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INTELLIGENT DESIGN BOOK DELIVERS BLOW TO DARWIN; CRACKS AMAZON.COM BEST SELLER LIST IN SCIENCE

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Anika Smith, of the Discovery Institute, brings us exciting new information:

SEATTLE, WA – Despite Darwinist’s attempts to suppress the debate over evolution, a new book about the controversial theory of intelligent design made Amazon.com’s list of the year’s Top 10 bestselling books in science, just as the world marks 150 years since Charles Darwin published his own theory in his landmark book On the Origin of Species.

Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design (HarperOne) by Dr. Stephen C. Meyer is entering its fifth printing in as many months, and continues to sell strongly both online and in stores, reports the book’s publisher. According to Amazon.com, books on its 2009 list of best sellers are ranked according to customer orders through October. Only books published for the first time in 2009 are eligible.

“Darwin is mistakenly thought to have killed the design argument in science,” said Robert Crowther, director of communications at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, which is the intelligent design research program directed by Dr. Meyer. Now, here’s a book about the science of intelligent design that shows how the design argument is being revived with powerful new arguments relevant to our culture.

By using the same method of reasoning that Darwin himself used, Dr. Meyer explains how intelligent design can be formulated as a rigorous scientific argument. In Signature in the Cell Dr. Meyer shows that the digital code embedded in DNA points powerfully to a designing intelligence and helps unravel a mystery that Darwin did not address: how did the very first life begin?

Comments
fg:
Once I was but a fertilised egg, now I am a fully grown human and hopefully somewhat rational and creative.
fg:
I am both human and chicken, and will therefore not pursue this side conversation for fear of where it might lead.
Are you a fully grown chicken, or one still in the process of development? Is it the chicken in you that makes you rational and creative?Mung
November 24, 2009
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Joseph said:
And I see no reason to explain things to you that are undisputed history.
OK. Some things just can't be explained.Voice Coil
November 23, 2009
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Here's some publications that Art claims do not exist: Publications by Hubert P. Yockey, Ph.D. Books Yockey, Hubert P. (2005) Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life. Cambridge University Press. Yockey, Hubert P. (1992) Information Theory and Molecular Biology, Cambridge University Press. Yockey, Hubert P.; Platzman, Robert P.; and Quastler, Henry, eds. (1958) Symposium on Information Theory in Biology, New York, London: Pergamon Press.Mung
November 22, 2009
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Bioinformatics and Computational Biology are well-developed fields of research.
Yes, they are. But they aren't what you apparently think they are either.
It is debatable whether bioinformatics and the discipline computational biology, literally "biology that involves computation," are the same or distinct. To some, both bioinformatics and computational biology are defined as any use of computers for processing any biologically-derived information, whether DNA sequences or breast X-rays. Therefore, there are other fields, e.g. medical imaging / image analysis, that might be considered part of bioinformatics. This would be the broadest definition of the term. But, in practice, the definition used by most people is even narrower; bioinformatics to them is a synonym for computational molecular biology: any use of computers to characterize the molecular components of living things. - here
Over the past few decades, major advances in the field of molecular biology, coupled with advances in genomic technologies, have led to an explosive growth in the biological information generated by the scientific community. This deluge of genomic information has, in turn, led to an absolute requirement for computerized databases to store, organize, and index the data and for specialized tools to view and analyze the data. - here
You might say, it's information about information.
Bioinformatics is the application of information technology to the field of molecular biology. - here
Information technology, not information theory. I'm looking for the theoretical basis for this stuff they are studying that they call "information." What is it, how is it generated and lost, where does it come from, what is it capable of, how is it transmitted, received, processed and what are the general principles and laws that apply to it. You know science "Informal and colloqiual" isn't an excuse for not doing science.Mung
November 22, 2009
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VC:
I see no confusion, nor misrepresentation, in Darwin’s prefatory exposition.
And I see no reason to explain things to you that are undisputed history.Joseph
November 22, 2009
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Zachriel:
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology are well-developed fields of research.
So what? Can either of them account for the software (in living organisms) that controls the hardware (that make up living organisms)? IOW can either of those "well developed foelds of research" demonstrate that biological information is reducible to matter, energy, chance and necessity? And if they did how did they do so? Or are you just/ still posting things that don't support your claims as if they support your claims?Joseph
November 22, 2009
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Mung: If biology is ever to join the true sciences, biologists better get busy in the field of information theory.
