I concur. I turned in assignments to UoP from ~ 15 different cities, because my projects could not stop just because I wanted an MS. There was no way to do that at a trad campus. I would not have lasted one semester at the usual pace. To those that talk about 30k in debt, you need to talk about 75-80k in lost income, at least for us mid-career types. In those terms the for-profits are an excellent deal. Of course, nothing prevents Average State University from implementing on-line courses as well.
I think you could make a case for the evil inherent in the true socialism that most State Us practice as well. If there is a lesson to learn here it is that government should excuse themselves from the education process because government is inherently poorly suited to meeting individual needs. This means massive inefficiency and bloat, and the non-profits are just as good at suckling the federal sow as the for-profit universities.
Apple attempts to regulate unrelated markets: (A consumer buying a song from a supplier/musician) to their sole profit. Yes that is evil. Any one that tries that should be shown the exit from the marketplace. These are the practices of the 'Robber Barons' of the 19th century. It is mark of how ill educated we are that we do not make the connection.
But that is because I tried to use a Mac for a mission critical app, and had to give up after the third 'upgrade' that broke every thing. This colors my view of Apple with brown.
When people pay a premium, they feel obligated to approve of the product, because to disapprove calls their own judgment into question, after all, the Caddy buyer paid an extra 20k or more for a Tahoe, so it must be better? Right?
INTEL sat 11N provides coverage to the area. A 1.2 M dish provides 3.6M downlink 384k uplink the modem is the size of book. If they wanted it, they would already have it.
Technically it is only a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) for that last fifteen minutes or so. Before that time it is just a regular satellite with a fancy heat shield instead of a plain one.
I think bad code can be written in any language. Good code, on the other hand tends to 'disappear', because it does not need hand-holding. When was the last time you had to recompile a disk driver? The same is probably true of your IP stack, most of the video you use, and 40-100 million lines of other code that just works. Java suffers from being next to the users, where fads come and go with dispatch.
(Where IS my Magic Cap?)
I have a more fundamental argument with languages that encourage opaque software, and languages that impede important parts of the development life cycle, such as passing the meaning in the software to a new maintainer. Java is as bad as they come in this respect.
I first used Java at introduction, and gave it up as a bad idea. Others are more forgiving, so now I have three projects with vendor supplied sucware(TM) written in Java. I hope someday to see one of them achieve 75% of promised capacity, and 25% of the specified MTBF. I am sure there is one good Java programmer out there, but he is nowhere near any of our projects. Give me TCL/Tk over Java any day of the week.
This is just proving that mice can smell. Anyone that deals with mice can tell them that, and without a research grant as well. Next they should prove that dogs can identify burrito eaters from their intestinal gaseous excretion.
My favorite is "The Millennial Project Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps" by Marshall T. Savage. I pull mine out every once in a while to remind myself of the difference between real engineering and what passes for 'serious' writing by academia. This idea would fit right in.
The station has to be reboosted regularly to stay in orbit. extra weight means more propellant to stay up. Since current costs are ~$5k/pound, it is a budget thing. Plus the usable space in the shuttle is a compromise to allow it to fly, not optimized for on-orbit operations.
So you admit you can't answer that question? Why does sin exist if God doesn't want it to? What are we supposed to believe, that God created sin, or that there is in fact no sin? Given an omniscient and omnipotent God, sin (action against God's wishes) can't logically exist.
You misunderstand: God is the one that defines what sin is, and what the penalty will be. The wages of sin is death, the free gift of God is eternal life.
This is a restate of "Can God create a rock so big even he can't lift it?" The problem is you misunderstand both omniscience and omnipotence. Why do you assume that your definition of either is correct?
If what God is about is creating people to love, and to love him in return, then he has to grant them the capability of not loving him, of embracing sin instead of grace, otherwise the love of any kind is no more meaningful than a prerecorded message.
Hopefully you will notice at some point that creationism has no answer for this type of question. It can only appeal to divine mystery.
