Evolution: Do you see the resemblence

[Autodidact]

Nice strawman arguments, but Creationists don't believe in "methodological supernaturalism" and we don't subscribe to the "god of the gaps" theories. In fact God in the Bible tells us to examine His creation, i.e. learn how it works, because in it His glory will be shown. Just like if somebody were to give me a car, and I don't know anything about cars, knowing that someone created that car will not hinder me from learning about how that cars works and see the genius of its designer.

That's great. I don't know why you thought someone said you did, however. I really don't think you should try to speak for all creationists, since they vary widely in their beliefs. In any case, this sounds like you accept the scientific method, which should get you to ToE in no time, just as it has the scientists.

Again, facts talk, conjectures walk. Cite a clear example of a new FUNCTION (sight from sightlessness, feathers from scales, etc.) that arose out of a new genetic information created. All you can do is cite supposed "novel genes", but you can't cite "novel functions" because you say that takes time, well that's speculation, that's blind faith. :yes:

Nylon bug.

 

[Autodidact]

Again, facts talk, conjectures walk. Cite a clear example of a new FUNCTION (sight from sightlessness, feathers from scales, etc.) that arose out of a new genetic information created. All you can do is cite supposed "novel genes", but you can't cite "novel functions" because you say that takes time, well that's speculation, that's blind faith. :yes:

I believe I've asked you to define the word "information" around three times. May I take it from your failure to do so that you are not able?

 

[Autodidact]

Ummm..."genes" are not the same as "genetic information", that's like saying a letter is the same as the paper it's written on.

Until you define "information" we'll never know.

MICRO-evolution is observable. MACRO-evolution is strictly historical. It is classic equivocation by evolutionists to mean macroevolution when they speak of evolution, but turn to microevolution when asked for evidence.

I think I've been quite clear in distinguishing between the smaller idea of new species emerging, and the larger idea, the Grand Theory of Evolution. Maybe you didn't go back and read my posts, as I asked you to? It would be helpful if we were all on the same page.

Being able to test a speculative theory is not the same as a known recurring event which characterizes “operational science”.

If you say so, Oh Lord of the Philosophy of Science, but what does this have to do with our discussion here?

 

[Autodidact]

Ummm..."genes" are not the same as "genetic information", that's like saying a letter is the same as the paper it's written on.

Did you notice that I didn't use the word "genes?" Do you just have some pre-programmed responses regardless of what the other person says?
Did you notice that you are the only one using the term "genetic information" and you have not yet defined it? Basically, no matter how you define it, genetic mutations can add to it, novel functions, novel structures, multiple structures, etc.

 

[Autodidact]

A scientific inquiry whether in physics, chemistry, geology, or biology, are under “operational science” so long as it involves observable and repeatable events. Both Evolution and Creation are under “historical science”. So for evolutionists to say Creationism is not science simply shows their ignorance of the nature of science, because they wrongly think that all science is under “operational science”.

:sorry1:

Well, these are your definitions. I think science in general doesn't even bother with these classifications, accepting that it is possible to learn about the natural world, both how it works and how it got that way, and these ways of learning are not really separate but interact. The reasons that creationism is not science has nothing to do with this distinction, which you are the only one making. It is because it makes no specific predictions (the acid test), provides no specific explanations*, and is not falsifiable. As Michael Behe testified in Dover, if ID is science, so is astrology.

*It provides explanations, but they are not specific. They do not tell us why things are this way and not some other way, unlike ToE.

 

[painted wolf]

Evolution makes observable, testable predictions... thus according to the opinion it is "operational science"

wa:do

 

[4Pillars]

Did you notice that I didn't use the word "genes?" Do you just have some pre-programmed responses regardless of what the other person says?
Did you notice that you are the only one using the term "genetic information" and you have not yet defined it? Basically, no matter how you define it, genetic mutations can add to it, novel functions, novel structures, multiple structures, etc.

I do hope you can give us an example. What we’re looking for is not just new COPIES of existing genetic information, those are not “new genetic information”, what we’re looking for is an example of an evolutionary process whereby a sightless creature, for example, gained new genetic information such that this creature can then see.
:no:

 

[McBell]

I do hope you can give us an example. What we’re looking for is not just new COPIES of existing genetic information, those are not “new genetic information”, what we’re looking for is an example of an evolutionary process whereby a sightless creature, for example, gained new genetic information such that this creature can then see.
:no:

Hovind?
Kent Hovind?
Is that you?

