I’ve been having a few conversations/debates with a friendly person on Twitter by the name of Adam4004, who happens to be, of course, a Young Earth Creationist. Let me just tell you now, debating on Twitter is tricky: a maximum of 140 characters per message puts vast restrictions on what you can say at any one time.
Anyhow, a certain topic came up in a loose discussion involving both me and Adam4004, as well as two other Twitter users, askegg (from the website Godless Business) and agnosticviews, which was about how the information inside the genomes of living things came to be through the processes of evolution. Adam4004, as any Young Earth Creationist would, denied that evolution could account for the vast amount of information that lies within each cell in every organism on the planet and thus evolution could not have occurred.
Here is part of the conversation (spelling errors and all, with added bits by me inside [ ] for context) between me, Adam4004 and askegg. I’m blue, Adam4004 is red, and askegg is green. And for those who don’t know, prefacing something with “@” means you are replying to a tweet by a user with the particular username that comes after the “@”. In this particular visualization of a Twitter conversation, tweets below are replying to the one above.
@agnosticviews: so life more advanced informationally then computers just created themselves….no corroboration. Faith.
@Adam4004: You’re looking at it the wrong way. The information content was not spontaneously created, but gradually.
@naontiotami: no record of that & it doesn’t work.
@Adam4004: Just because we don’t have a direct line of evidence, it doesn’t mean it never happened. And please tell me WHY it doesn’t work.
@naontiotami: Because massive specified new information isn’t created. And the line I’d evidence was his demand.
Now I reference a tweet I made nearly simultaneously on a slightly different point involving askegg:
@Adam4004: See other tweet.
askegg had replied to Adam4004′s original tweet (the top one on this page), sparking off a new thread of discussion, still somewhat related:
@Adam4004: We know of self replicating molecules. The first forms of life are not much more than these, and still aren’t.
@askegg: self replicating is not new. It replicates existing info.
@Adam4004: Yes, but that existing info can come about by chance. Time + Random = Simple Info
@naontiotami: no it cannot. It can replicate and mix and match existing but this isn’t even remotely creating the kind of massive specified [information needed]
@Adam4004: Okay, this is what I’m going to do: I’m going to write a blog post on my website (see profile) explaining this to you.
@naontiotami: I have read the explanation since before you were born. It doesn’t work. No reader, no massive new specified etc. It does only … what we state and overall results in net loss in organisms in most cases.
@Adam4004: Don’t worry, I’ll still do it. Just to make [sure] we’re on the same page.
@naontiotami: that would be fine.:)
And that’s how we got to here: this post is a direct response to Adam4004′s seeming lack of knowledge about the processes involved in evolution and genetic mutation. I must warn people that, if you have been reading this blog from the very start, then some or most of this will not be new to you, but if you’re a new reader, then welcome to the fun heart of the evolution/creation debate! Take a seat, grab some popcorn, the biological fireworks are about to start very soon, I promise.
The heart of Adam4004′s claim is that information, in the form of sequences of DNA within the genomes of organisms, can’t come into being through evolutionary processes. At the start, he makes the claim that living creatures have more information in them than computers and that “creating themselves” is not a valid option for their origin, and this remains his core claim. He then goes on to criticize the proposed method for this increase in information, gene duplication (reduced by askegg back to the origin of life, involving self-replicating molecules), as not being able to produce any new information.
I’m going to show why this is all wrong.
While it may or may not be true that the genome of any living creature has more information in it than a computer, it’s beside the point of what we’re really talking about here: the origin of the information itself. Adam4004 seems to think that information cannot be produced without an intelligent designer involved in some way, but this is an unfounded assumption based upon either the ignorance of the processes involved in evolution, or the misinterpretation of these processes, or both. Information is easily produced in genomes, and to show this, I’m going to travel back to the murky world of RNA, at the origin of biological information itself.
