They sure don’t make ants like …

So mung, it seems clear you will not answer the question I asked you, for you do not even have a clear distinction between loss of information and increase in entropy (molecular disorder).

Which question is it this time? If I didn't answer it's probably because it made no sense. Why don't you show us the mathematical relationship between increase in entropy and loss of information instead of just claiming there is one. Mung

So mung, it seems clear you will not answer the question I asked you, for you do not even have a clear distinction between loss of information and increase in entropy (molecular disorder). Perhaps instead of attacking my 'ignorance', of which I have many instances, you would do well to admit to your own instances of ignorance, instead of trying to turn the tables on me just because you have severely misjudged the relationship between information and entropy???? It seems to reflect a rather shallow approach on your part to something you don't understand!!! bornagain77

Mung; 'Just because modern mathematical representations do not invoke God it doesn’t mean that matter/energy exists apart from God.' And yet you have vast swaths of modern science operating as if energy and matter is all there is to consider. i.e. scientific materialism, methodological naturalism. bornagain77

Boltzmann equation – Statistical Mechanics An important equation in statistical mechanics that connects entropy (S) with molecular disorder (W). It can be written: S = k log W where k is Boltzmann’s constant.

You post a lot of quotes and links, but do you know what you're talking about, or are they just cover for your ignorance? What is molecular disorder?

The following article speaks of a proof developed by legendary mathematician Kurt Gödel, from a thought experiment, in which Gödel showed General Relativity could not be a complete description of the universe

Again, you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. One the one hand you want to argue that science shows us that the universe is purely material, and on the other hand you want to argue that science doesn't show us any such thing. Which is it? ME:

I don’t believe in material processes, so I would have to say the answer to your first question is no.

So what is a material process. Is it just some process in which matter and/or energy plays a role? That's not the sense I got from you when you first asked the question. It seems to me you think "material process" means "Godless process." Just because modern mathematical representations do not invoke God it doesn't mean that matter/energy exists apart from God. Mung

Mung as to this comment of yours; me Do you believe that functional information can be generated by material processes? mung 'I don’t believe in material processes, so I would have to say the answer to your first question is no.' Actually mung the 4-Dimensional space-time framework of General relativity, which is basically a materialistic 'purely energy-matter', 'without God', framework, harbors within it a statistical framework of thermodynamics which is based on 'chance' and necessity: notes: General Relativity equation: The main features of General Relativity are: 1. Space and space-time are not rigid arenas in which events take place. They have form and structure which are influenced by the matter and energy content of the universe. 2. Matter and energy tell space (and space-time) how to curve. 3. Space tells matter how to move. In particular small objects travel along the straightest possible lines in curved space (space-time). http://theory.uwinnipeg.ca/mod_tech/node60.html When a reporter asked for a one-sentence description of the theory of (general) relativity, Einstein replied, "All my life I have been trying to get it into one book. And he wants me to state it in one sentence!" But he gave a simple overview: "It's a theory of space and time as far as physics is concerned, which leads to a theory of gravitation." http://www.readersdigest.co.za/article/10170&pageno=2 Boltzmann equation - Statistical Mechanics An important equation in statistical mechanics that connects entropy (S) with molecular disorder (W). It can be written: S = k log W where k is Boltzmann's constant. The Austrian physicist Ludwig Boltzmann first linked entropy and probability in 1877. However, the equation as shown, involving a specific constant, was first written down by Max Planck, the father of quantum mechanics in 1900. In his 1918 Nobel Prize lecture, Planck said: This constant is often referred to as Boltzmann's constant, although, to my knowledge, Boltzmann himself never introduced it – a peculiar state of affairs, which can be explained by the fact that Boltzmann, as appears from his occasional utterances, never gave thought to the possibility of carrying out an exact measurement of the constant. Nothing can better illustrate the positive and hectic pace of progress which the art of experimenters has made over the past twenty years, than the fact that since that time, not only one, but a great number of methods have been discovered for measuring the mass of a molecule with practically the same accuracy as that attained for a planet. http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/B/Boltzmann_equation.html ------------ Yet Mung, even though General Relativity, and the entropic statistical equation it harbors (Boltzman), are describing the 'material' universe (Energy-matter and space-time), and in fact General Relativity has been verified to a stunning degree of accuracy, it is found that General Relativity is not a 'complete' description of reality,,, ,,,through a fairly exhaustive examination of the General Relativity equations themselves, acknowledges the insufficiency of General Relativity to account for the 'completeness' of 4D space-time within the sphere of the CMBR from different points of observation in the universe. The Cauchy Problem In General Relativity - Igor Rodnianski Excerpt: 2.2 Large Data Problem In General Relativity - While the result of Choquet-Bruhat and its subsequent refinements guarantee the existence and uniqueness of a (maximal) Cauchy development, they provide no information about its geodesic completeness and thus, in the language of partial differential equations, constitutes a local existence. ,,, More generally, there are a number of conditions that will guarantee the space-time will be geodesically incomplete.,,, In the language of partial differential equations this means an impossibility of a large data global existence result for all initial data in General Relativity. http://www.icm2006.org/proceedings/Vol_III/contents/ICM_Vol_3_22.pdf The following article speaks of a proof developed by legendary mathematician Kurt Gödel, from a thought experiment, in which Gödel showed General Relativity could not be a complete description of the universe: THE GOD OF THE MATHEMATICIANS - DAVID P. GOLDMAN - August 2010 Excerpt: Gödel's personal God is under no obligation to behave in a predictable orderly fashion, and Gödel produced what may be the most damaging critique of general relativity. In a Festschrift, (a book honoring Einstein), for Einstein's seventieth birthday in 1949, Gödel demonstrated the possibility of a special case in which, as Palle Yourgrau described the result, "the large-scale geometry of the world is so warped that there exist space-time curves that bend back on themselves so far that they close; that is, they return to their starting point." This means that "a highly accelerated spaceship journey along such a closed path, or world line, could only be described as time travel." In fact, "Gödel worked out the length and time for the journey, as well as the exact speed and fuel requirements." Gödel, of course, did not actually believe in time travel, but he understood his paper to undermine the Einsteinian worldview from within. http://www.faqs.org/periodicals/201008/2080027241.html "Every solution to the equations of general relativity guarantees the existence of a singular boundary for space and time in the past." (Hawking, Penrose, Ellis) - 1970 http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9404/bigbang.html Thus Mung, though you say 'you don't believe in material processes', there is a fairly substantial mathematical framework built upon the purely material processes of the universe. bornagain77

