specified complexity

In the face of confusing, accusatory, polarising and dismissive rhetoric emanating from all too many objectors to design thought in our day, it is useful to put on record the core design view and the pivotal design inference as a marker for reasonable discussion. That is, a key current task is to clear the air of obfuscating, polarising, ill informed and/or confusing or misleading and/or manipulative polarising rhetoric projected by objectors to modern design thought. First, the modern, scientific design view can be reasonably summarised in words from the NWE article on Intelligent Design: Intelligent design (ID) is the view that it is possible to infer from empirical evidence that “certain features of the universe and of living things are Read More ›

Islands of function in a space of configurations, of course, are used as a metaphor for special zones T, which has been visualised at UD as follows, based on the underlying Mathematics of phase spaces and configuration spaces, using among other inputs, Dembski’s remarks in his No Free Lunch: U/D: A way to visualise the search challenge on the gamut of our solar system: A good way to visualise what is happening in physical, ordinary 3-d space as we inject functionally specific complex organisation and associated information would be to take a pile of lego bricks: . . . and contrast it with the functional organisation of a lego brick castle: . . . or that of the “exploded view” Read More ›

I was just challenged to reply to the KS “bomb” claim, and though I am busy, I will pause to note briefly, and will link this FYI-FTR to the thread of discussion where the challenge was made. I think WJM, in his post on the failure of the bomb, ably put his finger on the first main failure: Ultimately, keiths asks the question of IDists (to paraphrase) – “why did the designer pick just one form of life and utilize just one lineage, when it could have utilized any number of alternate, non-nested systems?” – yet, keiths fails to ask the same question of the natural forces argument – why just one form of life, why one lineage, why one Read More ›

. . . and blatant denial is not an appropriate response to the reality of and/or easily known facts concerning functionally specific complex organisation and /or associated information, FSCO/I: Facts are stubborn things, but people can be more stubborn than that. (That is, there are two types of ignorance, I: simple ignorance because one does not know the facts and/or may not understand them, but also II: ideological closed-mindedness due to being controlled by mind-closing agendas hostile to, selectively hyperskeptical towards and dismissive or suppressive of inconvenient facts, . . . such as those we just saw regarding FSCO/I.) Why am I saying this? Poster-boy no 1, rich @ 252  in the UD no bomb thread: [KF:] “Your comment no Read More ›

There is a current wave of attempts in an around UD to cloud, strawmannise, obfuscate, twist into pretzels and dismiss the observed (and measurable) phenomenon, functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information, FSCO/I. Accordingly, let us first note the root of the concept in the work of leading OOL — origin of life — researchers in the 1970’s: ORGEL, 1973:  . . . 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 are examples of structures that are complex but not specified. The Read More ›

One of the saddest aspects of the debates over the design inference on empirically reliable signs such as FSCO/I, is the way evolutionary materialist objectors and fellow travellers routinely insist on distorting the ID view, even after many corrections. (Kindly, note the weak argument correctives, accessible under the UD Resources Tab, which address many of these.) Indeed, the introduction to the just liked WACs is forced to remark: . . . many critics mistakenly insist that ID, in spite of its well-defined purpose, its supporting evidence, and its mathematically precise paradigms, is not really a valid scientific theory. All too often, they make this charge on the basis of the scientists’ perceived motives. We have noticed that some of these Read More ›

Lego Pile A: Lego “Pile” B: What’s the difference, and why is it there? What does this tell us about functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information (FSCO/I), why? So, bearing in mind this needle in haystack search challenge: . . . also, the design inference process flowchart: . . . and the use of coded paper tapes in older computers and Numerically Controlled machines: . . . what can and should we infer concerning the FSCO/I involved in the protein synthesis process (including the coded mRNA tape)? What, then, does this tell us about the causal factors credibly involved in the origin of cell based life crucially dependent on protein synthesis for it to carry out its functions? Why? Read More ›

The concept of information is central to intelligent design.  In previous discussions, we have examined the basic concept of information, we have considered the question of when information arises, and we have briefly dipped our toes into the waters of Shannon information.  In the present post, I put forward an additional discussion regarding the latter, both so that the resource is out there front and center and also to counter some of the ambiguity and potential confusion surrounding the Shannon metric. As I have previously suggested, much of the confusion regarding “Shannon information” arises from the unfortunate twin facts that (i) the Shannon measurement has come to be referred to by the word “information,” and (ii) many people fail to Read More ›

Let us follow an example being discussed in UD comment threads in recent days, of comparing two piles of “dirt”. (U/D, I add — on advice, a sample from ES, as a PS.) CASE A: The volcanic dome of Montserrat’s Soufriere Hills Volcano, a few miles south of where I am composing this post . . . CASE B: Another pile of “dirt” . . . Q: Is there an observable, material difference between these two piles that can allow an observer to infer as to causal source, even if s/he has not seen the causal process in action directly? A: Yes, and it is patent. A child will instantly and reliably recognise the difference, as will the most primitive Read More ›

New UD contributor HeKS notes: The evidence of purposeful design [–> in the cosmos and world of life]  is overwhelming on any objective analysis, but due to Methodological Naturalism it is claimed to be merely an appearance of purposeful design, an illusion, while it is claimed that naturalistic processes are sufficient to achieve this appearance of purposeful design, though none have ever been demonstrated to be up to the task. They are claimed to be up to the task only because they are the only plausible sounding naturalistic explanations available. He goes on to add: The argument for ID is an abductive argument. An abductive argument basically takes the form: “We observe an effect, x is causally adequate to explain Read More ›

In recent days, objector ES has been twisting the concept of Wickensian functionally specific information-bearing complex organisation into post-modernist deconstructionist subjectivist pretzels, in order to obfuscate the plain inductive argument at the heart of the design inference and/or explanatory filter. For example, consider these excerpts from the merry go round thread: ES, 41: . . . If a conscious observer connects some observed object to some possible desired result which can be obtained using the object in a context, then we say that the conscious observer conceives of a function for that object . . . . In science, properties of the material just are, without purpose, because everybody knows purpose is subjective. Functionality comes in when you get engineerial, Read More ›

Sometimes, the very dismissiveness of hyperskeptical objections is their undoing, as in this case from TSZ: Pesky EleP(T|H)ant Posted on June 25, 2014 by Richardthughes Over at Uncommon Descent KirosFocus repeats the same old bignum arguments as always. He seems to enjoy the ‘needle in a haystack’ metaphor, but I’d like to counter by asking how does he know he’s not searching for a needle in a needle stack? . . . What had happened, is that on June 24th, I had posted a discussion here at UD on what Functionally Specific Complex Organisation and associated Information (FSCO/I) is about, including this summary infographic: Instead of addressing what this actually does, RTH of TSZ sought to strawmannise and rhetorically dismiss Read More ›

Those who have been following recent exchanges at UD will recognise that the headlined summarises the current objection highlighted by objector RDFish, an AI advocate and researcher. A bit of backdrop will be useful; a clip from Luke Muehlhauser in the blog/site “Common Sense Atheism” will aid us in understanding claim and context: Contra-causal free will is the power to do something without yourself being fully caused to do it. This is what most people mean by “free will.” Contra-causal free will is distinct from what you might call caused free will, which is the type of free will compatibilists like Frankfurt and Dennett accept. Those with caused free will are able to do what they want. But this doesn’t mean that their actions Read More ›

In this post I want to consider another aspect of information.  Specifically, I want to consider the concept of “Shannon information.” First of all, I admit to having ruffled a few feathers when I mentioned in passing in a prior post that “Shannon information is not really information.”  As I have also written before in comments on UD, I don’t begrudge anyone referring to the Shannon metric as “information.”  That terminology has penetrated the English language and has become regularly-used in information theory.  So, no, I am not going to police everyone who puts the words “Shannon” and “information” next to each other. However, no small amount of misunderstanding has resulted from the unfortunate term “Shannon information.”  In particular, as Read More ›

When I was maybe five or six years old, my mother (a distinguished teacher) said to me about problem solving, more or less: if you can draw a picture of a problem-situation, you can understand it well enough to solve it. Over the many years since, that has served me well. Where, after so many months of debates over FSCO/I and/or CSI, I think many of us may well be losing sight of the fundamental point in the midst of the fog that is almost inevitably created by vexed and complex rhetorical exchanges. So, here is my initial attempt at a picture — an info-graphic really — of what the Complex Specified Information [CSI] – Functionally Specific Complex Organisation and/or Read More ›