KC

The program was written to illustrate the power of cumulative selection over single-step selection. It was not even intended to be an exact analogue for natural selection. As Dawkins writes in The Blind Watchmaker:

...in each generation of selective 'breeding', the mutant 'progeny' phrases were judged according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target, the phrase METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL.Life isn't like that.(p. 50)

If Dawkins's program is to be discussed, let's keep its intent and application clear. Otherwise, it becomes a disingenuous strawman.

Cheers,

KC

[ April 29, 2002: Message edited by: KCdgw ]</p>

NialScorva

Biggest problem with information theory in ID: contextual choice. Information needs an irreducable "atom" of information to work on. Take morse code, a series of silence and sound, where the information is encoded into the duration between each transition (short or long). Modems operate on trasition between sound and silence, but instead of the duration between transitions being important, it's the high or low state at a particular time interval.

These are two different ways of encoding data onto the same "substrate". If you read a random signal as a modem, you'd get a different answer than you would if you read it as morse code. This is the point where most IDers will say that we can differentiate the two by which produces intelligible results. But that's exactly the problem. We *know* the signal is supposed to produce intelligible results in this case, so we can try different methods of interpretting it until we get an intelligible answer. Same thing applies to encryption, we know there's a human language inside of there, so we can try to pull something out until we get it into the right language. ID assumes this. In order to use information to prove their case, they have to assume there is a message about design in there to begin with, which is begging the question.

It's just like bible codes. The messages are definately there, but they're only there because you assume they are. Look long enough in any psuedo random string of data and use enough arbitrary methods of interpretation, and you will almost always find what you want to. ID doesn't have to justify their answers, they have to justify their question.

Quetzal

Oolon: You are, of course, correct. I apologize if I was a bit over the top. However, this type of insult gets my goat more than most, if you follow. <a href="http://iidb.org/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=47&t=000316&p=2" target="_blank">Here</a> is the thread in question. Start about half way down.

pangloss

Of course, those were MY words... Like so many IDiots/Cretins, he just co-opts the words of others and uses them as his own...

pseudobug

While I hate to disrupt the tack of this thread from smacking Dougie around, Pangloss made an interesting comment:

.

Anyway, here is rather nifty article, <a href="http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/97/9/4463" target="_blank">Evolution of biological complexity. </a>, from PNAS that does exactly what pangloss suggests--mathmatical modeling to demonstrate that "selection" can add information;

Below is the abstract:

DonaldW112

Here is a very interesting article that I actually found doing my real job. I believe it applies to the topic of the thread. The pdf is here:

<a href="http://www.mdpi.org/entropy/papers/e3040273.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.mdpi.org/entropy/papers/e3040273.pdf</a>

It demonstrates that information can come from chaotic systems.

Coragyps

DonaldW - welcome to II! It's good to see another chemist on here!
That paper is some good stuff - the ID folks better watch out, or another one of their "gaps" will close up.

Quetzal

Thanks to pangloss, Donald (Welcome!) and pseudobug. I'll save the great links for the next time, but it looks like my opponent scarpered. Just can't pin a cretinist down...