Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Human Evil, Music, Logic, and Himalayan Dung Heaps

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When I was in college I studied classical piano with Istvan Nadas who was a Hungarian concert pianist and a student of Bela Bartok. Istvan was a miraculous survivor of one of Hitler’s death camps. The stories he told me still haunt me to this day.

The commandant of the death camp liked to play Bach over the loudspeaker system while he had random inmates shot or hung, just for fun and entertainment. Nadas told me about the horror of listening to Bach while he watched his fellow inmates being machine-gunned to death in front of him. Nadas told me, “I knew every note of that music and could play it on the piano, but I also knew that if they discovered I was a concert pianist they would break all my fingers so I could never play the piano again.”

Nadas’s death camp was eventually “liberated” by the Russians. Istvan was one of only 150 survivors from a camp of thousands. He weighed 90 pounds and was suffering from dysentery and other diseases. While the Russians were transporting him on a train to what he knew would be a Russian internment camp he managed to jump out of the train as it slowed in the mountains. Under machine-gun fire he fled into the trees, was helped my local residents, and was eventually smuggled by an African American GI under a tarp in the back of a jeep through Check Point Charlie.

Nadas eventually discovered that every member of his extended family had either been gassed or otherwise tortured and exterminated by the Nazis, or shot by the Russians, with one exception: his mother, whom he eventually tracked down in Italy after the war.

One evening, after a concert at the university while I was studying piano with Nadas, which was conducted by a guest “contemporary composer” — it was just a bunch of random cacophony, very painful to listen to, but sold as legitimate music — I asked Nadas what he thought.

“It is a Himalayan dung heap,” he replied. (Nadas spoke six languages fluently, and had a way with words.) This phrase stuck in my mind, and it’s the perfect description of something so obviously stupid that it represents a pile of crap of Himalayan proportions.

The students and faculty applauded the Himalayan-dung-heap “music” because no one had the courage to point out the obvious, except for Nadas.

This is a perfect metaphor for Darwinism. Very few people in academia have the courage to point out the cacophony and illogic of Darwinian speculation.

It takes the courage of someone like Nadas, who was willing to jump off a train in the mountains under machine-gun fire, to tell the obvious truth.

Comments
Please forgive my somewhat tangential, and belated, comment. I found your article as part of a search for information about Istvan Nadas. I met Istvan Nadas when I was a teenager attending a small-town high school in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. His wife at the time was one of my English teachers, and she took a small group of us home to meet her husband. He told stories of the Holocaust and played for us a very haunting piano work he had composed in response to his experiences. It strikes me now how unlikely and rich a blessing it was for a rural child such as myself to meet such a great man. Subsequently, I attended a portion of a series of recitals he played at George Fox College which comprised a complete Beethoven Piano Sonata cycle. Thank you for sharing your own experiences with Mr. Nadas. It comforts me to know that he is well remembered by others. As for the primary subject matter of your writings here, I regard the subject of Evolution as a theoretical process in general to be an interesting subject of inquiry, but do not share the certainty many have in the conclusions they have drawn from it. Evidence of adaptation through natural selection is by no means a conclusive repudiation of either an initial intelligent design nor does it prove that observed adaptations are not part of the ongoing manifestation of that design.Michael Kepler
September 9, 2012
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I wanted to continue some thoughts on my post at #244 by explaining in more depth why I belive that in order to determine that CSI has been generated by a blind process either naturally or via simulation, that multiple systems need to be represented. The below is a little lengthy, and I'll split it up into more than one post. It rambles a bit. In my defense, it would have taken me much longer to clean it up and condense it than it will take anyone to read it. I think it conveys my thoughts pretty welll and is fairly intelligble as it stands, but I expect it'll need some revision too. Quoting myself above:
Ending point: a self-replicating virtual cell, containing at least each of these: an information storage medium, and an information processing system which operates on the medium, into which the systems themselves are encoded. These items are needed because without an abstraction between information storage and functional implementation, we couldn’t do anything but violence to the concept of information, which needs some sort of encryption and decryption protocol between two sets of elements that can have nothing but an abstract link between them — and this protocol must represent a link between an inert symbolic medium and a functional element into which it translates. In other words, we need one language which describes the element being operated on, and another language which directly represents the element being operated on. This element must be functional, and the system which does the translating from one to the other must itself be encoded in both languages.
