At Some Point, the Obvious Becomes Transparently Obvious (or, Recognizing the Forrest, With all its Barbs, Through the Trees)

_{Gil Dodgen

June 5, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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At UD we have many brilliant ID apologists, and they continue to mount what I perceive as increasingly indefensible assaults on the creative powers of the Darwinian mechanism of random errors filtered by natural selection. In addition, they present overwhelming positive evidence that the only known source of functionally specified, highly integrated information-processing systems, with such sophisticated technology as error detection and repair, is intelligent design.

[Part 2 is here. ]

This should be obvious to any unbiased observer with a decent education in basic mathematics and expertise in any rigorous engineering discipline.

Here is my analysis: The Forrests of the world don’t want to admit that there is design in the universe and living systems — even when the evidence bludgeons them over the head from every corner of contemporary science, and when the trajectory of the evidence makes their thesis less and less believable every day.

Why would such a person hold on to a transparently obvious 19th-century pseudo-scientific fantasy, when all the evidence of modern science points in the opposite direction?

I can see the Forrest through the trees. Can you?

Comments

Thanks! You might have noticed the typo in the 2nd para. BTW: allanius@juno.comallanius_{June 7, 2011
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allanius, Your insightful post above deserves its own unique thread. If you like, I'll take care of that for you.GilDodgen_{June 7, 2011
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Cultural epochs are self-limiting. The Scholastic age, the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Enlightenment, Romanticism—all of them obtained cultural hegemony for a time, and all of them toppled in the end. They obtain hegemony through the thirst for identity. “God has put eternity into the hearts of men,” and for that reason all men desire an immortal identity. One way to achieve it is through procreation. A better way is through the apparent justification the comes from investing one’s identity in the prevailing point of view. For this same reason, however, all cultural identities lose their hegemony in the end. These identities are based on the dividing power of intellect, but a dividing power cannot give mortals the thing they desire most. It cannot give them life. Over time, the limitations of all divided identities become too evident to ignore—at which point they are abandoned. The abandonment tends to be rather sudden. There is a tipping point where the same herd mentality that empowers cultural identities begins to work against them and betrays them. Being possessed by the herd, they lose their sense of difference and distinctiveness. They become common and tedious—and then they are vulnerable to a fall. Darwinism, the basis of Modernism, now appears to have reached such a tipping point. The same universality that produced the herd mentality seen in its proponents has now begun to work against it and is making it reactionary and inflexible. It cannot afford to be open to new discoveries in the biological sciences. It cannot afford to be open to design, no matter how self-evident. It has turned in upon itself in order to preserve itself. There was a time when Romanticism/Transcendentalism seemed invincible, but in a few short decades it had been utterly swept away, to the point where it was impossible to imagine it ever returning again. A cultural identity, once used up, is lost forever. It loses its power to satisfy the restless human spirit and its thirst for life. This is what is happening to Darwinism now. Its implied promise of ameliorative evolution and “progressivism” is beginning to fade. It was the narrative of the Modern age, the thesis; the antithesis is coalescing as we speak. Change may still seem far away, but when it comes it is likely to be swift.allanius_{June 7, 2011
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Mung: Dembski used T as the term for the cluster of configs from which the observed case E comes. I use it for consistency. As long as T is sufficiently isolated, it is practically unreachable by a random walk based trial and error process on the gamut of our solar system or observed cosmos. T of course is specified on function or meaningfulness in a context. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{June 7, 2011
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...functionally specific complex information [FSCI] is the case where the zone of interest T is specified on a function, e.g. an AA chain must fold properly and work as a Type-X enzyme.
I like the way you put this. T doesn't mean target though does it? No targets allowed.Mung_{June 6, 2011
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For the record:
I do not see why a “purposeless, mindless process” should not produce purposeful entities, and indeed, I think it did and does. Elizabeth Liddle
Mung_{June 6, 2011
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II: On points on your 127: Let us clip and insert comments: _____________ >> EL: At best I see: well all the codes/machines we know the provenance of are designed by intelligence, and living things are codes/machines, so they must have been as well. Which simply isn’t a valid inference! As I’ve said somewhere else recently (this thread?) that’s like saying: cats are mammals, therefore all mammals are cats. KF: This is an outright strawman caricature. EL: I’m not convinced it is, Kairosfocus. a: oh, yes it is Let’s look at what you say below: KF: You have an empirically known cause of FSCI — which BTW can be and is measured, thank you. Namely, intelligence. b: Just seen above. EL: I’m not sure what FSCI is, but I take it that the SCI part is specified complex information. c: FUNCTIONALLY specified, complex information. And yes, we have a known cause of it in the case of human artefacts. d: In short, you accept that the criterion is empirically reliable in known cases. In addition, we have just that, a known sufficient cause, in a context where the other proposed causes [chance and/or necessity] -- as I said earlier -- are NOT causally sufficient per direct observation and per analysis KF: You have a claimed cause, chance and necessity without intelligence, that has not been observed to cause FSCI, e: I.e. I am summarising the point. EL: And here is what I see as the problem. We see CSI, in living things, with no known cause. f: so we should be doing an inference to best causal explanation and a means to reconstruct the credible cause,on the same basis as geology under Lyell progressed, or evolutionary biology under Darwin, or more broadly how Newton inferred to the nature of other star systems: the uniformity principle, where like is expected to be cause of like, where the best explanation has been developed. EL: So we have two sets of things with CSI: 1)Non-self-replicating things observed to be made and designed by intelligent humans 2)Self-replicating living things that appear to make the members of each subsequent generation themselves automatically, and no observed designer. g: All that the replication introduces is a means of propagating the FSCI from one generation to the next [cf discussion by Paley and how it was built on here], it is not an innovator of FSCI, the question is the SOURCE of the FSCI. h: Further, recall, you are not in the FSCI threshold until the quantum of new, functionally specific info is beyond at least the resources of the solar system, the cosmos we effectively live in, or if you will the observable cosmos. EL: That is not enough to infer that living things were designed by intelligent beings, any more than observing that cats are mammals allows us to infer that all mammals are cats, or, to be a little more subtle, any more than observing that this sand is aeolian in origin allows us to conclude that all sand is aeolian in origin. i: Kindly observe what has been pointed out over and over again, in now thread after thread (the repetition is becoming a pain, as it seems that the point is repeatedly simply being brushed aside): the origin of the FSCI at origin of cell based life on metabolising and vNSR self replicating organisms is of order 100 - 1,000 kbits, and until that functional info is there you do not have such replication of a metabolic entity with a replicating facility that codes the organism and uses that to guide replication. Secondly, until you have an embryologically feasible new body plan, requiring credibly 10 - 100 million bits for each as previously shown, you do not have the functionality that allows for replication of the new type of organism. And as was shown and linked earlier today the concept of the smoothly graded branching tree of life is dead, though the advocates are not willing to accept this. EL: Or, even more appositely, that because this snowball was made and thrown by a boy, that the avalanche of rather different snowballs was also made and thrown by a boy. j: this is is little more than an irrelevant analogy. We are doing an inference to best explanation for a known and measurable phenomenon, per the sufficient cause for it. It bears repeating that there are no cases where FSCI has been shown to be caused in our observation by noise leading to trail and error. this is precisely because the threshold is set so high that the config spaces are not sufficiently traversible by random walks that you are likely to ever find islands of function. EL: We are back to the null hypothesis problem – why should the null be “intelligent design”? k: False. The null hyp 1 as can be seen from the Chi_500 eqn above or the closely related explanatory filter analysis per aspect of an object or process, is MECHANICAL NECESSITY. Null hyp 2 IS CHANCE. Only when both mechanical necessity and chance are causally inadequate will intelligence be considered, indeed this deliberately builds in a significant level of false negatives, i.e to gain reliability when "design" is inferred, there is a willingness to tolerate cases where it will rule chance and/or necessity for various aspects of the object or process under study. EL: Why not “we don’t know?” l: Because, we have a long worked out classification of causal forces and factors, whereby natural regularity under similar initial conditions traces to forces of mechanical necessity, aka natural law. Similarly high contingency with a statistically driven distribution traces to chance, and specified complexity to design. This is in fact routinely used in any number of fields of pure and applied science, even just to design and work with experiments. think about control and treatments by blocks and plots etc, would you consider a "we do not know" when variation is not chance, a satisfactory result, or would you infer to treatment -- design taking advantage of natural law, and then by looking at degree of treatment applied, try to work out he law? m: or is it only when the lewontinian type a priori assumption comes into play that we suddenly get cold feet. Normal scientific practice is to infer to a known sufficient and superior cause, not to we do not know just where it is inconvenient to point to the best and sufficient candidate cause. KF: and which is ALSO analytically — on considerations very close to those lying behind the second law of thermodynamics, statistical form — challenged by the quantum state level resources of the 10^57 atoms or our solar system (at 500 bits) or the 10^80 or so of our cosmos (at the 1,000 bit FSCI threshold). EL: I’m sorry I don’t know what this means. n: I am pointing out the basis of the analysis in terms of the spave of possibilities for 10^57 atoms in our solar system or 10^80 in our cosmos for 10^17 s since the singularity, etc, and the parallel where in statistical thermodynamics the direction of spontaneous change is based on the relative statistical weight of clusters of micro-states. that is the basis for the law of increasing entropy or disorder. KF: So, to infer on best explanation relative to the evidence that FSCI is a reasonable and so far reliable sign of intelligent cause is NOT a circular argument. o: Inference to best explanation is not circular, and is in fact provisional pending further evidence and analysis, as are all scientific findings of consequence. EL: It’s not so much circular as unwarranted, IMO. p: Your previous claim was precisely circularity, which I replied to. EL: Sure, living things might have been designed by an intelligent designer, or several. That is an interesting hypothesis, but it is not a justifiable null. q: the only one suggesting that the inference to design is a null hyp is you, I am afraid. It is just the opposite,the result only after TWO successive nulls have failed. EL: A better approach, IMO, is to say: what kind of processes can generate CSI? r:pardon, but is this not what was gone over, again and again, including in this thread? The only observed sufficient cause of CSI is intelligence, e.g posts in this thread. Further to this, it was seen that the threshold set for inferring to CSI, is at a level where chance and/or necessity will not be able to search the relevant space enough to find the specific zones of interest T, to practical certainty. EL: And one answer could be (and this is testable) processes that involve contingent selection. s: random walks plus selection will only move to such a zone of interest if the criterion of functional specificity is remove, and substituted for by a Hamming distance metric so that if we happen to be closer to an island of function that closeness will be rewarded despite absence of relevant function. t: In the case of origin of life and of origin of body plans until a threshold of complex and specific integrated function is passed, the entity cannot self-replicate or reproduce. No differential reproductive success can be relevant in such a case until you are on an island of function. And cf the previous on the failure of the tree of life. EL: We know that intelligence involves contingent selection, and natural selection, by definition, involves contingent selection. u: Not at all: until one has function and a means of getting to islands of function, random walks will not have any function to reward. Intelligence, on knowledge or imagination of where the islands of function are or may be can reward closeness, as for instance notoriously happens with Weasel the program by Dawkins. EL: So the next question becomes: can we distinguish between the products of distal goal-directed contingent selection and mere proximal “goal” directed contingent selection (e.g. selection that is an automatic consequence of relative reproductive success) v: Yes, on the very criteria pointed out: once islands of function are deeply isolated based on sufficient complexity AND specificity, chance based random walks and trial and error will be maximally unlikely to reach such an island, on the analytical grounds already given, which are backed up by case after case of observation, e.g. the random walk based text generation exercises are able to pick up texts in fields of 10^50 or so possibilities, but 10^500 will overwhelm them. EL: I think we can, which is why I think that natural selection is a better explanation for living things than intelligent design. Actually, I think it also leads to better theology, but that’s a derail w: Again: until you are credibly able to get to islands of reproductive function, whether for OOL or for novel body plans, you cannot apply the criterion of differential reproductive success. x: I will not delve on theology here. >> __________________ I trust this will help clarify. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{June 6, 2011
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Dr Liddle: Let me respond on points, step by step, to your 127. First, through, preliminaries: I: Preliminaries: Do you recall the immediately previous thread that you suddenly and conspicuously walked away from when the way information is encoded in DNA, along he strand (and not across the ladder between strands) was addressed? I think it would be good to go back there and work through the posts and videos. That will set a context for addressing what is on the table here. Secondly, here is the basic definition of information in the UD \glossary for several years now, that is extracted by way of testimony against interest from Wiki:
“ . . that which would be communicated by a message if it were sent from a sender to a receiver capable of understanding the message . . . . In terms of data, it can be defined as a collection of facts [i.e. as represented or sensed in some format] from which conclusions may be drawn [and on which decisions and actions may be taken].”
