T. D. Schneider, "Evolution of Biological Information", Nucleic Acids
Research, 28(14): 2794-2799, 2000.
<http://www-lecb.ncifcrf.gov/~toms/paper/ev/>
ABSTRACT
How do genetic systems gain information by evolutionary processes?
Answering this question precisely requires a robust, quantitative
measure of information. Fortunately, fifty years ago Claude Shannon
defined information as a decrease in the uncertainty of a
receiver. For molecular systems, uncertainty is closely related to
entropy and hence has clear connections to the Second Law of
Thermodynamics. These aspects of information theory have allowed the
development of a straightforward and practical method of measuring
information in genetic control systems. Here this method is used to
observe information gain in the binding sites for an artificial
`protein' in a computer simulation of evolution. The simulation begins
with zero information and, as in naturally occurring genetic systems,
the information measured in the fully evolved binding sites is close
to that needed to locate the sites in the genome. The transition is
rapid, demonstrating that information gain can occur by punctuated
equilibrium.
========
While I have some quibbles about the ancillary claims that Schneider
makes, overall this is a very interesting paper, and highly applicable
in response to various of Dembski's claims regarding natural selection
and evolutionary computation.
Wesley
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