The debating skills of evolutionists

[mynameisDan]

Secondly when it is put into context in the quote above it shows that all living organisms have it - so assuming you agree with this definition, all have new information, contradicting your assertion.
So I'm guessing this isn't what you mean at all but something else entirely. This is why I suggested you provide your own definition - or straightforward list of criteria in your own words - instead of relying on quotes you don't asppear to fully understand

all living organism do have it. This is the point. If you are positing transmutation you must explain HOW it got there. You must also provide empirical support for its increase in organisms if you wish to advance the notion that neodarwinism is anything more than an improbable myth.

Sound reason and logic would dictated that a code requires intelligence. No evidence exists anywhere in human experience or observation to support the notion that codes invent themselves. The DNA is such a code. Each triplet codon codes for an amino acid and amino acids are directed by the cell machinary to build proteins. No evidence exists anywhere to suggest that there is anything inherent in the chemicals of life that would cause a code to develop on its own. In fact it is believed by the "faithful" that this process is random. Yet you cannot offer any evidence for this other than stories and the presumption of darwinism. In addition, you offer no examples of observed mutations in which new information is added to the genome of any organism.

So tell me sir, why is it again that you believe this myth? Is it because you have allowed yourself to be thoroughly brainwashed? Is it because that you find your faith "comfortable" to your philosophy of life? One thing for sure, it is not because of any scientific evidence!

 

[spidergoat]

The DNA of all organism is loaded with information coding for proteins which do work in the organism. This information is similar to the binary code of a computer. What evolutionists cannot explain is 1). Where did this information come from, how did it arise and 2). How did it change to form the biosphere we see today as well as that present in the fossil record now extinct, without story telling. Evolutionists would have us believe that genetics is the answer to the mystery of life. But the more we learn the more we find that genetics is no friend of evolution.

Argument from Ignorance.

This information arose as the result of accumulated beneficial variations, which came about through mutation, sharing of genetic information across species, and errors in transcription, etc...

 

[mynameisDan]

Argument from Ignorance.

This information arose as the result of accumulated beneficial variations, which came about through mutation, sharing of genetic information across species, and errors in transcription, etc...

more arguments by assertion. I am well aware of the party line.

 

[spidergoat]

What part don't you understand? A mutation or error results in a change in that DNA code. Beneficial or neutral changes are retained, non-beneficial ones die out. Neutral changes can accumulate and become beneficial when combined with other changes. After several billion years, the biosphere is the result.

Sound reason and logic would dictated that a code requires intelligence.

That is an unsupported assumption. Computers can now simulate this effect to create programs to solve programs in unexpected ways. The computer changes it's program randomly, and applies it to a problem. The codes that solve the problem better become the theme for future random changes, until the problem can't be solved any more efficiently. That is empirical evidence.

Random codes become useful information when they implemented, tested in the environment, and found to be useful. That is the only difference between random information and useful information that adds to the apparent complexity of a plant, animal, or fungus.

 

[mynameisDan]

What part don't you understand? A mutation or error results in a change in that DNA code. Beneficial or neutral changes are retained, non-beneficial ones die out. Neutral changes can accumulate and become beneficial when combined with other changes. After several billion years, the biosphere is the result.

I understand all of your story. What you don't understand is that what you are presenting here is just that, a story. There is no empirical evidence in support of your thesis here that observed mutations add information that could result in the known biosphere from a primitive cell. The mutations observed are neutral or corrupting (loss of information).

If your story were correct, there would be millions of these little information gaining critters around for scientists like Spetner and Max to talk about. Since there are none, Max offered none. Our marine biologist has offered none. Why, because there are none.

 

[spidergoat]

You are incorrect. Mutations are often observed that add to the ability of a living thing to exist in it's environment. If that is true, then it explains how creatures adapt and branch out into new species and other forms. If the DNA codes of animals were fixed, then they would die out when the environment changed. If the DNA code prevented speciation or mutation into more apparently radically different forms, then there would only be one set of species on the planet for all time, but that is not the case either.

