Intelligent Design Uncensored hot off the press

_{William Dembski

May 3, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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My newest book, Intelligent Design Uncensored, co-authored with Jonathan Witt, is now available. You can purchase it here at Amazon.com. It provides a nice overview of the scientific issues at stake but then also deals with the cultural spillover as it relates to both the theistic and atheistic evolutionists.

Comments

Jerry: Yep. TGP: Welcome. Gkairosfocus_{May 14, 2010
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Yeah Kf, that second one is pretty coolbornagain77_{May 14, 2010
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kairosfocus You do not have to convince me. We get a lot of clowns around here who think they have a half smart observation. They make good foils. Warehuff's attempts are particularly lame so they make good fodder for a lurker to see the level of comments that are given to refute ID. What people like warehuff and those that support them fail to see is that there ineptness is confirmation that we are right. If there was a good answer to our position it would have surfaced long ago and they would all be repeating it.jerry_{May 14, 2010
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BA: The vid on the amino acid chain elognation cycle in the ribosome, here, gives a nice close up on how tweredun. This is even more of a tight closeup based on X ray studies. GEM of TKI PS: The podcast is indeed interesting.kairosfocus_{May 14, 2010
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KF-- I would also love to hear one of our natural selection advocates explain to us . . . I hope you are not holding your breath :-) The longer I follow this debate the more my mind is boggled at the realization that is we who are the ones that are truly defending science and reason.tribune7_{May 14, 2010
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kairofocus, This site looks very interesting: Molecular Movies http://www.molecularmovies.com/showcase/index.html and this just up at ID The Future may interest you: Fitness Costs and the Genetic Barriers to Evolution http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/entry/eg/2010-05-12T12_15_24-07_00 On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin interviews Scientific Dissent From Darwinism signer, biologist Mauricio Alcocer Ruthling, about the scientific problems with evolution. Dr. Alcocer Ruthling received his Ph.D. in plant science from the University of Idaho and is now Director of Graduate Studies at the Universidad Autónoma in Guadalajara, Mexico. Dr. Alcocer Ruthling has studied the importance of fitness costs to the use of herbicides and explains why fitness costs demonstrate the existence of genetic barriers to evolution.bornagain77_{May 14, 2010
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thanks...tgpeeler_{May 14, 2010
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TGP: The video addresses symbols in action in the cell. A blood-curdling scream of terror, shock and pain is a signal, but it is not a symbol made up according to rules. {The cry "rape" or "murder" is most definitely a symblic communication, though.) Either would serve to say time to fetch the old 12 Ga loaded with no 4 buck and go a hunting. And, I don't mean for ducks. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 14, 2010
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@tribune #107 -"And remember,ridicule happens when they can’t address your points." That's in line with their anti-intellectualist agenda. Well said.above_{May 14, 2010
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ba77 and kf @ 101 Haven't seen video yet. But wouldn't symbols and rules be what are encoded in signals for transmission and decoding? I think I am still missing the point. Help. Thanks. If explained in video I will see it later...tgpeeler_{May 14, 2010
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kf @ 100 "one can communicate using signals," I agree, of course. Did I presume too much - that symbols/rules would be realized in signals? Thanks.tgpeeler_{May 14, 2010
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Trib: Yup. So, the strawman tactics we are seeing are inadvertently deeply revealing on the true balance on the merits. I find it particularly interesting a la I_S_, that for instance, the evo mat advocates simply have been utterly missing in action for a week on the import of the von Neumann self-replicating automaton architecture discussed, e.g. in 77 - 78 above. I would also love to hear one of our natural selection advocates explain to us how a probabilistic culler of relatively unsuccessful sub populations [which thus removes the bio-information for the unlucky variety] is a SOURCE of information. And if chance natural variation [though Mr MacNeil's 47 engines etc] is the claimed source of complex functional bio-information, then we are right back at the isolated islands of function in a vast config space problem. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 14, 2010
