>Some months ago, Dawkins asserted that it was *natural selection* which
>is responsible for increasing the genetic information content of the genome:
>
>"The suspicion increased sharply when I was challenged to produce an
>example of an evolutionary process which increases the information
>content of the genome. It is a question that nobody except a creationist
>would ask. A real biologist finds it an easy question to answer (the answer
>is that NATURAL SELECTION INCREASES THE INFORMATION
>CONTENT OF THE GENOME all the time - that is precisely what natural
>selection means)..." (Dawkins R., in Williams B., "Creationist deception
>exposed," The Skeptic, Vol 18, No 3, Sept 1998.
>http://www.spacelab.net/~catalj/deception_exposed.htm. Emphasis mine).
I strongly recommend that everyone go to that link. It's extremely interesting.
Steven, you should have read a little further. If you had you would have
seen this:
"If natural selection feeds information into gene pools, what is the
information about? It is about how to survive. Strictly it is about how to
survive and reproduce, in the conditions that prevailed when previous
generations were alive. To the extent that present day conditions are
different from ancestral conditions, the ancestral genetic advice will be
wrong. In extreme cases, the species may then go extinct. To the extent
that conditions for the present generation are not too different from
conditions for past generations, the information fed into present-day
genomes from past generations is helpful information. Information from the
ancestral past can be seen as a manual for surviving in the present: a
family bible of ancestral "advice" on how to survive today. We need only a
little poetic licence to say that the information fed into modern genomes
by natural selection is actually information about ancient environments in
which ancestors survived. "
>It never occurs to Darwinists (because it *cannot* occur to them while
>they remain materialist-naturalists), that there is another node on the
>explanatory filter that scientists like archaeologists, forensic scientists
>and exobiologists recognise and use all the time, namely: 3. intelligent
>design!
And, if you had continued to read Dawkins' remarks, you would have come
across this:
"Supporters of "intelligent design" guiding evolution, by the way, should
be deeply committed to the view that information content increases during
evolution. Even if the information comes from God, perhaps especially if it
does, it should surely increase, and the increase should presumably show
itself in the genome. Unless, of course - for anything goes in such
addle-brained theorising - God works his evolutionary miracles by
nongenetic means. "
Susan
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"Life itself is the proper binge."
--Julia Child