Anti-creationists have often made MORPHOLOGICAL variation arguments, or
SPECIATION arguments. That is, they have argued against the rapid origin of
species and morphological variations. But so far they haven't bothered to
crank through the mechanics of population genetics and calculate the numbers
at the genetic level. In short, they have not made serious arguments about
GENETIC variation. Their arguments typically are stated indirectly, by
reference to evolutionary theory. For example, they argue that one species
turning into 200 in a few thousand years is faster "evolution" than even
evolutionists embrace. In this way they avoided any serious argument at the
genetic level.
I am quite widely read on the published anti-creation material, and in my
view Glenn provided the first attempt by an anti-creationist to openly
discuss the matter using explicit population genetic arguments. And for
that I applaud him. If there exists any other serious published attempt, I
would be interested to have the reference, as it deserves to be debunked.
The evolutionists' discussions of population genetics have uniformly ignored
the issue of error catastrophe as a mechanism for rapidly causing genetic
change. Once that is factored into the discussion, high rates of genetic
change become quite plausible.
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Rapid speciation --
Neo-Darwinists have had a difficult time explaining the speciation process.
That is, they have difficulty justifying that the speciation process is
BENEFICIAL to individuals (or the population) throughout the process.
Population genetics, together with strict Darwinian principles, has a
difficulty here, and typically resolves it by allowing that at some stage in
the speciation process HARMFUL change plays a key role. (I understand that
the punctuationists are *trying* to pack lots of beneficial evolution into
speciation events, but that is another issue.)
Currently, the speciation process at the genetic level is largely a
theoretical debate, as we almost always lack sufficiently detailed
observations of it actually occurring. In that theoretical debate, HARMFUL
change plays a key role. But as I said before, evolutionists generally
ignored a key source of harmful change -- the possibility of error
catastrophe. This mechanism might well supply a means for a rapid
speciation rate. (I am speaking here of the ability to rapidly produce many
reproductively isolated groups, or what is known as new "species".)
Evolutionary geneticists have not entered, much less maintained a serious
presence in the creation/anti-creation debate. I expect they will, sooner
or later, and the next ten years will see some lively debates.
Walter ReMine
P.O. Box 28006
Saint Paul, MN 55128