The Deer Mouse is not an Example of Evolution

Champions of microbes-to-mouse evolution have several icons, including the Messinian salinity crisis, fish with legs, antibiotic resistance, and more. These are unhorsed with critical thinking and good science. Still, they keep on trying, and creationists keep on putting them away. See how that works?

Credit: Wikimedia Commons / Gregory "Slobirdr" Smith

One of these is the deer mouse. In a manner reminiscent of the peppered moth fiasco, the lighter-colored mice living around Nebraska's sand dunes are camouflaged from predators. Your chance of survival is greatly increased when you are not seen, old son.

Some good scientific research was conducted in the genetics and pigmentation of these mice. We see natural selection and mutation (although one mutation usually means there are more, but this was not discussed here). Unfortunately, the science was pushed aside to give praise to Darwin, blessed be! This is in no wise an example of evolution: the mouse is still a mouse. Critters were created to have some amount of variation, but not to change into something else — which is what this kind of evolution is supposed to mean.

One of the most abundant and widespread mammals in north America is the deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus). Usually the mice have a dark coat—very useful for enabling them to blend in with dark soils and avoid being seen by predators such as owls and hawks.

In Nebraska’s rolling sandhills however, which are composed mostly of light-coloured quartz grains, deer mice are predominantly a pale, orange-blonde or tan colour.

And so researchers pondered the question: Is the lighter-coloured sandy coat an adaptation that helps deer mice to survive in the sandhills habitat?

To read the rest, scurry on over to "Nebraskan deer mice—evolution’s latest ‘icon’?"