Bioinformatics and Computational Biology are well-developed fields of research. How do you think they process all the new genomic data? Just finding a parsimonious phylogenetic tree is a huge computational task. Bioinformaticians work very closely with mathematicians and computer scientists to utilize the most advanced methods of information analysis.Zachriel
November 22, 2009
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Also, Art, the use of the term "information" as used in biology is in no way limited to that which is in the genome. There are information-processing systems, signals, signal transduction pathways, etc. If biology is ever to join the true sciences, biologists better get busy in the field of information theory. As far as your prior claim, look up Hubert Yockey. I'd think you'd be aware of him.Mung
November 22, 2009
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I am both human and chicken,
Finally we have a completely rational explanation for all the eggs you lay here.Mung
November 22, 2009
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Let me be more specific what I mean by improbability problem. Even if hypothetical scenario of emergence of conglomerated protocells would be proven to happen in the wild all the time from non-living matter this would only provide a platform for a blind search trials for the first working and DNA based cell. Because it's a blind search IMHO only options for finding a credible origins theory for DNA based life are: 1)Namespace of DNA is filled with working arrangements or "life sequences" 2)The basic functionality or "life sequence" can be reached from a relatively short namespace 3)There are enough trials to go through the namespace in less than 1B years 4)Self-organization by some physical law 5)IntelligenceInnerbling
November 22, 2009
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Mung and Nakashima, I am both human and chicken, and will therefore not pursue this side conversation for fear of where it might lead. fGfaded_Glory
November 22, 2009
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Mung, go to Pubmed, search for “genetic information”, and then tell me how many of the 5000+ studies you find use the term information in the ID sense – that is, equating it with CSI, FCSI, Shannon information, or any other strictly mathematical manifestation. Please relay to us your results (as a percentage – how many abstracts or papers you read, whether they were randomly selected, and how many use the term as do IDists). I maintain that the percentage will be in the low single digits.
Art, are you telling us that in over 5000+ papers you cannot find a rigorous definition of information and that in each and every one, when the term "information" is used, it is always used as "a colloquial and informal term"? Let's not forget that I did write:
Most biologists, when they use the term “information” don’t even consider how their usage of it relates to “the ID usage of the word.”
I guess Art agrees. The point is, which 5000+ papers can only support, is that when the term is used in biology, it is used for a reason, and that reason is that the term communicates something to the reader. Information in biology is real and therefore requires an explanation.Mung
November 22, 2009
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Joseph said:
That is the point. Darwin was confused.
You'll have to make yourself more clear. I see no confusion, nor misrepresentation, in Darwin's prefatory exposition. Here's a link to the Preface of the 6th edition of Origin. In which passages do you find confusion, or misrepresentation? http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species-6th-edition/preface.htmlVoice Coil
November 21, 2009
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Voice Coil, That is the point. Darwin was confused. He was arguing against something- the fixity of species- that was not adhered to by his time. Look up Carolus Linnaeus. Also Blythe wrote about natural selection well before Darwin did.Joseph
November 21, 2009
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Joseph said:
Darwin should understand misrepresentation- he did exactly that by claiming the “opposition” adhered to the fixity of species.
In the Preface of the sixth edition of Origin we find the observation that "Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created. This view has been ably maintained by many authors." However, this is followed by an extensive review of the history of the notion that species change, and therefore do not exhibit "fixity." Darwin summarized the views (all pre-Origin) of Aristotle, Lamark, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, W.C. Wells, W. Herbert, Grant, Patrick Matthew, Von Buch, Rafinesque, Haldeman, d'Halloy, Owen, Saint-Hilaire, Freke, Herbert Spencer, Naudin, Keyserling, Schaaffhausen, Lecoq, Powell, Von Baer, Huxley, and Hooker. All advocated the idea of change and sometimes descent with modification, and several, Darwin explicitly noted, identified natural selection as an engine of that change.Voice Coil
November 21, 2009
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I would add the following to what Arthur Hunt posted: Go to PubMed and search for "genetic information" and then tell me how many of the 5000+ studies you find demonstrate that blind and undirected processes can account for it. Also had Art read "Signature in the Cell" he would have read that Dr Meyers does not use "information" in any strictly mathematical sense. He uses the standard and accepted definition right out of a dictionary:
the attribute inherent in and communicated by one of two or more alternative sequences or arrangements of something (as nucleotides in DNA or binary digits in a computer program) that produce specific effects
See page 86 og Signature...Joseph
November 21, 2009
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Voice Coil- Darwin should understand misrepresentation- he did exactly that by claiming the "opposition" adhered to the fixity of species.Joseph
November 21, 2009
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Arthur Hunt's strawman:
This is the best way to appreciate that this one pillar of ID thought, that new protein-coding genes cannot arise by “natural” means, is an illusion.
