Are Evolutionists Delusional (or just in denial)?

_{Cornelius Hunter

July 27, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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My friend Paul Nelson has the patience of Job. He writes that evolutionists, such as PZ Myers and Jerry Coyne, “need to think about [their theological arguments] more deeply.” In one moment evolutionists make religious arguments and in the next they claim their theory is “just science.” Their religious arguments, they explain, really aren’t religious arguments after all. Gee, that was easy. In light of such absurdity, I don’t have much confidence that evolutionists are going to think more deeply about this. But it would be nice if they would stop misrepresenting science. And it would be nice if they would stop using their credentials to mislead the public. In short, it would be nice if they would stop lying.

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Comments

kairosfocus:
False, strawmannish and demonising; to the point where an apology should be in order.
I'm sorry that you took offense, kairosfocus, but you seem to read through martyr-colored glasses. We presented several counterexamples, and you rejected all of them for various reasons. Where are the falsehoods, strawmen, and demonizing?
a –> Provide a case where an avalanche of rocks or equivalent produces a text message similar to “Welcome to Wales” at of course the border of Wales.
Personally, if I witnessed such an avalanche, I would attribute it either to God or to a very clever human illusionist. Perhaps someone dug trenches on the hillside in the form of English text to trap some of the falling rocks. Perhaps somebody performed the trick in a way that I can't think of. So a case that you would accept as a FSCI from unintelligent causes, I would reject as such. To each his own.
b –> produce a computer screenful of bits produces a screenful of text, say a passage from Shakespeare — FSCI by chance and necessity — lucky noise. [An update to the Million Monkeys banging away on typewriters]
It's interesting that you refer to "chance and necessity", but then give examples of avalanches, noise, and Zener noise. You realize, I assume, that not all chance+necessity processes are statistically random. We all know that English text, and biological structures for that matter, aren't produced by statistically random processes. Yet CSI and FSCI examples are virtually always based on a hypothesis of pure noise. (By calculating C*S*B in terms of the size of the config space or required storage space, you're implicitly assuming a pure noise or random walk hypothesis.) Sure, Dembski gives lip service to non-uniform hypotheses in his CSI approach, but he doesn't take any into account in his examples. And in his active info work he explicitly rejects any ultimate natural causes other than uniform noise. So if FSCI succeeds in ruling out only what has already been ruled out, namely lucky noise, then how is it helpful?
None of these or any comparable challenge has been met, and the reason why not is obvious.
Yes, it is obvious. It's because avalanches don't result in English text, Zener noise doesn't produce Shakespeare, and the question of which phenomena fall under the "chance and necessity" category depends on one's definitions and philosophical and religious assumptions.
Language of course is inherently ambiguous. It is context of usage that determines meaning objectively. And, all along there have been abundant examples and contexts that should make FSCI plain to all but the willfully obtuse.
It would be nice if we didn't have to try to fill in the definitional details ourselves based on context and examples. Some of us are non-willfully obtuse and might get it wrong. Let's look just at the terms functional and contingent. Is the meaning of functional environment-dependent? Should only one environment be considered? If A causes B, and B is functional, is A also functional? (Note that Dembski claims this to be the case for specificity, or else CSI would not be conserved.) How about contingent? Is a blotch from a spilled ink bottle contingent? How about the locations of fragments from an exploded bomb? How about the output of a pseudo-random number generator? Does contingency reflect a given observer's lack of prior knowledge, or ultimate non-determinacy? If everything is ultimately deterministic, as it could be under Bohmian mechanics, then is there no such thing as contingency?
This is of course a complete twisting of recent exchanges in the eye on materialism thread etc.
How so? You attribute the FSCI in novel solutions generated by GAs to the human programmers of the GAs. You attribute the FSCI in ocean tides to those who record and analyze tidal data. You have offered no general method for determining the source of FSCI, but you always give the credit to humans.
You KNOW that the programs in question generate the text by being so programmed.