Creationism does more than appeal to divine mystery. It roles up the sleeves and goes and figures out how it could be that starlight appears to be old. "Starlight and Time" by Dr. Russ Humphreys. It also looks at geology and tries to determine maximum and minimum times that it might take to lay down a type of strata, such as mudstone, and how long does it take a geochemical reaction to complete. These are all questions that creationists can address, because they are not attempting to protect the evolution dogma.
Fortunately for us, the laws of physics do not appear to be random.
One unanswered question is why the laws of physics are not random. There are millions of possible combinations of physical constants that might make up the universe, but the actual combination is well-suited to life, one might say 'tuned' to support life. I have no problem explaining why this occurs, because the universe is an artifact of an intelligent creator, so of course it is tuned.
It's obvious that you can't answer the problems with your religious worldview
What I cannot do is reconcile the God presented in the bible with the one you disbelieve. I think I disbelieve in your idea of god more than you do. A better approach would be to examine the ideas presented in the bible with an open mind, and see if your idea of god may differ from what the bible presents. A God who is perfect and calls you to perfection as well is very different from what you present. A God who will go to extremes for your benefit is very different from your opinion. These are characteristics of the God presented in scripture.
At some point in the past I might have taken umbrage that you think I do not understand science because I believe in creation, but today I just keep working at understanding more about the world, and about God. There is no conflict between those two pursuits.
Rats. I'm too old. Where is my 50+ video game? That is where you have to argue Kant with the zombie-lib before he goes Rant and tries to kill you by slamming you with the idiot gun, at which point you pull out Hume and shoot him in the Jehosephat.
I think we were just making the world a less annoying place, by fixing a mistake we made earlier, by supporting Iraq against Iran in their little (5-8 million dead) war. The Kurds are certainly better off not suffering poison gas attacks at the hands of Chemical Ali.
With respect to the first question, the author's complaint is with the analysis methodologies The data utilized is the same data used in the genetics studies referenced by the author. If his complaint were with the methodology, I would assume he would suggest a methodology in preference to the original, which (I think) would answer your need for an experiment. Since science consists of several steps, it is perfectly permissible to question one step while accepting the other steps researched, or reserving lessor criticisms until after a major problem is answered by re-analysis or a change in the study conclusions.
Science is a dialog, not a sermon.
Dr. Humphreys proposal, a period of time dilation coincident with the flood era, is one that presents some potentially testable hypothisae, but before one can examine the question of different dilation events in history, one must find a suitable ruler.
Most of the post-Einstein cosmologies include expansion regardless of creation or evolution belief of the author, so the question is really when did the universe expand, not if. If you know of a credible physical model that does not reference expansion, please let me know.
Dr. Humphreys' critic of the Zircon helium model is based on the attempt to use it as an absolute measure across time spans of billions of years.
Dr. Humphreys published in 2005. The 'established method' you reference in the link to Sciencedirect.com references a 2009 abstract. Dr. Isaacs complaint about established method was in reference to the use of a time figure in a steady-state equation, something that would be inappropriate, where it not that Dr. Humphreys point is that there was not enough time to achieve the steady state, which is what he is predicting. Dr. Issac also complains about an order of magnitude change in diffusion rates supplied by a researcher. The abstract you listed also talks about an order of magnitude change.
Please provide a reference for the critic of the quantized red-shift studies. It is my understanding that it applies to all known redshift databases. If that is not so I would dearly love to see it.
The summary of this is that there is a debate going on here, and both sides utilize science to both defend and attack ideas. That is what science is, not refusing to think about something because a creationist (or an evolutionist, for that matter) proposed the idea. Let the facts take us where they will, and Darwin and God can both look out. Notice the word Facts Not interpretations, assumptions, or hearsay, but Facts. Why am I willing to let God look out, even though I am a creationist? Because God is true. (1st John 5:20) He also does not need to qualify for grant money in next year's budget, so he can say what is true, not what will get him funded.
