William Dembski writes:
I am reviewing Jason Rosenhouse’s new book, The Failures of Mathematical Anti-Evolutionism (Cambridge University Press), serially. For the full series so far, go here.
Until about 2007, conservation of information functioned more like a forensic tool for discovering and analyzing surreptitious insertions of information: So and so says they got information for nothing. Let’s see what they actually did. Oh yeah, here’s where they snuck in the information. Around 2007, however, a fundamental shift occurred in my work on conservation of information. Bob Marks and I began to collaborate in earnest, and then two very bright students of his also came on board. Initially we were analyzing some of the artificial life simulations that Jason Rosenhouse mentions in his book, as well as some other simulations (such as Thomas Schneider’s ev). As noted, we found that the information emerging from these systems was always more than adequately accounted for in terms of the information initially inputted.
Yet around 2007, we started proving theorems that precisely tracked the information in these systems, laying out their information costs, in exact quantitative terms, and showing that the information problem always became quantitatively no better, and often worse, the further one backtracked causally to explain it. Conservation of information therefore doesn’t so much say that information is conserved as that at best it could be conserved and that the amount of information to be accounted for, when causally backtracked, may actually increase. This is in stark contrast to Darwinism, which attempts to explain complexity from simplicity rather than from equal or greater complexity. Essentially, then, conservation of information theorems argue for an information regress. This regress could then be interpreted in one of two ways: (1) the information was always there, front-loaded from the beginning; or (2) the information was put in, exogenously, by an intelligence.
And no, Darwinian evolution cannot, according to the conservation of information theorems, create information from scratch. The way out of this predicament for Darwinists (and I’ve seen this move repeatedly from them) is to say that conservation of information may characterize computer simulations of evolution, but that real-life evolution has some features not captured by the simulations. But if so, how can real-life evolution be subject to scientific theory if it resists all attempts to model it as a search? Conservation of information theorems are perfectly general, covering all search.
Push Comes to Shove
Yet ironically, Rosenhouse is in no position to take this way out because, as noted in my last post in this series, he sees these computer programs as “not so much simulations of evolution [but as] instances of it.” (p. 209) Nonetheless, when push comes to shove, Rosenhouse has no choice, even at the cost of inconsistency, but to double down on natural selection as the key to creating biological information. The conservation of information theorems, however, show that natural selection, if it’s going to have any scientific basis, merely siphons from existing sources of information, and thus cannot ultimately explain it.
We’ve seen active information before in the Dawkins Weasel example. The baseline search for METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL stands no hope of success. It requires a completely random set of keystrokes typing all the right letters and spaces of this phrase without error in one fell swoop. But given a fitness function that assigns higher fitness to phrases where letters match the target phrase METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL, we’ve now got a better search, one that will converge to the target phrase quickly and with high probability. Most fitness functions, however, don’t take you anywhere near this target phrase. So how did Dawkins find the right fitness function to evolve to the target phrase? For that, he needed active information.
My colleagues and I have proved several conservation of information theorems, which come in different forms depending on the type and structure of information needed to render a search successful.
Dembski concludes this regarding Rosenhouse’s evasion of the conservation of information theorems:
For [Rosenhouse] to forgo providing even the merest sketch of the mathematics underlying this work because “it would not further our agenda to do so” (p. 212–213) and for him to dismiss these theorems as “trivial musings” (p. 269) betrays an inability to grapple with the math and understand its implications, as much as it betrays his agenda to deep-six conservation of information irrespective of its merits.
Dembski’s approach to prove the conservation of information is complemented by a generalization of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics from quantum statistical physics. His theorems are also backed up by common sense and observation. No one has ever observed a closed system ratcheting up its information content with the passage of time.
It takes an intelligence to recognize information. Why does a live rabbit have more information than a bucket of mud? (I hope no one will insult the rabbit by insisting that it contains no more information than a bucket of mud.) The specific arrangement of atoms that make a rabbit is obviously unique. To see this, imagine stirring up the bucket of mud. The particular arrangement of atoms has changed, but it’s still a bucket of mud. On the contrary, stirring up a rabbit will destroy it, since the arrangement of atoms that make a rabbit are unique. Information is related to the comparison of how many arrangements of the rabbit’s atoms there are that don’t result in a rabbit (nearly countless) to how many arrangements there are that do yield a rabbit (a much smaller number). To claim that natural processes can land on the arrangement of atoms that result in a living system composed of even a single cell is to deny scientific understanding, evidence and proof to the contrary.
