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Does anyone believe in Evolution anymore?

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
Thanks for the link. I was unaware of this. I think I owe Knight an apology as well. And I do regret any unkind things I may have ever said to him or about him.

He had more to say:

What you are describing is life. That's how almost all conversations go. In my opinion if we were to attempt to ban folks for what you describe there would be no one left to debate.

Here's the thing....

IF....
Person X (almost invariably an atheist, leftist, or a heretic) makes a claim or assertion in a discussion.

Person Y challenges it, refutes it, or just asks for clarification.

X continues to post as if Y never said anything, even posting to or about Y but while ignoring what Y said (proving Y is not on Ignore, indicating X saw Y's first reply).

Y repeats question/response that X ignored.

X ignores it again. Sometimes saying nothing, sometimes snarking about it, sometimes claiming to have already replied to it (never having done so).

THEN....

Person X has read your post. They know your position. They don't want to respond. So what?? Laugh and move on to a different discussion. I could not for the life of me make Dave respond to the points I was making in the Flat Earth thread. I have my suspicions as to why he avoided answering me. But what am I gonna do? Ban Dave??

All you can do is state your case for all to read. If you get honest engagement from others, great! If not, move on to a different discussion or continue on and ignore the non-responsive user.

My guess is literally everyone on TOL thinks their opponents ignore their points. What do we do? Ban everyone?
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
I don't remember the part where knight apologized - can you cut and paste it for me?

Would you prefer "took full blame for the tone of the forum?" Take it or leave it, you're splitting hairs and I'm not going to indulge you. Banning Barbarian because someone doesn't like the way he answers or doesn't answer? Like Knight said, you can always move on to another discussion. So can Stripe. So can JR.
 

The Barbarian

BANNED
Banned
Barbarian suggests:
Perhaps we could just set aside all our resentments

I don't have any resentments to set aside.

You spend a lot of time talking about them, for not having any. How about just taking part in the discussion?

What process, required for common descent, is ruled out by entropy or information? Show us your reasoning.

I'm not talking about evolution, I'm talking about common descent.

O.K. show us that. If math won't work for your purposes, just explain your reasoning, and we'll talk about it.

:darwinsm: LOL. You can't help but project.

Or you could keep doing that an we'll never know if your idea was right or not. Your choice.

I did. You replied that noise *does* add information to the signal. Weaver would disagree with you.

Shannon would disagree with him. One of those two guys' ideas makes it possible to have high-speed internet and to send messages across billions of kilometers of space with very reliable signals. Guess which one?

It is thus clear where the joker is in saying that the received signal has more information. Some of this information is spurious and undesirable and has been introduced via the noise. To get the useful information in the received signal we must subtract out this spurious portion.


So Weaver says noise is information, too. That's not what you said. Shannon would point out that the information might or might not be useless.

Example in point:
Penzias and Wilson, at Bell Labs were trying to perfect microwave antennas. No matter what they did, they always ended up with a tiny amount of residual noise. Eventually, they realized that it was the predicted cosmic radiation background from the Big Bang, for which they shared a Nobel in 1978 with Soviet physicist Pytor Kapitsa. It was noise and a spurious signal. But it contained a lot of information.

Passive radar works in very much the same way. It analyzes the "noise" and uses it for useful purposes.

There's a lot of high-level research, dedicated to making that noise useful. Which is kinda the way evolution works. The "noise" in DNA replication can be exploited in useful ways.

Do you count it as calling you a name if Weaver does it and I point it out? Would you call me names in return?

Instead of focusing on hurt feelings, why not just answer the question?
 

The Barbarian

BANNED
Banned
Apparently, Weaver agrees with me:

The word information, in this theory, is used in a special sense that must not be confused with its ordinary usage. In particular, information must not be confused with meaning.

In fact, two messages, one of which is heavily loaded with meaning and the other of which is pure nonsense, can be exactly equivalent, from the present viewpoint, as regards information. It is this, undoubtedly, that Shannon means when he says that "the semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering aspects." But this does not mean that the engineering aspects are necessarily irrelevant to the semantic aspects.

