Dawkins Interview

[Zach]

In this thread txviper asked Mr. Neil regarding me:

Ask him if he has ever seen the interview when Dawkins sat like a deer in the headlights for 11 seconds (before he had the cameras turned off) when he was asked a question about source evidence for new genetic information. If he has seen it, he will try and laugh it off. If he does, ask him how he would have responded in Richard's uncomfortable position. Post his response here and we'll analyze it.

As it happens, I haven't seen the interview, but I'll do my best to answer the question.

 

The interview in question is found in the video, "From a Frog to a Prince", which was produced by Answers in Genesis. Far be it from me to suggest an ulterior motive on their part, but an organization that proclaims the truth of the Bible over scientific investigation might have a vested interest in portraying a prominent proponent of evolutionary theiry in a negative light.

 

Interestingly, the description of the video states that, "From a Frog to a Prince conclusively shows that there is no mechanism for evolution, and that life could only evolve by chance in fairy tales, not in the real world of true science." All this in only 27 minutes, very impressive.

 

The question that was asked of him is thus: "‘Professor Dawkins, can you give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome?’"

 

Now, before I give an answer, let's let the good professor speak for himself.

In September 1997, I allowed an Australian film crew into my house in Oxford without realising that their purpose was creationist propaganda. In the course of a suspiciously amateurish interview, they issued a truculent challenge to me to "give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome." It is the kind of question only a creationist would ask in that way, and it was at this point I tumbled to the fact that I had been duped into granting an interview to creationists—a thing I normally don’t do, for good reasons. In my anger I refused to discuss the question further, and told them to stop the camera. However, I eventually withdrew my peremptory termination of the interview as a whole. This was solely because they pleaded with me that they had come all the way from Australia specifically in order to interview me. Even if this was a considerable exaggeration, it seemed, on reflection, ungenerous to tear up the legal release form and throw them out. I therefore relented.

 

The video was then released, and prominently featured this question and its lack of response. The website featured a piece on the video stating that "One of its highlights is the stumping of the ardently atheistic evolutionist Richard Dawkins1 by the simple question: ‘Professor Dawkins, can you give an example of a genetic mutation or an evolutionary process which can be seen to increase the information in the genome?’"

 

But was it such a simple question? I'll provide Dawkins' response, which you can find here.

 

My answer is very similar to his. The question is non-sensical, because it attempts to frame a question about evolutionary theory in the context of information theory. This is a fairly common mistake, and one I've seen many times. Dawkins goes into more detail about information theory in his response. The reason for this mistake is because there are many different levels of "information" in the genome. The nucleotide sequence can be read as a sequence of four letters, and that is how scientists like me typically analyze it. Technically speaking, mutations can add nucleotides to a sequence, delete nucleotides from a sequence, or change the identity of nucleotides in a sequence. If the sequence is parsed as information, then mutations can both add AND subtract information. But the complexity of genetics doesn't end at the level of the nucleotide sequence. A mutation may be silent, in which case no effective change is made to the transcriptome. Is this a change in information, or not? Or a mutation may change the way an expressed protein interacts with other proteins. Is this a gain, or loss of information? It's impossible to answer that question.

 

That's why Dawkins refused to answer. He knew, as well as I did, that the equivocation of information theory with evolutionary theory is a fallacy, and one typically used by creationists to 'confound' proponents of evolutionary theory.

[bob]

The nucleotide sequence can be read as a sequence of four letters, and that is how scientists like me typically analyze it. Technically speaking, mutations can add nucleotides to a sequence, delete nucleotides from a sequence, or change the identity of nucleotides in a sequence. If the sequence is parsed as information, then mutations can both add AND subtract information. But the complexity of genetics doesn't end at the level of the nucleotide sequence. A mutation may be silent, in which case no effective change is made to the transcriptome. Is this a change in information, or not? Or a mutation may change the way an expressed protein interacts with other proteins.

Zach, you obviously have no idea what you are talking about.