Information and Evolutionary Mechanisms

For my stance between creation and evolution, I'm somewhere in the middle. However, I lean towards creation in the sense there are no proven genetic mechanisms that create new information (i.e., not using existing information). I think this article, while slightly biased (and there some issues in dealing with algorithms) it's fairly accurate to my reasoning.

Feel free to critique the article, or ask me to clarify reasoning on my part.

https://creation.com/mutations-new-information

There actually are "genetic mechanisms that create new information," although I'd probably word it differently.  The past few decades have revolutionized our understanding on this.  This article's pretty technical, but it gives a sense of what I'm talking about: Nothing in Evolution Makes Sense Except in the Light of Genomics: Read–Write Genome Evolution as an Active Biological Process

But all that aside, your position is a little unclear.  Specifically, the article link you posted seems to contradict your claim of no mechanism for new information.  That is, the article proposes to answer the question "Can Mutations Create New Information?" and the conclusion the article comes to is, "Yes," mutations can, in fact, create new information.

"Rather than viewing genome evolution as a series of accidental modifications, we can now study it as a complex biological process of active self-modification." However, the "information" is from existing sources, such as another cell, viral-DNA transfer, or itself. That's what I mean by "new information" (Probably should've clarified that). Information that hasn't come from existing DNA is "new information" (in my perspective).

I'll have to read the whole thing for specifics, though.

Information does not have to arise de novo--"from scratch"--to be "new information."  To use an analogy, this would be like saying a new version of a computer operating system with new programs does not qualify as "new information" if it is based on a prior operating system, but only qualifies as "new information" if it originates completely independent of any other computer program or operating system.  Yet, no one would deny that a new version of an operating system that is based on a prior version still contains new information.

First I’ll just comment on the article from the original post. As someone who isn’t a scientist but has been exposed to biological ideas, there are particular factors that I have heard of when it comes to microbiology and biology in general. One of them is the role of an organism’s environment in shaping the way living beings function and the how they develop biological traits. Has the author of the article considered that factor? I didn’t see anything in the article that took that into account. Maybe I’m missing something.

It is much more difficult than you are making it out in this; you cannot just alter something that is already performing a vital function without endangering the current function in place. Altering an existing lifeform or computer code by adding or subtracting even the tiniest of pieces could cause dramatic failure long before you would see an enhancement of features.

Cells can if they have built in mechanisms that allow them to do so in targeted areas of the genome that do not disrupt "vital functions" (mutation "hot spots" in genome), while protecting "vital function" areas of the genome from mutations ("conserved regions" in genome)...and they do!  This is not something theoretical, we observe it happening in real-time.

You also still seem to be laboring under the faulty, outdated assumption of long past that the genome is a static information storage unit where "even the tiniest" of changes "could cause dramatic failure."  While that applies to highly conserved regions of the genome associated with essential, core life functions, it does not apply to genomes as a whole.  To the contrary, genomes are dynamic genetic engineering "playgrounds" that cells actively modify.  Even with humans, we are born with 70 NEW mutations on average that are NOT found in our parents.

I agree, but can mutations alter the genome by creating information de novvo? As you said, computers have last year's code, but can algorithms create the made from scratch new programs in this year's computer?

I understand what you're getting at but would phrase it differently.  The bottom line is that informational changes of all kinds (i.e., that add, delete, rearrange, recombine, modify/alter existing genomic information) occur in genomes absolutely without question; including changes that result in new functional genes and proteins with novel functions. The jury's in on that--volumes of supporting research.  The "Nothing Makes Sense in Evolution Except in Light of Genomics" link I posted above gives citations to hundreds of studies that document the many different ways that genomes are actively modified.

Anyone want to reply to my earlier comment? It’s comment #6.

Can you clarify?  Two article links were posted.  Were you referring to the first or the second?   I was also unclear how your comments tied in (to either article), so could you expound a little more?

I have not read the article, but I can tell you from experience, nothing just happens. If something gets altered to respond to an environment, there must be something that causes it to respond in kind to the variety of stimuli. If it isn't designed to properly handle these types of changes, the result will inevitably be something bad or no response at all.

I was referring to the first article. I was asking my question because the author claimed there was some supernatural force driving changes in genetic traits that they called new information. I don’t think the author ever mentioned environmental factors, such as the exposure to UV light or the availability of certain nutrients, having an effect on these seemingly mysterious instances of genetic changes. I just wanted to see if there was a reference to that that I missed, or another person’s analysis that would show why the effect of an organism’s environment was not sufficient to explain why genetic material of organisms learned new information.

Thank you for being honest about not reading the article. As of your comment, you say that something must have caused organisms to respond in a certain way. How do you know that that something is a supernatural force?

I did look at it after I said that, and the opening lines, well basically I have an issue with.

I don't agree with some parts of the article, but that doesn't mean I should disregard it (such as change being driven by a supernatural force).

@PyriteDragon  Thanks for your questions.  There were always a few things about Neo-Darwinism (and mutation-selection theory) that never fit, that didn't account for all the evidence.  Some of these things were pointed out by YECs, fairly, I might add.  But the past few decades have revolutionized our understanding on these issues.  Yes, you are correct that environment is certainly involved, but now we see that there is so much more involved, including built in mechanisms we've discovered organisms have that allow them to actively self-modify their own genomes.  The article I posted is highly technical but summarizes many of these discoveries: Nothing in Evolution Makes Sense Except in the Light of Genomics: Read–Write Genome Evolution as an Active Biological Process

Science can never prove/disprove the existence of the supernatural or even rule out supernatural involvement.  But regardless, these discoveries we've made show us that no miracle is required to explain the genetic changes we observe and that natural extrinsic  (environmental, ecologic) and intrinsic (biologic, genetic, epigenetic) factors are sufficient to account for these changes.

I don’t understand. What are the opening lines that you have an issue with?

@tbwp10 I have to go through these things one by one. Before we get to the article, which after reading the abstract it is over my head, what are some of the things about neo-Darwinism that you say never fit? Also, just to clarify, you believe that these problems with neo-Darwinism are about the limitations scientists had and the need to improve science, and you don’t believe in an alternate “intelligent design” idea, right?