Science and Freethinking

_{Gil Dodgen

September 23, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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Everyone has a religion, a raison d’être, and mine was once Dawkins’. I had the same disdain for people of faith that he does, only I could have put him to shame with the power and passion of my argumentation.

But something happened. As a result of my equally passionate love of science, logic, and reason, I realized that I had been conned. The creation story of my atheistic, materialistic religion suddenly made no sense.

This sent a shock wave through both my mind and my soul. Could it be that I’m not just the result of random errors filtered by natural selection? Am I just the product of the mindless, materialistic processes that “only legitimate scientists” all agree produced me? Does my life have any ultimate purpose or meaning? Am I just a meat-machine with no other purpose than to propagate my “selfish genes”?

Ever since I was a child I thought about such things, but I put my blind faith in the “scientists” who taught me that all my concerns were irrelevant, that science had explained, or would eventually explain, everything in purely materialistic terms.

But I’m a freethinker, a legitimate scientist. I follow the evidence wherever it leads. And the evidence suggests that the universe and living systems are the product of an astronomically powerful creative intelligence.

Comments

"If you want to know whether, you need to know how." Not necessarily. E.g. if you have locked a room with a 10 digit lock and find it unlocked, to deduce that it was unlocked by someone intelligent you do not have to know how they did it. Evolution rests upon the hypothesis that the door unlocked itself.Eugene S_{October 7, 2011
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It isn't nonsense. What is (IMO) nonsense, is this:
If someone examines the site of a fire to determine whether arson was committed, must that same person identify the arsonist, and his parents, all the way back to a designer or some cell?
That same person need not identify the arsonist, but must, beyond all reasonable doubt, demonstrate that the fire was deliberately started by a human being. In order to do so, a clear sequence of causal mechanisms must be established - what was the accelerant? Where was it poured? What ignited the fire? Could these patterns be explained by other causes? Did any human being have access to the materials, have any motive, have any opportunity? If so, was that human being able bodied, and able to carry out the alleged process? And that is crucial. You cannot (indeed you must not) conclude that a fire is due to arson without identifying the actual mechanisms by which the fire was started. In the case of ID, no such mechanism is ever advanced (apart from "front-loading" which is perfectly testable, but no-one seems to want to test it, and even then, no mechanism is ever, to my knowledge, advanced about how that first front-loaded genome was instantiated in molecular form within a viable cell). We are left to accept that some agent, using unknown physical means, created living things, continually directly adjusted (unless we go for front-loading) genomes so that useful variants would be created, perhaps adjusted the environment so that certain complex traits would be selected, made sure that what appears to us as random drift favoured certain variants without impacting on the statistics, and was itself (the intelligent agent) either complex but not designed, or not complex, yet able to do these things with neither tools nor brain at its disposal. Simply sitting back and saying: hmm, it looks designed so there must have been a designer, no we don't know who the designer was, and how s/he did it is irrelevant to determining whether any designer did so, certainly wouldn't (or shouldn't) stand up in a court of law. If you want to know whether, you need to know how, and if you want to know how, you are going to need to speculate about who. If the fire was accelerated with the contents of a large drum of gasoline, then you can probably rule out people too puny to move such a thing. How were those first biological molecules moved into position, and what physical characteristics must the agent who did so have possessed? What evidence do we have that might shed light on these questions? And if we have none, how can ID claim to be "science"?Elizabeth Liddle_{October 7, 2011
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Elizabeth: 2) Can you explain how a conscious intelligent being could be also simple? Are you arguing that intelligence requires no complex physical substrate? If so, what is your basis for this assertion? In my model, which has also been the model of many thinkers, and philosophers, in the history of human thought, consciousness is in essence transcendental and simple. Its interface, that allow it to interact with the outer world, is often complex, at least in humans. Yes, I am arguing that consciusness and intelligence, in pure form, do not necessarily require any complex physical substrate. Maybe no physical substrate at all. The basis for that assertion is that cosnciousness exists, and is in no way explained by its physical interface. IOWs strong AI is a gross falsity. In fact, to re-use (with variance!) an argument I frequently see here: All examples of intelligent designers we know of are complex biological organisms. Therefore the intelligent designer of living things must have been a complex biological organism. What is wrong with this argument? It is an argument that can be made, but that is based on a series of assumptions which are, IMO, evidently false. The worst assumptions are those about human cosnciousness. One thing is to say that in humans design is certainly accomplished