information theory | Page 3 | Discovery Institute

^{George Gilder
August 5, 2013
Economics

17}

Surprise and Creativity

_{George Gilder
August 5, 2013
Economics

17}

Why in the world do we need yet another “new” economics? Jamming the libraries and the bookstores of the world are avatars of what must be every variation on the great themes of market and managerial economics. Scores of Nobel Prizes have been awarded for various nugatory refinements of the prevailing ideas. All these schemes, however, fail to answer the Read More ›

Forex candlestick pattern. Trading chart concept. Financial market chart. Human head silhouette. 3D rendering

^{Arnold Kling
July 17, 2013
Economics

3}

Information, the Entrepreneur, and George Gilder’s New Economic Thinking

_{Arnold Kling
July 17, 2013
Economics

3}

Gilder draws on information theory, as developed by the famed mathematician Claude Shannon and others, as a central metaphor for the economy. In Gilder's rendition, information consists of striking surprises conveyed over a quiet, stable channel. Gilder then adapts this metaphor to economic phenomena, including entrepreneurship, finance, the role of government, and income redistribution. Read More ›

^{William A. Dembski
August 18, 2009
Intelligent Design

1}

Conservation of Information in Search

_{William A. Dembski
August 18, 2009
Intelligent Design

1}

Abstract: Conservation of information theorems indicate that any search algorithm performs, on average, as well as random search without replacement unless it takes advantage of problem-specific information about the search target or the search-space structure. Combinatorics shows that even a moderately sized search requires problem-specific information to be successful. Computers, despite their speed in performing queries, are completely inadequate for resolving even moderately sized search problems without accurate information to guide them. We propose three measures to characterize the information required for successful search: 1) endogenous information, which measures the difficulty of finding a target using random search; 2) exogenous information, which measures the difficulty that remains in finding a target once a search takes advantage of problem-specific information; and 3) active information, which, as the difference between endogenous and exogenous information, measures the contribution of problem-specific information for successfully finding a target. This paper develops a methodology based on these information measures to gauge the effectiveness with which problem-specific information facilitates successful search. It then applies this methodology to various search tools widely used in evolutionary search.

A Response to Dr. Dawkins’ “The Information Challenge”

_{Casey Luskin
October 4, 2007
Intelligent Design

23}

In September, 2007, I posted a link to a YouTube video where Richard Dawkins was asked to explain the origin of genetic information, according to Darwinism. I also posted a link to Dawkins’ rebuttal to the video, where he purports to explain the origin of genetic information according to Darwinian evolution. The question posed to Dawkins was, “Can you give Read More ›

^{George Gilder
July 17, 2006
Intelligent Design

30}

Evolution and Me

_{George Gilder
July 17, 2006
Intelligent Design

30}

Editors Note: Discovery senior fellow, technology guru and conservative economist George Gilder has a major essay in the new issue of National Review, entitled “Evolution and Me: Darwinian Theory has Become an All-Purpose Obstacle to Thought Rather than an Enabler of Scientific Advance.” The piece offers a unique and fresh perspective on the issue of materialism vs. design and is Read More ›

^{William A. Dembski
March 4, 2005
Intelligent Design

1}

Searching Large Spaces

_{William A. Dembski
March 4, 2005
Intelligent Design

1}

Searching for small targets in large spaces is a common problem in the sciences. Because blind search is inadequate for such searches, it needs to be supplemented with additional information, thereby transforming a blind search into an assisted search. This additional information can be quantified and indicates that assisted searches themselves result from searching higher-level search spaces–by conducting, as it were, a search for a search. Thus, the original search gets displaced to a higher-level search. The key result in this paper is a displacement theorem, which shows that successfully resolving such a higher-level search is exponentially more difficult than successfully resolving the original search. Leading up to this result, a measure-theoretic version of the No Free Lunch theorems is formulated and proven. The paper shows that stochastic mechanisms, though able to explain the success of assisted searches in locating targets, cannot, in turn, explain the source of assisted searches. Read More ›

^{William A. Dembski
January 25, 2002
Intelligent Design

3}

Refuted Yet Again!

