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Author | Topic: Can mutation and selection increase information? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CRR Member (Idle past 2560 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
jar writes:
It's less than 100 years since Claude Shannon published The Mathematical Theory of Communication. A lot of work has been done on how to define information and how to measure it. I have previously given examples. This work is continuing although I suspect since information is a non material thing it might never be possible to define and measure it exactly. But still, no one has presented the working definition of information, how to recognize information or how to determine increase in information. But we can all recognise information in everyday life, and distinguish different kinds of information and whether there is an increase or not. e.g. Hollandaise Sauce. We could look it up in a dictionary and get some information. We can read a recipe and get more information. We can taste it and get more information. We now know what it is, how to make it, and what it tastes like. We know that we have acquired and increased information; we can qualitatively say we have more information even if we can't quantitatively say how much. Claude Shannon no more had the last word on information than Charles Darwin did on evolution.
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Percy Member Posts: 23144 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.8
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CRR writes: You're still confusing Shannon Information with Information.See Information - Wikipedia Information is that which informs, so it will have meaning. No, you're still confusing information with meaning. That's why you have no way of measuring information and why all your statements about gain and loss of information are nonsense. Let me repeat this simple question. If you know how to measure information, then tell us how much information there is in a simple genome of 4 genes with this many alleles:
The last time I asked this question you responded with a non sequitur reference to a paper on protein functional sequence complexity. The paper is suspect anyway because it equates meaning with function. That's very strange. Oh, I just looked Durston up - intelligent design advocate and head of Power to Change Ministries. But if you think Durston is on to something then just answer the question: How much information is in that simple genome? --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 23144 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.8
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CRR writes: This work is continuing although I suspect since information is a non material thing it might never be possible to define and measure it exactly. Yeah, like statistics and percentages and other non-material things. We'll never be able to define and measure them exactly.
Claude Shannon no more had the last word on information than Charles Darwin did on evolution. You finally said something true, but you're still unable to describe how to measure the amount of information in a genome. --Percy
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JonF Member (Idle past 485 days) Posts: 6174 Joined:
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But we can all recognise information in everyday life ... and whether there is an increase or not... Um, well, no. In some circumstances we can, in most of the circumstances of interest in this thread we cannot. You've certainly demonstrated your inability to detect changes in information in biological systems and your inability to objectively discern the direction of the change. Edited by Admin, : Fix quote. Edited by JonF, : No reason given.
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Tangle Member Posts: 9627 From: UK Joined: Member Rating: 5.3
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CRR writes: But we can all recognise information in everyday life, and distinguish different kinds of information and whether there is an increase or not. e.g. Hollandaise Sauce. Are you sure? Cap. Add a letter: Cape. Add a letter: Caper. Has information increased? Or are these words just different? Edited by Tangle, : No reason given.Je suis Charlie. Je suis Ahmed. Je suis Juif. Je suis Parisien. I am Mancunian. I am Brum. I am London.I am Finland. Soy Barcelona "Life, don't talk to me about life" - Marvin the Paranoid Android "Science adjusts it's views based on what's observed.Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved." - Tim Minchin, in his beat poem, Storm.
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Taq Member Posts: 10385 Joined: Member Rating: 5.7
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CRR writes: We could look it up in a dictionary and get some information. We can read a recipe and get more information. We can taste it and get more information. We now know what it is, how to make it, and what it tastes like. We know that we have acquired and increased information; we can qualitatively say we have more information even if we can't quantitatively say how much. The problem is that none of this is relevant to biology. The cell doesn't read DNA like a recipe in order to make proteins. DNA isn't an abstract written language like human languages. DNA contains physical information like all other molecules. DNA contains the information for a cell in the same way that oxygen and hydrogen contain the information for water.
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Pressie Member (Idle past 293 days) Posts: 2103 From: Pretoria, SA Joined: |
This one is funny.
CRR writes: For some people food made by that same recipe can taste like shite. No new information. You're mixing up the words "meaning" and "information". They're not the same. We could look it up in a dictionary and get some information. We can read a recipe and get more information. We can taste it and get more information. We now know what it is, how to make it, and what it tastes like. We know that we have acquired and increased information; we can qualitatively say we have more information even if we can't quantitatively say how much. Edited by Pressie, : No reason given.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2560 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
Two people can taste food from the same bowl and one like it while the other won't. However now each know more about the flavour than if they had just looked at it.
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CRR Member (Idle past 2560 days) Posts: 579 From: Australia Joined: |
Biological Information What is It?
Werner Gitt, Robert Compton, and Jorge Fernandez quote: quote: quote:
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Coyote Member (Idle past 2423 days) Posts: 6117 Joined: |
You left off the link:
http://www.worldscientific.com/...10.1142/9789814508728_0001Religious belief does not constitute scientific evidence, nor does it convey scientific knowledge. Belief gets in the way of learning--Robert A. Heinlein In the name of diversity, college student demands to be kept in ignorance of the culture that made diversity a value--StultisTheFool It's not what we don't know that hurts, it's what we know that ain't so--Will Rogers If I am entitled to something, someone else is obliged to pay--Jerry Pournelle If a religion's teachings are true, then it should have nothing to fear from science...--dwise1 "Multiculturalism" demands that the US be tolerant of everything except its own past, culture, traditions, and identity. Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other points of view--William F. Buckley Jr.
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Percy Member Posts: 23144 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.8
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CRR writes: Biological Information What is It?Werner Gitt, Robert Compton, and Jorge Fernandez quote: Yes, Gitt is correct, he doesn't have the ability to define, let alone measure, what he calls "biological information". That's because he confused information with meaning, and we have no way of measuring meaning. This also means that all your claims of increasing and decreasing biological information are nonsense. You can't measure it, therefore you can't know when it increases or decreases.
quote: This latter is derivative of the former.
quote: CSI is made up.
quote: Give that last phrase a closer look: "data transmission, storage and processing." That's pretty much everything DNA does. The information in DNA can be measured and quantified. The made-up stuff that you're talking about cannot. --Percy
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Taq Member Posts: 10385 Joined: Member Rating: 5.7
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CRR writes: Biological Information What is It?Werner Gitt, Robert Compton, and Jorge Fernandez So how do you use those sources to determine how much information a DNA molecule contains, and if that information content is increased or decreased by a mutation? Until you can answer that question, those definitions are meaningless. Edited by Taq, : No reason given.
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