TOPICAL NOTE 6: DID LIFE EVOLVE?

© 2025.

Critique of evolutionary speciation theory and its promotion as factual by conventional scientists.

General evolution alleges that random chemical reactions originated primitive life forms on Earth. These then evolved into more advanced life forms over eons of time by a process called evolutionary speciation (described below). However, no evidence whatever shows that random chemical reactions originated even a “simple” bacterial cell. And likewise, evolutionary speciation is also only a theory.

Evolutionary speciation:

“Evolution” that is taught in public school and college classrooms is alleged to produce new species of organisms from ancestral ones by rare beneficial random mutations to the genomes of certain individuals in a population.  These mutations then are supposedly acted on by natural selection that allows the adapted individuals to proliferate as a new species (see Natural Selection section below). A successful new species allegedly may move up into a higher taxonomic group in a higher ecological niche. So fish allegedly evolved into amphibians that also can live on land and apes evolved into humans with higher cerebral capacity that allows them to control their environment.  The benefits of a higher ecological niche for a population allegedly drive macro-evolution.  Millions of years would pass for fish to evolve into amphibians or apes into humans since presumably many of these rare beneficial mutations were required to produce all their needed trait changes.  So alleged evolutionary speciation requires “millions of years” ages for the earth's fossiliferous rocks that radiometric dating provides.  These mutation-driven trait changes in DNA genomes would be irreversible.  

Evolutionary biologists selectively arrange discovered fossil remains of similar-type organisms into sequences of “primitive” to “complex” appearing ones.  Radiometric dating and evolutionary assumptions are used to determine their position in these proposed sequential pathways.  They assure us that macro-evolution of organisms is plausible genetically if millions of years are allowed for these rare beneficial mutations to occur.  This ancient time scale is based on uniformitarian geology that radiometric and ice core dating seem to corroborate.  However, Topical note 7, Radiometric and ice core dating exposes flawed assumptions that are made in these dating methods.  Topical note 4, “No geological evidence exists for a global Flood” explains that the observed geological stratification of fossil remains in sedimentary rock layers is better described by the burial sequence of least mobile to most mobile organisms during Noah’s Flood, rather than an evolutionary progression of life forms.

The concept of evolutionary speciation claims that new organisms can be assembled by sequential mutations over eons of time to make better more advanced organisms. However certain examples like the bombardier beetle described in the Genesis 3 commentary suggests each biblical kind is a created design. “Proto” bombardier beetles that were gradually evolving would have blown themselves up.  Also evidence from the fossil record shows that only discrete types of organisms have lived within taxonomic groups- taxons are not continuums of similar organisms.  So there isn’t conclusive evidence for evolutionary speciation of life forms in nature. There is no evidence that a random mutation in an organism’s genome produced a beneficial functional effect. Mutations inflict a loss of function to the genome. So evolutionary speciation is a theory.

Sadly, the “survival of the fittest” tenet of natural selection that is the selective agent for evolution has been misused by government regimes to whitewash “ethnic cleansing” of millions of their citizens for being “unfit”{1,2}. The principle of natural selection is more fully described its separate section below. 

A documented beneficial mutation in elephants?

There is no record of replacing part of a functioning genome in any organism with a random mutation that improves it’s the organism’s capabilities. Random mutations that occur naturally in organisms disrupt the normal function of genes and are not beneficial. However, recently one example of a gene mutation was reported that due to human ivory poaching benefits female elephants{6}.  From 1977 to 1992 the proportion of tuskless female elephants in Gorongosa Park in Mozambique rose from 18.5% to 51%.  Genetic analysis showed a gene required for tusk production had mutated in the tuskless females that allowed them to proliferate in only 15 years over females with tusks that ivory poacher kill.*  While this might seem to support the theory of evolutionary speciation where beneficial change to a population may be caused by a genetic mutation, this is merely entropy at work.  It produces debilitated females which would certainly not promote them to a higher taxonomic group in nature as proposed by evolutionary speciation. And this gene mutation is apparently lethal to male elephants during embryonic development so it would eventually destroy the species{6}. 

*This is an illustration of how natural selection (below) works as the agent of micro-evolution within a species.

Could a single mutation produce a new species?

The following discussion applies specifically to flightless birds. A single mutation in principle might produce a successful new variety of bird species in one generation if it occurred often enough to produce at least one mating pair that had fertile offspring. The progeny would need to become adapted to their environment so they survived. Being flightless, they would nest on the ground because they couldn’t nest in trees or cliffs, so they would be naturally reproductively isolated from their winged comrades.  Whether descendants of these mutants could be classified as a different species or a different biblical kind is examined below.

In the following hypothetical example, a flightless bird progeny pair descended from ancestral winged birds when one mutant gene that stunted wing embryonic development was inherited from each parent.  This is similar to the well documented “vestigial wing” mutation in Drosophila melanogaster fruit flies. This mutation produces flightless flies with tiny wings that are used in undergraduate genetics teaching lab experiments.  Ground birds would be reproductively isolated since they couldn’t nest in trees or cliffs with winged birds.  This single mutation would initially produce a flightless bird variety of the parental species that differed only by its vestigial wings, suddenly in one generation.  It would genetically differ from the parents’ fixed genomes by only the mutant gene.  So modern flightless ostriches, emus, rheas, and cassowaries that have a similar body morphology could have had a common wing-mutant crane-like bird ancestor pair with long necks and long legs. After many generations of micro-evolution within their species they developed more robust bodies with stronger legs and feet for running and kicking to defend themselves from predators. Line drawings discovered on ostrich shell by Homo erectus pre-Flood humans (Topical note 3) suggests that ostriches originated before the Flood. The small flightless kiwis with short, thin legs that developed a nocturnal habit to evade the numerous daytime predators would have descended from a smaller winged bird ancestor. Penguins would have had their own winged ancestor, and they survived by becoming marine and living on fish. Evidence suggests that Penguins originated before the Flood because continental drift (that began during the Flood) was evidently responsible for their worldwide distribution today (Topical note 3, Worldwide animal migration..). So, embryonic wing development mutations that possibly produced the various dissimilar flightless bird morphologies would have occurred repeatedly in different ancestral winged birds.

Human binomial taxonomy classified the various flightless ground birds morphologically as different species. However, genetically these flightless ground birds would initially have been a single-gene mutant variety of their winged ancestors. Over time, through micro-evolution within their species they acquired numerous genetic recombinations, epigenetic changes, and RNA editing required by their new permanent ground dwelling ecological niches, and some random mutations occurred as well. Their new niches kept them reproductively isolated from their ancestors and from other flightless bird species. Eventually they would become different enough morphologically to be classified as a new species. But their fixed genomes would remain similar to their winged ancestors. They adaptd to new ecological niches that saved them from extinction.