further note: The GS (genetic selection) Principle – David L. Abel – 2009 Excerpt: Stunningly, information has been shown not to increase in the coding regions of DNA with evolution. Mutations do not produce increased information. Mira et al (65) showed that the amount of coding in DNA actually decreases with evolution of bacterial genomes, not increases. This paper parallels Petrov’s papers starting with (66) showing a net DNA loss with Drosophila evolution (67). Konopka (68) found strong evidence against the contention of Subba Rao et al (69, 70) that information increases with mutations. The information content of the coding regions in DNA does not tend to increase with evolution as hypothesized. Konopka also found Shannon complexity not to be a suitable indicator of evolutionary progress over a wide range of evolving genes. Konopka’s work applies Shannon theory to known functional text. Kok et al. (71) also found that information does not increase in DNA with evolution. As with Konopka, this finding is in the context of the change in mere Shannon uncertainty. The latter is a far more forgiving definition of information than that required for prescriptive information (PI) (21, 22, 33, 72). It is all the more significant that mutations do not program increased PI. Prescriptive information either instructs or directly produces formal function. No increase in Shannon or Prescriptive information occurs in duplication. What the above papers show is that not even variation of the duplication produces new information, not even Shannon “information.” http://www.bioscience.org/2009/v14/af/3426/3426.pdf Unexpectedly small effects of mutations in bacteria bring new perspectives - November 2010 Excerpt: Most mutations in the genes of the Salmonella bacterium have a surprisingly small negative impact on bacterial fitness. And this is the case regardless whether they lead to changes in the bacterial proteins or not.,,, using extremely sensitive growth measurements, doctoral candidate Peter Lind showed that most mutations reduced the rate of growth of bacteria by only 0.500 percent. No mutations completely disabled the function of the proteins, and very few had no impact at all. Even more surprising was the fact that mutations that do not change the protein sequence had negative effects similar to those of mutations that led to substitution of amino acids. A possible explanation is that most mutations may have their negative effect by altering mRNA structure, not proteins, as is commonly assumed. http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-unexpectedly-small-effects-mutations-bacteria.html Random Mutations Destroy Information - Perry Marshall - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4023143 “But in all the reading I’ve done in the life-sciences literature, I’ve never found a mutation that added information… All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not increase it.” Lee Spetner - Ph.D. Physics - MIT - Not By Chance Evolution vs. Genetic Entropy - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4028086 The foundational rule of Genetic Entropy for biology, which can draw its foundation in science from the twin pillars of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and from the Law of Conservation of Information (Dembski, Marks, Abel), can be stated something like this: "All beneficial adaptations away from a parent species for a sub-species, which increase fitness to a particular environment, will always come at a loss of the optimal functional information that was originally created in the parent species genome." “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain - Michael Behe - December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.(that is a net 'fitness gain' within a 'stressed' environment i.e. remove the stress from the environment and the parent strain is always more 'fit') http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/ further notes; Poly-Functional Complexity equals Poly-Constrained Complexity https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMjdoZmd2emZncQ&hl=en Experimental Evolution in Fruit Flies - October 2010 Excerpt: "This research really upends the dominant paradigm about how species evolve".,,, as stated in regards to the 35 year experimental failure to fixate a single beneficial mutation within fruit flies. http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2010/10/07/experimental_evolution_in_fruit_flies etc.. etc... bornagain77

Mung, you state,,, 'I thought that information increases with entropy,' yet the truth is that,,, "Gain in entropy always means loss of information, and nothing more." Gilbert Newton Lewis - Eminent Chemist GILBERT NEWTON LEWIS: AMERICAN CHEMIST (1875-1946) At the end of a manuscript in the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley, we find the words: "I have attempted to give you a glimpse...of what there may be of soul in chemistry. But it may have been in vain. Perchance the chemist is already damned and the guardian the blackest. But if the chemist has lost his soul, he will not have lost his courage and as he descends into the inferno, sees the rows of glowing furnaces and sniffs the homey fumes of brimstone, he will call out-: 'Asmodeus, hand me a test-tube.'"(1) These are fitting words from a man who was the most eminent figure in a great revolution that brought America to the forefront in chemistry. Gilbert Newton Lewis was probably the greatest and most influential of American chemists. 1900 Instructor at Harvard College. Began research on electrochemistry and chemical equilibrium under Richards. 1904 Superintendent of Weights and Measures in the Phillipines. 1905 Faculty position at MIT. Began work on thermodynamics and free energies for elements. 1912 Married Mary Sheldon, daughter of Harvard Professor. 1912 Appointed Chairman of Dept. of Chemistry and Dean of the College of Chemistry, Berkeley. 1918 World War I, France. Appointed Chief of the Defense Division of Chemical Warfare Service. Received the Distinguished Service Medal (USA) and the Cross of the Legion of Honor (France). 1923 Authored Thermodynamics and the Free Energy of Chemical Substances with M. Randall. Authored Valence and the Structure of Atoms and Molecules. Clarified electron-pair bonding in covalent substances. Began work on a more inclusive acid-base theory. etc.. etc.. http://www.woodrow.org/teachers/ci/1992/Lewis.html bornagain77

Thus though God does indeed sustain the universe each and every moment of its existence, He allows the universe and life in it to ‘run down’.

Like a clock. Buying into the entire mechanical philosophy. I, otoh, reject the metaphor.

the scientific evidence is in full compliance with the principle of Genetic Entropy in that all sub-speciation events will ALWAYS come at a cost of the optimal functional information that was originally encoded into the parent kind/species by God.

I think you should decide whether you want to be a creationist or an Intelligent Design theorist. ;) I thought that information increases with entropy, isn't that what Johnson was saying? Maximum entropy = maximum information? Think of entropy as an increase in the number of possible states of a system that makes any specified state more improbable. So where would ID be without it? So as Genetic Entropy increases, each new species becomes more and more improbable, yet there they all are. And even you seem to think they came from some original pair, perhaps off an ark, a few thousand years ago? I still don't think you understand the meaning of "Genetic Entropy." IMO, it's not intended to be a description of the way things actually are, but rather a statement of a problem for evolutionists given evolutionary assumption. That's a huge difference. The same goes for ReMine's work on cost theory, which is how he can support "Genetic Entropy." They are problems for evolutionary theory. Mung

notes: ,,,as to God sustaining the universe; God is the 'cause' of quantum wave collapse, which is also the known as the 'first mover' in philosophy,,, In conjunction with the mathematical, and logical, necessity of an 'Uncaused Cause' to explain the beginning of the universe, in philosophy it has been shown that,,, "The 'First Mover' is necessary for change occurring at each moment." Michael Egnor - Aquinas’ First Way http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/09/jerry_coyne_and_aquinas_first.html I find this centuries old philosophical argument, for the necessity of a 'First Mover' accounting for change occurring at each moment, to be validated by quantum mechanics. This is since the possibility for the universe to be considered a self-sustaining 'closed loop' of cause and effect is removed with the refutation of the 'hidden variable' argument, as first postulated by Einstein, in entanglement experiments. As well, there also must be a sufficient transcendent cause (God/First Mover) to explain quantum wave collapse for 'each moment' of the universe. "As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." Max Planck - The Father Of Quantum Mechanics - Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944)(Of Note: Max Planck was a devout Christian, which is not surprising when you realize practically every, if not every, founder of each major branch of modern science also 'just so happened' to have a deep Christian connection.) http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck Double Slit Experiment – Explained By Prof Anton Zeilinger – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6101627/ Colossians 1:17 "He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together." ,,,as to the universe 'running down',,, Did the Universe Hyperinflate? - Hugh Ross - April 2010 Excerpt: Perfect geometric flatness is where the space-time surface of the universe exhibits zero curvature (see figure 3). Two meaningful measurements of the universe's curvature parameter, ½k, exist. Analysis of the 5-year database from WMAP establishes that -0.0170 < ½k < 0.0068.4 Weak gravitational lensing of distant quasars by intervening galaxies places -0.031 < ½k < 0.009.5 Both measurements confirm the universe indeed manifests zero or very close to zero geometric curvature,,, http://www.reasons.org/did-universe-hyperinflate A 'flat universe', which is actually another very surprising finely-tuned 'coincidence' of the universe, means this universe, left to its own present course of accelerating expansion due to Dark Energy, will continue to expand forever, thus fulfilling the thermodynamic equilibrium of the second law to its fullest extent (entropic 'Heat Death' of the universe). The Future of the Universe Excerpt: After all the black holes have evaporated, (and after all the ordinary matter made of protons has disintegrated, if protons are unstable), the universe will be nearly empty. Photons, neutrinos, electrons and positrons will fly from place to place, hardly ever encountering each other. It will be cold, and dark, and there is no known process which will ever change things. --- Not a happy ending. http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys240/lectures/future/future.html Romans 8:18-21 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. "Beauty Will Rise" - Steven Curtis Chapman http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6sGtkhpqeA bornagain77