Perhaps, you are concerned about how it is quantified, well at first level there is a Hartley suggested metric picked up by Shannon and others that uses symbol frequencies viewed as frequentist probabilities, and then deduces for the kth symbol: Ik = log(1/pk) = - log pk This is then extended to the average quantum of info per symbol by a weighted sum: H = - [SUM on k] pk log pk So far we are basically dealing with measures of symbol frequencies on the idea that the rarer symbols are more surprising, more unexpected, and thus more informative, and using a log metric to allow additivity. It turns out -- by the peculiarities of probabilities -- that a string of random characters will under this metric, give the peak value of information per symbol [by contrast in English about 1/8 of characters in a typical message will be an E]. How do we get to the more conventional sense, where meaning is important, and information is often expressed in coded clusters of symbols with defined vocabularies and rules for meaning? (In cases where information is implicit in a structure or an organised cluster of components to do a function, the structured set of yes/no questions that specifies the outcome is going to be similarly in symbols and will have rules of meaning and a vocabulary.) Sets of symbols imply possible configurations, only some of which are meaningful or functional, i.e. we are looking at islands of function [or more broadly zones of interest] in the space of possible configurations. That means the observed event E comes form a zone of interest T, that can be separately specified or observed. This is of course the root of the idea that we have deeply isolated zones of interest or islands of function in vast seas of possible configs. As you know, if we are dealing with a binary string, each additional bit doubles the config space of possibilities. Beyond 500 bits, the resources of the solar system of 10^57 or so atoms will not be enough to scan more than 1 in 10^48 of the possibilities so a zone of interest that is sufficiently narrowly defined will be so isolated that it is not accessible to random walk driven trial and error search. And, unless a search is matched based on knowledge, the typical search strategy will on average do about as well as that. It is intelligently injected active information that makes a difference and makes reaching such zones within resources a routine observation, e.g. posts in this thread. This is of course the heart of the concept complex specified information [CSI], and functionally specific complex information [FSCI] is the case where the zone of interest T is specified on a function, e.g. an AA chain must fold properly and work as a Type-X enzyme. (Cf Durston et al's estimates for 35 protein families for cases in point.) A simple way to model and measure such FSCI, towards use in the decision-making explanatory filter to decide whether on best explanation something is intelligently caused is:
a: Define specificity, S such that once we observe a specification S = 1, and if not S = 0. (Typically this will be on observed function and on observing or inferring the likely effect of significant random perturbation that moves us a reasonable Hamming distance away from an original observed E within T.) 2: Identify a measure of information, such that I is calculated per symbol frequencies or if a storage medium is used, it can be estimated from the storage used at least to an order of magnitude. [E.g. File-X is 127 kbits] 3: Using the log reduction of Dembski's Chi: Chi_500 = I*S - 500, bits beyond the solar system threshold Chi_1000 = I*S - 1,000, bits beyond the observed cosmos threshold. 4: On the case of a random string, S = 0. 5: On the case of a string that is set to a fixed repetitive pattern [say Thaxton et al's THE END, repeat], I = 0 or a value near to 0. 6: Taking as a text, your 127 up to the smiley, you have 3282 128-state ASCII characters. Or,3282 * 7 = 22,974 bits, an I value; and as text in English S = 1. Chi_500 = 22,474 functionally specific bits beyond the threshold. 7: On seeing such a positive value of FSCI beyond the threshold, I comfortably infer that the cause is not mechanical necessity without intelligent direction, nor is it chance, but intelligence. 8: Similarly, I have several times cited cases from Durston's 2007 Table I, and have set up the inference to design for these protein families thusly:
RecA: 242 AA, 832 fits, Chi: 332 bits beyond SecY: 342 AA, 688 fits, Chi: 188 bits beyond Corona S2: 445 AA, 1285 fits, Chi: 785 bits beyond . . . results n7
8: In both cases, the matter is simple and in eh case where we directly know the case, the inference form FSCI -- as usual -- is accurate. As was shown, a random text and a repeated block would not pass the threshold, for opposite reasons. 9: A simpler, brute force X-metric does much the same, based on storage use.
That should be enough for basic backdrop. [ . . . ] ______________kairosfocus_{June 6, 2011
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Mung @119:
What is it about DNA that says that the three bases that code for a particular codon must be arranged in a linear manner on the DNA strand?
ellazimm @122:
If the codons were not read in a particular order then it wouldn’t be a code. There has to be a nomenclature or the data is meaningless. We don’t decide what order to read the letters in a word; that’s defined by the language protocols. Once a scanning order/sequence is selected then that’s it.
