The Blind Atheist: The Unscientific Root of Atheism

J

Jet Black

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RFHendrix said:
Come to think of it I think that time must have asembled all the chemicals together to make that old rusty truck I pass each day on the way to work.
it probably also created that burning strawman too.
I'm sure there was no forcing involved. In other words; atheism is based on absurdity.
the absurdity of what? the earth being billions of years old? well there is a whole different debate, and there are lots of threads on it.
 
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lucaspa

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RFHendrix said:
If you agree that this is an information problem then you should have no problem demonstrating that intelligent communication can take place on a computer without the aid of an intelligent programmer. That is the problem as I have stated several times.
It's recently been done.

Jr Koza, MA Keane, MJ Streeter, Evolving inventions. Scientific American, 52-59, Feb 2003 check out www.genetic-programming.com

What we have here are computers making inventions the Patent Office is accepting without intelligent input into the inventions. The humans are setting up the environment in which natural selection works.'

Forcing chemicals (or words and letters etc.) to direct themselves further as a result of the initial intelligent intervention rather proves my point that it is not posssible without such intervention.
What "force"? Put the amino acids together in a "soup", and the chemistry happens. No direction from the humans at all. When you put oxygen and hydrogen together and add a spark, you get a chemical reaction to form water. Did you make the water? Do you think hydrogen and oxygen won't form water when you aren't around? Same principles here.

Now we have several decades of attempts to produce artifical intelligent communication WITH the aid of intelligent programmers and have so far only succeded in proving my point. Why don't you try one without the intelligent input? Until you can, your objections are groundless.
Again, been done. You simply aren't looking for the data.
AI Samuel, Some studies on machine learning using the game of checkers. IBM Journal of Research Development, 3: 211-219, 1964. Reprinted in EA Feigenbaum and J Feldman, Computers and Thought, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1964 pp 71-105.

Here you have a computer program that wrote itself. A program to play checkers. The program got so good -- by Darwinian selection -- that it beat the human checkers champ. Samuel hadn't looked at the code while the program was evolving. When he did after the program beat the human, he found huge stretches of code that Samuel had no idea what it did! Now, how could Samuel be said to have been the "intelligent programmer" when he doesn't know how the program works?

Your defense of Dawkins shows your complete misunderstanding of the problem (or an attempt to purposely mislead). I will give you the benefit of the doubt because I don't know you so please tell me how Dawkins proved anything except his own intelligent intervention in either his biomorphs or METHINKS... experiment. He programmed and he selected and he set a goal. What exactly didn't HE do???
Dawkins did not select. He did set a "goal", but then, so does the environment. The environment does set the immediate "goal" for natural selection. So that wasn't out of bounds for duplicating what nature does. The "program" was simply the algorithm of selection. That is, he duplicated what goes on in nature with 1) random generation of letters for the initial sequences, 2) preserving the selected sequences (inheritance), and 3) the introduction of variation into the next generation (recombination and mutation). IOW, anything he set up is what is present in the natural system.

Making chemicals to wiggle and squirm and reproduce with the aid of an intelligent being directing is not creating a genetic code along with the associated machinery of translation without intelligetn input. Fox's experiments did not produce a genetic code and the associated logical communication necessary for real life.
1. Have you ever run a chemistry experiment? It is impossible to "make chemical wriggle and squirm". Instead, you put them together and they react or they don't. You can't reach in to each molecule and physically shove it toward and make it react with another molecule.

2. No one said Fox's experiments produced a genetic code. But you don't have to have one to be alive. The protocells contain more information than modern cells, and that information arises thru chemistry, not intelligent intervention.

3. Since the proteins can reproduce directly without a DNA template, you don't need DNA coding. And the protocells reproduce, dividing up the proteins and other chemicals among the daughter cells. Even the IDer Dean Kenyon wrote 1) that protocells were alive and 2) provided units for selection. Dean H. Kenyon, Prefigured ordering and protoselection in the origin of life. In The Origins of Life and Evolutionary Biochemistry, ed. Dose, Fox, Deborin, and Pavlovskaya, 1974, pg 211.

Again, give me the proof that you have overthrown several thousand years of human experience and produced meaningful information and communication without intelligent input.
Oh, that's easy! You do know that William Dembski has shown that information arises from selection, don't you? See No Free Lunch.

"Suppose that an organism in reproducing generates N offspring, and that of these N offspring M succeed in reproducing. The amount of information introduced through selection is then -log2(M/N). Let me stress that this formula is not an case of misplaced mathematical exactness. This formula holds universally and is non-mysterious. Take a simple non-biological example. If I am sitting at a radio transmitter, and can transmit only zeros and ones, then every time I transmit a zero or one, I choose between two possibilities, selecting precisely one of them. Here N equals 2 and M equals 1. The information -log2(M/N) thus equals -log2(1/2) = 1, i.e., 1 bit of information n is introduced every time I transmit a zero or one. This is of course as things should be. Now this example from communication theory is mathematically isomorphic to the case of cell-division where only one of the daughter cells goes on to reproduce. On the other hand, if both daughter cells go on to reproduce, then N equals M equals 2, and thus -log2(M/N) = -log2(2/2) = 0, indicating that selection, by failing to eliminate any possibility failed also to introduce new information. "

Now, let's look at what happens in populations of organisms. Let's run a few calculations:
1. In a population, there are 4 offspring born but selection eliminates 3 and only one reproduces. So we have N = 4 and M = 1. -log(2) (M/N) = -log(2) (1/4) = -(-2) = 2. We have gained 2 "bits" of information in this generation. Selection does increase information.

2. Let's take a more radical example. An antibiotic kills 95% of the population. So we have 5 bacteria that can reproduce out of 100. N = 100, M =5. -log(2) (5/100) = -log(2) (.05) = -(-4.3) = 4.3. Now information has increased 4.3 "bits". The more severe the selection, the greater the increase in information. Not exactly what Dembski said.

3. Let's take a less severe example. A selection pressure such that of 100 individuals, 99 survive to reproduce. -log(2) (99/100) = -log(2) (.99) = - (-0.01) = 0.01.
So now we have only an increase of 0.01 "bits" in this one generation due to selection. But remember, selection is cumulative. Take this over 1,000 generations and we have an increase of 10 "bits". Now, Nilsson and Pelger have estimated, using conservative parameters, that it would take 364,000 generations to evolve an eye. D-E Nilsson and S Pelger, A pessimistic estimate of the time required for an eye to evolve. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B. 256: 53-58, 1994. Taking that over our calculations shows that the eye represents an increase of 3,640 "bits" of information.

Finally, note that selection must result in an increase of information by Dembski's equation. Any fraction always has a negative logarithm. With the negative sign in front of the logarithm (-log) that means that the value for information must be positive as long as selection is operative. The only way to get loss of information is for the number of individuals that reproduce (M) to be greater than the number born (N). This is obviously not possible.


As to "communication", see
3. G Taubes, Evolving a conscious machine. Discover 19: 72-79. June1998.

Human "experience" here means ignoring that Darwinian selection is an algorithm to get design. Our new experience, and expanding daily, is that information and communication do indeed arise out of the unintelligent process of Darwinian selection.
 
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lucaspa

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RFHendrix said:
The nylon bug and "glitches" in the program:

If God was involved in the creation of life or at least in the initial programming of it. (I speak for the sake of argument.) Then there is no reason to think that he abandoned his creation to the forces of nature.
If you are arguing (as you say) against atheism in your book, why do you accept the basic statement of faith of atheism and have anything "natural" be without God? Have you read the Fontispiece to Origin of the Species? I suggest you do.

A new food product (nylon) is like a new destructive virus that invades a healthy organism. All possibilities are not allowed for necesarily but many are, including those that the organism has not encountered previously. Adapting to a new source of food may or may not require "planning" depending on the organism and the capability it has to adapt and survive in new environments.
Here is where you get very vague about how the new gene in the nylon bug arose. It is a random scrambling of existing sequences by an insertion mutation. God was conspicuous by His absence as a direct cause of this mutation. How can you identify that God reached down and with His "fingers" moved those wiggling and squirming chemicals such that a new nucleotide was inserted in that gene at that place? If not, if it was indeed due to what you call "natural forces", then how can we tell that similar events were also not natural? Now you have to go thru each and every event and falsify the natural. Have you done that?

The reason that science does not want to consider God in creation is obvious to me. It creates too many possibilities for his ocntinued intervention by natural or supernatural means.
So He continues to intervene? Big whoop. Why would science care? Science is the study of the physical universe. If the physical universe is shaped by gaps between members of the universe as God directly intervenes, then that is what happens and that is that.

You are ignoring how science works:
"...what we learned in school about the scientific method can be reduced to two basic principles.
"1. All our theory, ideas, preconceptions, instincts, and prejudices about how things logically ought to be, how they in all fairness ought to be, or how we would prefer them to be, must be tested against external reality --what they *really* are. How do we determine what they really are? Through direct experience of the universe itself. " Kitty Ferguson, The Fire in the Equations, pg. 38.


What we "want", or "prefer them to be", has nothing to do with it.

You are also ignoring history. After all, God directly intervening to cause a world-wide Flood that caused geological features was the prevailing scientific theory from 1700-1831. Also, ID was the prevailing scientific theory from 1800-1859. ID is the same as Special Creation, which was the theory that Darwin falsified in Origin of the Species.

That is one reason why I believe the God of the Bible fits so perfectly, i.e., the cursed earth, the battle of good and evil, the corruption of creation and the continued intervention of God into natural processes.
Unfortunately, that last is not Biblical. Whatever god it is, that "continued intervention" as ID says is not the God of the Bible.
 
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lucaspa

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RFHendrix said:
I will answer the basic problem I think you have with the God of the Bible:

1. He didn't do things the way you think he should have. Well that is where my statement about one of the aspects of God (... not only a God of pleasentries..) comes in. He never claims to be like us and to think like us. He also claims to hide evidence and purposely deceive people.
Where does God claim to hide evidence and purposely deceive people.

I think you just destroyed the very theism you are trying to defend! Altho you may still have a deity existing, it's not any deity that any human is going to worship and follow! Why bother? If all your god is going to do is lie to us like Satan, then why follow? For everlasting life? Wouldn't that just be another purposeful lie?

There is no solution to the problem of finding God without a direct revelation from God initially.
Well, now you just denied ID! You're on a roll. ID claims that we can find God without direct revelation. We can look in general revelation (the universe) and detect God. Now you say we can't. There goes ID!

2. I didn't prove that the God of the Bible created life: No, and I didin't intend to. Evidence supports theism because of the nature of information and the entirety of nature. Meaning does not come from the laws of physics with or without the aid of natural selection. Meaning comes from intelligent value judgments.
WHOA! Two separate concepts here!

1. Information.
2. Meaning. As in a "meaning of life".

Information, as Dembski has shown, comes from selection. Well, guess what natural selection is? Meaning is something else. And meaning for human beings and their lives can come from the humans themselves. It doesn't have to be imposed by God. In fact, God acknowledges this when He says people can sin and have lives of their own cut off from Him. Those lives have meaning. Maybe not the meaning God would want for them, but meaning nonetheless.

The laws of physics are only tools, and to assert that they form opinions and think about solutions to problems is absurd. However you look at it materialistic evolution claims that the laws of physics are able to think and plan ahead.
Not "plan ahead", but simply react to problems posed at the moment.
 
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lucaspa

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RFHendrix said:
If intelligence is indicated in the formation of the code and it's associated machnery and corruption is a fact of life then why would it be difficult to believe that the nylon bug either adapted to it's new environment naturally through selection
Since that "adaptation" you admit is a new design and a new feature that wasnt' there before, you have now falsified your position in your quote that you need intelligence for new information. You just cut your own argument off at the knees.

Your summary (above) leaves us with the same question that Fox, Kaufman et al leaves us with. Everyone simply says; "Well here is how we find the letters, and here is how we put them together, and here is how we did it in the lab so now let's just wait for a few million years and naturally a language will come forth..." Where is it? The essential question is ignored and we are in the same place as the plastic letters are in after they have been filtered naturally. We may have order or patterns but not a language.

Again, the problem can be solved with a computer (if it can be solved) as it is an information problem. The laws of physics cannot think unless they have in fact ben interjected with intelligence.
Your answer is in chemistry, not physics. Not all chemical combinations or sequences of amino acids in proteins are allowed. Thus selection comes into play right at the beginning with forming proteins or RNA by non-intelligent chemistry. Whenever there is selection, there is the creation of information. So we get new information in thermal proteins and in RNA made by chemical reactions. That's the starting point. The rest comes in steps as that initial chemical information is added to by natural selection.

Now, you claim that there has been no work on how you get the genetic code. That is wrong.

"In more recent work, Fox and his colleagues have shown that basic proteinoids, rich in lysine residues, selectively associate with the homopolynucleotides poly C and poly U but not with poly A or poly G. On the other hand, arginine-rich proteinoids associate selectively with poly A and poly G. In this manner, the information in proteinoids can be used to select polynucleotides. Morever, it is striking that aminoacyl adenylates yield oligopeptides when incubated with proteinoid-polynucleotide complexes, which thus have some of the characteristics of ribosomes. Fox has suggested that proteinoids bearing this sort of primitive chemical information could have transferred it to a primitive nucleic acid; the specificity of interaction between certain proteinoids and polynucleotides suggests the beginning of the genetic code." A. Lehninger, Biochemistry, 1975, pp 1047-1048

BINGO! The beginnings of language of DNA by chemistry.

You also seem to have blown by some of the references I gave you. Here they are again. Read them before you make a reply, please.

1. Alberti, S The origin of the genetic code and protein synthesis. J. Mol. Evol. 45: 352-358, 1997.
2. Lazcano, A and Miller, SL The origin and early evolution of life: prebiotic chemistry, the pre-RNA world, and time. Cell 85: 793-798, 1996.
7. P S Chimmel and R Alexander, All you need is RNA. Science 281:658-659, Jul. 31, 1998. Describes research showing that RNA in ribosomes sufficient to make proteins. Intermediate step in going from abiogenesis to genetic code.
9. AM Poole, DC Jeffares, D Penney, The path from the RNA world. J. Molecular Evolution 46: 1-17, 1998. Describes Darwinian step-by-step for evolution from RNA molecules to cells with directed protein synthesis. All intermediate steps are useful.
14. Yao S, et al. Selective amplification by auto- and cross-catalysis in a replicating peptide system. Nature. 1998 Dec 3;396(6710):447-50.
19. E Klarreich Playing both sides. The Sciences, 41: 25-29,Jan-Feb 2001. www.nyas.org Parrondo's paradox shows that you can win at two losing games by switching between them. Holds a way to get information out of random brownian motion. Good mathematical treatment.
 
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lucaspa

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RFHendrix said:
Someone asked about "forcing" chemicals:

I am talking about the gathering of specific chemicals and putting them together in one place and subjecting them to various forms of energy etc. This is how you make plastic for example. Forcing is done by intelligent beings (humans) so it is often not a fair demonstration of a supposed natural condition.
But it can also be a fair demonstration. For instance, if you know the chemicals are present and you know what the energy source is. Then all you are doing is simulating in the lab what happens in nature.

Here are some papers showing that the formation of protocells was a simulation, not "forcing":

Snyder WD and Fox, SW. A model for the origin of stable protocells in a primitive alkaline ocean. BioSystems 7: 222-229, 1975.
Rohlfing, DL. Thermal polyamino acids: synthesis at less than 100°C. Science 193: 68-70, 1976.
Syren RM, Sanjur A, Fox SW Proteinoid microspheres more stable in hot than in cold water. Biosystems 1985;17(4):275-80 (protocells at hydrothermal vents)
Yanagawa, H. and K. Kobayashi. 1992. An experimental approach to chemical evolution in submarine hydrothermal. systems. Origins of Life and Evolution of the Biosphere 22: 147-159.
Marshall, W. H. 1994. Hydrothermal synthesis of amino acids. Goechimica et Cosmochimica Acta 58: 2099-2106.
McAlhaney WW, Rohlfing DL. Formation of proteinoid microspheres under simulated prebiotic atmospheres and individual gases. Biosystems 1976 Jul;8(2):45-50
Fouche-CE Jr; Rohlfing-DL Thermal polymerization of amino acids under various atmospheres or at low pressures. Biosystems. 1976 Jul; 8(2): 57-65

SW Fox, Thermal polymerization of amino-acids and production of formed microparticles on lava. Nature, 201: 336-337, Jan. 25, 1964.
Hennon, G, Plaquet, R, Biserte, G. The synthesis of amino acid polymers by thermal condensation at 105° without a catalyst. Biochimie 57: 1395-1396, 1975.

Saunders MA and Rohlfing DL, Inclusion of nonproteinous amino acids in thermally prepared models for prebiotic protein. Biosystems 6. 81-92, 1974.

BTW, in an earlier post you mentioned "communication"

Hsu, LL, Brooke, S, Fox, SW. Conjugation of proteinoid microspheres: a model of primordial communication. Curr. Mod. Biol. (now BioSystems) 4: 12-25, 1971.
 
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lucaspa

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RFHendrix said:
Well folks, it has been 12 days. I really do have to attend to other business so I will have to bow out of this thread.
Too bad you missed all my latest posts before this retreat. Oh well, I'm sure they will benefit others here.

1. My book is about theism and atheism with personal opinions interjected. I do not claim that it is pure science and I make that distinction in the book.
Notto showed this claim to be false. You do make such a claim in your book.

2. It is my thesis that God created life however he chose, with or without the aid of natural processes that we observe today.
Changed your thesis from the book, haven't you? You were telling us that God could not have used the natural processes because such processes cannot yield life.

I generally argue from the turf of materialists but I do not believe that evidence supports the idea that all that God is needed for is to somehow interject intelligence into some chemicals that formed naturally.
How does one "inject intelligence" into a chemical?

3. The laws of physics cannot create intelligence.
On the contrary, your paragraph above says physics can do just that. If you allow God any way to create life, then the laws of physics become one of the ways.

If mankind evolved like some assert that he did then that is evidence that there is an intelligent force in the universe. Evolution cannot be expected to arise out of thin air because of the spontaneous self assembly of chemicals and then create intelligence.
Shell game. Life arose thru chemistry. Human intelligence arose thru evolution by natural selection. You want natural selection to be a necessary part of chemistry. Separate processes.

If we begin with the laws of physics we cannot end up with meaning to anything.
Yes, we can. Each of us makes our own meaning. However, because we can get meaning on our own does not mean we did. Two separate concepts.

