Can DNA information increase w/o intelligence?

A common creationist/ID claim is that 'information' cannot increase without intelligent intervention. For example:

Life is built on information, contained in that molecule of heredity, DNA...Without a way to increase information, natural selection will not work as a mechanism for evolution. Evolutionists agree with this, but they believe that mutations somehow provide the new information for natural selection to act upon. Can mutations produce new information? Actually, it is now clear that the answer is no!

http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c038.html

A huge flaw in this claim is that DNA 'information' is not clearly and rigorously defined. I claim that according to any reasonable definition of the word, I can show that it is false that DNA information cannot increase without intelligent intervention. This argument does not provide evidence against the Theory of Evolution, even that part of it called macroevolution.

Does anyone want to defend the claim that there is no way 'information' can increase without intelligent intervention?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
A common creationist/ID claim is that 'information' cannot increase without intelligent intervention. For example:

[b][i]Life is built on information, contained in that molecule of heredity, DNA...Without a way to increase information, natural selection will not work as a mechanism for evolution. Evolutionists agree with this, but they believe t ...[text shortened]... nd the claim that there is no way 'information' can increase without intelligent intervention?

The terms

point mutation (SNP)
transposable elements
polyploidation
retrotransposons

all spring to mind as ways in which information increases

the stuff on the website is just plain wrong

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
A common creationist/ID claim is that 'information' cannot increase without intelligent intervention. For example:

[b][i]Life is built on information, contained in that molecule of heredity, DNA...Without a way to increase information, natural selection will not work as a mechanism for evolution. Evolutionists agree with this, but they believe t ...[text shortened]... nd the claim that there is no way 'information' can increase without intelligent intervention?

Isn't one of the key points of "adaptation" , that the more an organism uses any facility of it's being: an increase in that facility will manifest itself in the coming generations?

Originally posted by frogstomp
Isn't one of the key points of "adaptation" , that the more an organism uses any facility of it's being: an increase in that facility will manifest itself in the coming generations?

Lamarckianism is an old an discredited theory.

If a blacksmith works hard, the muscles of his right arm that he uses to hold the hammer will increase. His progeny and born with their right arms slightly more powerful, they follow their parent's trade and their right (hammer) arm becomes stronger ...and the process continues.

Well. thats the theory but observation does not bear it out!

Originally posted by aardvarkhome
Lamarckianism is an old an discredited theory.

If a blacksmith works hard, the muscles of his right arm that he uses to hold the hammer will increase. His progeny and born with their right arms slightly more powerful, they follow th ...[text shortened]... s.

Well. thats the theory but observation does not bear it out!

Its not an immediate thing ,it takes generations . and if you're saying something is discredited , it takes a bit more
for instance did the Blacksmiths wife do the same? , was what the blacksmith doing anything that wasnt already in the gene pool?
The human brain is holding more and more information that ever before and thats a species wide trait, whoever says thats its a discredited theory might be in for a surprise a lot sooner then even I think.

Originally posted by aardvarkhome
Lamarckianism is an old an discredited theory.

If a blacksmith works hard, the muscles of his right arm that he uses to hold the hammer will increase. His progeny and born with their right arms slightly more powerful, they follow their parent's trade and their right (hammer) arm becomes stronger ...and the process continues.

Well. thats the theory but observation does not bear it out!

Working out and having the muscles do what they are designed to
do doesn't prove anything one way or another. Now have that
blacksmith grow wings so he can fly or gills so he can live under
water, then we can talk about new information.
Kelly

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
A common creationist/ID claim is that 'information' cannot increase without intelligent intervention. For example:

Life is built on information, contained in that molecule of heredity, DNA...Without a way to increase informa way 'information' can increase without intelligent intervention?

How would you like to define "information"? You don't seem satisfied with Werner Gitt's definition of information. Do you have a better definition?

Originally posted by frogstomp
Its not an immediate thing ,it takes generations . and if you're saying something is discredited , it takes a bit more
for instance did the Blacksmiths wife do the same? , was what the blacksmith doing anything that wasnt already in the gene pool?
The human brain is holding more and more information that ever before and thats ...[text shortened]... hats its a discredited theory might be in for a surprise a lot sooner then even I think.

You're kidding right?

