If I were a pimp I wouldn't be having no tranny whores, that would definitely infringe on my homophobia!

You use the words theoretical framework, so don't start agreeing with people using a currently untested theory as proof simply because an earlier step in the process has been and is now fact.

Edit: You whore, stop that already...

I study Computer Science, and in Computer Science you work a lot with information (obviously).  Based on my experience with it, information is just the set of an entity's attributes, whatever that entity may be (an idea, a person, a rock).

For example, what is the information in a polynomial (i.e. 5x^3 + 30x^2 + 5)?  It's simple: First, there's the little point that it is a polynomial, and second, a sequence of coefficients, where the first element corresponds to the maximum exponent, and the last element corresponds to an exponent of 0.  The information that a sequence is a polynomial is necessary so that the sequence can be interpreted.  If I were to just give you a string of numbers, they would be meaningless (in that you wouldn't know how to interpret the information).

So, in the example, 5x^3 + 30x^2 + 5, the polynomial's information (the set of its attributes) consists of two things: the fact that it is a polynomial, and the sequence of coefficients {5, 30, 0, 5}.

You could also ask, what is a man?  A man would be his chemical-make up, his location at any given point in time, how old he is, whether he's wearing clothing, the configuration of the neurons in his brain etc.  Note that this information may be inherently incomplete (for example, if you assume that the future doesn't exist until it's become the present, then there would be no information concerning a person's location at a point in time greater than the present).

So based on that, information can be just a particular configuration of matter, energy, and spacetime.  Therefore, it isn't dependent on a mind.  Our minds may use information to understand reality, but that doesn't mean that our minds created it on some fundamental level, anymore than our eyes created light because they use it to gather information, which our mind then interprets.  I suppose you could say that our minds can create information in that they can conceive of some new configuration of matter, energy, and spacetime (this would be the information that encodes an idea, or a fantasy).  But that doesn't mean that thinking minds created ALL the information in the universe.  

Of course, not all information may be dependant on matter, energy, and spacetime.  After all, a polynomial in and of itself doesn't (at least to me) appear to have anything directly related to the physical realm, but it still has information.

Of course, if you don't buy the basic premise that information = set of an entity's attributes, then this won't be an adequate answer.

This doesn't have anything to do really, with either the OP, or the off-topic conversation that this thread has taken on, but you asked, and I did my best to answer.

The fossil records are fragile, therefore anything I say should be there but isn't was destroyed.  Anything that supports my theory is inviolable.  If it looks like dogma and it smells like dogma ......

The main reason evolution isn't trusted?  Evolutionists spewing even more misinformation than the opposition.

Girl, please. Can you give us even some fake numbers on that one?

OK, I have to bite.  I will officially accept all tenents of Darwinian evolution without further thought if you can give me a single reference to an experiment that has successfully created an oligonucleotide "naturally" without biologically created precursors.  And to be rigorous, it needs to be stable in the creation solution for say a couple of hours.

I'll save you the effort though...it hasn't happened

It seems nitpicky, but PROTEINS are formed from amino acids. DNA is chains of nucleotides. All in all, amino acids are a lot simpler, but there are more of them.

The amount of science understanding fail in this thread astounds me.

No, ID is not science. It has been explained why by a few of us here.

No, debunking evolution is neither a proof nor a case for ID, because ID is not science.

IDers aren't happy with science being methodological naturalism. They want it to allow the supernatural so they can basically try and make a scientific case for God. They don't understand that you can't study the natural world if you allow for the supernatural - they are completely incompatible frameworks.

I'm not quite sure you're entertaining when in flaming homo mode or not, but whatever.  When they take polls asking whether people TRUST the theory of evolution in this country, the numbers come out to a round a third.  I've been getting wrong information from every supposedly legitimate source throughout my education.  They flat out lie to you from start to finish in highschool, even my college level course work had serious accuracy problems.  I'm one of those curious bastards that goes and looks for things, so I found plenty of it out before I'd even gotten there.

I've yet to see a poll on why people distrust the theory, but I've definitely got my own educational background to point me in that direction.  To have so much erroneous information in school text books is inexcusable, and the media representations of things are far worse.  They regularly misrepresent things entirely.  Whether through ignorance or bias is up to someone else to decide, but it's prolific and rarely corrected.

