Cubist
Posts: 558
Joined: Oct. 2007
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| Quote (jeannot @ Nov. 12 2011,16:31) | | Quote (Cubist @ Nov. 12 2011,13:46) | | If the IDiots were, indeed, correct about how evolution is affected by 'information' and changes thereof and yada yada yada, then it would be pretty friggin' obvious that we should care about 'information' in evolutionary biology. |
It's not obvious at all to me. Even if a defined measure of information content in the genome cannot increase by means of mutation and natural selection, why should we care? |
Because when an IDiot/Creationist makes noise about what can or cannot be done by mutations, they are necessarily (albeit by implication, rather than by explicit declaration) talking about what sorts of mutations are or are not possible. For instance, take the claim "mutations cannot create information". This is equivalent to the claim "no mutation can transform a genetic sequence with X amount of information into a different genetic sequence with (X+N) amount of information". And that claim, if true, puts restrictions on what sort of mutation-induced changes in genetic sequence are possible! We could determine whether or not a particular case of cancer was due to genetic mutation by sequencing the patient's own DNA, then sequencing the DNA from one of the patient's tumors, and finally measuring the information content of DNA from both sources. We could make genetically-modified organisms which are all but completely immune to mutation, because we constructed their DNA to contain the lowest amount of information consistent with being a functioning life-form...
Now do you see why we ought to care about IDiot/Creationist claims re: 'information' and evolutionary biology, if those claims actually were true?
| Quote | | To me all this information stuff is just as bogus as the argument based on the SLoT. |
Hey, I agree with you 100%! I just like to play with counterfactuals; in this case, take an IDiot/Creationist claim at face value, and see what the consequences of that claim are.
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