EA nails it in a response to an insightful remark by KN (and one by Box): “the ability of a medium to store information is inversely proportional to the self-ordering tendency of the medium”

_{kairosfocus

March 23, 2013

Intelligent Design}

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Here at UD, comment exchanges can be very enlightening. In this case, in the recent Quote of the Day thread, two of the best commenters at UD — and yes, I count KN as one of the best, never mind that we often differ — have gone at it (and, Box, your own thoughts — e.g. here — were quite good too 😀 ).

Let’s lead with Box:

Box, 49: [KN,] your deep and important question *how do parts become integrated wholes?* need to be answered. And when the parts are excluded from the answer, we are forced to except the reality of a ‘form’ that is not a part and that does account for the integration of the parts. And indeed, if DNA, proteins or any other part of the cell are excluded from the answer, than this phenomenon is non-material.

KN, 52: the right question to ask, in my estimation, is, “are there self-organizing processes in nature?” For if there aren’t, or if there are, but they can’t account for life, then design theory looks like the only game in town. But, if there are self-organizing processes that could (probably) account for life, then there’s a genuine tertium quid between the Epicurean conjunct of chance and necessity and the Platonic insistence on design-from-above.

EA, 61: . . . the evidence clearly shows that there are not self-organizing processes in nature that can account for life.

This is particularly evident when we look at an information-rich medium like DNA. As to self-organization of something like DNA, it is critical to keep in mind that the ability of a medium to store information is inversely proportional to the self-ordering tendency of the medium. By definition, therefore, you simply cannot have a self-ordering molecule like DNA that also stores large amounts of information.

The only game left, as you say, is design.

Unless, of course, we want to appeal to blind chance . . .

So — noting that self-ordering is a species of mechanical necessity and thus leads to low contingency — we see the significance of the trichotomy necessity, chance, design, and where it points in light of the evidence in hand regarding FSCO/I in DNA etc. END

Comments

Daniel King as to the Anfinsen Experiment on 'spontaneous' protein folding and the 'self assembling' of the virus,, first,,,
The Anfinsen Experiment in Protein Folding Excerpt: Anfinsen wanted to show that the information for protein folding resided entirely within the amino acid sequence of the protein. He choose ribonuclease A as his model for folding but he couldn't completely denature the protein unless he treated it with the denaturant urea plus 2ME to break the disulfide bridges. Under those conditions, the protein unfolded. It would refold spontaneously once he removed urea and 2ME from the folding solution.,,, However, recovery is not 100%. Mistakes are made in vitro and presumably in vivo as well. This led to the discovery of an enzyme called protein disulfide isomerase (PDI)—an enzyme that catalyzes reduction of incorrect disulfide bonds and allows a protein trapped in an incorrect conformation to unfold and try again. http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/02/anfinsen-experiment-in-protein-folding.html
Well Mr. King, if you are trying to the defend molecular reductionism of neo-Darwinism, then the fact that proteins folding is also critically dependent on the specific molecular context, of the cellular environment that the protein is in, ought to give you some pause as to your atheistic/materialistic philosophical starting point,,,
Now Evolution Must Have Evolved Different Functions Simultaneously in the Same Protein - Cornelius Hunter - December 1, 2012 Excerpt: LysRS has two different structural and functional states. When not phosphorylated LysRS is a crucial part of the translation process, supplying lysine amino acids to tRNA molecules. When phosphorylated it regulates gene expression. This is a major problem for evolutionary theory. http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/12/now-evolution-must-have-evolved.html Human Genes: Alternative Splicing (For Proteins) Far More Common Than Thought: Excerpt: two different forms of the same protein, known as isoforms, can have different, even completely opposite functions. For example, one protein may activate cell death pathways while its close relative promotes cell survival. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081102134623.htm Genes Code For Many Layers of Information - They May Have Just Discovered Another - Cornelius Hunter - January 21, 2013 Excerpt: “protein multifunctionality is more the rule than the exception.” In fact, “Perhaps all proteins perform many different functions by employing as many different mechanisms." http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2013/01/genes-code-for-many-layers-of.html
