Re: Added information with mutations

On Dec 7, 6:48 am, chadmaester <chad.d.john...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Dec 6, 6:58 am, Iain <iain_inks...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:



On Nov 28, 11:48 pm, chadmaester <chad.d.john...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I talked with my biology professor today after class, asking him
whether an organism having an extra limb due to a mutation is an
example of added information. His response (I recorded it with a voice
recorder to get the exact words) was as follows:

"We have numerous reports of mutated frogs coming out of California
that do have extra hind legs. The reason they have that is not that
they've generated new mutation that has created some new information
that codes for a new leg. It is because there's a mutation in the code
that controls the generation of that extra limb. What is being argued
by those who claim mutation is a way to generate new forms of life is
that there are mutations that can generate an extra body segment, but
you have not generated any extra information; you have instead changed
the control mechanism."

I have two questions:
1. Is his what he said accurate?

2. If the control mechanism changes, resulting in an extra leg, then
doesn't the modified control mechanism represent something new?

I was taught Information Systems at high school.

At the beginning of the course, we were taught the definition of
"information" as opposed to "data".

Often, Creationists confuse one another, failing to distinguish
between data and information.

The difference was illustrated for us like this:

If you save an image in a different format, but leave the image
unchanged, you have kept the same information while changing the data.

Likewise -- when you put data in a ZIP file, you are lowering the
amount of data while keeping the same amount of information.

Therefore, I suppose it is possible to measure the amount of
information in something by seeing how much data is left after it is
compressed to the max.

However, this maximum possible compression is determined by the
irregularity of the original data.

"Information" could, therefore, be defined as being the lossless
compressability of data.

This is similar to the definition Dawkins gave. If you were to write a
book describing a centipede, the book would not need to be longer
merely because the centipede gets longer. This book is effectively a
kind of data compression.

~Iain

I think I understand: more of the same information would not require
new data.

However, having recently and more thoroughly studied evolution because
I have a final coming soon, I am wondering (to further understanding):
would a never-before-existing allele (in the organism's genome) be
required, supposing there were only brown snakes in a hypothetical
bubble world, for snakes with red coloring to emerge?

Unless you specify how coloring is determined by the genome, it's
difficult to tell whether the unusual coloring is caused by a new (and
thus unusual) allele or a rare combination of already existing
alleles.

However, if the population size is relatively large and the
environment remained more or less the same for a sufficient amount of
time you could, making a number of assumption, you can estimate the
probability of the trait being caused by one allele or a combination
of more alleles (for combinations that aren't too complex).

How about (for
some reason) snakes gaining legs?

More or less the same.
In general legs would require natural selection to form and thus it
would be unlikely for them to be the result of an unusual combination
of alleles of a normally non-legged animal (the unusual combination
would happen too rarely for significant natural selection to act on
it).

However, we are talking about snakes here, which descend from animals
that once had legs, so it's theoretically possible that an unusual
combination of alleles causes the expression of an once present trait,
resulting in legs, although not very functional due to the unselected
mutations that accumulated on it.

More abstractly speaking (I am an infant in my knowledge, so please
correct me where this doesn't make sense): how do we know new alleles
form when new characteristics (color, shapes, structures) emerge and
that Mendelian segregation and recombination is not merely at work?

You can actually look at the DNA or you consider the trait frequency
and inheritance pattern.

Can anyone point me to research that supports emergence of new
alleles?

Even a point mutation (a substitution of a single nucleotide) can
result in a new alleles.
If I understand correctly the mutation rates, you probably have some
new alleles respect to those of your parents.

Along those lines, are (is) (a) new (previously non-existing in the
organism's genome) allele(s) always necessary for a new function or
trait to emerge?

.

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  • Re: Added information with mutations
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