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In the Beginning was Information.

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  • #61
    Originally posted by rossum View Post
    Then Gitt refutes ID. God contains complex information (He is omniscient after all) yet God was not intelligently designed. Hence, complex information can exist in the absence of design.

    ID is logically proven false.
    God is not made of matter and therefore doesn't contain complex information in the manner that DNA does.

    Maybe you could state what you think the theory of ID is?

    Comment


    • #62
      Originally posted by grmorton View Post
      and no coherent argument was presented by you Frank when you said he was an engineer, implying that engineers can't present correct arguments.
      I wonder what he will do when he finds out that Shannon was a mathematician and electrical engineer?

      Comment


      • #63
        Originally posted by DaveB View Post
        Please enlighten us as to how the information necessary for the origin of life or the Cambrian explosion arose.
        Cambrian organisms evolved from Precambrian organisms. The information started in those Precambrian organisms and was changed by evolution to give rise to the Cambrian organisms. This is an example of evolution at work.

        The origin of life is down to chemistry.

        We know how purines and pyrimidines could form on the prebiotic earth. We know that purines (AG) and pyrimidines (CU) can form short strands of RNA (ACGU). We know that random strands of RNA contain Shannon information. We also know that some of those random strands are functional.

        Scientists have been looking at the origin of life for a long time. There is a lot of work already done on the subject, though there is still more to do. Becker's paper on prebiotic purine formation was published in 2016 for instance.

        Now a question for you: How did the information inherent in your proposed Intelligent Designer originate?

        Comment


        • #64
          Originally posted by DaveB View Post
          God is not made of matter and therefore doesn't contain complex information in the manner that DNA does.
          God is omniscient we are told. Hence God knows the exact DNA sequence of every living organism on earth.

          If God contains zero complex information, then all the DNA in every living organism on earth also contains zero complex information. Changing the storage format does not change the quantity of information present.

          Something with zero complex information does not require design according to ID theory.

          You need to rethink this argument.

          Comment


          • #65
            Originally posted by DaveB View Post
            I know what Kolmogorov complexity is, but I've never heard of Kolmogorov Information.
            The same thing.

            To answer your question, you only need to read my earlier post.

            I'm using the "2b" definition from Webster's.
            This is useless, since it does not provide a measure of the quantity of information. Without a measure we cannot say how much information is present, and we cannot determine if the amount has increased, decreased or remained unchanged after some process.

            Shannon is concerned with the transmission of a string (of bits). Shannon doesn't care if the string being transmitted actually carries any function information or not.
            Does this string contain functional information?
            /lta ba rab tu bsgrub pa'i phyir/ /me yi dpes ni nus ma yin/ /song dang ma song bgom pa yis/ /de ni lta bcas lan btab bo/

            Your answer is subjective, depending on whether or not you know the language it is written in. A subjective measure is not objective, and so not very useful in science. That is why Shannon avoided thinking about meaning -- meaning is subjective, not objective. An encrypted transmission is deliberately designed to be meaningless to anyone without the correct key. Some transmissions are deliberately meaningless at all levels, merely serving to block an enemy's traffic analysis. Yet all those transmissions contain Shannon information.

            However, that isn't the creationist/ID argument. The argument is on the ability of evolutionary processes to generate functional information (what ID calls CSI).
            Easily done. Random mutations generate new information. Natural selection selects the more functional variants and eliminates the less functional variants. Over time the less functional variants disappear and the more functional variants spread. The overall functionality of the population genome increases.

            As far as the origin of the intelligence goes, there is no origin because God is eternal and had no origin.
            You are telling us that a complex property like intelligence can appear in the absence of design. That refutes the ID claim that complex properties require design. It also refutes the ID claim that life requires design, since an eternal God is an example of undesigned life.

            The existence of God refutes ID's claims.

            Comment


            • #66
              Originally posted by DaveB View Post
              I wonder what he will do when he finds out that Shannon was a mathematician and electrical engineer?
              Shannon's qualifications in electrical engineering and math do help him lacking the basics of science, and trying vainly to falsify Intelligent Design with a calculator.
              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


              • #67
                Originally posted by DaveB View Post

                However, that isn't the creationist/ID argument. The argument is on the ability of evolutionary processes to generate functional information (what ID calls CSI).
                Easy.

                Every individual in every generation has new genetic variations which arise from events like sexual recombination and imperfect genome duplication. That is the source of the new raw information. The new information which gets incorporated into the species' gene pool is that which is fixed by natural selection and drift. The random variation / selection feedback loop is what causes the increase in both functionality and complexity, or "CSI" as the IDiots like to use.

                The random variation / selection feedback loop has been operating and producing new functional information since the first pre-biotic self replicators began competing for resources over 4 billion years ago in the Hadean epoch. The evidence we have suggests self replication or primative "life" seems to be an emergent property of the physical laws of chemistry and physics found in our universe.

                Now you know.

