Two challenges for KL – (fossil) Lucy’s defender

_{Denyse O'Leary

April 3, 2011

Human evolution}

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A most interesting discussion has got started here at “But ‘Lucy’ herself is mostly an artifact”. Commenter KL got it going, I suspect, by observing that

I certainly don’t consider you hicks. However, my spouse and associates are primate researchers, physical anthropologists, geologists and archeologists. It’s strange to come here and see their work dismissed as a just so story. Some of them have been in the field extensively and have published many, many papers. Are you guys saying that somehow all these people are simply mistaken?

Yes, it is quite possible.

My question is, is there anything fronted by “evolution researchers” that KL wouldn’t believe? How about the Big Bazooms theory of human evolution? Or Marc “Well, the monkeys talk to me!” Hauser? How about any single item on this list? Is there nothing that KL would even wonder about? Does he know that E. O. Wilson has retracted his own kin selection theory?

Two things: The public of a free society is not stupid. When we see a parade of amazing nonsense – marketed as evolution – we wisely don’t believe any of it. I don’t bother sorting through it for the same reason as I don’t scan the tabloids to see if anything in them is true.

It is no use berating us, let alone blaming us for low science scores. Revisit your strategy.

And second, would KL be willing to read The Nature of Nature, to understand what the controversy is really about? Then we could have a serious discussion.

(Note: KL has a spouse and associates in primate research, and I have a number of relatives and friends in medicine. That does not commit me to any particular theory, no matter how widely espoused, and a good thing too: Look how much medicine has changed. )

Comments

notes on the coding of DNA: Human DNA is like a computer program but far, far more advanced than any software we've ever created. Bill Gates, The Road Ahead, 1996, p. 188 Even the leading "New Atheist" in the world, Richard Dawkins, agrees that DNA functions exactly like digital code: Richard Dawkins Opens Mouth; Inserts Foot - video http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/06/richard_dawkins_opens_mouth_in035861.html#more The Coding Found In DNA Surpasses Man's Ability To Code - Stephen Meyer - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4050638 DNA - Evolution Vs. Polyfuctionality - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4614519/ DNA - Poly-Functional Complexity equals Poly-Constrained Complexity http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMjdoZmd2emZncQ Do you believe Richard Dawkins exists? Excerpt: DNA is the best information storage mechanism known to man. A single pinhead of DNA contains as much information as could be stored on 2 million two-terabyte hard drives. Bill Gates, in recognizing the superiority found in Genetic Coding compared to the best computer coding we now have, has now funded research into this area: Welcome to CoSBi - (Computational and Systems Biology) Excerpt: Biological systems are the most parallel systems ever studied and we hope to use our better understanding of how living systems handle information to design new computational paradigms, programming languages and software development environments. The net result would be the design and implementation of better applications firmly grounded on new computational, massively parallel paradigms in many different areas. http://www.cosbi.eu/index.php/component/content/article/171 Yet the DNA code is not even reducible to the laws of physics or chemistry: Life’s Irreducible Structure Excerpt: “Mechanisms, whether man-made or morphological, are boundary conditions harnessing the laws of inanimate nature, being themselves irreducible to those laws. The pattern of organic bases in DNA which functions as a genetic code is a boundary condition irreducible to physics and chemistry." Michael Polanyi - Hungarian polymath - 1968 - Science (Vol. 160. no. 3834, pp. 1308 – 1312) “an attempt to explain the formation of the genetic code from the chemical components of DNA… is comparable to the assumption that the text of a book originates from the paper molecules on which the sentences appear, and not from any external source of information.” Dr. Wilder-Smith The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity - David L. Abel - 2009 Excerpt: "A monstrous ravine runs through presumed objective reality. It is the great divide between physicality and formalism. On the one side of this Grand Canyon lies everything that can be explained by the chance and necessity of physicodynamics. On the other side lies those phenomena than can only be explained by formal choice contingency and decision theory—the ability to choose with intent what aspects of ontological being will be preferred, pursued, selected, rearranged, integrated, organized, preserved, and used. Physical dynamics includes spontaneous non linear phenomena, but not our formal applied-science called “non linear dynamics”(i.e. language,information). i.e. There are no physical or chemical forces between the nucleotides along the linear axis of DNA (where the information is) that causes the sequence of nucleotides to exist as they do. In fact as far as the foundational laws of the universe are concerned the DNA molecule doesn’t even have to exist at all. Judge Rules DNA is Unique (and not patentable) Because it Carries Functional Information - March 2010 “Today the idea that DNA carries genetic information in its long chain of nucleotides is so fundamental to biological thought that it is sometimes difficult to realize the enormous intellectual gap that it filled.... DNA is relatively inert chemically.” https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/judge-rules-dna-is-unique-because-it-carries-information/ Stephen Meyer is interviewed about the "information problem" in DNA, Signature in the Cell - video http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnnewsplayer/cbnplayer.swf?aid=8497 The DNA Enigma - The Ultimate Chicken and Egg Problem - Chris Ashcraft - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5542033/ Every Bit Digital DNA’s Programming Really Bugs Some ID Critics - March 2010 Excerpt: In 2003 renowned biologist Leroy Hood and biotech guru David Galas authored a review article in the world’s leading scientific journal, Nature, titled, “The digital code of DNA.”,,, MIT Professor of Mechanical Engineering Seth Lloyd (no friend of ID) likewise eloquently explains why DNA has a “digital” nature: "It’s been known since the structure of DNA was elucidated that DNA is very digital. There are four possible base pairs per site, two bits per site, three and a half billion sites, seven billion bits of information in the human DNA. There’s a very recognizable digital code of the kind that electrical engineers rediscovered in the 1950s that maps the codes for sequences of DNA onto expressions of proteins." http://www.salvomag.com/new/articles/salvo12/12luskin2.phpbornagain77_{April 8, 2011
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PS: Varves on a beach of course are not functionally specific</b. They may be complex but any particular outcome would be as real or valid as any other; they reflect the dynamics as they happened to be to form them, but that is all; they do not sit on isolated islands of function in large configuration spaces; by direct contrast to text in posts in this thread or protein folds or the DNA that codes for functional proteins. Your rhetoric above is by now, sadly, a willful twisting of the meaning of functionally specific complex information, for which you have had any number of chances to clarify the meaning, if you were interested in accuracy and fairness, rather than making strawmannish rhetorical deflective talking points.kairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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JR:
Re: the pattern on a snail or the record of a million years of tidal activity in a varve encodes an equally useful amount of information.