If there is an alternate explanation that fits the data better, creationists have yet to make it. Evolution has never been observed to make leaps of intuition. All adaptations are gradual, coming from previously existing forms. Nothing looks as if it were designed.

 

[mynameisDan]

"You are incorrect. Mutations are often observed that add to the ability of a living thing to exist in it's environment. If that is true, then it explains how creatures adapt and branch out into new species and other forms."

first of all, mutations are only one explaination for variation. Recombination is another and probably more import. But we are not that far apart here. I fully accept that Lions, Tigers and Leopards had a common ancestor, just as I fully accept that dogs, wolves and coyotes did, as well as horses, zebras and donkey's. There is empiricle support for this conclusion. The original created kind for each of these groups had maximum information built into their genome. As they moved out, found niches and speciated their gene pools became isolated and information was lost when some isolated groups died out altogether. What you are attempted to assert however is that Tiger and horses and dogs had a common ancester with less information in its genome and over time, through mutation, information was added to code for the incredible differences which exist between them. This kind of transformation has never been observed, nor any series of information gaining mutations which would support such a transformation. In short, it is at best an improbable story, at worst, a crime against reason and true science.


"If there is an alternate explanation that fits the data better, creationists have yet to make it. Evolution has never been observed to make leaps of intuition. All adaptations are gradual, coming from previously existing forms. Nothing looks as if it were designed."

Only intellectual blindness could lead an otherwise intelligent person to such a ridiculous conclusion as this. Creation is the assumption which must be refuted, because if fits human experience in regards to the origin of order and complexity. Evolution is a story which purports to explain complexity and design without a "complexifier". That it fails is obvious to all but the deceived and the zealots of the faith.

 

[spidergoat]

Whales had a common ancestor which walked on the land. We know this because whales have vestigal hip bones and are sometimes born with actual hind limbs. In addition, the whale shows new adaptations that enable it to go without breathing for long periods of time, survive the depths without getting the bends, strain vast amounts of krill through specialized mouth structures, and various other unique adaptations. You cannot explain the origin of whales with your "loss of information" theory of speciation.

 

[spidergoat]

Claim:
Mutations are random noise; they do not add information. Evolution cannot cause an increase in information.


Response:

It is hard to understand how anyone could make this claim, since anything mutations can do, mutations can undo. Some mutations add information to a genome; some subtract it. Creationists get by with this claim only by leaving the term "information" undefined, impossibly vague, or constantly shifting. By any reasonable definition, increases in information have been observed to evolve. We have observed the evolution of:


-increased genetic variety in a population (Lenski 1995; Lenski et al. 1991)
-increased genetic material (Alves et al. 2001; Brown et al. 1998; Hughes and Friedman 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000; Ohta 2003)
-novel genetic material (Knox et al. 1996; Park et al. 1996)
-novel genetically-regulated abilities (Prijambada et al. 1995)

If these do not qualify as information, then nothing about information is relevant to evolution in the first place.


A mechanism that is likely to be particularly common for adding information is gene duplication, in which a long stretch of DNA is copied, followed by point mutations that change one or both of the copies. Genetic sequencing has revealed several instances in which this is likely the origin of some proteins.

For example:
-Two enzymes in the histidine biosynthesis pathway that are barrel-shaped, structural and sequence evidence suggests, were formed via gene duplication and fusion of two half-barrel ancestors (Lang et al. 2000).
-RNASE1, a gene for a pancreatic enzyme, was duplicated, and in langur monkeys one of the copies mutated into RNASE1B, which works better in the more acidic small intestine of the langur. (Zhang et al. 2002)
-Yeast was put in a medium with very little sugar. After 450 generations, hexose transport genes had duplicated several times, and some of the duplicated versions had mutated further. (Brown et al. 1998)
-The biological literature is full of additional examples. A PubMed search (at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) on "gene duplication" gives more than 3000 references.


