Information and Genetics

Maybe there's some sort of GNU public license for creationist propaganda?"Use of this material is freely available to those fighting evil."------------------
http://www.hells-handmaiden.com

Yeah, and what's really funny is that Mr. "I only use original sources and have them all right here with me at home" not only apparently pasted a misquote, but he then cited the wrong book in his "references" - the quote's from "Climbing Mount Improbable", not "Blind Watchmaker". Sigh, they never learn...here[/url]. So he could probably truthfully state he didn't get it from Johnson.[edited a second time: Naw, I take it back - I just did a side-by-side comparison, and it's definitely Johnson's text.][This message has been edited by Quetzal, 08-29-2002]

Now I have to humbly apologize to ChaseNelson. The misquote really IS from "Watchmaker", not "Mount Improbable", although beginning on page 3, not 2. (I hate it when that happens - teach me to check my own original sources.)Can someone please explain to me why Johnson and Safarti saw fit to misquote "Watchmaker" in reviews of "Mount Improbable"? These two can't get it right even when getting it wrong, or what?

Looks like Freddie took his marbles and went home...

I was only attempting to repeat Creationist information theory as explained to me by Creationists, for instance, what Fred was saying in this thread. Can you make this sound like more than just an arbitrary list of properties? For example, where is the imperative that a code be "specified and complex?" Why must it have a "representational function?" Why do you exclude the "inherent physical properties of the system" as a factor in determining the code?The primary problem you face is that Gitt has invented a theory of information purporting to demonstrate that the process of evolutionary innovation is impossible. But we can demonstrate evolution innovation in the lab, and when theory conflicts with evidence, guess which loses?Just as we can model other natural processes such as the weather and planetary orbits using computers, so can we do with the process of random mutation and selection. See my C++ program that simulates ring counter evolution. A description of the program can be found at Message 142 of the Give your one best shot - against evolution thread.--Percy

Hi - I'm a Christian and have been since 1964, when I was in college. My degree is in EE, but I’m a Systems Engineer now and formerly a Software Engineer.A few years ago I felt that God was suggesting to me that as the Creator, Chief Architect of the Universe, and the Author of all Art, that, like an artist, that He has signed His work of creation.I think maybe that in what we consider Junk DNA, that God's signature may be present. If you search the binary code of a program, like Microsoft Word, you will find all kinds of text with copyright this or that. Microsoft signed it’s work.It appears that the genetic code in DNA could (fairly) easily be represented in binary, based on the small number of combinations in each rung on the ladder. (I'm not a geneticist it should be obvious). I'd search junk DNA for key phrases in the Bible. Such as "Hear oh Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord... I'd look for ASCII characters in English, UNICODE for Hebrew, and the numerics for the Hebrew letters.My question is this. Now that the genome has been mapped, how does one get a copy of at least the junk DNA sequences in order to do some searching?I think that if God has signed his work, and this is the time He wishes to reveal it, that it will not be some life long wild goose chase to find. But, rather with some serious prayer, hard work and many CPU cycles, it could be done.If anyone wants to go off and do such a thing solo, have at it. But, if you know where to get the gene sequences for junk DNA, I'd appreciate a few references.If anyone has any helpful suggestions, such as how to decide the way DNA would be represented in binary, please chime in.From my reading of past posts, i'd say the ratio of believers to non-belivers on this site is about 1:10. So, I don't know if I should expect much help.However, IF one could find (without a lot of convoluted hocus pocus) such a "signature", the debate (IMHO) would be over. At least there would be a lot more evidence to debate.Thanks,Fred Seigneur (pronounced Sr.)

