colewd made a comment I found interesting:
We should also admit the major evolutionary transitions are poorly understood because they require significant new biological information.
We should educate them on what biological information is.
We should admit that the origin of biological information is poorly understood.
I followed up with a question:
Can you give an example? Is Lenski’s experement an example of such biological information arriving? If so, why? If not, why not?
colewd responded:
I understand you think the Lenski experiment is evidence of rmns creating biological information despite very small changes to the actual DNA sequences.
Lets agree to disagree here or we may derail the op.
In order to not detail the OP this OP has been created for further discussion.
Some questions for colewd:
Is there a threshold of the size of the changes before biological information can be said to have been created? What is it?
Does the length of the DNA sequence have to change before it is considered that new biological information has been created?
What was the change in the amount of biological information in the Lenski experiment? Did it go up, down or stay the same? Justify your answer.
Is it impossible for ‘rmns’ to create new biological information? If so, where does it actually come from? And how do you know that?
What is the definition of “significant biological information”? Can you put a figure on it? If you can’t how do you know that “rmns” cannot achieve that level of change?
What is the maximum “rmns” can achieve on it’s own with regard to “biological information”? Can it increase, decrease or do nothing?
colewd,
It seems that very small changes to the actual DNA sequences can have profound implications for the organism that results. As such, what is missing? What does adding Intelligent Designers or Information Downloads from the “real” universe into this “virtual” one actually add that needs to be added?
Of course, it will turn out that “significant biological information” has a flexible definition — when something turns out to be able to be brought about by natural selection acting on mutations, then it will be declared to not really be significant biological information.
A simple case shows that natural selection can put information into the genome. If I have a locus in a haploid population in which, at one particular site in the genome, there are equal gene frequencies (0.25 each) of A, C, G, and T, and one of these has a higher fitness than the others, then it will rise in frequency.
We go from a fourfold uncertainty to a (near) certainty about which nucleotide is found there. So about 2 bits of information. Furthermore the nucleotide found is the one with highest fitness, so that the information is also specified information, using a fitness scale as the specification.
Repeat at other sites, and you can get lots of information. Gobs of it. But whether it is significant biological information I know not.
Note I say “put into the genome” so we won’t waste out time quibbling about whether the information was somehow out there lurking in the universe in the form of whatever makes the fitnesses different.
Also note that this example does not involve a gene duplication. Critics of ID and creationism often jump straight to new genes arising by gene duplication when they need an example of new biological information. That is a totally unnecessary complication — simple change of gene frequencies to have higher gene frequencies of the fitter alleles should be the canonical example.
When you do significance testing, is that which is significant always the same?
The use of “significant” in significance testing is surely not relevant to colewd’s use of the word, whatever he means by that.
1./ If you have a locus in a haploid population then natural selection did not put it there.
2./ If the frequency changes it could be due to factors completely unrelated to natural selection.
3./ If the probability distribution changes it doesn’t mean you’ve had an increase in information.
Good point. IMO if it’s not significant it’s not information in the first place.
Biological information is just another one of those bludgeons that creationists try to use against evolution. Because the use of the term “information” used in normal conversation always pertains to man-made things (eg, language, measurements, computer programming, statistics, etc.) they think that because we sometimes use the term to describe the genes in DNA, that DNA must also be designed.
IDists would argue that the DNA necessary to create an eye is information and that the DNA changes necessary to evolve that eye would be an increase in information. But what about the genetic changes necessary to go from a sighted fish to the blind fish often found in caves. Is that an increase or a decrease in information? And why?
They are not poorly understood, because mostly the “new information” happens to be changes in previously-existing information. They’re poorly understood by you, but that’s not news.
By creationists it is poorly understood, but that’s not actually relevant.
The highly derivative nature of evolution, largely adapting what has come previously by fairly well-understood processes, is attested by great amounts of evidence. It is not poorly understood, although questions exist around the arrival of eukaryotes.
So what? Do we deny that supernovae II occur because we still don’t know how the shock wave can make it to the outside of the star? Neutrinos are believed to be involved, but how enough could be absorbed to reinvigorate the shock wave is not understood. Are supernovae Ia in question because we don’t know how detonation occurs, following deflagration?
Science has questions that remain, and mostly those questions are not taught to students until they’ve been taught what is actually known, because that’s when they’ll understand the questions. Creationists/IDists want questions in evolution to be taught well before students would understand them, because they want to poison the well of knowledge in biology.
Glen Davidson
Or, in some vertebrates, the loss, or partial loss of hemoglobin and myoglobin expression.
