Lenny Susskind on the Evolution of Physicists

_{William Dembski

July 9, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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PPS: I should clarify. At 115, Rob cites me from 104, without referring to the context in 104 properly, and in alluding to weak argument corrective no 28, he failed to address its substance, which includes the example of a screen-full of functional information [calculated to have over 11 million functional bits], not just snow or random hash.kairosfocus_{July 15, 2009
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PS: In the other thread at 83 I have also documented from the text of the weak argument corrective no 28, how Rob's highly selective cite in 115 above omits highly material immediate context that shows that by "we" I am speaking of any observer capable of looking at a computer screen-full of pixels exhibiting a functional pattern, as an illustration of a general pattern where by 1,000 functional bits shows a threshold where we may confidently infer to intelligent design. Once the clipped out clause is seen in its IMMEDIATE context, the rhetorical force of Rob's argument by citing and shifting context, at 115 above, evaporates.kairosfocus_{July 15, 2009
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Footnote: In the current OOL thread, I responded to Rob's assertions at 115 above (which he also raised there), expanding on the issues that Jerry raised in 116, whch in turn refer back to my comment to Nakashima-san, at 104. Cf remarks at 82 in the current OOL thread. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 15, 2009
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R0b, If you don't like the design inference pertaining to FCSI or CSI then just demonstrate tat nature, operating freely can account for it. IOW griping isn't going to accomplish anything.Joseph_{July 13, 2009
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kairosfocus:
[By contrast we know that intelligence routinely generates such FSCI.]
Who is "we"? It certainly doesn't include me. In the UD FAQ, you refer to "massive evidence" of this, but I see none. It certainly isn't documented anywhere. The determine whether intelligence (I assume you're referring to humans) generates FSCI, you have to take into account the FSCI that exists prior to the design event. Sure, a human can come up with English text of more than 143 characters, but that ability requires a vocabulary stored in a language-processing mind. How do you measure the FSCI in that mind (whether it be pure gray matter or immaterial)? To quote Dembski, "Remember that we are interested in the **generation** of specified complexity and not in its reshuffling." When we lack prerequisite information, we humans fail to find functional targets. The security of passwords and combination locks depends on that fact.R0b_{July 13, 2009
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"Upright BiPed" (#113) wrote: "PaulBurnet makes a startling and comprehensive rebutal of the physical evidence for design in post 107." /sarcasm mode OFF I merely pointed out that (for whatever reason) you had neglected mentioning that the council whose journal Meyer's article was fraudulently posted in had determined that the article was not scientific - thus breaking the chain of causality of subsequent articles depending on it for authenticity as being scientific. I made no claim that this was "a startling and comprehensive rebutal of the physical evidence for design." But if that floats your boat, go for it.PaulBurnett_{July 12, 2009
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PaulBurnet makes a startling and comprehensive rebutal of the physical evidence for design in post 107. Please everyone, please, please read it. - - - - - - - - - Winston, it seems by your post that you have access to the Internet, perhaps I am missing what you are asking. All of the papers are available on-line. Best regards... - - - - - - - - - http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1208958 http://www.culturaleconomics.atfreeweb.com/Anno/Polanyi%20Lifes%20Irreducible%20Structure%20Acience%201968.htm http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/pdf http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=2177 http://www.tbiomed.com/content/4/1/47Upright BiPed_{July 12, 2009
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So the Matrix really does exist. Only the freedom-loving rebels are not the ones who are trying to smash it (the smashers are the ones in charge). Instead, the rebels are persecuted simply for acknowledging its existence.allanius_{July 12, 2009
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PaulBurnett, ------"Again, standard creationist carping about missing intermediates." Standard strawman characterization by evolutionists.Clive Hayden_{July 12, 2009
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PaulBurnett, ------"This has (among other things) the effect of discouraging dissenters from commenting and chasing them away, leaving the survivors congratulating themselves that they must be right, because nobody appears to disagree with them." People that have been put on moderation have been put there for a reason. If you don't like the delay, don't misbehave in the first place and have yourself moderated.Clive Hayden_{July 12, 2009
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Upright BiPed, Seeing as I don't have access to journals at home, do you mind summarizing the evidence in each of those papers you mentioned. Thanks.Winston Macchi_{July 12, 2009
