Where is the evidence for evolution?

quote:

---

SLPx: Please start with:

​

Evidence that the information for the speciation of the salmon in question was present from the beginning.

---

I'll give some quotes for my answer:"Oxford professor Richard Dawkins is generally regarded as one of the most influential neo-Darwinists in the world. During an interview,[31] he was asked a crucial question: Can he point to any example today in which a mutation has actually added new genetic information? (If there is such an example, surely an Oxford zoology professor, promoting neo-Darwinism around the world, would know of it.) Dawkins appeared so perplexed by this question that the Creation organization who produced the video says that Dawkins’ response on screen makes a more powerful point against evolution than volumes written by creationists.[32]
Foolish Faith - Chapter 3: Two Worldviews in Conflict - Mutations: Evolution's Raw Material

quote:

---

WHAT, exactly, this information is. You must know, for otherwise you would not have claimed that it was already there.

---

"It is first necessary to briefly define what is meant by the term information in this context. The DNA code has already been defined as a set of instructions, analogous to an English message. The sequence of letters (or bases) in the code is not random or repetitive, but instead, like the letters in a written message. In other words, the code has meaning. For instance, a random sequence of English letters such as NKNTWEIOEIMYTNHATCESGA means nothing, but when the same letters are arranged THE ENEMY IS NOW ATTACKING, it becomes a meaningful message, containing meaningful information. It is the specific arrangement of letters that makes the message meaningful to someone who understands the language, and this meaningful arrangement is, in itself, information. In the same way, it is the specific arrangement of letters (or bases) in the DNA code that makes the code meaningful to the body, which understands the DNA (genetic) language. This meaningful arrangement of letters in the DNA code is what makes up the information that tells the body how to produce a particular physical feature or characteristic, such as an eyeball or hair color.[22]"
Foolish Faith - Chapter 3: Two Worldviews in Conflict - Mutations: Evolution's Raw Material

quote:

---

Explain why "no new information" can arise naturalistically.
To answer this, start by providing a biologically relevant definiton of "information."
Support the above responses with verifiable scientific sources.

---

"Another scientist, Dr. Ian Macreadie, winner of several scientific awards for outstanding contributions to molecular biological research, affirms that all you see in the lab is either gene duplications, reshuffling of existing genes, or defective genes (with a loss of information)But you never see any new information arising in a cellwe just don’t observe it happening. It’s hard to see how any serious scientist could believe that real information can arise just by itself, from nothing.[33]Foolish Faith - Chapter 3: Two Worldviews in Conflict - Mutations: Evolution's Raw MaterialThanks,
S.------------------
"You can no more alter God than a pebble can alter the rhythm of the Pacific."

So sonnikke stoops to using the fraudulent Dawkins video to try and support his position. I will give him the benefit of the doubt this time because he may simply have blindly copied from his creationist source.The real story behind this creatioist fraud can be found here. Dawkins' silence has nothing to do with a supposed inability to answer a dubbed-in question but the realisation that the interview had been gained on dishonest and mischievious grounds.So perhaps sonnikke could actually answer the question which was asked of him rather than throwing around red herrings.

quote:

---

Percy:
Mutation is the source of new information, and natural selection is the pruning mechanism that decides which mutations pass on to the next generation.

​

Sonnikke:
Gee, if I didn't know any better, I would say that it sounds an awful lot like INTELLIGENCE that which you are describing.
Words like "source", "pruning mechanism" and "decides"....doesn't sound like a random un-guided naturalistic accidental phenomenon to me...

---

Sonnikke needs to get some clues. A LOT of clues.Charles Darwin's great conceptual breakthrough was to recognize that attempts to survive and reproduce are just like what a selective breeder does. And survival and reproduction are NOT completely random. In fact, they often have a strong nonrandom component.Thus, a bacterium in an antibiotic-laced environment will have an easier time surviving if it is resistant to that antibiotic. Thus, the emergence of antibiotic-resistant strains. Or does that bacterium have a Fairy Godmother who carefully engineers its antibiotic resistance?Looking further, we notice:Grass has phytoliths, silica particles that grind down the teeth of grass-eaters.Deer have big molars to grind up grass, and fermentation-vat stomachs to digest it.Deer can run fast to escape wolves, and their eyes and ears point sort-of sideways, because wolves can come from any direction.Wolves can run fast to catch deer, and their eyes and ears point forward, because that is the body-relative direction that they travel to approach deer.Wolves scratch themselves to rid themselves of fleas.Fleas have mouthparts that can penetrate wolf skin, enabling them to drink wolf blood.It would seem that grass, deer, wolves, and fleas have separate Fairy Godmothers, who like to sic their creations on each other.The grass one thinks "Be hard to eat!"
The deer one thinks "Eat grass and escape wolves!"
The wolf one thinks "Catch deer and get rid of fleas!"
The flea one thinks "Drink blood!"However, predator-prey and parasite-host relationships easily fit into the Darwinian paradigm, a paradigm of "genetic selfishness". Self-sacrificing Shmoo-like organisms simply do not exist in nature, and Darwinism provides a straightforward explanation for that.

