You know BioLogos’s Darrel Falk is out to get someone when the smarmalade is laid on thick …

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September 15, 2011

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Photo of — Darrel Falk, biology prof at Point Loma Linda Nazarene,

In “At BioLogos, Still Critiquing the Book Steve Meyer Didn’t Write” (Evolution News & Views, September 15, 2011) David Klinghoffer observes that the BioLogos Foundation’s president Darrel Falk can’t seem to grasp that in Signature in the Cell, Meyer is talking about the problems of origin of life, not Darwinian evolution. Most analysts of the problem see it as a different one because – apart from design – we have no reason to suppose that hydrogen atoms are trying to maximize the survival of their selfish genes by becoming people. But Falk – choosing to write about an argument he thinks he can refute instead of the one that was made – engages in God talk so sugary that it makes observant Jew Klinghoffer cringe:

Falk is full of assurances that Dr. Meyer is not only a “friend and colleague” but a “fellow Christian,” sharing with Dr. Falk the belief that “a Mind” lies behind the process of life’s unfolding. “We both stand amazed at the majesty of creation and our love for the Creator,” Falk writes. He invokes “God’s Holy Spirit. That Spirit not only fills all of creation, but more specifically that Spirit fills us with his Presence and envelops us in his love. This is cause for celebration and, with ‘sandals off,’ we each bow our heads in humble worship. Truly, we — all of us — are standing on holy ground.”

From occasionally perusing the BioLogos website, I’ve come to realize that such talk about holiness and humility and love often accompanies some kind of innuendo or slur. When the sandals come off, the knife comes out.

It’s their evangelical outreach, David. We will know they are Christians by their shove, by their shove …

Jesus never seems to take – or get – a break.

