Information and Genetics

Mark, we are now repeating ourselves which means we are at a dead end. I want serious evidence, not a single change to an algorithm that you claim makes it new. If you get a zit on your face is it a new face, or an altered face? (sorry for the example, I was thinking about the movie Animal House at the moment. )I will also note that you have still failed to give me an example at the genetic level that you would consider a loss of information. Your own view of information by default permits evolution no matter what. Don’t feel bad, it is standard practice of evolutionists to design their arguments to be un-falsifiable.

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Recall that you are claiming that new information in genetic systems is impossible.

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To be specific, my claim is that new information cannot arise naturalistically, ie without a Sender (intelligence).

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Mark: In summary,
1/ You either accept that altered algorithms are new, or face the reality that there is no such thing as a new algorithm, even God couldn’t do it after the first one. It’s impossible, it would just be altered.

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Non-sequitur. Sonar programming is so vastly different than say nylon-ingesting that altering one would not lead to the other. They are each products of programming from the ground up. Ooops, that means creation - can’t admit to that!

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2/ Face the reality that nylon digestion is a useful feature, or accept that your own sonar example isn’t an example of a useful feature.

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You have not made a case showing that nylon digestion is the product of random mutation (the AiG citation shows otherwise - that it is the result of transferred information). Why is it so difficult to cough up with even one solid example? The problem is, there should be a virtually limitless supply if evolution were true.

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[This message has been edited by Fred Williams, 07-16-2002]

Percy, we too are at a dead end. If you insist that a computer is not an intelligent device, or represents intelligence, then what is the point in debating further? Like Mark, you have concocted a version of information that is not falsifiable.Finally, your simulation is fatally flawed. I’ll count the ways:1) GAs cannot generate new information unless intelligence is there to prune it. I have even produced evolutionists who are on the record that GAs are bogus examples of evolution, you only have your opinion to support your claim.
2) Your simulation does not reflect reality. It employs severe truncation selection, yet there is no evidence such selection occurs in nature, and most evolutionists reject such a wild notion.In closing, from Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:Main Entry: intelligence
Pronunciation: in-'te-l&-j&n(t)s
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French, from Latin intelligentia, from intelligent-, intelligens intelligent
Date: 14th century
1 a (1) : the ability to learn or understand or to deal with new or trying situations : REASON; also : the skilled use of reason (2) : the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment or to think abstractly as measured by objective criteria (as tests) b Christian Science : the basic eternal quality of divine Mind c : mental acuteness : SHREWDNESS
2 a : an intelligent entity; especially : ANGEL b : intelligent minds or mind
3 : the act of understanding : COMPREHENSION
4 a : INFORMATION, NEWS b : information concerning an enemy or possible enemy or an area; also : an agency engaged in obtaining such information
5 : the ability to perform computer functions

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Tell me Fred, what is a new algorithm re. Genetic information, then? You’ve just defined it in such a way that evolution cannot match. A genetic sequence mutates, meaning it will only ever be altered.

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As I have stated several times recently, evolutionists who recognize and try to deal with the information problem attempt to get the information required for NDT to produce new algorithms for new functions via gene duplication, then subsequent modifications to that duplicated gene.

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Make a new algorithm out of the above, Fred. You can’t, by your very own definition. Doesn’t matter how intelligent you or God are, you cannot make new algorithm out of the above, it will merely be altered.

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You are putting words in my mouth. I never said an altered program never can become a new program. I said that it is quite unreasonable to view your particular one mutation example (nylon, et al) as a new algorithm. If your boss asked you to report on the enzyme that allows nylon-digesting, which would be more accurate:it is the result of an alteration to the gene that originally encoded for carbohydrate digestion,orit is the result of a new coding sequence in the gene that originally encoded for carbohydrate digestion.By your logic a single bug in a subroutine should deem that subroutine as something new. No, it’s BROKEN. You are trying to call it new because you want new information. You are grasping at straws.

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Say, God took non-sonar sequence & changed it to a sonar producing sequence, the first that ever existed! God only altered the parent sequence, ergo it’s not a new algorithm, & therefore new information wasn’t required to produce sonar.

