As has been pointed out, creationists making this argument don't give a quantitative defintion of "information". This means that we can't test the claim that mutations don't increase "information"; and we can't analyse the claim that evolution requires the increase of "information".
So it would seem at first glance that like so much creationist rhetoric, it's so ill-defined as to be completely meaningless.
For example, the particular article you cite defines "information" as follows:
INFORMATION - What is conveyed or represented by a particular arrangement or sequence of things : genetically transmitted information.
This does not allow us to compare the quantity of "information" in two genomes, or to decide whether a given mutation increases or decreases the "information". This same author writes that:
[Information] has to be increased for the theory of evolution to be plausible.
(My emphasis).
And yet this author doesn't say how we can
measure how much "information" is contained in a genome, nor how we may calculate whether this "information" is created or destroyed by any particular mutation.
He demands that evolution should "increase" the amount of "information", but doesn't trouble to tell us how to measure the amount of "information".
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It seems almost as though the creationists are simply mouthing meaningless phrases. However, we can show that creationist claims are false according to any reasonable definition of "information". Stop me if I'm, wrong, but I would say that:
By any reasonable definition of "information", two completely identical genomes must contain the same amount of "information".
What follows from this?
Well, every mutation has an inverse. A point mutation can be undone by an opposite point mutation. An insertion can be undone by a deletion. A frame shift can be reversed by another frame shift. And so forth.
In general, if there is a series of mutations which gets you from genome (a) to genome (b), then there is also a series of mutations which gets you from genome (b) to genome (a).
So, if it is claimed that some series of mutations --- from (a) to (b) --- destroys "information", then the reverse sequence of mutations which get you from (b) to (a) must
create "information". Because otherwise you could go from (a) to (b) and then back to (a) with a net destruction of "information". But (a) and (a) are the same genome, and so must have the same amount of "information", by the principle we set down above ---
two completely identical genomes must contain the same amount of "information"..
So if some mutations detroy "information", other mutations must create "information".
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If you are astute, you might think that you see a loophole here. A creationist might argue that in fact "information" can neither be created nor destroyed by mutation, but must be
conserved. Now, if this was true, it would be true, in particular, of any series of deletion mutations. If mutation could neither create nor destroy information, then deleting any part (or the whole) of a genome would not destroy any "information".
But if
that is true, then no genome contains any "information", and then the claim that "mutations can't create information" is irrelevant, since in that case mutations can create any genome you please without creating "information" as so defined.
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In summary, if "information" is defined in any way we can measure, either there is no "information" in the genome, and so we don't have to explain how it got there; or there is "information" in the genome, and mutation can increase it as well as decrease it.
And if, as is invariably the case, "information" is
not quantatively defined, then the creationists don't even have an argument.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.
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