Side comments on Bartlett: Measuring Active Information

Please state your academic qualifications for making these statements. What training in any branch of the life sciences do you have?

Which of his statements do you think might be wrong? What qualifications do you have for questioning him? Why do you resort to credentialism?

I will say that the quoted bits seem an exercise in the random assemblage of poorly understood buzzwords. Do you disagree?

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LOL! Good old Eddie, still playing the fallacious “only authorities can argue” card. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Eddie, can we please wait until we have a consensus of opinions before we start the argument? I’m prepared to split off sub-threads as needed, but this is very early to start splitting. Please wait and see what develops, then maybe we can have a more constructive argument.

Also, we have some very qualified people on this forum. If Roy is incorrect I’m pretty sure one of them will point this out soon enough.

FWIW - My qualifications are a BS in computer science, MS in statistics (plus the theory for a PhD I didn’t finish), 20+ years of applied experience, and a fair amount of self-study of Information Theory, which has considerable overlap with statistical theory.

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I don’t doubt your competence to comment on areas discussed by Bartlett that fall within your own expertise. But when I’ve tried to find out exactly what is the supposed expertise of a number of people here regarding evolutionary theory, I’ve come up blank. But in accord with your wishes, I won’t pursue this.

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I suppose it is. But the most prominent displayers of that attitude are the creationists often found here. I’m sure you can come up with some names. And I do find that the supporters of evolution who post here in general have more reason for swaggering than the IDers.

No, your word choice shows a quite different request. You want “academic qualifications” and “training”. Would you not agree that it’s possible to become knowledgeable on a subject without either of those? Reading in the literature is helpful.

Please explain. What is that training, and what are those areas? The quoted bits suggest that the training wasn’t very good. Or one might charitably suppose that it’s very poor writing skills rather than ignorance that result in the gibberish. But Roy is right that it’s gibberish.

Aren’t we beyond arguments from authority here? Does what he says make sense? I hope that the fact that you know someone personally is not a criterion for acceptance of his ideas, even if he has “advanced training in areas relevant to his article”.

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Seriously, what are his qualifications in evolutionary biology? I checked out “about the author” and it says nothing. And the Blyth Institute seems at first look to be a bogus creationist organization with one member, the author.

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Jesus H. W. Christ: Sal Cordova is a Research Fellow of the Blyth Institute!

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In other words, no training at all in evolutionary biology, which is the matter at hand. I suspect he’s a YEC too.

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Why?

Why does that matter? I have plenty of training and I agree with Roy.

Come on, “Eddie,” you don’t use qualifications to decide what you accept in evolutionary biology at all.

You are constantly praising those with absolutely no record of achievement (which in science is 1000x more important than your “training” fetish) in evolutionary biology as people who have something very important to say about evolution.

Please show just a tiny speck of consistency.

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No, only authorities who agree with Eddie.

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Once again we see Eddie’s fantasy of this caste separation between the Brahmin theorists and the lowly technical people.

Both of them do evolutionary biology, too. Their hands are soooo dirty!

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And would you have sufficient training in evolutionary biology (theoretical or empirical) to make that assessment, dear Eddie?

Allow me. Ahem, … BWAHAHA!

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He is. He still knee-jerk supports any ID-Creationist publications and attacks anyone who criticizes IDC. :slightly_smiling_face:

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The only other Fellow is Eric Holloway. How can evolutionary theory ever survive the scientific onslaught from those two IDC heavyweights? :astonished:

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So what? You’re pseudonymous, so your claim to be acquainted with him is meaningless.

Do you even think before you write this stuff?

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Turns out his qualifications in evolutionary biology are nonexistent. Go figure. I’m sure the impression Eddie left that he had “advanced training” in it was inadvertent.

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Golly. Then why would Eddie so hypocritically demand that Roy state his qualifications?

I’m just as sure that Eddie can explain any ambiguities in Bartlett’s writing, given his vast training in mathematics and evolutionary theory.

Since this is Eddie, any empirical experience in evolutionary biology must be irrelevant. :laughing:

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What happened to “I’m a firm believer in the principle that intelligent argument is more important than formal credentials”? Please deal with the science. I’m going to ask that your credentialist distraction be separated.

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