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Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Data, Information, and all that.... | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
DNAunion Inactive Member |
And another I have not yet posted.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: Given any specific arrangement of cellular contents (includingthe DNA) the result is not improbable ... it is a consequence of the chemical interactions. If you are considering jumbling those contents, then you areshifting to consideration of HOW those contents got the way they are, rather than consideration of some 'information' content. quote: I take this to mean that you consider the process to be one inwhich the DNA sequence 'directs' the cell. That is, that the DNA sequences are analogous to a computer program. This is not like the physics concept of information. The 'control' aspect comes from the set of chemicals and energeticenvironment within the cell (and inputs from outside the cell). They react the way they do, because they are chemicals, and that'swhat chemicals do, not because the DNA sequences 'tells' the cell what to do any more than a catalysts 'tells' a set of chemicals to react with one another. If that's not what you mean by 'control' of a cell, or of thekind of information required, please elaborate.
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
Is there a glossary in that book that defines
'information', 'genetic information', or any such? Or a section in a chapter that does the same. If there isn't, then we cannot know that the term in notbeing used in the informal, common understanding sense. If there is, it may illuminate more to show that, than toshow the section where the term is used.
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DNAunion Inactive Member |
No definition, just the continual use and explanation of what it is throughout the book, which is all I need to demonstrate my point that DNA contains information.
But here's a definition of the term "genetic information" for you that I found very quickly using Google.
quote: [This message has been edited by DNAunion, 03-08-2004]
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: So the information involved is purely natural, and the information can change due to natural mechanisms. This is a far cry from the type of information involved in human:human interaction, or even machine coding. So I would say that the information content of a genome is a result of natural mechanisms and is not meant to convey information to another sender, but only receive information from the environment through natural selection. Therefore, the information in the genome is derived from the environment.
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DNAunion Inactive Member |
quote: I hope you are not claiming to counter me there. Remember, my point in these threads was never about HOW the information got into DNA, just that it IS there. [This message has been edited by DNAunion, 03-08-2004]
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: I am trying to differentiate two types of information, spoken language and DNA. I will agree that there is information in DNA, but that it differs greatly from information used in language and in computer programming. In DNA, the information is transferred chemically and only communicates through natural selection. Human language is not physically based, instead language is based on abstract thought and is independent of the medium. With DNA, information is dependent on the medium, a sugar/phosphate backbone with attached nucleotides. [This message has been edited by Loudmouth, 03-10-2004]
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
quote: Which is why I have previously stated that the continual repostingof sections containing the word are not helpful in this discussion. Even in the genetic information description that you providedthere is no indication that the term 'information' itself is being used in anything other than a metaphorical sense. DNA sequences can be viewed as though they contained information,is a very different statement.
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DNAunion Inactive Member |
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Peter Member (Idle past 1507 days) Posts: 2161 From: Cambridgeshire, UK. Joined: |
You seem highly hooked on the fact that people often
use the term 'information' in connection with DNA sequences, and completely avoid the question of whether that term is used to mean something very precise, or informally as in common language. That is different you know. The latest quote is highly unhelpful. It says that a gene is a DNA sequence that contains informationand you are using that to say that DNA contains information. i.e. using someone's definition that doesn't include what theymean by information in the first place. I'll lay out one of my objections to using 'information' in regardto DNA in anything but a metaphorical sense. If DNA doesn't contain information, there is no question aboutwhere that information came from (regardless of defintion). If DNA objectively contains information then one can askewhere did it come from and in what way can it be changed? The latter makes no sense wrt DNA, since DNA is governed bythe same physical principles that govern all of chemistry. Just because they are highly complex in the interaction sensedoes not mean there is any information (in any specified, controlling, algorithmic sense). DNA processes do not match any IS models, so no IS/data processingdefinitions of information are relevant. That leaves the physics definition (which I have already agreedis OK) that simply says that everything contains 'physics' information. They are NOT the same concept, and shouldn't be confused.
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DNAunion Inactive Member |
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Percy Member Posts: 22502 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
As near as I can tell, DNAunion is arguing that DNA contains information, while everyone else is arguing it does not. If my count of the protagonists is accurate, then the number on one side has just doubled.
