"Darwin's Doubt" with Stephen Meyer 

Evan Hume great call

CriticalThinker02 haha... Don't go overboard... NYC is liberal zombieland. For that matter, so is every college town in America pretty much.

"no personal agenda" I'm willing to bet everything I own on the fact that Myer was a christian before his academic/research career.

Meyer does have undergrad degrees in science fields but is not a practicing nor is he employed as a scientist

Nathan Chin So.... if one is a Christian, he or she is automatically a failed scientist? (Except for some of the best scientists going back to Newton and 65% of Nobel winners...) Perhaps you could instead point out any errors and provide citations...

correct. too much invested in Darwin to let it go. Institutions, education, entire careers, lineage, reputations at stake, power and let's not forget money money money. They are exposing themselves and getting more and more desperate. Remember they didnt have this internet thing to contend with in years past. They controlled flow of information and suppressed beaurocratically and through reputation destruction anything that would lead away from their god, Darwin. The whole thing is something from a movie. so sad.

Interesting comment, could you elaborate on this point, a little more.

Yeah they tend to leave that “Favored Races” part out nowadays... Hitler sure liked it though...

The theory itself was a projection of Darwin's own political reality. The English was at the peak of their political power. So it's no surprise that his philosophical conclusion beclouded his scientific theory---at the end of the day it just speculative theory with very little evidence.

Not day by day but there is no modern scientific explanation for the sudden existence of species with no known predecessors. Yes it occurred over millions of years, but even atheists admit that it’s a hard hit to our modern theories of macro-evolution because several, several species popped up with seemingly no connection to any other species that predated them.

@@seanlipscomb2118 It sounds something out of nothing.

what is your proposal? I never heard of such a mechanism. It is expressed in that we heard about the survival of the fittest but not the arrival of the fittest. That would require such a mechanism for intelligent input into our genome.

Hi, I am not sure if you read Meyer's book, but you are misrepresenting the argument. I will clarify. I neither support nor refute his position, but Meyer makes good points. 1) ID is not to say "God did it, let's stop looking." It illustrates how the neo-Darwinian mechanisms of natural selection acting on mutation are insufficient at explaining how complex biological systems have appeared. In his book, he shows the abysmal odds that mutation could actually create functional proteins, and illustrates the fact that many systems require that numerous proteins must pop into existence through these random processes before any selective advantage could be incurred (irreducible complexity). Therefore, the guiding hand of natural selection would only play a role after these insurmountable odds have been overcome. Thus, very unrealistic odds, odds that would require much more time than the alleged time that the earth has existed, would need to have been available. ID isn't proposing that we attribute the unknown to God, but proposes that we at least keep open the idea that an intelligent force could have been involved, since our mathematical understanding of the mechanisms show that simply matter and energy cannot justify what we observe. 2) When Meyer says that the lack of scientific rigour is preventing scientists from taking ID seriously, he is referring to the fact that scientists are being close-minded. Before performing any research, scientists already assume that matter and energy have created everything (i.e. the assume materialistic causes). What if materialism fails in its explanation? Rather than consider this possibility, scientists state that they are 100% sure that everything occurred through naturalistic processes, and don't even consider arguments that oppose this. However, their materialistic conclusion defy probability. Is it scientific to hold on to a theory simply because it is consistent with the assumption of materialism? To refute ID as unscientific is to unjustifiably define science as omitting any non-materialistic explanation. Science is supposed to be an unbiased study of the world; not a study of the world based on criteria that we are willing to accept (i.e. that their is certainly no higher power). 3) When Meyer refers t information, he is mostly referring to genes in DNA. No mechanisms can reliably show the development of new genes; nor the proteins they code for. All research only shows a shuffling of existing genes. Mathematically, the development of this new information defies realistic probability. Therefore, he likens genetic information to other kinds of information. We wouldn't expect 12 encyclopedias of unique information to come into existence through unguided processes. Therefore, why do we expect DNA to come into existence in this way? 4) The fact that many scientists get upset by the proposition that evolution did not occur, or about the fact that their may be a god, shows how their world view is skewed towards immediately accepting materialism. In this sense it is like a religion, because of the emotional attachment and unwillingness to consider alternative views. Scientists often belittle religious people, because they have perhaps nonrational beliefs. However, is it more rational to hold on to materialism when it defies mathematics; our most thorough form of logic? The point of ID to Illustrate how science has not in any way ascertained where we came from. Humility needs to be reintroduced into biology, because the tendency to mock and ridicule opposing belief systems, when the evidence supporting evolution from a common ancestor is so weak, is hypocritical. I hope this clarified some of the argument for you. In the interest of critical thinking, I recommend you read Meyer's book with an open mind, and make justified criticisms with a better understanding of the argument.

