Longtime design objector AF has just issued an inadvertently revealing challenge in the Info by accident thread:
AF, 224: >> And in the spirit of Carthago delenda est if anyone has a testable hypothesis of “Intelligent Design”, that would be good, too!>>
This is brazen, and utterly revealing.
Cato’s “Carthage must fall” was a declaration of implacable ruthless enmity that led to the final destruction of Carthage through a third war in a century, on a flimsy excuse.
KF, 225: >> AF has been at UD from the beginning. Eight years.
He therefore full well knows — it having been stated in his presence umpteen times — that, for instance, a clear case of observation where genuinely blind chance and mechanical necessity are observed to generate an increment of 500 – 1,0000 bits or more of FSCO/I (equivalent, roughly to a protein code of 250 – 500 AA’s/codons) would be decisive against ID. (Cf. here and here on. Likewise, Durston’s one-pager here and here at ENV are helpful. Meyer’s essay on methodological equivalence of design and descent approaches here will also be useful.)
In short, it is a longstanding test-point of ID that beyond a relevant bound set by solar system or observed cosmos scale atomic resources, FSCO/I (or any similar form) will not credibly be accessible by blind chance and mechanical necessity.
The Design Inference from FSCO/I, per aspect of an entity or process
{The protein-assembling ribosome, an example of code based FSCO/I in action:}
Step by step protein synthesis in action, in the ribosome, based on the sequence of codes in the mRNA control tape (Courtesy, Wikipedia and LadyofHats)
{The case of ATP synthetase, a motor-using enzyme that makes the critical ATP molecule:}
ATP Synthetase — a rotary molecular motor that makes the ATP “energy battery” molecules of the living cell (HT: Nobel Foundation)
{Animation:}
The rotary action of the ATP Synthetase as it makes ATP’s (Source: Wiki)
{For comparison, we can look at computer paper tape and readers:}
Punched paper Tape, as used in older computers and numerically controlled machine tools (Courtesy Wiki & Siemens)
{. . . and electrical motors:}
A typical electrical motor (HT: Arthur’s free engineering clipart)
{Where, in answer to the common objection that living things reproduce and so are not comparable to technological objects, we call up the requisites for that capacity, shown by the von Neumann self-replicator:}
(i) an underlying storable code to record the required information to create not only (a) the primary functional machine [[here, for a “clanking replicator” as illustrated, a Turing-type “universal computer”; in a cell this would be the metabolic entity that transforms environmental materials into required components etc.] but also (b) the self-replicating facility; and, that (c) can express step by step finite procedures for using the facility;
(ii) a coded blueprint/tape record of such specifications and (explicit or implicit) instructions, together with
(iii) a tape reader [[called “the constructor” by von Neumann] that reads and interprets the coded specifications and associated instructions; thus controlling:
(iv) position-armimplementing machines with “tool tips” controlled by the tape reader and used to carry out the action-steps for the specified replication (including replication of the constructor itself); backed up by
(v) either:
(1) a pre-existing reservoir of required parts and energy sources, or
(2) associated “metabolic” machines carrying out activities that as a part of their function, can provide required specific materials/parts and forms of energy for the replication facility, by using the generic resources in the surrounding environment.
Also, parts (ii), (iii) and (iv) are each necessary for and together are jointly sufficient to implement a self-replicating machine with an integral von Neumann universal constructor.That is, we see here an irreducibly complex set of core components that must all be present in a properly organised fashion for a successful self-replicating machine to exist. [[Take just one core part out, and self-replicating functionality ceases: the self-replicating machine is irreducibly complex (IC).]This irreducible complexity is compounded by the requirement (i) for codes, requiring organised symbols and rules to specify both steps to take and formats for storing information, and (v) for appropriate material resources and energy sources.
Immediately, we are looking at islands of organised function for both the machinery and the information in the wider sea of possible (but mostly non-functional) configurations.
In short, outside such functionally specific — thus, isolated — information-rich hot (or, “target”) zones, want of correct components and/or of proper organisation and/or co-ordination will block function from emerging or being sustained across time from generation to generation. So, once the set of possible configurations is large enough and the islands of function are credibly sufficiently specific/isolated, it is unreasonable to expect such function to arise from chance, or from chance circumstances driving blind natural forces under the known laws of nature.}
{Where also, Mignea, 2012 — slide show; fair use. Presentation speech is here — highlighted the minimal requisites for a self replicating life form:}
Of course, there have been many attempts [to show creation of FSCO/I by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity] over the years.
Every one of them, from canals perceived on Mars by astronomers 100+ years ago, to the infamously misleading Weasel and genetic algorithms, to a YouTube video of clocks allegedly evolving blindly, have been shown to depend crucially on subtle or blatant injection of active information that narrows the target zone.
This has been a free shot at goal offer, and it is utterly telling that after ten months, there have been no serious takers.
It is clear then that we are not dealing with reasonable discussion but implacable enmity, which is exactly what [Cato’s –oops] Carthage must fall [by implication in light of the history of the Punic wars, by any means deemed effective . . . ] catchphrase represented.
So, AF is here repeating a talking point he full well knows is false and misleading, the better to enmesh the naive or unwary. That is sad, but we need to face the reality of the sort of implacable, ruthless ideological enmity we are dealing with.>>
So, now, let us see where the real balance on the merits lies. END
Comments
kairosfocus
... for instance, a clear case of observation where genuinely blind chance and mechanical necessity are observed to generate an increment of 500 – 1,0000 bits or more of FSCO/I (equivalent, roughly to a protein code of 250 – 500 AA’s/codons) would be decisive against ID.
But is it possible in principle scientifically to demonstrate genuine blind chance and mechanical necessity?
What if information was intelligently embedded into the structure and properties of the fundamental particles and forces of nature at the beginning of the universe i.e. a fine-tuning argument that has been made many times? If this is true - which cannot be disproved - then absolutely every object and event we can observe ultimately derives from an intelligent cause, and therefore it is simply not possible to demonstrate anything operating by "blind chance and mechanical necessity".
Accordingly, any claim where the purported falsification is to demonstrate something operating without intelligent influence is in principle not falsifiable, and therefore is not scientific.CLAVDIVS
August 8, 2013
August
08
Aug
8
08
2013
04:17 PM
4
04
17
PM
PDT
Thanks for the welcome. I've been lurking here for a few weeks now, mostly digging up material via the search function for use in debates.
I agree with you, but what is "CV + DRS –> IDWUM"? I have never seen any of those acronyms before.
I never knew that Paley wrote that - thank you for sharing! I'm definitely using it in future arguments.ldvgvnbtvn
August 8, 2013
August
08
Aug
8
08
2013
10:53 AM
10
10
53
AM
PDT
Hi LD:
First, welcome to UD. (Quite a handle there . . . )
You have a valid point, until CV + DRS --> IDWUM has been empirically shown capable of creating significant body plan features, advocates of such should not be allowed to get away with huge extrapolations from minor variation mostly reflecting breakdown of functions.
Besides, as I hinted above [cf. earlier post here], Paley long since anticipated Darwin by 50 years in Ch 2 of his Nat Theol:
Suppose, in the next place, that the person who found the watch should after some time discover, that in addition to all the properties which he had hitherto observed in it, it possessed the unexpected property of producing in the course of its movement another watch like itself—the thing is conceivable ; that it contained within it a mechanism, a system of parts—a mould, for instance, or a complex adjustment of lathes, files, and other tools—evidently and separately calculated for this purpose; let us inquire what effect ought such a discovery to have upon his former conclusion.
I. The first effect would be to increase his admiration of the contrivance, and his conviction of the consummate skill of the contriver. Whether he regarded the object of the contrivance, the distinct apparatus, the intricate, yet in many parts intelligible mechanism by which it was carried on, he would perceive in this new observation nothing but an additional reason for doing what he had already done— for referring the construction of the watch to design and to supreme art. If that construction witliout this property, or which is the same thing, before this property had been noticed, proved intention and art to have been employed about it, still more strong would the proof appear when he came to the knowledge of this further property, the crown and perfection of all the rest.