You have here willfully equivocated the term, "encodes." You know or should know that codes are specifically symbolic, involving rules and meanings as an inherent component of their expression. AmHD:
code (kd) n. . . . 3. a. A system of signals used to represent letters or numbers in transmitting messages. b. A system of symbols, letters, or words given certain arbitrary meanings, used for transmitting messages requiring secrecy or brevity. 4. A system of symbols and rules used to represent instructions to a computer; a computer program. 5. Genetics The genetic code . . .
Wiki:
The genetic code is the set of rules by which information encoded in genetic material (DNA or mRNA sequences) is translated into proteins (amino acid sequences) by living cells. The code defines a mapping between tri-nucleotide sequences, called codons, and amino acids. With some exceptions,[1] a triplet codon in a nucleic acid sequence specifies a single amino acid . . . . The genome of an organism is inscribed in DNA, or in the case of some viruses, RNA. The portion of the genome that codes for a protein or an RNA is called a gene. Those genes that code for proteins are composed of tri-nucleotide units called codons, each coding for a single amino acid. Each nucleotide sub-unit consists of a phosphate, deoxyribose sugar and one of the 4 nitrogenous nucleobases. The purine bases adenine (A) and guanine (G) are larger and consist of two aromatic rings. The pyrimidine bases cytosine (C) and thymine (T) are smaller and consist of only one aromatic ring. In the double-helix configuration, two strands of DNA are joined to each other by hydrogen bonds in an arrangement known as base pairing. These bonds almost always form between an adenine base on one strand and a thymine on the other strand and between a cytosine base on one strand and a guanine base on the other. This means that the number of A and T residues will be the same in a given double helix, as will the number of G and C residues.[8]:102–117 In RNA, thymine (T) is replaced by uracil (U), and the deoxyribose is substituted by ribose.[8]:127 Each protein-coding gene is transcribed into a template molecule of the related polymer RNA, known as messenger RNA or mRNA. This, in turn, is translated on the ribosome into an amino acid chain or polypeptide.[8]:Chp 12 The process of translation requires transfer RNAs specific for individual amino acids with the amino acids covalently attached to them, guanosine triphosphate as an energy source, and a number of translation factors. tRNAs have anticodons complementary to the codons in mRNA and can be "charged" covalently with amino acids at their 3' terminal CCA ends. Individual tRNAs are charged with specific amino acids by enzymes known as aminoacyl tRNA synthetases, which have high specificity for both their cognate amino acids and tRNAs. The high specificity of these enzymes is a major reason why the fidelity of protein translation is maintained.[8]:464–469 There are 4^³ = 64 different codon combinations possible with a triplet codon of three nucleotides; all 64 codons are assigned for either amino acids or stop signals during translation.
By utter contrast, the varves on a beach [etc] -- and BTW we did not observe a million years: "were you there?" [If not, do not "darken counsel" by spewing forth falsely confident words on certitude without sound warrant on observation as a witness and/or tested, credible record . . . so, have the humility to acknowledge the limitations and circularities involved in your timeline models . . . ] -- are the result of a physical dynamic process of forces and materials; without symbolic representation as any component of the creation of the marks. You INTERPRET the marks on the beach on various models of those dynamics, and in your case involving assumptions that you use to infer a timeline. Coded symbolic information does not emerge until it has been processed by the semiotic agent in the form of the judging, measuring, counting, calculating, recording and analysing observer. Let me contrast Crick in his March 19, 1953 letter to his son Michael; on his then recent discovery of the structure and significance of the DNA molecular structure:
Now we believe that the DNA is a code. That is, the order of bases (the letters) makes one gene different from another gene (just as one page of print is different from another) . . .
DNA is encoded, and when the tRNA "taxi" anticodon matches the codon sequence in the ribosome, the attached amino acid is on the opposite end of the tRNA. In turn the tRNA acts as a position-arm device with the AA loaded into the tool tip end. It is nudged to "click" into place in the emerging AA chain for a coded for protein. Onward, after a stop codon triggers algorithmic halting -- itself a significant issue -- the released primary structure protein folds to take the proper shape which allows it to fulfill its biological function. There is no simple or direct chain of dynamical linkages from the code in the DNA or even the RNA to the structure and function of the resulting protein. Symbolisation on an instructional code in the form of a discrete state string data structure is inherent to the functionality of DNA. All of this, you know, or should have known for days now for the price of a simple click on a hyperlink or two. So, your remarks above have to be seen as willfully misleading. Sorry if that is a bit direct, but that is where you have now put yourself, in the company of a Barbara Forrest. The very fact that you so stoutly resist plain and easily accessible facts of the working of DNA, is telling on the import of those facts. Especially, as regards the coded, functionally specific complex information involved. Surely, you can do better. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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KF
We have observed the creation of billions of instances of complex [>1,000 bit] linear symbol based digital strings, in Books, on the Internet, etc.
Yet the pattern on a snail or the record of a million years of tidal activity in a varve encodes an equally useful amount of information. Perhaps not so relevant to us, but no different from a record of births I might find on the internet, which is of course a designed artifact. In fact, it's quite possible that a varve encoding many seasons worth of information would have more FSCI then a string found on the internet such as a birth certificate. KF, would you agree with that?JemimaRacktouey_{April 8, 2011
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Upright,
The entire dictionary in German, French, and English could be contained within genetic code, and be converted back out again.
Yet what relevance does that have, any coding system we invent can do that. If as you say later I've conflated the coding system with the information why does it matter so much that the information has meaning? I think it's because if you realize this awesome coding system encodes essentially gibberish it stops looking quite so good as an ID argument.
Yet I do realize that these objections give you a rhetorical respite from the facts, and therefore a path to continued denial. You are welcome to pat yourself on the back, at the expense of conflating a coding system with the information it contains.
Somehow you think this proves something. Yes, you can store any sequence. So what. You can digitally code arbitrary information in any system that supports such. And so? Therefore ID? Therefore the digitally coded information we see must have been designed? No.
Now, if you can rig a ribosome that can process these new rules and symbols, and implement them into the genetic system, you will get the same functional result as with the original nucleic bases.
But nothing has changed. Except for one critical thing. Your representation of the meaning of the symbols has changed. The ribosome does not process these new rules and symbols! It processes chemicals. A living creature would not result from a set of DNA like this: “das ist offensichtlich",“are you impressed” No, if your "coding system" really held "symbolic" information you'd be able to translate it into English and it'd explain how to build organisms. The only place: “das ist offensichtlich” = serine is true is in your mind. It makes no difference to the system processing the chemical shapes. You original claim was:
ID adherents believe that the encoded mapping of discrete nucleotides to discrete amino acids in the translation of DNA is an example of a system using symbolic representation (presented in a linear digital format).
It's a chemical process. One that follows rules. And it is symbolic representation. But the symbols used don't encode concepts. They were not put there by a mind like any we know.
In our universal experience, the use of symbols in such a system arises from a singular source – that is, from a deliberate act of volition.
