Undersea vents possible origin of life

MSNBC ^ | 07/24/03 | Robert Roy Britt

[tortoise]

How can we verify that? You can claim anything on the internet. Regardless, do you suppose you are immune from scrutiny because of your claim? We would have not supersonic aircraft if the original design of the Wright brothers was not allowed to be corrected.

Precisely the point in my post. Nobody actually challenges anything I write because very few people on this forum actually have anything vaguely resembling an understanding of the subject matter. I would GLADLY accept criticism regarding the specifics of the topic, but the only arguments against my assertions are vague hand-waving. They parrot what they heard someone else say, but they aren't even qualified to ascertain whether the person they are parroting knows what they are talking about or not.

Nobody on this forum has ever challenged anything I said from a rigorous mathematical standpoint. It is always "my brother's uncle's best friend said..." and so forth without any critical analysis of the source nor any understanding of what they are posting in the context in which it is being posted.

I provide fairly rigorous definitions and explanations of information theory that are backed by the standard references texts on the topic, and I've even gone so far as to provide direct page references to these texts on occasion. If someone is going to attack my assertions, it will have to be of the form "...iterating over the semi-measures as you have falls outside the defined bounds of Theorem such-and-such and therefore is a misapplication", where I can actually look up the theorem and see that, indeed, I overstepped the well-defined bounds of that theorem or formulate a mathematically rigorous rebuttal as to why my utilization of that theorem was correct in the context. My assertions are backed up by the de facto bibles of the field, and I can cite chapter and verse.

Until some other mathematics theorem slinger is willing to take me down once and for all, my ability to go to the source trumps hearsay, incredulity, and handwaving. You'll note that I never seem to have any disagreements with the other mathematicians on FR on things mathematical. My arguments are always with those who are only vaguely or casually familiar with the field.

[tortoise]

Math says evolution didn't happen.

It doesn't say this. "Biological Evolution" is a specific instance of a mathematical system defined in general systems theory. Math doesn't have an opinion on anything, it just tells you what is possible and what isn't. It is up to science to determine what actually happened out of numerous possibilities.

Math says evolution is possible. It does not have an opinion on whether it actually happened in the biological case, it just asserts that it is plausible. And there are other possible mechanisms beside "evolution" that mathematics would assert to be plausible, although most people ignore these (perhaps foolishly). Just because I disagree with the general model of biological evolution does not mean that I agree with the Creationism/ID. That is a false dichotomy founded in ignorance.

[Stultis]

life cannot be reduced to mathematics. Math says evolution didn't happen

Er, uh, how can say "evolution didn't happen" if "life cannot be reduced to mathematics"?

[tortoise]

Your links are garbage, for two reasons. First, they start right in with nonsense like this:

This method has an evident drawback, however: information according to Shannon does not relate to the qualitative nature of the data, but confines itself to one particular aspect that is of special significance for its technological transmission and storage.

which shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the basic definitions of the field. Second, they look at everything in terms of Shannon information theory, which has been superceded for several decades by Kolmogorov information theory. Shannon information theory is a narrow interpretation and not generally correct (analogous to Newtonian physics).

I would note that many of the breathless discoveries "exposed" in those articles can be deftly explained using standard Kolmogorov information theory. Andrei Kolmogorov did most of his important work in the 1960s, and Solomonoff in the 1970s, so isn't it about time that your buddies got with the program?

[LiteKeeper]

Your links are garbage, for two reasons

I see...you are more qualified to discuss Information Theory that Dr Gitt.

Professor Werner Gitt completed a 'Diplom-Ingenieur' at the Technical University of Hanover/Germany in 1968, and subsequently completed the required research for his doctorate in Engineering at the Technical University of Aachen, graduating summa cum laude with the prestigious Borchers Medal. Since 1971 he has worked at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, Brunswick, as Head of Data Processing, and since 1978 as Director and Professor at the Institute.

How does your bio read?

[LiteKeeper]

Please scroll down to Dr Gitt's section. The author is advocating that position...not the others. Right now I am going to accept the work and word of the Director of the Institute, and not yours. And his work is current, not stuck in the 1960's and 70's.

[Stultis]

My definition is scientific. To be specific, I am quoting Dr Werner Gitt, Director and Professor at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology. He has written numerous scientific papers in the field of information science, numerical mathematics, and control engineering.

