[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by Torrere

However --

Information GAIN certainly does occur. One example is gene duplication: occasionally, when DNA is passed from generation to generation, sequences of DNA are duplicated. Usually the duplicate information immediately follows the original information, but sometimes it moves to an entirely different location. Gene duplication is widely acccepted, and has been examined for over 30 years now.

Duplication is not adding new information. It's still the same info, just duplicated.

If I have cell A, B, C and D, and I duplicate C, I have A, B, C, C, and D. I don't have a gain of information. C was there to begin with. What I mean by gain of information is somehow getting an E from somewhere. That is what is required for the evolutionary theory to work (molecules to man).

[quote] According to this article published in 2001 in Science,

Whole quote of article referenced, my emphasis in bold
Department of Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403, USA. mlynch@oregon.uoregon.edu

Gene duplication has generally been viewed as a necessary source of material for the origin of evolutionary novelties, but it is unclear how often gene duplicates arise and how frequently they evolve new functions. [/i] [So, basically, this theory really needs to work, but we aren't sure how or how often.] [i]Observations from the genomic databases for several eukaryotic species suggest that duplicate genes arise at a very high rate, on average 0.01 per gene per million years. Most duplicated genes experience a brief period of relaxed selection early in their history, with a moderate fraction of them evolving in an effectively neutral manner during this period. However, the vast majority of gene duplicates are silenced within a few million years, with the few survivors subsequently experiencing strong purifying selection. Although duplicate genes may only rarely evolve new functions, the stochastic silencing of such genes may play a significant role in the passive origin of new species.

There is so much wrong with that "story" that I'm surprised you bothered to link it. First, this is all guesswork based off of a computer simulation database. Second, they are guessing that the mutation/duplicate rates stay constant over time (or didn't account for the flux). Third, according to my (usually flawed) math, that's one duplicate gene every 100 million years. Most of those duplicated don't do any thing, and if they do, they don't do anything relating to new functions. This was a irrelevant story anyway, because gene duplication is not adding new information, which is required for molecules to man origins.

This page is a good starting point for looking into gene duplication and explains it reasonably well for the laity.

Well, I'm a laity, but I was still lost. Try here:

http://www.answersingenesis.org/crea...2/genetics.asp

In case you require extra special evidence, this paper, entitled "Multiple Duplications of Yeast Hexose Transport Genes in Response to Selection in a Glucose-Limited Environment" describes the preceding experiment (or a verification of it).

Not only was information gained [information was duplicated and hence there was more overall information], but the extra information was an improvement over the information existing at the beginning of the experiment.

But more overall information is not new information. I think the problem here is the way I described it (my fault). See above about ABC and D and the link I posted, that describes the 4 main genetic changes in regards to origins.