The Book of Life: Revised Edition
On April 5, 2005, the prominent British genetics professor Steve Jones published a witty essay in the London Daily Telegraph that explained with unusual frankness just how strange, and even paradoxical, is the role of mutation in neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory.
According to chemical laws, wrote Jones, who teaches at University College, London, we all ought to be dead by now. The basis for this gloomy prognosis is “thermodynamics, meaning the random noise that interferes with all chemical reactions and causes them to go wrong.” The chemistry of DNA ensures the continual production of much mutational noise, because “the chances of physical error as each DNA molecule is copied are such that mistakes—mutations—should build up with great speed and stop most of the dividing helices in their tracks. Even those that make it would be so damaged that their carriers would not survive.”
To explain why we don’t see genomic mutational meltdown, Jones appealed not to Darwinian natural selection, but to the DNA’s fantastic error-correction machinery, which he likened to a word processor’s spell-check software: “Special enzymes clean up the mess as they snip out a mutated segment, join together broken bits of the molecule, or replace a faulty piece with the correct version.”
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Phillip E. Johnson is Professor of Law (emeritus) at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of Darwin on Trial, The Wedge of Truth, The Right Questions (InterVarsity Press), and other books challenging the naturalistic assumptions that dominate modern culture. He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
• Not a subscriber or wish to renew your subscription? Subscribe to Touchstone today for full online access. Over 30 years of publishing!
personal subscriptions
Purchase Print &
Online Subscription
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives including pdf downloads for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
gift subscriptions
GIVE Print &
Online Subscription
Give six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for the reduced rate of $29.95. That's only $2.50 per month!
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
kindle subscription
OR get a subscription to Touchstone to read on your Kindle for only $1.99 per month! (This option is KINDLE ONLY and does not include either print or online.)
Your subscription goes a long way to ensure that Touchstone is able to continue its mission of publishing quality Christian articles and commentary.
more from the online archives
28.3—May/June 2015
Whittaker Chambers's Lonely War Against Godless Collectivism by Hunter Baker
19.10—December 2006
Training Up a Child Requires a Well-Formed Imagination by David Mills
26.1—Jan/Feb 2013
on Abortion as a Matter of National Welfare by W. Ross Blackburn