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"Upright BiPed" (#105) asked: "Gee Whizz, Where are all the materialists lining up to tell me how wrong I have it? Possibly one of the reasons is most of us "materialists" get the message "Your comment is awaiting moderation" when we line up to tell me how wrong you are. This imposes a 24-hour to 48-hour (or longer) delay in our responses when we try to participate in the dialog. This has (among other things) the effect of discouraging dissenters from commenting and chasing them away, leaving the survivors congratulating themselves that they must be right, because nobody appears to disagree with them.PaulBurnett_{July 12, 2009
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"Upright BiPed" (#99) wrote: "Then Meyer updated the argument made by Polanyi in the 2007 in the journal of the Biological Society of Washington." And, as I'm sure everybody here already knows, Meyer's article was subsequently disavowed and retracted by the Council of the Biological Society of Washington which said the article did not meet scientific standards. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sternberg_peer_review_controversy "Upright BiPed" - how did you happen to neglect to mention that minor detail in your discussion?PaulBurnett_{July 12, 2009
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Nakashima (#96), in trying to explain macro evolution to Frost, wrote: ">When the common ancestor of dogs, cats, and horses began to diversify millions of years ago..." According to www.timetree.org, the common ancestor of (dogs and cats) and horses lived a bit over 80 million years age. Frost then replied (#97) "...those small steps are called “micro evolution”- everyone knows this. The fossil record is however very deplete of the many intermediates (small steps) that the theory of DE would postulate" Again, standard creationist carping about missing intermediates. Frost, are you continuing to insist that in the absence of every intermediate step in the fossil record, that that alone constitutes proof of supernatural creation of a new species? Have you guys looked at Dr. Kevin Padian's expert witness sworn testimony and slideshow which were part of his appearance at the 2005 Dover Trial? http://ncseweb.org/news/2007/05/meet-padians-critters-001159 clearly explains the actual science of paleontology's answers to your misunderstandings about intermediates and macro evolution.PaulBurnett_{July 12, 2009
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Gee Whizz, Where are all the materialists lining up to tell me how wrong I have it? Why aren't they stepping forward in gleeful self-assurace to answer the empirical challenge made by Abel in 2005 (and again in 2009)? Heck, I thought science was all about being self-correcting...and people just couldn't wait to challege the ruling paradigm with new information. Isn't anyone going to step forward and tell us how a mechanism that operates at 100% uncertainty can organize and coordinate the most complex set of physical events witnessed within the known universe? Isn't someone going plead the case of stereochemistry and such and such?Upright BiPed_{July 12, 2009
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Nakashima-San: RE: I can walk from Tokyo to Hiroshima, but if you take a picture of me at any point along the way, my feet are only a meter or so apart. Big changes are small changes added up over time. You make the error here of assuming linear continuity, rather than addressing the probabilistic resources gap implied by needing to account for functionally specific, complex information on the gamut of our universe. There is a reason why we do not expect to observe all the O2 molecules in the room where you sit to rush to one end, leaving you choking. (And yet, "nothing" bars it from happening save the vastness of the search space and relative narrowness of the target zone.) There is similarly a search space reason why tornadoes hitting hardware stores are not observed to spontaneously build houses. That same fundamentally statistical thermodynamic reason is why it is not credible for still warm ponds to spontaneously originate the functional code based systems and structures of life, and why life forms will not credibly spontaneously form the leaps in organised complexity to form novel body plans, on the same gamut. In short, a search space barrier is a real one. So real that it is the foundation stone of statistical thermodynamics, which grounds the reliability of classical thermodynamics, and the second law in particular. In informational terms, organised, functionally complex information does not spontaneously emerge by lucky noise. (And such is inherently testable: "all" you have to do is try to show such lucky noise giving rise to 143 or more ASCII characters making contextually relevant sense in English. Or, equivalently, show us a DNA strand coding for a 400 aa functional protein that -- per actual observation -- arose by chance processes. [By contrast we know that intelligence routinely generates such FSCI.]) Until those who propose that Darwinian type evolutionary mechanisms have done that or the equivalent in our observation, they have no good grounds for onward claims that such mechanisms are capable of giving rise to novel body plans -- the relevant sense of "macroevolution." GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{July 12, 2009
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Melzer S, Lens F, Gennen J, Vanneste S, Rohde A, Beeckman T. 2008. Flowering-time genes modulate meristem determinacy and growth form in Arabidopsis thaliana. Nature Genetics, published online: 9 November 2008- Art Hunt sez the following:
Melzer et al. constructed double mutants deficient in the expression of these two proteins, with the intent of understanding the physiological significance of interactions between these two proteins, associations discovered using the so-called yeast two-hybrid assay.