Chris That is yet to be seen. 1: There are two reasons why I claim ID is actually saying "god did it". - Fist reason comes from their notion that ONLY intelligence can create life, or their notion that life CANNOT emerge solely by natural "unguided" means. What would this notion yield? It would yield the question: Who made that intelligence that made our life? ... and so on and on. At the end you would need to answer a question: Who then made the first life in universe, since there was no other intelligence to make it? Something outside the whole universe? Of course their aim is god, it comes out directly from their "postulates". - Second reason comes from Meyers notion of expanding the ID from biological to chemical and physical domain where, for example, the fine tuning of the universe comes into play. Of course their designer is god. The only reason they disguise it behind the word "intelligence" is because they want to put ID into schools and they cannot do it with god reference. ;) What neo-darwinism has to do with ID????? Any scientific theory is insufficient of explaining everything. Maybe ND is insufficient maybe not, maybe our notion on mutation is insufficient (very probably) ... ... The point that some scientific theory cannot explain something doesn't mean that we should replace it with the first stupid idea crossing our mind. ID needs to find their OWN proof of intelligent designer instead of pointing out the limitations of scientific theories. For example, general theory of gravity cannot explain the interior of black holes - so what? The abysmal odds? Are you talking about the one in 10^77 chance of getting a functional protein. Do you know how he come up with that number? It's a result of Doug Axe (another IDologist) who calculated a chance of one already existing protein turn into another already existing protein by chance. What's wrong with that? Too much to be covered here but if you want here are some articles about it: toddcwood.blogspot.kr/2011/04/protein-evolution-in-bio-complexity.html sfmatheson.blogspot.kr/2011/05/exploring-protein-universe-response-to.html The abysimal odds? Meyer claims that in order to get a new functionality, an intelligence is necessary to put it there because it wouldn't happen just by mutation and natural selection. But that is exactly what happened with nylonase - a protein giving a strain of flavobacterium ability to digest nylon. Nylon didn't exist before 1930's and the bacteria was discovered in 1970's. So under 40 years a new functioning protein emerged. Was a designer necessary? Did someone saw the designer? LOL - come on. Irreducible complexity is based on the notion that "if you take one part of a protein out, that protein looses its functionality" - which is true but that doesn't mean it couldn't have some other functionality even without that part. So the whole notion of irreducible complexity is irreducibly useless. Now there is nothing wrong with further scientific research in that field because we truly have much more to learn, but ID is simply not based on science to be a valid scientific proposition. 2: Instead of "scientist being close minded", I would rather say: Scientist's are discarding very quickly propositions not based on scientific method of reasoning. Similar like with the flat earth proponents. LOL Instead of "scientists assume materialistic causes", I would rather say: Scientists are exploring ideas that can be proved right or wrong, that can be tested whether they are true or not. If you call that close minded - yeah they are close minded to stupidity. Mind you, scientists are not necessary opposed to the idea of intelligent design, but they oppose the methodology and the notions of proofs as ID is viewing them. Just look what ID holds as a proof. "DNA code essentially looks like programming code - hence the designer" LOL analogies are never considered a proof in science. If they did some might say that electrons are actually spinning around the nucleus just because the planets are spinning around the Sun - gravity and electric force are, at the end, not so different. "matter and energy cannot justify what we observe." This is an interesting and important point. Tell me what would that actually mean? That would mean someone can pick any unexplained part of any science and claim "well since it is not explainable by science - insert god" I already explained why ID is a god, hence ID is religion. 3: "shuffling of existing genes"??? what kind a phrase is that? You wouldn't get anything whit shuffling genes - by that I mean exactly what shuffling means - taking one gene in the DNA and placing it somewhere else between other genes. That is not a mutation. Mutation is when one (or more) nucleobases is changed within a genome or when one (or more) nucleobases is inserted or removed from the genome. That mutation could hit a gene or miss it. That is not shuffling genes nor shuffling nucleobases, for that matter. What, by Meyer, would constitute a new information? Clearly even Meyer cannot define that, so he is talking nonsense about shuffling genes. If he doesn't know what constitutes as a new information how can he say anything about probability of its occurrence???? Think for a moment. If you have a set of bits as information! How would you know if that information is complex and specified (CSI)? IDologists would say: well CSI would yield functionality. Where would that functionality arise from? Would it arise from the bits of information by itself? NO - the functionality would arise from the environment. The information that might be functional in one environment might vanish in some other environment - put one protein that has a function in one cell into a different cell and look how that functionality value changes. It might be more functional or less functional or even functional. How then would you calculate CSI if it depends on all possible environmental conditions? There is no way and that's why they still don't know it. And you talk about Meyers probability calculations - the guy has no clue. 4: Like I said nothing defies mathematics or statistics, it's just IDologists are very bad at it, and general public is, to large extent, ignorant - especially if they are religious - those two things go hand in hand. Do you really think scientists would not jump on the ID bandwagon if it had more credible evidence, more plausible explanations and actually employs scientific method or being logically constructed? Of course they would. But as of yet ID has nothing of that sort. 5: If all the ID lectures I saw would actually make sense then I might grab a book to read more about it but why would I go and waste my time when the whole ID construction crumbles under even slightest inspection. If there are some elements in a book crucial for the ID - why would those be skipped from all these lectures I saw? That is why I think reading Meyers book might just reveal more holes in ID. But I need to admit - my mind is not open enough to be filled with a bunch of nonsense.

