Intelligent Design

Dembski’s CSI concept has come under serious question, dispute and suspicion in recent weeks here at UD.

After diligent patrolling the cops announce a bust: acting on some tips from un-named sources,  they have caught the miscreants in the act!

From a comment in the MG smart thread, courtesy Dembski’s  NFL (2007 edn):

___________________

>>NFL as just linked, pp. 144 & 148:

144: “. . . since a universal probability bound of 1 in 10^150 corresponds to a universal complexity bound of 500 bits of information, (T, E) constitutes CSI because T [i.e. “conceptual information,” effectively the target hot zone in the field of possibilities] subsumes E [i.e. “physical information,” effectively the observed event from that field], T is detachable from E, and and T measures at least 500 bits of information . . . ”

148: “The great myth of contemporary evolutionary biology is that the information needed to explain complex biological structures can be purchased without intelligence. My aim throughout this book is to dispel that myth . . . . Eigen and his colleagues must have something else in mind besides information simpliciter when they describe the origin of information as the central problem of biology.

I submit that what they have in mind is specified complexity, or what equivalently we have been calling in this Chapter Complex Specified information or CSI . . . .

Biological specification always refers to function . . . In virtue of their function [a living organism’s subsystems] embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the sense required by the complexity-specificity criterion . . . the specification can be cashed out in any number of ways . . . “

Here we see all the suspects together caught in the very act.

Let us line up our suspects:

1: CSI,

2: events from target zones in wider config spaces,

3: joint complexity-specification criteria,

4: 500-bit thresholds of complexity,

5: functionality as a possible objective specification

6: biofunction as specification,

7: origin of CSI as the key problem of both origin of life [Eigen’s focus] and Evolution, origin of body plans and species etc.

8: equivalence of CSI and complex specification.

Rap, rap, rap!

“How do you all plead?”

“Guilty as charged, with explanation your honour. We were all busy trying to address the scientific origin of biological information, on the characteristic of complex functional specificity. We were not trying to impose a right wing theocratic tyranny nor to smuggle creationism in the back door of the schoolroom your honour.”

“Guilty!”

“Throw the book at them!”

CRASH! >>

___________________

So, now we have heard from the horse’s mouth.

What are we to make of it, in light of Orgel’s conceptual definition from 1973 and the recent challenges to CSI raised by MG and others.

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Bradley Monton, the atheist philosopher who is friendly to design, makes a number of his papers available here, including “Against Multiverse Theodicies”, “Mixed Strategies Can’t Evade Pascal’s Wager”, “Design Inferences in an Infinite Universe”, “God, Fine-Tuning, and the Problem of Old Evidence”, and “Is Intelligent Design Science? Dissecting the Dover Decision.”

Here’s his book, Seeking God in Science: An atheist defends intelligent design. Some illuminating comments on the book:

“This is a brave and important book. Monton does not defend ‘intelligent design’ as true – he thinks it is most likely false. Instead, he defends it as a hypothesis worth taking seriously. He argues convincingly that it can be formulated as a scientifically testable hypothesis, and that there is some important empirical evidence for it – not as much evidence as its supporters claim there is, but some evidence. Virtually all voices in this debate insist either that ID is not even worth taking seriously or else that it is manifestly the truth. It is refreshing to see a talented philosopher give the thesis its due and make a serious attempt to weigh the evidence for and against it, without the weight of the ‘culture wars’ hanging over every sentence.” – John T. Roberts, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill  Read More ›

In my last post I asked Mathgrrl the following direct and unambiguous question: “OK Mathgrrl. I will put it to you: Was Orgel’s concept of specified complexity coherent or meaningful?” I then made the following prediction as to her response: “My prediction: More dancing, evasion and obfuscation.” My prediction was confirmed. Mathgrrl placed two comments on the thread to that post and she did not even address the question posed. Mathgrrl is unwilling to engage in a good faith debate on these pages. Case closed.

Who said that? Phillip Johnson? Mike Behe? Nope. Materialist atheists Jerry Fodor and Massimo Piatelli-Palmarini, in What Darwin Got Wrong (London: Profile Books, 2010), p. xxii: … we’ve been told by more than one of our colleagues that, even if Darwin was substantially wrong to claim that natural selection is the mechanism of evolution, nonetheless we shouldn’t say so. Not, anyhow, in public. To do that is, however inadvertently, to align oneself with the Forces of Darkness, whose goal it is to bring Science into disrepute. Well, we don’t agree. We think the way to discomfort the Forces of Darkness is to follow the arguments wherever they may lead, spreading such light as one can in the course of doing Read More ›

In my last post I demonstrated that Leslie Orgel coined the phrase “specified complexity.” Then I demonstrated that William Dembski uses the phrase in an identical sense. This placed Mathgrrl on the horns of a dilemma. She can stick with her assertion that the concept of “specified complexity” is meaningless, but if she does that she has to admit that materialist hero Orgel was employing a meaningless concept. Or she can admit that Orgel’s concept of “specified complexity” is meaningful, but if she does that she has to admit that ID proponent Dembski’s use of the concept is legitimate. What is a good materialist to do? Dance, evade and obfuscate of course! Now Mathgrrl writes: “I have said nothing about Read More ›

(Part 3 in three-part series. In Part 1 we discussed how NASA had chosen a schizophrenic approach to life on Mars. In Part 2 we discussed how Hoover’s ET paper destroyed their control of the narrative, as well as discomfitted many Darwinists. In this final part of the series, we look at how NASA has attempted to regain control of the ET narrative while making it comfortable for Darwinists again. But wait, these NASA types are all members of the Mars Society. Why am I confusing them with Darwinists? [You must read CS Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet, to understand the connection between planetary “manifest destiny” and a cosmological “social darwinism.” Lewis’ is the best book I know to Read More ›