But don't you see, they are not "symbols". They have no meaning outside of their direct implementation. Their interaction with other chemicals. You might as well say that the puddle-ground interface we see only arises from a deliberate act of volition from a rain cloud.
Do you have any evidence of symbolic representation arising by any other means?
A drawing on a cave wall of a skull is a symbol. We give it meaning. It might mean danger, it might just be a drawing. Yet the concept of "danger" is not held within the symbol. The data held in DNA has no meaning outside of it's evolved purpose. Outside of how it reacts when put in certain conditions and mechanical constraints.
You are welcome to pat yourself on the back, at the expense of conflating a coding system with the information it contains.
The origin of "coding" systems has a long history. Information is encoded into natural systems all day every day. Some systems are simple, some are complex. Some environmental information is even encoded in living organisms. Such as did it rain too much to survive one year? And yet the "information" that DNA contains cannot be quantified using CSI. Why is that Upright? If this "information" has meaning outside of a ad-hoc network of relationships that evolved over millions of years then you should be able to tease it out. Measure it. Find the useful bits. Find the junk. Break it up into "this information is about blood, this is about bones". Like a computer program. The computer program that you claim DNA is. Except it's not. For all your confident statements you've moved the state of the art on not a whit.JemimaRacktouey_{April 8, 2011
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F/N: I find it amazing that Indium is still resisting the generally recognised point that the DNA code is just that, a digital [= discrete-state], algorithmic [step by step execution] code implemented in the ribosome. That tells us just how strongly that evidence points to design as best explanation. Onlookers, kindly cf here (don't miss out the video and also observe the regulatory circuits that control gene expression).kairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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5: For those wondering about some of the troubles with fossil man reconstructions and the ways in which a priori materialism biases findings, the sad tale of KNM-ER 1470 as summarised by Lubenow [an Anthropologist, BTW], will make for disturbing but important reading. (BTW, in the book he recounts how when in the 80's the actual fossils were brought together for a grand get together, the display foam moulds prepared from the plaster etc casts usually used by anthropologists in their studies, did not fit in some key cases. It was suggested that one possibility for why the Piltdown fraud went undetected for so long was that the use of casts made the filed down teeth less evident, but a main factor was that the Anthropologists were seeing what they expected to see.) 6: The vexed -- and unanswered -- issue of the origin of human language is worth a point all to itself. This is particularly ironic, as the evo mat advocates blandly declaring above that all has been answered, have to use the very vehicle of language that belies their bluff, to make their confident declaration. 7: of course there is the question of the timeline that is ever so confidently presented. The KNM-ER 1470 case will highlight some significant and troubling concerns on how dates presented to the public or the student as confidently established "facts" are arrived at, but the wider problems with geodating that have long since led me to be a geochronology agnostic, may initially be explored here. Bluntly put, the remote past of origins is beyond our experience and observation, so we must be duly humble and tentative about our model timelines. And, we should not hide the truth about weaknesses, circularities in the logic of methods, and limitations, from the public and students. 8: This leads to the final point. Science should be about seeking the truth about our world in light of observation and reasonable analysis and testing, not providing a propaganda arm for the worldview of materialism. Accordingly, we need to restore science from the imposition of a priori materialism, and the appendix to the IOSE here is an initial suggestion for that. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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F/N: Some links for reference and correction of some of the more misleading rhetorical talking points used by evolutionary materialist advocates above: 1: The UD Weak Argument correctives address several points on design theory and evolution, especially cf points 5 - 6 on ID and Creationism and 9 - 10 on common descent and design theory. (AFTER THIS, FOR GOOD REASON, I WILL HAVE TO CONSIDER ANY ONE IN THIS THREAD WHO KNOWINGLY & INSISTENTLY CONTINUES TO USE THE ID = [YOUNG EARTH] CREATIONISM SMEAR, A WILLFUL DECEIVER AND SLANDERER, AKA A LIAR. If you know but willfully suppress, resist, deny and distort or oppose the truth, that is what you, unfortunately, are.) 2: My always linked B/N Sec C, on the general pattern of fossil evidence in the context of the body plan emergence challenge, and the requirement of FSCI to explain novel body plans starting with the Cambrian life revolution. Kindly note as well the cite from Loennig, on how the postulate of irreducible complexity easily accounts for the noted dominant pattern of the fossils. (And, I give you Gould on the fact that his is indeed the dominant pattern. Given that Gould was a founder of Punctuated Equilibria as an attempt to account for that pattern, those who have falsely accused me of quotemining with no sound evidence for that and every evidence to the contrary are, unfortunately, lying in order to slander and to suppress recognition of the truth.) 3: I have specifically addressed the origin of man in the IOSE course here. Observe in particular the issue of the hard problem of consciousness and the broader problem of accounting for both mind and morality on evolutionary materialistic premises. In these cases, we actually reach reductions to absurdity, so the bold declarations of having accounted for the origin of man on fossil studies are outright false to the point of absurdity. At most -- and there are reasonable questions on a long and sometimes sordid history of failed icons of human evolution -- stages in the physical derivation of man's body may have been identified, but without any effective accounting for precisely the most important things that make us human: mindedness and moral government. Until evolutionary materialists can soundly account for these, they are simply bluffing and diverting from critical failures of their theories and assumptions. 4: In the module of the IOSE on the origin of body plan biodiversity, having paused to speak to the embryogenetic challenge and the the first major issue is the origin of functionally specific complex information and associated organisation in new body plans, there is an exploration of key icons of evolution, including classical ape men at vii, and the latest icons,Ida and Ardi at xvii. [ . . . ]kairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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I should probably make one additional point. While it is true that God can, if he chooses to, change his physical laws, [God is not bound by his own laws] there is no reason to believe that a miracle must reflect that kind of change. On the contrary. A miracle may simply be something that God does over and above the laws he has created--something that the laws themselves do not have the capacity to produce.StephenB_{April 8, 2011
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Upright
A nuclear reactor is not a Sun.
And DNA translated in the cell is not a computer program. In any case, I am talking about nuclear fusion, and the only ones we directly observe are man made. Therefore the analogy is valid as it directly maps to your points a-e. BTW, you are part of a small minority of people who see a fundamental difference between what we know about the inner workings of the sun and what we know about evolution. Out of interest, since you seem to accept what we know about the sun, do you agree that as far as we know, the sun is several billion years old and the earth too?
Good enough sample size? A sample of 100% is insufficient?
You only have humans creating digital codes. Introducing the "act of volition" just adds a layer of abstraction that is not needed. It would be needed if you had other examples in addition to humans. But you don´t have any. Your sample size and the number of possible answers to the question "Where can digital codes come from?" don´t increase when you observe human-originated code multiple times. Many researchers seem to think that there are possible models for the origin of the genetic code. One example from Wikipedia: Yarus, M./Widmann, J.J./Knight, R. (2009) RNA–Amino Acid Binding: A Stereochemical Era for the Genetic Code. J Mol Evol 69, 406–429 I know, at the moment (and maybe forever) this is more or less a very sophisticated speculation. But you can´t so easily dismiss it just because the only other codes you know have been invented by humans.Indium_{April 8, 2011
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F/N: Re IDC, 56:
I’m intrigued. Do you use any non-materialist presumptions, techniques, evidences, methods or materials in your home discipline?
On skimming back, this is worth a specific response (as well as highlighting the implicit acceptance of worldviews censorship on science). Physicists are all over the worldviews map, and the sort of censoring constraint that a priori materialism would impose would not be/is not tolerated. If you doubt me, consider the sort of lively discussions that have gone on over the implications of cosmological finetuning. Let me cite Sir Fred Hoyle, who was notoriously an atheist/agnostic:
From 1953 onward, Willy Fowler and I have always been intrigued by the remarkable relation of the 7.65 MeV energy level in the nucleus of 12 C to the 7.12 MeV level in 16 O. If you wanted to produce carbon and oxygen in roughly equal quantities by stellar nucleosynthesis, these are the two levels you would have to fix, and your fixing would have to be just where these levels are actually found to be. Another put-up job? . . . I am inclined to think so. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has "monkeyed" with the physics as well as the chemistry and biology, and there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. [F. Hoyle, Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 20 (1982): 16.Cited, Bradley, in "Is There Scientific Evidence for the Existence of God? How the Recent Discoveries Support a Designed Universe".]
And again:
I do not believe that any physicist who examined the evidence could fail to draw the inference that the laws of nuclear physics have been deliberately designed with regard to the consequences they produce within stars. [["The Universe: Past and Present Reflections." Engineering and Science, November, 1981. pp. 8–12]
GEM of TKI PS: As I looked back above I could not but notice the brazen bluff that evolutionary materialistic frames had explained the fossils in general and the ape to man transition in particular. You would never have realised from the declarations and fulminations that there is no materialistic answer to the problem of generating complex functional organisation and information on chance plus necessity, nor that the DOMINANT feature of the fossil record is sudden appearance, stasis, and disappearance or continuity into the modern world. Likewise, you would never know that there have been persistent problems with ape to man fossil claims and claimed evolutionary trees. Neither would you be able to learn that the design theory [recall, Behe accepts universal common descent!] is entirely consistent with not only microevo -- young earth creationism is compatible with that -- but also a natural history of common descent. In short the strawman misrepresentation above is that design theory is equivalent to young earth creationism, which in the teeth of ever so many specific corrections over so many years, is a case of failure of basic duty to truthfulness and fairness. As to the personal attsacks on me as being evasive and failing to address the main issues, in fact I highlighted the central issue, the origin of FSCI, as well as pointing out the section of my always linked on the general issues on the fossil record. As well, I pointed out two course modules in which I specifically took up the general issue of origin of man and the key issues there [including origin of a credible mind, which exposes an inescapable self-contradiction in evolutionary materialism] and the persistent problems with key icons of human and more general evolution. But ti seems that willful strawman misrepresentations in the teeth of evidence, correction and protest -- to the point that in at least some cases we are now plainly dealing with LYING -- are the standard stock in trade of today's evolutionary materialism advocates. One hopes for a change of heart and behaviour on their part.kairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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Jemima says no one has seen a genome come into existence by a singular source or whatever. She should tell that to Craig Venter! He's the guy who created an artificial genome and implanted it into a bacteria! I believe he has even synthesized eukariotic chromosomes. I guess the predicted counterargument would be,"Aha, See! You dont need the supernatural to create life!" Yeah, maybe not but you do need intelligent molecular engineering. Or do you take the fact that a scientist can synthesize complex biomolecules as proof that the random forces of nature can accomplish the same thing? Hey look, I can make a paper airplane, therefore nature can too!kuartus_{April 8, 2011
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PS: maybe, we need to remind ourselves of Newton in Optics, Query 31: ____________ >> As in Mathematicks, so in Natural Philosophy, the Investigation of difficult Things by the Method of Analysis, ought ever to precede the Method of Composition. This Analysis consists in making Experiments and Observations, and in drawing general Conclusions from them by Induction, and admitting of no Objections against the Conclusions, but such as are taken from Experiments, or other certain Truths. For Hypotheses [N means metaphysical speculations] are not to be regarded in experimental Philosophy. And although the arguing from Experiments and Observations by Induction be no Demonstration of general Conclusions; yet it is the best way of arguing which the Nature of Things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much the stronger, by how much the Induction is more general. And if no Exception occur from Phaenomena, the Conclusion may be pronounced generally. But if at any time afterwards any Exception shall occur from Experiments, it may then begin to be pronounced with such Exceptions as occur. By this way of Analysis we may proceed from Compounds to Ingredients, and from Motions to the Forces producing them; and in general, from Effects to their Causes, and from particular Causes to more general ones, till the Argument end in the most general. This is the Method of Analysis: And the Synthesis consists in assuming the Causes discover'd, and establish'd as Principles, and by them explaining the Phaenomena proceeding from them, and proving the Explanations. >> ______________ Shakin me head . . . GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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to add to the sun analogy, I hold the sun, (and all 'suns') to be designed by God, and I am in good company in that observation,,, carbon is found to be the only element from which life in this universe may be built. Carbon and other 'heavy' elements also provides one, of several, reasons why the universe must be as old and as large as it is. 'Heavy' elements did not form in the Big Bang. Thus, they had to be synthesized in stars and exploded into space before they were available to form a planet on which carbon-based life could exist. Carbon is the first of the 'heavy' elements that is exclusively formed in the interiors of stars. All the elements below carbon were exclusively, or semi-exclusively, formed within the Big Bang of the universe. The delicate balance at which carbon is synthesized in stars is truly a work of art. Fred Hoyle (1915-2001), a famed astrophysicist, is the scientist who established the nucleo-synthesis of heavier elements within stars as mathematically valid in 1946. Soon after Sir Fred discovered the stunning precision with which carbon is synthesized in stars he stated: "A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.” God's Creation - The Miracle Of Carbon & Water - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4193487 further notes: For the first 400,000 years of our universe’s expansion, the universe was a seething maelstrom of energy and sub-atomic particles. This maelstrom was so hot, that sub-atomic particles trying to form into atoms would have been blasted apart instantly, and so dense, light could not travel more than a short distance before being absorbed. If you could somehow live long enough to look around in such conditions, you would see nothing but brilliant white light in all directions. When the