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Geez. Turn your head for a few days and the thread descends from a relatively tame discussion on the spelling of 'skeptic' to a heated debate over mechanical evolution. Over/under on number of posts until Hitler is mentioned?

That evolution happen is a proven fact, much like gravity is. Our *explanation* of it is as of yet a work-in-progress, much like that for gravity, but that we don't exactly know *why* an apple falls down from the tree doesn't change the simple, experimentally-provable fact that it does.

Read this, for a quick example as to what kind of research has been done regarding it, and there's lots more where that one came from. Have fun trying to explain 'em without "God modified them to test our faith!".

Err, no. Abiogenesis *is* the spontaneous apperance of life, it's in the bloody name y'know. As far as I'm aware it hasn't been proven yet (other than for the aforementioned simple, still-very-much-not-alive biological compounds), but it has absolutely nothing to do with evolution be it the phenomena or our theory for it, so trying to "refute" evolution through attacks on abiogenesis are a fool's errand at best.

Since you know what "abiogenesis" means, why don't you know what "refute" means?

This happens every time, you tell an idiot that evolution is still a theory, and they jump up your ass for claiming to refute it.

uh, you do know what 'theory' in the context of 'theory of evolution' means don't you?

http://www.notjustatheory.com/

Yet again I have to wonder, what is it about conservatives/republicans that inevitably forces them to end up on the crazy side of pretty much any argument?

Here's perhaps one reasonable guess. Basically scientists hate republicans and therefore republicans are merely responding in kind.

http://www.frumforum.com/why-scientists-hate-republicans

In any case evolution does not say anything about how life came to be only that once life does exist mutations do occur (which is a proven fact) and that if a particular mutation is beneficial to survival it will become more common and if a particular mutation is harmful to survival it will become increasingly rare (also proven facts).

The above points are the *facts* of evolution. There are also *theories* of evolution which include the idea that evolution can result in the emergence of totally new species or that all living organisms alive today have descended from a common ancestor.

Another fact is that the earth is a bit over 4 billion years old and that fact along with the fact that all species including humans have evolved over time totally disproves the strict creationist view that all species were created "as is" only a few thousand years ago. Period. End of story. 

As far as ID that's a different story with a wide range of possibilities. In my *opinion* ID seems to be a contrived framework with no logical basis for it's existence other than to rationalize religious belief with scientific fact. As such it doesn't make much sense to me but that's an opinion not a fact and as long as ID is constructed so as to not violate any known science facts then it cannot be proven wrong no matter how silly it seems on the face of it.

Science is science.  Naturalist philosophy is naturalist philosophy.  The two are different.

I don't.

Uhhh... you don't need to.  I am a professional engineer and have worked in the field of science for most of my life.  I have used the scientific method in my work every day for decades now.

Yes, the scientific method is science.  Nothing else is science, not naturalist philosophy or anything else.

I will not define it, you can look it up yourself.

But what I said and will continue to say is, evolution is not defined as a filter, never has been, and never will be.  Idiots who don't know their own theory confuse evolution with a filter.  Evolution is not a filter.  If a galapagos finch evolves over a million years into a galapagos elephant, I think we can both agree that the word "evolves" in this sentence has nothing to do with passing the finch through a filter so that an elephant somehow comes out the other side.  Modern day idiot evolutionists who don't know their own theory are confused, and think this happens.  If Darwin were here he would roll his eyes, shake his head, and say to himself "I can't believe that these idiots are on MY side!"

Engineers apply science, they don't use the scientific method, unless you're actually doing research and are doing experiments and analyses.

Do you think the scientific method allows for the supernatural?

Cmon kharma are you tired? Answer us.

Just curious, but, could you show me the direct evolutionary lines for our own species?

It would have to include all the variations and where they branched off from each other, by the way - and the approximate timeline within the ~4 billion year history of our planet. After all, we all evolved from the same root - right? So where the original branched off to create black, white, yellow, red and otherwise should be clearly shown in the record base - right?

And it would have to be sometime before any recorded histories (the past 5.000 years, or so), because we have not changed all that much since then - if paintings and such of the time periods involved are anywhere near accurate.

Also, would you show me proof that the Earth is over 4 billion years old? Not circumstantial evidence - but absolute proof!