Well, I was talking about bases being read in a linear manner, but I suppose the question is just as applicabale to codons. The correct answer is, nothing. Consider that you and I both have a copy of the same book. We devise a method of communication where I send you a sequence of numbers which specify a page number (within the book), paragraph number (on the page) and word number (within the paragraph). Obviously I could direct you to any page in the book, I don't have to start with page 1. And on the page I could direct you to any paragraph, I don't have to start with the first paragraph, and within the paragraph, I could direct you to any word, I don't have to start with the first word. You could read that book from start to finish in a linear manner and you'd never know the message unless you understood the code (the rule).Mung_{June 6, 2011
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Elizabeth, though Szostak's definition of information is more than sufficient for for the purposes of this debate, I would like to take a 'deeper' look at what information really is. In this following video McIntosh reveals the transcendent nature of information we use in our everyday lives: Information? What Is It Really? Professor Andy McIntosh - video http://www.metacafe.com/w/4739025 And Quantum information, which is shown to be completely transcendent from matter and energy, by Quantum Entanglement and Teleportation, is proven to have a 'deeper' level of conservation than energy does in the first law of thermodynamics, by virtue of the fact that a photon is destroyed in quantum teleportation,, Quantum Teleportation - IBM Research Page Excerpt: "it would destroy the original (photon) in the process,," http://www.research.ibm.com/quantuminfo/teleportation/ ,,, whereas the quantum information is shown to be conserved,,, Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. (This experiment provides experimental proof that the teleportation of quantum information in this universe must be complete and instantaneous.) http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html ,,, but to relate the conservation principle of quantum information to classical information, such as what is encoded onto a computer or onto our DNA,,, For years there was a debate brewing between Rolf Landauer, who asserted that information, that was encoded on a computer, was merely physical (i.e. emergent from a material basis) as all good materialists/atheists must hold classical information to be, whereas people such as Roger Penrose and Norbert Weiner held that the information that was encoded on a computer was its own independent entity that was separate from any matter-energy basis. "Those devices (computers) can yield only approximations to a structure (of information) that has a deep and "computer independent" existence of its own." - Roger Penrose - The Emperor's New Mind - Pg 147 "Information is information, not matter or energy. No materialism which does not admit this can survive at the present day." Norbert Weiner - MIT Mathematician - Father of Cybernetics ,,, Landauer held his 'materialistic position', that 'information is physical', because it always required a specific amount of energy to erase information. Landauer's principle Of Note: "any logically irreversible manipulation of information, such as the erasure of a bit or the merging of two computation paths, must be accompanied by a corresponding entropy increase ,,, Specifically, each bit of lost information will lead to the release of an (specific) amount (at least kT ln 2) of heat.,, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle ,,, And indeed much ink has been spilt through the years arguing both sides of Landauer's principle. Yet recently there have been some breakthroughs that have finally shown that the classical information, which is encoded on computers, is not 'physical' after all, since it is now shown to be possible to erase the information without consuming energy. Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy - June 2011 Excerpt: No heat, even a cooling effect; In the case of perfect classical knowledge of a computer memory (zero entropy), deletion of the data requires in theory no energy at all. The researchers prove that "more than complete knowledge" from quantum entanglement with the memory (negative entropy) leads to deletion of the data being accompanied by removal of heat from the computer and its release as usable energy. This is the physical meaning of negative entropy. Renner emphasizes, however, "This doesn't mean that we can develop a perpetual motion machine." The data can only be deleted once, so there is no possibility to continue to generate energy. The process also destroys the entanglement, and it would take an input of energy to reset the system to its starting state. The equations are consistent with what's known as the second law of thermodynamics: the idea that the entropy of the universe can never decrease. Vedral says "We're working on the edge of the second law. If you go any further, you will break it." http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110601134300.htm and this,,, Scientists show how to erase information without using energy - January 2011 Excerpt: Until now, scientists have thought that the process of erasing information requires energy. But a new study shows that, theoretically, information can be erased without using any energy at all. Instead, the cost of erasure can be paid in terms of another conserved quantity, such as spin angular momentum.,,, "Landauer said that information is physical because it takes energy to erase it. We are saying that the reason it is physical has a broader context than that.", Vaccaro explained. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-scientists-erase-energy.html ,,, Thus Elizabeth, it now shown that the 'classical' information encoded onto computers, and even onto DNA, is not 'physical', or merely emergent from a material basis, as neo-darwinists must hold, but it is shown that classical information is indeed its own independent entity which is transcendent, and dominant, of any energy-matter basis. ================= As a side light to this, leading quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger has followed in John Archibald Wheeler's footsteps (1911-2008) by insisting reality, at its most foundational level, is 'information'. "It from bit symbolizes the idea that every item of the physical world has at bottom - at a very deep bottom, in most instances - an immaterial source and explanation; that which we call reality arises in the last analysis from the posing of yes-no questions and the registering of equipment-evoked responses; in short, that things physical are information-theoretic in origin." John Archibald Wheeler Why the Quantum? It from Bit? A Participatory Universe? Excerpt: In conclusion, it may very well be said that information is the irreducible kernel from which everything else flows. Thence the question why nature appears quantized is simply a consequence of the fact that information itself is quantized by necessity. It might even be fair to observe that the concept that information is fundamental is very old knowledge of humanity, witness for example the beginning of gospel according to John: "In the beginning was the Word." Anton Zeilinger - a leading expert in quantum teleportation: Zeilinger's principle The principle that any elementary system carries just one bit of information. This principle was put forward by the Austrian physicist Anton Zeilinger in 1999 and subsequently developed by him to derive several aspects of quantum mechanics. http://science.jrank.org/pages/20784/Zeilinger%27s-principle.html#ixzz17a7f88PM In the beginning was the bit - New Scientist Excerpt: Zeilinger's principle leads to the intrinsic randomness found in the quantum world. Consider the spin of an electron. Say it is measured along a vertical axis (call it the z axis) and found to be pointing up. Because one bit of information has been used to make that statement, no more information can be carried by the electron's spin. Consequently, no information is available to predict the amounts of spin in the two horizontal directions (x and y axes), so they are of necessity entirely random. If you then measure the spin in one of these directions, there is an equal chance of its pointing right or left, forward or back. This fundamental randomness is what we call Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. http://www.quantum.at/fileadmin/links/newscientist/bit.html Quantum Entanglement and Teleportation - Anton Zeilinger - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5705317/ etc... etc... etc...bornagain77_{June 6, 2011