moreover,,
Nature Review Article Yields Unpleasant Data For Darwinism - August 2011 Excerpt: The number of possible shapes that a protein can fold into is very high and folding reactions are very complex, involving the co-operation of many weak, non-covalent interactions. A high percentage of proteins do not fold automatically into the required shape and are at risk of aberrant folding and aggregation. As the abstract to this paper states: “To avoid these dangers, cells invest in a complex network of molecular chaperones, which are ingenious mechanisms to prevent aggregation and promote efficient folding.” https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/nature-review-article-yields-unpleasant-data-for-darwinism/
,,, and if the preceding does not do it for you, then the following certainly ought to divest you of any preconceived bias you have towards the neo-Darwinian molecular reductionism model you have for protein folding,,,
Physicists Discover Quantum Law of Protein Folding – February 22, 2011 Quantum mechanics finally explains why protein folding depends on temperature in such a strange way. Excerpt: Their astonishing result is that this quantum transition model fits the folding curves of 15 different proteins and even explains the difference in folding and unfolding rates of the same proteins. That's a significant breakthrough. Luo and Lo's equations amount to the first universal laws of protein folding. That’s the equivalent in biology to something like the thermodynamic laws in physics. http://www.technologyreview.com/view/423087/physicists-discover-quantum-law-of-protein/ Testing quantum entanglement in protein Excerpt: The authors remark that this reverses the previous orthodoxy, which held that quantum effects could not exist in biological systems because of the amount of noise in these systems.,,, Environmental noise here drives a persistent and cyclic generation of new entanglement.,,, In summary, the authors say that they have demonstrated that entanglement can recur even in a hot noisy environment. In biological systems this can be related to changes in the conformation of macromolecules. http://www.quantum-mind.co.uk/testing-quantum-entanglement-in-protein-c288.html
Now Mr. King all you have to do, since material particles are themselves not the cause for quantum entanglement (Bell, Aspect, Zeilinger, Leggett), is find a 'non-local', beyond space and time cause, for the quantum entanglement we find in proteins. I already have my beyond space and time cause Mr. King! As to the 'self assembling' virus video you referenced. (the one with magnets), I am severely unimpressed if this is your proof that molecules can 'self assemble' into man: First you completely ignored the fact that Darwinists have yet to demonstrate the origination of a single non-trivial functional protein by purely material processes (Axe, Sauer), Second that model and test tube for virus 'self assembly', in the video you cited, is a gross oversimplification for what is actually happening in the assembly of a virus. And though the following video is still not close to showing the complexity involved, it is much better than the willful distortion you have presented in that video:
The Virus - Assembly Of A Molecular "Lunar Landing" Machine - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4023122 Virus caught in the act of infecting a cell (w/ video) - January 10, 2013 Excerpt: The researchers show that when searching for its prey, the virus briefly extends—like feelers—one or two of six ultra-thin fibers it normally keeps folded at the base of its head. Once a suitable host has been located, the virus behaves a bit like a planetary rover, extending these fibers to walk randomly across the surface of the cell and find an optimal site for infection. http://phys.org/news/2013-01-virus-caught-infecting-cell-video.html
bornagain77_{March 25, 2013
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DK: Please, observe the full context, all together:
Did you bother to read above in the thread where the case of the magnetic blocks shaken in a tube and clicking together as designed was discussed? What are the problems with it, and why does it seem to you to be anything but an intelligently designed system doing what it was made to do, reflecting the power of FSCO/I coming from such design? What does this say about the way the chance-necessity mindset is blinding people to see what SHOULD be obvious, is indeed blatant? (Do you see how frustrating it can be to have to go in circles to again explain what should have been obvious on a glance, then was stated in so many words already, a day ago; especially if there is now an argument on the case that is wholly unnecessary?)