To be sure, this word information in communication theory relates not so much to what you do say, as to what you could say.
That is, information is a measure of one's freedom of choice when one selects a message. If one is confronted with a very elementary situation where he has to choose one of two alternative messages, then it is arbitrarily said that the information, associated with this situation, is unity. Note that it is misleading (although often convenient) to say that one or the other message conveys unit information. The concept of information applies not to the individual messages (as the concept of meaning would), but rather to the situation as a whole, the unit information indicating that in this situation one has an amount of freedom of choice, in selecting a message, which it is convenient to regard as a standard or unit amount.
...
That information be measured by entropy is, after all, natural when we remember that information, in communication theory, is associated with the amount of freedom of choice we have in constructing messages. Thus for a communication source one can say, just as he would also say it of a thermodynamic ensemble, "This situation is highly organized, it is not characterized by a large degree of randomness or of choice - that is to say, the information (or the entropy) is low." We will return to this point later, for unless I am quite mistaken, it is an important aspect of the more general significance of this theory.
...
Although it is not at all the purpose of this paper to be concerned with mathematical details, it nevertheless seems essential to have as good an understanding as possible of the entropy-like expression which measures information. If one is concerned, as in a simple case, with a set of n independent symbols, or a set of n independent complete messages for that matter, whose probabilities of choice are p1, p2 . . . p, then the actual expression for the information is

H = - [p1 log p1 + p2 log p2 + . . . + pn log pn],
or
H = - ∑ pi log pi.

Where (4) the symbol ∑ indicates, as is usual in mathematics, that one is to sum all terms like the typical one, pi log pi, written as a defining sample.


Notice that Weaver's notion of "information" is precisely what I told you information is. Feel free to go back and run the numbers on that simple population genome problem I showed you. You'll get the same answers.
 

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame

The word information, in this theory, is used in a special sense that must not be confused with its ordinary usage. In particular, information must not be confused with meaning.



And the challenge is from the sense that information conveys meaning.

Darwinists must attempt to define challenges out of existence. They cannot face them head on.
 

ok doser

lifeguard at the cement pond
Would you prefer "took full blame for the tone of the forum?"

yes, I remember that

Take it or leave it,


I'll gladly take it, now that it's accurate

...you're splitting hairs

Rather, I'm working from memory as I can't open that thread

and I'm not going to indulge you.

And yet here you are, indulging me :sigh:

Banning Barbarian because ...


... because he's a troll, engaged in trolling behavior, as has been well documented
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
yes, I remember that

I'll gladly take it, now that it's accurate

:freak: It was accurate already, since I posted the link to that post also earlier in this thread.

Rather, I'm working from memory as I can't open that thread

Sure you can. Just don't log in.

And yet here you are, indulging me :sigh:

Sad, isn't it? :(

... because he's a troll, engaged in trolling behavior, as has been well documented

Knight says you have the option to find another discussion. So why don't you? :idunno:
 

Yorzhik

Well-known member
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
Shannon would disagree with him.
I quote Weaver in the book Shannon and Weaver wrote together and you say Shannon would disagree with Weaver.

C'mon, you gotta agree that's funny.


One of those two guys' ideas makes it possible to have high-speed internet and to send messages across billions of kilometers of space with very reliable signals. Guess which one?
Since they are coauthors it's both. But the reason we have high speed internet is because they both agreed noise degrades the signal.

Your math is correct, if you add noise to a signal it will have more information. That's why Weaver still calls you a joker and Shannon agrees with him.
 

The Barbarian

BANNED
Banned
Yorzhik says:
I did. You replied that noise *does* add information to the signal. Weaver would disagree with you.

Barbarian notes that Shannon would disagree with him.

I quote Weaver in the book Shannon and Weaver wrote together and you say Shannon would disagree with Weaver.

He would, if Weaver said that noise doesn't add information to a signal. However, I showed you that Weaver says that it does add information to a signal. You just didn't understand what he was saying. And the "Joker" is reference to a wild card. You missed that, too.

Weaver writes:
In fact, two messages, one of which is heavily loaded with meaning and the other of which is pure nonsense, can be exactly equivalent, from the present viewpoint, as regards information.

Which is what you keep missing.

C'mon, you gotta agree that's funny.

Not the way you intended, but yeah, that's funny.

Barbarian observes:
One of those two guys' ideas makes it possible to have high-speed internet and to send messages across billions of kilometers of space with very reliable signals. Guess which one?

Since they are coauthors it's both.

Nope. Shannon's paper was written only by him in 1948. Weaver had no hand in it. Again, you misunderstood, taking the book to be the theory. That came many years later, in 1963. The book was non-technical, meant for laymen to read and understand. Shannon's paper had much earlier been utilized for communication purposes. I believe Weaver collaborated with Shannon after the paper was published, proposing a model for a communications, using Shannon's work. Don't have access to that, but I think there was a paper on the model, authored by both of them.