For further discussion of these ideas, my book, Canceled Science: What Some Atheists Don’t Want You to See, is a resource that speaks to this topic in more depth, specifically in chapter 9.
The full article by Dembski is available at Evolution News.
Rosenhouse’s reply to Dembski’s review of The Failures of Mathematical Anti-Evolutionism:
(https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2022/07/Dembski-response.html)
Call me when Rosenhouse wins Perry Marshall’s 10 million dollar OOL prize. Until then it is all unsubstantiated bluff and bluster of Rosenhouse’s part.
CD at 1,
Not worth reading. It lacks logic, critical thinking and makes unfounded assumptions.
@Relatd #3
On the contrary, it points out Dembski’s lack of logic, lack of critical thinking, and really bad math.
BA77
How about a side wager: I’ll bet you $100 that Rosenhouse, Lee Cronin, or someone similarly situated in traditional biology/chemistry collects Marshall’s prize long before Dembski or anyone else at DI….
PK at 4,
Nonsense. As in nonsense. Whatever errors Dembski made are equaled or surpassed in this very lame reply. Evolution is not about math but random events that we’re told led to man.
ChuckyD, how about this side bet? Black holes will evaporate long before ANYONE collects that 10 million dollar prize, and gives an ounce of scientific credence to Darwinian fantasies.
Of note,
Ba77 at 7,
They just discovered “information” BECAUSE it’s the 21st Century? Not credible. Not credible at all.
We don’t send information down wires. We send coded electronic bits down wires. An early example is the Telegraph. Another is the phonograph record and Morse code. Coded information has been sent down wires for a long time.
The rest of the statements are sound.
Relatd, FYI, Dr. Meyer did not say ‘discovered information’ in the 21st century, he said “At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize,,,, etc..
Big distinction.
Moreover, Dr. Meyer is also certainly aware of the method(s) by which we transmit information down wires , through the air, or what have you. He certainly did not imply that we send information, all by it lonesome, down wires. It is simply ludicrous for you to imply that is what he meant.
Dr. Meyer may just be a little smarter than you seem to think he is. 🙂
@BA77 #2
To apply for that $10 million prize, you have to sign away your rights to the discovery. (I’ve seen the application form) A discovery which would be worth way more than $10 million. Which means only idiots and cranks would ever apply. Which makes it a complete scam from the get-go. Perry Marshall uses it to promote his book.
Pater Kimbridge: “A discovery which would be worth way more than $10 million.”
So Pater Kimbridge, since you yourself are honestly admitting that such a discovery of the ability of unguided material processes to generate coded information, (which is something that only intelligence has ever been observed to create), “would be worth way more than $10 million”, why has this VERY important discovery not been made yet?
As you yourself honestly admit, it is not as if the incentive for such a discovery is not immense.
Besides the fame and fortune, not to mention Nobel prizes, that would be lavished on the discoverer, it would also falsify ID in one fell swoop, and would also prove, once and for all, that Darwinian evolution has some real, i.e. scientific, connection to the real world, and that Darwinian evolution is not just a pseudoscientific theory that is based on a endless series of unsubstantiated just-so stories.
BA77
So you think that all it takes to solve the hard problems in science is to dangle enough money and the answers will roll in? A bit naive, n’est-ce pas?
No Pater, but you would think it would be incentive enough to try. But scientists really know it didn’t happen and never will happen. There are no such discoveries to be made.
Well Pater Kimbridge, I guess someone who believes poly-functional, multiple overlapping coded, information can arise by purely unguided material processes would be an expert on being naive. 🙂
In the preceding video, Dr. Trifonov elucidates codes that are, simultaneously, in the same sequence, coding for DNA curvature, Chromatin Code, Amphipathic helices, and NF kappaB. In fact, at the 58:00 minute mark he states, “Reading only one message, one gets three more, practically GRATIS!”. And please note that this was just an introductory lecture in which Trifinov just covered the very basics and left many of the other codes out of the lecture. Codes which code for completely different, yet still biologically essential, functions. In fact, at the 7:55 mark of the video, he lists a total of 13 codes on a powerpoint.
And last but not least, at the 10:30 minute mark of the video, Dr. Trifonov stated that the idea of the selfish gene ‘inflicted an immense damage to biological sciences’, for over 30 years:.
Let’s just say that Dr. Trifonov is not a fan of Richard Dawkins. 🙂
According to Wikipedia, Trifonov has also proposed an abiogenic theory of the origin of life. So all those codes have a natural origin? Maybe he’s on to something.
Seversky states, “Trifonov has also proposed an abiogenic theory of the origin of life. So all those codes have a natural origin? Maybe he’s on to something.”