The RNA World hypothesis, one of the main models for abiogenesis, starts life off with some crazy little molecules called ribozymes. These ribozymes had a very special feature: they could catalyse their own synthesis using their own molecular structure to help form bonds between individual RNA monomers. Such an ability is extremely compatible with being acted on by natural selection, and so various types of ribozymes started to develop due to differing reproductive capabilities: some could reproduce more accurately, some could reproduce more quickly, etc. Traits that offered the best selective advantage were conserved, as that is how natural selection fundamentally acts. Eventually, through the cooption of other molecules such as phospholipids and amino acids, protocellular structures started to form, but I won’t go into any detail about that, because it’s not exactly what I’m trying to get across here.
The key here is that the ribozymes formed naturally out of the free amino acids that were floating in the early Earth’s oceans, and that the information content of these ribozymes, which was basically the sequence of RNA monomers, did not have to be designed. “How?”, I hear many people, including Adam4004, asking. Well, the thing is, these ribozymes were relatively simple molecules, and could form out of the random chemical bonding happening between random RNA monomers in the ocean.
So, even though the ribozymes themselves contained actual information, it would not have to be specifically programmed by any designer, but simply formed out of randomness, much like throwing millions of cans of paint against a wall and seeing a couple that look exactly like the faces of well-known celebrities. Thus, at the origin of life, information could have simply been formed from chance, involving nothing more than some chemical reactions and a lucky sequence of nucleotides.
Once we scale up a bit and look at life as it is now, increases in information become a bit different to produce. Instead of random chemical reactions taking place, we now look at a phenomenon called gene duplication. This interesting quirk of sexual reproduction occurs when the homologous chromosomes that swap sequences of DNA during meiosis don’t play fair and steal genes from each other, leaving some eventual gametes (ie. spermatozoa and ova) with a lack of genes, and some with a doubled up gene or two. This is an extremely powerful information-producing process, and to make it perfectly clear, I’ll give the stock standard, easy-to-understand example that I always use. Letters of the alphabet to the rescue!
In our example genome, there is one gene that we will focus on: Gene X. Gene X has a function that is vital within the organism, it codes for a protein that is necessary for proper breathing in the adult. Let’s say that in one generation, Gene X is duplicated by gene duplication. What now? We have two Gene Xs in the same genome. This means there is a redundancy, as the organism only needs one Gene X to produce its vital protein, and so the classic process of mutation and natural selection can take place over generations, crafting the Gene X copy (or the original, it makes no difference) into a gene with a different sequence which therefore produces a different protein with a different function in the organism other than to maintain breathing. We’ll call this mutant Gene Y.
What is the result of this hypothetical duplication? Well, at the start you had just Gene X (plus the rest of the genome, but we’ll leave it out for simplicity), but now, after a gene duplication and a number of generation’s worth of mutation and natural selection, you have both Gene X and Gene Y, which has a new function in the organism. The only way to describe this is as an increase information, and any other description is not using a definition of information that has any relevance to either evolution or genetics.
This gene duplication process, after it happens numerous times, can lead to drastic changes to the genome, with many new functions being produced. As such, it could easily account for the “massive new specified information” that Adam4004 said evolution could not produce.
In fact, the human genome, and all the others we have so far sequenced, contain what are know as gene families, which are genes that have very similar DNA sequences and differing functions. These gene families are very strong evidence for gene duplications occurring the evolutionary past producing these extra genes that now have uses within the genome.
I would like to take the time now to remind Adam4004 that evolution is a gradual process, and although these processes that I have described only add one gene at a time, a steady addition of genes to a genome over billions of years easily produces the genetic variation we see today in living creatures.
So, has Adam4004 learnt something? Or did he already know all this stuff since before I was born? I don’t know, hopefully he’ll tell me himself in the comment in this post.
Rock solid Naon.
But I think Adam would never change his "worldview", not even in light of the mountain of evidence.
