Richard Dawkins vs. George Gilder

[godslanguage]

Anyone hear this audio on a debate on George Gilder vs. Richard Dawkins.

(This was posted in 2005 so I'm sure many here have already heard it)

Here it is either way:
Its interesting the tactics which are used here to discredit theory of Intelligent Design which Goerge Gilder constitutes based on the information theory.

Its also interesting that in everything I read and heard about anything on intelligent design, evolutionists ALWAYS like to state intelligent design is just religion disguised as science.

Funny how Dawkins doesn't want to debate George Gilder head to head or otherwise (he thinks) this may give Intelligent design proponents the advantage.

By the way, I strongly recommend you download realplayer here: http://www.real.com/freeplayer/?rppr=downloadcom1

Windows Media Player will do it as well, but RealPlayer is alot faster.

http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2005/ ... a_main.asp


The worst thing I find is that even here on the forum, Bgood and others who have really good scientific background and understanding of the theory of evolution do not go into origins because that would be beyond science in many respects. However, Dawkins insinuates origin of life by means of a one-time "luck" thing, it just goes to show why Dawinian theory is a religious theory by making such claims.

This is the response from Goerge Gilder (Which I posted previously on another thread)

http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/ ... 4_58-07_00

[Gman]

yeah, those pesky evolutionists, always bringing up those annoying facts from real scientists instead of the baseless opinions of political speech writers.

Yep, those pesky scientists... All these facts and they still can't figure out how a mixture of non-living chemicals can transform itself into a living cell. How many years now have we been studying evolution? And yet they still promote evolution as being a fact and not a theory. We won't even get into the structures of DNA. The quantity of information is so vast, we have to invent new numbers to measure it: not just terabytes (a trillion bits of genetic data) but petabytes (equivalent to half the contents of all the academic libraries in America), exabytes, yottabytes and zettabytes. All the words ever uttered by everyone who ever lived would amount to five exabytes.

Intelligent design is religion disguised as science. It has no science to back it has been shown every major organization pushing intelligent design is a literal biblical creationism organization.

Everyone believes in something... And what about the atheism? Did you know that it is a religion as well?

All the evidence tends to point to a one-time "luck" thing, how is that religious?

Because it talks about origins... Evolutionist Daniel Clement Dennett thinks there is no philosophy-free science. Maybe you could convince him otherwise.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dennett

"But there is no such thing as philosophy-free science; there is only science whose philosophical baggage is taken on board without examination. Darwin's Dangerous Idea (1995) p.21"

[BGoodForGoodSake]

We won't even get into the structures of DNA. The quantity of information is so vast, we have to invent new numbers to measure it: not just terabytes (a trillion bits of genetic data) but petabytes (equivalent to half the contents of all the academic libraries in America), exabytes, yottabytes and zettabytes. All the words ever uttered by everyone who ever lived would amount to five exabytes.

Just curious, where did you get these figures?

[Gman]

That would be from Time (not a creationist).... Word for word.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 0-2,00.htm

[Danny]

The main sticking point of evolution, in terms of the origins of life, is "How did a bunch of chemicals organise themselves into even the simplest (yet still profoundly complex) building blocks of life?". An answer to this conundrum has been laid out in Fritjof Capra's book "The Web of Life". In this book he fuses scientific and spiritual perspectives in a most profound way. He collates the latest discoveries in Quantum Mechanics, Chaos Theory, Dynamical Systems Theory (Ilya Prigogine - specifically Dissipative Structures), Autopoiesis (Mantura/Varela) and Laser Theory (Hermann Haken) to demonstrate something that is actually quite obvious but very difficult to "prove" scientifically.
Any system, including living ones (cells, humans, societies, ecosystems), are composed of three main elements - Structure, Pattern and Process. Traditional reductionist science, still a predominant view even though it was blown out of the water by Quantum Mechanics, focuses solely on the Structure of things, breaking them down to their smallest component to see how the whole works. It is now emerging that Structure is there to serve the Pattern (the complete configuration of relationships that exist between the components of the system). Although Pattern seems like a vague concept the works mentioned above have demonstrated that it is an existing, independent reality and that the Structure of all physical systems exists to propogate the Pattern and not the other way around. The Process is simply the replacement, regeneration and maintenance of the systems components over time.
A great example of this is the human being. Over a period of 7 - 10 years every single cell in our bodies is replaced, so if you are around 30 years old this Process will have occurred about 3 times. Your whole Structure has been replaced 3 times. Yet your total consciousness (the Pattern) remains untouched from the day you are born.
What this means for the origins of life is that, even though the physical Structures of life (ie: DNA, simple cells) did not exist the Pattern did. Chemicals do not react in a random way, they react in a very specific, ordered, patterned way and the point of their reactions was to create the physical Structures that physically manifest the already existent Pattern. Evoultion is the gradual increase of Structural complexity (the journey from amino acids to the brain has been a long one - in our terms at least).
Evolution is the Process of Structure trying to manifest the ultimate, universal Pattern. A short word for the universal configuration of relationships that exist between everything is God.
It's either that or a beardy guy-in-the sky mucking about with modelling clay.
If you get a chance check out "The Web of Life"
Namaste, Bom Shiva, Gouranga, take it easy.

"The love of Truth reveals the Truth of Love"
"All you need is love"

[BGoodForGoodSake]

And yet they still promote evolution as being a fact and not a theory. We won't even get into the structures of DNA.

The quantity of information is so vast, we have to invent new numbers to measure it: not just terabytes (a trillion bits of genetic data) but petabytes (equivalent to half the contents of all the academic libraries in America), exabytes, yottabytes and zettabytes. All the words ever uttered by everyone who ever lived would amount to five exabytes.

That would be from Time (not a creationist).... Word for word.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/artic ... 0-2,00.htm

What do you think they are refering to?
And what exactly did you mean by structures of DNA?

And finally what implication are you trying to make by pointing ot the vast quantity of information?

[Gman]

What do you think they are refering to?

Ok, I don't agree (in the article) that our genes trace back to a time when we were fish or bacteria... But I understand the complexity it states about DNA... That is what I'm referring to... Not the cloning of the human embryo, (although maybe yes in helping fight certain diseases possibly). My Dad is dying from MDS currently..

I don't like using creationist sources to make my point since many people automatically think it is biased... Many evolutionist supply me the gun and bullets to shoot down their own theories...

And what exactly did you mean by structures of DNA?

Google DNA... It's a nucleic acid... Here is Wikipedia's definition of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA

Lookup the word structure and DNA in the article... It doesn't look like anything a boy scout could create in his basement..

And finally what implication are you trying to make by pointing ot the vast quantity of information?

Hmmm, let's see now, you've written 1900 posts on a Christian forum that talks about God and science... No offense, obviously you know I'm a Christian and what my position is.. What implication do you think I'm trying to make here?

Btw, what is your position? Do you believe that God and science is incompatible? Also, you know my scientific background which I have already explained to you.. What is yours?

[BGoodForGoodSake]

What do you think they are refering to?

But I understand the complexity it states about DNA... That is what I'm referring to...

Read more carefully they are referring to the field of proteomics not the quantity of information contained in DNA.

Here's another quote from earlier in the same article if you're not convinced.

In June 2000, when Bill Clinton and Tony Blair announced that the first rough draft of the genome was complete, Clinton declared that "without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind." It was enough to fill 200 phone books at 1,000 pages each, or 75,490 pages of the New York Times.

Here they are referring to DNA and it most certainly can fit in in a terabyte.

And what exactly did you mean by structures of DNA?

Google DNA... It's a nucleic acid... Here is Wikipedia's definition of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA

Lookup the word structure and DNA in the article... It doesn't look like anything a boy scout could create in his basement..

That's what I thought. Obviously I know what DNA is. You mistook the quote as a description of the information contained in DNA. Perhaps you may want to re-read the Times article. They are not refering to DNA in the quote you used.

And finally what implication are you trying to make by pointing ot the vast quantity of information?

Hmmm, let's see now, you've written 1900 posts on a Christian forum that talks about God and science... No offense, obviously you know I'm a Christian and what my position is.. What implication do you think I'm trying to make here?

I don't see how you can think my correcting scientific misconceptions is synonymous with being anti-christian.

Your position against the theory of evolution is clear, however the mistake you seem to be making is confusing evolution with anti-christian sentiment.