Certainly, but does designing the program equate to designing its output? If a programmer expresses the domain, structure, and objective function of a problem in code, is he designing a solution? If a natural language program utters a sentence that has never entered the head of the programmer, is it the programmer speaking? If so, then why doesn't the FSCI in human-designed solutions and prose not get attributed to the cause(s) of humans? Is it because of a philosophical assumption that humans' decisions, unlike computers', are contra-causal?R0b_{August 3, 2009
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PPPS: fighting for happy valley. Excerpt: The German defence was through anti-aircraft weapons and day and night fighters. The Kammhuber Line used radar to identify the bomber raids and then controllers directed night fighters onto the raiders. During the battle of the Ruhr, Bomber Command estimated about 70% of their aircraft losses were due to fighters.[10]. By July 1943, the German night fighter force totalled 550.[3] Through the summer of 1943, the Germans increased the ground-based anti-aircraft defences in the Ruhr Area ; by July 1943 there were more than 1,000 large flak guns (88 mm calibre or greater) and 1,500 lighter guns (chiefly 20 mm and 37 mm calibre).[5] This was about one-third of all anti-aircraft guns in Germany. [3] Six-hundred thousand personnel were required to man the AA defences of Germany.[3] The British crews called the area scarcastically "Happy Valley"[11] or the "valley of no Return". ______________kairosfocus_{July 31, 2009
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PPS: the Ruhrkairosfocus_{July 31, 2009
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PS: But, herb, your evolutionists' "need" to account for functionality on the order of islands and archipelagos accounting for ~ 3.89 *10^15,954 states is another way of looking at the same practical infeasibility.kairosfocus_{July 31, 2009
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Following up: 1] Specs, 174: I am struggling to understand how a demonstrative calculation of the very thing that is being discussed (FCSI in a biological entity) is more distractive than the charge that it is a made-up metric that no one can actually calculate. The issue is not that to calculate FSCI is distractive -- note the strawman -- but that precisely because it makes a telling point, strident rhetoric will be marshalled to distract from the point. The standard tactic is red herrings led away to strawman distortions soaked in oily ad hominems and ignited to cloud, confuse, polarise and poison the atmosphere. Or, the level of flak and such like goes right up as the bomber approaches the Ruhr; precisely because it is the critical target zone; thus, duly ringed with huge phalanxes of 88's, searchlights etc. Or, reverting to the terms of indoctrination: where a system is vulnerable to criticism is where those indoctrinated in it are trained to be the harshest in its "defence." But, once we can break out os where such programming has anticipated and posed the standard rebuttal, and/or expose the rebuttal in a way that forces real thinking, programming tends to break down. That's why there is so strong a pattern of distraction, distortion, demonisation and dismissal, never mind the implications of breakdown of civility for key institutions and for the culture as a whole. (On which I am distinctly pessimistic.) 2] herb: in order to compute the functional information using Hazen’s definition, we would need to know the fraction of those 4^27,000 configurations which would yield functionality at some specified level Durston's metric uses in effect a survey of the observed variability as an indicator. Cf his peer reviewed paper, here, and published table of 35 values here. (I cite the fact that the paper is yet another peer reviewed document to underscore yet another slander against design theory's want of factual foundation. That one appears prominently in the infamous Judge jones ruling of 2005.) In the simple FSCI approach, we need do no such elaborate thing: [1] once we see the scope of the search space, and [2] that the functionality is vulnerable to modest perturbations, we simply brig to bear [3] a scope of search on which the resources of the observed cosmos are hopelessly inadequate to scan any significant fraction of the space of configs. Large islands and even archipelagos can be lurking there, but we are not going to sample enough to have any confidence of hitting a desired shoreline of functionality. (And that is why the latest distractive tactic is to try to extend the shoreline of function into the sea of non-function, creating an imaginary continuous "fitness landscape." Int he caser of life, for first life we need to complete an irreducible set: a coded blueprint, a corresponding reader and an implementer that step by step caries out the function of self replication. Absent any of these or derangement that breaks mutual integration, and the entity will not work. And, to get to novel major body plans, the changes have to be early in the embryological stages and have to integrate with the function of the organism, while requiring on evidence of novel structures and observed DNA sets, ~ 10's - 100's of mega bits of novel information, dozens of times over. Again, well into the range of infeasible undirected search.) (To underscore, a search of 10^150 states in a space of 10^301 is less than the odds of marking a single atom int he whole cosmos for just one moment [10^-43 s] and then having a time and space travelling spaceship run around at random across all space and time and grab a single atom at random, and voila, it is the right atom at just the right moment. (NB: There is no need to infer to a single unique functional state, to see that undirected search on forces of chance + blind mechanical necessity is not a plausible mechanism to find such instances of FSCI.) GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 31, 2009
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PS to #175: My assumption above that only 1 of the 4^27,000 configurations functions as well as the E. coli flagellum is most likely far too low, obviously. But I don't see how the Darwinists are going to be able to escape the conclusion of design here. Let's be generous and say 1000 bits (rather than 500) of functional information is the design threshold. To get below this threshold, the evolutionists are going to have to explain how more than 2^53,000 of the original 4^27,000 configurations result in flagella which function at least at the level of those in E. coli. Whoah.herb_{July 31, 2009
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KF,
Now, the flagellum has maybe 30 proteins and has multiple functionality, e.g. it self assembles and sets up an acid ion powered outboard motor, with an associated control system so the bacterium can use it to go where it “wants.” A typical protein uses 300 20-state elements, each coded for by 3 DNA bases. So, we are looking at 30 x 300 x 3 = 27,000 bases on a raw estimate. 4^ 27,000 ~ 4.17 *10^16,255. We may argue redundancies and mods to proteins all we will and this is not going to go below 1,000 bits worth of storage. And no probability or calculus required.
