- ‘Information’, ‘data’ and ‘media’ are distinct concepts. Media is the mechanical support for data and can be any material including DNA and RNA in biology. Data is the symbols that carry information and are stored and transmitted on the media. ACGT nucleotides forming strands of DNA are biologic data. Information is an entity that answers a question and is represented by data encoded on a particular media. Information is always created by an intelligent agent and used by the same or another intelligent agent. Interpreting the data to extract information requires a deciphering key such as a language. For example, proteins are made of amino acids selected based on a translation table (the deciphering key) from nucleotides.
- Information is entirely separate from matter. The same media (matter) may contain data representing information for one or more users, or random noise if the same bits of data have been randomly configured. Furthermore, without a deciphering key, one user’s information is random noise to another (like bird songs to unrelated birds). Information can be encoded in different ways (like distinct languages), resulting in unequal data sets. The size of the data is [in practice] always larger than the information carried due to redundancy which is necessary to maintain the integrity of the carried or stored information.
- The biologic cellular system is strikingly similar to human built autonomous information systems and unlike anything else observable in the inert universe. Media can be anything including any collection of atoms and, without a decoding key, the same media can support an infinity of data. For instance, a DNA chain encodes one set of data when read left to right, another when read in reverse, yet another when read pair-by-pair, and so on. But in living organisms, DNA actually encodes specific information that is uniquely decoded with a key. Furthermore, the information in the DNA is also redundantly encoded to ensure its long term integrity. Aside from DNA and RNA, we can observe many other information systems in nature (with decoding keys such as pheromones, antigens, and hormones), but all are limited to the living.
- DNA mutations are wrongfully interpreted by some as spontaneous information generation, however the DNA limitations show that DNA is not ‘the code of life’, but only a configurable portion of ‘the code of life’. In addition, the adaptive mutations appear limited in range, reversible when the stimulus is removed, and repeatable, indicating their non-random character (as in “the peppered moth”, “Darwin’s finches”, and antibiotic resistance). This is exactly how advanced human designed computer systems behave – they have been built with adaptability in mind, therefore to the untrained eye these systems seem completely autonomous and infinitely auto-reconfigurable (”Artificial Intelligence” fallacy).
- Information cannot just pop into existence in the absence of an intelligent agent. That is why all noise-based information generating attempts including all “infinite monkey” experiments have failed and that is why “Artificial Intelligence” will never “rise”. Separating information from noise has been a very important human activity for thousands of years and success in this endeavor has always been based on two critical elements: deciphering key and redundant encoding.
- Information can exist for a long time without an intelligent agent. Information can be stored, transmitted and downloaded into machines that perform certain operations regardless of whether the intelligent agent is still around or not. Based on all our knowledge about information, not observing the intelligent agent at work should never lead to the absurd assumption that the information machine “arose without a designer”. It is no coincidence that teleological terms such as “function” and “design” appear frequently in the biological sciences.
- Data is everywhere (including fossil record and marks of past events such as asteroid impacts), but that data becomes information only to intelligent agents like us (organisms) and only when we learn to interpret it and to make predictions (answer questions). When we look at the sedimentation and erosion, we take that data and make information from it based on our knowledge. There is no information in the rocks, just data.
Summary:
- ‘Information’, ‘data’ and ‘media’ are distinct concepts
- Information is entirely separate from matter
- Biologic cellular systems are strikingly similar to human built autonomous information systems and unlike anything else observable in the inert universe
- DNA mutations are wrongfully interpreted by some as spontaneous information generation
- Information cannot just pop into existence in the absence of an intelligent agent
- Information can exist for a long time without an intelligent agent
- Data is everywhere (including fossil record), but that data becomes information only to intelligent agents
Links:
https://schneider.ncifcrf.gov/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/information-biological/
https://evolutionnews.org/2014/08/biological_info_1/
http://www.worldscientific.com/worldscibooks/10.1142/8818#t=toc
https://discourse.biologos.org/t/information-entropy/35327/21
Notes:
Con: Information is just entropy.
