Talk:Werner Gitt

"Besides his scientific publications he is best known for..." No.

lists 611.000 pages.

, which excludes the German words for God, evolution, creationist, and Bible, the count is reduced to 999.

This man just does not happen in the public except in his property as creationist. --Hob Gadling 13:32, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Google Scholar does not have an entry for Dr. Gitt, so we can't see his full publication list that way. It does mention citations for some specific items though:

• In The Beginning Was Information: 74 for the English version and 28 for the German

• (Journal Of Creation 10(2):181–187, August 1996): 20

• Information-die dritte Grundgröße neben Materie und Energie (Siemens-Zeitschrift, 1989): 13

• Dazzling design in miniature (Creation ex nihilo, 1997): 9

• Ordnung und Information in Technik und Natur (Gräfelfing/München, 1982): 8

• Schuf Gott durch Evolution? (Hänssler, 1992): 8 for German, 6 for English (Did God Use Evolution? (1993))

• Fragen-die immer wieder gestellt werden (1991): 7 for German, 1 for English (Questions: I Have Always Wanted to Ask (2001))

• ... und die anderen Religionen? (cgld.at, 1992): 4 for German, 3 for English

• Signale aus dem All: wozu gibt es Sterne? (wort-und-wissen.de, 1993): 3 for German, 4 for English (Stars and Their Purpose: Signposts in Space (Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung, 2000))

• The wonder of man (Christliche Literatur-Verbreitung, 1999): 4

• The Flight of Migratory Birds (Institute for Creation Research, 1986): 4

• So steht's geschrieben (jochenklein.de, 2008): 4

• Logos oder Chaos (Hänssler, 1980): 4

• Scientific laws of information and their implications (Journal of Creation, 2009): 2 for part 1, 1 for part 2

• If Animals Could Talk (2006): 2

• What about the big bang? (Creation ex Nihilo, 1998): 1

• Can mutations create new information? (with J Sanford) (Journal of Creation, 2011): 1

• Cloning: right or wrong? (Creation Magazine, 1998): 1

All of these are creationist except for possibly the 1982 and 1989 German information ones (which I haven't read). He appears to have had essentially NO other non-creationist technical publications of any impact, at least as far as Google Scholar knows and within the limits of my patience to search them out. As a creationist, he would appear to get an H-Index of 7, which would be respectable for a non-academic (mine is 7) but kind of low for a real researcher. As a real scientist, his H-Index would appear to be no higher than 2 since there are only 2 items that might qualify. That's pretty pathetic for someone at the end of their career.

If any Gitt supporter could provide direct evidence to support the claim that "He has written numerous scientific papers in the field of information science, numerical mathematics, and control engineering", it would be very helpful. I can't seem to find any myself. Even Gitt's own website (http://wernergitt.de) doesn't list any. Howard Landman (talk) 08:26, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

A Summa Cum Lauda Dr. Ing. who was Head of the PTB Information Technology division PTB (the German Standards Institute equivalent to NIST), and was honored by PTB as Professor and Director should properperly be referred to as an "Information Scientist" or an "Information Engineer." Few people have those credentials or honors.DLH See Who is Werner Gitt

No. Information technology is different from information theory. Gitt has credentials in the former, none in the latter. In the English-speaking world atleast Gitt is known primarily as a young earth creationist. — Dunc|☺ 22:10, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

I interperate your statement to prefer "Information Engineer" (as the closest equivalent in English to Technologist) rather than Scientist. DLH

Please do not try to put words into my mouth. As I understand it he is a computer engineer. — Dunc|☺ 10:36, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Gitt lays out 34 "Theorems" on Information that are distinct from natural laws. In the appendix to "In the Beginning was Information" he addresses quantitative measures of languages etc. Gitt also appears to be a theorist in making such categorizations and classifications. DLH

Yes, and those theorems are either well known almost trivial results or have about as much to do with information theory as astrological signs have to do with astronomy. He has no information theory publications. The closest you have is junk like the above. JoshuaZ 00:46, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

JoshuaZ: politely put, your statement is an ad hominem attack, an Anglocentric blanket assertion contrary to facts, and unworthy of an editor.

e.g. See "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.

