Functionally specific, complex information and associated information [FSCO/I] — especially, digitally coded FSCI [dFSCI] — are seen as two of the strongest signs of design as cause.
For instance, when you see this post, you do not wonder or debate the odds of different letters being strung by chance [e.g. e in English is typically about 1/8 of the text], you intuitively immediately know that this is best explained as the work of an intelligent, purposeful agent acting towards a goal and based on his knowledge of the language, codes and topic in question. And, analytically, we can substantiate that intuition.
That brings us to a significant comment exchange in the current hybridisation as explanation for origin of complete metamorphosis in insects etc thread: in which we see this key remark:
Examples of animal development that pose problems for Darwinian evolution by ‘descent with modification’ but are consistent with ‘larval transfer’ are discussed. Larval transfer claims that genes that prescribe larval forms originated in adults in other taxa, and have been transferred by hybridization. I now suggest that not only larvae but also components of animals have been transferred by hybridization. The ontogeny of some Cambrian metazoans without true larvae is discussed. The probable sequence of acquisition of larvae by hemichordates and echinoderms is presented. I contend (1) that there were no true larvae until after the establishment of classes in the respective phyla, (2) that early animals hybridized to produce chimeras of parts of dissimilar species, (3) that the Cambrian explosion resulted from many such hybridizations, and (4) that modern animal phyla and classes were produced by such early hybridizations, rather than by the gradual accumulation of specific differences.
(We should all view and reflect soberly on the video on metamorphoses, here.)
PaV comments:
Another day; another bad day for Darwinism!
The exchange:
MF: >>And an even worse day for the design argument as yet another non-teleological explanation for the complexity of life is proposed. >>
GP: >>Why non teleological? The classical problem of dFSCI, and the classical opposition between random non teleological mechanisms and directed mechanisms remain valid, whatever the proposed scenario.
I declare that, whatever random mechanisms are proposed, the argument for design remains the same, and always valid. The only way to explain biological information by random systems is to prove that biological information is simple.
Or to show that there are necessity mechanisms that favor functional complexity, other than (the inefficient 
) natural selection. Are there? What are they?>>
MF (corrected for a format error):
>> I declare that, whatever random mechanisms are proposed, the argument for design remains the same, and always valid. The only way to explain biological information by random systems is to prove that biological information is simple.
Gpuccio – I am not sure what you mean by “random”? Do you mean “non-teleological”? If so your argument appears to be:
“whatever non-teleological mechanisms are proposed, the argument for design remains the same, and always valid.”
So how can ID be falsified?>>
GP: >> No, I divided possible non design mechanisms into two components: RV and necessity mechanisms.
For the RV part, I declared:
“I declare that, whatever random mechanisms are proposed, the argument for design remains the same, and always valid. The only way to explain biological information by random systems is to prove that biological information is simple.”
IOWs, complex functional information can never emerge from a purely random system (easily falsifiable, I believe).
For the necessity part, I stated:
“Or to show that there are necessity mechanisms that favor functional complexity, other than (the inefficient) natural selection. Are there? What are they?”
IOWs, a purely random system cannot generate dFSCI. A purely random system + NS cannot do that. If you know other necessity mechanisms that can be coupled to a purely random system and behave better, please declare what they are.
Design can generate dFSCI (very easy to demonstrate). Therefore, the design inference remains the best explanation for what is observed (dFSCI in biological beings) and cannot be explained in any other way.
The design inference can easily be falsified in two different ways:
a) Demonstrate that design cannot generate dFSCI (but we know that it can)
b) Show that non design algorithms, including or not RV, can generate dFSCI. And, possibly, that those algorithms (which anyway don’t exist) can explain biological information better than design.
So, the design inference is falsifiable. It will never be falsified, however, because it is true .>>
KF: >> I only add, that the reason for that predictable impotence, is that search spaces grow exponentially with complexity. So, once something is narrowly specific — thus, it lives in isolated zones of interest aka islands of function — it will be maximally unlikely to be found by feasible scopes of search on the gamut of our solar system or observed cosmos.
Digitally coded, functionally specific, complex information dFSCI in your abbreviation], credibly, is just such an islands of function phenomenon. That is, once we get beyond about 500 or 1,000 bits worth of such info, the resources of the solar system or even the observed cosmos as a whole, even if dedicated to the task of searching the config space in question, would sample so small a fraction of the possibilities, that we could only reasonably expect that configs that are typical would turn up.
