Can mutation and selection increase information?

Indeed, it seems mostly to be an argument from incredulity - at best: how can the human genome not have more "information" than the genome of a bacterium or a worm? Seems obvious, but the devil is in the details, and creationists typically are not strong on details.On Irreducible Complexity, Information Loss and Barry Hall's experiments I show that functional information must increase or that it is irrelevant to any restriction on evolution. I expect this thread to do the same.When we look at just DNA as a measure we see sometimes it increases and sometimes it decreases, but length is not a measure of what the DNA does.So maybe a useful parameter would be DNA function. We can measure genes and we can find cross links between genes in doing certain functions. It's not just the number of genes then, but also how they interact. I look forward to many examples of mutations adding new beneficial function.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : st

I've posted this elsewhere and thought it would make an interesting example to discuss.See Figure 1 from Nature 421, 264 - 267 (16 January 2003); doi:10.1038/nature01313 (reproduced below)Walkingstick insects originally started out as winged insects (blue at start and top row). That diversified.And some lost wings (red). And diversified.And some regained wings (blue again). And diversified.And one lost wings again (Lapaphus parakensis, below, red again).

And this doesn't even address the ones where one sex (usually male) has wings and the other sex doesn't (the red includes these, so it is hard to determine from this graphic how many times the female sex gained and lost wings independent of the winged males).So which species have more information, which have gained information and which have lost information?I would think that those that lose wings would lose information, but that those that regain wings must then gain that information back or replace it with new information.It also appears that this regaining wings information gain must be "copious" enough for several species to evolve.Enjoy

Start with an inadequate analogy, end up with an inadequate argument.Words don't reproduce and die, there is no selection mechanism there.Useless to less than useless.

Yes evolution is a good analogy for studying words changing over time, but it doesn't work the other way. Words can evolve outside nested hierarchies as well as inside. You see horizontal transfer from one language to another for instance.Enjoy

Show me any that don't mean essentially the same thing.All I've seen are definitions of evolution that are like synonyms of words -- saying the same thing a slightly different way. The consilience between them providing a more complete picture than any one definition. In science ... in politics not so difficult.

To add to what JonF said (A) those "targeted areas" are huuuge, and the mutation location within those areas is completely random, and(B) IIRC, the areas that are not within the "target areas" are still hit by mutations, but these areas also have evolved mechanism/s to protect/conserve critical functions, so you should be talking about areas that are highly conserved by evolved correction mechanisms not having as high a rate of mutations as non-conserved areas, rather than about areas "targeted" for mutations -- there are no "targets."Enjoy

oopsie There are two aspects to the question as I see it:

1. is the ratio of beneficial* mutations to non-beneficial mutations greater under stress?
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2. is the ratio of beneficial* mutations per unit of time greater under stress?

I believe (my opinion) the answers are no and yes. The first ratio can even be lower and still have a greater second ratio.Further I believe (my opinion) this is an evolved mechanism, as organisms that do this will be selected over those that don't, and that it is a "burn the bridges," do-or-die, last ditch effort at survival.Enjoy* with regard to "fitness" ... ie survivalEdited by RAZD, : *Edited by RAZD, : .

Only if the 'goal' is to mutate, and that doesn't change the "with respect to fitness" issue If the rate of unchecked mutations doubles and the proportion of beneficial with respect to fitness mutations falls to 51% you still come out ahead, at the cost of a lot of failure and lost energy in reproduction. This is how turning on hypermutation would be a beneficial trait that gets selected, without it being goal oriented.If it were goal oriented then why isn't it turned on permanently?If it's an evolved stress response mechanism, then it only occurs during stress.EnjoyEdited by RAZD, : .

Welcome to the fray Porkncheese Which theory would that be? Which theory is that again? Or cancer cells. Why would a liver cell "spawn completely new and different cells?" What is information, how do you measure it? How do you now when it is missing? Curiously, you are not in a position to make this claim. Well that make biology a science then. Twice wrong in one sentence. Then it hasn't collapsed, because that has been observed, but still waiting to know what theory you are talking about. Then, once again, the theory hasn't collapsed, because they have been found. Every fossil is a transitional fossil. What theory is the creationist theory? I didn't know they had one.Enjoy

or -- is a single cell organism more or less complex than a skin cell.Multicellular organism cells depend on other cells to deliver needed materials that a single cell organism is capable of getting on it's own.Does that dependency decrease or increase the complexity of the multicellular organism cell?Enjoy