A younger Dawkins is stumped, then ducks the question of where we find new genetic information being produced in the biological world. The video is rather funny. Dawkins replies to the video here. You be the judge of whether his explanation is just a further dodge or not. If you’ll notice…he still doesn’t answer the question!
May 18, 2007
Dawkins Stumped by an Honest Question
Posted by Jason Dulle under Apologetics, Dawkins, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science[11] Comments
Thinking to Believe 
May 18, 2007 at 10:06 am
The first video is hilarious! The second video is funny as well. Some joe has decided that the first video needs counteracted: “oh by the way, the question has been answered!” Really!? Standing up and saying, “I have an answer to the question posed,” is very different from actually giving an answer.
Dawkins is master of bait-and-switch and argumentation. He promises an answer, keeps talking, never gives an answer, but pretends he has. His arrogance is amazing. To respond to a question with, “Well, these are modern animals…” Duh! Really!?! That is precisely the question Mr. Dawkins whence cometh the modern creatures and what precedeth them? And how does evolution produce the information necessary for new (modern) creatures?
Dogma comes in many forms. I’m amazed when I hear a “scholar” who gives such high praise to the value of science and the quest for truth respond to a question with, “well that’s only a question a creationist would ask.” Evidently that is why he won’t give interviews with creationists. They’re questions don’t count.
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May 20, 2007 at 10:02 am
Here’s an answer to the question about information added to the genome:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I14KTshLUkg
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May 20, 2007 at 10:07 am
Claim CB102:
Mutations are random noise; they do not add information. Evolution cannot cause an increase in information.
Response:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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).
4. 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
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May 21, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Chad,
Their questions don’t count because some of them get to the heart of the assumptions of evolutionary “science”. The die-hards don’t like to have to supply concrete evidence for their so-so bed-time stories about how everything got here, and in its present form. It’s much easier to tell the story about how a naturalistic method can do all of this, than it is to show that the proposed method actually can, and has done all of this.
Jason
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May 21, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Arthur,
I’m no molecular biologist, and the point of my post was not to debate whether there are such examples (it was to poke fun at the arrogant Dawkins), but here’s my amateur take.
I fail to see how gene duplication fits the bill. There is a difference between raw materials and information. A box of alphabet cereal is full of raw material, but not information. Information is ordered material. If an “A” in the box of cereal duplicated itself, you don’t get new information.
Life can never be reduced to mere chemicals because chemicals qua chemicals do not bear information. Life is a series of specified information expressed using chemicals in the same way that the chemicals of ink and paper do not communicate a message apart from an intelligent agent expressing information through them.
As for mutations, mutations not only have to offer a gain in function for evolution to occur, but they also have to be heritable. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of mutations cause a loss of function, and even among those that produce a gain in function they are not heritable.
Natural processes only shuffle around information, or cause a loss of information; they do not create it anew.
Rich Deem wrote:
“Naturalistic evolution could, in theory, produce some of the changes in structures that would account for some of the phenotypic differences observed between the old and new species. However, evolution is unable to account for the design of new structures. Even more of a problem are the ravages of mutation on the genomes of organisms. Mutation, the mechanism by which evolutionary change is proposed to occur, most often has no effect upon the fitness of an organism. In humans, these “neutral” mutations occur at a rate of 2.6 mutations per person per generation. However, deleterious mutations occur at a rate of 1.6 mutations per person per generation. Although these deleterious mutations are usually recessive (not expressed unless there are two copies), they will accumulate in the gene pool over time. Decreases in population size leads to the expression of these deleterious mutations through inbreeding, which seriously affects the fitness of the species. In fact, this is the mechanism by which species go extinct.”
