What is an ID proponent's basis of comparison? (edited)

Hi Theodoric,We both get a kick in the pants this time. It suddenly struck me last night while doing a little nighttime reading (about Dembski and CSI, ironically) that I'd said "Werner" when I meant "Spetner". I immediately corrected the two posts where I'd referred to "Spetner" as "Werner". Evidently SO responded before I corrected, so he didn't screw up his cut-n-paste. There are timestamps on the messages and the edits that should confirm this.--Percy

That's true, but if you look at your reply you'll see that you've broken up entire explanations into little individual pieces which you address separately. The explanations have to be considered as a whole. Each of your objections only makes sense if the particular little piece you're responding to was all I said. Let me tie it all back together for you, and I'm going to change the example slightly.Say we're walking through the woods and we come to a clearing with several large rocks. I ask you to write down how many rocks are in the clearing, and you do so. Where did the information you wrote down come from? It didn't come from you, right? You couldn't have written down the correct information while your eyes were closed. You could have written some number down and that would still be information, but it wouldn't be the information for the number of rocks in the clearing except by luck.So the information about the number of rocks in the clearing did not come from a mind. There is no natural law that information can only come from a mind.These posts are growing long, so I'm not going to address the secondary issues you raise, but there were a couple significant things: This is the probability of the flagellum genes forming in a single step by chance. We are all in agreement that this would be incredibly unlikely. But these genes didn't come about in a single step by chance. Mutations in bacteria like E. coli (whose flagellum is Dembski's example) occur at the rate of about 10^-8 per base pair per generation. It took many, many steps (generations) followed by natural selection to produce the bacterial flagellum, not one. Fitness and "biological functions" go hand in hand. How sharp a carnivore's teeth are is part of "biological function" and is directly related to fitness. Because the environment selects for fitness it is also selecting the "biological functions" that are the expressions of genes, which are in turn in a continuous process of change due to mutation.--Percy

The problem is that your objections often miss the point because you focus on each little brush stroke and never see the bigger picture. You see only little needle stitches and miss the larger fabric. Recall that with eyes closed you could not have written down the number of rocks. That's because the information didn't come from you. The information came from the rocks and was communicated to you via light. There is no law that states that information can only come from a mind. I know that Gitt and Spetner tell you this, but as I said before, their ideas are not based upon any research or mathematics. Instead of labeling this slander this time just provide references to their research papers. You compared two algorithms, random and evolution. Evolution is informed by the environment, random is not, and therefore evolution has more information available to it and doesn't violate the NFL theorem.Let me illustrate with a simple example. We have bacteria in a petri dish whose growth medium is deficient in a necessary nutrient but abundant in another nutrient that the bacteria are unable to metabolize. The bacteria experience new random mutations with each generation.The random algorithm randomly selects which bacteria get to contribute to the next generation. Any bacterium that may have experienced a mutation that allows it to metabolize the abundant nutrient has only a random chance of being selected to pass on its genes.The evolutionary algorithm selects bacteria on the basis of how successful they are in their environment. Now any bacteria with a mutation allowing them to metabolize the abundant nutrient will thrive and be very likely to pass their genes on to the next generation. This is how evolution outperforms random. Sickle cell anemia is part of biological function which allows those with only one copy of the gene to be more resistant to malaria and therefore to be more likely to survive to reproduce in their environment, an increase in fitness.You can't separate fitness from biological function. They are intimately related. An organism is the sum total of its biological functions and their interactions, and how well that organism fares in its environment is a measure of fitness. Nature selects according to how successfully an organism competes within its environment. If sharper teeth allow it to better compete then whatever genes are responsible for the sharper teeth will be passed on to its descendants. If a "more powerful ATP synthase" allow it compete better then that too will be passed on to its descendants.But lets look at the flip side. Let's say that the organism is not a predator but a leaf eater. Sharper teeth might in that case make it less competitive since the sharper teeth tend more to slice and dice the leaves but not to mash them properly, which let's say is helpful to this organism's digestion. Unable to derive enough nutrition from its leaf diet, and in addition burdened with frequent indigestion, it never finds a mate and the mutation dies with it. This, too, is evolution in action.--PercyEdited by Percy, : Spelling.

Again, recall that with eyes closed you could not know the number of rocks. You had to look at the rocks in order to know how many there were. The information about the number of rocks did not originate with you. You did not create the information about the number of rocks. You merely translated the information about the number of rocks that was encoded into the light reaching your eyes into information on a piece of paper.Here's another way of looking at it. Let's say you ask me to go into the woods and count for you the number of rocks in the first clearing I come to. I do this and find a clearing with three large rocks. I decide to communicate this information to you by going to your house and dragging three large rocks into your front yard. You then look at these three rocks and know that there were three rocks in the clearing. If your view about information were correct then when you look at three rocks that a person dragged in, that it would be information communicated to you, but when you look at three rocks that natural forces just happened to leave there then that would be information you created yourself. That's contradictory and makes no sense. Three rocks are three rocks, no matter who or what put them there and no matter whether there was any conscious intent involved. You think that information includes meaning and I don't. If we're talking about Shannon information then you're wrong. If we're talking about Gitt information then I'm wrong. But Shannon information is the only definition that has any scientific legitimacy. If you think otherwise then just provide references to Gitt's research papers. I can save you the time, though. If you go to Google Schoolar and look up Werner Gitt you'll find these papers (I only include the ones in English) appear first:

• In the Beginning Was Information (Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung)
  ​
• What About The Other Religions? (Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung)
  ​
• Wonder of man (Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung)
  ​
• Information, science and biology (Creation Ministries International)
  ​
• Stars and Their Purpose: Signposts in Space (Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung)
  ​
• Dazzling desing in miniature (Creation ex nihilo)
  ​
• Did God use Evolution? (Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung)

"Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung" means "Christian Literature Distribution". So only Christian organizations publish Werner Gitt's papers. There's been no scientific peer review, no publication in scientific journals, no acceptance within the scientific community. And in fact, if you look at the Abel/Trevors, the Durston, and the Capra papers, you'll find that Gitt isn't referenced. Scientifically he's a non-entity.Now I went through all this only to show that Gitt's views are not currently accepted within the scientific community. It isn't that he's wrong, but that he hasn't yet been found right. You shouldn't be citing Gitt as if his views had any legitimacy, because that is not the case. You shouldn't be reciting Gitt's list from statistics to apobetics and saying, "That's what information is," because it's only what Gitt says information is. No one in science agrees, and since he's never published in any scientific journals, Gitt isn't even offering his ideas to the scientific community for consideration.What we have that is quantifiable is Shannon information. Well, let's be less equivocal about this. As far as selecting the fittest, natural selection is orders of magnitude superior to random selection. Evolution doesn't proceed in jumps of new biological functions. The bacteria in each new generation experience mutations that make them only very, very slightly different from the previous generation. It is these very slight differences that are being acted upon by natural selection. Completely new biological functions arising in a single generation are extremely unlikely to occur and be submitted to the selection mechanism, whether it be random selection or natural selection. Blood has a biological function (a number of them, actually), and sickle cell anemia affects its function. It worsens its ability to distribute nutrients to the body, and it improves its ability to provide resistance to maleria. This could only be true if fitness were not a function of the biological functioning of organisms. But the two are intimately related. It could be no other way. A change in a gene causes a change in the protein it builds which causes a change in in the way the teeth form which is a change in biologic function. This change in the biology function forming the teeth causes a change in their sharpness which has an effect on fitness.Biological functions are expressed outwardly by the organism, and this outward expression affects fitness.--Percy

That you keep saying this makes no sense. If the only information about the number of rocks were inside you then you would know it with your eyes closed. But you don't. You have to open your eyes and look at the rocks before you know how many there are. Without information flowing to you from your environment it isn't possible for you to know anything about it. I already know you think that information can only be created by an intelligence. In response to examples illustrating that this is not so you're just repeating this baseless assertion over and over again.Let me try again, and hopefully this time you'll respond with an explanation rather than another unsupported declaration.If I record the number of rocks in the clearing on a piece of paper and hand it to you, then you can read that piece of paper and now information is being communicated from the paper to you. If I instead record the information by dragging three rocks into your yard to indicate the number, these rocks communicate information to you about the number of rocks in the clearing.But what if the rocks were in *my* yard and you don't know how they got there. You'll see the three rocks and know that therefore there were three rocks in the clearing, and it doesn't matter whether I put them there or they were always there. You're again breaking up longer explanations into little unrelated pixels and thereby failing to grasp what is being said. That statement you just replied to was part of a longer explanation about how we're actually using two different definitions of information. I say you're wrong about meaning being part of information, and I'm talking about Shannon information. You say I'm wrong to exclude meaning from information, and you're talking about Gitt information.The real issue is whether there's any validity to Gitt information, and I explained that there is not. Your response basically comes down to, "Is too!" You keep issuing this bald statement but never supporting it. If information theory can't be applied to DNA (and a broad range of other areas, including physics and chemistry) then explain how this is wrong (you might recognize this example, I keep repeating it along with requests for you to address it beyond saying, "No, you're wrong."): Moving on: You're your own worst enemy. This is a general definition of information, and it attempts to cover its meaning in a number of different contexts. One of the meanings it covers is Shannon information. Gitt information and apobetics and all that is nowhere to be found in that article. Gee, now why would that be? Keeping in mind that I was contrasting Shannon and Gitt information, of the two, Shannon information is the only one with any scientific legitimacy. Yes, that's a fact. As I said before, Gitt has never even submitted his ideas to scientific journals. All his work is published by Christian and creationist organizations. I *have* refuted Gitt's positions. You're response to the refutations has in effect been, "No, you're wrong." First, no, we're not talking about general definitions of information. We're talking about Gitt information versus Shannon information. Here's another refutation to Gitt information: Gitt information states that the information in DNA that codes for proteins has meaning. He further states that only an intelligence can create new information because only an intelligence can create meaning. However, he can't quantify meaning, so he cannot compare the amount of meaning before and after a mutation, and so has no way to know whether the meaning has increased or decreased. Therefore he can't demonstrate that only an intelligence can create information. Yes, really. Evolution is far superior to random. Here's why.Let's say our population of bacteria numbers 10⁹, and that its DNA has 10⁶ base pairs. With a mutation rate of 10^-8 per base pair per generation, one out of a hundred bacteria will experience a mutation each generation, which means that if the population remains level that 10⁷ bacteria in each generation will have a single mutation (this is only approximate, I'm not going to go through the actual precise math).If we assume that it only takes a single point mutation to evolve the ability to metabolize the alternative and abundant nutrient, then once in every hundred generations one of the bacteria will experience the necessary mutation. If the time it takes for a generation is 20 minutes, then the necessary mutation will appear every 33 hours.In order for the population to remain constant, half the bacteria in each generation must die. In your random algorithm the bacterium with the necessary mutation has only a 50% chance of being selected. If it survives then in the next generation the two bacteria have a 25% chance of both not making it to the next generation. The math gets more complicated after that because of the number of permutations.In the evolution algorithm with the mutated bacterium's advantage of being able to metabolize the abundant nutrient it has a nearly 100% chance of being selected. Gee, you don't sound bored anymore!Have you ever considered the possibility that you're the one who's not getting it? Just a thought. Gee, I directly addressed this in the message you're replying to. Quoting myself in Message 284, I said: In other words, there's no such thing as new biological functions. There's only functions that are very slightly changed. Yes, this is correct. Evolution is undirected. It selects what is best for survival in the current generation under the current environmental conditions. Evolution has no idea where it is going, it has no goal beyond survival in the present, but it has to end up somewhere. Each possible somewhere is incredibly unlikely, but no particular somewhere was preselected. The odds of arriving at one of the possible somewheres is 100%.Here's another way to look at the odds. Given all the possibilities and options and choices in your life, what are the chances that you'd be where you are right now reading this message? Pretty tiny, right? But you have to be somewhere, and this is where you ended up, no matter how unlikely it might be. The odds of you ending up at one of the possible outcomes in your life is again 100%.--Percy

