Oxidative damage causes many mutations according to reports in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 106, p16310, 22 September 2009 and ScienceDaily 7 September 2009. Mutations are changes in DNA and are considered to be “the fuel for evolution”. A team of scientists from four American universities has carried out a genome wide study of mutations occurring in a small roundworm named C. Elegans. The researchers studied 250 generations of worms and found they accumulated 391 genetic mutations. Most of the mutations were due to “oxidative stress” – damage to DNA from highly reactive molecules formed as part of normal metabolic processes that use oxygen. Dee Denver of Oregon State University explained: “Most life on Earth depends in some form on oxygen, which is great at the production of energy. But we pay a high price for our dependence on oxygen, because the process of using it is not 100 percent efficient, and it can result in free oxygen radicals that can damage proteins, fats and DNA. And this process gets worse with age, as free radicals accumulate and begin to cause disease.” Oxidative damage to DNA is a major cause many serious diseases, including cancer, and the aging process.
Editorial Comment: Oxidative stress is one reason health professionals advise people to eat foods containing “anti-oxidants”, i.e. substances that help remove the dangerous chemicals. If mutations were such a good thing, evolutionists would be telling people not to eat anti-oxidants.
This research exposes one of the inconsistencies of evolutionary theory. No-one is claiming the 391 mutations improved the worms, or made them change into something else. Mutations can never make living things increase in structure and function, as must happen for evolution to occur. In fact, the so called mutational “fuel for evolution” is really fuel for destruction, as anyone suffering from cancer, or feeling the weakness of advanced age, will tell you. Mutations are part of the general degeneration of all living things that has been going on ever since man disobeyed his Creator and the whole creation was “subject to frustration” when Adam sinned (Romans 8:20). (Ref. genetics, nematodes, degradation)
Evidence News, 19 November 2009