Mr. Darwin, you have dialed a wrong number

An ever popular bone of contention between creationists and evolutionists is whether or not mutations have any ability to create new information.

Quotes and comments;

1. 'Mutations allow organisms to evolve, as once in a while a mutation alters the DNA, and the corresponding protein advantageously.' [1.]

- I agree with the creationists who call mutations a loss of information. So how then could a loss of information be equated with adding new information? If you delete a number in an equation, the equation won't work. If you fail to add an ingredient in a recipe (or add the wrong one) the recipe won't work.

- DNA is often compared to letters in an alphabet. How good a comparison (or analogy) that is I'm not sure. Perhaps a better comparison would be to numbers in an equation. Evolutionists tells that all the new information for the E. process came from mutations; i.e. from damage to the genetic code. (This is the view propounded in popular writing at least.) [2.]

I might be a bit thick, but I don't see how this could be the case. We're not dealing with a poem or a piece of genre fiction after all, but with precise instructions. An error in the instructions can lead to harmful and even fatal results - or to no result at all. We might compare it to the getting a number wrong when trying to open a combination lock or safe. No amount of errors will ever be advantageous.

- Mike Johnson (M.V. Searider)

Notes;
1. Adam Zeman - A portrait of the brain p.29.
2. I've spent the last few months reading popular works on science; in an effort to see how the theory of evolution is being treated. These were supposed to be notes for a major essay on the subject, but it's a project I've abandoned. I can say this much; you can't read a single work in our day without coming across multiple references to evolution. (e.g. even a book like 'The Philosophical Baby' is filled with E. references.) Most of the references seem to come straight out of Richard Dawkins, and most (if not all) authors seem ignorant of pertinent critiques of the theory. They just pass on what they've heard in an uncritical manner.
- I wish someone out there would write a book along the lines I mentioned.