 

[camanintx]

I do hope you can give us an example. What we’re looking for is not just new COPIES of existing genetic information, those are not “new genetic information”, what we’re looking for is an example of an evolutionary process whereby a sightless creature, for example, gained new genetic information such that this creature can then see.
:no:

If you had bothered to read the link on nylon bugs in post #301 by Autodidact, you would have learned how a simple frame shift mutation can create new information in a genetic sequence, in this case resulting in a Japanese bacterium that could metabolize nylon waste.

Would you consider that an example of a new feature? :yes:

 

[Autodidact]

I do hope you can give us an example. What we’re looking for is not just new COPIES of existing genetic information, those are not “new genetic information”, what we’re looking for is an example of an evolutionary process whereby a sightless creature, for example, gained new genetic information such that this creature can then see.
:no:

1. I did. Do you even read other people's posts?
2. So I take it that you cannot define "information?"

 

[roli]

I don't know about all, but they are very common. I think one dramatic example in humans would be the tail bone. We have a tail bone (coccyx) but no tail, because we are descended from animals that did have tails. Occasionally a baby is born with a little tail that has to be surgically removed. This is called an atavism.



coccyx tailbone evolution baby born with tail

Without the coccyx and its attached muscle system, humans would need a radically different support system for their internal organs which would require numerous design changes in the human posterior Concerning the coccyx and its importance, Allford concluded that:

"The posterior surfaces [of the coccyx] serve as attachments for the gluteus maximus muscle and the sphincter and externus muscles. The gluteus maximus muscle is essential for defecation and labor during childbirth. The sphincter ani externus muscle is needed to keep the anal canal and orifice closed. These are obviously very important functions. The interior surfaces of the coccygeal vertebrae also serve as important attachments for muscles that aid in the containment of feces within the rectum . . . [as well as control of] defecation, and the expulsion of the fetus during labor. For these important reasons, the coccyx can never be classified as a rudimentary or vestigial rudiment of our ancestors. Aliford (1978:42) ​

Evolution Handbook 3The truth is that the theory of useless organs as a proof of evolution was based on rank 19th-century ignorance of those organs! No capable biologist today claims that any vestigial organs exist in human beings. But, unfortunately, that fact is not mentioned in the school textbooks. You will still find them talking about your "vestigial organs" which prove evolution!

The Coccyx. Another organ declared useless, by evolutionists, is the coccygeal vertebrea (the coccyx). This is the bottom of your spine.
Scientists have found that important muscles (the levator ani and coccygeus) attach to those bones.
Without those muscles, your pelvic organs would collapse; that is, fall down. Without them you could not have a bowel movement, nor could you walk or sit upright.

 

[4Pillars]

If you had bothered to read the link on nylon bugs in post #301 by Autodidact, you would have learned how a simple frame shift mutation can create new information in a genetic sequence, in this case resulting in a Japanese bacterium that could metabolize nylon waste.

Would you consider that an example of a new feature?

If you had bothered to read the link on nylon bugs in post #301 by Autodidact, you would have learned how a simple frame shift mutation can create new information in a genetic sequence, in this case resulting in a Japanese bacterium that could metabolize nylon waste.

Would you consider that an example of a new feature? :yes:

Here's your answer...

Mutations don't add information (Talk.Origins) - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

Mutations have been scientifically observed to give an organism a new function, they have not however been observed to make the organism more complex, that is, building upon the existing DNA which must be required for evolution to advance. In other words there has never been a mutation that has increased or added to the genetic information of an organism.

The fact is that since mutations only scramble the existing DNA to achieve a different read-out, resulting in (at times) a beneficial adaptation to the enviroment, this cannot be evolution! In fact, within the observable science we have on mutations, it is creation that predicts the types of changes we see created by them.

Even if we go beyond that questionable ground of evidence for evolution, likewise science has not observed, as a result of these mutations, an organism changing into anything other than what the organism was before the mutation. The change or the, "massive changes resulting from little changes" that evolutionists allude to in trying to prove that evolution has been observed is in fact a great way to dismiss any other valid thinking on the subject. The important thing to keep in mind here is which side, evolution, or creation, stays within the realm of observable science.

I have literally asked evolutionists on message boards, "Where is a real-world scientifically observable example of a mutation producing new information, thus increasing and building upon the existing DNA resulting in a new organism emerging from what was originally there?" Keep in mind, that mutations alone cannot adequately explain the phenomonan of evolution, yet they constantly try to prove it through that avenue.

