I went to see a creationist today. Not sure why I did this as it I rarely make it to North Campus for even the most important things and why I'd want to be infuriated on a Saturday afternoon is a mystery. The main crux of his argument is that he's shown evolution by natural selection is not possible using a computer model he (and his colleagues) wrote 10 years ago. Somehow from this he thinks the Earth is 10,000 years old, humans rode dinosaurs, and all the evidence for evolution is wrong. The argument is that mutations are too detrimental to ever result in new variation and adaptation. He calls this "Genetic Entropy."
There are two main reasons John Sanford's Genetic Entropy argument is completely off base:
1. It is based on a simplistic computer model with no empirical evidence to support it. In science, you get the evidence then you make the model. He made the model without any evidence, he made it instead assuming all mutations are bad and of course it shows that evolution is not possible.
2. Sanford's definition of fitness is flawed. He seems to think that "full fitness" equals 1. He's assuming that there is a such thing as ideal fitness and that's completely wrong. Some genotypes are favorable in some environments, others are favorable in other environments. For example, dark skin is favorable in areas near the equator (prevents melanoma/skin cancers) but unfavorable away from the equator (leads to other cancers and rickets). Light skin is the opposite, near the equator whites will get melonoma, but away from the equator they'll have lower incidences of other cancers and rickets. The same is true for every single attribute in every organism. Besides null mutations (those destroying the reproductive system or killing the animal), there are no mutations that cannot be beneficial in some circumstances.
There are other problems. He doesn't factor in environmental influence in his model because he considers it noise. What? Does he know what natural selection is? He also does not factor in things like hybridization and genetic drift--all of which are instrumental in speciation.
He claims his model, called Mendel's Accountant is the most complex and comprehensive computer simulation for genetic evolution ever created. Fine, but it's still too simplistic in comparison to the real world. He makes assumptions like the beneficial mutation rate and the selection rate--both of which are arbitrarily drawn up by him.
I did get to ask a question though I'm quite sure the audience did not know the significance of it. Dr. Sanford claims outside of complete neutral mutations, 99.9999999999% of all mutations are somewhere between -1 (lethal) and 0 (neutral). True beneficial mutations are so rare you can basically ignore them. I said,"You don't know all the factors interacting with this mutation, so to say something is slightly negative is an assumption. I guess what I'm getting at, is do you have an example of a slightly deleterious mutation?"
He replied "There have been many experiments done where we expose--for example plants to radiation and most of them die and you get all sorts of weird stuff. But these things usually die or can't reproduce. You don't want mutations in your genome because it's bad--give me a show of hands how many people want mutations in their genomes?"
See how simplistic his argument is? How simple minded you have to be to accept anything he says? Of course no one wants mutations in their genomes, but we're not talking about mutations in living animals, we're talking about mutations in germ lines. You can't get evolution from mutations in a living organism.
I wanted to then say, "but those aren't acted upon by natural selection and they aren't examples of slightly deleterious mutations" but I was cut off by a person telling Dr. Sanford it was over. It's really a shame, because his entire model breaks down when you realize there is no example of a mutation that is passed on, but slightly deleterious.
Overall it was underwhelming. He started with saying he'd come to the revelation through evidence that evolution was wrong and the Bible was right, but all he presented was a computer program. Don't get too excited about having this lunatic on your side, creationists. His argument won't convince anyone but the most feeble minded.
There are two main reasons John Sanford's Genetic Entropy argument is completely off base:
1. It is based on a simplistic computer model with no empirical evidence to support it. In science, you get the evidence then you make the model. He made the model without any evidence, he made it instead assuming all mutations are bad and of course it shows that evolution is not possible.
2. Sanford's definition of fitness is flawed. He seems to think that "full fitness" equals 1. He's assuming that there is a such thing as ideal fitness and that's completely wrong. Some genotypes are favorable in some environments, others are favorable in other environments. For example, dark skin is favorable in areas near the equator (prevents melanoma/skin cancers) but unfavorable away from the equator (leads to other cancers and rickets). Light skin is the opposite, near the equator whites will get melonoma, but away from the equator they'll have lower incidences of other cancers and rickets. The same is true for every single attribute in every organism. Besides null mutations (those destroying the reproductive system or killing the animal), there are no mutations that cannot be beneficial in some circumstances.
There are other problems. He doesn't factor in environmental influence in his model because he considers it noise. What? Does he know what natural selection is? He also does not factor in things like hybridization and genetic drift--all of which are instrumental in speciation.
He claims his model, called Mendel's Accountant is the most complex and comprehensive computer simulation for genetic evolution ever created. Fine, but it's still too simplistic in comparison to the real world. He makes assumptions like the beneficial mutation rate and the selection rate--both of which are arbitrarily drawn up by him.
I did get to ask a question though I'm quite sure the audience did not know the significance of it. Dr. Sanford claims outside of complete neutral mutations, 99.9999999999% of all mutations are somewhere between -1 (lethal) and 0 (neutral). True beneficial mutations are so rare you can basically ignore them. I said,"You don't know all the factors interacting with this mutation, so to say something is slightly negative is an assumption. I guess what I'm getting at, is do you have an example of a slightly deleterious mutation?"
He replied "There have been many experiments done where we expose--for example plants to radiation and most of them die and you get all sorts of weird stuff. But these things usually die or can't reproduce. You don't want mutations in your genome because it's bad--give me a show of hands how many people want mutations in their genomes?"
See how simplistic his argument is? How simple minded you have to be to accept anything he says? Of course no one wants mutations in their genomes, but we're not talking about mutations in living animals, we're talking about mutations in germ lines. You can't get evolution from mutations in a living organism.
I wanted to then say, "but those aren't acted upon by natural selection and they aren't examples of slightly deleterious mutations" but I was cut off by a person telling Dr. Sanford it was over. It's really a shame, because his entire model breaks down when you realize there is no example of a mutation that is passed on, but slightly deleterious.
Overall it was underwhelming. He started with saying he'd come to the revelation through evidence that evolution was wrong and the Bible was right, but all he presented was a computer program. Don't get too excited about having this lunatic on your side, creationists. His argument won't convince anyone but the most feeble minded.
