Does complexity require intelligent design?

Deleted: Drat Brad beat me to it This message has been edited by Ooook!, 18-03-2005 12:32 AM

Hi, Why is it that when IDists talk about all mutations taking away 'information' (whatever that is), they always overlook the process of gene duplication. This changes the genome (ie is a mutation) and can never be considered deleterious because it obviously adds to the genome.For example:You have a protein encoded in gene A, in a simplistic way the genome has information that says "make protein A". If gene A gets duplicated, then you have two gene A's. You could argue that this is not really an increase in information - but it's certainly not deleting information. So far so good.What if one of the genes gains a mutation that gives it a novel function, like being able to breakdown a previously unusable food source, or bind to a particular protein? It can be said to be a new gene . Because you still have a copy of gene A, nothing has been lost and the 'information' in the genome now says "make protein A AND protein B? Is that not a gain of information?Hope that all makes sense and is not just a pile of A's, B's and (ii)'s!

XEvo, This looks like you’ve accepted that mutation could increase ‘information’ in a genome via duplication events, but don’t want to believe it .There are a number of things to remember about the effects of duplication: Remember, the mechanism I am describing here is duplication followed by diversification so you’re not looking for distinct phenotypic changes after the first copying event, and the mutations that follow don’t have to be that drastic at first.I think this is what P.S. is pointing out when talking about redundancy. Teleost fishes are great examples of where duplication has made a large number of similar genes with overlapping functions. Another example is where knocking out genes in mice leads to less severe phenotypes than expected — because related genes haven’t fully diversified. The infamous Hox genes are a great example of a wide variety of different functions being derived from a series of obvious duplication events. It’s either that or the designer has gone out of his way to make it look that way!On a simpler, less developmental note: the evolution of a single chain globin into a more complex four chain protein can be explained purely by duplication folowed by diversification. No designer needed.So exactly where is a designer needed during evolution? Where is the design/evolve cut-off point?If it is only to supply the ‘universal’ code (as you seem to be implying in other posts) then that’s leaving an awful lot of information building to random mutation and natural selection. And of course doesn't escape the question of whether the code could have evolved itself...but I suspect that might be a different topic