New information in the genome.

[nitesco]

I haven't ventured on to Christian Forums for a long time now, being busy with school, but today in Biology I learned something that made me think of the Creation & Evolution Forums.
We were learning about mutations and two terms came up: aneuploidy and polyploidy. Aneuploidy is the addition, or removal, of whole chromosomes from the normal chromosome compliment or make-up of the cell. Polyploidy, only in plans, is the duplication of entire genomes so that each cell may have three, four, or more haploid sets of chromosomes.
Unless I am missing something, is this not information being added to the genome?

 

[Grengor]

Yes but does the new chromosome do anything? If not, then it's not information, because I can arbitrarily change my definition of it to suit my needs.

 

[OutCasteChild]

I don't think it would be, because in both of these cases the "new" material is actually material already in the genome. It is just copied wrong. If either of these cases led to a stable reproducible new genetic form then it probably could be considered an addition of new material, but I wouldn't expect that to happen very often.

 

[h2whoa]

I don't think it would be, because in both of these cases the "new" material is actually material already in the genome. It is just copied wrong. If either of these cases led to a stable reproducible new genetic form then it probably could be considered an addition of new material, but I wouldn't expect that to happen very often.

But it actually does. It's one of the reasons that plants are so diverse and successful is because of their ability to display polyploidy.

The really important thing about duplications is that allows pretty intense modification. This is because, as long as only one or other of the copies undergo modificiation, there will always be fully functional wild-type variants of a particular gene product.

 

[OutCasteChild]

But it actually does. It's one of the reasons that plants are so diverse and successful is because of their ability to display polyploidy.

The really important thing about duplications is that allows pretty intense modification. This is because, as long as only one or other of the copies undergo modificiation, there will always be fully functional wild-type variants of a particular gene product.

Oops, forgot that plants and the like are more capable of handling such errors. I was thining more of animals when I replied.