using a physical interface. Another thing is to say that conscious intelligent representations, the basis for design, are explained by the physical interface. If consciousness is not explained by the physical interface, either complex or not, then it must be accepted as an independent principle in our map of reality. If that is the case, we have no reason to beleive in advance that consciousness always requires a physical interface. Human have believed for millennia, basing their belief on both reason and experience, that consciousness exists independently of the physical interface. I certainly do believe that. There is nothing in all our knowledge that can falsify the "transcendental subject - physical interface" model. Indeed, it is the best explanation we have for our empirical experience of conscious events. It is rather obvious that ID infers the existence of a designer for biological information, but it is not likely that the designer is a human being. While the designer has to have conscious, intelligent, purposeful representation to design things, there is no reason that those representations must necessarily be implemented through a complex physical interface, like in humans.gpuccio_{October 7, 2011
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Natural selection is an oxymoron as nature doesn't select and as a matter of fact NS is just a result of three processes- differential reproduction due to heritable random variation. Not only that ALL observations and experiences demonstrate that natural selection leads to a wobbling stability: Chapter IV of prominent geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti's book Why is a Fly Not a Horse? is titled "Wobbling Stability". In that chapter he discusses what I have been talking about in other threads- that populations oscillate. The following is what he has to say which is based on thorough scientific investigation:
Sexuality has brought joy to the world, to the world of the wild beasts, and to the world of flowers, but it has brought an end to evolution. In the lineages of living beings, whenever absent-minded Venus has taken the upper hand, forms have forgotten to make progress. It is only the husbandman that has improved strains, and he has done so by bullying, enslaving, and segregating. All these methods, of course, have made for sad, alienated animals, but they have not resulted in new species. Left to themselves, domesticated breeds would either die out or revert to the wild state—scarcely a commendable model for nature’s progress.
(snip a few paragraphs on peppered moths)
Natural Selection, which indeed occurs in nature (as Bishop Wilberforce, too, was perfectly aware), mainly has the effect of maintaining equilibrium and stability. It eliminates all those that dare depart from the type—the eccentrics and the adventurers and the marginal sort. It is ever adjusting populations, but it does so in each case by bringing them back to the norm. We read in the textbooks that, when environmental conditions change, the selection process may produce a shift in a population’s mean values, by a process known as adaptation. If the climate turns very cold, the cold-adapted beings are favored relative to others.; if it becomes windy, the wind blows away those that are most exposed; if an illness breaks out, those in questionable health will be lost. But all these artful guiles serve their purpose only until the clouds blow away. The species, in fact, is an organic entity, a typical form, which may deviate only to return to the furrow of its destiny; it may wander from the band only to find its proper place by returning to the gang.

Everything that disassembles, upsets proportions or becomes distorted in any way is sooner or later brought back to the type. There has been a tendency to confuse fleeting adjustments with grand destinies, minor shrewdness with signs of the times.

It is true that species may lose something on the way—the mole its eyes, say, and the succulent plant its leaves, never to recover them again. But here we are dealing with unhappy, mutilated species, at the margins of their area of distribution—the extreme and the specialized. These are species with no future; they are not pioneers, but prisoners in nature’s penitentiary.
The point being, that IF it were left to direct scientific observations, evolutionism fails miserably and all that is left is wishful thinking supported by speculation.Joseph_{October 7, 2011
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Elizabeth,
Therefore the intelligent designer of living things must have been a complex biological organism.
We also observe that intelligent designers are not restricted to designing after their own likeness. A person can design a car. It doesn't take an intelligent car to do it. The property of intelligence is relevant, not the physical makeup of the agents. How often do physicists look for some particle or mass because certain properties seem to indicate it, while ruling out any known particle or mass?ScottAndrews_{October 7, 2011
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GP cannot fathom that natural selection is far more powerful than artificial selection, at least in terms of adapting populations to environmental change. Artificial selection monitors one, or a few, phenotypic features, while natural selection monitors all possible changes and all possible ways in which fitness might change. Using the Adam Smith metaphor, a command economy optimizes the production of buggy whips while the market economy is transitioning to automobiles. Directed evolution can only optimize what it can foresee. Natural selection moves in unforeseen directions.Petrushka_{October 7, 2011
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From a scientific perspective, this disbelief is also well warranted.
