From: Denyse O'Leary (oleary@sympatico.ca)
Date: Thu Nov 06 2003 - 12:48:14 EST
The business about information is not my contribution to the debate,
it is Kirk Dunston's.
I have e-mailed him, and asked him to comment. If he does so, I will
post his comments to the list.
Denyse
Jim Armstrong wrote:
> ...speaking of information loss! JimA
>
>>
>> http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/na.cgi?nationalupdates/031023evolution
>>
>>
>> Natural processes, over the history of the universe, have the
>> potential
>> to produce up to 70 bits of information. Unfortunately, just one,
>> average 300-residue protein requires about 500 bits to encode. The
>> simplest theoretical life form would need somewhere in the
>> neighbourhood
>> of 250 protein-coding genes.
>>
>> There is also an interview with me at
>>
>>
>> http://www.canadianchristianity.com/cgi-bin/na.cgi?nationalupdates/031030evolution
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> One of my comments: I only discovered how much trouble Darwinism
>> was in
>> when I took a year out of my life -- late 2002 to late 2003 -- to
>> study
>> the situation. I was appalled. Darwinism has nothing like the support
>> that we are accustomed to for theories in physics or chemistry.
>>
>> Denyse
>>
>> I read these articles - thanks. One thing I was hoping to find,
>> but didn't,
>> is some justification for the mysterious figure of 70 bits of
>> information,
>> which appears as though it is a "given" for some reason.
>>
>> I also recently came across an interesting essay by William Hasker,
>> entitled "How not to be a Reductivist." He quotes Thomas Nagel, who
>> 'admits quite candidly,
>> I hope there is no God! I dont want there to be a God; I dont want
>> the
>> universe to be like that'
>> as saying,
>>
>> "My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare
>> condition and that it is
>> responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our
>> time. One of the
>> tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary
>> biology to explain
>> everything about life, including everything about the human mind.
>> Darwin enabled
>> modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief,
>> by apparently providing
>> a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental
>> features of the world.
>> Instead they become epiphenomena, generated incidentally by a
>> process that can be
>> entirely explained by the operation of the nonteleological laws of
>> physics on the material
>> of which we and our environments are all composed."
>>
>> and adds,
>> "Nagel himself, even though he shares in the cosmic authority
>> problem, strenuously resists this
>> facile appeal to Darwinism."
>>
>> The whole essay can be found at
>> http://www.iscid.org/papers/Hasker_NonReductivism_103103.pdf
>>
>> /Gary
>>
>
-- To see what's new in faith and science issues, go to www.designorchance.com My next book, By Design or By Chance?: The Growing Controversy Over the Origin of Life in the Universe (Castle Quay Books, Oakville) will be published Spring 2004.To order, call Castle Quay, 1-800-265-6397, fax 519-748-9835, or visit www.afcanada.com (CDN $19.95 or US$14.95).
Denyse O'Leary 14 Latimer Avenue Toronto, Ontario, CANADA M5N 2L8 Tel: 416 485-2392/Fax: 416 485-9665 oleary@sympatico.ca www.denyseoleary.com
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