Conclusion: This hypothetical flightless bird example reasons that a rare single mutation may eventually produce what would be classified by conventional biologists as a new species, in a separate taxonomic group from their ancestors.  Many changes in their appearance (other than their mutant wings) over time would be caused only by adapting to their new environments by micro-evolution within species and reproductive isolation. So biblically, these populations would become new flightless varieties of their ancestral created bird “kinds”. Notice this is not “evolutionary speciation” that requires many mutations over millions of years to produce completely different organisms in higher taxonomic groups that fit higher ecological niches, such as fish allegedly evolving into amphibians that can also live on land. Flightless birds would be a step down taxonomically since they would lose flight capability only to change their ecological niche to permanent ground dwelling and compete on equal terms with quadrupeds. Their new niche would be a different one but lower ecologically. This is merely entropy at work.

Genesis 1:20 suggests that all birds originally could fly, which makes a case for a single-mutation origin for flightless birds. But it’s unknown if God originally created some kinds of flightless birds. If He did, penguins and ostriches would be two because scientific evidence suggests they lived before the Flood (above). Genomic analysis may determine which, if any, flightless bird species mutated from winged bird ancestors.

Consensus science:

Evolutionary biologists admit and are puzzled that fossil organisms of all taxonomic phyla suddenly appeared in the lower rock layers of the ancient Cambrian period fully formed with no apparent ancestry of previous less complex forms.  However, science textbooks and the secular news media promote what is evolutionary theory to students and the public as fact.  In secular circles almost no one would dare to question evolution that claims life created itself in the absence of conclusive evidence that supports this. So their belief apparently has more to do with their worldview and acceptance by their peers than good science.  The media pressures the public to believe that living species evolved from non-living materials and the billions of years age for earth and the universe according to scientific consensus, by promoting intelligent informed scientists who agree with it.

So regarding the sciences of origins (which include evolution, uniformitarian geology, and modern astrophysics), conventional science is motivated and governed by consensus of opinion among scientists{16} rather than by the use of unbiased scientific methods to explain discovered data. And this consensus appears to be led by influential elitists. “Consensus science” reasons: “although there isn’t conclusive evidence for a particular concept, if we are convinced it is true we will proceed accordingly”.  The conventional scientific community has made a commitment to the paradigm of “deep time” for the sciences of origins, so other views are vigorously marginalized and scientific creation is designated as “pseudoscience” (Topical note 1, scientific bias). This Genesis commentary doesn’t accuse conventional scientists of deliberately trying to deceive people, but in their zeal for consensus they ignore good field data that would interfere with scientific harmony. For individual scientists, maintaining good peer relationships, getting papers published, and obtaining continued funding for research are powerful incentives to be part of the mainstream. Of course, there is much arguing among secular scientists over details in accepted concepts. However, creation scientists who work within organizations aren’t untouched by their own consensus issues: They have to work with doctrinal policies and leadership preferences that may confuse correct interpretations of data. And camaraderie within these groups may cause animosity toward other creation scientists who hold different views.

A serious note

According to one conventional scientist, who likely speaks for many, Darwin’s actual major accomplishment was that his idea for the origin of species (that is described below) didn’t involve a creator{13}. This trend among scientists began to separate the bible from science since the mid-1800s when biblical “modernists” also began to systematically attack the scriptures. So perhaps the major incentive to promote evolutionary consensus science is- it allows those who live a godless life to feel good about it and be respectable. And it allows those who do have religious convictions to feel comfortable with any views they have about the bible, aside from it being God’s word.

Creation scientists strive to remind others that God’s creator role played an essential part in making the universe and life forms on Earth (see Genesis 1 commentary). So when conventional scientists deny God’s creator role they necessarily misinterpret scientific evidence. Despite intense pressure among the conventional scientific community to conform to peer consensus about origins some scientists have adopted creation views after they examined the evidence. 

Two currently popular dinosaur topics in evolutionary speciation (macro-evolution) consensus science are briefly examined here:

Feathered dinosaurs?

Artist’s renderings of non-avian and avian (bird-like) dinosaurs with feathers appear in recent periodicals. Living and fossil animals that have true feathers have been classified as birds. Despite the image that evolutionary biologists publicly promote about feather-covered dinosaurs, the only actual fossil finds of feathers on dinosaurs are impressions of tiny “proto-feathers” that paleontologists assume are in the process of evolving into modern feathers{15}. True fossil feathers are always found fully formed. Some secular scientists deny they are proto-feathers and instead interpret them as decayed skin or hide with skin collagen fibers remaining{15,17}. 

There is a great biological gap between dinosaurs that are reptiles, and birds.  Many soft tissue anatomical and physiological differences separate the two groups.  Bird body weight is balanced under the wings, not further back over their hips as in dinosaurs.  And birds on the ground walk by moving their lower legs below the knees so their hip joints move only slightly, whereas dinosaurs moved using their upper legs and hip joints. Bird lungs have a one-way air flow direction where air exits at the opposite end of where it enters, whereas reptile lung air flow is similar to mammals{36}. Although the skeletal features of ancient birds and reptiles were more similar than they are today creation scientists see this as evidence their original skeletal designs were similar, not that birds evolved from reptiles. Several thousand years of skeletal anatomy micro-evolution in bird populations after their creation, and during the rigorous post-Flood climate increased their flight efficiency to allow for needed inter-continental migration, and extinctions eliminated the less efficient reptile-like birds. It is doubtful the early bird Archaeopteryx that had a reptile-like skeleton could fly great distances, although it was compatible with its original environment.

Convincing evidence shows dinosaurs were cold blooded like other reptiles, while birds are warm blooded. That dinosaurs have more highly vascularized bone marrow than other reptiles has been cited as evidence for their warm bloodedness. However, treadmill experiments with modern cold-blooded reptiles show bone vascularization varies greatly with their general activity level. So therapod dinosaurs which were especially active would be expected to have more highly vascularized bone.  It has also been claimed if the huge dinosaurs had been warm blooded they wouldn’t have been able to eat enough food in 24 hours to meet their daily nutritional needs.   

Some recently discovered fossil animals with imprints of true feathers in rocks have been classified as dinosaurs, not birds{14}. And a dove-size fossil animal, Cratonavis zhui, was classified as a bird and is shown pictured with feathers and feet like modern birds. However, it had a tiny skull that was “nearly identical” with theropod dinosaurs as determined by CT imaging, according to the researcher{14a}. He was quoted as not being surprised by the mismatch of its features.

