Happy Birthday, Mr. Darwin: Growing Majority of Americans Support Teaching Both Sides of Evolution Debate

[Sideline]

Still, my original question was somewhat different. According to Mayr’s definition of stasis - “A period in the history of a taxon during which evolution seemed to have been at a standstill.” - I still haven’t seen a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon. I accept that a changing environment may drive evolution at a higher rate but, based on the “three basic facts” that Rossum listed in post #500, I don’t find any explanation for why evolution might virtually stop simply because the environment is stable, as those “facts” are independent of the nature of the environment.

Ender

Since this seems to be the crux of the matter, I’ve skipped straight to it.

Let’s do a bizarre and horrific experiment, shall we?

Let’s take 100 people and lock them into a big cage. Everyday they will play the same game over and over. The ten with the best scores get a feast, the ten with the worst scores don’t get fed at all. The rest get starvation rations, barely enough to survive. Like I said, it’s a bizarre and cruel experiment.

On the second day, who is most likely to change their strategy? Probably not the winners, right? The people who didn’t get fed are probably going to change the most.

Now let’s run this experiment over several months. You are going to find that some people died off who were just not good at the game. You will also notice that most of the people will use basically the same strategy. There will be variation still, but most people will follow along what works.

New ideas will constantly pop-up, but the number of useful innovations will decrease over time. Everyone will get better at the game, and the best strategies will become the most popular. Major changes in strategy will become uncommon, and what would be considered a radical departure will, to the outsider, be less radical. However, if there were ever a change in the rules (or in nature, the environment) then you would expect to see bigger changes.

Now in this scenario I haven’t accounted for the first one of rossum’s three points. I haven’t introduced offspring, but I’m sure you will agree that if we keep them in there long enough to have babies, they will teach their children the best strategies. This scenario definitely accounts for the lack of resources.

I know that the above example is artificial and fictional, but as a model, it really seems to show how stability in a population can occur.

I don’t know any way of slicing it: Stability favours stability. Change favours change. There are exceptions to the rule, but the rule works in most situations.

 

[The_Barbarian]

The process is called “stabilizing selection.” Picture a population almost perfectly adapted to an unchanging environment. Almost all mutations doing anything significant, or recombinations doing so, will be removed by natural selection, and so natural selection will prevent much evolutionary change.

Picture a population in a new environment or one that has drastically changed. Here, significant mutations are much more likely to occur, and evolution should proceed at a higher pace.

This is what we observe to be true in nature.

 

[PEPCIS]

"PEPCIS:

Well, that’s a BELIEF

that evolutionists have.

In the sense that "because experiments have demonstrated that birds retain genes for teeth, scientists believe

that the loss of teeth was due to a mutation suppressing their formation." The loss of teeth required additional information for a suppressor, not the loss of information for teeth.

PEPCIS:

As I said, BELIEF

. It could be that they were CREATED that way, with the gene suppressor already in place.
Barbarian:

So God created birds with genes for teeth, then realized that was a bad idea, and added a repressor so the genes wouldn’t work? You honestly believe that?

No, but that’s not what I said. Evolutionists, in their frenzied belief, refuse to recognize anything that could compete with their conclusions.

Here’s an analogy: I paint a picture and color the sky a nice daytime blue color. You paint a picture and color the sky a beautiful amber color to reflect the setting of the sun. The difference between the two pictures is the level of yellow and green added to the mixture.

The addition of the yellow and green pigments controls the color of the blue, subduing it and creating a different color scheme.

The analogy is that even though both pictures contain the same elements and color hues, only one contains more yellow and green.

For the same token, God created a myriad of pictures, and used the same pigments and hues between them, only varying the amount.

For the bird, it was given the gene production for the calcium, but not for the enamel. Therefore, it can be “tricked” into production of teeth-like structures, but such structures would simply reabsorb into the chick once it was born, and would never produce enamel.
Barbarian:

What about the very ancient birds that had teeth? God overlooked them?

What about them? Some birds had teeth, some did not. Some fish have teeth, some do not. Some amphibians have teeth, some do not. Some reptiles have teeth, some do not. Some mammals have teeth, some do not.

 

[PEPCIS]

Firstly I notice that you have again failed to answer my often repeated question about how you measure information.

Yes, you have noticed that haven’t you. Is that because you continue to fail on your own?

rossum:

Until you can give me a practical method then I will continue to use the methods that I have and that have served science well for many years.

The problem that you have is not that you don’t have a system of measurement, but that you aren’t measuring the information itself. You failed to acknowledge that the fact that morse code could not include the information of capitalization of the letters for formal names and places was a DECREASE IN INFORMATION.

Secondarily, you failed to recognize that you aren’t measuring information, but only the MEDIUM that information is carried on.

Another area that we have yet to even consider is other levels of information that cannot be accounted for in one medium, but are expressed wonderfully in another medium. This means that one medium is able to more fully express the information content, while the other is incapable of doing so.

There is a very real discrepancy in the manner in which you measure information, and you are extremely stubborn in acknowledging that the MEDIUM is not the Information.

rossum:

When information is transferred from parent to child it is transferred through the MEDIUM of DNA. It is the MEDIUM that contains the information so it is fine to measure the information content of the MEDIUM in order to determine the amount of information present. At the very least we can tell that if the capacity of the MEDIUM is a pint then there was not a transfer of a gallon of information.

That’s getting closer to understanding the true place of information. It is true that the only way that we can account for the measurement of information is to measure the MEDIUM, but it’s very important to understand two things:

1. 
   *]DNA is a storage/retrieval system
   *]DNA is the MEDIUM for biological information specific to the species that it codes for
   *]DNA has other nuances of information that cannot be accounted for merely by the MEDIUM alone, but requires other knowledges that are not currently available to us.

 

[Cpl_Ferro]

So many of you are so snarky. There’s something about Internet fights that brings it out in people.

 

[PEPCIS]

So many of you are so snarky. There’s something about Internet fights that brings it out in people.

I’ve never met a “snark” before. Is that a cross between a snake and shark? Though some of the evolutionists do lay claim to having seen a bird with dog teeth…

 

[The_Barbarian]

No, but that’s not what I said.

You suggested that the birds were created with genes for teeth, and also genes to prevent them from growing teeth. That seems almost blasphemous, accusing God of that kind of foolishness.

Evolutionists, in their frenzied belief, refuse to recognize anything that could compete with their conclusions.

Could you step back for just a moment, and take a look at what you’ve suggested about God creating an animal with genes for a feature, and then adding genes to prevent the first ones from working? It seems completely irrational.

For the bird, it was given the gene production for the calcium, but not for the enamel.

It’s not for “calcium”; the genes are for teeth. The new allele just prevents the genes from being expressed. Why would God do that?

Do you realize how your argument looks to others?

 

[The_Barbarian]

You related how the order of the Hurricane vortex is an excellent example of information. Now you contradict yourself to tell me that order is not information.

Nope. I told you that hurricanes have order, and contain information. Is it possible English is not your first language?

(Barbarian’s statement)
Hurricanes are highly ordered, and contain much information, but order is not information.

Secondly, you can sit there and spout out that “information is a measure of uncertainty” all day long, but you would continue to be wrong.

(Barbarian posts numerous cites from the literature showing that information is a measure of uncertainty)
It’s quite true.

Yes, I know that it’s quite true that you would continue to be wrong. Truth doesn’t change just because you sit in fantasy.

Denial isn’t going to do you much good at this point. I notice you haven’t responded to my calculations showing that all mutations produce an increase in information in a population.

Barbarian observes:
And more to the point, using that definition allows us to efficiently transmit information.

