Why Evolution is science

Evolution is the change in species over time. This has been done in the labratory many many many times. There are innumerable examples of speciation in lab experiments. There are also many examples of speciation in the wild.Evolution thus has been duplicated in the labratory environment, thus your comment is refuted.If what you mean to say is abiogenesis, then that is a different matter, but we are still stuck with 3.5 billion years of evolution of life on this planet, whether abiogensis occurred by natural means or was "induced" by some supernatural means. Evolution also predicts that intermediate forms will be found between fossils and levels of development. In specific cases this can be used to predict where on the globe, when in the stratigraphic layers, and what kind of intermediate fossil can be found.Tiktaalik is one example of just this kind of find predicted by those conditions.Discovered: the missing link that solves a mystery of evolution | Evolution | The Guardian

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"We knew that the rocks on Ellesmere Island offered a glimpse into the right time period and were formed in the right kinds of environments to provide the potential for finding fossils documenting this important evolutionary transition."

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When Tiktaalik lived, the Canadian Arctic region was part of a land mass which straddled the equator. Like the Amazon basin today, it had a subtropical climate and the animal lived in small streams.

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They went to a specific location, specifically looking for a specific transitional organism at at place where the specific time and the specific habitat would have been right - predicted by the evolution of organisms from sea to land. It isn't faith to deny the existence of evidence for evolution and it isn't faith to deny the existence of evidence for an old earth.Enjoy.ps - welcome to the fray DivineBeginning

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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It's so common it hardly makes the news anymore. For an example of how well documented it is I refer to Aig:Arguments we think creationists should NOT use
Arguments to Avoid Topic | Answers in Genesis

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“No new species have been produced.”

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This is not true ” new species have been observed to form.

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Acknowledged by AiG: still want to argue this point? Abiogenesis has nothing to do with mutations in existing life - that is evolution. Abiogensis is about the development of life by natural means.And the fact that this has absolutely nothing to do with evolution - animals do not mutate into new organisms - means you are arguing against a straw man and not reality. The problems with probabilities is that in order to calculate them you need to know all the possibilities. I suggest you read the old improbable probability problem for a number of problems associated with creationist probability calculations. Then you should also be able to spot the false assumptions and improper calculations used. It also cannot rule it out.Sorry to burst your bubble, but mathematics is not reality, and it has no power over reality. If a mathematical model fails to predict what you see in reality then the mathematical model is wrong, not the reality.Enjoy.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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type [qs]quote boxes are easy[/qs] and it becomes:Please demonstrate your knowledge rather than claim it. The probability thread is your opportunity: the old improbable probability problem. This is OFF TOPIC on this thread, and further discussion should be addressed on the thread linked.Looks like you are one to come in and make a bunch of assertions before substantiating any. This will result in a LOT of people jumping all over your posts pointing out ALL the errors in them. Then you will feel overwhelmed and ganged-up on. I suggest you stick to one topic at a time.This topic has been covered on a number of threads already. If you want we can start a thread just for you to present your case. This is OFF TOPIC on this thread, and further discussion should be on a new thread. Do you want a new thread now? (just yes or no)I'm not talking about new species being found, I am talking about new species evolving directly out of other species. This has been observed. AiG concurs that it has been observed. Evolution has been observed.Denial of evidence is not faith.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : transfered arguments to linked threads for on-topic discussions

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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Welcome to the fray Confidence (yellow for emPHAsis)Thus to complain that evolution is "a philosophy to explain things without God" does NOT mean that it is not science NOR that it is doing something WRONG compared to other sciences, or there is a logical contradiction on your part.Science - not just evolution - is necessarily agnostic. It is about studying the natural world and the natural processes that we can tease out by observation and theory and testing and more observation. And this of course also explains why so many Christians and people of other faiths have no problem working in the field of evolution. There are more Christians that have no problem with evolution than there are Christians that do: The problem would not appear to be evolution per se but some OTHER factor that differentiates one Christian from another. That definition fits evolution just as well as any other science.Evolution is the change in species over time: this is observed, it has happened, it is a fact that it has happened, both in the lab and in the wild world. It has been observed, it has been subject to experiment and repeated, it has been measured: it is science.Enjoy.

