From: rokimoto557@gmail.com   
      
   On 12/10/2025 3:40 AM, MarkE wrote:   
   > On 9/12/2025 3:35 am, RonO wrote:   
   >> On 12/7/2025 10:35 PM, MarkE wrote:   
   >>> On 8/12/2025 3:40 am, RonO wrote:   
   >>>> On 12/7/2025 2:11 AM, MarkE wrote:   
   >>>>> On 7/12/2025 4:45 am, RonO wrote:   
   >>>>>> On 12/6/2025 1:19 AM, 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.)   
   >>>>>>>>>   
   >>>>>>>>> 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?   
   >>>>>>   
   >>>>>> Probably not.  The Reason to Believe creationists want to exclude   
   >>>>>> descent with modification.  In it's place they claim that their   
   >>>>>> designer is recreating new species (some of them can still   
   >>>>>> interbreed, so they could be sub species) just a little different   
      
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