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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.

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>}}

{{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)

[[User:Philip J. Rayment|Philip J. Rayment]] 02:32, 14 February 2009 (EST)