Evolutionary biologist, Lynn Margulis, questions the ability of natural selection working on random mutations to produce new species:
“We agree that very few potential offspring ever survive to reproduce and that populations do change through time, and that therefore natural selection is of critical importance to the evolutionary process. But this Darwinian claim to explain all of evolution is a popular half-truth whose lack of explicative power is compensated for only by the religious ferocity of its rhetoric. Although random mutations influenced the course of evolution, their influence was mainly by loss, alteration, and refinement. One mutation confers resistance to malaria but also makes happy blood cells into the deficient oxygen carriers of sickle cell anemics. Another converts a gorgeous newborn into a cystic fibrosis patient or a victim of early onset diabetes. One mutation causes a flighty red-eyed fruit fly to fail to take wing. Never, however, did that one mutation make a wing, a fruit, a woody stem, or a claw appear. Mutations, in summary, tend to induce sickness, death, or deficiencies. No evidence in the vast literature of heredity changes shows unambiguous evidence that random mutation itself, even with geographical isolation of populations, leads to speciation. Then how do new species come into being? How do cauliflowers descend from tiny, wild Mediterranean cabbagelike plants, or pigs from wild boars?”
Jason
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August 21, 2015 at 12:19 pm
Dawkins is a terribly frustrated and, unhappy man. I pity him. Why? Because Christians are firmly grounded in their belief. Dawkins finds himself in a boat that is not solid in his belief. He, and other evolutionists are very quick to point out their examples of evolution. Like the moth that may have lost (or gained) their speckles or, the bacteria that became a more resistant bacteria. But, when the rubber hits the road, the moth is still a moth; the bacteria is still bacteria and, NOTHING has evolved from one species, to another. He brags the fossil record but, in reality, there are NO…NOT ONE true fossil showing change in progress. He knocks Christians for their belief in a fairy tale but, is guilty himself of believing in fairies. He says, billions of years ago this happened or, that happened when in reality, he can’t truly show that that is what happened. Then he, and others, wrap up these claims with words like “could’ve”, “proposed”, “suggested” etc., so that people would believe his nonsense. The way I see it, Dawkins is not interested in Evolution at all. He hates God. He hates the way true Christians are comfortable in their beliefs. And, it just infuriates him because he cannot prove his point. Because if Evolution )or abiogenesis) were a provable FACT, even the Christians, and Christian scientists, would have to believe it whether liked or not. He says that we are stupid and closed minded. And, these insults usually are tossed when he is confronted with tough, but real questions like this because, it is the only weapon in his arsenal. We are stupid when we ask him things like, how would a self replicating molecule be able to appear and turn into a cell when, the cell would not be able to function unless it has all of its components or, how would this “molecule” assemble itself, nourish itself, eliminate waste, encode it’s DNA (which has to come first because DNA is the “building plan” for life. And, not only assemble itself but, what are the chances of that happening, with the right atmosphere to keep it alive? The remarkability of the brain, the eye, the liver, kidneys etc. and etc. that are made from cells unique to the organs function. Or, what about explaining CONSCIOUSNESS? He says that mutations happen. Or, how about this question; he tells us that you can’t get something, from nothing so, wouldn’t he be in the same, “show me proof” boat that the people he mocks are in? People like him, level the playing field in this way, prove there is a God but, you can’t use this type of evidence or, that kind of evidence or, unless we come up with God’s phone number and address, all other evidence is rejected. But, reject or not, evidence is evidence. He rejects mathematical odds because it shoots his “theory” (more like a wish) in the can. And, when someone asks a tough question, name calling, other insults, gazillions of years or, just spewing a lot of words that sound impressive, is the “solid” evidence he’ll offer. Just because Dawkins says it, then it must be right? So, go ahead Mr. Dawkins (or anyone else for that matter), toss insults. Ridicule us. Call us brainless. We can take it because, unlike you, we believers are set in stone and, trust the word of God.
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August 21, 2015 at 1:49 pm
M. Francis:
Here is a most impossible statement that caused me to lol:
“………..Christians are firmly grounded in their belief.”
Firmly grounded in belief? Grounded in belief is a ludicrous statement. NO religion is ever, ever grounded by its belief, belief is non knowledge. Grounded in knowledge is the only foundation possible but belief has no foundation I’m afraid, belief provides a passion to knock, seek and find but until you have the knowledge, you have no foundation. Prove all things.
Another GEM used to denigrate evolution is taken directly from the religious handbook; it’s states in post # 5: “……. lack of explicative power is compensated for only by the religious ferocity of its rhetoric.”
Nice phrase to describe Paranormal Dogma actually: “…..religious ferocity of its rhetoric.” Religion and Religious have both become pejoratives for many ludicrous ideas for they themselves are formed from the same strain.
—————————————————————————–
“we believers are set in stone and, trust the word of God.”
HERE IS REALITY of “Stone” and “Word”:
God’s plan and God’s word was imagined, created, composed and written by Men! It is part of the patriarchal religious insanity man invented to give them a pseudo connection with their made up, make believe, God myth, using magic tricks and calling them miracles divined by the created caricature concept of themselves! The one you now and then call God.
Now I’m not saying that all religious people are psychopaths and psychotics but this notion of the sins of others, blasphemy, infidel, non-believer as a pejorative to me, is the true horror of religion. It allows perfectly decent and sane people to believe by the billions what only lunatics could believe on their own.
And finally:
“We are stupid when we ask him things like, how would a self replicating molecule be able to appear and turn into a cell when, the cell would not be able to function unless it has all of its components or, how would this “molecule” assemble itself, nourish itself, eliminate waste, encode it’s DNA (which has to come first because DNA is the “building plan” for life. And, not only assemble itself but, what are the chances of that happening, with the right atmosphere to keep it alive?”
This is called “Life Forces” and happens on a regular basis which is why scientists (not believers who pray for relief) have to create new vaccines every season to ward off the exact replications you say you cannot understand how they work and live while the host cell still operates. The replications form in flu viruses and antibiotic resistant bacteria and generate resistant shells around themselves that mimic the body’s immune system cells; as an analogy at the cellular level, one might say the Devil’s evil is the microorganism that cause infection and disease and that God’s good is the immune system that recognizes the invaders and battle them in our defense.
Viruses and Evolution
Just as natural selection has shaped the evolution of humans, plants, and all living things on the planet, natural selection shapes viruses, too. Though viruses aren’t technically living – they need a host organism in order to reproduce – they are subject to evolutionary pressures.
The human immune system uses a number of tactics to fight pathogens. The pathogen’s job is to evade the immune system, create more copies of itself, and spread to other hosts. Characteristics that help a virus do its job tend to be kept from one generation to another. Characteristics that make it difficult for the virus to spread to another host tend to be lost.
Take, for example, a virus that has a mutation that makes it particularly deadly to its human host and kills the host within a few hours of infection. The virus needs a new, healthy host for its descendents to survive. If it kills its host before the host infects others, that mutation will disappear.
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August 22, 2015 at 9:40 am
M. Francis:
“………….DNA is the “building plan” for life.”
Fact check:
RNA in evolution
Niles Lehman*
Article first published online: 16 JUL 2010
DOI: 10.1002/wrna.37
RNA has played a variety of roles in the evolutionary history of life on the Earth. While this molecule was once considered a poor cousin of the more influential polymers in the cell, namely DNA and proteins, a string of important discoveries over the last 50 years has revealed that RNA may in fact be the cornerstone of biological function. In particular, the finding that RNA can be catalytic, and thus possess both a genotype and a phenotype, has forced us to consider the possibility that life’s origins began with RNA, and that the subsequent diversification of life is aptly described as a string of innovations by RNA to adapt to a changing environment. Some of these adaptations include riboswitches, ribonucleoproteins (RNPs), RNA editing, and RNA interference (RNAi). Although many of these functions may seem at first glance to be recent evolutionary developments, it may be the case that all of their catalytic activities trace their roots back to a primordial ‘RNA World’ some four billion years ago, and that RNA’s diversity has a continuous thread that pervades life from its very origins. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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September 9, 2015 at 3:01 pm
Baloney!!! You evolutionist spout out your pseudo facts with words like suggests, probably, could have and etc. But, let me ask you evolutionists this, if abiogenesis and evolution are facts, why can’t you answer the question…where did the information in the DNA come from? I know…gazillions of years and a lot of mutations (mistakes)
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September 10, 2015 at 11:08 am
M. Francis:
“To construct any convincing theory of abiogenesis, we must take into account the condition of the Earth ‘….gazillions of years……’, about 4 billion years ago” much further back than the time period when Moses wrote the book of Genesis that creationists have hung their hat on.
As an aside, a news story just out today Sept 10, 2015: that bone remains of a new human ancestor have just been discovered in a cave in South Africa that may date humans several million years earlier than scientist have thought.
