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Author | Topic: Supernatural information supplier | |||||||||||||||||||||||
MrHambre Member (Idle past 1392 days) Posts: 1495 From: Framingham, MA, USA Joined: |
Mike,
If crib death kills ten thousand babies every year, then there is a God. See how easy this is? regards,Esteban Hambre
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mikehager Member (Idle past 6466 days) Posts: 534 Joined: |
Actually, I think the point really is, "Mike the Wiz says there is a God, so there is."
That's really the only argument he's ever made.
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tsig Member (Idle past 2908 days) Posts: 738 From: USA Joined: |
Thats the only argument they all have.
{added y to the} This message has been edited by Flying Hawk, 12-28-2004 00:56 AM
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Ooook! Member (Idle past 5814 days) Posts: 340 From: London, UK Joined: |
Hello again, hope you had a good Christmas!
Sorry about the delay in replying, I should have warned you that I was going to be away from the keyboard for a week and a bit. .
Why do I feel like I am walking right into a sucker punch? Alas (for me) there is no knockout blow . I was simply trying to dispel the common creationist misconception that biological processes (i.e. evolution) could never produce an increase in information and therefore an omnipotent intelligence is required as part of the explanation. Evolution works on what is already there; just as the evidence shows that new body parts are modified from previous structures, the evolution of genes and where their proteins are produced (‘information’ if you like) is clearly a case of duplication and diversification. When you start to look at the DNA sequences encoding proteins it is possible to recognise ‘protein families’. These are proteins that are so similar to one another that they are clearly the product of duplication, followed by random mutation. There are examples where two related genes are next to each other on a chromosome, and on another chromosome there is a similar segment of DNA caused by the duplication of the original duplication event ( ) Here are a couple of examples of what I mean:
Wnts are a family of proteins that were first identified (I think) as a mutation in fruit flies. They are soluble proteins which are secreted from cells, and have a wide variety of functions: from cell proliferation to organogenesis. The number of wnts that a organism has varies, and can be traced back through related species:
Nematode worm - 5 genes Fruit fly - 7 genes Zebra fish - 12 genes Frog - 16 genes Chicken - 11 genes Mouse - 19 genes Human - 19 genes Now these are not an exact progression because gene duplication is a random event and these organisms were chosen for their convenience to work with, not their evolutionary significance. Even so, comparisons can be made.
G-protein linked receptors are a huge protein family which span the cell’s membrane seven times (they are sometimes known as serpentine proteins for obvious reasons). It has been estimated that they make up around 5% of the nematode genome, and that there are many more in mammals. The production of new genes is a far from magical process, and although there is much we don’t know about how these mutations drove evolution I don’t think we need to invoke the supernatural yet. If you accept that then I suppose it all boils down to the origin of information — the protein synthesis machinery that gives us your ‘meaning’. Which part of it, in your opinion could not have come about by random mutation and natural selection?
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
dshortt,
Sorry for not getting back to you in recent days. Took a couple weeks off from work and I forced myself to stay away from the computer for that stretch of time. I have thought about your arguments about "information" and "meaning". I contend that the combination of mutation (change) and selection (ie natural selection) creates information with meaning. I think this would be best if we focus on one example that illustrates my argument. Sickle cell anemia is a condition caused by a mutated form of human hemoglobin. When you have two of the mutated genes you develop sickle shaped red blood cells which cause great pain and a shorter life expectancy. Having two copies of the gene (ie being homozygous for the sickle cell gene) also confers resistance to malaria which is also life threatening. If you have just one copy of the gene (ie heterozygous) then you do not develop anemia but still have resistance to malaria. So we have a trade off. The homozygous condition will allow you to reach reproductive maturity, but will limit your life span. Being heterozygous or homozygous for the hemS gene (the sickle cell gene) gives you a much better chance of reaching sexual maturity than those that do not have the hemS gene, being that they have a much higher chance of dying of malaria as a child. So, in areas that have high levels of malaria carrying mosquitoes we would expect this gene to be more prevalent due to selective pressures. And, wouldn't you guess, this is exactly what we see. This graph illustrates the prevalance of the hemS gene in African and Arabian populations.
The second illustration illustrates the distribution of malaria within Africa.
If you will notice, the two graphs correlate with each other. Areas high in malaria coincide with populations that have a high percentage of hemS homozygous and heterozygous individuals. The hemS mutation gives a new funcitonality, resistance to malaria. It also has a negative effect in the form of sickle cell anemia in homozygous individuals. So, there are both positive and negative selection pressures on this gene. The environment is what gives this gene meaning, that is whether it is "bad" or "good". This is how evolution is able to create information with meaning, through random mutations that are then selected for or against by the benefit it confers or the disadvantages it confers within a specific environment. Do you consider the hemS gene to be an increase in information, or do you not? And for what reasons?
