I don't know. But was information added by natural mutation?
Did we re-evolve after the comet that killed all the dinosaurs?
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laughsoutloud
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It was more than just gene scrambling, according to the pro-ID researcher who did the actual work.
You seem to be moving the bar - you asked for an experiment, I gave you an experiment, now you want something else.
Well, I gave you that as well. The lizard experiment is an example of a novel structure- and if you read what was highlighted, the outside researcher wanted to CONFIRM what the scientists already reported - that the change had a genetic basis.
But if you don't like that one, there are plenty more:
Here is the development of the ability of e coli to metabolize glycol:
One Eyed Jack
New member
No, you didn't. What you gave me sounded like a deposition. Johnny gave me an experiment. You didn't.
You really need to learn the difference between a discovery and an experiment.
I didn't ask for a novel structure -- I asked for an experiment where added genetic information has been observed.
I'm the one who highlighted it -- obviously I read it.
All the scientists in the article reported was a change. They didn't report any sort of basis for it. You're assuming evolution, and that it therefore had a genetic basis. This has yet to be confirmed.
So what? It's still E. coli. When it turns into some kind of bacteria we've never seen before, let me know.
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One Eyed Jack
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That's debatable. Would you consider the result of a copying error to be additional information? I come from a computer programming background, and we call that sort of thing garbage.
Pekkle
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Down's Syndrome = Increased information in the genome.
49 > 48 chromosomes.
And mutation is not always beneficial.
One Eyed Jack
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You mean scrambled information (which really isn't information anymore -- it's usually just garbage).
I know they have an extra 21st chromosome (which is why it's called Trisomy 21). By the way -- human beings only have 23 pairs of chromosomes, not 24.
I never said it was.
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laughsoutloud
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Given that there are 4 bases that make up DNA, all you ever do is "scramble" it. But genes get copied, and in the process, extra copies get made (which can increase expression of a protein), they get rearranged, shifted, etc. When the change results in something different happening, then this is indeed new information.
Consider consider the sickle cell variation - it confers some immunity to malaria, but at a cost. Information (in terms of something new and specific being coded for) does in fact happen, and happen regularly. This is what happens in the mutations of the AIDs virus - new information, resulting in change. You can read about genetic mutations and AIDs here (warning, not friendly to Behe).
The point is that new information is indeed created due to evolution. Seelke testified that his experiments have shown it, numerous other experiments have shown it, and we have observed it in the natural world.
laughsoutloud
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You did not ask for an example of species change, you asked for an example of an increase in genetic information. When you are given examples, you start dancing - the simple truth is that we see new information in the genome all the time, as these many examples have shown.
griffinsavard
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QUESTION FOR EVOLUTION ADVOCATES: How did the first cell evolve???
Real Sorceror
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Answer: We don't know. Question for you: If we don't know where the first cell came from, does that make evolution impossible? And, more to my point, does that mean we can't teach it as the most current and probable scientific theory about how lifeforms change over time?
laughsoutloud
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I think that the aim here is to argue that if origins of life research includes unproven ideas, then it should be OK to include the unproven idea that "God did it."
The difficulty for me is that no religion I am familiar with holds that God helped with the transition from life to non-life, and then sat back while evolution did its thing, with occasional forays into gene splicing when evolution ran out of steam and needed another injection of CSI. It certainly isn't creationism.
The "equal opportunity for unproven ideas" appeal breaks down with evolution, which is very well established. Origins of life is one of the few gaps left to claim that "God did it." There is just no religion willing to limit itself to that tiny gap.
The difficulty for me is that no religion I am familiar with holds that God helped with the transition from life to non-life, and then sat back while evolution did its thing, with occasional forays into gene splicing when evolution ran out of steam and needed another injection of CSI. It certainly isn't creationism.
The "equal opportunity for unproven ideas" appeal breaks down with evolution, which is very well established. Origins of life is one of the few gaps left to claim that "God did it." There is just no religion willing to limit itself to that tiny gap.
laughsoutloud
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One Eyed Jack
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Originally Asked by ThePhy (re the “eternal skin” mutation):
As for it being a copying error, so what? Unless you are willing to say that no copying error can ever add information, this is a red herring.
Your comparing of information via mutations to computer programming shows you either have a pretty elementary understanding of evolution, or you are willing to do things that Christians ought not to do.
Specifically, unless your programming is highly unusual, I’ll bet you have a pretty specific goal in mind for the program you are writing. Evolution, not so, anything that works, even if it was due to a “mistake” will be a possible new contender.
Since the encoding part of DNA (the part that is crucial in forming proteins) is only a smidgeon of the total DNA string, to make your programming analogy true to life, try writing programs in which only 5 or 10 percent of the code is ever executed, unless a mistake is made. In that non-executing part, include a mix or random commands, snippets of routines, and even full procedures that just don’t get used. Include parts of routines that worked perfectly well in past programming efforts, but just haven’t been used lately. And then ask yourself what happens if a mistake happens, and one of these unused procedures or old algorithms actually gets invoked? Probably disaster. Probably. Not always, not by any means.
How about a routine that invokes an algorithm that depends on iterating a mathematical sequence to converge on an answer (this is often done in some types of trajectory situations). You do realize that there are slow-converging algorithms (like ½ + ¼ + 1/8 + …) and there are more rapidly converging algorithms (like ½ - ¼ + 1/8 - … - called an alternating sign series). The difference is just switching a plus for a minus in alternating terms – a mistake I have actually seen done in code. (The rapidly converging series I show above gives a different answer than the slow converging one. Whether that answer is useable depends on the problem being solved.) Could a copying error make a “+” into a “-“? Remember, in ASCII, that is just transposing two bits.
Some parts of DNA seem to act almost like subroutine calls- for example in the classical fruit-fly experiments in which a leg grows where an antenna should be. Kinda like “Call sub A;” (for antenna) gets changed to “Call Sub L: (for Leg). A one-letter change that results in dramatic changes to the animal.
The encoding part of the DNA processing is pretty stupid. Whatever is there gets encoded, right or wrong. Think about a big software package used by a house designer. Might have a subroutine that can be called to add a room. An error might call that routine when it wasn’t intended, resulting in an unanticipated room. Close inspections might even show pipes in the walls that aren’t connected to anything, or an outside door that is right next to a tree so it can’t be opened. Kind of dumb way to add a room, but bottom line is, for all it’s imperfections, it is still an addition that might provide a whole lot of needed space, silly pipes and all. The pipes are kinda like nipples on men, things that are very useful in other types of rooms (or on mothers) but the guys ended up with the non-functional things anyway.
I hope you are aware that improvements by random changes to computer programs has been tried with surprising success. Remember the success of a random “dog improvement” program is not dependent on the result being a faster dog, but equally acceptable could be a keener smelling dog, a smaller dog, a dog more resistant to some disease, a dog that has slightly different colored fur, a dog more tolerant of cold, a dog with stronger jaw muscles, better eyesight, keener hearing, longer legs, shorter legs, etc, etc etc.
If you realize the limitations of comparing programming to evolution, there are some instructional analogies. Not garbage at all.
OEJ’s answer:
It shouldn’t be debatable. Creationists bring up this “information” argument incessantly, yet when presented with a very clear case like this, they don’t seem to able to say yes or no (or they can’t stomach the obvious implications of admitting information was added). If you don’t have a clear enough definition of what you mean by “information" to apply it to a case like this, then for you it is just an amorphous term to hide behind.
As for it being a copying error, so what? Unless you are willing to say that no copying error can ever add information, this is a red herring.
I suspect a few of the TOL crowd are conversant with computer languages. In my case, with a bit of review I suspect I could still do a fair job of programming in IBM 1620 assembly language (if you don’t know what an IBM 1620 is, look it up. That will put a time frame on when I started with computers. Have you ever programmed in GOTRAN, or FORTTOGO, very early implementations of FORTRAN? How about PACTOLUS, a language I haven’t used for many years? Bottom line, I know where the on-off switch is on computers.
Your comparing of information via mutations to computer programming shows you either have a pretty elementary understanding of evolution, or you are willing to do things that Christians ought not to do.
Specifically, unless your programming is highly unusual, I’ll bet you have a pretty specific goal in mind for the program you are writing. Evolution, not so, anything that works, even if it was due to a “mistake” will be a possible new contender.
Since the encoding part of DNA (the part that is crucial in forming proteins) is only a smidgeon of the total DNA string, to make your programming analogy true to life, try writing programs in which only 5 or 10 percent of the code is ever executed, unless a mistake is made. In that non-executing part, include a mix or random commands, snippets of routines, and even full procedures that just don’t get used. Include parts of routines that worked perfectly well in past programming efforts, but just haven’t been used lately. And then ask yourself what happens if a mistake happens, and one of these unused procedures or old algorithms actually gets invoked? Probably disaster. Probably. Not always, not by any means.
How about a routine that invokes an algorithm that depends on iterating a mathematical sequence to converge on an answer (this is often done in some types of trajectory situations). You do realize that there are slow-converging algorithms (like ½ + ¼ + 1/8 + …) and there are more rapidly converging algorithms (like ½ - ¼ + 1/8 - … - called an alternating sign series). The difference is just switching a plus for a minus in alternating terms – a mistake I have actually seen done in code. (The rapidly converging series I show above gives a different answer than the slow converging one. Whether that answer is useable depends on the problem being solved.) Could a copying error make a “+” into a “-“? Remember, in ASCII, that is just transposing two bits.