You asked what the connection between information theory and evolution might be. I answered that question.
I will state again, the theory applies to the communication of information in the presence of noise. The information in this case is genetic information. The noise is mutation. From information theory: information cannot be created by noise, only destroyed with respect to the receiver. Information theory suggests that things can devolve, but evolution require information to appear from somewhere.
Please suggest an experiment that will show noise creating information, and I will be happy to attempt it. I ask for a few common-sense parameters: The experiment must be able to differentiate between information and noise. The experiment should have unambiguous results, for instance a black cat and a white cat rank the same, since coat color is ambiguous, genetically speaking. I would prefer an experiment that can be completed in a reasonable time frame, say less than a year.
I am happy to listen to your speculation and conjecture, as you have listened to mine.
I would like to point to a magnificently simple simulation of life-like behavior at:
http://wiki.tcl.tk/9047
I have to confess to having used this simulation (Braitenberg Vehicles) to try some rudimentary random mutation experimentation, (also having fun) This allows a behavioral lab at the cost of a few key strokes. If you are familiar with the TCL/Tk programming environment this simulation provides astonishingly complex behaviors with a very simple algorithm. The page provides some simple changes.
mutation can be easily modeled by modifying the signs and scales of the 'wheel' vars, it is pretty easy to create a system the will 'play' mutation.
Please feel free to improve the behavior of the vehicles with mutation and see what happens. Since the computer can 'play' billions of generations of possibilities in a short period of time you should be able to evolve sentience in, say, 100 billion generation.
Please let me know how it turns out, we can apply it to the automated vehicle problem proposed as an alternative to spending 53 billion dollars on high speed rail.
The very first link (February Acts & Facts PDF ) on the very first website (Acts&Facts) on the above referenced page contains an analysis: "Molecular Equidistance: The Echo of Discontinuity?" (page 4) It lays out a methodology, a set of predictions and a proposed metric for testing the hypothosis. You give the impression that you have not examined the first thing about this, but came in with your mind made up. I must say that I really expected better of a Slashdot reader.
Page 14 presents a theory (new to me) about a second time dilation proposed by Dr. Russel Humphreys to correspond to the period of the flood. (I was familiar with "Starlight and Time, Humphrey's original publication on the subject of time dilation, but not with his later work.)
This is only 'not science' if you disinclude Einstein from science, after all they are his relativity equations used to measure expansion and time dilation. You will need to disinclude Edwin Hubble as well, since his red-shift database is the one used to support Humphrey's research.
The application of information theory is applicable in evolution to the question of transmission of complex information through a noisy channel, which is were it applies in classical information theory, although the evolutionarily acceptable application is limited to RF transmission and cryptography. The reason why evolutionist do not want these basic ideas applied to the debate is that even a modest amount of investigation shows that evolution as a theory cannot be supported, because the information flow proposed by evolution is absolutely the wrong way around, so either the physics that allows us to determine the signal to noise ratio in a physical transmission media is wrong, or evolution is wrong. Since signal to noise ratio measurement is a well understood theory in constant daily use by engineers, my choice is to mistrust the idea that cannot be tested in day to day experiments, evolution.
To get back to the application to evolution, the application of information theory is to measure the initial amount of information (the original specie genetic code) and the amount of information lost in transmission of the code to succeeding generations. Information theory suggests that information is lost in transmission, as random information is added to the existing information. In the case of genetic information we are fortunate to have a redundant alphabet (a 3 of 4 code) which vastly improves the signal to noise ratio tolerance of the information,but that does not fix our basic problem.
In no physical process do we see the addition of random noise improving a signal. (Pseudo-Random Noise is not noise in this sense, since it is modulation at one point and demodulation down stream. it is actually used to make signal detection easier.)
The exception to this is evolution. If I add true noise to my receiver, I reduce my signal to noise ratio, making it harder to transmit the signal, in the context of evolution, the addition of noise, say gamma ray damage to a base-pair sequence, reduces the information. If I look at the task of transmitting that information for billions of generations, the noise of mutations will completely obliterate the original sequence. Post-transmission editing does not help, because editing implies the addition of information to counter an information loss. That information can only be included in the code we are transmitting, unless we supply some external channel to transmit information.
A scientific study of this would be to apply an accelerated noise source to a rapid generational transmission of information. We could use yeast in a radiation environment sufficient to cause information breakdown. I really do not need to run this experiment, because I already know that at some point I interrupt the last successful transition of information, and my beer stays un-fermented
We are left with a conundrum WRT evolution: Either something was radically different in the past that made this possible, or evolution information is somehow different from every other type of information. Philosophically speaking both choices are no different from the creation hypothesis, and both defy scientific proof.
Let me address your statement about assumptions in science. Assumptions are made every day about what to look for, and what the results of an experiment mean. What is dishonest is not sharing the assumptions made, or to make assumptions that contaminate the results of the observation. An example of this would be to arrange my data by some assumption, then use that data to 'prove' that assumption.
Let me re-iterate: We still have a lot of work to do. ID supporters do in fact put out scientific theories all the time, such as the origins of the snake river scab lands, structural models for the grand canyon region, fishery production vs. ocean salinity. These are just few that I know of. There are other theories, such as the rate of gamma-ray influx and impact on generational fertility that have been proposed as studies.
Surely you meant to say no evolution theories have been put forth by ID supporters.
One thing I can say for sure is that Scientific American will publish no scientific study that calls evolution into question.
http://www.nwcreation.net/journalcreation.html is a list of sources.
I have not vetted that list, so I am sure you can find multiple instance of material on there, and I am also quite sure that you will dislike it because none of these are 'mainline'. All I can say to that is that several creationists that I have talked to have horror stories of attempting to publish in 'mainline' journals, including meeting all standards for publication in format, reviewers, reference material, data presentation, and data quality standards, only to have the material set aside for the publication of decidedly inferior, but evolutionarily acceptable material.
That does not have to happen too many times before it becomes clear that 'mainline' journals are censored to exclude my viewpoint a priori, and without regard to the quality of the material.
It's a neat little system: Decide what truth is, then publish nothing that contradicts that idea. Then you can claim that "No reputable journal questions these findings." It is nice, tight circular reasoning.
I am not upset about this, just realistic about the current state of science publishing.
I want a mod of Half Life where instead of killing zombies, you are curing them and sending them to safe zones. Then Mercy Hospital would make a lot more sense.
On the question of sin, it's Gods call how he wants to deal with it.
On the question of science, I think we may have more work to do. "God did it" may explain the question of where all this complexity came from, but there is also the question of "Why does this not work better?
I could just rail at God for not doing a better job, or I could get busy and fix the things I can fix. After all, I have hands and a mind, and it is clear that the world can be improved. It makes good sense to me to investigate how things work, or better yet, how they could work with a bit of a nudge.
If there is a design behind the whole thing that means there is the possibility of success in investigating how things work. If what is behind the universe is random than science is ultimately doomed.
We would have no argument at all, if science teaching stuck to science. I would be perfectly satisfied with what was taught if it was real science, which questions authority. Evolution is taught in such a way as to prevent questions. "It is unscientific to question evolution."
Why? it seems to me that drawing one's own conclusions from the data, instead of just accepting someone else's opinion is the central task in science. If we did not do that we would still have four elements, per the Greeks.
At the same time, it is not dealing fairly with the text of the bible to treat Genesis as anything other than a matter-of-fact set of statements. I would say there is an excellent chance we are misunderstanding them, but that is a reason for further study, not total abandonment of the text.
I am not sure why we should listen to witches and exclude right wing nut jobs. If the one has something to add, perhaps the other does as well.
