Let’s read the Nature abstract: Nature (2019) Article | Published: 15 May 2019 Total synthesis of Escherichia coli with a recoded genome Julius Fredens, Kaihang Wang, Daniel de la Torre, Louise F. H. Funke, Wesley E. Robertson, Yonka Christova, Tiongsun Chia, Wolfgang H. Schmied, Daniel L. Dunkelmann, Václav Beránek, Chayasith Uttamapinant, Andres Gonzalez Llamazares, Thomas […]
ID
Design Disquisitions: Quote of the Month-Robin Collins on Why ID isn’t Science
It’s been a while sorry, but here’s my latest: Quote of the Month: Robin Collins on why ID isn’t a part of science
Michael Medved discusses intelligent design theory with Darwin’s Doubt author Steve Meyer
Darwin’s Doubt deals with the Cambrian explosion of life forms about 550 million years ago. Philip Cunningham, who forwarded this link, notes, Stephen Meyer joins Michael to discuss the origins of life and the biology’s big bang, the Cambrian explosion. Animal forms come and go, but what links them as “acts of mind” (as […]
Hidden Code of the Future
At Phys.Org there’s a press release that talks about how “information” can be “hidden” in plain text. They use some kind of ‘perturbation’ method, which, I suspect is linked to some kind of set of statistics. Here’s what they say: Computer scientists at Columbia Engineering have invented FontCode, a new way to embed hidden information […]
AI, state/configuration space search and the ID search challenge
In his well-known work, No Free Lunch, p. 11, ID Researcher William A Dembski has illustrated the search challenge concept in terms of an arrow hitting a target amidst a reference class of possibilities. In so doing, he reaches back to the statistical mechanical and mathematical concept of a phase space “cut down” to address […]
Answering DiEb: Just what is “search” in a sense relevant to ID?
For some time now, objector DiEb has been raising the question, what do we mean by speaking of “search” in the context of evolutionary search. At 311 in the parody thread, she [IIRC] remarks: >>Search is a central term in the work of Dr. Dr. William Dembski jr, Dr. Winston Ewert, and Dr. Robert Marks […]
Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics: Media to get you started
Baylor computer scientist Robert Marks II checks in with news about the new book Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics: – (AI-CA) “The Mind Renewed” has published the transcript of the “Dr. Robert J. Marks II : Evolutionary Informatics” interview. Audio. YouTube. – (AI) Essay: “Why You Shouldn’t Worry About A.I. Taking Over the World” by R.J. […]
Design Disquisitions: Critic’s Corner-Sahotra Sarkar
My latest ‘Critic’s Corner’ post is now up. This one features the work of ID critic Sahotra Sarkar. Sarkar is one of the more sophisticated critics of ID so his work is worth engaging with. I have responded to some of his arguments in a previous post and plan to do more in the future: […]
Design Disquisitions: Design & the Problem of Intelligibility
Many critics of intelligent design argue that not only is ID false (or at least unscientific), but that it is basically meaningless. Such lines of criticism come from philosophers such as Sahotra Sarkar and Elliott Sober. They argue that the general concepts that are assumed in ID discussions like ‘design’ and ‘intelligence’ are too primitive and […]
Evolutionary Sandbox ID game
Gotten mixed reviews. See what you think. From Pillbug Zone: In a universe driven by targets, a faceless corporation employs you to create an evolving ecosystem you can never hope to control…
Design Disquisitions: Peter S. Williams on Intelligent Design
In the latest post at Design Disquisitions I focus on the excellent work on ID by British philosopher Peter S. Williams. He has published several papers, and has many high quality articles and media presentations on the subject. His work was instrumental in initiating my change of mind from theistic neo-Darwinism to design. Highly recommended stuff! Peter […]
Design Disquisitions: On Perry Marshall’s ‘Evolution 2.0’ & Confusions About Design
This week’s article at Design Disquisitions is about Perry Marshall’s ‘Evolution 2.0’ thesis and his criticisms of intelligent design. This article responds to some of his recent writings on his blog and his interaction with Stephen Meyer a few weeks back. Bottom line is, his philosophy of science has significant problems and he has some […]
Design Disquisitions: Critic’s Corner-Elliott Sober
Over at Design Disquisitions I have a new ‘Critic’s Corner’ post. This one focusses on the work related to ID and evolution by Elliott Sober, a prominent ID critic and philosopher of science. I’ve always seen Sober as a more sophisticated critic of ID. This will be a handy resource for finding pretty much everything that […]
Design Disquisitions: Jeffrey Koperski on Two Bad and Two Good Ways to Attack ID (Part 2): Two ‘Good’ Ways
Part two of my series looking at Jeffrey Koperski’s paper ‘Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design and Two Good Ones’ is now up on my blog. This one is quite in depth, but a couple of interesting issues come up along the way. I examine the concept of soft and hard anomalies in scientific […]