Francisco Ayala: “You’re a heretic and blasphemer, but don’t ask me what I am.”

_{William Dembski
May 17, 2010

Intelligent Design

2}_{Categories
Intelligent Design}

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Darwin's Gift to Science and Religion Francisco Ayala has taken an aggressive theological stance against intelligent design, even using words like “blasphemy” and “atrocity” to characterize it (go here). But if Ayala feels entitled to make such strong accusations against ID, one might wonder what Ayala’s own theological views are. I therefore emailed him and copied Michael Ruse:

Dear Prof. Ayala,

I’m writing to inquire whether in any of your writings you lay out your present religious faith (and, if so, where?). I’m copying my friend Michael Ruse because I find his criticisms of ID parallel your own, and yet he makes clear that he himself is an atheist. You, on the other hand, regularly cite your background in the Roman Catholic Church as a priest. Yet you left the priesthood and it’s not clear what aspects of the Christian faith you retain. Do you, for instance, believe in a personal God who created the world? Do you believe that humans experience continued conscious existence after they die? Do you believe that Jesus was God incarnate? I would appreciate any clarifications you can provide. Thank you.

Blessings,
Bill Dembski

Ruse got back to me first and suggested that Ayala would not be forthcoming about his religious views, whereupon Ayala got back to me, agreeing with Ruse: “What Michael Ruse told you about my not asserting publicly my religious convictions is correct. I have stated that on numerous occasions, quoted in all sorts of publications from The New York Times and Scientific American to religious journals and periodicals.”

Interesting that Ayala is willing publicly to acknowledge his former theological views as a Roman Catholic priest (presumably he embraced RCC dogma). And yet his present theological views are off limits. Perhaps when Dover II rolls around, Ayala will be an expert witness and under deposition be required to state his theological views. In the mean time, Ayala’s reticence about his present religious faith (or lack thereof) is at best a convenient ploy.

Comments

Petrushka @ 131: I disagree that time can produce anything, but that's neither here nor there. The point is that just saying you have lots of time is meaningless; it's a purely qualitative statement. Science is about quantity. You have to say "How much time would it take to perform evolutionary transition X, and is there enough time for that, given the fossil record?" You have to be specific. Unless you quantify the number of morphological changes, the number of genetic changes required for each morphological change, the probability of such genetic changes occurring in a favorable sequence, without cross-reactions which interfere, the number of generations, etc., any reference to "lots of time" is mere poetry, not science. To really grasp this point, I think Darwinians need to read Dembski's *No Free Lunch* very slowly and carefully. He maps out the details which have to be considered. The issue is not merely absolute time, but the ratio of "probablistic resources" (including time) to the huge number of evolutionary dead ends which a "blind search" will produce. Without hard numbers based on empirical facts, this ratio cannot be computed. Thus, neo-Darwinians need to tie their mechanisms much more closely to hard numbers than they have done in the past, to meet the challenge posed by probablistic analyses. I haven't seen this done yet, for anything other than piddling population genetics problems relating to the eye color of finches and so on. Show me where it's been done for the whale, or any crucial macroevolutionary transition. If you can do this, you'll have done better than Ayala, Miller, Collins, Dawkins, Gould, etc. T.Timaeus_{May 29, 2010
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Petrushka @ 130: I know all these standard examples. I used to be a Darwinist and have been reading books on evolution for 45 years now. You'll have to do better than this. The putative historical sequence you are referring to tells me nothing about the *mechanism* by which each form changed into the other. At the most (and if we apply rigorous philosophical criteria of argumentation, it can't even do this) it would prove that macroevolution *happened*, but not *how* it happened. The result you point to, even if accepted as proof for "Form A became Form Z through intermediate morphological forms B, C, etc." tells us nothing about what was happening at the biochemical/genetic level to drive the change in forms. The sequence itself, viewed externally, is compatible with not only neo-Darwinian or "chance" explanation, but also with Dentonian "necessitarian" explanation, or with various versions of supernatural intervention, guiding the process along. In other words, the sequence in itself does not prove that neo-Darwinian mechanisms were responsible for its existence. And this applies, mutatis mutandis, to the eye, the hippo-whale transition, the bat's sonar, the development of winged flight in birds, or any other major macroevolutionary change. In short: no one has proved that neo-Darwinian processes are capable of turning a hippo ancestor into a whale. No one has even come close. If you think my conclusion is wrong, you are going to have to point me to, not a sequence of alleged transitional forms in the fossil record, but a detailed account of the macroevolutionary transitions at the level of genetics, development, selective fitness, etc. In other words, some Darwinist needs to write a book on the theory and evidence of whale evolution, with much more detail than I've yet to see assembled. If you know of such a book, regarding whales or anything else, let me know where it is. If you don't, then surely you will see the reasonableness of my position, which is not "anti-evolution", but merely a cautious empiricism that regards neo-Darwinism as a speculative hypothesis awaiting detailed confirmation. T.Timaeus_{May 29, 2010
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I’m not interested in abstract arguments about large numbers of microbes and large amounts of time.
But time is in fact, the only argument offered by Behe and Dembski. Given sufficient time, variation and selection can produce anything. It's a universal computing engine. So the argument does boil down to time.Petrushka_{May 29, 2010
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I’m interested in reading one, just one, book or series of articles which describes all the morphological changes required to produce a major new organ, system, or body plan, and the hypothetical clusters of mutations which could produce those specific morphological changes.