I agree that the evos will probably raise all sorts of objections in order to derail the conversation, but this basic information is valuable to IDers such as myself who don't have much training in biology or genetics. I have to admit that in some of these threads I feel as if I've accidentally stumbled into a graduate seminar! Now let me try out your numbers. Because the concept of FSCI has been discussed here quite a bit recently, and also because the definition is relatively simple, I'll stick with that. Our config space has size 4^27,000, and in order to compute the functional information using Hazen's definition, we would need to know the fraction of those 4^27,000 configurations which would yield functionality at some specified level---say the level achieved by the E. coli flagellum. I personally have no idea how to estimate this fraction, but let me make the completely unrealistic assumption that only 1 out of the 4^27,000 configurations satisfies the condition, just to give us a starting point. Maybe someone else can help in revising this estimate. The functional information in these flagella would therefore be -log_2(4^-27,000) = 54,000 bits, well above the 500--1000 bit threshold.herb_{July 31, 2009
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KF at 172:
1] Herb, 166: maybe it would be wise for us to go the extra mile and post a complete, self-contained example of an FCSI calculation for some “real” example from biology . . . Sadly, that would simply end in endless distractive objections.
I am struggling to understand how a demonstrative calculation of the very thing that is being discussed (FCSI in a biological entity) is more distractive than the charge that it is a made-up metric that no one can actually calculate.specs_{July 31, 2009
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5] Rob, 167: What you mean is that we haven’t been able to provide counterexamples that meet your approval. False, strawmannish and demonising; to the point where an apology should be in order. In fact I have given a challenge on FOUR specific test cases, over the years, which can be re-presented as folows:
a --> Provide a case where an avalanche of rocks or equivalent produces a text message similar to "Welcome to Wales" at of course the border of Wales. b --> produce a computer screenful of bits produces a screenful of text, say a passage from Shakespeare -- FSCI by chance and necessity -- lucky noise. [An update to the Million Monkeys banging away on typewriters] c --> Using Zener noise sources to spew definitively random noise across disks produce a text string of 143 characters spelling out a good sentence in English. d --> We have an Internet full of ASCII text strings known to be produced by intelligences. Provide a clear case of one 143 character text string in English produced by chance + necessity.