Even Peter Singer calls our existence “meaningless” because he does not believe in God.
Atheism does not inevitably lead to nihilism.

4. If there is discovered to be a natural affinity of certain codons to certain amino acids that matches the existing genetic code then what has that proved?
That you have what you deny: a route to the genetic code that does not involve direct manufacture of the code by a direct intervention of God. It means that chemistry rules, and you do not know whether God is involved in chemistry or not. Science won't tell you because of limitations in science.

I am asserting that intelligence has been interjected into the universe, especially the universe of life. God originated the language of life and assigned meaning to the chemicals symbols.
Here you are!. You are saying that God directly manufactured the genetic code and assigned the triplet code to the amino acids. The evidence says the triplet code evolved by natural selection.

1. Alberti, S The origin of the genetic code and protein synthesis. J. Mol. Evol. 45: 352-358, 1997.

This paper traces the evolution of the current triplet code from a duplex code for 16 amino acids. There is also data showing that the current code is not arbitrary as once thought, but that it is the best adapted code to minimize catastrophic errors.

5. Finally, I don’t know what God did or how he did anything.
Your whole book is asserting that you do know what God did and how. It's way too late to try to back off of that now.

I am simply showing the absurdity of trying to assert that he did nothing. Atheism is based on personal belief.
I agree that atheism is a personal belief. However, your arguments don't show that. You picked the wrong way to fight that battle. And are doing great harm to the theism you say you want to support.

The book is intended to show that atheism is not the default position. I think I have proved my point.
Not at all. You have really hung theism out to dry.
 
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Lucas,

I knew this would happen after I left so I couldn’t resist checking back on this thread.

1. Post 202:

Thanks for the link but I guess you did not read it yourself. Did you even see the intelligent intervention in the programming, or do you simply pretend that it did it on it’s own to deceive the unwary reader who may not check out your “proofs”? Did you read this:

“The five major preparatory steps for the basic version of genetic programming require the human user to specify
(1) the set of terminals (e.g., the independent variables of the problem, zero-argument functions, and random constants) for each branch of the to-be-evolved program,
(2) the set of primitive functions for each branch of the to-be-evolved program,
(3) the fitness measure (for explicitly or implicitly measuring the fitness of individuals in the population),
(4) certain parameters for controlling the run, and
(5) the termination criterion and method for designating the result of the run.”

Again, the proof is in the pudding and your pudding is intelligently designed. I never questioned the ability of a computer to manipulate the input of an intelligent programmer, now did I?

And the problem is producing AI WITHOUT intelligent input. You again prove that the intelligent input is necessary. Thanks. The checkers game was a manipulation of intelligent programing.

You said: “Dawkins did not select."

But he said (page 65) “...it was I that programmed the computer, telling it IN GREAT DETAIL WHAT TO DO, nevertheless I didn’t plan the animals that evolved.” And “(page 60) “The role of the HUMAN EYE was limited to selecting...”

You are simply trying to distort the truth.

You said (still in post 202): “No one said Fox’s experiment produced a genetic code.”

Exactly my point, no one has in spite of the exaggerated claims and eloquent titles of scientific papers that would seem to indicate that they have solved the problem.


You said: “Dembski has shown that information arises from selection”

Another attempt to twist my words. I already said several times on this thread that the problem is the origin of the information system )complete with the rules of grammar etc.) is the problem. You evade the issue by pretending that I am opposed to Dembski. I am not. Why don’t you read the thread?

Your checkers game and GA’s do not solve the problem and neither does Fox. You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel (I know, I know I am plagiarizing again. :))

Post 203:

First paragraph:

Read my book. You obviously have not or you would know the answers to your irrelevant questions. You strain at gnats.

You said:

“How can you identify that God reached down and with His "fingers" moved those wiggling and squirming chemicals such that a new nucleotide was inserted in that gene at that place? If not, if it was indeed due to what you call "natural forces", then how can we tell that similar events were also not natural? Now you have to go thru each and every event and falsify the natural. Have you done that?”

Read the thread and my book. Intelligent intervention must be inferred in most cases just as you cannot prove that a machine is not typing this response. The entirety of the system implies design just as the entirety of this thread implies intelligent input.

You said:

“You are also ignoring history. After all, God directly intervening to cause a world-wide Flood that caused geological features was the prevailing scientific theory from 1700-1831. Also, ID was the prevailing scientific theory from 1800-1859. ID is the same as Special Creation, which was the theory that Darwin falsified in Origin of the Species.”

That is why I refer to “modern science” because it refuses to consider God even when ID is indicated. And ID is not the same as special creation, but argue semantics with someone else.

Post 204:

You said:

“Where does God claim to hide evidence and purposely deceive people.

I think you just destroyed the very theism you are trying to defend! Altho you may still have a deity existing, it's not any deity that any human is going to worship and follow! Why bother? If all your god is going to do is lie to us like Satan, then why follow? For everlasting life? Wouldn't that just be another purposeful lie?”


I will answer this one question about the nature of God:

Ez:14:9: And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

2Thes:2:11: And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
2Thes:2:12: That they all might be ****** who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

1Kgs:22:23: Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.

You said:

“Well, now you just denied ID! You're on a roll. ID claims that we can find God without direct revelation. We can look in general revelation (the universe) and detect God. Now you say we can't. There goes ID!”

No, there goes your intellectual honesty. ID claims that we can find evidence of intelligent design. Christianity is based upon supernatural revelation of the nature of God and his judgment and love. You haven’t even bothered to read the preface of my book evidently, but you still form your conclusions based on a lack of evidence.

You said:

“WHOA! Two separate concepts here!

1. Information.
2. Meaning. As in a "meaning of life".

No, just the extension of the word “meaning” which is applicable to the topic of this thread. Extending the concept results in a meaning to life, that is, the meaning and reason that the creator gave the information in life for a specific purpose.

You said:

“Not "plan ahead", but simply react to problems posed at the moment.”

The laws of physics produced intelligence according the theory of evolution. I have been told repeatedly on this thread that we are the result of chemical reactions that are the same as water and hydrogen and oxygen reacting together. Well what laws dictate these reactions? Answer; The laws of physics. Now how did natural selection come into existence apart from the laws of physics? You assert that these laws create intelligence by use of “natural selection” but that is only an evasion. If “natural selection” creates meaning and intelligence then natural selection is not natural.

