ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2017
Information theory, evolutionary innovations and evolvability.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Life as a Categorical Information-Handling System: An Evolutionary Information-Theoretic Model of the Holobiont.Biology · 2026Review
- Article
- Evolution of the polycrisis: Anthropocene traps that challenge global sustainability.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Transcriptome-based Phylogeny of the Semi-aquatic Bugs (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Gerromorpha) Reveals Patterns of Lineage Expansion in a Series of New Adaptive Zones.Molecular biology and evolution · 2022Article
- Faraway, so close. The comparative method and the potential of non-model animals in mitochondrial research.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2020Article
- CRISPR: a new principle of genome engineering linked to conceptual shifts in evolutionary biology.Biology & philosophy · 2019Article
- Innovation: an emerging focus from cells to societies.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
How difficult is it to 'discover' an evolutionary adaptation or innovation? I here suggest that information theory, in combination with high-throughput DNA sequencing, can help answer this question by quantifying a new phenotype's information content. I apply this framework to compute the phenotypic information associated with novel gene regulation and with the ability to use novel carbon sources. The framework can also help quantify how DNA duplications affect evolvability, estimate the complexity of phenotypes and clarify the meaning of 'progress' in Darwinian evolution.This article is part of the themed issue 'Process and pattern in innovations from cells to societies'.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.