You see YE creationists are always trying be slick here and demand all sorts of things even when shown obviously strong evidence. We're all familiar with that dodge. If that's all you've got, you're out of arguments.
Very sorry if you think I am being "slick" here. I have only asked for two very specific things Sir. If universal common descent is true and can be proven by the fossils then in order to do so I need to see an example of a "finely" graduated chain (ie...no huge leaps between links) leading between any two differing major forms. If I asked directions to your house from Kansas City you would not be satisfying the request simply by say get in your car and drive South. Again I know and completely understand that it is unrealistic to expect a link from every generation. But what is not unrealistic is to expect that if you are going to tell me forks evolved from spoons, not to just present me with one link known as the spork as your proof. Or to present me with a table spoon to soup spoon to gravy spoon to suddenly a spork. If a fish grew legs and walked up on land then we would need links showing the various stages of leg development from nodules, to knobs, to stumps, to stumps with toe like stumps, to larger stumps, to larger stumps with slightly moveable joints, so on and so on to eventually full functional legs. Not a leap from fish no legs to one with full legs and claim their related because they have many other very similar features.
I really don't know how to spell it out any clearer than that. I'm not trying to be slick I am only saying if the fossils prove universal common descent happened then show me without using similarity arguments. If Stephen Gould's P.E. theory is your argument and evolution happened on too fast of a scale to produce fossil evidence then please stop telling me the fossils present evidence. You don't get your cake and eat it too. Either gradual evolution happened and the fossils prove it, or P.E. is true and the fossils don't. Pick one and stick with it.
I gave you two. And we all noticed that when asked several times to show how "information" is determined, you declined to answer.
Again if you gave me two I need you to quote me the post. I must have missed it.
No need to go back. Just tell us what you think "information" is. There is a specific meaning for the word; it's the one that allows the internet to work, to send weak radio signals reliably over billions of kilometers of space, and to determine the information in a population of living things.
First I just want to say that your not "going back" to quote your examples kind of feels like maybe your not being honest with me.
As for information as it relates to DNA: To try and come up with a definition for information that works for every case is not practical for our application here.
Information as a concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation.
In this specific case we are talking about information as it relates to that which is found in the DNA of biological systems. DNA is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms and some viruses. The main role of DNA molecules is the long-term storage of information. Since the word “information” has such a large variety of meanings (over all), we must define what we mean exactly when we are talking about information in DNA, and also how we would scientifically measure that information. Richard Dawkins has been quoted as having once said that the DNA of a simple single celled amoeba has more information than a thousand sets of Encyclopedia Britannica. So the question is, “What exactly did he mean by that, and how do we measure this type of information?”
The view of information as a message came into prominence with the publication in 1948 of an influential paper by Claude Shannon, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication." This paper provides the foundations of information theory and endows the word information not only with a technical meaning but also a measure. If the sending device is equally likely to send any one of a set of N messages, then the preferred measure of "the information produced when one message is chosen from the set" is the base two logarithm of N (This measure is called self-information).
A complementary way of measuring information is provided by algorithmic information theory. In brief, this measures the information content of a list of symbols based on how predictable they are, or more specifically how easy it is to compute the list through a program: the information content of a sequence is the number of bits of the shortest program that computes it. The sequence below would have a very low algorithmic information measurement since it is a very predictable pattern, and as the pattern continues the measurement would not change. Shannon information would give the same information measurement for each symbol, since they are statistically random, and each new symbol would increase the measurement.
123456789101112131415161718192021
Therefore in DNA, information refers specifically to the measurable algorithmic patterns in which the nucleotides are arranged, and specifically the number of bits of the shortest program that computes that sequence. It is also important to note that it is not necessary for information (in this case) to be mentally received and appreciated by a receiver in order to be classified as information.
Information is any type of pattern that influences the formation or transformation of other patterns. In this sense, there is no need for a conscious mind to perceive, much less appreciate, the pattern. In DNA the sequence of nucleotides is a pattern that influences the formation and development of an organism without any need for a conscious mind. Systems theory at times seems to refer to information in this sense, assuming information does not necessarily involve any conscious mind, and patterns circulating (due to feedback) in the system can be called information.
The information in DNA is considered more and more complex as the bits of computable data become higher and higher when computing the algorithm patterns of the nucleotides of the genes in the DNA of an organism. When we compare the information measured in DNA, with say the information found in one book like an Encyclopedia Britannica, we find it is truly much more complex. The measurement in the DNA of a single celled amoeba is one thousand times greater than that measured in an encyclopedia.
Honestly you and I both know that no one can say with absolute certainty where the information found in DNA comes from. It has not been observed forming in the laboratory or any where else. Evolutionists would likely theorize it can be built up over long periods of time by random mutations and natural selection. But truly we can only really compare it to what our experience has been thus far in all of human history. That being that the formation of information this sophisticated requires at the very least, human thought. And since we know that humanity has not yet (thus far) achieved this degree of technical ability, it can only be concluded that some higher intelligent source is responsible.
If we were to see it form in the lab it would be an increase in information that did not previously exist anywhere in the population. It would be information that codes for a trait that did not previously exist anywhere in the population. And the trait would give the organism an advantage over others that would cause his offspring to also be born with and have this advantage. You can't get from a single celled organism to a human being simply through the loss or duplication of already existing information.
