I’ve been in dialogue with a creationist who claims no new information can be added to a species genome. She’s specifically wanting to see evidence of something like a plant acquiring a totally different pigment that wasn’t in the species genome prior to the mutation. I mentioned that there are no wild species of roses with red flowers; in fact, red flowers are absent from the whole rose family. This is because the family lacked the gene for the pure red pelargonidin pigment. However, a genetic mutation occurred about 1930 that produced pelargonidin. I was just wondering if anyone knows if the mutation that cause this was natural or artificially done. If it’s artificial then it wouldn’t appear to be a good example.
If it occurred in 1930 it wasn’t artificial. The technology for targeted mutations didn’t exist. At most some sort of scattershot radiation stuff might have been available, but that would be as random as you can get. Presumably someone just selected among visible phenotypes.
Thanks. So it’s a perfect example of what this creationist is saying can’t happen. “New information” as she puts it is being created as a totally new colour has appeared that wasn’t in the genome before.
The “No New Information” claims are based the common usage of the word “Information”. If we apply a rigorous definition like Shannon Information then there is no difficulty in creating new information. We have a long thread about the topic somewhere …
… but that thread may be too technical, and it picks up from a different discussion.
The short version:
Information describes the variability found in the population genome. It’s a property of the population, not of individuals.
New mutations add variability (Information) to the genome.
Sexual mixing spreads that information through the genome, unless/until …
Selection removes information from the genome, with a heavy bias toward keeping information that promotes fitness of the population.
It might be better to say that species evolve as Information changes in the genome. Some of the variation will be new, some of the old variation will get selected out.
There’s a very simple logical argument on this. If the creationist agrees that a mutation can lose information, then the reverse mutation can gain information. Wax off, wax on.
Yeah that makes sense. So the fact that there are no wild species of roses with red flowers, and then a natural genetic mutation occurred that produced pelargonidin making them red is observable proof that there’s no difficulty creating new “information” (information in the sense you described).
I have a sneaking suspicion that the fact that you have provided an example of exactly what she asked for will not change her mind in the least. But let us know!
Just tell her to align the chimp and human genome and find the differences. Within those differences are the mutations that produced new information in the human and chimp genomes.
Yes. And just to buttress the point raised by @John_Harshman, it actually goes even further. If mutation can’t create new information, then new information can’t be created by intelligent design either. If an intelligent designer can create new information by inserting a DNA base, or substituting one for another, or by rearrangement of the order of bases, then so can mutation because all of those are possible types of mutations too.
If you think about it the mechanisms of mutation basically constitute a set of base sequence “editing tools”. There are mutations that substitute one letter for another, for copying, cutting and pasting larger sections in a different position. All these types of mutations are possible. Insertion, deletion, substitution, cutting/copying-and-pasting. There is even recombination and chromosomal inversions for crying out loud. If an intelligent designer can create new information by using such manipulations, then so can mutation.
Hi Elliot
Functional Information can be added to a genome by a retroviral insert. The origin of the information in the virus is still debatable but her statement of not being able to add information to a genome is incorrect.
I think that method to argue the point may backfire.
But do we know that observed retroviral inserts are functional? If I remember right, those in koalas caused disease…unless that is considered function.
Anyway @Elliot_Mudd you’ll end up arguing about what information means, you won’t agree, and you’ll end up in circles. I don’t think it’s a very good argument for creationists to use for that reason.
Having read all the previous (2018) thread, and this one, I think that:
(1) Using Shannon definitions of information leads to computations of information that are inappropriate. For example, when a very variable population is reduced to being fixed for one allele this is either (a) a great increase of information, no matter whether that allele is better or worse, or (b) a great decrease of information, no matter whether that allele is better or worse.
(2) Creationists declare that “new information” has to mean a new allele arising by mutation, and that subsequent changes of gene frequency don’t count. This is contrary to all Shannon-like calculations. John Harshman’s example of forward and backward change at a site suffices to refute any declaration that “new information” of the creationist type cannot possibly arise.
(3) Functional information (a form of specified information) is needed to do any sensible calculations relevant to the increase of adaptive information by natural selection. Josh has declared this off-limits for this discussion, alas.
(4) Algorithmic information is great fun but totally irrelevant. I have a tirade on that at Panda’s Thumb on 5 December 2019.
I think that’s enough opinions for now.
Thomas Schneider defined biological information in a different and interesting way.
In his model, he used Shannon’s definition of sender and receiver using a protein binding protein and DNA binding site as sender and receiver. He saw an increase in information as both the protein and DNA evolved to produce a binding site.
Seem to be saying the change is due to loss of information not gaining. I know the following analogy is wrong as genetic information isn’t the same words but it’s only meant to be an analogy: if you take the word HAND and there’s a “mutation” that duplicates that you get HAND HAND, if there is then another mutation where you loose the “H” you end up with “HAND AND”, even though you’ve lost a letter, you’ve now got a new word, that’s gaining information even though you’ve lost a letter isn’t it?
Of course, but that’s begging the question. The differences in the genome aren’t going to convince a creationist that evolution took place. Pointing out similarity might be more convincing.