Post 205:

You again evade the issue which is the origin of information and the associated machinery etc. Your checkers game didn’t do it and neither did Fox et al so you prolong the thread with irrelevance.

You said:

“Your answer is in chemistry, not physics.”

Well what laws does chemistry follow?

You said:

“So we get new information in thermal proteins and in RNA made by chemical reactions. That's the starting point. The rest comes in steps as that initial chemical information is added to by natural selection.

Now, you claim that there has been no work on how you get the genetic code. That is wrong.”

Again, you twist my words. I did not say that there was no work on how you get the genetic code. I studied the work on code origin before I wrote the book. The “beginnings of the code” that are supposed to prove that if we just wait a few million generations we will have a complete language are like saying that if we can only make the gears we can eventually assemble a watch that tells perfect time. Where exactly is the result??? You only prove what I wrote in the book.

Post 207:

You said:

“Notto showed this claim to be false. You do make such a claim in your book.”

Why don’t you read what I said? (Clue, the quote is in your own 207 post).

You said:

“Changed your thesis from the book, haven't you? You were telling us that God could not have used the natural processes because such processes cannot yield life.”

Again, you twist my words. I specifically said that God does use natural processes as he sees fit. You haven’t read the book even though I have linked to an online version of it. Why don’t you read it and get back to me? I don’t have time to waste with you.

You said:

“Here you are!. You are saying that God directly manufactured the genetic code and assigned the triplet code to the amino acids. The evidence says the triplet code evolved by natural selection.”

Again, I DID NOT SAY what you assert I said. Do you do this intentionally? Why don’t you read what I said. You really are not very good at reading between the lines. Like I said, read the book. It is free online just for you. ;) The rest of your post is the same old tripe with you trying to read my mind and twisting my words to fit your strawman. A modern computer can simulate millions of generations of evolution in a few days. Why don’t you solve the problem? Now, I really have to go but maybe I will check on this thread in Thailand to make sure you don’t pull anymore fast ones.
 
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napajohn

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RFHendrix said:
No my argument is based upon available evidence and the knowledge of where that evidence leads. I can just as easily say that abiogenesis is based an argument from ignorance. Here is the basis for my argument:

1. DNA contains information and the source of that information is unknown. Life is known to be a biological information based machine.

2. There exists in the world an intelligent source of information, i.e the human mind. This has been empirically proved and confirmed in several thousand years of human history and experimentation. There has never been even one verified example where information or intricate interactive machinery came into being without intelligent input.



Speculation: Perhaps the information within DNA and the associated machinery of life came into being by way of the laws of physics? Or perhaps there is an intelligent source of information within the universe?



Because there is no known instance where information or intricate interactive machinery arose by way of the laws of physics that hypothesis is entirely speculation without any empirical basis whatsoever. On the other hand, it has already been proved that information and machinery comes into being by way of an invisible intelligent mental source that uses the laws of physics as tools to manifest that reality.



Conclusion: Belief in an intelligent mental source within the universe is a rational deduction based upon facts and evidence.


RFHendrix, you'll never get an honest answer with evolutionists..if you ask them a hard question that they can't answer, the issues become one of a strawman argument or your bias for special creation or whatever...again simply put the question is what process can you show where proteins by themselves can produce a system of coding whereby something else that developed can mechanically translate this information into something that is not only self replicating but into the mechanisms that we see today..Evolutionists..just answer the question!!!
 
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lucaspa

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RFHendrix said:
Lucas,

I knew this would happen after I left so I couldn’t resist checking back on this thread.

1. Post 202:

Thanks for the link but I guess you did not read it yourself. Did you even see the intelligent intervention in the programming, or do you simply pretend that it did it on it’s own to deceive the unwary reader who may not check out your “proofs”? Did you read this:

“The five major preparatory steps for the basic version of genetic programming require the human user to specify
(1) the set of terminals (e.g., the independent variables of the problem, zero-argument functions, and random constants) for each branch of the to-be-evolved program,
(2) the set of primitive functions for each branch of the to-be-evolved program,
(3) the fitness measure (for explicitly or implicitly measuring the fitness of individuals in the population),
(4) certain parameters for controlling the run, and
(5) the termination criterion and method for designating the result of the run.”
And all those are merely setting the environment. It's what the environment does in nature. Now, do you want to claim the environment is intelligent?

The first is what physics does. 2-5 is the environment. For instance, the environment sets the "fitness measure" of any design. The number of offspring and the frequency of mutations (4) are set by the biology of the organism initially. And every environment has a "fitness peak" or the "termination criteria".

Again, the proof is in the pudding and your pudding is intelligently designed. I never questioned the ability of a computer to manipulate the input of an intelligent programmer, now did I?
When a watchmaker designs a watch, doesn't he know how it works? Doesn't he know, before he puts in each gear, what that gear will do? Well, in this situation that is not the case. Thomspson doesn't know how the chip works! How can he have designed.

All you have shown is that humans can intelligently duplicate natural selection. Not that genetic algorithms require intelligence.

You said: “Dawkins did not select."

But he said (page 65) “...it was I that programmed the computer, telling it IN GREAT DETAIL WHAT TO DO, nevertheless I didn’t plan the animals that evolved.” And “(page 60) “The role of the HUMAN EYE was limited to selecting...”
"nevertheless I didn’t plan the animals " Dawkins had to tell the computer how to duplicate natural selection. But to "design" you have to plan the design ahead of time. Dawkins didn't do that. Who's doing the distorting? :)

You said (still in post 202): “No one said Fox’s experiment produced a genetic code.”

Exactly my point, no one has in spite of the exaggerated claims and eloquent titles of scientific papers that would seem to indicate that they have solved the problem.
But life isn't the genetic code. Fox's experiments produced life. Living organisms. Your claim was "Fox's experiments did not produce a genetic code and the associated logical communication necessary for real life."

The problem is the genetic code isn't necessary for "real" life. It's necessary for modern cells. But modern cells aren't the only "real" life possible.

You said: “Dembski has shown that information arises from selection”

Another attempt to twist my words. I already said several times on this thread that the problem is the origin of the information system )complete with the rules of grammar etc.) is the problem. You evade the issue by pretending that I am opposed to Dembski. I am not.
I didn't say you were opposed to Dembski. I merely said that Dembski offers the solution to your problem. The origin of all information, including your information systems, arises from selection.

