From: Lawrence Johnston (johnston@uidaho.edu)
Date: Sun Nov 17 2002 - 19:17:20 EST
Glenn - Bless you, you are always willing to do some hard work to
make a point. I think it helps in the case of "methinksitislike
aweasel" that it is a recognizable quotation from Shakespeare.
See if your random number generator can come up with the likes of
"blessedarethepoorinspirit" or "inthebeginningwastheword" or
"tobeornottobethatisthequestion". I'm sure you could, given enuf
time.
I think a limiting point is that the Universe is only 14 billion
years old, and contains only 10 to the 80th power particles, so
that there is only a finite number of trials that can be made to
ACCIDENTALLY produce the thousands of strategic carbon-based
protein types all in one place and appropriately organized that
would be required to produce the first minimally living,
reproducing cell. I don't think it was an accident.
Larry Johnston
=====================================================
Lawrence H. Johnston home: 917 E. 8th st.
professor of physics, emeritus Moscow, Id 83843
University of Idaho (208) 882-2765
Fellow of the American Physical Society
http://www.uidaho.edu/~johnston/homepage.html =======
Glenn Morton wrote Sat, 16 Nov 2002 18:34:51 -
0000
>
> I am finally reading Dembski's Intelligent Design. A certain claim caught my
> attention.
>
> ÏNow a little reflection makes clear that a pattern need not
> be given prior
> to an event to eliminate chance and implicate design. Consider the following
> cipher text:
>
> nfuijolt ju jt mjlf b xfbtfm
> Initially this looks like a random sequence of letters and spacesÛinitially
> you lack any pattern for rejecting chance and inferring design.
> ÏBut suppose next that someone comes along and tells you to treat this
> sequence as a Caesar cipher, in which each letter has shifted one notch down
> the alphabet. The deciphered sequence then reads,
>
> methinks it is like a weasel
>
> Even though the pattern (in this case, the decrypted text) is given after
> the fact, it still is the right sort of pattern for eliminating chance and
> inferring design. In contrast to statistics, which always identifies its
> patterns before an experiment is performed, cryptanalysis must discover its
> patterns after the fact. In both instances, however, the patterns are
> suitable for inferring design.Ó William Dembski, Intelligent Design,
> (Downers Grove, Illinois, 1999), p. 132
>
> I decided to test this concept. I had a random number generator create
> random letter sequences and then I looked for Caesar cyphers to turn them
> into something meaningful. Using this criterion, my computer is an
> intelligent creature who is trying to communicate with me by DESIGN.
>
> xeckqbfumq
> wasitabrat (was it a brat)
>
> gpizuwbgtu
> ontheslope (on the slope)
>
> wxbukwoors
> amadhatter (a mad hatter)
>
> ijfqbjwdih
> isthisapig (is this a pig)
>
> jyybxozrbd
> beeverfive (be ever five--something said of a dead five year old)
>
> yzusizpzqb
> isthisasin (is this a sin)
>
> It is not that hard to determine a caesar cypher to turn a randomly
> generated sequence into a meaningful, short message. I won't claim that all
> long sequences can be so treated but it is interesting that random sequences
> can be given meaning where none was intended. Thus, the question is how do
> we determine design in the face of this phenomenon?
>
> 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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