A simple start?

_{Mark

October 20, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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In case we did not know, New Scientist confirms that at the base of the (postulated) tree of life is an extremely complex life form, much like a modern cell.

“There is no doubt that the progenitor of all life on Earth, the common ancestor, possessed DNA, RNA and proteins, a universal genetic code, ribosomes (the protein-building factories), ATP and a proton-powered enzyme for making ATP. The detailed mechanisms for reading off DNA and converting genes into proteins were also in place. In short, then, the last common ancestor of all life looks pretty much like a modern cell.”

It is easy (or not) to imagine something as simple as that arising by natural processes.

here

Comments

I would like put my two cents in on "who designed the designer?" The question is pointless for God has always existed and exists outside of time and space. In fact God created space-time: Inflationary spacetimes are not past-complete - Borde-Guth-Vilenkin - 2003 Excerpt: inflationary models require physics other than inflation to describe the past boundary of the inflating region of spacetime. http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0110012 "It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can long longer hide behind the possibility of a past eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning." Alexander Vilenkin - Many Worlds In One - Pg. 176 Every solution to the equations of general relativity guarantees the existence of a singular boundary for space and time in the past." (Hawking, Penrose, Ellis) - 1970 But of more importance though, in order for you to even be able ask "who designed the designer?" you need to establish, as your basis, that time, as we commonly understand it has always existed and is the only time basis that exists, but all I have to reference, to show your understanding of time is incomplete, is to show that a higher dimensionality/framework of time exists in reality. A "time" that has a "higher quality of existence" than the temporal frame of reference we now live in. This is fairly easy to do nowadays since relativity shows that time, as we understand it, comes to a complete stop at the Speed Of Light. Yet light is not "frozen within time" for it still moves in our frame of reference, thus clearly demonstrating a "higher quality" of its existence. A higher "eternal-time" frame of reference in which the past and future fold are required to fold into now so as to maintain the integrity of what we observe in reality with special relativity. "The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don't pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. time does not pass. - Richard Swenson "I've just developed a new theory of eternity." Albert Einstein And since it is shown that this temporal reality ultimately arose from this "higher dimensionality of eternity" by the fact all the material in this temporal universe is ultimately made out of "eternal light" it really is quite pointless for you ask "who designed the designer since it is clear He has always existed in a timeless eternity. How do you create that which has always existed and will always exist? I went into a bit more detail of fleshing the "even higher dimensionality" of "information/THE WORD" out in post #122, a post that apparently made no impression.bornagain77_{October 24, 2009
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I'm glad to see this discussion is still going strong. I'll be unavailable pretty much all week, but I'll be happy to get back in the swing of things next week.Nakashima_{October 24, 2009
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#148 And why shouldn't the designer alternative be looked at as a whole? Because in order a designer is responsible for the system we only need to show a one is required for a single aspect of the system. If you wish to show there is a naturalistic explanation for a system then you must explain all the components. Who designed the designer is another question entirely. For example if you knew that Joe built a mouse trap you could look at and study Joe to determine how he came to be - this is exactly what we do with all life on earth. We try to use what we know to determine how it came to be. If ever we identify the designer and we are able to study the designer, the nature of the designer etc we could in theory ascertain if the designer was designed or how the designer came to be. But that is a different question and outside the realm of possibility anyway. For the forseeable future at least.Cable_{October 24, 2009
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---Mark Frank: "Happy to have a go at this – [how physics can generate information] but first which of the many definitions of information are you using?" How about this: "The attribute inherent in and communicated by alternative sequences or arrangements of something that produce specific effects."StephenB_{October 24, 2009
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#147 And why shouldn't the designer alternative be looked at as a whole?Mark Frank_{October 24, 2009
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#145 But when you offer a mind as a cause and we challenge with "but who designed the designer" you say that is irrelevant or we don't have to know. I plead the same rules. Not really the same rules at all. The system simply must be looked at as a whole. If one looks at all proteins today they are coded from DNA. You simply cannot separate them. If one takes flint stone, it takes a process i.e. a striking action and the correct context (when fire is wanted) to produce the desired outcome. The consistent use of the the process with flint stone to create a desired outcome is a sign of intelligence. Absence of a natural means by which any component i.e. information store, means of production and coordination implies a designer just as an intelligence may be inferred solely by the consistent correct application of a naturally occurring object (flint stone) and a process which could be involuntary (e.g. striking) to produce fire implies that agent causing the fire is intelligent.Cable_{October 24, 2009
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# 140 Happy to have a go at this – but first which of the many definitions of information are you using? I'll take it any sense relevant to the development of life. I don't know any formal definitions for information so feel free to enlighten me. In the case of single celled life I would assume that the information is mostly specifications for machines which provide function and when and where these machines should be used. Machines are always useless unless they are used in the right content and at the right time and usually in harmony with other machines. So I would assume that the biggest challenge any for any naturalistic argument would be the development of communication within the cell which seems to be required from the outset. Or maybe I am mistaken.Cable_{October 24, 2009
