Evolution? How?

RexRed wrote:

THE WORD IS TRUE...

So is self-delusion.

What's your point?

Chumly wrote:

Hey Rex,
Do you know about the "seer stones"?

I am not Mormon........

Rex wrote:

He was the image of God not God

The problem with Christians today is the same problem that existed at the beginnings of Christianity. No one knows what to make of Jesus. Some say he's a human messenger sent by God. Others, like Rex say he's in the image of God. Others say he is God.

Many conservative Christians would not consider Rex to be a Christian. You either believe Christ and God are one in the same or not. If not your not a Christian.

Because of this diversity no matter what you say someone claiming to be a Christian will say they don't believe this or that, but some other Christian will believe it.

In conclusion Chrisitans don't know squat about God or Jesus but they think they do. That's what happens when you have a belief based on no evidence. Anyone can make up anything they like.

I managed to get halfway through that before I decided not to punish myself any further.

I had a hard time getting worked up over this one because I was psyching myself up for Werner Gitt's talk, "In the Beginning was Information." Gitt was kind enough to provide extensive notes, which was good because his talk far outstripped all the others in terms of content difficulty. Here is the introduction from those notes:

We will set out in a new direction, by seeking a definition of information with which it is possible to formulate laws of nature about it. Information is a nonmaterial entity and this is the first time that a law of nature has been formulated for a mental concept. First, we will describe the distinguishing attributes of information, formulate its definition, state the laws themselves and draw six strong conclusions. Since we have successfully discovered and formulated 10 laws of nature about information, we will refer to this definition of information as Laws of Nature about Information (LNI).

Witt then presented the "strong conclusions" from his model:

God Exists; Refutation of atheism.
There is only one God, who is all-knowing and eternal.
God is immensely powerful.
God is spirit.
No human being without a soul; Refutation of materialism.
No evolution.
Witt then asked, "What is a Law of Nature?" His answer:

Laws of nature describe events, phenomena and occurrences which consistently and repeatedly take place. They are thus universally valid laws. They can be formulated in science, hence laws of nature for material entities in physics and chemistry (e.g. energy, momentum, electrical current, chemical reactions) and non-material entities (e.g. information, consciousness). Due to their explanatory power, and their correspondence to reality, laws of nature represent the highest level of significance in science. The following points about laws of nature are especially significant:

Laws of nature know no exceptions.
Laws of nature are unchanging in time (past, present or future).
Laws of nature can tell us whether a process being contemplated is even possible or not.
Laws of nature exist prior to, and independent of, their discovery and formulation.
Laws of nature can always be successfully applied to unknown situations.
Most scientists will be instinctively uncomfortable with the sorts of sweeping generalizations Gitt is making here. To the extent that scientists talk about natural laws at all, they really just mean certain generalizations that have consistently been successful in predicting the results of experiments. The key criterion is usefulness, not metaphysical Truth. But that's too wishy-washy for creationists. They don't care about generalizations scientists find useful. They want Truth. That is why they are so unreceptive to the perfectly sensible argument that hypotheses about God's actions in the world are not scientific because they don't lead to anything scientists can use to further their work.

Gitt then provided the following "Natural Law Definition of Information":

Information is an encoded, symbolic representation of material realities or conceptual relationships conveying expected action and intended purpose. Information is always present when, in an observable system, all of the following five hierarchical levels (or attributes) are present: Statistics, syntax (code), semantics (meaning), pragmatics (action) and apobetics (purpose).

Gitt then listed ten "laws" of information, all of which was building to his conclusion that meaning and purpose are built into information, including DNA: "Because all forms of life contain a code (DNA, RNA), as well as all the other levels of information, we are within the definition domain of information. We can therefore conclude that: There must be an intelligent Sender."

Does the information encoded in our genes really possess the properties Gitt requires? Is Gitt really attributing meaning and purpose to genes? What could that possibly mean? He might say that the purpose of genes is to produce proteins. But is that the genes' purpose, or is that simply what genes do?

Or consider Gitt's explanation of what constitutes "Pragmatics" (Action): "Information invites action. Every transmission of information is nevertheless associated with the intention, from the side of the sender, of generating a particular result or effect on the receiver." Who is the sender and who is the receiver in the case of DNA? Our genes, after all, do not know that human observers are attributing to them the property of containing information. They, and the associated cellular machinery that transforms them into proteins, are simply doing whatever it is that they do, governed by various principles of physics and chemistry.

This brings us to the most fundamental problem of all with Gitt's project. He spoke constantly about the information content of our genes. But at no point did he ever tell us how to measure information! His constant challenge to evolutionists was to produce a natural mechanism that could increase the information content of our genome. But there's no hope of answering that question until we know precisely how to measure information.

There is a branch of mathematics known as information theory. Within this theory, pioneered by Claude Shannon in the late 1940s, there is a precise method for determining the information content of a given message. During the talk, however, Gitt explicitly differentiated what he was doing from Shannon's conception of information. We will return to this point momentarily.