Like Cratonavis zhui, many recent discoveries of fossil birds and alleged feathered dinosaurs come from the Jiufotang Formation in northeasten China{14a}. The recent fossil forgery, “Archaeoraptor” that was hailed as a missing link between birds and dinosaurs came from China and was deceptively assembled from different fossils then later sold to U.S. collectors.  It is now sometimes called the “Piltdown bird” after another older famous forgery of an ape-like human skull found in Britain. Forgery is motivation for dishonest paleo-entrepreneurs who try to sell engineered fossils that end up with well-funded western scientists who are looking for evidence to promote their theories and obtain continued research funding.  Also, genuine fossil creatures are commonly found in large graveyards so skeletal parts such as heads can be badly deformed, or even misassigned to individuals as was the case with the famous sauropod dinosaur “Brontosaurus” that was later renamed Apatosaurus with its proper skull. It appears that evolutionary biologists are now seeing the feathers they seek in these alleged dinosaur fossils to promote evolutionary theory that dinosaurs evolved into modern birds- without real conclusive evidence. They now have created new groups of dinosaurs as “avian” and “non-avian”.     

Did an asteroid impact suddenly kill off the dinosaurs 65 million years ago?

This theory is publicly promoted even in television documentaries, however evidence for the impact in the region beneath the southern Gulf of Mexico, adjacent to the northern Yucatan peninsula is meager. Scientists who don’t agree with this theory note the proposed impact site isn’t round like other historically known impact craters and it has very little melted rock{8}.  Magma that rose from below could have caused the types of melted rocks seen this site{9}. Fossils show that more sensitive frogs and clams worldwide survived the proposed blast, so it supposedly suddenly killed off dinosaurs worldwide while leaving other more fragile species to continue. It appears evolutionary scientists are seeing what they want to in order to explain the sudden demise of dinosaurs to promote evolutionary theory. Topical notes 4, 6 and 7 provide evidence the Genesis Flood best explains the sudden demise of dinosaurs.

Aside to the intricacy of genetic control of cellular processes:

Chromosomal mutations

These disruptively alter an organism’s fixed DNA genome by changing the nitrogen base sequence within genes on the chromosomes. Mutations damage or destroy the normal function of genes they affect. They may be caused by natural copying errors, or by environmental mutagenic factors that include certain toxic chemicals, and UV, nuclear radiation, and cosmic rays that bypassed built-in cellular error correction.  Although they are often termed “random” mutations, this is somewhat of a misnomer. Microscopic study of X-ray induced damage shows it is actually sustained by chromosomes in non-random locations.  This is because of the cell’s active response to repair the DNA damage{21}. Any naturally occurring genetic mutations will also be inherited, but higher organisms are diploid. This means they have duplicate chromosomes in all somatic (body) cells, and so two copies of each gene. This provides organisms much protection from the effects of single-gene mutations.

Genetic recombination

This process occurs during meiosis in gametes that produce haploid egg and sperm cells.  In past years it was believed to occur randomly and produced mixed paternal traits in offspring. However, recent research has shown both the process and results are more involved{29}. Chromosomal crossovers occur between members of homologous pairs of paternal chromosomes when they pair up early in meiosis. Normally many crossovers occur between homologous chromosomes during this pairing so each chromosome becomes a chemeric of the pair. So children usually look different from one-another and their parents. Crossovers occur only in certain recombination “hotspots” in the DNA{29a}, and they generally avoid sections that contain genetic control elements and features{29b} and regions with transposable elements (“jumping genes”) and epigenetic markers (below). In many plants, crossover frequency in meiosis increases with temperature{29} so it is responsive to the environment. Recombination produces genetic diversity in offspring and protects them from effects of inbreeding. After recombination, the chromosomes replicate then meiosis proceeds to its two sequential cell division stages where the chromosome number is reduced from the initial 2n paternal number to n per gamete cell. So when two gametes combine in fertilization the 2n chromosome number per body cell is restored.  

Epigenetic markers are small chemical groups (eg.,methyl) added to chromosomal DNA genes that moderate their expression level to produce only currently needed biochemical products for the cell and the whole organism. Epigenetic markers respond to changes in the environment that allows DNA encoding to be environmentally controlled, and they are inherited by progeny by changes to gamete (egg and sperm cell) DNA as well. This allows a species population to track environmental changes morphologically and physiologically{20} and control its micro-evolution. Human epigenetic markers are also affected by certain recreational drugs, notably cannabis and tobacco{37}. However, the biochemical pathways for environmental sensing to place needed epigenetic tags on certain genes and their inheritance by progeny are not well understood.

Programmable RNAs that were recently discovered in cephalopods gives them the ability to edit cellular mRNA to code for different proteins in response to environmental changes. This rapid responding, closed-feedback loop mRNA editing has more recently been discovered in many other organisms as well{25} that also can make extra copies of certain DNA genes to increase their expression level{19}.  Many newly discovered RNAs have a regulatory function in DNA transcription or protein synthesis that are coded by what was previously thought to be “junk DNA” (below){35},{32},{33},{34}.

Nucleic acid transposons

These are lengthy DNA (and RNA) sequences which code for a for protein or RNA product and change positions in their cellular linear nucleic acid molecules that allow them to associate with different genes. Transposons in chromosomal DNA are called “jumping genes”. Enzymes that cut, paste, and repair DNA to move the gene sequences are also coded for. In their new chromosomal locations jumping genes change their gene interactions to produce different products.

 The above several genetic processes add much variability to control and regulate the fixed cellular DNA genomes within species that enables whole organisms to quickly respond to environmental changes.  This process is called continuous environmental tracking, or CET by some creation scientists{20}{26}. It importantly obsoletes the theoretical concept of “natural selection” from conventional science for organismal response to climate changes as discussed below.  This control and feedback at the sub-cellular level is much too intricate and functionally interlinked to have randomly “evolved” from nothing as conventional science teaches.  It must have been designed by God who had the knowledge and ability to create it.

Nonetheless, useless inefficiencies in the genetic code have been claimed by some conventional scientists. Watson and Crick, and Franklin determined the structure of DNA and that it was the hereditary material in the cell nucleus of organisms in the 1950s. Their research helped to basically understand how it worked with RNA to code for protein synthesis in cells. (However, figuring out the very complex regulatory pathways for protein synthesis is still ongoing research.) When technology was developed to sequence chromosomal DNA in animals and humans, scientists marveled that only 1% of the genomes actually code for proteins- the structural cell components and catalytic enzymes for their biochemical reactions. And some DNA and RNA codon triplets that assemble huge protein molecules code for the same amino acid during protein synthesis. Thus the new terminologies, “junk DNA” (that allegedly has no biological function) and multiple “degenerate codons” that code for the same amino acid in a protein) surfaced and were celebrated as the natural result of random evolutionary processes.  This new knowledge fueled claims that humans and chimpanzees are 99% genetically similar and degenerate codons (at last) provided a possible mechanism for evolutionary speciation{30}.

