hough we noted the sheer mathematical improbability of genetic mutations acting more to advance a rather T complex system than disturb it for the worse, scientists make little effort to exert a bit more logic here.
That is because there are certain “precedents” they can point to that appear to help their case. But do they really? Firstly there is the chameleon, which changes color to blend in with the environment. Then there is the cuttlefish which changes both shape and color according to mood and certain exigencies in its environment.
And then we have the amazing octopus which seems to have a “brain” in every part of its body—even its eight limbs—and each part changes color “on its own” according to whatever it contacts. Above all else we have the virus, able to respond to attacks by mutating its genetic and bodily constitution.
But we have to be careful to distinguish things here. A virus can certainly try out many random genetic variations and then suddenly hit on a “look” that will bypass the body’s defense mechanisms. We cannot however extrapolate casually from this and suggest that genes and a genetic change have a kind of periscope into the environment outside the body.
Viruses are parasitic microscopic entities that seem to hover precariously between lifelessness and living. Their “job” is to trick the RNA of its host into helping it make as many copies of itself as possible, eventually invading vulnerable parts of the body’s system. In short it is an entity that has “hacked” the RNA in the cells. Let us basically understand what the difference between RNA and DNA is.
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DNA contains all coding about the shape and function of each cell and group of cells that make up the entire, complete and coordinated entity. And when compatible species mate, the process takes half the genes of one (the mother) and “zips”
them onto half of the other (the father) creating a spiral “zip”
called a chromosome—the entire genetic pool of the new entity.
Each cell of the offspring has the whole chromosome.
The DNA itself cannot make copies of any cell without RNA. So when we deal with entities that are either single-celled—e.g.
bacteria—or are an entity such as a virus whose composition is basically DNA wrapped in a shell and equipped with a hack into another entity’s RNA, it plays out in a limited environment or playing field. We cannot just extrapolate this environment into Earth’s complex ecosystem where many, many species help sustain each other.
It is a specialist area where a single cell—or DNA clothed with a hack in the case of a virus—aims to target the RNA of its host to replicate itself. Simplistically put, bacteria will seek certain material from the host to multiply, whose RNA they also might “steal” to replicate. When mutated cells hack RNA just like viruses, it is when they become “cancerous”.
For this sole purpose, such entity is uniquely imbued with an ability to make limited, random DNA changes to itself to avoid detection by the body’s defense mechanism. And these changes are limited to the equivalent of a sedan transforming itself into an SUV with the help of unstable DNA that control look or shape—as with a more complex entity. It is nothing much more than that, just a change in body shape through an unstable gene—or group of genes. It is not a usable model of survival in a varied, complex, planetary environment.
And just as when dust blows into a lab producing microchips something will go wrong with operations, so will viruses or bacteria invading the body trigger unwanted reactions to the body’s organized system. And you cannot really tell what is 15
Chapter Four Evolution’s Great Fallacy: Part 2
going to happen until it happens. Some parts of the microchip will still act fine, but the system’s integrity is compromised.
This brings us to an earlier point we made in the previous chapter. Most changes—even very slight ones—in a complex, integrated, fully functional system are unlikely to bring about a beneficial change. That is what probability states.
Likewise, unstable DNA in bacteria or viruses and the changes it brings about do not equate to “evolution”. They are random changes in shape that can fool the body into allowing the “new look” through into prohibited areas that are carefully guarded.
And true to the fact that any small change in a complex system is not likely to be beneficial, these organisms bring grief to the body when they invade a section—the virus almost always.
Even a factory (a body) can work with dust on its floors, but it can be brought to a halt by dust inside a machine.
Logically, frenetic bodily changes like these in more complex organisms such as animals and plants would bring the whole delicate balance of life crashing down. This is because even a slight shift in the shape of body or body parts can sometimes be enough to bring us great discomfort—even kill us. It has to be in the right places, and in the right way, as ably controlled by the DNA in us.
Growing eyes all over the body, or a femur that is longer than it should be brings dysfunction to the entire body. And that is why genetic mutations are rare and any deviation tends to be mistake. But sometimes the mistakes can be useful. If a gene that controls the growth of hair in the armpits was to “switch off” (and I known of one case) gene therapists might want that change for the benefit of a lot of women, especially.
As such, most complex life-forms only exhibit certain limited inbuilt responses to certain external stimuli…rather than a genetic change. An example is developing a tan in the hot sun, or expanding muscles when regularly lifting heavy weights.
These changes involve no genes at all. A White man cannot 16
pass his suntan to his progeny, nor can the bodybuilder pass his physique onto his son.
Compounding mathematical improbability even further is the countless beneficial interdependencies between plants and animals ( and between plants themselves, and between animals). In fact, so varied are these interactions that many a wildlife documentary has a (literal) field day picking them out one by one to our predictable astonishment …
And there are certain overarching ones essential for all life.
Plants, for example, need carbon dioxide to survive—and fortunately animals give it off as a by-product of respiration; animals need oxygen and luckily plants give off oxygen as a by-product of their respiration.
Also, most natural environments tend to be ecologically balanced—and not just in the food chain. More than just individual genes in individual species, survival boils down to systems planning on a mind-boggling scale.
However, if someone points out the sheer improbability of it all, scientists in turn point to countless trillions of suns, and thus the sheer possibility of at least a few life-sustaining planets such as ours. Incredible numbers for incredible odds.
But sadly, even with our conscious, active intelligence, we cannot consciously recreate a chain of events that mere chance came to feel its way through and knit together so elegantly! We cannot even make a single cell to date.
So if biologists are to be believed, not only do “evolution” and
“natural selection” overcome mathematical hurdles, they trip over themselves to so wonderfully complement each other.
In that way we must forgive evolutionists when they hardly hear themselves any more as they speak of how “wonderfully evolution designs”, contravening their own premise.
Atheists like Dawkins, though, do not go so far as to say that evolution does not design; he simply says we have to dumb-down that Designer to a process of a slow, uphill climb taking millions of years of trial-and-error. He admits that attributing 17
Chapter Four Evolution’s Great Fallacy: Part 2
everything to pure chance is like—he quotes —assuming that a hurricane blowing through a junkyard can result in a fully functioning Boeing 747. Sentience has to come in. So, his
“blind clockmaker” has to be not-so-blind after all. He has to have an aim. He has to learn from a previous effort…else one mistake can make his entire clock forever unworkable.
Also, we must recognize that what makes human beings so smart is the brain. But the conundrum is we are using the brain to understand even the brain! Scientists say that this pinnacle of evolution—our greatest weapon—is sophisticated because evolution had millions of years to fumble along with its design. And now that the brain is “awakened”, we will catch up with every plodding “secret” of evolution.
But why was Evolution so brilliant—and yet so stupid as to make us totally forget, on a conscious level, what it had built so painstakingly over untold millions of years? As humans—its brilliant end product—should we not be conscious of it all inside ourselves? Our various cells, and the way they organize themselves, does not suggest that they forgot: the disconnect seems to be with just our brains.
As we saw, the brain—the conscious human—hardly knows what’s going on inside when the skin repairs a wound…just that some magic is going on. Even those trained to understand the process don’t know everything, Why are we outside it all? Why are we yet to consciously work it all out?
Indeed, what took millions of years to integrate blindly, ought to— with sight—take less than a century to work it all out. Such is the power of sight. But will we get all the secrets soon? Can we finally be able to duplicate Nature from scratch?
We discuss this in the next chapter.
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