Pro: Shannon never said “Information = Entropy”. Wikipedia quote: “Entropy is a measure of unpredictability of the state, or equivalently, of its average information content. Hence Entropy is just an attribute of Information. In addition, information always requires a deciphering key and some redundancy, both of which reduce entropy. Information is meaningful only to the sender and receiver (and the spy). To all others it’s noise.
Con: Random number generators can open any lock.
Pro: The human opens the lock, not the random generator. The random generator is just a tool to the human.
We have a closely monitored sequence for decades in duration in the LTEE. Why does that not challenge your claim? After how long do we have to wait until the information in that sequence is lost? It shows zero signs of it so far after many, many generations.
I don’t see the value of presenting the ID non-answer. The most value I can see on ID is teaching how not to do science.
If it were an “inference” to the best explanation it would have an actual explanation. All I see is a non-explanation that moves the question to a point where we would be unable to continue working towards an actual explanation. All based on poor philosophical foundations. I’d prefer to work on a real answer from the very beginning, rather than being baffled by the smoke and mirrors only to end nowhere.
Yes. Just like your age is information about you.
But in the mathematical/information theory sense, no, it is not.
I wouldn’t.
So?
It doesn’t correspond well with DNA if DNA doesn’t consist of discrete strings of symbols.
Also, what are the other versions of information theory and how is it that they do not also apply to discrete strings of symbols?
It’s not the arrangement or sequence that is information, it is what is conveyed or represented by the arrangement or sequence that is information.
Do you understand the difference?
Some photons carry information if sent by intelligent agents (see optical fibers).
They’re data (not information) and can carry information for you but certainly not for the cat.
This is where you get off the rails. You’re stuck in the fantasy world of “evolution”.
No need to postulate. Just search “bacterial intelligence”.
The string contains data. You may or may not extract information out of that data.
Which kind of information does the cell need to function? The version of everyday experience or a mathematical model kind ?
That’s the same as a robot executing a program. The intelligent agent (creator of the machine) is the actual user of the information.
Nope. Data is not information as explained. But data may carry information.
No. DNA can be executed (like code) by the biologic machine, but it has been encoded by an intelligent agent and we (the other intelligent agents) can decode it to extract information such as: “what protein will this DNA segment produce?”
Are you talking about Dembski’s “explanatory filter”? You can certainly apply that to DNA, but DNA by itself doesn’t have that filter.
Not my definition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information. We had this exchange before on another thread. But unlike many others, I am not making up stuff.
Why does it matter to you? The answer is “yes”. The deciphering key might say: “x means A and xx means A and B”. In this case, B is the extra information.
Erik:
“anything else ” refers of course to anything other than what was mentioned already (“biologic cellular systems” and “human built autonomous information systems”). How would you write this?
Carried from where, if information is not data, where did the information come from?
is information in the pattern of the data ?
No, I was talking about colewd’s version.
Your beloved Shallit is completely lost, at least in this piece: https://recursed.blogspot.com/2009/01/test-your-knowledge-of-information.html
He simply doesn’t understand the difference between data and information. And he doesn’t understand he’s the [barely] intelligent agent that intervenes to generate whatever information he claims. Of course, if he had real examples from biology, he would use those instead of cheap sophisms.
On the plus side, he didn’t censor my one comment on his blog: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=20067416&postID=6770972370308326301 .
It must suck to be bested by a half wit.
I have no problem with “anything else”. I have a problem with “strikingly similar”. What’s the striking similarity there?
In my view, there’s a striking dissimilarity instead. Human-built information systems (from alphabet and abacus to servers) are part of the observable inert universe, while biological organisms are observably not inert at all.
Don’t be silly, that you have preferred definitions doesn’t mean that everybody is bound by your preferences.
Continuing the discussion by first moving understanding away from whatever point Shallit was making doesn’t help.
Again, that you have your preferred definitions, mixed with some convoluted bullshit, doesn’t make Shallit’s point a sophism. He’s talking about mathematical definition of information, rather than your preferred one. Thus it’s proper to evaluate Shallit’s comment under those foundations. Either that or you take the time to understand what Shallit is talking about before proceeding. Shallit presented his point and definitions from the get go. Actually, you are making his point in regards of creationists not understanding much about information. Only you make it worst by stubbornly holding to your definitions to try and dismiss the point.