Joe Felsenstein,
Have you added information here or changed existing information?
What is the origin of the information contained in the DNA of the organism that has changed?
Looking at the sentence: It is raining outside vs. the sentence: it is not raining outside. I have added the “word” not. Have I added information or simply changed it?
The question is what is the origin of new genetic information that we observe through out the history of life from bacteria to man?
Can you give an example of each?
Why does that matter?
Have you?
Strange how that’s the question now. The question is Lenski’s experement an example of such biological information arriving? If so, why? If not, why not?
Another common mistake is in thinking that because something can be described in terms of a probability distribution that this means that what is being described is actually information.
The outcome of tossing a six-sided die can be described in terms of a probability distribution, that doesn’t make the die “hexagonal information.”
If I have a collection of hydroxide ions (in water) then add some protons (in equimolar concentration) have I added information or changed existing information?
not all that strange…..rather expected I would say.
I think the average information per symbol is maximal when each symbol (A,T,C,G) is equiprobable, so the change Joe has in mind could only reduce the average info per symbol and thus would be a decrease in information, not an increase.
OMagain,
Changing existing information: The Lenski experiment where the ability to break down citrate existed but the gene was not being expressed in an aerobic environment.
New information: The bacterial flagellum motor. Where new genes needed to be generated to make a bacteria mobile.
The argument is can RMNS create new information as Joe Felsenstein claims or just modify it. The DNA of the bacteria needed to be newly generated at some point in history so Joe could modify it.
I would argue that I have changed it and not added new information.
That is not true. The ability to metabolize citrate was always present it is the ability to transport citrate across the cell membrane, in the presence of oxygen, that has changed. Clearly, new information has been added to that bacterial strain.
Who didn’t see the dishonest equivocation between “new information” and “changing existing information” coming?
It’s the same old Creationist tap dance. No one can ever write a new novel because they’re just changing existing information; the words found in the dictionary.
Someone needs to tell Joe that the size of sequence space is irrelevant.
I also notice colewd still hasn’t committed to his definition of biological information. No surprise there either.
BK,
Can you make an argument that information was added and not modified? Can a function can be added by modifying existing information ?
The OP refers to the origin of biological information. With Lenski you are starting with what requires the explanation in the first place. And even given that having the only gene that transports citrate across the membrane duplicate and then fall under the control of an existing promoter that just happened to allow its expression, smells of an organism genetically modifying itself. Then given that another lab has duplicated the feat in much less time (less than a month) and evolution by design jumps right out.
The definition of biological information is what Crick provided:
Information means here the precise determination of sequence, either of bases in the nucleic acid or on amino acid residues in the protein.
Gene duplications just give you two copies of what you already have. Having two of the same dictionary doesn’t double the information you have.
The key to IDiocy is “specified.” The change in or addition to function must be knowable in advance. Not just the result of cut and try. Otherwise, the word design is meaningless.
This is why I ask ID advocates to demonstrate that it is possible to know the results of changes before making them.
Please give us your definition of biological information and the method you use to measure the quantity so you can tell if it increased, decreased, or stayed the same.
Why do you ask that when you know that design is possible? You even admit that.
“The change in or addition to function must be knowable in advance…[o]therwise, the word design is meaningless.”
If the ID-Creationists accept Crick’s exlanation then known, empirically observed genetic processes (gene duplication, insertions, deletions, frame shifts, SNPs, etc.) create new information by definition. The new information retained by the population in its gene pool is that which becomes fixed by selection and drift.
How about it colewd? FrankenJoe just told us biological information can increase. Do you agree with the definition he provided?
This is fundamentally it. If they can’t say then how can they say known processes can’t do whatever was required with regard to it.
So the amount of significant biological information stayed the same, is that your answer?
OMagain,
I would say you have an argument for new biological information if a genetic sequence had evolved to create a transporter protein that had previously not existed in the cell and no other function in the cell was lost.
When will you provide the definition of biological information you are using? Do you accept Crick’s definition?
How do you measure biological information to tell if the quantity changed?
Nothing changed with the anaerobic transport system but through potentiating mutations (not in the anearobic system) followed by gene duplication a new ability arose in that bacterial strain….the ability to transport citrate across the cell membrane in the presence of oxygen. Which is clearly new ‘information’ and a new ability for that bacterial strain. Without the addition of those potentiating mutations (addition of new ‘information’ the ability would not have arisen…..at least in the fashion it did.
can you answer my previous question to you or are you going to ignore that as you have the answers to your questions and assertions about DNA repair in another thread. I’m guessing ignoring will be the choice but I’m willing to be surprised.
