The Limits of Variability | The Institute for Creation Research

The Limits of Variability

One of the “heroes” of evolutionists is Gregor Mendel, a European monk who experimented with plant breeding in the latter half of the 1800s. While his contemporary Charles Darwin specifically tried to replace belief in creation, Mendel claimed he was trying to understand God’s creation. Evolutionists like to quote Mendel’s findings as proof for their beliefs, but in reality he demonstrated the strict limitations of biological change.

Mendel was a good experimentalist, working with plants in his monastery’s garden. He bred varieties of garden peas to enhance certain features and noticed that while there was variability in plants, there was a clear limit to that variability. The plants could be bred in one direction but there was a limit to how far they could go. He saw no evidence of evolution; indeed, he observed the opposite of evolutionary change. A plant with one color blossom might be encouraged to produce a plant with another color blossom, but the basic plant remained the same. Mendel’s efforts established the laws of genetics but uncovered no evidence for evolution.

He concluded what the Bible had been saying all along, that God created each animal or plant type after its kind and placed in each one the genetic “seed” to reproduce only after that kind. Plants and animals do not have the potential to vary into another kind. In biology this is called stasis—a condition in which things basically remain the same. They are “stationary”— fundamentally unchanging. They do not have the ability to become something different.

We see much the same thing in fossilized plants and animals, those that lived and died in the past. Each fossil can be placed into a grouping of similar plants or animals. Clam fossils look much the same as modern clams. There is variability among the clams, but clams remain clams. Clams are not sea snails, nor are they roses. There is variability among sea snails and variability among roses, but they each are separate and distinct kinds. There is absolutely no evidence that a coral will evolve or ever did evolve into a sea snail. Each basic type remains that basic type.1

This is exactly what we read in Genesis 1. Scripture says that God created each type after its kind 10 times in that chapter (see verses 11-12, 21, 24-25). It seems that the writer of Scripture went out of his way to insist that animals and plants were created fully formed as particular kinds and did not get here by altering previous existing kinds, nor do they change into other basic kinds.

We see in biology exactly what Scripture describes: stasis—not evolution. In the Bible we are told that plants and animals were created with a mechanism ensuring stasis, seemingly ruling out the possibility of large-scale evolution. The obvious correlation of scriptural truth with scientific truth encourages us to believe Scripture in other areas as well (John 3:12). We can have confidence in what it teaches about things we cannot confirm, such as our home in heaven and the forgiveness of sin. We can believe these things because His Word is so reliable and accurate every time it is put to the test.

Reference

  1. For more information on what the fossil records reveals, see Morris, J. D. and F. J. Sherwin. 2010. The Fossil Record: Unearthing Nature’s History of Life. Dallas, TX: Institute for Creation Research.

* Dr. Morris is President of the Institute for Creation Research and received his Ph.D. in geology from the University of Oklahoma.

Cite this article: John D. Morris, Ph.D. 2014. The Limits of Variability. Acts & Facts. 43 (8).

The Latest
NEWS
Secular Paper Admits ''Unreasonable Likelihood'' of Abiogenesis
A recent popular science article begins with the words, “A new study published in July 2025 tackles one of science’s most profound mysteries...

NEWS
September 2025 ICR Wallpaper
"Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What...

ACTS & FACTS
Pervasive Genome Functionality Destroys the Myth of Junk DNA
In 2001, the first rough draft of the human genome was published in a collaborative effort between private industry and the public sector.1,2...

NEWS
Happy Labor Day 2025
“For we are laborers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.” (1 Corinthians 3:9) Labor Day was...

ACTS & FACTS
The Age of Reptiles Myth
We hear about the Age of Reptiles, also called the Age of Dinosaurs, almost as early as we can understand the idea. Even kindergarteners might be taught...

ACTS & FACTS
The Tiktaalik Missing Link Myth
In 2004, the paleontological community—and the world—was presented with what many evolutionists considered to be a dyed-in-the-wool missing...

ACTS & FACTS
Archaeopteryx, Myth of a Transitional Fossil
In 1860, one year after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, a wonderfully preserved fossil feather was discovered in...

ACTS & FACTS
Busting the Myth about Lucy
by Brian Thomas, Ph.D., and Chris Rupe, Ph.D.* Most folks consider our ape ancestry as established science, with Lucy as the main link. However,...

ACTS & FACTS
Evolutionary Vestigial Features: Worse Than Myth, a Scam
Due to teachers’ influence during the formative years of young people’s lives, they can be a powerful force in spreading evolution to new...

ACTS & FACTS
Blind Cavefish Unmask the Convergent Evolution Myth
Within the ever-expanding theory of evolution, there is a system of specialized language designed to identify each major interpretative concept. Some...