At 500 bits, if we were to use the 10^57 atoms of our solar system for its conventional lifespan of some 10^17 s, changing state every Planck time [the smallest time that makes physical sense] — it takes some 10^30 Planck times for the fastest chemical reactions — we could only sample 1 in 10^48 of the over 10^150 possibilities.
Translating into more familiar terms, the equivalent challenge would, roughly, be: to try to find a needle in a cubical haystack a light month across, by taking a sample of the size of one straw. A solar system could be lurking in that haystack, but so long as the search is not intelligently directed on specific information, overwhelmingly, you would come up with what is typical — straw — not what is atypical. For very excellent sampling theory reasons. (And, strawmannising objectors, kindly note: this result is not dependent on any particular probability model or calculation; as you already know or should have known long before you made such objections in the first instance — i.e. the objections are plainly irresponsible and willfully misleading. The result is essentially the same as that on which for instance, pollsters trust samples of 1,000 or so to give good enough results on the US population at large.)
The only serious non-intelligent guidance alternative on the scope of our observed cosmos is that life is somehow programmed into the chemistry and underlying physics of Carbon-based molecules in aqueous media.
And if you were to demonstrate that, you would shoot your case in the head. For, that would demonstrate the ultimate form of cosmological front loading, and would immediately warrant an inference to design of the cosmos. Talk about Hoyle’s observation on monkeying with the physics of the cosmos!
This is the context in which many have opened themselves up to the belief that we live in a quasi-infinite multiverse.
But, that, too, is no escape:
1 –> This is philosophical, metaphysical speculation, not science; as the required basis of observations is simply not there.
2 –> And, if you have changed the subject to philosophy, ALL serious worldview options sit to the table of comparative difficulties as of right, not sufferance of the materialist magisterium in the holy lab coat. (In short, no materialist a prioris, please; especially when smuggled in through question-begging methodological assumptions and historically unjustified assertions and caricatures of, say ethical theists of the ilk of a Copernicus, a Galileo, a Newton, or a Kelvin or in our day a Schaeffer or a Sanford.)
3 –> The relevant cosmological evidence cumulatively — i.e this is a rope not a chain argument; you would have to cut across the cluster of fibres — strongly points to our observed cosmos sitting at a finely tuned operating point that, if tipped slightly in any one of dozens of ways, would lead to our cosmos being radically unsuited to the sort of C-chemistry cell based life we observe and experience.
4 –> Even through multiverse scenarios, that raises the issue of the bullet that swats the locally isolated fly on the wall, and/or the need for a cosmic bread factory set up to bake up sub-cosmi that closely explore the neighbourhood of the physics of our observed cosmos. That is, the multiverse speculation simply promotes the fine-tuning, complex functional programming/organisation of the physics of the cosmos issue up to the next level; it does not remove it.
5 –> So, even through a multiverse speculation, we are back to the issue that the best explanation for what we see in our world, and especially in the code-based heart of biological life, is design.
6 –> And, once we see that for biological life we have to account for 100,000 to 1 mn bits or so of functionally specific digital information, then we will see that for major body plans, we need to account for 10 – 100 mn bits, dozens of times over. (E.g. I was just looking at a description of how plants make wood fibres and bind them together — an amazing nanofactory!)
7 –> The dFSCI search space challenge applies to not only origin of life, but its elaboration into major body plans. And, again, the only empirically warranted source for dFSCI is design; which is backed up by the needle in haystack and monkeys at keyboards type analyses and simulations that objectors are so desperate to deflect.
8 –> All you would have to do to irretrievably break design theory, would be to credibly empirically demonstrate how by chance and mechanical necessity, without intelligent intervention, dFSCI can originate on a reasonable scope of resources.
(If there was such in hand, there would be no need for the sort of nasty, false accusation, caricature based personal attack — and, “here he is and here his family is shooters, go git em . . .” outing tactics — laced rhetoric that we so often see from objectors to design theory, and as I have again been subjected to by yet another wave of attacks at Anti Evo; attacks that reveal the underlying supercilious contempt, hostility and perhaps hate that seems to drive too many of the objectors to design thought. That this is the level of objections we so continually meet, is absolutely revealing on the balance of the case on the merits, and on the balance on moral credibility and basic broughtupcy too. And, AE denizens, before you play the your’e a hater who hit back first or the you’re [im]morally equivalent false accusations games, kindly check here [notice, I am dealing with a destructive constitution law imposition!] and here (go to the onward links) and address these responsibly; reflecting that on this sort of topic, I am doing investigative analysis and then writing empirically backed up — factually anchored — exposes. SHAME ON YOU!)
9 –> Wikipedia, testifying against interests, tells us about the monkeys at keyboards challenge:
The [infinite monkeys] theorem concerns a thought experiment which cannot be fully carried out in practice, since it is predicted to require prohibitive amounts of time and resources. Nonetheless, it has inspired efforts in finite random text generation.
One computer program run by Dan Oliver of Scottsdale, Arizona, according to an article in The New Yorker, came up with a result on August 4, 2004: After the group had worked for 42,162,500,000 billion billion monkey-years, one of the “monkeys” typed, “VALENTINE. Cease toIdor:eFLP0FRjWK78aXzVOwm)-‘;8.t” The first 19 letters of this sequence can be found in “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”. Other teams have reproduced 18 characters from “Timon of Athens”, 17 from “Troilus and Cressida”, and 16 from “Richard II”.[21]
A website entitled The Monkey Shakespeare Simulator, launched on July 1, 2003, contained a Java applet that simulates a large population of monkeys typing randomly, with the stated intention of seeing how long it takes the virtual monkeys to produce a complete Shakespearean play from beginning to end. For example, it produced this partial line from Henry IV, Part 2, reporting that it took “2,737,850 million billion billion billion monkey-years” to reach 24 matching characters:
RUMOUR. Open your ears; 9r”5j5&?OWTY Z0d…
10 –> That is, searches of spaces of order 10^50 are feasible, but that is well short of searching spaces of order 10^150 or 10^300, which would require 72 – 143 ASCII characters, not 20 – 24 or so. (We will leave off for the moment the further challenges to find where such a success has happened and then put it to work in a functional system!)
11 –> In short, there is abundant and excellent reason to accept the judgement of common sense: the best explanation of dFSCI such as posts in this thread, is intelligence. And, here is no credible alternative to intelligence, so when we see dFSCI in the heart of life, it strongly points to such life being the product of design. Life gives the appearance of design, and that is best analytically explained as being due to the credible conclusion that it is in actuality designed.
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Onlookers, that is the context for GP’s remarks in conclusion just above:
Design can generate dFSCI (very easy to demonstrate). Therefore, the design inference remains the best explanation for what is observed (dFSCI in biological beings) and cannot be explained in any other way.The design inference can easily be falsified in two different ways:
a) Demonstrate that design cannot generate dFSCI (but we know that it can)
b) Show that non design algorithms, including or not RV, can generate dFSCI. And, possibly, that those algorithms (which anyway don’t exist) can explain biological information better than design.So, the design inference is falsifiable. It will never be falsified, however, because it is true 
.>>
CD: >> So, you now accept that the neo-darwinistic mechanism of natural selection acting upon random mutation is hopelessly inadequate in attempting to explain living organisms?
We told you so, all along. What else are you wrong about and what else are we right about? Those are the questions you should now be asking.>>
MF (the linker is giving problems this morning . . . ): >> I am not qualified to judge the adequacy of natural selection acting on point mutations (which I guess is what you mean). I can only comment on the logic that says because there is evidence for an alternative mechanism for evolution which does not entail design therefore design!>>
I was describing “the conventional view of evolution as a selection-biased random walk through the limitless space of possible DNA configurations” and, as an atheistic evolutionist, you must admit that, despite the fact you are “not qualified to judge”, you put a lot of faith in the explanatory power of this (now empirically falsified) evolutionary mechanism.
Put whatever spin on it you like, Mark, but it’s definitely another bad day for Darwinism!>>
MF: >>A “random walk through the limitless space of possible DNA configurations” suggest a fairly precise definition on the lines of
* life is determined by the exact configuration of DNA in an organism,
* all bases pairs have an equal and independent probability of changing into any other base pair at every instance of reproduction
If you want to call this view Darwinism then that is your privelege. I challenge you to find any evolutionary biologist, past or present, who holds this view. The paper is not relevant to this idea, but as no one holds it that is hardly relevant.
