"Modern Cell Biology doesn't support Darwinism"

It's already sufficiently understood to know that it's the result of mutation; moreover, it is sufficient to observe that if this were the result of a designed mechanism, they would all be able to do it. Bacteria reproduce clonally and are haploid. They do not experience gene recession or other Mendelian inheritance patterns. If one bacteria gains an ability that its sisters do no share, the only explanation for that is mutation.

Mutation.

If what you need as support for your theory is the obscurity of the 2 or 3 examples that I just happened to recall off the top of my head without any effort then it is a extrodinarily POOR theory indeed.Although if you happen to look into those examples you will find that it is suprising that since we have had the capability to detect such things we have found 2 instances of increases in organized complexity in our own species. Given evolutionary time then there is no reason to expect that this is either isolated or a new phenomenon.

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Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

The title of this thread is Not the topic of this thread. The title is a quote from an article discussing a recent article in 'The Anatomical Record'.What you are discussing has nothing to do with that article, if you think it does then please show me how.If not then please stop posting on this thread.Whether mutation can cause an increase in information, no matter how you define it, is not something which has any relevance at all to this work.Please stop derailing this thread with discussions of information content, it is just as off topic as discussions of Dawkin's treatment at AIG. If you can't find an extant thread on these topics then propose a new one, but this is not a suitable thread for either.If you aren't interested in discussing the paper that Randman's article concerns then you shouldn't be on this thread.TTFN,AW

Fair enough...new topic submitted. And I'm guessing from the responses that there are at least a few people eager to jump on me for this one.

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Is there an example of a known natural process that will increase the information content?

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Maybe, maybe not. So far I have not seen a real definition of information. As NosyNed said in his response, you need to provide a definition of "information". To be a scientific definition, it must meet the following requirements:(1) Since the claim is that information cannot increase, information must be a number. So you must provide a means of calculating this number. Given the genome of a random organism, show us how to calculate the "information" for that genome. If you cannot do this, then your statement is meaningless.(2) You must show that no process can make this number increase. Given a genome of an orgainism, and the genome of the same organism but with one or two mutations, you must show that when you calculate the information of these two genomes, the number associated with the second is less than that of the first. I would prefer a description of physical mechanisms that prevent this; however, a mathematical proof will be interesting provided you list the simplifications and assumptions that you make. If you cannot do this, then your claim is simply an undemonstrated assertion.(3) You must show that this concept of "information" is relevant to the theory of evolution. That is, you must show why the evolution of, say, a semi-quadripedal ape into modern humans involves an increase of "information" and so cannot happen (provided that you have completed step (2) above). If you cannot do this, then your claim is irrelevant to evolution and may be ignored.Added by edit:Oops. I just noticed that Garrett is in the process of getting a PNT on this topic approved.This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 13-Feb-2006 05:26 PM

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"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

The topic at hand is a particular research paper, and the significance of what that paper reports.

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{moved here}This message has been edited by Parasomnium, 13-Feb-2006 09:54 PM

One reason I wonder about taking evos seriously is the tendency to never acknowledge a fact or argument as having merit until evos can come up with some explanation for it. This smacks of me of a sort of deliberateness and straightforward biasness which calls into question whether objectivity is part of the evo mindset.

very good point

Crash, actually it looks like AIG is correct and TalkOrigins is wrong. Read the end of the article. Skeptics Choke on Frog | Answers in Genesis

I'm not inclined to take Gillian Brown's word for it, especially when the only corroboration AIG offers is "Gb is a creationist, and creationists, being Christians, cannot lie. Dawkins can lie all he likes."Dawkins has answered the question in four different books. Are we to believe, honestly, that Dawkins was unable to recollect a single rebuttal despite having written four of them?Brown refers constantly to the "unedited video tapes", but there's no proof that anybody else has seen them, or is able to verify his statements. The best he can do is an excerpt from a post purported to be from Glenn Morton, who doesn't corraborate that post at any other source.So, the best evidence I can see is that Brown is simply lying to cover his lies, and AIG is lying along with him. Their idea that we should trust the word of Brown over Dawkins because one is a Christian and the other is not is ludicrous and insulting.

Note this is from someone unfriendly to the creationist position.

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I will state categorically that the audio tape of the interview 100% supports Gillian Brown’s contention that Dawkins couldn’t answer the question

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Of course he couln't... one would have to have a thorough definition of "information content of the genome" to proceed. First, it must be established what is meant by information (a point that has been firmly stressed to Garrett in this thread).Not all questions are well defined, and as such they cannot receive answers that are both concise and truthful.To claim that Dawkins was "stumped" is pure dishonesty and utterly ridiculous. I myself would have made a good attempt at discussing the question, and I have .0001% of the knowledge of Dawkins in this area.There is only one thing I hate more than Dawkins' evangelical atheism and that is the blatent dishonesty displayed in such creationist propaganda, especially when in the same article, the honesty of Christians is stressed. I am ashamed.

Please take all of this to some other thread, it is off topic here.TTFN,AW