Shannon information isn't particularly restrictive. If a system can be envisioned as sending the symbols of a set across a communications channel, then information is being communicated. In the case of DNA this isn't particularly difficult, and in fact there are any number of ways that genetic systems can be envisioned in this way. In Message 192 Peter quoted from a technical paper:
J Theor Biol. 1990 Nov 21;147(2):235-54. Related Articles, Links On the validity of Shannon-information calculations for molecular biological sequences. Hariri A, Weber B, Olmsted J 3rd. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, California State University, Fullerton 92634. The usefulness of information-theoretic measures of the Shannon-Weaver type, when applied to molecular biological systems such as DNA or protein sequences, has been critically evaluated. It is shown that entropy can be re-expressed in dimensionless terms, thereby making it commensurate with information. Further, we have identified processes in which entropy S and information H change in opposite directions. These processes of opposing signs for delta S and delta H demonstrate that while the Second Law of Thermodynamics mandates that entropy always increases, it places no such restrictions on changes in information. Additionally, we have developed equations permitting information calculations, incorporating conditional occurrence probabilities, on DNA and protein sequences. When the results of such calculations are compared for sequences of various general types, there are no informational content patterns. We conclude that information-theoretic calculations of the present level of sophistication do not provide any useful insights into molecular biological sequences. This is somewhat ambiguous, but I believe that the meaning of, "compared for sequences of various general types," is a search for patterns generally associated with artificial information, the kind we store on our computers and send across the Internet. That they found nothing of this nature does not lead to the conclusion that DNA doesn't contain information. It only means that the information in DNA does not exhibit the patterns typical in the artificial information we're familiar with. In other words, the symbols of DNA information do not correspond to any encoding system that their algorithms were capable of detecting, which is what is meant by, "present level of sophistication". On the other hand, it appears to me, as it has appeared to most others, that DNAunion's quotes of uses of the term "information" in a biological context do not refer to Shannon information, i.e., are not using the term in an information theoretic context. While the context of the article *is* technical, the topic isn't information theory or even related to information theory, and their use of the term "information" is casual and everyday. I have seen hints at the more familiar issues that discussions with Creationists about information take. Creationists usually argue that information can only be created by intelligence. This is, of course, untrue. --Percy
[Delete duplicate title and misspelling. --Percy] [This message has been edited by Percy, 03-12-2004]
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Loudmouth Inactive Member |
quote: Couldn't agree more. I have conceded that DNA can store information, but this info is different than that found in human communication and computer programming for instance. Information in DNA is not meant as an abstraction, but rather as a chemical reaction that is controlled by environmental selection pressures. The information in DNA can be read and understood by understanding the results of such pressures, that is the accretion of beneficial and neutral mutations as a result of natural selection. In common usage, information in these quotes is used as an analogy to computer code resulting in "commands" being carried out. However, it is only used to illustrate the chemical process and is not intended to confer attributes of intelligently derived communication or programming to DNA.
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MrHambre Member (Idle past 1421 days) Posts: 1495 From: Framingham, MA, USA Joined: |
For the record, DNAunion has put it like this in the Behe's 'IC' Is Refuted thread:
quote:Am I the only one who sees a gaping hole in this? How magnanimous of him to state that he accepts that natural processes produced the additional information necessary to get us from the common ancestor(s) to today's organisms, but what about before that? This is the creationism that dares not speak its name. Despite his denials, it's clear that the 'information' he's talking about wouldn't be in DNA unless someone put it there. Why else would he care what definition of information we accept? Note he puts the word "random" in scare quotes, like there's any reason to think that point mutations are anything but random. And I wonder what sort of processes put the information into that proto-DNA, since 'purely natural' ones are supposed to be so inadequate once we get to the common ancestor. Again, if undirected mutation and selection is good enough to explain the amazing diversity of life that exists today, I think it could very well explain the origin of life itself. And if anyone has any better scientific explanation, they should provide us with it instead of trying to make us believe that we're being presumptuous by going with has worked so far. regards,Esteban Hambre
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wj Inactive Member |
Mr H, I have not taken any notice of htis thread previously, but your analysis of DNAunion's post from another thread appears to be consistent with, and explaining of, DNAunion's recent messages here. I don't know if DNAunion is simply trying to be obscure but there doesn't appear to be any obvious point to DNAunion's repeated copying of quotes which include the word "information". DNAunion appears to copy the creationist habit of conflagrating the technical use of the word information with its everyday use, even in some of the quotes.
Surely DNAunion is not proposing a last gasp "god of the gaps" argument that god created "information" in the protobiotic DNA molecules and then left them to develop through natural processes into Homo sapiens.
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