cosmos was about 400,000 years old, it had cooled to about the temperature of the surface of the sun. The last light from the "Big Bang" shone forth at that time. This "light" is still detectable today as the Cosmic Background Radiation. This 400,000 year old “baby” universe entered into a period of darkness. When the dark age of the universe began, the cosmos was a formless sea of particles. By the time the dark age ended, a couple of hundred million years later, the universe lit up again by the light of some of the galaxies and stars that had been formed during this dark era. It was during the dark age of the universe that the heavier chemical elements necessary for life, carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and most of the rest, were first forged, by nuclear fusion inside the stars, out of the universe’s primordial hydrogen and helium. It was also during this dark period of the universe the great structures of the modern universe were first forged. Super-clusters, of thousands of galaxies stretching across millions of light years, had their foundations laid in the dark age of the universe. During this time the infamous “missing dark matter”, was exerting more gravity in some areas than in other areas; drawing in hydrogen and helium gas, causing the formation of mega-stars. These mega-stars were massive, weighing in at 20 to more than 100 times the mass of the sun. The crushing pressure at their cores made them burn through their fuel in only a million years. It was here, in these short lived mega-stars under these crushing pressures, the chemical elements necessary for life were first forged out of the hydrogen and helium. The reason astronomers can’t see the light from these first mega-stars, during this dark era of the universe’s early history, is because the mega-stars were shrouded in thick clouds of hydrogen and helium gas. These thick clouds prevented the mega-stars from spreading their light through the cosmos as they forged the elements necessary for future life to exist on earth. After about 200 million years, the end of the dark age came to the cosmos. The universe was finally expansive enough to allow the dispersion of the thick hydrogen and helium “clouds”. With the continued expansion of the universe, the light, of normal stars and dwarf galaxies, was finally able to shine through the thick clouds of hydrogen and helium gas, bringing the dark age to a close. (How The Stars Were Born - Michael D. Lemonick) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376229-2,00.html Job 38:4-11 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements? Surely you know! Or who stretched a line upon it? To what were its foundations fastened? Or who laid its cornerstone, When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut in the sea with doors, when it burst forth and issued from the womb; When I made the clouds its garment, and thick darkness its swaddling band; When I fixed my limit for it, and set bars and doors; When I said, ‘This far you may come but no farther, and here your proud waves must stop!" History of The Universe Timeline- Graph Image http://www.astronomynotes.com/cosmolgy/CMB_Timeline.jpg As a sidelight to this, every class of elements that exists on the periodic table of elements is necessary for complex carbon-based life to exist on earth. The three most abundant elements in the human body, Oxygen, Carbon, Hydrogen, 'just so happen' to be the most abundant elements in the universe, save for helium which is inert. A truly amazing coincidence that strongly implies 'the universe had us in mind all along'. Even uranium the last naturally occurring element on the period table of elements is necessary for life. The heat generated by the decay of uranium is necessary to keep a molten core in the earth for an extended period of time, which is necessary for the magnetic field surrounding the earth, which in turn protects organic life from the harmful charged particles of the sun. As well, uranium decay provides the heat for tectonic activity and the turnover of the earth's crustal rocks, which is necessary to keep a proper mixture of minerals and nutrients available on the surface of the earth, which is necessary for long term life on earth. (Denton; Nature's Destiny). These following articles and videos give a bit deeper insight into the crucial role that individual elements play in allowing life: The Elements: Forged in Stars - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4003861 Michael Denton - We Are Stardust - Uncanny Balance Of The Elements - Fred Hoyle Atheist to Deist/Theist - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4003877 The Role of Elements in Life Processes http://www.mii.org/periodic/LifeElement.php Periodic Table - Interactive web page for each element http://www.mii.org/periodic/MIIperiodicChart.htmlbornagain77_{April 8, 2011
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UB: I'se be shakin' muh poor head. We have observed the creation of billions of instances of complex [>1,000 bit] linear symbol based digital strings, in Books, on the Internet, etc. It is generally known that in each case where we know the cause directly, it is intelligent. Second to this, we know that the observed cosmos, acting as a blind search on chance plus necessity, could not sample as much as 1 in 10^150 of the number of possibilities for 1,000 bits, or 143 ASCII characters, or on average ~ 18 words if the text is typical English. We have both empirical and analytical grounds for the induction that FSCI is a reliable sign of such intelligent design. So, we have every epistemic right to see that the best current explanation for DNA being a digital, functionally specific, complex code based entity, is that it is designed. To overturn this inference, one would have the need to bring up a counter example. None is forthcoming, but we see every artifice to avoid the weight of the evidence. As to being able to use DNA to write messages in German etc, since the DNA stringing chemistry is independent of the order of bases, that is feasible, simply select enough 4-state elements to be able to do a standard code for the letters, numerals and other symbols in German, then string away. (It is by clustering and assigning meanings to bit configs that binary digital systems are used to represent text, colours in arrays on a screen, sounds, etc etc. Further to this, any data structure can be composed in the end from strings of suitably coded, structured digits; that is how a computer memory works. The question was either shockingly ill-informed or intended to exploit the general lack of awareness of the specifics of how digital technologies work.) The task is entirely feasible in principle, though currently it would be expensive to do in practice. In fact, didn't Venter do something like this a few years back to sign either DNA or protein strings he had made, admittedly in English? The way that the issues are being responded to is revealing on the true balance on the merits. The attempt to pretend that a provisional but empirically reliable inference to best explanation is a circular argument is especially and sadly revealing. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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Indium, I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt.
Therefore, by your logic, we would have to conclude that the sun…
If you are going to use analogies to make a point, please make sure that the analogies are analogous. A nuclear reactor is not a Sun. On the other hand, if a) we had the capacity to create the Sun, and b) all the Suns we had ever seen were Suns which we created, and c) we had never seen a Sun that we did not create, and d) we came upon a Sun that was not our creation, then e) we would then have every right to wonder if it were not created by someone else.
So, what is the problem with your “inference”: You really consider only one source of such codes (humans) and act as if you would have a good enough sample size for the an inference.
Good enough sample size? A sample of 100% is insufficient? Give me an example of a linear digital code where you know it did not arise by an act of volition, and I will be happy to include it in the sample.
On the other hand the standard scientific way to deal with this would be to actively search for examples that disprove your theory or generalization.
If there were any counter-examples available, your side would have brought them up long ago. To the very best of anyone’s knowledge (which includes the entirety of everything that anyone has ever known) such examples do not exist. Now let me ask you a question: If one cannot falsify a logical inference (which can be immediately falsifiable by a single counter-example), and given that the remaining argument remains logical, does this situation strengthen the inference or invalidate it?
Since DNA is obviously a *possible* counterargument to the generalization, no real scientist would make it.
I am not trying to imply Jemima is a “real scientist” by any means, but you might want to let her know that DNA cannot be used as a counter-example.
You on the other neglect the possibility that the genetic code arose by natural means at the very beginning of the argument just to be able to do the inference.
I did nothing of the sort; I simply acknowledged the evidence as it is. On the other hand, allow me to provide some perspective. Virtually the entire scientific enterprise is welded to the theory that Life is the product f a random event in chemical history. I am not sure why I am obligated to acknowledge a possibility where none is supported by the evidence, particularly when confronting advocates who have perfected an utter refusal to acknowledge that same evidence. Perhaps you can explain that to me. Do you perceive it as a showing of even-handedness? If so, I can only say that I will welcome that even-handedness from your side at anytime, should it ever arise. Frankly, I am more interested in the evidence itself. “Your Honor, the Prosecution has submitted that my client strangled Mr. Sanders to death with his bare hands. Yet due to a tragic accident, I have shown that my client has no hands, because he has no arms. I have further shown that he was on his own deathbed, sick from Lime disease while traveling in South America and passed away three months before the time of the murder – but I suppose it’s possible”
This is circular logic. It´s like saying that the sun doesn´t count as an example of natural nuclear fusions since all examples we know of are all started by humans.
It is not circular logic to observe that the only cause known for the existence of a linear sequence of symbolic representations is an act of volition. You need to move off your Sun analogy; it just doesn’t work. Firstly, we didn’t start all examples of nuclear fusion. Secondly, the origin of the sun is well understood within the framework of physical law, the natural origin of a linear digital symbol system is nowhere near it. That is the issue, all the evidence points in the other direction. Cheers…Upright BiPed_{April 8, 2011
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JR,
Upright We have no such experience where symbols are arranged in a way to convey meaning?
Interesting you left out the next sentence, vital to context. You, and we, in fact have no such experence. We have not observed such a system arise from a singular source. So tell me Upright, how many times have you seen a complete genome be created then? That was the point of reference and that we what we have never observed. You know it and I know it.
I will overlook the sheer stupidity of implying that anyone has claimed to have seen a genome being created. Such comments have the inescapable mark of grasping for something to say in order to say anything at all. The “point of reference” is that we have not observed digital linear symbol systems arise by any means other than an act of volition. That is just the kind of observation an investigator would make if they encountered a digital linear symbol system of unknown origin. You are quite obviously desperate to plop down the origin of DNA as evidence of how such a symbol system could arise other than by an act of volition. It’s a logical fallacy a fifth-grader could pick up on, but I am unable to stop you from doing so. Defense Attorney: “How do you know my client killed Mr. Sanders?” County Prosecutor: “Because Mr. Sanders in dead”Upright BiPed_{April 8, 2011
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JR,
Thank you for proving my point in such detail.
Dewey Defeats Truman
They key word is “converted” … We translate.
A powerful distinction, I am sure. If someone should happen to say “please covert this English into Spanish”, you’d have every right to think they’d gone mad.
Take the German word “schadenfreude” and “convert” it into DNA.
From #134: “You will be left to object and obfuscate over inconsequential examples which are meaningless to the point. Yet I do realize that these objections give you a rhetorical respite from the facts, and therefore a path to continued denial. You are welcome to pat yourself on the back, at the expense of conflating a coding system with the information it contains. But do understand, these games have all been played here before. The truth, it seems, doesn’t matter to you. Or at least, that was the common denominator the last time someone came to UD and asked to have the informational content of DNA converted into French.”Upright BiPed_{April 8, 2011
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---Jemima: "You might as well. It’s not as if anything I can say will change anything you think." Your refusal to answer my questions isn't a matter of your changing my mind but rather a reluctance to submit your own thoughts to scrutiny. In any case, the answer to the question that you would not answer is this: The principles of logic are non-material. ---"Your God could change the unchangeable. How could it not?" Because unchangeable means unchangeable. A thing cannot be both changeable and unchangeable. Indeed, God is unchangeable. God cannot not be God. I mention this only because you insist on bringing God into the equation. ---"In a universe where miracles are possible any law can be broken." The laws of logic [let's call them principles to avoid confusion] are not like physical laws. A physical law could, in principle, be broken because God can change or superseded the physical laws he created. God cannot, however, change the laws of reason because they are manifestations or extensions of his unchangeable essence of Truth, Beauty, Goodness, Being, and Love. The principles of right reason are a reflection of God as Truth. ---"I’m sure your God could make Jupiter exist and not exist at the same time and that would be fully internally consistent with whatever other arbitrary rules your God might designer to be followed. Or not, as your God prefers." No, God cannot violate his own essence of Truth and be changeable. The principles of right reason are not arbitrary. The principle of causality, by the way, is another component of these principles. If they were changeable, humans' couldn't think. This, by the way, is why I almost never discuss advanced science with Darwinists. What is the point of searching for causes with irrational people who think some events are uncaused? What is the point of providing rational arguments to irrational people to those who reject reason's principles? ---"Then the temperature of a gas seems not to be composed of matter or energy! How very strange!" Why is it strange? The temperature of gas is a measurement. A material physical thermometer is not the same as the immaterial measurement that it provides. ---"What about the bemprature of a gas? That is the temperature of a gas divided by two? Does that exist? Or have I made it up? Or does it not matter?" Of course it exists. It exists as a non-material, scientific measurement. It is a way of measuring how hot or how cold something is. Did you think that the description of "hot" or "how hot? is composed of molecules. ---"Also cemptrature. Temperature of a gas doubled. Wow, inventing “laws” not composed of matter or energy is easy! Who’da thunkit." If you want to actually think about what you are saying, just ask yourself how much mass and energy are contained in the words, "25 degrees centigrade." The answer, again, is none. As the temperature increases, the molecules move faster. The molecules are manifestations of a changing material reality; the description of their accelerated movement is not.StephenB_{April 8, 2011
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F/N: I add to what SB has said on first principles of right reason and first warranted credible truths, this.kairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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F/N: In response to a rude, Torquemada style intended- to- be- "incriminating" demand from an uncivil participant, I note that I am without belief on the age of the earth. [The echo of a certain rhetorical talking point and question-begging definition beloved of the new atheists is quite deliberate . . . ] Of course, I am aware of radioactive estimates of 4.6 BY or so based on meteorite rocks etc, and the cases of other earth and lunar RA "dates" that run up to ~ 20 BY (which do not get the same headlines) as well as the limitations of the isochron system and other geochronological tools that are usually not sufficiently acknowledged. (I guess it helps to live on an island that has in 15 years seen as much volcanic activity and deposits as was previously dated as taking from c. 26 kYA to 10 kYA. Looking at a church steeple that you used to look up to maybe 40 ft up in the air, now sticking 3 ft out of the ground then a few years later completely covered, gives a bit of a different perspective on geo-processes.) It is reasonable to argue and hold provisionally that the Sun may be about 4.5 BY old, but we have no currently sound theory of planetary system formation, as is discussed here. In absence of a model that can give confident, testable results that fit well with all the key data [the angular momentum and wandering large planet issues as well as the strangely aligned orbits of extrasolar planets give serious pause . . . ], I report, and let you decide. My decision is this: INSUFFICIENT DATA AND INADEQUATE MODELS. (You will see that I do not dismiss what does not amount to "extraordinary proof" as "no evidence," I cite it and its limitations. Where the evidence does not amount to adequate warrant for a strong view I note it. So, hereis the official position: I am a geochronological agnostic.) I have a much higher confidence that the age of the cosmos can reasonably be estimated at 10 - 20 BY, on Hubble expansion and background 2.7k blackbody radiation [with open cluster H-R diagrams coming up in corroborative support]. Though, in all cases, I am uncomfortably aware of the force of the ancient Creationist point from Job, given that the distant past is unobserved and unobservable so our degree of warrant for claims about that past is considerably less than for things we can directly observe in our present. Such more or less direct observables include: the sphericity of the earth or its orbit around the sun, or the centre of our galaxy being in the direction of Sagittarius [that bulge in the Milky Way is a key clue . . . ], or that star luminosity-absolute magnitude plots (with the help of open clusters) show a pattern that suggests a particular model of stellar life cycles. But, here is Job's apt warning, spoken in the voice of YHWH answering from the Storm Cloud:
Job 38:1 . . . the LORD answered Job out of the storm. He said: 2 "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge? 3 Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. 4 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone- 7 while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy? . . .
