Intelligent Design in Universities

quote:

---

Don't forget us Jedi

---

Oh Yeah! lol....Heard of that one but have to read up on it.

Thanks for the post, but I just cannot seem to win on this forum.I suffer through 100 posts containing arguments with no reference at all and then you spring an uber-post on me containing tons of references with no argument. Now please slow down, back up and redo that post as it has much potential of people learning from it.But people are not going to let you bring an argument using other peoples arguments because they are not here to debate them. Only you are.1) Organize that post.2) Put a cogent argument into your own words, using those postings as references, making each point you wish to make, cutting and pasting from them as you go to substanciate each point of your argument.3) Perhaps you are right and I am wrong. We will see where it goes from there, but you need to put a little effort into communication first. This message has been edited by Jerry Don Bauer, 05-06-2005 05:45 AM

---

Design Dynamics

Let us suppose that we mutate a sequence of coin tosses by randomly selecting a coin and tossing it again. If the original sequence has two heads and two tails, there is no chance of the entropy increasing and a 50% chance of the entropy decreasing. How then does the second law of thermodynamics apply to such a case ?

The papers don't provide an argument, they provide evidence. Do you want me to rephrase all their results in my own words? The argument was the few lines at the bottom. The lines are few because the argument is incredibly simple. If you simply didn't read the whole post then why not? And if you did read it then why not simply answer the very simply framed request?You said that all mutations were equiprobable. These papers document, or in the first case review, a number of instances where this is clearly not the case. Mutations derived both transcriptionally and from environmental factors show preferential rates for specific nucleotide conversions and in some cases the local DNA structure/sequence. Therefore not all mutations are equiprobable, even in the case of transcriptionally derived mutations.Now why not answer the question? Where is your evidence that all mutations, or even just all transcriptionally derived mutations, are equiprobable? you claimed that to suggest there was a preference for certain mutations was to misunderstand biology, why not justify that claim?Now please redo your post and answer the question rather than evading it. TTFN,WK

quote:

---

Let us suppose that we mutate a sequence of coin tosses by randomly selecting a coin and tossing it again. If the original sequence has two heads and two tails, there is no chance of the entropy increasing and a 50% chance of the entropy decreasing. How then does the second law of thermodynamics apply to such a case?

---

Hmmm....Paul, why are you making me think at 6:10 in the morning? If you have a configuration of a two coin system two of which are heads and two tails and you decide to flip one coin, the second law doesn't care what happens because probabilities favoring either outcome do not exist.The second law is a law of statistics so considering the flipping of one coin, you pays your money and you takes your chances at 50/50 of evolving the system, or not.We are really getting out of configurational entropy which is expressed in the chart I posted and defines the macrostate of a system, back into logical entropy, which defines the microstates, i.e., the number of possible states of the matter (heads or tails) taken to the power of the number of coins in the system.The second law comes into play and gets stronger as the complexity of our system increases: one coin, 2^1, two coins, 2^2, ten coins, 2^10, 500 coins, 2^500.In ID, this is called specificity and we can define it as:Specificity is inversely proportional to the probabilities of an event occurring.Dembski's specified information is really just a quantification of the second law because at 2^500 we are to the odds of 1 chance in 10^150 of any pattern occurring and it ain't gonna happen in nature.Hope that did it.

---

Design Dynamics

Well you seem to be working toward an argument here, so we will run with it.

quote:

---

The papers don't provide an argument, they provide evidence.

---

Then if there is no premises or conclusions in the form of an argument, why would you need evidence to support them. Think about that.

quote:

---

Do you want me to rephrase all their results in my own words?

---

No, that would be stupid. I want you to bring an argument and provide evidence to support that argument. But chill out because you may be getting there, although I'm having to suck it out of you like George Bush treating a rattlesnake bite.

quote:

---

You said that all mutations were equiprobable. These papers document, or in the first case review, a number of instances where this is clearly not the case. Mutations derived both transcriptionally and from environmental factors show preferential rates for specific nucleotide conversions and in some cases the local DNA structure/sequence. Therefore not all mutations are equiprobable, even in the case of transcriptionally derived mutations.