Hi. I will respond to your points one at a time. 1) Intelligent design is falsely synonymized with creationism. ID simply proposes that no existing scientific theory regarding our origins is capable of explaining the complexity that we see in biological systems. Thus, an intelligent designer must have been involved. I agree that it can look suspicious in that it could be a creationist ploy to teach about God in the school system. In reality, this theory poses legitimate questions against our current evolutionary beliefs. The odds of a functional protein arising by chance are incredibly small; unrealistically so. Belittling Douglas Axe and Stephen Meyer for being IDologists for the sake of ignoring their legitimate mathematical and scientific arguments is the ad hominem logical fallacy. Look at the data, not the person presenting it. Axes experiment went as follows. He was able to make site specific mutations in a number of proteins. These proteins were able to stay functional even with a number of mutations. Only when substantial changes in the amino acid sequence (roughly 25%) were made did the proteins become non-operational. He then determined number of 150 amino acid length proteins that are functional, based on research that had been done before by non-ID scientists (I don't remember the paper, but you can find it if you read on the Axe article). He described this possibility, and illustrated how unlikely the notion that one protein can develop into a new protein would be. Either it would mutate a bit and perform the same function, or mutate a lot and lose function entirely. Only in an extremely unlikely case would large mutations create a new functional protein mathematically. The only alternative to this would be for a protein to form itself from a segment of DNA not already in use (although we know this is a flawed concept since 'junk' DNA seems to play an important role). However, the odds of a protein developing through randomness alone from this junk DNA is, similarly, incredibly small. Nylonase is also an example which does not seem to represent the development of new information. The carboxyesterase gene that it is derived from already had some capacity to degrade nylon oligomers.(Negoro, S., et al., “Nylon-oligomer Degrading Enzyme/Substrate Complex: Catalytic Mechanism of 6-Aminohexanoate-dimer Hydrolase,” Journal of Molecular Biology, 370(1):142-156, 2007). Mutations seemingly either tweak the function of existing proteins, or cause them to lose function. There is no laboratory evidence to suggest that mutation can create anything new. You are also misrepresenting the irreducible complexity argument. We could certainly argue that 'irreducibly complex systems' were derived from proteins that had other functions before they fully manifested into the biological systems that we see. However, their is no evidence for this. Furthermore, the odds that numerous proteins would come to change their functions and come to develop complementary functions without the guidance of natural selection (since natural selection would only provide guidance once the complete structure has formed) are unbelievable. I would recommend reconsidering the argument of irreducible complexity more seriously, because it is far from being "irreducibly useless." Also, stating that idea is not based on science is not a fair point. Were materialistic explanations to be insufficient in explaining the development of new information (as they currently are), ignoring the possibility of intelligent design simply because of a predisposition to reject the possibility of "god" is not impartiality. 