To the creationists - the tough question

Define new information.

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Originally posted by mark24:
Define new information.

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New information would be information that doesn't orginate through the reshuffling and/or tweaking of information already residing in the genome. The origination of eyes, wings and brains requires the input of massive amounts of new information, information that at one time never existed in any living thing on earth. Where did it come from? Darwinism must attribute information creation to "mutation," but this is to give the phenomenon a label rather than an explanation. (Additional terms like "variation" or "recombination" are even less informative.)The neo-Darwinian account of evolution is like saying that all of the world's literature came from the book of Genesis by occasional typos and that every text along the way was viable as literature. Such gradualistic series have not been shown to be possible in written text or computer programs. Nor have they been shown to exist in biology. If this is how complex biological structures and organs are supposed to evolve, the mechanism remains to be demonstrated.

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Originally posted by Warren:
New information would be information that doesn't orginate through the reshuffling and/or tweaking of information already residing in the genome. The origination of eyes, wings and brains requires the input of massive amounts of new information, information that at one time never existed in any living thing on earth. Where did it come from? Darwinism must attribute information creation to "mutation," but this is to give the phenomenon a label rather than an explanation. (Additional terms like "variation" or "recombination" are even less informative.)

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So now define new information by telling me what it IS & not what it isn't.I've heard a LOT about what new information isn't.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

He might want to demonstrate how one can quantify it as well.

Mark>> So now define new information by telling me what it IS & not what it isn't.I've heard a LOT about what new information isn't.<<How am I suppose to define "new information" without contrasting it with old information? I suspect what you really want is just a definition of information. Well, define it anyway you want and then explain how the Darwinian process creates it. I don't see your point unless it's your contention that complex specified information doesn't exist in living organisms. In his book Steps Towards Life, Manfred Eigen (1992, p. 12) summarizes the task of origins-of-life research as follows: "Our task is to find an algorithm, a natural law that leads to the origin of information."It is amazing to me that the Darwinists have been able for over a century to convince intelligent persons that organisms losing their ability to see or fly is proof of evolution! Regardless of how one wants to define information, the fact remains that you don't go from ants to anthropologists via a process that causes a loss of function. You can't prove that a process is capable of producing eyes and wings by giving examples of organisms losing eyes and wings. Surely if the Darwinists had more persuasive evidence for their theory they wouldn't resort to such lame explanations. This demonstrates how incredibly weak their theory actually is.

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Originally posted by Warren:
Mark>> So now define new information by telling me what it IS & not what it isn't.

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I've heard a LOT about what new information isn't.<<

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How am I suppose to define "new information" without contrasting it with old information? I suspect what you really want is just a definition of information. Well, define it anyway you want and then explain how the Darwinian process creates it. I don't see your point unless it's your contention that complex specified information doesn't exist in living organisms. In his book Steps Towards Life, Manfred Eigen (1992, p. 12) summarizes the task of origins-of-life research as follows: "Our task is to find an algorithm, a natural law that leads to the origin of information."

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It is amazing to me that the Darwinists have been able for over a century to convince intelligent persons that organisms losing their ability to see or fly is proof of evolution! Regardless of how one wants to define information, the fact remains that you don't go from ants to anthropologists via a process that causes a loss of function. You can't prove that a process is capable of producing eyes and wings by giving examples of organisms losing eyes and wings. Surely if the Darwinists had more persuasive evidence for their theory they wouldn't resort to such lame explanations. This demonstrates how incredibly weak their theory actually is.

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Good grief, define new information or don't.It would go like this....."New information is defined as........"If you can't do this, then stop posting on a thread that asked for a definition of new information.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

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[This message has been edited by mark24, 02-08-2002]

Mark>> Good grief, define new information or don't.It would go like this.....New information is defined as........"<<Okay. New information is defined as information that has never existed before.

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Originally posted by Warren:
Mark>> Good grief, define new information or don't.

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It would go like this.....

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New information is defined as........"<<

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Okay. New information is defined as information that has never existed before.