According to Shannon-Weaver information theory, random noise maximizes information. This is not just playing word games. The random variation that mutations add to populations is the variation on which selection acts. Mutation alone will not cause adaptive evolution, but by eliminating nonadaptive variation, natural selection communicates information about the environment to the organism so that the organism becomes better adapted to it. Natural selection is the process by which information about the environment is transferred to an organism's genome and thus to the organism (Adami et al. 2000).


The process of mutation and selection is observed to increase information and complexity in simulations (Adami et al. 2000; Schneider 2000).


http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB102.html

 

[synthesizer-patel]

Creationists get by with this claim only by leaving the term "information" undefined, impossibly vague, or constantly shifting.

So Ben, do you think this is a fair deduction on your reluctance to provide a straightforward list of criteria that must be met for something to be classed as having new information - or is there a more reasonable explanation for your failure to do so?

 

[mynameisDan]

Whales had a common ancestor which walked on the land. We know this because whales have vestigal hip bones and are sometimes born with actual hind limbs. In addition, the whale shows new adaptations that enable it to go without breathing for long periods of time, survive the depths without getting the bends, strain vast amounts of krill through specialized mouth structures, and various other unique adaptations. You cannot explain the origin of whales with your "loss of information" theory of speciation.

whale evolution is just another whale of a tale story of evolution believers. "vesitigal hip bones" What a joke.

"To make the claim as evolutionists do, that land-dwelling mammals evolved into sea-dwelling whales is to claim that there had to be simultaneous accidental genetic changes which allowed the tail to grow larger while the pelvis grew smaller. And all this ignores the problems caused as the ever shrinking pelvis or hip bones reached the point where they were far too small to support the creature’s weight on its hind legs, and yet still too large to let the animal move its tail up and down with any efficiency.

Of course, tails are not the only thing on whales that make them different from land-dwelling mammals. To totally convert a land-dwelling mammal into a whale you would also have to replace its sweat glands with thick layers of blubbery fat, change its eyes so that the light rays under sea water are still brought to focus on the retina, change its skin to produce a curious surface efficiently designed to streamline the flow of water, and also find some way to enable it to give birth to young which suckle under water without drowning, a rather essential ‘adaptation.’

In other words, if you wanted to make a tail for a whale you could not do it by using evolutionary random chance small mutational accidents on some land-dwelling mammals, no matter how long you let the process take. A whale’s tail is too well designed to be made that way. In fact, it shows all the evidence of the intelligent engineering which we associate with deliberate creation." (Creation 7(1):11)

The evolutionary case for whale evolution:

Pakicetus—however, it consisted only of jaw and skull fragments yet it’s been claimed to be a “walking whale.”

Basilosaurus has also been offered as an ancestor to whales; while it did have hind limbs, they were far too small to have anything to do with walking. Yet evolutionists agreed that they were clearly functional, not useless, and the most common view is that they were probably used for grasping in reproduction.

Ambulocetus had hind limbs, and could walk; it is thus the latest fossil candidate for whale evolution. However, it is doubtful that this supposed creature (constructed with some imagination) had anything to do with the history of whales.

Imaginative story telling is all that is behind the great whale tale, just like all of evolution.

 

[mynameisDan]

"It is hard to understand how anyone could make this claim, since anything mutations can do, mutations can undo."

Notice that the real issue is avoided by the author of this article. A back mutation would be an example of "adding information", although it would be hard to argue that new information has really been added to the biosphere since we are only getting back what was given up. The issue is that information gaining mutations have not been observed in the germ cells of any organism. A major issue for evolutionary fundamentalists believers.

"Some mutations add information to a genome; some subtract it. Creationists get by with this claim only by leaving the term "information" undefined, impossibly vague, or constantly shifting. By any reasonable definition, increases in information have been observed to evolve. We have observed the evolution of"

Information science is not new, nor is it vague. It IS complex and can get quite technical (http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v10/i2/information.asp). Evolutionists are trying to capitalize upon this by making claims that the arguements are always 'shifting'. Interestingly, Dr. Max seemed to have no trouble understanding Spetners basic argument, and he tried valiantly to overcome it by finding an example of what he believed to be an information gaining mutation in a somatic cell. Trouble is, this wasn't the challenge that was being debated. Spetner was looking for any examples of information gaining mutations in the germ cells of any organism found in any laboratory in the world. On this topic, Max could offer, nothing.