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bornagain77: Mathematically Defining Functional Information In Molecular Biology – Kirk Durston – short video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3995236 bornagain, I really appreciate your links, especially the video links. I've learned a lot from them. You've obviously put a lot of effort into tracking this stuff down and sharing it, and your efforts are greatly appreciated. My post was perhaps a rather lame attempt at a play on words, since in my view the infamous Barbara Forrest is the most disingenuous (this euphemism is a sanitized and politically correct way of saying that she lies and makes stuff up) critic of ID theory whose "works" I have had the displeasure of reading. The major point of my essay is that some stuff is so obviously wrong that one must sacrifice all intellectual integrity to defend it. This is not seeing the forest for the trees. The Darwinian thesis when boiled down to its essentials is that chance and necessity, in about 10^18 seconds with hopelessly inadequate probabilistic resources, accidentally produced Mozart and Mozart's symphonies, and the computer with which I am communicating the information in this post. This proposition is simply ludicrous on its face. As many UD readers know, I am a former militant atheist who at one time could have given Richard Dawkins a run for his money in defending materialistic atheism. Then, one day, I realized what a pathetic, irrational, deceived idiot I had become.GilDodgen_{June 6, 2011
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Lizzie, I have no problem with the definition of information. Almost to the person, the people I have seen with a problem with the definition of information are those who wish to twist the definition away from its possible implications - just as you have attempted to do. I don't worry overmuch about the implications; I look to a rational observation of what information is, how it operates, and how it exists. As I already said, my starting point is the historical use of the word; that which gives form, to in-form (from the Latin verb informare), or, from the information processing domain; a sequence of symbols that can cause a transformation within a system. Either is suitable. If these are not sufficient for you, then I will add this: Information is an abstraction of a discrete object/thing embedded in an arrangement of matter or energy. This definition is fully compliant with what is found at the genomic level, as well as inter-cellular transient signaling systems, and every other instance of information I am aware of. I believe there is a list of requirements for the existence of information. It requires the selection of an object. It requires a mechanism to experience that object in some manner so that an abstraction can be formed. It requires a suitable medium to contain that abstraction, a medium with very specific properties. It requires a mechanism to cause an arrangement of matter/energy (a representation) to be formed, and to establish a relationship between that arrangement and the object it is to represent. And it requires a receiver that has the capacity to properly interpret that arrangement – to be in-formed by the information. Are these not the observable properties of recorded information? Do you know of any recorded information of a thing that did not come into existence by it being experienced in some way? Do you know of any information that is not recorded in a material or energetic medium? Do you know of any information that came to be recorded in a medium without that medium being arranged in order to record it? What you seem to be saying in your argument is that we could have two instances where all the facets of actual information are fully observed (we have an abstraction of a discrete object, recorded by means of an arrangement of matter/energy, that arrangement then being received and decoded by receiver) but in one case or the other it is not really information based upon – what? Who or what captured the information, and who or what may receive it? I’ll stop here, and let you argue your case.Upright BiPed_{June 6, 2011
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Correction to post #139: ellazimm said: "But I don’t see how you can prove that mutations are anything but random. They follow random patterns. They are unpredictable."Meleagar_{June 6, 2011
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*the point that everyone is trying to make is here is that there is no scientific.above_{June 6, 2011
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@ellazim above 104: -“What you have illustrated here is the impossibility of defending scientifically, the articles of faith embeded in words such ‘chance’ and ‘nature’ that are unheld as dogma by the naturalists.” You don’t like my model, that’s fine. But I haven’t seen a well defined, worked out alternative. Everyone is taking shots at me but no one has told me why there is a need for a ‘metric’ or proposed a possible ‘metric’.” I am not taking shot at you ellazim. I am merely pointing out to the fact that your model is just as much a matter of faith as anyone else’s. The point that everyone is trying to make here no scientific metric available (not even in principle in fact) that will demarcate the issue. The whole “nature-did-it” is just belief and rhetoric.above_{June 6, 2011
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ellazimm said: "The fact that mutations happen unpredictably." Unfortunately, even if mutations were in fact unpredictable, this wouldn't help your case any, because you are making a case against intelligence, and intelligence is also often unpredictable. ellazimm said: "That mutations can be modelled like other random variables." Then it shouldn't be a problem directing me to the model of mutations that shows chance* mutations sufficient (combined with natural* selection) to generate macro-evolutionary success. ellazimm said: "Selection IS NOT random!" I guess that statement would be relevant had I ever claimed it was. ellazimm asks: "Everyone keeps asking for a metric . . . .what is it you want to measure? A capacity? At least tell me the units of the metric you want." I want to measure the capacity of chance* mutation and natural* selection to produce the macro-evolutionary features they are claimed to have the power to produce. But I don’t see how you can prove that mutations are anything but random. They follow random patterns. They are unpredictable. Do they follow random "patterns", or are they "unpredictable"? If they are stochastically predictable (as a pattern) in the genome, then it should be a relatively simple process to run an analysis to see if random mutations can do what they are claimed to do when it comes to building macroevolutionary features. In any event, it's not my job to prove they are not random, it is the job of those that claim that they are random to demonstrate not only that they are (that would be the first part), but that they are sufficient, when combined with natural* selection, to produce what they are claimed to have produced.Meleagar_{June 6, 2011
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Dr. Liddle said: In other words, the onus is on people who dispute ID to falsify the null – to demonstrate that what we see can be sufficiently accounted for by non-intelligent processes. I haven't cliamed ID is true or even valid in this debate, much less the null hypothesis. You, on the other hand, have asserted, by reason of defining "evolutionary processes" as "unintentional processes", that unintentional processes are "adequate explanation" for macro-evolutionary success. I have asked you repeatedly to show me where it has been scientifically demonstrated that, as you say and have defined, "unintentional" processes are sufficient explanation for macro-evolutionary success. I don't claim they are, or are not; I don't claim design is, or is not a sufficient explanation. Please do not attempt to shift the burden onto me when you are trying to justify your own assertions. I'm asking you to deliver the goods on your assertion and your assertion alone: where has science demonstrated that chance* (the asterix means, in our debate, "unintentional") mutation and natural* selection can sufficiently explain what they are claimed to have produced? If you are going to characterize the mutation as chance*, and selection process as natural*, then it is you that have made the only claim on the table about the nature of those chance and selection events, accumulatively, that are necessary to produce functioning macro-evolutionary features. You have made a positive assertion that those process are chance* and natural*; back it up. Show me the metric that supports your claim that those processes: 1) are indeed accurately characterized as chance* and natural* (meaning, in our debate, unintentional), and 2) are demonstrated to be sufficient to the task ascribed to them.Meleagar_{June 6, 2011