We would do well to reflect on the degree of epistemic warrant we can have for beliefs about the distant, unobserved by us, and unobservable for us, past. And, it would be wise to adjust our approach to origins science and degree of certitude appropriately, in light of the limitations thereby revealed.kairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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PS: There is an astonishing demand above, that seems to not understand that a log-probability calculation on a surprise metric in the context of particular configs from a cluster of possibilities, is a transformation to an information metric. Log2 base information is measured in what units, again? (Hint: B--s, in some version or other) [Loge base? (Hint: N--s)] Now, let us compare a model metric proposed by Dembski, and look for a key clue right after the character string l-o-g: CHI = – log2[10^120 ·phi_S(T)·P(T|H)].kairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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Here is Plato, from The Laws, Bk X (which I notice evo mat advocates NEVER seriously respond to): _______________________ >> [[The avant garde philosophers, teachers and artists c. 400 BC] say that the greatest and fairest things are the work of nature and of chance, the lesser of art [[ i.e. techne], which, receiving from nature the greater and primeval creations, moulds and fashions all those lesser works which are generally termed artificial . . . They say that fire and water, and earth and air [[i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only . . . . [[T]hese people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke's views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic "every man does what is right in his own eyes" chaos leading to tyranny.)] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny; here, too, Plato hints at the career of Alcibiades], and not in legal subjection to them . . . >> ________________________ Sobering words. After reading that, you may wish to examine the discussion here, on the issue of origins science in society in our own civilisation. Observe, how the tactics we are seeing above, are all too familiar from the history of the past 100 years, only, the trends and level of behaviour are getting worse and worse. Ponder, then, the collapse of Athens, and ask yourselves whether we should blithely hand over key institutions in our civilisation to those who are utterly amoral, radically relativist, ruthless and uncivil. If, when such are guests on a blog, they behave so uncivilly, disrespectfully and poisonously, with such an utter disregard to duties of care towards truth, warrant and fairness, how will they behave if ever they wield the levers of power? As a very wise teacher once warned: "He who is faithful/unfaithful over what is least . . . " Do we really want to find out the hard way? Again . . . ? Let us think again. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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Onlookers: As you will know, after I spent a fair piece of time yesterday answering point to point on some key issues, I met blatant incivility from a circle of ATBC habituees who have come over to UD as a group to raise objections and sow dissent. Recall, I had occasion to expose not only the usual trifecta of distractive red herrings led away to caricatured strawmen soaked in ad hominems and set ablaze to cloud, confuse, polarise and poison the atmosphere, but outright slander and lying. Yes Ms'es KL and JR/MG (these two seem to be alter-egos), lying and slander and upholding one's partner in lying and slander. I decided to give them a time out to calm down, only to see the bland statement just now, that they have been civil. On surveying heir remarks to me or others overnight, I do not find anything of any great merit that would warrant further engagement. Apart from a quick note that evidently JR does not understand that some of the most important calculations ever in science, especially physics, have been rough cut calculations. For just one instance, it was such a rough cut calculation that led Newton to see that he was on the right track with an inverse square law model for gravitation, being about 10% off from the expected answer. The rough cut calculation I have presented above, shows that to transform a chimp-like ape into a human being in 6 - 10 MY by undirected forces of chance variation and culling on differential reproductive success, would require the exploration of a config space that is spectacularly larger than the search capacity of the observed cosmos across its thermodynamically credible lifespan, much less the plains of East Africa. Such a supertask is not plausible as a reasonable explanation of a phenomenon. If we were derived from apes, it was by processes of design, which are on abundant empirical evidence, the only known causal factor capable of targetting and finding such deeply isolated islands of function. In short, the massive effort to try to identify a cluster of claimed ancestors from digging up fossils is unfortunately predicated on a massive begging of the truly material question: what is the credible source of FSCO/I. As I posed repeatedly yesterday,and as was just as repeatedly ducked, diverted form and tuned into an occasion for personal attacks, now amounting to the ultimate accusation in evolutionary materialist eyes: I am now being "outed" as a suspected creationist! If I were, it would make not a dime's worth of difference to the material issue, which has again been diverted from and ducked. But, we now live in a Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals world, and closed minded ideologues championing politically correct causes see themselves as having a license to indulge in fallacies of distraction, caricature and personal attack; in this case rising to the level of slander and outright lying. Notice, no apologies for that; nowhere, the faintest trace of a retraction. Indeed, we meet the bland declaration that such tactics are a manifestation of civil conduct. For shame! So, we are back to the issues that came up the last time that evolutionary materialism captured the avant garde of a key culture, Athens. Let us listen, then, to what Plato warned from 2,350 years ago, on having witnessed the collapse of his native city as a great power. [ . . . ]kairosfocus_{April 8, 2011
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Jemima Racktouey (#145) I am afraid that you badly misunderstand the doctrine ofDivine omnipotence. Jews and Christians do not believe, and never have believed, that God can set aside the laws of logic, as you call them, or make a square circle. You want proof? Have a look at what the conservative Catholic philosopher Edward Feser puts it in his masterfully written volume, Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide (Oneworld Publications, Oxford, 2009, p. 123):
In line with the mainstream classical theistic tradition, Aquinas holds that since there is no sense to be made of doing what is intrinsically impossible (e.g. making a round square or something else involving a self-contradiction), to say that God is omnipotent does not entail that He can do such things, but only that he can do whatever is intrinsically possible (S[umma] T[heologica] I.25.3). (Emphases mine – VJT.)
