Creationist argument about DNA and information

[barehl]

Most are aware that the Answers In Genesis website gives arguments about creationism. One of their arguments is:

Christian: “DNA has information in it—the instructions to form a living being. And information never comes about by chance; it always comes from a mind. So DNA proves that God created the first creatures.”

The opposing answer they give is:

Atheist: “There could be an undiscovered mechanism that generates information in the DNA. Give us time, and we will eventually discover it.”

This seemed like a weak argument to me but I saw someone refute the meme version of this creationist argument using this same statement--that we don't know. So, I'm wondering if someone has a stronger refutation.

 

[Tolls]

I've never understood the "DNA has information" thing.

It's chemistry.

Do hydrogen and oxygen have information in them to form water?
How about carbon to form it's various structures?

To me, and I'm sure someone will put me straight, DNA and its influence on building an organism is simply a more complex series of reactions.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Most are aware that the Answers In Genesis website gives arguments about creationism. One of their arguments is:

Christian: “DNA has information in it—the instructions to form a living being. And information never comes about by chance; it always comes from a mind. So DNA proves that God created the first creatures.”

The opposing answer they give is:

Atheist: “There could be an undiscovered mechanism that generates information in the DNA. Give us time, and we will eventually discover it.”

This seemed like a weak argument to me but I saw someone refute the meme version of this creationist argument using this same statement--that we don't know. So, I'm wondering if someone has a stronger refutation.

It's "information" accumulated over hundreds of millions of years, not 6,020. And most of it isn't used anymore.

 

[Roger Ramjets]

It's "information" accumulated over hundreds of millions of years, not 6,020. And most of it isn't used anymore.

No. God created the Heavens and Earth in 6 literal days, and all the plant and animal kinds too. We know because it says so in the Bible.

Who you gonna believe - the inerrant word of God as written down by men who had no reason to lie (honest!), or modern science?

 

[wea]

Some forty years ago (lower secondary school) I read Lorenz's "Behind the mirror, a search for a natural history of human knowledge" (in my native language, of course ). Mainstream ideas since more than half a century now, don't waste your time with people ignoring the classics

 

[marplots]

Most are aware that the Answers In Genesis website gives arguments about creationism. One of their arguments is:

Christian: “DNA has information in it—the instructions to form a living being. And information never comes about by chance; it always comes from a mind. So DNA proves that God created the first creatures.”

Every one of those phrases is an unproven or ill-defined assertion.
1) "DNA has information in it" - says who? What definition of "information" makes this true?

2) "the instructions to form a living being" - "instructions" assumes too much, it sneaks in the conclusion they are trying to reach. Does space contain the "instructions" (by way of gravity) to form planets? (Also, "living being" is a bogus category, since nothing DNA makes is living - which is a bogus category in the discussion meant to add an element of mystery.)

3) " information never comes about by chance; it always comes from a mind." Again, assuming the thing we want to prove. It supposes there is a purpose, a goal that is achieved by following a recipe. Evolution tells us this isn't the case at all.

4) "DNA proves that God created the first creatures" - how did they jump from "intelligence" to God? Aliens would do as well. Aliens that don't have DNA would fit all the conditions.

I think the best they could do would be to lay the "magic of life" at the feet of natural laws and then propose those laws were "invented" by God. DNA can't be the whole story, simply because environment plays such a strong role - we aren't simply the result of our DNA, context matters at least as much. If God's going to get credit for the context, evolution gets you life anyhow, so there's no particular reason to see the Hand of God at the creation of animals level.

The idea presented simultaneously asks for too many assumptions and too few.

 

[Dave Rogers]

Every one of those phrases is an unproven or ill-defined assertion.

I disagree; it's a reasonable use of language to claim that DNA contains information, and that this information determines the form of a living creature. The key unproven assertion is that "information never comes about by chance; it always comes from a mind." This is a completely unsupported claim, and is the heart of the argument. And it's trivial to refute; the historical sequence of meteoroid impacts on the surface of the Moon, to take one example, contains information that determines the present-day form of that surface, and no mind was involved in generating that information.

Dave

 

[Mojo]

Most are aware that the Answers In Genesis website gives arguments about creationism. One of their arguments is:

Christian: “DNA has information in it—the instructions to form a living being. And information never comes about by chance; it always comes from a mind. So DNA proves that God created the first creatures.”

An argument from unsupported assertion.

 

[marplots]

I disagree; it's a reasonable use of language to claim that DNA contains information, and that this information determines the form of a living creature. The key unproven assertion is that "information never comes about by chance; it always comes from a mind." This is a completely unsupported claim, and is the heart of the argument. And it's trivial to refute; the historical sequence of meteoroid impacts on the surface of the Moon, to take one example, contains information that determines the present-day form of that surface, and no mind was involved in generating that information.

Dave

In what way? Are you suggesting information is a material thing by using the word "contained?" This needs to be pinned down to move to any of the next steps.

Suppose, for example, I take a beaker of DNA and scramble it in a blender. Have I altered the amount of information it contains? Have I created new information by blending it?

There's quite a bit of waffling going on with this idea - it gets to mean whatever I need it to mean to make my point.

I agree with your next point, since whatever "information" is supposed to mean, DNA seems able to create more of it, and I don't think they are asserting DNA is intelligent.

 

[Dave Rogers]

In what way? Are you suggesting information is a material thing by using the word "contained?" This needs to be pinned down to move to any of the next steps.

It's not a statement that needs to be contended in the context of the argument. It's reasonable to state that a random set of chemicals with the correct ratio of atoms implanted into an ovum can't result in a viable organism, and that DNA in the same process can. It's reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the information contained in the arrangement of atoms in DNA is therefore a critical part of the process. The statement, therefore, is at worst inexact; it's not the key fallacy in the argument.