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A Darwinist (D) having a conversation with an ID proponent (ID) D: Naturalistic forces are sufficient for producing biodiversity. ID: Can you provide any evidence to support your claim? D: It’s all over the place. ID: Could you point me to one of those places? D: Well, sure if you insist. Here is the evidence for Macro Evolution. ID: Please try to focus. We are not talking about Macro Evolution. The issue is whether or not naturalistic forces are “sufficient” to produce it. D: Please tell me why you think an intelligent agent was responsible. ID: Again, I must ask you to stay on topic. We are discussing your claim, not mine. D: I believe that my neo-Darwinistic theory is adequate. Eventually, matter in motion will produce life and leave the appearance of design, even though that design is not real. ID: I understand that you believe in the neo-Darwinism paradigm, but I am asking you if you have any good reasons for believing in it. D: ID is not a rigorous science. ID: ID is rigorous enough that its proponents can produce empirical evidence that lends itself to scientific measurement. Do you have any empirical, measurable evidence to support your position? D: Please define “information.” ID: I will be happy to do that at another time, but I am, at the moment, interested in finding out if you can make a rational case for your argument. D: I think evolutionary processes resemble intentional intelligent processes very closely. ID. That is an interesting claim, but I am still hoping that you will defend your original claim, which you seem to have forgotten. D: Well, if you must know, I find the Darwinistic explanation more parsimonious? ID: But do you have any reason to believe that this parsimonious explanation reflects reality or is consistent with the evidence? D: Yes, thousands of scientists believe it. ID: But that is precisely what all the fuss in about. Those scientists, like you, cannot support their beliefs, which is why we are having this discussion. D: Well, I’ve been busy, and I’ve slightly lost track of the challenge. But yes, I do think that unintelligent processes can generate intelligent ones. I don’t see any good a priori reason to think they couldn’t. ID: But do you have any evidentially-based reasons for believing that? D: I have already presented the evidence? ID: Again, you have presented summaries of arguments on behalf of Common Descent? You have not, in any way, presented an argument to support the proposition that naturalistic forces can take life through all the taxonomic levels or produce even one new body plan. D: Please define "naturalistic forces." ID: They are what you thought they were when you said they were "sufficient." Darwinists are fun. You have to love it!StephenB_{June 6, 2011
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Cricket is boring, Lizzie! Football is where it's at. Depends who you support right enough... In the interests of avoiding repetition on the same thread, please can I refer you to this comment to explain the difference between artificial and natural selection: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-some-point-the-obvious-becomes-transparently-obvious-or-recognizing-the-forrest-with-alls-its-barbs-through-the-trees/comment-page-3/#comment-383514 As far as bacteria are concerned, again, to avoid repetition on the same thread, please can I refer you to this comment: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/at-some-point-the-obvious-becomes-transparently-obvious-or-recognizing-the-forrest-with-alls-its-barbs-through-the-trees/comment-page-3/#comment-383560 Italian immunity from heart disease? Reminds me of the Italian immunity from pain: at best, sub-specific variety within a pre-existing gene pool! As for anti-freeze in arctic fish, I do not see an observational or experimental basis to assume that anti-freeze arose as the result of a random mutation (admittedly I disagree with both Michael Behe and yourself here!). At best, the evidence is equally consistent with Intelligent Design in my opinion. Most likely, anti-freeze in arctic fish has always been a part of their gene pool. So you were right: I didn't like your examples... partly because none of them were new, but mainly because assigning "random mutation" to the addition of "information in the genome" is more wishful thinking than proper science.Chris Doyle_{June 6, 2011
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Elizabeth, since you consider Szostak, at the forefront of abiogenesis research, will his definition of information suffice? Functional information and the emergence of bio-complexity: Robert M. Hazen, Patrick L. Griffin, James M. Carothers, and Jack W. Szostak: Abstract: Complex emergent systems of many interacting components, including complex biological systems, have the potential to perform quantifiable functions. Accordingly, we define 'functional information,' I(Ex), as a measure of system complexity. For a given system and function, x (e.g., a folded RNA sequence that binds to GTP), and degree of function, Ex (e.g., the RNA-GTP binding energy), I(Ex)= -log2 [F(Ex)], where F(Ex) is the fraction of all possible configurations of the system that possess a degree of function > Ex. Functional information, which we illustrate with letter sequences, artificial life, and biopolymers, thus represents the probability that an arbitrary configuration of a system will achieve a specific function to a specified degree. In each case we observe evidence for several distinct solutions with different maximum degrees of function, features that lead to steps in plots of information versus degree of functions. http://genetics.mgh.harvard.edu/szostakweb/publications/Szostak_pdfs/Hazen_etal_PNAS_2007.pdf Mathematically Defining Functional Information In Molecular Biology - Kirk Durston - short video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3995236 Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins - Kirk K Durston, David KY Chiu, David L Abel and Jack T Trevors - 2007 Excerpt: We have extended Shannon uncertainty by incorporating the data variable with a functionality variable. The resulting measured unit, which we call Functional bit (Fit), is calculated from the sequence data jointly with the defined functionality variable. To demonstrate the relevance to functional bioinformatics, a method to measure functional sequence complexity was developed and applied to 35 protein families.,,, http://www.tbiomed.com/content/4/1/47bornagain77_{June 6, 2011
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Hiya Lizzie, my turn to butt in! I see that you are arguing over the definition of information. This seems to be a recurring and pointless argument. Disagreement over the definition of information cannot change the fact that information, particularly in the cell, is an observable phenomenon that needs to be accounted for, and, ultimately, there are only two possible sources for that account: Accident or Design. It'd be interesting to hear about any kind of empirical basis you have for the notion that the information contained in the cell arose by accident.Chris Doyle_{June 6, 2011
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Lizzie and ellazimm, like United, have given their best but have found our assaults on their position indefensible! At least they tried. The likes of paragwinn, who didn’t try, should try and follow their example.
We are in for the long game :) Think cricket.Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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Hiya Chris!
Hiya Lizzie, What I actually said was: 1. Artificial selection does NOT act upon random mutations. 2. Natural selection acting upon random mutations in a macro-evolutionary manner? Merely a fairytale! And it looks like you’ve made the same mistake as Dawkins: confusing artificial selection (which relies upon Intelligent Design) with natural selection (which relies upon a tautology).
No, I'm not confused. Natural selection is almost a tautology, but that's because it's a complicated way of stating a self-evident truth: that variants that replicate better will be replicated more often. But that truth is equally applicable to artificial selection, the only difference being that what is required to "replicate better" is to exhibit traits that the breeder likes, whereas in "natural selection" the traits could be anything, from traits that mates like, to traits that predators don't like, to traits that enable you to raise your young more effectively, to traits that make you hard for predators to find.
Please provide just one example of a new advantageous random mutation that has added “information in the genome”. Please don’t say “Peppered Moths”.