IOW nothing natural about the process.Joseph_{July 11, 2009
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Stanford has published a love fest on Darwin. They have a continuing education program of which the Susskind lecture is part. There are 10 two hour programs on Darwin that are available either on Itunes U or on the Stanford site. I started looking at the first one and the first presenter was pretty poor. But for those interested go here for youtube videos or to Itunes U to see The Single Best Idea Ever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fysSblKjjvA&feature=PlayList&p=F2E17B4CDCCE15F5&index=0&playnext=1 And then come back here and explain how all his ideas are either passé or irrelevant especially the one that is the single best idea ever.jerry_{July 11, 2009
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Nakashima-san, What is the evidence for accumulating mutations leading to novel body plans and novel protein machinery? We know about accumulating foot-steps...Joseph_{July 11, 2009
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Lenoxus:
As for the specific non-telic hypothesis of evolution by means of mutation and natural selection resulting in a nested hierarchy of common descent
Except that common descent does not result in a nested hierarchy. That you continue to spew such nonsense proves you don't have a clue. And thank you for admitting your position is not testable.Joseph_{July 11, 2009
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Until hard evidence of either design or the supernatural is presented, there is no conceivable way to eliminate unguided naturalism in the first place — and no scientific reason to.
Just so ya know…ID doesn’t posit anything “supernatural”. And as far as having “hard” evidence, that particular prerequisite has been part of the scientific record for quite some time. Polanyi immediate comes to mind. He published a rational exposé of the evidence almost 40 years ago in the journal of statistical sciences (JASA). In 2005, Abel nailed it to the wall in a journal of biological and medical modeling. Then Meyer updated the argument made by Polanyi in the 2007 in the journal of the Biological Society of Washington. Then Abel nailed it again 2009 with “The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity” which appeared in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences. If you take a good look you’ll find more - including materials published in other peer-reviewed publications (such as Cell Cycle) and elsewhere. Collecting the evidence is hardly the issue. Getting materialists to deal with the arguments and evidence (without special pleading on their part) is the issue - it always has been.Upright BiPed_{July 11, 2009
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And Nak remember we don't even know rats will ever evolve into a new species. They could die out or end up like mosquitoes which some varieties have stayed virtually the same despite 300 million years of evolution.Frost122585_{July 11, 2009
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Yes Nak, but those small stpes are called "micro evolution"- everyone knows this. The fossil record is however very deplete of the many intermediates (small steps) that the theory of DE would postulate.Frost122585_{July 11, 2009
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Mr Frost122585, When the common ancestor of dos, cata, and horses began to diversify millions of years ago, it was by small steps. If you want to see what rats turn into, you will have to wait millions of years to find out. I can walk from Tokyo to Hiroshima, but if you take a picture of me at any point along the way, my feet are only a meter or so apart. Big changes are small changes added up over time. Cladistics is not settled in this area. To find the most recent common ancestor, you will have to chose fossil or genetic evidence to chose Laurasiatheria (older, fossil based) or Zooamata (more recent, genetic based).Nakashima_{July 11, 2009
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Nakashima, Here is an essay by John Davison. https://uncommondescent.com/dr-john-davison-biologist/a-blind-alley/ You might find it illuminating. Have fun discussing modern day speciation with John.jerry_{July 11, 2009