Thank you for the reply Percy. You ask why a code has to have a list of such properties. Well, why do certain animal species have to have certain features to classify them as mammals? Dr. Gitt says that information, if you want to call it such, can exist outside of a code. Hence his classification of information domains (A, B, and C).
This type of 'information' outside of a code that he describes is in domain C. We are looking for information generated in domain A. Information fits into a certain domain classification by the characteristics it exhibits-kind of like our modern classification system for animals.We know that whenever a code possosses (sp?) these qualities (as I have previously described), that its' ultimate origin always leads to an intelligence and volition. There has never been a single counter-example to disprove this notion. The genetic code maintains all of the required characteristics, so why can we not attribute its marvelous design and structure to an intelligence?Please do not confuse my argument. I am not saying that mutations cannot add information. I am instead arguing that the type of code Gitt describes can never result from unintelligent naturalistic processes. In fact, I think it may be possible for an information increase resulting from mutations. The key is that the information system had to be present first in order for the information to be understood. (For example, if someone said the word cat and I didn't know the English language, I could not interpret the meaning, thus no information would be conveyed. However if I did know the language already and a random typing letter changed the word cat to the word bat, I could understand the new word. This is only because of my preexisting knowledge.)*Some argue that mutations cannot increase information. For example, Murray Eden states, "No currently existing formal language can tolerate random changes in the symbol sequence which expresses its sentences. Meaning is almost invariably destroyed. Any changes mus be syntactically lawful ones. I would conjecture that one might call 'genetic grammaticality' has a deterministic explanation and does not owe its stability to selection pressure acting on random variation."

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I'd search junk DNA for key phrases in the Bible. Such as "Hear oh Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord...

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Lol... that would be interesting.

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I'd look for ASCII characters in English, UNICODE for Hebrew, and the numerics for the Hebrew letters.

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God encoded in ASCII and UNICODE, eh? I don't think so. We made that stuff up. The only rational search would be for numbers, and then convert them to letters based on the ancient hebrew use of letters to represent numbers. God, obviously, spoke Hebrew.

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But, rather with some serious prayer, hard work and many CPU cycles, it could be done.

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Knock yourself out. Remember, you are going to have to get significantly long, exact quotes without resorting to statistical scrambling of the sequences-- as per, Bible Code investigations-- or the results will be invalid.

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But, if you know where to get the gene sequences for junk DNA, I'd appreciate a few references.

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If I am not mistaken... No webpage found at provided URL: ftp://ftp.ncbi.nih.gov/genbank------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

Hi Fred Seigneur, welcome aboard!I'm afraid I agree with John, though I would express it a bit differently. Such an effort as you describe could not fail to yield many interesting Bible quotes. As the many rebuttals to The Bible Code have amply demonstrated, and as anyone with an appreciation of statistics already knows, data mining lengthy texts (in this case a genome somehow translated to text) will always produce many matches, and some will probably match passages from the Bible. But the same exercise would also find passages from the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, Das Kapital, Catcher in the Rye and The Cat in the Hat. This webpage uses the text of The Bible Code II to provide an example of just how such data mining works to extract supposedly amazing quotes. It's good fun and a fine example of statistical effects, but is otherwise meaningless.--Percy

That's a little anglo-centric, don't you think? Why would you assume that God would choose to write his message in English?

Thanks John. I'll check the ref you gave.As far as ASCII (English) & UNICODE, I think that IF God signed DNA, that He would know the exact time when men would discover it. He would know that English would be the global common language and that computers would use ASCII & UNICODE. But, this is just a guess.I do think the numeric codes for the Hebrew letters is the best bet.Thanks again,Fred

Mammalian-identifying features, chosen for their ability to distinguish between other classes of organisms, are not arbitrary.What I actually asked was why the requirements for your code appear to be arbitrary. To repeat, where is the imperative that a code be "specified and complex?" Why must it have a "representational function?" Why do you exclude the "inherent physical properties of the system" as a factor in determining the code? You haven't defined A, B and C - I don't know what you're saying. You haven't described the "type of code Gitt describes," so I'm unable to evaluate your argument.--Percy

Thank you for the reply Percy.

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dillan writes:
You ask why a code has to have a list of such properties. Well, why do certain animal species have to have certain features to classify them as mammals?