Such a series exists in the fossil record for the evolution of the mammalian inner ear.Petrushka_{May 29, 2010
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Petrushka @ 126: I'm not interested in abstract arguments about large numbers of microbes and large amounts of time. Those are generalities which are very unsafe in scientific theorizing. How many is enough? How long is long enough? Without precise proposals for the *particular genetic and morphological changes* one has in mind, no numbers can reliably be attached. I'm interested in how integrated complex systems are built from scratch. I want to know how a cardiovascular system arises where there were nothing like it before. I want to know how all the complicated and interrelated changes in the bat's ears, vocal apparatus, brain, nervous system, etc. are built up from a creature which has none of the relevant features. I'm interested in reading one, just one, book or series of articles which describes all the morphological changes required to produce a major new organ, system, or body plan, and the hypothetical clusters of mutations which could produce those specific morphological changes. It could be the vertebrate body plan emerging from the marine worm; it could be the bat's wings and sonar emerging from an insectivore ancestor; it could be a whale emerging from a mesonychid or hippolike ancestor; it could be anything. Can you give me the reference to literature where such a hypothetical pathway can be found? And if no such detailed accounts yet exist, why should "science" regard neo-Darwinian mechanisms as capable of producing such change? Wouldn't the proper term for such a claim be "speculation" rather than "fact" or "theory as solid as the theory of gravity"? T.Timaeus_{May 29, 2010
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P: Remarks re:
The algorithm embodied in mutation and selection can, in principle, compute or accumulate any string. The issue is time . . .
1 --> First, natural selection is demonstrably about the culling out of relatively "underperforming" sub-populations in the "struggle for life." 2 --> So, it is only capable of being responsible for REMOVAL , not origin of relevant bio-information. 3 --> That leaves chance variation as the claimed source of bio-information, whereby allegedly incremental changes that have to be functional all the way are responsible for transforming say a 1 mn base pr microbe into several dozen phyla or the equivalent. 4 --> Believe it or not, that means that the process of change from the one to the other is MORE constrained than with simple random chance -- it is like transforming "Sue ran home," into this post be adding a fee letters at random and having to maker a grammatically and contextually meaningful statement all along the way. [Or the equivalent in converting Hello World into say Open Office Draw.] 5 --> So, you have not properly reckoned with the implications of the fact that with even 125 bytes [1,000 bits] worth of additional functional information, you face a situation where the whole cosmos acting as a search engine and with the 10^80 or so atoms changing state every Planck time for the thermodynamically credible lifespan of the observed cosmos, we cannot sample more than 10^150 states, or less than 1 in 10^150 of the 1.07 * 10^301 configurations specified by just 1,000 bits. 6 --> In short, the search rounds down pretty well to zero-sized sample of the gamut that needs to be searched. 7 --> That is the islands of function are far too isolated in the space of configs to be plausibly found by a process relying on effectively random walks to generate functionally specific, complex information. 8 --> By contrast, posts in this thread and the underlying programs [not to mention languages, algorithms and data structures or implementing machines] that make them work show just how routinely intelligence can produce such FSCI. 9 --> So, absent a priori imposition of materialistic blinders, and/or failure to look at he search space challenge, the best explanation jumps out: design. 10 --> Meyer's note on the challenge to be addressed on the Cambrian life revolution issue is therefore quite relevant (and BTW, had the sort of gradual evolution you envisioned happened across 3.5 BY, with countless transitionals, there should be abundant fossil record -- missing of course from since before Darwin and even after 250+ k fossil species and with many soft bodied creatures in relevantly comparable rocks):
the more complex animals that appeared in the Cambrian (e.g., arthropods) would have required fifty or more cell types . . . New cell types require many new and specialized proteins. New proteins, in turn, require new genetic information. Thus an increase in the number of cell types implies (at a minimum) a considerable increase in the amount of specified genetic information. Molecular biologists have recently estimated that a minimally complex single-celled organism would require between 318 and 562 kilobase pairs of DNA to produce the proteins necessary to maintain life (Koonin 2000). More complex single cells might require upward of a million base pairs. Yet to build the proteins necessary to sustain a complex arthropod such as a trilobite would require orders of magnitude more coding instructions. The genome size of a modern arthropod, the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, is approximately 180 million base pairs (Gerhart & Kirschner 1997:121, Adams et al. 2000). Transitions from a single cell to colonies of cells to complex animals represent significant (and, in principle, measurable) increases in CSI . . . . In order to explain the origin of the Cambrian animals, one must account not only for new proteins and cell types, but also for the origin of new body plans . . . Mutations in genes that are expressed late in the development of an organism will not affect the body plan. Mutations expressed early in development, however, could conceivably produce significant morphological change (Arthur 1997:21) . . . [but] processes of development are tightly integrated spatially and temporally such that changes early in development will require a host of other coordinated changes in separate but functionally interrelated developmental processes downstream. For this reason, mutations will be much more likely to be deadly if they disrupt a functionally deeply-embedded structure such as a spinal column than if they affect more isolated anatomical features such as fingers (Kauffman 1995:200) . . . [PBSW, 2004 . . . and the article passed proper peer review by renowned scientists (until the political reversal)]
GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 29, 2010
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"I certainly can’t change anyone’s mind about what they find plausible, but I do try to clear up the reasons for my own position." All your following comments are bogus are irrelevant except your last so they are not going to help you reason to anything coherent.jerry_{May 29, 2010
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What ID is *in principle* against is not “evolution” but the notion that a primarily chance-driven mechanism could generate the integrated complexity of life.
I certainly can't change anyone's mind about what they find plausible, but I do try to clear up the reasons for my own position. The algorithm embodied in mutation and selection can, in principle, compute or accumulate any string. The issue is time. Computations of time and probability seem to ignore the fact that most of the heavy lifting was done by microbes before the Cambrian. Even the basic genes that enable vision exist in microbes, and it's not a stretch to assume they were "invented" during the 3,500,000,000 years before multicelled animals. Microbes have short generations and large numbers. Good soil may contain 10,000,000,000 microbes per gram. When you need astronomical numbers, microbes give them. Most of the calculations of probability assume there is a target, a configuration that must be reached. But even simple breeding experiments show that there are far more viable configurations than show up in "nature." The target of evolution is much broader and more diffuse that just the list of creatures and plants we have seen. And there is no reason that structures, such as flagella, MUST arise. Looking at such oddments and wondering how they got there is a bit like looking at lottery winners and wondering how those particular people were fated to win. The only question that absolutely has to be answered by biology, regarding the invention of a complex structure, is whether there can be a continuous chain of living creatures between those that have the structure and those that don't. It would be nice, but it isn't necessary, to demonstrate that every step involves an increase in fitness. That's my reasoning. Your mileage may vary.Petrushka_{May 29, 2010
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Petrushka @ 123: I'm not responsible for the views of any ID proponent except myself. My comments to Nakashima were from my own perspective. I was trying to clarify for him where I was coming from, so that he would not mix up my views with those of other ID proponents he may have encountered here or elsewhere. I think (at least I hope) that I have now made my own form of ID crystal-clear to him, but we shall find out whether that is the case when he next replies. I agree with gpuccio's remarks, and I adopt his general attitude toward the question of biological origins. I suspect that several of the veteran posters here have a position not far from mine and gpuccio's. What many ID critics seem to forget is that "ID" is not just a dozen Fellows of the Discovery Institute. ID has thousands of explicit adherents, and probably millions of tacit adherents, worldwide. I wouldn't be surprised if a large chunk of those supporters and adherents accept or are open to the notion of common descent. What ID is *in principle* against is not "evolution" but the notion that a primarily chance-driven mechanism could generate the integrated complexity of life. T.Timaeus_{May 29, 2010
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Petrushka: Despite the apparent exception of Behe, I find the majority of evolution critics do not accept common descent, I don't think it is really so. I have always accepted common descent, not as a dogma, but as a reasonable theory, probably the best explanation at present for some data. I am sure it is not only Behe and me to have this approach in ID. I am certainly aware that many IDists think differently, and I respect their position, but not necessarily their arguments. I can't say if they are the majority, but I am sure that many others have different ideas. The fact is, I really believe that ID must be based only on scientific reasoning. And my personal opinion is that ID theory gives us an extremely strong case for design as the cause of biological information, and only for that. The problem of common descent, instead, is completely independent on the problem of causal explanation. Frankly, I don't think that the theory of universal common descent is at present either beyond reasonable doubt or falsified. It is at best debatable, even if I tend to accept it as the best explanation.gpuccio_{May 29, 2010
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I have criticized only what I have called “Darwinian evolution”, understood as the combination of chance and natural selection, outside of any teleological constraint.
Despite the apparent exception of Behe, I find the majority of evolution critics do not accept common descent, even when it is coupled with the possibility that some change is the result of an agency other than chance.Petrushka_{May 29, 2010
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Nakashima @ 109: You appear to have misunderstood what I was driving at in my post. I don't blame you for that, as we are talking in shorthand, about very speculative matters. Let me clarify: 1. I don't accept that "chance events could lead to a whole new phylum". At least, not chance events *alone*. I think (and I mean this as a scientific comment, not a theological one) that the chance events would have to occur within the constraint of an overarching "directedness" of the evolutionary process. (And I add, as a wholly optional theological comment, that such overarching directedness is exactly what one would expect from a Creator God who has very definite goals for the evolutionary process.) 2. I think we may be using "Darwinist" in slightly differing ways. Let me tell you where I am coming from. I have read Darwin's major works with great care. I have also read some secondary scholarship about Darwin, and some of the history of post-Darwinian developments. I also grew up steeped in, and believing in, the neo-Darwinism of Gaylord Simpson, Sagan, etc. This view of Darwinism is exemplified in *The Blind Watchmaker* by Dawkins. So I have a certain notion of "Darwinism" and "Darwinian" that may be narrower and tighter than what you may be supposing by the term. The "Darwinism" that I have in mind is *utterly non-teleological*, and will not allow for any of the "overarching constraints" that I have spoken of. It would never submit to being merely a component, as it is in Behe and Denton, of a wider teleological process. Now, to switch from speaking of Darwinism as a scientific account of nature, to the theological question: it is precisely because Darwinism as I understand it will not consent to being enveloped within a wider teleological structure, that I think it is impossible to be a "Christian Darwinist", as you suggest in this post. Let me be clear: I am not saying that it is impossible to be a Christian and to accept that Darwinian mechanisms may play a "local role" in evolution. I am saying that it is impossible to be 100% Darwinian and 100% orthodox Christian, as Ken Miller claims that he is. To be 100% Darwinian is to assume an anti-teleology which is plainly incompatible with the teaching of the Bible and the Christian tradition. Behe accepts a limited role for Darwinian processes, and he is an orthodox Christian. 3. I never, at any point in this exchange with you, or anywhere else on UD, spoke of trying to "disprove evolution". I don't know how closely you follow my various comments on all the threads, but time and again I have insisted that there is no inherent incompatibility between believing in a process of macroevolution and believing in design. I have criticized only what I have called "Darwinian evolution", understood as the combination of chance and natural selection, outside of any teleological constraint. And I have carefully separated my scientific criticism (i.e., that neo-Darwinism has not been very good at providing empirical evidence for major transitions) from my theological criticism (i.e., the antiteleology of neo-Darwinism is anti-Christian). So please do not impute "anti-evolution" to me. I am aware that some ID proponents oppose evolution itself; I am not one of them. T.Timaeus_{May 28, 2010