Slashdot Mirror
I concur. I turned in assignments to UoP from ~ 15 different cities, because my projects could not stop just because I wanted an MS. There was no way to do that at a trad campus. I would not have lasted one semester at the usual pace. To those that talk about 30k in debt, you need to talk about 75-80k in lost income, at least for us mid-career types. In those terms the for-profits are an excellent deal. Of course, nothing prevents Average State University from implementing on-line courses as well.
I think you could make a case for the evil inherent in the true socialism that most State Us practice as well. If there is a lesson to learn here it is that government should excuse themselves from the education process because government is inherently poorly suited to meeting individual needs. This means massive inefficiency and bloat, and the non-profits are just as good at suckling the federal sow as the for-profit universities.
Apple attempts to regulate unrelated markets: (A consumer buying a song from a supplier/musician) to their sole profit. Yes that is evil. Any one that tries that should be shown the exit from the marketplace. These are the practices of the 'Robber Barons' of the 19th century. It is mark of how ill educated we are that we do not make the connection.
1)Apple
2)Apple
3)Apple
4)Apple
But that is because I tried to use a Mac for a mission critical app, and had to give up after the third 'upgrade' that broke every thing. This colors my view of Apple with brown.
When people pay a premium, they feel obligated to approve of the product, because to disapprove calls their own judgment into question, after all, the Caddy buyer paid an extra 20k or more for a Tahoe, so it must be better? Right?
INTEL sat 11N provides coverage to the area. A 1.2 M dish provides 3.6M downlink 384k uplink the modem is the size of book. If they wanted it, they would already have it.
I'm not sure what an accidental speeding ticket might be. All of mine were well-deserved.
Technically it is only a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) for that last fifteen minutes or so. Before that time it is just a regular satellite with a fancy heat shield instead of a plain one.
I think bad code can be written in any language. Good code, on the other hand tends to 'disappear', because it does not need hand-holding. When was the last time you had to recompile a disk driver? The same is probably true of your IP stack, most of the video you use, and 40-100 million lines of other code that just works. Java suffers from being next to the users, where fads come and go with dispatch.
(Where IS my Magic Cap?)
I have a more fundamental argument with languages that encourage opaque software, and languages that impede important parts of the development life cycle, such as passing the meaning in the software to a new maintainer. Java is as bad as they come in this respect.
I am in awe of this. Best of show for that dawg!
I first used Java at introduction, and gave it up as a bad idea. Others are more forgiving, so now I have three projects with vendor supplied sucware(TM) written in Java. I hope someday to see one of them achieve 75% of promised capacity, and 25% of the specified MTBF. I am sure there is one good Java programmer out there, but he is nowhere near any of our projects. Give me TCL/Tk over Java any day of the week.
This is just proving that mice can smell. Anyone that deals with mice can tell them that, and without a research grant as well. Next they should prove that dogs can identify burrito eaters from their intestinal gaseous excretion.
My favorite is "The Millennial Project Colonizing the Galaxy in Eight Easy Steps" by Marshall T. Savage. I pull mine out every once in a while to remind myself of the difference between real engineering and what passes for 'serious' writing by academia. This idea would fit right in.
This gives a whole new level of meaning to the "Blue Screen of Death"
The station has to be reboosted regularly to stay in orbit. extra weight means more propellant to stay up. Since current costs are ~$5k/pound, it is a budget thing. Plus the usable space in the shuttle is a compromise to allow it to fly, not optimized for on-orbit operations.
So you admit you can't answer that question? Why does sin exist if God doesn't want it to? What are we supposed to believe, that God created sin, or that there is in fact no sin? Given an omniscient and omnipotent God, sin (action against God's wishes) can't logically exist.
You misunderstand: God is the one that defines what sin is, and what the penalty will be. The wages of sin is death, the free gift of God is eternal life.
This is a restate of "Can God create a rock so big even he can't lift it?" The problem is you misunderstand both omniscience and omnipotence. Why do you assume that your definition of either is correct?
If what God is about is creating people to love, and to love him in return, then he has to grant them the capability of not loving him, of embracing sin instead of grace, otherwise the love of any kind is no more meaningful than a prerecorded message.