As his bio at Answers in Genesis makes clear, he is also "a renowned evangelist," preaching on topics such as, "‘After death — what then?’ ‘The wonder of the Bible’, and ‘What creation teaches us’". There are also links for various creationist books and articles he's written.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/Home/Area/bios/w_gitt.asp

The following page (excerpted) describes, and then elucidates some problems with, Gitt's "information theory" evangelism. In short Gitt's claim that information must have an intelligent source is nothing but a bald assertion, made "true" by definition, but not by demonstration, or by derivation from accepted theory:

http://home.mira.net/~reynella/debate/gitt.htm

Where Gitt Goes Wrong  [Top]

A striking contradiction is readily apparent in Gitt's thinking- he holds that his view of information is an extension of Shannon, even while he rejects the underpinnings of Shannon's work. Contrast Gitt's words

(4) No information can exist in purely statistical processes.

and

Theorem 3: Since Shannon's definition of information relates exclusively to the statistical relationship of chains of symbols and completely ignores their semantic aspect, this concept of information is wholly unsuitable for the evaluation of chains of symbols conveying a meaning.

with Shannon's statement in his key 1948 paper, "A Mathematical Theory of Communication"

The fundamental problem of communication is that of reproducing at one point either exactly or approximately a message selected at another point. Frequently the messages have meaning; that is they refer to or are correlated according to some system with certain physical or conceptual entities. These semantic aspects of communication are irrelevant to the engineering problem.

It becomes very difficult to see how he has provided an extension to Shannon, who purposely modeled information sources as producing random sequences of symbols (see the article Classical Information Theory for further information). It would be more proper to state that Gitt offers at best a restriction of Shannon, and at worst, an outright contradiction.

In SC2 Gitt notes that Chaitin showed randomness cannot be proven (see Chaitin's article "Randomness and Mathematical Proof"), and that the cause of a string of symbols must be therefore be known to determine information is present; yet in SC1 he relies on discerning the "ulterior intention at the semantic, pragmatic and apobetic levels." In other words, Gitt allows himself to make guesses about the intelligence and purpose behind a source of a series of symbols, even though he doesn't know whether the source of the symbols is random. Gitt is trying to have it both ways here. He wants to assert that the genome fits his strictly non-random definition of information, even after acknowledging that randomness cannot be proven.

Gitt describes his principles as "empirical", yet the data is not provided to back this up. Similarly, he proposes fourteen "theorems", yet fails to demonstrate them. Shannon, in contrast, offers the math to back up his theorems. It is difficult to see how Gitt's "empirical principles" and "theorems" are anything but arbitrary assertions.

Neither do we see a working measure for meaning (a yet-unsolved problem Shannon wisely avoided). Since Gitt can't define what meaning is sufficiently to measure it, his ideas don't amount to much more than arm-waving.

By asserting that data must have an intelligent source to be considered information, and by assuming genomic sequences are information fitting that definition, Gitt defines into existence an intelligent source for the genome without going to the trouble of checking whether one was actually there. This is circular reasoning.

[NewLand]

This is intellectual laziness or dishonesty or ignorance, take your pick.

D. All of the above

[bondserv]

Vocabulary

One of the simplest - and most provocative - aspects of the Biblical text is the vocabulary used. The number of vocabulary words in a passage is normally different from the total number of words in a passage. Some words are repeated. It is easy, for example, to use a vocabulary of 500 words to write an essay of 4,000 words.

An Example

The first 17 verses of the Gospel of Matthew are a logical unit, or section, which deals with a single principal subject: the genealogy of Christ. It contains 72 Greek vocabulary words in these initial 17 verses. (The verse divisions are man's allocations for convenience, added in the 13th century.)

The number of words which are nouns is exactly 56, or 7 x 8.

The Greek word "the" occurs most frequently in the passage: exactly 56 times, or 7 x 8. Also, the number of different forms in which the article "the" occurs is exactly 7.

There are two main sections in the passage: verse 1-11, and 12-17. In the first main section, the number of Greek vocabulary words used is 49, or 7 x 7.

Why not 48, or 50?

Of these 49 words, the number of those beginning with a vowel is 28, or 7 x 4. The number of words beginning with a consonant is 21, or 7 x 3.

The total numbers of letters in these 49 words is 266, or 7 x 38 - exactly! The number of vowels among these 266 letters is 140, or 7 x 20. The number of consonants is 126, or 7 x 18 - exactly.