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As noted by others natural selection is part of evolution. The other part is mutations that provide the variety for natural selection to act on, thus any demonstration that shows natural selection has occurred actually demonstrates both elements have occurred (natural selection cannot operate on mutations\variations that do not exist in the populations).Another definition of evolution is the change in the frequency of alleles within a population - this is a little more technical, but really means the same thing. Thus when moths or finches are selected for one variation in a feature over another, that changes the frequency of alleles within that population, and when the selection pressure swings back and selects features as they were before, that too changes the frequency of alleles within the population. This is part of the population dynamics, especially in sexual species, where populations continuously oscillate about mean values for alleles in the population.Only when you have speciation events do you in essence "lock in" a population to a shift in the mean values for some alleles where they are different from mean values of the previous population (although there can still be some overlap in many genes). Thus speciation is the best confirmation that evolution has occurred that has produced a lasting (until they change again or go extinct) change. This shift can be as small as a change in the time of day that a population breeds.For some examples of speciation I suggest reading
Observed Instances of SpeciationIt has a discussion of the arguments currently on-going in the science of evolution (as they are ongoing in all sciences) and of the definitions and mechanisms. But just to hit the highlights, it lists a number of speciation events in multicellular species where sexual speciation can be more easily documented.

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5.1 Speciations Involving Polyploidy, Hybridization or Hybridization Followed by Polyploidization.

5.1.1.1 Evening Primrose (Oenothera gigas)
5.1.1.2 Kew Primrose (Primula kewensis)
5.1.1.3 Tragopogon
5.1.1.4 Raphanobrassica
5.1.1.5 Hemp Nettle (Galeopsis tetrahit)
5.1.1.6 Madia citrigracilis
5.1.1.7 Brassica
5.1.1.8 Maidenhair Fern (Adiantum pedatum)
5.1.1.9 Woodsia Fern (Woodsia abbeae)

5.2 Speciations in Plant Species not Involving Hybridization or Polyploidy

5.2.1 Stephanomeira malheurensis
5.2.2 Maize (Zea mays)

5.2.3 Speciation as a Result of Selection for Tolerance to a Toxin: Yellow Monkey Flower (Mimulus guttatus)

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5.3 The Fruit Fly Literature

5.3.1 Drosophila paulistorum
5.3.3 Selection on Courtship Behavior in Drosophila melanogaster
5.3.4 Sexual Isolation as a Byproduct of Adaptation to Environmental Conditions in Drosophila melanogaster
5.3.5 Sympatric Speciation in Drosophila melanogaster
5.3.6 Isolation Produced as an Incidental Effect of Selection on several Drosophila species
5.3.7 Selection for Reinforcement in Drosophila melanogaster
5.3.8 Tests of the Founder-flush Speciation Hypothesis Using Drosophila

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There are more. Each one is discussed with some pros and some cons. Most of the literature is not so much about speciation occurring but about the mechanism by which it occurs. This fits with #4 in the caveats that go with the above article:

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The literature on observed speciations events is not well organized. I found only a few papers that had an observation of a speciation event as the author's main point (e.g. Weinberg, et al. 1992). In addition, I found only one review that was specifically on this topic (Callaghan 1987). This review cited only four examples of speciation events. Why is there such a seeming lack of interest in reporting observations of speciation events?

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In my humble opinion, four things account for this lack of interest. First, it appears that the biological community considers this a settled question. ...

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Second, most biologists accept the idea that speciation takes a long time (relative to human life spans). Because of this we would not expect to see many speciation events actually occur. ...

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Third, the literature contains many instances where a speciation event has been inferred. ...

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Finally, most of the current interest in speciation concerns theoretical issues. Most biologists are convinced that speciation occurs. What they want to know is how it occurs.

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I also note in passing that only ONE speciation event needs to be documented for the process to be validated, as that totally invalidates (falsifies) the concept that it canNOT occur.That is in current day species. Another source of data is the fossil record, but here there is less consistent data -- there is not a continuous fossil record due to the infrequency with which organisms fossilize, whether plant or animal or other.In one case though we have a pretty good record over a substantial amount of time: Geology Dept article 3
article 8Two different articles about the same study involving an order (taxon level above species, genus and family) of single cell protozoa called foraminifera:

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Often heard shortened to "forams," the name comes from the Latin word foramen, or "opening." The organisms can be likened to amoebas wearing shells, perforated to allow strands of protoplasm to bleed through. The shell shapes range from the plain to the bizarre.