Hopefully you will notice at some point that creationism has no answer for this type of question. It can only appeal to divine mystery.
Creationism does more than appeal to divine mystery. It roles up the sleeves and goes and figures out how it could be that starlight appears to be old. "Starlight and Time" by Dr. Russ Humphreys. It also looks at geology and tries to determine maximum and minimum times that it might take to lay down a type of strata, such as mudstone, and how long does it take a geochemical reaction to complete. These are all questions that creationists can address, because they are not attempting to protect the evolution dogma.
Fortunately for us, the laws of physics do not appear to be random.
One unanswered question is why the laws of physics are not random. There are millions of possible combinations of physical constants that might make up the universe, but the actual combination is well-suited to life, one might say 'tuned' to support life. I have no problem explaining why this occurs, because the universe is an artifact of an intelligent creator, so of course it is tuned.
It's obvious that you can't answer the problems with your religious worldview
What I cannot do is reconcile the God presented in the bible with the one you disbelieve. I think I disbelieve in your idea of god more than you do. A better approach would be to examine the ideas presented in the bible with an open mind, and see if your idea of god may differ from what the bible presents. A God who is perfect and calls you to perfection as well is very different from what you present. A God who will go to extremes for your benefit is very different from your opinion. These are characteristics of the God presented in scripture.
At some point in the past I might have taken umbrage that you think I do not understand science because I believe in creation, but today I just keep working at understanding more about the world, and about God. There is no conflict between those two pursuits.
One parting thought: John 1:5
Rats. I'm too old. Where is my 50+ video game? That is where you have to argue Kant with the zombie-lib before he goes Rant and tries to kill you by slamming you with the idiot gun, at which point you pull out Hume and shoot him in the Jehosephat.
I think we were just making the world a less annoying place, by fixing a mistake we made earlier, by supporting Iraq against Iran in their little (5-8 million dead) war. The Kurds are certainly better off not suffering poison gas attacks at the hands of Chemical Ali.
With respect to the first question, the author's complaint is with the analysis methodologies The data utilized is the same data used in the genetics studies referenced by the author. If his complaint were with the methodology, I would assume he would suggest a methodology in preference to the original, which (I think) would answer your need for an experiment. Since science consists of several steps, it is perfectly permissible to question one step while accepting the other steps researched, or reserving lessor criticisms until after a major problem is answered by re-analysis or a change in the study conclusions.
Science is a dialog, not a sermon.
Dr. Humphreys proposal, a period of time dilation coincident with the flood era, is one that presents some potentially testable hypothisae, but before one can examine the question of different dilation events in history, one must find a suitable ruler.
Most of the post-Einstein cosmologies include expansion regardless of creation or evolution belief of the author, so the question is really when did the universe expand, not if. If you know of a credible physical model that does not reference expansion, please let me know.
Dr. Humphreys' critic of the Zircon helium model is based on the attempt to use it as an absolute measure across time spans of billions of years.
Dr. Humphreys published in 2005. The 'established method' you reference in the link to Sciencedirect.com references a 2009 abstract. Dr. Isaacs complaint about established method was in reference to the use of a time figure in a steady-state equation, something that would be inappropriate, where it not that Dr. Humphreys point is that there was not enough time to achieve the steady state, which is what he is predicting. Dr. Issac also complains about an order of magnitude change in diffusion rates supplied by a researcher. The abstract you listed also talks about an order of magnitude change.
Please provide a reference for the critic of the quantized red-shift studies. It is my understanding that it applies to all known redshift databases. If that is not so I would dearly love to see it.
The summary of this is that there is a debate going on here, and both sides utilize science to both defend and attack ideas. That is what science is, not refusing to think about something because a creationist (or an evolutionist, for that matter) proposed the idea. Let the facts take us where they will, and Darwin and God can both look out. Notice the word Facts Not interpretations, assumptions, or hearsay, but Facts. Why am I willing to let God look out, even though I am a creationist? Because God is true. (1st John 5:20) He also does not need to qualify for grant money in next year's budget, so he can say what is true, not what will get him funded.