Of the 49 words, the number of words which occur more than once is 35, or 7 x 5. The number of words occurring only once is 14, or 7 x 2. The number of words which occur in only one form is exactly 42, or 7 x 6. The number of words appearing in more than one form is also 7.

The number of the 49 Greek vocabulary words which are nouns is 42, or 7 x 6. The number of words which are not nouns is 7. Of the nouns, 35 are proper names, or exactly 7 x 5. These 35 names are used 63 times, or 7 x 9. The number of male names is exactly 28, or 7 x 4. These male names occur 56 times or 7 x 8. The number which are not male names is 7.

Three women are mentioned - Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth. The number of Greek letters in these three names is 14, 7 x 2.

The number of compound nouns is 7. The number of Greek letters in these 7 nouns is 49, or 7 x 7.

Only one city is named in this passage, Babylon, which in Greek contains exactly 7 letters.

And on it goes. To get an indication of just how unique these properties are, try the example in the inset.

Gemetria

There are even more features in the numerical structure of the words themselves. As you may know, both Hebrew and Greek uses the letters of the alphabet for numerical values. Therefore, any specific word - in either Hebrew or Greek - has a numerical value of its own by adding up the values of the letters in that particular word. The study of the numerical values of words is called gemetria.

The 72 vocabulary words add up to a gametrical value of 42,364, or 7 x 6,052. Exactly. If one Greek letter was changed, this would not happen.

The 72 words appear in 90 forms - some appear in more than one form. The numeric value of the 90 forms is 54,075, or 7 x 7,725. Exactly.

We will defer other examples of gametrical properties of the Biblical text for subsequent articles, but it becomes immediately obvious that hidden below the surface are aspects of design that cannot be accidental or just coincidence. Remember, the rabbis say that "coincidence" is not a kosher word!

Other Implications

There are words in the passage just described that occur nowhere else in the New Testament. They occur 42 times (7 x 6) and have 126 letters (7 x 18). How was this organized?

Even if Matthew contrived this characteristic into his Gospel, how could he have known that these specific words - whose sole characteristic is that they are found nowhere else in the New Testament - were not going to be used by the other writers? Unless we assume the absurd hypothesis that he had an agreement with them, he must have had the rest of the New Testament before him when he wrote his book. The Gospel of Matthew, then, must have been written last.

It so happens, however, that the Gospel of Mark exhibits the same phenomenon. It can be demonstrated that it would have had to be written "last." The same phenomenon is found in Luke. And in John, James, Peter, Jude and Paul. Each would have had to write after the other in order to contrive the vocabulary frequencies! You can demonstrate that each of the New Testament books had to have been "written last."

There is no human explanation for this incredible and precise structure. It has all been supernaturally designed. We simply gasp, sit back, and behold the skillful handiwork of the God who keeps His promises.

And we are indebted to the painstaking examinations and lifetime commitment of Dr. Ivan Panin for uncovering these amazing insights.

Isn't God - and His remarkable Word - fun?

Article

[LiteKeeper]

he is also "a renowned evangelist,"

What has that got to do with anything?

My post at #78

There are a few scientist, such as Isaac Newton who wrote more about God than he wrote on Gravity. Does his writing about God negate his findings on gravity? You have now entered the twilight zone. A belief in God does not disqualify any of hundreds of scientists listed in my earlier post. Did you know that the inventor of the MRI is a creationist? Does that mean the MRI doesn't work.

Until I read some of your credentials, or the experts you are quoting, this thread is on hold. I haven't got time to dialog with narrow minded people such as yourself. You have demonstrated by your responses that you have a bias different from mind, and you don't want to be confused by facts entering into the discussion by somone who thinks completely different from you. Adios (oops, that is a reference to God. Guess I can't use that.)

Bye

[Doctor Stochastic]

Don't worry about being challenged. I'll challenge you if you are ever wrong.

[Stultis]

Before you leave in a huff (or a minute and a huff) can you clear something up for me, seeing as how YOU brought up Werner Gitt as an expert on "information theory" (and apparently the only one who supports, at least directly, your claim that information can only come from intelligence).

