Bararian, asked about example of natural selection:
That is evolution. Remember what evolution is. "change in allele frequency in a population over time."
In the case of the moths, there was no mutation since both genes are always present in the population.
It's a common creationist misunderstanding. Natural selection, particularly when the environment changes, can act on existing alleles. Remember, fitness only counts in terms of the environment.
The dark moths and light moths are two variations in the same species.
And that illustrates another creationist misconception; natural selection can work within a species; it doesn't always effect new species.
No new species of moth results from natural selection
Remember,
natural selection can work within a species to make it more fit.
but instead you have a potential loss of biodiversity.
Nope. As England began to pass environmental laws and clean up industries, the soot decreased and the trees again were light. Can you guess what natural selection has done? Yep. The white allele is now more common.
Evolution is claimed to explain the increase in biological complexity,
And that illustrates the most damaging creationist misunderstanding. They often conflate evolution (change in allele frequency in a population) with natural selection (an agency of evolution) with specation (a consequence of evolution). And evolution doesn't have to produce an increase in complexity. Often, it simplifies things. Mammals, for example, have simpler lower jaws, vertebrae, and shoulder joints than their reptilian ancestors.
the creation of new "information" that didn't exist before.
Every new mutation in a population increases information. That was Claude Shannon's great discovery. The same principle that explains how to make the internet work, and to send effective low-powered radio signals across billions of kilometers of space, explains how new information appears in populations. Would you like to see a simple example?
[quoteThe example you gave describes the opposite, where there is actually a loss of "information".[/quote]
Which is another creationist misconception. A lot of people think creationists are dishonest. In my experience, they are just confused.
Much of time, natural selection does not bring about a new creature. Most of the time, it's microevolution (variation within a population). There are many known cases of macroevolution (speciation), however.
That is the claim I hear.
Even most creationists now admit the evolution of new species. They can hardly do otherwise, since it's directly observed to happen. Most of the larger organizations (eg. ICR and AIG) now admit that new genera and even new families can appear.