Every now and then I would reply or respond to a particular argument or video I watched, and sometimes I would see a response to the video that needs responding to. This is the case where one particular critic responds to me. The video was over evolution where a specific apologist was interviewing Dr. Jason Lisle, who was one of my favorite Christian, Creationist, and scientist. He has appeared also on my channel a few times on YouTube as well discussing with me different issues.
For the sake of anonymity, we'll just call him "Gust" who I think may be an atheist. His position was Neo-Darwinism, which most theistic evolutionist affirm Darwinism but not Neo-Darwinism. In responding to Dr. Jason Lisle in the video above his comments he claimed that Dr. Lisle is either being "deceptive" or "ignorant" for claiming that no new information can arise. I immediately responded to this, by which he replied to me, and then I gave one long response, of which he found himself unable to reply back afterwards.
What follows is the result of that conversation, but I will be doing it a bit differently this time. Instead of copying everything he said to me I will be posting snippets of what he said to me. His words will be posted in red, while mine will be in blue. I will give additional comments and clarifications in green. I will give my overall conclusion and summary at the end in black.
Brian: Mutations don't create new information, it just scrambles around existing genetic information, or takes away information, but it is always a loss of genetic material, never a gain. Of course, you can always find someone who agrees with you on the internet just as I could (Wikipedia is known for its evolutionary presuppositions and Google plays favorites with Wikipedia which is why it always appears at the top of most Google searches), but this wouldn't mean that mutations add new information. I wish Dr. Lisle had dealt with this other reason that mutations don't work in the above video. Duplicating genetic information (such as cloning) is not adding anything new to the genome, and its not "evolution" in the strict Darwinian sense. If you use insertions to add components in, it would still be the same kind of lifeform. You can't insert, say, a segment of DNA from a Cow into a bacteria, you would need the DNA of another bacteria to this. This is not evolution. What it is you're assuming that such things leads to evolution, ultimately, when that is the thing yet to be proven. Variations within a kind is not evolution. You can get changes, of course, but these changes are not the same as common descent, nor are they the same as adding new information into the genome.
Additional Comments: This was my reply to his initial post to the apologetic video we both saw. He had appealed to sources on the internet for the idea that you can add information into the genome. He was under the impression that you can do this, when all mutations can do is scramble around the information, or cause a loss of information. Mutations cannot add new information into the genome. Furthermore, he thought things like insertions and duplications can create "new" information into the genome, which they cannot, but these will be discussed further below.
Gust: Yes, scrambling around existing information is indeed creating new information... Maybe you're not using Shannon's definition of information?
Brian: How is scrambling around information synonymous is "new information?" The next time you eat a can of Alphabet Soup, make sure you scramble the letters in the bowel to see if you get the entire volumes worth of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Bet you won't. Scrambling around information does not produce new information. That just doesn't happen, and it's a non sequitur to even argue that. I don't know who "Shannon" is, but I do work off the dictionary's definition of "information" which it defines as "knowledge obtained from investigation, study, or instruction...the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (such as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects" (Merriam-Webster Dictionary online at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/information). Information inside your cells fits this definition.
However, it is not me that is confused. I don't think you understand what we mean by "new information" as will be indicated more below with other arguments and responses you made to me. We are talking about information that wasn't previously in the genome. Maybe a few illustrations are in order. Evolutionists think that some reptiles, and possibly some dinosaurs, evolved into birds, right? However, if you think about it, what would be required to change a reptile into a bird, both of which are distinct kinds of animals that differ fundamentally from each other? In order to do this, new body plans would have to happen with its own set of genetic instructions, and thus it would have to gain information that it didn't previously have. For example, reptiles have scales, which is the hard portion of the skin of certain types of animals like a kind of outer body armor. However, birds have feathers which has different genetic instructions and makeup. A feather protrudes from the skin of birds, but it is not apart of their skin, rather it is distinct from it, like a hair & fur follicle is distinct from the skin of humans and animals which possesses that genetic information. It is also lightweight, and far from being anything like body armor. The "stem" of the feather is hollow, and the actual "feathery" portion is design to flow air easily through it to enable lift. If you were to look at the genetics involved in a scale and a feather on two different screens you see two different set of instructions that look very different. Did you know if you look at Dog's DNA and a human's DNA you can tell them apart. What about fish to land evolutionary development? Evolutionists claim that eventually creatures left the oceans, grew legs, and learned to move on land. However, fish don't have legs. What would it take for fish to have legs? The information, that was not there previously would have to be added to the genome.
