Summations Only

Hi Tangle, This is unnecessary. Remember that we are dealing with people that are having trouble understanding new concepts and information. Frequently their understanding of science is being challenged because they are either underinformed or misinformed.We are also dealing with people that have strong beliefs, especially about various aspects of evolution, that are due to this underinformation\misinformation being presented to them in a religious context.We are up against cognitive dissonance, a psychological behavior that we are all subject to, that resists new information that is seen to contradict personal opinions and beliefs. The initial denial can lead to disparaging the dissonant information as being silly or hilarious or the product of some kind of conspiracy.It can block their acceptance of new ideas and make it difficult to comprehend what is actually being said.These defense mechanisms can also lead to the person lashing out at those providing the dissonant information.Enjoy

Hi again Tangle, I agree, but how do we know that this feature was not present in the ancestral population and that the current population lost it? Well now, we need a little more than that. So we could test the population of the original island to see if they have this gene but it is switched off?Paging Wounded King ... paging Wounded King ...Enjoy

Hi Tangle irrelevant, sorry.People under the cloud of cognitive dissonance are at a disadvantage, they are having real actual trouble putting things together to make sense in their worldview, and it is very normal for any of us to get angry or upset in these conditions.These conditions last until the dissonance is resolved, and this may take months.What is needed is compassion, understanding that this is a tough thing to go through. Curiously, I don't have any trouble doing so, as I like to focus on the argument and ignore any extraneous comments no matter what they involve.Enjoy.

Hi Tangle, See? you are resisting changing your opinion due to new information ... AND it's on topic.Enjoy.

Hi Tangle, I seem to remember comments on this before, so that would still make it a matter of selection and modification to be fully developed, just not so much a new trait evolving as an old one re-evolving. This seems a rather shady basis for skepticism, particularly as we are talking about (a) a bottleneck event and (b) competition with the other lizards now extinct -- both giving strong selection pressure that is not existing on the parent island. If the ancestral island is not as edible, veggie wise, then this might be a case of divergent evolution, with one group going for insects more than veggies and the other vice versa. You might want to capture a few breeding pairs while you're blagging them ...Enjoy.

Hi Jefferinoopolis, Actually this thread is about how the process of evolution actually works, rather than what the theory of evolution say should happen. This is one of the problems that intellen has -- he conflates one with the other.Enjoy.

Hi zaius137, and welcome to the fray. Are you measuring information or entropy? Does a change in entropy mean a change in information or vice versa? If there is no direct link one to the other then talking about a metric for entropy is not talking about a metric for information ... in which case it is irrelevant to the issue of information, yes?From your link introduction:

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... In this paper the well-established mathematics of information theory (1—3) is used to measure the information content of nucleotide binding sites (4—11) and to follow changes in this measure to gauge the degree of evolution of the binding sites. ...

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This appears to be Shannon information, yes?From your link, in the abstract:

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... The simulation begins with zero information and, as in naturally occurring genetic systems, the information measured in the fully evolved binding sites is close to that needed to locate the sites in the genome. ...

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In other words, creating information is easy, yes? So with "little is known about the information" in the original system or in the altered system then you have not shown any change in information, one way or the other, by using entropy, yes? Are we talking about entropy as used in physics or are we talking about a different use of the word, and if so what is the definition for it.The (classic physics) entropy in a biological organism can obviously increase and decrease as the organism grows or dies. Does this mean that information also increases and decreases?From your link, again in the abstract:

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... Fortunately, 50 years ago Claude Shannon defined information as a decrease in the uncertainty of a receiver. For molecular systems, uncertainty is closely related to entropy and hence has clear connections to the Second Law of Thermodynamics. ...

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Because biological organisms are not closed systems the Second Law of Thermodynamics just does not - can not - apply. Plants get increased energy from the sun, herbivores from eating plants and carnivores from eating herbivores.Curiously, a growing child violates the Second Law of Thermodynamics if you ignore this simple fact that pertains to all living organisms. Why is that? It is fairly obvious that new beneficial, neutral and deleterious mutations occur in localized populations rather than in the whole species, especially in small isolates that involve the founder effect. Curiously it is even more obvious that improved variations of a species can spread into and take over and dominate the main population when introduced back into the main ecology. See Differential Dispersal Of Introduced Species - An Aspect of Punctuated Equilibrium for some historical examples of just how fast new species can take over the ecologies.From your link, again in the abstract:

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... The transition is rapid, demonstrating that information gain can occur by punctuated equilibrium.

