Creationist argument about DNA and information

[Hans]

He's not here to discuss, and I think that's been obvious since at least this post, 18 pages and two weeks ago:

He's here to preach, nothing more; I think, at this point, as marplots says, an interesting discussion can still be had, things can be learned...but there's no discussion to be had with Daniel, and no information from him.

Just read this thread - yep he's here to read a script and not discuss or learn.

You guys have a higher tolerance level for preachtrolling than I do - congrats on confronting him but Jesus S Christ what a waste of time!

 

[tsig]

Yes. What's your point??





The INFORMATION isn't PHYSICAL, for Cryin out LOUD!!!


THIS is what you're saying when it comes down to it:


You come home from work you check the counter it says...

"Look Out there's a Tiger Behind You!!"... in Strawberry Jelly.

Your Conclusion: The Message (Information) is an Emergent Property of the Strawberry Jelly.

Now.... you can believe that for all it's worth and hold on to it with a tenacious Kung Fu Death Grip, but let me give a some advice...

TIP: Whatever you do, don't EVER say it out-loud in the remote vicinity of any Mental Health Professionals. Follow?


regards

Why would tigers use strawberry jelly to communicate?

 

[Steve]

Why would tigers use strawberry jelly to communicate?

It's complicated. Has to do with gods.

 

[annnnoid]

Pigliucci, M. (2011). What about “information”? EMBO Reports, 12(2), 92. http://doi.org/10.1038/embor.2010.213

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3049437/

For the third time Daniel, read the article that I have linked. It answers your questions about information. It does, really.

Unless, as some others have stated, you are not really here to discuss and learn anything, then by all means, ignore that article. Your world-view will be safer if you don't read it.

…you claim that the article answers the questions. It does no such thing. The article merely asserts that matter and energy are just two aspects of the same type of thing. A type of thing that (according to Massimo) poses no problem to materialism…

...except for the rather inconvenient fact that it isn’t material.

Note that nobody has a clue as to what this ‘type of thing’ actually is. Not... a... clue! But (according to Massimo)...we should refrain from introducing anything like the word 'magic'...cause, even though nobody has a clue what is actually going on...we can't actually admit that we haven't a clue what is actually going on. So magic is out.

What is compelling, is that the word often mentioned (when any word is even attempted…and quite often physicists just steer well clear of the whole mess) when referring to ‘this type of thing’…is information.

Massimo also goes on to assert that ‘knowledge’ (a thing often equated with consciousness / information) is both an uncontroversial and utterly non-mystical concept.

…except for the glaring and inconvenient fact that it’s a concept. It has no ‘physical’ (material) qualities what-so-ever. Nor does anyone have the slightest clue either what it is, how it’s created, or what manner of empirical phenomenology it has…or if it even has any (or not).

…but apart from all that…nothing controversial…except for everything.

As for ‘mystical’…since neither Massimo nor anyone else can even begin to adjudicate the condition known as ‘mystical’…it is just slightly presumptuous (just plain stupid also comes to mind) to insist that something as fundamental as ‘knowledge’ has no ‘mystical’ component, especially given the indisputable fact that no one has a clue as to the actual phenomenology of either condition.

So…the great Massimo is, as usual, very full of his own crap (not for the first time...doubtless his philosophical incontinence keeps him well-fed atop the hierarchy of atheist idiocy).

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Nor does anyone have the slightest clue either what it is, how it’s created... to insist that something as fundamental as ‘knowledge’ has no ‘mystical’ component

Nonsense. We know exactly what knowledge is.

Knowledge

is a familiarity, awareness or understanding of someone or something, such as facts, information, descriptions, or skills, which is acquired through experience or education by perceiving, discovering, or learning.

What's next, arguing that we don't have the slightest clue what 'is' is?

 

[Reality Check]

…you claim that the article answers the questions..

Actually the article seems to answer Daniel's "questions" that he has been asking repeatedly of various posters, e.g. what is information.
What about ‘information'?

