What exactly is ID?

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.

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.

I guess it is equally false whatever you're talking about.If you really know damn-all about thermodynamics, I suggest that you study thermodynamics.Stop me if I'm going to fast for you. As I have told you, there is nothing in genetics, least of all the existence of the genome, which implies that one can construct a refrigerator without a power source. No I am not.Listen carefully.Your fantasy of "genetic entropy", which you cannot define, has nothing to do with the theory of thermodynamics. If you called it "genetic weight", it would have nothing to do with the theory of gravity. If you called it "genetic electrical charge", it would have nothing to do with Maxwell's equations.The fact that you have chosen to describe your vague and nebulous fantasy in terms that have real meaning in a real science does not magically mean that your daydream has anything to do with that science. I know that you are not telling the truth, because I have read what Sanford has to say.Your error is a different error from Sanford's error. He may be completely wrong --- in fact, let's not beat about the bush, he is --- but he is nowhere near being as hopelessly, ludicrously wrong as you are. Of course we don't. This is why you are unable to produce any evidence for your fantasies. Then why can you not quote Sanford saying the same thing as you are?Oh, oh, I know. Because his trash is different from your trash. Because it works exactly like I think it does. Which is why there are species that are not extinct. So, you're back to a definition of genetic entropy whereby the increase of this quantity, which you are unable to measure, is not opposed to evolution and is in fact an inevitable consequence of it. If you tell me falsehoods about what I am claiming, you will not succeed in deceiving me. Like Kimura, I agree that there were things that Darwin didn't know. And, like Kimura, I think that creationism is bullshit. I wouldn't mind if you did.Put up or shut up. It's so good that the "genetic meltdown" in Sanford's fantasies does not in fact happen. ... of this stuff called "evidence" Well, if you want to fantasize that one day this genetic meltdown will take place, feel free. But this fantasy does not contradict the actual history of life on Earth. This explanation, while it might be "simple", or even downright retarded, is not congruent with the facts. You inadvertently said something true.Heritable change is not an "evolutionary mechanism". Heritable change is evolution. Any mechanism by which it takes place is an evolutionary mechanism.Incidentally, do you have any evidence for your claim that the particular evolutionary mechanism involved was a transposon, or is this just something you made up? If you wish to retreat into hysterical denial about plain facts in biology, then may I suggest that this board is perhaps the very worst place for you to do so?The bacteria couldn't do something. Then they could, as a result of a genetic change. This is evolution. You had to talk gibberish to pretend that I was confused. I am not confused. This is why you couldn't argue with what I actually said, but had to argue with some incoherent trash about televisions which you made up in your head. Because as you well know, you're not going to get anywhere arguing with people about genetics, a subject of which you are pitifully ignorant.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

That is not, of course, the definition of "information" used in science, or in mathematics, nor indeed in the English language as it is usually spoken.I therefore suggest that to avoid ambiguity we should call this new property Brad-H-information.Now, do you have any evidence that there is any Brad-H-information present in the genome of any organism that has not been the subject of genetic engineering?

Bacteria can have recessive genes now?And here was I thinking that they were haploid. But this is demonstrably untrue: such evolutionary events can be observed when we know for certain that the gene in question was not present in the original line.---I have a question for you. You have obviously spent no time whatsoever researching the subject that you're talking about. So why are you talking about it? You can only hope to be right about anything by sheer good luck. Consequently, you must inevitably bear false witness over and over again, as you have done in this post. Does this not bother you?

Well, the obviously false proposition that "all matter tends to disorder" is simply not a tenet of thermodynamics any more than the obviously false proposition that "all elephants ride unicycles" would be. I don't think I have to give everyone here a crash course in thermodynamics to point out that the theory of thermodynamics does not imply stuff that is blatantly untrue.However, as luck would have it I have written an article, here, explaining what the Second Law of Thermodynamics actually says. You notice how long it is and how much math there is and how many diagrams are needed?So it's quicker just to point out that the second law of thermodynamics doesn't mean whatever crazy counterfactual crap Smooth Operator chooses to make up.

The difference is that anyone can look up the words I'm using and find out their meaning, whereas what Smooth Operator means by "genetic entropy" is currently known to at most two persons: himself and God. Damn, I forgot to post an introductory course in genetics.Now if only there was some other way in which Brad H could find out the meaning of the words he's employing. Suppose, for example, that he had at his very fingertips a vast yet easily searchable compendium of human knowledge in which he could easily find out the meaning of such basic concepts as what it means to say that an allele is recessive. I never said otherwise.But there are cases where negligence is as culpable as intent. Suppose that I was to toss a coin to decide whether or not to say that you were an arsonist ... and then again to decide whether to accuse you of burglary ... and then again for drunk-driving ... and so forth all the way through the statute book.Now, I have no idea whether or not you have in fact committed any crimes, or if so which ones, so I would not be saying things that I positively knew to be false. But on the other hand if I adopted such a procedure it would be well-nigh miraculous if I managed to avoid giving false testimony against you.Surely the commandment against bearing false witness does not just mean that we should merely avoid saying things that we positively know to be false --- surely it means that we should make some sort of effort to make sure that our testimony is true. If we try our best, and fail, that's one thing. If we don't try at all, that's another.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, it's a fine point. But I don't think that talking about an allele being recessive makes much sense unless you're talking about homologous chromosomes.Suppose that the same scenario you visualize for bacteria was true of two (or, depending on how you look at it, four) genes that I have, one on chromosome 3 and the other on chromosome 17. Would the words "dominant" and "recessive" really apply to the interaction of the genes on non-homologous chromosomes?Anyway, I'm pretty sure that that wasn't what Brad H meant.We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

