Logic and evolution (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, July 25, 2016, 22:39 (3041 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I keep agreeing with you that loss occurs in adaptation and is almost certain to occur in innovation. Whatever information is no longer required by the new organ will be jettisoned. That would make loss of information a result, but not the cause.
DAVID: If adaptation is related to loss of genetic information, and it represents something new, why do you think it is logical that loss of information means it was no longer necessary? -If the information was necessary, it would have had to survive!-DAVID: Isn't it possible that recombination of genes is a subtraction that does produce new hidden information with the new DNA structure? We only know that DNA codes for protein. We have no idea how it create forms or function.-A recombination of genes may well entail a subtraction (= loss of information) - but I don't understand how a loss of information can “produce” new information. And what do you mean by “hidden” information: hidden from what or who? Once more: in the context of speciation, are you saying that the pre-duck-billed platypus contained all the information necessary for every species on the planet, but only when it lost all that other information could its platypusness emerge from hiding? If not, please give me a concrete example of what you mean by speciation being caused by loss of information which was present at the beginning.-dhw: Once again: firstly, adaptation is a direct response to changes in the environment (= external information), and I think it most likely that innovation is also triggered by environmental changes. Those changes constitute new information which has to be processed, and new external information is information.
DAVID: This is external stimuli information, which does cause the organism to modify DNA which contains internal information that can be modified. not the same information which results in DNA.-Once again: external information is information, and in my hypothesis it triggers changes to internal information (the instructions and decisions that control and adapt structures and produce new ones), which needs to process the new external information and then ensure that any changes in the cell communities will cope with (adaptation) or efficiently exploit (innovation) those changes. These forms of information are interdependent - hence my next question:-dhw: How can those changes be present at the beginning?
DAVID: I can conceive of the original DNA containing all the info needed, and by recombination and loss allows for the coding of new forms and functions.-Recombination would be part of the process of producing new forms and functions, but loss “allowing for” is not the same as loss “producing”! Once more, what do you mean by ALL THE INFO NEEDED? There is no way a new organism could be created without consideration of the environment it would be living in. Therefore the original DNA would have had to include ALL the info needed about ALL the environmental changes that organisms would cope with or exploit for the next 3.8 billion years (other than the external and internal changes resulting from God's dabbling). So now you have your God either preprogramming or directly producing every environmental change.-Dhw: Secondly, preprogramming all species via loss of information can only mean that all the information, external and internal, was contained within the first cells, and so each species had to lose all the information that produced every other species.-DAVID: You are forgetting recombination transposition, reduplication as well as loss producing new hidden information.-I can understand how genetic recombination, transposition or reduplication can be part of the process of innovation and can also entail loss of information, but I can't understand how the LOSS of information can PRODUCE NEW information leading to the existence of an organ which never existed before. But perhaps your explanation of “hidden” plus the concrete example I have asked you for will make it all clearer.