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#143 Just looked this paragraph You made a parenthetical observation that “[w]ith imagination I expect one could come up with a mindless process that was pretty certain to create a functional protein,” but you then dismiss this possibility as “not very interesting.” On the contrary: if that were true, and the process were random, it would definitely be Game Over for Kalinsky’s argument. For the whole point of his argument is that over the time interval stipulated (500 million years), no random process is capable of reliably doing the job With respect I think it is quite easy to think of such a process but it does not address Kalinsky's main argument. In fact the process exists - it is transcription from DNA. This is a mindless process that produces functional proteins. Of course you will want to say - where did the DNA come from? But when you offer a mind as a cause and we challenge with "but who designed the designer" you say that is irrelevant or we don't have to know. I plead the same rules. I am sure a better chemist than me could suggest a mindless process that produces DNA for functional proteins from some other template and so on - going back in time. Of course it does not address Kalinsky's paper because he would say the "information" i.e. improbability has been pushed back onto the template. I address that in #138.Mark Frank_{October 24, 2009
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#143 vjtorley Thank you for your reply. I am afraid it was a bit disheartening as it suggests I failed to make my point clearly. First a point of definition. I assume that when you talk of occurrent and generative probabilities these are what are referred to in Bayesian terms as prior probabilities and likelihoods. All of comment #127 and the analogy were only addressing one aspect of the Kalinsky paper. I wanted to argue that the likelihood of functional proteins given an unspecified mind is not 1 or anything close to 1. If you like I was only interested in the hole in the roof side of things. The damp course was there for background context. I discuss Kalinsky's statements about natural causes i.e. the damp course in #138. Kalinsky's paper was all about comparing likelihoods. At no point does he even discuss, much less assess, the prior probabilities of an intelligent or mindless cause (this was sensible is it is hard to attach meaning to prior probabilities in this context). It may be that an estate agent may be able to give prior probabilities of faulty damp courses or holes in roofs - but for the purposes of maintaining the analogy I would like to assume that we have no idea what they are. You say that the difference between relative likelihoods is vastly greater in the case of functional proteins than in my analogy. As I said above, in this case I was only making a point about the calculation of the likelihood of damp given an unspecified hole in the roof. So this is not really relevant.Mark Frank_{October 24, 2009
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Mark Frank (#127) Thank you very much for your carefully considered responses. I'm afraid I'll only be able to respond to your first post (#127) tonight. I must say I liked your "damp course" analogy. However, there are two significant differences between this case and the evolution of proteins on the primordial earth: (i) the disparity between the probabilities of the two rival explanations (damp course vs. hole in the roof) is not immense. A hole in the roof is rather unlikely, but not astronomically so. In the case of the evolution of proteins, however, there is a huge disparity between the plausibility of the two rival explanations, over a 500-million-year time interval: we know that it is astronomically unlikely that random processes could generate even a simple functional folding protein, whereas there is nothing (in principle) to stop an intelligent being from doing so. Kalinsky calculates that “ID is 10^155 times more probable than mindless natural processes to produce the average protein.” 155 orders of magnitude is a huge difference, if his numbers are correct. (ii) in the case of the damp course, we can actually estimate the occurrent probabilities of the two rival explanations. A real estate agent could probably tell you what percentage of twenty-year-old houses (say) actually have faulty damp courses and/or leaky roofs. By contrast, in the case of the evolution of proteins, we can only estimate the generative probabilities for the two rival explanations - that is, the probability that an intelligent being could generate a protein within a 500-million-year interval vs. the probability that some random process could do so over the same interval. I agree that it would be nicer to have occurrent probabilities - but if intelligent beings have libertarian freedom, we could never compute such probabilities, in principle. Generative probabilities are not very helpful in and of themselves. What makes them useful in this particular case is that the "null" hypothesis, that random processes generated the first proteins, is an enormously implausible one - so much so that we are forced to "think the unthinkable" and consider the possibility of intelligent design. Generative probabilities do not take us very far here, but they do tell us that there is nothing to rule out ID a priori. You made a parenthetical observation that "[w]ith imagination I expect one could come up with a mindless process that was pretty certain to create a functional protein," but you then dismiss this possibility as "not very interesting." On the contrary: if that were true, and the process were random, it would definitely be Game Over for Kalinsky's argument. For the whole point of his argument is that over the time interval stipulated (500 million years), no random process is capable of reliably doing the job - whereas an intelligent being is perfectly capable (in principle, at least) of creating proteins reliably, as there is no limit in principle to the amount of functional information that an intelligent being can generate. I quite understand your impatience with vague potentialities: you want an actual, specific hypothesis that you can sink your philosophical teeth into. The problem is that it's early days yet, and our understanding of the Designer's purposes is extremely limited, at the present time. Nevertheless, I shall speculate. For what it's worth, I think we need to calculate two numbers: the maximum volume of functional information (call it V1) that the biosphere is capable of storing, if the first living cells were designed by an intelligent being, and the total volume of functional information (call it V2) that human beings will need to keep civilization humming along, and avert any threats to civilization (e.g. ocean acidification) that may arise. Obviously V2 will defend on our level of affluence A: the more complicated our lifestyle, the greater the number of ways in which it could collapse, and hence the more information we will need (e.g. weather forecasting; water pollution monitoring) in order to avoid catastrophe. V2 could conceivably be a simple linear function of A; more alarmingly, it might turn out to be an exponential function of A. A far-sighted Intelligent Designer who foresaw the emergence of intelligent life on Earth and who is benevolently disposed towards said life (i.e. a Designer who loves Homo sapiens) should have foreseen the problems we'd face and the technological solutions we'd require, in order to maintain Spaceship Earth. (I'm assuming, by the way, that the Designer doesn't mind us being affluent - so long as we're not self-centered.) Such a Designer should have built the answers into the cosmos somewhere - and the biosphere seems to be the only place that is rich enough in functional information to warrant a look. Case in point: here is a link to a TED talk by Craig Venter, Dr. Craig Venter, the man who mapped the human genome. Venter asserts that fourth generation fuels, that is, biofuels made by bacteria from C02, are just 18 months away. (P.S. I've just realized that he made that speech in March 2008 - does anyone know if his prediction came true?) OK. If V1 (which I assume is more or less constant over time - or is it? What about GM?) is vastly greater than V2 (which is a function of our affluence A), over the foreseeable future, then the Benevolent Design hypothesis remains viable. If not, I guess we're all up the spout. And on that cheerful note, I shall retire for the evening.vjtorley_{October 24, 2009
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This may be a better link: To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it: “Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse The Cybernetic Cut [9]: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.” A single exception of non trivial, unaided spontaneous optimization of formal function by truly natural process would falsify this null hypothesis http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/pdf Illustration: http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/agbornagain77_{October 24, 2009
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Falsifying this "by experimentation" would suffice Mr. Frank: The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity: David L. Abel - Null Hypothesis For Information Generation - 2009 To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it: "Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse The Cybernetic Cut: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration." A single exception of non trivial, unaided spontaneous optimization of formal function by truly natural process would falsify this null hypothesis. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2662469 http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/agbornagain77_{October 24, 2009
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#137 Can you point me to arguments for how physics could generate information and the mechanisms to process and act upon information in a coordinated manner? Happy to have a go at this - but first which of the many definitions of information are you using?Mark Frank_{October 24, 2009
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Mr. Frank, Here is some more "Real World" experimentation to show that you have no merit in your claims. Both the oldest Stromatolite fossils, and the oldest bacterium fossils, found on earth demonstrate an extreme conservation of morphology which, very contrary to evolutionary thought, simply means they look very similar to Stromatolites and bacteria of today. AMBER: THE LOOKING GLASS INTO THE PAST: Excerpt: These (fossilized bacteria) cells are actually very similar to present day cyanobacteria. This is not only true for an isolated case but many living genera of cyanobacteria can be linked to fossil cyanobacteria. The detail noted in the fossils of this group gives indication of extreme conservation of morphology, more extreme than in other organisms.,,, The Paradox of the "Ancient" Bacterium Which Contains "Modern" Protein-Coding Genes: “Almost without exception, bacteria isolated from ancient material have proven to closely resemble modern bacteria at both morphological and molecular levels.” Heather Maughan*, C. William Birky Jr., Wayne L. Nicholson, William D. Rosenzweig§ and Russell H. Vreeland ; http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/19/9/1637 and this: Revival and identification of bacterial spores in 25- to 40-million-year-old Dominican amber Dr. Cano and his former graduate student Dr. Monica K. Borucki said that they had found slight but significant differences between the DNA of the ancient, 25-40 million year old amber-sealed Bacillus sphaericus and that of its modern counterpart, (thus ruling out that it is a modern contaminant, yet at the same time confounding materialists, since the change is not nearly as great as evolution's "genetic drift" theory requires.) http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/268/5213/1060 30-Million-Year Sleep: Germ Is Declared Alive http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CEFD61439F93AA25756C0A963958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=2 In reply to a personal e-mail from myself, Dr. Cano commented on the "Fitness Test" I had asked him about: Dr. Cano stated: "We performed such a test, a long time ago, using a panel of substrates (the old gram positive biolog panel) on B. sphaericus. From the results we surmised that the putative "ancient" B. sphaericus isolate was capable of utilizing a broader scope of substrates. Additionally, we looked at the fatty acid profile and here, again, the profiles were similar but more diverse in the amber isolate.": Fitness test which compared the 30 million year old ancient bacteria to its modern day descendants, RJ Cano and MK Borucki Thus, the most solid evidence available for the most ancient DNA scientists are able to find does not support evolution happening on the molecular level of bacteria. In fact, according to the fitness test of Dr. Cano, the change witnessed in bacteria conforms to the exact opposite, Genetic Entropy; a loss of functional information/complexity, since fewer substrates and fatty acids are utilized by the modern strains. Considering the intricate level of protein machinery it takes to utilize individual molecules within a substrate, we are talking an impressive loss of protein complexity, and thus loss of functional information, from the ancient amber sealed bacteria. Is Antibiotic Resistance evidence for evolution? - "Fitness Test" - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BwWpRSYgOE According to prevailing evolutionary dogma, there "HAS" to be “significant genetic/mutational drift” to the DNA of bacteria within 250 million years, even though the morphology (shape) of the bacteria can be expected to remain the same. In spite of their preconceived materialistic bias, scientists find there is no significant genetic drift from the ancient DNA. I find it interesting that the materialistic theory of evolution expects there to be a significant amount of mutational drift from the DNA of ancient bacteria to its modern descendants, while the morphology can be allowed to remain exactly the same with its descendants. Alas for the materialist once again, the hard evidence of ancient DNA has fell in line with the anthropic hypothesis. So Mr. Frank,,, the point is is that you must produce evidence for your assertions!!!! NOT EXCUSES, however well articulated for why you have no evidence!bornagain77_{October 24, 2009
