For some reason the first time I sent this it didn't get there. Try 2.
Anti-evolutionists have constantly contended that random processes can not
bring about the complex systems we see today. People like Gary Parker wrote:
"If evolution is true, there must be a universal prinicple operating in nature
that brings organization to random systems and adds information to simple
systems. Over the ages, if evolution is true, primeval particles have evolved
into molecules and galaxies, inorganic chemicals have developed into living
cells..." ~ Henry M. Morris and Gary E. Parker, What is Creation Science?, (El
Cajon: Master Books, 1987), p. 12
Gish erroneously wrote:
"The highly specific biological activity of each protein is due to the precise
way the amino acids are arranged, just as the information conveyed by this
sentience is determined by the precise sequence of the 190 letters found in
it." ~ Duane Gish, "The Origin of Life," Proc. First Inter. Conf. on
Creationism, Vol. 1, (Pittsburgh: Creation Science Fellowship, 1986), p.62
Davis and Kenyon wrote:
"As a unit of functional information in the cell, a coding gene is much like a
word( a unit of meaningful information) in a book. What do you think would
happen if we randomly changed the letters in some of the words in this book?
Would the book be improved? On the contrary, it is probable that random
changes in the words of this book would decrease rather than increase the
meaningful informationthey carry." ~ Percival Davis and Dean H. Kenyon, Of
Pandas and People, (Dallas: Haughton Publishing Co., 1993), p. 66
Phillip Johnson wrote:
"The theory that a combination of random genetic changes and natural selection
has the power to create complex plants and animals from bacteria is also more a
philosophical doctrine than an empirical one, being supported only by evidence
of relatively trivial variation within pre-existing types such as is involved
in the breeding of domestic animals. " What (If Anything) Hath God Wrought?
Academic Freedom and the Religious Professor
http://www.mrccos.com/arn/johnson/aaup.htm
And A.E. Wilder-Smith wrote:
Thus Neodarwinian thought requires basically the prebiotic autoorganization of
raw matter (which the second law categorically excludes), the creation of
information by random deviations (which information theory categorically
forbids), the encoding of information by chance (without the help of exogenous
code conventions), the storage of information by chance and its retrieval also
by chance. " A. E. Wilder-Smith, The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of
Evolution, (San Diego: Master Books, 1981), p. 65
We are going to test these ideas, that random sequences can't create
information. And if genes are like words and sentences and Kenyon and Davis
claim, then I will show that random sequences CAN create information.
Suppose you are a radioman in the army and are asked to encode instructions for
a battalion and then transmit it. For years one of the most secure codes was
the Vignere code. The Enigma machine used by the Germans used a variant of it.
Basically, it is a complexification of the secret code used by Julius Caesar.
IN a Caesar cipher, the letters of a message are encoded by use of a shift. It
would look like:
letter a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z
code d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z,a,b,c
The word 'hat' would be coded as kdw. These codes were secure until the middle
ages when the Arabs learned how to crack them. The world then moved to the
Vignere code in which uses a keyword to encode the message. The keyword is used
to chose the Caesar cipher which will encode ONLY one letter. The codes are
shown below:
letter a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z
code 1 b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z,a
code 2 c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z,a,b
code 3 d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z,a,b,c
.
.
.
code 26 z,a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k,l,m,n,o,p,q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y
For instance a keyword bdz to encode the message 'hat' will use Code 1 for the
letter h and encode it as an i, it will use code 3 for a and encode it as a d
and code 26 and encode the t as a w. Thus, in the code, hat becomes idw.
Since there are 26 codes and one must know the code word to decode the message.
Messages encoded with random keywords are fairly secure. However, as the
example below will show, there someone trying to crack one of these codes has a
real problem.
So, back to the trenches. You have been ordered to encode a message and you
look select the keyword of the day. It is:
plmoezqkjzlrteavcrcby
which is a random series of letters. You then encode the message
attackthevalleyatdawn
by the method outlined above (spaces are removed from these messages to make
them more secure I will capitalize the first letter of each decoded message to
aid the reader in reading them) and it becomes,
pefogjjrnulceiyvvucxl
As you are sending the message, your enemy listens in and collects the above
sequence. He wants to know what you are going to do, but he doesn't have the
keyword. So, he starts trying to decipher the message by use of random
keywords to see if any meaninful sentences come out of your message. He tries
the keyword
maaktgqkjndrtifdbhkts
and lo and behold, he decodes the message 'DefendTheHillAtSunset'. He runs off
to tell his commander that the enemy will defend the hill tonight having no
knowledge that the enemy will attack at dawn. The commander doesn't believe
the cryptologist and sends him back to try again. This time the cryptologist
uses the random keyword:dgjgbfrcjhikswlrxpcfs and obtains the message,
'MyWifeSpendsMoneyFast'. He knows better than to take that to his commander.
so he plods on trying dgyuoijekmtcrvspprbdz and wonders if his wife is speaking
about him as the message now reads, 'MyHusbandIsaNoGoodBum'. Trying
dgclajwoluskxifruujqt and discovers that the message says,
'MyDogAndCatsHateBaths'. Trying again, he tries the keyword
wxbzpfrjkqyjxigtvhatu and discovers the message now telling him
'ThePresidentHasCancer'. He then tries yamxcjqyubeycafxvbjkh and finds the
message saying,'RetreatToTheCityAtOne'. Then he tries the keyword,
tayolffejizlahywwvsx and gets, 'WeHaveOneMoreBazookas'. Trying
wxbcgaaagutswxnrsnulthag as a keyword he gets 'TheMajorKilledHimself' and
trying daugorjrardcneukkfukf he gets 'MelissaAndIAreEloping'
Each one of these random strings brought meaning out of the encoded message.
What this illustrates is that a complex system random events create interesting
results. The encoding system has a keyword of 21 characters long, a message of
21 characters and 26 different codes. Thus this has approximately 68
interacting parts. The encoding system is complex. The decoding system is
equally complex having the same 68 interacting parts. And with all this
complexity, random sequences create meaningful english sentences, just not the
sentence you originally intended.
While I can't provide a mathematical proof of this assertion, every english
sentence of 21 character length can be produced from a random keyword when that
keyword is used against ANY 21 character encoded message. Randomness does
create meaning.
This is what anti-evolutionists miss when they talk about complex biological
systems being unable to generate specificity or meaning as they define the
term. This clearly demonstrates that randomness and meaning/specificity are
not mutually exclusive as the authors above would want us to believe.
I must give credit for the first two examples to Simon Singh, The Code Book,
London: the Fourth Estate, 1999, p. 121-122
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