Why should ID be taught in science classes...

Any evidence to back up those assertions? Like say a working definition of information. That is what mutation is for TTFN,WK

Your DNA would gain an alternative mutant allele at the same time it lost its original allele. Now the allele might be a null allele but that is beside the point. You might make a case if the mutation happened to turn a heterozygote into a homozygote for a particular allele, but that is pretty far fetched in terms of point mutations.Unless you can tell us how to comparatively measure the information of different alleles we can't say whether the point mutation changed the amount of genetic information or in what direction.TTFN,WK

There are lots, principally because there are lots of different metrics by which 'genetic information' can be measured. The point is that to discuss a specific claim like 'mutations can only decrease genetic information', we have to be using the same metric or the discussion is meaningless.We could measure the size of the genome, the number of genes, the proportion of coding to non-coding DNA or any number of things that might be colloquially considered measures of genetic information and that is before we get onto the information theoretic measures like Shannon information, Shannon entropy, Kolmogorov complexity, etc...As far as I know though absolutely none of these metrics would be compatible with the idea that point mutations must lead to a decrease in information. I'm not sure what these things have to do with each other. Can mutations effect changes in the amount of genetic information? Certainly in fact they are the obvious mechanism which does, but that change can be of varying magnitudes and in either direction or even laterally. But this has nothing to do with the fact that some mutations can create null alleles, that may be one example of a change in genetic information but without an agreed metric and knowing exactly what the mutation was we can't say if it is or what sort of change.TTFN,WK

There probably is but that isn't what I meant. There has been a discussion of what genetic Shannon information might be in the Irreducible Complexity and TalkOrigins thread, it might be less off topic there.TTFN,WK

No it hasn't. Do you have evidence of any mutational screen or experiment designed to look for 'new organisms'. There are none because no one except a creationist would expect 'new organisms' to appear from nowhere in the course of an experiment.As to never adding useful information there are numerous examples presented ad nauseam of beneficial traits which can arise from de novo mutations. This whole line of argument is rubbish , no one except creationists think that for a trait to be beneficial it must rely on the addition of 'information', however you mean that term. Ummm, what do you mean by overall? Do you have evidence that the mortality rates in areas with endemic Malaria would be exactly the same if there were no sickle cell or similar alleles?Your statement about what we 'know' about mutations just shows that all you know about mutations comes from creationist propaganda, and apparently JC Sanford's book.TTFN,WK