None of these or any comparable challenge has been met, and the reason why not is obvious. 6] We could spend weeks discussing the ambiguities in your C, S, and B criteria. Language of course is inherently ambiguous. It is context of usage that determines meaning objectively. And, all along there have been abundant examples and contexts that should make FSCI plain to all but the willfully obtuse. But if one is sufficiently determined to object to what is otherwise plain, no ends of zany misinterpretations and twistings can be manufactured. 7] If there is a human somewhere among the causal antecedents, you attribute the FSCI to that human. If there’s no human involvement in the causes, you bizarrely attribute the FSCI to the humans that observe and record the phenomenon This is of course a complete twisting of recent exchanges in the eye on materialism thread etc. In short at this point i am reading this as a red herring dragged out to a strawman soaked in ad hominems and ignited to cloud, confuse, poison and polarise the atmosphere. For shame! 8] we can point to computer programs that produce “contextually responsive English”, but you’ll either claim that the output was created by the programmer, or you’ll say that the it isn’t good enough. If you set the bar at the level of the Turing Test, then it’s true that no computer to date can pass it. You KNOW that the programs in question generate the text by being so programmed. in short you are seekig to dismiss the fact. We do not get to such programs by spewing Zener diode noise across disks, and testing for function then rewarding incremental success until voila we have a text responding program that spews out contextually responsive English text (never mind so good a response that blind tests w3ill be unable to distinguish man and machine.). instead we use domain experts and programmers to DESIGN such systems. As well you know. Double shame! Man, do betta dan dat, nuh! ___________ This one is ever so sad . . . GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 31, 2009
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A few footnotes: 1] Herb, 166: maybe it would be wise for us to go the extra mile and post a complete, self-contained example of an FCSI calculation for some “real” example from biology . . . Sadly, that would simply end in endless distractive objections. How do I know that? BECAUSE IT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED -- the concept of FSCI started in 1973, with the issue of the observed and obvious distinction between biological organised complexity and order like a crystal or randomness like a tar:
"[L]iving organisms [-- thus, observed biofunction --] are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple, well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures which are complex but not specified. The crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity." [[Leslie E. Orgel, The Origins of Life: Molecules and Natural Selection, pg. 189 (Chapman & Hall, 1973).]
Now, it so happens that functionally specified organised complexity is a commonplace of engineered systems and of software. [That is why I keep on pointing to the 143+ character ASCII text in contextually responsive English example.] 2] the simple FSCI metric What I did at first level is to give a rule of thumb threshold and metric, to illustrate the principles behind Durston et al's FSC and Dembski's CSI metrics "for the rest of us." a --> Is it contingent (so capable of storing alternative configurations) b --> I sit functionally specific? [e.g. disturbing the working config sufficiently by injecting random white noise will derange function.] c --> Is it sufficiently complex that the number of possible configs will swamp the search resources of the observable cosmos? [At 1,000 bits we have ten times the square of the ~ 10^150 of Planck-time states that the 10^80 or so atoms of our observed universe would take up in 10^25 seconds, or ~3 *10^17 years. We usually date the observed cosmos at ~ 13.7 * 10^9 y.] d --> We have in hand many millions of cases of FSCI, and for every one where we know directly the origin story, it is produced by intelligence. e --> thus we have a strong induction. So if something embeds an information storage system that is functionally vulnerable to perturbation and stores at least 1,000 bits [actually 500 would really be good enough!] we can be practically assured it is an intelligent artifact; unless some one can show a case of such functionality and complexity coming about by chance processes and blind mechanical forces. The ducking and dodging you see above is because they are unable to do that. 3] say the bacterial flagellum . . . I'll double you on this. Simplest observed life that is not parasitic on other life can by knockout studies go down to about 300,000 DNA base pairs. Below that, we are told, auto-destruction happens. And recall, living cells are von Neumann replicators: blueprint storage, reader, implementer to self-replicate, defining an irreducibly complex set that implies islands of complex function Now, DNA -- the blueprint storage element -- is contingent, and functionally specific; indeed life forms have repair mechanisms for DNA. Observed life is well beyond the 1,000 bit threshold: 300 k bases is 600 k bits, or a config space of ~ 9.94*10^180,617. this swamps the search resources of the observed cosmos. Now, the flagellum has maybe 30 proteins and has multiple functionality, e.g. it self assembles and sets up an acid ion powered outboard motor, with an associated control system so the bacterium can use it to go where it "wants." A typical protein uses 300 20-state elements, each coded for by 3 DNA bases. So, we are looking at 30 x 300 x 3 = 27,000 bases on a raw estimate. 4^ 27,000 ~ 4.17 *10^16,255. We may argue redundancies and mods to proteins all we will and this is not going to go below 1,000 bits worth of storage. And no probability or calculus required. Now, I believe such rough and ready calculations will be enough for the ordinary and unprejudiced mind, but the point is that, often, we are precisely not dealing with such. As to a more sophisticated version, the Weak Argument Corrective no 27 links to the Durston and the Dembski papers and calculations. 4] this document 1) should refer to real biology, not drawing cards from a deck or whatever The drawing cards from a deck case was actually raised by commonly encountered ID objector Mark Frank over at his blog, and I provided the answer there -- he did not expect that. in addition, it is general purpose as Dembski's CSI metric is general. Duerston has published a table of 35 values of fuctional sequence complexity across various protein families int eh peer reviewed lite3rature. ter eis a zero concessions policy on such inconvenient facts for too many ID objectors. [ . . . ]kairosfocus_{July 31, 2009
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R0b, You can't even provide a testable hypothesis for your position. That is why the vast majority of people have a hard time taking it seriously. Why is it that the only "positive" evidence for your position is just the refusal to allow the design inference? And btw if you do find that nature, operating freely can produce CSI then you would also be falsifying ID. Yes that is correct you can falsify ID by merely substantiating the claims of your position. So now the question is why don't you do so?Joseph_{July 31, 2009
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You're right, Scott. I should have said "a particular kind of FSCI produced by nature" or "produced by something unintelligent".
