John C Sanford

John C. Sanford (born 1950) is an American plant geneticist, and an advocate of intelligent design and young earth creationism.

Sanford graduated in 1976 from the University of Minnesota with a BSc in horticulture. He went to the University of Wisconsin–Madison where he received an MSc in 1978 and a PhD in 1980 in plant breeding/plant genetics. Although retiring in 1998, Sanford continues at Cornell University as a courtesy associate professor. He held an honorary Adjunct Associate Professor of Botany at Duke University. Sanford has published over 70 scientific publications.

At Cornell Sanford and colleagues developed the "Biolistic Particle Delivery System" or so-called "gene gun". He is the co-inventor of the Pathogen-derived Resistance (PDR) process and the co-inventor of the genetic vaccination process. In 1998 he retired on the proceeds from the sale of his biotech companies, and continued at Cornell as a courtesy associate professor.

Sanford has argued for devolution in his book Genetic Entropy & the Mystery of the Genome (2005, 2008).

In it, he claims that natural selection's being the cause of biological evolution (which he calls the primary axiom) "is essentially indefensible".

His argument is as follows. The minimal rate of human mutation is estimated to be 100 new mutations per generation. According to Sanford, Kimura's curve shows that most mutations have a near-neutral effect, and are furthermore slightly deleterious. As such, they cause a genetic rust unstoppable by natural selection. Therefore, the main claim is that the rise of random genetic mutations is too unnoticeable to be affected by natural selection, yet harmful enough to cause the gradual extinction of any species through time.

An important corollary is that "beneficial mutations are so rare as to be outside of consideration." Therefore, natural selection is considered too slow to allow evolution.Additionally, the selective cost is considered too high to override genetic drift and noise.

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