However, claims of useless inefficiencies in organismal genetic codes have been debunked by recent research (internet),{30}.  So-called “junk DNA” (introns) that has no protein coding function instead codes for RNAs that have regulatory functions for transcription of nuclear DNA and cytoplasmic protein synthesis.  Recent research with linear microRNAs shows they regulate RNA translation by combining with mRNA to dampen protein production in the cell cytoplasm. More than 1000 microRNAs are known to regulate gene expression in people{35}.  Research with circular RNA (circRNA) shows a subclass, circular intronic RNA (ciRNA) that is derived entirely from non-protein coding DNA introns and regulates DNA transcription in the cell nucleus{32}{33}{34}. And the “degenerate codons” in messenger RNAs and transfer RNAs that allow multiple codes for the same amino acid during protein synthesis insert “pauses” during protein assembly to allow for its complex 3D folding and adjust its production for current needs of the cell{31}. Despite all of the evidence for “purpose” in nature for the intricate control of cellular processes, conventional scientists have a policy to ban considering it!        

Mechanism for “micro-evolution” within species:

Micro-evolution differs from macro-evolution (or simply evolution) by producing new varieties of a species, not new species. It produced woolly mammoths from warm climate elephants and human races over only thousands of years (as explained below and in Topical note 3). This is unlike alleged evolutionary speciation (macro-evolution) that requires millions of years to produce new types of organisms by “natural selection” that is actually only a theory.  Evolutionary speciation has many scientific problems that consensus science publicly promotes it as a fact.        

So micro-evolution within a species in response to climate change appears to involve updating epigenetic markers on fixed chromosomal DNA genomes and cellular messenger RNA editing in a closed-loop process. They allow organisms to continuously track climate changes.  This produces organisms that are continuously fit for their environmental climate by sensing it and quickly making appropriate genetically-controlled biochemical changes and passing them to gamete cells to produce adapted progeny.  More about the CET process is explained below.

Examples of micro-evolution within a species:

Woolly mammoths were elephants that lived in the far north thousands of years ago during the ice age.  This elephant variety descended from warm climate adapted elephants that lived in Siberia after Noah’s Flood before the Ice Age began.  By micro-evolution they gradually developed a larger body size and long, dense hair for warmth as the climate cooled after the Flood. Each new generation of elephants became slightly more mammoth like as they became larger and grew denser hair in response to the cooling environment.   These changes made them into fully developed mammoths in under a thousand years that successfully survived in the frigid cold as the 1000 year Ice Age matured. (See the description of continuous environmental tracking below.)

Some creation scientists believe that the entire man-made taxonomic order Proboscidea was the scriptural “kind” for elephants{5b}. Then all proboscideans (both fossil and living ones) originally had the same fixed genome so they were different varieties of elephants that were produced by micro-evolution and then became geographically and reproductively isolated populations. Because elephants were scripturally unclean animals (Topical note 4) and even babies kept on Noah’s Ark were large, all elephant varieties that lived after the Flood likely descended from only one ancestral pair on Noah’s Ark over 5000 years ago according to Josephus’ chronology. 

Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and modern humans are all fully human (Topical note 3) so they must have been human populations of one species (Topical note 3, Fossil humans) because scripture describes only one humanity.  They all had the same interbreeding fixed gene pool. Fossil human discoveries in Asia that show mixes of Neanderthal traits with another human form seem to have produced the recently described Denisovans.  And some ice age human fossils in Europe have a blend of Homo erectus and Neanderthal features (Topical note 3). This apparent progression of human morphology of fossil Homo erectus, then Neanderthal, and finally modern humans was caused by micro-evolution of the first created humans. Changes in morphology were caused by changes in their diet, climate, and living isolated from one-another in different environments for only several thousand years, according to biblical chronology. Modern human races are human populations that developed in different world locations after Noah’s Flood (Topical note 3). They are examples of continued human micro-evolution. Microbes and insects that develop resistance to antibiotics and pesticides are important medical examples of micro-evolution.

What allegedly drives evolutionary speciation according to conventional scientists?

Conventional biologists have credited “natural selection” by the environment with favoring new organismal genetic trait changes that allegedly were caused by random mutations, which together produced new species. “Natural selection” allegedly causes organisms that do not adapt to environmental change on average to have shorter breeding lifetimes than adapted organisms, that reduced their numbers in a changing environment. This “death-driven” process by the environment allows the adapted species to proliferate. While this may see plausible, no one has observed this hypothetical natural selection process to form new species. Although natural selection is a carry-over from alleged evolutionary speciation or macro-evolution (above), it isn’t inseparably linked to it or mutation-driven genetic change. So “natural selection” could be a selective agent for micro-evolution within species if it is valid.

However, recently some creation scientists have questioned that “death-driven” natural selection by the environment exists at all.  They claim instead that only the organisms themselves through their innate pliable, editable genetics senses the environmental climate and modifies their traits as feedback to successfully continuously track it.  Some creation scientists call this innate rapid closed-loop process within organisms “continuous environmental tracking” or CET{26}. Biochemical mechanisms are known to exist in cells that allow biochemically sensed climate changes to induce change in epigenetic chromosomal markers and cytoplasmic messenger RNA editing{25}{27a}. The complexity of these controlled feedback loops imply they must have a functional purpose, although conventional scientists refrain from considering “purpose” in nature because it implies a deity.  These scientists have secular worldviews that influence their interpretation of data. However, a recent study shows the epigenetic basis for these mechanisms are actually observed to adapt house sparrows to climate change in Kenya{27}. Their adaptations are characterized by changed genome-wide DNA methylation patterns, not variation in their fixed DNA genomes according to evolutionary speciation theory.  Similar genetic studies show “Darwin’s finches” also adapt using changed epigenetics, without changes to their fixed genomes{28}.  These epigenetic changers are observed to pass to their offspring, so their germ cells genes are also updated. Observed CET allows a species to continuously track climate changes using biochemical mechanisms that are genetically transmitted to progeny, and it is observationally verified.  The slow process of “natural selection” by the environment was originated as a theoretical selective agent for alleged evolutionary speciation. Therefore innate CET within organisms is a better explanation for genetic adaptation to climate change than theoretical, slow-responding, inefficient random mutations that must be naturally selected by the environment.  But notice even if alleged “beneficial” mutations occurred in somatic cell genomes they would not necessarily also be transferred to germ cells and be transmitted to progeny!

Major environmental cues that elicit organismal genetic trait changes are changes in physical habitat, climate, predation, and availability of food and water sources. Specific organismal responses to these environmental cues include changes in their physical characteristics that include hair texture and coverage, body coloration, the beak styles of Darwin’s finches, activity level (such as migration, and tupor or hibernation); and observed extinction. 

