Can the study of DNA yield the missing link between thermodynamics and information theory?

Question

Does natural selection should favour organisms who can create information out of entropy?

Answer 1

This question is the cutting edge of abiogenesis. Where did the information in the DNA come from, that forms all life? Self evolving before it has a self. (life). Is like free flowing energy forming a complex structure. When all we know about such energy, shows that it is destructive (causes increased entropy); If such energy doesn't have a complex mechanism, to give it direction and purpose. "Like a living organism"!

Answer 2

I'm not quite sure what you're asking here, but do note that mentioning "thermodynamics" and "information theory" is a common canard of creationists, who claim that somehow these make evolution impossible.

The claim "information can never increase" is trivial to prove wrong: if an organism has one copy of a gene, then a mutation duplicates that gene and a second mutation modifies the copy, then by any definition at all there is more "information" than before.

The thermodynamics claim - "the second law says that entropy must always increase, so evolution is impossible" - is even sillier. This applies to a closed system. The Earth is an open system - we get energy from the sun - so it doesn't apply. If this wasn't the case, your fridge wouldn't work.

Answer 3

Hardly, it's a very complex molecule. Crystals and snowflakes would be a better starting point. According to Lovellock, positive entropy is an indirect measure of life. So if natural selection favors life it should favor positive entropy (and that is a measure of information). But what is that missing link you talk about? I don't see much difference between statistical mechanics and information theory.

Answer 4

hmmmm....yes i guess...but what type of dna? dna from stem cells has no mutation and has not developed into anything yet, i.e. it can be genetically mutated in a lab to create, once thought impossible things...