The self assembling plastic mechanism with magnets aligned just so, was not ignored, the evidence instead is that you refused to simply scroll up and read, as was suggested. (I suggest you look here at 27 above before further replying.) Similarly, in the world of biological molecules, the issue is as you know that proteins are assembled in highly specific strings in ways that use codes to guide the AA sequences, which is what was to be explained. Just as, that on shaking the plastic fitted parts with embedded magnets fit together is not what is to be explained, it is how they come to be in that shape with those aligned magnets. As was pointed out almost 24 hrs ago above. What I find significant is that when confronted with something as obvious as this, there is a typical latching on that almost predictably fails to notice the obvious. The special shaping and the magnets involved are not exactly hidden. And, this is a carefully aligned, interfaced, with fit made just so, item. This is nothing more or less than a demonstration of how an intelligent designer can make something and use available random forces to assemble a designed object. As a way to get back on track, I suggest that the following, from a certain Michael Denton, will be helpful:
To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometers in diameter [[so each atom in it would be “the size of a tennis ball”] and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the port holes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings we would find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity. We would see endless highly organized corridors and conduits branching in every direction away from the perimeter of the cell, some leading to the central memory bank in the nucleus and others to assembly plants and processing units. The nucleus itself would be a vast spherical chamber more than a kilometer in diameter, resembling a geodesic dome inside of which we would see, all neatly stacked together in ordered arrays, the miles of coiled chains of the DNA molecules. A huge range of products and raw materials would shuttle along all the manifold conduits in a highly ordered fashion to and from all the various assembly plants in the outer regions of the cell. We would wonder at the level of control implicit in the movement of so many objects down so many seemingly endless conduits, all in perfect unison. We would see all around us, in every direction we looked, all sorts of robot-like machines . . . . We would see that nearly every feature of our own advanced machines had its analogue in the cell: artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices used for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction . . . . However, it would be a factory which would have one capacity not equaled in any of our own most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours . . . . Unlike our own pseudo-automated assembly plants, where external controls are being continually applied, the cell's manufacturing capability is entirely self-regulated . . . . [[Denton, Michael, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Adler, 1986, pp. 327 – 331. This work is a classic that is still well worth reading. Emphases added. (NB: The 2009 work by Stephen Meyer of Discovery Institute, Signature in the Cell, brings this classic argument up to date. The main thesis of the book is that: "The universe is comprised of matter, energy, and the information that gives order [[better: functional organisation] to matter and energy, thereby bringing life into being. In the cell, information is carried by DNA, which functions like a software program. The signature in the cell is that of the master programmer of life." Given the sharp response that has provoked, the onward e-book responses to attempted rebuttals, Signature of Controversy, would also be excellent, but sobering and sometimes saddening, reading.) ]
KFkairosfocus_{March 25, 2013
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Given that you’ve already inferred design, then please explain what that “more then” consists of.
I have, in a response to you, just minutes ago.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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When you came to the conclusion that there is more to life then matter and energy, could you describe how you eliminated chance and necessity in that process? You guys helped- by not being able to provide a testable hypothesis nor any positive evidence for teh claim. Thank you. And I ahve explained why I am an ID supporter. OTOH no one seems to be able to explain why they support evolutionism.
Joe_{March 25, 2013
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Joe, please watch tone. KFkairosfocus_{March 25, 2013
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“Therefor to refute ID and any given design inference all one has to do is step up and demonstrate that blind and undirected processes can account for it.” And Patrick disMay chimes in
So they’ve given up on even pretending that ID is anything other than a god of the gaps argument over there?
What a jerk. That is how one falsifies all given design inferences, Pat. Those are the rules. However to infer design more than eliminating blind and undirected processes are required. Again it is all based on our knowledge of cause and effect relationships- unlike your position.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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By your “logic” we cannot say that the Antikythera mechanism was designed.
We know humans made it.
LoL! That is NEITHER how nor when. Thank you for continuing to prove my point- you are a waste of time and skin.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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Therefor to refute ID and any given design inference all one has to do is step up and demonstrate that blind and undirected processes can account for it.
I’m afraid you lose out on the bonus points Joe. If you cannot talk about ID without bringing in Darwinism you are not providing positive evidence for your position.
Again with your ignorance. It wouldn't matter if darwinism never existed. The design inference mandates that necessity and chance be eliminated first. Ya see OM, it is as I said- you are scientifically illiterate and proud of it. Good luck with your ignorance and belligerence. You must be very happy...Joe_{March 25, 2013
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So you’ve done my work for me JoeG, you’ve shown that ID does not have answers to the questions that it claims to answer.
Strange, I didn't do any such thing. Again your ignorance is not a refutation.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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Yet you don’t know when or how the design happened, so on what basis are you inferring anything at all?
Please explain why it is relevant to know the how and when before determing design. By your "logic" we cannot say that the Antikythera mechanism was designed. So let's have that explanation or admit that you are not only a waste of time but also a waste of skin.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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And more lies:
Joe tends to attack the messenger and not the message and that is the most powerful weapon in the ID movement.
I attack people who just attack me, IDists and ignorantly swipe at ID. Your ilk's "mesage" is very clear- set up and destroy strawman after strawman, all the while ignoring the fact that your position has nothing. And buy a vowel- all you chumps do is attack the messengers.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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Yes, Intelligent Design is both testable and falsifiable. Intelligent Design relies on Newton's First Rule, meaning agencies are only added when REQUIRED. Therefor to refute ID and any given design inference all one has to do is step up and demonstrate that blind and undirected processes can account for it. IOW all evotards have to do to stop ID cold is to actually step up and A) produce a tyestable hypothesis for their position and B) produce positive, supporting evidence. How is ID tested? As in positive evidence? 1- See above as the way to the design inference is THROUGH the blind watchmaker 2- The criteria for inferring design in biology is, as Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biochemistry at Leheigh University, puts it in his book Darwin ' s Black Box: "Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles to be confident of the design of anything: the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components.” So if nature, operating freely cannot account for it AND it meets that criteria, some agency is required and we infer design (or at least agency involvement). And again for the scientifically illiterate: Reality dictates that in the absence of direct observation or designer input, the only possible way to make any scientific determination about the designer(s) or the specific process(es) used, is by studying the design and all relevant evidence. OM has been told that countless times and yet it is so dense it just doesn't get through.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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So you don’t know when or how design happened, but you know it did happen and can study it? Is that about right?
That is how it works in archaelogy, forensic science and with SETI. We don't know how Stonehenge was designed and only via rigorous study have we determined a when- but that is tentative. And Stonehenge is something we are capable of constructing. The design of living organisms is above our design level. So it will take longer and more resources.
Yet it seems to me that if you don’t know when or how “intelligent design” events happen you can’t test those particular claims.
Really? Well it's obvious to me that you are a scientifically illiterate punk. The design inference is made based on our knowledge of cause and effect relationships. Period. And if you don't like it all you have to do is demonstrate that your position can account for what we say required a designer. But you can't, so you are forced into belligerent whining. Nice jobJoe_{March 25, 2013
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Daniel, you are welcome. I take it that you are much more of an expert on molecular biology than Stephen L. Talbott. But the holistic view on life he tries to convey may be of interest to you. Do let me know what you think.Box_{March 25, 2013
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OM is proud to be ignorant:
Q: When do “intelligent design” events happen? Q: How do “intelligent design” events happen? Q: What have you learnt from studying the design?
Don't have to know when or how in order to determine design and study it. What have I learned? That there is more to living organisms than just matter and energy. I have also learned taht evos are cowardly losers. Unlike darwinism, ID can be tested and possibly falsified.
Please explain how.
I already have, several times. Others have also. Again your ignorance means nothing to us. Although I am sure that you are proud of your ignorance- it shows.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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KF,
What does this say about the way the chance-necessity mindset is blinding people to see what SHOULD be obvious, is indeed blatant?
What may be obvious to you is not obvious to me, based on my 30+ years of work in molecular biology. Of course I may be mistaken, but you might entertain the possibility that you are mistaken. Humility was a virtue extolled by St Francis of Assisi, I recall.
(Do you see how frustrating it can be to have to go in circles to again explain what should have been obvious on a glance, then was stated in so many words already, a day ago; especially if there is now an argument on the case that is wholly unnecessary?)
KF, I sympathize. But do you see how frustrating it can be to point out an example of spontaneous virus assembly (TMV) and have it ignored? Surely, we can reason together.Daniel King_{March 25, 2013
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And if OM ever demonstrates how his questions are relevant to ID, perhaps someone may attempt to answer them. However it is obvious that OM is ignorant of science, ignorant of ID and just plain ole ignorant.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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After all, Darwinism has a mechanism it can call upon.
Yes and it has failed to explain anything. Nice job.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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LoL!
My side “Darwinism” is the established accepted explanation for the observed fact of evolution.
It sure as hell wasn't established via positive evidence. And your questions don't have anything to do with ID. Unlike darwinism, ID can be tested and possibly falsified. I am very OK with that fact.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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Box, Thanks for the links to the essays by Stephen Talbott. There's a lot of material there and it may take me a while to read and digest it. I'm looking forward to learning a lot.Daniel King_{March 25, 2013
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OM sez:
Yes, I have asked Upright many times at what point his “information” is transferred into the universe, how that was done and so on.
And we have asked you many questions that you refuse to answer. I take it that makes you afraid.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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DK: Let me first note to you, again from yesterday as actually excepted above, that there is in fact a lab model for the behaviour on Saturn, which shows that the case is likely one of order stemming from mechanical necessity, of low contingency and to be contrasted with high information organisation. Second, the key distinction you need to reckon with is on contingency. When an outcome is driven by the forces acting in a mechanical way such that similar circumstances yield similar results what is at work is mechanical, lawlike necessity giving rise to order. That is, the compressibility of the description of the outcome on its antecedents is high. This is similar to something like F = m*a. A dropped heavy object reliably falls at 9.8N/kg on earth. This, of course, has been pointed out any number of times, over and over again literally for years on end, so we are back to the smart people acting like verrrry slow students problem. This points to induced blindness and blocks to seeing what should be obvious. Please think about this. Next, there are cases of high contingency, where under similar initial conditions, we have highly variable and divergent possible outcomes. If our dropped object is a fair die, its outcome will come from {1, 2, . . . 6} essentially by chance. But if we load it so say 6 comes up 1/2 the time, we have something else acting, design. This very case has been highlighted any number of times. For years. Highly contingent outcomes, as any decision tree analysis will highlight, come from two main alternatives, choice or chance. If you see 200 dice set up in a line to read all 1s, you are unlikely to ascribe that to chance. Likewise, if you were privy to a code and the dice are laid out in a code that spells the opening words of this post, that too is utterly unlikely by chance but very likely on design by comparison. We can go from this to the per aspect design inference filter -- and yes, the link is two years ago at UD -- that looks at various aspects of a phenomenon, process or object and infers from an extended form of the above analysis, grounds to see what is likely from necessity, what from chance, what from choice. Now, you seem to have a problem with messages vs information. If you equate information to the Shannon metric of information carrying capacity, you are very likely to confuse yourself, especially at the hands of design skeptics who should know better. But, in normal usage we are concerned with functional, configuration-specific information that is explicit in a string or implicit in an organised functional entity built in accordance with some sort of wiring diagram or blueprint. This is in fact the normal meaning of "information" in the context of IT etc. In that setting, messages are blocks of information transferred from a source to a sink in accord with various conventions. And, I assure you, as one with a relevant technical background to see for myself and understand [in short I am pointing out that you ate making presumptions and/or are indulging in Alinskyite personalise and polarise ad hominem attacks], that in D/RNA, the chemistry of chaining has little or nothing to do with the informational content stored in effect in prong height due to side-branches of the monomers. Rather like a Yale lock. Next, proteins in some cases do fold spontaneously to functional forms. Those forms are local energy minima specified by the van der Waals forces, interaction with water [a polar molecule], H bonds and the like. But what makes that happen is the sequence specified by the code in mRNA, transcribed form DNA. In short, proteins are informational macromolecules and they are also so uphill e4nergetically that it is unlikely indeed that hey would form in plausible