Organismal genetic response mechanisms include chromosomal epigenetic marker changes, and newly discovered types of cellular RNA editing{25}. Both respond to environmental cues, and RNA editing updates transcription codes in the cellular cytoplasm to quickly keep organism traits adapted. Observed genetic recombination also reshuffles gene associations in chromosomes that enhances trait variations, some of which seem to be favored by the environment such as the geographical distribution of human eye color. 

Limitation of “continuous environmental tracking”:

CET is limited to preserving species of organisms during gradual (and sometimes cyclic annual) climate changes. Other environmental cues that CET does not guard against are:

1.Catastrophic rapid and extreme changes in environments that have sometimes overwhelmed CET mechanisms and caused extinctions. Two examples of catastrophic extinctions included:

>Noah’s Flood that drowned land animals and birds worldwide. God saved the survivors in the Ark so there was no environmental selective agent for them.

>After the Flood, warm climate elephants that successfully adapted to the gradual onset of the frigid Ice Age by their innate CET became wooly mammoths. However, millions of mammoths (and other animals) later suffocated to extinction in catastophic dust storms in Siberia during the warming period at its end{5c}. After the dust storms ended animals from surrounding areas moved in to occupy the land vacated by the mammoths.

2.Predation by humans and carnivorous animals after the Flood caused the extinction of many animals. So predation became an environmental selective agent for the survivors.  The “natural selection” model{4} illustrates the effect of animal predation on a population of field field mice to show how it works as an environmental selective agent for the survivors. Because the process is seen to be so intuitive, it hardly needs to be critiqued.  Apparently only predation is operational with “natural selection” as its environmental selective agent that is described in{4}. Predation is a “death-driven” process that appropriately uses a “death-driven” environmental selective agent. A more detailed description of the mechanism for "natural selection" was given above of the paragraph, What allegedly drives evolutionary speciation according to conventional scientists?  Notice the result of natural selection for predation{4} is not evolutionary speciation as Darwin envisioned- it produces only new varieties of species.  

Conclusion

CET innate to organisms alone can’t explain all of the adaptive progression of life forms on earth. Catastrophic environmental changes and predation cannot be sensed and protected against by innate CET cellular machinery. So the environment itself ultimately is the “gatekeeper” for which organisms may survive its changes. 

Natural selection has been maligned by some creation scientists partly bThe correct application of “natural selection” as an environmental selective agent is now restricted to just predation, and it is so simple intuitive{4}.

 ecause Darwin used the term in his 1859 book title about his proposed origin of species (below). So its original meaning associated with speciation, as contrasted with its actual purpose in nature as an environmental selective agent for micro-evolution within species is explained. Its apparent “death-driven” mechanism and popular tenets of “survival of the fittest” and “weeding out the unfit” are thought to be inappropriate by some creationists so these complaints are evaluated in the Objections section at the end of this Micro-evolution topic.  A free short internet video that was produced by a scientific creation organization presents the concept of natural selection from a creation science perspective{18}.

Historical background

The idea that “complex species evolved from simpler life forms” without supernatural involvement was a new and attractive idea to elite Europeans in the mid 1800s, and some influential scientists then were independently thinking these thoughts. Prior to this most of the well-known European scientists, including Isaac Newton, James Joule, and as late as the 1800s Louis Pasteur were bible believing Christians who were publicly open about their faith. (See bible verse inscription of John 9:4 on Joule’s tombstone.) Certainly their Christian worldview influenced their scientific research. Joule actually said that he got his idea that “energy can neither be created nor destroyed” from biblical theology because only God did this (internet source). Since the universe was created, he said energy has only been transformed into different kinds (eg, potential energy into kinetic, thermal, etc.) and scientists have accepted Joule’s energy conservation law as proven science. Interestingly, the mid-1800s was the era of technological advances made by the western industrial revolution and when biblical “modernists” in Europe first began to systematically attack the authorship, textual accuracy, and authority of the bible. (These bible critics are more influential today and they now pastor liberal churches and spread their ideas from within them.) This new “liberal” religious climate formed after 1500 years of lukewarm Christianity in the west where the bible was still the most widely read book and regular church and synagogue attendance was the norm. 

Darwin who was a 22 year old British naturalist living in this era was influenced by these new ideas. A friend gave Darwin a new textbook for leisure reading, innocently entitled Principles of Geology by Charles Lyell that promoted uninformatarian geology (internet source). Darwin became convinced that the earth was ancient and geologic processes were slow and gradual.  So Darwin set out on his mission to find a purely naturalistic explanation that originated the vast array of life forms. This commentary strives to explain that physical and historical events in the bible were intended to be understood as factual, so naturalistic explanations about how or why they occurred are not necessarily incorrect.  However, Darwin proposed that “natural selection” instead originated all life forms gradually over eons of time.  So his idea totally clashed with the entire Genesis 1 account that clearly described each “kind”* of life form was originated by God suddenly in a day during what theologians call “creation week” (Genesis 1:2-31), that was only several thousand years ago according to Usher’s popular creation chronology of 1650AD.   

*“How does a taxonomic species compare with a biblical “kind”?

A modern definition of a biological species is “a group of organisms that can reproduce with one another in nature and produce fertile offspring” (internet source). This reproductive definition for species would seem to be crystal clear, at least for higher plants and animals. However, modern taxonomy (biological classification of organisms) was begun for plants by Carl Linnaeus, a Swedish botanist in the 1700s and then other biologists expanded it to also classify animals. Each classified organism was given a genus and species name (under phylum, class, order, and family) that was based on their morphology (appearance), since the science of genetics was unknown then. This is called "binomial nomenclature". Unfortunately, some organisms that looked different enough to earn a separate species classification can mate to produce fertile offspring. Genetically, this means they have compatible genomes so they must be reproductively the same genus and species! Breeding experiments to identify species reproductively is laborious so they have been made on only a few organisms. Today, biological taxonomy is a hybrid classification system that is based on morphology but has a reproductive definition for species, which is confusing.

The bible describes different plants and creatures simply as "kinds": "according to their kinds" in Genesis 1:11,12,21,24 [1984 NIV bible].  Kinds include organisms that have similar morphologies (appearances) and can mate to reproduce fertile offspring in nature. "Kind" in Genesis 1 had the same meaning as the modern hybrid morphological-reproductive taxonomic definition perhaps for a genus or even a family. So a “kind” includes more diverse appearing organisms than the humanly defined “species” in binomial nomenclature.  This is because some organisms that look different enough to be humanly classified as different species can mate to produce fertile offspring, so they are the same “kind”.

After prolonged reproductive isolation, different populations of a species, or biblical “varieties of a kind”, will accumulate numerous epigenetic changes, genetic recombinations, and some mutations that together will make them genetically incompatible. For example, modern African and Asian elephants are still both morphologically recognizable as the “elephant kind” but pairs of these that mate in captivity no longer produce fertile offspring (internet source). So these geographically isolated elephant populations eventually also became reproductively isolated.  According to Genesis 1 these two groups will continue to remain elephants unless they become extinct.  Over time genetic mutations may also occur but their effect is largely masked by duplicate chromosomes that higher plants, animals, and humans have in their genomes. God wisely designed redundancy into genomes foreknowing mutations would sometimes occur.