Your checkers game and GA’s do not solve the problem and neither does Fox.
Why not? This is simple denial without explanation. Give the detailed explanation how they do not solve the problem. Chemistry to get information to begin with and then variation and selection to increase it.

Read my book. You obviously have not or you would know the answers to your irrelevant questions. You strain at gnats.

You said:

“How can you identify that God reached down and with His "fingers" moved those wiggling and squirming chemicals such that a new nucleotide was inserted in that gene at that place? If not, if it was indeed due to what you call "natural forces", then how can we tell that similar events were also not natural? Now you have to go thru each and every event and falsify the natural. Have you done that?”
Please show how this is irrelevant. Since you wrote the book, I presume you are in a position to cut and paste the relevant portions for me. Or do you need the royalties that badly?

This is a relevant question. You are saying that setting up chemical reactions in the lab is "intelligent design". But for the chemicals to be intelligently designed or made by intelligence, I would have to reach in and put the chemicals together, like a watchmaker puts a watch together. Fox didn't do that.

Intelligent intervention must be inferred in most cases just as you cannot prove that a machine is not typing this response. The entirety of the system implies design just as the entirety of this thread implies intelligent input.
Well, half the thread says intelligent input -- my half! :) Sorry, couldn't pass that up.

I am questioning whether the entirety of the system implies design by showin unintelligent processes capable of producing the information in the system. Repeating your initial claim isn't intelligent input.

“You are also ignoring history. After all, God directly intervening to cause a world-wide Flood that caused geological features was the prevailing scientific theory from 1700-1831. Also, ID was the prevailing scientific theory from 1800-1859. ID is the same as Special Creation, which was the theory that Darwin falsified in Origin of the Species.”

That is why I refer to “modern science” because it refuses to consider God even when ID is indicated. And ID is not the same as special creation, but argue semantics with someone else.
How is ID different from special creation? It does say that species or parts of species have to be specially created (made) by deity in their present form. Remember, even IDers like Behe trace ID back to William Paley, who advocated special creation.

The problem is that special manufacture by God is not indicated. There is a material process that will make the entities that ID says they need special manufacture by ID.

I will answer this one question about the nature of God:

Ez:14:9: And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.

2Thes:2:11: And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie:
2Thes:2:12: That they all might be ****** who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

1Kgs:22:23: Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee.
Congrats. Destroyed Christianity. I'll give it up.

You said:

“Well, now you just denied ID! You're on a roll. ID claims that we can find God without direct revelation. We can look in general revelation (the universe) and detect God. Now you say we can't. There goes ID!”

No, there goes your intellectual honesty. ID claims that we can find evidence of intelligent design. Christianity is based upon supernatural revelation of the nature of God and his judgment and love. You haven’t even bothered to read the preface of my book evidently, but you still form your conclusions based on a lack of evidence.
Sorry, but ID does claim in places to be able to find God. Also, there is your statement above: "That is why I refer to “modern science” because it refuses to consider God even when ID is indicated." You do equate God with ID, don't you?

Here's another quote by you: "I am asserting that intelligence has been interjected into the universe, especially the universe of life. God originated the language of life and assigned meaning to the chemicals symbols."

See, you can infer God by looking at the physical universe! Your own words! Then you contradict them and say we can't infer that "God originated the language of life".

I think you are being a more than a bit disingenuous here, as your own words show. Of course, it is a failing of ID in general. They want ID accepted in public school and therefore can't mention God. However, go to www.arn.org or www.discoveryinstitute.com and you find that nothing other than God is ever considered as the ID.

"Postulates of design are constrained in yet another way. There are many particular events, even in history, for which design could not be considered the best or most likely explanation. The reason for this is that postulations of intelligent design are constrained by background assumptions about the proclivities of potential designing agents, both human and divine. Most biblical theists, for example, assume that God acts in at least two ways: (1) through the natural regularities or laws that he upholds and sustanins through his invisible power and (2) through more dramatic, discernible and discrete actions at particular points in time. Because theists assume that the second mode of divine action is by far the rarer and usually associated with the accomplishment of some particular divine purpose on behalf of human beings (e.g. creation or redemption), they assume that divine action of the second variety will be unlikely as an explanation of most particular events. ... Theism itself constrains design inferences. Thus, theistic background assumptions would generally allow consideration of special divine action as the best or most likely explanation for a particular event only when it seemed empirically warranted and theologically plausible. Nevertheless, given a biblical (though not necessarily literalist) understanding of creation and sufficient empirical justification, there is no reason to believe that both these conditions could not be met in some cases, as with, for example, explanations for the origin of life, human consciousness and the universe.
"The above considerations suggest that allowing the design hypothesis as the best explanation for some events in the history of the cosmos ..." Stephen C. Meyer, The methodological equivalence of design and descent: can there be a scientific "theory of creation"? in The Creation Hypothesis, Scientific evidence for an Intelligent Designer, 1994, pg 97-98

See? ID = God.

Not only that, but did you notice that wonderful "Theism itself constrains design inferences. Thus, theistic background assumptions would generally allow consideration of special divine action as the best or most likely explanation for a particular event only when it seemed empirically warranted and theologically plausible." We can't consider design inferences unless it is theologically plausible. Whose theology? Norse? Babylonian? Hindu?

“WHOA! Two separate concepts here!

1. Information.
2. Meaning. As in a "meaning of life".

No, just the extension of the word “meaning” which is applicable to the topic of this thread. Extending the concept results in a meaning to life, that is, the meaning and reason that the creator gave the information in life for a specific purpose.
Still two separate concepts. Meaning can be obtained without an intelligent "creator". After all, natural selection has the information in life for a specific purpose: surviving the competition and producing offspring. But that isn't what you call "meaning", is it?

You said:

“Not "plan ahead", but simply react to problems posed at the moment.”

The laws of physics produced intelligence according the theory of evolution. I have been told repeatedly on this thread that we are the result of chemical reactions that are the same as water and hydrogen and oxygen reacting together. Well what laws dictate these reactions? Answer; The laws of physics. Now how did natural selection come into existence apart from the laws of physics?
How did natural selection come into existence by the laws of physics?