I'm afraid that is the case. But, I always aim to convince the person in the middle, the not-so set-in-their-ways creationist who may be reading this. So I don't think it's completely useless. ;p
Dear Naon,
I was asked by a friend to refute your fairytale, since this is my line of expertise. Something you wrote gets to the very core of the problem:
“Time + Random = Simple Info”
This is never true, ever. The most you can ever hope for is restored information. No amount of time and randomness could ever produce a coded system such as the English language or computer program languages like Java or C++. Even at the Shannon level of information, randomness ALWAYS produces a reduction of certainty in a signal. If such a notion were possible, evolutionists would have been all over it with examples, given that we have super computers that can rapidly run random algorithms ad infinitum. But they know they can’t do it so they whip up pretender genetic algorithms to try to fool the gullible, that are nothing more the hyped trial&error experiments. The evolutionists were told it was impossible to produce information from randomness by the secular mathematicians at Wistar in the late 60s, but they did not listen (but then why should they, since evolution is a religious belief system that has never really been about science).
Part II – Get Out of the Matrix
This folks is what evolution “science” has come down to with our youth! Where pray tell is your evidence? Isn’t that what science is supposed to be about? Where are these proto structures, what “information” do they contain, and where is the evidence for the naturalistic creation of the syntax and semantics behind the genetic language that RNA participates in? As Alice in Wonderland said, “I’ll believe 6 impossible things before breakfast!”
The reason you didn’t go into your claim that “protocellular structures started to form” is because this is built completely on fantasy with no tangible evidence.
Regarding painted celebs, randomn artistry will never, ever, in a gazillion times a gazillion years in a gazillion galaxies, ever produce a single recognizable face of a well-known celebrity. Ever. Remember when Steven Hawking said that an infinite number of monkeys could type one of Shakespeare’s sonnets given enough time? Well, some of your matrix buddies tried this so that we could all get a good laugh:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/3013959….
I'll give you the link again: http://genetics.mgh.harvard.edu/szostakweb/
That is one lab that is researching this topic of protocells.
Science does not always have the all answers at any given moment, so your claims about the progress of science are unfounded. If we do not have the answers now it does not mean we won't have them in the future, and it certainly does not mean your conclusion, God-did-it, is any more correct because of it.
You asked where the protocells are? Well, they were out competed by better protocells, and died off, leaving better ones to take their place. In other, more accurate, words, they evolved into the modern life we see today. There is no reason why we should see any protocells in nature, at least on this planet, so teeming with hungry lifeforms already, eager to gobble up anything organic, even things they may not realise were self-replicating molecules. Food is food to microbes.
I think askegg has destroyed your other argument about the faces enough. I won't go there.
Get Out of the Matrix Part III
Naon, you sound like maybe you know some math. Let’s try our own experiment, but we’ll do it with scrabble and simple Bernoulli trial. There are 26 characters in the alphabet, plus one space. The probability of throwing tile “against the wall” and yielding the phrase “evolution is a fairytale” is 1/27 x 1/27 x 1/27 … 26 times = once every 16 trillion trillion trillion tries! Given 1 billion tries per second, it would take us 520 million trillion years!
Yes, it would! But is evolution anything like what you just said? Hell no!
Evolution has two main processes: natural selection and mutation. Your little thought-experiment includes only one of those processes, the mutation. What it lacks is something to hold back the things that actually help it achieve a "higher level of fitness", ie. in this case, becoming more like the phrase "Evolution is a Fairytale". If you had a selective mechanism that held a tile in place if it happened to be the right one in the right place, you would find that the phrase would appear much more quickly than 520 million trillion years.
You like your false analogies, eh?
Get Out of the Matrix Part IV
Regarding your gene duplication tale, there are many important points you failed to mention to the reader: 1) There does not exist a single example of a duplicated gene that led to increased information, all examples are mere speculation that the gene was “duplicated”, and later mutated (by accident) into something useful. None. No evidence. Zippo. Nada. Isn’t this a problem? Is this science? 2) There is evidence that gene duplication has led to various human diseases. I’ll leave it up to the student to do their own research on this. 3) Since the cell has a quality control system, what pray tell is going to tell this machinery to not only accept this new gene, but also accept any subsequent mutated varieties? Then there is the whole protein folding process after it gets past the quality control system. What a fairytale we weave! 4) How can natural selection select this gene, since natural selection can only select individuals? With all these random changes, isn’t a huge proportion going to be harmful and thus cause too much noise for any pipe dream beneficial mutation to be selected?
