Daniel Currier
Neo-Darwinian evolution is a fairy tale for big people. I know those are fighting words, but let me tell you why I say that. The typical human evolutionary story starts like this, around five to ten million years ago, we diverged from chimps, one of our closest primate relatives, from an ape-like ancestor. One line of evidence for this divergence is that chimps and humans share 98% to 99% of genes. While this story may sound compelling and scientific, it is false and pure bunk.
We are NOT 98 to 99% genetically identical to chimps
First, to say we are 98 to 99% genetically identical is less than true. Geneticist Dr. Jeff Tomkins questioned this number. After actually comparing over a hundred chimp gene sets, he found we are at best 85% genetic similar to chimps, nothing near 98% or 99%. That means we are minimally a whopping 15% genetically different from chimps! To show how big a difference this is, let’s assume both humans and chimps have approximately 3 billion base pairs of DNA in their genome. Now there could be more or less, but this is a fair number. Let’s take 15% of 3 billion, that is just a little shy of a half billion genetic differences! Now, you could say “Wait, only about 1 or 2% of the genome codes for proteins, and that is what we are looking at.” Okay, great, but that still means we have millions and millions of differences! But even so, modern biology now shows that the protein coding areas are not the only parts we should be concerned with. It is now biological common knowledge that most of the genome has important roles, such as regulatory functions.
To make a gene
But the problem is even worse. Let’s run a thought experiment. I’m going to assume that there are about 50 unique genes between humans and chimps. This is more than fair, actually probably quite low. Now we need to know the length of an average gene. Well, an 8,000 base pair long gene is quite reasonable.
In the past, I wrote an article titled “Do Cavemen and Dinosaurs Fit into the Bible? Cavemen (Part 2).” In that article, I promised a follow up. This is that follow up article. Feel free to read the first one!
However, I want to give Darwinism the benefit of doubt, so let’s stack the deck in favor of Darwinian evolution as much as we can. Instead of saying there are 50 unique genes, let’s say all we need is just one measly novel gene. Also, instead of the massive 8,000 base pair long gene, let’s just make it only 8 base pairs long! This should be a flash in Darwinian time to get a novel gene, right? Well, not quite so fast. Actually, the numbers don’t look promising for Darwinian evolution!
Sanford’s bombshell
To show you why, let me bring in another geneticists: Dr. John Sanford. Sanford says to make a totally new gene of only 8 base pairs long (way shorter than 8,000 base pairs) with the Darwinian process, it would take at least 18.5 billion years! I want to point out that 18.5 billion years is probably very conservative, it would probably take much longer. As you can see, I am trying to give the Darwinistic framework the best possible shot. But now we run into a massive problem: most contemporary scientists think the universe is only 13.8 billion years old and the Earth is far younger, only 4.5 billion years old! Just to make an 8 base pair long gene bursts past not only the supposed age of the Earth, but also the universe!
If this is bad, it gets even worse. Humans and chimps are said to have only diverged less than 10 million years ago! Notice I said millions, not billions. Even if we would bump that number up to 40 million years ago, we still are woefully short on time! Remember, this is just one unnaturally small gene, we still need many many more genes that are much much longer. The years required for such evolution now grows exponentially into inconceivable numbers! In other words, the Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory is dead!
So, what did you think? Feel free to share your thoughts below!
