GrumpyBob
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10 years ago @ Wonderful Life - Alfred Russel Wallace'... · 0 replies · +1 points
11 years ago @ Wonderful Life - Discovery Institute ta... · 0 replies · +1 points
11 years ago @ Wonderful Life - The Edinburgh Science ... · 0 replies · +1 points
11 years ago @ Wonderful Life - The Edinburgh Science ... · 0 replies · +1 points
12 years ago @ Wonderful Life - No Signature in the Cell · 0 replies · +1 points
To be honest, I didn't think that the Hazen concept of functional information corresponds with Meyer's (which isn't really defined in his book) - it's a lot more coherent for a start. But I'll look at the relevant sections of Signature again, once I've read Dunston.
In any event, assertions that there are no known mechanisms where new genetic information can arise in biological systems are clearly false. Meyer's claim remains that natural processes can not have led to the appearance of replicating systems. One assumes that one version of an intelligent designer is that a supernatural entity established primitive replicating systems on Earth and then left it to run on.
12 years ago @ Wonderful Life - No Signature in the Cell · 0 replies · +1 points
12 years ago @ Wonderful Life - No Signature in the Cell · 0 replies · +1 points
In the case of duplicated genes, subsequent random sequence changes (mutation) coupled with natural selection (and random drift) leads to divergence between the genes and ultimately increase in genetic information. There is evidence for all these processes.
12 years ago @ Wonderful Life - No Signature in the Cell · 3 replies · +1 points
But I think this misses Meyer's claims, which are that science has not explained the origin of biological information bearing molecules, but that it can never do. He then invokes an unknown creator with supernatural powers to do the job. I think (though I am no specialist in origon of life) that science has formulated many hypotheses of processes that may have given rise to biological information, not all of which are given full consideration by Meyer, who also supposes that components of life had to leap into existence in a more or less fully functional state.
12 years ago @ Wonderful Life - No Signature in the Cell · 5 replies · +2 points
I am a molecular geneticist, this is genetic information. Increasing.
12 years ago @ Wonderful Life - No Signature in the Cell · 0 replies · +1 points
I am a molecular geneticist, and I can see genetic information within a species increasing by segmental duplication. Within phylogenetic analyses, one can see the effects of duplication of chromosomes and whole genomes as a route to increasing the amount of genetic information. And if you think this is not a route to increasing 'functional' information you reveal your ignorance: duplicated genes diverge in sequence in function.