Try to understand. When we are talking about "new information" we are not talking about duplication of the information (see below), and we are not talking about force-feeding segments of DNA into animals (which would not be naturalistic mechanism for adding new information anyway--see below), and we are not discussing crossbreeding species to create new species (hybrids) nor speciation (also see below). We are also not talking about new traits that can result in mutations, which is not evolution either since it is still working off the same information that is already present. What we are talking about is adding something that is new that was not there previously. This is what the evolutionist must demonstrate, and which we have no evidence for.
Additional Comments: There was a confusion here, but not on my part. I think he didn't understand what I meant by "new information." Because of this his assumption was that if one can add any information in this would be accounted as "new" information. At the time he referenced "Shannon." I didn't know who he was until I looked him up. He's often known as "the father of information" and upon looking up his definition I discovered that Shannon had defined "information" by quantity, so Gust was trying to say "we're adding information by adding more information", but this wasn't adding new information, this was adding more of the same information that was already present. He thought I was denying the idea that any information could be added, but the dispute was over information that was not there previously.
Gust: That is incorrect. Any insertion of new genetic material is indeed a "gain" of genetic material.
Additional Comment: No, my statement was correct, but he was trying to attack a strawman. By "gain" he thought if he can multiply the information, and get more information in there, and increase the amount of information, but, instead, this was not what I meant by a "gain" since, in order for evolution to be true, there had to be a gain of new information. Evolution couldn't come by simply duplicating the information or everyone and everything would look the same.
Brian: Again, it is not just simply the addition of any information, it has to be information that wasn't previously there. Duplicating information, scrambling around the information, or insertions of genetic material from the same kinds are not adding new information. My statement was correct. Perhaps a quote will work. This is from one of the world's top information specialist: "There is no known natural law through which matter can give rise to information, neither is any physical process or material phenomenon known that can do this...There is no known law of nature, no known process, and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter" (Dr. Werner Gitt, "In the Beginning was Information", pp. 79-80, & 106). Whenever Bill Nye was asked by Ken Ham to produce an example of information coming through natural processes in his second debate with Nye, Nye's response was, "Sure, the fact that we are all here!" (you can find this debate on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/PPLRhVdNp5M) which, of course, is a circular argument, since he assumed his conclusion, which I think Ken Ham had picked up on. There is no naturalistic processes which is why Nye couldn't think up a reasonable response, so he argued in a circle instead. Lee Spetner, in "Not by Chance", wrote "Not even one mutation has been observed that adds a little information to the genome...The failure to observe even one mutation that adds information is more than just a failure to find support for the theory. It is evidence against the theory" (Spetner, p. 160). On point mutations he argued, "All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not to increase it" (p. 138).
Additional Comment: The point of me citing sources was not to appeal to authority, I know authorities can be wrong, but to reference my sources of information to show you that this is an observed fact. It was really him, not Dr. Lisle nor myself, that was being unknowledgeable with the evidence and facts. It is a fact that no naturalistic processes ever gives rise to new information. As an evolutionist, he failed to realized this.
Gust: I'm not sure what you're saying here... Do you mean to say that insertions don't occur ? Do you have reasons to believe that?
Additional Comment: He is responding to my crack about his internet use of sources. I never suggested that I was denying insertions, only that doesn't add new genetic information. An insertion is one inserts (hence the name) a segment of DNA, but this is not the information itself. Sometimes we treat DNA like it represents the information, but it is really the physical component that carries the information in it. Think of DNA like a CD. A CD is the physical component that carries the information. His use of referencing DNA is like someone gluing a whole bunch of CDs together, and then thinking they could produce "new" information from that. Even if you could, this would be artificial, and not be adding information naturally. In order for evolution to be true new information must be added naturally. To artificially combine segments of DNA will not cut it (pardon the pun).
Brian: By my crack on you addressing internet-level information, I was pointing out the obvious that anyone can do Internet searches and find sites that agree with them. I didn't think that tidbit would be up for dispute. There is true and false information online, or do you believe everything you read online? This doesn't mean you can't use internet sources (I used one in my reply), it just means you need to exercise caution with sources online, and you can type in anything you like online and find sources somewhere that agreed with you. I wasn't denying the existence of insertions. Were there anything else I said in my reply that would lead you to that conclusion?
Gust: Duplicating means copying and pasting (to make it simple), so when you do copy paste on your computer, you "add" new letters don't you?
Brian: No, duplication is not "adding letters," & certainly not new ones. Using your analogy, if I copied the words, "EVOLUTION IS A LIE" with my computer, I don't end up pasting the words, "EVOLUTION IS THE TRUTH" whether, instead, I paste the words, "EVOLUTION IS A LIE" which is what I just did. My words and letters are just simply replicated. You do not get nothing new out of that. Like I said above, I think you are confused by what constitutes as new information (see above).
Additional Comment: By working through his example, not only did I clarify why copying information is not the same as creating new information, but I had also demonstrated what I had meant by the word "new" and why such duplication of the same information cannot be new information since you are working off the same information is there. Nothing new has been created from that.