_{William A. Dembski
January 25, 2002
Intelligent Design

3}

This article is written in response to Matt Young’s “How to Evolve Specified Complexity by Natural Means” which appeared in Metanexus. The mathematician George Polya used to quip that if you can’t solve a problem, find an easier problem and solve it. Matt Young seems to have taken Polya’s advice to heart. Young has taken Shannon’s tried-and-true theory of information Read More ›

3D rendering of abstract blocks of mathematical formulas located in the virtual space

^{Granville Sewell
August 30, 2000
Intelligent Design

11}

A Mathematician’s View of Evolution

_{Granville Sewell
August 30, 2000
Intelligent Design

11}

When Dr. Behe was at the University of Texas El Paso in May of 1997 to give an invited talk, I told him that I thought he would find more support for his ideas in mathematics, physics and computer science departments than in his own field. I know a good many mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists who, like me, are appalled that Darwin's explanation for the development of life is so widely accepted in the life sciences. Read More ›

^{David Berlinski
September 1, 1998
Intelligent Design

27}

What Brings a World into Being?

_{David Berlinski
September 1, 1998
Intelligent Design

27}

Since their inception in the 17th century, the modern sciences have been given over to a majestic vision: there is nothing in nature but atoms and the void. This is hardly a new thought, of course; in the ancient world, it received its most memorable expression in Lucretius' On the Nature of Things. But it has been given contemporary resonance in theories--like general relativity and quantum mechanics--of terrifying (and inexplicable) power. If brought to a successful conclusion, the trajectory of this search would yield a single theory that would subsume all other theories and, in its scope and purity, would be our only necessary intellectual edifice. Read More ›

Old industrial electronics switch cupboard

^{William A. Dembski
February 20, 1997
Intelligent Design

44}

Intelligent Design as a Theory of Information

_{William A. Dembski
February 20, 1997
Intelligent Design

44}

Abstract: For the scientific community intelligent design represents creationism's latest grasp at scientific legitimacy. Accordingly, intelligent design is viewed as yet another ill-conceived attempt by creationists to straightjacket science within a religious ideology. But in fact intelligent design can be formulated as a scientific theory having empirical consequences and devoid of religious commitments. Intelligent design can be unpacked as a theory of information. Within such a theory, information becomes a reliable indicator of design as well as a proper object for scientific investigation. In my paper I shall (1) show how information can be reliably detected and measured, and (2) formulate a conservation law that governs the origin and flow of information. My broad conclusion is that information is not reducible to natural causes, and that the origin of information is best sought in intelligent causes. Intelligent design thereby becomes a theory for detecting and measuring information, explaining its origin, and tracing its flow. Read More ›

^{Charles Thaxton
September 1, 1994
Intelligent Design

32}

A New Design Argument

_{Charles Thaxton
September 1, 1994
Intelligent Design

32}

Just when scientists thought they understood how natural processes explained the order of the universe, they discovered a very special kind of complexity, called information, in nature. Experience had taught them that, wherever they found information, they could be sure of finding an intelligence behind it. As a result of 20th century discoveries, scientists are learning that the very methods they had used to discover natural causes (reasoning from experience) now point to an intelligent cause. Read More ›

Garden with walkways and green grass. Photo taken from above drone.

^{David Berlinski
June 1, 1994
Intelligent Design

37}

The End of Materialist Science

_{David Berlinski
June 1, 1994
Intelligent Design

37}

Simply the thing you are shall make you live. Old Spanish Proverb For the moment, we are all waiting for the gate of time to open. The heroic era of scientific exploration appears at an end, the large aching questions settled. An official ideology is everywhere in evidence and everywhere resisted. From the place where space and time are curved Read More ›