The evolutionary “tree of life” as depicted in biology text books has branches to illustrate the alleged relationships of the various taxonomic groups of plant and animal organisms.  However, this tree is actually modeled as a “forest of trees” according to biblical creation{18}. The varieties of each “kind” of organism form one tree in the forest and the branches are its different varieties. So each “kind” has its own “tree”; one each for the dog-kind, the elephant-kind, the maple tree-kind, etc.{18}. Each “kind” was individually created so they are not “related”, although some “kinds” are more similar in morphology. A chimpanzee is more similar to a human than a rhinoceros, so their genomes that code for and maintain them at the biochemical level are also more similar. Some varieties of organisms have been geographically isolated for so long that they can’t interbreed to produce fertile offspring, like the African and Indian elephants in the example above. Although they are now reproductively isolated, they will each maintain the distinctive morphologies of their ”kind” unless they become extinct. Although these elephants could become different future varieties of elephants over time, they can’t “evolve” into other “kinds” even over a long time due to their genetic boundaries that God set.

Charles Darwin

The principle of “natural selection” was introduced in the macro and micro evolution sections above. The following quote by Darwin{11} shows it’s meaning as he intended it: "...individuals with the best genetic fitness for the environment will produce offspring that can more successfully compete in that environment. Thus the subsequent generation will have a higher representation of these offspring and the population will have evolved." Although this reasoning would support the effect of micro-evolution of organisms within species, Darwin proposed that natural selection produced new species, hence his (abbreviated) 1859 book title Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. 

“Darwin’s finches”

Darwin took an around-the-world cruise on the HMS Beagle to study plants, animals, and geology.  Most of his off-shore investigations were in and around South America. Darwin studied the finch birds on different islands of the Galapagos during his voyage. He noticed their different beak styles and other differences in appearance and that the different finch types didn’t appear to interbreed during his limited visit. He reasoned that the finch types that occupied different islands each evolved from an ancestral finch species pair that first arrived there, and through geographic isolation and time by “natural selection” became different species. However, later studies of the finches by biologists who permanently live on the islands documented that finches with different beak types do mate and produce fertile offspring when they are environmentally stressed in times of drought but they prefer not to{22,23,24}. Because this is the reproductive definition for a species, possibly all finch groups on these islands are genetically compatible so they are different populations of one finch species as the three references imply.  This means what evolutionary biologists call “Darwin’s finches” don’t illustrate “speciation”.  What Darwin saw were instead different varieties, of one finch species in the different island environments. They were produced by micro-evolution within the species in response to environmental differences during their geographical isolation.

Micro-evolution doesn’t produce new species of organisms as Darwin proposed in his book! Rather, continuous environmental tracking (CET) of climate change causes micro-evolution to continuously update traits of a species to track the environment.  Micro-evolution results from sensing environmental changes to produce and propagate adaptive changes in heritable genetic traits of individuals that best fit their environment and prevents species extinction in a changing environment.

Today conventional biologists call Darwin’s concept of “evolutionary speciation” by environmental natural selection acting on random mutations, “Darwinian evolution”. However, Darwin didn’t use the term “evolution”{12}, but called the process “natural selection” instead.  The science of genetics didn't exist in Darwin's time so he had no detailed biological mechanism to propose for natural selection.  Gregor Mendel’s ground-breaking selective breeding research hadn’t circulated yet, and Watson and Crick’s discovery of how DNA worked as the genetic material that encoded for cellular proteins to maintain and reproduce cells was 100 years in the future.  Evolutionary speciation (macro-evolution) supposedly requires a long sequence of beneficial mutations to the genomes of individuals of a population and takes millions of years to produce a new species. However by micro-evolution, both woolly mammoths evolved from warm climate elephants in Siberia and modern human races developed since Noah’s Flood only several thousand years ago according to biblical chronology. There is no conclusive evidence for “deep-time” “evolutionary speciation”- it is a theory that is promoted as fact by consensus science.

Micro-evolution in nature compared to selective breeding by humans:

On the surface these may seem to be the same process, however the driving forces and objectives of natural micro-evolution and human selective breeding are different: Selective breeding produces organisms that are of increased value to humans by using human intelligence as the selective agent for breeding. Micro-evolution produces organisms that are adapted to the environment by innate biochemical sensing and genetic trait feedback mechanisms (CET) that have no intelligence.

Human selective breeding is analogous to micro-evolution in that they both produce better organisms for their respective goals. And their new traits are passed from parents to their progeny.  The external cues for CET are environmental climate changes from which biochemical sensing and genetic feedback in organisms directly use to produce progeny with adapted inheritable traits. However, the external cues for selective breeding are human caretaking methods, and deliberate removal of certain animals or plants with undesirable traits from the breeding population is analogous to natural selection.

Objections to natural selection:

Classic natural selection was determined to be the simple and intuitive environmental selective agent only for predation{4}. Objections to natural selection that are made by some creation scientists are answered below:

Moral and religious objections.

Some creationists object to natural selection as an environmental selective agent because of improper use of its tenets by those who have unscrupulous motives. “Survival of the fittest” and similar tenets that are holdovers from Darwin’s speciation theory unfortunately have been improperly borrowed (hijacked!) from natural selection by some ruthless political leaders and emotionally unstable gunmen to attempt to justify their human “ethnic cleansing” for political and social purposes.  They try to use these tenets to apparently whitewash their social engineering atrocities by claiming they are merely “weeding out the unfit” that is taught in biology textbooks.  However, this is a gross misapplication of natural selection:  Ethnic cleansing is driven by human intelligence (like selective breeding that was explained above) so it isn’t natural selection at all! that uses no intelligence!  Similarly, the application of eugenics that removes humans with undesirable genetic traits from a population (by sterilization or death) is also guided by human intelligence, so it isn’t natural selection either. So “ethnic cleansing” by humans is an invalid use for the tenets of natural selection.  Misuse of its name by some aberrant people is not a good objection to the legitimate function of natural selection in nature.  

Another creationist objection to natural selection is it appears to use an unsavory “death-driven” process.  However as described above, apparently natural selection is operational only for the environmental cue of death-driven predation, so its selective agent is appropriately also death driven. However, all living things must die. This was not God’s original intention but mankind sinned against Him so death became physical life’s end since then. And God can use death for good in His economy.  After the fall of mankind recorded in Genesis 3, each generation of humans and animals has died to make way for the next with its new beginning.     

Summary of alleged evolution of life

No evidence shows how random chemical reactions originated even a “simple” bacterial cell. 

