Rath said: Carl Sagan, ardent evolutionist, admitted: '... mutations occur at random and are almost uniformly harmful—it is rare that a precision machine is improved by a random change in the instructions for making it.' ARGH. Mutations degrade information is such complete and utter bullshit, mutations change information. Positively, negatively or more often with no effect at all. Evolution essentially discards negative mutation and spreads positive mutations throughout a population, thats how it works. Also Carl Sagan was an astronomer, not exactly qualified to say that. |
I'm sure that Sagan knew what he was talking about, but like all junk-science hit jobs, was quoted out of context. Note the use of the verb "admitted" -- was he being accused of something when he wrote it? The answer, of course, is no:
http://science.howstuffworks.com/evolution5.htm
See how that quote sounds with a bit more context? Yes, a mutation being advantageous is rare -- but when there is a 10 percent chance of a mutation occurring in every sperm or egg cell, and there are over one hundred million people born every year, there's an awful lot of mutation going on.