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Microevolution (for example, the development of insecticide resistance) merely selects preexisting variation. It does not demonstrate that mutations create new variation.

In experiments with bacteria, variation (including beneficial mutations) arises in populations that are grown from a single individual (Lederberg and Lederberg 1952). Since the population started with just one chromosome, there was no variation in the original population; all varia...

Lederberg, J. and E. M. Lederberg, 1952. Replica plating and indirect selection of bacterial mutants. Journal of Bacteriology 63: 399-406.

Recent research shows the mutation rate in mitochondria much higher than previously thought (Loewe and Scherer 1997; Gibbons 1998). The date of "Mitochondrial Eve," the common maternal ancestor of all humankind, was based on that mutation rate. The revised molecular clock indicates that she lived about 6500 years ago, not about 200,000 years ago as previously claimed.

...drial ancestor at 171,500 +/- 50,000 years ago. Gibbons (1998) refers to mutations that cause heteroplasmy (inheritance of two or more mtDNA sequences). This does not apply to mitochondrial Eve research, which is based only on substitution mutation rates. A study similar to the mtEve research...

...M., H. Kaessmann, S. Pääbo and U. Gyllensten. 2000. Mitochondrial genome variation and the origin of modern humans. Nature 408: 708-713. Kaessmann, H., F. Heissig, A. von Haeseler and S. Pääbo. 1999. DNA sequence variation in a non-coding region of low recombination on the human X chromosome....

Microevolution is distinct from macroevolution.

...quencies (that is, genetic variation due to processes such as selection, mutation, genetic drift, or even migration) within a population. There is no argument that microevolution happens (although some creationists, such as Wallace, deny that mutations happen). Macroevolution is defined as ev...

Wilkins, John, 1997. Macroevolution. http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/macroevolution.html Previous Claim: CB901.3 | List of Claims | Next Claim: CB902.1 created 2000-11-4, modified 2004-2-26

The specialized dietary needs of many animals might have come about only after the Flood via microevolution. Microevolution could also account for climate preferences, lack of dormancy, wild temperament, and other traits, meaning that Noah never would have had to face many of the challenges that would be posed by animals in their present form.

...If there is little or no variation in the population already, nonharmful mutations must first occur to provide some variation, and evolution is much slower. According to the Flood story, almost all populations would have begun from just two individuals, making variation virtually nil. (Few po...

Simberloff, Daniel, 1988. The contribution of population and community biology to conservation science. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 19: 473-511. Previous Claim: CH520 | List of Claims | Next Claim: CH541 cre...

A true science must make predictions. Evolution only describes what happened in the past, so it is not predictive.

...al conditions and extraneous factors, so specific predictions about what mutations will occur and what traits will survive are impractical. It is still possible to use evolution to make general predictions about the future, though. For example, we can predict that diseases will become resista...

...M., H. Kaessmann, S. Paaba and U. Gyllensten. 2000. Mitochondrial genome variation and the origin of modern humans. Nature 408: 708-713 . See also: Blair Hedges, S. 2000. A start for population genomics. Nature 408: 552-553. See also: Thomson, Jeremy, 2000 (7 Dec.). Humans did come out of Afr...

...A Sequel to "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation" . (1845) Instances of Transmutation "Surely there are here ample evidences of species, or what are usually regarded as such, being variable under changed conditions. It will be said, these changes are all mere variations of specific forms, and the facts do nothing but show that that has...

...being variable under changed conditions. It will be said, these changes are all mere variations of specific forms, and the facts do nothing but show that that has been called species which is only variety. But where is this to have its limits? If the cabbage and sea-plant are to be now regarded as one species, it seems to me that we have to go...

...ever for this; .... Yet universality seemed inevitable for an obvious reason: since a mutation that changed even one word or letter of the code would alter most of a creature's proteins, it looked sure to be lethal." ( Judson 1996 , p. 280-281) In fact, the assumption of a universal genetic code was instrumental in their success in solving the...

...de must be universal (or nearly so) if universal common descent were true, since most mutations in the code would likely be lethal to all living things. Note that, although these early researchers predicted a universal genetic code based on common descent, they also predicted that minor variations could likely be found. Hinegardner and Engelber...

...are the progeny of one single species in the distant past. In spite of the extensive variation of form and function among organisms, several fundamental criteria characterize all life. Some of the macroscopic properties that characterize all of life are (1) replication, (2) heritability (characteristics of descendents are correlated with those...

