Information: Why the Darwinian Mechanism is Dead Except as an Explanation of the Trivial

_{Gil Dodgen

December 12, 2008

Intelligent Design}

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When Darwin proposed his hypothesis in the 19th century it was assumed that the basis of living systems was fundamentally simple. The exact opposite has been shown to be the case in the 20th century. It was thought that chemistry, physics, mechanism, and chance were the foundational principles underlying living systems, but we now know that information and information processing are the essential, underlying ingredients of life. Chemistry, physics, and mechanism represent the medium in which information is processed, interpreted, stored, retrieved, error-detected, and repaired.

As we enter the 21st century it is becoming increasingly obvious that there is a third entity that must be added to matter and energy as an explanation for all that exists, and that entity is information.

The Darwinian mechanism is incapable of producing this entity for the same reason that a perpetual-motion machine cannot be built: Fundamental conservation laws cannot be violated. You can’t get something for nothing. Just as you can’t get energy for free, you can’t get information for free.

Comments

"There is healthy debate going on within each discipline. They both produce hundreds of peer reviewed papers a year. Usable results are seen from research. Billions of $$ a year are spent on both. The basic precepts of both will not be overturned, except by a new theory that not only explains all the current theories explain but also explains data points the existing theory’s cannot." ID has no problem with any of this. The evolutionary biology part of this is micro evolution which is accepted by most people here and is not an issue. Now extend your statement to macro evolution (defined for the sake of argument here as the origin of novel complex capabilities within a species) and the assertions fall apart.jerry_{December 17, 2008
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Rude, Do you have a specific point you want to make? Or are you just going to inform me that my education is lacking? If you claim "X has caused the death of Y" and are then asked to define X clearly I fail to see how that is mindless repetition of "what you've all heard before". Get specific.MikeKratch_{December 17, 2008
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My recommendation is that Mike Kratch do some homework and read enough ID lit so as not to parrot what we've all heard so many, mindlessly many, many, many times before.Rude_{December 17, 2008
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Barry, as you are currently active on other threads is there any chance you could give the definition of "information" you were using in the original post in this thread to proclaim the death of darwinian mechanism? It could clarify matters.MikeKratch_{December 17, 2008
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angryoldfatman, evolutionary biology and modern physics have several things in common. There is healthy debate going on within each disipline. They both produce hundreds of peer reviewed papers a year. Usable results are seen from research. Billions of $$ a year are spent on both. The basic precepts of both will not be overturned, except by a new theory that not only explains all the current theorys explain but also explains data points the existing theory's cannot. Do you really think the sucess is due only to "bully boys"? Nothing to do with actual results?
I thought it didn’t matter in science who you are, but what you could demonstrate was true.
Indeed. Have you demonstrated that any of the proposed alternatives to evolution are true? That they explain all existing data?MikeKratch_{December 17, 2008
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One asks that “information” be defined so as to better dispute Gil’s claim. One could, of course, read the ID lit, maybe even just ISCID. Anyway it’s an interesting question. For not only is there a technical definition that ignores meaning, there’s also one that doesn’t. A definition that does not ignore meaning will acknowledge that information has truth value, whereas meaning of itself does not. Thus “fish” has meaning but apart from some context there is no information: the word “fish” is neither true nor false but “I caught a fish”—against a real world or fictional context—is true or false. Information in language comes with varying degrees of assertion and doubt, but it is always linked to meaning.Rude_{December 17, 2008
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If there is a moderator following this thread I would like to draw your attention to post #48 which appears not to be trying to be polite or to keep sarcasm and belligerence in check (see moderation policy)Mark Frank_{December 16, 2008
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#48
You say that I “ignore the entire reason why physicists need fantastic hypotheses to explain that precision”. Can you say what that reason is?
No more than you can, evidently, but I don't write essays about how they're essentially arguing about nothing. From your essay (emphasis mine):
My concern [about Penrose's statement on the precision of fine-tuning of the universe] is – so what?