University of Warwick sociologist Steve Fuller has commented The Guardian (3 May 2010): The most basic formulation of ID is that biology is divine technology. In other words, God is no less – and possibly no more – than an infinitely better version of the ideal Homo sapiens, whose distinctive species calling card is art, science and technology. Thus, when ID supporters claim that a cell is as intelligently designed as a mousetrap, they mean it literally. The difference between God and us is simply that God is the one being in whom all of our virtues are concentrated perfectly, whereas for our own part those virtues are distributed imperfectly amongst many individuals.It is easy to imagine how this way Read More ›

In a seemingly stunning laboratory tour de force, scientists were able to extract ancient enzymatic samples and analyze their structure. From the information so gleaned, they built and tested a synthetic enzyme. Here’s what they report: ” . . . we found that enzymes that existed in the Precambrian era up to four billion years ago possessed many of the same chemical mechanisms observed in their modern-day relatives.” And what were their Darwinian expectations? “Given the ancient origin of the reconstructed thioredoxin enzymes, with some of them predating the buildup of atmospheric oxygen, we expected their catalytic chemistry to be simple.” And given the ID perspective, what would we have expected? We would have expected an almost identical degree of Read More ›

Newsflash: ID proponent William Dembski did not coin the term “specified complexity.” That term was coined by celebrated evolutionary materialist Leslie Orgel to describe the criteria by which living organisms are distinguished from non-living matter. In a previous post I challenged mathgirl to show us why “specified complexity” as used by one of the most famous evolutionary materialists in history is a meaningless concept. In her response she concedes that Orgel’s use of the term is valid, but that when Dembski is using the term he is referring to a different concept. Progress! Mathgirl finally concedes that the term “specified complexity,” at least as used by Orgel, is a meaningful concept. Sadly, mathgirl has deluded herself into believing that Orgel Read More ›

P & R Publishing company got the rights to publish an American edition of “Should Christians Embrace Evolution?” (first published in the UK by IVP UK). Released next month, you can pre-order it at 32% off now at Amazon.com. You can see more about the book at its own website here.

“But why has the discourse become so frat house – animal house?” – Suzan Mazur, The Altenberg 16: An Expose of the Evolution Industry, North Atlantic Books, 2010, p. 235. Thoughts?

Mathgirl wrote in a comment to my last post:  “My conclusion is that, without a rigorous mathematical definition and examples of how to calculate [CSI], the metric is literally meaningless.  Without such a definition and examples, it isn’t possible even in principle to associate the term with a real world referent.” Let’s examine that.  GEM brings to our attention two materialists who embraced the concept, Orgel [1973] and Wicken [1979]. Orgel: . . . In brief, living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers Read More ›

NOTE: This is a post about probability estimation, rather than about inferring design. All systems – whether designed or not – have a certain level of specified complexity associated with them. Only if that level exceeds a certain threshold can we reliably infer intelligent design. The definition of a pattern’s specified complexity makes reference to P(T|H), the probability of a pattern T with respect to the chance hypothesis H. In this case, the pattern we see is an observed structure in a meteorite, and there are two competing hypotheses as to how it arose (leaving aside the possibility of contamination). What I’m interested in is how we would calculate the probability of that pattern if it arose abiotically, as opposed to the probability of that pattern if it is a bacterial fossil. It’s this kind of number-crunching which I feel we need to become proficient at. It would definitely be a feather in our caps if the ID movement could develop a readily utilizable metric to assist NASA in evaluating claimed discoveries of life from outer space. – VJT.

Recently, NASA scientist Richard Hoover looked at some slices of three very rare meteorites using an electron microscope technique called Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy, and saw what he believes to be tiny fossils of Cyanobacteria. Hoover’s article, Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites has generated a storm of controversy. Physicist Rob Sheldon has recently blogged about Hoover’s findings here and responded to some common criticisms of Hoover’s work here. Alan Boyle’s report on MSNBC is available online here. Science blogger Dan Satterfield has a post about Hoover’s discoveries here, and a review by “Discover” magazine correspondent Phil Plait can be found here. A critical review by microbiologist Rosie Redfield can be found here, while P.Z. Myers’ dismissal of Hoover’s claims is available online here.

I thought this would be an interesting test case for the concept of complex specified information (CSI), which has been getting quite a bit of attention on this blog recently (see for instance Mathgrrl’s post here, and my posts here and here). So without further ado, let’s proceed.
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ID opponents sometimes attempt to dismiss ID theory as an “argument from ignorance.”  Their assertion goes something like this: 1.  ID consists of nothing more than the claim that undirected material forces are insufficient to account for either the irreducible complexity (IC) or the functionally specific complex information (FSCI) found in living things.  2.  This purely negative assertion is an invalid argument from ignorance.  As a matter of logic, they say, it is false to state that our present ignorance concerning how undirected material forces can account for either the IC or the FSCI found in living things (i.e., our “absence of evidence”), means no such evidence exists.  In other words, our present ignorance of a material cause of IC Read More ›

Richard Weikart, history professor at the University of California Stanislaus, has just published Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress (Palgrave Macmillan April 2011) In this book, Weikart helps unlock the mystery of Hitler’s evil by vividly demonstrating the surprising conclusion that Hitler’s immorality flowed from a coherent ethic. Hitler was inspired by evolutionary ethics to pursue the utopian project of biologically improving the human race. This ethic underlay or influenced almost every major feature of Nazi policy: eugenics (i.e., measures to improve human heredity, including compulsory sterilization), euthanasia, racism, population expansion, offensive warfare, and racial extermination. For your enjoyment: You can look inside Hitler’s Ethic. Podcast with Weikart on this book here. Here’s Larry Arnhart’s review and here’s Read More ›