Some parts of DNA seem to act almost like subroutine calls- for example in the classical fruit-fly experiments in which a leg grows where an antenna should be. Kinda like “Call sub A;” (for antenna) gets changed to “Call Sub L: (for Leg). A one-letter change that results in dramatic changes to the animal.
The encoding part of the DNA processing is pretty stupid. Whatever is there gets encoded, right or wrong. Think about a big software package used by a house designer. Might have a subroutine that can be called to add a room. An error might call that routine when it wasn’t intended, resulting in an unanticipated room. Close inspections might even show pipes in the walls that aren’t connected to anything, or an outside door that is right next to a tree so it can’t be opened. Kind of dumb way to add a room, but bottom line is, for all it’s imperfections, it is still an addition that might provide a whole lot of needed space, silly pipes and all. The pipes are kinda like nipples on men, things that are very useful in other types of rooms (or on mothers) but the guys ended up with the non-functional things anyway.
I hope you are aware that improvements by random changes to computer programs has been tried with surprising success. Remember the success of a random “dog improvement” program is not dependent on the result being a faster dog, but equally acceptable could be a keener smelling dog, a smaller dog, a dog more resistant to some disease, a dog that has slightly different colored fur, a dog more tolerant of cold, a dog with stronger jaw muscles, better eyesight, keener hearing, longer legs, shorter legs, etc, etc etc.
If you realize the limitations of comparing programming to evolution, there are some instructional analogies. Not garbage at all.
One Eyed Jack
New member
It takes more than just a nucleotide sequence to qualify as genetic information. It has to convey some sort of message -- otherwise it's just junk.
I've yet to see one confirmed example of new information. I've seen shuffled sequences, missing sequences, damaged sequences, and redundant sequences, but nothing that would qualify as new information unless it was added through some type of genetic engineering.
What I have seen, are many examples where some sort of change in a species has taken place (which, as you noted earlier, was not what I was asking for), and a genetic basis for this change has been assumed. This, of course, is then submitted as evidence of "new" genetic information. But I'm not buying it.
Are you saying that in all the unused parts of DNA there are 'procedures' that code for body parts?
One Eyed Jack
New member
This is a weird example -- you have a single type of cell from a multicellular organism that normally has a variety of differentiated cells. I don't know what you'd call this in evolutionary terms. A freak occurance?
Because a copying error isn't really producing something new. It's just a variation on something that's already there.
I started off with BASIC (it came free with my Atari 8-bit) and then switched to C. I could probably pound out something in Pascal or Cobol if I had to. I never really did any assembly language programming. Assemblers for the 6502 were too expensive (I was only 13 at the time), and the x86 architecture was way too wack to program in assembly language. I wouldn't even want to think about doing it on a CADET -- yikes!
ThePhy -- you're too smart to think that everyone who disbelieves in evolution does so simply because they don't understand it well enough. I understand evolution just fine. I used to believe in it (And I was a Christian then, too). I just don't anymore.
What does this have to do with things Christians shouldn't do? Or was this supposed to broaden my understanding of evolution (by telling me something I already knew)?
I'm not comparing the process of evolution to writing a computer program -- more like comparing computer code to genetic code. The point being, they both contain encoded information, some of which may be garbage due to copying errors or whatever. I don't see why you have a problem with this analogy.
But fruitflies already have the "subroutine" for antennae as well as for legs. Swapping them around isn't adding any new information. Now if you had a "subroutine" for antennae, I would consider that to be new information, because other human beings don't have that.
Same with computers. Garbage in, garbage out.
Consistently, or just occasionally? In any case, that's an interesting topic, and I wouldn't mind seeing some examples if you had any.
I understand all this, ThePhy.
Here's something we can agree on, then.
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laughsoutloud
New member
I suspect your statement "I'm not buying it" is determinative here. Missing, redundant, shuffled, copied - these, plus viral DNA and gene swapping ARE the mechanisms of change. Your argument seems to be that the change from "great" to "grate" adds no new information because it is "just" mixing up the letters. "Gate" is just dropping a letter, "Greater" is just duplicating a letter. Is this what you are saying?
So we agree that organisms change, adapting to environmental changes. You are not sure if these are due to changes in DNA? And when you see that the changes are due to DNA, you doubt that they are the result of missing, redundant, shuffled, or copied portions of DNA?
One Eyed Jack
New member
They're the mechanisms of birth-defects.
I'm not talking about how words are spelled. Unless you're talking about very long words made up of only four different letters.
No, I'm not. But you sure seem to be.
I don't doubt that at all, in many cases. Trisomy 21 is just one such genetic defect.