Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

New paper at Biocomplexity by Daniel Andrés Díaz-Pachón and Robert J. Marks II

Paper's conclusion: We have proposed extension of active information for domains other than those confined to a finite interval. Maximum entropy (maxent) is defined on domains other than a finite interval. Read More ›

When science writer John Horgan reluctantly sort of acknowledged: Information implies minds

Horgan: The concept of information makes no sense in the absence of something to be informed—that is, a conscious observer capable of choice, or free will (sorry, I can't help it, free will is an obsession). Read More ›

L& FP41: Dawkins, Krauss and trying to pull a world out of “no-thing”

As Cardinal Pell has been recently cleared, perhaps some may be willing to learn from this telling vid: No, Virginia, you do not get a world from no-thing. END

L&FP40: Language is . . . (as a foundation for understanding machine code and mathematical language as just that, linguistic)

It seems we need to clarify language. For, we see in the Ortho types thread: EG, 140: >> . . . Definitions of language: Webster’s: the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and understood by a community. Britannica: a system of conventional spoken, manual (signed), or written symbols by means of which human beings, as members of a social group and participants in its culture, express themselves. Cambridge: a system of communication consisting of sounds, words, and grammar, or the system of communication used by people in a particular country or type of work. Collins: A language is a system of communication which consists of a set of sounds and written symbols which are used by Read More ›

Luke Barnes, Q & A on fine-tuning of the universe

It’s not clear that massive evidence for fine-tuning of the universe makes much difference to most naturalists because it just increases their certainty that the zero-evidence multiverse must be out there. But the rest of us will learn something. Come to think of it, panpsychists might adopt fine-tuning as an argument for an intelligent universe. We shall see. Read More ›

Larry Moran Understands the Genetic Code is Real

Every time we run a series of articles on the genetic code, our combox gets stuffed with comments from materialists claiming the idea that the genetic code is an actual code is fallacious, an error committed only by those ID rubes with an agenda. But, of course, not only is this untrue, it is easily shown to be untrue. There are numerous examples of materialists insisting that the “code” part of “genetic code” refers to a real code; it is not an analogy nor the sloppy use of language. To his credit Larry Moran is one such: The Real Genetic Code This is the genetic code. It shows the relationship between a sequence of nucleotides in messenger RNA (mRNA), or Read More ›