Art:==
>You have helped me over the years to distinguish complexity from
>information, i.e. the same information can be rearranged in different ways,
>and this rearrangement does increase the complexity. With that
>understanding, one would have to concede that reading the fossil record as
>animals through time would indeed show an increase in complexity from
>bottom to top, even if the organisms at the top are themselves no more
>complex than those at the bottom, because they are different.
I think I miscommunicated something somewhere. I'll take responsibility
for that, but I would like to know what I said which led to the
above conclusions. My view is that information and complexity are
closely linked, practically identical. For example, my favorite
measure of complexity is Kolmogorov complexity which also goes by
algorithmic complexity or alorithmic information content. The
algorithmic complexity and information content are one and the
same thing. One can think of this measure as the length (in bits)
of the shortest description of an object. I think its very natural
to say that the longer the description, the more information and
the longer the description, the greater the complexity.
[...]
BH:===
>Looking at the
>>history of life, can we determine whether there is any direction
>>to evolution? If so, is it a direction towards increasing
>>complexity? One can hardly fault a theory at this point unless,
>>of course, the facts (once determined) are at odds with what
>>the theory predicts. But it is not just evolutionary models
>>which must test themselves against the facts. How would a
>>Young Earth Creationist deal with the fact that life has been
>>around for billions of years? They would probably deny. But
>>then why would they propose to test one theory (evolution)
>>and not another theory (Special Creation) with the same data that
>>they also deny is accurate?
>
Art:==
>I agree most emphatically. Unfortunately I seem to be pretty lonely in
>this position.
>
Thanks for this. It is my hope that other Creationists will follow
your lead. In fact, all of us can learn from your honesty and
integrity in defending an unpopular position.
Brian Harper
Associate Professor
Applied Mechanics
The Ohio State University
"He who establishes his arguments
by noise and command shows that
reason is weak" -- Montaigne