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Nakashima @ 106: 1. I have heard of Nilsson's discussion of the eye. I have not seen it, nor do I know where it can be found. Can you direct me? Not having read Nilsson, I have not offered any objections to his views, and therefore am not guilty of any purportedly faulty arguments of the sort to which you refer. What I would look for in Nilsson is a specification of the number of morphological features that would require changing, and a specification of the genetic pathways that could conceivably had effected each morphological change, coupled with a discussion of the causes and frequency of the required mutations, and the environmental viability of the putative intermediate stages. I would count such a discussion as a genuine scientific discussion, worthy of scientific debate. 2. I have not dismissed selection. I understand the "platform effect" you are talking about. Obviously once a favorable mutation is fixed by selection, future evolution doesn't have to start from scratch. I am not claiming that the eye had to have been thrown together by the equivalent of a tornado in a junkyard. Nonetheless, each of the necessary mutations still has to have occurred. And selection does not have the power to evoke desirable mutations. In neo-Darwinian theory, they occur by chance (meaning not that they are utterly uncaused, but that they are "random with respect to the outcome", as one TE has put it). So you still cannot avoid probablistic calculations regarding the occurrence of the necessary mutations in a viable sequence. Also, I would recommend you have a look at Behe's example of the house with many staircases (in *The Edge of Evolution*), which is a good image for showing how, even with the aid of the "platform effect" of natural selection, the chance of finding one's way to any given evolutionary goal by random search methods is very low. T.Timaeus_{May 28, 2010
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Nakashima: Thanks for standing up against the bullying, insulting, and ultimately puerile behavior of Myers and Matzke. I wish more ID critics would do that. T.Timaeus_{May 28, 2010
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Yes you will die, No you will not die, is not creating new information.
Never said it was, but I agree that we're talking past each other.Petrushka_{May 28, 2010
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off topic: Amazing Video of a Song Composed Entirely of 37 Cello Parts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsavk0FX3Ro Petruska, Yes you will die, No you will not die, is not creating new information. I can see this is going to be pointless with you so I will waste no more time.bornagain77_{May 28, 2010
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“… no operation performed by a computer can create new information.”
I haven't asserted that any operation or algorithm creates information. Selection provides a yes or no answer to the question of whether a change is lethal or not. That's information. An algorithm that collects and stores such answers accumulates information. It's obviously inefficient and wasteful, but it accumulates information. It doesn't create it. No one says it does.Petrushka_{May 28, 2010
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petruska as far as you insinuating that IDists have not taken into consideration all probabilities is ludicrous: Book Review - Meyer, Stephen C. Signature in the Cell. New York: HarperCollins, 2009. Excerpt: As early as the 1960s, those who approached the problem of the origin of life from the standpoint of information theory and combinatorics observed that something was terribly amiss. Even if you grant the most generous assumptions: that every elementary particle in the observable universe is a chemical laboratory randomly splicing amino acids into proteins every Planck time for the entire history of the universe, there is a vanishingly small probability that even a single functionally folded protein of 150 amino acids would have been created. Now of course, elementary particles aren't chemical laboratories, nor does peptide synthesis take place where most of the baryonic mass of the universe resides: in stars or interstellar and intergalactic clouds. If you look at the chemistry, it gets even worse—almost indescribably so: the precursor molecules of many of these macromolecular structures cannot form under the same prebiotic conditions—they must be catalysed by enzymes created only by preexisting living cells, and the reactions required to assemble them into the molecules of biology will only go when mediated by other enzymes, assembled in the cell by precisely specified information in the genome. So, it comes down to this: Where did that information come from? The simplest known free living organism (although you may quibble about this, given that it's a parasite) has a genome of 582,970 base pairs, or about one megabit (assuming two bits of information for each nucleotide, of which there are four possibilities). Now, if you go back to the universe of elementary particle Planck time chemical labs and work the numbers, you find that in the finite time our universe has existed, you could have produced about 500 bits of structured, functional information by random search. Yet here we have a minimal information string which is (if you understand combinatorics) so indescribably improbable to have originated by chance that adjectives fail. http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/reading_list/indices/book_726.html Petruska it all comes down to information! You can play games all you want but the fact of the matter is that no one has ever demonstrated the capability of material processes to generate information (and what is life to a materialists save "material with the ability to replicate?). Would you like to be the first to demonstrate that a mind is not needed to generate information?bornagain77_{May 28, 2010
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Petruska, I went to fix a link on this paper Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test and found: Chaltin's Algorithmic Information Theory shows that information is conserved under formal mathematical operations and, equivalently, under computer operations. This conservation law puts a new perspective on many familiar problems related to artificial intelligence. For example, the famous "Turing test" for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information. http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/55000207/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0bornagain77_{May 28, 2010
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It is interesting to note petruska that information acts very "weird" in a computer: As well it should be noted that, counter-intuitive to materialistic thought (and to every kid who has ever taken a math exam), a computer does not consume energy during computation but will only consume energy when information is erased from it. This counter-intuitive fact is formally known as Landauer's Principle. i.e. Erasing information is a thermodynamically irreversible process that increases the entropy of a system. i.e Only irreversible operations consume energy. Reversible computation does not use up energy. Unfortunately the computer will eventually run out of information storage space and must begin to "irreversibly" erase the information it has previously gathered (Bennett: 1982) and thus a computer must eventually use energy. i.e. A "material" computer must eventually obey the second law of thermodynamics for its computation. “information is physical” Rolf Landauer 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.,,, Landauer’s Principle has also been used as the foundation for a new theory of dark energy, proposed by Gough (2008). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle This ability of a computer to "compute answers" without ever consuming energy, until information is erased, is very suggestive that the answers/truth already exist in reality, and in fact, when taken to its logical conclusion, is very suggestive to the postulation of John 1:1 that the "information of Logos" is ultimately the foundation of our "material" reality in the first place. John 1:1-3 In the beginning, the Word existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. (of note: "Word" in Greek is "Logos", and is the root word from which we get our word "Logic") This strange anomaly between lack of energy consumption and the computation of information seems to hold for the human mind as well. Appraising the brain's energy budget: Excerpt: In the average adult human, the brain represents about 2% of the body weight. Remarkably, despite its relatively small size, the brain accounts for about 20% of the oxygen and, hence, calories consumed by the body. This high rate of metabolism is remarkably constant despite widely varying mental and motoric activity. The metabolic activity of the brain is remarkably constant over time. http://www.pnas.org/content/99/16/10237.full THE EFFECT OF MENTAL ARITHMETIC ON CEREBRAL CIRCULATION AND METABOLISM Excerpt: Although Lennox considered the performance of mental arithmetic as "mental work", it is not immediately apparent what the nature of that work in the physical sense might be if, indeed, there be any. If no work or energy transformation is involved in the process of thought, then it is not surprising that cerebral oxygen consumption is unaltered during mental arithmetic. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC438861/pdf/jcinvest00624-0127.pdf The preceding experiments are very unexpected to materialists since materialists hold that "mind" is merely a "emergent property" of the material brain. Removing Half of Brain Improves Young Epileptics' Lives: Excerpt: "We are awed by the apparent retention of memory and by the retention of the child's personality and sense of humor,'' Dr. Eileen P. G. Vining; In further comment from the neuro-surgeons in the John Hopkins study: "Despite removal of one hemisphere, the intellect of all but one of the children seems either unchanged or improved. Intellect was only affected in the one child who had remained in a coma, vigil-like state, attributable to peri-operative complications." http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/19/science/removing-half-of-brain-improves-young-epileptics-lives.html Blind Woman Can See During Near Death Experience (NDE) - Pim Lommel - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3994599/ Kenneth Ring and Sharon Cooper (1997) conducted a study of 31 blind people, many of who reported vision during their Near Death Experiences (NDEs). 21 of these people had had an NDE while the remaining 10 had had an out-of-body experience (OBE), but no NDE. It was found that in the NDE sample, about half had been blind from birth. (of note: This "anomaly" is also found for deaf people who can hear during their Near Death Experiences(NDEs).) http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2320/is_1_64/ai_65076875/ In The Wonder Of Being Human: Our Brain and Our Mind, Eccles and Robinson discussed the research of three groups of scientists (Robert Porter and Cobie Brinkman, Nils Lassen and Per Roland, and Hans Kornhuber and Luder Deeke), all of whom produced startling and undeniable evidence that a "mental intention" preceded an actual neuronal firing - thereby establishing that the mind is not the same thing as the brain, but is a separate entity altogether. http://books.google.com/books?id=J9pON9yB8HkC&pg=PT28&lpg=PT28 “As I remarked earlier, this may present an “insuperable” difficulty for some scientists of materialists bent, but the fact remains, and is demonstrated by research, that non-material mind acts on material brain.” Eccles "Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder." Heinrich Heine - in the year 1834 Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. "As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." Max Planck - The Father Of Quantum Mechanics - (Of Note: Planck was a devout Christian, which is not surprising when you realize practically every founder of a major branch of modern science also had a deep Christian connection.)bornagain77_{May 28, 2010
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further note petruska: "... no operation performed by a computer can create new information." -- Douglas G. Robertson, "Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test," Complexity, Vol.3, #3 Jan/Feb 1999, pp. 25-34. http://www.evoinfo.org/ Here is a computer programmer's article on the absurdity of Darwinism accounting programming logic (active information): Darwinism from an informatics point of view - May 2010 https://uncommondescent.com/biology/darwinism-from-an-informatics-point-of-view/ On this following site, a computer programmer explains why computers are not truly "intelligent" even though they can can play (calculate) chess and checkers much better than humans: Epicycling Through The Materialist Meta-Paradigm Of Consciousness GilDodgen: One of my AI (artificial intelligence) specialties is games of perfect knowledge. See here: worldchampionshipcheckers.com In both checkers and chess humans are no longer competitive against computer programs, because tree-searching techniques have been developed to the point where a human cannot overlook even a single tactical mistake when playing against a state-of-the-art computer program in these games. On the other hand, in the game of Go, played on a 19×19 board with a nominal search space of 19×19 factorial (1.4e+768), the best computer programs are utterly incompetent when playing against even an amateur Go player. When it comes to true intelligence — even something as seemingly simple as evaluating the grammatical correctness or meaning of a trivial sentence — the best computer programs are less than worthless. I turn off my Microsoft Word grammar checker, because it is wrong almost all of the time, and its suggestions are almost universally laughably stupid. The notion that random errors filtered by natural selection created the human mind — which is capable of creating language and interpreting it — is laughably stupid raised to the 768th power. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/epicycling-through-the-materialist-meta-paradigm-of-consciousness/#comment-353454 Evolution vs. Genetic Entropy - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4028086 Mutation Studies, Videos, And Quotes http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMjZjZnM5M21mZg Random Mutations Destroy Information - Perry Marshall - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4023143 “There is no known law of nature, no known process and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter.” Werner Gitt, “In the Beginning was Information”, 1997, p. 106. (Dr. Gitt was the Director at the German Federal Institute of Physics and Technology) His challenge to scientifically falsify this statement has remained unanswered since first published. 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 Entire video: http://vimeo.com/1775160 etc,, etc.. etc..bornagain77_{May 28, 2010
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Petruska I'm glad you finally decided to cite something: Evolution has no rigorous mathematical foundation with which we can rigorously analyze it in any computer simulation: Accounting for Variations - Dr. David Berlinski: - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW2GkDkimkE LIFE’S CONSERVATION LAW - William Dembski - Robert Marks - Pg. 13 Excerpt: Simulations such as Dawkins’s WEASEL, Adami’s AVIDA, Ray’s Tierra, and Schneider’s ev appear to support Darwinian evolution, but only for lack of clear accounting practices that track the information smuggled into them.,,, Information does not magically materialize. It can be created by intelligence or it can be shunted around by natural forces. But natural forces, and Darwinian processes in particular, do not create information. Active information enables us to see why this is the case. http://evoinfo.org/publications/lifes-conservation-law/ Conservation of Information in Computer Search (COI) - William A. Dembski - Robert J. Marks II - Dec. 2009 Excerpt: COI puts to rest the inflated claims for the information generating power of evolutionary simulations such as Avida and ev. http://evoinfo.org/publications/bernoullis-principle-of-insufficient-reason/ Evolutionary Synthesis of Nand Logic: Dissecting a Digital Organism - Dembski - Marks - Dec. 2009 Excerpt: The effectiveness of a given algorithm can be measured by the active information introduced to the search. We illustrate this by identifying sources of active information in Avida, a software program designed to search for logic functions using nand gates. Avida uses stair step active information by rewarding logic functions using a smaller number of nands to construct functions requiring more. Removing stair steps deteriorates Avida’s performance while removing deleterious instructions improves it. http://evoinfo.org/publications/evolutionary-synthesis-of-nand-logic-avida/ The Problem of Information for the Theory of Evolution – debunking Schneider's ev computer simulation Excerpt: In several papers genetic binding sites were analyzed using a Shannon information theory approach. It was recently claimed that these regulatory sequences could increase information content through evolutionary processes starting from a random DNA sequence, for which a computer simulation was offered as evidence. However, incorporating neglected cellular realities and using biologically realistic parameter values invalidate this claim. The net effect over time of random mutations spread throughout genomes is an increase in randomness per gene and decreased functional optimality. http://www.trueorigin.org/schneider.asp The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity - David L. Abel Excerpt: "To stem the growing swell of Intelligent Design intrusions, it is imperative that we provide stand-alone natural process evidence of non trivial self-organization at the edge of chaos. We must demonstrate on sound scientific grounds the formal capabilities of naturally-occurring physicodynamic complexity. Evolutionary algorithms, for example, must be stripped of all artificial selection and the purposeful steering of iterations toward desired products. The latter intrusions into natural process clearly violate sound evolution theory." http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/pdf Arriving At Intelligence Through The Corridors Of Reason (Part II) - April 2010 Excerpt: Summarizing the status quo, Johnson notes for example how AVIDA uses “an unrealistically small genome, an unrealistically high mutation rate, unrealistic protection of replication instructions, unrealistic energy rewards and no capability for graceful function degradation. It allows for arbitrary experimenter-specified selective advantages”. Not faring any better, the ME THINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL algorithm is programmed to direct a sequence of letters towards a pre-specified target. https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/arriving-at-intelligence-through-the-corridors-of-reason-part-ii/ "Computer simulations of Darwinian evolution fail when they are honest and succeed only when they are not." David Berlinski In the following podcast, Robert Marks gives a very informative talk as to the strict limits we can expect from any evolutionary computer program (evolutionary algorithm): Darwin as the Pinball Wizard: Talking Probability with Robert Marks - podcast http://www.idthefuture.com/2010/03/darwin_as_the_pinball_wizard_t.html Mathematicians Offer Elegant Solution to Evolutionary Conundrum Excerpt: UBC researchers have proffered a new mathematical model that seeks to unravel a key evolutionary riddle–namely what factors underlie the generation of biological diversity both within and between species.,,, existing mathematical models that incorporate these ‘rare type’ advantages tend to have some serious shortcomings,”,,,, http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100422153931.htm translation,,, all the calculus level math, that has been taught to intimidated freshman biology students for decades, is, in fact, known to be wrong and, worse yet, has been known to be wrong for a long time. Massive bandages were applied to the existing evolutionary equations to hide the fact that evolution cannot explain the generation, nor spread, of novel functional information in biological forms. Worse still, this "new" model has not been tested against real world organisms though it is offered as a "elegant solution".bornagain77_{May 28, 2010
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...then why in blue blazes is Bill Gates not employing random number generators and selection software instead of 1000’s of software engineers?