Evolutionary speciation alleges that a species population may evolve into a new species by natural selection acting on their rare, beneficial random mutations.  A species allegedly may evolve into a higher taxonomic group that occupies a new ecological niche. However it was explained earlier that mutations only damage the genome.  And this “speciation” allegedly requires millions of years, and it has not been conclusively proved to occur- it’s only a theory.  The fossil record shows the remains of a vast array of different creatures that scientists teach are related by evolutionary pathways, but fossils are not conclusive evidence for evolutionary speciation. Using unreliable radiometric dating methods and evolutionary concepts to position various discovered fossils in sequences from primitive to complex forms that portrays evolutionary speciation is dubious. Creation scientists claim that geological stratification of the least to most mobile organisms in death and preservation during Noah’s Flood, not speciation caused what paleontologists call “evolutionary progression of primitive to complex animal fossil forms” in successively higher rock layers.  Stratification of plant life was caused by the ordering of lower to higher elevation habitats being inundated during the Flood.

Evolutionary speciation alleges that a species population may evolve into a new species by natural selection acting on their rare, beneficial random mutations.  A species allegedly may evolve into a higher taxonomic group that occupies a new ecological niche. However it was explained earlier that mutations only damage the genome.  And this “speciation” allegedly requires millions of years, and it has not been conclusively proved to occur- it’s only a theory.  The fossil record shows the remains of a vast array of different creatures that scientists teach are related by evolutionary pathways, but fossils are not conclusive evidence for evolutionary speciation. Using unreliable radiometric dating methods and evolutionary concepts to position various discovered fossils in sequences from primitive to complex forms that portrays evolutionary speciation is dubious. Creation scientists claim that geological stratification of the least to most mobile organisms in death and preservation during Noah’s Flood, not speciation caused what paleontologists call “evolutionary progression of primitive to complex animal fossil forms” in successively higher rock layers.  Stratification of plant life was caused by the ordering of lower to higher elevation habitats being inundated during the Flood.

Micro-evolution within species by continuous environmental tracking (CET) permits a species (roughly, a biblical “kind”) to continuously adapt to environmental changes to protect it from extinction.  Actual scientifically published changes in inheritable traits in birds, including Darwin’s finches on the Galapagos Islands, showed they became different varieties of a species by actively tracking environmental climate changes using their own cellular and genetic mechanisms that altered observed epigenetic markers and caused RNA editing{27}{28}. This research showed trait changes were not due to changes in their fixed genomes that evolutionary speciation teaches. So natural selection of random mutations over long periods isn’t the observed mechanism nature uses to cause organisms to adapt to environmental change. 

Recent research in the molecular genetics that controls adaptation of a species to environmental change was decribed above as controlled environmental tracking, or (CET). It refutes evolutionary speciation.  A population of a species that successfully adapts to environmental change becomes only a new variety of that species (not a new one as Darwin envisioned) and retains its ancestral fixed DNA genome. Only its epigenetic markers, RNA editing, and gene mobility that control varied expression and association of existing genes change.  God’s flexible genetic design ether preserves biblical “kinds” through gradual environmental changes, or they become extinct if these changes are too fast or too great.

Rapid, reversible body color changesEven more rapid environmental tracking by some animals allows their fur coats to seasonally change color.  Snowshoe hares and arctic foxes* that live in the far north have mechanisms programmed into their genomes that protectively camouflage them in their annual seasonal-changing vegetation and snow covered environments. Chameleons* can change their body colors quickly to blend with their surroundings as they move about and for other purposes.  They have chromatophores (colored cells) of many colors and nanostructures embedded in their layered skin that they control to change its color. Cuttlefish* can change their body color for camouflage and also their surroundings as they move around and for other purposes. They deliberately flash and even ripple their body colors rapidly to mesmerize prey. These cephalopods have skin chromatophores of several colors that may be deliberately covered or uncovered in unison to rapidly change color of parts or all of their bodies.  Another cephalopod, cannibal squid* similarly can rapidly flash their body color apparently to communicate like human speech with other squid in their large schools{10}. 

*Internet search

These rapid temporary body color changes by certain creatures have special functions in nature.  So they have different controlling genetic mechanisms than the slower, long-term bodily morphological changes of micro-evolution that are adaptive responses by a population to gradual environmental change.

Click on live web links to read internet references

{1} https://answersingenesis.org/charles-darwin/racism/the-darwinian-foundation-of-communism/ (web page)

{2} Bergman, Jerry, 2012, Hitler and the Nazi Darwinian Worldview, Joshua Press (book)

{3} Morris, John D., August 2014, Acts and Facts (ICR publ), The Limits of Variability, p17.

{4}https://www.khanacademy.org/science/in-in-class-12-biology-india/xc09ed98f7a9e671b:in-in-evolution/xc09ed98f7a9e671b:in-in-evolution-and-natural-selection/a/hs-evolution-and-natural-selection-review

(Concise modern explanation of “natural selection”. This study does not endorse [macro]evolution that is also described in the article.) 

{5a} Oard, Michael, 2004, Frozen in Time, Master Books, p89 fig 9.1, pg96 fig 10.1. (Ice Age peak and time duration)

{5b} ibid., pp179,188 (The biblical elephant “kind” may be all of order proboscidea, so they are different varieties of one species.)

(5c} ibid., pp163-173. (Many mummified mammoths were discovered standing upright buried in silt.)

{6} Buehler, Jake, Science News, November 20, 2021, p15, Tuskless elephants are evolving in response to poaching. (Original article from Science, Oct 22, 2021)

{7} Davis, M.J. 1991.  The case of the flying dinosaur, Boston: NOVA.

{8} Thomas, Brian, June 2018, Acts and Facts (ICR publ), Did an Asteroid Impact Kill the Dinosaurs? p20.

{9} Clary, T.L 2017. Do the Data Support a Large Meteorite Impact at Chicxulub? Answers Research Journal, 10:71-88.

{10}https://bigthink.com/life/cannibal-squid-speak/ (Cannibal squid can rapidly flash their body color to communicate with other squid)

{11} https://qwww.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~mccmean/plsc431/popgen/popgemn5.htm

(Darwin’s definition of natural selection)

{12}https://www.google.com/search?q=did+darwin+use+the+term+evolution%3F&client=firefox-b-1-d&sxsrf=ALiCzsbRcB8KeMr3qtHhElNfbtDQ6YSLkg%3A1672074825570&ei=SdapY966Iu_QkPIPuJWaqAU&ved=0ahUKEwieg5CQ5Jf8AhVvKEQIHbiKBlUQ4dUDCA4&oq=did+darwin+use+the+term+evolution%3F&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAQDDIFCCEQoAEyBQghEKsCMgUIIRCrAjIFCCEQqwI6CggAEEcQ1gQQsAM6BQgAEIAEOgYIABAHEB46CggAEIAEELEDEA06BwgAEIAEEA06CggAEAUQHhAPEA06BggAEAUQHjoFCAAQhgM6CAgAEAgQBxAeOgoIABAIEAcQHhAKOgYIABAeEA06CAgAEAUQHhANOggIABAIEB4QDToFCAAQogQ6BAghEAo6BggAEAgQHjoKCCEQwwQQChCgAToICCEQwwQQoAFKBAhBGABKBAhGGABQ6gdY4Wpgj4IBaAFwAXgAgAFSiAHFDZIBAjI5mAEAoAEByAEIwAEB&sclient=gws-wiz-serp (Darwin didn't use the term "evolution", he used other expressions instead.)

