[snip]
>Essentially Shapiro is proposing that organisms have systems that in
>themselves cause the advent of new genetic variation rather than waiting
>for a x-ray from the sky above to do the dirty work.
This would argue for much more robusticity in the genome and
correspondingly, a much higher number of DNA sequences which are able to
perform the function of making a viable Oxytricha. This would also mean
less specificity in the information than anti-evolutinists claim. When you
get the article, let us know the exact reference so I can order it.
My goodness what Oxytricha does is overcome a scrambling worse than any
random mutation would cause. This puts to rest all those arguments that
say one can't scramble the DNA program or computer program and still have
a functional program!
Buckna and Laidlaw contend wrongly:
"1. Microsoft programmers utilized complex codes to create windows 95
software. The genetic code, which is more sophisticated, controls the
physical processes of life and is accompanied by elaborate transmission and
duplication systems. How does evolution, using natural processes and
chance, solve the problem of complex information sequencing without
intelligence?" ~ David Buckna and Denis Laidlaw, "Should Evolution be
Immune from Critical Analysis in the Science Classroom," Impact 282,
December, 1996, p. 1
Randy Wysong erroneously asserted:
"Concerning the spontaneous improvement of the code through mutations and
natural selection, he further states:
'We believe that it is not conceivable. In fact, if we try to simulate
such a situation by making changes randomly at the typographic level (by
letters or by blocks, the size of the unit does not really matter), on
computer programs we find that we have no chance (i.e. less than 1/10^1000)
even to see what the modified program would compute; it just jams.'
'Further, there is no chance (less than 1/10^1000) to see this mechanism
appear spontaneously and, if it did, even less for it to remain.'[M.P.
Schutzenberger, in P. Moorhead and M. Kaplan, Eds. Mathematical Challenges
to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, (Philadelphia: Wistar
Inst., 1967), p. 73-74]
"Eden, a participant in the same symposium, compares DNA to a formal
language and corroborates the fact that DNA codes could not evolve through
random rearrangements:
'No currently existing formal language can tolerate random changes in the
symbol sequences which express its sentences. Meaning is invariably
destroyed'[M. Eden "Inaddequacies of Neo-Darwinian Evolution as a
Scientific Theory," in P. Moorhead and M. Kaplan, Eds. Mathematical
Challenges to the Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, (Philadelphia:
Wistar Inst., 1967), p. 11]
Schutzenberger's conclusion, though an evolutionist, is:
'...we believe that there is a considerable gap in the Neo-Darwinian theory
of evolution, and we believe this gap to be of such a nature that it cannot
be bridged within the current conception of biology.'[M.P. Schutzenberger,
in P. Moorhead and M. Kaplan, Eds. Mathematical Challenges to the
Neo-Darwinian Interpretation of Evolution, (Philadelphia: Wistar Inst.,
1967), p. 75]
"Creationists sieze upon this information and assert that the 'gap' in
biological theory is easily filled by an intelligent creator. Of
necessity, they say, as shown by computer simulation, the formation of DNA
demands not only letters and energy but intelligence." ~ Randy L. Wysong,
The Creation-Evolution Controversy, (Midland Mich.: Inquiry Press, 1976),
p. 107
glenn
Adam, Apes and Anthropology
Foundation, Fall and Flood
& lots of creation/evolution information
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm