Information: A problem for evolution?

[mythbuster]

A big rain erodes dirt leaving uneven surface with pits and runoff valleys.

The next time it rains the water follows the valleys and collects in the pits.

Was the first rain intelligent?

No.
No symbol set.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

A big rain erodes dirt leaving uneven surface with pits and runoff valleys.

The next time it rains the water follows the valleys and collects in the pits.

Was the first rain intelligent?

No.
No symbol set.

Yet it left "instructions" for the rain that followed...

Genetics is more complicated but it is essentially the same thing.

DNA is not a set of symbols any more than an oxygen and hydrogen mix is a set of symbols for a spark to start a fire. No intellect interprets DNA when cells are produced.

 

[mythbuster]

Yet it left "instructions" for the rain that followed...

Genetics is more complicated but it is essentially the same thing.

DNA is not a set of symbols any more than an oxygen and hydrogen mix is a set of symbols for a spark to start a fire. No intellect interprets DNA when cells are produced.

Robert the pilegrim

Double portion of wrong. It is way wrong to say that DNA is "not a set of symbols."
DNA uses four symbols and even a minute of Google time yeilds:

In DNA-based computation, the instances of a prob-
lem are encoded in oligonucleotides, or strands, of DNA.
The encoding alphabet is the set of nucleic acid bases
A , T , G , C , which bind according to the Watson-
Crick complement condition, A = T and C  G, and
vice versa. Oligonucleotides bind in an antiparallel way
with respect to the chemically distinct ends, 50 and 30,
of the DNA molecule. Unlike the ordinary convention...

from http://csce.uark.edu/~rdeaton/dna/papers/gp97fsm.pdf

Shalom

 

[shernren]

Fine then, if DNA are symbols encoding information: which has more meaning, insulin or hemoglobin? And how are you showing that evolution is impossible?

Come to think of it, do we actually have enough information about the meaning of information and meaning to make this discussion a meaningful and informative discussion?

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

Double portion of wrong. It is way wrong to say that DNA is "not a set of symbols."
DNA uses four symbols and even a minute of Google time yeilds:

from http://csce.uark.edu/~rdeaton/dna/papers/gp97fsm.pdf

Symbols are the purvue of linguists, not biologists.

A, T, G, and C are symbols assigned by humans to represent objects (nucleic acids). The actual objects are no more (or less) symbols than are the objects (valleys and depressions) left by the big rain.

In a loose usage they both convey "instructions" and can be thought of as symbols, but more precise usage requires symbols to by symbolic, which neither nucleic acids nor valleys are.

 

[mythbuster]

Fine then, if DNA are symbols encoding information: which has more meaning, insulin or hemoglobin? And how are you showing that evolution is impossible?

Come to think of it, do we actually have enough information about the meaning of information and meaning to make this discussion a meaningful and informative discussion?

So far, without reading all of the posts, I have not tried to show that "evolution is impossible." All I have done is present information about information. Information theory is a full blown graduate level math problem. We may not understand the "information is a decrease in entropy" idea, but we all have the capacity to understand information, providing paradigms don't get into the way.

 

[seebs]

If DNA is "symbols", then so is water, which we know is composed of H2O. See? Symbols.