Why Evolution is science

I have to admit, I have thrown information around loosely, and assumed everyone would understand what I meant by it. I was wrong. It also seems I need some measurement system in order to determine if information was lost of gained, etc. Likewise, I have thrown and maybe intermixed the term function along with information.We all believe that evolution states that all life as we know it came form a single celled organism long ago. This single cell was the most basic and primitive self-reproducing cell. Random point mutations along with natural selection over many generations has arisen to the multitude of more complex organisms we see today. I should be safe when I say, that most of those mutations added, or contributed, to more information. For instance, the primitive cell had just enough information to self-reproduce and do the functions a cell might need to do. But it did not have the information of a hand, or a horn, or even bone itself. So it is safe to say that we as humans have more information in our DNA than the DNA of that single cell. I have not quantified information, but I would suggest that our DNA strand is a bit longer than the one of that basic cell. I'm sure we could measure the difference based on how many four letter chains there are in DNA. This would, in effect, be measuring information relative to different DNA.As platypus pointed out, creationists who accept the Bible in a straight forward way, believe the opposite happened. All the information was created in the beginning. But we also believe that the Bible says that all this was distributed along the different 'kinds' of animals. Therefore, flying snakes were there at the beginning. So, I will never say that a single celled organism existed in the beginning with all the information build into it. The Bible says that God didn't. The Bible says God created the different kinds to reproduce after their kind. Therefore, snakes will never reproduce, and after a long chain of mutations, turn into lions, or whatever creature that has information that never was there to begin with.So, I agree that there was probably an original snake kind with all the information needed to form the snakes we observe today. In fact I will say that there was more information in the beginning, than we see today. (some snakes may have died out, some structures may have been lost, look at the curse God put on the serpent, this suggests that snakes had legs before, but God put him on his belly to crawl on the ground. Snake Evolution - Photos of Vestigial Hind Limbs on Snakes ). Not true, after Noah's flood, conditions would be ripe for rapid speciation. At least that is the theory that creationists use. Evidence for it? See:Just a moment... Missing Link | Answers in Genesis
(Creationists site, but use references from evolutionists as well.) Information is not created, but an error in placement is made. Therefore the information of where it is supposed to go is either damaged or changed. But is not the type of change to go from single celled organism to a evolutionists like your self. Like wise, just because there are vertebrae added, does not mean more information. Just a growth inhibitor is damaged or changed reusing information that was already there to build the vertebrae. Platypus will know what I mean.As for you RAZD, what do units do you want me state information as?
My units that I use are: a hand, or a foot, vertebrea, a head. If an organism did not have a head before and was able to survive, and reproduce until a long, long ways down the road an offspring finally manages to have a head, don't you think that the information increase is quantified as a head? Maybe a numerical value will be given to such a head when the information theorists are done.

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Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator. In most modern scientists this belief has died: it will be interesting to see how long their confidence in uniformity survives it. Two significant developments have already appeared”the hypothesis of a lawless sub-nature, and the surrender of the claim that science is true. We may be living nearer than we suppose to the end of the Scientific Age.’*Lewis, C.S., Miracles: a preliminary study, Collins, London, p. 110, 1947.

OK, let's run with that. So, if we observed a DNA strand 'gaining length' (I suppose you mean 'an increase in the number of base pairs), then we have an increase in information?You originally made the claim that information cannot increase. You cite a single celled organism at the start of life and compare it to a human. You say there has been an increase of information. What you have not demonstrated is that this increase of information is not possible.Let's imagine evolution didn't happen though. Thus information was greater or equal in the past.That's all great, but now we have to design an experiment that shows this 'information' increasing or decreasing to see which history is accurate. Natural History or Supernatural History. If you think that information is a great way to demonstrate that Natural History has it wrong, you need to tell us what information is.I know you won't be able to, because this is an old argument and nobody has been able to actually quantify it other than to say 'natural history demands that information increases but no experiment has shown this is possible'. Maybe an experiment has been done to show that it is possible. Without knowing what you actually mean we can't test.Do you meanlength of genome?
number of genes?
number of proteins?
number of nucleotides/Nucleobases/Nucleosides/Deoxynucleotides/Ribonucleic acids/Deoxyribonucleic acids?What experiment would demonstrate to you that information can increase? What experiment would demonstrate that it can't?I suspect this isn't really about information when we look at it. I think you are just saying evolution can't happen, and is actually an argument from incredulity attempting to sound like a scientific objection.You essentially admit you have no argument when you say: Maybe? When some people are done?Right at this moment you made a claim. You have failed to back that claim up. That is where we are. You have rephrased the argument, but it has not changed. I refer you to rule number four in the forum rules:

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Points should be supported with evidence and/or reasoned argumentation. Address rebuttals through the introduction of additional evidence or by enlarging upon the argument. Do not repeat previous points without further elaboration. Avoid bare assertions.

