#90 Copying Degradation

Most of you who have ever worked in an office are probably aware that when you make a photocopy, it is not an exact copy of the original. If you then make a photocopy of the photocopy, and you continue to repeat this process always making a copy of the last copy, then pretty soon you will be able to really notice the difference between the very original sheet and the latest copy. The discrepancies become really obvious after a while.

There is always a slight degradation with each new generation of copying. This is what I mean by “Copying Degradation.”

In my office we have a tremendous copy machine that does color copies, double-sided, folded, stapled, and even hole-punched copies. It cost over $20,000. But it cannot make a perfect copy and is subject to the same rule as above. Every once in a while, we have to call the technician to repair it and re-calibrate it.

If you talk to computer hardware people, you will also learn that the same is true for digital copying inside a computer. The computer is based on the binary system, meaning all information is stored as “0’s” and “1’s”. Computers are, of course, vastly more accurate at copying, but sooner or later there is a mistake. You know this because sometimes your computer locks up for no reason and you have to restart it to make it work. Every modem and Wi-Fi system has a built in error correction system or “protocol” that checks constantly to be sure the data being transmitted and received is identical.

So if Copying Degradation is a universal truth in the real world, what is the result that it yields? Do we ever end up with something that is better than the original? We know we never end up with a photocopy that is better than the original, especially after many generations. For data copying in computer programs, an error in copying data, or worse yet the program software, is most likely to cause a malfunction and very, very, very unlikely to result in a better program.

Let’s think about DNA. Rather than a binary system like computers, it is based on four possible “base pairs” and two are used on any given rung of the ladder. What do you think keeps happening as the DNA gets copied over and over? This is a question that scientists can now investigate.

The Theory of Evolution predicts that given time and many small incremental and accidental changes to the DNA coding, along with some natural selection, the end result is a totally new species that is fully functioning. Evolution predicts that DNA copying has made copying mistakes millions upon millions of times and that has successfully increased functioning complexity. Starting out with something akin to an amoeba, we have advanced all the way to the millions of varied species and to the human body and brain.

According to my Google search, the latest scientific estimate is that there are approximately 8,700,000 different species on the earth. The Theory of Evolution says that all 8.7 million species started out from a single cell with DNA. By repeatedly copying that DNA over and over, mutations occurred so that the 8.7 million new species eventually arose.

That’s a phenomenally huge statement of faith if you ask me.

Those who believe in God have many varied ideas of how God did it, but it’s still a very big mystery. They do however admit that their beliefs are based on faith.

However, there is some agreement among the believers who are also scientists that God created according to “kinds”. This means that God created an original model or body plan of a species and then there was tremendous variation from that original. Take for example the “dog kind”. God somehow created the original male and female dog and then all the different breeds eventually could emerge by natural selection or mankind’s active intervening in the process.

Dogs actually have 78 chromosomes in their genome which allows for tremendous variations. By comparison, chimpanzees have 48 chromosomes and humans have only 46 chromosomes.

These facts seem to show the opposite from the Theory of Evolution model. More complicated life has less chromosomes. Evolution starts with a very simple set of DNA that branches into more and more complicated forms of life. Creation theories start with a very complicated original “kind” and predict that over time DNA changes lead to loss (not gain) of DNA complexity and the differences and variations within a species are the result of the loss of information in the DNA code.

So here we have two profoundly opposite predictions and we should be able to do scientific experiments to observe which of these two processes is taking place in nature.

If evolution is true, then we should see the DNA of species getting more and more complicated and gradual improvements in the code which eventually can lead to a new species. After all, that’s how they believe we got the 8.7 million species.

But if the DNA copying from one generation to the next shows that there is copying degradation, then our scientific conclusion will have to be that evolution is false. That will only leave us with one of the alternative theories that involves a Creator being.

Well, folks, the scientific research has been done. The results are in. There is in fact copying degradation at the DNA level which is taking place. DNA degrades over time. It does not get more complex. Is this surprising, not really? It’s the same in life everywhere you look.

“My own work with 35 protein families suggests that the rate of destruction is, at minimum, 8 times the rate of neutral or beneficial mutations...Simply put, the digital information of life is being destroyed much faster than it can be repaired or improved. New functions may evolve, but the overall loss of functional information in other areas of the genome will, on average, be significantly greater. The net result is that the digital information of life is running down.” [1]

It is statistically impossible for evolution to be taking place because it could not overcome the disadvantage of 8 harmful errors to every one possibly beneficial or neutral error.

Durston, author of the above quote, goes much further, even saying the human genome is running down.