I want to define how I'm using some key terms in case my usage differes some from an alternate or more orthodox usage. Specified Complexity: the presence of both specification and complexity. Specification: a sequence of symbols which conforms to an independently given pattern or function. Complexity: contingent arrangements of matter exceeding 500 bits. This is often set even higher, but 500 bits seems to account for every atom in the universe multiplied by every Planck-time quantum state that's ever occured in its history. Information: the presence of specified complexity. Chance: randomly contingent but otherwise inexplicable events, such as replication errors. Necessity:That which must occur with specific arrangements of matter under a specific set of circumstances. Law: That which governs necessity as expressed in the laws of physics and chemistry. Protocol: A specification which describes a mapping between two compatible languages, OR an entity which preforms the function of translation between the two.Mission.Imposible
July 27, 2011
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EL: I am completely convinced by substantial evidence (including my own work!) that self-replication with variance in a fitness landscape results in entities with the appearance of well-engineered design!
Nobody disagrees. Genetic algorithms are used in engineering. I've written GAs myself. Finding solutions that were not readily foreseeable is the whole point of them. But, of course, GAs are designed to evolve with intelligently designed targets and terms. Was biological evolution designed to evolve towards certain goals? Science cannot presently answer that question.mike1962
July 27, 2011
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EL: So people’s priors (in a Bayesian sense) are low, whereas they are considerably higher for a mechanism that we know works in principle
That's like saying since a car can get you from L.A. to New York that, in principle, it can get you to London, without considering any additional hurdles beyond pavement and dirt roads that may be encountered. While it is understandable why biologists and atheists would be motivated to place their hopes in this huge gap, the fact is, the known biological mechanisms have not been shown, either empirically or in principle, to be sufficient to produce novel cell types, tissue types, organs or body plans. And, of course, OOL remains virtually uncharted. So what can the science actually offer us at this point? Only that a gap-laden evolution of life seems to have occurred, there seems to be a sort of messy hierarchy to it, and that small random variations and natural selection can effect small phenotype changes. That's all. It cannot tell us the degree that intelligent intervention was required for large scale evolution and to what degree "blind" (atelic) mechanisms were sufficient. This is the point of contention.mike1962
July 27, 2011
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Elizabeth Liddle @138:
I have no quarrel at all with the idea that the genome contains information; nor have I any quarrel with Nirenberg’s methodology – he and his team systematically figured out which codons coded (hence the name) for which amino acids, and noted that the sequence of the codons in the DNA molecule, corresponded to the sequence of the amino acids in the protein. We are in complete agreement with this I think. What I need to do, however, is to abstract from that specific example (of codons amino acids, etc) a criterion by which any candidate for the category “information” can be so categorised. Clearly not all information is mediated by codons; not all messages are “about” proteins. It’s not that I have any doubt that Nirenberg was finding “information” in the genome, nor about his methods for doing so – figuring out what mapped to what. The problem is defining what constitues a “mapping”.
So now if we could just develop a set of operations ... let's see ... identify a code ... figure out what maps to what... Upright BiPed:
Nirenberg et al discovered the information in the genome by demonstrating it. They isolated the representations, deciphered the protocols, and documented the effects; the same way that all other recorded information has been discovered.
Isolate the representations. Decipher the protocols. Document the effects.Mung
July 27, 2011
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Nirenberg Elizabeth Liddle:
It’s not that I have any doubt that Nirenberg was finding “information” in the genome, nor about his methods for doing so – figuring out what mapped to what.
Mung:
How did they find it?
Elizabeth Liddle:
It doesn’t matter how they did it.