No,

Yep:
In information theory, entropy is a measure of the uncertainty associated with a random variable. The term by itself in this context usually refers to the Shannon entropy, which quantifies, in the sense of an expected value, the information contained in a message, usually in units such as bits. Equivalently, the Shannon entropy is a measure of the average information content one is missing when one does not know the value of the random variable. The concept was introduced by Claude E. Shannon in his 1948 paper “A Mathematical Theory of Communication”.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_entropy

And…

Information is a measure of uncertainty, or entropy, in a situation. The greater the uncertainty, the more the information. When a situation is completely predictable, no information is present. Most people associate information with certainty or knowledge; consequently, this definition from information theory can be confusing. As used by the information theorist, the concept does not refer to a message, facts, or meaning. It is a concept bound only to the quantification of stimuli or signals in a situa*tion.
From Littlejohn, Stephen W. Theories of Human Communication. Second Ed. Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1983, p 116.

Barbarian observes:
Information is a measure of the uncertainty of an event.
tinyurl.com/bosjxg

Too bad you can’t even read your own stuff for comprehension. The book you cited states that “information is a measure of the uncertainty ABOUT THE OCCURRENCE of an event.”

Yep, the occurrence being the message. I thought you knew.

Of course, you’d be wrong on both counts, because whether information is stated to be the uncertainty of an event or the uncertainty about the occurrence of an event is SPECIFIC TO THE TRANSMISSION OF INFORMATION.

Nope. Works for all cases.

Information is a measure of uncertainty, or entropy, in a situation. The greater the uncertainty, the more the information. When a situation is completely predictable, no information is present. Most people associate information with certainty or knowledge; consequently, this definition from information theory can be confusing. As used by the information theorist, the concept does not refer to a message, facts, or meaning. It is a concept bound only to the quantification of stimuli or signals in a situa*tion.
shkaminski.com/Classes/Ha…ticalModel1949

Once again you fail to comprehend what you read. Notice that Stephen Littlejohn states that information theorists use a definition that is UNIQUE to the trasmission of information (“As used by the information theorist…”).

Yep. So anything that contains information will work.

Notice also that the definition does not apply to “…a message, facts, or meaning.”

No, it doesn’t say that. It says that it does not refer to message, facts, or meaning. But it quite ably applies to meaning. For example, compressing data in a transmission, or introducing the correct amount of redundancy to make the message reliable. It’s how the internet works, and the way we can communicate over millions of kilometers with very weak transmitters.

In other words, the definition that information theorists use to denote information does not even deal with REAL information, because the definition that information theorists use for information “…is a concept bound only to the quantification of stimuli or signals in a situation.”

In

See above. It works. Yours doesn’t. End of discussion as far as scientists and engineers are concerned.

It’s one thing to say that Shannon’s theory is applicable to Biological systems where information is transferred, but quite another to insist beyond intelligence and reason that Shannon was a biologist, when his discipline was electrical engineering.

Barbarian chuckles:
That, from an engineer, mind you.

That was from a knucklehead.

As you can see, you don’t know enough about the subject to offer a rational opinion. But it is of interest that Shannon’s work is actually most applicable to biology.

 

[The_Barbarian]

I’ve never met a “snark” before.

Lucky you:

‘But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
If your Snark be a Boojum!
For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
And never be met with again!’

http://www.uwsp.edu/geo/projects/geoweb/participants/dutch/GRAPHIC0/Spacecraft/snark.gif

 

[rossum]

The problem that you have is not that you don’t have a system of measurement, but that you aren’t measuring the information itself. You failed to acknowledge that the fact that morse code could not include the information of capitalization of the letters for formal names and places was a DECREASE IN INFORMATION.

But obviously you do have a system that can actually measure information, since you are talking about a “DECREASE IN INFORMATION”. All I am trying to do is to get you to tell us the system that you are using to measure information. What scientific measurements did you use to tell you that information increased? What was your measure of the quantity of information prior to the change and what was your measure of the quantity of information after the change? How did you calculate those two measures? You obviously do not accept Shannon information, I am asking for the definition of PEPCIS Information.

How are you measuring the quantity of information?

rossum

 

[The_Barbarian]

All I am trying to do is to get you to tell us the system that you are using to measure information.

