Destroying (Yet Another) Creationist Myth, Plus Their Claims to Intellectual Honesty

**Update (11/25/07): See here for updated links for all the papers below**

Said myth being, in a very recent case, that evolution cannot "generate new information", or something of the sort involving information theory. This recently occurred (again) in my own experience when Tom Short returned to UF a week ago, and, as all creationists do, repeated this canard but was completely unable to provide for me even a suitable or technically correct definition of information.

Three random papers, representing awesome research and hundreds of citations to follow (which creationists never will, because they don't want to see the evidence they lie about not existing), shatter this myth into a million pieces:

• Understanding the recent evolution of the human genome: insights from human-chimpanzee genome comparisons, Human Mutation, 28(2):99-130, Oct 2006, Download PDF
• The origin of new genes: Glimpses from the young and old, Nature Reviews Genetics, 4(11): 865-875 Nov 2003, Download PDF
• Evolution of biological complexity, PNAS, 97(9):4463-4468, April 2000, Download PDF
  

Each of these papers has exhaustive and detailed answers to the very legitimate questions about how genetic features (and thus phenotypes) are changed such as is required by common descent. And, as usual, there are hundreds more where these came from. It's the typical blatant intellectual bankruptcy on the part of creationists to mindlessly repeat these myths without ever doing their homework. Why? Because religion teaches you to believe what people behind pulpits tell you, and not think for yourself, or go look it up and do serious study. Authority and dogma, that's what they breed. Without them, there is no religion.

And D. James Kennedy and a million other scientifically-ignorant peddlers of superstition and myth are ever willing to continue to spread these creationist canards and falsehoods that keep them in business. They have an obvious interest at stake...don't they? And their sheep (self-admittedly named) continue to baaaaaa them right back.

The funniest thing is when you ask the same detailed questions of a creationist, be they an ID-creationist or a YEC-creationist (not that those are mutually exclusive) -- "What are the mechanisms by which things are designed?" "What features, specifically, are designed and are not designed in some particular organism X?" "What chronology can you assign to the design events in said organism X?"

We offer them peer-reviewed literature with amazing empirical examples to back up our claims. What do we get in return? Blank stares and nose-picking and hand-waving. Argumentum ad ignorantium is all they have, and all they ever will.

The next time a creationist repeats a boldfaced lie to the effect that "evolution can't produce new features/information/etc.," ask them for their email, and send them the link to this blog post. Then, if they choose to lie again, they can't claim innocent ignorance of the facts. They will choose to do just that, though, and justify it in their own minds by saying that God wants them to lie because the alternative is evil...even though they now know they cannot honestly claim it isn't true.

It will stop the entire show when you ask a creationist to give you a bit, just a teeny little bit, of a definition of information that doesn't beg the question (involving intentionality). They won't be able to do it, certainly not to relate compressibility and randomness correctly to information theory. And when they try, they'll blather on mindlessly about the genetic code, and you can refer them to this article:

• The origin of the genetic code: theories and their relationships, a review, Biosystems, 80:175-184, Nov 2004 Download PDF

Not that they'll read that, either. But the point is, there are answers. They choose to ignore them, and so belie any pretense to honesty or intellectual integrity they claim. End of story.
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Technorati tags: Religion, Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creationism