Various groups misinterpret ‘information' as evidence of design or consciousness. But information is just a form of matter or energy; it does not require consciousness to receive and process it.
...
To recap: information is not a third type of thing outside matter and energy—which are, of course, just two aspects of the same type of thing—and it therefore poses no problem to materialism. Also, talk of information does not require the presence or involvement of conscious minds, unless one wishes to talk about knowledge—the latter being a fairly uncontroversial and utterly non-mystical concept.

 

[Cosmic Yak]

Thank you TuringTest for finding that quote- you saved me a lot of time.

Indeed. Daniel said somewhere in one of his two threads (sorry, but I really don't want to have to trawl though all of them again) that he was trying to lead people to Jesus.

...

Once you reckon that there MUST BE "A CREATOR", then it's time to find out WHO that is.
I can tell you that it is Jesus Christ. But, and this is very important...I've found through the years that "YOU" must find that for "YOURSELF". I've led you this far, the rest is up to you.

regards

Strange, then, that Daniel should claim this (bolding in both quotes mine):

Thanks for the Color Commentary. We can add it to the ever growing pile...in the hundreds by now.
On a "SCIENCE" topic no less.

As mentioned, I'm not trying to persuade you or lead you anywhere...it's to EXPOSE YOU.

This thread is a shining testimony to that fact.


Any other Op-Ed's you wanna share?


regards

This was in response to this: (Highlighted for emphasis)

If the character traits he is displaying are indicative of what kind of person you become if you accept his faith, then he has done an excellent job of dissuading me from ever contemplating such a move.
This is my assessment of Daniel, based on his posting style and content, and it is not pretty reading: He is arrogant, confrontational, scornful, dismissive of disagreement, dishonest and ignorant (or at least wilfully uneducated).
To add to this, I'm fairly sure Jesus said something about blessed peacemakers, and the meek inheriting the earth.
Daniel: was Jesus wrong to say this? If not, can you reconcile your behaviour with the teachings of your master?

Daniel did you really think that no-one would remember what you said? Not likely....
I refer you again to the supposed words of your alleged creator. If you came here to start a fight ("EXPOSE YOU"), how does that square with your alleged creator's approval of peacemakers?
As you have been caught in, in the most lenient of readings, a Hillary Clinton-style misspeak, or what could easily be construed as blatant dishonesty by those less forgiving, could you please confirm for me:
Is this what this Jesus of yours preaches? If not, how do you reconcile your behaviour with the ethical recommendations of your alleged divinity?

 

[turingtest]

Why would tigers use strawberry jelly to communicate?

It's complicated. Has to do with gods.

Tigers, strawberry jelly, Chinese takeout menus- these are all Daniel's efforts by way of analogy to prove that something meant as analogy- DNA as code- is actually no analogy at all. Wheels within wheels, we're through the looking glass here, people...

Daniel has been asked what experiment he would propose to test creationism/ID- his answer (in another thread):

Sure. Let's go one @ a Time...

1. Scientific Law: Information/"CODE"/Software is ONLY ever ever ever sourced by Intelligent Agency, Without Exception!
...
CODE has information. (such as a Book, Morse Code, Instructions, they all have information)
Information has authors. (which we can show is ALWAYS the case)
DNA is a CODE.
Therefore DNA has an author.

So, ya see...you empirically test whether DNA is intentional information/code (therefore created by Intelligent Agency) by comparing it to a definition of "information" that you've deliberately limited to exclude any other possibility- you know, the truly scientific method of "No True Information."

Of course, this is from the same genius that has pretty much "No True Science"-d science itself, ruled it all out of court in favor of Danielscience^TM. I just don't know how you can argue with that, and I mean that literally and not in a good way. A proposition that's rendered inarguable only by being constructed so it can't be tested on any other terms than its own limits seems more to me like an article of faith (or fanfic) than empirical science. But what do I know? I'm No True Genius...

 

[MikeG]

Tigers, strawberry jelly, Chinese takeout menus....

Don't forget Bucephalus. Resurrecting Alexander the Great's horse is a recurring theme of Daniel's too.

.......Danielscience^TM.....