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BA: Here is my basic reason for concluding that evolutionary materialism is both self referentially incoherent and amoral: ____________________ >>. . . [evolutionary] materialism [a worldview that often likes to wear the mantle of "science"] . . . argues that the cosmos is the product of chance interactions of matter and energy, within the constraint of the laws of nature. Therefore, all phenomena in the universe, without residue, are determined by the working of purposeless laws acting on material objects, under the direct or indirect control of chance. But human thought, clearly a phenomenon in the universe, must now fit into this picture. Thus, what we subjectively experience as "thoughts" and "conclusions" can only be understood materialistically as unintended by-products of the natural forces which cause and control the electro-chemical events going on in neural networks in our brains. (These forces are viewed as ultimately physical, but are taken to be partly mediated through a complex pattern of genetic inheritance ["nature"] and psycho-social conditioning ["nurture"], within the framework of human culture [i.e. socio-cultural conditioning and resulting/associated relativism].) Therefore, if materialism is true, the "thoughts" we have and the "conclusions" we reach, without residue, are produced and controlled by forces that are irrelevant to purpose, truth, or validity. Of course, the conclusions of such arguments may still happen to be true, by lucky coincidence — but we have no rational grounds for relying on the “reasoning” that has led us to feel that we have “proved” them. And, if our materialist friends then say: “But, we can always apply scientific tests, through observation, experiment and measurement,” then we must note that to demonstrate that such tests provide empirical support to their theories requires the use of the very process of reasoning which they have discredited! Thus, evolutionary materialism reduces reason itself to the status of illusion. But, immediately, that includes “Materialism.” For instance, Marxists commonly deride opponents for their “bourgeois class conditioning” — but what of the effect of their own class origins? Freudians frequently dismiss qualms about their loosening of moral restraints by alluding to the impact of strict potty training on their “up-tight” critics — but doesn’t this cut both ways? And, should we not simply ask a Behaviourist whether s/he is simply another operantly conditioned rat trapped in the cosmic maze? In the end, materialism is based on self-defeating logic . . . . In Law, Government, and Public Policy, the same bitter seed has shot up the idea that "Right" and "Wrong" are simply arbitrary social conventions. This has often led to the adoption of hypocritical, inconsistent, futile and self-destructive public policies. "Truth is dead," so Education has become a power struggle; the victors have the right to propagandise the next generation as they please. Media power games simply extend this cynical manipulation from the school and the campus to the street, the office, the factory, the church and the home. Further, since family structures and rules of sexual morality are "simply accidents of history," one is free to force society to redefine family values and principles of sexual morality to suit one's preferences. Finally, life itself is meaningless and valueless, so the weak, sick, defenceless and undesirable — for whatever reason — can simply be slaughtered, whether in the womb, in the hospital, or in the death camp. In short, ideas sprout roots, shoot up into all aspects of life, and have consequences in the real world . . . >> ___________________ Let's see if any of our materialist friends here will have a serious answer to it on the merits. GEM of TKI PS: Perry Marshall makes a lot of sense. I might trim or adjust a point or two, but his argument is generally cogent.kairosfocus_{May 14, 2010
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KF, good point about Alinsky. And remember,ridicule happens when they can't address your points.tribune7_{May 14, 2010
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Alinski's rules: 5. "Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counteract ridicule. Also it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage." . . . . --> See why there is a routine resort by evo mat advocates to ridiculous strawman caricatures of serious arguments, instead of dealing with issues on the merits? --> Tells us, though, they have nothing to say on the merits GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 14, 2010
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Jerry: The presence of language, algorithms, programs and executing coordinated machines at the first appearance of life -- that is what the requisites of self-replication, as highlighted by von Neumann entail [cf. 77 - 78 above] -- strongly points to the presence of intelligence at that point, whether it was 3.8 - 4.2 BYA, or 6 - 10 TYA. Further, WH is being disingenuous: we know we exemplify intelligence, but -- as has been repeatedly pointed out but studiously ignored -- we have no good reason to believe we exhaust the possibility of intelligence at at least our level. (At a somewhat lower level,any number of animals show definite signs of basic intelligence, nor just pre-programmed instincts.) Indeed, by the canons of scientific induction, we can see easily that it is inductively well warranted to infer that FSCI is a reliable sign of intelligence. So, we are perfectly well warranted to infer -- on the same grounds as we infer form the falling of rocks on earth and the centripetal acceleration of the moon, to the laws of gravitation -- from FSCI and other similar signs of intelligence to the presence of an authoring intelligence. So, while we know that we were not here at the origin of life, we have excellent empirically warranted grounds for inferring to moral certainty that intelligence was there at the origin of life, and of the major body plans. Beyond that we have strong grounds [notice, I am stepping back a bit] for inferring that the fine tuning of the cosmos so that it facilitates C-chemistry, cell based life points to intelligence as the cause of the observable universe. Yet further, an excellent candidate for he author of the FSCI that is a requisite of cell based life is the same intelligence responsible for the fine tuned cosmos. And, observe, at each stage I have not assumed an a priori but instead am using inductive reasoning to infer to the best explanation. Unlike the Lewontin a priori materialists who so stoutly resist any inductive inferences and evidence that does not suit their preferences and agendas. GEM of TKI PS: Not too my corrective on the error of assigning information generating capability to natural selection, which is at most a culler of sub populations with bioinformation that in a given environment makes them have sufficiently inferior performance to face extinction.kairosfocus_{May 14, 2010