Lamarckian evolution is totally discredited. The DNA in the muscles of a buff arm is the same DNA that is in the muscles of a weak arm with no muscle, which is the same DNA as is in every cell in the body, including sperm and egg cells (except only half). Since this DNA is the only thing communicated from parent's biology to the child's, it's the only thing which will influence the child's hereditary traits. How would the arm getting buff affect the DNA in the sperm in any way?

Originally posted by dj2becker
How would you like to define "information"? You don't seem satisfied with Werner Gitt's definition of information. Do you have a better definition?

Normally I'd just go to the dictionary. However none of the definitions there seem really appropriate to the issue.

So, maybe in this case I'd define the information content of a DNA molecule to be equal to the number of base pairs which are actually part of a gene. So for example, if an organism only had 5 genes of lengths 664, 852, 13, 100 codons, you'd add all these.

There are a number of mechanisms which increase this number quite often in the lab.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Normally I'd just go to the dictionary. However none of the definitions there seem really appropriate to the issue.

So, maybe in this case I'd define the information content of a DNA molecule to be equal to the number of base pairs which are actually part of a gene. So for example, if an organism only had 5 genes of lengths 664, 852, 13, 100 ...[text shortened]... ll these.

There are a number of mechanisms which increase this number quite often in the lab.

Would you like to provide the evidence that "new information" can be created without intelligent intervention, so that we have a basis for the debate?

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Normally I'd just go to the dictionary. However none of the definitions there seem really appropriate to the issue.

So, maybe in this case I'd define the information content of a DNA molecule to be equal to the number of base pairs which are actually part of a gene. So for example, if an organism only had 5 genes of lengths 664, 852, 13, 100 ...[text shortened]... ll these.

There are a number of mechanisms which increase this number quite often in the lab.

There are a number of mechanisms which increase this number quite often in the lab.

Are you saying that there is no intelligence used in the lab? Or how would you define 'intelligent intervention'?

Originally posted by dj2becker
[b]There are a number of mechanisms which increase this number quite often in the lab.

Are you saying that there is no intelligence used in the lab? Or how would you define 'intelligent intervention'?[/b]

If any laboratory work is considered to involve intelligent intervention, how can any event be observed without intelligent intervention? How does anyone know anything about how any part of the universe acts without human intervention?

In the lab, humans expose organisms to the some of the same things they encounter in the wild. No DNA is ever observed without "human intervention". It would be theoretically impossible to observe how anything works without "human intervention" if we can't do experiments to find out without contaminating the results with "intelligent intervention".

If no human can know anything about how things work without 'intelligent intervention' where does anyone get the idea they can know whether information increases or not in the absence of intelligent intervention?

The claim I am attempting to refute assumes humans can do experiments and then expect that in nature things behave pretty much the same.

Human intervention might be defined as intentional addition or deletion of bases to the DNA chain. Some methods use to intervene are effectively identical to phenomena that occurs in the world without human intervention, and would act the same if the human weren't there.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
You're kidding right?

Lamarckian evolution is totally discredited. The DNA in the muscles of a buff arm is the same DNA that is in the muscles of a weak arm with no muscle, which is the same DNA as is in every cell in the body, ...[text shortened]... would the arm getting buff affect the DNA in the sperm in any way?

Are you sure you're not knocking down aaardvarks strawman.

A number of experimental studies seem to indicate that epigenetic inheritance plays a part in the evolution of complex organisms. For example, Tremblay et al. (ref. 3), have shown that methylation differences between maternally and paternally inherited alleles of the mouse H19 gene are preserved. There are also numerous reports of heritable epigenetic marks in plants.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetic_inheritance

It's quite possible that's part of what sucessful organsms need to survive before the DNA adapts to the already changing environment.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
If any laboratory work is considered to involve intelligent intervention, how can any event be observed without intelligent intervention? How does anyone know anything about how any part of the universe acts without human intervention?

In the lab, humans expose organisms to the some of the same things they encounter in the wild. No DNA is ever obs ...[text shortened]... urs in the world without human intervention, and would act the same if the human weren't there.

Mind presenting the "evidence"?

Originally posted by dj2becker
Mind presenting the "evidence"?

If looking at a phenomena is consider "intelligent intervention" you ought not to try to intervene in the operation of the universe by deciding it needs an intelligent designer since you consider that to be you.