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This is where the difference in information lies. In order to acheive the anti-oxidant, the order of HDLs has to be lost. Without the prefix of those two examples (the 'targeting of hot spots') the loss of HDLs in favor of anti-oxidants would be considered hugely detrimental. This mutation via loss is only favorable because of the originally written DNA. Besides, you keep focusing on how awesome this mutation is. I won't disagree, its got some pretty good benefits to it, and its true benficiality is going to shine through in the medical field. However, nothing new was written. Order was lost to 'acheive' this ability. No matter how many times mutations like these occur, we will always remain humans.



You keep saying that order or information is lost by mutations. So it's time that we define what is meant by loss or gain of information, otherwise we'll continue to talk at cross-purposes.

The whole information concerning a species is contained in its gene pool. Basically, the information amount is equivalent to the sum of all alleles in the gene pool. Can we agree on that?

Now assume a mutation modified a proteine. The milano mutation affected a gene responsible for the creation of apo A-I proteine, causing the production of a modified form of that proteine, apo A-I(M). This new proteine contains an amino acid cysteine that has a sulfhydryl group, causing it to pair with another proteine. This proteine pair ceases to produce HDL, but acts as pwerful antioxidant.

So far, so good. We have a new feature (antioxidant) but have lost an old feature (HDL). So we should assume that this mutation is information neutral (it's certainly not an "information loss" - the new proteine has a more complex structure than the old one).

However the old proteine is not lost! Its allele is still in the gene pool. But the allele for the new proteine is added. So the gene pool now contains one additional allele, which means that this mutation has added information.

Evolution knows of several mechanisms to change information in the gene pool. Mutations are either neutral, or add information. They can never remove information. Even if a mutation causes a proteine not to be produced, the allele for that proteine is still in the pool, and if the proteine was useful, it will remain.

Natural selection, on the other hand, is either information neutral, or deletes information. Selection can remove an allele from the gene pool.

Therefore, evolution is always in a state of equilibrium between mutations (added information) and selection (removed information). This equilibrium tends towards a point where the gene pool information remains constant on a local fitness maximum level. At this maximum, the species remains relatively unchanged over a long time period, despite permanent mutations. It can however quickly move towards a different fitness maximum by external influences (f.i. environment changes) or internal influences (f.i. a light sensitive skin cell mutation triggers a sequence of other mutations that were previously neutral, but now eventually lead to the development of eyes).

This is just a little evolution theory to make sure that we talk about the same things regarding loss or gain of information in a species' gene pool. I think the first part is acceptable even for creationists. You might reject the second part - at least until you abandon creationism, as you certainly will when studying biology with an open mind.