But the reason we have high speed internet is because they both agreed noise degrades the signal.

No.

The entire science of information theory grew out of one electrifying paper that Shannon published in 1948, when he was a 32-year-old researcher at Bell Laboratories. Shannon showed how the once-vague notion of information could be defined and quantified with absolute precision. He demonstrated the essential unity of all information media, pointing out that text, telephone signals, radio waves, pictures, film and every other mode of communication could be encoded in the universal language of binary digits, or bits-a term that his article was the first to use in print. Shannon laid forth the idea that once information became digital, it could be transmitted without error. This was a breathtaking conceptual leap that led directly to such familiar and robust objects as CDs. Shannon had written “a blueprint for the digital age,” says MIT information theorist Robert Gallager, who is still awed by the 1948 paper.

And that’s not even counting the master’s dissertation Shannon had written 10 years earlier-the one where he articulated the principles behind all modern computers. “Claude did so much in enabling modern technology that it’s hard to know where to start and end,” says Gallager, who worked with Shannon in the 1960s. “He had this amazing clarity of vision. Einstein had it, too-this ability to take on a complicated problem and find the right way to look at it, so that things become very simple.”

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/401112/claude-shannon-reluctant-father-of-the-digital-age/

Your math is correct, if you add noise to a signal it will have more information.

Because, as Weaver says...
In fact, two messages, one of which is heavily loaded with meaning and the other of which is pure nonsense, can be exactly equivalent, from the present viewpoint, as regards information.

That's why Weaver still calls you a joker

See above. He meant exactly what he said. A wild card. The Joker is that meaning is not part of Shannon's "information."

"It is thus clear where the joker is in saying that the received signal has more information."

The wild card in Shannon's equation is that noise increases information in a signal.

and Shannon agrees with him.

Yep. Go back and take a look...
http://math.harvard.edu/~ctm/home/text/others/shannon/entropy/entropy.pdf
 

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
Yorzhik says:
Barbarian notes that Shannon would disagree with him.
He would, if Weaver said that noise doesn't add information to a signal.
This joker — Barbarian — doesn't know how to use pronouns, making his accusation-laden posts impenetrable.

Weaver says that it does add information to a signal.
You just don't understand what he was saying. The "joker" is reference to you.


Two messages, one of which is heavily loaded with meaning and the other of which is pure nonsense, can be exactly equivalent, from the present viewpoint, as regards information [as defined according to the discussion the Darwinists want to have].



Darwinists do not want to talk about meaning. They know that random changes can only ever degrade information (as defined by the challenge).
 

annabenedetti

like marbles on glass
Piece of cake on my lappy, pain in the neck on my handheld

So it's not that you "can't open that thread."

sadly predictable, lately :(

Sadly, you've been predictable for the last decade, at least. :sigh:

I've found several other discussions

And am enjoying my participation on this one

Well, good. Allow that same opportunity for everyone and we're getting somewhere.

Pot, meet kettle

Nah. I'm not looking to get anyone banned.
 

Idolater

"Matthew 16:18-19" Dispensationalist (Catholic) χρ
The Bible says "six days" and "the whole Earth" to describe creation and the flood.
I know. It also says "He is risen" three times, and if the Resurrection of Christ really happened, I just don't get how any Christian would feel the need to balk at the notion of "six days" or any other words in there. "He is risen" is nonfiction fact of history, and if that's true, then why can't God have created everything somehow within the last 10 thousand years? We're talking miracles in both cases. Where's the proof that a smaller miracle is in any way less of a miracle than the creation of the universe and everything? There are miracles because of God, and believing in Christ's Resurrection is believing in God, and God created everything, so why wouldn't creation have been miraculous?

