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

Yes, exactly!In case it helps SO, let me repeat what you just said in a slightly different way:The way that information theory looks at this is that the nurse needs to communicate a message from a set of messages. In this case the set is closed (finite), and the messages of that set are:

• It's a boy
• It's a girl

The size of the message set is 2, so the number of bits necessary to communicate this information is:

log₂2 = 1 bit

It doesn't matter how many words are actually used to communicate this message ("We'd like to congratulate you on the birth of a son..."), you're still only communicating a single bit of information.One might note that the message set is insufficient for describing the full range of possibilities, and that in reality we need an open at at least a larger set:

• It's a boy
• It's a girl
• It's two boys
• It's two girls
• It's a boy and a girl
• It's three boys
• ...

--PercyEdited by Percy, : Typo.

I think he should require (not necessarily demand) that Darwinism needs to be explained on a biochemical level. Why? Random mutations occur on a lilliputian biochemical level. It all starts from there and if Darwinists can't do this, Darwinists can show me a series of mammals that illustrate whale evolution and I could say, "I see that there appears to be descent with modification but how do I know it happened by natural selection acting on ramdom mutations?"Also, I don't believe in your "Behe's extravagant demands" in defense of evolution. The same defense could have been used as a defense of various other scientific theories that may seemed to explain the evidence at the time. I was indirectly referring to page 13 of "Darwin's Black Box" subtitled LITTLE JUMPS, BIG JUMPS. There are large hurdles for Darwin in biochemistry such as IC systems. Also there are hurdles for other biochemical pathways that are not necessarily IC complex as explained in "Darwin's Black Box".I don't believe it when someone tells me that Behe doesn't read the journals. On page 136 and 137 Behe quotes from "Molecular Evolution of the Vertebrate Immune System". It is one-sided but that would be assuming that it is impossible for an intelligent designer to build complex systems. Obviously it would be relevant if someone could produce a unambiguous route that can build a flagellum. It is interesting that a creator would leave just enough evidence of an existence as seen in biochemistry. Although I don't pretend to understand most of it. My guess is that larger more complex organisms are a lot more subject to the forces of chaos and change so evidence of design can be blurred within the chaos. Maybe many of them are. Maybe one author could do both. I don't know if Richard Dawkins is more interested in advancing atheism or science.

That's because our side is always right.But seriously, I think it's more praiseworthy if it concerns creationists because they have dogma's and infallibility to overcome. The other side usually prides itself in being able to admit fault.

I have room to change or alter my positions on ID. I maybe wrong but is ID wrong? Obviously I am not ID and there are those who can debate it much better than me. Creationists can't afford to be flexible. I can move my goal posts. I wonder what goal posts the Darwinists have?

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I think he should require (not necessarily demand) that Darwinism needs to be explained on a biochemical level.

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THere is a difference between expecting scientists to do productive work on investigating how evolution does occur and has occurred. It is quite another to reject evolution in any particular case until every little detail has been worked out.

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...Darwinists can show me a series of mammals that illustrate whale evolution and I could say, "I see that there appears to be descent with modification but how do I know it happened by natural selection acting on ramdom mutations?"

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Scientifically we must stick with known mechanisms until they are shown to be inadequate. If you wish to take a faith position to the contrary that is your business. But you would have no business demanding that your opinion has any place in science classes.

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Also, I don't believe in your "Behe's extravagant demands" in defense of evolution. The same defense could have been used as a defense of various other scientific theories that may seemed to explain the evidence at the time.

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What you are saying here is unclear. Are you suggesting that Behe's argument is valid because it could be used to defend a correct position ? Or do you believe that all opponents of established scientific theories must make unreasonable and entirely one-sided demands ? Or is it something else entirely ?

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I was indirectly referring to page 13 of "Darwin's Black Box" subtitled LITTLE JUMPS, BIG JUMPS. There are large hurdles for Darwin in biochemistry such as IC systems. Also there are hurdles for other biochemical pathways that are not necessarily IC complex as explained in "Darwin's Black Box".

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No, that was what you wrote before the part I questioned. It should be easy to work out the part I was referring to because I quoted it.

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I don't believe it when someone tells me that Behe doesn't read the journals. On page 136 and 137 Behe quotes from "Molecular Evolution of the Vertebrate Immune System".

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I didn't say that Behe didn't read the Journals so I am not sure why you bring this point up.

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It is one-sided but that would be assuming that it is impossible for an intelligent designer to build complex systems.

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Well there is a massive non-sequitur. I think it is becoming clear who has the problems with bias.

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Obviously it would be relevant if someone could produce a unambiguous route that can build a flagellum.

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Well, no it wouldn't be. The question is whether Behe claimed that it was impossible for IC systems to evolve. What somebody else does could hardly change Behe's words.

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It is interesting that a creator would leave just enough evidence of an existence as seen in biochemistry.

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By which you mean that the designer should leave so little evidence that you have to rely on a designer-of-the-gaps argument, Just as if there were no designer after all !

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Maybe many of them are. Maybe one author could do both. I don't know if Richard Dawkins is more interested in advancing atheism or science.

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So far as I know, Dawkins hasn't been a working scientist for quite a long time.But as we know even if a scientist were inclined to present the speculative model that you are asking for, IDists would damn them for presenting a speculative model. So why make the effort, instead of keeping on working as they have been ?

Good for you. That's the attitude I complimented you for. You had said something like that before somewhere else, and I was thinking of complimenting you then, but hesitated. This time I did not. That may be so, but if they cannot honestly admit their faults, then I'd rather debate you, who can. I may be missing some of the finer nuances of the English language here - it's not my native language - but I think "moving one's goal posts" is not the thing to do in polite conversation. If you wanted to say that you are prepared to review your position, then I commend you.Meanwhile, this is all rather off topic, so I will say no more about it.

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"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." - Charles Darwin.

Hi SO,You have a couple significant misconceptions about information theory that have to be addressed. You incorrectly believe that:

1. In information theory, information can only come from a mind, an intelligence.
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2. In information theory, information includes meaning.