I think it’s become obvious that “information” is some kind of mantra he was taught, a sort of promised “magic bullet” against science. He seems to have no idea at all.

 

[rossum]

I think it’s become obvious that “information” is some kind of mantra he was taught, a sort of promised “magic bullet” against science. He seems to have no idea at all.

At the moment that would appear to be the case. Unfortunately “I know it when I see it” does not cut it in science.

I am being a bit unfair since PEPCIS is probably taking this argument from a creationist website somewhere, and they are typically happy to use the “no new information” argument but very rarely show any actual calculations to back up their statements.

rossum

 

[Sideline]

At the moment that would appear to be the case. Unfortunately “I know it when I see it” does not cut it in science.

I am being a bit unfair since PEPCIS is probably taking this argument from a creationist website somewhere, and they are typically happy to use the “no new information” argument but very rarely show any actual calculations to back up their statements.

rossum

I’m only reading one side of the conversation (yours and Barbarians) but it is a bizarre seeing how circular it is. It’s like a person arguing that one squiggly line is longer than another. The person they are arguing with pulls out a set of callipers and starts measuring the line and finds they are the same length. The first person says that callipers won’t work on this type of line because one is obviously longer, but won’t say what kind of measurement would work.

If you can’t explain how you are measuring something, how can you possibly know if your calculations are correct?

 

[Leela]

I’m only reading one side of the conversation (yours and Barbarians) but it is a bizarre seeing how circular it is. It’s like a person arguing that one squiggly line is longer than another. The person they are arguing with pulls out a set of callipers and starts measuring the line and finds they are the same length. The first person says that callipers won’t work on this type of line because one is obviously longer, but won’t say what kind of measurement would work.

If you can’t explain how you are measuring something, how can you possibly know if your calculations are correct?

True. It also has nothing to do with ID as a theory that should be taught in science class. As far as I can tell, ID is just a criticism of evolutionary theory rather than an alternative theory.

Some on this thread have said that ID should be taught instead of evolution. If ID is just a criticism of evolutionary theory, how could it be taught in the absence of instruction on evolution?

Do ID proponents actually have a competing scientific theory? If so, they need to explain how ID is falsifiable.

Best,
Leela

 

[Sideline]

True. It also has nothing to do with ID as a theory that should be taught in science class. As far as I can tell, ID is just a criticism of evolutionary theory rather than an alternative theory.

Some on this thread have said that ID should be taught instead of evolution. If ID is just a criticism of evolutionary theory, how could it be taught in the absence of instruction on evolution?

Do ID proponents actually have a competing scientific theory? If so, they need to explain how ID is falsifiable.

Best,
Leela

I agree!

This thread was started to demonstrate that a “Growing Majority of Americans Support Teaching Both Sides of Evolution Debate”, but I’m not seeing another side other than “God did it.” A lot of people who teach evolution believe that “God did it”, but they are going about showing how He did it scientifically.

I think they may have got another answer in this poll if the question asked was, “Do you think we should teach religion instead of biology in biology class?”

 

[PEPCIS]

I agree!

This thread was started to demonstrate that a “Growing Majority of Americans Support Teaching Both Sides of Evolution Debate”, but I’m not seeing another side other than “God did it.” A lot of people who teach evolution believe that “God did it”, but they are going about showing how He did it scientifically.

I think they may have got another answer in this poll if the question asked was, “Do you think we should teach religion instead of biology in biology class?”

Dang, what a bunch of rude apples! You know, I AM in the room with you all, and I can “hear” everything that you say. Why not just call me a moron to my face?

 

[PEPCIS]

"PEPCIS:

No, but that’s not what I said.

You suggested that the birds were created with genes for teeth, and also genes to prevent them from growing teeth. That seems almost blasphemous, accusing God of that kind of foolishness.

I’m not so sure that I’m concerned about what you would consider as “blaspemous.”

As for the rest, I never suggested that birds were created with genes for teeth. That’s you misinterpreting what I have stated.