What’s missing is an observation that FCSI can be exist through unintelligent, natural causes. If that were to occur and survive exhaustive scrutiny, we would then know of a natural cause of FCSI.
That is indeed missing. No FSCI-related claims from either side have undergone enough scrutiny to inspire any confidence. That's why some of us have a hard time taking it seriously.R0b_{July 31, 2009
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it does not follow that it should be easy to find a particular kind of FSCI in nature.
Finding any kind of FCSI in nature would solve nothing (as it has already solved nothing.) It would leave use exactly where we are now, debating whether it occurred naturally or by design. What's missing is an observation that FCSI can be exist through unintelligent, natural causes. If that were to occur and survive exhaustive scrutiny, we would then know of a natural cause of FCSI.ScottAndrews_{July 31, 2009
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kairosfocus:
If FSCI is so poor a sign of design that it can be brushed aside, it should be quite easy to come up with 143 characters in ASCII constituting contextually responsive English.
This is, of course, a non sequitur. From the premise that FSCI is a poor sign of design, it does not follow that it should be easy to find a particular kind of FSCI in nature. At any rate, we can point to computer programs that produce "contextually responsive English", but you'll either claim that the output was created by the programmer, or you'll say that the it isn't good enough. If you set the bar at the level of the Turing Test, then it's true that no computer to date can pass it. But what does that tell us about biological origins? There's no evidence that whatever created the earthly biota has natural language abilities, nor is there evidence of anything with natural language abilities that can create biota. So the one ability seems a poor indicator of the other.R0b_{July 31, 2009
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kairosfocus:
(Onlookers, you can see for yourselves that objectors are unable to provide counter examples, which is why we see all sorts of “creative” objections such as the above parody.)
What you mean is that we haven't been able to provide counterexamples that meet your approval. Here's how the approval process works: First hurdle: Is it really FSCI? Unfortunately, this hurdle can be raised or lowered at will. We could spend weeks discussing the ambiguities in your C, S, and B criteria. If a measure is unambiguous, then people will independently come up with similar numbers when applying the measure to the same phenomenon. But I see no evidence of such independent agreement for FSCI, even among ID proponents. Second hurdle: Does the FSCI have a non-human source? Your approaches to this seem quite ad hoc. If there is a human somewhere among the causal antecedents, you attribute the FSCI to that human. If there's no human involvement in the causes, you bizarrely attribute the FSCI to the humans that observe and record the phenomenon (unless, of course, the phenomenon is a biological structure). Your FSCI claims are unfalsifiable. No matter how loudly the dog barks, you can always say that he isn't really barking.R0b_{July 31, 2009
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KF,
First, if you checked the weak arguments correctives above, no 28 (on FSCI) [cf as well no 27 just above it on CSI and FSC], you would see that CSI and FSCI as a subset have clearly defined metrics. [And, there are more details here as has been discussed in a parallel thread.]