---

No, now carefully read the words that I write, because unless I am drunk, I parse them very carefully: Jerry: ".....Random mutations ARE equiprobable ....." Reread the post.I understand that some mutations are due to certain factors like photon damage, radiation, etc. But if the mutations we are considering are due to the "causes" in the ABSTRACTS (you did not present any papers, just the abstracts) then how do you then consider them random?Now see how this works, we are getting a discussion going. This good. Fire bad.

---

Design Dynamics

It doesn't. The 2LOT applies to thermodynamic entropy and heat. Period.dS = dQ/TIt does not apply to information entropy, which is what is being computed in the coin example. No matter how much IDists want it to, it just does not apply.Hence the equivocation.

My point is that you can't assume that configurational entropy operates in the same way as thermodynamic entropy under the rules you've defined. In the situation described there is NO tendency for the measure of configurational entropy to increase. It can only decrease.So back to your original claim: So let us take a more general look at the coins since like your example they use a binary classification.Let us say that we have m + n coins with m heads and n tails.
The probability of a mutation producing no change is:
0.5 * m/(m + n) + 0.5 * n/(m + n) = 0.5In any case but the minimum entropy case there is a non-zero probability of a decrease in entropy, so the general tendency is for S2 <= S1 in all but that case.And worse still for your case it is not argued in evolutionary circles that the general tendency is for mutations to be beneficial rather than detrimental.

The papers are research papers, any argument they put forward is in the form of a discussion of their research and their implications. My argument which you seem unable to see, even though I have now restated it twice, is what I am using the papers as evidence for. They are evidence for my claim that mutations are not equiprobable and against your claim that they are. Alternatively you could just use some of your super intelligence to understand a simple request for you to provide any evidence to support your claim. I have provided four refeerences suggesting the contrary, hardly the ton you complain of, and you totally fail to provide any in support of your position, how compelling. I didn't realise you had never used a web browser before. Click on the titles to the papers which are in orange and underlined, these are hyperlinks, they will take you to that particular paper's entry on the pubmed database from where you can access the full text, if you have university access to the journal or it is openly available. But even the abstracts should suggest to you that your claim is tenuous.Now perhaps we can stop having to treat each other as five year olds and you can actually address the issue. As I pointed out in the original post you couldn't quite get to the end of - by defining the relevant mutations as only those which are truly 'random', according to you, you are essentially ignoring the vast majority of mutation and making the assumptions behind your argument completely divorced from the realities of molecular genetics.I would consider them random because the only way one can predict them is probabilistically. They are not completely random but there is a random element, they are stochastic as you yourself mentioned, except you said that to believe that such errors during transcription were stochastic showed a lack of understanding of biology.Are you sure you were thinking of transcription and not replication? Transcriptionally active DNA is certainly more prone to mutations but this is all types of mutation including the environmentally derived ones you are so chary of and is thought to be due to the more open packing of the chromosome not some error in the transcription process. Replication is more usually considered the common point for error to enter in, at least in my experience.TTFN,WK

I'm lurking on this thread but I'd like to ask for some clarification. You said : Are you saying that mutations that have an identifiable cause such as UV radiation, carcinogens or transcription are not random ?The reason I ask is that aren't mutations caused by identifiable factors going to happen in the real world ? If this is the case you can't just write them off because they are not truly random.More importantly it means that mutations in real-life organisms are not equiprobable (as the material supplied by Wounded King in Message 134 shows), so the conclusions from your equations become nothing more than an intellectual curiosity because they don't reflect the real world.Actually I suppose the relative frequency of "random" and "non-random" mutations would be a factor as well. If the non-random ones were very rare compared to the random ones you might be able to ignore them. I don't know enough (i.e. any !) molecular biology to know what the relative frequncies are.Apologies to the people who know this stuff if all this obvious/wrong - it's the price you pay for using these forums

---

09/04/05 - Sharks attacked
30/04/05 - Wasps swatted
14/05/05 - More of the same ?

quote:

---

It doesn't. The 2LOT applies to thermodynamic entropy and heat. Period.

​

dS = dQ/T

​

It does not apply to information entropy, which is what is being computed in the coin example. No matter how much IDists want it to, it just does not apply.
Hence the equivocation.

