The Dawkins question, new "information" in the genome?

I'm sure many of you have heard of the question for Richard Dawkins asking for an example or evolutionary process adding new genetic information. There was a small broohaha over it, but I am still unclear on answers to the question, though poorly asked IMHO. I have a similar question/thought.Given that life started sometime, in its simplest form, at some point, new information must be added for it to "evolve", that is, get from there to where we are today. A single-celled organism is a far cry from a fish, or a dog, etc.How does a single-celled organism become a two-celled organism?I am very unclear on exactly how evolution explains this. Maybe I'm just uneducated on the subject (which I am, I think), but I feel like I'm searching for a needle in a haystack here. How does this process work? Do we have examples of it?-Justin(Topic move efforts have had technical problems. Will now try to spin this message 1 off as the new topic. - Adminnemooseus}

Okay I think I get it, for the most part. Except for this "information" thing.Say that a one-celled organism is sitting here. It is complete, it is all. Now something happens. Suddenly a mutation that happens to not kill it off or do nothing instead lets it have the "information" needed to become something else, two-celled for instance.It seems to me that evolution is sort of like playing yahtzee for a billion years and rolling all good numbers the entire time, blindly and with no purpose.I don't get it. I must be missing something here.-Justin

Yeah, and like you said, most of them don't do anything. Even the most simple lifeform is more complex than any machine we have ever conceived of, and you are telling me that time + luck = the human brain.Time + luck = love, or respect, or pride.I can't buy that. There's gotta be something mroe to it.-Justin

Yeah, and like you said, most of them don't do anything. Even the most simple lifeform is more complex than any machine we have ever conceived of, and you are telling me that time + luck = the human brain.Time + luck = love, or respect, or pride.I can't buy that. There's gotta be something more to it.-Justin

Okay. So give me an example of how natural selection can create a need for something like an eye, or skin, or anything complex that serves a function, when those things do not yet exist.-Justin

Before you get too defensive, let it be known that I am conceding that there is much evidence that supports the theory of evolution. What I am getting at is that given what we know now, and more importantly, what we *don't* know (WHICH IS A TREMENDOUS AMOUNT), I do not think *anyone* can definitively say how we got to where we are with certainty.There remains to be done *much* discovering of fossils before anything is certain, at the very least.-Justin

So give me an example of a mutation giving something the ability to sense light and dark?-Justin

I mentioned fossils because there is nothing in the record right now showing even the beginnings of transitions. Things appear to be now, aside from adaptations to environment and small mutational changes, to be exactly as they were when they appeared.-Justin

I mentioned fossils because there is nothing in the record right now showing even the beginnings of transitions. Things appear to be now, aside from adaptations to environment and small mutational changes, to be exactly as they were when they appeared.-Justin

It would seem the proper word should be "infer", not "identify". :bTrue, you don't see eyes popping up in lab experiments. What about examples of early life with no eyes or pretty much anything else organ wise, and then the "next" step? What comes after that in the fossil record, is that even documented or found, how do we know there is nothing in between, how do you know there IS a between?-Justin

Well, take elephants, wooly mammoths, etc. Are you prepared to argue/tell me that they acquired those long trunks without in-between stages of length?-Justin

Yes, it does, just like elephants have long ones. I don't see how you get from that to elephants without having some sort of "evolution". Do you see what I am getting at? Did a population of tapirs suddenly have kids with long trunks? If not, why not? Is there another explanation? If so, where is *any* showing of this in the fossil record, or anywhere else for that matter?-Justin

I am not saying that changes in populations don't occur. I'm saying I don't see populations becoming far different-looking populations.It seems to me that you must *infer* that in fact these changes took place and we got different structured animals, such as the wooly mammoth, from the tapir or something similar.Look at my response to the tapir thing.-JustinThis message has been edited by creationistal, 09-30-2004 11:24 AM

If you believe that a theory based on inference is a viable contender, that is. I'm still undecided on how much of the current ToE I can accept given mathematics and the 2nd law of thermodynamics. There is a certain quality to life that is undeniable, that it does indeed flourish where it shouldn't, or we think couldn't, etc.But I'm still grappling with the concept that, by chance, with incredibly *small* chances of getting what we have now, or any viable alternative, that single-celled organisms developed into humans, given *any* amount of time.-Justin

Yes but you aren't observing new functions or organs being *developed* by natural selection, are you? You can observe changes, but not additions at a functional level, right?-Justin