Natural Selection 2

Notice, natural selection cannot produce new genes; it selects only
among preexisting characteristics. As the word “selection” implies,
variations are reduced, not increased (b).

For example, many mistakenly believe that insect or bacterial
resistances evolved in response to pesticides and antibiotics.
Instead, a previously lost capability was reestablished, making it
appear that something evolved (c), or

a mutation reduced the ability of certain pesticides or antibiotics to
bind to an organism’s proteins, or

a mutation reduced the regulatory function or transport capacity of
certain proteins, or

a damaging bacterial mutation or variation reduced the antibiotic’s
effectiveness even more (d), or

a few resistant insects and bacteria were already present when the
pesticides and antibiotics were first applied. When the vulnerable
insects and bacteria were killed, resistant varieties had less
competition and, therefore, proliferated (e).

b.	“[Natural selection] may have a stabilizing effect, but it does not
promote speciation. It is not a creative force as many people have
suggested.” Daniel Brooks, as quoted by Roger Lewin, “A Downward Slope
to Greater Diversity,” Science, Vol. 217, 24 September 1982, p. 1240.

“The essence of Darwinism lies in a single phrase: natural selection
is the creative force of evolutionary change. No one denies that
natural selection will play a negative role in eliminating the unfit.
Darwinian theories require that it create the fit as well.” Stephen
Jay Gould, “The Return of Hopeful Monsters,” Natural History, Vol. 86,
June–July 1977, p. 28.

c.	G. Z. Opadia-Kadima, “How the Slot Machine Led Biologists Astray,”
Journal of Theoretical Biology, Vol. 124, 1987, pp. 127–135.

d.	Eric Penrose, “Bacterial Resistance to Antibiotics—A Case of Un-
Natural Selection,” Creation Research Society Quarterly, Vol. 35,
September 1998, pp. 76–83.

e.	Well-preserved bodies of members of the Franklin expedition, frozen
in the Canadian Arctic in 1845, contain bacteria resistant to
antibiotics. Because the first antibiotics were developed in the early
1940s, these resistant bacteria could not have evolved in response to
antibiotics. Contamination has been eliminated as a possibility. [See
Rick McGuire, “Eerie: Human Arctic Fossils Yield Resistant Bacteria,”
Medical Tribune, 29 December 1988, p. 1.]

“The genetic variants required for resistance to the most diverse
kinds of pesticides were apparently present in every one of the
populations exposed to these man-made compounds.” Francisco J. Ayala,
“The Mechanisms of Evolution,” Scientific American, Vol. 239,
September 1978, p. 65.

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