They, fully believing the evolution theory as scientific fact have claimed that a bacterium, called the nylon bug here on out by me, with its adaptation to consuming nylon waste is scientific evidence of evolution. But how you ask? You may be thinking, "To me it sounds like adaptation to its enviroment", and that is exactly right. Allow me to further explain the evidence presented and therefore known about this nylon bug.

Having this bacteria being able to have waste products of nylon as their only source of carbon and nitrogen is quite remarkable but let us focus on just two species of bacteria first, Flavobacterium K172 and Pseudomonas NK87. Three enzymes are responsible for this ability in Flavobacterium K172, which are: F-EI, F-EII and F-EIII and two in Pseudomonas NK87: P-EI and P-EII. The genes for these enzymes are located on three plasmids. Plasmid pOAD2 in Flavobacterium and pNAD2 and pNAD6 in Pseudomonas.

I will admit that this specific mutation is advantageous for the bacteria as it is able to use the broken down nylon as a new ‘food’ source but as far as added new functional genetic information to the gene pool, I don't think so. A frame-shift mutation being responsible for this change in the bacteria is when one base pair is deleted, so that all the bases after that one are ‘read’ differently.

Here is a simple example of how a frame-shift mutations works:

ONE FAT FOX ATE THE CAT

The frame-shift would delete the first ‘T’ to shift over the letters after the word containing the 'T', the sentence becomes:

ONE FAF OXA TET HEC AT

Indeed this example doesn't make the frame-shifted DNA read-out mean anything, but in the case of the nylon-metabolising enzyme’s it worked. In most other cases a frame-shift mutation is not a good thing and causes a disruption to the genes.

The evolutionist would claim that the bacteria has indeed increased information as it produced a new read-out. But this new read-out is still a subset of the already existing DNA. The frame-shift mutation did not add onto the existing DNA rather it only scrambled what was there! There is no way around it, the variation or changes cannot become massive changes needed because if all it does is re-arrange the existing DNA it is limited to that DNA. That is why if they could produce some natural process that builds on, not scrambles the existing DNA to cause a new function they would have something. If anything I would say this is a special adaptation mechanism in play, which would be creationism, rather than evolution observed.

All we have is a fast mutating species, and after millions of generations of reproduction, it still retains the basic properties as originally described when discovered in 1889 and is still identifiable as itself. You may disagree, but I find it quite evident that the DNA genome can recombine in specific pre-programmed ways for specific purposes in relation to the enviroment. All the nylon bug displays is an example of this.

That the bacteria mutate so that they can break down nylon waste as their food sources can still fall under the creationist model until the bacteria literally become something else. Then and only then will evolution have a strong case in the realm of mutations being the mechanism for the massive changes needed. (source)

Nice try but no cigar.

 

[camanintx]

Here's your answer...

Mutations don't add information (Talk.Origins) - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

Nice try but no cigar.

Please answer two questions about your understanding of DNA.

1. Do you know what repeated sequences are?

2. Do you accept frame shifting as a type of DNA mutation?

 

[Autodidact]

I don't know about all, but they are very common. I think one dramatic example in humans would be the tail bone. We have a tail bone (coccyx) but no tail, because we are descended from animals that did have tails. Occasionally a baby is born with a little tail that has to be surgically removed. This is called an atavism.



coccyx tailbone evolution baby born with tail


Evolution Handbook 3The truth is that the theory of useless organs as a proof of evolution was based on rank 19th-century ignorance of those organs! No capable biologist today claims that any vestigial organs exist in human beings. But, unfortunately, that fact is not mentioned in the school textbooks. You will still find them talking about your "vestigial organs" which prove evolution!

The Coccyx. Another organ declared useless, by evolutionists, is the coccygeal vertebrea (the coccyx). This is the bottom of your spine.
Scientists have found that important muscles (the levator ani and coccygeus) attach to those bones.
Without those muscles, your pelvic organs would collapse; that is, fall down. Without them you could not have a bowel movement, nor could you walk or sit upright.

