{"id":285,"date":"2007-09-26T07:22:18","date_gmt":"2007-09-26T11:22:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=285"},"modified":"2008-08-05T19:22:09","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T23:22:09","slug":"why-yes-i-did-gain-some-new-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=285","title":{"rendered":"Why, yes, I did gain some new information."},"content":{"rendered":"

Part III of Daniel Jarvis’ series “Consider the evidence<\/a>,” which takes on evolution and supports intelligent design,\u00c2\u00a0is up. My take on part one here<\/a> and part two here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article presents the “no new information” argument against evolution. Simply put, where did the information required for increasingly complex life forms come from? I have to admit to not knowing much about his argument. I had heard it before, but had yet to absorb the refutation. However, I need to note that I mentioned in the previous two installments that Jarvis has yet to present any evidence for intelligent design. None. And here we are in part three with still no drop of evidence to be found. He’s taking the typical tactic of attacking evolution, claiming he has evolution on the ropes, and then magically declaring intelligent design the winner. Even if he did manage to bloody evolution’s nose, which he has yet to do, that still doesn’t say a thing about intelligent design. He hasn’t presented any positive evidence to support it. We’re still waiting Jarvis.<\/p>\n

As I said, I’m not knowledgeable enough about the “no new information” argument to take it on off the top of my head. So, I fired up Google and look what I found: new information!<\/p>\n

Here are some snippets from a good explanation<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Individuals don’t evolve. Populations do. So in linking information theory to evolution, one must consider the information in the population, which creationists do not do.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

It is important to realize that evolution occurs even if information is lost. It also occurs when information is gained or without any change in the amount of information at all. Thus no-new-information arguments do not actually address evolutionary theory. By focusing on individuals and not populations, no-new-information claims never even get close to disproving evolution. In fact, the actual claim, when applied to biology, is that the information capacity of an individual’s genome cannot increase. However, this claim is false because there are known types of mutations that can increase the length of the genome and thus its capacity to hold information.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Talkorigins has something to say<\/a>, of course (do a search for the word “information” to find the post):<\/p>\n

But what about the actual claim, that mutations *add* no new information? That’s questionable as well. Mutations aren’t always single changes in the bases of DNA. Duplications, transpositions and fusions are mutations that can also occur which increase the total length of DNA in the cell. Even a perfect duplication of a single gene will increase genetic information by some degree (And yes, even perfect duplications of a single gene can find an adaptive role).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Also see here about “Apolipoprotein AI Mutations and Information<\/a>.” Also take a look at the index of creationist claims<\/a>.<\/p>\n

luna_the_cat does a great job explaining things (part one<\/a> and part two<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Thank you, Jarvis. After my little bit of research and reading, I gained some new information. Amazing! Readers, please offer up any additional links or information you have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part III of Daniel Jarvis’ series “Consider the evidence,” which takes on evolution and supports intelligent design,\u00c2\u00a0is up. My take on part one here and part two here. This article presents the “no new information” argument against evolution. Simply put, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-4B","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":291,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=291","url_meta":{"origin":285,"position":0},"title":"Consider the evidence IV","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"October 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Daniel Jarvis stopped by this here FCS blog after one of our commenters noticed something screwy at The Marco Island Sun Times. Jarvis has been writing his Consider the Evidence series about evolution and intelligent design. (Our response to part one here, part two here, and part three here.) Strangely,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":282,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=282","url_meta":{"origin":285,"position":1},"title":"Waiting for the evidence","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Daniel Jarvis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 second installment in his series of articles about evolution and intelligent design is just as disappointing as his first. What sticks most in my mind is that he entitles this series \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Consider the evidence\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and yet he hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t presented any evidence. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an odd incongruity to say the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":275,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=275","url_meta":{"origin":285,"position":2},"title":"Fact or fiction?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"September 6, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Daniel W. Jarvis writes a regular column for a Marco Island community newspaper. I stumbled across his most recent piece, which announces that he will be poking evolution with a stick in his next few columns and promoting intelligent design. This first column doesn't present much hope for the series\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Analysis\/Commentary"","block_context":{"text":"Analysis\/Commentary","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=4"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":502,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=502","url_meta":{"origin":285,"position":3},"title":"News roundup","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"March 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"My apologies for this quick news link dump. The chemistry class I'm taking now is kicking my butt. I hope to have some thoughts on the movie situation up here tonight. In the meantime: Herald Tribune. I'm not buying what Mr. Luskin is selling. Stein and John Stemberger, president of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Creationism Bills"","block_context":{"text":"Creationism Bills","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=11"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":400,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=400","url_meta":{"origin":285,"position":4},"title":"A letter to the editor worth noting","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been staying away from posting letters to the editor on this blog, because there are so many of them. But this one I thought was worth taking note of due in part to what it says and in part to who wrote it. This was in the Palm Beach\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":363,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=363","url_meta":{"origin":285,"position":5},"title":"Has it hit you where you live yet?","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 31, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The battle over evolution continues at a fierce pace, as we discover in the Palm Beach Post today. Three new counties are now added to our watchlist: St Lucie, Palm Beach, and Martin. However, we need to keep our eyes on the ball. The real fight that we must concentrate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}