CSI and Evolution

I certainly don't understand the abstract very much. However, I don't see "information-theoretic" calculations not applying means that I can't supply an "information" content to a DNA string. I simply don't see the difference between a string of base pairs and a string of letters or numbers.What is wrong with my thinking here? What is an information-theoretic calculation anyway?

My understnding o fthe paper is that they have considered
Shannon's mathematical calculations in biological terms
and eventually concluded that they don't really have any
explanatory power for genomes.

quote:

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...means that I can't supply an "information" content to a DNA string. I simply don't see the difference between a string of base pairs and a string of letters or numbers.

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That's a different matter -- all I was (and have elsewhere) said
is that Shannon's information theorem cannot be meaningfully
applied to genomes.You can represent the genome in some other way, in which case
there is an information content to your model ... but it
depends what you mean by information when you talk about the
information content of a genome.If you use any concept of meaning in the definition of information
it cannot apply to genomes any more than it can apply to a
jello-mold.I think most creationists use a 'meaning' oriented definition
of information, whereas most engineering research focusses on the
'data' underlying that information.My opinion is that the reason all attempts to apply Info.Theory
to genomes is flawed is that the 'information' is an emergent
property of the chemical reactions within the cell -- that is
the information is at the organismic level -- even that view is
tenuous and not useful since without an intelligent interpreter
there is no information at all.

Ok, we agree. However, this just makes clear that we can not use the word "information" all by itself. There is Shannon information, semantic information and who knows what else.Without being clear what we are talking about there is no good trying to discuss the issues.

Ok, we agree. However, this just makes clear that we can not use the word "information" all by itself. There is Shannon information, semantic information and who knows what else.Without being clear what we are talking about there is no good trying to discuss the issues.

I also got the idea that informatin entropy also doesn't apply, refuting the idea of "no new information" in the genome.

I was reading the Internet Infidels site and came across this post from Coragyps: So, something can be complex and have different specificities, all tied into a specific mutation. I am thinking that an IDer would have a tough time pointing to the "information loss" in this dichotomy, i.e. both enzymes from the different alleles of the AhpC gene are specific, just not to the same substrate. Link to the Internet Infidels evolutin forum for those who want to search for the original post.

Yes.

I agree with that too.