Hi Smooth Operator,I'm a little reluctant to reply because we've gotten to the point where I'm having trouble avoiding explaining to you what an explanation is, but I'll give this a try anyway. You keep saying this, but it obviously isn't true. If I express the number 3 using pencil and paper, then that's information. If I instead express the number 3 by dragging rocks into position, then that's information, too. And if the rocks already happen to be in position by luck, then that, too, is information.Now I understand you think this is wrong, but you need to explain why. So far all you're doing is repeating simple declarations like "That's not information" or "Rocks just represent themselves." Restating your position several different ways is not an explanation. I think what you actually need to do here is address my explanation about why Gitt's views have not found any acceptance within the scientific community. You can find that explanation in Message 287. Have you thought this through? How can views never presented to the scientific community become accepted by the scientific community? Gitt's views have no legitimacy within the scientific community. That's not why he's wrong, but that's why you shouldn't be touting Gitt as if his views were widely accepted. They're not.The reason why Gitt is wrong is because he makes claims he can't support. He claims that meaning is part of information, and that information cannot be created without an intelligence, but he can't quantify his information with meaning, so how would he know? He doesn't. He simply declares that it is so. Dembski's supposed CSI is just the probability of a protein forming at random from constituent molecules. How is this a measure of information that includes meaning? How is it a measure of information at all? You're somehow looking at this backwards. Deleterious mutations is where natural selection really shines versus random selection. According to random selection, a bacterium with a deleterious mutation, even a deadly one, would be as likely to be selected for survival to the next generation as any other bacterium. With random selection, deleterious mutations would quickly accumulate and overwhelm the population, probably wiping it out in short order.But the type of selection provided by evolution, natural selection, allows bacteria to contribute to the next generation according to fitness. The more beneficial the mutation, the more likely the bacteria is to contribute to the next generation. The less beneficial, the less likely. Because it is much more likely for a mutation to be deleterious than beneficial, it is deleterious mutations that allow natural selection to outperform random selection by so manner orders of magnitude. You've managed to completely misinterpret the Crow paper. His concern isn't that natural selection is allowing the accumulation of deleterious mutations. His concern is that modern technologies and medicine have insulated human beings, particular those in western style societies, from the normal effects of natural selection, and so deleterious mutations that in more primitive times would have been removed from the population are now propagating freely. Were we once again exposed to nature in the wild instead of life in environmentally controlled homes with access to modern medical care, those mutations would be again exposed to the forces of natural selection. As Crow himself says: Moving on to the Kimura paper: Neutral mutations both accumulate and are removed. The paper is about how what he calls "selective constraint" allows the neutral mutation model to better describe what is actually observed in nature. "Selective constraint" is his term for natural selection selecting against mutations that cause a decline in fitness, however slight. Regardless why you keep saying that fitness and new functions are not correlated, you've got to stop saying it because it makes no sense. It's like saying that any changes in a car's performance is uncorrelated to any changes you make to its engine, transmission, suspension, brakes or aerodynamics. And that's precisely what evolution does, one little step at a time.--Percy