"-increased genetic variety in a population (Lenski 1995; Lenski et al. 1991)
-increased genetic material (Alves et al. 2001; Brown et al. 1998; Hughes and Friedman 2003; Lynch and Conery 2000; Ohta 2003)
-novel genetic material (Knox et al. 1996; Park et al. 1996)
-novel genetically-regulated abilities (Prijambada et al. 1995)

If these do not qualify as information, then nothing about information is relevant to evolution in the first place."

None of them qualify and none were offered by Max in debate as he knew they did not qualify.

"A mechanism that is likely to be particularly common for adding information is gene duplication, in which a long stretch of DNA is copied, followed by point mutations that change one or both of the copies. Genetic sequencing has revealed several instances in which this is likely the origin of some proteins."

You must read very carefully the claims of evolution believers and be discerning enough to catch what they are saying. It is like following a political campaign. Here is the pertinent phrase: "this is likely the origin of some proteins". Again, the presumption of evolution is now the proof of evolution.

"For example:
-Two enzymes in the histidine biosynthesis pathway that are barrel-shaped, structural and sequence evidence suggests, were formed via gene duplication and fusion of two half-barrel ancestors (Lang et al. 2000).
-RNASE1, a gene for a pancreatic enzyme, was duplicated, and in langur monkeys one of the copies mutated into RNASE1B, which works better in the more acidic small intestine of the langur. (Zhang et al. 2002)
-Yeast was put in a medium with very little sugar. After 450 generations, hexose transport genes had duplicated several times, and some of the duplicated versions had mutated further. (Brown et al. 1998)
-The biological literature is full of additional examples. A PubMed search (at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) on "gene duplication" gives more than 3000 references."

No examples of information gaining mutations here either which would stand up under scrutiny, which is why they are not offered in formal debate. Gene duplication has been discussed earlier. Two copies of the same book is not new information. The rest is assumption, not observational science.


"According to Shannon-Weaver information theory, random noise maximizes information."

"The definition of information according to Shannon is limited to just one aspect of information, namely its property of expressing something new: information content is defined in terms of newness. This does not mean a new idea, a new thought or a new item of information—that would involve a semantic aspect—but relates merely to the greater surprise effect that is caused by a less common symbol. Information thus becomes a measure of the improbability of an event. A very improbable symbol is therefore assigned correspondingly high information content." TJ 10(2):181–187
August 1996 Werner Girt


Evolutionists wish to define information as essentially, "anything new" and thereby hiding their embarrassment on this issue. This isn't going to work. We all know the difference between intelligent communication and gibberish. We know the difference between the loss of organs (such as cave dwelling fish losing their sight and beetles losing their wings) and the rise of new organs and physiological abilities. Observations reveal the evolution is heading in the wrong direction. Rather than heading uphill to greater complexity, it is a downhill path to information loss and in many cases, extinction.

 

[mynameisDan]

So Ben, do you think this is a fair deduction on your reluctance to provide a straightforward list of criteria that must be met for something to be classed as having new information - or is there a more reasonable explanation for your failure to do so?

well, first of all my name is Dan, not Ben. Secondly, show me examples of oranisms living today which have gained new organs where none existed (please, no story telling). For example, we know it can be demonstrated that under certain conditions organism lose sight, lose wings etc.. Please provide observational examples of the opposite, organisms gaining eye sight, wings etc. where none existed. No excuses now. If you state that it takes too much time for these changes to take place, you cannot turn this into a positive argument for the evidence of evolution.