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"So his argument boils down to, “A human could have started life if a human had been present three or four billion years ago to do it, which they weren’t, and if a human knew how to start life, which they don’t. Therefore, ID." Another silly argument. There are only two possible sources for life, natural processes or intelligence. If someone wants to name a third, then we would be interested. If natural processes are capable of producing life, then one could argue that intelligence could control the same process and also produce life probably in a much more efficient process. It is done all the time with processes we find in nature. So if we have natural processes accomplishing something, then it is most likely something an intelligence could do and probably better. Now one may want to argue on strictly universal applicability that there are some natural processes that are beyond intelligence such as star formation but even here one may argue that in some future time with more advanced capabilities that intelligence could influence or even direct star formation. However, no one would argue that processes developed by intelligences would necessarily be duplicated by nature. Any one taking that position would only need a very small room to converse with others on it. All this is to state the obvious, that intelligence would be capable of creating life. The question then is, was there an intelligence around 3.5 billion years ago? We do not know but the presence of certain things could point to that as the most likely answer. There is certainly an intelligence now, so why not one 3.5 billion years ago. Are we that unique?jerry_{May 14, 2010
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"Please show us the entry for “Is it caused by a combination of chance (mutations) and regularity (natural selection) –> YES –> Evolution There is none." That is not correct, it is the first option so your example comes under the "START Is it Highly Probable? –> YES –> Law" It is a silly objection and is not the basis of any criticism.jerry_{May 14, 2010
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warehuff, one final question for you to ignore though you will pretend you have addressed it. Can you please give me the formal proof that materialism is true?bornagain77_{May 14, 2010
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Kf and TGP That point is stressed in this video The DNA Code - Solid Scientific Proof Of Intelligent Design - Perry Marshall http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4060532bornagain77_{May 14, 2010
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Actually, TGP, one can communicate using signals, but your point as a whole is sound. Once language is used, symbols constrained by conventional rules are in play, ad this only credibly comes form mind. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 14, 2010
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Aleta additional notes: Moreover, the transcendent cause must be sufficient to explain the semi-unique effect of 3D centrality witnessed by each individual observer in the universe. That the "mind" of a individual observer would play such an integral yet not complete "closed system role", in the instantaneous quantum wave collapse of the universe to "3D centrality", gives us clear evidence that our "mind" is a unique entity. A unique entity with a superior quality of existence when compared to the "uncertain 3D particles" of the "material" universe. This is clear evidence for the existence of the "higher dimensional soul" of man that supersedes any "material basis" that the soul/mind has been purported to "emerge" from by materialists. These following studies confirm this "superior quality" of our minds: Miracle Of Mind-Brain Recovery Following Hemispherectomies - Dr. Ben Carson - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/3994585/ 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. “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. Of more importance though, the "effect", of universal quantum wave collapse to each "central 3D observer", gives us clear evidence of the extremely special importance that the "cause", of the "Infinite Mind of God", places on each of our own individual minds. Psalm 139:17-18 How precious concerning me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. 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). 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 Police - Spirits in the Material World http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDs9zbiumDcbornagain77_{May 14, 2010
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Clive @ 30 "Truism is no longer a truism here." Aha.tgpeeler_{May 14, 2010
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PS: Having just now got back access to internet after a fire on a power pole knocked out services in my neighbourhood, I forgot to add this. If we look at Darwin's Origin, the original title was:
The Origin of Species by means of natural selection,or the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life
So, you can see that, right from the beginning, our attention was diverted from the actual assumed engines that generate what we can profitably term "natural variation," to the culling filter that only actually REMOVES bio-information from the population, i.e. that genetic information had by the sub-populations that do not survive, i.e. suffer extinction. Here is the full excerpt from Darwin's introduction, giving the epitome of his theory and stating his central theses:
. . . the Struggle for Existence amongst all organic beings throughout the world, which inevitably follows from the high geometrical ratio of their increase, will be considered. This is the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms. As many more individuals of each species are born than can possibly survive; and as, consequently, there is a frequently recurrent struggle for existence, it follows that any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected. From the strong principle of inheritance, any selected variety will tend to propagate its new and modified form. This fundamental subject of Natural Selection will be treated at some length in the fourth chapter; and we shall then see how Natural Selection almost inevitably causes much Extinction of the less improved forms of life, and leads to what I have called Divergence of Character. {Origin, p. 3.]
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upright @ 27 correctly says... "Life is either the result of chance or design. Life operates by information. The source of that information is either chance or design." Late to the party (where are truism's posts?) but as usual would like to throw my 2 cents in on language. If information and life are connected, and they are, and information is encoded/transmitted/decoded by language, and it is, then what must be explained is language. No? So then, if information/life is to be explained by naturalistic/material causes, i.e. the laws of physics, then language must be explainable by physics. No? But this can never, ever happen because the laws of physics have nothing to say of symbols, the representation of one thing for another, or the rules that govern the usage of those symbols. Game over. This is falsifiable. Somebody, anybody, just communicate something without using a language. Better yet, describe how that might be even possible.tgpeeler_{May 14, 2010
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WH: I comment on points: 1] WH, 88:Please show us the entry for “Is it caused by a combination of chance (mutations) and regularity (natural selection) –> YES –> Evolution There is none. ID “wins” by not even considering evolution. It’s been “expelled” from the EF. You have unfortunately played the strawman rhetorical tactic here. To begin with, you are ignoring the correction to your gross error about the capacity of natural selection that appears in 77 - 78 above. In summary, as Darwin himself pointed out in the introduction to Origin, “any being, if it vary however slightly in any manner profitable to itself . . . will have a better chance of surviving, and thus [will] be naturally selected.” That is, not only is natural selection a probabilistic culler of already existing and functional varieties, but it is not the source of variations it selects from, only a weeder-out of the "less fit." (And by and large as Blythe, the real discoverer of natural selection identified, this means that it is largely conservative. Random variations in life forms that make a difference are overwhelmingly likely to cause defects, not advances. That is why we hear so much about genetic defects, but very little about advances that actually are observed to create novel bio-information and function. [Onlookers, observe the utter triviality of the examples that are usually cited for NS in action, and how overwhelmingly they work by loss of function, e.g. sickle cell trait and protection from malaria, and antibiotic resistance by loss of ability to regulate production of an anti-penicillin enzyme.]) So we correct the too common but utterly fallacious attempt to inject natural selection into the cause for novel biological information: NS is not the source of such information, it can only at most serve as a probabilistic filter of already existing functional bio-information. And since information is based on high contingency of elements that carry messages, we must look to the empirically warranted sources of high contingency to explain it: chance and intelligence. Also, for first life, we have to first get to self-replicating capacity, which is based on an irreducibly complex cluster of parts, and is dependent on storage and processing of an abstract description and specification of the components of the functional cell. That is, as you were already corrected at 77 - 78 above on, as the requisites of the von Neumann self-replicator show us, FSCI has to be created BEFORE replication and reproduction are possible. For existing life, to get to a basically functional new body plan, we will again have to surmount the FSCI threshold. Consider, for instance, how many things have to be specified to get a functional wing and to control it for flight without so often breaking the necks of the fliers that flight is a disadvantage to be selected against. If one now wishes to argue that the in-built forces of our cosmos as described by natural laws will force the emergence of life and body plans on terrestrial planets similar to ours, then s/he is implying that the universe has been very carefully programmed to create life. And a cosmos-programming intelligent agent that set up a universe in which life is inevitable, is plainly an intelligent designer. (Indeed, such would read rather much like Genesis wherein we see the statement "let the earth bring forth [living creatures] . . . ") Further, on the explanatory filter, my remark in 85 above that you are diverting attention from was:
By simply reviewing the fact that the EF [note my diagram and discussion focussed on analysing aspects and synthesising explanations] is a retrospective explanation of what scientists routinely do [cf the weak argument correctives from 29 on, on the point next time before hitting that submit button . . . ], it was easy enough to see that once we look at phenomena, processes and objects aspect by aspect, we can examine the matrix of credible causal factors involved.
Moreover, had you simply checked the relevant remarks in the weak argument correctives, you would have also seen how Dr Demsbki said in WAC no 30:
I came up with the EF on observing example after example in which people were trying to sift among necessity, chance, and design to come up with the right explanation. The EF is what philosophers of science call a “rational reconstruction” — it takes pre-theoretic ordinary reasoning and attempts to give it logical precision. But what gets you to the design node in the EF is SC (specified complexity). So working with the EF or SC end up being interchangeable . . .
So, the design filter diagrams circa 1998 and derivatives therefrom, are rational reconstructions of routine scientific behaviour, which means thsat hey are implicitly looking at a particular aspect of an overall object or phenomenon, and are trying to decide the gneral class of cause for is, across the classic causes. To do so, we look at first hi/lo contingency. If low, mechanical necessity is responsible. If high, the second issue is whether the contingency is credibly based on happenstance or choice, the former being characterised by statistical patterns, and the latter by FSCI and other hallmarks of purposeful action. So, we read in the UD glossary, on the EF (i.e. this too is about as "official" as we get at UD):
. . . while chance, necessity and agency may – and often do – jointly all act in a situation, we may for analysis focus on individual aspects. When we do so, we can see that observed regularities that create consistent, reliably observable patterns — e.g. the sun rises in the east each morning, water boils at seal level on Earth at 100 °C — are the signposts of mechanical necessity; and will thus exhibit low contingency. Where there is high contingency – e.g. which side of a die is uppermost – the cause is chance (= credibly undirected contingency) or design (= directed contingency). However, when an outcome (a) is sufficiently complex [e.g. for our practical purposes, the degree of contingency is beyond the configuration space set by ~ 500 – 1,000 bits of information storage capacity] and (b) comes from a reasonably narrow and independently specifiable target zone, then we may confidently conclude – based on massive experience — that (c) the outcome is intelligently designed for a purpose. A common example is a sufficiently long, ASCII text blog comment:where such a comment uses more than 72 – 143 characters, it is sufficiently long to have more than 10^150 – 10^301 possible configurations, i.e. that of 500 – 1,000 bits,and is complex in the universal probability bound [UPB] sense. It is also independently functionally specified as contextually and grammatically meaningful text in English, not the gobbledygook created by – by far and away — most cases of random typing or electrical noise: fghqwirt79wyfwhcqw9pfy79. So, we all confidently and routinely infer to design, not chance. So, when we see the DNA strands for life, ranging from 100 – 500,000 to over 3 – 4 billion functionally specific 4-state DNA elements [and since 100,000 bases has a configuration space of about 9.98 * 10^60,205], we need a very good reason indeed to reject design as its best explanation; not a mere dismissive assertion or the imposed assumption of evolutionary materialism under the color of “science.”