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vjtorley To continue from my comment #127 I am going complete my response with this one additional comment. It is an essay, and I do apologise for its length, but I really struggled to make it shorter. Estimating the probability of arriving at a protein through mindless processes You wrote: Kalinsky, if I read him/her rightly, would answer as follows: “You might well be right. There could be some selection process in the natural world which greatly amplifies the likelihood of arriving at a protein, starting from a set of amino acids. But my point is …. states that any process that has the ability to reliably produce significant levels of functional information qualifies as an intelligent process. So if natural selection can do that, then natural selection is an intelligent process – i.e. the work of a mind.” Why does Kalinsky claim that such a process would have to be an intelligent process? I guess the key sentence is this: Natural selection requires a fitness function. If a given protein is a product of natural selection operating within a fitness landscape, then sufficient functional information required to find that protein in an evolutionary search must be encoded within the fitness function. To evaluate this sentence we must be clear what is meant by functional information. “Information” notoriously can mean many things in this debate and it is easy to slip between one definition and another. Luckily Kalinsky provides a mathematical definition on page 4. In this context the information content of some outcome (e.g. protein, DNA sequence) is measured by the number of outcomes in that category which correspond to functional proteins divided by the total number of possible outcomes in that category. There is an implicit assumption that all possible outcomes are equally likely and so the “information content” is actually just a convenient way of expressing the improbability that an outcome corresponds to a functional protein. So now it is apparent that Kalinsky is essentially repeating Dembski and Mark’s argument that any such process would itself be so improbable that it would more than counter the gain in probability that the process provided. Note that, like Dembksi and Marks, Kalinsky is not arguing that a fitness function is vastly unlikely to make functional proteins. He is arguing that if a fitness function is capable of doing this then that fitness function itself must be vastly improbable. Kalinsky doesn’t make much of a case for this. As far as I can see this is the only sentence that argues his case. Since the fitness function, whether it is found in nature, or in a genetic algorithm, must contain the requirements to adapt to, or that defines the desired outcome, it must contain at least as much functional information as the desired outcome. Translating information back into probabilities this becomes: Since the fitness function, whether it is found in nature, or in a genetic algorithm, must contain the requirements to adapt to, or that defines the desired outcome, it must be at least as improbable as the desired outcome. But how on earth do you give any meaning to the “probability of a fitness function”? What kind of probability are we talking about here? It is hardly a frequentist definition. Maybe it is a classical definition (then we need to enumerate all possible fitness functions and establish that all are equally likely!). It is a meaningless exercise. But in any case the sentence has things backwards. The fitness function (i.e. whatever causes organisms to thrive in that particular context) has no “desired target”. The fitness function comes first with no concept of a target, whether it be size, reproduction rate, or whatever. It emerges from the environment at that time. There is no question of its probability and therefore no question of its information content. It is whatever turns out to work at the time. The only question is what is the probability that such a fitness function will lead to functional proteins. When Dembski and Marks paper first came out I tried to illustrate this point with an analogy. I think I can improve on it. Imagine a wide valley with smooth sides and just one bottom – like a bowl. From time to time, through a natural process, stones fall into the valley at completely random (i.e. equally like to fall at any point) locations and then roll. Not surprisingly they all end at the same place. Had it been a flat plain this outcome would have been most surprising and given sufficient stones we could make the improbability of them all ending up in the same place as high as we like. Clearly the combination of the shape of the valley and gravity increases the probability, reduces the information content, of this outcome dramatically. The Dembski/Marks/Kalinsky argument is saying that the valley plus gravity must supply the missing information i.e. the probability of the valley being that shape and gravity working must be sufficiently low to make up for the increase of probability they provide. Besides being utterly meaningless it has the interesting consequence that the more stones fall the greater the information content of the valley+gravity even though they don’t change at all!Mark Frank_{October 24, 2009
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#136 However, in essence, I believe that physics can explain life, information, language, and symbols and rules. Can you point me to arguments for how physics could generate information and the mechanisms to process and act upon information in a coordinated manner?Cable_{October 24, 2009
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#134 This book is full of error. I will take one example from chapter 2 to illustrate. You ID people have a fondness for calculating very large or very small irrelevant numbers. You have shown that the outcome is vastly improbable. Sobers' point is that there is a difference between the vastly improbable and the impossible. After all every string of 3.5 million characters is just as improbable as the complete works of Shakespeare. If you grant that there is a mechanism for generating 3.5 million characters at random then one of those strings must actually be the result. So being improbable is not at all the same as being impossible. But this is well worn territory and I am surprised you bring it up. With a background in philosophy, perhaps you could comment on my modus tollens argument which I think is decisive concerning naturalism. I have problems with both of your premises, and there is a danger of writing an essay on "explanation". However, in essence, I believe that physics can explain life, information, language, and symbols and rules.Mark Frank_{October 24, 2009
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Seversky, the real argument here is: Does God exist? If so, then there CAN be Acts of God, the Word of God, and the Son of God. If He doesn't, well then He doesn't and so much the worse for us, aimless, pointless, amoral, ultimately worthless bags of subatomic particles randomly assembled by physics but remarkably, nonetheless, expressing "apparent" design, intelligence, conscience, purpose, and a desire to know why. So why don't we have that conversation, it doesn't have to be here, and depending on how that turns out, go from there. We are, all of us, making cosmic "all in" bets here. Make no mistake about that. If I say we live in a "Jesus universe" and you say we do not, then most assuredly one of us is correct. I could almost wish it was you given the consequences for people who get it wrong if it is a "Jesus universe." p.s. Whether you or I personally approve of "how" the universe is or isn't is irrelevant to the issue of "how" it actually is.tgpeeler_{October 24, 2009