Your assertion that he isn't would come as a shock to some. The analogy of DNA as a computer program has some serious limitations, but if you wish to push it to its useful limit, it would be better to think of the cell and its machinery as the computer and operating system, and the genome as parameters passed to functions. The parameters would include such stuff as how big, how much, what shape, and so forth. The cell and its machinery are rather resistant to change, since change is likely to be fatal. There are elements of the genome that resist change also. We call them conserved regions. Changes to them presumably interfere with survival or reproduction. I would agree that most mutations are probably deleterious. Life deals with this in two basic ways. There are functions that correct copy errors, and there is tremendous wastage. Smaller species produce huge numbers of offspring, while population numbers tend to be stable. There's tremendous wastage in mammal reproduction also, including human reproduction. It just tends not to be noticed. But for ever sperm cell that engages in conception, hundreds of millions fail. Looking at sperm cells under a microscope, it takes little interpretation to assert that many are defective. Perhaps they have some mutation that produces a fatal metabolic error. Of those that are not obviously defective, only one -- as a rule -- survives and wins. In terms of variation and selection, this is functionally equivalent to the huge population numbers of microbes. When you are counting generations and population size for the purpose of calculating odds, you need to take this into account. As for your software question, genetic algorithms are used to solve problems that are otherwise intractable. Having the program evolve along with the data will require new kinds of hardware, such as the "brains in silicon" being developed at Stanford. But it's coming. http://www.stanford.edu/group/brainsinsilicon/Petrushka_{May 28, 2010
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In other words, my point is that, if in principle some change in a generic system could point to positive modifications of the system of very different nature, the functional organization and complexity of an existing system creates an extreme narrowing of the potential for useful modification.
I believe Ernst Mayr discussed in some detail the improbability of well adapted organisms improving significantly via random mutation and selection. The record of extinction supports the notion that species that are tuned to a particular niche are likely to go extinct when the niche disappears. But so far, no event has sterilized the earth, and the survivors of mass extinctions have branched to fill vacant niches.Petrushka_{May 28, 2010
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Mr Timaeus, It seems more reasonable to me to imagine that the “design component” and the “chance component” are running in parallel all the way up and down, with the design component restricting the freedom of the chance component. That does seem to be a reasonable exercise of the imagination, and one that could be espoused by a Christian Darwinist while remaing reasonable, remaining Christian, and remaining a Darwinist. If this is your position, I am a bit surprised that you see a need to challenge biology professors for pathetic levels of detail. You already accept that chance events could lead to a whole new phylum. I agree that it is nice to have evidence of particulars, but it would hardly 'disprove evolution' in your mind when such narratives are slow in coming. I also note that you have, in response to a question about micro- and macro-evolution, spun a hypothesis about ID that goes far beyond 'detecting design in Nature'. You have imagined several processes which one or another ID advocate might prefer. How should we scientifically proceed to confirm or eliminate any of these?Nakashima_{May 28, 2010
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Mr Timaeus, If you are so eager to come to the aid of people who are being slandered, you might consider coming to the aid of ID. Yes, I might. I dislike stridency, and people who argue that disagreement equals psychlogical imbalance. I have argued against PZ Myers getting frothy mouthed on his blog, and against Nick Matzke on PT. But since I'm more interested in evolution than atheism, here I am.Nakashima_{May 28, 2010
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Petruska you state: 'The odds against a specific direction may be high, but the odds of change occurring approach certainty." Exactly, all biological change which is possible will always be at a cost of the original implemented functional information and this fact approaches as close to certainty as science will allow verification. The problem for materialists is to show just one example of material processes generating functional information above that already present in nature, instead of constructing elaborate just so stories of material processes generating functional information with absolutely no solid empirical basis to show for it. The burning unanswered question, as it currently sits in the laps of evolutionary biologists, is this, "Where Did The Information Come From?" The DNA Enigma - Where Did The Information Come From? - Stephen C. Meyer - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4125886 Stephen Meyer is interviewed about the "information problem" in DNA, Signature in the Cell - video http://downloads.cbn.com/cbnnewsplayer/cbnplayer.swf?aid=8497 Stephen C. Meyer - Signature In The Cell: "DNA functions like a software program," "We know from experience that software comes from programmers. Information--whether inscribed in hieroglyphics, written in a book or encoded in a radio signal--always arises from an intelligent source. So the discovery of digital code in DNA provides evidence that the information in DNA also had an intelligent source." http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/07/leading_advocate_of_intelligen.html The DNA Code - Solid Scientific Proof Of Intelligent Design - Perry Marshall - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4060532 The Digital Code of DNA - 2003 - Leroy Hood & David Galas Excerpt: The discovery of the structure of DNA transformed biology profoundly, catalysing the sequencing of the human genome and engendering a new view of biology as an information science. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v421/n6921/full/nature01410.html A New Design Argument - Charles Thaxton Excerpt: "There is an identity of structure between DNA (and protein) and written linguistic messages. Since we know by experience that intelligence produces written messages, and no other cause is known, the implication, according to the abductive method, is that intelligent cause produced DNA and protein. The significance of this result lies in the security of it, for it is much stronger than if the structures were merely similar. We are not dealing with anything like a superficial resemblance between DNA and a written text. We are not saying DNA is like a message. Rather, DNA is a message. True design thus returns to biology." http://www.arn.org/docs/thaxton/ct_newdesign3198.htm The Coding Found In DNA Surpasses Man's Ability To Code - Stephen Meyer - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4050638 Bill Gates, in recognizing the superiority found in Genetic Coding, compared to the best computer coding we now have, has now funded research into this area: Welcome to CoSBi - (Computational and Systems Biology) Excerpt: Biological systems are the most parallel systems ever studied and we hope to use our better understanding of how living systems handle information to design new computational paradigms, programming languages and software development environments. The net result would be the design and implementation of better applications firmly grounded on new computational, massively parallel paradigms in many different areas. http://www.cosbi.eu/index.php/component/content/article/171 Petruska, Since the programming found in life greatly exceeds man's ability to program, and evolution is a fact like gravity is a fact, then why in blue blazes is Bill Gates not employing random number generators and selection software instead of 1000's of software engineers?bornagain77_{May 28, 2010