You are quite correct that the coccyx is not useless. You are not correct that it is therefore not vestigial. "Vestigial" does not mean useless. It means something that has lost most or all of its original function. Vestigial structures and organs are therefore more elaborate than they need to be. The coccygeal muscle doesn't need such an elaborate anchor as our tailbone.
Creationists have a strong talent for looking something right in the face and denying it's there. They have to; their worldview denies reality. Modern medicine knows that your coccygeal muscle anchors to your tailbone; it also knows that it's still a vestigial tailbone, and that our ancestors had a tail. Even wiki says:

Structures that have been or still are considered vestigial include the coccyx, or tailbone (a remnant of a lost tail);

.
You need to stop plagiarizing from creationist website for two reasons:
(1) It's illegal and against forum rules.
(2) All creationist websites contain lies and inaccuracies. They have to. If you doubt me, I can easily prove this to you.

 

[Autodidact]

Here's your answer...

Mutations don't add information (Talk.Origins) - CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

<snip unscientific gibberish>

Nice try but no cigar.

Well, as long as you don't define "information" you can continue to point to anything and deny that it meets the definition that you haven't specified. You don't even have to move your goalposts, you just put them on wheels from the beginning. "Information" is not a term that biologists use or that is helpful to understanding genetics, mutations, or evolution. The bug couldn't eat nylon. (It didn't exist.) It mutated. Now new species can. It has evolved a new function. Information doesn't enter into it, and only confuses the discussion.

 

[Autodidact]

Moving right along, we come to the important evidence of geographical distribution. This has to do with the interesting way that different species are distributed around the world. In fact, this was key in contributing to Darwin figuring the whole thing out.

The question is, are creatures distributed according to the type of environment, or according to proximity? For example, take an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and another island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with a very similar climate and geography. Call the first Pacifica and the second one Atlantica. Now look at the plants and animals on Pacifica--are they more closely related to the ones on Atlantica, or on the next nearest piece of land?

The answer is that over and over again, organisms most resemble other organisms on the nearest piece of land, NOT other similar environments. Organisms on an island are most closely related to other organisms on the nearby continent, NOT on other islands far away.

This is what got Darwin excited when he realized that all of the birds on Galapagos turned out to be finches. It's because sometime, a pair of finches got blown there, and every bird on the islands descended from them, even though they looked like everything from wrens to swallows.

A great example is Madagascar, a large island of the coast of Southeast Africa. The island broke off some millions of years ago. At that time, there were lemurs and chameleons in Africa, but not all of the species that we see there today. Madagascar broke off, and so most of the mammals on Madagascar are actually lemurs ( a primate), even though they look and function like everything from wolves to mice. There's also some very nice pygmy hippos.

When you have continental drift, paleontologists find fossils of very similar ancient creatures right along that fault line. As the two continents drift apart, their fossil record begins to diverge, as new species emerge.

There are many, many examples of this from all over the world, and it always follows this pattern.

What about creationism? Well, it's always possible that an all-powerful but mysterious God could have created things in this pattern. That's the whole thing--He's unknowable! His ways are mysterious to us.

The key difference about ToE, and why it a scientific theory, is that it explains why things are just this way and no other. Creation does not, which is why it is not science.

As for the specialized version of creationism called YEC, it founders entirely. They are left concocting fantastic scenarios in which fast-swimming wombats zip over to Australia ahead of the cheetahs that didn't quite make it. Obviously, the geographical distribution of species BY ITSELF completely falsifies the ark story. Or how did the koalas get to Australia and the sloths to South America, while leaving no relatives along the way? Well, the ark story is just silly anyway, other than as a nice story, but it does have its believers, so you have to cover it.

ToE does explain why Australia has marsupials, while Europe does not.

Looking at it as a prediction, ToE predicted that the geographical distribution of animals and plants would follow the pattern of proximity and continental drift and it does. Over and over, thousands upon thousands of times. Those are some major confirmations of the theory.

 

[painted wolf]

I made a bacteria that glowed under black light by adding gene to it.
Ta'da it got new information and now it shines pretty pretty green.

I love how universal DNA is... how unlike a computer program!

wa:do

 

[4Pillars]

Well, as long as you don't define "information" you can continue to point to anything and deny that it meets the definition that you haven't specified. You don't even have to move your goalposts, you just put them on wheels from the beginning. "Information" is not a term that biologists use or that is helpful to understanding genetics, mutations, or evolution. The bug couldn't eat nylon. (It didn't exist.) It mutated. Now new species can. It has evolved a new function. Information doesn't enter into it, and only confuses the discussion.

Let me try again and explain to you very slowly what kind of "information" is needed for evolutionist' to substanciate their claim of macro-evolution to be acceptable theory.