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Percy Member Posts: 22388 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Loudmouth writes: I have thought about your arguments about "information" and "meaning". I contend that the combination of mutation (change) and selection (ie natural selection) creates information with meaning...Do you consider the hemS gene to be an increase in information... If we're talking about Shannon information, then I have two comments. First, regarding the amount of information, this is an engineering question with a precise answer. Dshortt's answer can only shed light on how well he understands information theory. Second, meaning is a separate issue from the engineering issues regarding information - meaning is subjective and has nothing to do with information. --Percy
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NosyNed Member Posts: 8996 From: Canada Joined: |
... meaning is subjective and has nothing to do with information. Isn't this a bit of an overstatement. We are, I think, talking specifically about information which the context gives meaning to. There are, in living things, "meaning" machines. These take the information content of DNA and produce living structures which have meaning in the environments in which they find themselves.
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: Dshortt seems to have shied away from Shannon information. I can find it if you like, but he argues (IIRC) that Shannon info is incapable of producing meaning within biology. Dshortt seems to be looking for dshortt information, a type of information that he alone knows the definition of but is unable to accurately define. A kind of "I'll know it when I see it" sort of thing. If my hemS example does not fit into what he is looking for, then we may actually get a little closer to a clearer definition.
quote: I am trying to show that the environment gives mutations an objective "meaning" through selection. This may not be adequate for information theory, but I am hoping it is adequate for the type of information that dshortt is looking for.
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NosyNed Member Posts: 8996 From: Canada Joined: |
Bumping msg 172 for Dshortt. There were questions there trying to clarify what you meant.
I don't remember seeing any clarification.
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Percy Member Posts: 22388 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
NosyNed writes: Percy writes:
Isn't this a bit of an overstatement. We are, I think, talking specifically about information which the context gives meaning to. ... meaning is subjective and has nothing to do with information. This is from Shannon's paper:
"Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem." Meaning is an interpretation we ourselves cast upon the information. In Shannon information theory, meaning and information are independent concepts, and Shannon information deals only with the latter. So when it is asked whether information increased with the addition of the sickle cell anemia allele, if we're talking about Shannon information then that is independent from meaning, which is the expression of that gene in the organism and its interplay with the environment. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22388 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.2 |
Loudmouth writes: Dshortt seems to have shied away from Shannon information. I can find it if you like... Oh, no, no need to find it. I'm quite sure you're correct. Whenever Creationists raise the issue of information they're never talking about Shannon information.
...but he argues (IIRC) that Shannon info is incapable of producing meaning within biology. And Shannon would agree with him 100%. Shannon's landmark paper says this right up front in paragraph two. I quoted this already when replying to Nosy just now, but here it is again:
"Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem." Dshortt seems to be looking for dshortt information, a type of information that he alone knows the definition of but is unable to accurately define. Like probably everyone else here, Dshortt does not possess the ability to develop his own theory of information. And neither does Dembski, if Dshortt is going that route.
I am trying to show that the environment gives mutations an objective "meaning" through selection. This may not be adequate for information theory, but I am hoping it is adequate for the type of information that dshortt is looking for. I agree with your strategy. My only point was that the question of information increase/decrease is independent from meaning. I'll make this clear through an extremely informal (and extremely invalid for anyone who wants to be picky) illustration. What contains more information, a empty piece of paper or the picture of the periodic table of elements? That's easy, right? Obviously, the periodic table of elements contains far more information. But what if our encoding is a "one if by land, two if by sea" type of system. We agree that if I hold up a blank piece of paper it means open your cipher book to page 10, which contains a whole slew of instructions, while if I hold up the periodic table of elements it means "Please wait." In other words a ton of meaning can be crammed into a single bit, or there can be billions of bits with no meaning at all. It's up to us to decide. --Percy
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NosyNed Member Posts: 8996 From: Canada Joined: |
In Shannon information theory, meaning and information are independent concepts, and Shannon information deals only with the latter. We are agreeing. The information doesn't have any dependence on the meaning. However, that doesn't mean that the meaning isn't connected to the information. In the specific context that we are talking about the information in the genome has meaning which "some system" (the biological one supplies. I agree that has nothing to do with the engineering which is concerned with information independent of meaning.
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: I completely understand what you are trying to say. This is what Dr. Schneider and others have warned against, trying to apply human semantics to genetic systems. The human, "common sense" approach to information is wholly inadequate for discussing information in a genetic system. I am not well schooled in information theory, but who here is. What I am able to recognize is the nebulous characteristics that creationists and IDists apply to genetic systems. At times it becomes ridiculous, boiling down to the following statement: "Any kind of information that mutation and selection are able to create is not sufficient." The unwillingness to define information within genetic systems is not due to an inability to understand the information but an attempt to avoid being pinned down to any one definition. It comes to the point where creationists/IDists define "new information" so that it no longer pertains to evolution. More to the point, they define new information in a way that it is no longer necessary for evolution to produce new information in order to explain the biodiversity we see today. If the production of a new function through random mutation, such as malarial resistance, that is then selected for through natural selection is not new information, then evolution does not require new information. This is the problem that dshortt must face. This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 01-05-2005 16:38 AM
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