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Mark @ 119 "I am deeply conscious that I have explained this poorly. I strongly recommend Elliott Sober’s book on Evidence and Evolution – particularly chapter 2 on ID – but you may need to read chapter 1 on evidence first." This book is full of error. I will take one example from chapter 2 to illustrate. Elliott says on page 116 of my edition, first published in 2008 by Cambridge University Press, that: "... a random mindless process (presumably 'natural selection,' which really means physics, which immediately gets to the heart of the problem if he had the wit to see it) can produce complex and useful devices. It is possible, as we would now say, for monkeys pounding at random on typewriters to eventually produce the works of Shakespeare." Ignoring the fact that Sober cannot begin to account for the existence of the English language or the biological language in which the monkeys are "written," within his ontology, the one that excludes mind as a causal agent in the universe, he is now going to say that monkeys can produce (random information generators, these monkeys) information. Just for the hell of it, let's grant Sober the language. Let's be generous and say that his ontology doesn't have to account for symbols and rules (language). So how does that play out? What IS the probability of this happening? According to "Statistical Reasoning for Everyday Life," Bennett, Briggs, Triola, Second Edition, Addison Wesley Longman, 2002, "In his complete works, Shakespeare used 31,534 different words and a grand total of 884,647 words counting repetitions." So, and I have to make an assumption here, if each word averaged 4 letters in length, probably a low number, but it won't matter, then (ignoring spaces and punctuation marks) the monkeys would have to get 884,647 x 4 letters in a row to duplicate the complete works of Shakespeare. That number is: 3,538,588 letters. Let's give Sober a break and round it down to 3.5 million. So what are the odds? If we posit lower case letters only, to make it as easy as possible on our monkeys then each letter has a 1 in 26 probability of being selected by our monkeys. Of course, they have to get 3.5 million of them in a row so that looks like 1 over 26^3,500,000. So what is that in scientific notation? If you take the log of both sides (26^3,500,00 = 10^x) you eventually get to x = 3,500,000 x 1.415 or 4,952,500. So the odds, in scientific notation are 1 in 10^4,952,500. Not a bet any of us would want to make. If there are 10^80 atoms estimated to exist in the observable universe, and there are, and if the universe has been in existence for, say 10^17 seconds, (I've seen 10^16 but what's a zero among friends, particularly when it will "help" Sober's case), and if the shortest time for an event to happen is Planck time, 10^-43, then there can be 10^43 events for 10^17 seconds for 10^80 atoms. So that means 10^140 possible events in the history of the universe. (I think Dembski calls this a "universal probability bound" by which I think he means that anything with a probability less than that is essentially impossible.) Since the calculation for a simple probability like this is to take the number of desired outcomes and make that the numerator and the denominator is the number of possibilities, then we have 1 over 10^4,952,500. So for fun, let's assume that there are 10^140 variations of Shakespeare that would count as acceptable outcomes. So now we have 10^140 over 10^4,952,500 or odds of the monkeys banging out Shakespeare of 1 in 10^4,952,360. Remember, I'm not the one who said this was POSSIBLE. Clearly, it is not. You'd think a guy that knows so much about statistics (Me, I only had one graduate course 30 years ago, and two or three undergrad, one of which I got a "D" on because I NEVER went to class but that's another sad story for another time, so who knows how wrong I could be? So I'm counting on this group to keep me straight.) could sort of do a back of the napkin kind of calculation and see that isn't such a smart claim to make. Makes me wonder about the rest of his assertions and conclusions. p.s. With a background in philosophy, perhaps you could comment on my modus tollens argument which I think is decisive concerning naturalism. If naturalism is true, then physics must be able to explain life, information, language, and symbols and rules. But physics cannot explain life, information, language, and symbols and rules, therefore, naturalism is not true. I'm obliged.tgpeeler_{October 24, 2009
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Clive Hayden @ 114
Even if millions of generations passed since Adam and Eve, all are the result of being created. It is no less true for the last than for the first.
By that argument then the millions who perished in the Flood were also His direct creations; also, according to you and bornagain77, entitled to assume that, as such, they would be looked upon by Him with favor. Yet those millions were wiped out. And they were not granted a merciful end. A being of God's supposed unlimited power could have consigned them to oblivion in an instant. It would have been as if they had never existed. Instead, they were condemned to a slow and terrifying death by drowning. And for what? For being flawed? For not turning out as their Creator had intended and expected? Whose fault is that? Certainly not theirs. They had no choice in being made fallible the way they were. All of which leads us to the obvious fundamental dilemma. Either God was in error designing human beings with unintended flaws, in which case He cannot be perfect, or He intended us to be flawed beings, in which case He is unjust and inhumane for punishing us for being what He designed us to be. Either way, bornagain77 and others who think like him would be unwise to count their chickens too soon.
And if bornagain77 wants to thank someone for his birthday gift, I don’t blame him, We thank people for the gift of house slippers on our birthday, can we not thank someone for the gift of life on our birthday? Does this really need to be explained?
No, of course not. By all means, we should say "thank you" to those are kind or compassionate or generous to us. Many of the good things that come to us as children are given to us by our parents or other adults who love us and have our best interests at heart. It is hardly surprising therefore that, as adults, we still have a need for such a kindly guardian. That doesn't mean one exists, however.
And the world was being judged by God in the flood, do you have it in mind that it was not worthy of judgment?
God judging His own creation and judging it harshly. What does that say about the Creator, though?
And Adam did die spiritually on the day he ate the fruit, that is why it is important to be “born again” as bornagain77’s name indicates. This is basic stuff really.
