Study on human H1N1 influenza virus demonstrates genetic entropy

Today I was notified about a paper on the accumulation of mutations in the influenza virus. It’s slightly off-topic for biblical geology, but there is a tangential connection. Since Noah’s Flood is true the millions of years of earth history are imaginary. That destroys the plausibility of evolution and the standard explanation for how the biological diversity on earth came about. In other words, the consensus understanding on how evolution works is flawed, and this will have implications in all sorts of areas, including medical policy and practice.

This paper published by two openly creationist researchers Robert Carter and John Sanford demonstrates that point. It was published in the journal Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling (9:42, 12 October 2012) and is entitled “A new look at an old virus: patterns of mutation accumulation in the human H1N1 influenza virus since 1918”. Pdf is available here.

It turns out that there has been great interest in the paper such that the publisher has permanently flagged the article “highly accessed” prior to the release of the finalized pdf.

The authors wanted to wait for at least 6 months before openly discussing their findings within the creationist community. Now that the time has passed they are ready to promote their work.

When you look at the article you will see that the authors are:
• Stating that their pet theory called “genetic entropy” works in the real world.
• Providing data that more than suggests that influenza viruses cannot survive long-term.
• Claiming they were the first to notice the 2009 extinction of the human H1N1 influenza virus.
• Suggesting that government agencies are barking up the wrong tree.
• Etc.

About the paper author Robert Carter said:

While it is not stated openly in the paper, if you “read between the lines” you will see:
• This is the first experiment designed to test the Darwinian mutation/selection model in any species over tens of thousands of generations. All other experiments (even Lenski) used many fewer generations and/or assumed common ancestry (e.g., anything written about the chimpanzee genome) without actually testing it.
• Despite pervasive natural selection, the human 1918 H1N1 went extinct, twice, due to mutation accumulation. The second time after more than 10% of its genome ‘rusted away’.
• Accumulating mutations are not silent, even those that do not affect the amino acid chain of a protein, because codon usage still influences translation. Unchecked mutation accumulation leads to a breakdown in codon bias.
• Being that the various mutation types accumulated in a linear fashion, those mutations that escaped the selective filter (that would be most of the mutations) are accumulating according to the laws of chemistry. Thus, genetic change is a product of thermodynamics. Thus, the direction of evolutionary change is predetermined. Thus, if the common ancestor of things like humans and chimpanzees is not “on the curve”, they do not have a common ancestor.

The paper is certainly worth the read. Feel free to forward this information.