The Atheist's Riddle

Discussion about scientific issues as they relate to God and Christianity including archaeology, origins of life, the universe, intelligent design, evolution, etc.
touchingcloth
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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Mutations change information, natural selection increases information in a non-random manner.
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Gman
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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touchingcloth wrote:Mutations change information, natural selection increases information in a non-random manner.
If true then how did it learn to increase information in a non-random manner?
The heart cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects as false - Galileo

We learn from history that we do not learn from history - Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. -Philippians 4:8
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B. W.
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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Gman wrote:
touchingcloth wrote:Mutations change information, natural selection increases information in a non-random manner.
If true then how did it learn to increase information in a non-random manner?
A really smart Gene y#-o

You know the Ph.d amino's :mrgreen:
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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touchingcloth wrote:Mutations change information, natural selection increases information in a non-random manner.
Hey TC, happy new year sir.

Remember, natural selection is not possible without evolution. Evolution is not possible without replication. Replication is not possible without code.

"In DNA, the code GGG translates to Glycine. Thus the purpose of GGG is to generate Glycine. Because it is a code, we know it has a purpose. Thus purpose exists and life is purposeful. To the atheist/materialist, I say: Show me a code that does not come from a mind. Show me a code that you can empirically demonstrate comes from a mindless purposeless process." -
Perry Marshall

Random mutation is noise; noise *never* generates new information in the way that Darwinians claim. Have you ever seen a paper that demonstrated that random mutations produce new and useful features.?
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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Mutations change information, natural selection increases information in a non-random manner.
Let's be clear. Natural selection combines information, which may result in an increase of information possibilities. However, information is most definately lost in the process.

I would also note that mutations destroy information as well as damage information. In fact 70%. With the remainder being nuetral or weakly beneficial.
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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jlay wrote:
Mutations change information, natural selection increases information in a non-random manner.
Let's be clear. Natural selection combines information, which may result in an increase of information possibilities. However, information is most definately lost in the process.

I would also note that mutations destroy information as well as damage information. In fact 70%. With the remainder being nuetral or weakly beneficial.
No - Sex combines information, natural selection by degrees increases or "perfects" information. Non-randomly.
99% of mutations could be negative (i.e. detrimental rather than beneficial or neutral) but the remaining 1% would still get selected for. The %age of beneficial mutations would depend on a number of factors such as the genome of a given organism and the environment it is in.
Last edited by touchingcloth on Tue Jan 19, 2010 5:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
touchingcloth
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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DannyM wrote:Random mutation is noise; noise *never* generates new information in the way that Darwinians claim.
Evidence?
DannyM wrote:Have you ever seen a paper that demonstrated that random mutations produce new and useful features.?
Yes!
touchingcloth
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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Gman wrote:
touchingcloth wrote:Mutations change information, natural selection increases information in a non-random manner.
If true then how did it learn to increase information in a non-random manner?
Learn? You talk about it as if it's an entity or a consciousness...
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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touchingcloth wrote:
Gman wrote:
touchingcloth wrote:Mutations change information, natural selection increases information in a non-random manner.
If true then how did it learn to increase information in a non-random manner?
Learn? You talk about it as if it's an entity or a consciousness...
Well excuse me...

Sure, well if there was no entity or a consciousness behind it then how did learn to increase "good" information? It's a legitimate question TC..
The heart cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects as false - Galileo

We learn from history that we do not learn from history - Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. -Philippians 4:8
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

Post by touchingcloth »

Gman wrote:
touchingcloth wrote:
Gman wrote:
touchingcloth wrote:Mutations change information, natural selection increases information in a non-random manner.
If true then how did it learn to increase information in a non-random manner?
Learn? You talk about it as if it's an entity or a consciousness...
Well excuse me...

Sure, well if there was no entity or a consciousness behind it then how did learn to increase "good" information? It's a legitimate question TC..
"Learn" makes it not a legitimate question...if it was a process rather than a phenomenon it would be legitimate...
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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touchingcloth wrote: Evidence? !
Adding random mutations to data does not increase the information content. It may increase the raw size of the data, and certainly lead to poorer compression if you compress it in a ZIP file or something, leading to larger files, but more data doesn't represent more information. Yes you can increase information content by randomly adding bits, but to say you have improved the signal by doing so is to completely miss the entire point of codes and the impact of random information upon a code. DNA is a code.

“Darwin, in his time, believed that random variation in heredity produced all manner of species. He said: most of the time it's harmful, but occasionally it's helpful and from these variations come all kinds of beautiful forms that appear to be designed.

What is meant by “random variation”? Thousands of biology books say it is accidental copying errors in DNA. They say, essentially, that it's corrupted data that occasionally turns out to be beneficial instead of harmful. This is where Darwin and the biology books were wrong. As a communication engineer I know - with 100.000000000% certainty - that this is impossible. Nowhere in the vast field of engineering is there any such thing as “the percentage of the time that corrupted data is helpful instead of harmful.” It's ALWAYS harmful. Always. Copying errors and data transmission errors never help the signal. They only hurt it.”

http://www.cosmicfingerprints.com/blog/ ... evolution/
touchingcloth wrote: Yes!
Show me!
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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touchingcloth wrote: "Learn" makes it not a legitimate question...if it was a process rather than a phenomenon it would be legitimate...
Sure it has to learn... It's non random correct? How does it know how to code?
The heart cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects as false - Galileo

We learn from history that we do not learn from history - Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. -Philippians 4:8
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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DannyM wrote:
touchingcloth wrote: Evidence? !
Adding random mutations to data does not increase the information content. It may increase the raw size of the data, and certainly lead to poorer compression if you compress it in a ZIP file or something, leading to larger files, but more data doesn't represent more information. Yes you can increase information content by randomly adding bits, but to say you have improved the signal by doing so is to completely miss the entire point of codes and the impact of random information upon a code. DNA is a code.
...
touchingcloth wrote: Yes!
Show me!
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/23/7899
Increase the raw size of the data, yes! Decrease the size of the data, yes! Keep the size of the data the same, but alter how it behaves, yes!

Because DNA is essentially interpreted (it gets turned into proteins and whatnot) inserting one base into a DNA sequence can alter what (for example) the entire DNA code between the insertion and the stop codon does. Sure a lot of the time an insertion or a deletion will lead to absolute junk (possibly to the extent of the embryo not being viable...) but sometimes it will present itself as a beneficial trait in the phenotype...natural selection is then the phenomenon of this phenotype becoming predominant.
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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Gman wrote:
touchingcloth wrote: "Learn" makes it not a legitimate question...if it was a process rather than a phenomenon it would be legitimate...
Sure it has to learn... It's non random correct? How does it know how to code?
Natural selection never codes, it selects. C.f. "writing" 2 pieces of software and "selecting" the best one.
Natural selection isn't a process that says "you're best...you stay" and "you're not so good, you go"...it's the phenomenon whereby the best phenotype for a given environment becomes predominant.
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Re: The Atheist's Riddle

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touchingcloth wrote: Natural selection never codes, it selects. C.f. "writing" 2 pieces of software and "selecting" the best one.
Natural selection isn't a process that says "you're best...you stay" and "you're not so good, you go"...it's the phenomenon whereby the best phenotype for a given environment becomes predominant.
Well that's the other piece of the puzzle then. If it never codes, then where does the code come from?

Oh, so it does "select" the best one.... How does it know how to "select" the best one then?
The heart cannot rejoice in what the mind rejects as false - Galileo

We learn from history that we do not learn from history - Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. -Philippians 4:8
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