Well, for a start, in science we postulate, we do not "believe". Our postulates may be supported, or infirmed by data. As of now, we postulate that the earliest known organisms were descended from still earlier ones. The alternative is to postulate that they were created ex nihilo, fully formed. The second is untestable, and the only grounds for "believing" it, must be religious, or, at best, of arguing from lack of an alternative model. But there is, in fact, an alternative model, which is the first. It lacks detail, right now, and is only partially supported by data, but there are some promising leads. This means that scientists do not "believe" that the earliest known organisms were descended from earlier simpler ones, but see no reason to postulate ex nihilo creation (for which there is no evidence at all) when some promising models, based on known mechanisms, are to hand. Instead, they simply say: "we do not know how the earliest known organisms came to be, but we have some promising leads that suggest that they evolved from simpler organisms and proto-organisms, possibly by a pathway something like this (insert OOL theory of your choice)". In other words, neither belief nor disbelief is scientifically warranted, but nor is belief in ex nihilo creations. Disbelief in ex nihilo creation is somewhat warranted, or, at least, skepticism is well-grounded, because absolutely no mechanism is ever postulated for such an act by any agent, intelligent or otherwise.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 7, 2011
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Elizabet: One at a time: 1) Yes, of course there is “intelligent selection”, gpuccio, dmullenix already said that. But the “creative” variance occurred by chance, the very thing ID people claim cannot happen. Completely wrong, I am afraid. ID says that a random system alone cannot generate dFSCI. ID says also that a random syste + NS cannot generate the kind of dFSCI we observe, for instance, in basci protein domains, unless that information can be shown to be deconstructable in simple, naturally selectable steps. Which is not. It is obvious that RV + intelligent selection can generate dFSCI. I will make the most trivial example: Dawkin's "Weasel". It is very easy to generate random variation, select the correct variation when it happens by comparing it to the known final result, fix it, and go on with further variation. The simple point is, the designer has to know the final output in advance, and input it in the system. It's not exactly as powerful as writing directly the output, but it is very powerful just the same. Another, more indirect way to add information to a system is to measure for the specific function one wants to develop. In that way, the function is neasured and recognized, even at very low levels that would never be useful in a biological context, even if in itslef it could never give a reproductive advantage. It is intelligently selected and "rewarded" by the intervention of the designer, That's how bottom up protein engineering is done. It is a powerful method of design, too. None of that is darwinian evolution. None of that is RV + NS. All of that is design. That the Intelligent Design input into evolution is at the level of deciding who breeds and who doesn’t? I have argued many times here that one of the possible ways design is implemented in ntural history if through intelligent selection of RV. There are many ways that could happen.gpuccio_{October 7, 2011
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Dmullenix, Strike this. ~~It’s reasonable to expect that you should be able to accurately express what ID is, even if you disagree with it.~~ It doesn't apply and I meant to delete it.ScottAndrews_{October 7, 2011
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Dmullenix, It's reasonable to expect that you should be able to accurately express what ID is, even if you disagree with it. Therefore your Intelligent Designer must be designed. Would you like to tell us about that? Why does this nonsense persist? If someone examines the site of a fire to determine whether arson was committed, must that same person identify the arsonist, and his parents, all the way back to a designer or some cell? What's telling is that you choose to ask such questions in this case but not in that case. You clearly understand that every cause need not be explained by a deep regression of causes, and yet you ignore it when it suits you. Please explain why determining design requires identifying a designer while determining arson does not require identifying an arsonist.ScottAndrews_{October 7, 2011
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Elizabeth, DMullenix wanted to see Him. If s/he does not want to take my word for it, there is a way to check. And though it is extremely hard, it is possible. In this particular case, it is not science, it is faith. But science can never contradict faith, if both are correct. What is sometimes meant by science is, unfortunately, far from it. For faith you need credible revelation, for science, in a sense, too, with the only difference that scientific revelation is irrespective of the state of your heart, as it were. Anyone with the same tools and enough skill can reproduce your experiments and prove/disprove the correctness of your theory. But it does require some level of edication and skill. In spiritual life, it is the same. Millenia of mankind testify to the simple truth that in order to prove/disprove the validity of someone else's spiritual experience, your "wireless" (your heart, i.e. the centre of your being) also has to function correctly. Unfortunately, human nature is deeply marred by sin and that makes it a lot harder for us. In Orthodox Christianity spiritual life is health-checked against the experience of the previous generations via Ecclesiastical Tradition. I hope you can see similarities. I think it was Blaise Pascal who said that the final word of science is the first word of the Bible. With all my respect to your opinions, I would definitely agree with Pascal on this point. When I say I don't believe in the power of evolution to account for the diversity of life, I am speaking not only from my religious standpoint. From a scientific perspective, this disbelief is also well warranted.Eugene S_{October 7, 2011
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Yes, of course there is "intelligent selection", gpuccio, dmullenix already said that. But the "creative" variance occurred by chance, the very thing ID people claim cannot happen. The features that were selected were not designed by anyone. Unless you are claiming that the hazards that befall evolving populations are intelligently designed? That the Intelligent Design input into evolution is at the level of deciding who breeds and who doesn't? That seems rather Jovian to me!Elizabeth Liddle_{October 7, 2011
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In fact, to re-use (with variance!) an argument I frequently see here: All examples of intelligent designers we know of are complex biological organisms. Therefore the intelligent designer of living things must have been a complex biological organism. What is wrong with this argument?Elizabeth Liddle_{October 7, 2011
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gpuccio:
The only requirement for an intelligent designer is that he is a conscious intelligent being. That in no way implies that he must be complex, least of all designed. You are making gratuitous assumptions, based on your personal phylosophy of reality.
