If we all get killed off by some horrible disease, it’s that just God’s Will?

Quit your moanin’.

Posted by Josh Chernila on 18 November 2005 @ 4pm

Uh oh. I don’t deny evolution but neither have I done anything guard against bird flu.

Posted by Mark. T. Blair on 18 November 2005 @ 5pm

Don’t forget, some of them now say they believe in micro-evolution, just not macro-evolution. So this could easily be rationalized in some minds. I wonder if Kansas is bird-flu immune? And that county in Pennsylvania better watch out, since now they’re completely unprotected against the wrath.

Posted by Olivia on 18 November 2005 @ 7pm

“…some of them now say they believe in micro-evolution…

In fact, I don’t think creationists have ever denied micro-evolution.

Posted by Jon on 18 November 2005 @ 8pm

Of course, you ignore the fact that this is micro-evolution. It’s information being destroyed, not synthesized. What happens is, when the RNA replicates, errors are made. For some reason (I forget why this is; because RNA is unstable as a blueprint?) viruses’ RNA is more likely to mutate (i.e. lose information; have information destroyed) when replicating than is the DNA of other orgranisms. But the high mutation rate is irrelevant. What is relevant is that information gets destroyed. This has never been disputed (by evolutionists or creationists). This would happen to you and your genetic information if you walked into an unshielded nuclear facility. It’s simple destruction of genetic information. Sometimes not having that destroyed genetic information is beneficial and adds robustness to the virus. This more robust version, of course, flourishes and becomes the dominant strain. That is the process by which avian influenza has the potential to mutate into something contractable by humans.

That is micro evolution. Micro evolution starts with a working organism and substracts information to improve it.

Macro evolution’s theory of origins starts with either nothing or at its most fanciful a simple organism (where did that simple organism come from?). Let’s take the more unlikely simple organism. If that simple organism were to experience the mutation type that occurs when avian influenza mutates, it would be reduced from a simple organism to an even simpler organism. This kind of mutation doesn’t add information, it subtracts. If you take a simple organism and subtract information from it, you can’t get a complex organism.

Avian influenza’s mutation in no way proves macro evolution and/or common descent. They are two entirely different things. I won’t get into the other mechanisms that make up the macro evolution/common descent theories (I have already debated those extensively). My point is this: virus mutation is not a mechanism by which macro evolution/common descent can be accomplished. Go ask any virologist.

Posted by Hans Mast on 18 November 2005 @ 8pm

[...] Some are trying to imply that the evolution of avian influenza from its asymptomatic avian form to a form contractable by humans is proof of evolutionary common descent. Not so. [...]

Posted by The (not so) Daily Me - Avian Influenza and Evolution on 18 November 2005 @ 8pm

One would also question whether a virus is even considered life, as they are not even as complex as a single celled organism, which is generally understood as the simplest form of life. If a virus is not alive (as many, myself included, would believe), then suggesting evolution makes no sense, unless a virus were to become complex enough to attain such a definition of life.

Posted by CR UVa on 18 November 2005 @ 10pm

I don’t think creationists have ever denied micro-evolution.

Sure they have. I mean, to the extent that “they” can be lumped together. Some creationists deny it, some accept it.

virus mutation is not a mechanism by which macro evolution/common descent can be accomplished.

Sure it can. That’s natural selection. Same mechanism.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 18 November 2005 @ 10pm

“Sure it can. That’s natural selection. Same mechanism.”

Natural selection is the process by which beneficial genetic changes are kept and passed on. It is not the mechanism by which the genetic change is made.

The actual changing of the genetic information is a separate process. (Yes, natural selection affects the material that the gene changing process has to work with, but they are separate processes nontheless.) With viral mutations, genetic information is destroyed. Coupling genetic destruction with natural selection can result in a better organism or virus, but it can’t build a more complex organism from a less complex one. These two processes (mutation/corruption/removal of genetic information coupled with natural selection) are not the mechanisms of macro evolution/common descent. Ask any evolutionary biologist.

Posted by Hans Mast on 18 November 2005 @ 10pm

The line that you’re drawing between the evolution of viruses and the evolution of other organisms is altogether arbitrary, as arbitrary as the notion that small changes (”microevolution”) can’t add up to big changes (”macroevolution”).

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 19 November 2005 @ 12pm

If there is no macroevolution – emergence of a new species from a pre-existing species – then every species on earth now was on earth the day it was formed by God (or at least by the end of that week).
Is that really what creationists are saying when they say no to the existence macroevolution? It certainly sounds like it.

Posted by Olivia on 19 November 2005 @ 3pm

Yes, Olivia, that’s precisely what they’re saying. If any sect of evolution deniers would disagree with you, I’ve never heard of them.

Posted by Waldo Jaquith on 19 November 2005 @ 3pm

The line that you’re drawing between the evolution of viruses and the evolution of other organisms is altogether arbitrary, as arbitrary as the notion that small changes (”microevolution”) can’t add up to big changes (”macroevolution”).

The point is not small information versus big information. It was a mistake to use the term microevolution and macro evolution. That detracts from the point. Microevolution is the correct classification for the viral mutations, but that is beside the point. (Speciation is also a form of micro evolution. It also involves a loss of genetic data.)

The point is this: the viral mutations that we see involve loss and corruption of information.