These "facts" that you describe are not provable in any way. Your supposed 'facts' are mere conjectures, and nothing more. They are based on faith (in something), and nothing more.

That statement from you that I quoted just shows me that you have no credibility at all in anything that you say, because you quote theory and hypothesis as fact based upon your own belief system.

Modern geologists and geophysicists accept that the age of the Earth is around 4.54 billion years (4.54 × 10⁹ years ± 1%).^[1][2][3] This age has been determined by radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial andlunar samples. The Sun, by comparison, is about 4.57 billion years old, about 30 million years older.

Here you moron. 

Also you're quite the racist there, blacks/reds/whites/yellow people are not a difffernt species.

oh yeah kharma: P. Z. Myers as "creationists with advanced degrees are often engineers".

Just fucking define evolution, coz we all very much doubt that you have any idea where your talking about.

He actually never stated they were a different species.

He just asked where the original branched off to create black, white, yellow, red and otherwise.

And besides, racism is moronic and pointless, as it hurts everyone including yourself.

He implied it though. We're talking about species.

Ahh, fantastic.  A computer program is a good analogy for the information contained in DNA.  Tell me how computer programs come into being, please?

I'll go one better than that.  Why don't they take a sterile aquarium, fill it up with water, salts, mud, minerals, whatever they want (all sterilized of course), seal it up, then apply heat, electricity, whatever, and create life?  BECAUSE THEY CAN'T!  HA HA!  They will say that it would take too long to achieve results, but then if it ain't testable and if it ain't provable, then it ain't science, it's conjecture, dogma, faith, etc.

I say that there must be a way to speed up this mystical, magical process that they claim exists.  Why not use a supercomputer, or even several and tie them together?  Write a computer program to simulate the chemical reactions and interactions that would occur in the aquarium, and run that simulation at full speed.  I mean a machine that can do trillions of calculations a second should be able to produce results in a relatively short time (hours, days, weeks, or months), wouldn't you think?  So why not do it?  BECAUSE AGAIN, THEY CAN'T!  HA HA!

The claims by lifekatana that probability and mathematics have nothing to do with this aside, they don't have the slightest chance in a billion years of this supercomputer doing something comparatively simple like generating random letter sequences and producing one of the works of shakespeare.  So what chance do they have to produce any life?

You aren't being nitpicky.  Amino acids forming into DNA is NOT proven.  In fact, the only time that DNA can ever form is INSIDE A LIVING CELL.  And you are rigtht proteins are formed from amino acids, and the only way you get vialble biological proteins is when they are formed inside a living cell as well.

You just stated what science is - it is the scientific method.  Now, explain what naturalist philosophy is.  Now, look at both texts side by side.  Are they the same, or different?

Of course it does.  Where in that 5 step process you outlined of "observe, hypothesize, test, etc." does it say "doesn't allow for the supernatural?"  Nowhere.  That's your naturalist philosophy creeping in.

The better question you should be asking me is whether I personally believe in the supernatural.  The answer is no, not necessarily.  I have no good reason to believe that the designer or designers, whoever they are, are "supernatural," any more than I have reason to believe the the designer of this computer I am typing at is "supernatural."  But then that's all pure conjecture, isn't it?  I don't like to mix my conjecture with science like evolutionists do.

While I don't have reason to believe that the designer or designers are supernatural, the bottom line is that I really don't care.  It is irrelevant to the question of origins.  If they made us and they are supernatural, fine.  If they made us and they aren't, fine.  I don't give a damn either way.  It has no bearing on the question of how we got here.

The reason evolutionists are so concerned with this supernatural crap and naturalist philosophy crap is that they don't want to argue their theory, or lack of one.  They'd rather attack YOU instead.  So they try to claim that anyone who denies evolution must be making a claim in the superntural, and anyone who then makes a claim to the supernatural therefore isn't doing science so they shouldn't be listened to.  It's why the very first thing any evolutionist will ever do is start calling his opponent a creationist right off the bat (that happened VERY early on in this particular conversation).  I would swear that there is an "evolutionist training camp" they all go to somewhere, where the first thing that is drilled into their heads is "start calling your opponent a creationist as soon as possible."  Or maybe it's an "evolutionist's handbook" they all read.