From: {$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk   
      
   On 06/12/2025 07:19, MarkE wrote:   
   > On 20/11/2025 11:07 pm, Ernest Major wrote:   
   >> On 19/11/2025 11:00, MarkE wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>> However, if I understand Meyer's claim, he's saying that the base-   
   >>> pair sequences in DNA are not physio-chemically determined, but   
   >>> rather DNA is a neutral substrate for storing an arbitrary,   
   >>> immaterial code. (In the same way, different sequences of 0s and 1s   
   >>> on your hard drive have essentially the same mass and energy, and are   
   >>> therefore not "physical" in that sense.)   
      
   The genetic code is arbitrary, in that any mapping from codon to   
   aminoacyl residue would work. Variant mappings exist in nature, mostly   
   in clades with small genomes (often mitochondria), and have been created   
   experimentally. For more divergent mappings there is the strategy of   
   swapping the mRNA and amino acid binding domains of tRNA.   
      
   But the genetic code is not random (it's more robust against base   
   substitutions than the great majority of possible code) and may be in   
   part physio-chemically determined. There is a hypothesis that originally   
   direct interactions between RNA and amino acids were involved in   
   template directed peptide synthesis, and that these interactions are   
   fossilised in the genetic code.   
   >>>   
   >>> However, evolution is claimed to be a non-mind process that   
   >>> accumulates particular code sequences, i.e. information. Even if   
   >>> Meyer's assertion that "Information is a massless, immaterial entity"   
   >>> is accepted, he still needs to show why evolution (even in-principal)   
   >>> cannot be a source of such information.   
   >>   
   >> There are different views as to what the information in DNA is. On the   
   >> one hand one can take an infomatics viewpoint and use the Kolmogorov   
   >> complexity as a measure of the amount of information present. On the   
   >> other hand one could follow Dawkins and argue that natural selection   
   >> impresses an incomplete record of the historical environment of   
   >> ancestral populations on the genome of a species, and this is the   
   >> information in the genome. Similarly phylogenetic bracketing can be   
   >> used to infer with various degrees of confidence ancestral phenotypes,   
   >> habitats and distributions - that's information extractable from clade   
   >> pan-genomes.   
   >>   
   >> Meyer would seem to need a definition of information which can't be   
   >> added by evolutionary processes, but yet still differs between taxa.   
   >>   
   >> If you stipulate that evolutionary processes don't change the   
   >> information content of genomes, then as it is clear that evolutionary   
   >> processes do change the DNA sequence of genomes, then one concludes,   
   >> from the voluminous evidence for common descent with modification   
   >> through the agency of natural selection and other processes, that all   
   >> genomes have the same information content, and the claim that an   
   >> intelligent designer is required to account for the information   
   >> evaporates. (There might be a circular argument as a residue.)   
   >>   
   >> If one the other hand you accept that evolutionary processes do change   
   >> the information content of genomes then you difficulty in justifying   
   >> the need for a mind to act as the source of information. On the one   
   >> hand you could resort to occasionalism (Islamo-Calvinist determinism)   
   >> and deny the existence of natural processes, a la Ray Martinez   
   >> (suspected of being an occasionalist evolutionist). On the other hand   
   >> you could argue that the information is imported from the environment   
   >> and a mind was needed to create the initial pool of information, in   
   >> which case you're basically back at the Cosmological Argument. If, on   
   >> the gripping hand, you assert this much and no more, you need to   
   >> identify limits to how much can be achieved by evolutionary processes.   
   >> If you don't, all you have is an appeal to incredulity.   
   >>   
   >   
   > Apologies for the delay in this response.   
   >   
   > Within the ranks of ID, Behe (at least) accepts some degree of common   
   > descent and therefore genome/information change. Although his recent   
   > book Darwin Devolves has this blurb on Amazon:   
   >   
   > 'A system of natural selection acting on random mutation, evolution can   
   > help make something look and act differently. But evolution never   
   > creates something organically. Behe contends that Darwinism actually   
   > works by a process of devolution―damaging cells in DNA in order to   
   > create something new at the lowest biological levels. This is important,   
   > he makes clear, because it shows the Darwinian process cannot explain   
   > the creation of life itself. “A process that so easily tears down   
   > sophisticated machinery is not one which will build complex, functional   
   > systems,” he writes.'   
   >   
   > Would Progressive Creation (RTB) fit under occasionalism?   
      
   No. Creationists sometimes try to argue that science excludes the   
   supernatural as a matter of principle. Passing over the slippery nature   
   of what counts as supernatural, I disagree. The actual restriction is to   
   phenomena which behave, at least statistically, in a regular way, or to   
   put it simply science assumes that "evidence means something", i.e.   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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