A more common interpretation of “random” variation is variation that is not directed towards any end. This is what virtually all biologists believe, might well be called Darwinism, and is quite compatible with Hybridization.
However, the paper and the post was about descent with modification which is quite different.
Really you guys need to grow out of counting every development in evolutionary biology as a blow against Darwinism and a blow for design.>>
PaV: >> Notice what I highlighted:
that modern animal phyla and classes were produced by such early hybridizations, rather than by the gradual accumulation of specific differences.
Williamson has an explanation for the Cambrian Explosion. Does neo-Darwinism. Does evo-devo?
Hybridization happens at the chromosomal level; not the genetic, and not the amino acid level.
You see no challenge to standard Darwinian theory in any of this?
[ . . . . ]
You write:
A “random walk through the limitless space of possible DNA configurations” suggest a fairly precise definition on the lines of
* life is determined by the exact configuration of DNA in an organism,
* all bases pairs have an equal and independent probability of changing into any other base pair at every instance of reproduction
If you want to call this view Darwinism then that is your privelege. I challenge you to find any evolutionary biologist, past or present, who holds this view. The paper is not relevant to this idea, but as no one holds it that is hardly relevant.
First:
NO ONE, that is, NO ONE, believes that “life is determined by the exact configuration of DNA in an organism. So this is just fluff.
Second:
Your statement: “all bases pairs have an equal and independent probability of changing into any other base pair at every instance of reproduction” happens to be true. You should read Stephen Meyer’s The Signature in the Cell where he documents that this is true.
So, when you say that I can’t “find any evolutionary biologists, past or present, who holds this view,” I suggest that this is the very problem we face.
Donald Williamson held these views since the 50′s. And he was ignored for 50+ years by the Darwinian establishment because it challenged their orthodoxy. The problem ID faces is this very same Darwinian orthodoxy, of which, you seemed to have imbibed the “Kool-Aid”.>>
P: >> Unlike ID, sciences that posit mechanisms require research to validate conjectures about the mechanisms. that could take decades or even centuries.
If your mechanism is the assertion that some unspecified entity having unspecified capabilities did some unspecified things at unspecified time and places, then you are worry free.
The argument isn’t even about which is right. It’s about what kind of conjectures suggest and inspire research.
In the golden age when nearly all scientists were theists, they were either looking for evidence of a global flood (a mechanism for altering landscapes) or for understanding the divine clockwork. In both cases they were looking for regular behavior in the physical world.>>
PaV: >> Wow! What a negative view of ID!
Let me ask you two questions:
(1) The amount of genetic diversity in DNA was, based on Darwinian expectations (hence, of predictive value), thought to be low. But, when in the early 60′s, this premise was scientifically examined, huge amounts of variation was in fact found. Does this “falsify” Darwinism in any way?
(2) Contrary to Darwinian thinking, those in the ID camp took the position that protein-coding genes in the genome of animals only represented a sort of “tool box” of materials to be used in constructing an organism, whereas, what truly defined an organism was a “blueprint”, EXPECTED by IDists, to be found in layers of logic/control/regulatory networks. Hence, Darwinists thought “junk DNA” to be no more than that, “junk”, whereas IDists were confident that some function, likely important, would be found for it. With the recent discovery of a regulatory function for putative “junk DNA” is the ID viewpoint validated?
As to:
It’s about what kind of conjectures suggest and inspire research.
Had ID-thinking held sway, rather than Darwinism, cancer research would have taken a different, more productive direction a long time ago. And, “junk DNA” would have been investigated for possible function much sooner. So, is Darwinism a help, or a hindrance, to scientific inquiry. And, does ID put an end to scientific inquiry, or does it simply direct it along fewer, more productive lines?>>
(And so on . . . )
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Notice, how, at no point in the exchange do we see an objector to the design inference cogently addressing the need to explain the origin of digitaly coded, functionally specific and complex information and the machinery that makes it work, on blind chance and mechanical necessity.
Instead, we see essentially tangential objections piled up.
That is telling us a lot about the true balance of the case on the merits, and it is the reason for my late intervention. END
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F/N: The above is only meant to headline a key part of the exchange, so this thread will have no comments. To comment, please go to the original thread.