Well, that pretty much makes it clear what's going on here. The manner in which the presence of information was demonstrated to exist in the genome is irrelevant.Mung
July 27, 2011
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material.infantacy: Your post looks interesting, but I haven't had time to read it properly yet. I will try to respond later today.Elizabeth Liddle
July 27, 2011
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"Elizabeth has asserted that Shannon information is a measure of reduction in uncertainty. ..." One might almost forgive her her misunderstanding, if one were not aware of how long you have been conversationalizing with her on the matter. For, after all, that is how most treatments of S.I. describe it. And your further analysis of the "uncertainty" issue is spot-on. But, getting back to the 60mHz "message" ... its 'Shannon Information' is far greater than 0 bits. At a minimum, the S.I. requires however many bits are necessary to specify the tone and however many to specify the duration. If one cares about *when* the "message" was first received, one needs however many bits are required to record that. Was the "message" received multiple time? What is the time lapse between one and the next? During observation, is this time lapse invariant? And so on.Ilion
July 26, 2011
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Likewise, she appears to think that if I do all the heavy lifting we are doing an equal amount of work and this amounts to a "real conversation."Mung
July 26, 2011
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I think Lizzie is waiting for pixels to have an effect on her brain.Mung
July 26, 2011
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Elizabeth has asserted that Shannon information is a measure of reduction in uncertainty. In order for a reduction in uncertainty to be measurable there must be an expectation. That expectation must be changed by the measurement. That expectation must be an expectation about what one believes to be the case and the reduction in uncertainty changes what one believes to be the case. It follows that, contrary to Elizabeth's claims, Shannon information is not information devoid of meaning.Mung
July 26, 2011
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Has she forgotten already that 'Shannon Information' is totally agnostic about any information "in" the message?Ilion
July 26, 2011
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Elizabeth has asserted that Shannon information can measure 0 bits of information in a message and can therefore tell us that there is no information present in a message and that therefore information can be devoid of meaning. We're still awaiting the demonstration.Mung
July 26, 2011
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For the record. Elizabeth Liddle:
My original claim was that, contrary to ID claims, that Chance and Necessity could produce Information. Not “information in the genome”. Not “information at any place or time”. But “information”. For all definitions of information I was aware of, that claim stands, although what I had in mind was CSI.
Mung
July 26, 2011
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Shannon Information 1. Does Shannon information give us an operational definition of information? 2. Does Shannon information give us a definition of information? Now we must keep in mind that an operational definition of information does not tell us what information is. So with regard to Shannon information Elizabeth has made two fundamental errors. 1.) She has conflated an operational definition with a definition of what a thing is. 2.) She has reasoned that because Shannon information provides a measure of information, and because operational definitions are a way to "measure" something, Shannon information is an operational definition of information.Mung
July 26, 2011
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Continuing the Charade
It [one definition of information from Webster's dictionary] also includes this post, which is an arrangement of pixels on your screen, and produces specific effects in your brain, and, possibly, on your blood pressure.
The pixels on the screen are inherently meaningless. But even if they had meaning, they can produce no effect unless they are received. Pixels on a screen may be used to convey information when they are arranged in such a manner so as to take on certain shapes, more specifically, the shapes of symbols. There's that nasty nasty word again. Let's pretend we didn't say it. We certainly would not want to include the concept of a symbol in our operational definition. The pixels themselves, of course, have no effect on my brain, unless perhaps I decide to ram my head through the monitor in frustration. How carefully she must avoid actually talking about information and reduce it to pixels. Mere matter. Yet is it not the case that the pixels have a specific effect on the screen? So there you have it. Information! No brain required.
This [definition of information] is adroit, because it rules out, for example, a rock falling off a cliff, which might well produce “specific effects” but what is doing the producing is a material object, the rock, not an “arrangement of something”.
Pixels are not material objects? I can arrange some rocks and drop them into a pond and assert that due to the specific effect they produced I have demonstrated the presence of information. Or I can arrange some small pebbles on a plate into a semblance of a smiley face, place the plate on a scale, and since they will in fact have a quite specific and observable effect and even a measurable effect on the scale, I can declare, INFORMATION! Can we get a reality check? So to me at least it appears that Lizzie is asking too much from her definition of information. Far less is required. Or is it perhaps the case that Lizzie has left out an important ingredient. Upright BiPed, bless his soul:
I know you’re a stickler for precision Dr Liddle, but how does one object “communicate” with another object?
I think he's still awaiting a response from Elizabeth on that one. So let's have another look at that Webster's definition, as a sort of sanity check.
