Talk:Mutations don't add information (Talk.Origins)

The purpose of these articles is to address the rebuttals on the Talk.Origins pages. As such quotes from the TO article should be given that are responded to specifically. --Chris Ashcraft 08:35, 21 June 2006 (CDT)

Re: "The evolutionist would claim that the bacteria has indeed increased information..."

Actually they wouldn't, since the idea of increasing the amount of information in DNA is exclusively a creationist concept. They might ask how you were measuring genetic information, and follow this up with either (i) a different example in which information unquestionably does increase according to your measure; (ii) a comment that since you don't actually have a means of quantifying genetic information, your claim that it doesn't increase is groundless. Since you didn't actually include any hints as to how you think genetic information should be measured, the second response is appropriate.

Roy 04:42, 18 June 2006 (CDT)

Nonsense
...the idea of increasing the amount of information in DNA is exclusively a creationist concept.

So evolutionists don't think the amount of information increases?

Do they suppose that there is no information in the genome? Or is it that the first life forms had as much information as any current life form? Or is it just that the whole question is so embarrassing that they don't want to think about it?

They might ask how you were measuring genetic information, and follow this up with either (i) a different example in which information unquestionably does increase according to your measure;

Such as?

When put on the spot, Richard Dawkins was unable to produce a single example of an observed mutation that added information.

''(ii) a comment that since you don't actually have a means of quantifying genetic information, your claim that it doesn't increase is groundless. Since you didn't actually include any hints as to how you think genetic information should be measured, the second response is appropriate.''

Consider a genome to be like a computer program. If you add more code to a program it does more, it contains more information. It's really very simple. Some genomes code for a single-celled organism; this is what evolutionists claim was the first form of life (leaving aside the embarrassments of abiogenesis). To code for a multi-celled organism requires a more complex program. If there are to be separate limbs, yet more coding is needed. A different kind of animal needs a different program. That is extra information.

Evolution requires that mutations add functions. This has not been observed. Mutations have been observed to remove functions or to an organism's capabilities within preset limits.

Your response is so ridiculous that it evidences a refusal to think. Oelphick 20:01, 5 August 2006 (CDT) --

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You are unaware of many facts.

1. Biologists and geneticists rarely mention genetic information (except when discussing sensiticity of gene sequence data of humans), and almost never talk about increases or decreases on the amount of information. The few exceptions concern the addition of new genes.


 * That they don't want to talk about it does not make it not happen. I can see that it is an embarassing subject.


 * It isn't an embarrassing subject, merely an unuseful one. Without any usable definition of genetic information, there isn't really much to discuss.

2. The standard measure of information is Shannon's; this can be applied to genomes (though I've only ever seen this done in response to creationist claims). When this is done, it is obvious that the amount of information can be increased by mutation.


 * Shannon's measure of information effectively says that the more random the data, the more information it holds. This is manifest nonsense, at least in this context.  Meaningful information, such as the words on this page, code in a computer program, and DNA code, is a very small subset of all possible combinations of letters in a message of the same size.  Furthermore, it is coded information and has a syntax that must be adhered to in order to convey meaning.


 * Ok, so we agree that Shannon's technique isn't a particularly useful means of measuring genetic information. What else have you got?

3. The question of genetic information is not the least embarrassing for 'evolutoinists'. All we need to do is point out that creationists never accompany their claims about 'no increase of information' with a means of measuring that information.


 * Why do you need to measure what is obvious. If you make random changes to this page, the odds are enormous that you will destroy rather than increase meaningful information.  If you make random changes to DNA the odds are similarly enormous that you will cause damage to the organism that develops from it rather than improve it.


 * Yes, the odds of harmful as opposed to beneficial mutations are high. (The odds of neutral mutations are higher still). But if you want to argue in terms of odds then you are implicitly acknowledging that an increase in meaningful genetic information is possible (however you want to define it), even if it's extremely unlikely; thus refuting your own position.

4. Richard Dawkins has stated that he did not answer that specific question because that was the point at which he realised his interviewers were interviewing him under false pretences.


 * Did the nasty creationists upset poor Diddums?  There, there!


 * What a cop out! I haven't heard that he has ever produced such information.


 * Then you haven't looked very hard. Try here.
 * I don't see any sign in your response of any disapproval of the film-makers misrepresentations.

5. If you measure information content in terms of genome size, as your computer program example seems to be doing, then there are many, many mutations which would count as an increase of information. Down's syndrome, for instance, is a result of having an extra chromosome. There are observed instances of polyploidy, where the size of a plant's genome doubles. If size of a genome is the measure of information content, these are both examples of an increase in information.