Carefully read, his bio at AiG suggests he is an information technologist at best. Take a look at the responsibilities of the Department he directed (you seem to be unaware he's now retired, btw) at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology:

http://www.ptb.de/en/org/q/_index.htm

The main tasks of the Information Technology Department are, 

• Furnishing computational facilities for infrastructural tasks 
• Planning, administration and backup of scientific and administrative servers 
• Operation of the Oracle Relational Database System 
• Cross-sectional systems administration 
• Enhancement and Management of the Local Area Network 
• Operation and enhancement of World Wide Networks 
• Scientific solution of information technology problems
• Dissemination of time information (PTB atomic clock) by means of the "Network Time Protocol" (NTP)
• PC user support (software)
• IT training
• IT user services related to PC hardware and operating systems
• Controlling the information technology budget 

Why should an engineer heading an IT department be considered an expert on information theory. On what is the claim that he is an authoritative information scientist actually based? Why is he only mentioned on creationist websites? Why is the claim made that he "has written numerous scientific papers in the fields of information science, mathematics, and control engineering" without listing any of those articles. How come he comes up zilch on a Pub Med search?

[tortoise]

Professor Werner Gitt completed a 'Diplom-Ingenieur' at the Technical University of Hanover/Germany in 1968, and subsequently completed the required research for his doctorate in Engineering at the Technical University of Aachen, graduating summa cum laude with the prestigious Borchers Medal. Since 1971 he has worked at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology, Brunswick, as Head of Data Processing, and since 1978 as Director and Professor at the Institute.

I don't see anything suggesting he has any expertise in information theory. And Google can't find anything either. On the other hand, Google pulls over a thousand references to me in that field, including many references made by other prominent figures in the field. (Heh. Including some that I didn't know about until now -- I should have looked myself up before.)

How does your bio read?

Pretty damn good, but I'll stick with the relevant points. Like Herr Gitt, my background is formally engineering (chemical, to be precise). However, unlike that fellow I've spent my entire life working in theoretical computer science with a strong emphasis in algorithmic information theory. My credentials in that field are as good as they come, since I am responsible for a great many important theoretical (and practical) contributions.

Unlike Dr. Witt, who I've never even heard of outside of your link, I can walk into any conference around the world on information theory and a few other mathematical fields and people know who I am and what I've done.

I will go toe-to-toe with anyone in the field of information theory. It is kind of hard to have real discussion when the only "arguments" are second- and third-hand grenades that being tossed by people that don't understand them. As I've said repeatedly, nobody ever addresses the mathematical substance of my assertions when they disagree with me. If you can't make the mathematical argument yourself, then you aren't qualified to evaluate mathematical arguments made by others.

[tortoise]

Don't worry about being challenged. I'll challenge you if you are ever wrong.

I know, which is exactly what I was talking about. The few times I've been lazy and made mistakes, that fact was usually pointed out rather quickly by others.

[Gumption]

Not necessarily true - I think something can occupy little space, yet have enormous density, and generate the same amt. of gravity as a much larger counterpart. I may be wrong, but I believe white dwarfs are an example of this.

Of course. Another example is a black hole, which has the most gravity we know of yet has no observable matter at all. But can you think of an example of the opposite ... where a large mass has very little gravity? Me neither, so my statement that "big things = big gravity" IS "necessarily true". But maybe I'm wrong about that. I wonder what the bible has to say on the matter (pun intended).

[LiteKeeper]

Just did search in Google for "tortoise." 471,000 entries, but not a single information scientist or specialist. Sorry, you will have to do better than that.

Incidently, your disparaging of Dr Gitt was not the least impressive. Is the standard now that if you haven't heard of someone in a foreign country they are worthless? That seems to be the implication from your posting.

But back to the point - where do you understand the information came from that rests on your DNA for, lets say, the blood clotting function in your body? Where did the blueprint for your brain come from? How about your sense of taste? I'll make it easy, tell us where the information for anything in your body came from? I don't believe that it spontaneously self-generated, so, EXPERT, since you reject Dr Gitt's theorems, enlighten us, please. We dolts out here are waiting with bated breath for your next lesson.

Ball is now in your court!

[PatrickHenry]

Stand by ...

[RadioAstronomer]

I am waiting too! :-)

[Virginia-American]

There is only one source of information - intelligence

Isn't a duplicated gene 'more information'? How about a duplicated gene that mutates, while the original copy doesn't? Where's the intelligence in these rather common events?

[LiteKeeper]

Absolutely no mutations have ever been discovered or observed where there was an increase in information. Virtually all mutations are a loss of information. That doesn't mean the mutation is not beneficial...but it is extremely rare.

Duplication of genes doesn't result in additional information. It is more like when the paperboy accidently leaves two newspapers on your doorstep...there is more matter, but there is no more information.