prelife circumstances. There is evidence that just to get to folding, we are looking at 1 in 10^65 of AA sequence space, for typical proteins. That is a ratio of about 1 atom to a galaxy. And BTW, in many critical cases, chaperoning is used to assure that the protein folds to the desired shape. Misfolded, lower minima states are possible in significant cases, giving rise to prions, which have the nasty habit of propagating in a cascade. Hence, mad cow disease, and possibly Alzheimer's. Functional proteins are dependent on a string structure that is made in the ribosome under algorithmic, step by step control of mRNA. This in turn is made form DNA by unzipping and transcribing then editing and possibly rearranging. It is the case that the only observed source of FSCO/I is design, and it is further the case that on needle in the haystack analysis, chance processes and/or mechanical necessity are maximally unlikely to be able to create FSCO/I rich structures, due to the scope of time and atoms available in the solar system or the observed cosmos, relative to the space of possible configurations. I underscore again: self assembly is yet another red herring led away to a strawman. Including the video that is okay for a limited purpose but when used to beg the question of the source of FSCO/I befcomes a fallacy. KFkairosfocus_{March 25, 2013
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DK: Did you bother to read above in the thread where the case of the magnetic blocks shaken in a tube and clicking together as designed was discussed? What are the problems with it, and why does it seem to you to be anything but an intelligently designed system doing what it was made to do, reflecting the power of FSCO/I coming from such design? What does this say about the way the chance-necessity mindset is blinding people to see what SHOULD be obvious, is indeed blatant? (Do you see how frustrating it can be to have to go in circles to again explain what should have been obvious on a glance, then was stated in so many words already, a day ago; especially if there is now an argument on the case that is wholly unnecessary?) KFkairosfocus_{March 25, 2013
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Ha, I see that Box already linked to that video showing a model of virus assembly. Eric, it really is germane, because the self-assembly of viruses can be observed in the test tube. Google "tobacco mosaic virus self assembly"Daniel King_{March 25, 2013
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DK:
What does a “message” have to do with “information”?
Everything. In it's normal/ standard use, information, message and meaning all go hand-in-hand. DK, do you think that the fact that the hexagon is self-organising that means living organisms can arise from non-living matter via blind and undirected chemical processes?Joe_{March 25, 2013
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Daniel King @34:
I think it does relate to complex machines. I focused on DNA because that is the most obvious and easy case for most people to understand. Also, because the principle I have stated is most clearly seen in the digital information context (as kf has also noted @23).
The principle may apply to digital information, but it may not apply to chemical information.
In the context of physical machinery a similar principle holds, and I think we can still refer to the specific assembly of parts as the “information” that is used in constructing the system (think of any instruction manual you’ve seen to put together a piece of equipment).
Reasoning by analogy may have heuristic value, but this seems a stretch too far. What is the "instruction manual" analog in the chemical assembly of protein structures?
At a very basic, everyday, obvious level, we know that complex functional structure don’t just regularly come about through the natural processes of chemistry and physics.
Persons who don't have a solid background in chemistry and physics may think that they know things that they haven't a clue about.
Incidentally, I don’t have an issue with the idea that some proteins might spontaneously fold into the right structure. The idea of spontaneous protein folding is a misunderstanding in most cases, because specific folding requirements exist and there is cellular machinery that helps to ensure the correct folding; but there might be cases in which spontaneous folding actually occurs.
Spontaneous protein folding has been demonstrated. Google Anfinsen experiment. Google protein folding. The cellular machinery that assists folding is mainly "chaperonins," which are themselves protein assemblages.
Regardless, the key point we need to focus on is the specific sequence arrangement of the amino acids – that is where the information lies, in this case being the result of a transcription and translation process from the information contained in the corresponding DNA sequence.
That looks like a change of subject. We were discussing self-assembly and self-organization. Here's a video on the subject of self-assembly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-8MP7g8XOEDaniel King_{March 25, 2013
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Eric Anderson commenting on a statement by Mike Elzinga about the hexagon on Saturn:
That is pretty funny. I wonder what information he imagines he sees in Saturn’s hexagonal cloud structure? Is there a message conveyed in the hexagon that only he is privy to? Sounds like he may need to study up a bit on the concepts we’re discussing.