 

[steenkh]

Good work, Son of Inigo. It's quite a giggle seeing Daniel's quote mining coming back to haunt him.

This happens with all of his quotes. He just never quotes an article with respect for the author. That is also why you will never see him admit it when his misuse of the quotes are exposed.

He is deeply unethical.

 

[tsig]

This happens with all of his quotes. He just never quotes an article with respect for the author. That is also why you will never see him admit it when his misuse of the quotes are exposed.

He is deeply unethical.

Lies seem to come easy when you have the TRUTH^TM.

 

[tsig]

It's complicated. Has to do with gods.

Strawberry jelly would be a step up from gods' usual methods of communication, tsunamis, tornadoes and earthquakes. In fact, a PB&J sandwich is pretty close to god.

 

[The Greater Fool]

Don't forget Bucephalus. Resurrecting Alexander the Great's horse is a recurring theme of Daniel's too.



http://i.imgur.com/6yHpoJv.jpg

The Venn diagram is great. One change I would make is to make DanielScience an irregular blob (like the Spaghetti Monster!) with tenticles reaching into Science (to represent something akin to quote mining science).

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Does Daniel appear to be the original source of his quote mines or is he quoting from some other source? I've seen a lot of quote mining but Daniel's seem to be new, to me at least.

 

[annnnoid]

Not seeing how Wiener's definition of information has anything to do with biology. However, I do agree with that statement as it pertains to computer and communication systems (telephone, ect).

Are you so folks so hell-bent on derailing the Daniel that you don’t even bother to read your own dumb arguments? You fail to see how Weiner’s definition of information has anything to do with biology…and yet in the very next quote that you included Weiner is described as explicitly comparing computer information processing to biological information processing (the brain…or is the brain not biological?).

Daniel, would you care to point out to me where he is talking about anything other than information contained in computers or communication systems?

….right here:

"Wiener compared the information processing in the computers of his day to the human mind and found them both wasteful of energy. And he argued that information is neither matter nor energy."


As for the incomparable Massimo…there is barely a single sentence that is worth a damn, but why don’t we take this little gem:

"Another way to put this is that information is any type of pattern of matter and/or energy that causes or contributes to causing the formation or transformation of other patterns."

Another way to put this is that Massimo has had his head stuck in his proverbial ivory tower for way too long. Can anyone identify the most critical word in this sentence?

Pattern.

Pattern…is evidence of what?

That’s right…intelligence. Aka: Information processing (in this case, biological…in the other case…God knows what!).

As for the rest of the sentence… there is no such thing as matter or energy to begin with (there are merely models [patterns] of something we do not know the ‘something’ of but which is increasingly being represented as ‘information’ when it is represented as anything at all). How / why do these ‘patterns’ cause or contribute to the formation / transformation of anything at all? Where is there anything anywhere anytime that is not A:...a pattern of some kind ...and B:...not in some way causing or contributing to causing the formation or transformation of something else (meaning…since there neither is nor can be any such exclusively differentiated quantity…everything is information)?

…this is a good example of why some people are convinced philosophers (Massimo) are idiots.

Actually the article seems to answer Daniel's "questions" that he has been asking repeatedly of various posters, e.g. what is information.
What about ‘information'?

What…just cause you say so? How can matter and energy be two of the same type of thing when nobody has a freakin clue what this other ‘type of thing’ is or how to find out.

…and this is quite apart from the indisputable fact that (ultimately) there isn’t even any such thing as matter and / or energy.

…and also quite apart from the fact that he seems to have the whole thing ass-backwards. Information isn’t a function of matter / energy…matter / energy are, it seems, a function of information (to the degree that anyone has a clue what actually occurs at that level of whatever reality is).

And the article does absolutely squat to explain what information is. It simply explains it away…perhaps assuming that anyone reading the turd is sufficiently in awe of Massimo’s powers that they won’t notice the glaring stupidity of it all. An illiterate wombat could point out the numerous and blatant inconsistencies in that feeble diatribe. What is so laughable is that Massimo has made such a career out of spouting such incoherent crap. No doubt his twitter feed is ever abuzz with skeptic sycophants.

