Information Theory and Intelligent Design.

There's nothing inherent in information that means it must be designed, unless someone uses information to mean something strange.In particular, both elements of evolution (random mutations and natural selection) add information to the genome.For example, a random mutation will increase the randomness of the genome. But randomness is information, given that the information content can be defined as "shortest possible instructions for the replication of a structure"! The sequence "aaaaaaa" is not very information rich, because it can be compressed to "7 x a". The sequence "agtyri" is more rich in information then, because it is the shortest explanation for itself. So, the increase in randomness can in fact increase the information of the genome.Selection also adds information. After all, information is an exclusion of certain possible states. A letter 'x' can also be said as 'not other letters but x', so when I press the X key, I am excluding the other possible states in order to transfer the information of X into the computer. So, when something is selected for by natural selection, information from the environment is added to the genome. It's the cosmologists' problem to say where the information came from in the first place.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

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"If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can't be very important gods." - Arthur C. Clarke

The claim is not that 'information' can't generate itself, but that 'complex specified information' (CSI). Which, in itself, implies that something else must specify it (as specificity is subjective), and that it must be complex (very improbable). So, he is really saying that designed improbable sequences are improbable and designed. How does one refute this self-evident claim?!Edited by Doddy, : fixed typo

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer

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"If there are any gods whose chief concern is man, they can't be very important gods." - Arthur C. Clarke

Some other questions, to add to yours1. The number '7' is massless. It's not even a material entity. So, how could materialistic minds come up with it? It must be supernatural!2. If there is no materialistic difference between the two disks, how does the materialistic drive read the disks?

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur SchopenhauerHelp inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!

So, you acknowledge that information can be read by materialistic objects? This information could also be copied (essentially, read and duplicated, but not understood) if the information didn't do anything, but was in the right language (such as an encrypted file, which can be copied, but no meaning can be extracted), couldn't it?Evolution reads information from the environment (albeit very slowly), and forms organisms based on that environment (hence, they end up specified by their environment). In essence, it does exactly what the computer does when copying the floppy disk (The only difference is that the 'copying' isn't so much making duplicate copies as making things that fit the original, such as making a lock given the key, instead of cutting new keys). Input = environment, copying mechanism = descent with modification + natural selection, Output = organisms. We should not be amazed that the organisms are complex, because the environment itself is complex.It is not the job of the evolutionary biologist to explain the origins of the information in the environment (i.e. natural laws and existence of matter), but cosmologists and theoretical physicists.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur SchopenhauerHelp inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!

You could do the same with two lots of one kilograms blocks of water. Hold one up as ice, and one as water, and ask the difference in mass due to their state change. The answer is none, despite the fact that there was clearly a materialistic origin for that change in state.

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur SchopenhauerHelp inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!

Did this just prove that I can't upgrade my PC from Windows XP to Windows Vista or reformat with Linux, because if I do my computer doesn't work? Emphasis mine.Yet another labelling of evolution as 'chance'. I don't think I have to refute that one... Argumentum ad antiquitatem. I see science returning to its roots in Greek natural philosophy, and start using using thought experiments rather than actual physical ones. Reductio ad absurdum.Edited by Doddy, : fixed Latin

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"Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur SchopenhauerHelp inform the masses - contribute to the EvoWiki today!