I guess this is what it's like to try to scientifically investigate a miracle. Creation was a miracle, and science is inspecting it very carefully, and they're trying to explain how the miracle of creation was done. It was done by God somehow going back what they call "13 billion years" (never confirmed the existence of this entity, we just take it on faith) in time, and starting a terribly complicated physical process of some sort, that wound up where we are today.
The plain meaning of those phrases has not been sensibly challenged. Until good reason is provided that the Bible cannot mean what it plainly says, we are justified in sticking with what we believe and rejecting "billions of years" as anti-Biblical nonsense.
It's nonsense in any sense, since it's never been illustrated, shown, demonstrated, or otherwise confirmed to be real, and not fictional. It's more silly than nonsensical imo fwiw. It's like they're saying, "There was this 'ghost,' and now there are people, and that's all we can say," and if you say, "A 'ghost?' Are you being serious? Show me this 'ghost,'" you're mocked as a troll.
Or we could stick with the science.
Science sifts the facts from the fictional, through the application of logic to propositions that are either facts or fictional.
I don't care what people believe; I care whether they are capable of engaging sensibly.
I take "six days" as literally as "He is risen," and as "This is My Body."
You can believe we were all created yesterday if you want, as long as you're willing to engage rationally.
Darwinism requires that Christ's Resurrection is fictional, because the same authority by which we believe that "He is risen" is literal, is the one that says, "Six days" also.
And you're free to believe that trolls live in your attic.
If you took the whole Scripture as literally as you take "six days" and "He is risen," you'd also take, "This is My body" literally, and you'd be Catholic at least in your ecclesiology /theology.
 

Stripe

Teenage Adaptive Ninja Turtle
LIFETIME MEMBER
Hall of Fame
I know. It also says "He is risen" three times, and if the Resurrection of Christ really happened, I just don't get how any Christian would feel the need to balk at the notion of "six days" or any other words in there. "He is risen" is nonfiction fact of history, and if that's true, then why can't God have created everything somehow within the last 10 thousand years? We're talking miracles in both cases. Where's the proof that a smaller miracle is in any way less of a miracle than the creation of the universe and everything? There are miracles because of God, and believing in Christ's Resurrection is believing in God, and God created everything, so why wouldn't creation have been miraculous?

I think we're pretty much on the same page. This is speaking from our reaction to what the Bible says.

Unfortunately, there exists a group who insist that the Bible actually teaches Darwinism — Barbarian among them. That's not too far removed from the type — Thomas Jefferson included — who might teach that the resurrection is not taught in the Bible.

They simply ignore what is plainly written and assert their own agenda.

This makes for an impossible conversation. We can't look at the same text and derive the same meaning from simple words. It becomes a game of who can draw on the higher authority or claim the most support — ie, a debate over nonsense.

I guess this is what it's like to try to scientifically investigate a miracle. Creation was a miracle, and science is inspecting it very carefully, and they're trying to explain how the miracle of creation was done. It was done by God somehow going back what they call "13 billion years" (never confirmed the existence of this entity, we just take it on faith) in time, and starting a terribly complicated physical process of some sort, that wound up where we are today.
It's nonsense in any sense, since it's never been illustrated, shown, demonstrated, or otherwise confirmed to be real, and not fictional. It's more silly than nonsensical imo fwiw. It's like they're saying, "There was this 'ghost,' and now there are people, and that's all we can say," and if you say, "A 'ghost?' Are you being serious? Show me this 'ghost,'" you're mocked as a troll.
Science sifts the facts from the fictional, through the application of logic to propositions that are either facts or fictional.
I take "six days" as literally as "He is risen," and as "This is My Body."
Darwinism requires that Christ's Resurrection is fictional, because the same authority by which we believe that "He is risen" is literal, is the one that says, "Six days" also.
If you took the whole Scripture as literally as you take "six days" and "He is risen," you'd also take, "This is My body" literally, and you'd be Catholic at least in your ecclesiology /theology.

I don't know much about the Catholic stuff. However, science doesn't care about the idea; it only cares whether it is testable and falsifiable.

So you can assert a miracle, which isn't either of those and is rightly rejected as a scientific theory, but the effects of a miracle can be tested and falsified.

So if I assert that God made the universe, that is a claim of faith. However, I can point to evidence to say that the universe was created.

A fine distinction, to be sure, but vital in a free and rational discussion.

It's regrettable that the Darwinists can't even respect a simple definition for "information," let alone engage over foundational philosophy.
 
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Yorzhik

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He would, if Weaver said that noise doesn't add information to a signal. However, I showed you that Weaver says that it does add information to a signal. You just didn't understand what he was saying. And the "Joker" is reference to a wild card. You missed that, too.
We've already agreed that noise adds information to the signal. But the idea that Weaver was using "Joker" as "wildcard" doesn't make sense. Read again:

It is thus clear where the joker is in saying that the received signal has more information. Some of this information is spurious and undesirable and has been introduced via the noise. To get the useful information in the received signal we must subtract out this spurious portion.



Undesirable information isn't a wildcard. It isn't wanted.
 
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