Taking these in order, let's examine your belief that information can only come from a mind or intelligence. Say I show you a flower and ask you to write down on a piece of paper how many petals it has. Once you've written that information down, where would you say the information came from. You'd answer that you created that information.Now let's say I show you the same flower, but I ask you to close your eyes and write down how many petals it has. You'll respond that you can't do that, you can only guess, that you'll have to see the flower before you can write down how many petals it has.Therefore, the information about the number of petals doesn't come from you, it comes from the flower. It turns out you didn't really create any information at all. It was new information to you, but you didn't create the information. Rather, the information was communicated to you via electromagnetic radiation (light).We can even go beyond this to an example that doesn't involve people at all. How does a flower know to open it's petals in the morning? It knows because the rays of sun communicate to the flower that the sun has risen and day has begun. No mind or intelligence was involved.We can just as easily create examples that don't involve life at all. A pool of water receives information from the sun in the form of electromagnetic radiation and heats up.It would be very convenient for your position if information were something that could only be created by a mind or intelligence, but that's not how it is defined in information theory. The problem of communicating information is one of sending one message from a set of possible messages from point A to point B. There's nothing in information theory about message sets only being created by minds, or that only minds can send and receive information.Now let's examine your belief that information theory includes meaning. Most fundamental of all is the statement of Shannon himself that meaning is irrelevant to information, where we of course mean information in the formal sense that it is used in information theory. In his paper A Mathematical Theory of Communication Shannon wrote: I think I've quoted this to you several times now. I know that Spetner and Gitt claim that meaning is part of information theory, but their ideas have not had any influence at all within science. Their only audience is creationists. Their ideas are not underpinned by research and do not have any mathematical foundation.But it isn't just that their ideas have been ignored by science, a simple thought exercise can convince anyone that meaning cannot be quantified. Just think about it. How would you quanity meaning? How much meaning is there in a pebble? A tree? The Mona Lisa? There's no answer. Meaning is an interpretation people make and it is subjective.What would it mean to have an increase in meaning? How would you add to the meaning of the Mona Lisa? Does the Mona Lisa have more or less meaning than the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?Or does the Mona Lisa have more meaning than a human being? Yes? No? Whatever your answer, how did you quantify the meaning so you could do the comparison?Or does the Mona Lisa have more meaning than a chipmunk? Than a fly? Than a bacterium? How would you ever make the comparison?Information theory is a very mathematical science, and our inability to quantify meaning, indeed to objectify it in any way, leaves meaning forever outside its realm.Say you look within the cell to its DNA and think you find meaning there. What is the meaning that you find? Do you find love? Peace? Tranquility? Is the meaning that you find the same meaning that everyone else finds, which is required if there is any objective quality there?The answer is no, of course not, you do not find this kind of meaning there. Meaning is subjective and can't be quantified. Everyone sees a different meaning. Some people see Jesus in a slice of pizza and find it an incredibly meaningful miraculous event, others shrug their shoulders and finish lunch.What you're calling meaning inside DNA is actually no more than what it does. Coding portions of DNA specify sequences of amino acids to be strung together into proteins. For example, the portion of DNA specifying the amino acid sequence for the common protein hemoglobin has no meaning. It's just a specification. There's no meaning.But DNA has plenty of information.You have a few other misconceptions, for example: There is no specific "search target". Whatever increases the chances of reproductive success will be selected. Natural selection is not random. That snowshoe hares turn white in winter is under genetic control. The trait of winter color change to white does not evolve in temperate climates. You can bring brown rabbits north to the Arctic, but they won't turn white in winter.Polar bear are perhaps a more clear example, since their fur is always white. White bears do not evolve in temperate climes.An even better example is the difference in fur color between Arctic and Antarctic baby seals. In the Arctic where there are more predators, especially polar bears, the baby seals of resident species have white fur. In the Antarctic where there are few surface predators, baby seals of resident species have dark fur.And this is because natural selection is not random. Natural selection means that poorly adapted organisms die or produce fewer offspring, while well adpated organisms survive and produce more offspring. The biological world is continually getting more of what works and less of what doesn't. It isn't random. The page displays, but the box for the text of the book is blank. But I played with it a bit more, and if you click on the right arrow of the pair labeld "Naslovnica" then it brings you to the table of contents. Click on the link for me - the same is true for you, right? Blank page, you have to click on that right arrow before any text appears?Anyway, going to page 289 I find chapter section 5.10 titled "Doing the Calculation". It's actually much more than four pages. The first equation doesn't even appear until 297. If you think that Dembski has a method for calculating specified complexity, please describe it here in your own words. So your random algorithm works like this: there's a mutation, and whether or not the mutation makes it to the next generation is random.And evolution works like this: there's a mutation, and whether or not the mutation makes it to the next generation is a function of how well adpated the organism is to its environment.This is consistent with the NFL theorem, because evolution takes more information into account than the random algorith. Evolution includes information about the environment while your random algorithm does not. Could you provide an example of quantifying semantics. For example, how much semantic information is in the sentence, "My house is big?" And what are the units of semantic information. Imagine how tiresome it is to have to actually explain something over and over again. You should try that for a change! By statistics you mean the number of bits required to convey a message? Statistics is the realm of probabilities and so forth. At heart the number of bits required to convey one message from a finite set of messages is deterministic and neither statistical nor probabilistic. Information theory can be very statistical, but not for this very simple portion of it.I've presented you calculations of the number of bits required to transmit a message several times, and you should address yourself to these calculations since that's what you claim you're talking about. The example is one of a gene of 3 alleles experiencing a mutation to then have 4 alleles. The message set for that gene has grown from 3 to 4, and the number of bits necessary to communicate a message from that message set has changed in this way:

log₂3 = 1.585 bits
log₂4 = 2 bits
2 bits - 1.585 bits = .415 bits
Information has increased by .415 bits

