Engineering is, by definition, a teleological effort. Things are done in order that something else may happen. I have wondered how biology might be improved by taking ideas, practices, and methodologies from engineering and applying them to biology. Any ideas? NOTE – I accidentally used the word “approved” rather than “improved” in the post. This is fixed. Sorry for the confusion.
The Tektronix 465 Cathode Ray Oscilloscope is a classic of analogue oscilloscope design, one based on deflecting electron beams electrostatically to observe and measure electrical oscillations: But, wait a minute, are we ACTUALLY seeing electron beams? Nope, we are seeing a TRACE on the screen, where light is emitted by the phosphor as it is hit by the beams. Wait, again: are we actually seeing the electron beams? And more particularly, the electrons in the beams? Nope. No-one has ever actually seen that strange wavicle, the electron. It has never been directly observed. Never. So, why do we so confidently portray how a CRO works, if we cannot actually see the electrons that it is built around? Because, the invisible Read More ›
A couple of days ago I posted my opening statement to a formal online debate I’m currently engaged in with Christian neo-Darwinist Francis Smallwood at Musings Of A Scientific Nature. My opening statement can be found here, and his here. What follows are my opening thoughts on the question whether ID is ‘creationism in a cheap tuxedo’, or a valid scientific theory. At the bottom of this post you can find a link to Francis’ first response to me on his blog. Is Intelligent Design science or ‘creationism in a cheap tuxedo?‘ Joshua Gidney-Opening As I have already outlined in my opening statements, intelligent design theory states ‘that there are tell-tale features of living systems and the universe that are Read More ›
In a recent paper, Olivera et al analyze the venom of Cone snails, which represent a fairly large and diverse genus of venomous marine snails. What they found was very interesting. The venom genes had the following properties: The gene was hypermutable – in other words, within the genus, the variability of the venom was immensely more variable than other gene regions The hypermutability of the gene was localized – in other words, there was a specific target of hypermutability in the gene. There were some parts which were highly conserved. The localization of the hypermutability was not due to selection – in other words, it isn’t that the whole thing was hypermutable and selection only kept the ones which Read More ›
I was certain the Darwinists would spin the ENCODE findings, but even I am stunned at their sheer audacity. In response to my previous post, Critical Rationalist says that the ENCODE findings, which falsify a prediction Darwinists have been making for decades, far from being a crushing defeat for the theory and its proponents is a positively good thing for Darwinists. CR writes: “all theories contain errors of varying degree and that finding them is how knowledge grows . . . Surviving criticism and *not* surviving criticized is a win win situation, which doesn’t represent a blow to human intellect.” Then CR makes the outlandish suggestion that ENCODE is somehow a loss for ID. He writes: “[When ID] Merely assum[es] Read More ›
A recent issue of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences has just been published, and the whole issue is stacked with topics that support ID ideas – specifically, the idea that genomic evolution, to the extent that it is beneficial, is largely teleological. The introductory paper refers to the “creative genome” which contain “organizational frameworks that affect genome behavior”. I have not read the papers, only the abstracts, so the information in this post is rather tentative. However, here are some papers that seem to be of interest to the ID community: parasites have a whole DNA library of surface proteins that they switch between, and a mutator that focuses the mutations in the right place to Read More ›
The ID community, including many writers here at UD, has been predicting for years that so-called junk DNA would be found to be functional. The Darwinists have scoffed. Now ID proponents are being vindicated. My prediction: The Darwinists will change their story to “we’ve been saying this all along.” The Washington Post reports on the breakthrough research published in Nature. Most of a person’s genetic risk for common diseases such as diabetes, asthma and hardening of the arteries appears to lie in the shadowy part of the human genome once disparaged as “junk DNA.” Indeed, the vast majority of human DNA seems to be involved in maintaining individuals’ well being — a view radically at odds with what biologists have Read More ›
Over the past several days, there has been considerable debate at UD on thermodynamics, information, order vs disorder etc. In a clarifying note to Mung (who was in turn responding to Sal C) I have commented as follows. (My note also follows up from an earlier note that was put up early in the life of the recent exchanges here, and a much earlier ID Foundations series post on counter-flow and the thermodynamics FSCO/I link.) I think it convenient to scoop the below out for record and reference, as across time comments in threads are much harder to find than original posts: _____________________ >>One more time [cf. 56 above, which clips elsewhere . . . ], let me clip Shannon, Read More ›
I like to reduce stuff to the essentials. I thus propose that the essentials of Darwinian orthodoxy are the following: Shine light on dirt and it can turn into complex information-processing technology, given enough time. Next, introduce random errors into the dirt-to-complex-information-processing technology, and, given enough time, such errors can ultimately turn dirt into Darwin. Really folks, this is the claim of materialist Darwinists, reduced to its fundamental hypothetical claims. It is a quintessential example of naked-emperor syndrome. When presented honestly, as I have done, no reasonable person would accept such transparent nonsense. Yet, many people do. I know why. The alternative of design and purpose would destroy their entire materialistic worldview, which is unacceptable. Reason and evidence are of Read More ›
A common objection to the theory of intelligent design (ID) is that it has no power to make testable predictions, and thus there is no basis for calling it science at all. While recognising that testability may not be a sufficient or necessary resolution of the “Demarcation Problem”, this article will consider one prediction made by ID and discuss how this prediction has been confirmed. Click here to continue reading>>>
One criticism of ID that tends to come from those who might normally share our worldview (such as Thomists) is that ID attempts to measure meaning, while meaning is unquantifiable. I argue that this is partially correct – we currently don’t know how to quantify meaning or meaningfulness. Unlike others, I am not about to give up the search for a way to do this, but nonetheless I do agree that at present it is unquantifiable. However, ID doesn’t measure meaning. Instead, ID measures an indirect indicator of meaning – CSI, active information, etc. Indirect measurements are nothing new in science. In fact, thermometers are a great example of an indirect measurement. We can’t measure temperature directly. So, instead, we Read More ›
If you look at university physics texts which discuss the second law, you will find examples of “entropy” increases cited such as books burning, wine glasses breaking, bombs exploding, rabbits dying, automobiles crashing, buildings being demolished, and tornadoes tearing through a town (I have actually seen each of these cited). According to Sal, all of these “creationist” text writers are confused, because in most or all of these cases, “entropy” is actually decreasing. When an albatross dies, or a tornado destroys a 747, entropy is actually decreasing, he says. Of course, Sal is talking about “thermal” entropy, since the only formulation of the second law he recognizes as valid is the early Clausius formulation, which deals with thermal entropy alone. Read More ›
In order for a biological system to have more biological complexity, it often requires a substantial increase in thermodynamic entropy, not a reduction of it, contrary to many intuitions among creationists and IDists. This essay is part II of a series that began with Part 1 The physicist Fred Hoyle famously said: The chance that higher life forms might have emerged in this way is comparable to the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein. I agree with that assertion, but that conclusion can’t be formally derived from the 2nd law of thermodynamics (at least those forms of the 2nd law that are stated in many physics and engineering text Read More ›
Sal C has begun a series of UD posts on entropy, thermodynamics and info challenges. I have thought it important to highlight the macro-micro info gap issues underscored by Jaynes et al, and to raise the issue of spontaneously moving from Darwin’s Pond-state to cell-state (whether in increments or not does not materially affect the point) without intelligently directed organising work. This sets the context for the design inference on OOL, in light of the significance of our broad base of experience on the source of FSCO/I: Materials + Energy sources + IDOW –> FSCO/I Where FSCO/I is evident from functional specificity and complexity of organised entities. Such may also directly store information in physical data structures such as control Read More ›
The common belief is that adding disorder to a designed object will destroy the design (like a tornado passing through a city, to paraphrase Hoyle). Now if increasing entropy implies increasing disorder, creationists will often reason that “increasing entropy of an object will tend to destroy its design”. This essay will argue mathematically that this popular notion among creationists is wrong. The correct conception of these matters is far more nuanced and almost the opposite of (but not quite) what many creationists and IDists believe. Here is the more correct view of entropy’s relation to design (be it man-made or otherwise): 1. increasing entropy can increase the capacity for disorder, but it doesn’t necessitate disorder 2. increasing an object’s capacity Read More ›