TomK
Since sfs already responded on the points about the mutation and quite frankly, I don't think you raised any point I hadn't already addressed, I'll just elaborate a bit on what sfs said already.
What you need to demonstrate for you claims is not that mutations can reduce information. What you need to do is demonstrate that it cannot increase information. For this you will need to do some important things, and I am writing this down beforehand so you can check your resonse against that.
First, you will need to give a definition of information that applies to DNA.
Second, you this definition will need to be able to allow for the possibility of increases of information.
Third, to support your own statements it is not enough for you to demonstrate that mutations can decrease information. You need to support that they cannot increase information.
For example of the first, this means that Dembski's definitions of information do not work, because they aren't actually applicable to anything. As an example of the second, you cannot use Shannon's definition of information, because any change is defined as a loss of information á priori. This is due to the origin of Shannon's information, which is as a method of measuring copying errors. As an example of the third, if I define loss of information as a decrease in base pairs, I can show that loss of information can occur due to a deletion. However, using that definition increases can occur just as well with insertions, so in that case showing that mutations can decrease is really not much more than a triviality.
Keep these things in mind when showing your work
I think your pretty confused about what you think I should be doing. I recognize your apparent need to moderate my actions, but I certainly do not need your input as to how I would construct my arguments. I'm not interested in talking about what you feel I "must" or "must not" demonstrate. As I have told you personally on now 2 occasions; if you don't like my arguments, feel free to ignore them.
Now, about Demski and Shannon, I really dont even know who Shannon is, and I am only vaguely aware of Dembski, so I'm pretty certain that I know nothing about what they consider to be genetic information.
ngpty
Trivial to do. However, showing that mutation can cause a loss of information would suprise no-one -- if you want to demonstrate that mutation cannot cause speciation you must demonstrate that mutation must not ever cause an increase in information. Good luck with tha
You also have a wrong idea of what Im doing, but I am at least happy that your not making any presumption's and you had the decency to add: "if you want to demonstrate...".
... If you are talking about thermodynamic entropy
No, I'm not talking about thermodynamic entropy, though there could be some connections, I really don't know.
I'll give my definition of genetic information in my next post, though I consider it a sort of peripheral point to my main ideas, and merely something I was mentioning in response to sfs's earlier somewhat cryptic claim:
I'm afraid this represents a serious misunderstanding, fostered entirely by creationists. Simply put, scientists are not looking for information-creating mutations. Geneticists and evolutionary biologists seldom apply the concept(s) of information to genetics at all. There are some purposes for which it is useful to define an information content in a genetic sequence; by those definitions, it is trivial to show that mutations can create information. It's not at all clear why we should care.
Creationists generally avoid defining "information" when they make claims about information and mutation, which makes searching for information-creating mutations a little difficult: how are we supposed to search if we don't know what we're searching for? The few creationists who do define information either cannot show that DNA has information (Gitt) or have to switch definitions to avoid admitting that mutations clearly increase information by their own definition (Spetner).
And nothing more. And I will reiterate... I will be defining information, or at least what I mean to say by using the term.
Wiccan_Child
And I gave it: ~13 billion years ago, there was no matter, no energy, no spacetime. Then* there was: the singularity began to expand, and matter/energy formed.
Oh ok, so your just skipping the question altogether,... however, common sense dictates that matter would not arise from nothing, that effect would not arise without a cause. Any other reasoning
is anti-rational.
ex nihilo nihil fit
Now I am not saying that there are no explanations, explanations absolutely abound, the fact is that there are no generally accepted explanations.
The most widely accepted theory of abiogenesis is the 'primordial soup' model supported by the Miller-Urey experiments.
Maybe, but not generally accepted.
I'm also a little confused about your Pentagram and forum name of Wiccan...aren't those ideas against the purely naturalistic viewpoint which you seem to be trying to portray?
Just joking, though, a bit of American humor.
