Re: Emergence of information out of nothing?

From: Howard J. Van Till (hvantill@novagate.com)
Date: Thu May 09 2002 - 08:46:21 EDT

  • Next message: george murphy: "Re: Genesis & sacramental texts"

    Peter,

    Thanks for your reply to my earlier post. There is much to work out in this
    arena of information, its various types, and the possibility of its
    relevance to biotic evolution.

    Whenever I see information theory applied to evolution to support the
    conclusion, "It could not possibly have happened naturally but must have
    been supplemented by the form-conferring infusion of information by some
    non-natural agent," I am reminded of all of the attempts by special/episodic
    creationists to use the second law of thermodynamics to reach a similar
    conclusion. I am now in the midst or studying Dembski's No Free Lunch and
    get exactly the same feeling -- lots of smoke (obfuscation by introducing
    new and technical terminology ad infinitum; using familiar words in obscure
    and rapidly changing ways) and mirrors (making things seem different from
    what they are), making the conclusions highly incredible.

    You and I have gone around on this several times before, both on this list
    and in print. I'm sure there's room for more discussion, and I hope that I
    will sometime find time to continue our exchange. Right now I just cannot
    take the time to do it. I was gone for the past few days, only to find well
    over a hundred postings. There's no way I can take the time now to engage
    any of it, even though there are several topics that interest me (excluding
    the endless arguments re various attempts at concordism). We have each had a
    chance to state our positions; I'm content to leave it there for now.
    Others are welcome to jump in and make their contribution.

    Howard Van Till



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 09 2002 - 12:23:39 EDT