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You are dangerously close to looping over and over. You have given no evidence for your claim. You have tried to use reasoned argumentation but in my opinion you have simply restated your position in different words. Here is your position one more time:1. Evolution/Natural History requires that information increase.2. Information cannot increase without intelligence.The post I am replying to essentially says 'I don't know what information is, but for the sake of argument let's say point 1 is right...' so now what? Can you support point 2 with reason or evidence? Will you just assert it is true, or obvious. Will you simply state that it hasn't been shown, without telling us what 'it' is.Both of your points have to be true for you to have an argument here, if we are charitable and accept the first point as a given, you still have to demonstrate the latter to be true. To do that you have to quantify information.Good luck - many have tried. All have failed.

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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I think RAZD has excellently talked about your view of information, I just want to add one thing I think you should be careful of-On one hand you talk about information being defined on a macro level-

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But it did not have the information of a hand, or a horn, or even bone itself. So it is safe to say that we as humans have more information in our DNA than the DNA of that single cell.

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On the other hand, you talk about how information is generated and replaced on a genetic level-

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I'm sure we could measure the difference based on how many four letter chains there are in DNA. This would, in effect, be measuring information relative to different DNA.

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This is in effect two different quantitative descriptions of information. There is not yet a known mechanism by which a "hand" or "backbone" is added to an organism, or by which macro-information is increased. But on the other hand, there are known mechanisms that can increase DNA length, thus showing an increase in genetic information.From what I understand, the problem with information arguments is this. Creationist see the problem with macro-information, and from that develop a theory of decrease in information. This theory of information needs to be defined quantitatively to be scientific, so naturally they revert to quantifying information in the genome. Yet there is no genome description of information yet postulated which cannot be shown to increase by known mechanisms. Therefore ceationists are in a pickle.RAZD has pointed out the problems with a macro definition of information. Here is an old thread that discusses the issues of genetic information, though I think my concise summary given above describes this previous thread pretty well. Please consider these two distinctions in information type when formulating a definition.And you still have not responded to a question raised in the opening post. Under your theory, how do you explain species that are similar and seem to be phylogenetically related? To pursue that snake example, you are claiming that snakes and flying snakes are two different groups created at the beginning of time.

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Therefore, flying snakes were there at the beginning.

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Why do snakes and flying snakes have such similar physiology if they were distinct groups created at the beginning of time? If god could creat flying snakes however he wanted, why are they like other snakes? There are many other better ways to achieve gliding than flying snakes, why was the snake body plan used to create this set of gliders? These basic questions are easily answered in conventional evolutionary theory, but pose major problems for your creationist theory.