"So what" indeed. What's the big deal about a fine-tuned universe, physicist dudes? It is what it is! We're here because we're here! All this 10 to the 23 to the jagillion precision stuff is all mumbo-jumbo! Let me, Mr. "I got an article put up on Panda's Thumb once" Science Writer explain to you why I agree with you 100% but you're worrying about nothing...
The Penrose paper says nothing about evolutionary biology.
Correct! It is about modern physics though. My statement was a comparison between the status of evolutionary biology as a field of science (as trumpeted by its bully-boys) versus the status of modern physics as a field of science.angryoldfatman_{December 16, 2008
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Well I had a few things to say following up on my request for clarification on the word 'Information' but unfortunately time has run away with me and I'm off for an extended Christmas break away from fast and easy broadband connections so, for the Christians amongst us, have a happy Christmas, and for the non Christians, enjoy the annual retail festival ;)Laminar_{December 16, 2008
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#47 You say that I "ignore the entire reason why physicists need fantastic hypotheses to explain that precision". Can you say what that reason is? You final sentence in #18 is: "It destroys the entire argument that evolutionary biology is as advanced as modern physics." The Penrose paper says nothing about evolutionary biology. So again a little explanation is in order. ThanksMark Frank_{December 15, 2008
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Sorry #41, I didn't read your essay close enough. From your essay:
Roger Penrose is a world famous physicist and I am not any kind of physicist; so there is no way I am going to dispute what he says.
Good. For awhile there I thought you knew what you were talking about. The fact that you go on in your essay to ignore the entire reason why physicists need fantastic hypotheses to explain that precision shows you don't. My last sentence in #18 is validated again.angryoldfatman_{December 15, 2008
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Patrick wrote:
...since this is an ID site it’s probably safe to presume that Gil was talking about CSI and not Shannon information, since that can readily be created via a noise generator.
I responded to this hours ago, but my comment was vaporized. If Gil is talking about CSI when he uses the word 'information', then this statement of his is a mere tautology:
The Darwinian mechanism is incapable of producing this entity [information]...
By Dembski's definition, CSI is defined as existing when there is a vanishingly small probability of producing an object via physical means, including Darwinian processes. So to say that CSI can't be produced by Darwinian means is tantamount to saying: "Darwinian processes cannot produce something that cannot be produced by Darwinian processes." Like all tautologies, this is a true statement; but what good does the concept of CSI do us, if we have to answer the question "could this have evolved?" before we can decide whether it contains CSI?ribczynski_{December 15, 2008
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Patrick, No, not al all. My guess is that you and I think a lot alike on this whole debate. I do not have the time to invest in a lot of the technical things that you are conversant with so I remain quiet when these issues come up but there is little that I have seen you say that I disagree with. In fact I look to you as the elder statesman on this site along with Dave. You are one of the few adults here. Others have used this Provine quote to discredit NS and I do not think it says that. That is all. I believe like me you think NS works but is limited in what it can do.jerry_{December 15, 2008
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Storing Data in a Photon http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5792&commentid=99538&threshhold=1&red=41 Vast information storage is possible on single photon: “Now I want to see if we can delay something almost permanently, even at the single photon level,” says Howell. “If we can do that, we're looking at storing incredible amounts of information in just a few photons.” “You can have a tremendous amount of information in a pulse of light, but normally if you try to buffer it, you can lose much of that information,” says Ryan Camacho, Howell's graduate student and lead author on the article. Commenting on the "information potential" of a single photon (a qubit) in quantum teleportation experiments Armond Duwell states: "only two classical bits are sufficient to teleport a qubit (A single photon's worth of information), even though it takes an infinite amount of information to specify a qubit (a single photon's worth of information)." Explaining Information Transfer in Quantum Teleportation Armond Duwell †‡ University of Pittsburgh Conclusion; A infinite amount of "transcendent" information is necessary for the photon qubit to have a specific reality, thus infinite "transcendent" information must exist for the qubit to be real. Since photons were created at the Big Bang, this "infinite transcendent information" must, of logical necessity, precede the light and "command the light to be real", thus demonstrating intent and purpose for the "infinite transcendent information". Thus "a single photon qubit", coupled with the Big Bang, provides compelling evidence for the existence of the "infinite and perfect" (omniscient) mind of God Almighty. (God knows infinite information, every hair on your head) As well quantum teleportation, coupled with the First Law, provides another compelling and corroborating evidence for the existence of "infinite transcendent information", by demonstrating the complete transcendence of information to any underlying material basis, or even any underlying natural law, as well as demonstrating the complete, specific, and direct dominion of "infinite transcendent information" over a single photon qubit of energy. (Energy cannot be created or destroyed by any known material means, thus any transcendent entity which demonstrates dominion of logical necessity cannot be created or destroyed also: Law of "Conservation of Information") The main objection, i have not ruled out yet, would be that you can have infinite information for the photon qubit yet still not "complete and total infinite information". (I think this objection, though reasonable, is superfluous to the main point of the proof.)bornagain77_{December 15, 2008
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Provine’s quote is often used here to discredit natural selection
I hope you do not believe that is what I'm trying to do...?Patrick_{December 15, 2008
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Gil, Did you know that the chemist Gilbert N. Lewis, had a student named Harold Urey, the Urey of the Urey-Miller experiment?StuartHarris_{December 15, 2008
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Re #32 It’s sad that you don’t have enough confidence in your position to defend it against Penrose. As I tried to explain - there is nothing in the Penrose paper I disagree with. He didn't write about probabilities. It seem likely that he also holds views that I disagree with, but what are you suggesting? That I send him a paper saying "here is refutation of a view that you possibly might have"? Be realistic. I thought it didn’t matter in science who you are, but what you could demonstrate was true. Is it now your opinion that authority matters more in science than truth? That’s what your actions suggest. I have never, to my knowledge, written on this subject. But since you ask. Of course, your credentials and track record count if you want to get read. No one has the time to read every opinion from everyone. You need to earn the right to be taken seriously at a high level by first producing work which is accepted at a lower level. Of course, the authority of the scientist is not what determines if science is true - just if it gets read. Scientist are people!Mark Frank_{December 15, 2008
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"is the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria trivial" Yes in terms of the evolution debate, the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria is trivial. Obviously not in terms of medicine and human illness. But the non triviality in medicine does not make it non trivial in the evolution debate. There is no relationship.jerry_{December 15, 2008
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Provine's quote is often used here to discredit natural selection but the quote itself talks about the importance of natural selection. The quote says "it excuses the necessity of talking about the actual causation of natural selection" So Provine says natural selection happens. He says it is often misunderstood and he is right. Natural selection is a process that brings together mechanisms and forces. One mechanism is sexual reproduction or other reproductive methods which is then subject to environmental forces. Both include an element of chance but the potential results are tremendously constrained by the original gene pool. These mechanisms and forces can change population gene pools over time but does not generally create anything new in a gene pool, just change the percentages of gene in the gene pool. New genes comes from another process that generates mutations in the DNA of gametes and is not part of the natural selection process. One exception is that theoretically sexual reproduction can produce some new genetic elements through recombination.jerry_{December 15, 2008
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Some call NS a mechanism. Some do not. For example... The Origin of Theoretical Population Genetics (University of Chicago Press, 1971), reissued in 2001 by William Provine:
Natural selection does not act on anything, nor does it select (for or against), force, maximize, create, modify, shape, operate, drive, favor, maintain, push, or adjust. Natural selection does nothing….Having natural selection select is nifty because it excuses the necessity of talking about the actual causation of natural selection. Such talk was excusable for Charles Darwin, but inexcusable for evolutionists now. Creationists have discovered our empty “natural selection” language, and the “actions” of natural selection make huge, vulnerable targets. (pp. 199-200)
Personally, I don't care what it's called, whether it's a mechanism in itself or merely a result of other active mechanisms, but what it can "DO". (Please do not argue over the usage of the word "do"...there's enough word games going on around here as it is.)Patrick_{December 15, 2008
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When DonaldM writes:
... the term that needs to be defined is Darwinian mechanism... implication is that antibiotic resistance is an example of the Darwinian mechanism in action, i.e. Natural Selection. But NS is not a mechanism. Mechanisms by definition are things that do something. NS doesn’t do anything.