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Mr Timaeus, I'll respond to your points in approximately the same order as you make them, and also across multiple posts. I think you dismissal of selection is misguided. Each generation varies from a starting point that was slightly better at surviving than the previous one. That does make a difference across millions and billions of generations. Yes, I do accept that calculations can (in advance of a simulation being run) predict whether an outcome is likely or not. In the field of genetic algorithms, this is a very active research topic. If you told me that your problem involved optimizing 1,000 bits, but you could afford only 1,000 evaluations which would be better - one generation of 1,000 individuals, 10 generations of 100, 100 generations of 10, or 500 generations of 2? Choosing the right parameters involves making that calculation. I'm glad to here that you accept propability calculations as evidence to weighed. I'm sure you are familiar with Nilsson's probability calculation on eye development - that sophisticated eyes can develop quickly. Rather than dismiss it for not being a simulation, I hope you can agree that it should be faced for what it says. Attack its assumptions, that is the good scientific way of critiquing, but don't poo-poo it for being 'just' a calculation. If that criticism was valid, the key chapters of Signature in the Cell would crumble into dust.Nakashima_{May 28, 2010
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Petrushka: But biologist — at least most of them — do not assert that evolution foresees its direction or seeks specific solutions. The odds against a specific direction may be high, but the odds of change occurring approach certainty. Just a comment on this point, because I believe it is a recurrent objection, whose logical and empirical difficulties are usually overlooked. The point is: how true is it that a complex system can "evolve" in many, many completely different directions? I believe that it simply is not true. Let's start from OOL. We could argue that life, or something equivalent, is in principle possible in a completely different way from the system we know (nucleic acids, proteins, cells, etc.). In principle, that's possible. But we: a) don't know any example of that c) don't have any idea or even the slightest vague model of how that could work So, empirically, we must stick to the fact that what we recognize for life needs, as far as we know, at least the minimal apparatus that we find in the simplest archea or bacteria (a genome, hundreds of funcional proteins, a cell membrane etc.) But let's go on. Once we have a complex (very complex indeed) system like that, any further change must: a) be compatible with what already exists b) usually be of great complexity itself, if it has to add new original function to a very complex system. This is a very important point. Indeed it is perfectly possible that some relatively simple change may occur which changes some function in a positive way, but that will usually be just a "tweaking" of what already exists. Any really new, original function will work only if it is integrated in the high complexity of functions which already are working. There is not only a problem of function itself, but all the problems of connection, of interface, of regulation of the new function in the previous complex system. Let's make an example from informatics: let's say you want to improve Windows Vista, giving it new recognizable functionality. You can certainly just correct some little errors (which are always present in a complex system, however good the design has been), and in some very rare cases that could be accomplished by changing a few bits here and there. But, if you really want to achieve a new fucntional implementatin, even a minor one, you will have to right a lot of new code, and to insert it in the right places, and to change all the pertinent references in the old code. Just to make the work of development easier, modern programming is usually object oriented, andthat's interesting, because that's propbably the general programming philosophy of biological programming (see for instance how protein domains can be considered as the "objects" in the construction of the proteome). But even in object oriented programming, the complexity of the modifications you have to implement when you want to change a complex system is simply stunning. Here, more than ever, the problem of irreducible complexity arises at every corner. Each new "object" must be completely functional in itself to be added to the system, and its interface must be completely compatible with the existing interfaces of the existing objects. In other words, my point is that, if in principle some change in a generic system could point to positive modifications of the system of very different nature, the fucntional organizationa and complexity of an existing system creates an extreme narrowing of the potential for useful modification. Excluding the few examples where a small modification can correct some error, or just tweak an existing function (the conceptual equivalent of microevolution), new important modification will have to be complex, well integrated, well regulated, and point to few specific lines of change which have meaning in the context of what already exists. In other words, they will have to be designed.gpuccio_{May 28, 2010
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Excerpt: the appearance of a particular (beneficial) double mutation in humans would have an expected time of appearance of 216 million years,...
I've already stipulated that the odds are against any string of mutations specified in advance. See my comment on Dollo. But biologist -- at least most of them -- do not assert that evolution foresees its direction or seeks specific solutions. The odds against a specific direction may be high, but the odds of change occurring approach certainty. I don't think Woese means what you think he means. He certainty isn't skeptical of evolution occurring, or skeptical that animals are cousins. He rearranged the branching at the base of the tree.Petrushka_{May 27, 2010
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