1: the communication or reception of knowledge or intelligence 2b : the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects
Rocks? Pixels? These are mere bits of matter than can be arranged. What, specifically, must material entities such as rocks and pixels be arranged into in order that they might acquire some attribute inherent in that arrangement which is just one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements whereby whatever that is that inheres in that arrangement [let's call it information if] it is communicated by that arrangement in order that it might bring about a specific effect? Rocks in a pond are not enough. Pixels on a screen are not enough. Those pixels must be arranged, into symbols, those symbols must be arranged, into sequences, those sequences must be communicated, that which is communicated must bring about a specific effect. Now. An operational definition please, Lizzie. What are the entities that must be observed? What are the steps that define what operations must be executed, what observations must be made, by which we might declare the presence of information?Mung
July 26, 2011
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It may be a bestseller: 'Defining the Functionally Operationalized Mung'Ilion
July 26, 2011
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Ilion, I shall promptly get to work defining a set of discrete steps according to which anyone might be able to say that they do in fact understand what I say even if it is fact the case that they have not understood a single word.Mung
July 26, 2011
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"function A -> transcribes/copies -> symbol a" should be "function A -> transcribes/copies -> symbols a and b"material.infantacy
July 26, 2011
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You know, Mung, your problem is that you haven't learned to use words like "operationalize"; it's no wonder no one (including yourself) can understand anything you say.Ilion
July 26, 2011
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After gleanings from this and other threads, I'm trying to understanding some issues relating to generating complex specified information from scratch (bootstrapping an information generation and storage system) and understand the minimum requirement of a system which would demonstrate that such has been accomplished. I'd appreciate criticism, as harsh and unruly as one sees fit. Starting point: a virtual self-replicating molecule of, say, 50-100 bits, with some latitude given to stability after any replication which produces an error. Ending point: a self-replicating virtual cell, containing at least each of these: an information storage medium, and an information processing system which operates on the medium, into which the systems themselves are encoded. These items are needed because without an abstraction between information storage and functional implementation, we couldn't do anything but violence to the concept of information, which needs some sort of encryption and decryption protocol between two sets of elements that can have nothing but an abstract link between them -- and this protocol must represent a link between an inert symbolic medium and a functional element into which it translates. In other words, we need one language which describes the element being operated on, and another language which directly represents the element being operated on. This element must be functional, and the system which does the translating from one to the other must itself be encoded in both languages. The protocol should be readily decipherable. A persistent observer should be able to decipher the protocol and hence translate in either direction between the storage system and the processing system. A sample image of symbols and their corresponding functions: symbol a -> encodes -> function A symbol b -> encodes -> function B ... function A -> is encoded into -> symbol a function B -> is encoded into -> symbol b ... function A -> transcribes/copies -> symbol a function B -> translates symbol a or b into -> function A or B ... I have some other notes but that's a good naive start. Tell me what's wrong with it. I can take it. UB, Mung, EL, anyone else? Does what I'm proposing make any sense, or am I stuck in a la la land of my own?material.infantacy
July 26, 2011
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Elizabeth Liddle:
Please try to understand what an operational definition is
Indeed. I'm always up for learning something new. First and foremost, an operational definition is not in fact a definition. Rather it is a description. An operational definition is a process or procedure, a set of "operations," that can be followed in order to determine whether some thing of interest is present, for example, information. It is in defining this process or procedure, these operations, that we have created an operational definition. How am I doing so far? It's really not that complicated. And yes, even I can understand it. What's more, I am capable of communicating it to others in my own words, words simple and plain enough for others to understand. And this just goes to show how confused you are about Shannon information, but that's a topic for a different post.Mung
July 26, 2011
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Mung, I'm sorry, but you are confused. I don't blame you, because it's confusing, but it is, I submit, you who are confused:
Let me see if I can state this another way. You, Elizabeth, are attempting to develop an operational definition of information according to what your proposed simulation will do.
No. I'm sorry, Mung, but you still haven't understood the purpose of an operational definition. I'm not sure why, but you haven't. You seem to think that I decide what my sim will do, and then define "information" to match the output. That would be circular. It is not what I am doing.
And then you accuse Upright BiPid of circularity! Oh. my. Gosh.
I don't accuse anyone of anything. I merely point out that the use of high-level terms like "symbol" or "representation" in a conceptual definition leads to potential circularity, which the Merriam-Webster definition avoids.
What you need to do, what you ought to do, is develop an operational definition that is independent of your simulation.
Well, as I said, Mung, that is actually a nonsense. Please try to understand what an operational definition is; until you do, perhaps stay out of the kitchen?