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Tropical and sub-tropical seas around the globe abound with forams, which are generally divided into two types: the free-floating, planktonic form, which is uniformly small (usually less than a 50th of an inch long); and the benthic or bottom-dwelling variety, which is typically much larger.
But it's the planktonic variety that chiefly interests Parker and Arnold. ...

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... Advanced deepsea drilling techniques, combined with computer-assisted analytical tools, have ushered in a whole new vista of foram research. Arnold and Parker are two of the first scientists to harness sophisticated technology to a foram project for the express purpose of studying evolution.

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As he spoke, Arnold showed a series of photographs, taken through a microscope, depicting the evolutionary change wrought on a single foraminiferan species.

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"This is the same organism, as it existed through 500,000 years," Arnold said. "We've got hundreds of examples like this, complete life and evolutionary histories for dozens of species."

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Counting both living and extinct animals, about 330 species of planktonic forams have been classified so far, Arnold said. After thorough examinations of marine sediments collected from around the world, micropaleontologists now suspect these are just about all the free-floating forams that ever existed.

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..."But these fossils are almost perfectly preserved, despite being millions of years old. We have the whole creature, minus the protoplasm."

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By being so small, the fossil shells escaped nature's grinding and crushing forces, which over the eons have in fact destroyed most of the evidence of life on Earth. The extraordinary condition of the shells permits Parker and Arnold to study in detail not only how a whole species developed, but how individuals physiologically developed from birth to adulthood.
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"We've literally seen hundreds of speciation events," Arnold added. "This allows us to check for patterns, to determine what exactly is going on. We can quickly tell whether something is a recurring phenomenon -- a pattern -- or whether it's just an anomaly.

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The foram record clearly reveals a robust, highly branched evolutionary tree, complete with Darwin's predicted "dead ends" -- varieties that lead nowhere -- and a profusion of variability in sizes and body shapes. Moreover, transitional forms between species are readily apparent, making it relatively easy to track ancestor species to their descendants.

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330 species covering 500,000 years of geological time with virtually no missing members: a jigsaw puzzle with maybe 5% of the pieces missing is still enough to see what the picture looked like. But that is not all that the fossil record of these organisms show:

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The resulting data base thus holds unprecedented power for evolutionary studies, Arnold said. Not only can he and Parker use it to describe how evolution has worked in a particular species, but they can use it as a standard by which evolution theories -- of which there's a growing number -- may be tested.

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The geologic record has been prominently scarred by a series of global cataclysms of unknown, yet hotly debated, origin. Each event, whether rapid or slow, wreaked wholesale carnage on the planet's ecology, wiping out countless species that had taken nature millions of years to produce. Biologists have always wondered how life bounces back after such sweeping devastation.

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One of the last great extinctions occurred roughly 66 million years ago, and according to one popular theory it resulted from Earth's receiving a direct hit from a large asteroid. Whatever the cause, the event proved to be the dinosaurs' coup de grace, and also wiped out a good portion of Earth's marine life -- including almost all species of planktonic forams.

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Some scientists have theorized, but never been able to demonstrate, that in the absence of competition, an explosion of life takes place. The evolution of new species is greatly accelerated, and a profusion of body shapes and sizes bursts across the horizon, filling up vacant spaces like weeds overtaking a pristine lawn. An array of new forms fan out into these limited niches, where crowding soon forces most of the new forms to spin out into oblivion, as sparks from a flame.

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As revealed by the ancient record left by the foram family, the story of recovery after extinction is every bit as busy and colorful as some scientists have long suspected.

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"What we've found suggests that the rate of speciation increases dramatically in a biological vacuum," Parker said. "After the Cretaceous extinction, the few surviving foram species began rapidly propagating into new species, and for the first time we're able to see just how this happens, and how fast."