Obviously it is annoying when evos repeatedly ask for calculations of CSI, FCSI, FSCI, or STI without reading the FAQ. I guess they're unaware that these sorts of calculations have already been done for biological systems. Nevertheless, maybe it would be wise for us to go the extra mile and post a complete, self-contained example of an FCSI calculation for some "real" example from biology (say the bacterial flagellum) that a reasonably bright undergraduate could understand. We should also include a rigorous justification for the standard 500-1000 bit design threshold. Again, I think it's critical that this document 1) should refer to real biology, not drawing cards from a deck or whatever, and 2) it should be as self-contained as possible, so that anyone with good knowledge of calculus and probability can read it from start to finish without having to consult a bunch of references (which would probably be aimed at a postgraduate audience anyway).herb_{July 31, 2009
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onlookers, we see that STAN is a red herring which posted by someone who is totally clueless. So how about you anti-IDists- Can you provide a testable hypothesis for your position or not? Your silence on this question proves you can't so why keep pretending that your position is scientific?Joseph_{July 31, 2009
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A footnote: I leave it to the common sense of onlookers to see how substantial remarks are consistently being met with satirical mockery rather than the simple provision of an empirical counter-example. If FSCI is so poor a sign of design that it can be brushed aside, it should be quite easy to come up with 143 characters in ASCII constituting contextually responsive English. [Or, is the absence of such a case of Sherlock Holmes' dog that did not bark when it should have; given the lucky noise issue discussed here?] GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 31, 2009
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PS: Maybe you need to take your own advice, from another thread:
I don’t know about you, but I sometimes think I see some misunderstanding of what ~~evolutionary~~ [DESIGN] theory really says. There’s always the risk of interference from bias. [comment 98, counterintuitiveness thread]
kairosfocus_{July 31, 2009
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Cabal: First, if you checked the weak arguments correctives above, no 28 (on FSCI) [cf as well no 27 just above it on CSI and FSC], you would see that CSI and FSCI as a subset have clearly defined metrics. [And, there are more details here as has been discussed in a parallel thread.] On illustrating the reliability fo FSCI being produced by intelligence in known cases, simply observe cases of ASCII text in contextually responsive English, of more than 143 characters on the Internet. How many of these cases are produced by other than intelligent sources? (Indeed, FSCI is ROUTINELY produced by intelligence, as we can see from the whole IT industry. And, as the absence of counter examples for literally years can show, there are no known cases where FSCI has come from nature acting freely and undirected through forces of chance and mechanical necessity. And, on search resources grounds, we see why that is likely to be so -- the search resources of rthe whole cosmos cannot credibly access any significant fraction of the space of configurations for 1,000 bits across its lifespan. In short, we have a strong base for an induction: FSCI is a reliable sign of intelligence.) More broadly, ID is not in itself hard to understand -- things that seem to be designed, and show reliable signs of design are best understood as designed unless compelling EVIDENCE shows otherwise -- but when there is a dominant view imposed by power centres in a culture, that which exposes its flaws and cuts across its confident assertions can seem hard to understand or confusing, especially when there is a concerted attempt to polarise and cloud the atmosphere. To see an example, consider how heliocentrism seemed ever so difficult 400 or so years ago, but is so "easy" and "obvious" to us now. (Actually, heliocentrism is harder to understand and warrant in the face of clever objections than is the design inference. (All that stuff about Brahe's observations on loops in Mars' apparent path through the sky.) That's why Galileo's telescopic discovery of the Galilean satellites of Jupiter was so important; and it is why objectors then spent a lot of time and effort trying to discredit the telescope as a reliable instrument. Never mind that similar telescopes by that time were routinely in use in identifying ships sailing into harbour etc; real or imaginary flaws were trotted out as talking points to dismiss what the telescopes were telling observers about the heavens.) For, dominant delusions in a culture are propped up by power backed rhetoric designed to dismiss or confuse inconvenient evidence. Happened before, Will happen again. Is happening now. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 31, 2009
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6 –> Boiled down: inference from FSCI to design is a known RELIABLE induction.
May I ask how reliable? 5%, 10%, 99%, 99,99...9%, 100%? How is the reliability determined? Do what degree can we trust it if reliability is less than 100%? Can we assume a reliability of 100%, making it a proven fact? I may have overlooked it, but I have not yet seen how FSCI is calculated? Wouldn't we need a reliable calculation of FSCI before assuming that the design inference is RELIABLE? I am just a layman, and I find it frustrating that ID looks so much more difficult to understand than evolution. How can we convince the public that ID is true if it cannot be explained in simple but reliable terms? I wonder if it might be a better approach to concentrate the effort on tangible facts instead of abstract and/or mathematical speculations?Cabal_{July 31, 2009
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Dr Hunter: There are a couple of current threads going on about the validity of intuition; If these same religious arguments were reworded as: "a designer would not do this, because it's counter-intuitive" (ie: not making the designer G-d, per se), is the argument still religious? If so, then is there any valid way to use intuition against the design argument?es58_{July 30, 2009
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kf, you win. My parody is a weak imitation. Nakashima, according to the principles of right reason, FANTASCI is greater than STAN, since the former contains the letters of the latter. I bow to your superior acronym.R0b_{July 30, 2009
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Using my intuition, I know that STAN is an example of Functionally Appearing Natural Temporally Applied Specified Complex Information. Provisionally, of course.Nakashima_{July 30, 2009
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Rob: I observe:
My personal deal-breaker is criticism of STAN (Stuff That Appears Natural). STAN is so simple that a 5 year-old can understand it. By massive empirical evidence, only nature produces STAN, so we’re justified in inferring that the STAN in biological structures was produced by nature.