“A trove of bones hidden deep within a South African cave represents a new species of human ancestor, scientists announced Thursday in the journal eLife. Homo naledi, as they call it, appears very primitive in some respects—it had a tiny brain, for instance, and apelike shoulders for climbing. But in other ways it looks remarkably like modern humans. When did it live? Where does it fit in the human family tree? And how did its bones get into the deepest hidden chamber of the cave—could such a primitive creature have been disposing of its dead intentionally?
This is the story of one of the greatest fossil discoveries of the past half century, and of what it might mean for our understanding of human evolution.”
Let’s look at the old adage, “You are what you eat”.
Flamingo feathers obtain their wonderful rosy pink color from pigments in the organisms they eat. The flamingos’ feathers, legs, and face are colored by their diet, which is rich in alpha and beta carotenoid pigments.
Carotenoids in crustaceans such as those in the flamingo diet are frequently linked to protein molecules, and may be blue or green. After being digested, the carotenoid pigments dissolve in fats and are deposited in the growing feathers, becoming orange or pink. The same effect is seen when shrimp change color during cooking. The amount of pigment laid down in the feathers depends on the quantity of pigment in the flamingo’s diet. An absence of carotenoids in its food will result in new feather growth that is very pale; the existing pigment is lost through molting.
Conjugation and Transposition
There are genes that code for enzymes that destroy antibiotics and if the bacteria have these genes higher concentrations of antibiotic or longer treatment is necessary to kill the bacteria. Bacteria that do not have these genes can acquire them through one of two mechanisms that involve the exchange of genetic material.
Conjugation
Bacterial cells can join and exchange genetic material in the process of conjugation. Inside many bacteria there is a somewhat circular piece of self-replicating DNA known as a plasmid, which codes for enzymes necessary for the bacteria’s survival. Certain of these enzymes, coincidentally, assist in the breakdown of antibiotics, thus making the bacteria resistant to antibiotics. During conjugation, plasmids in one organism that are responsible for resistance to antibiotics may be transferred to an organism that previously did not possess such resistance.
Transformation and transduction
In transformation, DNA from the environment (perhaps from the death of another bacterium) is absorbed into the bacterial cell. In transduction, a piece of DNA is transported into the cell by a virus. As a result of incorporating new genetic material, an organism can become resistant to antibiotics.
One of the interesting aspects of DNA that I have been unable to find the perfect answer to as yet is this. Is the DNA of the caterpillar identical to the DNA of the Crysallis it becomes and the moth or butterfly it eventually turns into? The butterfly for example starts out as a tiny egg attached to a leaf or food source for the caterpillar or larva which turns into a pupa or chrysalis which turns into a butterfly or imago.
Incorporated into the monarch butterfly makeup like the bacteria a new piece of DNA is absorbed by the monarch butterfly by transformation and transduction from the milkweed plant: Named for its milky juice, more than 100 varieties of milkweed exist, and most are poisonous to many animals – but not to Monarchs. Female Monarchs normally lay one egg per milkweed leaf. As they grow, caterpillars fill themselves with milkweed poison. It’s not harmful to them and remains in their bodies forever. It stays in their orange and black wings, as a reminder to predators that they taste bitter. Some farmers consider milkweed a nuisance, but it is essential to the survival of the Monarchs.
In general, each species have a similar DNA sequence give or take some minor variations. The sequence of family members will be even more similar, and the sequence of clones (e.g. identical twins) will be virtually identical. This type of variation is random and thus will not be used as a control system. From this you can already guess that the change from caterpillar to butterfly will be controlled by its gene regulation program, as it is a developmental change, in the same way as a human grows from a single embryonic cell.
That said, it is always possible that some random changes occur somewhere along the way and would cause differences, as biology is stochastic (randomly determined; having a random probability distribution or pattern that may be analyzed statistically but may not be predicted precisely). However, for these to be consistent between all cells in the organism, they would have to happen when the organism is a single cell, which is not the case when transitioning from caterpillar to butterfly.
New bones discovered source:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150910-human-evolution-change/
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September 10, 2015 at 11:21 am
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