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This could also just be an artifact of the selection process used in the simulation, condensing the time-line artificially as compared to the effects of selection in the biological systems. As pointed out by Wounded King in Message 223 calculations of probability as normally done by creationists are based more on misrepresenting how biological systems work than on math and logic. See the old improbable probability problem for a discussion on probability calculations of this kind. You haven't quoted Meyers nor his definition/s, nor is he listed in the references for the paper you cited, making this rather a non-sequitur question.What I see is that when a metric is used the results can be an increase, a decrease or no net change, and I also do not see that this necessarily relates to the evolution of biological systems: biological systems have been observed to form beneficial, neutral and deleterious mutations, and that selection has been observed to the extent that the formation of new traits is not inhibited in any real way.The fact that evolution of new traits is not inhibited to me is proof that information is either easy to increase or irrelevant.Enjoy.

Hi again zaius137, Any specific mutation from a beforehand prediction standpoint has extremely low probability.That mutations occur has an extremely high probability.This is like comparing the probability of a specific ticket winning the lottery versus the probability that the lottery will be won by one of the tickets issued.This is the main problem of looking at probability after the fact -- it's a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.Mutations occur, some are beneficial, some are neutral and some are deleterious, and then they go through the selection process.That A use is found for a mutation is not a reason for it to have any specific probability, as there are potentially thousands of possibilities for use of any one happenstance mutation.The proper question is what is the probability that any specific mutation will have a use, and that is undeterminable. Premise 1 is supported by objective empirical evidence, the rest are asserted assumptions that have not been validated.Premise 4 is invalidated, imho, so the conclusion fails.Premise 3 is debatable, if not just wrong: see Panspermic Pre-Biotic Molecules - Life's Building Blocks (Part I) and Self-Replicating Molecules - Life's Building Blocks (Part II) for objective empirical evidence that indicates to me that the probability of life forming is high. Which is irrelevant, as biological systems of reproduction and growth do not need to be efficiently organized, they just need to work, and curiously, this is what we see in the biological world.Unfortunately, this thread is NOT about information or entropy, but about how novel features evolve.Anything not directly related to how novel features evolve is off-topic. You are free to start a topic on these issues if you want. Go to Proposed New Topics to post new topics.This forum tries to limit posts to the specific topic of the opening post, and also cuts posts off at ~300 posts when summary posts are then submitted to close the topic (hence the main impetus to keep on topic).Enjoy

Hi again zaius137, And the place to make that reply is to Message 1 on the the old improbable probability problem thread.Again, one of the aspects of this forum that makes it a great place to debate these issues is that keeping on topic is very strongly encouraged, to the point that you can get reprimanded for going off topic if it is a persistent behavior.The topic of this thread is How do "novel" features evolve?.I have copied your post to the old improbable probability problem with my reply in Message 45That's okay, I'm sure you can get the hang of it fairly soon, as you already have a good handle on how the reply and quote functions work, and it is not a difficult learning curve that every 'newbe' goes through.Enjoy.

Hi ScottyDouglas, and welcome to the fray. This thread is not about evolution in general, but specifically about how new features evolve. If the off topic posts continue I will have to ask admin to close the thread for a while.Feel free to start a new thread and I will be happy to discuss your points.Go to Proposed New Topics to post new topics.You can improve the readability of your post by using extra lines between paragraphs.Enjoy.

Hi again zaius137, Which is still not the topic of this thread. Please start a new topic for this discussion.Go to Proposed New Topics to post new topics.Enjoy.

I started this thread to discuss how novel features or traits evolve, with some examples that raise the question of when a new trait is considered novel.The early discussion was good, and a few later posts returned to this topic (Wounded King in Message 282), however later discussion turned to information issues, which are a different topic, and one I consider tangential at best to the topic of this thread, and irrelevant at worst.The number of creationist discussing the topic is discouraging, and so I expect that this issue will continue to be raised, especially as new creationists arrive. It appears that this topic is too advanced for those who do not really understand evolution as a process and confuse it with the theory of evolution.The issue for creationists is when they will consider the trait to be novel enough -- at what point will they accept that evolution has reached a macro enough level for them to acknowledge that it is significant, without waving it off as "adaptation" or hide behind the "no new information" baggage and denial of evidence, or even denial of their lack of understanding evolution processes.I would like to be able to say that this tread achieved it's goals, but I can't. Perhaps a second thread that is more focused would work.Enjoy.Edited by RAZD, : added