{13}https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0701072104#:~:text=Darwin%20did%20not%20use%20the,intellectual%20history%20than%20demonstrating%20evolution.

(Darwin’s claimed greatest contribution was his proposed theory for origin of species that didn’t involve a creator.)

{14} Smith, Derek, Science News, February 25, 2023, Science Visualized, p30.

(Feathered bird-like dinosaurs)  

{14a} ibid, p5, “This bird had a T.rex head”

{15} Bergman, Jerry, Acts&Facts (ICR publication), January 2019, Did Dino-saurs Come with or without Feathers? p16.

{16} Guliuzza, Randy, Acts&Facts (ICR publication), August 2021, The Tyranny of Consensus Thinking, pp4-6. (Scientific consensus promoted as fact)

{17}Unwin, D.M.and D.M. Martel. 2020. No protofeathers on pterosaurs.  Nature Ecology and Evolution, doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-01308-9

{18} https://isgenesishistory.com/product/feature-film/ (Click on live web link, scroll down and click on “What is Natural Selection?” to start video.) This short internet video is produced by the Is Genesis History? organization that explains natural selection from a creation perspective:  

{19} Saey, Tina, Cephalopods may edit RNA to adapt to their surroundings, Science News, May 6 and 20, 2023, p34.

{20} Tomkins, Jefferey, Epigenetic Mechanisms- Adaptive Master Regulators of the Genome, Acts&Facts, July/August 2023 (ICR publ), p14. (Well explained presentation of the workings of chromosomal epigenetic markers.) 

{21} Tomkins, Jefferey, Transposable elements- Genomic Parasites or Engineered Design?, Acts&Facts, September/October 2023 (ICR publ), p14. (This article references McClintock’s original study of chromosomal breakpoints in irradiated corn using stained cell nuclei.)

{22}https://www.bing.com/search?pc=CBHS&ptag=N8211D072420AAA0D337D47&form=CONMHP&conlogo=CT2174808&q=Do+darwin%27s+finches+interbreed (Darwin’s finches can interbreed.  This disqualifies them from being distinct species.) 

{23} https://evolutionnews.org/2014/03/nature_galapago/ (Darwin’s finches can interbreed)

{24} https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/are-darwins-finches-one-species-or-many (“The various ground finches don’t differ significantly in ways that usually differentiate bird species, such as plumage patterns or song. Unlike with discrete species, these features aren’t stable and can vary over just a few generations, depending on weather and food availability.”)

Note: Internet articles by evolutionary biologists abound that bury readers with “consensus science” jargon that claims Darwin’s finches are genuine examples of evolutionary speciation. References {22,23,24} are among the minority that portray the actual situation that these finches are not.

{25} Tomkins, Jeffery, RNA editing Adaptive Genome Modification on the Fly, Acts and Facts, (ICR publication) March/April 2024, p14. This article explains how editable RNAs allow organisms to make rapid changes of their traits (“on the fly”) to track environmental changes.

{26} ICR.org/CET.  A continuous environmental tracking model for organisms is introduced in two separate scientific creation articles.

(27} Liebl, A.L.et al. 2013. Patterns of DNA methylation throughout a range expansion of an introduced songbird. Integrarive and Comparative Biology 53(2):351-38. This article was cited in {27a} below.

{27a} Tomkins, Jeffrey. 2024, Galopagos Finches A case study on Evolution or Adaptive Engineering?, Acts&Facts (ICR publ), May/June, pp14-17

(28) Skinner M.K. et al. 2014. Epigenetics and the Evolution of Darwin’s finches. Genome biology and Evolution 6(8):1972-1989. DOI 10.1093/gbe/evu158.

This article was cited in{27a}.

{29} Tomkins, Jeffery. 2024, Genetic Recombination A Regulated and Designed Chromosomal System, Acts and Facts, (ICR publ), July/August, pp16-19. Author cites {29a,b,c} below in his article.

{29a} Smagulova,F, et al. 2021. Genome-wide analysis reveals novel molecular features of mouse recombination hotspots. Nature. 472(7343):375-378.

{29b) Brick, K. et al. 2012.  Genetic recombination is directed away from functional genomic elements in mice. Nature. 485(7400):642-645.

{29c} Kent, T.V., J. Uzonovic, and S.J. Wright. 2017. Coevolution between transposable elements and recombination. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 372(1736): 20160458.

{30} Tomkins, Jeffery. 2024, Engineered Parallel Gene Codes Defy Evolution, Acts and Facts, (ICR publ), September/October, pp14-17. Tomkins cites article{31} below.

{31} David J. D’Onofrio and David L.Abel, “Redundancy of the Genetic Code Enables Translational Pausing”, Frontiers in Genetics 5, no.140 (2014).

{32} Tomkins, Jeffery. 2024, RNA Hoops When Circular Reasoning Makes Sense, Acts and Facts, (ICR publ), November/December, pp16-19. Author reviews recent research about circRNAs and cites {33}{34} below.

{33} Ledford H. 2013. Circular RNAs Throw Genetics for a Loop, Nature 494(7438):415.

{34) Zhang Y. et al. 2013. Circular Intronic Long Noncoding RNAs. Molecular Cell 51 (6):792-806.

{35} 2024 Science and Society, Science News, Micro-RNA makes waves, November 2, p12. Article briefly describes Nobel Prize winning research of V. Ambros and Gary Ruvkun.

{36) Thomas Brian, 2024 Science, Scripture and Salvation, KWVE FM radio broadcast, December 21. The program detailed how ancient bird anatomy differed greatly from dinosaurs that provides evidence birds could not have evolved from dinosaurs.

{37}https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/cannabis-use-linked-to-epigenetic-changes-scientists-find/ar-AA1B1BT2?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=8ea7dc0269394d2eb8c021613fff2a74&ei=46e

(This easy-reading internet article discusses the effects of cannabis and tobacco use on epigentic changes to the human genome that cause expression level changes to many genes. These changes presumably are also inheritable.)   

January 2025

contact: genesismakessense@gmail.com