When Gitt finished, the audience erupted into enthusiastic applause, followed by a standing ovation. Ken Ham took the stage and boasted that this was one of the most powerful apologetic arguments he had ever heard. This was an especially revealing moment because, as far as I could tell, Witt's argument made no sense at all, so there is no way anyone in the audience could have understood a word he was saying.

I decided to hang around for the discussion. I was standing pretty close to Dr. Gitt, part of a crowd of about 40 or so people. The questions being asked were the usual fawning silliness, until Gitt got to a man standing near me, who asked him what his peers (by which he meant other scientists) thought about his natural laws of information. Incredibly, Gitt replied that his ideas have wide acceptance among scientists. He boasted of various seminars at which he had spoken in mainstream universities and talked about the enthusiastic response he generally received. He claimed to have published this material in secular journals. He then started gushing about how all it would take to refute his ideas is for a scientist to produce a single natural mechanism that could increase the information content of the genome. That's it ?- just one! But they couldn't do it.

I had had enough. I said, loudly enough for everyone to hear, "What effect does a genetic mutation have on the information content of the genome?" Silence fell, as 40 pairs of eyes turned on me. I swallowed hard and continued, "As I'm sure you're aware, genes mutate all the time. So tell me how a simple point mutation changes the information content of the gene."

Gitt gave the standard response that genetic mutation invariably leads to a loss or degradation of information. Alas, in the heat of the moment I did not think of the obvious reply: If a given point mutation (in which a single nucleotide in a gene is replaced with a different nucleotide) results in a loss of information, then the reverse mutation must result in a gain of information. Instead I said, "You keep talking about information going up or information going down. But at no point did you tell us how to measure information. And without such a measure it's not even meaningful to talk about information content increasing or decreasing. Usually when scientists talk about information they have in mind Shannon's concept. When it comes time to measure information, is that what you have in mind?"

He hemmed and hawed a bit but eventually conceded that information can only be quantified at the "Statistical" level and that for the purposes of measuring information that is what was important. So I replied, "If that is what you mean, then there are several well-known mechanisms that can lead to an increase in information content." I proceeded to describe the process of gene duplication and divergence.

He replied with the standard creationist evasion at this point: He argued that duplicating a gene does not produce new information. It's a jaw-dropping reply, since it simply ignores the part where the duplicate gene subsequently mutates.

We went on for several minutes. The highlight for me was when, in response to an argument he made about mutating computer programs, he actually said I made a good point. I felt my mission had been accomplished. I had made it clear that there are answers to his arguments, and everyone had a chance to see that there were people who were unintimidated by them. I couldn't resist one parting shot. "In your reply to the previous gentleman you said that your ideas about information are well-received by other scientists. But even you would have to agree that evolution is the dominant paradigm among scientists. Since you made it clear that your ideas absolutely rule out the possibility of evolution, I don't think it's true that scientists agree with you here."

At this point something amazing happened. Gitt replied that there was no contradiction here because you could accept both God and evolution. I agree completely with that sentiment, but that was definitely not the party line at this conference.

I pressed on. "But we're not talking about God and evolution. We're talking about accepting your particular theories about information on the one hand and evolution on the other. You said explicitly that was impossible. So you were being disingenuous when you told the other fellow that scientists accept your ideas." Gitt shrugged and looked down at the floor. He actually looked abashed! Since I didn't think creationists were capable of shame, I considered this a major victory.

I shook his hand, thanked him for his time and started to walk away. I was mentally patting myself on the back for a job well done, when I heard a middle-aged woman in the crowd say, "You're really very ignorant about biology. You should learn a bit more before you start talking about it." Alas.

RexRed wrote:

Chumly wrote:

Hey Rex,
Do you know about the "seer stones"?

I am not Mormon........

But don't the "seer stones" help prove rocks are alive? I was also wondering if you have looked into perpetual motion machines and if you have any views on the subject.

Perpetual motion machines are a wonder indeed

Even they eventually succumb to the earth's gravity over time...

Exactly -- I got to the Falwell and the 1/3 to 3/4 (the difference is a lot of people!) that believe in creation and it just fortified by own conclusion that 1/3 to 3/4 of the American public are either ignorant, stupid or both.

They are those who are lined up to be on Jay Leno's street intereviews of panel quizzes.

It was at this point that Purdom said the single most insightful thing I heard at the entire conference. She argued that another problem with ID is that it provides no account of poor design. She pointed to pathogenic microbes, carnivorous animals, and viruses. She said that ID makes God Himself the author of such natural evil, instead of original sin being the culprit.

Yes, a thousand times YES! That's exactly right. Once you have God intervening in the world to tinker with his design to bring good things into being ?- like blood clotting cascades and immune systems ?- then he is also responsible for all the bad things. It is inescapable. Score one for the YECs v. the IDers.

Typical RR drivel . . . a "perpetual motion machine" which succumbs to gravity is no perpetual motion machine.

Typical RR drivel . . . a "perpetual motion machine" which succumbs to gravity is no perpetual motion machine.

I have no problem with the concepts of the conservation of energy and of entropy . . . don't bet on RR taking any cognisance of them, howerver.