Dave

 

[Garrette]

It's not a statement that needs to be contended in the context of the argument. It's reasonable to state that a random set of chemicals with the correct ratio of atoms implanted into an ovum can't result in a viable organism, and that DNA in the same process can. It's reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the information contained in the arrangement of atoms in DNA is therefore a critical part of the process. The statement, therefore, is at worst inexact; it's not the key fallacy in the argument.
Dave

It is precisely the context that prevents me agreeing with you. Inexactness is perfectly fine on an informal debate forum or down the pub with friends or even in a classroom setting. In the context within which AIG itself is claiming to operate, it fails miserably. AIG posts these things as scientific refutations and as scientific proofs. If they cannot be exact with the term that is central to their position then they have no business discussing the issue.

 

[marplots]

It's not a statement that needs to be contended in the context of the argument. It's reasonable to state that a random set of chemicals with the correct ratio of atoms implanted into an ovum can't result in a viable organism, and that DNA in the same process can. It's reasonable to conclude, therefore, that the information contained in the arrangement of atoms in DNA is therefore a critical part of the process. The statement, therefore, is at worst inexact; it's not the key fallacy in the argument.

Dave

Oh, but it is. Because, we could just as easily say the information was in the ovum and not the DNA. Why? Because any old DNA won't work. "Viable" DNA is defined by what ends up working, not by any "information" found in that DNA.

Here's an example. Does the following sequence of letters "have" information?
Im#RthnU ?

It might be a random sequence of letters. Or, it might be my password for this forum. It might be a claim: "I'm sharper than you." Context makes all the difference, so my objection is that saying "information" is localized in DNA is incorrect, as much as it is to say it is localized in carbon-carbon bonds in DNA.

It's fine to use the "DNA is the master plan" as a mental shortcut, but we can't then rely on it for anything more as if we've captured a clear meaning.

 

[sphenisc]

http://www.skeptics.com.au/resources/articles/the-information-challenge/

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

Apart from all the previously given arguments, it IS possible to create functional ribozymes by randomly stringing nucleotides together. And these random strings fall well within the parameters of what would be possible for abiotic chemistry as would be present on earth.
So not only is their argument based upon an unproven assertion, it is also proven to be wrong.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

The "information" if DNA is not information like writing down your randomly generated bank pin on a PostIt note. The information contained within DNA is a record of positive and negative feedback loops operating for millions of years, two things humans in general find difficult to process mentally and AIG Creationists specifically reject.


Feedback loops. Millions of years. DNA is literally a palimpsest recording of those happening.

 

[marplots]

The "information" if DNA is not information like writing down your randomly generated bank pin on a PostIt note. The information contained within DNA is a record of positive and negative feedback loops operating for millions of years, two things humans in general find difficult to process mentally and AIG Creationists specifically reject.


Feedback loops. Millions of years. DNA is literally a palimpsest recording of those happening.

That is an excellent way of describing it.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Yes, I agree with AIG and others in this thread that DNA contains information. But then AIG falls apart. We know DNA is subject to random mutations. Do those new strands of DNA not contain information? If they try to make the claim that they don't then we have to ask how those random mutations aren't random and how they manage to avoid states that represent information. That becomes a very hard claim to justify since every mutation is just a chemical reaction without any insight in to the fact that the DNA is encoding proteins. Further the chemical reaction that is the mutation can't know whether it's impact is going to be good or bad, sometimes that can't be known for generations. And the exact same mutation/chemical reaction at some other point in the DNA will have an entirely different effect. So how could chemical reactions know what they'd need to know to avoid producing information?

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

I would go out on a limb and suggest AIG thinks Mitosis and Miosis are the names of Satan's lapdogs. The scientific illiteracy of Creationists even exceeds that of ElectricUniverse b'leevers, a very high hurdle to clear.

 

[turingtest]

Everything has information, is the information that makes it and defines any one thing as not something else. It's just a property of arrangement; there's nothing magical about the information in DNA that makes it the unique signature of a normative creation, a goal, rather than as just the outcome of existence. Life is a consequence; but to argue that life is what makes that arrangement a mark of god is just to assert what the argument is meant to prove. If there is a god, the arrangements of information that make non-life could just as well have been his goal, planets as playthings, and life an unexpected by-blow- "what the hell is that?!?!?!?"

 

[GnaGnaMan]

Christian: “DNA has information in it—the instructions to form a living being. And information never comes about by chance; it always comes from a mind. So DNA proves that God created the first creatures.”

The assertion in italics is wrong and that's simply all there is to it.

To explain:
Suppose you put a drop of ink into a glass of water. The ink will first be concentrated and will with time diffuse all through the glass.
This implies that the longer you wait, the more possible locations there are for each single ink molecule.
Suppose you were storing the state of each ink molecule on a hard drive (maybe it's a computer simulation of a diffusion process). Since the number of possible locations for each ink molecule increases you need more and more hard disk space to store these locations.

This is an example of an increase of entropy as per the second law of thermodynamics. What this boils down to is that the 2nd law of thermodynamics can be restated as: In a closed system, information always increases.

Information just increases. It's a law of nature.

Unfortunately this is sometimes misunderstood. While the information needed to describe the system increases, the information we have about the system decreases. Suppose you were asked to give the location of one specific ink molecule. At first you could just point to the ink drop. Once the drop has completely diffused, it might be anywhere in the glass.
This is used by creationists to suggest that the 2nd law states the opposite of what it really does.

In terms of DNA this means that it will mutate. And once that happens, information has increased. A complete descriptions needs to give the original DNA and the mutated form.

The few educated creationists - who understand what information is - know this and so come up with concepts like functional information or specified complexity or what not. Those concepts simply don't work. At best, they lead to begging the question.