Gust: Only theists care about the "strict Darwinian sense"...For some reason that still evade me... Why do you care about the "strict Darwinian sense"?
Brian: Creationists use certain terms to describe "evolution." There are two reasons for this: 1. To avoid the equivocation fallacy that evolutionists make with the word "evolution" (which I will explain here in a minute), and 2. To be precise, so no one is confused by what we are talking about or referring to (see below). Terms you might hear are "particles-to-people evolution", "evolution in the Darwinian sense" (which was also used by Dr. Jason Lisle in the above video), "molecules-to-man evolution", or my favorite humorous example, "from goo-to-you-by-way-of-the-zoo evolution", etc. However, these are all used to describe the same thing. Evolutionists make the equivocation fallacy with the word "evolution." Since the word linguistically means "change" they think changes on a smaller scale (which they call "microevolution") eventually leads to "evolution" on a much larger scale (which they call "macroevolution"). Since we can observe these changes on a smaller scale within a kind (which we do observe), they then assume that "macroevolution" is true at a larger scale (which we don't observe). However, the issue is not over the simple fact that organisms change. If that was the case, then we would all agree and there would be no debate. The issue is the direction of change that is claimed by evolutionists. If we could look at such changes as "vertical changes" and "horizontal changes" then what we observe is vertical changes. Creationists do not deny this kind of change. We also do not deny speciation (see below). Instead, what we don't observe is the horizontal changes across the various major kinds of animals. Things like speciation and variations within a kind we don't deny, so to be precise, we try to use very precise language so you know what we are actually attacking.
Gust: Yes and no.
Additional Comment: He is responding to my allegation that insertions do not lead to it being another kind of lifeform. However, the answer is more black and white than he's asserting. It does not lead to "another kind of lifeform" because no new information is being added. He goes on to seemingly agree, but then assumes that this is irrelevant when it's not (see below), but why would that justify his "yes and no" answer?
Gust: Yes it would still be the same kind of lifeform... I don't even understand why you felt the need to mention that, that seems completely irrelevant.
Additional Comment: In order for evolution to be true it needs to add new information so it can evolve new kinds of life. At first, he denies it, claiming that it was "irrelevant" but he'll end his statement by affirming his position on it. It is relevant because in order for evolution to be true it be develop new body plans which means that you must be able to, through natural processes, evolve new information. In a moment he'll try to bring up development of new traits by claiming this.
Brian: Again, insertions and duplication is NOT adding anything new to the genome. There is a difference between inserting a segment of another's animals DNA versus the specimen receiving information to grow legs.
Gust: And no, you can indeed insert cow DNA into a bacteria, it has been done many times, and is still used on a daily basis by the pharmaceutical industry. And we can find examples of that with viral DNA of course, that inserts itself in all sorts of organisms' DNA.
Brian: You say that bacteria has been inserted with cow DNA? Did it grow legs and fur, and produce milk? Of course not, because you cannot add new information into the genome like that. Duplication of the information that's already there, as already stated, does not produce new information. It just copying the information that is already there.
Additional Comment: Again, DNA is the physical carrier of the information. It appears that Gust is confusing the chemical component that carries the information for the information itself. Yes, you can combine segments of DNA like that, but not to the point of adding new information which I had gone into. The bacteria doesn't produce the milk of a cow because it does not have that information already in it, whereas a cow does.
Gust: Lisle says that mutations never create new information, by saying that he demonstrates either his complete ignorance, or his voluntary deception. Yes, insertions, duplications are all example of new information. If at time X a genome is 250000 base pair long, and at time X+A the descendants of that genome have a genome of 270000 base pairs, then there is indeed new information that has been added (20000 new base pairs), which is what we observe in cases of recombinations, duplications, insertions etc...The new inserted genetic material is then a new substrate available for the evolution of new traits, which in the long run makes speciation, and, eventually, new "kind of lifeforms" (whatever that means).
Additional Comment: Now, he's trying to win the argument by what's called a snow job whereby Gust is attempting a type of deception whereby his real motives is concealed. He figures by bringing up big numbers that would persuade others, but the issue is just having more information, it is having new information, something he has yet to demonstrate. He also seems to be confused by the term "kind" or "new kinds of lifeforms." I started getting my suspicions early on in our debate, but these suspicions were solidifying as time in our discussion continued. I started to think maybe Gust was not well versed on the terms of this debate. This could even be an indication that he is not use to debating YECs, and maybe lack knowledge on the proper terminology in these kinds of discussions. This may also mean his understanding of the issues at hand may be one-sided.
