THE MONSTER MUTATION THEORY: 2

A rattlesnake laid an egg, and it hatched into a chicken. The theory is fantastic. Read this and you will see for yourself. Evolutionary theory is a myth. God created everything; all the evidence clearly points to it. This is science vs. evolution—a Creation-Evolution Encyclopedia, brought to you by Creation Science Facts.

CONTENTS: The Monster Mutation Theory: 2

Gould Revives the Theory: The impossible speculation comes back to life
Eight Reasons Why the Theory is Untrue: Why the monster mutation theory is science fiction
Conclusion: Scientists tell us that the mammoth mutation theory is utter nonsense

This material is excerpted from the book, MUTATIONS (seeBOOKSTORE). An asterisk ( * ) by a name indicates that person is not known to be a creationist. Of over 4,000 quotations in the books this Encyclopedia is based on, only 164 statements are by creationists.
You will have a better understanding of the following statements by scientists if you will also read the web page, Mutations.

GOULD REVIVES THE THEORY

The impossible speculation comes back to life.

In the 1970s, *Steven Gould, of Harvard University, brought this fantastic theory back from the dead. He was able to do this because he is one of the most influential evolutionists of the last third of this century.

Working with *Niles Eldredge, he expanded on *Goldschmidt's idea in 1972—and called it "punctuated equilibrium." The May 1977 issue of Natural History carried an article with his position and reasons for it.

As a respected paleontologist, Gould was fully aware that there simply was no fossil evidence for evolution of one species from another. All the evidence from the world around us and the fossil record from the past points to separate distinct species, with no transitional species linking them.

In the article, Gould opens up this entire problem—and says that "hopeful monsters" are the only possible answer: entirely new species which were suddenly born from totally different creatures! One day a lizard laid an egg and a beaver hatched out of it.

Declaring that "we never see the processes we profess to study" [that is, cross-species changes], Gould announced his new position which he described by this awesome new name: "punctuated equilibrium." By this term he means that, (1) for 50,000 years or so, there will be no change (an "equilibrium" without any evolution). And then, (2) suddenly (in a very rare "punctuation"), and by total chance, two totally different life forms will emerge.

By sheerest chance, (3) one will always be a male and the other a female. (4) Coincidentally, they will always appear at the same time in history, and less than a few miles apart, so they can continue in the new species. (5) It is not be happening now.

We have here a total argument by silence; pure speculation, without any scientific evidence to back it up.

*Richard Goldschmidt called them "hopeful monsters"; then *Stephen Gould named the process "punctuated equilibrium"; soon to be followed by *Steven Stanley who said it was "quantum speciation."

All this makes for interesting reading—and laughter and backroom debates by scientists,—but all these efforts by *Goldschmidt, *Gould, *Eldredge, *Stanley, and others, to urge sudden multibillion positive mutational features is really no solution to the crisis that evolution finds itself in. The very idea reveals the depth of desperation on the part of men who know of no other way to prove the impossible.

EIGHT REASONS WHY THE THEORY IS UNTRUE

Why the monster mutation theory is science fiction.

Here are six solid reasons why the mammoth mutation theory is haywire:

1: In normal life, only single mutations occur.

*Richard Goldschmidt was a veteran genetics researcher, and the gypsy moths taught him enough lessons that he totally gave up on the possibility that one-by-one mutations could accomplish the task of evolution. —But the truth is that there is no other kind of mutations!

2: Hiroshima should have produced mammoth mutations, but did not do so. No mammoth mutations can or would occur. None occurred at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, in the irradiated budding eyes of research roses or the thousands of laboratory gypsy moths jars. If they had occurred, we would have seen new species form. With so much excess radiation, the 20th century has been the century, above all others, when we should expect new species would arise. But it has not happened.

3: Each of these purported gigantic mutations, involving millions upon millions of gene factors, is said to have suddenly appeared. Scientific evidence from mutations and mathematical probabilities both totally deny such a possibility.