Mung, I agree completely with you that God sustains the universe. And that the materialistic philosophy has no ultimate foundation in reality in which to make its grand metaphysical claims. Yet ALL the evidence that I have been able to look at indicates that God implements 'optimal' information at specific times at the parent kind/genus level, and that all sub-speciation events come at a loss of information from the original parent species. Thus though God does indeed sustain the universe each and every moment of its existence, He allows the universe and life in it to 'run down'. There are deep philosophical issues as to why He allows the universe and Life in it to run down, but none-the-less, the scientific evidence is in full compliance with the principle of Genetic Entropy in that all sub-speciation events will ALWAYS come at a cost of the optimal functional information that was originally encoded into the parent kind/species by God. bornagain77

Mung, material processes are ALL non-teleological (non-conscious) energy-matter processes operating within this laws of the entire space-time history of this universe. Well, I've already said I don't believe in material processes, and having read nullusalus' post you will hopefully understand why I think a "non-teleological process" is an oxymoron. I believe that God holds everything in existence at all times and that matter is not "out there doing it's own thing" as it were, apart from God. So I reject the dichotomy chance + necessity = without God vs. Intelligent Design = with God. It's design all the way down! Without different possible states, information would not be possible, or perhaps everything would have the exact same form. The same is true of "necessity" or regularities. If there were no regularities, all would be chaos, right? This is why I reject the view that the most random state of affairs contains the most information, but I am still thinking on that.

Mung

By the way nullasalus, thanks for catching that also!!! :) bornagain77

sorry nullasalus for using teleological in a wrong way. It is a new word for me. So correct to "non-conscious" processes. bornagain77

Mung, Now let's try the question again, Do you believe that ANY energy-material processes of the entire universe, over the entire history of the universe, can generate a non-trivial amount of functional information? note: Book Review - Meyer, Stephen C. Signature in the Cell. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Excerpt: As early as the 1960s, those who approached the problem of the origin of life from the standpoint of information theory and combinatorics observed that something was terribly amiss. Even if you grant the most generous assumptions: that every elementary particle in the observable universe is a chemical laboratory randomly splicing amino acids into proteins every Planck time for the entire history of the universe, there is a vanishingly small probability that even a single functionally folded protein of 150 amino acids would have been created. Now of course, elementary particles aren't chemical laboratories, nor does peptide synthesis take place where most of the baryonic mass of the universe resides: in stars or interstellar and intergalactic clouds. If you look at the chemistry, it gets even worse—almost indescribably so: the precursor molecules of many of these macromolecular structures cannot form under the same prebiotic conditions—they must be catalysed by enzymes created only by preexisting living cells, and the reactions required to assemble them into the molecules of biology will only go when mediated by other enzymes, assembled in the cell by precisely specified information in the genome. So, it comes down to this: Where did that information come from? The simplest known free living organism (although you may quibble about this, given that it's a parasite) has a genome of 582,970 base pairs, or about one megabit (assuming two bits of information for each nucleotide, of which there are four possibilities). Now, if you go back to the universe of elementary particle Planck time chemical labs and work the numbers, you find that in the finite time our universe has existed, you could have produced about 500 bits of structured, functional information by random search. Yet here we have a minimal information string which is (if you understand combinatorics) so indescribably improbable to have originated by chance that adjectives fail. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/reading_list/indices/book_726.html bornagain77

Mung, material processes are ALL non-teleological (non-conscious) energy-matter processes operating within this laws of the entire space-time history of this universe. That seems like assumption at best, dead wrong at worst. First, teleological does not mean 'conscious'. Even the guys making the strongest teleological claims about nature (I'd say the Thomists fit that bill) state flatly that something being teleological or having a final cause does not mean the thing itself is 'conscious'. Second, even under a purely mechanistic understanding of the world, whether or not 'matter-energy processes' are teleological is a question of whether or not someone is employing said processes for a purpose. So every single process in this universe could be teleological under even a mechanistic understanding - it's an open question. nullasalus

functional information: Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information - Abel, Trevors Excerpt: Genetic algorithms instruct sophisticated biological organization. Three qualitative kinds of sequence complexity exist: random (RSC), ordered (OSC), and functional (FSC). FSC alone provides algorithmic instruction. Random and Ordered Sequence Complexities lie at opposite ends of the same bi-directional sequence complexity vector. Randomness in sequence space is defined by a lack of Kolmogorov algorithmic compressibility. A sequence is compressible because it contains redundant order and patterns. Law-like cause-and-effect determinism produces highly compressible order. Such forced ordering precludes both information retention and freedom of selection so critical to algorithmic programming and control. Functional Sequence Complexity requires this added programming dimension of uncoerced selection at successive decision nodes in the string. Shannon information theory measures the relative degrees of RSC and OSC. Shannon information theory cannot measure FSC. FSC is invariably associated with all forms of complex biofunction, including biochemical pathways, cycles, positive and negative feedback regulation, and homeostatic metabolism. The algorithmic programming of FSC, not merely its aperiodicity, accounts for biological organization. No empirical evidence exists of either RSC of OSC ever having produced a single instance of sophisticated biological organization. Organization invariably manifests FSC rather than successive random events (RSC) or low-informational self-ordering phenomena (OSC). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1208958/ bornagain77

correction; within THE laws,,, bornagain77

Mung, material processes are ALL non-teleological (non-conscious) energy-matter processes operating within this laws of the entire space-time history of this universe. bornagain77

ME:

But to show that I am a reasonable person, I give you the opportunity to ask me any question you like, upon which you’d like to know my position, and I will do my absolute best to give you an honest and straight-forward answer.

BA77:

Mung, Do you believe that functional information can be generated by material processes? How much of the genome do you think is Junk? Do you think Natural Selection creates functional information or does it eliminate functional information?

I assume these are in response to my original statement quoted at the top of this post. A said any question. :) But ok, I try to be a magnanimous person, so I'll try to answer all three. Let me start by saying I think most of your questions are ill-formed and vague, but I'll still do my best to answer according to what I think you are asking while also asking for clarification.

Do you believe that functional information can be generated by material processes?

I don't know hat you mean by functional information nor do I know what you mean by material processes. I don't believe in material processes, so I would have to say the answer to your first question is no.

How much of the genome do you think is Junk?

Define junk. Which genome? My answer is none. One man's junk is another man's treasure.

Do you think Natural Selection creates functional information or does it eliminate functional information?

It depends on what you mean by functional information. My answer is most likely going to be either neither or both. If we're talking about NS as the process which causes some states to be favored over others, then in one sense it decreases the information content of the population by reducing the variation, but in another sense it increases it by removing uncertainty. That's one reason I don't like it when people just toss around terms. I will say I don't think natural selection creates information of any kind, functional or otherwise. But let's look at it this way. Say you have a population of some sort and you want to test that population for "fitness" in response to some environment. The selection process gives you "information" about which members are more fit and which are less fit. So it gives you information say, about which genome is more likely to survive in that environment Mung

Don Patton – Entropy, Information, and The ‘Deteriorating’ Fossil Record – video with references

Hi BA77, I followed the link you provided, and the top link on that page took me to this page: http://www.bible.ca/tracks/dp-lawsScience.htm And on that page something caught my eye, namely a link to this page: http://www.bible.ca/rapture.htm The title of which is: "Rapture, Premillennialism & Dispensationalism Refuted!" And which includes the following text:

Matthew 24 fulfilled in 70 AD when the Temple was destroyed.

