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Talk:Point mutation (view source)
Revision as of 07:32, February 14, 2009
, 07:32, February 14, 2009→Genetic information (continued): new section
:Thanks, I see it now. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] <sup>[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]</sup> 10:30, 4 February 2009 (EST)
:Thanks, I see it now. --[[User:Ed Poor|Ed Poor]] <sup>[[User talk:Ed Poor|Talk]]</sup> 10:30, 4 February 2009 (EST)
== Genetic information (continued) ==
Here I want to elaborate a bit on the various claims about genetic information.
'''Could it occur, in principle?'''.
Werner Gitt, who wrote ''In the Beginning was Information'', argues that information is a ''message'', and that a message requires a message sender. He therefore argues that information ''cannot'' arise naturalistically. Here he is obviously not talking about information of the form that was not intended as a message, such as the "information" we glean from astronomy about the composition of stars, for example. Or the "information" that a particular site must have been inhabited gleaned from the stone tools found there. Indeed, he is talking about ''coded'' information—information that is conveyed by means of arbitrary symbols. That is, symbols that only have meaning to someone who already knows the code. Alphabetic writing uses such arbitrary symbols. This is clear from the fact that the same symbols can mean different things to different people (i.e. different languages using the same alphabet). So in English, a "gift" is a present, whereas in German a "gift" is a poison (which concerns German postal staff handling parcels marked "gift"!). DNA is such a coded information system.
'''Does it occur in observation?'''.
Lee Spetner, who wrote ''Not by Chance''[http://creationontheweb.com/content/view/773], says that information ''has not been observed'' to arise by chance, not that it ''can't''.
{{QuoteBox|All point mutations that have been studied on a molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not increase it. <small>(Spetner, p. 138)</small>}}
Note that this is not the negative argument "we haven't seen it so it doesn't occur". The argument is that "we have seen lots of mutations, and they all ''decrease'' the genetic information". That doesn't say that it's impossible. It says that you're arguing from faith (or wishful thinking), not the evidence, if you want to argue that mutations increase genetic information.
Realising that this is a powerful argument against evolution, evolutionists now make various claims that new information ''has'' arisen from mutations, and various claims about how it could in theory. Both groups of claims have been answered by creationists, and I think it's fair to say that ''most'' such claims have been debunked. For example, two of the arguments are that organisms acquire new genetic information from other organisms, and that they acquire new genetic information by means of gene duplication. But both these arguments don't stand up to scrutiny. Acquiring genetic information from other organisms explains nothing about where the genetic information came from in the first place. It is ''existing'' genetic information, not ''new'' information. And duplication is a second copy of ''existing'' information, not ''new'' information. But of course then they go on to more sophisticated arguments. Another very common argument is acquired resistance to antibiotics and the like, but most if not all of these turn out to be either an ''existing'' resistance that natural selection causes to become widespread in the population, or due to a ''loss'' of information.
'''Would a few examples solve the problem?'''
For microbe-to-man evolution to have occurred, a ''huge'' amount of new information would have had to be generated. So supplying a handful of questionable examples, which is all that has been offered so far, hardly solves the problem. And when Richard Dawkins was interviewed for a video, he was unable to supply ''any'' examples of new genetic information arising in nature.
John Sanford (''Genetic Entropy and the Mystery of the Genome''), writing mainly about human evolution, points out that a few examples wouldn't solve the problem anyway.
{{QuoteBox|We can, at best, wave our hands when we speculate about how selection might synthesize ''new'' information. It is inherently hypothetical. In a sense it becomes a philosophical question and is not really subject of scientific analysis. Strong arguments can be made against mutation/selection creating new information, but theorists can always speculate to the contrary (it is very difficult to prove that something can never happen). However I believe the "going down" aspect of the genome is subject to actual scientific analysis. It is for this reason that I have focused on the issue of the degradation of information. I believe that it is subject to concrete analysis. Such analysis persuasively argues that ''net'' information must be declining. If this is true, then even if it could be shown that there were specific cases where new information ''might'' be synthesized via mutation/selection, it would still be meaningless since such new information would promptly then begin to degenerate again. The net direction would still be ''down'', and complex genomes could never have arisen spontaneously. <small>(Sanford, p. 105), his italics</small>}}
[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 02:32, 14 February 2009 (EST)