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Author Topic:   Natural selection forced complexity to increase?
Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 2 of 13 (17075)
09-10-2002 8:13 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Andya Primanda
09-10-2002 5:57 AM


quote:
Originally posted by Andya Primanda:
Just a moment...
'We show that, because natural selection forces genomes to behave as a natural "Maxwell Demon," within a fixed environment, genomic complexity is forced to increase.'
I was referred to this article by some anticreationist website trying to refute W. Dembski's information challenge. However, I cannot grasp what this means. What the hell is a Maxwell Demon and why does it increases complexity?

I found this::
http://www.maxwellian.demon.co.uk/name.html

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Andya Primanda, posted 09-10-2002 5:57 AM Andya Primanda has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 3 by Dr_Tazimus_maximus, posted 09-10-2002 10:42 AM Peter has replied

  
Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 7 of 13 (18335)
09-26-2002 7:01 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Dr_Tazimus_maximus
09-10-2002 10:42 AM


I've noticed sparse creationist response to this ... any
particular reason?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 3 by Dr_Tazimus_maximus, posted 09-10-2002 10:42 AM Dr_Tazimus_maximus has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 8 by nos482, posted 09-26-2002 7:33 AM Peter has not replied
 Message 9 by peter borger, posted 09-27-2002 3:54 AM Peter has replied

  
Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 10 of 13 (18585)
09-30-2002 7:32 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by peter borger
09-27-2002 3:54 AM


The article addresses the issue of increasing complexity
within genomes.
It first defines complexity as the amount of information that
the genome contains. Information here is used to mean functional
portions of the genome. They state that this can only be an
approximate measure, since we cannot be 100% certain of a
lack of function for any segment.
The segments that do not contain 'information' in this sense
are referred to as 'entropy' (from Shannon information
theory).
The 'entropy' is considered 'blank tape' upon which new function
can be recorded by random mutation + selection.
Selection acts as a 'measure' by which changes in the genome
are filtered such that an increase in entropy (or corruption
of information) are filtered out due to the resulting lack
of fitness.
Since only changes that decrease the entropy are allowed through
the filter, complexity (in the context defined in the article)
is forced to increase.
As to research approach ... the authors appear to have applied
mathematical approaches from information theory to define
complexity within the genome.
The major assumption they appear to have made is that the
'entropy' is indeed non-functional (an assupmtion that PB
has also made here).
That's how I read the article, and would tend to agree that
with selection causeing a bias towards keeping 'functional'
DNA that any mutations that 'broke' functional DNA would
be removed (by death probably) while any that caused a non-functional
section to become functional would be likely to be retained
should it make the organism more fit (in the context of
it's environment).
Note the article makes no claim that genomic complexity is
related to structural complexity.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by peter borger, posted 09-27-2002 3:54 AM peter borger has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 11 by Brad McFall, posted 09-30-2002 11:56 AM Peter has replied
 Message 13 by Andya Primanda, posted 10-07-2002 6:49 AM Peter has not replied

  
Peter
Member (Idle past 1479 days)
Posts: 2161
From: Cambridgeshire, UK.
Joined: 02-05-2002


Message 12 of 13 (18686)
10-01-2002 3:11 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by Brad McFall
09-30-2002 11:56 AM


quote:
Originally posted by Brad McFall:
Franics Crick once wrote with regard to biology " A rock is much less ordered". It seems to me that on some notion of information a rock could be more ordered than a virus able to mutate and "evolve"

It depends largely what one means by 'ordered'.
I think I would tend to agree that something like a rock, or
a metal is much more ordered than any biological system in
the sense that organisms are somewhat mutable.
quote:
Originally posted by Brad McFall:

We seem to be confusing the statistics of the matter from the noise in the signal. Mandelbrot KNEW that something other than a normal distribution could be the nature of the noise in the telephone pattern but we have not a genetic science able to investigate the many more than the already perhpas too many chemical combinations to investigate in the time it takes ATT to change it's TV commerical.

That was why I brought out the assumption made in the article
that the non-functional sections are indeed non-functional. We
do not actually know this for sure.
Iff they are, then the article makes a good suggestion for how
genomic complexity could be forced to increase via selection.
quote:
Originally posted by Brad McFall:

Apes can not dial down this centerd slow.

Are you sure about that?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by Brad McFall, posted 09-30-2002 11:56 AM Brad McFall has not replied

  
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