I would say that any mutation that results in a phenotypic effect has "added information to the genome", but that's probably because there is still a huge gulf between our definitions of information. As for an example of a mutation that results in an advantageous phenotypic effect (e.g. increases the probability that an organism will breed successfully in the current environment) then there are a few poster children (antifreeze in arctic fish; nylon digesting capacity in bacteria; antibiotic resistance in bacteria; that family of Italians with protection from heart disease - I'll have to check that one out). But those are, as I said, poster children. There are countless others than can only be inferred statistically. Polymorphisms with small phenotypic effects are common place in all populations, and the only definitive way to determine which are advantageous is to manipulate the environment and watch the allele frequencies change (as with Endler's guppie experiments, or, indeed, the natural experiment offered by antiobiotics and bacteria). I anticipate that you won't like these examples, but I'd like to hear your specific objections anyway :) Gottagotobed, I think.Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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Greetings GilDodgen, Your blog entry has already provoked a full day of comments from around the world: good stuff, sir. I would just like to defend the "indefensible" (or use of that term anyway!): When Barcelona played Manchester United in the Champions League final last week, Barca's attack was indefensible: nothing my beloved United could do could protect them from defeat! Lizzie and ellazimm, like United, have given their best but have found our assaults on their position indefensible! At least they tried. The likes of paragwinn, who didn't try, should try and follow their example.Chris Doyle_{June 6, 2011
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@ Upright BiPed, #125 I hear your frustration, UB, and believe me, I've felt the same in parallel circs! Let me try to address it:
Lizzie, geeeezzz. Your pains to not answer a simple question was illuminating. You first told me that you could show the rise of recorded information by neo-Darwinian processes. I then gave you two descriptions of information which are not in conflict (one employing the classic etymology of the word, as well as another using a more technical description). You ignored those.
No, I didn't. You said I could use any definition I wanted. Then when I took a look at your definition, I found operational issues, which we need to sort out, like who the sender and receiver would be in my demonstration (obviously it's difficult with time and post lags, so I went on regardless).
You then said you were going to send me some recorded information by virtue of 1’s and 0s in order to make your point. And then that morphed into tossing a coin a hundred times. I simply asked what the information was about. And then you then switched away from recorded information to dusty table tops instead. I am now getting the feeling I am chasing someone who desperately wants to avoid being cornered by taking a stand on anything. This is often called gorilla dust (the dust thrown in the air to confuse an opponent). It doesn’t intimate a strong position on your part, so I may not waste my time.
Well, I can only say you are misreading me (though I guess that's understandable, given the gulf. I am more than happy to do what you ask, as long as I have a workable operational definition of what I am supposed to demonstrate. I realise you think you have given me one, but from my PoV it isn't one. This isn't gorilla dust - it's the heart of the entire matter. I am not trying to confuse you - if anything I am trying to show you where the confusion between us lies. Clearly if you don't want to continue, that's fine with me, but I'd be disappointed, as I am posting in good faith. I know this is difficult to understand, and, despite the warmth people here have shown me (for which I am touched and grateful) over the last week or so, I have learned a lot about just how far apart people like me and people here actually are. I'd like to try to close that gap, but if people here insist that any attempt from an "evolutionist" to reframe a question is simply obfuscation and evasion, or even "dissembling" then we are in a closed loop, where any attempt to find common ground is seen as "gorilla dust", while failure to find common ground simply ends the discussion. I hope that won't happen. My offer was to demonstrate how evolutionary processes (specifically, replication with modification plus natural selection) can create information. To do this we have to have an agreed operational definition of information. One that requires that it is something like a message "about" something between two intelligent beings, a sender and a receiver, will obviously land us in circularity, because the challenge for is to show that information can be sent between non-intelligent entities (e.g. an environment and a protein). Further more, I need to know what are the equivalent of the sender and receiver in the model I am challenged to produce. Do you see the problem? I think it's solvable, but there is still a gulf to cross. - – - – - – - –
Picking up at the point in your response where your neighbors find your dusty table tops and presume that you are in trouble. You seem to presume that this is information. However, the dust on your table is nothing more than the dust on your table. It contains no information whatsoever Lizzie, none. For the record, the state of a thing does not contain information (unless that state is specifically configured as a container of information, eg a book, a disc, a neural cell).
Well, if it contains no information, how come my neighbours gain from it the knowledge that I am probably dead? This is not a sarcastic question, I am just trying to make the point that "information" needs tight operational definition if I am to fulfill the challenge. "The drips from the ceiling told me the pipe had burst" is a perfectly normal human locution, but is not, clearly, the kind of message you mean. We need to find a bomb-proof definition of the kind of message you mean!
There is no information in an atom of carbon, for instance. The state of an atom of carbon is nothing more than the state of an atom of carbon. On the one hand we have a carbon atom with six electrons, six protons, and six neutrons; on the other hand we have the information that an atom of carbon has six electrons, six protons, and six neutrons. Each is a discrete reality which can be independently validated. A physicist can demonstrate that the state of a carbon atom exists, and a librarian can demonstrate that the information exists. The latter, however, required a mechanism to bring it into existence.
And the latter is a communication between two intelligent individuals. I need to know what the communication is supposed to between in the case of, say, a genome, without, of course, requiring that any part of the system is intelligent, which would be circular.
As for the remainder of your post where you go off into CSI and Shannon information, I can offer a simple piece of advice. I say this without any intention of crudeness – but you really might like to avoid speaking definitively on these topics until you come to grips with exactly what information is, and what it isn’t, and how it exists, and how it comes into existence. At such a point, then you could assess ID on its merits, instead of some caricature in your head.
