Plant geneticist: ‘Darwinian evolution is impossible’
Don Batten chats with plant geneticist John Sanford
Plant geneticist Dr John Sanford began working as a research scientist at Cornell
University in 1980. He co-invented the ‘gene gun’ approach to genetic
engineering of plants. This technology has had a major impact on agriculture around
the world.
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Dr Sanford: ‘As a new Assistant Professor, I was responsible for crop improvement.
I worked on conventional breeding of fruit crops and became very familiar with the
power of genetic selection and the limited range of changes that were possible through
selective breeding. I soon became involved in plant genetic engineering research.
At that time there were numerous genes which seemed potentially useful in crop plants,
but there was no method for delivering these genes into the plant genome. There
was no “transformation technology”.
‘I explored many gene delivery options before my colleague Ed Wolf (also of
Cornell) and I came up with the idea of shooting DNA into cells, thereby penetrating
cell walls and membranes. This initiated an exciting period of scientific exploration,
involving many collaborating scientists from Cornell and other universities. In
seven years the “gene gun” concept went from a laughable and crazy idea
to an extremely effective gene delivery system. Almost all the early transgenic
crops were transformed with the gene gun—especially corn and soybeans. A large
fraction of today’s transgenic crops were genetically engineered using our
gene gun process.
‘The gene gun has been only one of many areas of research for me. But it was
this research that opened doors for me—providing recognition and financial
resources.
‘I look at the gene gun success as a special blessing that paved the way for
my current work—which I consider much more significant.’
A change of mind
Dr Sanford was an evolutionist but changed his mind:
Dr Sanford was one of the scientists who developed the ‘gene gun’. It
fires genes into plant cells and revolutionized genetic engineering and plant breeding.
‘I was totally sold on evolution. It was my religion; it defined how I saw
everything, it was my value system and my reason for being. Later, I came to believe
in “God”, but this still did not significantly change my intellectual
outlook regarding origins. However, still later, as I began to personally know and
submit to Jesus, I started to be fundamentally changed—in every respect. This
included my mind, and how I viewed science and history. I would not say that science
led me to the Lord (which is the experience of some). Rather I would say Jesus opened
my eyes to His creation—I was blind, and gradually I could see. It sounds
simple, but it was a slow and painful process. I still only see “as through
a glass, darkly” [1 Cor. 13:12]. But I see so much more than I could before!
‘On a personal level this was a time of spiritual awakening, but professionally
I remained “in the closet”. I did not feel I could defend my faith in
an academic setting. So I felt the need to take temporary leave from academia and
institutional science because of the tension I felt in this regard, and the enormous
potential hostility I sensed from my academic colleagues.
‘I think the academic environment is very hostile to the very idea of a living
and active God, making it almost impossible for a genuine Christian to feel open
or welcome. I needed some distance from academia to get a hold of my own beliefs
and why I hold them. I feel I have now grown to the point where I can re-enter institutional
academia (to the extent that I am not expelled), without compromising my basic Christian
beliefs.’
Is evolution important to science?
I asked John what he thought of the necessity of evolution for doing biological research.
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Almost all the early transgenic crops were transformed with the gene gun—especially
corn and soybeans.
‘Institutional science has systematically “evolutionized” every
aspect of human thought. Contrary to popular thinking, this is not because evolution
is central to all human understanding, but rather has arisen due to a primarily
political and ideological process. Consequently, in the present intellectual climate,
to reject evolutionary theory has the appearance of rejecting science itself. This
is totally upside down.
‘An axiomatic statement often repeated by biologists is: “Nothing makes
sense in biology, except in the light of evolution”. However, nothing could
be further from the truth! I believe that apart from ideology, the truth is exactly
the opposite: “Nothing makes sense in biology except in the light of design”.
‘We cannot really explain how any biological system might have “evolved”,
but we can all see that virtually everything we look at has extraordinary underlying
design.
‘I am not aware of any type of operational science (computer science, transportation,
medicine, agriculture, engineering, etc.), which has benefited from evolutionary
theory. But after the fact, real advances in science are systematically given an
evolutionary spin. This reflects the pervasive politicization of science.’
Darwinian evolution impossible
John explained how mutations, which supposedly provide the new genetic information
to make evolution possible don’t do the job:
‘Mutations are word-processing errors in the cell’s instruction manual.