...n color, arose from loss of genetic variability, not from origin of new genes through mutation as suggested by evolution. "THE CONCEPT OF RACE IS AN EVOLUTIONARY IDEA. Scripture teaches that `God has made of one blood all nations,' Acts 17:26. All humans possess the same color, just different amounts of it. We are all descendant from Adam and N...

...' (seven of every `clean' kind). "Biblical kind uncertain--probably linked by genetic variation. "Example: dog kind probably includes dogs, wolves, coyotes, etc. "`Kind' certainly not more narrow than biological `species.'" The number of "kinds" on board the Ark according to the creationists: 3,700 mammals; 8,600 birds; 6,300 reptiles; and 2,50...

...de must be universal (or nearly so) if universal common descent were true, since most mutations in the code would likely be lethal to all living things. Note, Hinegardner and Engelberg did allow for some variation in the genetic code, and predicted how such variation should be distributed if found: "... if different codes do exist they should b...

...n two consecutive generations, i.e. those changes that are within the range of normal variation observed within modern populations." Elsewhere in his criticism (e.g., footnote 6 ), Camp bemoans the article's indifference to mechanism in explaining the evidence for common descent. Throughout the article, it is assumed that the fundamentals of bi...

...ive generations are not genetically probable—they are not "within the range of normal variation observed within modern populations." This is not to say that God could not have created species independently and miraculously, yet gradually. While there currently is absolutely no scientific evidence for such an idea, gradual Divine direction of ev...

...to be added to living things over time, and they teach that inherited mistakes called mutations can add these new useful genes. We don't see that, of course." Kouznetsov : "That's right." Interviewer : "But they have to believe that it is theoretically possible. I understand that some of your research indicates that even if it were possible to...

...kinds of examples of modified genes which make modified proteins. The idea that such mutations are forbidden or inhibited at the level of translation is quite silly. Incidently the wording of this paragraph indicates that Kouznetsov is on unfamiliar ground. In other words he does not know what he is talking about. No expert would make the mist...

...ake of referring to "translation" of a "gene". Every population contains considerable variation at the level of the gene. For many genes there are multiple alleles and each one makes a slightly different protein. This is why one sees morphological variation within populations (eg. Homo sapiens), and this is the raw material of evolution. If Kou...

...tive transparent layer. The transparent layer was allowed to undergo localized random mutations of its refractive index. They then let the model deform itself at random, constrained only by the requirement that any change must be small and must be an improvement on what went before. The results were swift and decisive ... leading unhesitatingly...

...embryological development, had a lot to do with turning a fin into a hand! So, minor mutations of embryologic growth patterns might produce larger effects than expected, even perhaps in the story of eye evolution from an eyespot to a skin dimple to an eye cup, etc. E.T. BABINSKI Previous Contents Next

...ful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should no...

...yth had also published a natural selection theory in 1837, but he argued against transmutation of species because if it occurred it would destroy species' integrity: "we should seek in vain for those constant and invariable distinctions which are found to obtain" 5 . As de Beer says, it is unlikely that Darwin was indebted to him if his views w...

...o Darwin. Richards (1992) thinks that Owen had been slapped down in his youthful transmutationist views by the geologist Sedgwick and orthodox religious leaders in 1837, and that he ran up his orthodox colours then. In a review of his own response to the Origin , an anonymous reviewer noted that "so far as we can gather from his communication,...

...ad in Malthus so that "it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones would be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work ..." 4 . While Matthew was an evolutionist of the social radical...

...n (1867), and reiterated by the anti-selectionist Mivart (1871), who was still a transmutationist, that this meant that variation would be "swamped". Fisher in 1930 calculated that with blending inheritance roughly half of all variation would disappear each generation, while no more than 1/1000 of variation now in existence in any species could...

...bination into account). Consequently, the rate of inherited novelty (what we now call mutation) had to be extremely high. To accommodate this, Darwin had to rely on the use-and-disuse theory. When Mendelian genetics flowered at the turn of the century, this problem led a number of the new geneticists to argue that Darwinian evolution (i.e., nat...

...rsist in a population for a very long time, which increases the likelihood that a new mutation will meet copies of itself and thus permit new traits to become fixed. There is little point looking for Darwin's precursors to this: it was commonly held that heredity worked in this way 2 . Sometimes, this view of heredity is called Lamarckism, beca...