Because someone writes for a popular audience does not in itself invalidate the underlying principles or technical material. DLH

I've never heard of any of these journals. What may I ask is Siemens review? A google search doesn't turn up much for them, and the others seem similarly obscure. JoshuaZ 16:34, 21 August 2006 (UTC) And note also that even if these were respectable journals the notion that 5 papers makes someone any more than a dilletante in an area of science is simply ridiculous. JoshuaZ 16:35, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Siemens is the second largest power company in the world after GE. Try Google Scholar. See: See Google Scholar Siemens Review

PTB is the German equivalent of the US NIST - one of the most fastidious publication on accuracy of data. These represent some of the highest technology publications. See: Google Scholar on PTB Only experts at the top of their speciality publish in such publications. Professor, and division Head at PTB with promotion to Director are very high honors. DLH

I know what Siemen's the corporation is (I did quite nicely by them when I was in Highschool). Siemens Review is a different matter, and in fact, doesn't show up for most of the google scholar hits. I couldn't even tell if it was associated with them. As for the claim anout the PTB do you have any evidence that it is the same as the NIST? Color me slightly skeptical. And you still have the more serious problem, even a handful of good publications does not make a member of the field. I have a friend who has some top-notch astronomy papers. That doesn't make him an astronomer. JoshuaZ 02:35, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Try the link I gave and the additional links:

• PTB
• International Comparison of Volume Measurements
• Consultative Committee for Units

Directing the Information Technology division for 24 years in itself implies numerous information publications. DLH 00:14, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Duncharis: The objections are whether Gitt has any publications on Information - then why do you delete his list of publications showing information expertise claiming it is POV? This appearst to be a strongly biased edit in itself.DLH 00:14, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

No. Don't try to frame our objections to your POV with your own framework as you create a strawman and show naive misunderstanding of both the scientific process and WP:NPOV. A handful of publications (if they indeed are on information theory) in obscure journals does not make him an information theorist. Google Scholar shows very little for W Gitt (apart from bizarrely, his apologetics works). So apart from that, has he had his "Gitt information" accepted by mainstream science? Where is the work that cites him and builds upon "Gitt information"? — Dunc|☺ 15:44, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

With BSc, MSc, a PhD in Physics, Chemistry and Engineering, I am well aware of the scientific process. Gitt provided several references supporting his empirical information theorems on the five heirarchies of information. He has a good command of the full range of information factors, compared to Shannon who only addresses the information carrying capacity a channel, of statistics, the lowest level of information. Some of the greatest confusion on information is where readers do not address the higher levels. I have listed the publications as selected as I do not have his full thirty plus year publications.

Newton wrote far more on apologetics than on physics, yet he is honored for his physics. Do not tar a person by his religious beliefs. Let us seek to provide objective editing with references.DLH 00:30, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't know where to start. When people start listing all their degrees, these conversations generally go downhill. I will refrain from tearing the above apart aside from noting that "empirical information theorem" is about as much of an oxymoron as one can get. The rest is similarly flawed. JoshuaZ 00:35, 24 August 2006 (UTC) Oh and to note that the Newton comment is a classic flawed argument. Newton is notable for his non-apology work. If Newton had done a tiny amount of science and had done as much apologetics and alchemy as he did, he would be known for and Wikipedia would refer to him as an apologist and alchemist. JoshuaZ 00:38, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Or more to the point, Newton did science, and then he did pseudoscience Isaac Newton's occult studies. Which one was more succesful?

Anyway, DLH (talk • contribs • page moves • block user • block log) has failed to answer the question, where has Gitt's work been accepted and built on? — Dunc|☺ 17:05, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Gitt was responsible for the following Q4 department from '71 to 2002:

Department Q.4 Information Technology:

* Data Networks * Server Systems * Databases * PC Hardware and Operating Systems * PC User Software / IT Training * Data Network-assisted Metrology

* Scientific Computing

71.120.35.49 12:32, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Well that pretty strongly reinforces the point that he wad doing Information Technology work not Infortmation Theory. JoshuaZ 14:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