And indeed Trifonov “inferred” that GCU and GCC “could be” the first two codons. And having the “suspected” first two triplets, they “pondered” which amino acids appeared the first,
Needless to say, “inferred”, “could be”, “suspected”, and “pondered”, are all words that reflect a lack of any real experimental proof. In short, Trifonov has an imaginary hypothesis about how the genetic code could have possibly come about but he has no real experimental proof that it is really possible.
And indeed there is a very good reason to believe that Trifonov, (as impressive of a experimental scientist as he is), nor anyone else, will ever have actual experimental proof for the hypothesized gradual, i.e. evolutionary, appearance of the genetic code.
Moreover, I can quote Richard Dawkins himself as to why it is impossible, “Any mutation in the genetic code itself (as opposed to mutations in the genes that it encodes) would have an instantly catastrophic effect, not just in one place but throughout the whole organism. If any word in the 64-word dictionary changed its meaning, so that it came to specify a different amino acid, just about every protein in the body would instantaneously change, probably in many places along its length. Unlike an ordinary mutation…this would spell disaster.”
And indeed, the genetic code has been referred to, by Darwinists, as a ‘frozen accident’ since “A mutation that altered the codon table would also alter the structure of ever protein molecule, and thus would almost surely be lethal.”
Moreover, despite the fact that Darwinists, because of their atheistic presuppositions, are forced to believe that genetic code is a ‘frozen accident’, and that it is a code that is “not necessary the best solution”, it is now known that the genetic code is, (directly contrary to their presuppositions_, ‘optimal’.
Moreover, it is also known that Darwinian mechanisms lack the time to find the optimal code, (if it were even possible for Darwinian processes to search through variations of the genetic code in the first place),
Thus in conclusion, Trifonov, because of his naturalistic presuppositions, is forced to “infer”, “could be”, “suspect”, and “ponder” that the genetic code could have possibly about gradually by evolutionary means, but he simply has no experimental proof that such a scenario is realistically possible. And indeed, we have very good reasons to believe that such a scenario is physically impossible.
In short, Perry Marshall’s 10 million dollar OOL prize is in no threat of being collected now, nor in the foreseeable future.
A few supplemental notes:
In short, Poly-Functional Complexity equals Poly-Constrained Complexity.
The primary, and insurmountable, problem that poly-functional complexity presents for neo-Darwinism is this
To put it plainly, the finding of a (severely) poly-functional/polyconstrained genome by the ENCODE study, and by further studies, has put the odds, of what was already astronomically impossible, to what can only be termed fantastically astronomically impossible.
To clearly illustrate the monumental brick wall any evolutionary scenario (no matter what “fitness landscape”) must face when I say genomes are poly-constrained by poly-functionality, I refer to this illustration found on page 141 of Dr. John Sanford’s book ‘Genetic Entropy’.
That five-word palindrome translates as, “THE SOWER NAMED AREPO HOLDS THE WORKING OF THE WHEELS.”
This ancient palindrome, which dates back to at least 79 AD, reads the same four different ways, Yet, if we change (mutate) any letter we may get a new (beneficial) meaning for a single reading read any one way, but we will consistently destroy the other 3 readings of the message with the new mutation (save for the center letter). Moreover, mutating any subsequent letter in the palindrome will greatly exasperated the problem.
This is what is meant when it is said a poly-functional genome is poly-constrained to any random mutations.
The puzzle I listed is only poly-functional to ‘only’ 4 elements/25 letters of interdependent complexity. Yet, it is now discovered that some sequences in genomes trounce that level of interdependent complexity.
For Darwinist to believe that random mutations can possibly generate that ‘jaw-dropping’ integrated level of poly-functional complexity is simply absurd!
Also see post 14 for this citation, “Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutation – George Montañez 1, Robert J. Marks II 2, Jorge Fernandez 3 and John C. Sanford 4”
Verse:
Darwinists understand that very well but they have no clue how to oppose it so they choose to play stupid and change the subject talking about biochemistry. 😆 They lost the plot.
chuckdarwin:
Well, no one at the DI or from ID will even try! Why attempt the impossible? No one will ever collect the prize because the challenge is impossible.
Ba77 at 9,
I wrote what I did because I’m skeptical about the ‘discovery’ date. Those dealing in cryptography, for example, have been sending coded bits for a long time and were looking for new ways to send coded bits since the invention of the telegraph and radio.
I also did not imply anything about Dr. Meyer’s intelligence just his choice of words. Stating that we send ‘information’ is not the same as saying coded bits. I think, based on experience, that the average person has no idea how information is transmitted through wires, the equipment involved, etc. The average person has no thorough comprehension. That is what I meant.
