Re: The Heresy of Scientists


Gene Poole wrote:
> On 9 Jan 2006 08:40:46 -0800, cafeinst@xxxxxxx wrote:
>
> >
> [SNIP]
> >Gene Poole wrote:
> >>
> >> [I tried to post this in response to another sub-thread, but it seems to
> >> have gotten lost. It fits here just as well]
> >>
> >> I have a couple of questions for you regarding this nebulous information
> >> thing.
> >>
> >> First, we now know the genomes of both human and chimp. There is a 100%
> >> correspondence of genes, meaning that for every protein in the chimp
> >> genome, there is a corresponding protein in the human genome. They may
> >> be slightly different in exact sequence due to mutations, but it seems
> >> to me that using Spetnar's definition, both genomes would have identical
> >> information content. Do you agree? Why or why not?
> >
> >Assuming that
> >1) There is a 100% correspondence between the genes of a chimp and
> >genes of a human.
> >2) All of the genes are used to define the organisms. (There are no
> >"junk" genes.)
> >3) There is no way to compress the genetic codes of each of the
> >respective organisms into a smaller sequence.
> >4) There are no other factors which define the organisms.
> >
> >Then yes, they would have identical information content. However,
> >proving something like this would be difficult.
>
> Then, granted that these assumptions are true, there is no problem for
> neodarwinian evolution with respect to Spetner's "information." (I
> assume you consider chimp/human decent from a common ancestor as
> qualifying.)

That is correct.

>
> May I be so presumptuous, then, as to assume that you disagree with one
> (or more) of these assumptions?

I really don't know whether any of the assumptions are true. Another
poster argued with 3).

>
> >Assuming that
> >1) There is a 100% correspondence between the genes of a chimp and
> >genes of a human.
>
> Since we have both genomes, and I would tend to regard this as a fact.
> Do you disagree? Why?

See http://www.genome.gov/15515096. It says that there is a 96%
correspondence. How do you define correspondence? Also, humans have 23
chromosomes. Chimps have 24.

>
> >2) All of the genes are used to define the organisms. (There are no
> >"junk" genes.)
>
> You'll have to define "junk gene." It is a non-standard term as best I
> can tell. There is, of course, "junk" (non-coding) DNA but since it is
> non-coding, then by definition it does not contain genes.

It's like a hard-working person who happens to have a job in which had
that person not come to work one day, nobody would care. The person
gets a lot of work done but still the work is meaningless. Sort of like
the research of the average university professor.

>
> >3) There is no way to compress the genetic codes of each of the
> >respective organisms into a smaller sequence.
>
> You'll need to expand on this one a bit too. If I take this at face
> value, then indeed, both genomes are very "compressible." Only 1.2 % of
> either genome actually codes for proteins. What does this have to do
> with the argument? Which genome do you think is more compressible and
> why?

If I had to guess, I would think the chimp genome is more compressible
than the human genome since the human is able to solve more difficult
problems than a chimp and therefore would have a more complicated
structure which requires more information to specify. But of course,
the chimp could have "junk genes" as I defined above. Such a case would
be analagous to a human genius and an human idiot. They might have the
same genome, but the human idiot has more "junk genes" than the human
genius.

>
> >4) There are no other factors which define the organisms.
>
> This is yet another vague concept. What does it mean to define an
> organism? Obviously there is much more to it than just the genome.
> Nonetheless, it would seem that you are now abandoning Spetnar's line of
> reasoning since he is only concerned with information as it applies to
> the genome of an organism.

Everyone seems to be convinced that DNA contains all of the information
which makes us tick. What if there is more information than DNA which
causes us to be what we are? How do we know that DNA is everything?
What if someone discovers something else which specifies
characteristics of life.

>
> Tangentially to our discussion, could you share your view on the
> human/chimp relationship? Do you consider the two related by decent?

No, I don't think they are related by descent. And if they are, then
the chimps came from humans and not the other way around. This is all
somewhat consistent with Spetner's ideas. But this belief is based on
my religion though, not Spetner's ideas.

As a scientist, I don't think it's possible to know what happened
millions of years ago without time travel. Extrapolation is a very weak
form of inference, as it's not even testable. Scientists are doing it
all the time, yet it is not real science. Science cannot answer
questions like this. The only reason scientists are doing it is because
they want answers to questions like how did we get here, yet most
scientists are atheists and since traditional religions for them cannot
answer these questions, they make "science" their religion.

>
> >
> >The notion of information is very simple. However, quantifying
> >information content is very complicated and in many cases impossible.
> >Nevertheless, the concept is very relevant for evaluating whether
> >neo-Darwinism explains how we got here.
>
> Please explain how your conclusion follows from those premises.

I'd be wasting my time explaining it, as the reasoning all comes from
Spetner's book and the trueorigin.org section about Spetner.

Craig

>
> [SNIP]

.

Relevant Pages

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