Complex Specified Information? You be the judge…

_{February 20, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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This Google Ocean image is 620 miles off the west coast of Africa near the Canary Islands. It is over 15,000 feet deep and the feature of interest is about 90 miles on a side or 8000 square miles.

In another thread ID critics complain there is no rigorous definition or mathematical formula by which everyone can agree on whether or not something exhibits complex specified information. Believe it not, they say it like mainstream science isn’t chock full of things that not everyone can agree upon. Like duh.

Comments

Adel I would like to know how the designer did it. Unfortunately there's just no firm evidence of how. All we can do is speculate. One possibility is by using viral vectors to insert new genetic information quickly through a large population. That's how I'd do it.DaveScot_{February 20, 2009
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Mark Frank and Adel, you people are just too good to be true. Next they will be accusing us of having planted you people here. Yes, I make sarcastic remarks because absurdity deserves it. If I hear one more person wanting to know what FSCI is, I will scream. I explained it to my niece in 4th grade and she understood it and thought it was neat. But she is really a bright kid. Someone actually wants the laboratory techniques used 3.8 billion years ago. You talk about bizarre. I say a thousand as hyperbole and Mark in all seriousness says there is probably only a dozen. Mark wants the actual technique used a few billion years ago. Mark, I got word from the designer a few weeks ago and he said the original lab and blue prints were subducted under what was to become the African plate 3.4 billion years ago but by then they were mostly rubble anyway. The original cells were relatively simple but still very complex. Subsequent plants/labs went the same way and unfortunately all holograph videos of it are now in hyper space and haven't been looked at for at least 3 million years. So to answer one of your questions, no further work has been done for quite awhile and the designer expects future work to be done by the latest design itself. The designer travels via hyper space between his home and our area of the universe when it is necessary. The designer said the techniques used were much more sophisticated than anything dreamed of by current synthetic biologist crowd but in a couple million years they may get up to speed and understand how it was actually done. The designer said it is actually a lot more difficult than people think especially since this was a new technique and he had to invent the DNA/RNA/protein process from scratch but amazingly they had the right chemical properties. His comment was "Thank God for that" or else he doesn't think he wouldn't have been able to do it. It took him about 200,000 of our years just experimenting with amino acid combinations to get usable proteins. He said it will be easier for current scientists since they will have a template to work off. Adel, if you make a negative comment or exhibit a negative attitude then expect the essence of your negative comment to be dealt with in some way. I would not let any of my children make a comment such as yours without being sent to their room. I could think of hundreds of ways for you to have made a cordial comment inquiring what I think on the matter. But why did you choose the way you did which revealed a lot of things. (By the way I am quite clear on what I think and it is all over this blog.) But thank you any way for your comments. Your comments and Mark Frank's comment and those by others here help us immensely. We really appreciate how easy you guys make our job convincing others about the logic and facts behind our position.jerry_{February 20, 2009
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Mark Frank [26] There is a layer to human beings (the soul) which uses DNA as a library. It's not discussed here because ID just points to the physical evidence for design. And that's all it attempts to show. It simply demonstrates that Design is self-evident on the physical level. Attempting to answer how design is implemented is a good philosophical discussion though. Some may tell you that something only appears to be designed and try to inject ambiguity where there is none.absolutist_{February 20, 2009
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Is it chance or design?
So go on, apply your Explanatory Filter, quantify the Complex Specified Information, and tell us: is it naturally occuring via materialist processes, or Intelligently Designed? And lest I be accused of demanding answers without being prepared to give my own, here's the SHA1 hash of my answer to this particular puzzle: 369c703c-8a43f80c-ae9adbc0-9a1a5410-77265337. I'll reveal the orignal when Dave Scott or Dr Dembski gives their answer.Reg_{February 20, 2009
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Mark Frank:
Perhaps you can kick off with a hypothesis about how the designer of life implement the design? Then we can discuss its plausability.
How a design is implemented is irrelevant of the fact of design. ID deals with design detection - not design implementation. Besides, implementing design? What does that mean exactly. DNA for ex, ISthe implementation of the design. The design has to exist in a mind before being implemented. We see the implementation as DNA's chemical letters etc. making up the algorithmic information it contains. DNA's own 'support' systems do the building, error catching and correcting, cut/copy/pasting, transferring, translating etc. Error correction? That requires foreknowledge of correct system state. No such thing can exist without knowledge of correct state - once again implying a thinker/planner/builder. The design of DNA is obvious to any unbiased observer and statistically cannot be the result of any random process at all.Borne_{February 20, 2009
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Mark Frank [20] "hypothesis about how the designer of life implement the design" 1. E=MC². 2. Matter cannot be the originator of matter; avoids infinite regress or circular reasoning. 3. Designer is a free agent, that is, he is free to act or refrain from acting. 4. Free acting agents are conscious beings. 5. Designing activity occurs in consciousness of free agent. 6. Exertions of will, like wanting to raise an eyebrow or an arm, even if one physically can't, produce energy. 7. Designer exerts his will when he freely acts to create the universe, therefore 8. Designer transforms energy into matter by exertion of will. If the universe has consciousness at its core, we can expect design in the universe and be able to better explain conscious beings with the ability to type designed sentences to each other.absolutist_{February 20, 2009
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jerry [24]:
Adel, Get a life. Your are incredibly transparent and another anti ID person who comments here with inanity.
This is bizarre. What have I done to deserve such abuse? I have made a total of perhaps four comments since joining this blog. In one case, I disagreed with DaveScot, who dismissed me with rudeness similar to yours, but more eloquently. However, on another occasion, I made a comment that Paul Giem found agreeable. This is the first comment I have addressed to you and I am baffled as to why you found it so offensive. You seem to be very quick to jump to negative conclusions. Regarding my comment #22, I based it not only on your sarcastic dismissal in #21 of Mark Frank's question about mechanism, but on persistent refusals of other ID supporters to discuss the nature of the designer(s) or the mechanism(s) employed. Your references tell me nothing about the historical events involved in biogenesis (as Mark pointed out above.)Adel DiBagno_{February 20, 2009
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#24 There are thousands of ways that it could be done and I suggested some. Jerry - you are suggesting synthetic biology. That is using techniques such as DNA synthesis. I don't think there are actually thousands of such techniques - maybe a dozen or so. But in any case are you seriously suggesting that one or more of these techniques were used by some entity 4 billion years ago to create the first RNA/DNA? Having done this did they just let random mutation do the rest or did they intervene from time to time to create more complex organisms? If they did intervene how did they do it? Can we observe such intervention happening now?Mark Frank_{February 20, 2009
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This is also interesting imagery in the middle of Greenland: http://maps.google.com/?ie=UTF8&ll=69.907667,-40.935059&spn=3.255583,13.974609&t=h&z=6 Looks rather like someone dropped a 50 mile long shipping container there.Jasini_{February 20, 2009
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Gaahh... WHY am I still being moderated? I did nothing to warrant this. I was personally invited back by Bill, and yet all my comments are still moderated as though I had done something to deserve being blocked in the first place! This is very insulting! Fixed. - AdminGods iPod_{February 20, 2009
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The good thing here is, that no matter it's origins, people have recognized something that appears designed. This in and of itself is a Good Thing™ for ID.Gods iPod_{February 20, 2009
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Adel, Get a life. Your are incredibly transparent and another anti ID person who comments here with inanity. There are thousands of ways that it could be done and I suggested some. There is a whole discipline out there called synthetic biology. Who says anyone is not interested. There may be a lot of pro ID people doing the research but they better not say so. Take your trivial little irrelevant attempts at gotcha's and replace them with thinking. It would be refreshing to see some of the anti ID people exhibit some. I have personal interests that don't include the exact way the designer did it. When they find the logs, I will gladly read them. Just examine the nature of your comment. You try to paste a whole group of people with the particular interest of one person in the group. When I was brought up that was called stereotyping and bigotry. In case you are interested here is a link to the Second European conference on synthetic biology. http://www.esf.org/index.php?id=5386 Go to http://syntheticbiology.org/ for a start on this broad topic.jerry_{February 20, 2009
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Jerry, So humans are trying to create life in the lab. do you think that humans also created life billions of years ago? as you and many others on the site repeatedly say, humans are the only beings shown to create FCSI. so logically, humans must have done it the first time, correct?Khan_{February 20, 2009
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[21]:
I am not interested in how exactly the designer did it...
That's a position that seems to distinguish ID believers from scientists. The former consider identifying design the end of inquiry. The latter would consider such a discovery just the first clue in a search for further explanation.Adel DiBagno_{February 20, 2009
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"an hypothesis about how the designer of life implement the design" They are doing it at MIT. I suggest you go there to look at what they are doing. A couple top biologist talked about creating life in the lab in the near future. I suggest you google that to find out how they expect to do it. If you collect all the ways that biologist and others are modifying genomes or plan to modify genomes there would be a good collection of possible methods. You could start from there. I am not interested in how exactly the designer did it because the video camera was broke that day and I know it will be a fruitless effort. He kept meticulous logs though but they are not yet published so we can only guess the method. In the mean time check out MIT.jerry_{February 20, 2009
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Re #12 OK. Jerry. Glad you allow it. Perhaps you can kick off with a hypothesis about how the designer of life implement the design? Then we can discuss its plausability. We can leave motivation for the time being.Mark Frank_{February 20, 2009
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panic that is. human spelling error.absolutist_{February 20, 2009
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Oops - did the end blockquote wrong - only the first sentence is uoflcard - the rest is mine on previous comment.B L Harville_{February 20, 2009
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Whether lines really exist on ocean floor or are simply the result of equipment error, the conclusion that someone was involved is inevitable. This image caused wide-spread panick in France and Germany: http://www.gearthblog.com/images/images906/giantbug.jpg ...not really. Complete list of errors: http://www.gearthblog.com/blog/archives/2007/01/google_earth_data_er.htmlabsolutist_{February 20, 2009
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uoflcard:
If it is not that, until proven otherwise I would have to dafault to something like Atlantis I personally thought it was an artifact of the data collection process before I saw that Google said so. I didn't jump to the conclusion of "It's Atlantis!" because that is not the parsimonious explanation. The fact that you jump to the "it's designed" explanation is exactly the problem with IDists - you are too easily fooled by things that look like they might have been designed. Now it's barely possible that it really is an undersea city - but that shouldn't be the default position. I also find it interesting that no-one here tried to do a calculation of the "CSI" of the grid to determine whether it is designed or not. Could this be because "CSI" is an impotent concept?
B L Harville_{February 20, 2009
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jerry: "What a silly conclusion." I think that's exactly what he meant - not here - elsewhere.Borne_{February 20, 2009
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#10 - absolutist
prhean [2] of straight lines… snow flakes http://emu.arsusda.gov/snowsit.....fault.html http://www.its.caltech.edu/~at.....photos.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F....._13368.jpg cells of a beehive honeycomb…
The lines that appear in Google Ocean are much different than snow flakes (crystal structure of water, which varies greatly depending on rate of freezing, etc.), and beehive honeycombs. The honeycombs are still the result of intelligence (bees). There is no creature in history that has ever created anything near the order of 900 miles long except for humans. So in my opinion, it has to be either manmade (Atlantis?), artificial ("artifacts" of Google Ocean's mapping system), or something else (alien, supernatural, etc.). From everything I've read about it so far, it seems confident to say it is just an artifact of the mapping system. But that can be confirmed or falsified by remapping that area. With as much attention as it has received just in the last day, I'd imagine Google will do that. If it is not that, until proven otherwise I would have to dafault to something like Atlantis (although it doesn't make sense, because the "walls", "streets", "ditches" or whatever you want to call them are over a mile wide. It would make the Great Wall of China look like a trail of toothpicks).uoflcard_{February 20, 2009
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I've always thought these were pretty straight. http://www.nps.gov/redw/absolutist_{February 20, 2009
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"If only this kind of debate were allowed when considering design for life." What a silly conclusion. Any debate is allowed here as long as it is civil. How often can you debate design at a biology conference?jerry_{February 20, 2009
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Several conjectures have been given - all legit imo. Now compare something so simple as intersecting rectangles with something so complex as a flagellum or ATP generators or transcription, translation, or ... 300 some odd nano machines in yeast DNA for example. These "streets and walls" or "geoartifact cracks" or ... are nothing compared to what's in DNA. The fact that this is even intriguing to our minds (or it wouldn't be news at all), and that because it looks like some things we know are designed - is also indicative of the automatic intuitive explanatory filter at work in our minds when examening it!Borne_{February 20, 2009
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prhean [2] of straight lines... snow flakes http://emu.arsusda.gov/snowsite/color_images/default.html http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/photos/photos.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Snowflake_300um_LTSEM,_13368.jpg cells of a beehive honeycomb...absolutist_{February 20, 2009
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To me the interesting thing is how the comments have gone about trying to determine whether this pattern is the result of intelligent activity. In #6 Quadfather has proposed a non-designed process which can be assessed. We can do something similar for various ideas about design. Had a similar pattern occured in vegetation in the English countryside we would have been inclined to think it was the result of human intelligence. We know that humans have been around an influencing the landscape for millenia. Initially design seems implausible in the ocean because there is no plausible mechanism for a human to create the lines. Then in #5 uoflcard suggests a plausible explanation for the lines which is related to human intelligence. So now here is a specific alternative hypotheis which includes an element of design which can be assessed. If only this kind of debate were allowed when considering design for life.Mark Frank_{February 20, 2009
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Looking at it from the context of what ocean waves, earthquakes and other known phenomena can produce there is ample CSI to distinguish between design and non-design. There is very little but at the same time there is more then enough if we have a good enough background knowledge of what natural undirected process can accumulate overtime (and I think we do). This sort of design looks as if it appeared abruptly and is now degrading in resolution since nature is quite good at de-materializing designed objects. If someone would be looking for this (accidentally or purposely) in another ten thousand years or so I'm betting they wouldn't be able to find it.ab_{February 20, 2009
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The fact that it's sometime hard to recognize design doesn't mean it's always hard to recognize.Granville Sewell_{February 20, 2009
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Depending on the molecular structure of the rock, it is completely feasible that it could be broken along very neat, straight lines. I think the real question is whether this phenomenon corresponds with anything we know to be the unique product of intelligent activity. It seems to me that the answer is a pretty strong No.QuadFather_{February 20, 2009
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