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Now personally I am not surprised to find that "punk eek" (punctuated equilibrium) did not occur in these organisms, because they are single cell protozoa and not a sexual species. This makes a difference to the population dynamics that allow sexual species to revert (as the moths and finches have done) by re-spreading a gene that was common before and which is favorable to the population as a whole again. In asexual species there is no prevalent mechanism to share old deselected genes back into the population, so what generally occurs is just more evolution in the ones that have it while those that don't have it die out. Sexual selection would tend to select for best overall average allele combinations and thus would drive a "trendency" towards stasis when there is no selection pressure on a population to change, a mix and remix of alleles that cannot occur in asexual species.As a final note, AiG agrees that speciation occurs, from "Arguments we think creationists should NOT use":

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“No new species have been produced.”
This is not true -- new species have been observed to form. In fact, rapid speciation is an important part of the creation model.

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Now of course you will claim that this is only "micro"evolution and it does not show that "macro"evolution can occur, and to that end I have these comments:

1. the issue for creationists is not evolution per se but the concept of a common ancestor or pool of ancestors from which current life forms -- including man -- have evolved.
2. the "goo to you" argument is really irrelevant, as the evolution of primates, then apes and then man does not need to involve a "goo" formation of life in order to invalidate the concept of man as a special creation (unless evolution is the process by which that special creation - from clay? - is realized, and if THAT is the case then there is no problem at all with evolution).
3. "macro"evolution as used by evolution biologists is really just an artifact of taxonomy, and the differences between levels in the taxon chart are differences in the quantity of change not in the quality of change: they all start with speciation, and at no point is change larger than speciation needed. It is like watching a tree grow and determining when a twig is a twig and when it becomes a branch -- all the branches start as twigs.
4. "macro"evolution, "micro"evolution, evolution, speciation, natural selection, mutation, and other concepts that are NOT the same as ones used by evolution biologists are irrelevant - if you are discussing these altered concepts then you are not discussing what the biological science says but some irrelevant fantasy instead.

If you have any questions on this, then by all means trot out your definitions of these terms and ask questions, and people here will be happy to show you where they are inconsistent with modern evolution biology and what evolution means.Enjoy.

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To add to what others have noted: No, I would say that you are contradicting the way evolution is defined in the science, and thus you are no longer really talking about evolution science at all but some straw man or fantasy version of it. This would be like someone discussing the problems with the bible using the Koran.See Definitions, Daffynitions, Delusions, Logic and Critical Thinking. for a longer discussion of this problem.Stating that what evolution biology defines as evolution happens, but that it is not evolution by your definition, is not refuting evolution at all, but exposing your concept of evolution as false. That allows the organism with the genes\alleles to survive or reproduce with higher probability than ones without the genes\alleles. The word "benefit" has connotations of good versus bad that are irrelevant, and the relative survival and reproductive success is not always cut and dried. Sigh.In order to say this as anything but a bare assertion, the concept of information needs to have been defined for a biological species, there needs to be a metric to measure the actual amount of information in a specific organism according to that definition, and studies that actually show a change in the measured amounts of biological information need to have been completed, documented, published, peer reviewed and replicated by skeptics.As far as I know this has not even been started, but feel free to correct me and post this information if you have it. That makes this a loose undefined term with no real meaning in it. It cannot have any scientific validity without being documented.I also would like to discuss the problem with reversals as regards this issue. Certainly we see with the peppered moths (Peppered Moths and Natural Selection) and galapogos finches (Galapagos finches, Finches named for Darwin are evolving) that reversals in the distributions of genes\alleles happen. When they occur within a species (as in the above cases) it is because the {is it information?} is obviously NOT lost.Likewise when a population separates into two new populations that share most genes\alleles but not all of them, there is also OBVIOUSLY no "loss" in {is it information?} -- it is just divided between populations that are now free to diverge as they diversify.But we ALSO have cases where a feature is lost in one species by natural selection and then a later species regains that feature:(Copied to save bandwidth - original sources: Nature Article Loss and recovery of wings in stick insects, Nature 421, 264 - 267 (16 January 2003); doi:10.1038/nature01313, and Supplemental Figure 1. (for the article))Also see Walking sticks regained flight after 50 million years of winglessness (news article) and Message 18.The bottom line: no wings, wings, no wings, wings (Lapaphus parakensis - just below the middle of Figure 1 above).So, was the {is it information?} to make wings lost and later added back, or was the {is it information?} on how to use the {is it information?} to make wings lost and later added back?Either way IF your claim that {is it information?} was lost in the process at one point is valid THEN it is invalidated by the addition or regaining of replacement {is it information?} at a later date.Thus we see that if {whatever you call it} is lost in one instance then it must also be added at another: the concept that loss is always present is invalidated, the concept that "information" is a useful term is invalidated. Dogs are wolves but wolves are not dogs - one evolved from the other and will always be a member of the parent clad.Wolves are canines, but not all canines are wolves - wolves evolved from a canine clad defining species and will always be a member of the parent clad.Thus dogs will also always be canines.Thus dogs will always be dogs does not mean that evolution within the dog clad will stop and that offspring of dogs cannot become new species that do not breed with parent or other offspring species.History does not prevent the future. If this is your later "definition" (if you can even call it that ... "impression" would be closer to what's given), it too is contradicting the way evolution is defined in the science, and thus you are no longer really talking about evolution science at all but some straw man or fantasy version of it.Mutations happen, natural selection takes the randomness out of the equation, selecting the ones that lead to increased survival or reproduction. This is like throwing 200 dice and only selecting the "1's" to set aside and throwing the rest again until they are all "1's" versus trying to throw 200 "1's" all in one throw.Some throws there are no "1's" at all -- sometimes there are no variations within a population that allow an organism to survive or reproduce and the population goes extinct. Stuff happens.In evolution, to carry this analogy to the breaking point, getting 200 "1's" is a new feature or function that was previously not there: the same selected value on all dice. Beneficial, as in adding "information" that allows an organism to survive or reproduce with higher frequency than one without it? As pointed out, they will always be classified in the clads of their ancestors. A poodle is a dog and a wolf and a canine. This is consistent with evolution as used by evolution biologists. Again this is like a twig growing on a tree becoming a branch as the tree gets older, with twigs growing from it.And whether you believe it happens or not has absolutely no influence on the reality of the universe.You may want to read evolutionary chain particularly the stuff on horse evolution starting at Message 145 and ending with Message 149 where it is noted that the horse hoof acts like an auxiliary pump to increase blood flow in the legs.Enjoy

