Hi Peter,
Peter asked,
And why do you
>count me among the "anti-evolutionists"? I have repeatedly and clearly
>stated that I believe that the Creator used evolution, even in the
>origin of humans (apart from the spiritual "image of God"). But should
>that prevent me from also stating that I believe the known evolutionary
>mechanisms are insufficient to produce everything autonomously?
Your last sentence says why I call you anti-evolutionist. You seem to think
it is impossible for God to create a world in which evolution could create
information. That argument IS an anti-evolutionary argument. You are against
the evolution of the initial forms of life. One just wants to call a spade a
spade.
To show you how information (Shannon information) arises consider the
sequence
000000000....0000
Since information (H) is
H= -k SUM(Pi LOG(Pi))
where Pi is the probability of having the ith character, and k is a
constant. The above sequence has zero information because the probability of
getting a '0' is precisely 1 and the logarithm of 1 is zero. Since Shannon
information depends on the logarithm, H, is zero. Now mutate that string to
000001000....0000
No longer is H equal to zero because the probability of getting a '0' is now
less than 1 and the logarithm is no longer zero. Indeed it is greater than 0
so information has been created by a random mutation.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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