I don’t either. My point is Darwinism is worse than woo.
But we have the information that you bought ten copies. Not one.
That’s the crux of the question.
I can take a stack of AOL CDs and build a house out of them, but the information they contain has nothing to do with the new functionality we have acquired. You need a rigorous definition of information and how that maps to functionality to answer the question satisfactorily.
By any definition of information you care to use, evolution can increase it.
What’s with the “Darwinism” thing? Almost nobody uses that phrase unless you’re (a) a historian talking about early evolutionary biology, or (b) a creationist or ID proponent trying to throw shade on evolutionary biology.
If you have a good explanation for unitary pseudogenes in nested hierarchies that also happen to match whole-genome sequencing results (and no, I’m not interested in misconceptions stemming from not understanding or misrepresenting incomplete lineage sorting) then I’m all ears. Or a decent explanation for why human-chimpanzee genome comparisons look exactly like human-human genome comparisons but with more time added. Or… well, you get the point.
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Dawkins is a big fan. I hear he is a reputable spokesperson for evolutionary theory.
That may be indeed what evolution does - I would think it entirely unsurprising that duplication of a gene which encodes a protein would result in increased production of said protein, and if such overproduction was beneficial, it would increase fitness of said organism. But this is near exactly analogous to my illustration of the computer program - exactly duplicating a program searching for a certain mathematical outcome will indeed increase efficiency by increasing the numbers of attempts. So calling this an example of increased fitness due to duplication of information is completely legitimate. But I must demur regarding the idea of claiming this as an example of increase of information. It is the very same information, doing the same thing, simply doing more of the same, which happens indeed to be beneficial.
I won’t quibble with your language in calling this a “new benefit,” but I certainly think it an odd use of language… selling water in 24 oz instead of 16 oz containers would similarly provide the “new benefit” of increased hydration from each bottle… a stronger concentration of detergent in my Tide bottles would provide the “new benefit” of cleaner clothes… but that seems an odd way of describing a simple increase of the number or concentration of the same material.
Are you sure? What measure of information are you using? Does compressing two copies of a file take up exactly the same disk space as one copy?
With the proper algorithm, yes indeed it would, except for the few bits involved in the extraction instructions which identify the multiple copies of said file.
Is it a few bits more or exactly the same? It can’t be both.
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The three forms I am familiar with: Shannon mutual information, algorithmic mutual information, and algorithmic specified complexity, the amount of information evolution add is insignificant, if it ideed can add any vs destroy information. I’d be happy to work thru the math if there is interest. Let me know with a yea since the mathematical exposition will be a timesink for me and I want to be sure it is worthwhile.
As for your biological specifics, I don’t know the terminology and theory well enough to know what you are asking. That being said, Dr. Winston’s Bio-C paper on the dependency graph of life probably addresses some of what you are asking, and your thoughts on the paper would be very interesting.
The only rational explanation is woo. Riiiight. What’s that?
I didn’t say that. We have, in ascending order of rationality:
- Darwinism
- Woo
- ?
I am on team ?.
Yeaaahhh. What is that?
I don’t know, but it’s better than the alternatives!
But you’re convinced that evolutionary biology is “worse than woo”? You don’t have any training in biology, then?
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It doesn’t hold up. The “modules” he proposes - for example, the echolocation one, which surely involves the Prestin gene - show the clear signs of evolution. Prestin is an example of convergent evolution - aside from a few amino acids, this gene gives the expected mammalian tree. Focus on the amino acids under selection, and the tree groups echolocating bats and whales together. Winston’s paper doesn’t address this well-known evidence.
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Feelings aren’t our friends.
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I think it’s safe to say you’ve registered your disapproval of Eric’s views, Martin. Let’s stop these ‘one-liner’ exchanges. They aren’t adding to any constructive conversation. You both are welcome to move on to any new subjects or threads that might also interest you.
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I’ve previously post my thoughts on the paper here.
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Specifically Darwinism, i.e. generating new information through random variation and natural selection. As far as I can tell, that idea is flat out false. Some kind of teleological driving of the process appears inescapable, and at least in theory it should be empirically detectable. But, I try to keep an open mind on the matter and keep seeking out crticisms and inventing my own to possibly refute my position.
As for evolution in the sense we see changes in genomes resulting in new species through the historical record, I withhold judgement on that idea. That very general definition is compatible with what I know in my own area of expertise.
And no, zero biological training besides high school biology. I don’t claim any knowledge about biology. I only claim knowledge about what we can mathetically expect from random variantion and natural selection, wherever that may occur, whether in biological history, computer algorithms, theory of mind, economics, physics, etc. The concept itself is abstract and can be analyzed independently of particular domains.
And finally I must say almost all the criticisms of such ideas I have found, or encountered in discussions have been extremely shoddy. This is probably the #1 thing that motivated to look into the whole issue in the first place. Before then I was quite on board with the whole Darwinism materialism thing. The notion we could reduce everything to a computer program was quite appealing and ego stroking for my programmer mentality. Plus, I didn’t have to worry about awkward things like free will and personal responsibility. When I first read origin of species on the preservation of favoured races, I thought the essential idea was extremely beautiful and elegant, and when exposed to ID for the first time most of the common criticisms, e.g. scaffolding, lack of mechanism, occurred to me off the bat. It was only later when I considered becoming an atheist due to my disillusionment with protestant apologetics and general worldview that I really started digging in and noticed how badly ID was criticised. So, long story short ID convinced me to become Catholic.
I think that’s what you were asking, right?