From: {$to$}@meden.demon.co.uk   
      
   On 17/12/2025 10:57, MarkE wrote:   
   > 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.'   
   >>>>>   
      
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