PK at 12,
Science without the money cannot be done. The Cold War was about the military going to the government to get the money to fund research and development.
Whatever Relatd, what you wrote certainly came off as if you thought Dr. Meyer was making elementary mistakes. Perhaps when critiquing someone else’s words you yourself should be careful in your own words?
You came off far differently than you are now trying to portray yourself as being.
Ba77 at 21,
Dismiss me all you want. Like I wrote, I’m skeptical about the timing. I’m looking at word choices and comprehension levels.
Relatd, it not so much as ‘dismissing’ you as it is defending Dr. Meyer, I’m sure you might have some informative things to contribute. It is just that you are way off base on Dr. Meyer.
The point is is that you have ‘dismissed’ Dr. Meyer by implying he made some elementary mistakes in science that even a college freshman in science would be ashamed to make.
Since it readily appears that you are not all that familiar with who Dr. Meyer actually is, and have accused him of making elementary mistakes in his understanding of basic science, it might interest you to know that Dr. Stephen Meyer has more than earned his stripes in the Intelligent Design community.
https://stephencmeyer.org
In fact, Dr. Meyer leads the Discovery Institute which is the leading think tank for the Intelligent Design community in America
https://www.discovery.org
Dr. Meyer has literally been on the cutting edge of the Intelligent Design movement for at least 20 years, perhaps even 30 years since he rubbed elbows with Phillip Johnson in the late 1980s during the inception of the Intelligent Design movement.
https://stephencmeyer.org/2019/11/05/your-witness-mr-johnson/
And perhaps you might also like to read Dr. Meyer’s trilogy on Intelligent Design, (or at least watch some Youtube videos of him lecturing on the subject), so that you don’t repeat the mistake of accusing Dr. Meyer of not understanding basic science?
The Return of the God Hypothesis: Compelling Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God
By: Stephen C. Meyer – 2021
https://www.christianbook.com/return-hypothesis-compelling-scientific-evidence-existence/stephen-meyer/9780062071507/pd/071507
Darwin’s Doubt: The Explosive Origin of Animal Life and the Case for Intelligent Design – 2014 (Times (of London) Literary Supplement Book of the Year)
https://www.amazon.com/Darwins-Doubt-Explosive-Origin-Intelligent/dp/0062071483/ref=asc_df_0062071483/
Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design – 2010
https://www.amazon.com/Signature-Cell-Evidence-Intelligent-Design/dp/0061472794/ref=sr_1_1
Ba77 at 23,
Thank you for the additional information. I was shocked by the timing of the information claim. As in, you just noticed this? I’m sure his credentials are in order.
As part of my job, I read work by professional writers. Word choices matter to me perhaps more than to others. Even when writing for a Masters or Ph.D., one should be careful of word choices.
My reply was that “information” is not properly defined in his example of “We buy it. We sell it.” The average person would hear this and draw a blank. An average person would not know the details of how information is bought and sold.
Thanks again for your helpful reply.
Dr. Meyer’s words were completely comprehensible to me. I don’t know how ‘average’ I am, but I certainly was not confused on how information is actually bought and sold, nor was I confused about the overall point that Dr. Meyer was making about information, i.e. that we have only recently come to appreciate just how fundamental information actually is in reality, i.e. on par with matter and energy as Dr. Meyer made clear in his video.
Relatd @19, 24,
Depending on how familiar you are with crytography, you might already know about a communications cover. For example, a communication might be an endless stream of pseudo-random data that might occasionally contain a random-looking coded message. So how would one know what part of a pseudo-random string is a message and what part isn’t?
I agree. So, how would you define information as differentiated from noise?
-Q
Querius at 26,
Your specific example is cryptographic cover. Radio broadcasts sent by the British during the war included a constant broadcast of a series of words on one channel that meant nothing to anyone listening except for the French resistance who was looking for a specific string of words that only they would know the meaning to.
Your noise example has no context. Generally speaking, in wartime, attempts would be made to correlate the time and day for a particular message and any actions that may have occurred shortly after. For example: ‘bright red moon’ broadcast at 11:00 hours might be the go-ahead signal for a specific attack.
In Biology, all signals are useful.
In commerce, nothing can be sold that contains useless information mixed with the useful.
Relatd @27,
Here’s what I meant regarding a communications cover:
https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/communications_cover
Imagine tuning into a radio station. All you hear is a crackling noise. Could there be an encrypted message in a fragment of that noise?
The New York Times?
-Q