Thanks for the link! Mung

further notes of interest; Australia's fossil past Excerpt: The Darling Downs region contains fossilised remains of prehistoric megafauna - gigantic creatures such as large goannas, kangaroos and giant horned turtles. The megafauna lived during the Pleistocene epoch (1.8 million to 11,550 years BP), and included Diprotodon opatatum that grew as large as a rhinoceros and Thylacoleo carnifex, a marsupial lion. http://australia.gov.au/about-australia/australian-story/australias-fossil-past Giant size plant fossils discovered near Jodhpur Excerpt: The largest non-carbonaceous plant fossils, 140 times bigger than today's algae species,,,, The fossils, which are visible to the naked eye are well-preserved with the size of the plant 140 times larger than the existing species, lead author of the paper, Surendra Kumar of Centre of Advanced Study in Geology, University of Lucknow said. The scientists said the plants attained such large size during the Ediacaran period some 630-542 million years ago. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-10-05/science/28098229_1_plant-fossils-jodhpur-scientists Specific species of mega fauna have captured the attention of the majority, the saber-toothed tiger and the wooly mammoth for example. However there was actually an incredible variety of giant creatures, incomprehensible by our perception of animals in the current world. Herbivores Megatherium (Giant ground sloth) 20 feet long (6 m.) Megalocerous giganteus (Giant Irish elk) 7 feet high (2.1 m.) Mammuthus primigenius (Wooly mammoth) 11.5 feet long (3.5 m.) Mammut americanum (American mastodon) 8-10 feet high (2.5 - 3 m.) Glyptodon (Ancient armadillo) 10 feet long (3 m.) Ursus spelaeus (Cave bear) Omnivore 20 feet long DoediFcurus (Large armadillo) 13 feet long (4 m.) Coelodonta (Wooly rhinoceros) 11 feet long (3.5 m.) Castoroides ohioensis (Giant beaver) 3.3ft high (1 m.) Camelops hesternus (American camel) 12 feet high (3.6 m.) Carnivores Arctodus simus (Short faced bear) 5.5 feet high (1.7 m.) Smilodon fatalis (Saber-toothed cat) 4-5 feet long (1.2-1.5 m.) Canis dirus (Dire wolf) 5 feet high (1.5 m.) Ursus spelaeus (Cave bear) Omnivore 20 feet long Panthera leo spelaea (Cave lion) 11.5 feet long (3.5 m.) http://skywalker.cochise.edu/wellerr/students/pleistocene-extinction/extinct.htm bornagain77

notes of interest; The Failure Of Local Realism - Materialism - Alain Aspect - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/4744145 Physicists close two loopholes while violating local realism - November 2010 Excerpt: The latest test in quantum mechanics provides even stronger support than before for the view that nature violates local realism and is thus in contradiction with a classical worldview. http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-physicists-loopholes-violating-local-realism.html Quantum Measurements: Common Sense Is Not Enough, Physicists Show - July 2009 Excerpt: scientists have now proven comprehensively in an experiment for the first time that the experimentally observed phenomena cannot be described by non-contextual models with hidden variables. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090722142824.htm Information and entropy – top-down or bottom-up development in living systems? A.C. McINTOSH Excerpt: It is proposed in conclusion that it is the non-material information (transcendent to the matter and energy) that is actually itself constraining the local thermodynamics to be in ordered disequilibrium and with specified raised free energy levels necessary for the molecular and cellular machinery to operate. http://journals.witpress.com/journals.asp?iid=47 Quantum entanglement holds together life’s blueprint - 2010 Excerpt: “If you didn’t have entanglement, then DNA would have a simple flat structure, and you would never get the twist that seems to be important to the functioning of DNA,” says team member Vlatko Vedral of the University of Oxford. http://neshealthblog.wordpress.com/2010/09/15/quantum-entanglement-holds-together-lifes-blueprint/ Quantum Information/Entanglement In DNA & Protein Folding - short video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5936605/ - Ions have been teleported successfully for the first time by two independent research groups Excerpt: In fact, copying isn't quite the right word for it. In order to reproduce the quantum state of one atom in a second atom, the original has to be destroyed. This is unavoidable - it is enforced by the laws of quantum mechanics, which stipulate that you can't 'clone' a quantum state. In principle, however, the 'copy' can be indistinguishable from the original (that was destroyed),,, http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2004/October/beammeup.asp Atom takes a quantum leap - 2009 Excerpt: Ytterbium ions have been 'teleported' over a distance of a metre.,,, "What you're moving is information, not the actual atoms," says Chris Monroe, from the Joint Quantum Institute at the University of Maryland in College Park and an author of the paper. But as two particles of the same type differ only in their quantum states, the transfer of quantum information is equivalent to moving the first particle to the location of the second. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2171769/posts bornagain77

Kairos I agree completely with the probability calculations. But yet a subtle, but profound, distinction in your grouping of 'quantum information' with classical information, is that quantum information is not reducible to probability calculations of various configurations of material particles, as classical information is, for the simple fact that quantum information is not constrained by time and space in the first place as material particles are (A. Aspect). Though one may try to impose probability calculations of a non-reductive materialistic framework to explain quantum information, as Koonin somewhat tried to do in his paper "The Biological Big Bang model for the major transitions in evolution", as you well know, appealing to the non-reductive materialistic framework destroys the very possibility of doing science in the first place, as was so clearly stated by Bruce Gordon,,, Dr. Bruce Gordon - The Absurdity Of The Multiverse & Materialism - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5318486/ ,,, Thus kairos it appears that there are two completely different foundations that the materialists must appeal to so as to conduct his probability calculations. 1. He must appeal to probability calculations, of the 'constrained' space-time framework, of reductive material particles, to explain the 'classical information' that is found to be encoded onto the material particles themselves. and 2. He must also appeal to probability calculations, of the 'non-constrained transcendent' framework, of many worlds, and multiverses, to try to explain the completely unique, and transcendent, entity of 'quantum information' which is exercising dominion over the material particles, constraining the particles to be so far out of thermodynamic equilibrium (A. McIntosh).,,, The two 'problems', of finding two different 'probability solutions' for two completely distinct types of information in life, is because each type of information, both classical and quantum, has a completely different position in the 'hierarchy' of reality and must be respectfully treated as such. Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. (This experiment provides experimental proof that the teleportation of quantum information in this universe must be complete and instantaneous.) http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html and classical information; "LIFE’S CONSERVATION LAW: Why Darwinian Evolution Cannot Create Biological Information" - Dembski; Marks http://evoinfo.org/publications/lifes-conservation-law/ The Law of Physicodynamic Insufficiency - Dr David L. Abel - November 2010 Excerpt: “If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise.”,,, After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone.” http://www.scitopics.com/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Insufficiency.html bornagain77

BA: The issue is not whether any quantum of functional info can be generated by chance and necessity, but whether sufficient beyond the search threshold of 500 - 1,000 bits, can be. Let's try a random text string:

ifegvhhvjguehvje . . .

As it turns out the very first two letters are a word in English. Short functional strings are easy to find in search spaces. but as the random text string generation exercises show, by maxing out at about 24 letters, longer strings mount up exponentially. We are looking for strings equivalent to at least 72 - 143 ASCII characters. At the same time, 125 bytes worth of control code -- prescriptive info -- is trivially small to do real work. Save by being a pointer to a lookup table where the real work is being done offstage. G kairosfocus

A few more finds; "SuperCroc" Fossil Found in Sahara Excerpt: Scientists have unearthed the remains of an ancient crocodile that was as long as a city bus and as heavy as a small whale. The giant creature, which lived 110 million years ago, during the Middle Cretaceous, grew as long as 40 feet (12 meters) and weighed as much as eight metric tons (17,500 pounds). Its jaws alone were nearly six feet (1.8 meters) long and its more than 100 teeth so powerful that the colossal creature probably consumed small dinosaurs as well as fish, the researchers say. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/10/1025_supercroc.html Ancient snake was as long as a bus He added, "The snake's body was so wide that if it were moving down the hall and decided to come into my office to eat me, it would literally have to squeeze through the door." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29014818/ns/technology_and_science-science/ Giant mammals once ruled the earth After dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago, the world's rhinos, elephants and other large mammals had the run of the Earth and grew as much as twice as big as they are today, a new study shows. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2010-11-26-giant-mammals_N.htm Giant Fossil Bats Out Of Africa, 35 Million Years Old Excerpt: Among the new species is “a giant among bats; though weighing in at less than a half-pound, it is one of the largest fossil bats ever discovered,” said Greg Gunnell, a paleontologist at the University of Michigan. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080304191213.htm bornagain77