Can you explain how a conscious intelligent being could be also simple? Are you arguing that intelligence requires no complex physical substrate? If so, what is your basis for this assertion?Elizabeth Liddle_{October 7, 2011
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dmullenix: I don't want to invade KF's discussion with you, but what you affirm ir really ridiculous. It’s CSI and it’s produced by Darwinian Evolution. You must be kidding! I quote from the site you refer to: "So how was this dramatic transformation accomplished? Domesticated maize was the result of repeated interaction with humans within the last 10,000 years. Early farmers selected and planted seed from those plants with beneficial traits, while eliminating seed from those plants with more undesirable features. As a result, alleles at those genes controlling favored traits increased in frequency within the population, while more “deleterious” alleles decreased. Such selection was made possible due to the tremendous natural variation present in Z. mays ssp. parviglumis (nucleotide diversity at silent sites has been measured as high as 2 to 3%)." Where is darwinian evolution here? Where is RV plus NS? What we have here is intelligent selection (made by humans) of already existing information. Intelligent selection is design. You say: "Yes, but they didn’t chanage any DNA." And so? One of the best ways an intelligent designer can act is by intelligent selection repeatedly applied to random new variation, or better still to already existing variation. That's design all the way. Darwinian evolution has nothing to do with that.gpuccio_{October 7, 2011
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That's nice, Eugene, but it isn't really a response to dmullenix's post. On the one hand, you say that you don't believe that there could have been a simpler ancestor to the oldest known organisms because you haven't seen evidence of one. On hand you say that you do believe in the Intelligent Designer because you look everywhere in nature and see His works. Why is that different from someone who says they look everywhere in nature, sees that living things are descended from earlier things with modification, and extrapolates that the earliest known things must have been descended from still earlier things with modification? In fact it is different, because we have actual testable hypotheses about those still earlier things, whereas I know of no testable hypothesis arising from the theory that the earliest known living things were created ex nihilo by Christ.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 7, 2011
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dmullenix: Therefore your Intelligent Designer must be designed. Would you like to tell us about that? Wrong. The only requirement for an intelligent designer is that he is a conscious intelligent being. That in no way implies that he must be complex, least of all designed. You are making gratuitous assumptions, based on your personal phylosophy of reality. Any possible Intelligent Designer would be almost infinitely more complex and thus that much less likely to exist than a First Self Replicator. Again, wrong and unsupported. Mere reductionist faith. We can’t show you the First Self Replicator That's for sure! but we don’t see any trace of your Intelligent Designer either Wrong. dFSCI in biological information is a very strong "trace" of the intelligent designer, an empirical and scientific trace. Please show Him, in nature or in the lab. The presence of dFSCI in biological information is evidence for a designer, exactly as the proteome is evidence for LUCA. Both are scientific inferences. Please show also how He came to be. that is not requested to infer that a designer designed biological information. Anyway, if and when I find scientific evidence about that specific point, I will inform you. I am not a darwinist, and therefore I do not discuss here issues about which I have no scientific evidence. We won’t require the steps to be natural, but we want to know what they were and what evidence you have for them. I don't have any scientific evidence of how the designer came to be, and therefore, consistently, I do nmot discuss that point. I have scientific evidence of how biological information came to be (through a design process), and therefore, consistently, I do discuss that point. If you can’t show Him, but insist that He exists anyway then excuse us if we also insist that the nearly infinitely more likely First Self Replicator existed. Your First Self Replicator is a supposed physical entity, and therefore it can certainly be produced in the lab, if it really can exist. Moreover, you all insist that it should be simple, therefore why is it so difficult to produce one in the lab? My designer is a conscious intelligent being, of whom I do not know anything, except that: a) he must be a conscious intelligent being, otherwise he could not generate dFSCI b) he must have at least some propertie, derived from observation of the things designed (biological information). That is a field completely open to scientific inquiry. But the existence of my designer is a scientific inference based on facts. You have no fact upon which to base your First Self Replicator.gpuccio_{October 7, 2011
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DMullenix, Look at an icon of Christ and you will see Him. Cf. the Gospel of John 14:8-9. Look everywhere in nature and you will see His works. But in oder to be able to see one has to renounce his old self and the insane "wisdom of the wise", to become pure in heart.Eugene S_{October 7, 2011
