What exactly is ID?

Hi Sky,As I pointed out in Message 596, this is thread is past 600 messages, far past the time when it is appropriate to just state a position. Now you're replying to Message 1 as if the discussion were just beginning.I'm going to suspend you for 24 hours.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

You bet, Author. And let me thank you for asking me so politely. I appreciate that very much. First let me apologize to all, there were only two specific posts in this thread where I gave the same example of csi. I had thought there were more but I must have been thinking of another thread. I alluded to the precise arrangement of nucleotides in DNA in post 541, and then as you said, I stated that example again in Message 542. When you say that Paulk already replied to that post, yes there was an acknowledgment that he read the post. But I disagree that he genuinely replied. He claimed I was "confusing two different concepts," but never bothered to point out how exactly. In fact, in my post I had pointed out how even evolutionists refer to the code in DNA as information. And then I proceed to explain that there is in fact a meaningful way to measure the amount of information. I also even pointed out how scientists at SETI would consider information, not near as complex (if received from outer space), to be from an intelligent source.I think that is what is truly ironic about this whole thing. Scientists will accept that ET might be the origin of a simple string of prime numbers, but those same scientists would turn around and look at a complex program in the DNA of a cell and say, "It formed from random unguided processes and natural selection." Then Paul goes on to draw the line in the sand and says its either Dembski's way or my way. Firstly I don't respond well to impoliteness. Secondly I know where that tactic leads Author. If side with some scientist that they think is a quack, then they proceed to throw up a barrage of attacks against the person to make him look like a quack, and thus they leave the impression that anything that came from that person is invalid. Therefore I refuse to acknowledge or align myself with any persons. If I hear an argument that I find valid, I will present it and insist that it be rebutted on the merits of the argument alone.Edited by Brad H, : No reason given.

Hi Brad H,Please do not respond to this message. I'm not looking to become involved in the discussion. It would be inappropriate for a moderator to become a participant in a discussion.Again, your Message 542 reads like an outline of an interesting hypothesis. It does not seem to be a method by which one could recognize the involvement of an intelligence. For example, you cite prime number sequences as being an indication of intelligence, and regardless of how much merit people think this has, most things, including DNA, do not contain prime number sequences.Also, you interpreted the Wikipedia article as saying the sequence of counting numbers is predictable and wouldn't indicate intelligence, but I think if SETI detected the sequence of counting numbers coming from space that they'd give serious consideration to the possibility of an intelligent source.What I think people like PaulK are looking for is a description of a specific process or methodology for assessing the degree of involvement of an intelligence, or at least an example.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

But the phrase now ineluctably refers to one particular concept.If, sojourning in the town of Wellington, you invented a dish of which the main component was beef, then you would be ill-advised to market it as "Beef Wellington", because this might even render you liable to prosecution.Or if you thought up a theory which was general and involved relativity in some way, then it would still be misleading to refer to it as "the general theory of relativity", because that phrase has been taken by Einstein to refer to his idea. It could only cause confusion.It is possible that it is your aim to cause confusion, but I have always charitably assumed that creationists do that by accident.I suggest that at the very least you refer to your new concept as "Brad-H-CSI", or BHCSI for short, to make it clear that you are not discussing the same concept that everyone else partaking in this debate knows by the name CSI.I also suggest that you please, pretty please, tell us how to measure it. What I should like from you is some method where I put in a sequence of DNA bases and get out a measure of BHCSI. Thank you.Until then, you've got nothing. You've got a sort of pop-science explanation of the sort of thing that you'd like to be talking about, without having the thing itself.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And it couldn't possibly be recorded wrong in the bible because? While I don't agree with your course of action (and yes, I'm an atheist), here you go. It just did. Tells you something about faith, doesn't it? Well, guess he never was then. Since I just provided you evidence of a mutation that increased information in the genome (as it added something that wasn't therer before), and also is a survival advantage (the bacteria can now digest stuff it couldn't at first), I guess your personal relationship with christ isn't all that you make it out to be.

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I hunt for the truthI am the one Orgasmatron, the outstretched grasping hand
My image is of agony, my servants rape the land
Obsequious and arrogant, clandestine and vain
Two thousand years of misery, of torture in my name
Hypocrisy made paramount, paranoia the law
My name is called religion, sadistic, sacred whore.
-Lyrics by Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead

No you have not. Please show me where you have, if I have missed it.