Preferably one that reflects known reality. And then, after you have built your simulation, we can use the operational definition you have developed to measure whether or not your simulation has met the independently developed operational definition. No scientist would approach this the way you are doing.
lol.Elizabeth Liddle
July 26, 2011
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Liz: get real. Information: a sender, a receiver. DNA. Ribosomes making proteins. That's the real world example. How did it happen? You got no clue and nobody else does. Heading out to the pool now. It's hotter than hell outside. Enjoy!mike1962
July 26, 2011
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Mung, we are going around in the most absurd circles here. Let's summarise: My original claim was that, contrary to ID claims, that Chance and Necessity could produce Information. Not "information in the genome". Not "information at any place or time". But "information". For all definitions of information I was aware of, that claim stands, although what I had in mind was CSI. But to demonstrate my claim to Upright BiPed, I needed a a conceptual definition of information in which meaning was intrinsic (fair enough) plus another requirement, which has proved more problematic. So we have been trying to get that conceptual definition sorted out, so that it can be operationalised for my demonstration, which will take the form of a computer simulation. Actually, it's not really a "simulation" in the sense that actual information will be generated by actual chance and actual necessity, but I will cast it in the form of a virtual OOL scenario, so I'll call it a sim. But you can only operationalise a conceptual definition once you have ironed out any ambiguities in the definition. And that is where we hit a snag, and, as I tried to show, potential circularities. And we hit a bit of an impasse. So, to try to break the log jam I turned to the definition cited by Meyer (who seems to think it works for him) which is the Merriam-Webster one. Being a good dictionary, they give an excellent conceptual definition which is non-circular. None of the terms used in the definition need by defined in terms of the defined words. In particular, words like "symbol" and "representation" are not included in the definition. Nonetheless, they are intrinsic to the definition because the definition firstly specifies that the information is present in an arrangement of something, and that it must produce specific effects. This is adroit, because it rules out, for example, a rock falling off a cliff, which might well produce "specific effects" but what is doing the producing is a material object, the rock, not an "arrangement of something". Similarly it rules out a message consisting of white noise that lacks any meaning, which might contain Shannon entropy, but the arrangement has no "specific effects". What it includes, of course, and gives an example, is a DNA sequence, which is an arrangement of something (nucleotides) that produces specific effects, for instance a protein. It also includes this post, which is an arrangement of pixels on your screen, and produces specific effects in your brain, and, possibly, on your blood pressure. So it looks good to me. But I added a further constraint: that the "specific effects" must be "functional". That rules out a splatter of paint on a Jackson Pollock canvas that doesn't do anything much except make people go "ahhhhh!", but it does include a lab report on a throat swab that enables an effective antibiotic to be prescribed. Finally UBP would like the definition to include an intermediary step in which an intermediary object serves to link the arrangement to the effect, without itself being involved "physically" in the translation. That's a bit tricky to operationalise for a computer sim, but I think I've done a reasonable job. As for the rest, I have utilised the Merriam-Webster definition to eliminate words like "representation" from UPD's conceptual definition, in order to produce an operational definition that can be applied to my sim. If you don't like this approach, then I suggest you raise your complaint with whoever designed the scientific method, because thassthewayitworks. If UBP is happy, I'll get going, though it may take a while (weeks, at least, possibly months). If not, I am happy to wait for more tweaks. But I am not going to demonstrate that there is information in the genome - I've already done that using at least two definitions. And I'm certainly not going to demonstrate that it got there through Chance or Necessity. A Nobel prize would look nice on the mantelpiece, but I'll make do with my grandmother's clock thanks.Elizabeth Liddle
July 26, 2011
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Let me see if I can state this another way. You, Elizabeth, are attempting to develop an operational definition of information according to what your proposed simulation will do. And then you accuse Upright BiPid of circularity! Oh. my. Gosh. What you need to do, what you ought to do, is develop an operational definition that is independent of your simulation. Preferably one that reflects known reality. And then, after you have built your simulation, we can use the operational definition you have developed to measure whether or not your simulation has met the independently developed operational definition. No scientist would approach this the way you are doing.Mung
July 26, 2011
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Oh, right. So now I'm all ready to build my sim, the goal posts change. Ah well. I might have known there'd be a snag.Elizabeth Liddle
July 26, 2011
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Well, we need an operational definition. UPD’s wasn’t.