If you're going to issue complaints like this be sure you're looking in a mirror when you make them. What you said was: I can only go by what you said, which was that D appearing (a new mutation appearing) has never been observed.In trying to understand someone, one usually tries harder to make sense of people who have a history of saying sensible things. But you haven't been making much sense here, nor explaining very much either, and in another thread you're arguing for geocentrism, so when you appear to be saying something nonsensical like that new mutations have never been observed, then you've got to expect that as wrong as that sounds that people are going to assume you meant precisely what you appeared to be saying.In other words, when you build a reputation for saying outlandish things, don't expect that people will be spending much effort looking for sense in the nonsense.Still bored? --PercyEdited by Percy, : Fix quote.Edited by Percy, : Got a name wrong, "Werner" => "Spetner"

It is not that he or I am rejecting evolution based on any particular case. It is that we reject it based on numerous cases. You know this man. What you are wrote is rhetorical. Where does a theory become inadequate? I'm sure your science will never allow any possibility of an IDer to become involved in an explanation. "Science is the only methodology can can find truth and science cannot find god so if you believe that god doesn't exist, then this is not the truth." Prove that statement with the scientific method. What I am saying is that using the "extravagant demands" argument could be used as a defense for anything even if that something isn't considered to be valid. For example, "I don't like you attacking my beliefs in spontaneous generation because you are making extravagant demands from me." Of course Darwinism explains things better than spontaneous generation but it just used it as part of an illustration. It wasn't you. If that was true then there wouldn't be intelligent people arguing all of this with others. It could mean that the designer wanted to hide himself or herself from humanity. Why? Are they really that concerned about what the IDists do?

I'm sure some people from other countries have made fun of Americans who are obsessed with football. A football kicker may kick the ball through the goal posts. There is nothing impolite about it as far as I know.

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It is not that he or I am rejecting evolution based on any particular case. It is that we reject it based on numerous cases. You know this man.

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You either misunderstand me or badly misunderstand Behe. Behe does not deny that some evolution happens, nor does he deny common descent. He ONLY rejects evolution in particular cases. Yet his reasons for doing so have more to do with a strong personal bias than the weight of the evidence.

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What you are wrote is rhetorical.

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No, it is factual.

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Where does a theory become inadequate?

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A well-established theory very rarely becomes inadequate - and never because we have not yet worked out all the details of how it accounts for past events. More typically a theory is replaced by a better theory. But ID has nothing to offer.

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I'm sure your science will never allow any possibility of an IDer to become involved in an explanation.

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I am sure that if that is true there will be very good reasons.

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"Science is the only methodology can can find truth and science cannot find god so if you believe that god doesn't exist, then this is not the truth." Prove that statement with the scientific method.

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Since I have never claimed that, then why should I care about proving it ?

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What I am saying is that using the "extravagant demands" argument could be used as a defense for anything even if that something isn't considered to be valid. or example, "I don't like you attacking my beliefs in spontaneous generation because you are making extravagant demands from me."

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Of course it can't be honestly used against any argument. Because it relies on the opponents actually making extravagant demands. As Behe is doing.

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It wasn't you.

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Then why bring it up in a post addressed to me ?

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If that was true then there wouldn't be intelligent people arguing all of this with others.

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But it is true. Behe is explicitly appealing to the fact that we have not fully developed evolutionary explanations for complex (and ancient)_ biochemical systems. Yet evolutionary scientists are continuing to work on the problem and continuing to develop answers. This argument is no safer than the argument Behe uses to use against whale evolution - relying on an absence of intermediate fossils (I have no doubt that the discovery of those fossils was one of the things that started Behe moving towards acceptance of common descent).

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It could mean that the designer wanted to hide himself or herself from humanity. Why?

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Maybe because there is no designer. But then again ID is very reluctant to talk about why their designer did whatever they think he she or it did (and they don't even agree on that).

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Are they really that concerned about what the IDists do?

