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(snip)
1) Heavy metal toxicity resistance in plants. Before the modern
industrial age there simply wasn't enough lead, cadmium or mercury around
for plants to worry about. Now there are places in the world where the
soil is so contaminated with these and other heavy metals that plants can
die unless protected. Those that can survive had mutations that created
proteins that were able to bind up these heavy metals and sequester them
away from other proteins and the DNA. This function never existed before,
could never exist before, because only recently have plants started
encountering these kinds of metals.
2) Resistance to man-made antibiotics. Man-made antibiotics do not exist
in nature, so bacteria exposed to them can survive only if they experience
mutations that create proteins that either bind up and sequester the
antibiotics or catalytically destroy them. Again these are new functions
that never existed before, could never exist before, because these man-made
antibiotics did not exist before.
3) Resistance to DDT. DDT is a man-made pesticide, yet mosquitoes have an
uncanny ability to produce mutations that protect them. These mutations
produce enzymes that break DDT up into two or more harmless pieces.
Because DDT never existed before this function never existed before, could
never exist before. It only came about after DDT was invented.
4) Nylon digestion. Nylon is a man-made polymer, yet some bacteria are
able to break it down and use it for food. All of these bacteria produce
enzymes that are themselves the result of mutations. In one case the
mutation was a frameshift mutation. This caused the reading frame of the
gene to be shifted by nucleotide, changing all the genes at once. Most of
the time this kind of mutation destroys an active gene, but in this case it
created a new gene that produced an enzyme which was able to break the
nylon polymer bond. Since nylon never existed before, this function never
existed before, could never exist before, so it must be new information.
(snip)
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In each case Kevin argues for the novelty of the resistance (or digestion)
function by saying, in effect, "Since X never existed before, this function
(resistance to X) never existed before, COULD NEVER exist before, so it must
be new information". Let's think about this claim for a minute.
1. Do we really KNOW that the function (resistance to X, Y, Z) NEVER
existed before? Has this been conclusively demonstrated? COULD it ever
be conclusively demonstrated? Is it absurd to suppose that at least some
organisms in a large population already had the function (due to the presence
of the protein, etc. needed for resistance) before the presence of the toxin?
Kevin, you appear to simply assume this and do not present an argument
to support it.
2. The even stronger claim is made that such a function "COULD NEVER exist
before". Why do you believe this? If the only way the function could have
arisen were through a mutation, and if such a mutation occurred only after
the toxin or threat appeared, then you could make such a case. But this
is quite a stretch.
So it seems to me that you have not given much support for your claims.
Can you clarify for me what your assumptions are and what evidence you
have for them?
Thanks,
Stan Zygmunt
Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
Valparaiso University
Valparaiso, IN 46383