I do want to make one comment now, though.
Mutation is common; hence antibiotic-resistant bacteria; hence pesticide-resistant insects; hence a new strain of cancer-resistant mouse.
Mutation is indeed common but it is uniformly destructive of genetic information. Useful new information, which I assume you would agree is absolutely necessary, is not created. Reference Not By Chance by Lee Spetner. He shows that bacterial resistance occurs as a result of the destruction of genetic information that reduces the overall hardiness of the bacteria. In the techinical sense, I suppose, this is new information in that it changes the old but we're hardly talking about the extremely lengthy and self-consistent code required to create a new organ. And there is no evidence that the recent cancer-resistant mouse developed its resistance via mutation. The point is that the variation could have been resident in the mouse's genetic code all along. There is much such seemingly useless code in all species, as I'm sure you're aware.
But it is. That is why those critters can survive the new environmental stresses. No genetic information is "destroyed" (or you'd have a host of other problems). Sometimes its rearranged, sometimes its introduced from the outside (viral agents).
Ah, now their lies are "subtle"... In other words, there's no clear specific falsehood that Phaedrus can point to, just "very subtle" things that Phaedrus apparently takes issue with...
Somehow I doubt the examples of t.o. "dishonesty" that Phaedrus will surely post Any Day Now will be quite as stark and shocking as Phaedrus earlier implied.
I do want to make one comment now, though. Mutation is common; hence antibiotic-resistant bacteria; hence pesticide-resistant insects; hence a new strain of cancer-resistant mouse.
Mutation is indeed common but it is uniformly destructive of genetic information. Useful new information, which I assume you would agree is absolutely necessary, is not created. Reference Not By Chance by Lee Spetner
He shows that bacterial resistance occurs as a result of the destruction of genetic information that reduces the overall hardiness of the bacteria.
I don't have his book in front of me, but from reading a lengthy exchange of emails between Spetner and Edward E. Max, I remain extremely unimpressed with Spetner's thesis. I've got a graduate degree in computer science and information theory, and he really stretches things beyond tenability in too many places. Perhaps the shortest demonstration of the speculative nature of his work is where he writes:
To estimate the information in an enzyme I shall assume that the information content of the enzyme itself is at least the maximum information gained in transforming the substrate distribution into the product distribution. (I think this assumption is reasonable, but to be rigorous it should really be proved.)Even *Spetner* admits that his ideas only rise to the level of what he considers "reasonable", and are not "rigorous" nor "proven".
Furthermore, it's troubling that Spetner publishes his ideas *only* in a mass-market book, and *not* in the peer-reviewed journals where scientific ideas are subjected to heavy examination and testing. (Side note: This is extremely common for creationists.) In fact, the only appearance of Spetner's ideas in peer-reviewed journals (Schneider Nucl Ac Res 28:2794, 2000) is an article that examines Spetner's position in order to *dispute* the validity of his analysis.
The point is that the variation could have been resident in the mouse's genetic code all along.
Once again, I must direct you to The Journal of Molecular Evolution, where there are *frequent* papers on *direct* observations of mutations "adding information" (sloppy phrase, that) in order to bring about positive evolutionary change and added complexity, along with studies tracing the exact base-pair mutations which brought about changes in one evolutionary lineage versus another.
And lo and behold, the mutations are hardly "uniformly destructive", as you assert.