It's the standard defense. But the text does not say he would die spiritually, only that he would die. Are we to assume that God cannot say clearly what He means, that He must hedge His bets by expressing Himself in ambiguous metaphor? And if such direct statements are open to interpretation then all the rest must be. So how are we to decide between the different interpretations? And how does that differ from the "moral relativism" of which the atheists are accused?Seversky_{October 23, 2009
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This following article, that just came out, powerfully backs up my assertion in post 122 that It very well may be possible to elucidate, mathematically, the overall pattern God has chosen to implement infinite transcendent information in this universe.: Is Unknown Force In Universe Acting On Dark Matter? Excerpt: It is possible that a non-gravitational fifth force is ruling the dark matter with an invisible hand, leaving the same fingerprints on all galaxies, irrespective of their ages, shapes and sizes." ,,Such a force might solve an even bigger mystery, known as 'dark energy', which is ruling the accelerated expansion of the Universe. A more radical solution is a revision of the laws of gravity first developed by Isaac Newton in 1687 and refined by Albert Einstein's theory of General Relativity in 1916. Einstein never fully decided whether his equation should add an omnipresent constant source, now called dark energy. ,,Dr Famaey added, "If we account for our observations with a modified law of gravity, it makes perfect sense to replace the effective action of hypothetical dark matter with a force closely related to the distribution of visible matter." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091022154644.htmbornagain77_{October 23, 2009
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further note: U-rich Archaean sea-floor sediments from Greenland - indications of >3700 Ma oxygenic photosynthesis http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004E&PSL.217..237Rbornagain77_{October 23, 2009
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That's so awesome. I mean, it's one thing to assume that natural selection works off of pre-existing materials and so creates newer, more complex structures. But it's quite another to assume that something as complex as a modern cell arose via abiogenesis.Domoman_{October 23, 2009
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further note: Evidence for wavelike energy transfer through quantum coherence in photosynthetic systems. Gregory S. Engel, Nature (12 April 2007) Photosynthetic complexes are exquisitely tuned to capture solar light efficiently, and then transmit the excitation energy to reaction centres, where long term energy storage is initiated.,,,, This wavelike characteristic of the energy transfer within the photosynthetic complex can explain its extreme efficiency, in that it allows the complexes to sample vast areas of phase space to find the most efficient path. ---- Conclusion? Obviously Photosynthesis is a brilliant piece of design by "Someone" who even knows how quantum mechanics works. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17429397bornagain77_{October 23, 2009
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Mr. Frank, You may find this "experimental evidence" helpful To differentiate which "mind" did the designing of biological life,: Physicists find many processes in a cell operate at the "near optimal" capacities allowed in any physical system: William Bialek - Professor Of Physics - Princeton University: Excerpt: "A central theme in my research is an appreciation for how well things “work” in biological systems. It is, after all, some notion of functional behavior that distinguishes life from inanimate matter, and it is a challenge to quantify this functionality in a language that parallels our characterization of other physical systems. Strikingly, when we do this (and there are not so many cases where it has been done!), the performance of biological systems often approaches some limits set by basic physical principles. While it is popular to view biological mechanisms as an historical record of evolutionary and developmental compromises, these observations on functional performance point toward a very different view of life as having selected a set of near optimal mechanisms for its most crucial tasks." http://www.princeton.edu/~wbialek/wbialek.html DNA Optimized for Photostability Excerpt: These nucleobases maximally absorb UV-radiation at the same wavelengths that are most effectively shielded by ozone. Moreover, the chemical structures of the nucleobases of DNA allow the UV-radiation to be efficiently radiated away after it has been absorbed, restricting the opportunity for damage. http://www.reasons.org/dna-soaks-suns-rays Visible light is also incredibly fine-tuned for life to exist. Though visible light is only a tiny fraction of the total electromagnetic spectrum coming from the sun, it happens to be the "most permitted" portion of the sun's spectrum allowed to filter through the our atmosphere. All the other bands of electromagnetic radiation, directly surrounding visible light, happen to be harmful to organic molecules, and are almost completely absorbed by the atmosphere. The tiny amount of harmful UV radiation, which is not visible light, allowed to filter through the atmosphere is needed to keep various populations of single cell bacteria from over-populating the world (Ross; reasons.org). The size of light's wavelengths and the constraints on the size allowable for the protein molecules of organic life, also seem to be tailor-made for each other. This "tailor-made fit" allows photosynthesis, the miracle of sight, and many other things that are necessary for human life. These specific frequencies of light (that enable plants to manufacture food and astronomers to observe the cosmos) represent less than 1 trillionth of a trillionth (10^-24) of the universe's entire range of electromagnetic emissions. Like water, visible light also appears to be of optimal biological utility (Denton; Nature's Destiny). Fine Tuning Of Light, Atmosphere, Biological Life, and Water - illustrations http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMTljaGh4MmdnOQbornagain77_{October 23, 2009
