>-----Original Message-----
>From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
>Behalf Of Allen Roy
>Sent: Friday, May 10, 2002 9:57 AM
> To report that Dembski is purposefully using "smoke and mirrors" when =
>he is not, is "willful misrepresentation".
> If you are big enough to dish it out, you are big enough to take it.
>
The problem I see is that Dembski doesn't seem to understand what
information is. In Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith Sept 1997,
Dembski wrote an article which mis-used the definition of information .
He wrote:
"It is CSI [complex specified information] that within the
Kolmogorov-Chaitin
theory of algorithmic information takes the form of a highly compressible,
nonrandom strings of digits."Dembski, Sept. 1997 PSCF. p 186
What he is saying here is that a sequence which is highly compressible is
high in informational content. But that is pure d-cr*p! The sequence
'AAAAAAAAAAAAA'
can be compressed to the string:
13A
but the string
'ihavefourcats'
can not be compressed a lot. There is more information in ihave four cats
than
is in 13A. But the sequence
'jibwfgpvsdbut' has as much information as does ihavefourcats. While
ihavefourcats has meaning, it has no more informational content.
The point of all this is that Dembski can't even define his terms correctly
within information theory. And in a phone conversation with Steve Meyers
about this, he acknoweldged to me that I was correct on this--that Dembski
was backwards. To be backwards, Allen, means Dembski doesn't know what he
is talking about.
Dembski never did correct this. That entire group has a credibility problem
with me. When I tried repeatedly to get the Discovery Institute to change
its web page which claimed Dembski gave a plenary session paper to the
entire attendees (which was factually false), they didn't seem to see the
problem with that. I guess being accurate with that group isn't important.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat May 11 2002 - 02:18:14 EDT