In any case I do not follow your line of thinking. There is alot of information, what is the reasoning I should follow, where are you trying to lead us by poiting out the vast quantities of information?

Btw, what is your position? Do you believe that God and science is incompatible? Also, you know my scientific background which I have already explained to you.. What is yours?

I don't find them incompatible. My position is as it always has been, and that is to correct mistakes/misconceptions where I can.

[Gman]

You mistook the quote as a description of the information contained in DNA. Perhaps you may want to re-read the Times article. They are not refering to DNA in the quote you used.

BGood, perhaps you should re-read the article.. It states, "IBM models its newest ones--computers that act like cells and fix themselves wherever they break --after DNA. The quantity of information is so vast, we have to invent new numbers to measure it: not just terabytes (a trillion bits of genetic data) but petabytes (equivalent to half the contents of all the academic libraries in America), exabytes, yottabytes and zettabytes. All the words ever uttered by everyone who ever lived would amount to five exabytes."

Obviously I know what DNA is

Cheeze... I've never met someone who understands the complexity of DNA or how it was formed.. Can I get your autograph?

Your position against the theory of evolution is clear, however the mistake you seem to be making is confusing evolution with anti-christian sentiment.

No, but when someone says that they believe that God and science are incompatible that alarms me.. I firmly believe in certain aspects of evolution.. (mainly in micro-evolution).

In any case I do not follow your line of thinking. There is alot of information, what is the reasoning I should follow, where are you trying to lead us by poiting out the vast quantities of information?

Yes, the complexity of life... The case for ID... Do you have a problem with this? Why are you posting here then?

I don't find them incompatible. My position is as it always has been, and that is to correct mistakes/misconceptions where I can.

Why can't you tell us your scientific background then if you think you have it all down? What God are you talking about then? What exactly are you afraid of? Are you someone's puppet?

[sandy_mcd]

BGood, perhaps you should re-read the article.. It states, "IBM models its newest ones--computers that act like cells and fix themselves wherever they break --after DNA. The quantity of information is so vast, we have to invent new numbers to measure it: not just terabytes (a trillion bits of genetic data) but petabytes (equivalent to half the contents of all the academic libraries in America), exabytes, yottabytes and zettabytes. All the words ever uttered by everyone who ever lived would amount to five exabytes."

My interpretation of the English of this quote fragment is that IBM claims their new computers are like DNA in that they fix themselves, not how much information is contained. [I also suspect those numbers were not recently invented.]

[Gman]

AIG, makes a similar statement comparing DNA and computers but not the fixing of themselves.. More of a relation to computers and how it is measured like the Times quote..

Quote: DNA is by far the most compact information storage system in the universe. Even the simplest known living organism has 482 protein-coding genes. This is a total of 580,000 'letters,'7—humans have three billion in every nucleus. (See 'The programs of life,' for an explanation of the DNA 'letters.')

The amount of information that could be stored in a pinhead's volume of DNA is equivalent to a pile of paperback books 500 times as high as the distance from Earth to the moon, each with a different, yet specific content.8 Putting it another way, while we think that our new 40 gigabyte hard drives are advanced technology, a pinhead of DNA could hold 100 million times more information.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v25/i2/dna.asp

Or from the Discovery Institute on DNA and complexity..

Quote: As it turns out, specific regions of the DNA molecule called coding regions have the same property of "sequence specificity" or "specified complexity" that characterizes written codes, linguistic texts, and protein molecules. Just as the letters in the alphabet of a written language may convey a particular message depending on their arrangement, so too do the sequences of nucleotide bases (the A's, T's, G's, and C's) inscribed along the spine of a DNA molecule convey a precise set of instructions for building proteins within the cell. The nucleotide bases in DNA function in precisely the same way as symbols in a machine code. In each case, the arrangement of the characters determines the function of the sequence as a whole. As Richard Dawkins has noted, "The machine code of the genes is uncannily computer-like." In the case of a computer code, the specific arrangement of just two symbols (0 and 1) suffices to carry information. In the case of DNA, the complex but precise sequencing of the four nucleotide bases (A, T, G, and C) stores and transmits the information necessary to build proteins. Thus, the sequence specificity of proteins derives from a prior sequence specificity--from the information--encoded in DNA.

http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB ... iew&id=200

[BGoodForGoodSake]

You mistook the quote as a description of the information contained in DNA. Perhaps you may want to re-read the Times article. They are not refering to DNA in the quote you used.

