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In the Beginning was Information.

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  • In the Beginning was Information.

    A 1997 book by Werner Gitt. Is it worth reading, or there are, in your opinion, better and more up-to-date books to be purchased within this type of book? What would you reccomend I buy on the topic of 'information' issues?

  • #2
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    • #3
      First, Gitt is an engineer not a scientist, and approaches the concept of information very mechanistically from a Creationist assertion of a Divine perspective and not a scientific perspective. It is a simple straight forward literal Biblical view without any reference to science.

      Source: https://answersingenesis.org/answers/books/in-six-days/werner-gitt-information-science/


      For me, as an information scientist, the key question is the source of information. Regarding the length of the creation days, there is only one information source, and that is the Bible. In the Bible, God tells us that He created everything in six days.

      © Copyright Original Source

      Last edited by shunyadragon; 06-01-2019, 03:21 PM.
      Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
      Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
      But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

      go with the flow the river knows . . .

      Frank

      I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
        First, Gitt is an engineer not a scientist, and approaches the concept of information very mechanistically from a Creationist assertion of a Divine perspective and not a scientific perspective. It is a simple straight forward literal Biblical view without any reference to science.

        Source: https://answersingenesis.org/answers/books/in-six-days/werner-gitt-information-science/


        For me, as an information scientist, the key question is the source of information. Regarding the length of the creation days, there is only one information source, and that is the Bible. In the Bible, God tells us that He created everything in six days.

        © Copyright Original Source

        But the simple fact that he is an enginner does not invalidate his arguments. This is a type of authority fallacy. His arguments (or anyone else's) should stand or fall on their own. Don't you agree?

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by Seeker View Post
          But the simple fact that he is an engineer does not invalidate his arguments. This is a type of authority fallacy. His arguments (or anyone else's) should stand or fall on their own. Don't you agree?
          Yes, every argument should stand on the merits of the argument itself, but no coherent argument is presented by Gitt.

          I believe he limits the validity in two ways: (1) He asserts only the literal Biblical Creation, without any argument nor other references to support the assertion. (2) He does not present anything in terms of science. (3) His qualifications as a scientist or not does decidedly impact the coherency of an argument. In his own reference he claims to be a scientist, he is not. The problem is very real where other creationists present a scientific argument with no qualifications in science, and even Creationist scientist present unethical and dishonest arguments in terms of science.
          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

          go with the flow the river knows . . .

          Frank

          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by Seeker View Post
            But the simple fact that he is an enginner does not invalidate his arguments. This is a type of authority fallacy. His arguments (or anyone else's) should stand or fall on their own. Don't you agree?
            Among other fatal flaws Gitt invented a lot of his own definitions for various forms of "information" not used by anyone else in any scientific field. Most were circular and all were scientifically worthless. Sadly he's just one more in a long list of Jesus loving crackpots out to scientifically "prove" his Biblical beliefs.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by HMS_Beagle View Post
              Among other fatal flaws Gitt invented a lot of his own definitions for various forms of "information" not used by anyone else in any scientific field. Most were circular and all were scientifically worthless. Sadly he's just one more in a long list of Jesus loving crackpots out to scientifically "prove" his Biblical beliefs.
              The only point I will specifically disagree with is Gitt makes no effort to scientifically "prove" his beliefs. He simply asserts his beliefs and definitions for Fundamentalism Creationist information.
              Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
              Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
              But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

              go with the flow the river knows . . .

              Frank

              I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

              Comment


              • #8
                Anyway, would any of you reccomend reading a book from 1997, or should I look for something more 'updated'?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by Seeker View Post
                  Anyway, would any of you reccomend reading a book from 1997, or should I look for something more 'updated'?
                  If you are referring to a general reference on evolution 1997 is ok, or a reference about or by Gitt ok.

                  What has been advanced in the science of evolution since is the fossil finds that support evolution, and the increased details of the genetic evidence including the ability to extract usable DNA from fossils.
                  Last edited by shunyadragon; 06-08-2019, 02:45 PM.
                  Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                  But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                  go with the flow the river knows . . .

                  Frank

                  I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Seeker View Post
                    Anyway, would any of you recommend reading a book from 1997, or should I look for something more 'updated'?
                    As far as Gitt goes nothing has changed since 1997.
                    Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                    Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                    But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                    go with the flow the river knows . . .

                    Frank

                    I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by HMS_Beagle View Post
                      Among other fatal flaws Gitt invented a lot of his own definitions for various forms of "information" not used by anyone else in any scientific field. Most were circular and all were scientifically worthless. Sadly he's just one more in a long list of Jesus loving crackpots out to scientifically "prove" his Biblical beliefs.
                      The fact that it is not accepted by anyone else is again an argument from authority. The question is: does Gitt's arguments stand or fall on their own merits? Now I agree that maybe ''most were circular and all were scientifically worthless'', because he defined 5 levels of information: statistics, sintax, semantics, pragmatics and apobetics. However, I came lo learn that only the first one really applies to DNA (which is Shannon's definition).