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KF: On p 1 at 3+ above, DM said: But evolution produces CSI T%his is a typical example of 6the rhetoric of confident assertion driven by a priori evolutionary materialism. Translated: we “know” it all happened by evo, so macro-evo mechanisms [presumably Darwinist ones] MUST be capable of producing CSI. Therefore, we see the triumphalistic conclusion and declaration: “But evolution produces CSI.” No, evolution producing CSI is well-settled observation. An excellent example is the evolution of teosinte, which is a weedy grass, into modern maize (corn). Google teosinte maize evolution for plenty of pictures. Here's one of both the start and end products: http://www.maizegenetics.net/domestication-genetics This all happened within the last ten thousand years. Because teosinte is still alive and archeologists have uncovered actual samples of the intermediate products, we have a very good record of teosinte's evolution into maize, complete with DNA samples of the start, end, and all intermediate steps. In fact, a group is using genetic engineering to re-manufacture those intermediate steps and we will soon have actual living examples of teosinte, corn and every single step between them. Some of the CSI that was developed while teosinte evolved into maize includes going from the 6 to 12 kernels in two rows of teosinte to the hundreds of kernels in 20 or more rows of maize, going from a tooth shatteringly hard seed coat of teosinte to the soft seed coat of maize and developing the corn cob. Look at the pictures in my cite for details. Let's see - Complex Specified Information. New Information? No doubt about it and we hve the DNA to prove it. Specification? Not even you can deny that the specification for maize is radically different from that of teosinte, but if you try, I'm going to invite you to chew on some teosinte while I eat some corn and we'll see who goes to the dentist. Complex? You might quibble that only about fifteen mutations (IIRC) were necessary to turn teosinte into maize, but if you do everybody is going to laugh at you. Fifteen very useful mutations in less than ten thousand years is better than one very useful mutation every thousand years. Say it's only one. Then in a million years, you've got 1000 new, useful, mutations at two bits of information each. What was that limit you were talking about? Around 500 bits, wasn't it? "Oh, but people were involved!" Yes, but they didn't chanage any DNA. They just spotted new plants that were softer / bigger / tastier or otherwise improved because of their new mutations and planted them instead of the old varieties. This speeded things up ten thousand fold, but all of the Information was produced by mutations. It's CSI and it's produced by Darwinian Evolution.dmullenix_{October 7, 2011
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The ID argument is that anything with enough complex functional information is empirically found to be designed, and therefore design is the best explanation for complex functional information. Therefore your Intelligent Designer must be designed. Would you like to tell us about that? The simplest living beings we know of are bacteria and archea. That is the fact. You say there may be simpler biological replicating beings? No problem. Show them. In nature, or in the lab. Show them. This is science, after all. And after having shown them, please show also how they became the bacteria and archea that we know, that exist, that have to be explained. Step by step, by naturally selectable, reasonably simple random variation. Any possible Intelligent Designer would be almost infinitely more complex and thus that much less likely to exist than a First Self Replicator. We can't show you the First Self Replicator, but we don't see any trace of your Intelligent Designer either. Please show Him, in nature or in the lab. Please show also how He came to be. We won't require the steps to be natural, but we want to know what they were and what evidence you have for them. If you can't show Him, but insist that He exists anyway then excuse us if we also insist that the nearly infinitely more likely First Self Replicator existed.dmullenix_{October 7, 2011
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Hi Dr Liddle, My position is that the information contained within the genome exemplifies the same physical entailments as any other form of recorded information known to exist. These are entirely observable entailments, which include two separate but coordinated arrangements of matter, a physical effect, and the dynamic relationship that exists between these three. The observations surrounding these entailments are logically coherent, and they require a mechanism in order to come into being. That mechanism will need the capacity to cause an arrangement of matter to arise which can serve as a physical representation; it will also need to cause a second arrangement of matter to arise and serve as a physical protocol. These two objects acting together will need to cause a physical effect, and the entire system will need to operate under the well-defined dynamics which are observed to exist. Our disagreement is/should be about what mechanism has these capacities.Upright BiPed_{October 6, 2011