I am not attempting to "speak definitively" on the subject of information. I am trying to find out what you, Upright BiPed, mean by information in the context of your challenge (which I am all too happy to respond to). It is a word with many meanings, as I think we can agree. But I can't accept a definition of information that is defined in terms of how it comes into existence, obviously, because the question at issue is how it comes into existence! What I do need is an operational definition of information as used in the claim that unintelligent processes can't create it, if I am going to challenge the claim. In peace LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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Hiya Lizzie, What I actually said was: 1. Artificial selection does NOT act upon random mutations. 2. Natural selection acting upon random mutations in a macro-evolutionary manner? Merely a fairytale! And it looks like you’ve made the same mistake as Dawkins: confusing artificial selection (which relies upon Intelligent Design) with natural selection (which relies upon a tautology). Please provide just one example of a new advantageous random mutation that has added “information in the genome”. Please don’t say “Peppered Moths”.Chris Doyle_{June 6, 2011
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Greetings ellazimm, First of all, allow me to echo the sentiments of admiration for your particular participation here. In the heat of battle, such sentiments are easily forgotten. Fair play to you for doing what the vast majority of evolutionists will never, ever do: properly engaging with your opponents. With those sentiments still echoing, I must now point out the major shortcomings in your response to me (post 102). 1. Artificial selection in dogs and cabbages acted purely upon the pre-existing gene pool. Any claim that random mutation was part of these varieties needs to be supported by scientific fact. Absent that, you must concede. 2. The notion that humans were all brown-eyed before blue eyes somehow appeared is just that: a notion. There is absolutely no observational or experimental evidence to support this notion. Sorry. The research you appeal to is simply unscientific (it makes the unwarranted assumption that all humans were brown-eyed originally). 3. Why do you not subject Dawkins’ rhetoric to the same level of scrutiny as you do the claims of ID proponents? How can you be so in thrall to a man that you’ve never met (“Dawkins is very honest actually”): particularly when that man has uttered statements that are so toe-curlingly dreadful? For example: “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).” “Are there, then, any examples of anti-evolution poseurs who are not ignorant, stupid or insane, and who might be genuine candidates for the wicked category? I once shared a platform with someone called David Berlinski, who is certainly not ignorant, stupid or insane. He denies that he is a creationist, but claims strong scientific arguments against evolution…As I said, he is certainly not ignorant, stupid or insane.” 4. Be honest, ellazimm. You did not know what I told you about E. coli until you read my words, did you. If the “very honest” Dawkins didn’t know, then what chance did you have!? Seriously, Lenski’s research simply shows that, with extreme efforts, you can make some E. coli do what other E. coli has been doing all along. Big deal. If you disagree, what exactly did you have in mind? 5. “Hey, we may all be descendent from bacteria. Who says it hasn’t give rise to other life forms?” Oh dear. You certainly saved the best to last! Bacteria are prokaryotic lifeforms. All plants and animals are eukaryotic lifeforms. Therefore, science says bacteria did not give rise to plants and animals. I’m sorry to say that to even ask such a question demonstrates a massive lack of understanding. You don’t even need to read the research! Even Wikipedia will do on this occasion. All the best, ChrisChris Doyle_{June 6, 2011
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@Kairosfocus, #123:
Dr Liddle Please, please, please!
At best I see: well all the codes/machines we know the provenance of are designed by intelligence, and living things are codes/machines, so they must have been as well. Which simply isn’t a valid inference! As I’ve said somewhere else recently (this thread?) that’s like saying: cats are mammals, therefore all mammals are cats.
This is an outright strawman caricature.
I'm not convinced it is, Kairosfocus. Let's look at what you say below:
You have an empirically known cause of FSCI — which BTW can be and is measured, thank you. Namely, intelligence.
I'm not sure what FSCI is, but I take it that the SCI part is specified complex information. And yes, we have a known cause of it in the case of human artefacts.
You have a claimed cause, chance and necessity without intelligence, that has not been observed to cause FSCI,
And here is what I see as the problem. We see CSI, in living things, with no known cause. So we have two sets of things with CSI: 1)Non-self-replicating things observed to be made and designed by intelligent humans 2)Self-replicating living things that appear to make the members of each subsequent generation themselves automatically, and no observed designer. That is not enough to infer that living things were designed by intelligent beings, any more than observing that cats are mammals allows us to infer that all mammals are cats, or, to be a little more subtle, any more than observing that this sand is aeolian in origin allows us to conclude that all sand is aeolian in origin. Or, even more appositely, that because this snowball was made and thrown by a boy, that the avalanche of rather different snowballs was also made and thrown by a boy. We are back to the null hypothesis problem - why should the null be "intelligent design"? Why not "we don't know?"
and which is ALSO analytically — on considerations very close to those lying behind the second law of thermodynamics, statistical form — challenged by the quantum state level resources of the 10^57 atoms or our solar system (at 500 bits) or the 10^80 or so of our cosmos (at the 1,000 bit FSCI threshold).
I'm sorry I don't know what this means.
So, to infer on best explanation relative to the evidence that FSCI is a reasonable and so far reliable sign of intelligent cause is NOT a circular argument.
It's not so much circular as unwarranted, IMO. Sure, living things might have been designed by an intelligent designer, or several. That is an interesting hypothesis, but it is not a justifiable null. A better approach, IMO, is to say: what kind of processes can generate CSI? And one answer could be (and this is testable) processes that involve contingent selection. We know that intelligence involves contingent selection, and natural selection, by definition, involves contingent selection. So the next question becomes: can we distinguish between the products of distal goal-directed contingent selection and mere proximal "goal" directed contingent selection (e.g. selection that is an automatic consequence of relative reproductive success) I think we can, which is why I think that natural selection is a better explanation for living things than intelligent design. Actually, I think it also leads to better theology, but that's a derail :)Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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PS: Please read here on Inference to best Explanation, and here on the application of the scientific method to origins contexts. (This is beginning to go in circles . . . let's hope we can make this a learning spiral instead.)kairosfocus_{June 6, 2011
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Lizzie, geeeezzz. Your pains to not answer a simple question was illuminating. You first told me that you could show the rise of recorded information by neo-Darwinian processes. I then gave you two descriptions of information which are not in conflict (one employing the classic etymology of the word, as well as another using a more technical description). You ignored those. You then said you were going to send me some recorded information by virtue of 1’s and 0s in order to make your point. And then that morphed into tossing a coin a hundred times. I simply asked what the information was about. And then you then switched away from recorded information to dusty table tops instead. I am now getting the feeling I am chasing someone who desperately wants to avoid being cornered by taking a stand on anything. This is often called gorilla dust (the dust thrown in the air to confuse an opponent). It doesn’t intimate a strong position on your part, so I may not waste my time. - - - - - - - - Picking up at the point in your response where your neighbors find your dusty table tops and presume that you are in trouble. You seem to presume that this is information. However, the dust on your table is nothing more than the dust on your table. It contains no information whatsoever Lizzie, none. For the record, the state of a thing does not contain information (unless that state is specifically configured as a container of information, eg a book, a disc, a neural cell). There is no information in an atom of carbon, for instance. The state of an atom of carbon is nothing more than the state of an atom of carbon. On the one hand we have a carbon atom with six electrons, six protons, and six neutrons; on the other hand we have the information that an atom of carbon has six electrons, six protons, and six neutrons. Each is a discrete reality which can be independently validated. A physicist can demonstrate that the state of a carbon atom exists, and a librarian can demonstrate that the information exists. The latter, however, required a mechanism to bring it into existence. - - - - - - - - As for the remainder of your post where you go off into CSI and Shannon information, I can offer a simple piece of advice. I say this without any intention of crudeness – but you really might like to avoid speaking definitively on these topics until you come to grips with exactly what information is, and what it isn’t, and how it exists, and how it comes into existence. At such a point, then you could assess ID on its merits, instead of some caricature in your head.Upright BiPed_{June 6, 2011
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PDT}

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