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posted 27. April 2005 13:39
Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life
Hubert P. Yockey
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521802938/iscid-20
Book Description:
Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life presents a timely introduction to the use of information theory and coding theory in molecular biology. The genetical information system, because it is linear and digital, resembles the algorithmic language of computers. George Gamow pointed out that the application of Shannon’s information theory breaks genetics and molecular biology out of the descriptive mode into the quantitative mode, and Dr. Yockey develops this theme, discussing how information theory and coding theory can be applied to molecular biology. He discusses how these tools for measuring the information in the sequences of the genome and the proteome are essential for our complete understanding of the nature and origin of life. The author writes for the computer competent reader who is interested in evolution and the origins of life.
Table of Contents
Preface page ix
1 The genetic information system 1
2 James Watson, Francis Crick, George Gamow, and the genetic code 8
3 The Central Dogma of molecular biology 20
4 The measure of the information content in the genetic message 27
5 Communication of information from the genome to the proteome 33
6 The information content or complexity of protein families 57
7 Evolution of the genetic code and its modern characteristics 93
8 Haeckel’s Urschleim and the role of the Central Dogma in the origin of life 114
9 Philosophical approaches to the origin of life 149
10 The error catastrophe and the hypercycles of Eigen and Schuster 158
11 Randomness, complexity, the unknowable, and the impossible 164
12 Does evolution need an intelligent designer? 176
13 Epilogue 182
Mathematical appendix 191
Glossary 213
References 219
Index
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