Mutations systematically destroy genetic information—even as word processing
errors destroy written information. While there are some rare beneficial mutations
(even as there are rare beneficial misspellings),1 bad mutations outnumber them—perhaps
by a million to one. So even allowing for beneficial mutations, the net effect of
mutation is overwhelmingly deleterious. The more the mutations, the less the information.
This is fundamental to the mutation process.’
Does natural selection help?
Dr Sanford: ‘Selection does help. Selection gets rid of the worst mutations.
This slows mutational degeneration.
‘Additionally, very rarely a beneficial mutation arises that has enough effect
to be selected for—resulting in some adaptive variation, or some degree of
fine-tuning. This also helps slow degeneration. But selection only eliminates a
very small fraction of the bad mutations. The overwhelming majority of bad mutations
accumulate relentlessly, being much too subtle—of too small an effect—to
significantly affect their persistence. On the flip side, almost all beneficials
(to the extent they occur) are immune to the selective process—because they
invariably cause only tiny increases in biological functionality.
‘So most beneficials drift out of the population and are lost—even in
the presence of intense selection. This raises the question—since most information-bearing
nucleotides [DNA ‘letters’] make an infinitesimally small contribution
to the genome—how did they get there, and how do they stay there through “deep
time”?
‘Selection slows mutational degeneration, but does not even begin to actually
stop it. So even with intense selection, evolution is going the wrong way—toward
extinction!’
Dr Sanford has written a book: Genetic Entropy and the Mystery
of the Genome.
Selection slows mutational degeneration, but does not even begin to actually stop
it. So even with intense selection, evolution is going the wrong way—toward
extinction!—Plant geneticist Dr John Sandford
‘My recent book resulted from many years of intense study. This involved a
complete re-evaluation of everything I thought I knew about evolutionary genetic
theory. It systematically examines the problems underlying classic neo-Darwinian
theory. The bottom line is that Darwinian theory fails on every level. It fails
because: 1) mutations arise faster than selection can eliminate them; 2) mutations
are overwhelmingly too subtle to be “selectable”; 3) “biological
noise” and “survival of the luckiest” overwhelm selection; 4)
bad mutations are physically linked to good mutations,2 so that they cannot be separated
in inheritance (to get rid of the bad and keep the good). The result is that all
higher genomes must clearly degenerate. This is exactly what we would expect in
light of Scripture—with the Fall—and is consistent with the declining
life expectancies after the Flood that the Bible records.’
‘The problem of genetic entropy (genomes are all degenerating), is powerful
evidence that life and mankind must be young. Genetic entropy is probably also the
fundamental underlying mechanism explaining the extinction process. Extinctions
in the past and in the present can best be understood, not in terms of environmental
change, but in terms of mutation accumulation. All this is consistent with a miraculous
beginning, a young earth, and a perishing earth—which “will wear out
like a garment” (Hebrews 1:11). Only the touch of the Creator can make all
things new.
‘All of the problems with evolutionary theory, as outlined in Genetic Entropy
and the Mystery of the Genome, have now been rigorously proven using numerical
simulation. We did this using “Mendel’s Accountant”, a state-of-the-art
computer analytical tool for genetic systems. Five scientists—John Baumgardner,
Wes Brewer, Paul Gibson, Walter ReMine, and I—developed this tool. We reported
these new findings in two secular publications, and they will soon be discussed
in a second book, Genetic Entropy and Mendel’s Accountant.’
Dr Sanford also sees great potential for creation researchers:
‘There is a desperate need for more creation researchers. The fields are white
and ready for harvest, but the workers are very few [John 4]. Although there are thousands of creation-believing
scientists and engineers, there is very little original research being done that
significantly impacts the creation issue. Mainstream funding patterns, ideological
presuppositions, and ideological filters ensure that almost all origins-related
research will continue to beat the Darwinian drum. Bright, independently-minded
scientists are desperately needed to swim against the current, critically examining
all the Darwinian assumptions, and analyzing raw data for themselves. Even as I
have found that evolution’s “Primary Axiom” (i.e., mutation plus
selection created all higher life functions) is demonstrably false, so there are
many other “sacred cows” waiting to be de-throned.
‘I believe the Lord is saying, “Whom shall I send?”’
Related resources
References and notes
- Even the rare beneficial mutations still lose information.
See many examples at: Mutations Q&A; <creation.com/mutation>
Return to text.
- Physically close to one another on the same chromosome, so
that meiosis rarely separates them. Return to text.
(Also available in German)
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