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#126 vjtorley As always it is a pleasure to disagree with you. I appreciate your intelligence and good manners. I will tackle your responses in the same order you wrote them. I will break my replies into different comments to avoid writing essays as comments. Also I am not sure I will get them all done tonight. Before starting I should point out that Kalinsky is implicitly using one model of how observations support hypotheses. He is comparing likelihoods – the probability of the outcome given the hypothesis. There are other approaches e.g. Bayesian which have just as strong a following. But I am sure even his “likelihoodism” doesn’t work. So I am prepared to fight the issue on that basis (with the option of withdrawing to Bayesian high ground if necessary) 1) The likelihood of creating a functional protein given a mind You wrote: The point Kalinsky is making here is not that an unspecified mind would produce such a prime number sequence, but rather that some mind(s) definitely could – for instance, a human mind (and presumably the mind of an advanced alien). If Kalinsky meant this, then it is not the usual or a reasonable way of comparing the likelihoods. Yes of course it is possible to describe a mind that could create functional proteins. An omnipotent mind can do just that. (With imagination I expect one could come up with a mindless process that was pretty certain to create a functional protein). But that is not very interesting. The ID hypothesis is meant to be a real proposal to be compared to various mindless processes, particularly RM+NS. If the ID hypothesis is to represent a real alternative then it must be proposing not only that a mind could create functional proteins but that a mind did create not only a functional protein but virtually all the functional proteins that have existed on this planet for four billion years. And the hypothesis needs to be clear. Is it that one of a subset of all possible minds led to that result or is it that one of all possible minds led to that result? If a subset, which subset (I hope you can see that it would not be a satisfactory answer to say “that subset which had the ability and motivation to create all functional proteins”)? If it is one of all possible minds, then it is necessary to somehow estimate the mean probability of getting that outcome from all possible minds. It is a pretty meaningless task – but the answer has to be less than one because some of the possible minds are clearly incapable of doing it. It may help to compare this to another case. Suppose there is damp patch on my wall. I initially suspect a breach in the damp course. I assess that if there were such a breach there is low chance of it causing the damp but I can see no obvious rival cause. Someone else says –“Ah have you considered a hole in the roof? One could imagine a hole which would result in a 100% chance of creating that damp patch”. But that does not mean that there is a 100% chance that an unspecified hole in the roof would cause the damp patch. To calculate that figure I would have to look at all possible places for holes and average over all possible places. This would be the only reasonable way to compare the generic hypothesis – “caused a by a hole in the roof” with “caused by a breach of the damp course”. The fact that some humans can create some proteins four billion years later seems irrelevant. We already accepted that some minds can be imagined that can do the job and no one is proposing that humans did the job. That is like using as evidence the fact that holes it has been observed in other houses on rare occasions that holes in roofs can cause damp patches. We knew that!Mark Frank_{October 23, 2009
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Mark Frank (#119) Thank you for your thoughtful comments. I'll address them in reverse order. Let's look at your third point:
The probability of an unspecified mind creating a functional protein is certainly not 1 (if you can attach any meaning to such a vague hypothesis).
You are correct, but that's not the probability that Kalinsky is interested in. When discussing the hypothetical case of a signal from outer space that contains the first 50 prime numbers, Kalinksky writes that "the probability that a mind could produce such a signal" needs to be compared with "the probability that mindless natural processes could do it." Kalinsky continues:
We know that a mind can generate the first 50 prime numbers, so the probability that a mind could produce that information is 1. If the probability that natural processes could generate the first 50 prime numbers is less than 1, then one can compare the two probabilities to decide how much more likely intelligent design is than mindless natural processes. If it turns out that intelligent design is ten times more likely, or a thousand more times more likely, then it becomes increasingly irrational to invoke mindless natural processes, and increasingly rational to invoke intelligent design.
The point Kalinsky is making here is not that an unspecified mind would produce such a prime number sequence, but rather that some mind(s) definitely could - for instance, a human mind (and presumably the mind of an advanced alien). The same point is relevant for the protein case I discussed above. The question Kalinsky is addressing is not one of motivation, but of capability. Some minds, somewhere, at some time, are capable of making proteins to order, reliably. (Humans will probably be able to do so within the next 100 years, if not sooner; and if there are aliens out there, probably they already can. For an omnipotent mind, as you rightly point out, it would be a snap.) Mindless natural processes are able to generate proteins too, but not reliably. It's much more of a hit-and-miss affair: making a protein is a pretty tall order, even for an intelligent being. A sufficiently advanced mind can make a protein to order; but mindless natural processes don't take orders. They just produce stuff. Sometimes, as Kalinsky acknowledges, they get lucky:
Mindless natural processes can accidentally produce effects requiring a low level of functional information.
Kalinsky now introduces what he/she calls the Intelligence Hypothesis:
The ... Intelligence Hypothesis allows that mindless natural processes can accidentally produce functional information within, say, the background noise of a physical system, but the information will not achieve a significant level.
It is important to note that for Kalinsky, mindless natural processes proceed randomly:
A search by mindless natural processes is essentially a random walk, where the search proceeds in no set direction and, for any point in the search, it can be returned to any number of times. This is not to be confused with an evolutionary search that is directed by a fitness function or a fitness landscape, which will be discussed later.
Which brings us to your second point, which is that "you cannot estimate the probability of arriving at a protein ... by calculating the probability of a string of amino acids chosen at random ... It is a selection process which vastly increases the probability." Kalinsky, if I read him/her rightly, would answer as follows: "You might well be right. There could be some selection process in the natural world which greatly amplifies the likelihood of arriving at a protein, starting from a set of amino acids. But my point is that proteins contain a measurable amount of functional information - and most proteins have more functional information than that found in the five "watermarks" in Craig Venter's synthetic genome. My Intelligence Hypothesis states that any process that has the ability to reliably produce significant levels of functional information qualifies as an intelligent process. So if natural selection can do that, then natural selection is an intelligent process - i.e. the work of a mind." Now I shall address your first point:
A fitness function is not something that is selected to meet a target. It is simply whatever allows that organism to reproduce effectively in that context at that time. It is nonsense to talk about the information content of a fitness function.
