Re: increase in information represented by DNA

Greg G. wrote:

<snip>

Does a polar bear have more information than a grizzly bear? A polar
bear displays more fitness on the Arctic ice than a grizzly but would
not be as fit in the grizzly's range. Does the polar bear genome have
more information in the Arctic than it would have in the tropics?

Information content would be a function of total adaptation, not
momentary circumstances.

<snip>

Another idea that just occurs to me. Let's say gene A produces protein
A' while gene B produces protein B'. Gene A happens to be more complex
than gene B but protein B' is more complex than protein A'. Which gene
has more information?

Insufficient data. Complexity is not the only criterion of
information.

Do the remnants of a complex gene that once coded for a complex
protein have more information than the simplest gene? The former would
be irrelevant to biological processes of the life form but would
contain more information for the scientist who studies that genome.

Vestigial genes are nonadaptive, so there's little to no relevant
information.

Creationists tell us that information cannot increase through
mutations. A deletion is a loss of information. A gene duplication
doesn't add anything new. A point mutation that makes an enzyme react
with more proteins is a loss of specificity. If the enzyme becomes
more specific, it is a loss of generality. An point mutation that
returns a gene to its original state is two losses of information. I
still haven't seen how they spin a gene duplication followed by a
point mutation to one copy so that two enzymes are produced - one
specific and one more general - could not be an increase in
information, no matter how you measure it.

<snip>

Information is the degree to which one variable of a system depends on
or is constrained by another. Duplicating a variable does not increase
that association. A series of alterations that conserves a gene's
functionality does not add or subtract information.

- - -

"Information is Information, neither matter nor energy. No
materialism that fails to take account of this can survive the present
day."

- Norbert Weiner

.

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