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Anyone who produces a scenario in reaction to IDist claims is clearly concerned about what they do. You can't have it both ways.

"Moving the goalposts" is a debate tactic that is not intellectually honest.It means that a debater may issue a challenge, e.g.,"Show me a case where a new species has been seen to arise."This is shown and the debater replies with:
"Ah, but that is still a dog/rat/worm or whatever." They are now asking for something at a higher taxon than species.In other words the original requirement is met and instead of acknowledging that the debater "moves the goal posts" to some other requirement. This is a very common practice in the evolution vs creation debate by the creationists.It is intellectually dishonest.

The point about the moving of goalposts is that it is bad form for the team whose goal it is to move it just before the ball goes between the posts. Or if you prefer to be the kicker, it would be unfair surely to adjust your opponents goal posts to be twice as wide apart as your own?TTFN,WK

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No, no, no! You don't get it. I'll put it in a different format, maybe you'll get it then.

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First we have:

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"MY HOUSE IS BIG"

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By duplication we get:

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"MY HOUSE IS BIGMY HOUSE IS BIG"

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Then the second H is replaced by an M:

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"MY HOUSE IS BIGMY MOUSE IS BIG"

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This sentence is longer and contains more information. Moreover, it contains new information.

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Yes, now it contains everything it needs to be new information. But the problem is, this does not happen by the influence of matter itself in real life.

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I'd say that random mutations cause the genome to change, not necessarily to deteriorate. And next, selection kicks in, selecting those changes that do well, while weeding out those that do not.

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No, it doesn't work that way. It only works if you do it. Mutations either modify the genome to have a different expression of genes, with the same informational content, or they deteriorate it. There are no adding of information. And the selection can't help you because of the NFL theorem.

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My sentence "MY MOUSE IS BIG" would fit in there nicely. If the selection pressure was about correct sentences, then most of them would not be selected, but "MY MOUSE IS BIG" most certainly would. ("MA HOUSE IS BIG" might also be selected for, if we happened to be in, say, Arkansas.)

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Do you now understand what I mean?

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Yes I do. But do you understand that this does not happen in real life, because evolution does not know what it is supposed to pick? And if it doesn't it's going to select what has the best fitness on average. But fitness is not corelated with new information, so it's useless.

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Odd how you suddenly fail to understand the argument.
It is purely negative because it relies solely on eliminating alternatives. No positive design hypothesis is stated, nor is any argument made for it.

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It's a deductive argument. You remove all teh possibilities, and the only logical alternative that is left is design. Becasue intelligence is known to make CSI. So that is called the inference to the best explanation. That is the positive part of the argument.

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No. In fact that whole claim that IC systems are CSI is based on the assumed impossibility of evolving IC systems. Even though Behe - the supposed authority behind the claim - doesn't even agree.

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Forget about IC systems. I'm talking about NFL theorems.

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That sounds like a pretty clear example of a "fabrication". And it is not even adequate for Dembski's actual calculation (there is nothing for the "configuration" aspect, for instance),

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No, it's not since we can describe all the aspects of the flagellum without looking at it in advance.

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Even if you were correct, that would still be invalid. The NFL theorems do not (and obviously cannot) show that evolution can never work.

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That is precisely what they do show. They show that without intelligent input, any algorithm, including evolution, works as good as blind chance.

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I was answering your false assertion that the use of the event to derive a specification was invalid. I note that you implicitly acknowledge that that assertion was false.

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We use the event that happened to detect design, but we have to have prior knowledge of that pattern.

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However I note that you have helped prove my initial point - that in real design detection cases we use positive evidence when we can. The fact that Caputo supported the Democrats and was in a position of authority that might have enabled him to rig the draw is indeed relevant - but it is not part of Dembski's Design Inference. That method avoids any talk of possible designers. You automatically appeal to that circumstantial evidence, just as I said.

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Caputo is the designer.

I did a double take. Where I come from the opponents would be delighted to have the goals widened. --PercyEdited by Percy, : Grammar.