To get evolution 'from bacteria to Bach' requires incredible amounts of new information to be added. Typical bacteria have about 2,000 proteins; a human has about 100,000. At every upward step of evolution there needs to be new information added. Where does it come from? Not from mutations &#8212; they degrade information.

Carl Sagan, ardent evolutionist, admitted: '... mutations occur at random and are almost uniformly harmful&#8212;it is rare that a precision machine is improved by a random change in the instructions for making it.' (Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1977, p. 28.)

Duplication of anything does not constitute an increase of information. Random mutations to change the duplicated gene would not add information unless the mutated sequence coded for some new, useful protein (no one has demonstrated such a thing happening; there have only been imaginative scenarios proposed).

To illustrate: if &#8220;superman&#8221; were the duplicated &#8220;gene&#8221;, and mutations in the letters changed it to &#8220;sxyxvawtu &#8221;, you have clearly lost information, although you have a new sequence. This is the difference between complexity and specified complexity. A pile of sand is complex , but is information-poor, because it specifies nothing. (source)


:sorry1:

 

[Autodidact]

Let me try again and explain to you very slowly what kind of "information" is needed for evolutionist' to substanciate their claim of macro-evolution to be acceptable theory.

To get evolution 'from bacteria to Bach' requires incredible amounts of new information to be added. Typical bacteria have about 2,000 proteins; a human has about 100,000. At every upward step of evolution there needs to be new information added. Where does it come from? Not from mutations — they degrade information.

Carl Sagan, ardent evolutionist, admitted: '... mutations occur at random and are almost uniformly harmful—it is rare that a precision machine is improved by a random change in the instructions for making it.' (Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1977, p. 28.)

Duplication of anything does not constitute an increase of information. Random mutations to change the duplicated gene would not add information unless the mutated sequence coded for some new, useful protein (no one has demonstrated such a thing happening; there have only been imaginative scenarios proposed).

To illustrate: if “superman” were the duplicated “gene”, and mutations in the letters changed it to “sxyxvawtu ”, you have clearly lost information, although you have a new sequence. This is the difference between complexity and specified complexity. A pile of sand is complex , but is information-poor, because it specifies nothing. (source)


:sorry1:

How about if you just define what you mean by information? That wouldn't be "again," it would be "ever," since you haven't done this yet. Watch out, if I need to break out the big colored fonts to make it obvious that you're evading the question, believe me, I will. For example, do you mean information in the Shannon sense?

 

[Autodidact]

Let me try again and explain to you very slowly what kind of "information" is needed for evolutionist' to substanciate their claim of macro-evolution to be acceptable theory.

To get evolution 'from bacteria to Bach' requires incredible amounts of new information to be added. Typical bacteria have about 2,000 proteins; a human has about 100,000. At every upward step of evolution there needs to be new information added. Where does it come from? Not from mutations — they degrade information.

Provide a cite for this. Of course they do in the sense that they change the original "message", that's the point. In that sense, the original "information" (terrible term) is degraded. The question is whether the new "message" is helpful to the organism. If I tell you to go 5 miles and then turn right, and by transcription error I instead tell you to go 50 miles, the "information" is degraded. Whether that turns out to be bad or good depends on what turns up 50 miles down the road.

Carl Sagan, ardent evolutionist, admitted: '... mutations occur at random and are almost uniformly harmful—it is rare that a precision machine is improved by a random change in the instructions for making it.' (Carl Sagan, The Dragons of Eden, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1977, p. 28.)

(emphasis added) And that almost makes all the difference, doesn't it. You don't need many, since mutations happen so often.

Duplication of anything does not constitute an increase of information. Random mutations to change the duplicated gene would not add information unless the mutated sequence coded for some new, useful protein (no one has demonstrated such a thing happening; there have only been imaginative scenarios proposed).

Are you sure? You don't think 2 + 2 + 2 contains more "information" than 2 + 2?

To illustrate: if “superman” were the duplicated “gene”, and mutations in the letters changed it to “sxyxvawtu ”, you have clearly lost information, although you have a new sequence. This is the difference between complexity and specified complexity. A pile of sand is complex , but is information-poor, because it specifies nothing. (source)

Then again, if the mutations changed it to supervan, you'd have a new vehicle. Supercan, new container. Which could be quite useful indeed. Soupercan, bingo, hot meal to go. It all depends on who chooses the examples. btw, DNA is not information, it's a string of chemicals.

:sorry1:

You should be, if you don't have the integrity to define your terms. It makes it look like you're prevaricating, and you wouldn't want that, would you?