From: me22over7@gmail.com   
      
   On 11/12/2025 3:23 am, RonO wrote:   
   > 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   
      
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