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Author | Topic: Information Changes in DNA by logical Analysis | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22503 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
I guess I had the same question that Mr. Jack did for JonF, but the way I was going to phrase it was to ask him about the informational equivalent to his fulcrum. His fulcrum answers the question of which has more mass because gravity handily provides this means of differentiation for us, but what is the equivalent differentiator for the amount of information? He needs something that, continuing the analogy, can weigh bits.
We know what information is, it's measured in bits, and so I can see no other method besides quantifying the bits to determine which has more information. Until shown otherwise I don't believe any other method exists. --Percy
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Dr Adequate Member (Idle past 313 days) Posts: 16113 Joined: |
We know what information is, it's measured in bits, and so I can see no other method besides quantifying the bits to determine which has more information. Until shown otherwise I don't believe any other method exists. But we don't need this other method to be produced. That's the beauty of the argument. It applies to any measurement of "information" that satisfies the axioms.
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JonF Member (Idle past 196 days) Posts: 6174 Joined: |
I was just pointing out that "you must be able to assign a numeric value to information" is not necessarily true. If there exists a way of ordering information in the manner I "weighed" the information, then you can detect an increase or lack thereof in information. I don't know of a way to do this in the real world, but I also do not know that there is [b]no[b] way to do it. My lack of imagination is not evidence.
So "you must be able to assign a numeric value to information" is not true a priori, it requires justification. Much better just to ask how to detect an increase in information, which covers all bases.
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Percy Member Posts: 22503 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
I think we pretty much agree. We can't know that no such method exists, but I would add that neither can we just presume that one does exist.
About not needing actual numeric values, no argument there, either. Variables like x are fine. But statements like x If the argument is that if there's a mutation that can decrease information that therefore there must be a mutation that can restore it again, then I think creationists would probably accept this. But as Mr. Jack has explained, they would consider that to be a restoration of information that was there at creation. A mutation that could increase information beyond what was present at the beginning isn't possible. --Percy
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4669 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
SSSsssooooooo I guess that no one read Gitt's book ?
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I doubt that Gitts; book is worth reading. The basics are on the web for free - and based on those I can't say that the book is worth paying money for.
If you have read it and you think that it makes valid points then you can certainly bring those up. Have you read it ?
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NosyNed Member Posts: 9004 From: Canada Joined: |
You haven't explained how it has any relevance here. You also haven't answered the questions put forth in the first post. Why not?
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slevesque Member (Idle past 4669 days) Posts: 1456 Joined: |
Of course, this isn't a random question and the eventual outcome will contribute to the discussion. Although I find it very, very odd that no one is even responding to this simple yes or no question (Although Paulk just answered he didn't read it)
Mr. Jack ? Percy ? Dr. Adequate ? etc. Did anybody read the book ? PS Paulk, I didn't read the book myself, as I said on the first page of discussion
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I'll be very surprised if anyone has read Gitts book because it is a) obscure and b) appears to be very bad. I don't think that it has anything useful to contribute to the discussion other than giving some indication of the misunderstandings on the creationist side.
So far as I'm concerned the most interesting thing about Gitt is the creationist attempt to make his (weak) credentials seem much better than they really are.
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cavediver Member (Idle past 3672 days) Posts: 4129 From: UK Joined: |
But as Mr. Jack has explained, they would consider that to be a restoration of information that was there at creation. A mutation that could increase information beyond what was present at the beginning isn't possible. But that is not really relevant. The creationist is arguing against *evolution* and *common descent* in a naturalistic framework by stating that mutations cannot increase information. We trivially demonstrate that they can. Stating that these mutations only restore information that was there to begin with is switching framework - this is no longer an argument against evolution, but a explanation of why we see information-increasing mutations within a creation framework. This is simply a slight of hand, and does nothing to defend against our demolishing of their original argument.
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Percy Member Posts: 22503 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
No, I didn't read Gitt's book, for the same reason I don't read books on homeopathy, past lives and spoon bending. If you think there's something of merit in Gitt's book then bring it forward into the discussion.
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22503 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 4.9 |
That the universe began in perfection and has been deteriorating since is a very common part of the creationist viewpoint, so I don't think they're switching frameworks when they remind us of this. Maybe we understandably fail to take it into account if they don't mention it explicitly up front, but we do know about it.
Dr Adequate is seeking a way to counter the creationist claim of no new information without requiring an understanding of information theory or even a definition of information. I don't know that this is possible, though it seems well worth exploring. But it is possible that creationists only buy into the bogus creationist claims about information solely because they don't understand information theory or even know what information is, and that therefore you have to educate them before you can convince them. It again feels like 2LOT discussions to me. I don't think I've ever been involved in a 2LOT discussion where the creationist eventually came to understand that it isn't about messy rooms, and I think information theory presents many of the same conceptual problems. --Percy
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Wounded King Member Posts: 4149 From: Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Joined: |
I certainly haven't read it, but I have read several things he has published online about his 'measure' of information. I don't see how expanding his thesis to book length is going to make his numerous unwarranted assumptions magically warranted. If you feel his assumptions are reasonable you should go to the [thread=-8902] thread and tell us why.
TTFN, WK
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
But statements like x
Actually, it's very much the other way round. The axiomatic construction of numbers is constructed on the basis of ordering.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
But that is not really relevant. The creationist is arguing against *evolution* and *common descent* in a naturalistic framework by stating that mutations cannot increase information. We trivially demonstrate that they can. Stating that these mutations only restore information that was there to begin with is switching framework - this is no longer an argument against evolution, but a explanation of why we see information-increasing mutations within a creation framework. This is simply a slight of hand, and does nothing to defend against our demolishing of their original argument. I don't think so. What the argument presented shows is that for a starting set E of information encoding genomes (taken from the set of possible genomes G) you can constuct a set A for which a mutation will increase information by transforming them into stated set E. This does not show that you can reach set E from an arbitarily selected genome g in set G.
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