Riffing off of Ed’s post on Stephen Meyers, which I can’t link because the site suddenly won’t let me, and it probably won’t let me for a very good reason. But it’s just creationist clown Stephen Meyers pitching the tired old creationist argument about “No New Info.” If you haven’t ever seen that one, it basically claims that nature cannot produce “new information.” And since the field of analytical information theory is even more obscure and specialized than the other popular fields of twisted creationist swindles like the one misusing thermodynamics. No one wants to get in the weeds on it. That’s one of the reasons creationists like to use it.
It happens that this argument is easy to disprove, in the formal sense, as in disproven to a 100% metaphysical certainty. And all you need to understand the shape of that proof is a firm grasp on what Less Than, and More Than, mean in elementary arithmetic.
Assume a genome replicating to form a daughter, and an information metric in which the terms ‘more’ info or ‘less’ info exist. If a single random mutation occurred between parent and daughter, creationists would say it must have less information. Now assume a back mutation when the daughter replicates which reversing the original mutation, thus restoring it to the exact same state as the parent. Nice huh?
In other words, if what creationists claim is true, it becomes possible for a genome — and by extension an organism — to have less, or more, information than itself, at least as defined by any genetic characteristics, which is a clear violation of one of the fundamental requirements of any metric set.
But such a reverse mutation can’t happen because…. Because it can’t, that’s why!
Wow… I’ve seen plenty of creationist arguments demolished by evidence before, but I think this is the first time I’ve ever heard one demolished at the level of an actual mathematical proof. Very elegant. :)
That’s a requirement of an ordered set. Ordered sets need not have a (canonical) metric, and conversely, metric spaces need not be ordered. The hyperreal numbers are an example of the former, the complex numbers an example of the latter.
HI Yori, thanks for the response! I’m using a metric set in the sense that any system which classifies information must have a function we’ll call “distance” which follows the three rules that the distance from A to A must be 0, the magnitude of the distance from A to B must be the same in both directions, and the triangle inequility which we don’t need here. The first two are what knock down the no new info argument. If every mutation causes a loss of info, then regardless of how information is measured, provided it’s emasured in a way where more and less and equal to have meaning, then a back mutation leads to reducto absurdum.
Oh come on, your argument is easily disproved. I mean, look…if nature could create “new information” all by itself, then new species could emerge by a process of selection and diversification…and if that would be so easily possible, why would God have gone to all the effort of creating all those different species himself? I mean, he spent a full week on it, why would he have done that if he could just have let nature run its course? =P