Again, that you mother says that you’re a genius doesn’t make it so. You’re unable to even contemplate that you might be wrong. That, and your inability to focus, makes me suspect that you’re mentally immature. Not worth a conversation.
Happens to me all the time when I get sucked into a conversation with keiths.
Are you familiar with the story of how Shannon came to name his term entropy? It had nothing to do with information and entropy being “related stuff.”
You realize, don’t you, that we’re not really measuring information?
Of course I’m familiar with that and with how the different use of terms by Shannon and physicists made it necessary to have a discussion about definitions and redefinitions to try and avoid the very confusions you seem to be holding to.
I’m familiar with information theory beyond just Shannon (which is why I wrote scientists, not Shannon). Not only that, I also understand the relationship between information and entropy, so I know that whatever confusion you might have about what Shannon said or didn’t say doesn’t change the facts.
You realize, don’t you, that such thing depends on whether we’re talking about the same thing?
If you’re going to try and use Shannon as a counterpoint to my comments, then you should stay consistent. Shannon proposed definitions and measurements of information. If you reject them, then quoting definitions by Shannon is self-refuting.
OMagain,
The sequence loss is reduced by purifying selection and DNA repair mechanisms. This is similar to gpuccio’s argument about ATP synthase alpha and beta chains being preserved over the last 400 million years.
Entropy,
Design is an actual explanation which is now used all the time. Q. Why does the software work that way? A. It is intrinsic to its design.
Design is a very powerful descriptive explanation for how functional objects come into existence. These objects can be the result of hard working design teams.
When we claim biology is designed any explanation beyond that is difficult, as there is no visible designer inside our space-time. That, however, on its own, does not rule out design as the best explanation for complex biological features.
The idea that we cannot explain all of nature inside our space-time is an important observation that needs to be sorted out. It is a real part of the critical thinking process.
Having your cake and eating it too, I see. Just a few posts ago you were happy to endorse “John and Bill’s argument”. To quickly recap, John and Bill argue that, using a realistic distribution of effects on fitness, mutation pressure will swamp purifying selection resulting in a continuous fitness decline. So what exactly has kept the ATP synthase alpha and beta chains from decaying under this unrelentless influx of deleterious mutations, I wonder? Is the Designer doing periodical check-ups of his creations, perchance?
*googles*
Ah yes. 100% agree.
Corneel,
If the organism does not produce enough ATP it dies. Seems like a great opportunity for purifying selection.
I don’t know about their claim about overwhelming purifying selection however their claim that random mutation will move a sequence toward non function (without repair and purifying selection) is certainly valid.
See, you don’t even know what an explanation is. “Design” only stands for the actual explanation, while you take the category “design” as an explanation itself. It’s too bad that you never learned to do science.
Not even close. Design is just a category, the real explanation is causal. Something you also don’t get.
Who actually do things, unlike your “Designer.”
That wasn’t an explanation at all. It’s your wish, which remains unfulfilled as to any actual evidence.
No, it’s your utter lack of a design explanation that means that it’s not even an explanation. We also know of a host of effects in life that comport with evolutionary constraints that pose no constraints on designers. You sometimes have denied that these exist, but moved on without any kind of explanation when it was shown that they in fact exist.
It’s not just your lack of evidence that matters, it’s the evidence that is quite contrary to design. Not that you’ll ever care, given that you don’t even know what an explanation is.
It’s a mere assertion made by you sans any critical thinking.
Glen Davidson
GlenDavidson,
You have not idea how to analyze a biological design. You are not alone here as no human has any idea how to analyze a biological design and its tradeoffs. This is the ultimate argument from ignorance.
colewd,
Not arguing with that.
Not arguing with that either.
I am arguing with this:
Here is your choice:
Either you continue denying that purifying selection can retain adaptations or you withdraw this statement.
Corneel,
There is another choice. Purifying selection removes deleterious mutations from the population.
I will modify my statement based on your argument.
