A simple demonstration that natural selection creates information.
Pictured below is a tower of wooden blocks. What's the furthest we can make the tower lean without toppling? We'll mutate the positions of the blocks, trying to find the best design.
Each block represents a "gene" which is randomly mutated. If the mutation is beneficial, we'll keep it, otherwise it'll get discarded. The "genome" of this "organism" is the position of the blocks.
Distance of lean = 0
Generation 1
Enable natural selection
We didn't know beforehand the best design, or how far out the tower could lean. This is new information, which was created using random mutations. This disproves the claim that mutations cannot create information.
The fitness function of course! The fitness function feeds one bit of information per iteration into the system, in this case a binary yes/no answer to the question "was the mutation beneficial?". This is exactly what happens in nature. The act of natural selection adds information to the genome.
You can uncheck the check box to see what happens when we take this source of information away.
1. This is rigged to always produce the same design.
False. You can check the source code of this web page. Before the code was run, I was not sure what the final design would be, or how far the tower could lean.
2. This isn't real information.
False. You can take the positions of the blocks and build a real tower.
3. This isn't a design.
This is definitely a design, since it allows another tower-builder to build a real tower.
4. All designs are mind-made.
That is a hypothesis. When biologists use the word design, they definitely don't mean the product of a mind. Experiments such as this one show that designs come from natural selection just as much as from minds.
5. This isn't a code.
The positions of the blocks encode information (how to build a tower), therefore it is a code.
6. This isn't a proper genome.
We have an array of genes which are mutated independently and randomly. Each gene is independent.
7. This isn't proper mutation since you are offsetting blocks, not corrupting bits.
We are still making random changes. The experiment would still work with bit flipping, but offsets are easier to understand and demonstrate the principle.
8. The information is encoded into the fitness function.
The fitness function is a goal, not a design. Nature is fitness-oriented, and natural selection is the algorithm which finds solutions to problems. Maybe the information is implicit in the fitness function and is transferred from the fitness function to the genome though natural selection.
What is certain is that the design isn't explicit in the fitness function, or known beforehand.
9. This has no relevance to biology.
This is clearly not DNA, however it is still a design which is created through the processes of mutation and natural selection. We are really answering a question about information theory and natural selection, which is a general principle and not necessarily just about biology.
10. God introduced the information.
The algorithm is deterministic - there is no scope for phantom bit-twiddling.
I discuss this further in this article. Please get in touch or leave a comment.