You are engaging in ultra reductionism. I'm sorry, but despite the claims of physicists, the entire universe cannot be reduced to the equations of physics. That's a popular myth of physicists, but instead of accepting it whole you should test it. Haven't you ever heard of "emergent" phenomenon? Phenomenon that can't be reduced.
 
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lucaspa

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You assert that these laws create intelligence by use of “natural selection” but that is only an evasion. If “natural selection” creates meaning and intelligence then natural selection is not natural.
LOL!! Now who's playing semantic games? You are trying to argue the existence of a deity and still equating evolution with atheism. Nope. Ain't gonna play that false game. What I am claiming is that there is no "gap" in the material processes such that some "supernatural" ID has to directly manufacture components.

Intelligence can be accounted for by natural selection. That is, what we call "intelligence" is a set of cognitive algorithms that can evolve by natural selection. Natural selection won't account for "meaning" in the metaphysical sense you are using the term.

Since when does "natural" exclude God? I find it ironic that IDers accept the basic statement of faith of atheism.

You said:

“Your answer is in chemistry, not physics.”

Well what laws does chemistry follow?
The laws of chemistry. DUH!

You said:

“So we get new information in thermal proteins and in RNA made by chemical reactions. That's the starting point. The rest comes in steps as that initial chemical information is added to by natural selection.

Now, you claim that there has been no work on how you get the genetic code. That is wrong.”

Again, you twist my words. I did not say that there was no work on how you get the genetic code. I studied the work on code origin before I wrote the book.
Doesn't appear that you did. Otherwise you would know the references I posted refute your position. You didn't list any of them in your book. Why not?

The “beginnings of the code” that are supposed to prove that if we just wait a few million generations we will have a complete language are like saying that if we can only make the gears we can eventually assemble a watch that tells perfect time. Where exactly is the result???
Not "just wait a few million generations", but have natural selection working.

Well, wasn't thru Darwinian selection that we did make watches that tells time? First the gears were used in mills, etc. Then they were exapted to large clocks. Then the gears and mechanismss were modified to tell time more accurately. Then the gears were made smaller so that they could be carried on persons, although much larger than the watches we have now. In each step, variations that didn't meet the environment -- correct time -- were selected against and those variations that did meet the environment were selected for.

The difference is cells is that we have chemistry to serve as an unintelligent manufacturing process while in watches you have to have humans manufacture the parts.

Post 207:

You said:

“Notto showed this claim to be false. You do make such a claim in your book.”

Why don’t you read what I said?
I did. Your claim was "1. My book is about theism and atheism with personal opinions interjected. I do not claim that it is pure science and I make that distinction in the book."

Notto showed, with quotes from your book, that you do not make that distinction. This seems like a lost cause for you to argue. Are you saying Notto got the quotes from your book wrong?

“Changed your thesis from the book, haven't you? You were telling us that God could not have used the natural processes because such processes cannot yield life.”

I specifically said that God does use natural processes as he sees fit.
Why didn't you quote the relevant passage from the book? That would have been easy enough for you to do, right?

"2. It is my thesis that God created life however he chose, with or without the aid of natural processes that we observe today."

"I am asserting that intelligence has been interjected into the universe, especially the universe of life. God originated the language of life and assigned meaning to the chemicals symbols."

Care to reconcile your two quotes? If you are saying that God used the material processes that I have outlined -- chemistry and selection -- to "originate the language of life" then we agree. You've made a statement of belief -- that God is behind the material processes we observe by science. However, I don't think you are saying that, are you?

You said:

“Here you are!. You are saying that God directly manufactured the genetic code and assigned the triplet code to the amino acids. The evidence says the triplet code evolved by natural selection.”

Again, I DID NOT SAY what you assert I said.
Then what did you say? You castigate me for not reading it "right", but then don't tell me what the correct reading was.
 
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lucaspa

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napajohn said:
again simply put the question is what process can you show where proteins by themselves can produce a system of coding whereby something else that developed can mechanically translate this information into something that is not only self replicating but into the mechanisms that we see today..Evolutionists..just answer the question!!!
I did. But the strawman is "where proteins by themselves can produce a system of coding". Proteins alone won't produce a system of coding. You need the other half: RNA or DNA.

Nature 1996 Aug 8;382(6591):525-8 A self-replicating peptide. Lee DH, Granja JR, Martinez JA, Severin K, Ghadri MR.

Here you have peptides able to make copies of themselves.

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 2002 Oct 1;99(20):12733-40
Inaugural Article: a self-replicating ligase ribozyme.
Paul N, Joyce GF.

Also an RNA (the ribozyme) that replicate.

So now you have self replicating proteins and self-replicating RNA.

Science, 279, 1605, 13 March 1998.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transfer RNA (tRNA) molecules with more than one type of anticodon region that recognizes messenger RNA can have the same identity, that is, accept the same amino acid, and form an isoacceptor group. The classical model of tRNA evolution suggests that all of the tRNAs with the same identity have a common ancestor. An alternative model based on recent experimental evidence suggests that the anticodon interacts sufficiently with the aminoacyl tRNA synthetases so that a point mutation that changes the isoaccepting group could also change identity. Saks et al. (p. 1665) inactivated an essential threonine tRNA with a UGU anticodon in an Escherichia coli strain and show that an arginine tRNA, with a UCU anticodon, underwent a point mutation to UGU and changed its specificity to threonine.


Evolution of the tRNA that is required to carry an amino acid to the growing peptide chain in a ribosome.

Gretchen Vogel EVOLUTION: Tracking the History of the Genetic Code

Science 281, Number 5375 Issue of 17 Jul 1998, p 329

"Computer analyses and experiments with RNA molecules offer new insight into the forces that may have shaped the genetic code over time


VANCOUVER--For the 3 decades since biologists cracked the genetic code--the key to translating DNA into proteins--they have debated its origins. Some claimed it must be a random accident forever frozen in time, while others argued that the code, like all other features of organisms, was shaped by natural selection. Most of those debates have been philosophical, with little data to back up either side. But at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Evolution held here last month, two speakers presented evidence suggesting that forces other than chance shaped the code's origin and history.


Experiments with RNA have shown that chemical attractions between the genetic material and the components of proteins may have helped shape the original code, reported one speaker. Another researcher, using powerful computer analyses, suggested that the modern code is the product of evolution because it is so error-proof: Only one in a million other possible codes is better at producing a workable protein even when the DNA carries mistakes. ...