2. I agree that scientists can only explore what is true and not true. We should not state things as being fact when they are not. This applies to god as well. However, scientists are claiming that we all evolved from a single-celled organism, even though the evidence does not support this idea. If it so far seems untrue that this occurred, why are scientists holding on to this idea as fact, and immediately rejecting the possibility that non-materialistic explanations are the cause? When I say that scientists are close-minded, I mean that they have already decided that god was not involved, then accept the best alternative they can come up with a fact; even though it is not supported by the bulk of the evidence. ID is not necessarily religion. I would agree that it were religion if scientific methodologies left no doubt about the idea that evolution occurred. However, as we gain knowledge we continue to see the unlikelihood that a cell could have arisen on its own and evolved into all the Earth's organisms. So maybe ID is not an irrational alternative. Also, no one claims that the computer model that is used in genetics (not just ID) is proof of ID. It is just a model to illustrate how DNA is like a code. 3. When I said "shuffling of existing genes" I meant a few things. Bacteria can collect genes from other bacteria via a few mechanisms. Therefore, existing genes can be transferred between organisms. Also, through sexual reproduction, male and female genes are shuffled to create a genetically unique individual with existing genes that came from both parents. Therefore, what I meant was that we see existing genes being conferred to different organisms, but never the production of new genes/information. Sorry if my wording confused you. Also, I realize what a mutation is. However, mutation has only ever been shown to destroy or modify existing information. So, in the whole ether of information that has ever existed, starting from the original cell, scientists cannot explain how all the genes and variety of life could have arisen through any mechanisms. The mechanisms they propose are not supported by laboratory evidence, and are highly improbable to have occurred (e.g. the simplest microorganism has a bit less than 500 genes, human have about 20000 genes). New information needed to come from somewhere. Intelligent design deems that it is mathematically unsound to conclude that this information came from materialistic processes; thus, they conclude that intelligence must be behind it. 4. I am a scientist, and science is subject to a lot of politics and subjectivity. Many scientists have put their reputations and egos on the line to support the idea of evolution; often mocking disbelievers as being stupid and religious (like you are doing now).ID has been synonimized with religion, and religion has been labelled as being mutually exclusive from science. Journals typically will not touch ID arguments based on these stigmas. The belief that scientists would jump on new ideas is not true. For the flat earth situation, it took years, and lots of back and forth name calling before things eventually changed. We see the same thing happening today. 5. In order to think critically you have to be willing to look at all the arguments and, with an impartial approach, analyze them based on their individual evidence. If you are "close-minded" and unwilling to do this, it shows that you have a bias. If you have a bias, then you are not going to draw any conclusions that you didn't agree with before looking at the data in the first place. Therefore, I recommend looking into the subject. You are obviously a smart guy, so expand your mind a bit. I wrote a large article on the topic of teaching evolution as fact, and am making a blog about it. It has nothing to do with religion, because I do not have religious side motives. I will be posting up the blog this week, hopefully, and I will post the link here for you in case you want to read.