II. He would reflect, that though the watch before him were in some sense the maker of the watch which was fabricated in the course of its movements, yet it was in a very different sense from that in which a carpenter, for instance, is the maker of a chair—the author of its contrivance, the cause of the relation of its parts to their use. With respect to these, the first watch was no cause at all to the second: in no such sense as this was it the author of the constitution and order, either of the parts which the new watch contained, or of the parts by the aid and instrumentality of which it was produced. We might possibly say, but with great latitude of expression, that a stream of water ground corn; but no latitude of expression would allow us to say, no stretch cf conjecture could lead us to think, that the stream of water built the mill, though it were too ancient for us to know who the builder was. What the stream of water does in the affair is neither more nor less than this: by the application of an unintelligent impulse to a mechanism previously arranged, arranged independently of it and arranged by intelligence, an effect is produced, namely, the corn is ground. But the effect results from the arrangement. The force of the stream cannot be said to be the cause or the author of the effect, still less of the arrangement. Understanding and plan in the formation of the mill were not the less necessary for any share which the water has in grinding the corn; yet is this share the same as that which the watch would have contributed to the production of the new watch, upon the supposition assumed in the last section. Therefore,
III. Though it be now no longer probable that the individual watch which our observer had found was made immediately by the hand of an artificer, yet doth not this alteration in anywise affect the inference, that an artificer had been originally employed and concerned in the production. The argument from design remains as it was. Marks of design and contrivance are no more accounted for now than they were before. In the same thing, we may ask for the cause of different properties. We may ask for the cause of the color of a body, of its hardness, of its heat; and these causes may be all different. We are now asking for the cause of that subserviency to a use, that relation to an end, which we have remarked in the watch before us. No answer is given to this question, by telling us that a preceding watch produced it. There cannot be design without a designer; contrivance, without a contriver; order, without choice; arrangement, without any thing capable of arranging; subserviency and relation to a purpose, without that which could intend a purpose; means suitable to an end, and executing their office in accomplishing that end, without the end ever having been contemplated, or the means accommodated to it. Arrangement, disposition of parts, subserviency of means to an end, relation of instruments to a use, imply the presence of intelligence and mind. No one, therefore, can rationally believe that the insensible, inanimate watch, from which the watch before us issued, was the proper cause of the mechanism we so much admire m it—could be truly said to have constructed the instrument, disposed its parts, assigned their office, determined their order, action, and mutual dependency, combined their several motions into one result, and that also a result connected with the utilities of other beings. All these properties, therefore, are as much unaccounted for as they were before.
IV. Nor is any thing gained by running the difficulty farther back, that is, by supposing the watch before us to have been produced from another watch, that from a former, and so on indefinitely. Our going back ever so far brings us no nearer to the least degree of satisfaction upon the subject. Contrivance is still unaccounted for. “We still want a contriver. A designing mind is neither supplied by this supposition nor dispensed with. If the difficulty were diminished the farther we went back, by going back indefinitely we might exhaust it. And this is the only case to which this sort of reasoning applies. “Where there is a tendency, or, as we increase the number of terms, a continual approach towards a limit, there, by supposing the number of terms to be what is called infinite, we may conceive the limit to be attained ; but where there is no such tendency or approach, nothing is effected by lengthening the series. There is no difference as to the point in question, whatever there may be as to many points, between one series and another—between a series which is finite, and a series which is infinite.
A chain composed of an infinite number of links can no more support itself than a chain composed of a finite number of links. And of this we are assured, though we never can have tried the experiment; because, by increasing the number of links, from ten, for instance, to a hundred, from a hundred to a thousand, etc., we make not the smallest approach, we observe not the smallest tendency towards self support. There is no difference in this respect—yet there may be a great difference in several respects—between a chain of a greater or less length, between one chain and another, between one that is finite and one that is infinite. This very much resembles the case before us. The machine which we are inspecting demonstrates, by its construction, contrivance and design. Contrivance must have had a contriver, design a designer, whether the machine immediately proceeded from another machine or not. That circumstance alters not the case . . . [Natural Theology, Ch 2, 1806.]
I find it astonishing that while I have seen many a dismissal of the point Paley said in Ch 1, I find little or nothing that seriously engages his thought exercise in Ch 2. Much less, addresses the linked issues on the von Neumann Kinematic Self Replicating Automaton. Where of course the first level of this is origin of cell based life, but the implications extend to any major contrivance in the world of life.
Strawman burning, looks like.
KFkairosfocus
August 8, 2013
August
08
Aug
8
08
2013
01:20 AM
1
01
20
AM
PDT
And the misconception thus perpetuates...
Whenever someone pulls the "not comparable because it dynamically reproduces" line on me, I just respond with "So what? All that means is that NS+RM would have to build it instead, but if that is a woefully inadequate explanation (which we know it is, since it has never produced anything even remotely comparable to most of cellular machinery despite well-beyond-sufficient opportunities), the comparison stands."ldvgvnbtvn