Too bad ID doesn't say that Art. ID says that existing CSI can give rise to other CSI. Dembski stated exactly that in "No Free Lunch". As for gene duplications- well Dr Spetner addressed that in 1997. Perhaps you should actually learn about something BEFORE trying to refute it.Joseph
November 21, 2009
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Arthur Hunt, Through all your whining you still cannot produce any evidence of mutations accumulating in such a way as to give rise to new and useful protein machinery nor new body plans. The best you have to offer is genetic engineering and a malfunction brought on by artificial selection. Also it appears that you still don't understand the debate. You are just a sad state of affairs and you appear to be proud of it.Joseph
November 21, 2009
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Allen MacNeill, The origin of life and the genetic code has a direct bearing on this debate for the simple reason that if living organisms did not arise from non-living matter via blind and unguided processes then tnere would be no reason to infer the subsequent diversity arose solely due to blind and undirected processes.Joseph
November 21, 2009
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Three comments in one block: I agree with the sentiments here that are critical of Allen for dismissing discussion of the OOL. Meyer's book is wanting in this respect, since it is a disappointing combination of "we don't know, or the experiment has not been done, therefore design" and of actual misinformation (Hmm... did I just do a sort of pun.....???) I apologize for the lack of specifics in this comment, but it's going to be long enough. Post a request on my blog (maybe using the following link) and I would be glad to elaborate. That way, Clive doesn't have to hover over his computer screen all weekend to keep this discussion moving. Innerbling, I would agree that one or more of the first biomolecules would have to have some sort of ability to be replicated. However, as I discuss this essay, I am not sure that self-replication is necessary. One idea of mine is inspired by this paper, and the interesting realization (unrelated to the linked paper) that nucleotidyltransferases may be little more than a couple of carboxyls that coordinate divalent metal ions. Along these lines (but not directly - I'm disclosing some unpublished ideas here, so you have to be able to connect them on your own), an intriguing Pubmed search term is GADV. Mung, go to Pubmed, search for "genetic information", and then tell me how many of the 5000+ studies you find use the term information in the ID sense - that is, equating it with CSI, FCSI, Shannon information, or any other strictly mathematical manifestation. Please relay to us your results (as a percentage - how many abstracts or papers you read, whether they were randomly selected, and how many use the term as do IDists). I maintain that the percentage will be in the low single digits. Finally, an apology. CannuckianYankee, as you can see from my earlier response to you, typing is not a strength (or even a skill) of mine.Arthur Hunt
November 21, 2009
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In comment #18 mynym quoted Gould:
Charles Darwin surely ranks as the most genial of history’s geniuses-possessing none of those bristling quirks and arrogance that usually mark the type. Yet, one subject invariably aroused his closest approach to fury-the strawman claim, so often advanced by his adversaries, that he regarded natural selection as an exclusive mode of change in evolution. (The Structure of Evolutionary Theory by Stephen J. Gould :147
mynym concludes:
The equivalent is Newton specifying his theory of gravity by asserting, “But sometimes it does not apply.” Of course it may not apply but if it does not then that is a falsification.
It is worth reproducing the balance of the passage from Gould (all contained in a footnote, BTW):
Darwin, who understood so well that natural history works by relative frequency, explicitly denied exclusivity and argued only for dominance. So frustrated did he become at the almost willful misunderstanding of a point so clearly made, that he added this rueful line to the 6th edition of the Origin (1872b, p. 395): "As my conclusions have lately been much misrepresented, and it has been stated that I attribute the modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position - namely a the close of the Introduction - the following words: 'I am convinced that natural selection has been the main, but not the exclusive means of modification.' This has been of no avail. Great is the power of steady misrepresentation."
The apt analogy vis Darwin and Newton is to mistakenly attribute to Newton the assertion that events in the natural world exclusively reflect the operation of gravitation, and then claim that the discovery of further lawful physical relationships "is a falsification" of his mathematical description of gravitation. Newton did not assert such exclusivity, a fact that did not diminish the importance of his contribution. Nor did Darwin assert that natural selection was exclusive, a fact that similarly did not diminish the importance of Origin, and in fact strengthened his essential contribution. Indeed, this theoretical plurality, and Gould's extension of it, is absolutely the the central theme of the 1,400 page Structure of Evolutionary Theory. It's hard to miss. "Great is the power of steady misrepresentation."Voice Coil
November 21, 2009
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I think you could have skipped the high dudgeon and gone straight to asking Dr Hunt for examples.