1--> Basic problem: art imitating nature is common enough that we know on considerable observational evidence that what appears natural may be designed. 2 --> Now, the explanatory filter used in design thought willingly accepts this possibility of ruling "nature" when it is "art," in exchange for so setting a criterion that it is most unlikely to falsely rule "design." 3 --> By sharp contrast, we are able to observe a great many cases of FSCI -- millions in fact -- and in every case where we do directly know the origin story, FSCI is produced by design, not nature acting freely through chance and undirected mechanical necessity. (Onlookers, you can see for yourselves that objectors are unable to provide counter examples, which is why we see all sorts of "creative" objections such as the above parody.) 4 --> In addition, because of the nature of the sort of functional specification and the degree of information content involved in FSCI, we can see that the whole universe we observe acting as a search engine cannot scan any significant fraction of the possible states: 1,000 bits can cover 10^301 states, which is about ten times the square of a generous estimate for the number of states the observed universe's 10^80 atoms can access at 1 state every 10^-43 seconds for 10^25 seconds. 5 --> That is, random walk based, undirected searches are not credibly able to access islands of function in the sea of possible configurations. (And that the functionality in view is vulnerable to modest perturbation is another way of saying that he functionality is in islands in a wider sea of non-functional configurations.) 6 --> Boiled down: inference from FSCI to design is a known RELIABLE induction. 7 --> But because the idea that cell based life -- with digital codes, step by step algorithms expressed as programs and sophisticated nanomachinery workign to carry out the functions of life -- might just be designed is uterly unacceptable to committed evoltuionary materilaists. 8 --> So, they are in denial, and that denial exprtesses itself in behaviour that looks suspiciously like the fallacy of the closed mind supported by arrogation of the prestige of science and abuse of dissenters in the halls of science and education etc; i.e Plato's Cave style delusions. 9 --> In that context, Rob's little parody does not look so funny after all. Especially on the part of a reasonably well-informed commenter. 10 --> Indeed, it looks uncommonly like a turnabout rhetorical stratagem, based on a red herring distractor led out to a strawman caricature soaked in oily ad hominems . . . GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 30, 2009
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Scott, obviously I deny everything that you accuse me of doing. In particular, I don't mock people for disagreeing with me, if that's what you were implying. And I don't know what imaginary clothes I supposedly admire.R0b_{July 30, 2009
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R0B, I'm happy to amuse you. It must take a great deal of deliberate effort to ignore evidence and reason, declare the obvious invalid for non-scientific reasons, and declare the mathematically impossible inevitable simply because you've elected to rule out anything else. And still you have the strength left to mock people who don't join you in admiring the emperor's imaginary clothes.ScottAndrews_{July 30, 2009
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Scott, thank you for defending STAN. As you say, the inference to nature is unaffected if the measurement is off, even by a large margin. But one correction -- STAN is not "extremely difficult to quantify". Like FSCI, it's so easy that a child could do it.R0b_{July 30, 2009
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The amount of information required for any specific design would be extremely difficult to quantify. The factors involved are mind-boggling. Is that, in and of itself, an adequate reason to deny the existence of such information altogether? How is the inference affected if the measure of information is off by a few bits, or even a lot? Rivers don't come from tears. Do you believe me, or do I have to measure the fluid in tears and in rivers down to the milliliter?ScottAndrews_{July 30, 2009
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PS - kf, you know that I love you, but some things must be parodied. PPS - Fun fact for onlookers: Did you know that the FSCI in ocean tidal data is created by the person who records that data?R0b_{July 30, 2009
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