Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

An exchange at UD on dFSCI — digitally coded, functionally specific complex information — as an empirically and analytically reliable sign of design as cause

  Functionally specific, complex information and associated information [FSCO/I]  — especially, digitally coded FSCI [dFSCI] — are seen as two of the strongest signs of design as cause. For instance, when you see this post, you do not wonder or debate the odds of different letters being strung by chance [e.g. e in English is typically about 1/8 of the text], you intuitively immediately know that this is best explained as the work of an intelligent, purposeful agent acting towards a goal and based on his knowledge of the language, codes and topic in question. And, analytically, we can substantiate that intuition. That brings us to a significant comment exchange in the current hybridisation as explanation for origin of complete Read More ›

Computer Simulations and Darwinism

Okay dudes, no more talk about my abandonment of atheism. Here’s some science and engineering talk. I know something about computer simulations. In fact, I know a lot about them, and their limitations. Search algorithms (and especially AI-related search algorithms) are a specialty of mine, as is combinatorial mathematics. The branching factor (the average number of moves per side) in chess yields approximately 10^120 possible outcomes, but the number of legally achievable positions is approximately 10^80 — the estimated number of elementary particles (protons and neutrons) in the entire known universe. Compare this to the branching factor of nucleotide sequences in the DNA molecule. Do the math. Finite element analysis (FEA) of nonlinear, transient, dynamic systems, with the use of Read More ›

Cosmologists: Relax, the standard model still works

From “Scientists Release Most Accurate Simulation of the Universe to Date” (ScienceDaily, Sep. 30, 2011), we learn, The Bolshoi supercomputer simulation, the most accurate and detailed large cosmological simulation run to date, gives physicists and astronomers a powerful new tool for understanding such cosmic mysteries as galaxy formation, dark matter, and dark energy. In one sense, you might think the initial results are a little boring, because they basically show that our standard cosmological model works,” said Joel Primack, distinguished professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “What’s exciting is that we now have this highly accurate simulation that will provide the basis for lots of important new studies