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This is easily refuted. What if the non-sonar parent sequence does not have enough genome space available for the new sonar sequence? Can you take the opcode space available for a simple program like a basic calculator, alter it and produce PowerPoint? Of course not.Regardless, you continue to miss the primary point. I’ll give it one more try, and this time not even consider the AiG citation that argues it was a transfer of information. In the example you provided, essentially a bit in the program was toggled. In order for it to qualify as an increase in information, we need to know several things.1) To keep things simple, let’s assume a nucleotide change is binary instead of quaternary. So there are two states, 0 and 1. The default, or normal setting is 0, which codes for carbohydrate digestion. Setting 1 codes for nylon. In order for there to be new, or increased information, the original state 0 would have to be the unfavorable state. But it is clear that 0 is the favorable state (in general), and the study confirms that this method is a whopping 98% more efficient. So based on this knowledge, we actually lose information when we go from 0 to 1.
2) Was the mutation random? If so, then from 1) above we can again reasonably conclude that a loss of information occurred. What if the mutation was non-random, that is, environmentally induced? This means there was no net gain or loss of information because the information was already present. I haven’t studied the study you provided in-depth, but from the website you posted my bet is this is a non-random mutation. The author states that it’s been observed more than once. What an un-whitting admission he is making here! Given the odds that this specific mutation would be observable more than once certainly raises eyebrows that this may not be a random event. Another reasonable possibility is that certain portions (hot-spots) of the genome have been pre-programmed for hypermutation during environmental stress to toggle bits in an effort to find a possible combination that improves survival in the degraded environment.

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I will also note that you have still failed to give me an example at the genetic level that you would consider a loss of information. Your own view of information by default permits evolution no matter what. Don’t feel bad, it is standard practice of evolutionists to design their arguments to be un-falsifiable.
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I don’t feel bad, Fred, I did exactly as you asked.

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I do not recall you giving me an example that you would consider info loss. Can you or can’t you? I think this is the third time now I’ve asked. The reason I continue to badger you and Percy for this because I think it gets the core of why you version of information is incorrect. The way you have presented your argument throughout this discussion is that any change is new, or increased information.To conclude, your nylon—wearing bacteria example is simply not a valid case of info gain (or new info). If the mutaiton in question is random, then it’s a classic case of information loss. Regardless of how you view Lee Spetner, he is qualified to speak on information science (he taught it for years at John Hopkins). He has a similar example in his book and explains why it is clearly a loss of info. Sorry to be blunt, but I’ve only seen layman reject Spetner’s claim. I have not seen any evolutionists who are involved in info science question this key concept of information. That is why the informed evolutionists try to get info via gene duplication followed by subsequent mutation/selection of the new gene.

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If we start with 'cat' and modify one letter to make 'bat' is the information conveyed by the second word (to an english speaking individual) new or not ? It's just a modification, but once 'interpreted' to provide information within the recipient isn't it new information ?

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It depends. Was it the intent of the sender? If not, the receiver lost information even in the Shannon sense because of loss of certainty. Is it a typo in a dictionary? Again, a clear loss of information. Is it an intentional addition of a new word to the language by the sender? This would be new information.

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The starlight we see is full of information, but it was not sent by intelligence. And you can attach a message to an arrow and shoot it across a battlefield, but the tree it strikes is not intelligent.

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See my response to Page on tree rings.

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If we refer to the Shannon paper you're so fond of referencing, right on page one he says:
Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem.

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As you somewhat alluded to earlier, when Shannon wrote his paper he was not inventing information theory. His purpose was to establish mathematically communication throughput and efficiency. From his paper developed the modern concept of information as understood by today’s info theorists. It was Shannon’s equivocation that is today viewed as Shannon information.

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I have even produced evolutionists who are on the record that GAs are bogus examples of evolution, you only have your opinion to support your claim.
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But this is the fallacy of argument from authority

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Not if the person has expertise in the field.

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In fact, given time (mainly for applying the selection criteria, since a computer could arrive at E=mc2 in an eyeblink), it's inevitable.

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BINGO! Chance of success = UNITY. NO INFORMATION GAINED! Find me one single info theorist in the world who agrees with you that an experiment guaranteed to reach a pre-determined target has produced new information without a sender. We are at a dead end, Percy. You are flat wrong.

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Those that survive to reproduce on average possessed some advantage

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This is a textbook tautology, rendering the statement useless.

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Mutations that confer an advantage will be selected for.

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Incorrect. Even when evolutionists assume strong selection, they admit that it has at best a 1 in 50 chance of fixation.

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This process is consistent with information theory.

