Re: [asa] ID/Miracles/Design (more info)

Hi Don,

I think I see where you're coming from on this - and it may help to "publish" my thinking to see if I did, indeed, get the point;

If one was to find a stack of Gitt's books sitting on a table, it may well be thought that no information could be added or subtracted by increasing or decreasing the stack.

However, if one thinks of the rotation of the books as representing binary data - "right side up" = 1, "up side down" = 0 - then it is possible to see how the stack itself is actually encoding data.

So, to labour the point, if "right side up" is represented by ^ and "up side down" by v then the number 7 could be represented by four books stacked thus;

   v ^ ^ ^
or 0 1 1 1

In this case a duplication plus "mutation" (increasing the stack and a rotating one or more books) would most certainly create new information - eg;

    v ^ ^ ^ + v ^ V ^
or 0 1 1 1 + 0 1 0 1

Where the new "byte" is a duplicated version of the first with a mutated third bit (0 becomes 1). Right?

I'm intrigued, by the way, to know if Werner Gitt got the point?

Blessings,
Murray

Don Nield wrote:
> Hi Bernie:
> My example is just meant as an analogy. It provides a counter-example to
> the claim of the YEC author Werner Gitt that new information cannot be
> created without an intelligent source. It also provides a simple analogy
> to explain why gene duplication on its own is not enough -- it has to be
> accompanied by mutation in order that new information is formed. I add
> that gene duplication is always subject to error in copying, and that is
> what is meant by mutation here. Is that clear?
> Don
>
>
>
> Dehler, Bernie wrote:
>> Hi Don-
>>
>> Your example doesn't make sense to me. I think in both cases, the two
>> books do add information- but in either case, the information isn't
>> useful.
>>
>> ...Bernie
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Don Nield [mailto:d.nield@auckland.ac.nz] Sent: Friday, April
>> 24, 2009 3:00 PM
>> To: Dehler, Bernie
>> Cc: asa@calvin.edu
>> Subject: Re: [asa] ID/Miracles/Design
>>
>> Dehler, Bernie wrote:
>>
>>> Randy said:
>>> "A process such as gene duplication, for example, increases the
>>> amount of information in an organism without any external source."
>>>
>>> But gene duplication by itself is not adding useful information or
>>> resulting in any beneficial improvements.
>>>
>>>
>> Don adds: Strictly speaking, Bernie is correct. But mutation
>> inevitably accompanies gene duplication. I once had the opportunity to
>> demonstrate this to Werner Gitt. I took two copies of his book 'In the
>> Beginning was Information', placed them side by side, and said "No new
>> information." Then I turned one of them upside down, and said "New
>> information".
>> Don
>>
>>
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>

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Received on Thu Apr 30 17:17:43 2009