In my continuing seris of Posts, I will touch on the issue of Genetic 
Improbablity.  The article below probably best describes this problem of 
genetic improbability.  The Paper is a well-cited paper and should be worthy of 
sciencific acceptance from open minded folks here:









>From The Myth of Natural Origins; How Science Points to Divine Creation

 Ashby Camp, Ktisis Publishing, Tempe, Arizona, 1994, pp. 53-57, used by 
permission.

Even on a theoretical level, it does not seem possible for mutations to account 
for the diversity of life on earth, at least not in the time available. 
According to Professor Ambrose, the minimum number of mutations necessary to 
produce the simplest new structure in an organism is five (Davis, 67-68; Bird, 
1:88), but these five mutations must be the proper type and must affect five 
genes that are functionally related. Davis, 67-68. In other words, not just any 
five mutations will do. The odds against this occurring in a single organism 
are astronomical.

Mutations of any kind are believed to occur once in every 100,000 gene 
replications (though some estimate they occur far less frequently). Davis, 68; 
Wysong, 272. Assuming that the first single-celled organism had 10,000 genes, 
the same number as E. coli (Wysong, 113), one mutation would exist for every 
ten cells. Since only one mutation per 1,000 is non-harmful (Davis, 66), there 
would be only one non-harmful mutation in a population of 10,000 such cells. 
The odds that this one non-harmful mutation would affect a particular gene, 
however, is 1 in 10,000 (since there are 10,000 genes). Therefore, one would 
need a population of 100,000,000 cells before one of them would be expected to 
possess a non-harmful mutation of a specific gene.

The odds of a single cell possessing non-harmful mutations of five specific 
(functionally related) genes is the product of their separate probabilities. 
Morris, 63. In other words, the probability is 1 in 108 X 108 X 108 X 108 X 
108, or 1 in 1040. If one hundred trillion (1014) bacteria were produced every 
second for five billion years (1017 seconds), the resulting population (1031) 
would be only 1/1,000,000,000 of what was needed!

But even this is not the whole story. These are the odds of getting just any 
kind of non-harmful mutations of five related genes. In order to create a new 
structure, however, the mutated genes must integrate or function in concert 
with one another. According to Professor Ambrose, the difficulties of obtaining 
non-harmful mutations of five related genes "fade into insignificance when we 
recognize that there must be a close integration of functions between the 
individual genes of the cluster, which must also be integrated into the 
development of the entire organism." Davis, 68.

In addition to this, the structure resulting from the cluster of the five 
integrated genes must, in the words of Ambrose, "give some selective advantage, 
or else become scattered once more within the population at large, due to 
interbreeding." Bird, 1:87. Ambrose concludes that "it seems impossible to 
explain [the origin of increased complexity] in terms of random mutations 
alone." Bird, 1:87.

 When one considers that a structure as "simple" as the wing on a fruit fly 
involves 30-40 genes (Bird, 1:88), it is mathematically absurd to think that 
random genetic mutations can account for the vast diversity of life on earth. 
Even Julian Huxley, a staunch evolutionist who made assumptions very favorable 
to the theory, computed the odds against the evolution of a horse to be 1 in 
10300,000. Pitman, 68. If only more Christians had that kind of faith!

This probability problem is not the delusion of some radical scientific fringe. 
As stated by William Fix:

    Whether one looks to mutations or gene flow for the source of the 
variations needed to fuel evolution, there is an enormous probability problem 
at the core of Darwinist and neo-Darwinist theory, which has been cited by 
hundreds of scientists and professionals. Engineers, physicists, astronomers, 
and biologists who have looked without prejudice at the notion of such 
variations producing ever more complex organisms have come to the same 
conclusion: The evolutionists are assuming the impossible. Fix, 196.

Renowned French zoologist Pierre-Paul Grass' has made no secret of his 
skepticism:

    What gambler would be crazy enough to play roulette with random evolution? 
The probability of dust carried by the wind reproducing Dürer's (Matt, I can't 
get the 'u' to go small for me there!) "Melancholia" is less infinitesimal than 
the probability of copy errors in the DNA molecule leading to the formation of 
the eye; besides, these errors had no relationship whatsoever with the function 
that the eye would have to perform or was starting to perform. There is no law 
against daydreaming, but science must not indulge in it. Grass', 104.

In 1967 a group of internationally known biologists and mathematicians met to 
consider whether random mutations and natural selection could qualify as the 
mechanism of evolutionary change. The answer of the mathematicians was "No." 
Morris, 64-65; Sunderland, 128-36. Participants at the symposium, all 
evolutionists, recognized the need for some type of mechanism to reduce the 
odds against evolution. In the words of Dr. Murray Eden of M.I.T.:

    What I am claiming is that without some constraint on the notion of random 
variation, in either the properties of the organism or the sequence of the DNA, 
there is no particular reason to expect that we could have gotten any kind of 
viable form other than nonsense. Sunderland, 138.

Summarizing his and Hoyle's analysis of the mechanism of evolution, 
Wickramasinghe states:

    We found that there's just no way it could happen. If you start with a 
simple micro-organism, no matter how it arose on the earth, primordial soup or 
otherwise, then if you just have that single organizational, informational unit 
and you said that you copied this sequentially time and time again, the 
question is does that accumulate enough copying errors, enough mistakes in 
copying, and do these accumulations of copying errors lead to the diversity of 
living forms that one sees on the earth. That's the general, usual formulation 
of the theory of evolution.... We looked at this quite systematically, quite 
carefully, in numerical terms. Checking all the numbers, rates of mutation and 
so on, we decided that there is no way in which that could even marginally 
approach the truth. Varghese, 28.


Thus, several decades have only confirmed the observation of Gertrude 
Himmelfarb in her book Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution (1959):


    [I]t is now discovered that favorable mutations are not only small but 
exceedingly rare, and the fortuitous combination of favorable mutations such as 
would be required for the production of even a fruit fly, let alone a man, is 
so much rarer still that the odds against it would be expressed by a number 
containing as many noughts as there are letters in the average novel, "a number 
greater than that of all the electrons and protons in the visible universe" -- 
an improbability as great as that a monkey provided with a typewriter would by 
chance peck out the works of Shakespeare. Fix, 196.

*****************

References:

  a.. Bird, W.R., The Origin of Species Revisited (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 
1991; originally published by Philosophical Library in 1987). Bird graduated 
summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University and has a J.D. degree from Yale Law 
School. He has published articles in numerous law journals and represented the 
State of Louisiana in the challenge to its "creation statute." Both volumes of 
this work are extensively documented with references to the pertinent 
scientific literature.
  b.. Davis, Percival and Dean H. Kenyon, Of Pandas and People (Dallas: 
Haughton Publishing Co. 1990). Davis has an M.A. degree from Columbia 
University and is a life science professor at Hillsborough Community College. 
Kenyon has a Ph.D. in biophysics from Stanford and is Professor of Biology at 
San Francisco State University. He is the co-author of Biochemical 
Predestination published by McGraw-Hill in 1969. The Academic Editor of Of 
Pandas and People was Charles B. Thaxton who has a Ph.D. in chemistry from Iowa 
State University and is the co-author of The Mystery of Life's Origin published 
by the Philosophical Library in 1984.
  c.. Fix, William R., The Bone Peddlers (New York: Macmillan PUblishing, 
1984). Fix has an M.A. degree in behavioral science from Simon Fraser 
University (Canada) and is the author of several books.
  d.. Grass', Pierre-P., Evolution of Living Organisms (New York: Academic 
Press, 1977). Grass' is France's most distinguished zoologist. Dobzhansky has 
described his knowledge of the living world as "encyclopedic."
  e.. Morris, Henry M. and Gary E. Parker, What is Creation Science (San Diego: 
Creation-Life Publishers, 1982). Morris has a Ph.D. in hydraulic engineering 
from the University of Minnesota. Parker has a M.S. and Ed.D. in biology from 
Ball State University.
  f.. Pitman, Michael, Adam and Evolution (London: Rider & Co., 1984). Pitman 
has a B.A. degree in science from Open University (England), a M.A. degree in 
classics from Oxford, and teaches biology in Cambridge, England. The 
introduction is by Dr. Bernard Stonehouse, a scientist who has held academic 
posts at Oxford, Yale, and other prestigious universities.
  g.. Sunderland, Luther D., Darwin's Enigma: Fossils and Other Problems, 3d 
ed. (Santee, CA: Master Book Publishers, 1984). Sunderland had a B.S. from 
Penn. State University and worked as an aerospace engineer with General 
Electric specializing in automatic flight control systems (died 1987).
  h.. Varghese, Roy Abraham, ed., The Intellectuals Speak Out About God 
(Chicago: Regenery Gateway, 1984). Those quoted are Robert Jastrow and Chandra 
Wickramasinghe. ...Wickramisinghe is an internationally recognized authority on 
interstellar matter and is the head of the department of applied mathematics 
and astronomy at University College in Cardiff, Wales.
  i.. Wysong, Randy L., The Creation-Evolution Controversy (Midland, MI: 
Inquiry Press, 1976). Wysong has a B.S. and D.V.M. from Michigan State 
University

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