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Elizabeth: But as I understand it, the ID argument is that we can positively infer from the complexity of what is purported to be the simplest possible Darwinian-capable life form that it must have been designed. This inference rests the unsupported assumption that the simplest Darwinian capable life-form was, indeed, complex. The ID argument is that anything with enough complex functional information is empirically found to be designed, and therefore design is the best explanation for complex functional information. Obviously, alternative explanations can always be considered. The ID inference is an inference, not a logical deduction. The point is neither to "rule out" design nor to "rule out" darwinism. Science is not about ruling out, but about giving credible explanations. Design is a credible explanation of complex functional information. Darwinism is not. Nor is any alternative explanation available. Therefore, design is the best scientific explanation available. It's as simple as that. ID is not making any assumption about "the simplest Darwinian capable life-form". ID, being empirical, reasons with what we know: the simples observed life forms. It's darwinism that is constantly making vast assumptions about "simple darwinian life forms" which have never been observed, neither in nature nor in the lab (and, I am sure, never will, for the simple reason that they don't exist). That's why I say that all OOL theories are fairy tales: myths, living only in the remote hope that the unicorn will some day be observed. Well, I would rather bet on the unicorn, than on "simple darwinian life forms"! The simplest living beings we know of are bacteria and archea. That is the fact. You say there may be simpler biological replicating beings? No problem. Show them. In nature, or in the lab. Show them. This is science, after all. And after having shown them, please show also how they became the bacteria and archea that we know, that exist, that have to be explained. Step by step, by naturally selectable, reasonably simple random variation. But nobody can do that, obviously, because nobody can show what does not exists and cannot exist. Those impossible things are found in imagination, in myths, and in darwinian theory, not in real life. Simple darwinian capable life forms do not exist, not any more than conscious computers, the pet toy of the other big lie, strong AI. But there is more. ID does not need the OOL problem to falsify darwinism. Darwinism is falsified by any single complex protein that we observe in the biological world. Take isoleucyl-tRNA synthetase, for instance. Just to speak of something that exists. One of the famous 20 proteins. In E. coli. it is made of 938 aminoacids. 938! Now, I am not asking, for now, if it "evolved" in "simple darwinian capable life forms", whatever they may be, or in normal bacteria which. for some strange reason, lacked it and went along with only 19 aminoacids in their proteins. Let's skip that part, for now. I just ask: how were those 938 aminoacids found and arrnaged in a complex, functional protein which has more or less remained the same for the remaining 4 billion years? Withe the same structure and function, and a primary sequence that, today, still shows a striking similarity with the human form? (220 identities, 27%, and 373 positives, 47%, in a very simple alignment of 818 AAs, that anyone can make on pubmed protein blast page). So, how did that single protein emerge? Has darwinism any credible model for that? No. That is not necessarily OOL stuff. We have thousands of independent basic protein domains, each of them emerged at different times in natural history, each of them completely non explained by any darwinian model. No, ID does not need OOL to falsify darwinism. OOL is certainly the biggest problem, but any single complex protein is a problem big enough.gpuccio_{October 6, 2011
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60.1.2.1.5 Elizabeth Liddle I hope you and GPuccio will excuse my intervention. You are saying: "This inference rests the unsupported assumption that the simplest Darwinian capable life-form was, indeed, complex." First of all, what do you mean by "complex"? Do you have any metrics in mind when you say "complex"? On another point, I am afraid what you think ID claims is wrong. ID claims that all known life forms are complex and specific. Complexity alone will go through the ID explanatory filter and is therefore insufficient for design inference. Failure to include specificity leads to misinterpretations about ID claims. Further, I can conjecture that even if we assume that protolife was simpler than what we have now (we have no evidence it was, to my limited knowledge), this protolife will still have to be complex and specific enough to enable replication and metabolism. You are right in saying that until such times as we have solid evidence we can only conjecture about possible retrodictions. But that does not invalidate ID reasoning.Eugene S_{October 6, 2011
