Re: Dawkins and increase in information

Moorad Alexanian (alexanian@UNCWIL.EDU)
Fri, 02 Oct 1998 09:36:45 -0500 (EST)

At 10:02 AM 10/1/98 -0400, David Campbell wrote:
>>Is the question asked Dawkins analogous to the following: Energy is
>>conserved. There is a Big Bang--a beginning to the universe. Therefore,
>>physicists can be asked to provide an answer to the question of the origin
>>of the existing energy. I am sure cosmologists have already thought of an
>>answer to such questions one of which would be "I do not know."
>
>As far as my knowledge of physics goes, I do not think so. Like much of
>the "evolution-creation debate", there is a problem with definitions. What
>is information, and for what system are you looking for an increase?
>
>Using a conventional scientific definition, there are easy answers to the
>question of biologic information increase, whereas my impression is that
>ideas on what physics happened before the Big Bang is very speculative.
>
>The amount of information in an organism increases any time there is a
>genetic duplication. Extra information can be bad for you! Changes in the
>arrangement and use of this information are more important than the amount
>of information.
>
>Information also gets confused with order. As Glenn has pointed out,
>informative sequences have relatively little order. ACG GGT AAC GGG GAA
>TCA GTG TTC GAT TCC GGA GA shows no particular pattern that I spot, yet it
>is very important if not vital to many animals. TAG CTA GCT AGC TAG CTA
>GCT AGC is highly ordered but probably useless.

It seems to me that the introduction of the term "information" by biologist
is to enable them to tap into areas of science where that term has a very
clear meaning and usefulness. The attempt is to explain complexity by means
of such terms. It seems that unless one believes that all the potential
future development of the universe and all that it contains were set up from
the very beginning, then one would have to explain how the new source(s) of
info that leads to more complex entities subsequently come into being. It
seems to me that borrowing terms from other areas os studies and just using
them in one's musings does not lead to any sort of genuine explanations and,
least of all, to any form of scientific theory with predictive power.

Moorad