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Mammalian-identifying features, chosen for their ability to distinguish between other classes of organisms, are not arbitrary.

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What I actually asked was why the requirements for your code appear to be arbitrary. To repeat, where is the imperative that a code be "specified and complex?" Why must it have a "representational function?" Why do you exclude the "inherent physical properties of the system" as a factor in determining the code?

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Okay, here is the deal. You could say that a code is simply covariance between two phenomena. By this loose standard, you could declare tree rings a code, as well as moss growing on a tree. You could also lump the genetic code in there with all of these other 'codes'. However, a couple of problems arise here. I do not know of one information scientist in the world who would declare tree rings a true code, yet I also do not know one that would be so bold as to say that the DNA storage/retrival system is not. Secondly, even if we say that tree-rings are a true code, it and genetics operate differently and maintain different characteristics. These may include specified complexity, organization, representational function, comprehensibility, etc. What I am saying is that you cannot compare apples and oranges. Once we compare the DNA to other information systems that have similar properties we see a clear pattern-that these are all the products of intelligence. I don't see why DNA can't be considered the product of intelligent design.

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Dr. Gitt says that information, if you want to call it such, can exist outside of a code. Hence his classification of information domains (A, B, and C). This type of 'information' outside of a code that he describes is in domain C. We are looking for information generated in domain A. Information fits into a certain domain classification by the characteristics it exhibits-kind of like our modern classification system for animals.

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You haven't defined A, B and C - I don't know what you're saying.

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I didn't mean this post to be all explanatory. I was just saying that there are different information classifications. Domain A is reserved for codes that exhibits the characteristics I mentioned (ex.-specified complexity, etc.). Basically it is for coded systems with semantics. Domain B is for coded systems without semantics (like random characters or random numbers). Domain C is for arbitrary structures without code (like starlight, tree rings, sand ripples, etc.)

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Please do not confuse my argument. I am not saying that mutations cannot add information. I am instead arguing that the type of code Gitt describes can never result from unintelligent naturalistic processes.

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You haven't described the "type of code Gitt describes," so I'm unable to evaluate your argument.

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--Percy

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I tried to give you some basic characteristics of a domain A code that Gitt describes. There are some more required conditions, but the ones I listed are enough to separate the DNA from the rest of the examples of 'information' coming from noninformation. Some other good websites for information include:http://www.origins.org/articles/thaxton_dnadesign.html
http://www.origins.org/...cles/dembski_scienceanddesign.html
http://www.origins.org/articles/dembski_randomness.html
http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_origins.htm
Telnet Communications - High Speed Internet & Home Phone Solutions
Information, Science and Biology | Answers in Genesis
http://www.trueorigin.org/dawkinfo.asp
http://www.trueorigin.org/schneider.asp
Dawkins’ Weasel Revisited | Answers in Genesis One of my favorite lines from one of the links above is:"Yet, according to evolutionary dogma, the random shuffling of nucleotides for millions of years supposedly produced not only the DNA molecule but the code which governs the storage and retrieval of the information it carries as well. If we make such a claim, are we not, in effect, asserting that formatted computer floppy disks, which are filled with millions of bits of information, can arise by the random combining of iron oxide and plastic rather than being the product of an intelligent source which is outside and separate from the floppy disk?"By the way, the origin of information is only one of many problems dealing with the origin of life.