Do you think it is possible for an author to write a new novel or is it all just modification of existing information, i.e., words in the dictionary? The same applies to all music is it possible to write new songs or is it just modification of existing information, i.e., musical notes? If not, in either, case copywriter flies out the window which is clearly a nonsensical stance but it is your position, after all.
It isn’t the protein that is the new information it is the newly created sequence that provided the new regulatory sequence that did not previously exist.
colewd, if you have two bacteria strains:
One can transport a compound into the cell in the absence of oxygen and
The other can transport a compound across the cell membrane in the presence of oxygen and absence of oxygen.
Is the information contained in the two bacterial strains identical? Or are does one have information that the other doesn’t?
BK,
I agree one has different information.
The question is, is that additional information or modified information. There is no questions that organisms can adapt to their environment by modifying genetic information.
What is not clear is what is the origin of the gene that is being modified.
Why are you so afraid of giving us your definition of biological information? Why are you so afraid to tell us how to measure biological information quantity?
This is just one more case of you spouting the usual ID-Creationist sound bites with zero understanding or ability to defend them. Right?
Can authors and musicians create new novels and musical compositions or is it all simply modified existing information?
Do you think copywrite is a nonsensical concept?
What does the origin have to do with the amount of biological information? That’s a different OP. Start it.
OMagain,
From the op.
Also from the OP
colewd: “We should educate them on what biological information is.”
When will you be educating us on what biological information is?
Are you kidding me? The author of the OP didn’t know what the OP said? Really?
1- The argument is about the ORIGIN of biological information and always has been
2- Gene duplication does not add information. Two copies of the same thing does not double the information. And there isn’t any justification for calling gene duplication a blind watchmaker process
The gene/ biological information for the Cit transport protein already existed. Duplicating it doesn’t add information. Duplicating it and putting it under control of an existing promoter tat wasn’t affected by the presence of O2 in order to gain an advantage is a sign of evolution by design.
The argument pertains to accidents, errors and mistakes- ie blind watchmaker processes- producing information from scratch
According to the Crick definition of information you provided it does. We also have the empirically observed cases of gene duplication where the duplicate then picks up additional SNPs to produce a new function.
Looks like you screwed up again FrankenJoe.
LoL! Crick’s definition of information wrt biology does not say that gene duplications add information. And if you have an existing gene then you are not talking about origins.
Information is the determination of sequence. If you have a duplicated segment you’ve added to the sequence therefore adding to the information.
I see things like addition confuse you too FrankenJoe.
Mutation, natural selection and genetic drift.
Duplicate a gene, then mutate it. That way you preserve the original without changing it, yet change the copy, hence adding new information.
And if evolution just “changes” the information already there, it’s still creating new information, because what it’s being changed into wasn’t there before. Both constitute cases of creating new information.
Done. This is THE answer. This isn’t a conondrum and it never was.
Tit for tat?
This is one of the many reasons I suggested that creationists and IDists drop arguments that invoke information theory, at least formally.
Agree, at least Shannon information. IDists have tried to negate this by appealing to Kolmogorov information, but that doesn’t help since random noise is rich in Kolmogorov information! What a total mess for ID.
Yet another reason I’ve suggested IDists and creationist drop information arguments, drop specified complexity, drop CSI for anything outside academic exercises. Michael Behe didn’t make his arguments this way. This mess began with a pretty brilliant creationist by the name of A.E. Wilder-Smith. As an informal approach Wilder-Smith wasn’t as bad start, but the arguments have to be revised.
One can use information in the less formal terms if one means “know-how” or “technology” or “capability”, but once one starts using ideas like Shannon and Kolmogorov, the attempt at mathematical rigor down these paths leads to disaster!
A monarch butterfly has magnetic navigation ability that enable it to go point-to-point across continents. No IDist or creationist has ever calculated the information content in the magnetic navigation system, nor do I expect them to ever do so.
Some over at UD have tried to apply FSCO-I (what TSZ regulars call FIASCO) to such systems. I think FIASCO is a better description because trying to affix bits to these sorts of things is superfluous and gratuitous.
There you have it, folks: Nucleic acids are a bunch of symbols.
Zero information gain.
I bet Salvador thinks the world of Christoph Adami though.
e.g., Life, he argues, should not be thought of as a chemical event. Instead, it should be thought of as information.
/Trump. WRONG!
http://intelligentreasoning.blogspot.com/2009/03/measuring-information-specified.html?m=1