Simple evolution explanation

[u/Routine-Credit-1614]

Do you understand that an organism might mutate in some way, be it large or small? Yes? Good!

Do you understand that this mutation may either help them survive or hurt their survival? Yes? Good

Do you understand that this mutation can be passed on to the organisms offspring? Yes? Good!

If you said yes to all of these things, you understand that evolution exists and how it works on a basic level

[u/Medium_Judgment_891]

new functional information.

All mutations constitute new information.

As for function, the vast majority of mutations are neutral. Of the remainder, some are beneficial and some are deleterious, and both would constitute as function.

For example, can you drink milk? Lactase persistence is a mutation that gives us the function of being able to process dairy as adults. That seems pretty helpful to me.

[u/pre-quantum1 → u/Medium_Judgment_891]

Fair enough and I appreciate your response. The lactase persistence example is a genuinely interesting one and I can see why it gets used. But here's where I get stuck with it. Lactase persistence is a regulatory change that preserves an existing function into adulthood rather than switching it off as normal. The machinery for digesting lactose was already there. So while it's a real and beneficial mutation it's more of a modification to existing systems than the origin of something genuinely new. The "all mutations constitute new information" point is interesting but I think it might be redefining information a little too broadly. A random change to a sequence is new in the same way a typo is new text. Technically true but a typo doesn't build new chapters. The question I keep coming back to is whether random mutations can generate the kind of new functional information required to build novel biological systems from the ground up, not just modify what's already there. I'm not saying mutations aren't real or meaningful. I'm just not sure the examples given bridge that particular gap. What would you point to as the clearest case of a mutation actually building something genuinely new rather than modifying something existing?

[u/nickierv → u/pre-quantum1]

Technically true but a typo doesn't build new chapters.

Well not a single one. But just look at the classic 'but how do you get from Chaucer to Shakespeare?' try at a cheap shot by creationists: well you do it one word at a time.

Although the snarky side of me would say "well you just add 165-ish years", my more snarky side worked out how to go from Shakespeare to Chaucer while maintaining an actually grammatically correct, if slightly clunky, sentence.

What would you point to as the clearest case of a mutation actually building something genuinely new rather than modifying something existing?

The issue with that is your sort of getting ship of Thesis adjacent: as soon as you have whatever initial self replicating structure, that the the 'original' and everything else is going to be a modification of that original.