---

LOL.. the good Doctor of physics is reduced to the, is not, is too, is not, argument? You can do better than this. Put more effort and research into your posts. In all honesty, I think you're just lost.Information entropy is Shannon entropy if you want to get technical. The entropy used in the coin examples is called logical entropy, not thermodynamic entropy. Why don't you plug this stuff into Google and educate yourself before posting? This will help you professionally. You can learn about the different entropies starting here.And is that d you're using in the above formula (which doesn't apply to anything we are discussing that I can detect so far) meant to denote integration as in calculus or a delta as in simple change? You don't state this and you should as forum software will not show mathematical terms in my experience.If it is integration, you don't have to do this anymore as the formula deltaS = Q/T was clausius' original math and it is widely accepted today. Just plug the formula into Google and surf until you're sick of it. But it is normally used to quantify thermodynamic reservoirs rather than what we are discussing."when energy Q is added to a reservoir, the entropy of this reservoir increases by Q/T where T is the temperature in some absolute unit (like Kelvin)."Page not found at /physics/courses/PHY102.03Spring/hw/102sol4.pdfWe only need integration to show entropy when there is a distinguished change in system temperature (there is not in reservoirs) such as a beaker containing 1 kilogram of water pulled from a fridge at 5degC and allowed to come to equilibrium with the room at 25degC.If you are going to use calculus, then do it once and we can be done with it: Now we are reduced to the formula deltaS = C ln(T2/T1) where deltaS is the change in entropy, C is the heat capacity (specific heat) of the substance and T2 is the final temperature while T1 is the initial temperature.Now that this reduced, we need no more calculus and can figure the entropy of any distinct temp change we care to.In my water example above The specific heat of water is 4.185 J/g C, deltaS = 4.2 ln(25/5), and:deltaS = 6.76Don't throw remedial calculus at an ID theorist. She will throw it right back at you and make you look extremely silly in the process. And in the meantime, you need only introduce math that is used in living, open systems such as that of Boltzmann, Schrodinger, Gibbs or Prigogine. You should know this at your level.

---

Design Dynamics

quote:

---

I didn't realise you had never used a web browser before.

---

Ok, I'm done with you. Ad homs are logical fallacies and I would see no need to address them since they are logical fallacies to begin with.Thank you for your input!

---

Design Dynamics

I look on a table and find three groupings of US quarters.One group is "H H H H H H H H H H", all heads.The second group is "H T H H H T H T T H".The third group is "H T T H T H H H T H".Which has more information?Why?

---

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So you are free to ridicule my posts and complain that they aren't properly constructed, But when I express surprise that you don't understand what a hyperlink is, that is game over?That is exactly why I was suggesting that you stop treating me as a trucculent five year old and then I won't feel this urge to do the same to you.It must be nice having so many easy outs from actually having to address the issue. Just keep sniping at the formatting of a post and when your interlocutor finally gets annoyed and replies at the same infantile level you just declare you will stop the discussion. Is that the best evidence you can provide for your claim?Why not just admit that you were wrong, which you so patently are?If you wont and you still contend the equiprobability of mutations then give some specifics and provide some evidence.TTFN,WK

Speak for yourself. You're just sort of slinging unrelated thermodynamics around, but have yet to construct a coherent case for why your argument is evidence for anything. You've made physics mistakes, and you've made biology mistakes. I think your argument depends on insisting the mistakes aren't really mistakes, and collapses if you admit they are mistakes. But try again, omitting the mistakes, if you like. This logical entropy appears to be a creationist/IDist invention. It certainly is not physics. There is thermodynamic entropy, there is Shannon information entropy, and there is Kolmogorov entropy, which has applications in chaos theory.They aren't interchangeable, and the 2LOT only applies to the thermodynamic entropy, so you can't invoke it if you are going to make arguments based on Shannon entropy, as you appear to be attempting to do.Perhaps logical entropy represents the tendency of creationist/IDist arguments to become ever more incoherent with their duration ? Exactly my point. Throwing things and hoping they'll stick isn't scientific argument.Try making a coherent, logical case for your position.