 

[steenkh]

And the article does absolutely squat to explain what information is.

Frankly, I was not impressed with the Pigliucci quote. It seems to me to be needlessly philosophising, and it is not needed to deal with Daniel's strategy of finding somebody using a term like "information" (or "message", or "measure", or "observe", or "know") about something in nature, then God is proven to exist.

After all, it is just a variation of the tired old watchmaker argument. The difference is that where the watch was a physical thing, we are now moved to concepts: if something looks like information, then it is information made by an intelligent agent, even though the term is commonly used without intelligent agents.

 

[Son of Inigo]

Are you so folks so hell-bent on derailing the Daniel that you don’t even bother to read your own dumb arguments? You fail to see how Weiner’s definition of information has anything to do with biology…and yet in the very next quote that you included Weiner is described as explicitly comparing computer information processing to biological information processing (the brain…or is the brain not biological?).




….right here:

"Wiener compared the information processing in the computers of his day to the human mind and found them both wasteful of energy. And he argued that information is neither matter nor energy."


As for the incomparable Massimo…there is barely a single sentence that is worth a damn, but why don’t we take this little gem:

"Another way to put this is that information is any type of pattern of matter and/or energy that causes or contributes to causing the formation or transformation of other patterns."

Another way to put this is that Massimo has had his head stuck in his proverbial ivory tower for way too long. Can anyone identify the most critical word in this sentence?

Pattern.

Pattern…is evidence of what?

That’s right…intelligence. Aka: Information processing (in this case, biological…in the other case…God knows what!).

As for the rest of the sentence… there is no such thing as matter or energy to begin with (there are merely models [patterns] of something we do not know the ‘something’ of but which is increasingly being represented as ‘information’ when it is represented as anything at all). How / why do these ‘patterns’ cause or contribute to the formation / transformation of anything at all? Where is there anything anywhere anytime that is not A:...a pattern of some kind ...and B:...not in some way causing or contributing to causing the formation or transformation of something else (meaning…since there neither is nor can be any such exclusively differentiated quantity…everything is information)?

…this is a good example of why some people are convinced philosophers (Massimo) are idiots.




What…just cause you say so? How can matter and energy be two of the same type of thing when nobody has a freakin clue what this other ‘type of thing’ is or how to find out.

…and this is quite apart from the indisputable fact that (ultimately) there isn’t even any such thing as matter and / or energy.

…and also quite apart from the fact that he seems to have the whole thing ass-backwards. Information isn’t a function of matter / energy…matter / energy are, it seems, a function of information (to the degree that anyone has a clue what actually occurs at that level of whatever reality is).

And the article does absolutely squat to explain what information is. It simply explains it away…perhaps assuming that anyone reading the turd is sufficiently in awe of Massimo’s powers that they won’t notice the glaring stupidity of it all. An illiterate wombat could point out the numerous and blatant inconsistencies in that feeble diatribe. What is so laughable is that Massimo has made such a career out of spouting such incoherent crap. No doubt his twitter feed is ever abuzz with skeptic sycophants.

I apologize for any confusion when I wrote "biology", as the brain is indeed biological. To be clearer, I should have used cellular biology.

However, Wiener is comparing the information processing of computers and brains. He is not discussing cellular biology, or DNA. He is concerned with "large computing machine, whether in the form of mechanical or electric apparatus or in the form of the brain itself". Thus, that point stands.

Please see the hilited part of your response. Are you saying that there is no such thing as matter or energy? Are you saying that since we don't know what matter and energy are, we cannot know what information is?

If I have your argument stated correctly, then that is absolutely bonkers! If not, please clarify what you mean by the hilited statement.

You and Daniel want to argue semantics. Information is what we call the phenomenon of what we see in DNA. It could be called "George". Scientist use the words information and code, because those words come the closest to explaining how things work. They may be inaccurate, but they are the best words available to convey what those processes do.

Continuing to not understand that is baffling to me.

 

[JeanTate]

Don't forget Bucephalus. Resurrecting Alexander the Great's horse is a recurring theme of Daniel's too.