Simply asserting that "[a] fitness function is not something that is selected to meet a target" begs the question against Intelligent Design, which seriously puts forward that very hypothesis. It's a possibility that needs to be discussed. Is it nonsense to talk about the information content of a fitness function? Like you, I didn't major in biology. However, I note that Kalinsky obtained his definition of a fitness function from a text on evolutionary computing. According to the text, a fitness function "defines what improvement means. From the problem-solving perspective, it represents the task to solve in the evolutionary context." If it describes a problem, then it must have an information content: the requirements to adapt to. Natural selection is a non-random search. But if the target is one that requires a large amount of functional information to specify it accurately, then it must be built into the pathway itself. That is, the non-random pathway that gets the evolving components to their target destination must "tell" them which way to go, to get there. In other words, the pathway itself must be a specified one, and if it's highly specified, then (according to Kalinsky's Intelligence Hypothesis) it has to be the work of some mind. That's the point I understood Kalinsky to be making, and it struck me as an interesting perspective on evolution itself. I'm not a biologist, and I hope I haven't badly misunderstood Kalinsky or contemporary evolutionary theory. However, I do have some background in mathematics, and there's nothing wrong with the mathematics in Kalinsky's paper. The examples he/she cites are mathematically sound, at least. Making a protein of any sort that is stable, folds up and functions properly is a very tall order, if the figures Kalinsky quotes from Axe are correct, since the vast majority of possible proteins are not stable, don't fold or don't do anything. If a bunch of amino acids can assemble into a protein that is stable, folds up and functions properly, they need information of some sort to get there. And if every living organism studied to date contains proteins that are not 100 but 300 amino acids long, that is going to be an even more difficult target to reach. Even we can't do it yet - and we're intelligent life forms! How amino acids reached that target on the primordial earth is a problem that evolutionists haven't even begun to address. Maybe they could benefit from the insights of other disciplines, which deal with information - such as ID theory.vjtorley_{October 23, 2009
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Nakashima: "In terms of Dr Abel’s challenge to falsify his null hypothesis, it is now clearer why no one should care to try. Why bother proving that halting X have property Y, when non-halting X are nore interesting?" You mean you don't find the following null hypothesis interesting: "“Physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.” You will notice that Rule 110 is apparently turing complete. Now, I am not an expert by any means on the topic, but from my understanding Rule 110 can be seen as a computation that never halts. Rules 110, as far as I understand is evidence of self order (law) producing non-halting computation. Thus, Abel's criteria of discovering computational halting is extremely interesting. To date, no system of only law+chance can provide such computational halting. Nakashima: "For example, we know that many bacteria have circular genomes. Imagine for a moment a primitive object with a circular RNA genome and a primitive ribosome attached to it. The ribosome loops endlessly around the genome making proteins. Abel’s definitions say that this system of genome and ribosome is non-functional, because it never halts. Sorry, that is like saying my heart is non-functional because it doesn’t stop." -First of all, you heart isn't a computation, so it has no bearing on the type of function that Abel is discussing. -Second, the ribosome's action of constantly looping around the RNA would seem to be an example of looping behaviour, however, if it produces a useful output then that means it would have to halt to do so. So, basically, your ribosome is in an endless loop of halting and then starting again. Although the endless loop may not be what Abel is asking an explanation for, the computational halting that occurs is definitely what Abel is asking an explanation for. Thus, *you* seem to be the one equivocating here between two definitions of "function." Abel is only concerned with one of those definitions since it seems to pose a problem for purely physicodynamic systems. Abel isn't asking for an explanation of heart function, machine function, or enless loop function, since all those systems would "function" according to a different meaning of the term. Abel is being very specific about the type of function he is discussing -- the type that arises from computational halting. Whether you find his question and null hypothesis interesting or not has no bearing on it relevance. Nakashima: "Dr Abel is trying to make a claim about all functioning programs." Yes, if by "program" you mean computation involving physicodynamically inert switches, algorithmic optimization, etc, as discussed in aforementioned papers. And, yes, if by "function" you mean the definition of computational halting (as opposed to faulting) producing a useful output. Nakashima: "By including this notion of computational halting, he is limiting himself unintentionally to a subset of function." No, I'm sure you mean limiting himself *intentionally* to a very specific type of behaviour. This is the type of behaviour that he wishes to discuss. Again, the fact that you may find discussion of that specific type of "function" uninteresting actually amazes me since no system of law+chance has produced such "function" and there are reasons as laid out in Abel's papers as to why law+chance may not be able to cross the "cybernetic cut" and produce that type of function. Yet, we have those types of systems. I find that a very interesting problem. I can't help it if you don't.CJYman_{October 23, 2009
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Mr. Frank, Of what possible use is your philosophical position: "My concern was only with the logical and statistical issues in that paper." If it does not connect with reality through rigorous experimentation? i.e. you stated the maths are "irrelevant", yet the maths clearly agree with what reality is telling us through experimentation. The burden is on you to provide "real world" experimentation that shows the model to be incorrect! I fail to see how the intellectual posturing, that has given you such warm and fuzzy feelings, has any merit scientifically until you connect it with reality in a meaningful way. I agree that a proper philosophical foundation is necessary in order to make accurate postulations in science, but in the end reality is final arbiter of which philosophical position is correct! "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy." William Shakespeare - Hamlet Theism Compared To Materialism http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfNWZ3ejQyZGc5&hl=enbornagain77_{October 23, 2009
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#122 Borneagain77 It is hard to know which parts of your copious comment to respond to. I will confine myself to this request: show me the exact experiments in which natural processes generated functional information. My background is in philosophy and statistics, not biology. I was responding to a paper which purported to show that intelligent causes were vastly more probably than non-intelligent causes from first principles (without conducting any experiments). My concern was only with the logical and statistical issues in that paper.Mark Frank_{October 23, 2009
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