1. This is wrong. Here, have a few experimental studies:
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19041751?ordin...
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7646041?ordina...
- http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstrac...
2. It does not matter to evolution that gene duplication can cause disease, because harmful mutations are simply selected against and they fall out of the gene pool faster than you can blink your eye, in relative population genetics terms (ie. maybe in as little as one generation). I thought you might know this, but obviously not.
3. Err, new genes can be added quite easily and the transcription and translation mechanisms in the cell will accept them. If they didn't, genetic modification would be a nightmare and impossible. But it's not. And protein folding happens automatically, and does not require a separate system for each protein.
4. Natural selection selects things that are useful. At first, a duplicated gene is just going to be a neutral mutation, most likely, but once it changes into something new that is useful, natural selection will build up its frequency in the gene pool. It requires only one individual to have a gene duplication, and after many generations, once the new gene is useful, it can spread throughout the population very rapidly, depending on its usefulness.
And again, harmful changes are simply selected against and they fall out of the gene pool. I really don't see how that can affect evolutionary change. Do you seem to know something I don't?
I don’t have time to address all your points, but even assuming your fantasy mutation occurs, it cannot and will not spread rapidly, especially in vertebrates. Did you know that after 10 million years, using prime dream fantasy assumptions for evolution, you still would only get 1667 good mutations to fix in a population. Do some research on Haldane’s Dilemma, or read my article that one leading secular scientist acknowledged was a “serious problem” for evolution:
http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/articles_debate...
You guys believe evolution because you want to, not because of any evidence. That is why I won’t convince you and in that regard makes this a waste of my time. Hopefully someone reading this who buys in to your nonsense will find their way out of the matrix…
Haldane's Dilemma was founded on false assumptions and a lack of knowledge, at the time, about various population genetics concepts such as genetic drift, gene duplication and gene linkage. It is not a problem to evolution anymore.
I "believe" (read: accept) evolutionary theory because the evidence I have seen supports it, not because I want to. Nobody accepts a scientific theory because they want to, especially not working scientists.
If you want to quit from this, fine. But I am not closed-mined, and it is possible that you may convince me that evolution is false. However, if I rebut all your points, don't read into it that I'm just giving ad hoc excuses, it may just be that you are simply wrong. Have you ever consider the fact that you could be wrong?
I’m sorry to have to rain on your parade and be so blunt, but something has to shake you guys out of the matrix. I’m not here to sing Kumbaya.
“Scientists who go about teaching that evolution is a fact of life are great conmen and the story they are telling may be the greatest hoax ever. In explaining evolution, we do not have one iota of fact.” – Dr. T.N. Tahmisian of the Atomic Energy Commission
Fred Williams
http://www.evolutionfairytale.com
I wish you were here to sing kumbaya, you's be making sense for a start.
Quotes from important sounding people do not work on me – I prefer to actually think for myself. You should try it sometime, it's quite refreshing.
"Regarding painted celebs, randomn artistry will never, ever, in a gazillion times a gazillion years in a gazillion galaxies, ever produce a single recognizable face of a well-known celebrity"
Then please explain why these are at least partially recognisable as faces
A slightly more complex (but entirely natural) example is the face on Mars. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast24may_...
While these are not recognisable as celebrity faces, it is not difficult to imagine that "randomn artistry … in a gazillion times a gazillion years in a gazillion galaxies" will produce such an image.
Dear askegg,
LOL! You need to get out of the matrix. Did you bother to look closely at the link you provided? The ACTUAL image from the proper perspective looks exactly like a pile of random rubble! Next time why don’t you read the full article, try scrolling down a little. There are rock formations like “the old man on the mountain” in New Hampshire that, given the right angle, kind of looks like an old man. But my 8 year old can tell the difference between this random formation and Mount Rushmore. Can you? Now again, show me anywhere in the world of any formation that looks like a Holywood star. ROTFL!
Let me ask you this: Does Mount Rushmore look like the faces of the presidents at every single angle? Just answer me that. I swear it is related to what we are discussing.