That is, the earlier, simplified flowchart (note how they often come from popular contexts . . . ) implicitly is looking at a specific aspect of an object or phenomenon; serving to highlight the significance of complex [often, functionally] specified information as a reliable sign of intelligence. That focus on aspects, and the specific investigatory response to those aspects is what I have made explicit in my own more extensive flowchart and discussion. (The f/c and discussion I directed your attention to and which you seem to have little or no intention of addressing.) I will now also remind you (and onlookers) by further excerpting 85, on how science routinely analyses phenomena by aspects and in so doing routinely uses the self same explanatory filter, i.e. the objection you are making is a matter of selective hyperskepticism:
[in information theory] we routinely distinguish meaningful signal from corrupting noise, and reliably identify which is which to the point where signal to noise ratio plays a vital role in comms and information theory. Also, in lab work or observational studies, we routinely distinguish the natural law based quantity being measured from the scatter of error, and the inaccuracies of bias up to and including the notorious personal equation of astronomical observation. That is . . . isolating aspects [of phenomena or objects] for scientific observation and analysis is not a novelty or an unusual practice. Indeed, it is routinely embedded in just about any experimental field of science that makes actual measurements.
In short, as I pointed out yesterday, the explanatory filter (including the issue of focussing analytical attention on relevant aspects) is deeply embedded in the routine praxis of science, across many disciplines. Instead, sadly, you hastened to set up and knock over a convenient strawman caricature. But, just as we differentiate the lawlike pattern in the graph of an experiential result from the scatter caused by errors [e.g. why one often uses least squares analysis], we have every right to isolate how chance, mechanical necessity and intelligent action contribute to different aspects of a situation, then assess the overall phenomenon in light of the diverse factors at work. So, kindly, deal with serious issues on their serious merits and in light of relevant evidence, next time. 2] 89: Onlookers, observe how hard KF dances around the fact that the only empirically known source of CSI did NOT have anything to do with the OOL. Furthermore, the only empirically known intelligence is not capable of originating life, at least as yet. Now, of course this is yet another unfortunate strawman set up and knocked over, here led away to by a red herring. Above, I focussed on certain specific aspects of cell based life, as can be seen in action in the video that you and your ilk are ever so patently eager NOT to deal with. Namely, the digital coded data storage and step by step, algorithmic information processing based on that data, to make proteins. In this aspect of the life of the cell, we see codes, programs, algorithms, and the like at work. The only known, empirically credible source of such is: intelligence. Indeed, so strong is this inference to empirically supported best explanation, that we have every right to view such FSCI as a reliable sign of intelligence, and to infer from its presence in any setting to the action of an authoring intelligence. (Onlookers, observe carefully how for years at UD no-one has been able to provide a good counter-example in which we observe FSCI emerging from undirected chance + mechanical necessity.) So, FSCI is empirical evidence of intelligence in action, whether we directly observe that intelligence or not. (And as the discussion on black holes etc in recent days underscored, a LOT of science is routinely about inferences to things that we do not observe directly. And, conveniently selective hyperskepticism is a fallacy.) In addition, the only other main source of highly contingent phenomena, chance, is not credibly capable of spontaneously originating such on the gamut of our observed cosmos. The third main category of causal factor, mechanical necessity tracing to the four basic forces -- strong and weak nuclear, electromagnetism and gravitational -- is characterised by lawlike regularity and predictability, hence the term natural law. Not by high contingency. (Indeed, if elements on a string are produced by forces of necessity, then they cannot take the different states and configurations required to convey information. A one key keyboard that always types AAAAAAAAAAAAA . . . would be useless compared to our familiar QWERTY keyboard. Contrast the polymerisation of nylon and the step by step algorithm-controlled assembly of the not too dissimilar proteins in a ribosome. Then factor in how such proteins function based on their specific algorithmically controlled chaining.) Moreover, As I have noted above and elsewhere, there is no good reason for us to conclude that we exhaust the list of existing or possible language- using, algorithm- designing, engineering intelligences. So, we have every good reason to understand that such FSCI is an empirically reliable sign of intelligence. Therefore we have quite good reason to infer that intelligence predates cell based life, and in fact made it. ____________ GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 14, 2010
