Eric Anderson

I rarely set foot in a bookstore, having long ago succumbed to the Amazon.com convenience. But Saturday my son had an urge to buy some comic books — and he had to have them now. He waited semi-patiently, with regular reminders throughout the day of his desire — nay, his urgent need — to go to Barnes & Noble. “Do you have any money?” “Yes. I have some money saved up, and a gift card from Christmas that I haven’t used yet.” So off we went. While he was browsing the comic book section, I wandered about. I love the atmosphere of bookstores and could spend hours walking through the stacks, occasionally picking up a tome to read the inside Read More ›

I know this may be a bit unusual for the typical fare, but since we have a number of engineers and other tech-savvy readers, I thought I would solicit your help with a quick tech-related survey. Recently I have been in discussion with a Google engineer about gmail. The discussion began when he asked me which email address (among several that I have) I preferred to use. I replied that I would use gmail more if the mobile Android app permitted deletion of single messages, rather than entire conversations. He seemed surprised that anyone would want to delete a single message and asked me for some “use cases” that would call for deletion of a single message, rather than an Read More ›

Over on another thread, there has been some discussion (among other things) about whether the concept of CSI must include a calculation of probabilities under all natural processes.  There are a number of interesting issues relating to CSI that might be worth exploring in more detail (including Learned Hand’s comments @47 of that thread, and the issues I mentioned @139). For now, however, I want to simply flag an issue that has been harped on for years by various individuals (Liddle, ribczynski, and in the recent thread, keith s and wd400).  In summary, the argument is that without knowing all the probabilities of all possible natural processes we cannot ever be certain that some natural process didn’t produce the biological system in Read More ›

The most common explanation for the formation of planet Earth is that it formed by gravitational collapse from a cloud of particles (gas, ice, dust) swirling around the Sun.  Specifically, the idea is that small planetesimals form as the various particles clump together (perhaps initially by cohesion, then by gravity), eventually growing into planets.  Known as the “accretion hypothesis,” this is the standard model of planet formation, not just for Earth, but for nearly all planets.* Significant debate continues regarding the formation of the Moon, but the most widely-held hypothesis is that the Moon formed in a similar way via accretion of impact material produced by a violent collision between a Mars-sized object and the Earth. For purposes of the Read More ›

Slightly off topic from the regular fare, but firmly in the ‘cool science stuff’ category. Photo of the partial eclipse this afternoon, taken in front of our house, with massive sunspot region 12192 visible near center: Equipment: Panasonic DMC-ZS3 with a Starmax 127EQ telescope and solar filter.  Also required: patience. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out, but it was a bit of a pain to get a good shot.  I think I’ll need to buy a decent camera mount soon . . .

The concept of information is central to intelligent design.  In previous discussions, we have examined the basic concept of information, we have considered the question of when information arises, and we have briefly dipped our toes into the waters of Shannon information.  In the present post, I put forward an additional discussion regarding the latter, both so that the resource is out there front and center and also to counter some of the ambiguity and potential confusion surrounding the Shannon metric. As I have previously suggested, much of the confusion regarding “Shannon information” arises from the unfortunate twin facts that (i) the Shannon measurement has come to be referred to by the word “information,” and (ii) many people fail to Read More ›

For those of us who are among the unprivileged masses without access to advance copies, I present a photo of what showed up at my door yesterday: I look forward to delving in as time permits in the coming months.

It finally happened. I’ve been nursing along my car’s transmission for several months (careful driving, changing the fluids, etc.), but last week it finally failed completely, with an accompanying whump! and a jerk, and the car had to be towed to the auto repair shop. The initial hope was that a regular tear-down and cleanout, along with replacement of the wearable parts, would take care of it.  That was going to set me back about $1,500, which I wasn’t happy about but could live with.  Unfortunately, it turned out that some of what the transmission guys call “hard parts” – in this case the planetary gear assembly – were broken, so they were going to have to order a whole Read More ›

A week or so ago, Cornelius Hunter referenced a paper by Christoph Adami titled “Information-theoretic considerations concerning the origin of life” available here. Hunter cites the NewScientist article about Adami’s paper, “Chances of first life improved by weighted dice” and highlights in particular the remarkable statement: “Christoph Adami of Michigan State University in East Lansing decided to study the origin of life purely in terms of information theory, so he could ignore the chemistry involved.” The article continues: “[Adami] assumed that molecules must exceed a certain length in order to have enough information to self-replicate. These long molecules are made from different kinds of short molecules, called monomers.  Adami calculates that if you start with an equal number of each Read More ›

I previously mentioned an upcoming “Emergence of Life” course that folks here might be interested in.  Details here. The course has now been scheduled and starts this Monday, July 14, 2014, at Coursera.  You can find the course here. If you decide to take the course, I encourage professionalism and civility in any forum interactions with other students and staff, in what can potentially be a controversial subject. As I stated before: Will the course have some holes?  No doubt.  Will it answer some of the key issues that have been raised about the cause of the Cambrian Explosion, the infusion of information necessary for the emergence of different forms, how complex functional structures can arise via natural processes?  Unlikely.  Yet Read More ›

In this post I want to consider another aspect of information.  Specifically, I want to consider the concept of “Shannon information.” First of all, I admit to having ruffled a few feathers when I mentioned in passing in a prior post that “Shannon information is not really information.”  As I have also written before in comments on UD, I don’t begrudge anyone referring to the Shannon metric as “information.”  That terminology has penetrated the English language and has become regularly-used in information theory.  So, no, I am not going to police everyone who puts the words “Shannon” and “information” next to each other. However, no small amount of misunderstanding has resulted from the unfortunate term “Shannon information.”  In particular, as Read More ›

My first post on UD, a mere 6 weeks ago, covered some basic principles about information. Specifically, I addressed the misunderstandings of those who deny that there is anything special about the information contained in, say, DNA, as opposed to a pile of rocks or Saturn’s rings.  We had a very productive discussion, with a number of issues explored.  (Incidentally, I used the word “contain” as a shorthand way of expressing what Mung suggested we call “sequences of symbols” that “represent information.”  I’m fine with that longer formulation, as we are saying the same thing substantively.  Any nuance there isn’t germane to the point of today’s brief post.) As we were winding up the thread, Mung asked if I had any sources of people who espoused Read More ›

Fair warning to the regular readership. Typically I like to cover intelligent design and evolution-related issues, but I trust I may be permitted a bit of a detour.  There have been a couple of interesting posts recently by Sal, vjtorley and Barry about issues of a more philosophical bent.  vjtorley’s OP, in particular, quoted parts of an essay from Professor Jerry Coyne.  I would like today to share some thoughts on point. With apologies to those not of the Judeo-Christian tradition, my comments will focus in part on the Bible, given that the Bible and the God of the Bible have been the brunt of many new atheist attacks recently, including Coyne’s.  Similar points, no doubt, could be made with Read More ›

Quick question: Has anyone else experienced the following: 1. I write a comment and press the “Post Comment” button. 2. I get a complaint that I haven’t properly filled out the Captcha answer. 3. I go back, double check my Captcha answer, and submit again. 4. Again, it refuses. 5. I triple check and submit again.  Same story. 6. I click out of the window, say, by going back to UD Home (hopefully after remembering to copy my comment to the clipboard), find the thread again, paste in my comment, fill out the Captcha, and — ta-da! — it works fine. I haven’t done a scientific survey, but I’m suspicious it happens when I have had a thread open in Read More ›

One of the wonderful things about the internet is the jaw-dropping amount of information available – literally at our fingertips.  Never before in history has the common individual had so much knowledge and experience and expertise available for the learning.  To be sure, there is plenty on the internet that is incomplete, wrong, or downright deceptive, but today I want to celebrate the positive side of the information explosion. Among the interesting developments to come out of all this is the availability of university-level courses online. For free. Many universities now offer free online courses, including some of the most prestigious institutions around.  While it is true that upper-level and graduate-level courses, particularly those with lab requirements, may be difficult Read More ›