I have given two links to where Gitt states he was working with Information theory. Gitt categorized information into five heirarchal categories, coining a new term apobetics (purpose) for the highest level. He shows Shannon "information" (Information Entropy) only quantified the first or lowest level Statistics. He quantifies information, and gives the equation for the peak of Shannon "information" in his Appendix. etc.DLH 01:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

The question is not whether Gitt thinks he is doing information theory but whether it can be stated without qualification that he is an information theorist. Gitt can think whatever he likes, but where are the papers, where is the work which builds upon his? — Dunc|☺ 15:18, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

It's interesting to look at his publications. There are 13 of Web of Science

• Explored? - The words does not address the problem - Correspondence - a letter in NACHRICHTEN AUS DER CHEMIE, 2002. Cited 0 times
• COMPUTERS AS INDISPENSABLE TOOLS FOR METROLOGICAL RESEARCH AT THE PTB in PTB-MITTEILUNGEN 104, 1994. Cited 0 times
• INFORMATION - THE 3RD FUNDAMENTAL QUANTITY - SIEMENS REVIEW , 1989. Cited once
• THE NEW HIGH-PERFORMANCE COMPUTER-SYSTEM OF THE PTB - PTB-MITTEILUNGEN, 1988. Cited 0 times
• NEW METHOD FOR DESCRIBING THE THERMAL-BEHAVIOR OF H20 IN THE FLUID RANGE - PTB-MITTEILUNGEN. Cited 0 times
• SYSTEM-IDENTIFICATION AND APPROXIMATION IN THE TIME DOMAIN WITH RAMP-SHAPED OUTPUT SIGNALS - ARCHIV FUR ELEKTROTECHNIK, 1983. Cited 0 times
• RECONSTRUCTION OF HIGH IMPULSE VOLTAGES CONSIDERING THE STEP RESPONSE OF THE MEASURING SYSTEM - IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER APPARATUS AND SYSTEMS, 1982. Cited 5 times
• NUMERICAL PROCEDURE FOR DECONVOLUTION OF THE DUHAMEL-INTEGRAL IN VIEW OF DETERMINING THE TIME-DEPENDENCE OF HIGH-VOLTAGE IMPULSES - ARCHIV FUR ELEKTROTECHNIK, 1981. Cited 0 times
• INFORMATION AND ENTROPY AS CONNECTING LINKS BETWEEN DIVERSE BRANCHES OF SCIENCE - PTB-MITTEILUNGEN, 1981. Cited 0 times
• SIMPLE METHOD FOR THE DETERMINATION OF THE DYNAMIC BEHAVIOR OF TEMPERATURE SENSORS - TECHNISCHES MESSEN, 1979. Cited 0 times
• DETERMINATION OF MODEL PARAMETERS AND RELATED LOCUS CURVES FOR OPTIMAL CONTROLLER VALUES BY MEANS OF DIGITAL-SIMULATION - PTB-MITTEILUNGEN, 1979. Cited 0 times
• APPLICATION OF WEIGHTING FUNCTIONS FOR DETERMINATION OF THERMAL AND CALORIC EQUATIONS OF STATE FOR QUASI-IDEAL VAPORS OF FLUIDS NH3, H2O AND CO2 - PTB-MITTEILUNGEN, 1978. Cited 0 times
• TIME-SHARING COMPUTER SYSTEM AT PTB - PTB-MITTEILUNGEN, 1977. Cited 0 times

So - there are 12 articles and one letter. Two deal with "information theory" in some sense - one 17 years ago, one 25 years ago. Between them they were cited a grand total of once. His entire body of wask was cited 6 times, it would appear. Impact on science? Trivial. Impact on information theory - approximately none. Guettarda 06:18, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Some of the confusion may stem from the fact that what Americans call "Computer Science" is often referred to as "Informatics" in Europe.

I tend to agree with JoshuaZ that Gitt's "theorems" (and pretty much everything else in In The Beginning Was Information) are scientific garbage. Consider the sentence fragment "every event must have a cause, and that under the same circumstances a certain cause always has the same effects" (ITBWI section 2.3). He is categorically stating that, for example, random spontaneous nuclear decay must have a cause. That could be true, but science doesn't know it to be true. As far as we know at the moment, it happens by itself in an unpredictable manner. And same causes always having the same effects denies the probabilistic interpretation of quantum mechanics. So in less than one sentence, Gitt has claimed that most working physicists have reality completely wrong but he has it right, AND that he knows something WITH ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY that is beyond the ability of present day science to test.