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From:
http://bostonreview.mit.edu/br22.1/doolittle.html

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...the process of gene duplication can occur in a number of ways, and the most common mechanisms are well understood. Sexual organisms, for example, have two sets of chromosomes (one from each parent) which line up during the cell division process called meiosis. As it happens, the very long DNA threads are constantly breaking and being rejoined. The rejoining process is not 100 percent accurate, however, and often one of the chromosomes comes away with a little more of the DNA than its pairee, which will have correspondingly less. The lucky gametes that come away with the more are said to have had a "gene duplication," although the amount of DNA may amount to only a part of a gene or maybe a whole string of genes. The process can be seen in action in that there are people who have certain diseases as a result of having pieces of genes missing and other people, usually healthy, who have exactly the missing parts extra!
Thus, the result of such gene duplication is that a creature may have an old gene that encodes some protein and a new one that, under normal circumstances, has nothing much to do. Most of the time one of the duplicates will simply wither away as a result of the relentless rain of amino acid replacements that are constantly being inflicted on all proteins; natural selection cannot, after all, operate on idle proteins, but only on those that are being used. Occasionally, however, the occurrence of a new protein can be of fortuitous advantage, and it is preserved: we already have a very long list of proteins that are clearly the products of gene duplications. Indeed, one of the major goals of molecular evolutionists is to trace the family pedigree of proteins back through time in an effort to identify the small number of genes that must have been present in the earliest organisms.

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Consider hemoglobin, a protein Dr. Behe has worked on professionally, and that he discusses in his book. Almost everybody knows that hemoglobin is the protein packed into red blood cells that carries oxygen around to the tissues. Behe notes that it consists of two different types of protein chain. He calls them "analogous," steadfastly refusing to call them "homologous"--a term that indicates common ancestry, and that everyone else uses. Certainly no thinking biochemist doubts that these two chains, referred to as "alpha" and "beta," are the results of a gene duplication. They are composed of 141 and 146 amino acid units, respectively, and 63 of them are exactly the same, which is to say their amino acid sequences are about 45 percent identical.

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It is also well known that the foetus has a different hemoglobin in its red cells. The alpha chains are the same as the "adult" kind, but the other chain comes from another duplicated gene called "gamma." The gamma chain is also 45 percent identical with the alpha, but 70 percent identical to the beta (they share 107 amino acid units). Clearly, the gamma chain has shared ancestry more recently with the beta than it has with the alpha. It also has one very advantageous physiological property: when combined with the alpha chain it binds oxygen more tightly than does the adult hemoglobin. As a result, the foetus, which won't breathe on its own until birth, is insured of the flow of oxygen moving in its direction from the maternal circulation. As it happens, humans actually have several genes for hemoglobins, some being expressed only at embryonic stages, and one only in tissues.

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We can make another family tree from hemoglobin sequences by using species comparisons instead of the duplicated genes. The tree could be based on alpha or beta hemoglobins, for example. And when we do that something interesting is observed. Because the rates of change in sequence are fairly uniform, we can gauge when the gene duplications occurred that gave rise to the alpha, beta, and gamma chains, as well as the others. It is apparent that earlier diverging animals ought not to have all the hemoglobin genes that humans have, because they diverged before particular duplications occurred. In fact, we know that jawless fish, which are the most primitive vertebrates extant, have single-chained hemoglobins in their red blood cells, because they diverged before the pivotal duplication that separated the alpha and beta chains.

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IOW the original gene was duplicated then changed enough to assume a function (the duplicate had no function before as the original kept its own role), Does that qualify as new information to you?

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Originally posted by minnemooseus:
What sort of evidence would you find convincing enough to sway you into believing that organic evolution was and is real?

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Think the question over carefully, and try to be as concise as possible.

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Moose

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I thought it might be time to repeat message 1 of this topic.Still Moose------------------
BS degree, geology, '83
Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Old Earth evolution - Yes
Godly creation - Maybe

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Originally posted by Warren:
Mark>> Good grief, define new information or don't.

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It would go like this.....

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New information is defined as........"<<

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Okay. New information is defined as information that has never existed before.

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In addition to Joz, message 54 http://www.nmsr.org/nylon.htm"My favorite example of a mutation producing new information involves a Japanese bacterium that suffered a frame shift mutation that just happened to allow it to metabolize nylon waste. The new enzymes are very inefficient (having only 2% of the efficiency of the regular enzymes), but do afford the bacteria a whole new ecological niche. They don't work at all on the bacterium's original food - carbohydrates. And this type of mutation has even happened more than once!"So, by, both Warrens & TC definitions, new information exists, as derived by genetic mutation.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

Mark, your information is out-dated. A later study determined that the nylon digesting ability of these bacteria wasn't caused by a frame shift mutation but was due to plasmids

You are expected to cite sources that you take prose from verbatim.