Evolutionists, in their frenzied belief, refuse to recognize anything that could compete with their conclusions.

Barbarian:

Could you step back for just a moment, and take a look at what you’ve suggested about God creating an animal with genes for a feature, and then adding genes to prevent the first ones from working? It seems completely irrational.

Indeed, that is irrational.

For the bird, it was given the gene production for the calcium, but not for the enamel.

Barbarian:

It’s not for “calcium”; the genes are for teeth.

You need to be more specific. What are you talking about? Do you have a specific experiment in mind? I’d like to know if I’m talking about the same thing as you are.
Barbarian:

The new allele just prevents the genes from being expressed. Why would God do that?

Who said God did anything? I sure didn’t.
Barbarian:

Do you realize how your argument looks to others?

No, but I sure do realize how YOUR argument that you’re putting in my mouth might look to others.

 

[PEPCIS]

"PEPCIS:

You related how the order of the Hurricane vortex is an excellent example of information. Now you contradict yourself to tell me that order is not information.

Nope. I told you that hurricanes have order, and contain information.

Then you need to tell me how it is that you consider hurricanes to be a wealth of information. Are you trying to say that information is periodically-arranged data? If so, then you sure seem to be going against what information theorists have been saying.
Barbarian:

Is it possible English is not your first language?

Insults seem to be the soup du jour for your side of the argument.

The main difficulty, as I understand the difficulty between us, is the question: “What is information?”

William Dembski asked the same question, and answered it this way:

[SIGN]"The fundamental intuition underlying information is not, as is commonly thought, the transmission of signals across a communication channel, but rather, the ruling out of possibilities. To be sure, when signals are transmitted across a communication channel, invariably a set of possibilities is ruled out, namely, those signals which were not transmitted. But to acquire information remains fundamentally a matter of ruling out possibilities, whether these possibilities comprise signals across a communication channel or take some other form. As Robert Stalnaker (1984, p. 85) puts it, “To understand the information conveyed in a communication is to know what possibilities would be excluded by its truth.” Information in the first instance presupposes not some medium of communication, but contingency. For there to be information, there must be a multiplicity of distinct possibilities any one of which might happen. When one of these possibilities does happen and the others are ruled out, information becomes actualized. Indeed, information in its most general sense can be defined as the actualization of one possibility to the exclusion of others.[/SIGN]

What I understand from all that is that information is more than the measurement of the MEDIUM, and is only that which is in the purview of intelligence.

To be certain, this would be the driving force for the MAIN OPPOSITION by evolutionists, and die-hard abiogeneticists. That is because information cannot arise by random forces, contrary to what you have asserted. This is why you have yet to give a definition of information which could account for such a claim.
Barbarian:

Hurricanes are highly ordered, and contain much information, but order is not information.

Before there was Shannon, there was Wiener. Wiener’s definition of information is much different than Shannon’s. Wiener states:

[SIGN]“One of the simplest, most unitary forms of information is the recording of choice between two equally probable simple alternatives, one or the other is bound to happen - a choice, for example, between heads and tails in the tossing of a coin. We shall call a single choice of this sort a decision. If we then ask for the amount of information in the perfectly precise measurement of a quantity known to lie between A and B, which may with uniform a priori probability lie anywhere in this range, we shall see that if we put A = 0 and B = 1, and represent the quantity in the binary scale (0 or 1), then the number of choices made and the consequent amount of information is infinite.”[/SIGN]

Wiener goes on to conclude that [SIGN]“It will be seen that the processes which lose information are, as we should expect, closely analogous to the processes which gain entropy.”[/SIGN]

This is much different than what Shannon proposes, and much closer to what I have detailed in my posts. It is also a definition which Dembski has championed in his writings.

 

[PEPCIS]

"PEPCIS:

The problem that you have is not that you don’t have a system of measurement, but that you aren’t measuring the information itself. You failed to acknowledge that the fact that morse code could not include the information of capitalization of the letters for formal names and places was a DECREASE IN INFORMATION.

