Dillon & Cooper on deleterious mutation rates

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21

Let’s see how this works. Let’s see if removing letters increases or decreases information.

Here is a random letter sequence:

MDWQFTEFWKTYFLLYKCRDAYACLTTAMYAEYPATWLACPVPGQMNVGP

Let’s remove a few letters and see if information increases:

M-----E--T--------A---L-TA-----P--------------

So we went from a random sequence to METAL TAP. Is that a gain in information?

Let’s go back to the original sequence:

MDWQFTEFWKTYFLLYKCRDAYACLTTAMYAEYPATWLACPVPGQMNVGP

Let’s change just one letter, the first Q 4 letters in:

MDWYFTEFWKTYFLLYKCRDAYACLTTAMYAEYPATWLACPVPGQMNVGP

Is that an increase in information? Can you show us the math you use to determine these things?

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22

Is this new information?

I LIKE RATS

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23

If loss of “information” is the issue in Genetic Entropy, then it is no particular threat to humanity. Because then it does not predict decreasing fitness. Just maybe that we’d be kind of dumb-looking. Or whatever.

24

We’re big boys here; feel free. We can handle an actual and direct biological explanation as to exactly what bacterial functionality was lost with the result of increased fitness.

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25

Certainly

26

Are you denying that for bacterial populations grown in an artificial environment, destructive mutations, ie., GE, can increase fitness?

27

Since your initial sequence is a random sequence, it’s level of FI, if any, cannot be otherwise than marginal.
Regarding your sequence METAL TAP you obtained by removing letters from your initial longer one, did you remove them randomly ?

Randomly changing one letter in a random sequence will not produce any gain of information.

28

I don’t think anyone would deny that is something that can and does occur under the right circumstances. What is missing is the evidence that this is the only thing that can happen under evolution.

29

Why not? Define information in a way that it can be quantified, and then show by example that what you are claiming here is true.

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30

Therefore a series of random one-letter changes to a random sequence will not produce any gain of information.

Therefore starting with “HHS OWPAIK” and changing it randomly one letter at a time until it says “I LIKE CATS” - which will eventually happen, though it may take a long time - will not produce any gain of information.

Therefore “I LIKE CATS” does not contain any more information than “HHS OWPAIK”.

This contradicts your earlier admission that “I LIKE CATS” contains information.

Therefore one of your claims is incorrect. Either random replacement of letters can increase information, or “I LIKE CATS” doesn’t contain any.

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31

Why did you dodge the scientific paper with evidence gene duplication plus mutations to the copy created new information and new functions in so many ray-finned fishes?

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32

Gene duplication with subsequent mutation to the copy:

I LIKE CATS
I LIKE CATS CATS
I LIKE CATS HATS

That’s new information. Game. Set. match. :slightly_smiling_face:

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33

Doesn’t matter. If removing letters can produce new information then a random process could do it as well.

How did you determine that? Where is the measure of information before and after the change?

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34

I do not dispute that the mechanism of gene duplication with subsequent mutation to the copy may have been the source of a modest gain in information here and there in life history. However, this doesn’t solve the problem of GE, which, in the long run, will inevitably cause most of the genome to « rust out ».

35

It does matter. Very much!

36

Good luck !

37

In the long run, GE predicts decreasing fitness for humans also.

38

This is the direction I was going with it.

39

So you claim. Where is your evidence?

40

A couple of decades for Lenski’s LTEE.
Less than a century for H1N1.
Few thousands year for humans.