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No, the problem is when you claim that "information" is lost or that "information" is not added.In order to do that you have to have an actual measurement of the amount of "information" before and after, not just assert one result and deny the other.The other problem is that IF "information" can be lost, changed and added, then there is no usefulness to the term.Thus it is meaningless until there is a metric to measure the amount of "information" in an organism, and talking about it is just wasted time and bandwidth. Then go and develop the science until you have a metric that can be used to measure the amount in an organism, study the levels and SEE if this is a useful term before pre-concluding a result and basing an argument on it. Snakes get added vertebrae by copy mutations. Scientists can put a gene for 'leg' at the place for the gene for 'feeler' and the fly will grow a leg instead of a feeler.Point refuted. So is the mutation that turns the switch "on" added "information" or the one that turns the switch "off" added "information"?Or is there a switch that turns the switch that turns the wings on and off? And is the mutation that turns the switch "on" that then turns the switch "on" added "information" or the one that turns the switch "off" that then turns the switch "off" added "information"?Or is there a switch that turns the switch switch that turns the switch that turns the wings on and off?If something is lost in one process then how is it regained when the process is reversed without SOMETHING being added?Without knowing precisely what you are talking about you really cannot say. You just don't have enough information on the information about information.Enjoy.

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Error admission noted. And yes, if you are in any way going to talk about any kind of relative scale of any feature or function or attribute, you need some kind of way to measure it. This should be obvious.Nobody is disputing that you can attribute "information" to the genome or DNA or even to the overall cellular structures of organisms. What is disputed is that some measured quantity is lost or gained. That looks like four (4) different units: which one is greater than the others? But it added one (1) "foot" unit didn't it? So is a foot a unit or not? It also deducted a "feeler" unit: is a "feeler" unit bigger or smaller than a "foot" unit? So you don't have "vertebra" units? And yet at some point there was no vertebrae yes? Does adding "vertebra" units create a tail where there was none before? Not to belabor a point, but what do you define as a head? If a worm has a mouth at one end, does it have a head? If it grows eyes at that end does it have a head?And now consider this picture:
Note that (A) is a modern chimp and that (J), (K) and (L) are neanderthals.
Can you tell me if the "head" quantity has increased or decreased in this picture? Is there a major difference between the "head" quantity of (A) chimp and (N) human?Given that the internal structure has been modified over time:
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/hbook/brain.htm

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With regard to brain reorganization, left-right cerebral hemispheric asymmetries exist in extant pongids and the australopithecines, but neither the pattern nor direction is as strongly developed as in modern or fossil Homo. KNM-ER 1470 shows a strong pattern that may be related to handedness and tool-use/manufacture. The degree of asymmetry appears to increase in later hominids.