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Hi gpuccio! Thank you for your response. You are of course right that we do not, as yet, have a compelling complete model of the transition from non-replicating chemicals to the earliest DNA-using life forms. If the ID argument was simply that science does not know how this was achieved, and so we cannot rule out Intelligent agency, I would have no problem with it. But the argument would be trivial, because even if we did have a good model, it wouldn't rule out Intelligent agency as well. But as I understand it, the ID argument is that we can positively infer from the complexity of what is purported to be the simplest possible Darwinian-capable life form that it must have been designed. This inference rests the unsupported assumption that the simplest Darwinian capable life-form was, indeed, complex. But we do not know this, either, yet repeatedly I see it argued here that the Darwinian model fails because the simplest-Darwinian-capable life-form was too complex to have arisen by chance. This begs the central question. The central question is not: "how could the first complex cells with ribozomes etc have come about by chance?" (answer: they couldn't), but: "what simpler Darwinian-capable proto-organisms might be ancestral to those complex early cells, and could have come about by, if not chance, physico-chemical interactions in the conditions prevailing on early earth?" And the answer is simply that we do not yet know, and may never know, although there are, as I've said, a number of promising-looking hypotheses that make testable (and tested) predictions.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 6, 2011
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Petrushka, "Information processing is a physical process. If it required intervention, computers would not be able to do it." I am really sorry to write this. This is really below standard. Before this post of yours I thought you had a better idea of what information processing meant. Ok, let's start from the beginning. How did computers come about? Spontaneously or did they involve intelligent intervention?Eugene S_{October 6, 2011
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Upright BiPed: I must apologise for not getting to the end of your post earlier - I must have hit submit before I intended to. I think we need to get away from argument-by-definition (as we seem to use words in such different ways) and down to basics. My position is simply that the simplest self-replicator capable of replicating with heritable variance in reproductive success was probably simple enough that it can be explained by physics and chemistry. I don't know that this is the case - there is, as we speak, no complete and compelling OOL model, although there are some promising bits of one. Your position appears to be (and I may be wrong) that there is something intrinsic to the nature of "information" that is unevolvable, is unlikely to occur by "Chance or Necessity" and is a prerequisite for subsequent evolution. Is this a fair statement of our differences? I'll be back later to respond to your post in more detail. Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{October 6, 2011
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Elizabeth: I respect your opinion, but obviously my motivated conviction is that practically nothing can really evolve by darwinian mechanisms, least of all an arbitrary code. And the real point is: the code, however it "evolved", needs 20 very complex proteins to work, in all known instances in the world. Are you ready to explain how those 20 proteins, each of them hundreds of aminoacids long, "evolved" to make translation of the code possible? And, if you like, how those proteins evolved when the code and translation apparatus to decode it did not even exist? I know, I know: you will say what all darwinists say at that point, that "the code certainly evolved in simpler beings", that "at that time it must certainly work without the 20 proteins", and that "the proteins evolved later", and similar fairy tales without any piece of evidence, or logic, to support them, except for the blind reductionist faith of darwinist and their fanatic need to rule out in principle any design explanation. In the meantime, the facts are facts: 1) The 20 AARS are old proteins, certainly already present in LUCA, almost at the beginning of life on our planet. 2) No translation can be observed without them. 3) They are extremely complex, and obviously tailored to allow a symbolic connection between a nucleotide code and a protein output, according to a specific symbolic code knwon as the genetic code. 4) Science has no credible model about how the code originated. 5) Science has no credible model about how the 20 proteins that make the code work originated. 6) Science has no credible model about how all the rest of the complex structures that make translation and synthesis of any single protein possible (ribosome RNA and proteins, transcription apparatus, and so on). Facts. But who cares about facts anymore?gpuccio_{October 6, 2011
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oops garbled edit: "My point is that there is nothing intrinsic to an arbitrary code that renders it incapable of evolving by Darwinian mechanisms."Elizabeth Liddle_{October 6, 2011
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Yes, gpuccio, I know he is right, and so were you. There is no dispute about this. But that means that his argument has shifted from "information cannot be created by Chance and Necessity" to "the DNA coding system is irreducibly complex". My point is that there is nothing in the intrinsic to an arbitrary code that is renders it incapable of evolving by Darwinian mechanisms.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 6, 2011
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Hello again Dr Liddle,
Yes, my answer does indeed “suggest the source the code”. And if you think that “the simplistic observation that living systems that function will exist longer than ones that don’t” is pointless, then you are missing a very important point!