So what? You’re off in la la land, the land of virtual reality, and UPB is asking you to come back to reality and saying that if you’re going to develop an operational definition develop one that reflects reality. wow. deja vu.
Mung, um, I’m not sure how to break this to you – but – it depends how you are defining information. So take your proposed definition of information and operationalize it based upon something real, something that actually exists. The genome, for example.
Mung
July 26, 2011
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Elizabeth is not attempting to operationalize anything that exists in reality. Er yes, I am. So you've already built your computer simulation? It's a reality now? What I am saying is that your attempt at an operational definition does not correspond to anything real. Why not develop an operational definition that corresponds to what we know to exist, in reality, in the genome?Mung
July 26, 2011
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Mung: What a shame. We had the start of a real conversation last night. Oh, well, it was nice while it lasted. But it looks like there’s a heap of strawmen I’d better sweep up.
I’m sure it sounds crazy, but one might expect that at some point your response would include some of the language used in the description of the reality being operationalized…
Elizabeth is not attempting to operationalize anything that exists in reality.
Er yes, I am.
First Lizzie complains that the concepts are not abstract though, they need to be more abstract so they can be applied to other instances.
No, I don’t.
Then she argues that the concepts are too abstract to serve as an operational definition, that operational definitions cannot be general, they must be specific to one single instance of a measurement.
No, I don’t.
We cannot develop an operational definition of a peanut butter sandwich that can identify multiple instances of a peanut butter sandwich. The operational definition must be specific to a particular peanut butter sandwich.
No, it need not be. It would be useless if it were.
So if we have wheat bread, instead of white bread, that would require a different operational definition for a peanut butter sandwich.
No, it would not.
Totally bizarre.
Yes it is. Totally bizarre. I am at a loss to account for it.
So let’s take a closer look at Elizabeth’s own sources: Operationalization occurs when we take a hypothesis, e.g. aggression causes further aggression, and develop a procedure, or operation, for identifying instances of the critical terms, here, aggression. http://www.newfoundations.com/EGR/Oper.html Instances, is plural. We should be able to identify aggression, for example, in not just one subject, and not just in one scenario, but in multiple instances. Operationalization occurs when we take a hypothesis, e.g. violence causes further violence, and develop a procedure, or operation, for identifying instances of the critical terms, here, violence. http://web.jjay.cuny.edu/~pzap.....estion.htm Now this is too funny. It looks like one of Lizzie’s sources has plagiarized the other! Or perhaps they both plagiarized a common source. Design detection in action!
Probably. I expect they both plagiarized it from Wikipedia. I just googled a couple that seemed to save me the trouble of explaining it again myself.
Instances, is plural. We should be able to identify violence, for example, in not just one subject, and not just in one scenario, but in multiple instances. So Upright BiPed’s point is completely valid, as is mine. Elizabeth, could you please develop an operational definition that is based on reality?
I will, and have, developed an operational definition base d on a conceptual definition. I chose Webster Merriam as Meyer cited it, and it seemed to me to pretty well fit UPD’s with a couple of additions (one actually of my own).
Look I realises this is frustrating for you, UPD, but you must understand that the frustration is mutual! Your 1) and 2) are NOT operational definitions!!!!!!
So what? You’re off in la la land, the land of virtual reality, and UPB is asking you to come back to reality and saying that if you’re going to develop an operational definition develop one that reflects reality.
Well, we need an operational definition. UPD’s wasn’t.
As your own sources point out, reality is the place to start! Background for research consists of everything a researcher knows about a topic: 1) How well grounded the question is in the current knowledge base (the problem must have a basis in theory, research, or practice (we need to know what is already known so that we can judge how much it can add to the knowledge base; gives us an anchor) What do we already know about information and where did we obtain this knowledge? Why do you, Elizabeth, believe there is information in the genome? What do we already know about how information is communicated and where did we obtain this knowledge? How does the information in the genome get communicated?
Mung, um, I’m not sure how to break this to you – but – it depends how you are defining information. Still, I'm hopeful. I think I managed to operationalise UPD's version with a bit of help from Merriam-Webster, and when he gets a chance, I hope he'll give it the all-clear.Elizabeth Liddle
July 26, 2011
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