But obviously you do have a system that can actually measure information, since you are talking about a “DECREASE IN INFORMATION”.

If you mean a standardized formula, no. If you mean logic, yes.

If two people are communicating the EXACT SAME MESSAGE, but one is writing the message, and the other is speaking the message, the MEDIUM changes from graphite on a piece of paper, to the air waves reaching my ear.

If all I put on the piece of paper is “I love my wife”, and the other person states in clear, unequivocal tones: “I LOOOOOOVE my wife,” with a big smile on his face, then there is a significant increase in information in the message delivered by speaking. No algorithms are required to determine this, because the written message simply says “I love my wife.” It is a plain declarative statement, devoid of any emphasis.

However, the spoken message relates much more information, such as the big smile on the man’s face when he speaks the words; the subjective “twinkle” in his eye; the softness of his voice; the emphasis which he places on specific words and syllables. All of those add information which is not contained in the written statement.

rossum:

All I am trying to do is to get you to tell us the system that you are using to measure information.

And all I am trying to get you to do is to acknowledge that there is an increase in information between a single-celled amoeba and a multi-celled organism.

I hope that this helps clarify the discussion.

 

[The_Barbarian]

Then you need to tell me how it is that you consider hurricanes to be a wealth of information. Are you trying to say that information is periodically-arranged data? If so, then you sure seem to be going against what information theorists have been saying.

Quote:
Barbarian notes that twice PEPCIS fails to properly read a statement:
Is it possible English is not your first language?

Insults seem to be the soup du jour for your side of the argument.

It’s not an insult; I’m genuinely confused as to why a simple English sentence befuddles you.

The main difficulty, as I understand the difficulty between us, is the question: “What is information?”

William Dembski asked the same question, and answered it this way…

Claude Shannon answered it in a rigorous and useful way. That’s why communication engineers use Shannon’s version, not Dembski’s version. Shannon’s works. Dembski’s doesn’t.

To be certain, this would be the driving force for the MAIN OPPOSITION by evolutionists, and die-hard abiogeneticists. That is because information cannot arise by random forces, contrary to what you have asserted.

Let’s test that; would you say rolling a die was a random process? How about radioactive decay? Those aren’t rhetorical questions. I’d like answers.

Barbarian observes:
Hurricanes are highly ordered, and contain much information, but order is not information.

Before there was Shannon, there was Wiener. Wiener’s definition of information is much different than Shannon’s.

Whose definition do engineers use when they actually have to transmit information? Guess why.

Barbarian chuckles:
You suggested that the birds were created with genes for teeth, and also genes to prevent them from growing teeth. That seems almost blasphemous, accusing God of that kind of foolishness.

As for the rest, I never suggested that birds were created with genes for teeth. That’s you misinterpreting what I have stated.

It’s a fact that birds have genes for teeth, as well as genes suppressing the formation of teeth. You suggested that birds were created with genes for suppressing teeth. Which would be a rather bad reflection on God, if He were to do such a thing.

Barbarian suggests:
Could you step back for just a moment, and take a look at what you’ve suggested about God creating an animal with genes for a feature, and then adding genes to prevent the first ones from working? It seems completely irrational.

Barbarian observes:
It’s not for “calcium”; the genes are for teeth.

You need to be more specific. What are you talking about? Do you have a specific experiment in mind? I’d like to know if I’m talking about the same thing as you are.

If you don’t know what you’re talking about, maybe it’s a good idea to find out?

**Although no modern birds have teeth, their ancestors once boasted beaks bristling with incisors. The teeth sported 147 million years ago by the Archaeopteryx, the first bird known to science, disappeared from its descendants between 70 and 80 million years ago.

The DNA that triggers tooth growth did not disappear completely, but instead lingered uselessly in the avian genetic blueprint. A team led by Josiane Fontaine-Perus, of the University of Nantes, has managed to switch this genetic signal back on. **
timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article1138908.ece