It’s kind of funny how far off topic this conversation has run – that now we are arguing over General Relativity Tensor Metrics…. It is interesting to me that you claim that there is still only one metric – whether you call it different forms or forms of a single metric, some authors still call it different “metrics.” And, as my point still stands, some metrics are incomplete in describing certain sets of phenomena (i.e. the Robertson-Walker metric cannot take into account important phenomena in a Euclidean signature).

Hmm… I’ll try to jump to the bottom of the misunderstanding over “information.” Shannon information theory is a great basis for general telecommunications – and it does provide a means of calculating sequence complexity. Sequences often are characterized by a larger set of characteristics, and the full properties of those sequences cannot be described by only quantifying a SINGLE characteristic… This is why Dembski does not speak simply of “information” – but of “complex-specified information.” The specificity of the sequence is a major additional characteristic that cannot be ignored.

-Me

In the same way, the definition of inforemation is unitary in science. The information of communications theory is defined the same as in algortithmic complexity theory, and as in any other field.

Here’s one small example I found in “The Design Inference” just now. On p. 118, he states that “information measures are complexity measures in more than just name…. Complexity is always a measure of difficulty…. For information measures … how difficult it is to represent events by means of bit strings, the difficulty being identified with the length of bit strings.” That is, “information” is “difficulty” here. However, a complexity theory does not measure difficulty, but rather the difference in length between a bit string and a the shortest algorithm that can generate that bit string, and the information in the algorithm that measures complexity is determined according to the Shannon metric –log(p), not by some other definition. The Shannon definition does not describe, in your words, “only…a limited set of phenomena”; it describes every phenomenon for which “information” is relevant. If that definition is not appropriate to a particular phenomenon, then a different term should be used. (Sorry, that’s a bit elliptical.)

The point is that Dembski’s “complex specified information” (CSI) builds upon multiple definitions of information and upon unsupported assumptions of probabilities.

I’m not sure what this relates to in this conversation…

But, since you asked: first, I’d with sequences as similar as chimp and human genomes it would require a lot of hard calculation work to determine the net difference.

Keep in mind though that it is not just a quantitative comparison of complexity between subsets: i.e. if you could show that an onion has as much CSI as a human, it would be insignificant (for Darwinist hopes) if it was different CSI – because you’d still have to generate the human gemone with its own CSI (thus the total CSI would be the CSI of the human plus the CSI of the onion).

Not sure if I explained that very clearly or not!

It is (sadly) true that many ID supporters think that their platform actually rejects most of biology research. It is nonsense, and they are ignorant.

Even young-earth creationism itself does not oppose the majority of it. That is why organizations like AIG have to start by saying “you should NOT use the following ignorant creationist arguments____”.

Ahh, ignorance. Not so blissful!

-Matthew

My only wish is that more people would have chimed in. Currently, there were 4 of us involved in the conversation (welcome to Olorin, I’m glad you stuck around to comment on a pro-ID site. It can be hard to jump in the lion’s den, and I’m glad you did. I’m sure George enjoys the company

I would have liked to get more people from FES over here, but the only one who showed any interest was Ubuntu. Of course there are a lot of members who wouldn’t have contributed anything useful, but members like Erasmus, beast, or skeptical scientist could have brought valuable insight.

Re: confirmation bias. The point here is not that the research of evolutionary biologists is by and large wrong – some Darwinists seem to believe non-darwinists dismiss all of their research, when we really accept essentially all of it.

Small quibble- you or Nate, or even Behe and Dembski, may accept most of evolutionary biology, but I think a fair majority of ID experts do not, and a far larger proportion of IDist laymen certainly do not. There are many fine gradations running the gamut from theistic evolutionist to strict YEC, and it is often difficult to separate them.

Can you recommend a translation? I read it in A New Aristotle Reader, and wasn’t at all impressed with the quality of the translation- though of course I haven’t read asny other versions to compare it to.

I bet Nathan knew all along this would have no short answer!

Short answers are boring If the answer was obvious, I wouldn’t need to ask it.

My only wish is that more people would have chimed in. Currently, there were 4 of us involved in the conversation (welcome to Olorin, I’m glad you stuck around to comment on a pro-ID site. It can be hard to jump in the lion’s den, and I’m glad you did. I’m sure George enjoys the company

“”"“As I said before, it doesn’t need explicit knowledge of the designer’s identity, so long as it can put forward a plausible and coherent model of the designing process which makes sufficient predictions that are both specific and unique. But if it doesn’t do so, it can’t be considered a theory by the accepted definition of the term.””"”

The criteria for “a plausible and coherent model” of the process would hardly even go over within the Darwinist camp. I would have loved to try that on evolutionary biologists Prum & Brush in their revolutionary work on the evolution of feathers! But alas, this is natural history, and that isn’t how it works. It works more like “other evolutionists have had no luck in developing lizard skin into feathers, so we’re proposing a brand new new process: we have no clue how it works, but it produces feathers.”

Ideally, of course, all natural history paradigms should be at least partially reconstructed in experimental setup. Can this be done for design? Yes. Do we know if it mirrors the “design event(s)” in natural history? No. That is why natural history is not science.

Finally, though, getting back to the question of IDing the IDer. As I originally said: the question is how much we want to know. We could follow, for instance, just material causality; this might get us by with limited knowledge of the IDer. But if we want to analyze something like the large scale phenomena tendencies (i.e. anthropologically inclined environments), we might be studying telic causality; this would involve a more “personal” identification of the designer’s characteristics.

For those who haven’t, I would suggest a quick reading of Aristotle’s Four Causes – it mirrors the problem of “how much do we need to know about the IDer.”

I bet Nathan knew all along this would have no short answer!

-Matthew

Olorin: the definition of information is unitary? This is much like claiming there is only one metric for General Relativity. Sure, one metric will work for some cases; just as a bare complexity def of information (or a simple telecom logarithmic scale like Shannon information theory) will suffice for some cases. It only describes a limited set of phenomena though – this is why there are multiple metrics in relativity and this is why there is NOT a single definition of information.

Re: confirmation bias. The point here is not that the research of evolutionary biologists is by and large wrong – some Darwinists seem to believe non-darwinists dismiss all of their research, when we really accept essentially all of it. The point is that their research unanimously confirms biocomplexity degradation, and a breakdown in quantitative and qualitative reasoning has lead them to overlook this.

George,

If a generalization does not apply to you, ignore it. Generalizations are exactly that – generalizations. Generalizations serve to reveal a lot: for instance, if I say that most ID proponents in the public are ignorant of its claims, that would probably be true. False generalizations, like those made by Olorin, serve another purpose: they reveal the ignorance and/or bias of the speaker.

The more I converse with you, however, I am convinced that you are probably the most stoic, rational atheist I have dealt with to date. I appreciate it. Let the generalizations (which are generally intended for those who SHOULD no better) fall to the rest of the crowd for whom it is appropriate.

-Matthew