DNA is the blueprint for producing the millions of proteins that form the structure and chemical reactions of your body. Sometimes there is damage to the DNA (from age or other factors) or it just malfunctions - this creates a mutation. Let's say a mutation causes a child to have less growth hormone than average. He grows up stunted and weak so he does not reproduce - that mutation dies out. If the mutation causes the child to have slightly more growth hormone, he grows up big and strong and reproduces - that mutation lives on. Almost all mutations are destructive and die out but very rare ones are beneficial and get passed on. Humans breed dogs to be bigger or smaller depending on their whims by selecting to mate certain animals. Creating one-cell bacteria from raw chemicals, then humans from one-cell bacteria and adding complex anatomical features such as eyes and blood clotting (which involves a sequence of more than 20 chemicals) would take hundreds of billions of years by random events and mutations lining up in order. In Darwin's time, they thought the universe was infinitely old so evolution by random process was theoretically possible. Now we know the universe is less than 14 billion years old. This means that evolution had to have been speeded up to get here from raw chemicals in just 14 billion years. Read a book by biochemist Michael Behe to get more information about why there had to be a force guiding evolution.
DNA is the blueprint for producing the millions of proteins that form the structure and chemical reactions of your body. Sometimes there is damage to the DNA (from age or other factors) or it just malfunctions - this creates a mutation. Let's say a mutation causes a child to have less growth hormone than average. He grows up stunted and weak so he does not reproduce - that mutation dies out. If the mutation causes the child to have slightly more growth hormone, he grows up big and strong and reproduces - that mutation lives on. Almost all mutations are destructive and die out but very rare ones are beneficial and get passed on. Humans breed dogs to be bigger or smaller depending on their whims by selecting to mate certain animals. Creating one-cell bacteria from raw chemicals, then humans from one-cell bacteria and adding complex anatomical features such as eyes and blood clotting (which involves a sequence of more than 20 chemicals) would take hundreds of billions of years by random events and mutations lining up in order. In Darwin's time, they thought the universe was infinitely old so evolution by random process was theoretically possible. Now we know the universe is less than 14 billion years old. This means that evolution had to have been speeded up to get here from raw chemicals in just 14 billion years. Read a book by biochemist Michael Behe to get more information about why there had to be a force guiding evolution.
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