Brian: Also, increasing the number of base pairs, genes, and chromosomes is not introducing new information. Let's say you mutated a turtle, and it grew another head, this would not be new information. Big whoop, he already had a head, he just now got two of them! Lol! But this is not new information. What would be new information is if it had no head at all, but that information was added to give it the information for a head where that information was absent previously. Also, the introduction of new traits is not new information either. Traits has to do with an organism's functionality, not whether they had new information or not. You can create a variant of bacteria to form a different trait from other bacteria (such as resistance to pesticides), but this would not change a bacteria into a cow. Big difference.
It isn't a "new kind of lifeform" as you put it. Bacteria is still bacteria. If you breed dogs with other dogs, you know what you get? More dogs! You can breed other species with each other to form new species, but this wouldn't be "a new kind of lifeform", although it could develop a new species from it. I think, as your post indicates, you are confused by my references to "kind", right? I'm using the word "kind" from the Bible since this is the word that the Bible uses. Kind doesn't mean "species" but is actually broader than the species level. We have to be careful since our modern-day classification system didn't exist in Biblical times, but the Bible uses this term broader than a species, and works off certain physiological traits such as referring to all birds as one category rather than a plurality of categories (Gen. 1:20), and then spoken that each "kind" would produce after its own "kind" which means it can interbreed with each other (vv. 21-22). The closest comparison on our modern classification system to this would be family. The "dog" family is Canid (pl. Canidae). This would include the various breeds of dogs, wolves, coyotes, foxes, etc. These animals, with the exception of the fox, can interbreed with each other. The fox is an example within a kind that lost so much information that it no longer has the ability to mate with others of its kind. This is what is the result of sin and mutations, and you think that all life had some kind of progressive "evolution" to all the major classifications of creatures? If you're uncomfortable with the biblical version of kind, then think of it as you claiming that these changes are occurring in all of the major classifications of creatures on earth, which is the very thing we don't observe.
Gust: What needs to be proven?
Additional Comment: He is responding to my offhanded remark to the minor variations within a kind that he believes becomes the larger changes claimed by Darwinian evolution, which is the thing that he has to demonstrate. He might believe such small changes eventually leads to all the different kinds on earth, but his argument is, then, circular, and it is the very thing in which he needs to demonstrate. I will cover this with him in my next response.
Brian: What needs to be proven is that all of these major classifications of animals resulted from minor variations within a kind, and this resulted from naturally adding new genetic information into the genome. This is the very thing that needs to be proven. So you might believe that these minor variations within a kind (which you call "microevolution") becomes all of these major classification of animals (which you call "macroevolution") is "evolution" but that is what has yet to be demonstrated, thus turning your argument into a circular argument. As Morrison said in "Evolution's Final Days", "The lowest estimated difference between the DNA of apes and that of humans is 50 million base pairs... 50 million [sic]! Yet a change of just 3 of these base pairs is fatal" (John Morrison, "Evolution's Final Days", p. 67).
Gust: What is a "kind"?
Additional Comment: Here he is responding by asking this question concerning my constant reference to the term "kind" which he continuously did not get throughout our discussion. He wants to know what constitutes a "kind" as I am using the term.
Brian: I have already explained what a kind is. However, I would add this bit. Variations within a kind is not evolution on any level, because nothing new is being added to the genome.
Additional Comment: I had already explained what a kind was earlier on in my response and did not want to repeat it at this point. My constantly having to define terms for him was a big blow to him in the course of our debate. Variations within a kind never produce new information. This was something, sadly, I don't think he ever got.
Brian: Well, this is all. I hope that helps. Sorry we disagree on this, but I think evolution is in trouble whenever it comes to the facts and evidence, and such evidence is being interpreted properly through a biblical-Christian worldview, which is the only way we can make sense of the evidence. Sorry for the lengthy posts, but thank you for your replies. Blessings!
Additional Comment: Unfortunately, he never responded back after this. His view of evolution appears heavily indoctrinated. His only source may be other evolutionists.
My Summary & Conclusion: Gust didn't seem fully aware of the issues of this particular debate. He seemed constantly confused on the terms I was using, as well as what I meant by "new information." From the point of evidence, he had failed to produce a single demonstration of new information developing through natural processes. He seemed to think things like duplication of information, insertions of segments of DNA, or mutations having produced new information, but this was incorrect. These always work off the information that's already there. Developing "new traits" did not produce new information either since traits could form within variations within a kind but did not add new information. In fact, bacteria was still bacteria. And despite his false assertion, did not produce new information. I provided some good responses, but my one disappointment is that he didn't respond back to me. I think much of what he believes on this came from one side of the fence, which would explain why he lacked knowledge on the terms involved within this issue. No naturalistic mechanism has ever given rise to new information, and there is no exception to this. That is all we've ever observed.
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