What we are looking for here is evidence of molecules to man evolution. We are not merely looking for examples of "change", because both creation scientists and evolution believers agree on this subject, change happens. The difference is the type of change. If you wish to suggest molecules to man change (evolution), this isn't change we can believe in, because the evidence is lacking.

 

[iceaura]

And you statement that early life didn't need to be complex is equally baseless since we know of no independent living systems that are anything but complex. If you wish to advance the argument that life doesn't need to be complex that you need to find simple living things.

The question was not whether modern living things need to be complex, but whether sef-reproducing systems capable of evolution need to be complex. Your assertion that they do is false.

"The beginnings of life on earth might very well have been quite simple, as far as the requirements of reproduction and the original staging of evolutionary development are concerned."

So you say, but again, this is an argument by assertion and can thus be dismissed as such. No one has demonstrated this.

My actual assertion has been demonstrated thosuands of times in simple computer models, and justified by dozens of relevant theoretical analyses. Did you read carefully? No changing the subject.

you cannot presume evolution and then use it as an argument for evolution. This is circular reasoning.

I didn't. I made no claim about how the new species arose. I simply pointed out that they have as much information in their genomes as other species - just as dogs have as much as wolves, great Danes as much as chihuahuas, and so forth. Speciation and variation does not require loss of information.

You have made a statement but not offered what new information is possessed by the Hawaiian fruit flies. If it is true that they possess more information than other related fruit flies you must then prove which speciated from which.

No, I simply have to note that taxonomically related species show different genomes of equivalent sizes. There is no master genome containing all the variations, in any species - it would have to be huge. So the variations observed are not brought about by loss of information only.

 

[phlogistician]

Please provide observational examples of the opposite, organisms gaining eye sight, wings etc. where none existed.

Wings? Right you are sir!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7684796.stm

Transitional fossil, showing that large feathers were developed for display purposes, and then evolved into those used for flight.

Oh, and are you assuming that all flightless bird species have lost the ability, and aren't a species that never developed it fully? IE, living transitional examples? It's not been proven either way, ...

 

[mynameisDan]

"The question was not whether modern living things need to be complex, but whether sef-reproducing systems capable of evolution need to be complex. Your assertion that they do is false."

what proof do you have of this assertion?

"My actual assertion has been demonstrated thosuands of times in simple computer models, and justified by dozens of relevant theoretical analyses. Did you read carefully? No changing the subject."

Computer simulations were popularized by zoologist Richard Dawkins and are not the same as direct observations of living systems. I have read enough about them to be suspicious of there value in this debate.

“ Originally Posted by dan
you cannot presume evolution and then use it as an argument for evolution. This is circular reasoning. ”

"I didn't. I made no claim about how the new species arose. I simply pointed out that they have as much information in their genomes as other species - just as dogs have as much as wolves, great Danes as much as chihuahuas, and so forth. Speciation and variation does not require loss of information."

Speciation does result in loss of information. It is widely known in breeding that plants and animals which are highly bred, lack information which was available to the original wild type. Plants highly bred often lack nature disease resistance and must rely upon pesticides to remain healthy.

"Breeders eliminate unwanted genes making domesticated forms genetically poorer. These are usually helpless in nature and perish when left without human help. If not, this is due to quick inter-breeding with wild forms that replenish the gene pool.

Most of the successes in breeding come from guided recombination. The breeder pools certain rare genes into one individual or population to achieve the desired combination of traits. Nothing new is produced." Plant Geneticist Maciej Giertych


“ Originally Posted by dan
No, I simply have to note that taxonomically related species show different genomes of equivalent sizes."

The size of the genome does not necessary diminish with information loss. Of the some 3000 mutations which have been observed in fruit flies, none are an example of information gain. Not only that, but none have been beneficial!

"There is no master genome containing all the variations"

how do you know this?

"it would have to be huge."

again, you confuse the size of the genome with information. There are many organisms with vastly less information present in their genomes which have genomes which are quite large. Just another example that size doesn't always matter.

"So the variations observed are not brought about by loss of information only."

