Re: tetrapoidy in mammals

mortongr@flash.net
Thu, 11 Nov 1999 21:53:27 +0000

At 06:57 PM 11/11/1999 -0800, Arthur V. Chadwick wrote:
>At 06:35 PM 11/11/1999 +0000, Glenn wrote:
>
>>Wow. Thanks for that. My Natures are a bit slow in getting here since I
>>moved to Houston. A polyploid animal would have an increased information
>>content. By the way I have heard that there is some evidence of polyploidy
>>in guinea pigs, but I can't find the reference just now.
>
>Hi Glenn:
>Information only increases if there is something different being said.
>That is not established yet in either of the cases you mention. A stack of
>newspapers in a newsstand has no more information than any of the
>newspapers in the stack. I know that you know this and am puzzled by your
>seeming delight over this non-event.

Not true Art. The equation for information is sum p(i)log(p(i)) where
p(i)'s are the probabilities of a given event. If you take any sequence and
calculate the information content of it with that equation, which is the
one used in info theory, and then calculate it for double the sequence, the
informational content of the sequence has gone up by one bit! It is an
increase in information. And then when you randomly mutate the double
sequence, the information content actually increases further. You are once
again equating meaning/specificity with information. It isn't the same
thing at all. THere is no way to measure the quantity of meaning
whatsoever.
glenn

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