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No it isn’t, because information cannot arise naturalistically. There are no known examples in the universe to counter this law of nature.

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Why cut ourselves off from this learning opportunity by instead engaging in the fallacy of appeal to authority?

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My understanding of the fallacy of appeal to authority is that it is typically viewed as a fallacy only when the authority is not really an authority on the subject being appealed to. That being said, I assure you that you would be very hard-pressed to find any scientist in the field of information or communications who would state that a tree ring represents a code. This is not a fallacy, but a statement of fact. Now if I were to say tree rings are not a code because talk.origins says so, this would be the appeal to authority fallacy.

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How is deciphering tree rings to determine age, growth and climate patterns any different than deciphering genomes to determine patterns of inheritance?

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They are quite a bit different. There is no syntax or semantics with tree rings. We can only glean clues as to what patterns might point to, but we cannot be absolutely certain of our interpretation of the evidence. A code on the other hand provides concrete, 100% repeatable validation as to what the syntax and semantics are providing. When we decipher a codon, we know with 100% certainty its corresponding amino acid. For example, we know that CUU always specifies Leucine. We know TGA and TAG specify STOP. We know that ‘goto’ in C++ means to branch to some address. We know that ‘-...’ represents the letter ‘B’ in Morse code, etc. Any code can be used to produce a blueprint to build something. Tree rings cannot convey this type of information. Why? Because they have insufficent syntax and semantics - it’s not a code.

RNA editing is indeed very interesting, but as a programmed sequence it in no way changes the fact that DNA codons have specific amino acid associated with them. The RNA editing occurs after DNA transcription and from what I understand there are specific, targeted sequences that may be edited to produce a distinct but different target amino acid than originally transcribed by the DNA. It is quite an elaborate programming system!If I get a chance I’ll try to run down the article you suggested, as I would be interested to see how the authors try to explain how such a complex system arose via naturalistic processes. It appears from the abstract that they can’t attribute the editing RNA to common ancestry, which seems they are going to instead rely on the oft-used grab bag answer of convergence. For those who don’t know what convergence is, by its very definition it is an anti-evolutionary term. It means that similar traits evolved down independent pathways since common decent cannot be used to explain the trait’s. An example is the eyes of octopus’s and humans, both are remarkably similar but according to evolutionists must have evolved down independent paths since we are too far apart on the evo tree to share a recent common ancestor with the octopus. The hoops you guys must jump through! PS. Mammuthus, would you mind confirming for me wheter or not the authors rely on convergence to explain RNA editing? Thanks.

I disagree. See appeal to authority - logical fallacies - The Skeptic's Dictionary - Skepdic.comA snippet:

The appeal to authority is a fallacy of irrelevance when the authority being cited is not really an authority...

I think the last paragraph relates to the application used in this thread:

Finally, it should be noted that it is not irrelevant to cite an authority to support a claim one is not competent to judge. However, in such cases the authority must be speaking in his or her own field of expertise and the claim should be one that other experts in the field do not generally consider to be controversial. In a field such as physics, it is reasonable to believe a claim about something in physics made by a physicist that most other physicists consider to be true. Presumably, they believe it because there is strong evidence in support of it. Such beliefs could turn out to be false, of course, but it should be obvious that no belief becomes true on the basis of who believes it.

None of the stuff in your list is 'encoded'. There is no syntax, or semantics. Ie a tree ring does not always equal 1 yr.As I mentioned earlier, all codes can produce a blueprint to build something, such as your computer. Can you describe a 'code' in the tree rings (manipulated it if you like) such that it can produce a blueprint of your computer?BTW, that avatar of yours looks pretty nasty. What the heck is it?

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Easy, given a large enough tree. You'd could just make wide dark rings 1, and narrow dark rings 0. Then you could encode anything you like.

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How?

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So presumably by your logic there is nothing 'encoded' on a punch card containing a computer program.

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No, that’s not my logic at all. Of course punch cards contain a code.

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What can you produce from Morse code other than the original encoded text?

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One could easily produce a blueprint using morse code. It’s a language, full of syntax & meaning.

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Similarly from denrochronology you can produce a record of the events which have affected that tree.

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Big whoop. This does not make it a code. Can you use Tree++ to write a program?

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Would you consider a record to have no information encoded on it?

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No. This would be a code. Know which one?

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Or a magnetic tape with a voice recording?

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No. This would also be a code. Know which one?

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The avatar is a beluga whale embryo, isn't he cute!!