Mung, Do you believe that functional information can be generated by material processes? How much of the genome do you think is Junk? Do you think Natural Selection creates functional information or does it eliminate functional information? notes; Giant Insects Might Reign If Only There Was More Oxygen In The Air Excerpt: The Paleozoic period, about 300 million years ago, was a time of huge and abundant plant life and rather large insects -- dragonflies had two-and-a-half-foot wing spans, for example. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/10/061012093716.htm Giant Sea Scorpion Discovered; Was Bigger Than a Man Excerpt: The size of a large crocodile, the 390-million-year-old sea scorpion http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/11/071121-giant-scorpion.html Giant Roach Fossil Found in Ohio Coal Mine Excerpt: The strip coal mine has also yielded fossils of two rare arachnids, a giant centipede-like insect measuring about 60 inches long (150 centimeters) and 12 inches wide (30 centimeters), http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/11/1112_TVbigroach.html Large Cretaceous Giant Water Bug Fossil Insect from Brazil http://www.fossilmuseum.net/Fossil_Sites/Santana-Formation/Belostomatidae/Belostomatidae.htm etc.. etc.. The point being Mung is that reduction in size is a fairly consistent pattern for extremely long terms. But as I said before it is a rule of thumb not a immutable law for me. What has me more concerned is that you seem to think functional information is generated gradually. But I hold mutations and natural selection to both be 'overwhelmingly reductive' in their effects on already present functional information. Thus the inference to Genetic Entropy. Perhaps you care to clarify your position??? bornagain77

But what intrigues (paleo-biologist) J. William Schopf most is lack of change.

I guess that means that they did not get small.

Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels

IOW, they did not get smaller.

Microbial life can easily live without us; we, however, cannot survive without the global catalysis and environmental transformations it provides.

Thank God they didn't get smaller.

... the loss of morphological traits over time, for all organisms found in the fossil record, was/is so consistent that it was made into a ‘scientific law’

Hint: It has nothing to do with size. Mung

Mung, if you can produce a better study than the trilobite study please do tell.

Why? After claiming that things get smaller over time due to some ill-defined principle of entropy in the fossil record you want me to produce evidence that trilobites did what? Got bigger?

But so far I’ve seen a fairly disturbing lack of consistency for you to nail down any position.

Clearly false. I have flat out stated that you are wrong on a number of positions you have taken, and this has clearly disturbed you. Was I not clear enough that I think you are wrong? But to show that I am a reasonable person, I give you the opportunity to ask me any question you like, upon which you'd like to know my position, and I will do my absolute best to give you an honest and straight-forward answer. The rest of your rant is barely comprehensible to me. I;ve already demonstrated elsewhere that you post quote and links that don't really make the point you think they do, so please explain why I should read every quote you post and follow every link you post and try to make sense of them? You need to show relevance.

Like for instance, I quoted that Remine, who you have cited yourself, signed off on Genetic Entropy (Mendel’s Accountant)

As for ReMine, I don't know whether he has "signed off on Genetic Entropy" or not. I'm certainly not going to take your word for it. And why would you think that because I accept what ReMine says about the cost of substitution that I must automatically and without reflection or examination accept whatever he says about "genetic entropy" (whatever that is). I'm not like you. Get over it.

This pattern of yours is very suspicious, and i don’t know if you really don’t know what is going on so as to ask such baseless questions or if you are a ‘wolf in sheep’ clothing so as to take the neo-Darwinists position at the drop of a hat. Not good either way!!!

I've taken the neo-Darwinist position where? Baseless accusations are no better than lies. Mung

Mung, 'In spite of the evidence to the contrary?' Mung, if you can produce a better study than the trilobite study please do tell. But so far I've seen a fairly disturbing lack of consistency for you to nail down any position. And to tell you the truth, your 'bacteria after dinosaur' quote, and other similar disingenuous quotes to it, makes me question which side you are on in the first place. Like for instance, I quoted that Remine, who you have cited yourself, signed off on Genetic Entropy (Mendel's Accountant) yet rather that concede that 'hey there maybe something to this whole Genetic Entropy thing, you start asking completely ill-informed questions, instead of asking the pertinent questions as to why Remine would sign off on GE. This pattern of yours is very suspicious, and i don't know if you really don't know what is going on so as to ask such baseless questions or if you are a 'wolf in sheep' clothing so as to take the neo-Darwinists position at the drop of a hat. Not good either way!!! bornagain77

Mung, just to be crystal clear, as I’ve explained earlier, I don’t hold body size as a immutable ‘law’, I hold it as a general rule of thumb.

In spite of the evidence to the contrary? Mung

Hey bornagain, Not to get too off topic, but I wanted to ask you a question. Have you ever heard of Dr Robert A. Herrmann's theory of General Intelligent Design? Here are a few links: http://creationwiki.org/General_Grand_Unification_Model http://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j23_1/j23_1_62-69.pdf http://www.raherrmann.com/gidt.htm kuartus

Mung, just to be crystal clear, as I've explained earlier, I don't hold body size as a immutable 'law', I hold it as a general rule of thumb. Especially given the wild fluctuations after initial diversification, but I hold that over 'long time periods', such as what the trilobite study spanned (270 million years), a tendency towards decreased size, is a overall characteristic of the fossil record that keeps repeating itself over and over that can be held as a general rule of thumb.,, But one thing that I also want you to clearly understand is that I do hold genetic entropy to be a immutable law!!! i.e. I hold that information can never increase above the 'optimal' information that was originally encoded in the parent kind/species and that all 'beneficial' sub-speciation events away from the parent kind/species will ALWAYS come at a cost of the optimal information that was originally encoded into the parent kind/species. “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain - Michael Behe - December 2010 Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.(that is a net 'fitness gain' within a 'stressed' environment i.e. remove the stress from the environment and the parent strain is always more 'fit') http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/ Michael Behe talks about the preceding paper on this podcast: Michael Behe: Challenging Darwin, One Peer-Reviewed Paper at a Time - December 2010 http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-12-23T11_53_46-08_00 EXPELLED - Natural Selection And Genetic Mutations - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4036840 "...but Natural Selection reduces genetic information and we know this from all the Genetic Population studies that we have..." Maciej Marian Giertych - Population Geneticist - member of the European Parliament - EXPELLED Natural Selection Reduces Genetic Information - No Beneficial Mutations - Spetner - Denton - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4036816 bornagain77

