At a recent XJW conference, software engineer Fred Williams spoke on the subject of Information that is found in nature. It is a fascinating topic.
Information Theory and the Demise of Darwinism
by Sea Breeze 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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cofty
A lot of ex-JWs find it very difficult to get over their anti-science indoctrination.
Evolution is just a fact.
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Sea Breeze
Cofty,
I know you are a strict evolutionist. But, the scope of this lecture goes far beyond biological evolution.
Physicist John Wheeler, who is on par with Albert Einstein famously said:
"Everything is particles, everything is fields, everything is Information"
This lecture is all about science. It gives us a glimpse into the very mind of God, since that is where all this information originated from. It is mind-boggling. -
cofty
Nothing but an elaborate metaphor.
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Sea Breeze
@Cofty
How would you respond to evolutionary biologist Dan Graur who stated:
“For 80 percent of the human genome to be functional, each couple in the world would have to beget on average 15 children and all but two would have to die or fail to reproduce,” he wrote. “If we use the upper bound for the deleterious mutation rate (2 × 10−8 mutations per nucleotide per generation), then … the number of children that each couple would have to have to maintain a constant population size would exceed the number of stars in the visible universe by ten orders of magnitude.”
In 2012, the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE) announced that 80 percent of the genome had a biochemical function.
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cofty
I have no idea without the wider context of this quote.
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cofty
ENCODE is wilfully dishonest. We have dealt with this in great detail in the past.
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Sea Breeze
The scientists at ENCODE are characterized as "prominent" by New Scientist.
Here's how Dan Graur came to the conclusion that ENCODE was wrong according to New Scientist:"After 20 years of biologists arguing that most of the human genome must have some kind of function, the study calculated that in fact the vast majority of our DNA has to be useless. It came to this conclusion by calculating that, because of the way evolution works, we’d each have to have a million children, and almost all of them would need to die, if most of our DNA had a purpose.
But we each have just a few children on average, and our genetic health is mostly fine. The study therefore concludes that most of our DNA really must be junk – a suggestion that contradicts controversial claims to the contrary from a group of prominent genomics researchers in 2012".
So in other words, he just ran the numbers and the numbers do not support evolution. So he attacked the scientists instead of the theory of evolution.
At Graur's personal website here, he shows a picture of his baby grandaughter giving ENCODE the finger. Really? This loose cannon is who evolutionists are quoting?
Evolution News states:
"I realize, since this guy is a flaming left-winger, as a glance at his Twitter feed will confirm (the profile photo shows an upside-down American flag). But read what he says about Junk DNA, quoted by Jonathan Wells in his new book:In 2013, biologist Dan Graur criticized the “evolution-free gospel of ENCODE” and accused its researchers of “playing fast and loose with the term ‘function,’ by divorcing genomic analysis from its evolutionary context.”81 In a lecture at the University of Houston, Graur argued that “if the human genome is indeed devoid of junk DNA as implied by the ENCODE project, then a long, undirected evolutionary process cannot explain the human genome.” In other words: “If ENCODE is right, then evolution is wrong.” But for Graur, evolution can’t be wrong. His solution to the problem? “Kill ENCODE.”82
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cofty
You obviously didn't read his paper.
ENCODE is the victory of self-promotion over science. It's utterly dishonest and knowingly so.
Figure out the onion test and get back to me.