Ian Musgrave’s “Intelligent Design Challenge”

Yes, Mapou, that is what I considered all along. Musgrave isn't providing a 'challenge' in the typical contest-orientated-way, but 'challenge' in the call-to-battle variety. He is an author of the 'Why Intelligent Design Fails' book - he believes that ID is just grandiose claims without scientific rigour. He would not submit a challenge such as this, knowing it would be posted to the web, without having carefully assessed how it may be dealt with and how he can respond to the findings. The 'challenge' is certainly designed ...!AussieID

January 31, 2008

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I don't understand which way this challenge is supposed to be an "intelligent design challenge". Is it a human design challenge or an ID challenge? I guess what I'm asking is, if the challenge is solved, what does that prove? Does it prove anything with regard to ID the theory? Or is it just an exercise to see if a reliable method can be developed to detect gene modification by humans? Is it a challenge to ID proponents or a challenge to bio-geneticists in general? Help me out.Mapou

January 31, 2008

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Partick - Congratulations on locating four of 6 sequences that were "produced by a human designer" as either synthetically sequenced or including watermarks. Purpose: the description given is: "Mycoplasma genitalium synthetic DNA" The "overlap with watermark" provides a digital signature or evidence of copyright: "VENTERINSTITVTE CRAIGVENTER HAMSMITH CINDIANDCLYDE GLASSANDCLYDE" For further functions see: Mycoplasma genitalium Proteome Overview For further details see NCBI's taxonomy browser for Mycoplasma genitaliumDLH

January 31, 2008

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I was expecting a dishonest question but come on.... Musgrave does not seem to realize that design detection does NOT happen in a void; thus the spurious set of directions to determine "what the designed sequence does" based upon the sequences alone by themselves without being allowed to take into account the greater context of the items in question. In short, by limiting our reach to the mere list of sequences he's creating a set of constraints by which to funnel our actions toward his desired result. http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/01/venter-institut.html http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/viewer.fcgi?db=nuccore&id=166078610 Sequence 1 is in there. 84781 - 84961. Overlap with watermark Sequence 2 is not. Sequence 3 is not. Sequence 4 is. 169021 - 169201. Overlap with watermark. Sequence 5 is. 314101 - 314281. Overlap with watermark. Sequence 6 is. 315061 - 315241. No overlap with watermark. And, yes, Musgrave will probably attempt to make the argument that since I used an alternative method for detecting design that somehow invalidates ID-based methods. Here is a quick use for the EF: did Musgrave purposely pull these sequences from the Venter sequences, an instance of design? 1. No law is known to be capable. 2. A minimum of 1920 informational bits seems to say so. 3. The specification is the marked overlap with the watermark along with Musgrave's designation that the source of some of the information would be human. So using the EF we can be perfectly clear that Musgrave did intentionally pull from Venter. But let's say for the moment we limit ourselves to just Musgrave's email and do not allow ourselves to do any research to discover the functionality for the sequences (why are Darwinists always trying to prevent ID proponents from doing research? ;) ). So... 1. Again, no law. 2. 480 informational bits, thus the complexity does not exceed the UPB. 3. The specification cannot be known, since we're not allowed to determine functionality by examining the organism that contains the sequence. Thus we're forced to conclude that none of the sequences are designed, which results in at least one false negative (some of the sequences might have been gibberish for all we know). At this point Musgrave would probably try to make his point that "the EF is useless". Well, of course it is! The Designer, Musgrave, rigged the question to get just that result: we were purposefully not given the ability to gather enough information about the objects in question. Musgrave may also try to claim that ID theory is useless for the practical application of human design detection. Kept within its scope, of course that's the case, but combined with DesignER Detection methods I don't see why that'd be the case. But let's bring up a hypothetical scenario where I knew nothing of Vetner and his watermarks. I'm given a sample of Mycoplasma genitalium not knowing its origins. **Musgrave claims a portion of its sequence is a watermark, but does not give examples. Knockout tests are used to find non-functional sequences (presumably the watermark would not be functional). Cryptographic programs would be applied to discover the cypher. Note the purposeful misspelling of "Institvte". Applying the cypher to other sequences should result in mostly gibberish. At this point we'd have enough to apply the EF to validate whether the particular sequence is the watermark, since it's possible that among the gibberish of DNA-to-English there might be some other actual words. **(Modified scenario)Now, let's say instead, like the original email, we are given sequences to examine but we're not told it's a watermark nor that human design is involved. There are no more constraints to the challenge and the sequences are all well beyond the UPB. The sequences listed would be examined to discover the specification and whether the system produced by the sequence is IC. Not knowing we are supposed to look for a watermark, we may overlook the "non-functional" sequences and not look for a encrypted message. At this point, using ID theory we'd identify the "truly functional" sequences that require design. Some of the sequences may be within the limits of Darwinian processes. So at this point we'd have at least one false negative since the human-designed watermark is encrypted and thus appears like noise (designers can purposefully design something to appear natural and/or by chance, which is why I earlier put "truly functional" in quotes). Musgrave does not reveal there is human design, but now that we've identified sequences as designed he demands we find the Designer(s). At this point we've gone beyond the current scope of ID and we're using DesignER detection methods. ID theory is still useful for verifying the results but unless we look for a cypher we may never discover the specification for the human watermark sequence and might spend fruitless time reexamining the "functional sequences" again for clues to their origin.Patrick

January 31, 2008

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Dr. Ian Musgrave may have used DNA sequences he was familiar with. See: Ian Musgrave'spublications In his expresses his understanding of Intelligent Design:

"Intelligent design, the idea that if we can't describe the evolution of a given biological system on a mutation by mutation basis, then something, somewhere, somehow designed that biological system via unknown processes, . . ."

He provides his perspective on abiogenesis calculations: Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Probability of Abiogenesis CalculationsDLH

January 31, 2008

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Well at least we know that ID has some people very scared. You don't issue challenges to those you don't fear.shaner74

January 31, 2008

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At least one of them has been produced by a human designer.

This appears a little ambiguous. This could refer to recreating a genome, or adding a watermark to it as by Complete Chemical Synthesis, Assembly, and Cloning of a Mycoplasma genitalium Genome Gibson et al. The J. Craig Venter Institute. Of particular interest is their "signing" the genome: Gene pioneer signs his synthetic DNA creation New Scientist, 31 January 2008, #2641

Artists usually sign their work - and genomics pioneer Craig Venter is no exception. Written into the sequence of the synthetic bacterial genome unveiled last week is his name, his institute's, plus those of other key researchers involved. . . . To make their marks, the team took the one-letter abbreviations for amino acids - "C" for cysteine, "R" for arginine, "A" for alanine, and so on - and included the corresponding DNA sequences in their synthetic genome (Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1151721). These "watermarks" also have a serious purpose. . . ."

Another example of human design is forming purely synthetic topologies from DNA. e.g. New Motifs In DNA Nanotechnology -------------

All you have to do is to determine which one(s) have been acted on, what the designed sequence does, and explain the method you used to determine this.

This suggests looking for a modification of an existing DNA sequence.DLH

January 31, 2008

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If the "non-designed" ones are in nature, then they're all designed! Where's my book?larrynormanfan

January 31, 2008

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Hmph...my immediate reaction is that only 480 informational bits are required to encode each of those sequences. Oops?Patrick

January 31, 2008

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The amusing thing is, the best that Ian Musgrave can hope to prove is that nature may fundamentally be designed, yet we may not be aware of it. Somehow, I don't think that's quite the point he wishes to make.nullasalus

January 31, 2008

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This was on Pandas Thumb and referenced on Fark.bevets

January 31, 2008

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