I modified “that information” to “information”. I am not sure a single bit does anything to add information unless the function requires a specific sequence and the bit change enables that function. An example is a telephone number that calls a friend that is off by one digit.
Yes, it is.
You can’t analyze it, yet you claim that it exists.
It is the ultimate argument from ignorance.
Glen Davidson
A mutation that destroys an adaptation is not deleterious?
GlenDavidson,
Before I counter I have to give you credit for this argument as it is the right come back to my position.
However….I can make the claim that the last intel processor is designed based on its use of digital information despite not knowing its design tradeoffs.
Corneel,
Read how I modified the statement you objected to.
🙂
Is that bad?
Only God knows.
Sorry, but this is silly. The “adaptation through random change” is very misleading. It is the old creationist trope that includes natural selection in the list of “purely random” evolutionary processes. It is what creationist debaters do to try to persuade gullible audiences that evolutionary biologists have no theory to explain why adaptations evolve. Calling the result of evolutionary processes that involve fitness differences “serendipity” is very misleading.
“The laws of statistics result in a loss of information” is equally silly. People here have been objecting that this ignores that mutations will be deleterious. “John” and “Bill” (Sanford and Dembski) have very different arguments (Sanford invoking mutational meltdown and Muller’s Ratchet, Dembski trying to use some conservation-of-inormation laws).
If colewd has “not seen a reasonable challenge yet” it may be because colewd misunderstands what the arguments are. At least, that’s the favorable interpretation of colewd’s summary.
No. “Snow cores, lake varves(?) and so on” are not information by themselves. They’re just data. But we create information. Of course your cat cannot do that, so in the absence of interested and capable humans, that data is worthless. Not just for the cat, but even for the human that doesn’t care.
Information is abstract, not a physical object.
Sy Garte: What I cannot understand is the biological origin of the translation system, which is required to allow for a linkage between genotype and phenotype, and thus is an essential part of the evolutionary mechanism. (since natural selection acts on the phenotype, but variation occurs in genotypes). So the question is how can something required for evolution (translation), evolve.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology”>Paleo-climatology. Is the information gleaned initially stored by environmental fluctuations? I’d say so.
There is no “natural selection” as discussed here at length: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/natural-selection-evolution-magic/comment-page-11/#comment-220195. Of course, “something required for evolution (translation)” cannot evolve but it can be created by intelligent agents. Why do you insist on a nonsensical scenario aka “evolution”?
No it isn’t. I already explained to you why: you’re trying to explain biological features. these are what makes designers possible. So, saying “it was designed” only moves the question one step farther to a point where we still have the question open, and only natural phenomena, other than design, available to find an answer. We should start there, rather than irrationally move the question farther.
Your “example” is also a double failure on its own. “It’s intrinsic to its design” doesn’t answer the question, to answer the question you’d have to explain what that means in terms of the working of the software. However, with ID it gets worse, because instead of “it’s intrinsic to its design” we’d only get “it was designed,” which is even farther from answering the question.
When there’s real questions about design is when we already know that those things were designed.
That makes design both a non-answer, and a nonsensical answer. The designers become mere fantasies the more we look at it.
Of course it rules it out! How could a non-answer, consisting on “it was designed by no designers that anybody can point to, except by poor scientific approaches on top of poor philosophical foundations” be the best explanation? A partial answer including the things we can continue testing, like evolutionary phenomena, is a much better explanation. Anything that doesn’t consist on making a fool out of yourself is a much better explanation, even an “I don’t know.”
In that sense all we can say is that until something on those lines arises under good philosophical and scientific foundations, “justifying” the inadequacies and nonsense of ID in terms of “we cannot test anything beyond our space-time,” is an example of spectacularly poor critical thinking.
Then the same is true for DNA.
I meant every word. Tree rings contain information.
Joe Felsenstein,
John and Bill are Sanford and Basener.
Joe Felsenstein,
So your premise is that the general public cannot follow an argument so the creationists can pull the wool over their eyes.
Why can’t you create an argument that the general public can follow?
If I changed the word from “serendipity” to the word “chance” would that work?
Maybe I don’t understand your argument and I patiently await an education. What ever you post I will read with best comprehension I can put forth.
Entropy,
This assumes the only designers that exist are the ones we observe inside out space-time. The evidence is challenging your assumption yet you refuse to re consider it. I think this is where we are stalemated.
That’s called an inductive generalization, and unfortunately it violates the principle of total evidence.
The inference you are making would go like this:
All translation-capable systems that we know of were designed.
Therefore, if we discover new translation-capable system it will probably have been designed.
But the problem is your premise commits the fallacy of exclusion and hence violates the principle of total evidence. The evidence you are excluding is the knowledge we have of designed translation systems. They were all designed by humans.
Here’s how correctly including all the relevant evidence would alter your argument:
All translation-capable systems that we know of were designed by humans.
Therefore, if we discover new translation-capable system it will probably have been designed by humans.
But the translation system of protein biosynthesis was not designed by humans. So the argument doesn’t work. You can’t just ignore crucial relevant evidence to get a conclusion you like.
You haven’t even begun to bring any such evidence. Your personal ignorance, or ability to assert your denial or disbelief, is not evidence or arguments that increase the likelihood of a particular conclusion.
Why? Why does it make a difference whether it’s from a living organism or not? I’m pretty sure you’d claim that was designed too.
And then we factor in natural selection.
Mutation and then natural selection?
Yeah this is just one big fat appeal to ignorance fallacy. We can’t tell you everything about how these evolved, so we must think they were wished into existence.
The general public will have a hard time with conclusions that don’t align with their fantasies, because accepting those would require actual understanding, and actual understanding requires effort that most people are unwilling to perform. More so if creationists produce enough smoke and mirrors to make the public believe that the science they don’t understand is wrong anyway.
Do you have any evidence to the contrary? If not, then let me start by pointing out that, if any designers out if our planet are as good as non-existent, then it would be patently ridiculous to put out bets on designers outside our space-time.
Since when there’s been evidence of designers outside our spacetime? Since when there’s been any evidence that those designers are able to perform in our space-time without leaving a trace of their handiwork? What evidence is challenging what assumptions? Why would you make such an empty, baseless, and nonsensical claim?
It corresponds well with DNA because DNA can be treated as a discrete string of symbols.
You’re welcome to suggest meaningful alternatives and show how to calculate the information content of sequences of DNA, sequences of electric impulses in copper wire, sequences of light pulses in optical wires, and so on.
Suggest the theory of information you would use and give an example of how you would calculate information content in DNA (like the protein-coding region of human cytochrome c), the positions of magnets on a hard-drive, and so on.
Hence the arrangement or sequence really does contain information. You might have to do work to get that information out, but then it really is there.
Do bar codes contain information? I think they do. I also think tree rings, ice cores, lake varves, and Fraunhofer lines contain information. Whether we understand that information intrinsicly, or we have to do work to understand that information, is besides the point. There is information there.
Just like a book written in an ancient and extinct language contains information even if no one is around who understands the language it is written in.
If you don’t think tree rings contain information but only “conveys” it, then neither does DNA.
Now you’re just assuming there’s a creator of the “machine”. Your whole OP is one giant assertion.
Yep.
You didn’t explain it, you asserted it. I can assert just as you can: Data can be information.
As opposed to being information? A meaningless distinction.
That’s just more assertion.
Your ability to link an article on information doesn’t mean you are correctly applying the definition therein. You are claming information is always created by an intelligent agent, and can’t evolve, but nothing of that sort is supported by anything stated in the link you give.
As usual you are entirely assertion, zero logic or evidence.
Rumraket,
I am not excluding this evidence. We all know it is an argument from analogy.
Entropy,
Yes. Billions of living organisms with no evidence of a designer inside our space-time, and no evidence of a simple to complex model that could explain this without a designer.
Simple analogy: If I see a dead body in a room with a knife in the middle of his back and no one is in the room I would infer murder from someone outside the room.
Nope. It would still mislead the audience into thinking that things happened without regard to their effect on fitness. Population genetics theory says otherwise, loudly.
PS Thanks for correcting me on which “Bill” you meant. But your description of their position still leaves out what happens when there are different fitnesses of different genotypes.