I am somewhat confused here – what rock formations are you referring to? The link you provided talks about monkeys writing Shakespeare (http://skitch.com/askegg/bjp4b/bbc-news-uk-englan...
On this point: A million monkeys sitting at typewriters attempting to write the works of Shakespeare is STILL and incredibly bad analogy for genetics. The entire genome of an organism does not magically appear all at once – if it did it would be fantastic evidence FOR CREATION.
As NaonTiotami is trying to explain, evolution works by building the words, sentences, paragraphs, and books (if you will) of genetic information over countless successive generations.
Your analogy is better served if the monkeys received a banana every time one of them guessed the correct location of a letter. The script is then passed to the next monkey who has a guess at a few letters – the right ones are rewarded and the wrong ignored. Using such a model the monkeys can generate the complete works of Shakespeare in very little time.
Of course, this is NOT to say that evolution has a specific goal in mind. It does not begin with some ultimate end point in mind and work its way toward it. The only goal of evolution (at the genetic level) is survival.
Your probability scenario is not a valid comparison. Evolution does not require the entire sentence to be formed in one atomic step – it builds the structure through successive generations (although not with a specific goal in mind beyond "survive").
Askegg, I would ask that you cut back on the tofu. My math response was in regard to the dumb statement that throwing paint on the wall given enough time will look like a movie star. Hence, your argument is a complete strawman. Regardless, your religion of evolution DOES require ENORMOUS singleton leaps such as the paint on the wall example. Try explaining the following, and we will all listen with amusement as you guys start telling your stories how “slow, random” processes produced it:
http://kgov.com/images/PermTOL/TrochleaKGOVchalle...
The changes (mutations) randomly occur within the DNA strand. This is an undeniable fact that is even supported by most creationists as it accounts for "micro" evolution.
What it NOT random (and is the part of evolution you are totally ignoring so you can cling to your precious and holy book of fairy tales) is there *selection*. Those organisms better suited to survival will have a better chance at passing on their genetic information to the next generation – natural selection.
While these changes may be slight (leading to what IDiots call "micro" evolution), over millions of generations they build up to make tremendous changes. It's not hard to understand is it?
Hey Fred. I'm assuming your friend is Adam4004, from Twitter? Glad to finally meet you.
You seem to have missed the point of what I was trying to say there. Did you recognise the context, which was abiogenesis, specifically self-replicating ribozymes? It seems not. I'll go over it again so you might hopefully understand by the end.
"Time + Random = Simple Info" by itself only works when you lack a system. You used analogies to computers and software to try and refute this point, but it is a false analogy, because there are significant differences between what I am talking about and computers.
So, what am I talking about? To make it perfectly clear, I'm NOT talking about the genetic code of currently living things, aka. genomes, DNA and the like. I am only talking about self-replicating ribozymes, molecules constructed of RNA nucleotides that can catalyse their own replication.
The reason that "Time + Random = Simple Info" in this specific case is that ribozymes that can self-replicate can form randomly in a solution of nucleotides with an energy source/catalyst (eg. certain types of clay), without any sort of selection or guidance. Thus, simple information, the ability to self-replicate, can form from randomness and time. Time is included in the equation because ribozymes that can self-replicate are relatively rare, but given millions of years at the start of Earth's history and any rare event becomes almost certain to happen.
From this simple beginning as a self-replicating molecule, other functions can form: mutations (copying errors in the replication) can produce new ribozymes that have other catalysing functions, while still leaving the original intact (this is because it is a catalyst, and it is not used up in the reaction, just like an enzyme in the human body). Liposomes, much like primitive cell membranes, can form around these clusters of ribozymes and protocells can form. Research in this field of abiogenesis is ongoing. You can have a look at some of it here: http://genetics.mgh.harvard.edu/szostakweb/
I acknowledge that your computer analogy makes sense, just not as an analogy to this particular type of information system. It doesn't even apply to normal evolution either, since it does not contain a mechanism akin to natural selection, the process that takes the randomness of mutation and tweaks it into something useful.
Thanks for trying, but your points so far have surprised me in their ignorance. I suppose I expected a little more… Nothing against you though, I'm sure you have some better arguments, eh?