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Aleta, to put "my personal" ID position more clearly; I know for 100% certainty that a "conscious" intelligence can generate functional information. In fact I am doing it right at this moment, though you may rightly debate as to its quality. Yet, in all of science we have ZERO instances of material processes ever generating ANY functional information whatsoever, much less the stunningly complex overlapping multi-tiered layers of functional information we find embedded in the genomes of life. What's more is that we find "functional transcendent information" (mathematics) embedded into the foundation of the universe itself, telling the "uncertain" material particles exactly how to behave. Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe. Galileo Galilei The Underlying Mathematical Foundation Of The Universe -Walter Bradley - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4491491 The Five Foundational Equations of the Universe and Brief Descriptions of Each: http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfNDdnc3E4bmhkZg&hl=en Finely Tuned Big Bang, Elvis In The Multiverse, and the Schroedinger Equation - Granville Sewell - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4233012 --------------- From where do these equations of transcendent functional information arise since they precede all of what we know to be of material reality and indeed they even exercise non-varying dominion of the "uncertain" material reality? Thus the question Aleta that really needs to be addressed is this, Does consciousness arise from a material basis or does it precede it? In this following experiment the answer is consciousness must precede it: Delayed choice quantum eraser http://onemorebrown.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/god-vs-the-delayed-choice-quantum-eraser/ of note; Consciousness must be INFORMED with local certainty to cause the wave to become a particle. We know from the Double Slit Experiment, with delayed erasure, that the simple fact of a detector being present is NOT sufficient to explain the wave collapse. If the detector results are erased after detection but before conscious analysis we see the wave form result instead of the particle result. This clearly establishes the centrality of consciousness to the whole experiment. i.e. The clear implication from the experiment is that consciousness is primary, and detection secondary, to the collapse of the wave function to a 3-D particle. Consciousness must precede 3-Dimensional material reality! -------------- Aleta you stated the "intelligence must come from life" and this is certainly true, but it does not follow that life must come from 3-D material particles. Consciousness, Intelligence, and Life all must in fact have their origination in the "primary cause" that is found for the wave function's collapse to its "uncertain" 3-D particle state.bornagain77_{May 14, 2010
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re warehuff @ 89: Good points. To put the issue in summary form: IDists believe that life came from intelligence, and I (and many others) believe that intelligence came from life. Using what humans can do as an argument for what might have happened 4 billion years ago when in fact nothing at all humanlike was there, and humans can't do what happened then, is a false analogy and has cause and effect backwards.Aleta_{May 14, 2010
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warehuff further notes on uncertainty: I would like to stress to you that even the exact radius of an electron is "uncertain. PhysForum Science Excerpt: "I heard from one of my professors that we are unable to measure the radius of the electron. Is this true? The honest answer would be, nobody knows yet. The current knowledge is that the electron seems to be a 'point particle' and has refused to show any signs of internal structure in all measurements. We have an upper limit on the radius of the electron, set by experiment, but that's about it. By our current knowledge, it is an elementary particle with no internal structure, and thus no 'size'." http://lofi.forum.physorg.com/Electron_12969.html Diameter, Radius of an Electron Excerpt: Although scientists have been studying electrons for quite a while, the exact diameter of an electron is unknown. According to Malcolm H. Mac Gregor, "The electron is a point-like particle-that is, a particle with no measurable dimensions, at least within the limitations of present-day instrumentation." http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/DannyDonohue.shtml --------------- Uncertainty Principle - The "Non-Particle" Basis Of Reality - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4109172bornagain77_{May 14, 2010
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warehuff, on further thought I find you have said some very wrong things. for instance you state: "please tell us how Dr. Quantum could measure the position of an electron (it’s right here, going through this slit) without simultaneously destroying the wave information in that same electron." So warehuff please tell us how anyone can know the certainty of "it's right here going through the slit" when,,,, The Uncertainty Principle One striking aspect of the difference between classical and quantum physics is that whereas classical mechanics presupposes that exact simultaneous values can be assigned to all physical quantities, quantum mechanics denies this possibility, the prime example being the position and momentum of a particle. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-uncertainty/ You also made a mistake in saying the information was destroyed in the wave function collapse, whereas the correct thing to say is that the wave function merely collapsed to a "uncertain" 3-D state and may be regained upon "non-observation". i.e. the only thing in question is the 3-D particles themselves. i.e. do they really exist.bornagain77_{May 14, 2010
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