What does a "message" have to do with "information"? Does all information have meaning? If you measure the atomic coordinates of a crystal, you have acquired information about the structure. What message have you acquired?Daniel King_{March 25, 2013
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Lizzie, still flailing away:
Well, yes it does, because DNA is information rich (the sequence is complex) and it is self-organising in the sense that it is part of a self-replicating system.
LoL! No Lizzie, the cell organizes the DNA. The DNA doesn't do anything that the cell doesn't tell it to do.
I am more than capable of being mistaken, but I do not intentionally post things I do not believe to be true.
Well when you keep making the same mistakes after you ahve been corrected, either you are dishonest or very stupid. Eiither way you don't belong in any discussion. And Lizzie there isn't any chemistry that makes a molecule self- replicating and self-organising. You just made that up, as usual.Joe_{March 25, 2013
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Optimus: Your link to Luskin's summary from Abel's 2009 work is timely. I of course cannot tell whether Abel is tongue in cheek or serious in his line of argument, but it is certainly in the peer reviewed literature. Let me clip:
while the author [Abel] notes that much effort has been spent "arguing to the lay community that we have proved the current biological paradigm," he concludes that the actual evidence for self-organization is "sorely lacking" and has been "inflated." The author emphasizes a distinction between "order" and "organization," arguing that self-ordered structures like whirlpools are readily constructed by natural processes, but "have never been observed to achieve 1) programming, 2) computational halting, 3) creative engineering, 4) symbol systems, 5) language, or 6) bona fide organization"--all hallmarks of living organisms. In contrast, living organisms are built upon programming and are highly organized, but "physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration." His solution suggests that a positive argument for design could be feasible: "No known natural process exists that spontaneously writes meaningful or functional syntax. Only agents have been known to write meaningful and pragmatic syntax." He notes that the kind of "sophisticated formal function" found in life "consistently requires regulation and control," but "[c]ontrol always emanates from choice contingency and intentionality, not from spontaneous molecular chaos."
Food for thought. KFkairosfocus_{March 25, 2013
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Folks: A useful onward discussion, though Joe -- kindly note -- needs to watch his language and should refrain from vulgar insults in future. Time to get back up on the wagon. Next, I had forgotten the old string length code game. JDH, thanks for the reminder. If the code can be reduced to a matrix, and a vector co-ordinate can be used, the string length can be reduced. For instance if we have an array of n * m to given the number of possibilities in the alphabet, with the (n,m) protocol adopted, we can reduce the string length to n + m [with a pause to separate strings]. This is what was done in North Vietnamese prisons by USAF and USN prisoners, who devised a 5 * 5 tapping code [I think they suppressed "c" or "k"], then later on a code based on more natural noises such as coughs etc. What this shows, again, is that a code does not exist on its own, it is embedded in an irreducibly complex system, and uses implied protocols for communication. AF has repeatedly been referred to a 101, but has evidently refused to go there. (If you want to see how he has been arguing and the evident gaps in it, cf here from Mar 19th.) Similarly, last evening, he put up an attempted counter example that in fact shows how intelligently designed chemical processes are what we can see producing DNA, and that such uses materials that come from living organisms as necessary ingredients. The evidence is that he is not here for serious interaction, nor does he acknowledge that he has duties of care to truth, accuracy and fairness. That is, he is here only to push talking points in order to try to derail serious discussion. That is sad and sadly revealing. Currently, apart from a claimed counter-example on self replication that his own link shows is not that, he has been pushing two talking points. First, that there is no such thing as design theory (which presumably implies absence of a research programme), and of course unsurprisingly, he refuses to acknowledge that there is a school of researchers on both sides of design theory work, cosmological [the likes of Gonzalez, expelled on ideological interventions precisely to hamper his research] and Scott Minnich et al on the bio side. The Marks and Dembski collaboration is very important, and of course we have the Biologic Institute. Discovery Institute is a thinktank with libertarian leanings, but it does have a list of fellows that is a pointer. Indeed, Durston is now a definite person to hold a PhD for ID related research, the first that I am aware of. That he did the work in Canada speaks volumes on the toxic environment