The key word is only, and on that point, we agree.

 

[spidergoat]

whale evolution is just another whale of a tale story of evolution believers. "vesitigal hip bones" What a joke.

Now you are the joke. Vestigal whale bones are an empirical fact. You are also making a bad argument that whales needed to become oceangoing all at once. That is nonsense. Look at hippos, they are amphibious, look at manatees, they are aquatic, but still retain land dwelling features. The transition to the ocean happened gradually. First they spent more and more time in the water, their limbs became more flipper-like (like a seal). Then, over time, they became adapted to the ocean, because evolution favored those animals more suited to an aquatic life. They breathe air, like no fish. That is all you need to tell you they evolved on land then returned to the sea. Manatees still retain toenails, like elephants, a relative.

 

[mynameisDan]

Wings? Right you are sir!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7684796.stm

Transitional fossil, showing that large feathers were developed for display purposes, and then evolved into those used for flight.

Oh, and are you assuming that all flightless bird species have lost the ability, and aren't a species that never developed it fully? IE, living transitional examples? It's not been proven either way, ...

You do know the difference between an observed event such as feathers appearing on an organism by mutation whose ancestors had none to begin with and a static fossil buried in rocks and open to the usual wild evolutionary speculation don't you?

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's dinobird!!!

"About the size of a pigeon, Epidexipteryx is described by BBC News as “very bird-like,” though it lacked flight feathers. According to the evolution interpretation of the fossil record, it lived more than 150 million years ago, before the time of birds—hence, it must have been a dinosaur, right?

Among the features indicated by the fossil was a “fluffy, down-like covering and . . . two pairs of enormously long, ribbon-like shafted tail feathers” probably for ornamentation only.

Oxford University’s Graham Taylor noted, “Whereas other feathered dinosaurs date from after the appearance of the first known bird, this fossil appears to be much closer in age, so it opens a new window on the evolutionary events at the critical transition from dinosaurs to birds.”

Paleontologist Fucheng Zhang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences explained, “Although possessing many derived features seen in birds . . . [Epidexipteryx] show some striking features . . . not known in any other theropod [dinosaur].”

In other words, the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that this fossil was some form of bird, not a dinosaur, and the only reason it has been labeled a dinosaur is its location in the fossil record. So much for evolutionists following the evidence wherever it leads! Epidexipteryx may have been a bird that was either designed to be flightless or was flightless because its lost it flight feathers, possibly due to a mutation (unless they weren’t fossilized for other reasons), and was toothed like other extinct birds found in the fossil record."

 

[spidergoat]

Moron, a transitional species between bird and dinosaur would defy clear classification. That's what dumbass creationists always say. You show them a transitional species between ape and man, and they say, "oh, that's just a strange ape". Fuck this idiocy.

 

[mynameisDan]

"Vestigal whale bones are an empirical fact."

bones are an empirical fact. Vestigal bones left over from a time that whales were grazing is an absurd fiction.

"You are also making a bad argument that whales needed to become oceangoing all at once."

Not at all. The issue is that evolutions always look at a few charateristics when story telling and ignore the vast changes which would be needed to accomplish the evolutionary miracle.

"Look at hippos, they are amphibious, look at manatees, they are aquatic, but still retain land dwelling features."

so what, they are not evolving into whales either.

"The transition to the ocean happened gradually. First they spent more and more time in the water, their limbs became more flipper-like (like a seal). Then, over time, they became adapted to the ocean, because evolution favored those animals more suited to an aquatic life."

once upon a time...... Please, tell this to your kids.

"They breathe air, like no fish. That is all you need to tell you they evolved on land then returned to the sea."

really? couldn't it be that it is because they are mammals and not fish? By what logic does this constitute "proof" of anything???

"Manatees still retain toenails, like elephants, a relative."

oh, the easy job of the evolution believer. He doesn't have to explain all of the vast physiological differences between organisms or how these differences could be overcome by time and chance, he just has to find a couple of similarities to "prove" ancestry.