It's a filter. Non-reproducible, non-survivable, unfit genetic codes cannot pass through the filter. Is a filter not a mechanism? It would seem the "put a sock in it" filter here: https://uncommondescent.com/comment-policy/put-a-sock-in-it/ credits NS with microevolution:
What About the spreading of antibiotic resistance? Micro-evolution. No “special ID explanation” required. Why, do you hold the misconception that ID proponents consider everything in evolutionary biology to be false? Also, the existence of “superbugs” prove yet another ID prediction. Mutations are generally considered “beneficial” if they provide benefit to an organism in a particular environment. Meaning that the majority of these “beneficial” mutations are only beneficial in a limited sense. As in, they’re destructive (deleterious) modifications that are beneficial only in a limited environment. But they provide survival benefits in a limited environment, like blowing up a bridge in a war is beneficial in a limited sense. Darwinism requires not only beneficial mutations but constructive beneficial mutations in order to be feasible. We’re looking for constructive beneficial mutations that are not merely a reshuffling of existing genes via sexual recombination. Most of these superbugs are fortunately of the limited benefit type and will quickly be eradicated when exposed to normal conditions outside hospitals.
Norman Doering_{December 15, 2008
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Patrick wrote:
... it’s probably safe to presume that Gil was talking about CSI and not Shannon information, since that can readily be created via a noise generator.
I don't know about that. He doesn't seem to be talking about either one of those kinds of information when he says “…information is something that comes from a mind.” That seems far more general than both Shannon's information and CSI. It doesn't work for Shannon's information and it seems not to be limited to CSI.Norman Doering_{December 15, 2008
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RoyK: "semantic biology"? Did you at least google it? The book "Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life" is written by Hubert Yockey, the foremost specialist in bioinformatics. (Cambridge University press) Yockey demonstrated that the coding process in DNA is identical to the coding process and mathematical definitions used in Electrical Engineering. "Information, transcription, translation, code, redundancy, synonymous, messenger, editing, and proofreading are all appropriate terms in biology. They take their meaning from information theory (Shannon, 1948) and are not synonyms, metaphors, or analogies" (Hubert P. Yockey, Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life, Cambridge University Press, 2005) My emphasis. Code requires symbology, convention, meaning and thus intelligence. This is currently denied by many Darwinists of course (no wonder!), but denial is useless with regards to intrinsically implied truths. Code, by nature, has to be the result of conventions for translating a set of one symbolic system to another. There is no such thing as symbolic code without a generating intelligence. Human language is a good example. The written word is a subset of human language and is also a good example. Ink and paper do not provide the information by themselves. Interpretation is necessary. The information is coded into ink on paper. But no one would assume the message IS the ink and paper. Equally - DNA itself is not information but rather the carrier or encoder of it. Same applies to the genetic code. Do the math and you see why Darwinism can't explain this. Indeed, no materialist hypothesis can! For information is not material! It is neither matter nor energy but rather a fundamental metaphysical entity contained in material.Borne_{December 15, 2008
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ribcyzinski
So you see, we’re not playing word games, we’re just trying to figure out what Gil means [by the term 'information'].
Actually the term that needs to be defined is Darwinian mechanism. The usual answer is Natural Selection. Thus Norman Doering writes
In GilDodgen’s title we are told that the “Darwinian Mechanism” is Dead Except as an Explanation of the Trivial. So, is the evolution of antibiotic resistant bacteria trivial, or not a “Darwinian Mechanism”?