in the US. On the life sciences side, there are now dozens of papers in the peer reviewed literature, regardless of attempts to suppress. On the Cosmological side, there is much more. His second talking point of note, is his attempt to pretend that by attacking alleged source and dismissing as of no account, he can refuse to address objective evidence regarding FSCO/I. But the problem here is first that the phenomenon obviously exists as the underlying reason why we so easily see the difference between (a) textual information, (b) repetition on constraint: XXXXXXXXXXXX, and (c) typical random strings: tgi823sqgigeofvh. Second, as a matter of fact, as the person who first used the summary descriptive abbreviation, the root of the term is two descriptions in the literature by Wicken and Orgel in the 1970's, which together point to the distinctive phenomenon of functionally specific complex organisation and associated information [FSCO/I], which may be implicit or explicitly coded. In short, AF is plainly being unreasonable and willfully mulish. This points to an attempt to push an agenda without respect to duties of care to accuracy, fairness and truth, not enter into serious dialogue. However, we should not reward such misbehaviour by allowing it to derail discussion. The focal point of this thread has been, EA's summary that when a medium is constrained by self-ordering forces, its capacity for information storage falls. This should be obvious, as the degree of flexibility [bearing in mind the need to resist noise also! one reason why digital comms can be better than analogue . . . ] allows for increased storage in the medium. DNA has 4 possible states per character, and potentially stores two bits. Proteins have 20 states per character as a rule and potentially store 4.32 bits. That is obviously more capability than we would see in a unary string that is only storing in the length, whether naive or array based. That objectors to design theory have taken something that is so simple and well substantiated, to make occasion to try to object, speaks volumes. Of course the onward issue is that it has been hoped that self-organising systems will explain origin of code based algorithm-implementing systems in life forms that unite metabolic automata and von Neumann self replicator code using facilities. To be a properly scientific assertion, such needs to be empirically warranted. That is a long way off, and there is a world of difference between vortices and geometric patterns that crop up in fluid dynamics [this weekend I was looking at jet or rocket exhaust diamond standing waves as another . . . ], and the like on the one hand and the sort of aperiodic, wiring diagram specific functional organisation of life forms and the more familiar textual and technological systems on the other. Perhaps, AF's citation from EL, is emblematic:
self-replicating molecule is both self-organising, or part of a self-organising system, and information-rich, and when that information is duplicated, it is transferred. Therefore it is a dense information storage system. Therefore DNA itself violates Eric’s rule.
DNA is in no way self-replicating, and the PolymerASE [--> enzyme, i.e. protein produced using DNA and the Ribosome system, so chicken-egg cycle . . . ] chain reaction shows no case of self replication. The assertion -- which seems to be a new talking point over at TSZ -- collapses. That is before we get to the issue that what is to be explained is the function of DNA in life forms, in which DNA stores a digital code, indeed several layers of code, and is a part of an information processing system that is embedded in the gated, encapsulated, metabolic automaton with code based self replication that we term the living cell. It is that cell that is self-replicating and pointing to its existence as though that answers the question of how such comes to be on the presumption that it "must" be by blind chance and mechanical necessity is little better than outright blatantly begging the question. The system is FSCO/I rich, and that becomes highly relevant, as such FSCO/I has but one observationally warranted -- this is inference based on what we know, having established a reliable sign -- cause, intelligent design. Given such, perhaps then it is little wonder that the pro darwinism free shot at goal challenge and invitation I issued, has now sat unanswered for six months this past weekend. What appears to me, is that we have a situation where there is a view, evolutionary materialism as ideology, that seems to be systematically blinding adherents to evidence that is there for all to inspect. The denial and dismissal stunts we are seeing, speak volumes, sad volumes. But that reductio to "eyes wide shut" and "don't confuse me with facts, my mind is made up" on the part of objectors tells us just where the balance of evidence is and what the trends are. Design theory is on the rise and ideological a priori materialism is collapsing, bit by bit. But just like the Marxists, Freudians and Behaviourists of a generation past, there will be ever so many bitter enders clinging to the sinking ship as it goes down. KFkairosfocus_{March 25, 2013
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