I am going to try to phrase this as politely as I can without being reduced to dishonesty.Brad, I did at least point out that Dembski was using different definitions of both "Complex" and "Information". If you wanted more details then this thread, at least would be an appropriate place to ask for them. You did not.In fact you went on to claim that you had provided examples of Dembski's CSI, complete with arguments demonstrating that fact. However, as it turns out not only had you not done so, you do not even know if your examples fitted Dembski's definition nor how to provide the demonstrations that you claimed to have already given. In short you had absolutely no valid reason to think that your claim was true.And if you think that it is rude to be told that you should settle on a single definition for your arguments - well the fact is that it was necessary. We cannot have a rational discussion concerning CSI until we know what you mean by it. I hope that you are not going to say that your arguments rely on switching between different meanings whenever it happens to be convenient, but that was what you were in effect doing. And if it was not deliberate you needed to be told to stop.

Well of course. In science, "information" does not mean "information created by an intelligent source". Indeed, it doesn't mean that in normal English. And I would still be grateful if you would elaborate on this theme. And I'll tell you something else "truly ironic". Scientists attribute simple crude notches in a stick to an intelligent cause: ... but show them something beautiful and complex like this: ... and they attribute it to purely natural causes.How silly of them! ... oh, wait, they're right, aren't they?In the particular case you instance, we understand how natural processes are responsible for genes. But a sequence of primes coming from outer space would be inexplicable.Indeed, it would be inexplicable in the genome. Find me a sequence of DNA that encodes the first thousand primes, in a format as follows: ... and I shall freely confess the absence of any naturalistic explanation.

Don't talk down to me Jesus freak, you haven't earned the right. DNA is not put there for the sole purpose of our use. It has use... AS DNA.

If I made up a story about a new prophet which had all these features:- Born to a virgin
- Walked on Water
- Cured the blind
- Healed the sick
- Was called the Sheppard
- Raised Lazarus from the dead
- Born under a star
- Heralded by angels
- Died on a cross
- Descended into Hell and rose again
etcIf I presented to you such a story from the year 1,000 AD rather than from 0. Would you accept it as also true along with Jesus
-or-
Would you reject it as not being true in favor of the Jesus story?Why or why not?

Hey, evolutionists, could we knock it off with the attitude (you know who you are). This is not a case of a guy who for umpteenth years has been making the same stupid (in your opinion) argument. This is a new guy. Yes, it's the same stupid (in your opinion) argument, but you don't yet know what will happen as he's presented and gradually grasps your own arguments.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Hi Nuggin,I know Brad H started it, but could you please find another thread to pursue this particular avenue? Thanks.

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--	Percy
	EvC Forum Director

Agreed, I'll start a new thread.Can I expect to see you there Brad?

Why should you? For once I am in agreement with the moderators.If Brad H wants to go off topic, that's no reason why we should help him to do so.He can if he likes. He should indeed start a new thread if he can't cut it on this one. But that's up to him.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe you refer to my message 579 here. I think there has been some misunderstanding here Paul. I apologize for not being more clear. You had stated... To which I replied... Merely meaning that, I do have examples of csi (nucleotide arrangement), and I had already given them as an example. Again I don't either align myself with nor do I distance myself from Dembski or any other ID scientist. If my terms bare a striking resemblance to or are taken from something I may or may not have read or heard one of them say, I don't know or really care. I know when I use an English word, I always mean it in the sense that it is most often used in the English speaking population. And when, on rare occasions, I mean something else I usually try to clarify as to what I mean.So just for the record let me clarify what I mean when I say Complex Specified Information. I am referring to anything of a highly intricate nature that is arranged in a specific order to serve the sole purpose of relaying instructions to another system, through the activation of one possibility to the exclusion of several others.Percy mentioned that you were looking for me to give a method by which one can recognize csi as opposed to purely natural phenomenon. Like some kind of meter that we can plug into any situation and see the needle swing left for natural or right for intelligent. First we have to understand that intelligence is the ability to make a choice and that information from that intelligence is the choice of activation of at least one possibility to the exclusion of several others. And that activation must be recognized to mean something by both the transmitter and the receiver. And finally for a third party (humans) to detect that information, we also have to be able to understand the meaning of the conditions that were activated. I mentioned logs on a beach, the other day, arranged to read, "Marooned... please send help." If I were from China and did not speak a word of English, the logs would appear to be arranged in purely a random order to me. So detecting csi is not as simple as having a meter we can hook up, but it is detectable nonetheless. And as I said before, we have detected a high degree of csi in the DNA code of all living organisms.Edited by Brad H, : No reason given.