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rossum
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One deck has red backs, the other blue backs so the two decks can be distinguished. My apologies for not making that clear.
rossum
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rossum
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rossum
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We are discussing ID. For the purposes of this discussion it is easier to take the designer as real and to try to elucidate the properties of that designer. One of the tactics used by the Discovery Institute is to try to say as little as possible about the properties of their designer. I am trying to shed more light on that area.
A great many things in everyday life are exceedingly improbable, yet they happen. How many different arrangements are possible for the air molecules in the room you are in? What are the chances of any one particular arrangement happening? Yet those exceedingly improbable events are happening every second in every room in the world. That is why Dr Dembski is correct to require a specification: mere improbability does not tell us a great deal since very improbable unspecified events happen very frequently.
Very Zen, “cut wood, carry water.” I am Buddhist so I believe that there is more to us than “simply chemicals”. Buddhism analyses a human being into five parts, only one of those parts – our physical body – is made up from chemicals.Further, if we are simply chemicals in motion then why bother discussing this issue? Go about your day, perform adaptive functions (or not) and just get on with your life.
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buffalo
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Do you object to a deist searching for evidence of a creator?
Who and what attributes the “designer” has is work for philosophy.
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Moonstruck888
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Objection overruled. Dulpication Mutations are common and produce an increase in information.No - I object! Plaintiff take him away…Evolutionary process cannot EASILY produce an increase in Shannon information.
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buffalo
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That flies in the face of current understanding that DNA fights against mutations with self correcting mechanisms.
And mutations corrupt language meaning they do not increase meaning.
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Moonstruck888
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I can assure you that duplication mutations do occur.
Duplication Mutations
You need to study Shannon more carefully. Shannon theory makes no predictions as regards the meaning or importance of a message.
Mutations that corrupt the genetic information of an organism in a manner that causes a critical malfunction in the synthesis of survival proteins will kill the organism and will not be passed on.
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rvilbig
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DNA polymerases indeed produce mutations, as anyone who’s ever used polymerases knows. See this product sheet.
Now the theory of evolution posits that these mutations make meaningful changes over time that result in new genes. So the real question is whether these mutations are truly errors on the order of nature, which leads me to one of my proofs of the existence of God:
We have two options: either nature makes errors, or it doesn’t.
*If nature makes errors, then it must have a purpose from which to deviate and hence err.
*If nature does not make errors, then it is perfect because it does not make any mistakes.
In the first case, nature has purpose, and in the second case, nature is perfect. Either option forces me to conclude that nature has a designer. As Catholics, we of course know that the second option is correct (cf. Gen 2:1 God completed (i.e. perfected) His work). So in reality, mutations contribute to the perfection of the universe.
Hope this helps,
Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
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Moonstruck888
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In order an entity to make errors, it would have to be self aware. There is no evidence that DNA per se is self aware.
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rossum
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There are indeed error-correcting mechanisms, however those mechanisms are not 100% perfect. The average human being has about 150 - 200 mutations. That is an error rate of around 0.000006%.
You are making a common error and confusing “information” with “meaning”. Information can be measured objectively, meaning cannot. For example, this text has meaning to a Tibetan speaker:sna tsogs 'di gsungs pa, ,nyan thos byang chub sems dpa’i tsogs
bcas sangs rgyas kyi ni yum de la phyag 'tsal lo, ,rnam pa
thams cad mkhyen nyid lam, ,ston pas 'di rnams
bshad pa gang, ,gzhan gyis myong ba ma yin te, ,chos spyod bcu
yi bdag nyid kyi, ,mdo don dran pa la bzhag nas, ,blo dang ldan
pas mthong 'gyur phyir, ,bde blag tu ni rtogs pa
but if you are not a Tibetan speaker it does not have any meaning. It is a couple of verses of the Tibetan translation of the Abhisamayalamkara, a word which will have little meaning unless you understand Sanskrit. Meaning and information are separate things.
Any encryption system worth its salt can change a plaintext, with both information and meaning, into a cyphertext, with information only. The person with the correct key can reverse the process and decrypt the cyphertext back into the plaintext thus recovering the meaning without changing the information.
rossum
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rvilbig
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So you’re saying nature is perfect. Wonderful! That’s what I think too.
-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com
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Moonstruck888
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I’m saying that ascribing that kind of quality to nature is inapporpriate.
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buffalo
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I can assure you they do too. But the copy and self protect mechanism is very very good preserving the “kind” the organism began as.
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buffalo
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God created everything and said it was good. Mutations are corruptions. DNA language corruptions do not render an increase of information but cause noise which muddles it. Every generation further from Adam and Eve are more corrupted.
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Moonstruck888
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buffalo
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A great proof for the DNA code coming from a mind. Can I have permission to use it?
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Moonstruck888
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Actually no.
Adam and Eve were two people. Two people cannot carry enough genetic information to account for the variation seen in the human species today. In fact, for the variation seen in humanity to exist after between six and twelve thousand years, human beings would have to be evolving far faster than Darwin thought.
Anyhow, the mechanisms that increase genetic infromation are clearly understood by biological science. The “noise” is eliminated by selection.
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buffalo
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Catastrophies?
Do you need more info on the self correcting capabilities of the DNA language? When a mutation appears at least 3 attempts are made at fixing it. Only if they fail does the mutation take hold. Simply amazing…
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Moonstruck888
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No I do not. The correction methods are not fullproof and you are obviously well outside your field of expertise, if you have one.
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Moonstruck888
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Nope. The descendents of the dinosaurs are still with us today, but two modern are never going to give birth to a Tyrannosaurus. That is because the mechanisms that return all organisms to the orginal template are a fictional invention of yours.
Every lifeform on this planet is a transitional phase.
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buffalo
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Adam and Eve were genetically pure. Mutations started in their descendants. Correct - mutations a la evolution cannot work as fast as we see. Adaptation can. All organisms have 500 or so “core” immortal genes that are conserved. Similar to an erector set many components are called upon by the DNA code to build the body type. The mother’s cell is what determines and preserves the “kind”. The speed and responsiveness of adaptation is just know beginning to be understood.
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