[qimg]http://i.imgur.com/6yHpoJv.jpg[/qimg]

I agree, this is pretty cool.

A suggestion, for v2, if I may: attempt to also illustrate scale, by indicating Danielscience as a single pixel, or Science as an almost linear line, implying that it is so vast, in comparison, that you need a canvass several hundred metres big to show a realistic size.

 

[JeanTate]

Are you so folks so hell-bent on derailing the Daniel that you don’t even bother to read your own dumb arguments? You fail to see how Weiner’s definition of information has anything to do with biology…and yet in the very next quote that you included Weiner is described as explicitly comparing computer information processing to biological information processing (the brain…or is the brain not biological?).




….right here:

"Wiener compared the information processing in the computers of his day to the human mind and found them both wasteful of energy. And he argued that information is neither matter nor energy."


As for the incomparable Massimo…there is barely a single sentence that is worth a damn, but why don’t we take this little gem:

"Another way to put this is that information is any type of pattern of matter and/or energy that causes or contributes to causing the formation or transformation of other patterns."

Another way to put this is that Massimo has had his head stuck in his proverbial ivory tower for way too long. Can anyone identify the most critical word in this sentence?

Pattern.

Pattern…is evidence of what?

That’s right…intelligence. Aka: Information processing (in this case, biological…in the other case…God knows what!).

As for the rest of the sentence… there is no such thing as matter or energy to begin with (there are merely models [patterns] of something we do not know the ‘something’ of but which is increasingly being represented as ‘information’ when it is represented as anything at all). How / why do these ‘patterns’ cause or contribute to the formation / transformation of anything at all? Where is there anything anywhere anytime that is not A:...a pattern of some kind ...and B:...not in some way causing or contributing to causing the formation or transformation of something else (meaning…since there neither is nor can be any such exclusively differentiated quantity…everything is information)?

…this is a good example of why some people are convinced philosophers (Massimo) are idiots.




What…just cause you say so? How can matter and energy be two of the same type of thing when nobody has a freakin clue what this other ‘type of thing’ is or how to find out.

…and this is quite apart from the indisputable fact that (ultimately) there isn’t even any such thing as matter and / or energy.

…and also quite apart from the fact that he seems to have the whole thing ass-backwards. Information isn’t a function of matter / energy…matter / energy are, it seems, a function of information (to the degree that anyone has a clue what actually occurs at that level of whatever reality is).

And the article does absolutely squat to explain what information is. It simply explains it away…perhaps assuming that anyone reading the turd is sufficiently in awe of Massimo’s powers that they won’t notice the glaring stupidity of it all. An illiterate wombat could point out the numerous and blatant inconsistencies in that feeble diatribe. What is so laughable is that Massimo has made such a career out of spouting such incoherent crap. No doubt his twitter feed is ever abuzz with skeptic sycophants.

I am not sure as to the extent to which you are commenting on Danielscience, annnnoid, and to what extent science. In any case, my response is to do entirely with the latter.

Whatever the quotes say, they can really only be fully understood within the context of how "information" etc is used (in science). There's a good WP page on the distinctions between the two main uses of "information" (a link to which I'll post again, later), namely thermodynamics and information theory. If you are careful to always tie your use of "information" to either of these, discussions will become much more straight-forward, rigorous, robust, and perhaps above all, objective.

Marsplot has written some posts which are quite good in this regard; I suggest you read those, and keep the discussion going (there are posts by others too, which would also serve as a good place to continue this sort of science-based discussion; it's just that Marsplot's are what I immediately recall).

 

[MikeG]

......."Another way to put this is that information is any type of pattern of matter and/or energy that causes or contributes to causing the formation or transformation of other patterns."

Another way to put this is that Massimo has had his head stuck in his proverbial ivory tower for way too long. Can anyone identify the most critical word in this sentence?

Pattern.

Pattern…is evidence of what? That’s right…intelligence............

Don't be completely ridiculous. Ripples in the sand are a pattern. Ripples lead to the formation of further ripples. Please show me where the intelligence is in that.