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Looks yummy.

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CrashFrog: I don't know, you said I could manipulate the tree. Well, what you could do would be expose the tree to varying growth conditions during it's lifetime so that the rings turned out in the pattern you wanted.

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Ah, so you are programming in a pattern! Perhaps you suspected you were being set up. I was trying to make a point and I hope you see it. Tree rings are not a code unless you manipulate the tree to follow some pattern that you decide the syntax and meaning for. If you could manipulate the rings to produce a language or specifically a code (in your example the code is binary) you could then encode a blueprint for something. This should clearly illustrate why tree rings are not a code.

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Rei: Do you deny the fact that tree rings do, in fact, confirm - accurately - the precise years of catastrophic events?

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I have no idea. Whether or not they confirm precise years does not make tree rings a code! I smell a strawman around the corner

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Rei: However, you seem obsessed that there has to be intent to leave information, to actually leave that information. That is nonsense. Police work would be physically impossible if that were true. Do you think a bank robber means to leave his footprint at the crime scene, or a murderer leave a drop of blood under the victim's fingernails? Of course not. There was no intent involved. It was a side effect of things that happened. When a large tree falls, it fells the underbrush beneath. Flying over a forest, you can use gaps in the woods to determine where large trees have fallen. That's information. Did the tree mean to give you information? Of course not.

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It appears the sensory apparatus attached to my nose is fully functional. Rei, this a strawman. A code is a manifestation of information. I do not deny that tree rings convey a type of information, but this information is certainly not a code!To be honest I can’t believe I am even arguing this. I honestly believe that if I asked any of you here 10 years ago if tree rings are a code, before information science began reeking havoc on Neo-Darwinism, you would have immediately replied of course not! I will also repeat, despite the attempt to label this an appeal to authority fallacy, that I know a good deal of information scientists, both creos and evos, and not one of them thinks tree rings are a code. Only evolutionists debating on internet message boards seem to think so

Hi Mark,

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Would it not be pertinent to define "code"?

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It sure would, and I already did when I first popped in to this thread.In a nutshell, a code is a set of symbols with syntax and meaning that can be used to produce a blueprint to build something.Here is the applicable Webster's definition:3 a : a system of signals or symbols for communication b : a system of symbols (as letters or numbers) used to represent assigned and often secret meanings
4 : GENETIC CODE
5 : a set of instructions for a computer

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all codes are the result of intelligence, DNA is a code, therefore DNA was intelligently designedThis is a fallacy of composition that renders the argument invalid.

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ROTFL!All objects fall when dropped, a rock is an object, therefore the rock will drop.According to Mark, this is a fallacy.

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All that is required to destroy an argument is to show it is guilty of a logical fallacy, the maker of that argument should then cease to make that argument, right?

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I submit that Mark should hereby reject the theory of gravity!

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Trying again at understanding what you're trying to claim, it would appear that you're trying to argue that information that is able to represent something else is a "code", and that such a thing cannot come into existance without design. Is this correct? (added in to make sure that I'm getting it right this time).

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Not exactly. When I refer to ‘code’, I refer to a communication system with a set of symbols that contain syntax and semantics, such as any software program such as C++, the English language, Morse code, etc. A code should be sufficient to produce a blueprint of something, like your computer, or your nose.

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If that is your belief, I think you should check out programs, starting from Tierra up through Avida

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I have checked them out. I need to write an article on this because I can’t count the number of times I’ve answered this on discussion boards. Two points on these genetic algorithms:1) Let me start by saying that genetic algorithms (GAs) like Tierra and Avida are engineering jokes! They really are. While it is no surprise they have found life in the back smoke-rooms of college laboratories (kind of like how the cult movie Rocky Horror Picture Show found a following despite being one dumb movie), in the real world of engineering they are not taken seriously by anyone I know. If an engineer was applying for a job, and mentioned either Tierra or Avida as possible engineering tools, my response would be Uh, thank you. Next applicant please! Even in a few remote cases where they produced a workable FPGA algorithm, invariably the algorithm was highly inefficient and a noise problem.
2) GAs are essentially trial&error experiments. They do not emulate evolution because they do not permit extinction, they invoke unrealistic truncation selection, and they require intelligence to stop the program if they produce anything useful.Even given these non-naturalistic conditions, programs like Tierra and Avida still could not produce a new programming language no matter how long you run them.