4: Each immense mutational form is said to have occurred totally by chance, yet it always produced two such creatures—one male and one female—at the same time and in the same locality!

5: Each multi-mutation could only happen once every 50,000 years! Because of the totally impossible mathematical improbability that a billion positive random gene changes could occur, in which all of the mutational changes worked together to smoothly produce a perfect new creature,—Gould said such an event could only happen twice in every 50,000 years! Those two ultra-rare 50,000-year occurrences would always happen at the same time, close to each other and producing one male and one female. This story sounds stranger than the legends of ancient India or Greece!

6: Yet there are hundreds of thousands of different plant and animal species! There are hundreds of thousands of plant and animal species on the earth, yet Gould says each new two-fold one could only occur 50,000 years after the preceding one. All eternity itself could not hope to wait around for all these creatures to spring forth.

Everything in nature teaches us that plant and animal life is totally interrelated. Every life form survives because of many other life forms. Waiting for twenty million years between each monster springing forth is too long. Yet—and catch this point—Gould has to stay with lengthy time periods of "equilibrium" during which nothing happens—in order to explain why it is not happening now!

7: Millions of sudden positive mutations in a single creature are required—yet no positive mutations ever occur, even singly! Each of Gould's "new speciations" must arise on the basis of multimillions of positive mutations—yet we today cannot even find one positive mutation in millions of observed plant and animal mutations!

8: Birth-defect "monsters" may occasionally occur, but they quickly die out; they never survive past one generation. *Mayr calls these monsters not "hopeful," but "hopeless."

"The occurrence of genetic monstrosities by mutation . . is well-substantiated, but they are such evident freaks that these monsters can be designated only as `hopeless.' They are so utterly unbalanced that `they would not have the slightest chance of escaping elimination through selection.' Giving a thrush the wings of a falcon does not make it a better flyer. Indeed, having all the equipment of a thrush, it would probably hardly be able to fly at all . . To believe that such a drastic mutation would `produce a viable new type, capable of occupying a new adaptive zone, `is equivalent to believing in miracles."—*E. Mayr, "Populations" in Species and Evolution (1970), p. 253.

CONCLUSION

Scientists tell us that the mammoth mutation theory is utter nonsense.

Scientists recognize that Stephen Jay Gould's massive mutational changes idea would be an impossibility.

"These problems of viable "hopeful monsters" are exacerbated [made worse] when considering evolution near the Precambrian-Cambrian boundary, when new higher taxa [different life forms] appeared at such a rate that we have estimated that 1 in 40 or so species represented a new class. This figure is arguable, but it is clear that the process causing evolutionary novelty could not have depended on exceedingly rare events.

"Explanations for the Cambrian radiation of invertebrate marine phyla and classes have focused on species selection or traditional micro-evolutionary processes. The rapidity of a low species numbers during the radiation render these explanations untenable."—*D. Erwin and *J. Valentine, "Hopeful Monsters," Transposons, and Metazoan Radiation, in Proceedings National Academy of Sciences (1984), Vol. 81, p. 5482.

It has been said that *Goldschmidt and *Gould's wild theory has the advantage of being unable to be proven or disproven by the fossil evidence. But that is not correct. Careful examination of the evidence in the sedimentary strata reveals an enormous variety of thousands of different types of fossilized plants and animals—all suddenly there. So even the fossil evidence disproves their theory.

This theory of random occurrences of almost instant "hatchings" of totally new types of plants or animals is supposed to have produced all the life forms on our planet. But it all happened in the past and never happens now nor in recorded history. Achieving such a stunt would be impossible in a laboratory setting, much less by random chance out in nature. Yet it has provided a dream for some evolutionists to cling to as they continue their search for some possible way for evolution to occur.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

To the next topic in this series:

SCIENTISTS SPEAK ABOUT THE MONSTER MUTATION THEORY: Scientists discuss the lunacy of what is becoming the leading evolutionary theory.