Genetics Disproves Evolution
What Darwin did not know

by Lloyd Anderson, a book review

   If evolution occurred, genetics did it. Darwin said life began with one-celled organisms and that small improvements over time produced today’s life forms.   But Darwin did not know what makes life work. Now scientists know all life is dictated at the genetic level of the cell. This manual for life is called DNA. Every cell has a copy of it. Over the years scientists said beneficial changes in the DNA called mutations cause evolution and that natural selection chooses for them to make improvements.
  Now a successful geneticist says this is all wrong. Dr. John C. Sanford of Cornell University says, in effect, mutations are invariably bad and will kill you unless a truck runs over you first. He says mutations are increasing at least 400 times faster than was thought just 50 years ago. If this is true Darwin had it backwards. What is really happening is small changes are collecting in the gene pool of every living thing and sooner or later produce extinction. Life is going downhill, not uphill.
  Darwin’s idea had philosophic implications. If natural causes can explain all life, God is out of a job. But if life started out perfect and has been going downhill, the implication is creation—that the Bible has it right. God made life perfect in the Garden of Eden just thousands of years ago and it is rapidly winding down.
  Just how successful is Dr. Sanford? His achievements include the gene gun, 27 patents, 75 professional papers, two companies and 25 years teaching at Cornell. As he reached the golden years of productivity he began to reflect on the help evolution had given his science. He couldn’t think of any though he had believed and taught evolution. This led to a painful two-year review of his belief in evolution. 
  Here is how he described his journey in the prologue of his new book Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome (202 pages, $16.96, 2005):

• Modern Darwinism is built, most fundamentally, upon what I will be calling “The Primary Axiom”. The Primary Axiom is that man is merely the product of random mutations plus natural selection. Within our society’s academia, the Primary Axiom is universally taught, and almost universally accepted…. It is very difficult to find any professor on any college campus who would even consider (or should I say – dare) to question the Primary Axiom. It is for this reason that the overwhelming majority of youth who start out with a belief that there is more to life than mere chemistry – will lose that faith while at college. I believe that this is also the cause of the widespread self-destructive and self-denigrating behavior we see throughout our culture.
• What if the Primary Axiom were wrong? If the Primary Axiom could be shown to be wrong, it would profoundly affect our culture; and I believe it would profoundly affect millions of individual lives. It could change the very way we think about ourselves.
• Late in my career, I did something which for a Cornell professor would seem unthinkable. I began to question the Primary Axiom. I did this with great fear and trepidation. By doing this, I knew I would be at odds with the most ‘sacred cow” of modern academia. Among other things, it might even result in my expulsion from the academic world. Although I had achieved considerable success and notoriety within my own particular specialty (applied genetics), it would mean I would have to be stepping out of the safety of my own little niche. I would have to begin to explore some very big things, including aspects of theoretical genetics which I had always accepted by faith alone. I felt compelled to do all this – but I must confess that I fully expected to simply hit a brick wall. To my own amazement, I gradually realized that the seemingly “great and unassailable fortress” which has been built up around the Primary Axiom is really a house of cards. The Primary Axiom is actually an extremely vulnerable theory – in fact it is essentially indefensible. Its apparent invincibility derives largely from bluster, smoke, and mirrors. A larger part of what keeps the Axiom standing is an almost mystical faith, which the true-believers have in the omnipotence of natural selection. Furthermore, I began to see that this deep-seated faith in natural selection is typically coupled with a degree of ideological commitment – which can only be described as religious. I started to realize (again with trepidation), that I might be offending a lot of people’s religion!
• To question the Primary Axiom required me to reexamine virtually everything I thought I knew about genetics. This was probably the most difficult intellectual endeavor of my life. Deeply entrenched thought patterns only change very slowly (and I must add – painfully). What I eventually experienced was a complete overthrow of my previous understandings. Several years of personal struggle resulted in a new understanding, and a very strong conviction that the Primary Axiom was most definitely wrong. More importantly, I became convinced that the Axiom could be shown to be wrong to any reasonable and open-minded individual. This realization was exhilarating, but again – frightening. I realized that I had a moral obligation to openly challenge the most sacred of cows. In doing this, I realized I would earn for myself the intense disdain of most of my colleagues within academia – not to mention very intense opposition and anger from other high places.
• What should I do? It has become my conviction that the Primary Axiom is insidious on the highest level – having catastrophic impact on countless human lives. Furthermore, every form of objective analysis I have performed has convinced me that the Axiom is clearly false. So now, regardless of the consequences, I have to say it out loud: the Emperor has no clothes!

   Sanford begins his book by telling us what the genome is as well as how mutations occur that destroy the information carried by it. The speed at which this happens is now apparent and, disturbingly, little publicized. Then he takes on natural selection which is supposed to solve the problems. He shows just how it has never been any kind of an aid car and that other proposed rescue operations for the genome, in reality, do not work either. Cloning, man’s attempt fails as well. However, there is hope and Dr. Sanford provides that in the personal postlude to the book.
Genetic entropy joins several hundred other geochronometers in suggesting the earth is recent, not ancient. Geochronometers (geo-worldwide + chronometer-clock) are worldwide processes suggesting an age for the earth. Sanford says human fitness has declined between 78% and 95% in the 150 generations since the worldwide flood.

   Recommendation. Must reading for every biology student and biologist. The main thrust of the book is easy reading but it has enough technical material to show geneticists Sanford knows his field. Dr. Vern Bissel of Portland State U says that if the recent creation radio decay research is a nail in the coffin of evolution, Sanford’s material is a railroad spike. Sanford is a key player in a major creation biology initiative due to be released in several years.

   Availability. The 7Wonders Museum carries Sanford’s book and sells it for $15.  I would be happy to discuss this book over the phone — as long as the sound is clear (cell phones usually are not). 360-274-5737. We have unlimited US LD calling.