Intelligent Design

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 ›

First of all, I want to apologize for shamelessly copying the title and structure of a recent post by VJ Torley. VJ, I hope you will pardon me: imitators, after all, are an undeniable mark of true success! 🙂 That said, let’s go to the subject of this post. I have discussed a little bit about biological function in my previous posts, and I have received many comments about that topic, some of them from very good interlocutors (I would like to publicly thank here Piotr and wd400, in particular). From my general experience in this blog during the last few years, I would like to sum up some of the more questionable attitudes and arguments which I have witnessed Read More ›

Electric organs in fish have challenged evolution ever since Darwin and a new study published today peered even deeper into the problem, down to the genetic level. First let’s see what Darwin had to say (from the section entitled “Special Difficulties of the Theory of Natural Selection,” pages 150-1 of the Sixth Edition of the Origin of Species):  Read more

As a general rule, evolutionists never allow their own ideas to be exposed to the criteria they are using to criticize the other guy. To wit, while Greg Dawesfinds there to be all kinds of problems with appeals to divine agents, including the fact that we really can’t predict what  Read more

It is good to see that philosophers such as Greg Dawes understand thatDarwin “argued for his theory by contrasting it with the idea of special creation” which he found to be “utterly puzzling.” But on the same page the University of Otago professor states that the modern sciences are naturalistic as they make no reference to non-natural agents. No reference to non-natural agents?  Read more

A new study is out analyzing electric eel genomes. Guess what? The scientists are “shocked.” The results are “surprising.” If nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of Darwinian evolution, then why are scientists always shaking their heads based on their latest findings in the lab? Here’s some of the background to the study found in an article from Phys.Org: The work establishes the genetic basis for the electric organ, an anatomical feature found only in fish and that evolved independently half a dozen times in environments ranging from the flooded forests of the Amazon to murky marine environments. “These fish have converted a muscle to an electric organ,” explains Sussman, a professor of biochemistry and director of Read More ›

Within the UK, we have a large number of vocal and influential people who want to exclude all expressions of biblical Christianity from education, whether state funded or independent. Their first target is to banish the concept of creation and replace it with the exclusive teaching of evolutionary theory. These crusaders present themselves as speaking for Enlightenment science and they make much of the supposed consensus within the scientific community about these issues. Their latest success has come with the Department for Education (DfE) requiring church schools converting to academies to adhere strictly to the evolutionary account of origins when teaching science. The new development has been warmly welcomed by the British Humanist Association’s Head of Public Affairs Pavan Dhaliwal: Read More ›