. The implication is that antibiotic resistance is an example of the Darwinian mechanism in action, i.e. Natural Selection. But NS is not a mechanism. Mechanisms by definition are things that do something. NS doesn't do anything. It is little more than a descriptive phrase to label certain observations after the fact. NS doesn't tell us a thing about how some bacteria have biotic resistance and others don't. You can define information any way you like and NS still can not explain it, because it doesn't explain anything anyway. That, I take it, is Gil's real point.DonaldM_{December 15, 2008
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For the pedantic commentators, it appears Gil has not been following this discussion, so I'll just add that since this is an ID site it's probably safe to presume that Gil was talking about CSI and not Shannon information, since that can readily be created via a noise generator.Patrick_{December 15, 2008
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Mark Frank wrote:
In any case he isn’t going to read an essay from someone he has never heard of and I expect someone else has already made the same points to him.
It's sad that you don't have enough confidence in your position to defend it against Penrose. I thought it didn't matter in science who you are, but what you could demonstrate was true. Is it now your opinion that authority matters more in science than truth? That's what your actions suggest.angryoldfatman_{December 15, 2008
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Re #30 Maybe you could get Penrose to rethink his position if you told him this and sent him your essay. Be sure to post his reply where we can read it. He didn't write about odds having a precision - that was Bornagain77's interpretation. Penrose writes about precision but not about odds. I get the impression that he thinks that the precision has some implication for probability but it is not in the chapter that bornagain77 referred to. In any case he isn't going to read an essay from someone he has never heard of and I expect someone else has already made the same points to him.Mark Frank_{December 14, 2008
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Mark Frank wrote:
Taken literally this is meaningless - odds can’t require a precision.
Maybe you could get Penrose to rethink his position if you told him this and sent him your essay. Be sure to post his reply where we can read it.angryoldfatman_{December 14, 2008
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'Admin' wrote:
EDIT: Delayed moderation (I have a life). Updated timestamp.
All the more reason to take me (and other ID critics) off the moderation list.
But, seriously guys, instead of producing overwhelming evidence or arguing against his statements you’re playing word games. What’s up with that?
Laminar has it exactly right. How can we judge Gil's claim if we don't know what he's claiming? Knowing that Gil is a fan of Bill Dembski, my first guess was that he was echoing a claim of Dembski's regarding information. However, I then read this line of Gil's:
Just as you can’t get energy for free, you can’t get information for free.
Even Dembski understands that you can get information for free:
In our ordinary experience, information can increase under the operation of natural causes -- for instance, random coin tossing generates information (though not specified complexity). --The Design Revolution, p. 160
Dembski's so-called "Law of Conservation of Information" isn't about conservation and it isn't about information. It claims that specified complexity either remains constant or decreases when natural law is operating:
The Law of Conservation of Information tells us that when specified complexity is given over to natural causes, it either remains unchanged (in which case information is strictly conserved) or disintegrates (in which case information diminishes). -- The Design Revolution, p. 161
So you see, we're not playing word games, we're just trying to figure out what Gil means.ribczynski_{December 14, 2008
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Laminar wrote: "Given that the definition of Information provided by Shannons Information theory doesn’t require ‘information’ to have any meaningful content (i.e the ‘information’ contained in a message can be random) It would appear that Gil is not using the word in the Information Theory sense, so I think it is reasonable to ask what other definition is being used." Good point. And I'd like some clarity on where he thinks this information comes from. In post 8, GilDodgen said "...information is something that comes from a mind." That's a bit off in my opinion -- it sounds like he is saying minds invent information with no need for input from the external environment. Scientific information certainly isn't like that. That comes from minds interacting with the world through a methodology... almost algorithmically interacting. Where then is the information about the world? In our heads or in the world? Answering that would define another aspect of information.Norman Doering_{December 14, 2008
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