Darwinism

[SenseiOtho]

The real connection between entropy and evolution comes from looking at information theory. The kind of entropy that is important to evolution is informational entropy. Like thermodynamic entropy on a universal scale, informational entropy tends to increase over time. Since an increase in informational entropy means the complexity of a message increases, the message transmitted by DNA over generations increases in complexity. The organisms specified by the message will be more complex as a result. Evolution thus seems to be an inevitable consequence of the properties of information. Selection provides a filter that determines which of the more complex messages survive. Illustrating these trends are examples of organisms that, under specific selective pressures, experience partial or complete duplications of genes that lead to increased information content of genomes, enhanced fitness, and improved proteins. While these examples may not be as dramatic as creationists demand in asking for the "proof" of evolution that they don't really want in any case, the examples at least falsify the creationist contentions that information-increasing beneficial mutations do not exist.

There seems to be two senses of the term "information." one is the "Shannon theory of information" or "Kolmogorov-Chaitin" information which seems to be what your article was about where only the complexity or length of the thing in question is looked at, that type of information theory seems to be best for electronic communications which I think it was designed for (I think this is correct, though not totally sure). So yes, from that strict stand point of information theory where more "bits" of information are created (generally through gene duplication) I concede the point to you. True you get more information when you double genes and as your article said there have been shown to be a couple benefits when doubling genes in specific environments. Just an aside, but wouldn't that mean that then the duplicated gene can't be point mutated to evolve without causing it to be inferior to the other "normal" cells with both working genes. It was the double of the gene that made it live better in that environment, not any new mutation. It seems that you are right back at the same problem of how to evolve to make new genetically useful information, other wise there is no natural selection benefit to a new mutation.

But what I was meaning with information was the meaning behind the strands of amino acids in DNA or the purpose of the DNA and what it codes for, the genetically useful information. (sorry, I should have been more specific, but I'm not sure what else to call it) One thing about the type of information theory you were talking about is that it could care less about the actual meaning of the information in question. For example, we could set up a system for me to e-mail you when I wanted you to turn on your cell phone. we could agree that an e-mail with "0" could mean on, but we could also have chosen "00000" to mean on, depending on what code we choose the more "0's" the more information it has according to information theory, yet the information communicated in the general since is identical in both cases. In the broader since I was referring to the purpose of the DNA and how natural processes don't seem to be able to account for it. All the genes in DNA are complex and specific, they are used and made at certain times and for certain purposes. The whole cell is extremely complex, even the most basic cells are extremely complex. Life seems to need some way of transporting nutrients and signals within the cell. It needs ways of replicating, and responding to the environment. I'm sure there are other basic things associated with life, but I think you understand my point. There is a huge gap between lifeless chemicals reacting and even the simplest form of life imaginable, much more the simplest form of life we have evidence for.

In the reading I've done I've seen no naturalistic mechanism that can account for DNA or RNA, it seem that in natural environments (even prebiotic environments) nature works against the actual formation of DNA/RNA and other proteins, even the most basic ones. Even the basic building blocks and basic forms cannot be made in the lab under semi realistic conditions, much less the information it contains to be useful for life. It's like even if you could find an naturalistic explanation for how scrabble pieces were formed and got on the table in a line, the message or words spelled still needs explaining of how purely naturalistic mechanisms can create biologically relevant information.
Not to mention that DNA and Proteins need each other to exist, so which evolved first. I know your examples were not for the beginning of information in the cell, but it just highlights the point of only being able to take existing information and just duplicating it, maybe changing it a little after the fact. But it still doesn't account for the existence of genetic information in the first place or the vast changes in function of different genes or even basic evolutionary pathways for them. (Here is an interesting and more detailed site for some of this stuff, if you care to read more. It actually is a reply to Dawkins on this very subject. "The information Challenge")

I have two other issues with the whole gene duplication and then point mutation theory for explaining evolution, but I'll write about them later.