From: me22over7@gmail.com   
      
   On 16/12/2025 10:24 pm, Ernest Major wrote:   
   > On 13/12/2025 13:46, MarkE wrote:   
   >> On 11/12/2025 12:03 am, Ernest Major wrote:   
   >>> 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   
      
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