Let's semantically derail a conversation about informatics.

[Mallon]

The problem I see for evolutionary theory is that there are too many harmful mutations leading to mutational load and too few (if any) unambiguously positive mutations to provide a population with the right kind of variation for natural selection to work upon.

On what basis do you make that claim?

 

[champuru]

The problem I see for evolutionary theory is that there are too many harmful mutations leading to mutational load and too few (if any) unambiguously positive mutations to provide a population with the right kind of variation for natural selection to work upon.

what would you consider a unambiguously positive mutation?

 

[shernren]

In a non-rigorous fashion, my answer would be that if something accomplished a purpose, I would see it as more likely to be designed. In other words, the pile of watch parts strewn across the floor does not show design to the degree that the assembled, functioning watch does.

I would think there are two problems with this:

1. Can anyone ever rigorously determine the purpose of anything? This relates to a fairly detailed post I made here: http://christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=49308994#post49308994

For example, quinine was a wonderfully effective anti-malaria drug. However, the cinchona tree obviously has no fear of malaria. Does quinine "serve the purpose" of treating malaria? And in a world without malaria would quinine still serve any "purpose" at all?

2. Why should the idea that something has "purpose" dictate that it is "designed"? Why, succinctly, should the end determine the means?

For example, some caves used to provide wonderful settings for humans to stay in. Does this mean that caves were designed as habitations?

 

[Mallon]

2. Why should the idea that something has "purpose" dictate that it is "designed"? Why, succinctly, should the end determine the means?

For example, some caves used to provide wonderful settings for humans to stay in. Does this mean that caves were designed as habitations?

Gould wrote about this very thing decades ago (in his infamous "spandels" paper). Check it out:
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ridley/classictexts/gould.asp

 

[shernren]

Here's an interesting aside:

Intelligent Design Rules Out God's Sovereignty Over Chance

Accordingly, the rejection of biological evolution based essentially on the part played by chance, which appears to have become the sum and substance of intelligent design, is in fact a rhetorical chimera, an unworthy trick from those who should know better and probably hope that no one, not even their "designer," is able to catch them at it. The intelligent design movement has become an unabashedly transparent fig leaf for the urge to insert sectarian creationism into every science curriculum and text. Can any believer truly honor God with such dissimulation?

Instead of arguing disingenuously on behalf of faith that blind chance alone cannot produce such levels of order as science reveals, why don't creationists and their heirs simply state that on scriptural grounds they believe God's hand orders all chance and be done with it? That would certainly put God squarely into the picture for any who choose to agree and would obviate the need to torture science in order to prove anything at all. Simply stated, as with any casino, the house always wins.

 

[shernren]

Bump, rediscovered this old zinger of a thread:

http://christianforums.com/showthread.php?t=1231977

 

[The Barbarian]

There is, within the science of evolutionary theory, a discipline called "population genetics" that deals with (among other things) changes in information in a population. Any mutation will increase information, and the loss of any allele in the population decreases information.

Sometimes evolution occurs with an increase in information, and sometimes there is a decrease.

"Information" is often used by those who don't understand it, as a sort of red herring.

The formula for information in a population is fairly simple and straightforward; there's no difficulty in seeing how it works.