Re: pure chance

Steve Clark (ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu)
Fri, 27 Dec 1996 12:47:25 -0600

At 01:04 PM 12/27/96 -0500, Brian wrote:
>
> Do critters try to maximize the information in
> their genome? Doesn't seem obvious--genomes are ordered, and a
> good thing, too!
>
>Of course critters are not trying to maximize the information in their
>genome, the interesting question is whether it happens
>anyway. My own view is that the information content tends
>to increase during evolution

Do you mean that the absolute information content increases or that the
ration of information vs noninformation in the genomes increase? For an
example of the latter, I remind you of a message I recently posted regarding
intriguing data that support the idea that bacteria have eliminated
intervening sequences of DNA from their genes, and hence appear to have a
greater relative information content compared to the mammalian genome.

Steve

P.S. Brian, I seriously doubt that after talking about their subject,
information theorists were "almost stoned" by biologists. Any
self-respecting biologist I know would have been asleep after the talk.
____________________________________________________________
Steven S. Clark, Ph.D . Phone: 608/263-9137
Associate Professor FAX: 608/263-4226
Dept. of Human Oncology and Email: ssclark@facstaff.wisc.edu
UW Comprehensive Cancer Center
CSC K4-432
600 Highland Ave.
Madison, WI 53792

"Universities are full of knowledge; the freshmen bring a little in,
the seniors take none away...the knowledge accumulates." Mark Twain
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