I should add that the term "classical theist" would include Jewish thinkers like Moses Maimonides, as well as medieval Christian theologians. Lastly, I'd like to suggest that the term "laws of logic" is a misnomer. Laws can be set aside; logic cannot. It defines what is coherently thinkable, and hence constrains what is possible. A square circle is impossible because it is unthinkable, even to God.vjtorley_{April 8, 2011
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Upright You still miss the point. Maybe an example will help: In every instance of nuclear fusion we can directly observe nuclear fusions happen by an "act of intended violence" or an "act to gain knowledge" )and they are also always resulting from an "act of volition"). Therefor, by your logic, we would have to conclude that the sun is either a nuclear weapon or a laboratory (or that no nuclear fusions occur in the sun). So, what is the problem with your "inference": You really consider only one source of such codes (humans) and act as if you would have a good enough sample size for the an inference. On the other hand the standard scientific way to deal with this would be to actively search for examples that disprove your theory or generalization. Since DNA is obviously a *possible* counterargument to the generalization, no real scientist would make it. You on the other neglect the possibility that the genetic code arose by natural means at the very beginning of the argument just to be able to do the inference. This is circular logic. It´s like saying that the sun doesn´t count as an example of natural nuclear fusions since all examples we know of are all started by humans.Indium_{April 8, 2011
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KF
Perhaps it has not dawned on you that I am being gentle in leaving out some of the more grievous blunders in Lewontin’s article, especially if they are not directly relevant to the main concern
So let me get this straight. In one example the man is a genuis, so much so that you have to quote his words 80+ times in support of your point. Yet the very next sentence in the quote you use, directly related to the issue being raised, is somehow a grievous blunder. Perhaps it's not really such a blunder, perhaps you just don't agree with it. As such, one has to wonder at your standards. You cherry pick supporting words but a sentence in the very same paragraph that goes against the point you are trying to make is a blunder? Perhaps if you want to use somebody's words in support of your argument you should use the whole quote in context so onlookers know what the full context is. Lewontin not only noted that you cannot let a divine foot in the door he also noted why in his opinion it would be a bad idea. You leave that last part out. And that's dishonest. If the man is brilliant enougth to quote in support of your argument, over and over again, then it's dishonest to use his quote when he himself would disagree with the point that you are trying to make. And as such you are no better then AIG and the others that use that very same quotemine. http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Lewontin_on_materialism Answers in Genesis makes it appear as if by "patent absurdity", Lewontin means evolution, when he is really talking about astronomy. Gitt makes it appear as if Lewontin thinks that materialism cannot be justified and is a personal decision. But in reality Lewontin gives a reason just after creationists stop quoting him. Also, many scientists will disagree with him in the detail creationists are emphasizing, and say that methodological naturalism is a necessary component of science, giving exactly the reason Lewontin gave. Very poor show. Perhaps you should find somebody who actually agrees with you whose words you can quote? KF, with your creationist leanings and "doubts" as to the age of the earth/fossils I have to ask. KF, how old do you believe the Earth is?JemimaRacktouey_{April 8, 2011
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StephenB,
I asked you if the laws of logic [or thought] are non material. The question calls for a yes or a no answer and requires no reference to a designer. Would you like for me to answer the question for you? If so, you will have lost the opportunity to provide your own answer.
You might as well. It's not as if anything I can say will change anything you think.
Obviously, your statement contradicts itself. If something can be changed, then clearly it was not unchangeable.
Your God could change the unchangeable. How could it not?
Of course, if you don’t accept the law of non-contradiction as a non-negotiable principle of right reason, then that would be no problem for you.
In a universe where miracles are possible any law can be broken.
Indeed, the laws of logic help us to think clearly so that we can make that very distinction.,
Even the "laws of logic" could be changed by your God. How could it be otherwise?
I know that Jupiter cannot both exist and not exist at the same time. I also know that this was true in the past and will be true in the future.
I'm sure your God could make Jupiter exist and not exist at the same time and that would be fully internally consistent with whatever other arbitrary rules your God might designer to be followed. Or not, as your God prefers.
No.
Then the temperature of a gas seems not to be composed of matter or energy! How very strange! What about the bemprature of a gas? That is the temperature of a gas divided by two? Does that exist? Or have I made it up? Or does it not matter? Also cemptrature. Temperature of a gas doubled. Wow, inventing "laws" not composed of matter or energy is easy! Who'da thunkit. I guess cemptrature exists outside of the universe in a timeless way just waiting to be used.JemimaRacktouey_{April 8, 2011
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Upright
We have no such experience where symbols are arranged in a way to convey meaning?
Interesting you left out the next sentence, vital to context. You, and we, in fact have no such experence. We have not observed such a system arise from a singular source. So tell me Upright, how many times have you seen a complete genome be created then? That was the point of reference and that we what we have never observed. You know it and I know it.JemimaRacktouey_{April 8, 2011
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KF,
And, If you will but scroll up, you will see that I hav e roughed out what an FSCI calculation for moving from an ape-like ancestor to a modern human would look like on the usual 98% chimp claim on our genome. The calculation can doubtless be refined and made more sophisticated, but that will not change the material point: there is a major information origination issue to explain on transforming an ape into a human.
Until you do so then perhaps you should not claim this as "proof" of anything. There may be a "major information origination issue" or there may be an error in your calculations. As you yourself say that your calculation is simply "back of the envelope" I hardly thing you can use it of proof of anything, never mind the design of life. Refine your calculations, publish them in a peer reviewed journal and perhaps then your claim that it points to the only empirically credible source of such FSCI, design might have some weight. As it is, well, move over timecube guy. You've got a challenger.
but of course, if you can show the calculation is in serious errorat the order of magnitude level, that would reduce the chift between chimp DNA to huiman to less than 1,000 bits worth of change, that would be corrective.
Ah, so FSCI is measured in bits. Is CSI? And again, why would I even attempt to show serious errors in your calculation when in your own words it is simply a roughed out example of what such a calculation would look like?
when I have been in fact busy elsewhere, starting with economic and constitutional crises following hard on the heels of an intense trip overseas
So you don't spend all day examining fossils then? Nor doing any sort of biology? Then perhaps you should listen, for once, to the people who do do such things instead of dismissing them out of hand as simply wrong, whatever their point, because they have started with the wrong premise. The fact that you can't point to anything specific wrong in their work is telling, onlookers.JemimaRacktouey_{April 8, 2011
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