Chris At the beginning I gave the benefit of a doubt to the whole ID idea, to see whether this intelligence could be from within the universe we are living, but like I said; Meyer's arguments are leading to god as the only conclusion for that intelligence. Or that or this ID argument is actually false. Just look at it: "Only intelligence can make life" "Only intelligence can make information that would yield life" If that statement is true: where does this lead us? There ought to be the first life in our universe - so who made it????? You tell me!!! Yeah Axe worked with a temperature sensitive, low activity variant of the TEM-1 penicillinase, and to be honest to that paper, it is a critique of a protein folding model and actually does not refute evolution nor prove ID. If you read carefully, Axe said that the LOWER BOUNDS of the probability of functional protein folding could be 1 in 10^77 - not mentioning what the UPPER BOUNDS might be and not mentioning that other experiments yield results that vary from 10^-24 to 10^-63 on 93 AA enzyme and even better results with the "mRNA display" technique - from 10^-10 to 10^-15 on 100 AA enzyme. Now the question arises; Why Meyer and even Axe are constantly sticking with the lower limit of 10^-77 result? I would say dishonesty. Concerning Nylonase: SOME CAPACITY? SOME? CAPACITY? That sounds pretty vague. What does it mean "some capacity" in chemical terms? Because we are now already the realms of chemistry. "Sometimes there is some chemical interactions between some elements?" You can say this for almost anything. Anyways, I would really like to see where is that "some capacity" in this paper. Link: fulltext.study/download/2188425.pdf The question should be: - Can flavobacteria without nylonase digest nylon? NO. - Can flavobacteria with nylonase digest nylon? YES. If the Nylonaise is not an example of "new information" emerging, then define what "new information" would be? For example; if you have a 10-long sequence "ACTCTGGATC", what would a "new information" be compared to that? a) AATCTGGATC b) ACTCTGTATC c) TACTCTGGATC d) TACTCTGGAT e) ACTCTGATC f) AGTAGCCTAT g) TAGAACTGGA h) TAGAACTGTC Really curious which one of those would be considered as a "new information" by whatever you assume "new information" is? Concerning Irreducible complexity: I'm taking the Behe's original description of Irreducible complexity. "A single system composed of several parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning". Which is true, but useless notion because you can have a system that is missing some parts and thus have some OTHER function. Flagellum showed that by removing several parts the system will still fully function but that function would not be the same. Now, of course, after that was found the IDologists whined about that there is currently no evolutionary path between these two systems. That is the same argument creationist were using when whining about the transitional forms. Is it not? NO. Scientists are not refuting intelligent design itself (hell even they sometimes talk about it, what do you think panspermia might be?) - Scientists are refuting the methodology IDologista are using, which is not scientific. 2. What evidence does not support the idea that we all evolved form one single cell organism? Are you sure scientists are not concerning other ideas? We might have had some other entity the single cell organisms evolved from - so you might have a situation where we all evolved from multiple single cell organisms. The thing is NO ONE still doesn't know what the firsts live on Earth was. That is a fact. More so - even the definition of what constitute as life is quite vague. For example are viruses living things or non-living material. Again and again - scientists don't exclude the notion that some intelligence might be behind all this - what they are opposing is the methods IDologists use. OK - god. What is god? Who made the god? Why was it made? God is an omnipotent entity, people made in order to explain some unknowns, it lies outside the realm of human investigation. OK - now look what intelligent designer is: Intelligent designer is an intelligent entity of unknown power, capabilities or limitations, people made in order to explain some unknowns, it lies outside the realm of human investigation. If you don't know the limitations of the intelligent designer you can willingly set up that limit as high you please - which actually means unlimited powers. God and intelligent designer seems pretty same to me. No - we don't continual see the UNLIKELIHOOD that cell could have arisen on its own and evolved. There are plenty of researches that go in various directions, shedding more light on that matter. When will we know for sure? I have no idea. I have no idea when will we find out what's behind the event horizon of the black hole but that is not good enough reason to discard Einsteins theory of General Relativity. Now isn't it? Like I said - intelligent design idea is not an irrational alternative but the methodology used by the proponents of that idea is not scientific. 3. OH I see. Yes that all is right. Except regarding mutation and the notion of information. Now a serious question because I really don't know what exactly do you mean by information. So: *How would you define information in the case of genome and DNA?* Yes Humans have much bigger genome than bacteria. You really don't know how the genome can grow or shrink? There are few ways: Gene duplication, insertion, polyploidization, recombination, deletetion - all these are types of mutation - error in copying. Then you also have the whole genome duplication ... 4. I'm actually not a scientist although I have some degree in physics and math. You didn't get it - I'm not talking about the flat earth proponents that lived few thousand yeas ago. I'm talking about people that today believe Earth is flat. Their reasoning is exactly the same as the reasoning of IDologists. The ways of constructing their propositions, the ways of attributing what is right or false, the way how they handle evidence, he way how they evade facts ... Now of course ID is in better position because the issue is more complex and hidden than in the case of the flat earth. But the reasoning and methodology is the same. 5. Sure. You are correct here. My point exactly. Look. I already saw hundreds of ID lectures, articles and discussions like this above. I don't think reading his full book would reveal some insights. Those insights should have been apparent in all those lectures, and the only thing I see there are lines after lines of dishonesty, ignorance and agenda. I will briefly state the biggest arguments and beefs that I have with ID. - no positive proofs. - the use of vague notions and vague definitions in the core of their proposition. - logical fallacies. - regarding analogies as scientific proof. - quote mining and general dishonesty. - logical inconsistencies. - lack of understanding or misuse of statistics. Great. Happy blogging but don't make the same mistakes they (DI) are doing. Let me know when it's finished.

