Not offhand. I don't think we've reached that point in general yet, because the earth is not nearly as old as evolutionism requires. In the few thousand years of life history we've not accumulated a large enough genetic load to make the genetic entropy problem critical, though the burden is constantly increasing. From reading between the lines, I think some of the old-earth reviewers of Sanford's work are awakening to the age-of-the-earth implications of genetic entropy. Life clearly cannot be millions of years old with observed mutation rates.
Bacteria have a gene for an “error prone” DNA polymerase that they turn on when the bacteria is undergoing stress. This deliberate increase in their mutation rate is an adaptive mechanism. Now why do you suppose a bacteria would intentionally increase its mutation rate while undergoing stress?
Mutation hotspots are a special case. There are specialized adaptation mechanisms (such as in the immune system) that cause rapid iterative mutations, either constantly or under environmental stress. The mutations occur within a constrained region of the genome so as not to wreak havoc on the genome generally. Within the constrained region the mutations can cause rapid variation in a pseudo-neutral manner, such as in the ongoing competition between disease pathogens and the immune system, or among starving bacteria seeking a new source of nutrients.
This is a bit like discovering a self-replicating combination lock that has a mechanism in it that causes the correct combination to change over time as the lock reproduces. If the mechanism affected the whole lock it would tend to wreck the overall function of the lock in short order, but so long as it only affects the working combination, any set of numbers is as good as another. Overall, though, the lock is more complex than a similar lock lacking such a variation mechanism, and thus the ultimate competence for the creator of the lock is greater, not less.
Exactly, they are adaptations, not mutations. They are still bacteria, they don't change into something else. Same for viruses that develop immunities to antibiotics. They are still viruses, they don't turn into monkeys. All they do is adapt which means the information is there dormant somewhere, we just haven't been able to find the switch to turn it off to prevent the virus from adapting.
So no examples of a species going extinct due to high mutation rates, and yet you somehow seem sure that it will happen despite the COMPLETE AND TOTAL ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE.
Error prone DNA polymerase introduces changes randomly over the entire genome that is being copied. It is not like the immune system where specific elements are shuffled randomly in a directed manner. It is the introduction of a error prone copy mechanism over the ENTIRE bacterial genome, not “hot spots”.
So why would bacteria even HAVE a gene for an error prone DNA polymerase? Of course they NEED their regular DNA polymerase, but why do they carry around a copy of an error prone one? Moreover, why do they express this error prone DNA polymerase in response to stress?
What might happen to a bacteria undergoing stress that is using an error prone DNA polymerase that is less likely to happen to a bacteria undergoing stress that is using a high fidelity DNA polymerase?