                Comment


                • #68
                  Originally posted by DaveB View Post

                  Maybe you could state what you think the theory of ID is?
                  Easy also.

                  There is NO scientific theory of ID for biological life. There isn't even a testable hypothesis of ID. All ID has is religiously based idle speculation unsupported by even a single piece of positive scientific evidence. ID as pushed by the religious think-tank Discovery Institute is a purely political movement created to get the Christian God back into U.S. public schools.

                  Now you know that too.

                  Comment


                  • #69
                    Originally posted by DaveB View Post
                    A career as a software engineer tells me that Meyer's arguments on information are exactly right.
                    Really? My experience as a software engineer and a follower of the evolution/creation 'debate', which includes a fair bit of writing and running genetic algorithms and evolution simulators, tells me that Meyer is a charlatan who make fundamental errors.
                    Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                    MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                    MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                    seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                    Comment


                    • #70
                      Originally posted by DaveB View Post
                      First of all, you are using the word reaction incorrectly, just as others are. A chemical reaction is when the chemicals that are the inputs to the reaction are actually changed to other chemical(s). So, if the 3 bases molecules were mixed together and formed a molecule of a particular amino acid, then that would be a chemical reaction. But nothing like that is happening in the transcription/translation process.
                      And if several ribonucleotide bases are joined together into a single polymeric ribonucleic acid molecule, which is what happens during transcription, that would also be a chemical reaction.
                      I think that intelligence was required to produce the sequential information stored in DNA, but I don't think that the cell has anymore self-awareness than the components of a computer do.

                      Let me know if you have any questions.
                      Only one question:

                      Why should anyone care what you think?
                      Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                      MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                      MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                      seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                      Comment


                      • #71
                        Originally posted by DaveB View Post
                        Maybe you could state what you think the theory of ID is?
                        "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc."
                        Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

                        MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
                        MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

                        seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

                        Comment


                        • #72
                          Originally posted by Roy View Post
                          "Intelligent design means that various forms of life began abruptly through an intelligent agency, with their distinctive features already intact. Fish with fins and scales, birds with feathers, beaks, wings, etc."
                          There are several proposals for ID, but the main thrust of the hypothesis is that the complexity of life cannot be falsified or demonstrated by science, therefore an intelligent source must be responsible for the Creation of life and the complexity of life. It also concludes that the hypothesis of ID can be falsified by scientific evidence.

                          Gitt does not go to great lengths to prove ID as the Discovery Institute does, but simply asserts that the Source of all information is God, and the Bible is the only information source of the record of Creation.
                          Last edited by shunyadragon; 07-10-2019, 06:06 AM.
                          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


                          • #73
                            OK. To close in, what is your take: which is worse, Gitt or Spetner?

                            Comment


                            • #74
                              Originally posted by Seeker View Post
                              OK. To close in, what is your take: which is worse, Gitt or Spetner?
                              I am not sure what would be worse. They are different, but come to the same 'worse' conclusion. Gitt is more a belief simply by assertion that God is the source of information and the Bible is the record of God's information. Spetner makes more of an effort to 'prove' erroneously evolution cannot come about by 'chance,' which is more in line with the Discovery Institute's goal s and efforts to support ID.
                              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


                              • #75
                                Originally posted by rossum View Post
                                Cambrian organisms evolved from Precambrian organisms. The information started in those Precambrian organisms and was changed by evolution to give rise to the Cambrian organisms. This is an example of evolution at work.
                                This is wishful thinking. There is almost no evidence that Cambrian life evolved from Ediacaran organisms.

                                Originally posted by rossum View Post

                                The origin of life is down to chemistry.

                                We know how purines and pyrimidines could form on the prebiotic earth.
                                Having purines and pyrimidines (the two classes of bases used in RNA and DNA) by themselves is not the issue.

                                Originally posted by rossum View Post
                                We know that purines (AG) and pyrimidines (CU) can form short strands of RNA (ACGU).
                                No they can't. You have to have RNA nucleotides to form a strand of RNA of any length, not simply the bases.


                                Originally posted by rossum View Post
                                We know that random strands of RNA contain Shannon information.
                                Yes, any random string of "bits" can be considered Shannon information. But as I said, Shannon information is not what the ID information argument is talking about.


                                Originally posted by rossum View Post
                                We also know that some of those random strands are functional.
                                I assume you are talking about ribozymes which have very simple functionality and are transcribed from DNA.

                                Originally posted by rossum View Post
                                Scientists have been looking at the origin of life for a long time. There is a lot of work already done on the subject, though there is still more to do. Becker's paper on prebiotic purine formation was published in 2016 for instance.
                                The question isn't "what can intelligent scientists do in a lab?", it's "what can non-intelligent, natural processes do?".


                                Originally posted by rossum View Post
                                Now a question for you: How did the information inherent in your proposed Intelligent Designer originate?
                                This is not something that the theory of ID deals with.

                                Comment

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