Hi Dillan,Thanks for making the effort to clarify through quoting, but your words and my words appear at the same quote level. If I hadn't recognized my own words I would have thought you wrote all the quoted words and that, since it begins with "dillan writes," you were replying to yourself. There's a preview button that helps figure out how a message will look before you post. Covariance is a statistical measure that is probably not the most accurate term to use in defining the term "code". Covariance analysis would probably be very useful in studying a code with which you weren't already familiar, code breaking, for example. As if you've conducted a poll. Tree rings are most certainly a code. You're making the same claims but still not explaining anything. Why does a Gitt code require specified complexity, and why do you think a genome contains specified complexity. What is representational function, and why is it required of a Gitt code? Some "information systems" are the product of intelligence, some aren't. Quite obviously, since we can observe this in the lab, the process of mutation and selection takes place with no intelligent intervention whatsoever, including changes in complexity (as measured by amount of Shannon information) in both the positive and negative direction.You're seeking a set of criteria that when satisfied leads inevitably to the conclusion of intelligent design, but what you've described here is simply an attempt to ignore real world data through abstraction. And it isn't even a mathematical abstraction. Shannon information is very mathematical. The information carrying capacity of a channel in the presence in the noise can be expressed quantitatively. What you're describing is qualitative because your bottom line argument is based upon subjective assessements of patterns rather than quantitative measures.Your classification of codes into domains A, B and C appear arbitrary to me. For example, tree rings code for how good the growth season was how many years ago, a clear semantic. Starlight codes for huge amounts of information that fills volumes of books on cosmology, and is still growing, more very clear semantics. The definitions of your domains seem constructed from a premeditated desire to characterize genomes as intelligently designed rather than from any objective criteria. Not according to any scientifically accepted and demonstrated definition of information. What you're really talking about isn't mathematical information but knowledge or semantic meaning, another creature altogether. The knowledge (as contrasted to mathematical information) about the natural world recorded in science books and journals would have existed whether or not we were here to take note. Our mere existence did not suddenly bring knowledge into being.--Percy

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Hi Dillan,
Thanks for making the effort to clarify through quoting, but your words and my words appear at the same quote level. If I hadn't recognized my own words I would have thought you wrote all the quoted words and that, since it begins with "dillan writes," you were replying to yourself. There's a preview button that helps figure out how a message will look before you post.

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Your welcome. I will try to do better. I am not used to this format, but I think I can get the hang of it.

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Covariance is a statistical measure that is probably not the most accurate term to use in defining the term "code". Covariance analysis would probably be very useful in studying a code with which you weren't already familiar, code breaking, for example.

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True. This doesn't really affect my argument though. I said that some evolutionists may simply describe codes as covariance. However while this may be a minor aspect of a code, it certainly does not constitute an entire definition of a code.

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As if you've conducted a poll. Tree rings are most certainly a code.

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Do you have quotes from information scientists to substantiate your claims? You are the one making the claim that tree rings are a code, so the burden of proof is up to you.

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You're making the same claims but still not explaining anything. Why does a Gitt code require specified complexity, and why do you think a genome contains specified complexity. What is representational function, and why is it required of a Gitt code?

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Gitt doesn't directly use the term specified complexity, but the characteristics of his code use the same characteristics. For example, Gitt states, "NC1 (Necessary condition) A uniquely defined set of symbols is used. NC2: The sequence of individual symbols must be irregular...NC3: The symbols appear in clearly distinguishable structures...SC1 (sufficient condition)...it cannot be a code if it can be explained fully on the level of physics and chemistry i.e. when its origin is exclusively of a material nature." Read my links. A genome contains specified complexity because it codes for specific proteins (and is specific in the amino acids it uses) and because it is fairly long-making it complex. I added specified complexity as an extra criteria that is met by all information systems that result from intelligent intervention. Note that some of these conditions may be met somewhat by a few naturally occurring codes, but never all of them. The only time when all these requirements are met is when the ultimate origin of the information system is a product of intelligence.(By the way, a representational function is required for the type of code systems Gitt describes. He says, "Information itself is never the actual object or fact, neither is it a relationship (event or idea), but the encoded symbols merely represent that which is discussed. Symbols of extremely different nature...play a substitutionary role with regard to reality or a system of thought. Information is always an abstract representation of something quite different....The genetic letters in a DNA molecule represent amino acids which will only be constructed at a later stage for subsequent incorporation into a protein molecule. The words in a novel represent persons and their ideas.")

