From: John Marlow (johnmarlow@gmx.net)
Date: Fri Feb 02 2001 - 20:47:15 MST
Excellent thoughts from James P. Hogan (whose site is
jamesphogan.com), posted w/permission::
>...the weakest or most absurd point in the theory?
Hogan's reply:
Hmm. Difficult to know which to pick. Maybe the question of the
origin of the stupendous amount of information in a genome -- genetic
program coding not only structural organization & growth, but
instincts, behavior, responses to injury, stress, etc. etc. If
Darwinism were correct, such programs accumulated from nothing in
tiny increments. Hence every evolutionary step along the way, on
average, should add information to the growing genome. But _not one_
of the examples usually cited in textbooks etc. as "evolution in
action" has ever been found to add information, and so cannot count
as a meaningful evolutionary step. Bacterial resistance to
antibiotics, for example, (e.g. streptomycin) results from a
deterioration that loses the molecular specificity necessary to
accept the antibiotic's deactivating "key" -- i.e. a loss of genetic
information, not a gain. The much-touted pepper moth in England is a
simple instance of population dynamics, the dominant color changing
as the environment changes. But light and dark varieties were both
present to begin with. Nothing genetically new came into existence.
Yet these are offered as among the best examples. Programs of this
complexity don't write themselves from random changes. In
fact, the reverse -- the more complex and precise a program becomes,
the more random changes are likely to disrupt it.
It's important to distinguish between information and the medium
holding it. "Macbeth" remains the same play whether represented as
ink on paper, dots on a diskette, sound waves, laser pulses, etc.
Similarly with genetic information. I'd contend that saying genomes
are just an emergent property of DNA is like saying Macbeth is an
emergent property of ink and paper, missing the whole point that the
medium isn't the origin of the message. It just carries it.
A good further source on the items you raise would be Michael Behe's
"Darwin's Black Box..."
-- Also from Hogan: But try to convey that I'm not interested in getting involved in debates. They take up time, get acrimonious, and usually achieve nothing. I've stated my position and reasons, and given my sources. John Marlow
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