Mung, 'Shall we assume that single celled organisms are a fairly recent phenomenon? Surely they did not arrive on the scene until long after the dinosaurs.' You are kidding right??? I answered something along this line already today; In reply to a personal e-mail from myself, Dr. Cano commented on the 'Fitness Test' I had asked him about: Dr. Cano stated: "We performed such a test, a long time ago, using a panel of substrates (the old gram positive biolog panel) on B. sphaericus. From the results we surmised that the putative "ancient" B. sphaericus isolate was capable of utilizing a broader scope of substrates. Additionally, we looked at the fatty acid profile and here, again, the profiles were similar but more diverse in the amber isolate.": Fitness test which compared extremely ancient bacteria to its modern day descendants, RJ Cano and MK Borucki Static evolution: is pond scum the same now as billions of years ago? Excerpt: But what intrigues (paleo-biologist) J. William Schopf most is lack of change. Schopf was struck 30 years ago by the apparent similarities between some 1-billion-year-old fossils of blue-green bacteria and their modern microbial microbial. "They surprisingly looked exactly like modern species," Schopf recalls. Now, after comparing data from throughout the world, Schopf and others have concluded that modern pond scum differs little from the ancient blue-greens. "This similarity in morphology is widespread among fossils of [varying] times," says Schopf. As evidence, he cites the 3,000 such fossils found; http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Static+evolution%3A+is+pond+scum+the+same+now+as+billions+of+years+ago%3F-a014909330 The Paradox of the "Ancient" Bacterium Which Contains "Modern" Protein-Coding Genes: “Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels.” Heather Maughan*, C. William Birky Jr., Wayne L. Nicholson, William D. Rosenzweig§ and Russell H. Vreeland ; http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/9/1637 Bacterial Heavy Metal Detoxification and Resistance Systems: Excerpt: Bacterial plasmids contain genetic determinants for resistance systems for Hg2+ (and organomercurials), Cd2+, AsO2, AsO43-, CrO4 2-, TeO3 2-, Cu2+, Ag+, Co2+, Pb2+, and other metals of environmental concern.,, Recombinant DNA analysis has been applied to mercury, cadmium, zinc, cobalt, arsenic, chromate, tellurium and copper resistance systems. http://www.springerlink.com/content/u1t281704577v8t3/ Engineering and Science Magazine - Caltech - March 2010 Excerpt: “Without these microbes, the planet would run out of biologically available nitrogen in less than a month,” Realizations like this are stimulating a flourishing field of “geobiology” – the study of relationships between life and the earth. One member of the Caltech team commented, “If all bacteria and archaea just stopped functioning, life on Earth would come to an abrupt halt.” Microbes are key players in earth’s nutrient cycles. Dr. Orphan added, “...every fifth breath you take, thank a microbe.” http://www.creationsafaris.com/crev201003.htm#20100316a Planet's Nitrogen Cycle Overturned - Oct. 2009 Excerpt: "Ammonia is a waste product that can be toxic to animals.,,, archaea can scavenge nitrogen-containing ammonia in the most barren environments of the deep sea, solving a long-running mystery of how the microorganisms can survive in that environment. Archaea therefore not only play a role, but are central to the planetary nitrogen cycles on which all life depends.,,,the organism can survive on a mere whiff of ammonia – 10 nanomolar concentration, equivalent to a teaspoon of ammonia salt in 10 million gallons of water." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090930132656.htm Microbial life can easily live without us; we, however, cannot survive without the global catalysis and environmental transformations it provides. - Paul G. Falkowski - Professor Geological Sciences - Rutgers http://www.bioinf.uni-leipzig.de/~ilozada/SOMA_astrobiology/taller_astrobiologia/material_cds/pdfs_bibliografia/Biogeochemical_cycles_Delong_2008.pdf The Creation of Minerals: Excerpt: Thanks to the way life was introduced on Earth, the early 250 mineral species have exploded to the present 4,300 known mineral species. And because of this abundance, humans possessed all the necessary mineral resources to easily launch and sustain global, high-technology civilization. http://www.reasons.org/The-Creation-of-Minerals "Today there are about 4,400 known minerals - more than two-thirds of which came into being only because of the way life changed the planet. Some of them were created exclusively by living organisms" - Bob Hazen - Smithsonian - Oct. 2010, pg. 54 To put it mildly, this minimization of poisonous elements, and 'explosion' of useful minerals, is strong evidence for Intelligently Designed terra-forming of the earth that 'just so happens' to be of great benefit to modern man. etc.. etc.. bornagain77

Mung, care to differentiate the 'kinds' so as see more clearly??? Or do you defend the evolutionary position so quickly, as I've noticed a disturbing tendency of yours to do??? notes; Dinosaur die-off cleared way for gigantic mammals Excerpt: The largest land mammal ever: A rhinoceros-like creature, minus the horn, that stood 18 feet tall, weighed roughly 17 tons and grazed in forests in what is now Eurasia. It makes the better known woolly mammoth seem a bit puny.,,, Within 25 million years of the dinosaurs' extinction — fast, in geologic terms — overall land mammals had reached a maximum size and then leveled off, an international team of scientists reports Friday in the journal Science. And while different species on different continents reached their peaks at different points in time, that pattern of 'evolution' was remarkably similar worldwide. (please note: the 'remarkable similarity' of pattern (largest of particular 'kinds' first, smaller of particular 'kinds' later) supports the principle of Genetic Entropy (loss of genetic information) and does not support the 'randomness' that would be expected of a Darwinian evolution scenario) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101125/ap_on_sc/us_sci_mammal_evolution "According to a ‘law’ formulated by E. D. Cope in 1871, the body size of organisms in a peculiar evolutionary lineage tends to increase. But Cope’s rule has failed the most comprehensive test applied to it yet."(body sizes tend to get smaller over time rather than larger) Stephen Gould, Harvard, Nature, V.385, 1/16/97 "The sweep of anatomical diversity reached a maximum right after the initial diversification of multicellular animals. The later history of life proceeded by elimination not expansion." Stephen J. Gould, Harvard, Wonderful Life, 1989, p.46 "Alexander Kaiser, Ph.D., of Midwestern University’s Department of Physiology,,, was the lead author in a recent study to help determine why insects, once dramatically larger than they are today, have seen such a remarkable reduction in size over the course of history." Science Daily, 8/8/07 In fact, the loss of morphological traits over time, for all organisms found in the fossil record, was/is so consistent that it was made into a 'scientific law': Dollo's law and the death and resurrection of genes: Excerpt: "As the history of animal life was traced in the fossil record during the 19th century, it was observed that once an anatomical feature was lost in the course of evolution it never staged a return. This observation became canonized as Dollo's law, after its propounder, and is taken as a general statement that evolution is irreversible." http://www.pnas.org/?content/?91/?25/?12283.full.pdf+html A general rule of thumb for the 'Deterioration/Genetic Entropy' of Dollo's Law as it applies to the fossil record is found here: Dollo's law and the death and resurrection of genes ABSTRACT: Dollo's law, the concept that evolution is not substantively reversible, implies that the degradation of genetic information is sufficiently fast that genes or developmental pathways released from selective pressure will rapidly become nonfunctional. Using empirical data to assess the rate of loss of coding information in genes for proteins with varying degrees of tolerance to mutational change, we show that, in fact, there is a significant probability over evolutionary time scales of 0.5-6 million years for successful reactivation of silenced genes or "lost" developmental programs. Conversely, the reactivation of long (>10 million years)-unexpressed genes and dormant developmental pathways is not possible unless function is maintained by other selective constraints; http://www.pnas.org/?content/?91/?25/?12283.full.pdf+html Dollo's Law was further verified to the molecular level here: Dollo’s law, the symmetry of time, and the edge of evolution - Michael Behe Excerpt: We predict that future investigations, like ours, will support a molecular version of Dollo's law:,,, Dr. Behe comments on the finding of the study, "The old, organismal, time-asymmetric Dollo’s law supposedly blocked off just the past to Darwinian processes, for arbitrary reasons. A Dollo’s law in the molecular sense of Bridgham et al (2009), however, is time-symmetric. A time-symmetric law will substantially block both the past and the future. http://www.evolutionnews.org/?2009/?10/?dollos_law_the_symmetry_of_tim.html Some Further Research On Dollo's Law - Wolf-Ekkehard Lonnig - November 2010 http://www.globalsciencebooks.info/JournalsSup/images/Sample/FOB_4(SI1)1-21o.pdf One of the best examples for genetic entropy being obeyed in the fossil record is found with trilobite fossils: Trilobites are one of the most prolific 'kinds' found in the fossil record with an extensive worldwide distribution. They appeared abruptly at the base of the Cambrian explosion with no evidence of transmutation from the 'simple' creatures that preceded them, nor is there any evidence they ever produced anything else besides other trilobites during the entire time they are found in the fossil record. In fact the 270 million year span of fossil evidence points to sudden appearance, rapid diversity, long term stability and then slow deterioration of variety until extinction. Thus conforming exactly to the principle of 'top down' Genetic Entropy and directly contradicting neo-Darwinism: The Cambrian's Many Forms Excerpt: "It appears that organisms displayed “rampant” within-species variation “in the ‘warm afterglow’ of the Cambrian explosion,” Hughes said, but not later. “No one has shown this convincingly before, and that’s why this is so important.""From an evolutionary perspective, the more variable a species is, the more raw material natural selection has to operate on,"....(Yet Surprisingly)...."There's hardly any variation in the post-Cambrian," he said. "Even the presence or absence or the kind of ornamentation on the head shield varies within these Cambrian trilobites and doesn't vary in the post-Cambrian trilobites." University of Chicago paleontologist Mark Webster; article on the "surprising and unexplained" loss of variation and diversity for trilobites over the 270 million year time span that trilobites were found in the fossil record, prior to their total extinction from the fossil record about 250 million years ago. http://www.terradaily.com/?reports/?The_Cambrian_Many_Forms_999.html If the abrupt appearance for all the completely different and unique phyla in the Cambrian was not bad enough for materialists, the fossil record shows there was actually more variety of phyla by the end of the Cambrian explosion than there are today due to extinction. “A simple way of putting it is that currently we have about 38 phyla of different groups of animals, but the total number of phyla discovered during the Cambrian explosion (including those in China, Canada, and elsewhere) adds up to over 50 phyla. (Actually the number 50 was first quoted as over 100 for a while, but then the consensus became 50-plus.) That means there are more phyla in the very, very beginning, where we found the first fossils, than exist now.” “Also, the animal explosion caught people's attention when the Chinese confirmed they found a genus now called Yunnanzoon that was present in the very beginning of the Cambrian explosion. This genus is considered a chordate, and the phylum Chordata includes fish, mammals and man. An evolutionist would say the ancestor of humans was present then. Looked at more objectively, you could say the most complex animal group, the chordates, were represented at the very beginning, and they did not go through a slow gradual evolution to become a chordate.” Dr. Paul Chien PhD., chairman of the biology department at the University of San Francisco http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&isFellow=true&id=52 I like this following article for it highlights the principle of Genetic Entropy, i.e. loss of variety: Challenging Fossil of a Little Fish "In Chen’s view, his evidence supports a history of life that runs opposite to the standard evolutionary tree diagrams, a progression he calls top-down evolution." Jun-Yuan Chen is professor at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology and Geology http://www.fredheeren.com/boston.htm The evolutionary theory would have us believe that we should have more phyla today due to ongoing evolutionary processes. These following timeline graphs highlight the loss of phyla through time: Origin of Phyla - The Fossil Evidence - Timeline Graph http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMzNobjlobjNncQ&hl=en bornagain77

