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The ID argument from thermodynamics

Since in my last post a commenter put on the table thermodynamics to support evolution I decided to offer my personal answer in a specific post, although UD already dealt with this issue. As known, 2nd law of thermodynamics (SLOT, also called “entropy law”) states that in a closed system the overall energy entropy ΔS never decreases spontaneously (i.e. without an external intervention). Example: in a room (considered a closed system) a hot cup of coffee on a tabletop, loosing heat, decreases in energy entropy –ΔSc (neghentropy). Around the table the environment, absorbing heat, increases energy entropy ΔSe, in such manner that the overall energy entropy of the room ΔSr doesn’t decrease. In this example SLOT can be expressed with this formula: Read More ›

tm
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Turing machines, cells and why both are designed

In a previous post (see here) I wrote: “necessary but not sufficient condition for a self-reproducing automaton is to be a computer”. Biological cells self-reproduce then for this reason work as computers. But “computer” is a very generic term (it means a device able to compute, calculate, process information, rules and instructions). Computer-science studies a series of models, of increasing complexity, which deserve the name of “computer”. It may be interesting to briefly analyze these models and discover which of them cells are more similar to. At the same time I hope my analysis will clear more what said in that post. Read More ›

The Darwinism contradiction of repair systems

When a thing is false, is false from all points of view. In fact it cannot exist a point of view from which the thing becomes true, given it is false, rather each view point manifests a particular aspect of the falsity of the thing. As a consequence, when a thing is false, whether we suppose it is true we get contradictions, one for every point of view we consider the thing from. All that is simple logic. Read More ›

John von Neumann, an IDer ante litteram

Hungarian mathematician John von Neumann (1903 – 1957) was one of the more powerful scientific mind of the 20th century. His works span from functional and numerical analysis to quantum mechanics, from set theory to game theory, as well as many other fields of pure and applied mathematics. He was a pioneer in computer science, the first real computers were developed according to a basic model that takes his name (“von Neumann architecture”). Read More ›

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Coupled Complex Specified Information

Imagine this paradoxical scenario: NASA decides to construct a new space station and a new space shuttle. It assigns to a team of engineers the job of designing the station and to another team the job of designing the shuttle, without any specifications about the relations between the two projects and the mandate that they must not exchange information (the projects are top secret). The teams finish their work and the systems are launched into the space. Would you bet one cent that the shuttle will succeed to dock to the station to exchange materials and astronauts? Sure not because when two complex systems must interface in a complex manner (as the station and the shuttle when they are coupled Read More ›

Metaprogramming and DNA

In informatics metaprogramming is a technique consisting in developing computer programs (sets of instructions) that output other programs. While simple programming means instructions generating data, metaprogramming means instructions generating instructions. In general the prefix “meta” means a thing/cause that stays at a higher semantic/ontological level than another thing/effect (in the case of metaprogramming we have a two-level hierarchy where a parent program creates child programs). For a tutorial introduction to metaprogramming see for example the following Jonathan Bartlett’s brilliant articles:
one, two and three.

DNA contains instructions, biological code for working-out various constructive cellular jobs (making proteins, setting developmental parameters, etc.). Question (inspired by the above ascertainment and readings): does DNA contain also meta-programs beyond simple programs?

Much DNA (outside its coding-for-proteins portions) seems without function (junk-DNA). Is it possible that some junk-DNA is meta-code able to assembly other DNA code? This could be an interesting ID prediction. Many have noted as the information amount contained in the genomes seems really too little to account for the overall complexity of organisms. Metaprogramming would be exactly one of the techniques able to compress the biological information. Read More ›