 * I would never suggest anything so silly. I am a programmer, after all.  If I add random characters to the end of a program file, it will not compile.  The addition has to be carefully crafted to do the additional tasks required and it must be in a code that is matched to the compiler that will be used.  The point is that such carefully crafted code can only be produced by an intelligent agency.


 * False. There exist several systems (e.g. tierra) in which computer programs are generated by random mutations. As a programmer you really ought to be aware of them.

6. No-one other that creationists claims that the first life was single-celled. Cell structure evolved later.


 * There is no observational evidence at all to support that statement. All existing life is in cells, is it not?
 * No, it is not. Some slime molds are acellular. You could easily have found this out for yourself. The rest of your comment is thus irrelevant.
 * (I'm not sure if a virus is in a cell, but it can't reproduce itself without the help of a cell.) Without a cell to protect the DNA and the rest of the reproductive mechanism, there could not be any reproduction for evolution to work on.  Since the simplest cell is as complex as a small city, the claim that it somehow came into existence without God is as silly as believing in fairies.

7. Some modern single-celled animals have larger genomes than many mammals. Your claim that multi-celled animals require a larger 'program' is false.


 * I know that. It is only a generalisation.  I could give a program more functions and yet reduce its size by making the code more efficient.  It will be interesting to find out what that extra code is doing for those small organisms.  (Note that I assume it is useful and functional and that there are things to be discovered about it; evolutionists' talk of "Junk DNA" implies that any bits of the DNA code they don't understand is a useless hangover of evolution and can be ignored.)

8. Mutations that add functions have been observed. The nylonase gene, for example.


 * I take it that is from nylon-eating bacteria? But we know that bacteria, unlike most creatures, have the ability to rearrange certain parts of their genome to cope with the environment.  However, they don't become a totally different kind of bacteria in the process; some parts of the genome do not get rearranged.  Most other creatures do not possess that ability at all.


 * So? Mutations that add functions have been observed. Your claim that none have been observed is false. No amount of discussion of 'kinds' of bacteria or genome rearrangements will change that fact.

9. No preset limits to evolution have ever been identified; your claim that they exist is false.


 * No variation outside strict limits has ever been observed. Your claim that it happens is fantasy.


 * God created animals by kind,, which is broader than species and perhaps even than genus, and he gave each kind a large amount of genetic information within which natural selection could work. There is no way for any kind to go beyond its preset 'library' of genetic information.


 * Unsupported assertion. You have not identified any preset limits to evolution, but simply continue to claim, without evidence, that they exist. Your claim about variation outside strict limits is vacuous without any definition as to what these strict limits actually are.

10. Finally, I note that like the original author, you have not included any definition of how you quantify genetic information. Until and unless you do, any claim about genetic information never increasing is merely bad rhetoric. Roy 11:58, 12 August 2006 (CDT)


 * Information is meaningful data and instructions to work upon that data. It is coded and both sender and recipient need to agree upon the code.  Shannon information is not a useful concept here.  In terms of DNA, God is the original sender and the cell-building mechanisms that read the DNA are the recipients.  Since you ignore God, I suppose you could say that the parent organisms are the sender.


 * Text information, such as a book, is measured by the number of pages or words. Computer programs are measured (very crudely, I agree) in lines of code (it is understood that the code is good and compilable &mdash; rubbish does not count).  Similarly DNA information can be measured in part by the size of the genome.  Ultimately the measure of information is how good it is: whether a book conveys reliable information, or is great literature; whether a program is well-written and efficient and does what it is designed to do.  For DNA, a similar measure might be the amount of functionality and predetermined variablility.  This kind of measure can be appreciated by intelligent beings &mdash; I hope that includes evolutionists &mdash; but cannot be easily quantified. Oelphick 12:50, 20 October 2006 (EDT)


 * You have claimed that it would be 'silly' to use genome size as a measure of information content; here you suggest doing exactly that.
 * You have talked about genetic information increasing and decreasing; yet here you claim it cannot be easily quantified.
 * Your claims about genetic information are vague, contradictory, lacking in definitions and completely unsupported by any evidence or practical examples. They remain nothing more than bad rhetoric.


 * Roy 11:02, 21 April 2007 (EDT)


 * While it may be true that such occurences as polyploidy increase the information (as in doubling it), they do nothing to introduce new information, which is what is essential to macroevolution. Scorpionman 09:52, 3 April 2008 (PDT)