I used Werner Gitt's information theory to explain the definition of information.
Information requires:A capacity of the medium, or the frequency of the symbols used within this information system (statistics).There needs to be a meaning behind each of the symbols used within that system (semantics).The special arrangements of the symbols, like grammar or spelling (syntax).This code needs to have an audience, that is, needs be able to be decoded by an agent to perform the desired intent of this code (Pragmatics).The code has to have a purpose behind it, done through an agent (Apobatics). This agent can be any source, including the randomness, or chemical predestination. Or God. Information must have at least these 5 qualities. So, in a DNA strand the information is made up of:
1) Statistics - the space that is filled with one of the four letters within this DNA alphabet ( T,G,A,C).2) Semantics - T,G,A,C have special properties that differentiate one from the other, that is each has a special meaning within this information system.3) Syntax - the order/arrangements (grammar, spelling) of these four letters makes a difference on what the message is.4) Pragmatics - The cell as a whole acts out the messages contained within this DNA strand. The cell itself being there shows tha5) Apobetics - There is a purpose to the messages in this DNA strand, to build the cell, regulate its functions etc. This purpose is fulfilled by pragmatics.So, this is what information is described by Werner Gitt. This is the definition of information I meant all along. He will say that Apobetics point to God, who has put the purpose there. But in evolutionary terms, it is the random point mutations couple with natural selection that put this information there.Now the task is to quantify this information.Assumption 1: all information is equal in value. Example, all sentences of the same length with no repetitive information or unnecessary characters (like two spaces in a row), have the same value.The first case is a simple DNA strand of length N, filled with information that is not repeated, or filled with unnecessary characters . This length of DNA has the maximum capacity of information. I will give it a value of X. We could count up the letters (T,G,A, or C) used or the spaces occupied (done by statistics) and use that as a number to represent the information content.Now, there is a 2nd DNA strand of length N. Except half of it is filled with non repeated information, or unnecessary characters. But the other half is filled with random letters, this half does not fit with the definition for information because it has no message that has a purpose to anything in that system, it has no syntax other than a random arrangement. This DNA strand has a value of X/2.Now let us apply this to evolution/natural selection.
If a mutation happens within a section that describes a protein, and this mutation destroys the meaning of a 'word' or a 'sentence', it will most likely upset the making of this protein when the RNA copies this error. Again, it all depends on the error checking within the cell, how well the cell can extrapolate to guess the original 'word' or 'sentence'. Let us suppose there is no error checking, then the protein will be non functional. (In computer code, one spelling mistake will upset the running of the program, usually there is a compiler that will catch this before the program is run). So there is a decrease in information, as this code that was originally meant to make a protein, now no longer can do this because the syntax no longer makes sense to the recipient (assuming no error fixing on the recipients part). Information is lost from the system.However, this piece of code remains in the DNA,(it is not considered information) and during the next generations, more and more mutations change the overall semantics of this code, and now after Z many generations this piece of code now codes for a different protein. It has the same length as the previous code for making the original protein. Now the amount of information is the same as before the first mutation. But information has been gained (first lost, then gained).It is this type of information gaining that I, and other creationists, believe NEVER happened in life.We believe mutations happen, however, information is always lost, but never gained by random mutations. Information can be gained in a species if introduced artificially, or by breeding with another of its kind that has additional information that overrides the mutated segment of DNA or add to the DNA itself.So, I have tried to come up with some theory of how we may quantize information. I hope this clears up a little more of what I was trying to say.

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Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator. In most modern scientists this belief has died: it will be interesting to see how long their confidence in uniformity survives it. Two significant developments have already appeared”the hypothesis of a lawless sub-nature, and the surrender of the claim that science is true. We may be living nearer than we suppose to the end of the Scientific Age.’*Lewis, C.S., Miracles: a preliminary study, Collins, London, p. 110, 1947.

Concerning my previous attempt to quantify information, there is something I need to add to make it more robust.In my examples, where we have information with value X, we can only compare with the same information system. That is, the DNA uses four symbols as part of its alphabet. But the same length of that DNA will contain more information than that system which uses only 2 symbols (like the binary system). To convert between systems, we need to add an additional parameter to compare different systems. For instance if we have a system 'A' that uses two symbols (binary 0,1), and a system 'B' that uses four symbols (DNA T,G,A,C) than we could multiply the capacity by the amount of symbols used in that system.The next example assumes that the slots are filled with what I have defined as information.Example, if we have 8 slots that can be filled with one character per slot. Then the amount of information in that system using system 'A' we get a maximum of 8 x 2 = 16 units of information. When we use system 'B' we get a maximum of 8 x 4 = 24 units of information.So system 'B' can hold more information than system 'A'.

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Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator. In most modern scientists this belief has died: it will be interesting to see how long their confidence in uniformity survives it. Two significant developments have already appeared”the hypothesis of a lawless sub-nature, and the surrender of the claim that science is true. We may be living nearer than we suppose to the end of the Scientific Age.’*Lewis, C.S., Miracles: a preliminary study, Collins, London, p. 110, 1947.

Hello platypus, I believe the first snake made was a flying snake as well. So I do not necessarily believe two snake kinds were made. One snake kind with all the information necessary to spread out to the ones we see today. This is how we explain species that seem to be phylogenetically related. You can view our view as a giant tree branching downwards, where the top kind is the original kind (the kind that came of the ark of Noah). So the top kind is the one with the most and all information in it that we see dispersed today.Edited by Confidence, : No reason given.

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Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator. In most modern scientists this belief has died: it will be interesting to see how long their confidence in uniformity survives it. Two significant developments have already appeared”the hypothesis of a lawless sub-nature, and the surrender of the claim that science is true. We may be living nearer than we suppose to the end of the Scientific Age.’*Lewis, C.S., Miracles: a preliminary study, Collins, London, p. 110, 1947.

