Re: information and information generation

Ron Chitwood (chitw@flash.net)
Mon, 6 Jul 1998 11:30:24 -0500

The problem is this is not 'new' information. It might be true that it is
new to us, but it is not new. It has just been discovered. Mankind does
not create something from nothing, as our creator did, and no new
information could have been generated by chance to change a one-celled
creature into a mammal, no matter how much time has gone by. That is why
we are so limited, and it is arrogant of us to believe otherwise.

Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth
shall make you free. John 8:32
Ron Chitwood
chitw@flash.net

----------
> From: Glenn R. Morton <grmorton@waymark.net>
> To: evolution@calvin.edu
> Subject: information and information generation
> Date: Sunday, July 05, 1998 8:35 PM
>
> No sooner had I sent the message on evolutionary information than I read
an
> interesting piece by Philip and Phylis Morrison, "The Sum of Human
> Knowledge?" in July 1998 Scientific American p. 115, 117. They point out
> that in 500 AD the sum total of human knowledge (committed to the printed
> page) cosisted of about 50,000 printed books. They note that an average
> book without pictures is about a megabyte of information. This
represented
> about 50 billion bytes of information.
>
> By the end of World War II a study done by Harvard's librarian indicated
> that the sum total of human knowledge committed to paper represented
about
> 10 million books. This translates into 10 trillion bytes (terabytes) of
> information.
>
> By 1998 the Library of Congress had accumulated twice the 1945 book count
> but new media have now added significantly to the information on earth.
> These take the form of sound recordings, 3.5 million of them representing
a
> million billion bytes (a petabyte). When one estimates the generation of
> new text, based upon paper production, the bytes represented by photos
> (estimated from emulsion production), films, telephone, television, and
the
> speech of face-to-face communication, the earth has presently generated
10
> exabytes (1000 petabytes=1 exabyte) of information. This is 10^19 bytes
of
> information generated by human culture.
>
> And the rate of production continues to climb.
>
> One source of information not included above is that from computers. How
> to estimate this is beyond me.
>
> But one thing is clear from this, information is not conserved, as some
> have claimed. (William A. Dembski, "Intelligent Design as a Theory of
> Information", Perspectives on Science and Cristian Faith, 49:3, Sept
1997,
> p. 188
>
>
>
>
>
>
> glenn
>
> Adam, Apes and Anthropology
> Foundation, Fall and Flood
> & lots of creation/evolution information
> http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm