quote:

---

Originally written by Kelandon:

quote:

---

Originally written by 404 Error - PDN Not Found:

"los" is the masculine and mixed plural definite article in Spanish, which is what you should be using instead of "la" in most cases. Khyryk is a name, and therefore the "la" should be removed. You don't say, "Long live the Eric!"

---

Although in Spanish one does refer to "el Sr. Alorael" (or the like). But I think that rule only applies when you actually have a title in front of the name.

---

quote:

---

Originally written by Kelandon:

While we're at it, fix the conjugations of the verbs. "Viva" is singular. You need something else ("Vivan," I think, but it's been a while) for the plural.

---

quote:

---

It may not exactly be an irrelevant digression, but if all that Gitt uses information for is to say that formation of a certain class of enzyme has not been observed, then his discussion of information is merely an uninteresting piling up of different versions of the same old argument. Evolution of giraffes has not been observed, either. I see no new principles involved in Gitt's information arguments. This disappoints me.

---

quote:

---

Originally written by Kelandon:

quote:

---

Originally written by The Creator:

'Chaotic' systems, as I understand them, can be said to have complex behavior arising from (relatively) simple algorithims.

---

Complex behavior arising from relatively simple algorithms. How is this different from evolution, again?

---

quote:

---

I suspect that you will also find specific information about a carbon structure if it has formed a diamond. For example, nearby mineral types, amount of pressure involved in the formation, etc. Likewise, ice is of many types, depending on the initial conditions. Information is all around us, and in many forms, if we choose to see it rather than discount it.

---

quote:

---

Darwin was never a marketeer of his theory of the origin of the species to the extent that certain present day individuals are marketing ID. That, in and of itself, is the bit that worries a lot of people. There may not be a lot of substance within the ID argument, but with the right Madison Avenue glitz it will be difficult to convince a lot of people otherwise.

---

quote:

---

That particular criticism of evolution is new to me. IDers make a big deal of ID not being evolution, and the theory of evolution very obviously makes predictions, some of which have been verified and some of which are a little more difficult on a limited timescale but that haven't ever been contradicted.

—Alorael, who is splitting hairs a bit with the last statement. ID denies evolution, but it doesn't actually provide evidence of evolution not happening. It simply provides evidence (using the term loosely) of evolution not being feasible.

---

quote:

---

I remain puzzled by the role information plays in his argument. If his point is only that macro-evolution has not been observed in nature, I don't see why he should bring up enzymes and information. He can surely just observe that nobody has seen a giraffe evolve. It seems to be the same point, if all he's saying is the observations haven't been made; the whole deal about information would be an irrelevant digression. And if he's saying more than that, if he's trying to find an information theoretic theorem against macro-evolution, then I don't see how his case can be sound, because whatever has actually been observed, there is no known natural law against the spontaneous appearance of new enzymes having abitrarily high Spetner information. Certainly the Second Law of Thermodynamics is not about that.

---

quote:

---

This quote sums up your argument. Too bad it's wrong. The answer is that it depends on the chemistry and the atomic properties of what the photons interact with. Plenty of examples of where entropy increases, but never mind things like photosynthesis which causes a local decrease in entropy.

---

quote:

---

If there is something you simply "believe", with no proof, can you acknowledge why I think that is irrational?

---

quote:

---

absolutely anything whatever would be consistent with special creation. Which is just another way of saying that special creation theory makes no predictions at all.

---

quote:

---

The article pulls a dozen "theorems" out of the air, without proving them. They are all based on using the term "information" in the context of human communication. But as the article has just noted in criticizing the Shannon formula, the term "information" can mean many things, ranging from mere length of a random signal, to conscious intent. When everyone agrees that life forms are full of information, they do mean something more sophisticated than Shannon information, but they do not necessarily mean anything as anthropomorphic as the "information" that is discussed in this article. The only link this article provides between the "information" referred to in its "theorems" and the "information" in biology is the fact that the same word can be used for both. But this is mixing up codes, in a way that the article's author ought to know enough to avoid.

---

quote:

---

The second article also uses "information" in a funny way. There is an assertion that random mutations could not produce an enzyme that never existed before on Earth. My reaction is, Why the hell not? There is no reason at all to say this; a brand new enzyme would be perfectly possible. And if you use a definition of information, whereby the appearance of a new enzyme constitutes new information, then information can certainly increase.

---

quote:

---

Spetner makes the same kind of confusion when he estimates, reasonably enough, the information value of the specificity of an enzyme, but then concludes that random production of the enzyme would be impossible.

---

quote:

---

The problem with your definition, Ash, is that it makes the word "religion" less useful. If absolutely everybody who has thought enough about "the spiritual realm" (whatever the heck that term means) to come to have some opinion about it counts as having a religion, then calling somebody religious no longer says anything meaningful.

---

quote:

---

Your definition, by the by, is completely useless. It presumes a concept of a 'spirit realm', specifically one radically linked to your own belief system (disqualifies most isolated native religions, incl. Shinto, due to the fact they don't regard the spiritual and the material as separate).

---

quote:

---

Even if we allow presumption of that concept, it also seems to posit that any sort of presumed knowledge constitutes belief, which is wholly absurd. Presumed knowledge only becomes belief when it is based on gnosis and as such will not be trumped failing the intercession of new gnosis.

Example: I presume to know gravity is an immutable constant.

If new experiments with, say, the lunar ranging array produce results inexplicable by my current understanding - and I still presume to know, in full knowledge of those experiments, that gravity is an immutable constant - that is belief.

---

quote:

---

Originally written by Thuryl:

If the justification for non-intervention is to allow us to exercise our own free will, then it sure seems like free will's been a bit of a flop so far.

---

quote:

---

If they are worn to get a rise out of men, it is women selling their dignities for palpable control, which is akin to selling one's self for intercourse for capital. In other words, whoredom.
Woah, woah, slow down there. Even if a woman wears something to provoke a response in men (and I recognize that some do, don't get me wrong), she may be using it to control them, not because they force her to please them. The control runs at least as much the other way as you're suggesting.

And being controlled does not equal being a whore.

---