What you are fatally missing is a method to compute X. For instance, what happens when I measure the information of 2*N? Is that 2*X?I can make an educated guess based upon your description. If you have a sequence A of length N that has information value X and you change it like you describe you will eventually end up with a sequence B of length N that has information value X. Based upon that, the only dependency you have put upon the value of information is the length of the sequence.So if I duplicate sequence A and point mutate sequence A into sequence B I will have 2X information. Sequence B is free to mutate because sequence A, and therefore its function, is unchanged to no detrement of the whole.Being that this does actually happen in real life, information is therefore shown to increase.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

Since we are discussing information.The atoms have electrons 'orbiting' them. The electrons also have a spin, either 'up' or 'down'. This is like a binary code.So information can be stored on atoms if we are able to detect what sort of spin the electrons have (possible future storage space?). How much information is required to build an ice crystal? Depends on the what the semantics and syntax are. What are the chemical properties that make it water a crystal. Temperature is also involved. This is a complex system. But scientists are still exploring the atom. Quarks, muons, particle/anti-particles... how far does it go?

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Men became scientific because they expected Law in Nature, and they expected Law in Nature because they believed in a Legislator. In most modern scientists this belief has died: it will be interesting to see how long their confidence in uniformity survives it. Two significant developments have already appeared”the hypothesis of a lawless sub-nature, and the surrender of the claim that science is true. We may be living nearer than we suppose to the end of the Scientific Age.’*Lewis, C.S., Miracles: a preliminary study, Collins, London, p. 110, 1947.

A good deal of what we see around us just arises quite simply from the fact that atoms have certain properties. Crystal structure depends largely on the shapes of electon orbitals, for example. It is not a big bewildering mystery. A little actual knowledge about the natural world goes a long way and dispels much fuzzy thinking.

There is actually already a thread specifically to discuss the utility of Gitt's definition of information.It is the The value of Gitt information thread, appropriately enough.TTFN,WK

Since we seem to be moving to the genetic level, I'm going to push this one step further. The Linnean classification system groups all organisms by similarities. I'm guessing there wasn't one Reptile created at the beginning of time, there was probably something more like a snake, a lizard, a turtle, and a crocodile, at the very least (we'll forget dinosaurs and birds for the momment). Why are these four independantly created groups similar on both a physiological AND genetic level? Why is the lizard genome closer to a turtle genome than a kangaroo genome, if the lizard, turtle, and kangaroo are all independant creations?Also, if there is only one snake kind, how did flying snakes come about? The flexible ribcage must have been present someone in the genome since the beginning of time. Was there a switch that turned on flexible ribcages at some point in evolutionary history?

Independence in tracings among different genomes are sustained
by Carter, for instance, through a conceptual nexus of successional vs. divergent change("independency" in blue). Snakes would have undergone less divergence with respect to a track to kangaroos than turtles. There is more succession for the supposed unitary reptile than the exemplar amphibian wise. One has to get quite nuanced with one's next sentence in this series as no one would do well to insist that succession and anagenesis are the same.I have a feeling that Croizat's tracks, as modified in construction by me here
http://aexion.org/rings.aspx
and studied here
http://axiompanbiog.com/default.aspx
express the common figure formed by the total work of succession and divergence among demes and serve to cut out that modern difficulty in continuing the discussion of the changes that relate phenocopies and genotypes affected across geography etc if more than an epiphenomenon in the history of evolutionary thought.The actual literature is marred by drawing distinctions among "vicarience", "dispersal", and "historical" biogeography, largely I think, because the motive powers of plants and animals *appear* to be different. I can not say that these purely biological adumbrations may not also inform the notion of "hybrid bound baramins." I tend to think they may, at least functionally when not formally.

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2) Semantics - T,G,A,C have special properties that differentiate one from the other, that is each has a special meaning within this information system.

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Here's what Gitt says about semantics

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Chains of symbols and syntactical rules form the necessary precondition for the representation of information. The decisive aspect of a transmitted item of information, however, is not the selected code, the size, number or form of the letters, or the method of transmission (script, optical, acoustic, electrical, tactile or olfactory signals), but the message it contains, what it says and what it means (semantics).

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So your claim clearly disagrees with Gitt's own explanation of semantics. So where is the semantics in DNA ? Remembering that Gitt states that Because according to Gitt's "theorem 9" No semantics, no information - at least as Gitt defines it.

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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to share.