one of the lies that evolutionists tell when they say that the only difference between microevolution and macroevolution is time and scale. To make his point, the author showed how you could change the word AARDVARK to BASEBALL by changing only one letter at a time.

Now, as someone who often uses analogies, I can appreciate how difficult it is to create a really good analogy. I normally wouldn't nitpick an analogy if I can at least see the overarching point its author is trying to make. However, in this case, there are such fundamental flaws in the analogy that I believe it better illustrates some of the difficulties of evolution rather than how evolution could progress.

Before I get into the difficulties in the analogy (and, by extension, with evolution), let me offer a thumbnail of what the author is trying to demonstrate. Evolution supposedly happens via mutation and natural selection. A mutation will occur in the DNA of an organism; on rare occasions, the mutation will offer a benefit to the host; because of this advantage, the host may live longer (natural selection) and leave more offspring which will inherit the beneficial mutation; eventually, the descendants with the beneficial mutation will replace the entire population. In the analogy, the changes in the letters represent mutations in the DNA. The accumulation of these changes can turn the ancestral species into a different species in the same way changing one letter at a time can turn AARDVARK into BASEBALL.

Did I misrepresent anything? Isn't that how evolutionists believe populations evolve? OK, then on to the problems!!

EVERY GENERATION MUST BE SUCCESSFUL

The first problem is rather glaring. The steps in between AARDVARK and BASEBALL in this graph are just groups of letters that don't even make words. Going from actual words to meaningless letters represents a loss of information. If natural selection selects the most fit, why would it select AASDVARK over AARDVARK? It doesn't make any sense.

For evolution to happen, any mutation must make the host more fit than the population before it. For an arm to become a wing, for example, every slight modification of the limb had to be more beneficial than the generation before it. It's hard to imagine a scenario where a limb that is not quite an arm but not yet a wing would be selected over a fully functional arm.

Evolution is impossible if the transitional forms between the starting and ending species are any less fit than the generation before it. They'd be like the meaningless words between AARDVARK and BASEBALL.

EVOLUTION IS NOT A DIRECTED PROCESS

In the case of this graph, the author knew he was heading toward BASEBALL and selected only those letters that worked toward that goal. Natural selection doesn't know that it's supposed to do that. In the imaginary leg-to-wing series, natural selection would tend to select the mutation that creates a more fit leg over a mutation that makes the limb “more like a wing.” Further, it would not select the other features necessary for flight (like hollow bones, complex feathers, or perching legs) unless those features offer some survival benefit to the earth-bound creature. In short, natural selection will have the tendency only to make a terrestrial creature a more fit terrestrial creature. It will not select mutations that could eventually make an earth-bound creature a flying creature.

Consider mimicry in nature, for a moment, where one species will look like another. An example I've used before was one of Batesian mimicry, where a fly resembles a bee. Predators that eat flies, might avoid eating a bee out of fear of getting stung so looking like a bee offers a survival benefit to a fly. Using the stepwise method suggested by the graph, the problem becomes, how did such a striking similarity evolve gradually? Surely blind chance would not select a “more like a bee” mutation. It would only select for a “more fit fly.” Every single mutation that doesn't make the fly more fit will be selected against – even if the mutation might slightly resemble a bee.

TOO MUCH ROOM FOR ERROR

The final flaw I see in the analogy is the enormous room for error. As has already be discussed, for the analogy to be realistic, all the steps in between the starting and ending words should also be words. Here's an example with a 4-letter word, PLAY – FLAY – FLAG – FLOG – FROG. In this case, every step in between is a real word. However, in each place there are 26 possible replacements which means you are far more likely to get a meaningless word than a real word.

In the real word, mutations are far more likely to be neutral or harmful than they are to be beneficial. Yet it is the occasional, beneficial mutation, one that maybe happens only once in a while, that is the hope of all evolutionists. Beneficial, trait-adding mutations are astonishingly scare. I would say they don't happen at all but, just for the sake of argument, let's say they happen infrequently. How often can we agree that they might happen? Is it once every hundred mutations? Surely, it's not that often. 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?” It's a numbers game and evolution is losing!!

In conclusion, I understand this is supposed to be a simple analogy and not a scientific outline of the theory of evolution. However, the graph is a gross oversimplification. No, I take that back. It's worse than an oversimplification, it's outright deceit. It presents evolution as a simple, stepwise process where tiny, gradual changes over “millions and millions of years” would easily accomplish what rational people can see is impossible. They look only at the beginning and end, while ignoring all those pesky details in between. It reminds me of the rhyme children sometimes say: 1, 2, skip a few, 99, 100!!