According to evolutionary theory, what mechanism is responsible for providing new information that leads to evolutionary change?
2 Answers
According to Neo Darwinian evolutionary theory random mutations are the source of new information needed for evolutionary changes.
Explanation:
Darwin felt that the cells had an infinite possibility of variation. The laws of genetics proved that this was wrong.
The discovery of mutations seemed to solve the problem of where new information might come from. Fruit flies have been studied for more than 100 years. The flies have been subjected to mutation causing agents. 1000s of mutations have been observed but none have resulted in new information.
The Shannon laws of information imply that the laws of entropy apply to biological information. It is possible that outside energy can overcome the downward trend of information due to entropy. The laws of entropy apply to closed systems.
In computer technology programmers are able to write codes that protect and enable the translation of information without significant loss of information. This provides hope that some natural law will be found that allows biological systems to overcome Shannon's laws of information.
'New Information' responsible for evolutionary change always comes from MUTATION .
Explanation:
The very first widely accepted evolutionary theory was put forward by Charles Darwin (1858-59). He noticed 'variations' among individuals and understood that certain variations, when present, help an organism to survive better/longer in nature. Hence such variations are 'favourable' compared to other variations which do not provide any advantage to the organism.
Darwin proposed natural selection of favourable variations through generations ( or should it be natural rejection of unfavourable variations? ), but he could not provide a logical explanation for the source of variation. At the same time we must remember that idea of gene was still unknown during Darwin's time.
Hugo de Vries later proposed mutation theory (1901). Mutation is a random change in genetic material which gives rise to new variation; hence variations are heritable. Only heritable variations are important for evolution of a group of organisms.
