Shane said:



True but misleading. Natural selection does not introduce new genetic material. It selects from among existing genetic material that which is best adapted to the environment. But natural selection is not the whole picture with evolution, and it was never advanced as the explanation for new genetic information. New genetic information is introduced by mutations.

See, this is *exactly* the kind of dishonest argument on the part of anti-evolutionists that discredits their case. It is misleading, either through ignorance (the most charitable explanation) or intentionally.

Not quite that misleading. They also address mutation. However mutation results in the loss of genetic material, not that addition of it. This is claimed over and over again by creationists and the intelligent design community. I have seen it brought up in debates between creationists and naturalists (aka evolutionists) and have never seen one example of where mutations have been observed adding genetic material. If such examples exist, I don't know why naturalists don't do a better job of citing them.

This is what I understand. I am not a scientist so this might be crude.

New genetic material can be created by crossover and mutation. Crossover is the result of genetic material from two parents being combined in their offspring. For example, mom has straight black hair and dad has curly blond hair in a primitive world where no gene for curly black hair exists. Their offspring ends up with curly black hair. Through a series of mutations and generations the curly black hair could become feathers, then feathers becomes wings, etc. However in this example there really is no new genetic material. There is only beneficial mutations from differing genetic material being passed on to offspring.

Now if we say that a string of proteins were somehow created by chance and somehow this string of proteins formed a cell and became life, how would that one-cell organism acquire genetic material? When it split, how could it give something to its offspring that it doesn't have? How can a mutation introduce genetic information that isn't already present?

A mutation is caused by a misreplication of the DNA. A sequence might get cut out, or added in the wrong place, or one base replaced by another, or... If a sequence is added in a different place on the DNA strand, and causes different characteristics, then I guess it's true in one sense that no new information has been added. But it's a trivial sense. It's like saying that by rearranging words that have already been used in other contexts, I'm creating no new information in this post. The base pair sequences are very simple in themselves, but it's what they do in certain sequences and combinations that makes them powerful.

In your example, if feathers are a completely new thing in the world, that is adaptive for certain purposes... then whether it's new genetic information or not, it's a new characteristic. Add enough new characteristics and you have a new species.

Two thoughts on this:

1) Theoretically true but this has not been observed to take place. It is speculated that some fossils show evidence of this but the observers' worldview plays a lot into their speculation.

2) This still doesn't explain how new genetic information is added to our one-cell organism that is supposedly the common ancestor of all life on the planet.

1) There is no way that it can ever be directly observed to take place because our life spans are so short and the time scales required are so long. New species (unable to interbreed) have been observed, but since they look the same to an untrained observer creationists will not accept this as an instance of speciation. No-one is ever going to see a cat turn into a dog in the lab - nd evolution never claimed they would, so this is not a valid test of evolutionary theory.

2) Even a one-celled organism already has an incredibly complex genome. Many bacteria have a couple of thousand genes, for example, and humans have only 30,000. And, as discussed above, adding genes doesn't require adding new genetic information in the 'adding from external' sense you're talking about, it can arise through mutations which are essentially reshufflings of existing sequences. One intriguing possibility for the addition of genetic material is that bacterial gene sequences have been found intact in fruit fly genomes. It's possible genes from other species can be incorporated. This is still very cutting edge.

The bottom line is that 'no new genetic information' is half a straw man and 'no new genetic information added by natural selection' is a whole one.

If life on Earth started out as naturalists propose, it would have been the most simplest of unicellular organisms. (Of course I don't think any of us here believe that is how life started) Using the alphabet analogy, if we start out with just ABC, how are we going to get to the Library of Congress? Before we can even start making new words (through mutation) we need to add a lot of new letters.



The point is that it is not testable. If it is not testable than arguably, it isn't science. But I am the first to say we have to get beyond science in our study of origins.

Nope, the point is that this test - observation of a visible species change within a human lifetime - is not a prediction that evolutionary theory makes. It is invalid to try to test a theory using a prediction that that theory does not make.

It is true that evolutionary theory is not testable using direct evidence, only indirect evidence. But that is also true of subatomic particles. We cannot observe them directly, only deserve their interactions and make inferences about their nature. Do you wish to make the claim that protons and neutrons are 'not science'?

I am not talking about me. I am talking about the arena of ideas and things which are discussed by others. What I want really has nothing to do with the discussion.

What is the indirect evidence that organic life evolved from non-organic matter? That is what is said to be untestable. How could this supposedly unicellular organism acquire new genetic material so mutations could cause more complex species?

I am not aware that it has been observed in recorded human history - going back some 5,000 years. But then, 5,000 years is only a drop in the bucket for naturalists.

And the key to this is that humans have been active in breeding animals but have never turned one species into another. However, even if they did, that would not prove natural selection capable of doing it. Natural selection works by random acts. Humans breeding animals is... intelligent design. Rather than proving evolution, if scientists are able to create a new species it only serves to prove intelligent design.