BGood, perhaps you should re-read the article.. It states, "IBM models its newest ones--computers that act like cells and fix themselves wherever they break --after DNA. The quantity of information is so vast, we have to invent new numbers to measure it: not just terabytes (a trillion bits of genetic data) but petabytes (equivalent to half the contents of all the academic libraries in America), exabytes, yottabytes and zettabytes. All the words ever uttered by everyone who ever lived would amount to five exabytes."

The new field of proteomics is an interesting field and the computing power needed to understand how proteins fold requires alot of computing power. The folding of the amino acid chains which result from DNA code do so acording to natural laws and it is the interactions of these forces which are complex. Think of it like the asteroid belt and the various abjects which orbit the Sun. The force at work here is gravity. However the Sun is not the only object in the solar system which exerts a gravitational force. All the objects in the system exterts a gravitational field and the interactions between these objects results in a complex ststem of planets, asteroids and comets.

Obviously I know what DNA is

Cheeze... I've never met someone who understands the complexity of DNA or how it was formed.. Can I get your autograph?

DNA itself is a storage scheme, the complexity is not in the DNA itself but in the ways the information contained manifests itself. Now I am not saying that DNA itself is not complex, but compared to the interactions of the resulting proteins it is relatively simple. We have come along way in understanding the structure and function of DNA, and we even have a compled human genome, but we still do not know all the proteins which result from the code. Nor do we understand all the complex interactions of these proteins. No matter what the origin of DNA is there is no disputing that the way the information is copied allows modification over time.

Your position against the theory of evolution is clear, however the mistake you seem to be making is confusing evolution with anti-christian sentiment.

No, but when someone says that they believe that God and science are incompatible that alarms me.. I firmly believe in certain aspects of evolution.. (mainly in micro-evolution).

Did I state somewhere that God and science are incompatible?

In any case I do not follow your line of thinking. There is alot of information, what is the reasoning I should follow, where are you trying to lead us by poiting out the vast quantities of information?

Yes, the complexity of life... The case for ID... Do you have a problem with this? Why are you posting here then?

Yes, it appears you are equating quantity with complexity. That's not logical. If I have a million grains of sand in a bottle, is the sand itself complex?

I don't find them incompatible. My position is as it always has been, and that is to correct mistakes/misconceptions where I can.

Why can't you tell us your scientific background then if you think you have it all down? What God are you talking about then? What exactly are you afraid of? Are you someone's puppet?

Do you have a problem with the scientific information I have posted? If so please free to point it out.
And no I am not someone's puppet.
=)

[tj rich]

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive, if we take a step back we can see that they are both searching for the truth. We live in a technological world and technology is the product of science. However, we also live in a spiritual world (I would go as far as to say that more people can live without science than without religion) and most people need religion to guide their spirituality. It is arrogance that feeds this argument. Scientists seek to understand the world around us. They do this by observing how the world appears, postulating theories about why it appears that way, then making predictions based on those theories and finally doing experiments to test those predictions which then prove or disprove the theories. But scientific proof is not absolute! Take the "fact" of evolution, science claims this as fact because all research shows living things evolving, an overwhelming volume of data has led to this conclusion. Now take the"theory" of evolution, this is a different concept entirely, it is the best guess at an explanation of the "fact" of evolution. At best science offers us a model of the world around us but a model is never the whole story. A model is also no threat to your religious beliefs! It seems to me that humanity would be better served by everyone, especially religious people, being scientifically literate so that they can help guide technology onto a moral and ethical path. Either that or we all join the Amish.

[godslanguage]

Science and religion are not mutually exclusive, if we take a step back we can see that they are both searching for the truth.

We live in a technological world and technology is the product of science.

You make it sound like technology is the product of evolution or we owe gratitude towards Neo-Darwinism for technology. Are you saying that technology which is based on intelligence would be in conflict with relgion?

[August]

All the evidence tends to point to a one-time "luck" thing, how is that religious?

I read that article by Dawkins where he made the statement about luck. I posted on my blog about it.