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Author Topic:   Problems with evolution? Submit your questions.
Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 729 of 752 (607423)
03-03-2011 4:37 PM
Reply to: Message 725 by havoc
03-03-2011 4:20 PM


Re: et all
I have given you two different ways purposed to measure information content or specified complexity.
Well, no you haven't.
A method for measuring the information content of a string involves an algorithm where you take a string as an input and get a number as an output.
Actually it is hard to get any of you to admit that there is any difference in random information (random keystrokes) and specified complexity (like the English language).
The difference in that particular case is that one is random keystrokes and the other is in the English language.
Where do we go from here?
---
Incidentally, what if I wrote a program that would randomly combine English words into sentences constrained by English grammar (which I could do in a matter of minutes). Would the sentences so produced have a designer? Would they have specified complexity? Could you tell whether they had specified complexity just by looking at them, or would you have to know whether they were produced by (a) my computer program (b) an intelligent albeit Surrealist poet?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 725 by havoc, posted 03-03-2011 4:20 PM havoc has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 735 by havoc, posted 03-03-2011 4:52 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 732 of 752 (607426)
03-03-2011 4:42 PM
Reply to: Message 728 by havoc
03-03-2011 4:36 PM


Re: et all
So there is a difference but since it doesnt fit well with your theory you just leave it alone?
I have never "left alone" the difference between the English language and gobbledigook. Indeed, permit me to observe that you are verging on the latter.
What you mean by my "theory" in this context is obscure. It is you who are being asked to develop a theory, or at least a coherent hypothesis.
But more obscure yet is the relevance of all this to the question of design detection in DNA. How is my ability to recognize English useful in recognizing whether a certain DNA sequence was produced by design or evolution?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 728 by havoc, posted 03-03-2011 4:36 PM havoc has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 737 by havoc, posted 03-03-2011 4:56 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 733 of 752 (607427)
03-03-2011 4:45 PM
Reply to: Message 727 by havoc
03-03-2011 4:28 PM


Re: Really stupid assertions
This would be explaind by Dembskis Law filter. The nature of lightning would cause it to strike somewhere. There is nothing intrinsic in DNA that causes it to code for one thing over the other. To take your analogy further you should look for lighting to repeatedly strike a corn field in a way that leaves a picture of Darwin scorched in the field. Then you would have a point.
What if we repeatedly (beyond explanation by chance alone) find that the points struck by lightning tend to be elevated above the rest of the local landscape? And what if we repeatedly (beyond explanation by chance alone) find that the DNA sequences prevalent in nature are those that would be favored or at least tolerated by natural selection?

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 Message 727 by havoc, posted 03-03-2011 4:28 PM havoc has not replied

Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 742 of 752 (607436)
03-03-2011 5:15 PM
Reply to: Message 734 by havoc
03-03-2011 4:49 PM


Re: et all
So we did not know that hieroglyphics were language before finding the Rosetta stone?
Actually, some people thought they weren't.
Now, here's a puzzle for you. This is the Phaistos disc.
Some people think that it is a unique example of writing in an otherwise unknown script, and so presumably has meaning. Others think that it's a set of meaningless symbols that look like writing produced as an ingenious hoax on archaelogists. Perhaps some clever creationist could tell us which.
Once you're done with that, you could start in on the Voynich manuscript.
It's undoubtedly medieval, but is that a real language, possibly written in cipher, or was it just a hoax to appeal to a buyer of rare and exotic books, produced by writing the letters of the script at random?
You guys are punishing yourselves to avoid the obvious. Language is language and code is code only because of specified complexity and nothing intrinsic in DNA would lead to this occurrence. And every known code has a code maker. This is just a fact of life.
And possibly your post also has meaning, but it is difficult to detect.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 743 of 752 (607437)
03-03-2011 5:23 PM
Reply to: Message 737 by havoc
03-03-2011 4:56 PM


Re: et all
Code is code my friend. Can you name one code that has no code maker?
Well, there's the so-called "genetic code".
Can you name one code that has a supernatural code-maker?
But what would your assumption that the code has a designer tell us about its content? How, for example, do we then distinguish between a string in that code that was the product of an intelligent being and a string in that code that is the product of evolution?
Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 744 of 752 (607438)
03-03-2011 5:26 PM
Reply to: Message 735 by havoc
03-03-2011 4:52 PM


Re: et all
Yes you an intellegent person could creat program that results in specified complexity.
Are you saying that the sentences randomly produced by my unintelligent computer would possess specified complexity?

This message is a reply to:
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Dr Adequate
Member (Idle past 284 days)
Posts: 16113
Joined: 07-20-2006


Message 751 of 752 (607460)
03-03-2011 7:45 PM
Reply to: Message 750 by RAZD
03-03-2011 7:17 PM


Re: methods of propulsion and spinning strings
Not true, otherwise scale model testing of large ships would not work. The reason scale models are used in tow test tanks is because the effects can be corrected by using the Reynolds Numbers to adjust the effects.
So you'd have to use something other than water, with a very different Reynolds number (I wonder what you'd have to use to simulate something that small?) which means that again our intuition about what would happen in water is irrelevant.
Also as you point out that's used for tow tests. No-one tries to simulate the actual mechanism of propulsion, which would be more difficult. The non-scaling relationships between length and area and volume and mass would get you every time. But even if it could be done, then, as I say, our intuition, based on water, doesn't tell us how the experiment should turn out. There's no use for common sense applied to conditions with which we are unfamiliar.

This message is a reply to:
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