Mung, care to differentiate the 'kinds' so as see more clearly??? Or do you defend the evolutionary position so quickly, as I've noticed a disturbing tendency of yours to do??? notes; Dinosaur die-off cleared way for gigantic mammals Excerpt: The largest land mammal ever: A rhinoceros-like creature, minus the horn, that stood 18 feet tall, weighed roughly 17 tons and grazed in forests in what is now Eurasia. It makes the better known woolly mammoth seem a bit puny.,,, Within 25 million years of the dinosaurs' extinction — fast, in geologic terms — overall land mammals had reached a maximum size and then leveled off, an international team of scientists reports Friday in the journal Science. And while different species on different continents reached their peaks at different points in time, that pattern of 'evolution' was remarkably similar worldwide. (please note: the 'remarkable similarity' of pattern (largest of particular 'kinds' first, smaller of particular 'kinds' later) supports the principle of Genetic Entropy (loss of genetic information) and does not support the 'randomness' that would be expected of a Darwinian evolution scenario) http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101125/ap_on_sc/us_sci_mammal_evolution "According to a ‘law’ formulated by E. D. Cope in 1871, the body size of organisms in a peculiar evolutionary lineage tends to increase. But Cope’s rule has failed the most comprehensive test applied to it yet."(body sizes tend to get smaller over time rather than larger) Stephen Gould, Harvard, Nature, V.385, 1/16/97 "The sweep of anatomical diversity reached a maximum right after the initial diversification of multicellular animals. The later history of life proceeded by elimination not expansion." Stephen J. Gould, Harvard, Wonderful Life, 1989, p.46 "Alexander Kaiser, Ph.D., of Midwestern University’s Department of Physiology,,, was the lead author in a recent study to help determine why insects, once dramatically larger than they are today, have seen such a remarkable reduction in size over the course of history." Science Daily, 8/8/07 In fact, the loss of morphological traits over time, for all organisms found in the fossil record, was/is so consistent that it was made into a 'scientific law': Dollo's law and the death and resurrection of genes: Excerpt: "As the history of animal life was traced in the fossil record during the 19th century, it was observed that once an anatomical feature was lost in the course of evolution it never staged a return. This observation became canonized as Dollo's law, after its propounder, and is taken as a general statement that evolution is irreversible." http://www.pnas.org/?content/?91/?25/?12283.full.pdf+html A general rule of thumb for the 'Deterioration/Genetic Entropy' of Dollo's Law as it applies to the fossil record is found here: Dollo's law and the death and resurrection of genes ABSTRACT: Dollo's law, the concept that evolution is not substantively reversible, implies that the degradation of genetic information is sufficiently fast that genes or developmental pathways released from selective pressure will rapidly become nonfunctional. Using empirical data to assess the rate of loss of coding information in genes for proteins with varying degrees of tolerance to mutational change, we show that, in fact, there is a significant probability over evolutionary time scales of 0.5-6 million years for successful reactivation of silenced genes or "lost" developmental programs. Conversely, the reactivation of long (>10 million years)-unexpressed genes and dormant developmental pathways is not possible unless function is maintained by other selective constraints; http://www.pnas.org/?content/?91/?25/?12283.full.pdf+html Dollo's Law was further verified to the molecular level here: Dollo’s law, the symmetry of time, and the edge of evolution - Michael Behe Excerpt: We predict that future investigations, like ours, will support a molecular version of Dollo's law:,,, Dr. Behe comments on the finding of the study, "The old, organismal, time-asymmetric Dollo’s law supposedly blocked off just the past to Darwinian processes, for arbitrary reasons. A Dollo’s law in the molecular sense of Bridgham et al (2009), however, is time-symmetric. A time-symmetric law will substantially block both the past and the future. http://www.evolutionnews.org/?2009/?10/?dollos_law_the_symmetry_of_tim.html Some Further Research On Dollo's Law - Wolf-Ekkehard Lonnig - November 2010 http://www.globalsciencebooks.info/JournalsSup/images/Sample/FOB_4(SI1)1-21o.pdf One of the best examples for genetic entropy being obeyed in the fossil record is found with trilobite fossils: Trilobites are one of the most prolific 'kinds' found in the fossil record with an extensive worldwide distribution. They appeared abruptly at the base of the Cambrian explosion with no evidence of transmutation from the 'simple' creatures that preceded them, nor is there any evidence they ever produced anything else besides other trilobites during the entire time they are found in the fossil record. In fact the 270 million year span of fossil evidence points to sudden appearance, rapid diversity, long term stability and then slow deterioration of variety until extinction. Thus conforming exactly to the principle of 'top down' Genetic Entropy and directly contradicting neo-Darwinism: The Cambrian's Many Forms Excerpt: "It appears that organisms displayed “rampant” within-species variation “in the ‘warm afterglow’ of the Cambrian explosion,” Hughes said, but not later. “No one has shown this convincingly before, and that’s why this is so important.""From an evolutionary perspective, the more variable a species is, the more raw material natural selection has to operate on,"....(Yet Surprisingly)...."There's hardly any variation in the post-Cambrian," he said. "Even the presence or absence or the kind of ornamentation on the head shield varies within these Cambrian trilobites and doesn't vary in the post-Cambrian trilobites." University of Chicago paleontologist Mark Webster; article on the "surprising and unexplained" loss of variation and diversity for trilobites over the 270 million year time span that trilobites were found in the fossil record, prior to their total extinction from the fossil record about 250 million years ago. http://www.terradaily.com/?reports/?The_Cambrian_Many_Forms_999.html If the abrupt appearance for all the completely different and unique phyla in the Cambrian was not bad enough for materialists, the fossil record shows there was actually more variety of phyla by the end of the Cambrian explosion than there are today due to extinction. “A simple way of putting it is that currently we have about 38 phyla of different groups of animals, but the total number of phyla discovered during the Cambrian explosion (including those in China, Canada, and elsewhere) adds up to over 50 phyla. (Actually the number 50 was first quoted as over 100 for a while, but then the consensus became 50-plus.) That means there are more phyla in the very, very beginning, where we found the first fossils, than exist now.” “Also, the animal explosion caught people's attention when the Chinese confirmed they found a genus now called Yunnanzoon that was present in the very beginning of the Cambrian explosion. This genus is considered a chordate, and the phylum Chordata includes fish, mammals and man. An evolutionist would say the ancestor of humans was present then. Looked at more objectively, you could say the most complex animal group, the chordates, were represented at the very beginning, and they did not go through a slow gradual evolution to become a chordate.” Dr. Paul Chien PhD., chairman of the biology department at the University of San Francisco http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&isFellow=true&id=52 I like this following article for it highlights the principle of Genetic Entropy, i.e. loss of variety: Challenging Fossil of a Little Fish "In Chen’s view, his evidence supports a history of life that runs opposite to the standard evolutionary tree diagrams, a progression he calls top-down evolution." Jun-Yuan Chen is professor at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology and Geology http://www.fredheeren.com/boston.htm The evolutionary theory would have us believe that we should have more phyla today due to ongoing evolutionary processes. These following timeline graphs highlight the loss of phyla through time: Origin of Phyla - The Fossil Evidence - Timeline Graph http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMzNobjlobjNncQ&hl=en Deepening Darwin's Dilemma - Jonathan Wells - The Cambrian Explosion - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4154263 bornagain77

