Whats the difference between mutation and evolution?

Question

We all know beyond a reasonable doubt that mutation occurs.How many of you have seen a newborn child with a deformity? Wouldnt it be easier to change the term evolution to mutation? Anf by the way, who said God didnt take millions of years to produce his creation? God DID NOT write the bible! Early man did! What would have been Gods reason to create dinosaurs? Were these bones simply manufactured and planted by early atheists?

I agree with most of you....other than a few who believe mutation didnt have anything to do with evolution....My primary point here was to point out the fact that too many people assume that What man wrote was what God tried to convey. I believe that If God chose evolution as his path, who am I to judge him? Early man in my opinion wasnt intelligent enough to write what he was told! The bible is like any other story! It is a story that describes right from wrong and nothing more!

By the way. I firmly believe in the ALL MIGHTY! For you creationists though, its time to stop worshipping as man did 2000 years ago!

Bottom line! We need to work together! Evolution IS creation! STOP THIS INFERNAL BICKERING! We are wasting precious time! We need to focus on survival now and appreciate what God has given us! God gave us two very important gifts, the instinct for survival and intelligence! Lets use them!

Kudos to Heinz! Very intelligent man!

Answer 1

One leads to the other.
In fact without mutation, there would be no evolution.
Once a mutation had taken place, if it bestows greater survivability, and more progeny on the recipient, than his descendants will prosper more than anyone else, and they'll outbreed those that don't have the mutation. They have now evolved further in the chain of survival capabilities.
It takes mutation for evolution to take place.
Just as it takes transistors to make a computer. Calling a transistor a computer because it makes computers possible, does not eliminate or change the fundamental truth. It would just confuse the confused even further.

Answer 2

Deformed babies are caused by multiple factors, usually not just by a mutation that occurred during that baby's development. Mutations do play a large role in how evolution produces the diversity of life we see today. Mutations can be positive, neutral, or negative...in the wild positive and neutral mutations will be passed on to the next generation while negative mutations will result in the organism not being able to reproduce (either because it died before it could, the others in it's species didn't find it sexually attractive, or was sterile).

So, evolution is not just about mutations...natural selection is what 'chooses' (it doesn't knowingly choose) which mutations will be transferred to the next generation. It's survival of those who are most fit for their environment (not to be confused with being fit in a physically stronger sense). To rename evolution mutation could only be done through a blatant misunderstanding of the processes which we call evolution.

Evolution does not negate the existence of a god, just like no science theory would be able to prove a god doesn't exist. Plus, evolution deals with what happened to life after it starter, not how life first got here.

I don't believe in a god, so I won't speculate on why a god would create dinosaurs. I could make up a lot of reasons, but that wouldn't do anyone much good.

The idea that atheists would have set up a secret manufacturing plant to create hundreds of fake fossils is just silly. It would take a world wide conspiracy between both atheist and theistic scientists in order to pull that off. Not to mention how hard it would be to bury them at the appropriate depths without making it obvious that the earth had been disturbed. The whole atheists made up dinosaurs myth is just a stupid claim made by some theists who didn't like the idea that they couldn't fit dinosaurs into their interpretation of the Bible.

Answer 3

Lots of questions in there... I'll take some of those.

"We all know beyond a reasonable doubt that mutation occurs.How many of you have seen a newborn child with a deformity? Wouldnt it be easier to change the term evolution to mutation?"

Sure mutations occur, and some of those mutations are fairly significant. But changing that term to "evolution" would just be even more confusing--WAIT people have already done that anyway! I still think it's a bad idea.


"Anf by the way, who said God didnt take millions of years to produce his creation?"

There are many Christians who believe that. Who says he didn't? Me for one, and a lot of people like me who go with a more literal interpretation of the Bible. But yeah, there are those (Christian and non-Christian alike) who believe in a longer "period of development"

"God DID NOT write the bible! Early man did!"

The only thing in scripture that God wrote down are the 10 Commandments, and sometimes Jesus is said to write in the sand. HOWEVER, scripture itself claimes to be "God-breathed" which is a way of saying that God inspired men to write the scriptures down.

Many people do argue back and forth about if God exists and if so, did He write the Bible or not... if you want to discuss that, we need to create a new quesiton and it is a hot topic on this board.


"What would have been Gods reason to create dinosaurs? Were these bones simply manufactured and planted by early atheists?"

Why did God create dinosaurs (i.e. dragons)? Because they're cool! Big awesome creatures clunking around, eating all kinds of plants and stuff--they were kind of the "lawn mowers" for the Garden of Eden! But after the world changed from the flood, the need for dinosaurs kind of ... well... went the way of the dinosaur...

Answer 4

Evolution simply means a change in a species over period of time. Mutation is part of the process of 'how' these changes occur. The entire process, which includes mutations, is called 'natural selection' In simpler terms: Evolution is the what. Natural selection is the how. Mutation is part of natural selection

Answer 5

Yes mutation occurs, but it is the opposite of evolution. With mutation you are loosing information, not gaining as evolution would require.
Deformity in a child is the result that sin has on life. Not that the child sinned or its parents did-but all of creation is corrupted. It manifests in many ways.
The Bible says it took 6 literal 24 hour days to create the whole universe.
God did write the original autographs with the power of the Holy spirit guiding the men who actually penned the words.
You will have to ask god why he created dinosaurs-I do not know.

Answer 6

Mutations are random changes in DNA. Everyone has them, but most of them are not phenotypical, ie they are not expressed in a way we can see, they are only genotypical--showing up in DNA.

However evolution works in part on a principle of mutation. Let's say that a fly has a random mutation which results in his wings being 10 percent more effective at making him maneuverable. So he is slightly more able to avoid predators and have offspring.

Over generations, that mutation becomes the norm for the species, as flies with the new wings are better able to survive. Those with the old wings are slowly reduced in numbers proportionately.

Answer 7

Difference between mutation and evolution -

evolution clearly is an accumulation of small changes within the population of whatever organism you are studying - sometimes the change is the result of a mutation.

However, not all mutations are compatible with life or give an evolutionary advantage to the organism.

The two terms are not interchangeable.

Answer 8

To any beleiver in the Bible, I have only one fact to point out: According to the Bible and story of Noah's Ark, there were 30K species aboard. Today, the earth is covered with 1.5 million species - not including news ones found daily and not counting those extict.
So, from 30K species arose 1.5+ million species. That is evolution - a species changing from one thing to another. Evolution does not require that a bird turn into whale or that a dog begins to speak. Intelligence is NOT a factor in evolution or survival. Just look at where intelligence is leading mankind....

Answer 9

Mutation is part of evolution. There are good mutations and bad ones. A good mutation makes life easier for a being, a bad mutation makes life harder, they are actually devolutions. A newborn child with a deformity is a devolution.

Answer 10

Well, that could support evolution, if it was actually a good thing. However, I don't think a child that is deformed is a good thing. Early man was given inspiration by God to write the Bible, Moses I believe was the person who started writing the Bible.