Common descent does not work with this kind of evolution, unless you would start with a perfect orgranism that contained all the genetic information for all the organisms. (evne the wackiest evolution proponents don’t suggest that!)

You can’t take 5 minus 2 and get 6. You can’t go from a slug (a simple 1) to a monkey (a complex 15) by subtracting information.

Posted by Hans Mast on 20 November 2005 @ 12am

“In fact, I don’t think creationists have ever denied micro-evolution.”

Nonsense: creationists only in the last decade have conceeded this point, and in fact it’s pretty rare that creationists really accept it anyway. In fact Hans Mast is basically sitting here denying it right now. He seems to think that microevolution doesn’t involve an increase of information in a gene pool. But in fact that’s exactly what the process is all about.

For one thing, he doesn’t understand what information is: for instance, he seems to think that the loss of genetic material can only decrease information content, when in fact it can either increase or decrease it (think of a block of stone: chipping away at it is precisely what needs to happen to create a more organized statue). Viral mutations involve both the creation of new genes and the loss of existing ones: both of which can and do increase the overall informational content of the gene pool of viruses. If he’d ever read any biology journal on the study of virus evolution or any other sort of evolution, he’d know that. Instead, he prefers to knowingly lecture us all on a subject that he hasn’t even bothered to learn anything about.

The real question is: what sort of ideology would lead someone to do something like that?

Posted by geoff on 20 November 2005 @ 2am

He seems to think that microevolution doesn’t involve an increase of information in a gene pool. But in fact that’s exactly what the process is all about.

Yes, the in the theory of microevolution information increases, but all the actual microevolution that has been observed has been to do with loss of information.

–

For one thing, he doesn’t understand what information is: for instance, he seems to think that the loss of genetic material can only decrease information content, when in fact it can either increase or decrease it (think of a block of stone: chipping away at it is precisely what needs to happen to create a more organized statue).

I call baloney. For one, your definition of information is not correct. When you say “information”, you are talking about value, not information. Furthermore, I said this earlier:

Micro evolution starts with a working organism and substracts information to improve it. [emphasis added]

I have said that subtraction of information does at times add value and natural selection ensures that this information is retained.

It is irrelevant whether the subtraction of information adds value or decreases value. The point is simple math: if you start with a pebble and chip away you can make a useful arrowhead, but you’ll never get a statue.

Posted by Hans Mast on 20 November 2005 @ 9pm

“Yes, the in the theory of microevolution information increases, but all the actual microevolution that has been observed has been to do with loss of information.”

What are you talking about? READ a biology journal. New genes hae been observed forming and then being selected for all the time: so many times that, in fact, it’s not even news to anyone but creationists and those that listen to them.

“I call baloney. For one, your definition of information is not correct. When you say “information”, you are talking about value, not information. Furthermore, I said this earlier:”

You don’t know what you are talking about. Information in biology is difficult to define, but all meaningful definitions take into account the idea of functional expression: something that can be improved just as easily by substracting as adding to a genome (and in fact, in virus evolution, both are happening all the time). You are also thinking about the wrong thing: not simply the information content of a single organism, but rather of the entire gene pool. Think of information as something useful/meaningful being filtered out of a large pool of noise. Mutation is constantly adding new noise to gene pools in the form of random variation. Selection is constantly crafting shaping bits and pieces of his variation as per the demands of the local environment. It also protects existing structures from the ravages of mutation.

“It is irrelevant whether the subtraction of information adds value or decreases value.”

If you want to talk science, then you haev to talk terminilogy. What you are talking about when you talk subtraction is actual genetic code itself: the As,Ts,Gs, adn so on. But this in itself is NOT information. Mutation can indeed subtract an A or a T here and there, but this is not itself necessarily a loss in information… and in fact it can even be a gain. However, what you don’t seem to understand is that mutation is just as likely to add an A or G here or there in the code. And this TOO can both increase, decrease, or keep the information content the same (which is actually the result that we get most mutation).

“The point is simple math: if you start with a pebble and chip away you can make a useful arrowhead, but you’ll never get a statue.”

But it just isn’t so that mutation only shrinks genes: it also grows them (it also scrambles them up_. All the time. That pebble is constantly growing and at the same time constantly being chipped away at by selection. Evolution is like a dribble castle: mutation is constantly at once dumping new matieral onto the pile and washing old material it away… but selection allows environmentally functional patterns to preserve and even grow.

You have a lot to learn about evolution before you can start legitimately criticizing it.

Posted by plunge on 21 November 2005 @ 12am

I hear two seemingly knowledgeable people(Hans and Plunge) who seem to believe two different things as to the addition of “information” in the genetic code. One believes that evolution seems to always result from the loss of genetic material, whereas the other seems to say that genetic material is added and lost in evolution all of the time. I’m too lazy to research the reality of the matter, but it seems to me that addition as well as subtraction of genes must occur by chance. I mean, what would keep genes from randomly being added. And, if they are added, there is always a possibility that they will be beneficial and lead to evolution.

Hans made a comment about how absurd an original, perfect organism with all of the genetic information nescessary for subsequent life would be. I agree, but it is no more absurd than the idea of a creator God, who contained or new all of the information for the creation of the entire universe. Of course, if evolution by the random addition of “information” is possible, this fanciful organism isn’t nescessary. (Of course we still must explain the origin of the first organism even if it is very simple).

Posted by Ryan on 6 December 2005 @ 7pm