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"apart from design – we have no reason to suppose that hydrogen atoms are trying to maximize the survival of their selfish genes by becoming people. " What is the design reason to suppose hydrogen atoms are trying to maximize the survival of their selfish genes by becoming people (whatever that could mean!!!).DrREC_{September 16, 2011
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RH7: Pardon, Meyer is highlighting a basic point, that FSCI -- in living forms specification is on bio-functionality constraints to fit as key to lock and work correctly -- is an empirically well-supported sign of intelligent design:
intelligent design is the best explanation of the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life. To make this case, I argued that no purely physical or chemical entity or process had demonstrated the causal powers to produce complex specified information — where “complex” refers to a specific amount of information (roughly 500 bits or more) and the inverse of a probability measure (Dembski’s inverse probability bound). An obvious prediction follows from this claim — in particular, that large amounts of new functionally specified information (over 500 bits) will not accumulate as a result of random or undirected processes and that no such process will be discovered that can produce 500 bits of new specified information starting from purely physical and chemical antecedents.
Notice, too, you have snipped above the conclusive summary, not the grounding for it. Cf. my own remarks here on on that. Meyer has applied this framework of evidence and analysis to the particular case of origin of life, and it is obviously onward applicable to the origin of complex biofunction in living systems, just as it is applicable to the origin of sculptures, Stonehenges, computer programs and even blog posts in this thread. (All monkeys pounding on keyboards, report their presence kindly . . . bananas offered as a reward to the first monkey to successfully type and submit a post by random keyboarding.) However, in the book you have quoted he has not addressed this issue specifically, given its focus on origin of life. What he is speaking to is a very simple issue: SHOW ON EMPIRICAL OBSERVATION, A CASE WHERE BLIND CHANCE AND MERE MECHANICAL NECESSITY GIVE RISE TO FSCI AND DESIGN THEORY GOES AWAY. Failing that, the abundant observational evidence that FSCI is only -- and, routinely [try even posts in this thread] -- produced by design as causal process, backed up by the sort of search resources challenge analysis [e.g., cf here] that undergirds this observation, warrants a strong inductive generalisation. Namely, that once we see something that pushes the LHS of the following log reduced simplified Dembski expression beyond 1, we have grounds to infer design: Chi_500 = I*S - 500, bits beyond the solar system threshold. At that threshold, the search capacity of our solar system since its commonly accepted date of origin, would amount to a random sample the size of one straw, taken from a hay bale a light month across. Even if a solar system were lurking in such a bale, overwhelmingly, your sample -- save it it were intelligently directed -- would come up with the typical pattern, not he isolated one, namely, a straw. And if you are uncomfortable with the solar system as scope of search, move up to 1,000 bits, to reduce the search resources of the observed cosmos even more hopelessly in the space of possible configurations for just 125 bytes of informational possibilities. For origin of life, just on DNA for cells -- and the biological cell is the observed form of life we are studying scientifically (if you propose another kindly put forward a sample we may observe) -- we are looking at 100,000 - 1 mn bits worth of information. Lucky noise [the source of variation for the trials in trial and error blind searches] is just not credibly likely to hit on codes, algorithms and the like in a clustered, co-ordinated basis, under such circumstances. And, when it comes to onward proposed body plan macro-level evolution -- not one or a few bases worth or mutations leading to variation within a body plan that is already working on the ground -- we are now looking at 10's - 100's+ millions of bits worth of fresh functionally specific information; as can be inferred from comparing genome sizes of unicellular organisms and typical complex organisms with functionally specific organs and systems. The claim is that chance based variation plus culling out of the unfit by their extinction [i.e. natural selection is a REMOVER not an adder of info] suffice to explain origin of such functionally specific body plans. But as we just highlighted, that boils down to chance origin of information for novel, specific and complex functions, many of which will certainly be beyond the relevant thresholds for chance search. The FSCI threshold principle applies to the origin of body plans, just as it does to the origin of life that Meyer addressed in details in his work. And, it points to the same conclusion. Now, why didn't Meyer spend time on the origin of body plans? The answer lies in the structure of the famous tree of life icon: the root of the tree is obviously the origin of life. For, if there is no root, there can be no tree. Also, if it is a reasonable and warranted conclusion that on the evidence of FSCI, cell based life was designed, that drastically shifts our estimate of the credible resources available to account for body plans. If the cell was designed, credibly, then on much the same grounds, it is credible that body plans were also designed. Just as Wallace -- co-founder of the modern theory of evolution -- concluded, there is abundant reason and evidence to infer that the world of life is a manifestation of intelligent purpose and design. But in our day, there is an intellectual stronghold of a priori imposed materialism that blocks that reasonable conclusion, largely on institutionalised ideological grounds. (Cf here on in context.) The issue, in the end, unfortunately, is no mystery: the actual mere objective strength of evidence and analysis on the merits for a new paradigm, too often, is not enough to break through the a priori commitments of the established old order, so major paradigm shifts for entrenched research programmes often take a generation or more. Twenty more years to go, folks. (We are already seeing the expellers fined for their abuses . . . ) GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{September 16, 2011
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rhampton7: Meyer is assuming that he who would account for the origin of life must account for the first cell. About which he presents the difficulties. His book is not about Darwinian evolution. A need to pretend otherwise springs from what motive, would you say?News_{September 16, 2011
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When it comes to the undocumented past Naturalistic Theists can not acknowledge even one divine intervention. If they did then they may as well(God forbid)believe their own religion.Mytheos_{September 16, 2011
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To be fair, in the book (p.483) Stephen Meyer stated that he determined that only an intelligent agent could have been responsible for the cell (the presumed first life form). He continued that;
According to the hypothesis developed in this book, intelligent design is the best explanation of the origin of the information necessary to produce the first life. To make this case, I argued that no purely physical or chemical entity or process had demonstrated the causal powers to produce complex specified information -- where "complex" refers to a specific amount of information (roughly 500 bits or more) and the inverse of a probability measure (Dembski's inverse probability bound). An obvious prediction follows from this claim -- in particular, that large amounts of new functionally specified information (over 500 bits) will not accumulate as a result of random or undirected processes and that no such process will be discovered that can produce 500 bits of new specified information starting from purely physical and chemical antecedents. My theory acknowledges that small amounts of specified information can occassionally arise by random processes, but that the amount of information that can be generated is limited by the probablistic resources of the universe.
It seems to me that an honest reading of the entire section (see "The Causal Powers of Materialistic Mechanisms") makes it clear that not only the first life, but any evolutionary change above the CSI threshold, can not be the product of natural means alone. Thus it's entirely reasonable to conclude that Stephen Meyer's theory, by his own admission, applies to Darwinian Evolution and not just the origin of life.rhampton7_{September 15, 2011
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