Sewing The Seeds Of Biology’s Post-’Shannon Information’ Era
| August 13, 2009 | Posted by Robert Deyes under Intelligent Design |
Synopsis Of The Fourth Chapter Of Signature In The Cell by Stephen Meyer
ISBN: 9780061894206; ISBN10: 0061894206; Imprint: HarperOne
When talking about ‘information’ and its relevance to biological design, Intelligent Design theorists have a particular definition in mind. Indeed they see information as “the attribute inherent in and communicated by alternative sequences or arrangements of something that produce specific effects” (p.86). When the twentieth century American mathematician Claude Shannon laid down his own theory for quantifying information he drew attention to a mathematical relationship that on its surface appeared intuitive. Information as Shannon noted was inversely proportional to uncertainty. That is, the more information we had about our world the less uncertainty there was over the outcome of future events. Shannon also proposed that the more improbable an event the more information such an event would impart once it actually took place (say, throwing a six on a role of dice).
Nevertheless Shannon’s theory was deficient in at least one crucial aspect- it made no distinction between meaningful and meaningless information-rich strings. While equally long sequences of alphabetical characters did not always elicit tangible (meaningful) outcomes, they nevertheless always displayed the same level of Shannon-style uncertainty. And yet language in itself was more than a random assortment of letters even though Shannon’s theory ascribed the same degree of information content to such an assortment as it did to an equally long but meaningful series of sentences.
What was missing in Shannon’s synthesis was a term that accounted for the so-called ‘specificity’, that is the ”precise arrangement or sequence” of letters in, say, human language (p. 100). Therein lay a biological connection. After all, the swinging 50s brought with it a host of scientific breakthroughs, notably those of X-ray crystallographers Fred Sanger and John Kendrew who were instrumental in unveiling the ‘twisted, turning, tangled chain’ nature of proteins. In so doing they sewed the seeds for a process of discovery that would eventually culminate in an unexpected realization- proteins contained a high degree of structural and sequence specificity. That is, if proteins were to fulfill their hugely diverse repertoire of functions in the cell both their structural organization and amino acid sequence had to fit within a very narrow subset of all possible arrangements. Just like human language that only takes on meaning when letters and words are set out in universally recognizable and interpretable sequences, proteins could be considered as being rich in specified information.
In 1958 Francis Crick’s Sequence Hypothesis formalized the idea that protein amino acid sequences were inextricably linked to the base sequences of DNA. Years earlier, geneticists George Beadle and Edward Tatum had supplied evidence that strongly suggested a link between genes and proteins. The elucidation of the DNA genetic code in the 1960s, defining the base triplets that coded for each amino acid, revolutionized the molecular biology arena. Most significant of all was the revelation that both DNA and proteins bore the same ‘specificity’ fingerprint as human systems of code. In short, the cellular world appeared to be intelligently designed.
In the fourth chapter of Signature In The Cell, Stephen Meyer displays an enviable clarity in his exposition of biology’s post-’Shannon information’ era. In so doing he masterfully dispels any concern that the intelligent design inference does not carry with it a sound scientific foundation.
38 Responses to Sewing The Seeds Of Biology’s Post-’Shannon Information’ Era
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PS: What may be un-formalisable — i.e. not axiomatised etc (S is a Mathematician) — is the mind, weaving a path to the goal through imagination, intuition and insight, complete with Eureka moments. [Can you formalise how you composed the thoughts that led to the sentences in the post above -- well beyond the 143 ASCII character in contextually responsive English limit? But, did you not -- Voila! Eureka! Poof! Magic step! MIND step! -- find a path to the goal, a goal utterly beyond the credible reach of chance and necessity on the gamut of our observable cosmos?]
PPS: Observe: >> One [a minded creature] constructs a space within which one of the coordinates serves in effect as the thread of Ariane, guiding the trajectory toward the goal . . . >>
Nakashima,
you said
“OK, I wasn’t sure if you were using macro-evolution as a term to encompass all aspects of the theory.”
You should know better by now.
The debate is over macro-evolution so I am generally careful to use that term. Sometimes I forget when I am in a hurry or am careless. There is no debate over micro evolution or the fact that evolution took/takes place. It is just the mechanism for macro-evolution or the origin of novel complex capabilities that is a mystery. And information is at the heart of it. The title of this thread.
There is also the separate debate over the OOL and the origin of the universe. With all its magnificent accomplishments, science has done a poor job on a lot of origins.
Mr Jerry,
With all its magnificent accomplishments, science has done a poor job on a lot of origins.
At least we found out where babies come from!!
KF-san,
PPS: Observe: >> One [a minded creature] constructs a space within which one of the coordinates serves in effect as the thread of Ariane, guiding the trajectory toward the goal . . . >>
That’s fine. An entity more powerful than anything we can conceive precomputes the laws of physics and chemistry, and works out the history of the universe in advance so that evolution happens as we experience it. Got it. I agree that seems to be his position, and that he’s comfortable that it is not science, and leads to no testable predictions or an ability to compute a measure of functional complexity. Elan vital.
Nakashima-san:
I am speaking about the very orduinary acts of creartion we do when we construct posts, etc; as noted before.
Ande while the inner secrets of mind have not — as yet — yielded to scientific studies, the import of the characteristics of designed objects definitely are measurably empirical and reliably distinguishable form products of blind mechanical necessity and/or chance.
To illustrate, we may distnguish:
[1] sssssssssssssssssssssssss
[2]fwegtwjfcvaoerrt83e3hfq32fehcvshi
[3] this is an oprganised functional message.
GEM of TKI
kairosfocus,
I am not certain you are quite up to date, Gehrig’s discovery isn’t all that recent; it was published thirteen years ago:
From:
http://www.city-data.com/forum.....ts-23.html
I also wonder if maybe you are confusing the genetics of butterfly eyespots with the discovery of the eyeless gene.
More about the eyeless gene and the wonderful world of evo-devo may be learned from Sean B. Carrol’s “Endless Forms Most Beautiful.” A most entertaining way to learn science.
Cabal:
If you looked before leaping to comment, you would have seen that I was citing a 1996 interview with Mr Schutzenberger [shortly before he passed off the scene], precisely in a context that reaches back a further 30 years to Wistar. (So, your 13 yo report would be about right [2009 - 13 = 1996], and confirms S’s currency at the time in question. thanks for the inadvertent corroboration.)
A glance in the report on the Wistar meeting [pp 73 ff] shows me that indeed the ideas in the 1996 interview were being brewed up 30 years earlier and had been put before the top tier of biologists and OOL researchers in the mid 60′s.
In short, functional complexity as a concept — what the above was cited about [just scroll up] — has roots at the top level that are 40+ years old.
And, so, so does the more expanded term FSCI.
Going beyond that, the informatics revolution is snowballing on both OOL and body plan level biodiversity.
GEM of TKI