Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84 exptools; site ihnet.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!ihnp4!ihnet!eklhad From: eklhad@ihnet.UUCP (K. A. Dahlke) Newsgroups: net.origins Subject: Re: codes,designs,creation,intelligence Message-ID: <254@ihnet.UUCP> Date: Sun, 14-Jul-85 08:00:47 EDT Article-I.D.: ihnet.254 Posted: Sun Jul 14 08:00:47 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 17-Jul-85 04:18:40 EDT References: <32500041@uiucdcsb> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories Lines: 58 > A few weeks back on CNN, there was a little story on SETI, the > Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. > First, the SETI group must feel that time, chance, and natural processes > are not sufficient to produce a code capable of carrying information. What does this statement (I mean assumption) really mean? Everything we know about the *natural* universe comes from electromagnetic radiation. Is this not information? > Here, the code is electromagnetic. Anyone currently reading this note is > looking at a 26 letter code and no one, I'm sure, thinks it was produced by a > random-letter generator, or a bug, or any other form of time, chance, and > natural processes. When we look at the DNA of *any* life form, it is also a > code (of a 4 chemical alphabet) which is far more advanced than any babble I'm > likely to produce. The media on which the code is carried is unimportant. You know, I sometimes enjoy searching for the specific fallacy. Of course, the entire article is fallacious, but I mean right down to the word. I believe I have found one of the "specific words" here. The word is "unimportant". How did you decide the media was unimportant? It certainly gives you nice results, which is probably all you are after. But pray continue. > Why then do we say DNA was produced by time, chance, and natural processes? Because the evidence supports this. > Finally, it is theoretically possible to translate the DNA patterns of > E. coli into an electromagnetic pattern (DNA, [ description of the implementation, which proves that Mr. Miller is a good engineer. I am not sure about the quality of his science. ] > If SETI were to pick up such a transmission of E. coli DNA patterns, > it would be trivial to recognize, and no doubt the High Priest of Evolution, > Carl Sagan, would say: "Aha! We have evidence of an intelligent designer, > which we have not seen directly, but must exist." So when that same Carl > Sagan sees E. coli here on earth, along with vastly more advanced forms of > life expressing codes we haven't even begun to decipher, must less design > ourselves (simply expressed in a chemical rather than electronic alphabet) > what does he say? "Evolution is a fact - like apples falling off trees." > For my part, I'll stick with a Creator and information theory. > A. Ray Miller This bastardization of information theory is just as insulting as the more traditional thermodynamics arguments. I suppose, Mr. Miller, if I transmit the positions of the atoms in an ice crystal, using computers and radio transmitters, you will say "praise Gawd, he came down and formed that ice crystal with his mighty hand". Since the computer was designed, everything it describes must be designed? What made you decide the media was unimportant? Was it wishful thinking, when you saw that information theory might be another graspable straw? There are mechanisms proposed, and evidence supporting the natural formation of DNA codes. There is no mechanism, or evidence indicating this code might be transmitted into space on an electromagnetic carrier wave. There is no contradiction here!!! The media is important. If we receive such a transmission, it *probably* indicates intelligence. There is a remote chance that a living electromagnetic startrek creature has *natural* resinating DNA, but we shall not dwell on this. To investigate evolution vs creationism, you have to do more than simple -log(P*(1-P)) calculations. You need logic and analysis as well. -- Three of the most brilliant concepts are very counterintuitive: evolution, capitalism, and relativity. Despite our intuitions and biases, the evidence supports all three. Karl Dahlke ihnp4!ihnet!eklhad