In comment [25] to my last post , The ID hypothesis, Elizabeth Liddle asks about information. I think I’ve been at this long enough to predict how an exchange between me and Elizabeth would go. Barry’s Point 1: Let’s take the information in your comment [25]. I am sure you will agree your comment contains specified complex information. Indeed, your one little comment contains more specified complex information than we could reasonably attribute to chance and necessity working from the beginning of the universe to this moment. Barry’s Point 2: I am sure you will agree that the cells in your body contain more complex specified information than your comment by several orders of magnitude. Barry’s Question to Elizabeth: If Read More ›

From ScienceDaily (August 3, 2011) we learn: “Six Million Years of Savanna: Grasslands, Wooded Grasslands Accompanied Human Evolution”:

Scientists have spent a century debating the significance of savanna landscape in human evolution, including the development of upright walking, increased brain size and tool use.

Why?

Part of the problem has been a fuzzy definition of “savanna,” which has been used to describe “virtually everything between completely open grasslands and anything except a dense forest,” Cerling says. He adds the most common definition is a fairly open, grassy environment with a lot of scattered trees — a grassland or wooded grassland.

Here’s the main thing you need to know: Read More ›

The idea that it may be possible to penetrate the “Romulan invisibility cloak” has received a boost. Studies of the low-temperature glow left from the Big Bang suggest that several of these “invisibility cloaks” may have left marks on our sky. This “Romulan presence” idea is popular in modern physics, but experimental tests have been hard to come by. The preliminary work, to be published in Unphysical Review D, will be firmed up using data from the Planck telescope. For now, the team has worked with seven years’ worth of data from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, which measures in minute detail the cosmic microwave background (CMB) – the faint glow left from our Universe’s formation. ‘Mind-blowing’ The theory that Read More ›

In “Astrobiology: Life’s beginnings” (Nature 476, 30–31, 04 August 2011), origin of life expert Robert Shapiro tells us “that laboratory experiments don’t always translate to nature”:

Deamer’s thesis diverges from the standard RNA-world concept. He focuses not on the generation of a naked RNA-like polymer, but on the formation of a simple cell-like compartment, or vesicle. Modern cells are enclosed by a complex fatty membrane, which prevents leakage. Vesicles with similar properties have been formed in the lab from certain fatty acids. Deamer holds that the spontaneous formation of vesicles, into which RNA could be incorporated, was a crucial step in life’s origin. Unfortunately, his theory retains the improbable generation of self-replicating polymers such as RNA.
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In his latest post on Uncommon Descent, “Evolution” is a Political Controversy? (Or, am I Living in an Alternate Multiverse?), Gil Dodgen shot down claims by author Alan Rogers that the controversy over the theory of evolution is a political controversy.

It’s not a political controversy. It is:

1) An evidential controversy (for example, the fossil record, especially the Cambrian explosion).

2) A logical and computational controversy (the insufficiency of random errors producing highly complex, functionally integrated, self-correcting computer code).

3) A mathematical controversy (clearly insufficient probabilistic resources for anything but the most trivial changes based on Darwinian mechanisms).

Politics have nothing to do with any of this. It’s just basic reason, logic, and evidence.

Yesterday, I came across the following response by a skeptic who wasn’t terribly impressed:

1. The Cambrian “explosion” took many millions of years. It was originally called an “explosion” because research and information about it were limited at that time and it appeared that many species arose very quickly (geologically speaking). It is now usually called the Cambrian radiation.

2. Biological entities are not computers and do not contain “computer code”.

3. The probabilistic resources crap (sic) is based on made up numbers that mean absolutely nothing.

My message to the Skeptic (that’s what I’ll call him for the rest of this post) can be summed up in one sentence: you’ve got a lot of reading to do. Where to begin? Let’s address one point at a time.

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In June we welcomed Shasta Daisy, our new goldendoodle, to our household.  I love goldendoodles.  They are beautiful and smart and full of energy.  Lots of energy.  Did I mention she is energetic?  Watching Shasta play I kept thinking about Alan Greenspan’s famous phrase, “irrational exuberance.”  After a few weeks my wife and I were worn down to a nub, so we began casting about for ways to curb or at least channel Shasta’s enthusiasm.  We rejected doggy downers and decided to enroll her in puppy school instead.

On the first day of class we showed up at the appointed time, paid the tuition, and proceeded to the training area, where Shasta and four other dogs barked, wagged and yanked on their leashes as they got to know each other.  Shasta, at least, was having a grand time, but when the trainer finally arrived I immediately began to reevaluate the wisdom of our choice, because almost the first thing out of his mouth was “there are no right or wrong answers here.”  (Am I the only one who loathes that phrase with the burning intensity of a thousand suns?)  When he said this, many questions began to run through my head such as:  “Have we enrolled Shasta in a post-modern puppy class?” Read More ›