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Feedback 2011
Bacterial mutations plus biblical geology
Published: 5 Februrary 2011 (GMT+10)
The Flood is the best biblical explanation for the origin of most of the earth’s
sedimentary rocks.
This week correspondents ask about whether the genetic degradation by mutations
applies to bacteria, and how the geological record fits into Genesis. CMI’s
Don Batten and
Carl Wieland respond.
Peter B. from Australia writes:
Hi,
I agree with the thought of genetic entropy, and that most species given the number
of mutations per generation will probably die out in 10,000 to 100,000 years, but
how come bacteria are still around? Is that because there many more things that
can go wrong with multicellular organisms?
Thanks. Peter B
CMI’s Dr
Don Batten replies:
Dear Peter,
Good question! I think it has to do with three things: the mutation rate, the genome
size and the mode of replication / reproduction.
Since bacteria reproduce by binary fission, whichever one has the mutation can be
effectively eliminated by competition with non-mutated ones, even if the relative
decline in fitness is quite small.
If the mutation rate were the same as humans (say 300 per genome of 3,000,000,000
base pairs, or 1 in 10 million), with a typical genome size of say a million base
pairs for bacteria, the mutation rate is only one in every 10 replications. Since
bacteria reproduce by binary fission, whichever one has the mutation can be effectively
eliminated by competition with non-mutated ones, even if the relative decline in
fitness is quite small (because of the short generation time and huge populations
that are possible).
Computer models, even simple ones like our Weasel, show that you need more
than one mutation per individual per generation to get mutational meltdown (error
catastrophe). See
Weasel; you can click on the
download link to download the Windows model, unzip it and install it.
You can play with the various parameters and see what happens. Please ignore the
typical mutation rates given in the paper above as they were those given by evolutionists
based on evolutionary reasoning (that is, because they assumed that life has been
around for eons of time, therefore error catastrophe has not happened and therefore
the mutation rate is less than … ). They were not measured mutation
rates, which were published after we wrote this paper (or we did not know about
them!).
Also, because of the short generation times, bacterial populations can rebound quickly
from disasters where only a few survive. This is another factor in the survival
of bacteria.
I hope this answers your question.
With kind regards,
Don Batten
Chavoux L. from South Africa writes in response to the article
The Issue of Issues(And no, it’s not creation/evolution):
Hi
I agree with this article. However, I have to say this: I am not convinced that
the current Creation Science interpretation of nature is necessarily true / most
in line with the truth of Gen. 1–11. There is nothing in the Bible that claims
that all (or even most) of the geological column is the result of the great flood.
(It could just as well be the result of the ± 10 000 years since creation).
It is possible (though perhaps not the most obvious interpretation) that death existed
outside the garden of Eden even before the fall of Gen. 3 (else, why is the tree of life mentioned explicitly
as being inside the Garden of Eden?). The correct answer to these kinds of questions
could possibly be answered by (creation) science without attacking the truth of
the Bible itself. We should always be careful to distinguish between arguments that
attack the truth of the Bible and those that might just be attacking our own understanding/interpretation
of God’s Word. The first kind should be seen for what it ultimately is: an
attack on God’s authority and truthfulness/trustworthiness; the latter might
simply be an opportunity for us to get to know Him better and understand His creation
better (which is a Good Thing (TM) IMHO).
CMI’s Dr
Carl Wieland responds:
Dear Chavoux,
Thanks so much for your email feedback. I agree with you about the need for caution
in distinguishing between the ‘models’ we use to understand God’s
Word and how it relates to the evidence from history (rocks, fossils, etc. for one
thing). The ‘big picture’ in the Bible is a good world, ruined by sin,
to be restored in the future. I hear what you say about death outside the garden,
but it would be hard to reconcile with God’s clear “very good”
statement at the end of the 6 days, which referred not just to the garden but to
all things He had just finished making. Further, the restoration images in the Bible
all point to death including animal death as being removed in line with the removal
of the Curse, which came in after Adam sinned. Given this clear linkage between
death and the Curse, it is incongruous, to say the least, to have death anywhere
in the world prior to the Curse, which is what would be the case if things were
dying outside the garden.
The rhetorical question you ask about the Tree of Life causes little difficulty
to this orthodox understanding outlined above. The Tree of Life may have been part
of the mechanism through which pre-Fall deathlessness in humanity was maintained.
It actually reappears in the New Heavens and Earth, with ‘healing in its leaves’.
This would suggest that the tree in the Garden would only come into play after Adam
and Eve began to die—for their healing—hence God banned them from the
Garden. Their deathlessness beforehand did not depend on access to the tree but
their sinlessness. I.e. the Bible’s mentions of this Tree do not anywhere
require death outside the garden.
The fact that the bulk of the sedimentary ‘column’ was laid down by
the Flood is a straightforward deduction from a) the Bible and b) the existence
of the column itself.
Re the Flood—the Bible does not, as you say, directly teach that the rocks
and fossils were laid down by a global Flood. BUT—it does clearly teach that
there was such a global Flood and that the Earth is only several thousand years
old. The rest is a deduction from reason and observation, as follows:
- Normal everyday processes cannot lay down that much sediment (kilometres thickness)
all over the earth in only a few thousand years. Therefore either the earth is ancient,
or there must have been a process or processes which laid down vast volumes of sediment
rapidly.
- We know from Scripture that there was such a year-long Flood.
- Not only is such a Flood capable of doing such an amount of geological work, it
is physically impossible that such a Flood would NOT do a huge amount of such geological
work.
- Therefore it is clear that unless we refute the Bible’s teaching of a global
Flood and a recent creation, we have no coherent explanation for the vast sediment
and fossil-bearing layers.
The fine details, i.e. how much of the column is due to the Flood, where is the
post-Flood boundary, and so on, is legitimately up for discussion. But that the
bulk of the sedimentary ‘column’ was laid down by the Flood is a straightforward
deduction from a) the Bible and b) the existence of the column itself.
Many thanks for the opportunity to think through these things once more.
Kind regards,
Yours sincerely in Christ,
Carl W.
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