Sonnikke seems to define "information" as some measure of functionality. But gain of this type of "information" has often been observed, in the form of bacteria acquring new metabolic capabilities, like being able to eat nylon oligomers.Except of course if these nylon-eating bugs' had an ancestor who had a fairy godmother who thought about itPoor thing! All this nylon and you can't eat it? I must give you the ability to eat it.Also, I am a computer programmer, which makes me an intelligent designer. Even though I am far from omnipotent, far from omniscient, and I will concede far from completely benevolent, I do have some ability to distinguish good from bad design.[This message has been edited by lpetrich, 02-05-2003]

quote:

---

"it is the specific arrangement of letters (or bases) in the DNA code that makes the code meaningful to the body, which understands the DNA (genetic) language. This meaningful arrangement of letters in the DNA code is what makes up the information that tells the body how to produce a particular physical feature or characteristic, such as an eyeball or hair color."

---

There are many examples of gain of genetic information, lpetrich has already mentioned the nylon digesting bacteria, another nice example is the evolution of the antifreeze gene in antarctic fish. The process that gave rise to the new genetic information was as follows:Duplication of the trypsinogen genedeletion of a large part of the gene givivng rise by chance to an amino acid sequence that binds to ice.the ice binding sequence was then duplicated increasing the ice binding properties.In the end we are left with a new gene that is:understandable by the cell's transcription system ("meaningful arrangement of letters in the DNA code").The gene which was originally duplicated still exists so there is no loss of information.The new gene gives a new useful function to the organism ("tells the body how to produce a particular physical feature").L. Chen, A. L. DeVries, and C. H. Cheng. Evolution of antifreeze glycoprotein gene from a trypsinogen gene in Antarctic notothenioid fish. Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci.U.S.A 94 (8):3811-3816, 1997.

Base substitution is the simplest and most basic form of mutation. It is so common that you could cite practically any act of reproduction as an example. Try this search at Google: Some of the hits look apropos, such as this paper relating how a single base substitution caused a change in chromatin structure in yeast: Mutations create new information, and natural selection controls which mutations are successful. There is no limit to the number of mutations a genome can experience, and hence no limit to the degree of change and amount of new information that can accumulate.--Percy

quote:

---

So perhaps sonnikke could actually answer the question which was asked of him rather than throwing around red herrings.

---

What about the other quote?, see below:"Another scientist, Dr. Ian Macreadie, winner of several scientific awards for outstanding contributions to molecular biological research, affirms that all you see in the lab is either gene duplications, reshuffling of existing genes, or defective genes (with a loss of information)But you never see any new information arising in a cellwe just don’t observe it happening. It’s hard to see how any serious scientist could believe that real information can arise just by itself, from nothing.[33]

Please supply the reference, so that we can examine the context.Not that we don't trust creationist quote mining or anything....

weird - I posted this, saw this on the board, came back and then it was gone. Reposting...You:

quote:

---

? The barrier is that there is only so much information in the genome, and the information required to change a fish into a reptile say, is NOT THERE, and it will NEVER generate by random mutation and natural selection.

---

Me:

quote:

---

So, according to your "limited information" idea, where did the information come from to change one species of salmon into two?

---

You:

quote:

---

To answer your question, the information that allowed this variation was programmed in the genome from the beginning. Nothing new was added.

---

So how do you know that the information to turn fishes into reptiles (say) is NOT THERE, if all the information is "programmed" in from the beginning?PE

The quote is cut n pasted from Foolish FaithThe giveaway [33] refers to "Creation ex nihilo magazine, March-May, 1999"PEEdited to add: found the link: Missing Link | Answers in Genesis [This message has been edited by Primordial Egg, 02-05-2003]

It's rather a shame for Dr McCreadie that new metabolic pathways have been observed to evolve.

Good friend of TB I believe. Maybe we could get him on evc? PE

The numbers of deleted messages are not reused, even if it's the last message that's deleted. No message numbers are missing in this thread, and message number twiddling isn't a capability available even to administrators.Nonetheless, I'm sure something unusual must have happened if you're certain the message was posted. Please let us know if this or something similar happens again.------------------
--EvC Forum Administrator

So, what about this quote? I have no idea why Dr. Macreadie would make statements inconsistent with universally available evidence. You have enought information to figure this out for yourself. For example, he's certainly incorrect when he says a defective gene is loss of information, as the example of the base substitution error I provided illustrates. The new allele may be beneficial or, more likely, detrimental, but it *is* new information, something you were claiming couldn't happen.--Percy

My guess is that PE was looking at the message in the preview window, and not as the posted form, and that the message never got posted.Adminnemooseusps. See e-mail I just sent you------------------
{mnmoose@lakenet.com}