Well, it seems so soon, but the 7-year anniversary of Robert Marks’s complete failure to provide any evidence for his claims about information is upon us.
You may remember it was back on September 9 2014 that I first asked the illustrious Marks for some calculation justifying the following claim of his:
Dear Prof. Marks:
Here
Biological information: New perspectives from intelligent design
you claimed
“we all agree that a picture of Mount Rushmore with the busts of four US Presidents contains more information than a picture of Mount Fuji”.
I asked you there for the details of the calculation that would show this, but you did not reply on that page, so I’m asking again.
Could you please provide me with your calculation to justify this claim?
Regards,
Jeffrey Shallit
I asked again after 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years, 6 years, and now 7 years.
Still no response.
That is the nature of intelligent design creationism. Lots of wild claims, lots of bluster, but no actual evidence.
Science deserves better than this kind of nonsense. A lot better.
That is the nature of intelligent design creationism. Lots of wild claims, lots of bluster, but no actual evidence.
They rely entirely on blustering about evolution, as if attacking evolution proves their god exists. They are that goofy.
I would like to see ID creationists begin presenting their theory of ensoulment. And, perhaps, their theory of afterlife. How do those things work? Religion depends on them and science doesn’t say anything about them (because there’s not much to say) so the field is completely open for some gooooooood bullshitting.
You havent got a response because there isnt one. Its not like they dont know that.
Here’s what I don’t understand: Let’s suppose Marks did actually get back to you with a scientifically rigorous definition of “information.” I’m not much into the theory of that sort of thing, but if we imagine such a definition involves data arranged as some sort of code that can be interpreted by a code reader (a definition that includes both language and DNA), then we might conclude that, under such a definition, maybe it’s true that the planet earth as a whole contains more information than its moon.
Even if we were to grant that, it does absolutely zilch to demonstrate the god hypothesis. Under that definition the whole chemical process of life just happens to generate information faster than the slow chemistry of rocks, but the fact that the conditions on earth do more to support that than the moon does means absolutely nothing about any sort of deity. It’s about as meaningful as observing that the interior of the sun contains more matter than interstellar space. So what?
I think another, more concise response might have been: “No, we don’t all agree that this is true. Because I don’t agree!”
(And that makes at least two of us).