Werner Gitt

From ResearchID.org

Prof. Dr. Werner Gitt (born in 1937 in Raineck/East Prussia) is a German Information Scientist and young earth creationist. He directed the PTB InformationsTechnologie Division for 31 years where he was honored for numerous scientific papers on information. Gitt ordered information into a heirarchy of five levels information. He formulated thirty two empirical Information Theorems in his books In the Beginning was Information (1982, 1994, 1997, 2000). He holds that these information theorems support creation over evolution.

1 Education
2 Honors
3 Professional Career
4 Information hierarchy
5 Information theorems
6 Controversy and criticism
7 References
8 Publications
9 See also
10 External links

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Education

Werner Gitt received his Diploma Ingenieur in 1968 for engineering from the "Technische Hochschule Hannover" (University of Technology in Hannover). He worked as assistant at the Institute of Control Engineering at the Technical University Aachen. Gitt received a Doctor of Engineering (Dr. Ing.) from the "Technische Hochschule Aachen" (University of Technology in Aachen) in 1970.

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Honors

Dr. Gitt received his doctorate Summa Cum Laude, and was awarded the Borchers Medal, Technical University Aachen.

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Professional Career

In 1971 Dr. Ing. Gitt started his career at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology [(Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt "PTB"), in Brunswick. From 1971 to 2002 he was Head of PTB Division Q4 Information Technology. Gitt stated he had:

written numerous scientific papers in the field of information science, numerical mathematics, and control engineering. . .^[1]

In 1978 he was promoted to the academic position^[2] of Director and Professor (Dir. und Prof. Dr.) at the PTB honoring his scientific publications and achievements as head of the PTB Q4 Division.^[3]

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Information hierarchy

Prof. Dr. Gitt categorized information into a five level hierarchy:

Statistics: Properties - symbol frequencies, channel capacity etc. See: Information Entropy, Shannon's Theory
Syntax: Structural properties of setting up information.
Semantics: Meaning of symbols.
Pragmatics: Achievables - actions required by recipient to achieve sender's purposes.
Apobetics: Sender's purposes.

Prof. Dr. Gitt coined

apobetics: the teleological aspect, the question of the purpose; derived from the Greek apobeinon = result, success, conclusion.

^[4] He notes Shannon Entropy ("Information") only addresses the first information level - statistics.

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Information theorems

Within his five information levels, Gitt developed 32 Information Theorems from pragmatic empirical observation. Gitt lists the seven most important theorems as:

There can be no information without a code.
Any code is the result of a free and deliberate convention.
There can be no information without a sender.
Any given chain of information points to a mental source.
There can be no information without volition(will).
There can be no information unless all five hierarchical levels are involved: statistics, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and apobetics.
Information cannot originate in statistical processes.

^[5] Dr. Gitt is best known for his writings as a Creation Scientist and his opposition to evolution. In his book In the Beginning was Information, he argues that information theory refutes evolution. See Gitt's outline. Critics claim this has been rejected by the scientific community as pseudomathematics.

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Controversy and criticism

Rich Baldwin criticizes his work in an article entitled Information Theory and Creationism: Werner Gitt. He claims incorrectly cited research has led to false conclusions.[1] Gitt "describes his principles as "empirical." Baldwin objects that the data is not provided to back this up[2] and that Gitt proposes fourteen 'theorems,' yet fails to demonstrate them. [3]

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References

↑ In the Beginning was Information, 2000, Preface
↑ Biography
↑ http://www.ptb.de/en/publikationen/jahresberichte/jb2001/oeq/taetigkeitsbereiche_q.htm#fbq4 PTB Department Q4 InformationsTechnologie
↑ G4 (1982)
↑ In the Beginning was Information (2000) p 80.

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Publications

Selected Information technical publications (from "In the Beginning was Information" (2000) pp 249-250 References):

G4 Gitt, W.; Information und Entropie als Bindeglieder diverser Wissenschaftszweige. PTB-Mitt. 91 (1981), pp 1-17
G8 Gitt, W.; "Kunstliche Intelligenz" - Moglichkeiten undGrenzen - PTB-Bericht TWD-34, 1989, 43 p.
G9 Gitt, W.; Information: The Third Fundamental Quantity, Siemens Review, Vol. 56, No. 6 Nov./Dec. 1989, pp. 2-7
G18 Gitt, W.; Information-A Fundamental Quantity in Natural and Technological Systems Second Conference on the Foundations of Information - The Quest for a Unified Theory of Information. Vienna University of Technology, 11-15 June 1996.
Gitt, W.; Information, science and biology Technical Journal 10(2):181-187, 1996

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