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Some "information systems" are the product of intelligence, some aren't. Quite obviously, since we can observe this in the lab, the process of mutation and selection takes place with no intelligent intervention whatsoever, including changes in complexity (as measured by amount of Shannon information) in both the positive and negative direction.

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Again, this is not my argument. Your statement is arguing that there can be an information increase once an information system is present. I am not necessarily disputing this. I am saying that the origin of these information systems by unintelligent means is impossible.

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You're seeking a set of criteria that when satisfied leads inevitably to the conclusion of intelligent design, but what you've described here is simply an attempt to ignore real world data through abstraction. And it isn't even a mathematical abstraction. Shannon information is very mathematical. The information carrying capacity of a channel in the presence in the noise can be expressed quantitatively. What you're describing is qualitative because your bottom line argument is based upon subjective assessements of patterns rather than quantitative measures.

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Let me first say that Shannon's definition is not completely adequate in describing Gitt information (refer to my quotes in a previous post). Secondly, we know that semantics exist. Semantics is mainly qualitative, and there is no mathematical definition for it yet. However, a scientific law or theorem does not necessarily have to be expressed mathematically right away. It can be true without math behind it. Take for instancethe Pauli Principle. It originally started out without math backing it. What about Le Chatelier's Principle of Least Restraint? It started out originally qualitatively as well. There may be a mathematical definition for semantics that we have not yet discovered. However, that does not prevent us from formulating theorems on how to detect when it is used.

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Your classification of codes into domains A, B and C appear arbitrary to me. For example, tree rings code for how good the growth season was how many years ago, a clear semantic. Starlight codes for huge amounts of information that fills volumes of books on cosmology, and is still growing, more very clear semantics. The definitions of your domains seem constructed from a premeditated desire to characterize genomes as intelligently designed rather than from any objective criteria.

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First, let me say that these domains are set up so that we don't compare apples and oranges. For example, let's say that we are classifying animals. We notice that most all mammals have legs. Well, most all reptiles have legs as well. Does that mean that mammals are reptiles? No. You must notice some more characteristics in common-like live birth, feeding the young, etc.. Similarly, Gitt cannot just base codes on one characteristics. Gitt notices a pattern with codes that share a certain number of characteristics. They all result from intelligent origin.Your examples fall under domain C for various reasons. The main one being that they only deal with the inherent physical properties of the matter involved. Tree rings line up according to the inherent physical properties of the matter. Starlight is not encoded, and does not maintain a true representational function. A similar example would be if I wrote down the statement, "Most apples are red". One could deduce from my statement that I thought most apples were red. However one could also deduce much more. He could deduce my handwriting style, perhaps how I hold my pencil, how big my hands are, etc. based on the way the characters are shaped. This information is not encoded, thus falls under domain C-like starlight. Besides this information is questionable to fulfill the pragmatic requirements and does not fill the apobetic requirements at all. (Apobetics are the desired goal of the information system. In living organisms, the system goes as follows: syntax-genetic code in the DNA, semantics-transcription, pragmatics-translation (among other things), apobetics-existence of life. If starlight had no original goal to be understood by people, or anything for that matter, it cannot qualify as Gitt information.) This is similar to starlight. Also the light waves emmited by the star are mainly coming in in a continuous periodic manner, and information is associated with aperiodic messages.(*Gitt says in regard to your analogies, "The domain A of definition of information includes only systems which encode and represent an abstract description of some object or idea as illustrated in Fig. 15. This definiton is valid in the case of the given examples (book, newspaper, computer program, DNA molecule, or hieroglyphics), which means that these lie inside the described domain. When a reality is observed directly, this substitutionary and abstract function is absent, and examples like a star, a house, a tree, or a snowflake do not belong to our definition of information (Part B). The proposed theorems are as valid as natural laws insed the domain we have just defined.)So, your main charge is that I set up an arbitrary definition of information. I respond by saying that you cannot compare apples and oranges. I don't see too much left to discuss. I strongly suggest reading Gitt's book, because if you are going to disprove his arguments you had better be clear on his arguments to start with.