Plasmids are the form that the bacterial DNA strand, & the nucleotide sequences, genes, reside on, as opposed to chromosomes in eukaryotes.The mutation was a nucleotide insertion, not deletion ( my mistake, but both cause frameshifting), & a frameshift, that resulted in a new, functional protein ( In actual fact this amounts to the same amount of amino acids, given it takes a codon of 3 nuleotides to code an amino acid, the extra on tagged on at the end is wasted, amino acid wise). It could just as easily be a deletion, (This would result in one LESS amino acids in the sequence) it matters not. A mutation caused an increase in functionality.Read the link again, the new amino acid sequence can be DEMONSTRATED from the original sequence, the new amino acid sequence & old sequence are defined by that ONE nucleotide difference."Now, let's get back to Biology, and the case of the bacterium which has evolved the capability of ingesting nylon waste. This case is most interesting. Nylon didn't exist before 1937, and neither did this organism. Detailed examination of the DNA sequences of the original bacterium and of the nylon-ingesting version show identical versions in the gene for a key metabolic enzyme, with only one difference in over 400 nucleotides. However, this single microevolutionary addition of a single thymine ('T') nucleotide caused the new bacterium's enzyme to be composed of a completely novel sequence of amino acids, via the mechanism of frame shifting. The new enzyme is 50 times less efficient than its precursor, as would be expected for a new structure which has not had time to be polished by natural selection. However, this inefficiency would certainly not be expected in the work of an intelligent designer. The genetic mutation that produced this particular irreducibly-complex enzyme probably occurred countless times in the past, and probably was always lethal, until the environment changed, and nylon was introduced."I repeat."Detailed examination of the DNA sequences of the original bacterium and of the nylon-ingesting version show identical versions in the gene for a key metabolic enzyme, with only one difference in over 400 nucleotides".That is to say, an allele has ONE nucleotide difference, compared to the wild type, & has a completely different function.That more than one species has the ability is mentioned in the link. Again, for prokaryotic bacterial plasmids, read eukaryotic chromosomes.Mark------------------
Occam's razor is not for shaving with.

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[This message has been edited by mark24, 02-08-2002]

Now if you are going to quote verbatim, cite the source such as:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&threadm=20011227181528.25913.00001664%40mb-dh.aol.com&rnum=3&prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%2522encoding%2Benzymes%2Bfor%2Bnylon%2Boligomer%2Bdegradation %2522%26hl%3Den%26selm%3D20011227181528.25913.00001664%2540mb-dh.aol.com%26rnum%3D3"It's old evidence. Strangely enough, just because something is on a plasmid doesn't mean it's been there forever. In fact, the plasmid in question is well known and extensively characterized. We have the original, pre-mutation plasmid, and the mutation is in a non-coding repeditive DNA sequence on the original plasmid. the mutation did not exist 40 years ago. One would also have to ask oneself if the gene
was always there, why a bacteria would have a gene for hydrolysing an artifical polymer that did not exist in the environment until 50 or so years ago, and how, in the absence of such a substrate, why the gene was not nmutated to uslessness over centuries (let alone millenia or millions of years)."Now, if you had bothered to read some of the actual work on this, you would know that Ian is fully supported by the literature. I have this particular review of the literature at home which is very clear inNegoro S. Biodegradation of nylon oligomers.Appl Microbiol Biotechnol 2000 Oct;54(4):461-6Cheers,
Larry

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Originally posted by toff:
Don't worry, I, and millions like me, DO view people who would impose their beliefs upon others as evil, and do view those who would suppress knowledge because they don't like it as evil, and are doing our best to stop creationists (one group which contains such people) from gaining the power to do so.

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So us Creationists are imposing our views on helpless young members of society? Well, first of all, I don't think many Creationists want a "Creation-only" textbook in the classroom. Last time I checked Creationists wanted a two-model textbook. Most evolutionists don't even seem to think that textbooks should contain problems with the evolutionary theory. Upon close examination, it would seem as though evolutionists are being the most oppresive of the two groups.It also seems very morally incorrect for evolutionists to cite examples such as peppered moths or wingless beetles as "examples" of evolution in action. It is very unfair to tell students something true (variation within a kind) and then tell them it proves something else (information-gaining evolution).Next, let's see exactly what Creationists are attempting to supposedly "force" upon the helpless minds of youth in our society. They are trying to teach children to live a good life and to think of others. They are basically wishing to teach them many of the basic principles of the bible. Sounds evil to me.What are evolutionists teaching? That humans are a freak rearrangement of matter, and our most distant ancestor was a one-celled organism that arose from pond scum. Sounds like a nice story. Please give me one way in which evolutionary thought can be important for moral reasoning. After all, moral reasoning is perhaps the MOST important thing for a young individual.