And, by the way, that quote means nothing. Who would expect a physicist to have any biology expertise? Not me. Wrong kind of expert.
May I remind people that just above the comments section in this post, and in the sidebar to the far-right (you may have to scroll up the page), you can add this post to Reddit, Digg and other sites, if you feel that you might want others to experience, comment on, or help partake in breaking down, Fred's comments.
In fact, you can do it to any post on this site if you want to! Feel free to do so.
Your example is not “simple information”, it contains no information at all, not in the Shannon sense, and certainly not in the Gitt sense. Information is a nail-in-the-coffin problem for evolution, and its why you can only offer “simple” attempts. Information requires a sender, no way around it.
You keep talking about natural selection picking and choosing good mutations and quickly discarding bad ones. I will repeat again that NS can only select inividuals!!! If bad mutations massively outpace “good” ones (if there is such a thing), how can NS possibly filter the noise to select the good one? Evolution is like politicians, thinking it can get away with spending more than it has and come out ahead.
No information at all? So, self-replication does not require information? Are you saying that? If so, does a cell need information in its genome to replicate itself? I severely doubt that you would disagree with me on that point.
But, again, self-replicating molecules are basically the only case where I am making the claim that simple information can come out of randomness. I am not trying to apply this to evolution in general, but that's not how information comes about through normal evolutionary processes.
You seem to have redefined "information" to require intelligence. If this is definition you are using, then we are not talking about the same thing. Ribozymes self-replicate whether or not someone is looking at them, examining their nucleotide sequence or finding out how they do what they do, and it also requires no sender, as I have demonstrated: these ribozymes can form without guidance in a solution of RNA nucleotides.
Yes, I agree that nat. selec. only selects individuals, but I fail to see your point. Perhaps explaining what you mean more thoroughly next time would help point me in the right direction to what you are saying or claiming.
Do you understand the principles of population genetics? Do you understand how certain alleles can be fixed in the gene pool by nat. selec. and/or genetic drift? If not (and this is not a personal attack), you really SHOULDN'T be discussing evolution at all. Population genetics is the cornerstone of evolutionary mechanisms, and at least a basic understanding is required to fully grasp how evolution works on the population level, something you don't seem to understand.
I'll explain my point about harmful and beneficial mutations again, just so you might be able to understand a bit better. Harmful mutations, by definition, cause some drop in the organism's fitness (its ability to pass its genes onto the next generation), while beneficial ones cause an increase in fitness. Over time, natural selection, the process by which a higher fitness gives you a greater "marketshare" (if you will) in the next population of organisms, will weed out the harmful mutations that lower fitness and promote the beneficial mutations that increase it. It doesn't matter if harmful mutations are more common, because natural selection will just remove them from being introduced into the next generation. The same applies to beneficial mutations, except in reverse: it does not matter if they are rare, they will be promoted in the next generation and over time most of the population will have that mutation.
I fail to see how politician analogy has anything to do with natural selection.
I would suggest reading up on some population genetics. Perhaps then you will be able to argue from a position which understands the mechanisms I am talking about. Again, this is not an insult, just a helpful suggestion.
I am going to tack another tack here with your argument, Fred.
You state "Information requires a sender, no way around it." I am interested to know if you consider god "information".
If the answer is yes, then I might well ask what entity "reads god" (whatever that might actually mean). Of course, this argument is another infinite regress which many theists use special pleading to extract themselves from – everything requires a cause, oh expect my very special and invisible friend.
If god is not information, then you have contradicted your initial assertion that "information requires a sender". In this scenario it is just as valid to assert the universe itself does not require a read, except that we know the universe actually exists. Occam's razor does not deal nicely with the god hypothesis here.
"You guys believe evolution because you want to, not because of any evidence. "
What? Oh, unlike creationists then. Lots of evidence on that side.
Hiya NaonTiotami
I believe I'm following you on twitter already, that avatar looks familiar 
Hey, Marty, thanks for commenting. Nice to know Twitter is a useful tool for attracting blog viewers, as well as being an addictive social drug. ;p