You are saying that the differential survival of a replicating system is the source of the code which causes the system to exist. But the differential survival of a physical system wouldn’t have happened until the code-driven system itself existed. (Alternatively, you can provide plausible evidence of a non-code-driven system providing inheritance, then point to the cause of a code arising within that system). In any case, differential survival is the result of an adaptive system in a variable environment, and it very obviously requires the system. This was already pointed out to you in my previous post. If something requires something else to exist before it can come into being, then it cannot logically be the cause of the thing it requires – because it doesn’t exist yet. . The point you think I am missing in this is one that schoolchildren get in grade-school biology class. I was one of them. Meanwhile, you’ll need to reformulate your proposal in a way that doesn’t contain this obvious flaw. Perhaps you can describe the properties of the process whereby something that doesn’t exist can cause something to happen.
It is indeed “simplistic” – so simple that it was overlooked for a very long time. But for both Darwin and Wallace, the penny dropped.
Well actually, the thoughts of Wallace have been buried in the cause of selling materialism for the past 150 years. And as for Darwin, you are abusing his theory by wearing it as a skull cap and applying it to scenarios before it even exists as Darwin proposed it. Darwin did not say that he explained the origin of Life, did he? And if you want to separate the origin of Life from the origin of the code, then you’ll need to do more than point at Darwin in 1859. His theory assumes (and subsumes) the code, it doesn’t explain it.
Yes, my explanation is speculative and it’s about “how a code could have arisen” because it addresses the claim that it could not have arisen, except by external intelligent input. We do not know, and may never know, how it did arise, but if we can figure out how it could have arisen by Darwinian processes, than the argument that it could not have so arisen, fails.
Your explanation points to no concrete observations, and it illogically applies Darwin’s theory to origins - prior to the onset of differential survival. It does so under the unquestioned presumption that an adaptive metabolizing replicator can come into existence in the real world without the organization provided by encoded information. Because of this unsupported assumption (supporting the misplaced use of Darwin’s theory) your proposal does not address the claim as you say it does. And it does not directly address the contrary evidence at all (beyond the assertion that it’s wrong) even though you’ve been invited to do so. I was interested in this statement: “but if we can figure out how it could have arisen by Darwinian processes, than the argument that it could not have so arisen, fails”. You are saying that what you call a speculative explanation can overturn substantive observable evidence to the contrary, and I am saying we can toss whatever remains of empiricism out the window. It’s lost its ranking in science - and you haven’t even figured out how “it could have arisen by Darwinian processes”. In a legal scenario, this would be considered the suppression of evidence ;) because that is exactly what it is.
In my prior post (#49), I had provided four physical entailments of recorded information. I described the observation of them as “logically coherent and demonstrable”. That description is explicitly tied to the codons being symbolic representations. You flatly stated that the system is not symbolic.
Well, it isn’t, and I just explained why. A molecule is a physical object, not a symbol. A symbol can be rendered in any medium, and still be the same symbol. A molecule cannot.
This is horribly confused. You say that a molecule (hopefully meaning the sequence of nucleotides in DNA) is a physical object, not a symbol (or contain symbols). But any symbol that we could possibly observe (and share with each other) would have to be a physical object by necessity. How could it be any other way? Therefore being a physical object is hardly an impediment to also being a symbol – we haven’t observed any that aren’t. The remainder of this comment fails as well. You say that a symbol can be “rendered in any medium”, but a molecule can’t. It’s not the molecule that is being rendered Dr Liddle, it’s the symbol. In other words, if we make a symbol out of a block of wood, it can do nothing but remain a block of wood. The fact that it is a symbol extends beyond its physical existence. It’s a symbol because it has a relationship to something else, and is separate from it. Under the correct physical protocol, that relationship can be actualized to its physical effect. As to your remaining comments about the use of the word ‘symbol’, I may have to address them when I have time. I would like to ask you to consider something though. I am using the word “symbol” following Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word: SYMBOL : something that stands for or suggests something else by reason of relationship This is exactly the way I used the term in my post at #49, which I had asked you to address specifically. If your response is confusion over what is being “rendered” when something becomes a symbol, or you make the mistake that something being a physical object can’t also be a symbol, then you have failed to support your objection. If it’s any consolation to you, we can call it whatever you wish. It’s the physical entailments of it that matter.Upright BiPed_{October 5, 2011
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