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The appearance of a more human-like third inferior frontal convolution provides another line of evidence about evolutionary reorganization of the brain. None of the australopithecine endocasts show this region preserved satisfactorily. There is a consensus among palaeoneurologists that the endocast of the specimen KNM-ER 1470 does show, however, a somewhat more complex and modern-human-like third inferior frontal convolution compared with those of pongids.

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(Note that KNM-ER 1470 is "F" in the picture above)Is there a "brain" unit as well as a "head" unit? A "frontal lobe" unit? A numerical value in what units? Heads? Tails? Shouldn't we wait to have those units and numerical values before claiming results involving them?Enjoy.

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Please apply this definition to the following two cases^{^1} and show the relative levels of information contained in each one:

1. Woman, without her man, is nothing.
2. Woman, without her, man is nothing.

Notice that there is a point "mutation" in the location of the "," and that the meaning of the sentence is changed.Each of these fit your "Gitt" definition of information, so how much information does each have?Or is your definition still missing a meanigful way to measure and quantify what it is dancing around...Notice that evolution only needs the information to be changed for a mutation to make a difference in the organism, and doesn't care whether it is "more" or "less" by some arbitrary metric. Evolution can easily go from (1) to (2) OR from (2) to (1) and it doesn't matter: If one existed in the population and then a mutation created the other version so that both were available within the population then natural selection has a difference to operate on in selecting for increased survival or reproductive success, and in some situations (mysoginist club) (1) may fare better while in other situations (feminist club) (2) may fare better. Fair enough.Now show that it cannot mutate further to assemble into information that is necessary and non-random. Not being critical to the function of the organism (after all, you said it was unnecessary eh?) there is no natural selective pressure to keep it unchanged, and thus each copy in each organism that carries it can change in random ways until it does become functional in some way that benefits the organism to survive or reproduce with higher frequency. Well belief has never stopped the world from doing anything, so you need something more than just your belief (= argument from incredulity) to show that it cannot happen. Looks like your definition of information has let you down here as it doesn't give you that evidence.Then lets consider a third DNA strand of length N. Except half of it is repeated information, exactly the same as the first half. This DNA strand has a value of X/2+1 where 1 is the value of the repeated information.This is also the same as a mutation that repeats a whole sequence, so you start with length N/2 and value X, double the length to get length N and value X+1 (looks like an increase to me).Going back to your "Gitt" definition, this is like the difference between $10.00 and $100.00.In biology this would provide redundancy so that one segment could get damaged and the necessary function would still be provided by the copy.And again, now you need to show that it cannot mutate further to assemble into different information that is necessary and non-random. Not being critical to the function of the organism (after all, it's a copy eh?) there is no natural selective pressure to keep it unchanged, and thus each copy in each organism that carries it can change in random ways until it does become functional in some way that benefits the organism to survive or reproduce with higher frequency.One easy change in this condition is that under environment {A} the original segment {N} produces protein {Y} but is incapable of doing so in environment {B}. The copy segment undergoes random mutation and one happens to be able to produce protein {Y} in environment {B}: organism has increased potential for survival and reproduction.Evidence that this kind of thing happens? Nylon consuming bacteria
Toxic waste consuming bacteria
Hall's evolved IC system (in this case the original system that operates in environment {A} was destroyed and a replacement evolved from other parts).There is nothing here that prevents the addition of information, even though you still have yet to quantify the "information" involved.Enjoy.

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^{^1} - Taken from an old Stone Soup Cartoon where the mom is showing the teenager the importance of punctuation.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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Introductions are in order: Brad meet Platypus, Platypus meet Brad.Brad is one of the stalwarts of this forum and has his own style. There are a couple of threads addressed to this phenomenon. He is also a bit of a herpetologist by interest, especially in snakes.

Hey Brad, just a side note: love the book. I just happen to be reading it now. Marston was a coworker with my Dad back at UMich, and I knew him as a (me not him) kid. Played with his kids ... small world.