You asked what the connection between information theory and evolution might be. I answered that question.
I will state again, the theory applies to the communication of information in the presence of noise. The information in this case is genetic information. The noise is mutation. From information theory: information cannot be created by noise, only destroyed with respect to the receiver. Information theory suggests that things can devolve, but evolution require information to appear from somewhere.
Please suggest an experiment that will show noise creating information, and I will be happy to attempt it. I ask for a few common-sense parameters: The experiment must be able to differentiate between information and noise. The experiment should have unambiguous results, for instance a black cat and a white cat rank the same, since coat color is ambiguous, genetically speaking. I would prefer an experiment that can be completed in a reasonable time frame, say less than a year.
I am happy to listen to your speculation and conjecture, as you have listened to mine.
I would like to point to a magnificently simple simulation of life-like behavior at:
http://wiki.tcl.tk/9047
I have to confess to having used this simulation (Braitenberg Vehicles) to try some rudimentary random mutation experimentation, (also having fun) This allows a behavioral lab at the cost of a few key strokes. If you are familiar with the TCL/Tk programming environment this simulation provides astonishingly complex behaviors with a very simple algorithm. The page provides some simple changes.
mutation can be easily modeled by modifying the signs and scales of the 'wheel' vars, it is pretty easy to create a system the will 'play' mutation.
Please feel free to improve the behavior of the vehicles with mutation and see what happens. Since the computer can 'play' billions of generations of possibilities in a short period of time you should be able to evolve sentience in, say, 100 billion generation.
Please let me know how it turns out, we can apply it to the automated vehicle problem proposed as an alternative to spending 53 billion dollars on high speed rail.
The very first link (February Acts & Facts PDF ) on the very first website (Acts&Facts) on the above referenced page contains an analysis: "Molecular Equidistance: The Echo of Discontinuity?" (page 4) It lays out a methodology, a set of predictions and a proposed metric for testing the hypothosis. You give the impression that you have not examined the first thing about this, but came in with your mind made up. I must say that I really expected better of a Slashdot reader.
Page 14 presents a theory (new to me) about a second time dilation proposed by Dr. Russel Humphreys to correspond to the period of the flood. (I was familiar with "Starlight and Time, Humphrey's original publication on the subject of time dilation, but not with his later work.)
This is only 'not science' if you disinclude Einstein from science, after all they are his relativity equations used to measure expansion and time dilation. You will need to disinclude Edwin Hubble as well, since his red-shift database is the one used to support Humphrey's research.
The application of information theory is applicable in evolution to the question of transmission of complex information through a noisy channel, which is were it applies in classical information theory, although the evolutionarily acceptable application is limited to RF transmission and cryptography. The reason why evolutionist do not want these basic ideas applied to the debate is that even a modest amount of investigation shows that evolution as a theory cannot be supported, because the information flow proposed by evolution is absolutely the wrong way around, so either the physics that allows us to determine the signal to noise ratio in a physical transmission media is wrong, or evolution is wrong. Since signal to noise ratio measurement is a well understood theory in constant daily use by engineers, my choice is to mistrust the idea that cannot be tested in day to day experiments, evolution.
To get back to the application to evolution, the application of information theory is to measure the initial amount of information (the original specie genetic code) and the amount of information lost in transmission of the code to succeeding generations. Information theory suggests that information is lost in transmission, as random information is added to the existing information. In the case of genetic information we are fortunate to have a redundant alphabet (a 3 of 4 code) which vastly improves the signal to noise ratio tolerance of the information,but that does not fix our basic problem.
In no physical process do we see the addition of random noise improving a signal. (Pseudo-Random Noise is not noise in this sense, since it is modulation at one point and demodulation down stream. it is actually used to make signal detection easier.)