Living things use DNA to store the instructions for making the proteins that build cells and direct them to develop into a complete organism. The four different subunits, or bases, that make up the DNA chain are grouped into three-letter "words" called codons, and each codon specifies a protein's amino acid building block. Specialized cellular machinery copies the DNA code into RNA--which has a similar code--and then reads the RNA to piece together the amino acids to make proteins. A codon "means" the same thing in a koala as it does in a rose or a bacterium. Yet there's no clear pattern in the pairing of codons and amino acids, which has persuaded many scientists that the code arose by accident.

But test tube experiments now suggest that before cellular machinery had evolved to read the code and build proteins, the code could have been shaped by affinities between specific base sequences and amino acids. Many scientists have speculated about such a scenario, but new data from experiments in which short strands of RNA are chosen based on their affinity for an amino acid are allowing them to test the idea. Several years ago, Michael Yarus of the University of Colorado, Boulder, noticed that in his experiments, the RNA strands that were best at binding a given amino acid tended to contain codons for that amino acid. But because the three-base codons often show up at random, the data were inconclusive.

Now evolutionary biologist Laura Landweber and graduate student Rob Knight of Princeton University have done a more careful analysis, looking specifically at where the amino acid arginine binds to random RNA strands generated in several researchers' experiments. If there is no real affinity, they reasoned, codons for arginine will appear as often in the regions where the amino acid does not bind as in regions that arginine homes in on. They found, instead, that while arginine codons made up 30% of the nonbinding RNA sites--the expected percentage, given that arginine has many possible codons--they made up 72% of the sequences in the binding regions. That suggests, says Landweber, that it's no accident that these codons specify arginine.

Once the code was born, a different kind of pressure, the need to minimize errors, might have refined it. While some researchers have argued that any changes to the code over its 3.5-billion-year history would have been like switching the keys on a typewriter, leading to hopelessly garbled proteins, others argued that the existing code is so good at its job that it must have been shaped by natural selection. For example, in 1991, evolutionary biologists Laurence Hurst of the University of Bath in England and David Haig of Harvard University showed that of all the possible codes made from the four bases and the 20 amino acids, the natural code is among the best at minimizing the effect of mutations. They found that single-base changes in a codon are likely to substitute a chemically similar amino acid and therefore make only minimal changes to the final protein.

Now Hurst's graduate student Stephen Freeland at Cambridge University in England has taken the analysis a step farther by taking into account the kinds of mistakes that are most likely to occur. First, the bases fall into two size classes, and mutations that swap bases of similar size are more common than mutations that switch base sizes. Second, during protein synthesis the first and third members of a codon are much more likely to be misread than the second one. When those mistake frequencies are factored in, the natural code looks even better: Only one of a million randomly generated codes was more error-proof.

That suggests, Freeland says, that the code has been optimized over the eons and isn't simply the product of chance. Lehman agrees that the one-in-a-million result looks impressive, but cautions that the statistics could be misleading. A high degree of similarity within one clan of amino acids could account for the code's apparent resistance to error, and the rest of the code could be random, he says.

With both the genesis and history of the code looking less and less accidental, Landweber and Freeland plan to collaborate next year, hoping to "build a grand scheme of the code's raison d'être," Landweber says--whether it be accident or design."


Any more questions?
 
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lucaspa

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RFHendrix said:
You said: “Dembski has shown that information arises from selection”

Another attempt to twist my words. I already said several times on this thread that the problem is the origin of the information system )complete with the rules of grammar etc.) is the problem. You evade the issue by pretending that I am opposed to Dembski. I am not. Why don’t you read the thread?
I wanted to compliment you on how deftly you managed to distract the discussion and duck the issue.

Your original claim was:
"Again, give me the proof that you have overthrown several thousand years of human experience and produced meaningful information and communication without intelligent input."

So I show how meaningful information can arise from selection. "Meaningful" as in "survive in the face of antibiotics" or "have a genetic code that minimizes errors". Selection creates information. According to Dembski. I used Dembski simply because he is someone you are likely to trust to report on information accurately.

So what do we get in response? An analysis of why selection won't form meaningful information and communication? Nope. An acknowledgement that there is a process in the universe to give information? Nope.

No discussion of selection and information at all. Instead, we get
1. The inaccuracy that I am trying to oppose you to Dembski.
2. A redefinition of the claim, which doesn't do you any good.

Now, when proteins are produced in nature by thermal polymerization, there is selection. Amino acids are not interchangeable playing cards. When Fox took 3 amino acids and made peptides from thermal polymerization, there were a possible 27 tripeptides that could be made. (do the math yourself) Fox found only six. The reason is in chemistry and in steric hindrance and hydrophobicity. This represent -log(base2)(6/27) = 2 bits of information.

Your signature is ""... It is impossible that information can exist without having a mental source. It is impossible for information to exist without having been established voluntarily with a free will. It is impossible for information to exist without all five hierarchal levels; statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics [the purpose for which the information is intended]. It is impossible that information can originate in statistical processes" - Werner Gitt

The tripeptide example shows information existing without a visible mental source, a visible free will or even any "voluntary" actions. The information either formed with all 5 heirarchial levels or you don't need all 5 heirarchial layers. Take your pick. Is a chemical reaction a statistical process? Yes, on a molecular level. The statistics of molecules encountering each other.

Gitt gets falsified on all kinds of levels. Unless Dembski is wrong and information doesn't originate that way. And yet his examples work perfectly, doesn't it. If Dembski is right, and he is only stating the accepted equations, then Gitt has to be wrong. And ID as a scientific theory and apologetics is wrong with him.
 
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napajohn said:
RFHendrix, you'll never get an honest answer with evolutionists..if you ask them a hard question that they can't answer, the issues become one of a strawman argument or your bias for special creation or whatever...again simply put the question is what process can you show where proteins by themselves can produce a system of coding whereby something else that developed can mechanically translate this information into something that is not only self replicating but into the mechanisms that we see today..Evolutionists..just answer the question!!!
well what was the issue then? the reason that we mention strawmen so often is because creationists use them so often, there is no getting round that fact. I if you noticed, I was actually demonstrating a method by which information could form, however he never really addressed it properly.
 
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