Macro and Micro evolution for dummies.

[Kirbmarc]

I didn't think it was controversial that genes hold information which affect phenotype

Genes trigger the productions of proteines. I guess you could say that they contain "information" if you use a metaphor where the RNA "reads" DNA, but it is a metaphor. Actually it's a natural process, and there's no writer that encodes information into the DNA.

And I guess that if we want to get really technical they do, because according to some implications of quantum mechanics everything is information. But this is not what creationists argue when they talk about "information".

Creationist believe that there intra-species variations and inter-species variations are somehow qualitatively different, and justify this by saying thing like "a dog is a wolf that has lost information". A dog is simply a wolf selected for a few specific features.

Variations (caused by mutations) cause both micro and macro evolution. There's qualitative difference between the two.

Genes hold the information to build and maintain an organism's cells and pass genetic traits to offspring.

It's a figure of speech, just like saying "species are selected" when actually there is no one who selects them (the different individuals simply reproduce or not). It takes far less time to say "genes hold information" than to say "genes trigger a specific set of chemicals reactions that causes the production of a string of amino acids.

Creationists take this figure of speech literally.4