Then consider "Theorem" N10b: "The present laws of nature became operational when creation was completed. The laws of nature are a fundamental component of the world as we know it, and they indicate that the Creator sustains all things (Colossians 1:17, Hebrews 1:3). These laws were installed during the six creation days, and thus cannot be regarded as prerequisites for creation, since they themselves were also created." Does anyone want to seriously claim that this is science? How about "Jesus is the Source of all energy, Jesus is the Source of all matter, and Jesus is the Source of all biological information."?

As someone with a math degree, I also believe that when someone calls something a theorem, they are obligated to accompany it with a proof. ITBWI has over a hundred "theorems" and exactly zero proofs. This is not information theory. Real information theory looks more like, say, Leung's textbook on Information Theory or Shannon's 1948 paper. They define their terms. They prove their results.

The best thing that I can say about Gitt is that he seems to be groping his way toward some kind of Theory Of Meaning. Meaning is a very hard problem, and if Gitt had actually defined his version of "information" and made any kind of real progress towards it, his book would have had some value. But he never defines his information. He say what it is NOT (it is NOT physical, it is NOT Shannon Information, etc.) but he never says what it IS. Without a definition of "Gitt information", there is no math and no theory.

For comparison, look up Shannon Information, Fisher Information, or Kolmogorov Complexity, three of the more commonly-used information measures. Each of them is precisely defined. Each of them has dozens or hundreds of useful mathematical results proved, and hundreds or thousands of useful applications to technological problems. Gitt has, as far as I can tell, zero results and zero applications. Howard Landman (talk) 09:55, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

This is a specific German academic title: See Biography [blockquote]Three prerequisites must be fulfilled in order for the German Ministerium to award the title ‘Director and Professor’ at a German research institute, on the recommendation of the Praesidium. The person concerned must be:

  1. A scientist. I.e. it is most definitely an academic title.
  2. One who has published a significant number of original research papers in the technical literature.
  3. Must head a department in his area of expertise, in which several working scientists are employed.[/blockquote]

Thus by definition, Gitt is also an Information Scientist. Note that Gitt is not Director of the PTB, but has the academic title Director and Professor, Doctor See: Dir. u. Prof. Dr.DLH 00:25, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Yawn, so now we are supposed to take AIG's word for it? Furthermore, nothing I saw above (even if completely accurate) justifies calling him an information theorist. JoshuaZ 00:33, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Wiki Policy Verifiability WP:V bases material on verifiability. I have provided the links to support the material. Above are links to selected technical information publications. Director and Professor is verified at PTB. If you want to find other sites that object, add those, but do not delete verifiable material. DLH 02:07, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

JS Thanks for restoring the vandelism. DLH 02:07, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

Duncharis Each of the changes made are supported by the references and links provided. Wiki Policy Verifiability WP:V If you do not see close reference for a particular fact, please ask and I will add additional closer links. Gitt has a Dr. Ingr. and 31 years working on information technology at one of the premier national standards laboratories which have the highest standards for scientific accuracy. That is expertise worth acknowledging. Unfamiliarity with the national standards insitutes does not constitute justification to delete material. If you have alternative perspectives you wish to add, please do so with supporting references or start discussions on them. However, please do not vandalize serious effort to improve a page just because you vehemently oppose the person being written about and his writings.DLH 00:19, 24 August 2006 (UTC) Further ref see: Gitt's summary biography (translated by Google) DLH 00:38, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV beats WP:V. — Dunc|☺ 17:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

See discussion aboveDLH 03:42, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

WP:NPOV trumps WP:V, but just to clarify, but you haven't demonstrated WP:V either. Your conflation of information technology with information theory is a case in point. — Dunc|☺ 10:43, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Not conflating: He was working in and managing both.DLH 22:55, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

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BetacommandBot (talk) 20:26, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Content additions require Reliable sources especially for a BLP. Per WP:MOS titles are not used. - - MrBill3 (talk) 06:05, 17 February 2015 (UTC)