The exception to this is evolution. If I add true noise to my receiver, I reduce my signal to noise ratio, making it harder to transmit the signal, in the context of evolution, the addition of noise, say gamma ray damage to a base-pair sequence, reduces the information. If I look at the task of transmitting that information for billions of generations, the noise of mutations will completely obliterate the original sequence. Post-transmission editing does not help, because editing implies the addition of information to counter an information loss. That information can only be included in the code we are transmitting, unless we supply some external channel to transmit information.
A scientific study of this would be to apply an accelerated noise source to a rapid generational transmission of information. We could use yeast in a radiation environment sufficient to cause information breakdown. I really do not need to run this experiment, because I already know that at some point I interrupt the last successful transition of information, and my beer stays un-fermented
We are left with a conundrum WRT evolution: Either something was radically different in the past that made this possible, or evolution information is somehow different from every other type of information. Philosophically speaking both choices are no different from the creation hypothesis, and both defy scientific proof.
Let me address your statement about assumptions in science. Assumptions are made every day about what to look for, and what the results of an experiment mean. What is dishonest is not sharing the assumptions made, or to make assumptions that contaminate the results of the observation. An example of this would be to arrange my data by some assumption, then use that data to 'prove' that assumption.
Let me re-iterate: We still have a lot of work to do. ID supporters do in fact put out scientific theories all the time, such as the origins of the snake river scab lands, structural models for the grand canyon region, fishery production vs. ocean salinity. These are just few that I know of. There are other theories, such as the rate of gamma-ray influx and impact on generational fertility that have been proposed as studies.
Surely you meant to say no evolution theories have been put forth by ID supporters.
One thing I can say for sure is that Scientific American will publish no scientific study that calls evolution into question.
http://www.nwcreation.net/journalcreation.html is a list of sources.
I have not vetted that list, so I am sure you can find multiple instance of material on there, and I am also quite sure that you will dislike it because none of these are 'mainline'. All I can say to that is that several creationists that I have talked to have horror stories of attempting to publish in 'mainline' journals, including meeting all standards for publication in format, reviewers, reference material, data presentation, and data quality standards, only to have the material set aside for the publication of decidedly inferior, but evolutionarily acceptable material.
That does not have to happen too many times before it becomes clear that 'mainline' journals are censored to exclude my viewpoint a priori, and without regard to the quality of the material.
It's a neat little system: Decide what truth is, then publish nothing that contradicts that idea. Then you can claim that "No reputable journal questions these findings." It is nice, tight circular reasoning.
I am not upset about this, just realistic about the current state of science publishing.
I want a mod of Half Life where instead of killing zombies, you are curing them and sending them to safe zones. Then Mercy Hospital would make a lot more sense.
On the question of sin, it's Gods call how he wants to deal with it.
On the question of science, I think we may have more work to do. "God did it" may explain the question of where all this complexity came from, but there is also the question of "Why does this not work better?
I could just rail at God for not doing a better job, or I could get busy and fix the things I can fix. After all, I have hands and a mind, and it is clear that the world can be improved. It makes good sense to me to investigate how things work, or better yet, how they could work with a bit of a nudge.
If there is a design behind the whole thing that means there is the possibility of success in investigating how things work. If what is behind the universe is random than science is ultimately doomed.
We would have no argument at all, if science teaching stuck to science. I would be perfectly satisfied with what was taught if it was real science, which questions authority. Evolution is taught in such a way as to prevent questions. "It is unscientific to question evolution."
Why? it seems to me that drawing one's own conclusions from the data, instead of just accepting someone else's opinion is the central task in science. If we did not do that we would still have four elements, per the Greeks.
At the same time, it is not dealing fairly with the text of the bible to treat Genesis as anything other than a matter-of-fact set of statements. I would say there is an excellent chance we are misunderstanding them, but that is a reason for further study, not total abandonment of the text.
I am not sure why we should listen to witches and exclude right wing nut jobs. If the one has something to add, perhaps the other does as well.