At 10:36 AM 10/29/97 -0600, Eduardo G. Moros wrote:
>Very nice info Glenn, thanks. I never thought that "ALL" the information was
>in the genetic code, this has been known for a long time in my opinion.
Maybe you didn't, but to listen to many Christian apologists, the
information must be specified. That is the whole point of Dembski's
specified complexity (PSCF 49:3, pp 180-190) and Behe's suggestion that all
the information for all the animals ever to be created on earth was put into
the first cell (Darwin's Black Box p. 231). If there isn't enough
information in our genome for our brains, then how could one possibly stuff
enough information into the first cell. The first cell must have been
99.99% DNA!
My complaint is, since this HAS been known for a long time, why is it that
Christian apologists continue to demand that all biological structures
require detailed, specified information in order for them to exist. And
they go further than this by saying that this information cannot arise by
chance and so evolution must be wrong. The entire basis upon which the
major antievolutionary claim is based is wrong!!! Why do I have to learn of
these things from non-christians rather than Christians?
I will make a prediction (and I hope by making this prediction I help
falsify it because I want to goad them into a response): I will bet that the
fact that the brain is underspecified in informational content will be
ignored by the design guys. If they admit that there is an object in the
universe which arises with each pregnancy, which is not specified, their
entire research agenda fails. The only way out is for them to explain where
the information is encoded.
>For
>example, it is now "common" knowledge that the critical age for children is
>somewhat between 3 and 7 years during which most of the "wiring" in the brain
>is done - wiring that determines "intelligence" later in life. Is is most
>important to stimulate children during this time.
This is not the issue. The issue is specified complexity as Dembski, Behe,
Nelson and Meyer define it. There is no specified information for the brain.
>I don't understand what is your "resistance" against design (Ps. 19, Job) or
>how the brain issue you here says anything about evolution. We are yet to
>discover much about life (Horgan is wrong, Science is just beginning,
>especially biological sciences). How do, for example, the interactions
>between developing cells use simple bits of information from the original
>genetic code, amplify them, modify them, integrate them, and execute them, so
>that the entire "person" is formed?
You have obviously missed the entire point. there is not anywhere in the
genome sufficient information for the brains wiring pattern.
We don't have much info on this but is
>not logical, even according to what the advocates of design you quoted say,
>that a few hundred thousand genes are enough of a blue print to form an entire
>person.
But the calculation showed that they are wrong in their belief that a few
hundred thousand genes are enough for the SPECIFICITY that they demand of
the evolutionists.
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm