Review by Arthur G. Schwarz of the book “The DNA Question: Where Does the Information Come From?"

What should a Christian’s view of natural selection be? Is it an invention? Is it nature’s great creative force? Is it good? Is it natural?

The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans shows rapid adaptation to post-catastrophic environments through epigenetic changes, like DNA methylation, and transposable elements (transposons). These mechanisms alter gene expression and genomic structure, enabling quick phenotypic changes heritable across generations. Transposons, 12% of the genome, respond to stresses like temperature, regulated by epigenetic mechanisms and RNA interference. This precise adaptability, filling ecological niches after disasters, suggests intelligent design, supporting a creationist view over gradual evolution, as implied in Genesis.

Unlike evolution-focused taxonomy, early naturalist Linnaeus saw nature’s order as God’s creation. Genetic recombination, epigenetic changes, and gene mutations enable species to adapt to environmental stress. Recombination diversifies offspring, epigenetics allows rapid, heritable adaptations, and mutations provide long-term species survival through beneficial traits. These processes suggest an intelligent design for adaptability, supporting a creationist perspective.

Epigenetics involves heritable gene expression changes without DNA sequence alterations, driven by environment, food, or social factors. Unlike evolution’s reliance on slow DNA mutations, epigenetic mechanisms like DNA methylation enable rapid, inherited phenotypic changes. Examples include chaperone-driven eye loss in cave fish and beak changes in Darwin’s finches due to environmental stress, not mutations. These self-tuning systems, allowing organisms to adapt to diverse environments, suggest intelligent design by a Creator, supporting a creationist view.

The Bible describes a loving God who designed creation with care, contrasting with evolution’s view of life arising from natural selection’s struggle. Prosocial behaviors in animals like dolphins, elephants, and chimpanzees—cooperating, consoling, and showing empathy—reveal emotional awareness. Studies confirm these traits, challenging natural selection’s ability to explain altruistic acts like caring for the disabled or cross-species adoption. These behaviors align with a biblical view of a God who embedded empathy in creation, suggesting intelligent design over evolutionary processes.

Domestic dogs show vast skull shape diversity, from small Pekingese to large Borzoi, driven by selective breeding rather than survival pressures. Breeds like the English Bulldog, needing human aid for survival and reproduction, highlight health issues but remain dogs, not evolving into new species. This plasticity, yet species consistency, suggests intelligent design with built-in variability, as in Genesis, challenging evolutionary views and fossil misclassification.

Nature’s efficient systems, like spider silk, inspire biomimetics to improve technologies such as solar cells and implants. Evolutionists credit millions of years for nature’s “design,” but spider silk—stronger than steel, elastic, and lightweight—shows spiders’ precise control over its chemistry and thread diameter for various uses. High DNA similarity in silk proteins suggests a common origin, yet evolution lacks answers for the complex silk synthesis system, present since the fossil record. This complexity supports intelligent design over Darwinian evolution.

Fish maintain water-salt balance in diverse aquatic environments through specialized gill and kidney functions. Freshwater fish counter water gain and ion loss with high urine output and ion uptake, while marine fish combat water loss and ion gain by drinking and excreting ions. Euryhaline fish, like salmon and eels, adapt to salinity changes in weeks, not millions of years. An interventionist hypothesis suggests fish were designed with adaptive mechanisms for varying salinities, possibly for a global flood, indicating intelligent design over evolutionary processes.

Molecular features like histones, nonsense-mediated decay (NMD), and homeobox (Hox) genes are highly conserved across diverse species, showing remarkable similarity despite supposed evolutionary change. Histones pack DNA similarly in plants and mammals, NMD uses the same mechanism across organisms as diverse as yeast, fruit flies and humans, and the same Hox genes regulate body development in different organisms. These similarities suggest intelligent design rather than evolutionary divergence.

Species may undergo minor adaptation through Darwinian processes, but this comes at the cost of genetic deterioration.

Darwin saw evolution as a slow and steady process with species gradually transforming into new species over long time. He thought that the fossil record should provide evidence for his theory. However, the needed evidence proved to be elusive.

Pseudogenes are important in gene regulation and other activities.

Several species of longwing butterflies are discovered to be hybrids.

The theory of evolution has pervaded most fields of knowledge. Therefore, it is important to know the fundamentals of this theory in order to understand how this ideology influences interpretations of data from nature and differs from the biblical creation model of the origin of life forms.

Cichlid fish in Nicaraguan lakes show evidence of rapid change.

An average of 70 mutations occur in each person.

The type of bacteria in the gut influences the way fruit flies adapt to different environments.

Cnidarians appear to have recruited as toxins the same kinds of proteins recruited by many other venomous animals. However, toxin diversity within groups of organisms does not appear to be related to the alleged evolutionary history of the various groups.

How can some people be so certain about evolution, while others, with the same certainty, deny it? Part of the answer can, in broad terms, be boiled down to the difference between what is seen and what is not seen. More specifically, and in the context of evolution itself, this disparity arises from the difference between microevolution and macroevolution. What are these two concepts, and how does the difference between them help explain much of the controversy surrounding the theory of evolution? This article was published on the August 2019 issue of Signs of the Times.