1. I agree with your comments about the statements pertaining to the belief that only intelligence can create... This is obviously conjecture on the part of Meyer due to the limitations of materialism/naturalism, not scientific fact. I also agree that this theory does point to some higher power. Although, since this theory by no means defends the tenets of creationism, I would argue that they are not promoting the existence of the biblical god. People may suspect that this is an underlying motive, which is fair, but the evidence and arguments they make by no means defend the creation story. Therefore, it is unfair to accuse the ID movement of this; especially since agnostics and people of various religious denominations perform science in this field of study. Pertaining to Axe's experiment, the reason they mention to lower bound is because the proteins they analyzed were modest in size. I agree that they should have been more conservative in their arguments, but their reasoning is sound. Of the three kingdoms of life, archaea have the simplest genomes on average, and have average protein lengths over 200 amino acids (I reference this in my paper, which I will give you access to when I complete my site). Therefore, even the results you mentioned describing a 1 in 10^10 odds of forming a 100 amino acid protein grossly underestimate the average protein length of the simplest of organisms. Furthermore, 10^10 is a very small likelihood all the same, and this event would need to occur numerous times to account for the diversity of life on earth. Even if we assume that smaller proteins could have formed, how do we explain the larger ones (the largest protein is about 33000 amino acids in length). It is much more likely that these proteins did not form through random happenstance. Therefore, is it really reasonable to hold on to the notion that all these proteins could have arisen by chance? You make a fair point about nylonase. Perhaps it is an example of new information. However, this is debatable. Even if we assume that this example does show this, so what? It is one example. Is it enough evidence to assume that all proteins formed this way from a simple ancestor? Maybe, but maybe not. Why do we pretend like this is proof of evolution? The flagellum example is fair. However, logically, does it make sense that one function would simply convert into another? This would result in the loss of another function. Wouldn't these other functions be necessary as well? Assuming all irreducibly complex systems developed this way is exactly that; assumption. Is it fair to refute and ignore this argument based on the a priori belief that evolution 'must' have happened. Scientists simply explain away legitimate arguments based on their own predispositions to accept evolution. To say that irreducible complexity is a poor argument based on assumptions is a poor argument itself. I hate to disagree with you, but scientists do not criticize intelligent design on their methodology. The methodology of paeleontologists is as questionable as it gets, and scientists supporting evolution typically don't bat an eye (discussed in my paper as well). The issue is that the views of ID are in stark contrast with the materialistic views of typical scientists (i.e. that something came from nothing, and evolved into everything we see on earth due simply due to the activity of matter and energy) 2. Abiogenesis is the theory of how life formed abiotically. It is highly questionable. It defies likelihood, and evidence. Yet, in text books, it is taught as fact; as if life could simply form if certain conditions were met (like the conditions of the early earth). Knowledgeable scientists will admit that they don't know where life came from, but this is not the case in schools and undergraduate university programs. The theory of evolution holds that life evolved from this, or these, original organisms. Therefore, the theory of evolution assumes that such organisms must have come into existence. I don't hear anyone ever propose that there is a higher power at work (except ID advocates). The assumption is obviously that this life arose through unguided processes. Also, stating that "we don't know yet," has the implication that science will discover the materialistic underpinning of this question. Maybe it never will, but we falsely insinuate that there is a materialistic explanation when we respond like this. I am not saying we should stop looking, but we should acknowledge that the answers (as discoverable through observation and experimentation of the material world) may be outside this methodology's capacity to explain. Let us at least consider the ideas of ID, and let students know about this so they can compare and contrast these ideas based on the evidence. 3. Information relates to function. to duplicate a gene would not constitute new information. For example, longitudinal studies have been performed on fruit flies to observe the influence that mutation and natural selection could have on their development. Certain macromutations were triggered, which caused these flies to develop debilitating traits (e.g. extra wings, of legs in the place of their antenna). The genes for their legs and wings already existed in their genome, and were duplicated. Therefore, even though mutation can cause interesting things to occur, there is no new function in this case. Another example could involve antibiotic resistant bacteria. A site mutation (a deletion I believe. I'd have to look it up) can deform their ribosomes, making them less adequate at synthesizing new proteins. However, this mutation reduces the affinity of this ribosome to antibiotics which would normally inhibit its function, and kill the cell. Therefore, the mutation modified the information, but no new function was truly created. Similar with with nylonase. Perhaps the mutation in the gene made the protein better quipped at degrading amylase, but the function of degrading amylase was still present to some degree. Is this new information? Axe's experiment showed how much distance there is between proteins. Small changes allow the protein to operate with essentially the same function, large changes make it disfunctional, and only very rarely could it become functional with another purpose. I agree that the definition of information seems vague, but are the examples of mutation that scientists claim create new information actually doing so? 4) I can't say I agree with your point about how the methodology is flawed in ID. Both ID and evolutionists have a priori beliefs. ID believes that specified complexity cannot arise by chance, and they interpret the evidence to support this. Evolutionists believe that matter and energy can explain all phenomena, and they interpret the evidence to support this. Both sides have biases, which is why it is important to consider both sides of interpretation to guide our own reasoning. My paper doesn't defend ID anyway, because that is not my position. It is a criticism paper about teaching evolution as fact in the school system. I criticize the claims of evolutionists based on the evidence we observe, and I illustrate how the tendency to teach evolution as fact prevents students from thinking critically about the matter. I'll send the link when I'm done.