From BA's link:

The maximum size of mammals began to increase sharply about 65 million years ago (with the extinction of dinosaurs), peaking in the Oligocene Epoch (about 34 million years ago) in Eurasia, and again in the Miocene Epoch (about 10 million years ago) in Eurasia and Africa.

I just love how he tries to tie his theory to the second law. Mung

I consider ‘decrease in size’ to be a general rule of thumb for what we see in the fossil record, with times of variation from the norm, but none-the-less decrease in size, over long spans of time, is the overall pattern the fossil record presents for each ‘kind’.

Sort of like how the human brain has decreased in size? How would we test your hypothesis that life is progressively getting smaller in size over time? Shall we assume that single celled organisms are a fairly recent phenomenon? Surely they did not arrive on the scene until long after the dinosaurs. Mung

I consider 'decrease in size' to be a general rule of thumb for what we see in the fossil record, with times of variation from the norm, but none-the-less decrease in size, over long spans of time, is the overall pattern the fossil record presents for each 'kind'. bornagain77

There's no way to know unless you know what happened to the genes. Pure size though is often the result of many things besides genes. Like nutrition or lifespan. For instance reptiles never stop growing so their size is pretty much dependent on how long they live. Just because something is bigger or smaller doesn't even mean that the genes changed at all. tragic mishap

Early computers were monstrosities that could barely hold and process information. Today computers come in the palm of your hand and can hold and process massive amounts of information.

Does less information mean smaller?

I'd have to say no. Mung

mung, 'It’s hard to believe if one looks at the cell.' let's look at the evidence; In reply to a personal e-mail from myself, Dr. Cano commented on the 'Fitness Test' I had asked him about: Dr. Cano stated: "We performed such a test, a long time ago, using a panel of substrates (the old gram positive biolog panel) on B. sphaericus. From the results we surmised that the putative "ancient" B. sphaericus isolate was capable of utilizing a broader scope of substrates. Additionally, we looked at the fatty acid profile and here, again, the profiles were similar but more diverse in the amber isolate.": Fitness test which compared extremely ancient bacteria to its modern day descendants, RJ Cano and MK Borucki Thus, the most solid evidence available for the most ancient DNA scientists are able to find does not support evolution happening on the molecular level of bacteria. In fact, according to the fitness test of Dr. Cano, the change witnessed in bacteria conforms to the exact opposite, Genetic Entropy; a loss of functional information/complexity, since fewer substrates and fatty acids are utilized by the modern strains. Considering the intricate level of protein machinery it takes to utilize individual molecules within a substrate, we are talking an impressive loss of protein complexity, and thus loss of functional information, from the ancient amber sealed bacteria. Here is a revisit to the video of the 'Fitness Test' that evolutionary processes have NEVER passed as for a demonstration of the generation of functional complexity/information above what was already present in a parent species bacteria: Is Antibiotic Resistance evidence for evolution? - 'Fitness Test' - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3995248 According to prevailing evolutionary dogma, there 'HAS' to be 'major genetic drift' to the DNA of modern bacteria from 250 million years ago, even though the morphology (shape) of the bacteria can be expected to remain exactly the same. In spite of their preconceived materialistic bias, scientists find there is no significant genetic drift from the ancient DNA. In fact recent research, with bacteria which are alive right now, has also severely weakened the 'genetic drift' argument of evolutionists: The consequences of genetic drift for bacterial genome complexity - Howard Ochman - 2009 Excerpt: The increased availability of sequenced bacterial genomes allows application of an alternative estimator of drift, the genome-wide ratio of replacement to silent substitutions in protein-coding sequences. This ratio, which reflects the action of purifying selection across the entire genome, shows a strong inverse relationship with genome size, indicating that drift promotes genome reduction in bacteria. http://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2009/06/05/gr.091785.109 I find it interesting that the materialistic theory of evolution expects there to be a significant amount of genetic drift from the DNA of ancient bacteria to its modern descendants, while the morphology can be allowed to remain exactly the same with its descendants. Alas for the materialist once again, the hard evidence of ancient DNA has fell in line with the anthropic hypothesis. f/n Static evolution: is pond scum the same now as billions of years ago? Excerpt: But what intrigues (paleo-biologist) J. William Schopf most is lack of change. Schopf was struck 30 years ago by the apparent similarities between some 1-billion-year-old fossils of blue-green bacteria and their modern microbial microbial. "They surprisingly looked exactly like modern species," Schopf recalls. Now, after comparing data from throughout the world, Schopf and others have concluded that modern pond scum differs little from the ancient blue-greens. "This similarity in morphology is widespread among fossils of [varying] times," says Schopf. As evidence, he cites the 3,000 such fossils found; http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Static+evolution%3A+is+pond+scum+the+same+now+as+billions+of+years+ago%3F-a014909330 AMBER: THE LOOKING GLASS INTO THE PAST: Excerpt: These (fossilized bacteria) cells are actually very similar to present day cyanobacteria. This is not only true for an isolated case but many living genera of cyanobacteria can be linked to fossil cyanobacteria. The detail noted in the fossils of this group gives indication of extreme conservation of morphology, more extreme than in other organisms. http://bcb705.blogspot.com/2007/03/amber-looking-glass-into-past_23.html bornagain77

Does less information mean smaller? It's hard to believe if one looks at the cell. Mung

Don Patton - Entropy, Information, and The 'Deteriorating' Fossil Record - video with references http://www.vimeo.com/17050184 bornagain77