Let me complete the thought that I was leaning to ...What we have here is a distinct enough difference in result based on the predictions of creationism "information loss theory", and evolution "change in species over time" theory to provides us with a test to see which fits the facts better.The burden of proof lies

• with the creationist to show that (a) change is linked to information (or vice versa) and (b) information cannot increase (so all changes result in no addition to information), AND
• with the evolutionist to show that change can go in both directions (so that when the creationists develop their link between change and information that this will also mean that information goes both ways.)

The test is easier for the evolutionist because they only need to validate what their theory states -- evolution is change over time -- and that it is "direction less" (it results from selection and is not directed by any force, function or mechanism). In my opinion the walkingstick insect changes from no wings to wings to no wings to wings does this, whether it is a primary level change, a secondary level change, a third level change, etc. The change oscillates between two different values, so either one or the other MUST increase in "information" IF "information" changes OR "information" is not relative to change in species over time -- at any level -- and it is irrelevant to the issue of evolution.The test is much more difficult for the creationist, because they have to (1) develop a whole new science based on the measurement of information in biological systems to measure change in information (in the same way that geologists developed a whole new science based on the measurement of radiation in geological systems to determine age), and then (2) they have to run the studies to show the actual results.Enjoy

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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Here's another example: A Smooth Fossil Transition: Pelycodus, a primate
(graphic copied from above site to save bandwidth)A general trend towards increased size in a small North American primate over time, and then a branching, where a speciation event isolated two populations from each other and one (Notharctus venticolus) continued the trend in size growth while the other (Notharctus nunienus) reduced in size down to the original size.If the trend from Pelycodus ralstoni to Notharctus venticolus is due to the loss in information, then how can Notharctus nunienus branch off (from Pelycodus jarrovii) and go in the other direction -- getting smaller -- without gaining information?We are left with three possibilities:

1. Growth in size is due to lost information over time, thus the general trend in all animals to grow larger with time (and amenable habitat), and Notharctus nunienus gained information in order to become smaller,
2. Growth in size is due to extra information (extra cells made, causes increase in size) and Notharctus nunienus lost this information in order to become smaller, OR
3. The increase and decrease in size have nothing to do with "information", so substantial change can occur without loss or gain in information and the concept is reletively useless to the measurement of change over time.

In case #2 the "extra" information is necessarily added information, as the LOSS of that information causes a return to the original size.Either information is added (in one or the other end species) or information is irrelevant.Enjoy.

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
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So now we have information added, but with some undefined and otherwise unobserved new mechanism to cause it ... (other, of course, than the ones of evolution) ... Natural selection chooses the ones that are in that direction as they have increased probability of survival and reproduction. Some directive force is not needed to explain it. Nor does 50 speciation events in a row. Stop moving the goal posts. You were talking about information being lost by mutations.Now you admit that information was added by some "mechanism" ...and evolution explains exactly how it IS that mechanism.Thus you have not invalidated evolution but confirmed it?Enjoy.

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And then there is the strange case of the "Glass Snake", which can lose it's tail and then grow a new one:Glass Lizard - Glass Snake - Legless Lizard

quote:

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To those not familiar with them, glass lizards in the genus Ophiosaurus (literally, snake [ophio-] -lizard [saurus]) look rather like a snake with ears and blinking eyes. Careful inspection of the vent area in some species will show tiny spurs, similar to a boa or python. Related to the alligator lizards (Gerrhonotus), their head and body shape are reminiscent of those species, including the conical teeth and lateral fold. They are very un-snakelike when held, being firm in the body like an alligator lizard or large skink, rather than the softly supple body associated with snakes.

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Their common name, glass lizard or glass snake, is due to their ability, like many lizards, of dropping their tail.

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Is this a member of the snake kind or is this an example of reused DNA patterns that work for survival?Or do we have evidence of convergent evolution with both snakes and glass lizards losing limbs for adaptation to an ecological niche where they are not useful (and can even hinder the organism), especially since you have the SAME kinds of vestigal leg spurs in the same places in both glass lizards and boas?Does a snake lose information and grow spurs while a glass lizard loses information and reduces limbs to spurs?Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : information +/- questionEdited by RAZD, : changed subtitle

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