But why rob me of my fun? ;) I don't bother asking Art for examples because I know that he has none. Why don't you ask him for examples? Seriously, instead of composing a post to me, asking me to request examples, why not ask him yourself? Afraid of being labeled a creationist? How should we frame this request? Art, please provide us with examples of biologists using the term "information" along with the evidence which substantiates the claim, that in each case in which they have employed the term, they meant it only in a "colloquial and informal" way. OK, Arthur Hunt, biologists use the term "information", but when they use the term, they only mean to use it in an informal and colloquial sense. Present your case. p.s. Nakashima, he wont. he cant.Mung
November 21, 2009
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Mr Mung, I think you could have skipped the high dudgeon and gone straight to asking Dr Hunt for examples.Nakashima
November 20, 2009
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I just can't let this go, yet. Arthur Hunt would have us believe that biologists, when they use the term "information," do so for no good reason. I cannot believe this, and I suspect that the biologists who use the term would also reject the claim that they do so for no good reason. Art is mistaken to think that a "colloquial and informal" usage of a term, by some weird stretch of the imagination, makes the term meaningless, and that those who use the term in a "colloquial and informal" manner intend thereby, that the term be meaningless. Lacunae: Arthur Hunt implies that biologists, when they use the term information, mean it in a "colloquial and informal" way. What Art fails to tell us is what biologists do mean, when they use the term "information". I'm not ashamed to say that I think the "oversight" is intentional. I don't think that Art has a clue what biologists mean when they use the term, and is thus reduced to claiming that they use it in a " "colloquial and informal" way, whatever taht means.Mung
November 20, 2009
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Art:
As used by biologists, it is a colloquial and informal term that has nothing to do with information theory, and especially nothing to do with the ID usage of the word. Thus, for biologists, the nature and origins of genetic information are matters of chemistry, and there has never been the dichotomy that Meyer repeatedly implies.
And this is simply false. Most biologists, when they use the term "information" don't even consider how their usage of it relates to "the ID usage of the word." (As if the "ID usage" is somehow different.) So biologists use the term as "a colloquial and informal term" and this is different from "the ID usage of the word." Pray tell, how? Biologists use it "unscientifically" whereas ID uses it "soientifically"? LOL! When biologists use the term "information," they do so in order to communicate a certain concept. Now, to be sure, there are certain "scientific" usages of a term which are not the same as the colloquial usage, but I fail to see how Art has made his case that the usage of "information" is one of them. So what, and I think we are entitled to ask this, do biologists mean to communicate when they use the term "information"? When Arthur Hunt claims that "the nature and origins of genetic information are matters of chemistry," what on earth is he talking about? And when Art goes on to claim that for all biologists, "the nature and origins of genetic information are matters of chemistry," does he provide any evidence that this is indeed the case? Does he give us any reason/b> whatsoever to believe that his pronouncements are true? No.Mung
November 20, 2009
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Art:
I’m not saying that Meyer was injecting any religious POV into those who unraveled the nature of genes and gene expression, but rather that he is inventing a backdrop – a tension between design and no design – where none existed.
This tension has existed for ages. Art's position is, that if the scientist does not formally acknowledge the tension, it doesn't exist. Well, that's just absurd. What we can be sure of, is that no principle of evolutionary biology led to these discoveries. It is convenient to say that "design" had nothing to do with it, but that is disingenuous.Mung
November 20, 2009
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I haven't read the book but I do agree with some of the Hunt's criticism in part that it's too early to tell whether the namespace of genetic code is plastic or not to produce functional folds. Pattern search algorithms that work by using induction tells us that to draw conclusions from too little data will lead astray. But what Hunt forgets is that it's not enough to produce ANY functional fold but a specific functionality of replication, resource consumption, dna repair etc has to be found all at the same time. Until it's shown that major part of the namespace of genetic code produces replication functionality etc. that is needed for the first life to emerge the improbability problem remains. And if biologists really think that origins research is only chemistry and has nothing to do with information generation they will never have any hope for rigorous theory or even hypothesis. I really don't understand Hunt's statement on post 27.Innerbling
November 20, 2009
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Allen said: "it has virtually no bearing on the evolution of life since the origin of living cells and the genetic code," Are you saying that the origin of life has no bearing on the evolution of life later? That the question of how life began and in what manner, has no bearing on how it evolved later?Collin
November 20, 2009
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JDH - Shorter analogous version of the above. Given a differential equation, what has more effect on the current trajectory of the solution, the parameters in the equation or the initial conditions? I think the proper answer is "it depends". But what does it depend on... "the initial conditions". Stop saying the initial conditions do not matter. How important they are depends on what they are.JDH
November 20, 2009
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