That it's wrong. It's as though you said: "The Second Law of Thermodynamics says that there's a unicorn in my backyard playing the trombone".Well, no it doesn't. Pace Percy, I don't think that I have to teach you a beginner's course in thermodynamics to explain to you why that is not what the Second Law of Thermodynamics says. If we use Sanford's definition, then genetic entropy does not occur except in very small populations. I note that your reply was not an answer to anything that I actually said.This leaves me with a problem. How do I converse with someone who is not actually talking to me?I guess I'll just taunt you once again with the fact that you cannot quantify "genetic information" or "genetic entropy". I have already acknowledged the fact that Sanford is wrong. My point is that mistake is different from your mistake.You have quoted him talking halfwitted nonsense about beneficial mutations. Very well then, I admit that he is a stupid liar. But the mere fact that he is a stupid liar does not prove that his definition of "genetic entropy" is in agreement with yours. The mere fact that he is a stupid liar does not in itself prove that you and he are in agreement. No it doesn't.This is why you can't quote any part of that article that supports your fantasies. That your trash is different from Sanford's trash. Yes, according to you this might happen if we wait ten billion years.But even if this daydream was true, it would not contradict reality. If your definition of increase of genetic entropy includes every event that biologists claim has taken place, then you are not arguing against biology. You are still telling me blatant falsehoods about my own opinions, and you will never succeed in deceiving me. Where did Kimura write that "darwinism only, can not account for all diversity of life on Earth"?Actually, that's an unfair question, since the moderators have decided that your repeated and ridiculous untruths about Kimura are off-topic. I suggest that if you want to tell blatant, absurd, and libelous falsehoods about Kimura, you should start a new thread. Your links showed strong experimental evidence that genetic meltdown does not occur except in populations which have been artificially reduced in size. I guess that's why I never in any way said or implied that it could. We are already aware that facts don't affect your arguments. Your statement is of, course, untrue. Here is the post where you said that I was "confused".I find you people hard to understand. Obviously, you need to deny reality --- you're a creationist. But you go further than that --- you gratuitously deny reality. You make false statements when you know that you're going to get caught and exposed.Obviously, everyone reading this thread knows that your statement is false. You know that your statement is false. And, this is the thing that I don't quite understand about people like you --- you know that everyone else knows that your statement is false. You can be absolutely certain, without any shadow of a doubt, that everyone reading this thread will know as a matter of complete certainly that you are not telling the truth.So, why do you do it? This is the question that eats away at me. You know that everyone reading your posts knows that what you are saying is not true. So why bother saying it? The only conceivable function it serves is to let people know that you hate the truth. But surely that is not your objective. It is surely not your goal to persuade people that you should be an object of contempt and mockery.So ... so why do you do it?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Perhaps you could expand on this further. Will you show me one other application for the works of Behe or Dembski besides giving false comfort to creationists?Under what circumstances other than deceiving creationists would it be useful to pretend that irreducible complexity can't evolve? When else would it be useful to be hopelessly wrong about information theory? In what other case is it helpful to be wrong about "genetic entropy"?

This reminds me of a funny cartoon I once saw. A little kid is explaining his idea of history to his big brother. He says: "A long time ago, we all lived in caves. Yes, that includes you."

They've given you hours of free entertainment.

I don't think he was ever arguing with "the whole mathematical community", since the whole mathematical community has not been swindled by cdesign proponentists into agreeing with their nutty dogma. In fact, I can't think of a single mathematician who's been duped by Dembski other than Dembski himself.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

If SETI is "basically a subset of ID", why do you never hear the people involved in SETI reciting the nonsense that Behe or Dembski come out with? It is perfectly possible to search for extra-terrestrial intelligence without telling dumb lies about biology or spouting discredited nonsense about "irreducible complexity" or making dumb mistakes about information theory.As a matter of fact, the methodology of SETI is necessarily opposed to creationist beliefs. For they try to distinguish between signals which are the product of intelligence and signals which are just the product of, for example, quasars. But according to creationist dogma, the signal of a quasar is just as much a product of intelligence --- indeed, of supreme intelligence --- as the sort of things that the folks at SETI are looking for.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Really?Is there anything he's not wrong about?