“First, the digital information for the bacterial world is slowly eroding away due to a net deletional bias [2] in mutations involving insertions and deletions. A second example is the fruit fly, one of the most studied life forms in evolutionary biology. It, too, shows an ongoing, genome-wide loss of DNA [3] across the entire genus.

“Finally, humans are not exempt. As biologist Michael Lynch points out in a paper in PNAS, "Rate, molecular spectrum, and consequences of human mutation" [4]:

“ ‘[A] consideration of the long-term consequences of current human behaviour for deleterious-mutation accumulation leads to the conclusion that a substantial reduction in human fitness can be expected over the next few centuries in industrialized societies unless novel means of genetic intervention are developed.’

“We continue to discover more examples of DNA loss [5], suggesting that the biological world is slowly running down. Microevolution is good at fine-tuning existing forms within their information limits and occasionally getting something right, but the steady accumulation of deleterious mutations on the larger scale suggests that mutation-driven evolution is actually destroying biological life, not creating it.” [6]

Another important fact, scientists have discovered that there are as many as three processes within a cell that actually repair DNA when there is a mutation. [7] Cells do not like copying mistakes. Another name for mutation in cells is cancer.

"Replication also contains built-in error checking. The frequency of errors is about 1 per 100 million bonds (1 x 10-8). Over the entire human genome, that works out to roughly 30 errors every single time the genome replicates. BUT! There are really only around three errors per replication because of DNA repair. If a repair enzyme finds a mistake, it can fix it, and it can tell which strand is wrong because it can tell which strand is the newly synthesized strand by the extent of cytosine methylation.” [8]

“As a major defense against environmental damage to cells, DNA repair is present in all organisms examined including bacteria, yeast, drosophila, fish, amphibians, rodents and humans. DNA repair is involved in processes that minimize cell killing, mutations, replication errors, persistence of DNA damage and genomic instability. Abnormalities in these processes have been implicated in cancer and aging. [9]

As far back as scientists have known about DNA, there is no known example of a new species arising out of another species. Believe me, they have been trying to find one. As mentioned above and in my Proof for God # 27 The Truth About Mutation [10], scientists have tried unsuccessfully to mutate fruit flies for 40 years and could never produce a new species.

If you have a theory and you derive logical predictions from that theory, but those predictions are totally false, then the only conclusion is that the theory is false and worthless for further study. That’s where we stand today if we accept the scientific evidence.

The Theory of Evolution is scientifically falsifiable.

As we have seen throughout history, faiths and beliefs die slowly even after they are proven false. But rest assured, the Theory of Evolution is dying. Many don’t know it yet, but scientific evidence will put the nail in its coffin.

Therefore, there must be God.

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[1] Kirk Durston, "An Essential Prediction of Darwinian Theory Is Falsified by Information Degradation", http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/07/an_essential_pr097521.html

[2] Alex Mira, Howard Ochmanemail, Nancy A. Moran, Dept of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, "Deletional bias and the evolution of bacterial genomes", http://www.cell.com/trends/genetics/abstract/S0168-9525(01)02447-7?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0168952501024477%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

[3] Dmitri A. Petrov1 and Daniel L. Hartl, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, "High Rate of DNA Loss in the Drosophila melanogaster and Drosophila virilis Species Groups", http://petrov.stanford.edu/pdfs/11.pdf

[4] Michael Lynch, Department of Biology, Indiana University, "Rate, molecular spectrum, and consequences of human mutation",  http://www.pnas.org/content/107/3/961.full.pdf+html

[5] Sun, López Arriaza, and Mueller, National Institutes of Health, "Slow DNA loss in the gigantic genomes of salamanders",

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23175715

[6] Kirk Durston, "An Essential Prediction of Darwinian Theory Is Falsified by Information Degradation", http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/07/an_essential_pr097521.html

[7] Beth A. Montelone, Kansas State University, "Mutation, Mutagens, and DNA Repair" http://www-personal.k-state.edu/~bethmont/mutdes.html

[8] Leigh Eisenman and Kevan Higgins, Edited Notes, "Chromosomes, Chromatin, DNA Replication and Repair" http://www.dartmouth.edu/~cbbc/courses/bio4/bio4-1997/03-DNA&Chromosomes.html

[9] National Institutes of Health, "What is DNA Repair?" http://www.nih.gov/sigs/dna-rep/whatis.html

[10] Stephens, Jim, “Proof for God #27, The Truth About Mutation”, http://101proofsforgod.blogspot.com/2013/02/27-truth-about-mutation.html