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Seeker View Post
                        The fact that it is not accepted by anyone else is again an argument from authority. The question is: does Gitt's arguments stand or fall on their own merits? Now I agree that maybe ''most were circular and all were scientifically worthless'', because he defined 5 levels of information: statistics, sintax, semantics, pragmatics and apobetics. However, I came lo learn that only the first one really applies to DNA (which is Shannon's definition).
                        As far as Gitt's arguments, they all fail, because his argument have no scientific merits, nor does he propose any scientific hypothesis to support his argument.

                        Statistics as used by Creationists is an unethical misuse of statistics to justify their agenda. They are ALL circular and ALL scientifically worthless. The statistical arguments by Creationists require assumptions based on their Creationist beliefs {argument from authority).
                        Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                        Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                        But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                        go with the flow the river knows . . .

                        Frank

                        I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                          As far as Gitt's arguments, they all fail, because his argument have no scientific merits, nor does he propose any scientific hypothesis to support his argument.

                          Statistics as used by Creationists is an unethical misuse of statistics to justify their agenda. They are ALL circular and ALL scientifically worthless. The statistical arguments by Creationists require assumptions based on their Creationist beliefs {argument from authority).
                          No, the concept of statistics in information is valid since it was not invented by Gitt, but by the father of information theory, Claude Shannon. Shannon's theory DOES have applications in biology, AFAICT.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Seeker View Post
                            No, the concept of statistics in information is valid since it was not invented by Gitt, but by the father of information theory, Claude Shannon. Shannon's theory DOES have applications in biology, AFAICT.
                            The application of information theory in biology is most definitely not the same way Gitt corrupts it to justify his agenda.

                            Actually no, statistics is not a scientific argument based on a hypothesis that may be falsified. The best statistics can predict is probability, and probability as used by Gitt cannot be the basis to falsify a hypothesis for Intelligent Design.

                            In another thread a while back I documented the terrible misuse of statistics by Creationists. In summary the Creationists tried to use statistics to demonstrated the whole chain of the probability of cause and effect events, and in reality it can only apply to the probability of each event.

                            Yes, Claude Shannon. is the father of information theory, but that is where the comparison with Gitt ends. If Shannon is the father Gitt is the corrupter of information theory.

                            Shannon's monumental contribution to information theory, design of computers and Quantum Mechanics is summarized here:

                            https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...annon-founder/

                            The thread that details the misuse of statistics by creationist is here: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...the-same-again


                            My first post:

                            Source: http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2018.4/BIO-C.2018.4



                            Remark. It should be noted that although Landman claims [8] that the number of possible states should be used as the replicational resources (scaling constant) r rather than the number of possible events, it should be clear that such a claim is mistaken, since the replicational resources represent the number of attempts a system is given to produce a given result (if every operation on every bit were a sampling attempt), which corresponds to the total number of sampling events possible since the Big Bang (and not to the number of possible states). In either case, since we are concerned with proving bounds for Dembski’s model, and he uses the scaling constant of 10120, we do so here as well.

                            © Copyright Original Source




                            If one understands statistics the efforts of this paper is 'front loaded' statistically to get the desired result. More comments may follow. Also basically neglects that the laws of nature constrains the outcome of each cause and effect event, and cannot be statistically projected as simply the probability of 'the total number of sampling events possible since the Big Bang.'

                            I believe that Landman referred to this limitation as 'the number of possible states.' I comment with caution on Landman, because I lack his full reference. I may word this more completely as the limitations of the possible states of the outcome of each cause and effect outcome constrained by the laws of nature.

                            I believe they have tried this before.

                            Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11/15/liars-figure



                            The old saying, that “figures won’t lie,” is true, without doubt; and the same may be said of letters, marks, and other signs of thought. But the mode in which many use figures, in order to carry a point, has sometimes tempted us to believe that the hasty remark of the Psalmist, if paraphrased thus – “all men” – who deal in statistics “are liars,” – is not far from the truth.

                            © Copyright Original Source

                            Last edited by shunyadragon; 06-25-2019, 04:27 PM.
                            Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                            Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                            But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                            go with the flow the river knows . . .

                            Frank

                            I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              A creationist has written the following:

                              ''Gitt has an argument by analogy, where he is basing his assertions about something we don't know on something we do know (origin of genetic information vs. other information), and skeptics try and refute it by arguing that we don't observe the origin of genetic information (which is why it's an argument by analogy), and asserting without cause that genetic information is different to other information''.

                              I honestly can't find any fault with this argument. Can anyone help?

                              Comment

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