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Nas, and Kahn, I am not tailoring my argument to fit my definition- my argumnt and definition go hand in hand because they are the same. Macro evolution has to do with very different kinds morphologically evolving from one to another. of macroevolution. The examples you gave are terrible. You are showing small scale changed among low life forms (which may be design induced) and less complex tress turning into different trees. I have no problem with the evolutionary arguemt that all hores, or cats or dogs share a common ancestor of the same kind- nor do I have that problem with trees- it is the MACRO jumps that I am concerned with. Show me the common ancestor of all three, cats, dogs and horses and the evolution thereof and that is observed macro evolution. What you site is small levels of genetic variation and small does not mean macro.Frost122585_{July 11, 2009
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Mr Jerry, Try not to think of me as a denier (of LNC, for example) but rather as an affirmer of the reality that Dr Susskind is talking about in this video. You have seen far into my example. It does rely on speciation happening in all kinds of places that might not be on camera, to all kinds of non-photogenic species. But it would be exceedingly odd if speciation somehow passed thes creatures over just because we weren't watching them. Perhaps in 2012 chickens in iowa will lay eggs containing gerbils, live on camera. Until then, we'll have to content ourselves with evo-devo answers to how the turtle got its shell, and other conundroms. These are 'the goods' and definition games that try to run away from confronting 'the goods' is not a way to move advance, except in a rearwards direction.Nakashima_{July 11, 2009
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"Somehow, I don’t think it will win over those who still insist on a fundamentally immaterial designer." It does not rule out the immaterial designer if this person has the power to affect the material things of this universe. I doubt that anyone who believes in God, believes that God does not have the power to affect this world leta lone change a nucleotide or two. One of knocks against ID is that such a God is not worthy of worship since He essentially did not get it right in the first place and has to tinker all the time. There are hundreds of issues surrounding this whole debate some operating at the periphery but still extremely interesting in their own right.jerry_{July 11, 2009
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jerry:
“you need mechanisms, which you all seem to think are not important but in fact are critical.” If humans are able to create genomes or changes in genomes that result in novel complex capabilities, would you then say that your objection is no longer relevant.
So physical genetic modification is the mechanism! Excellent, we have something to work on. Somehow, I don't think it will win over those who still insist on a fundamentally immaterial designer. Joseph:
Please present a testable hypothesis for the non-telic position.
If the "non-telic position" is that certain events happened without intelligent intervention, I personally don't believe there can be a testable hypothesis, because it's a "negative". There's nothing that all or most "non-telic" systems have in common (except the absence of obvious signs of intelligence), so there's nothing to test "for". What would be a positive prediction from a non-telic hypothesis for weather events? This is like saying "present a testable hypothesis for the absence of mice in this city." It's pointless unless the mice are found. Meanwhile, ID is the one make the positive assertion, for a force/being that could appear anywhere or nowhere in the haystack of empirical evidence, depending on its own choices in the matter. (As for the specific non-telic hypothesis of evolution by means of mutation and natural selection resulting in a nested hierarchy of common descent, well, plenty of falsifiable tests and predictions have been presented plenty by others on this blog, so I'm not going to bother listing them — it would be nothing new for the conversation.)Lenoxus_{July 11, 2009
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"Now if there are currently 10 million species on the planet, and their ages are randomly distributed, you’d expect 1 speciation event per year somewhere in the biological world. Macro-evolution in action!" But that has never been observed so Nakashima has just falsified naturalistic evolution. Thank you Nakashima. Now I know Nakashima, the great denyer, will wiggle out of this by calling a red eyed drosophilia found on a remote Pacific island an example of macro evolution but he knows and we know that is not what the debate is about. So for Nakashima to aruge over whose definition we get to use is essentially an admission of defeat. If he had the goods, he would care a rat's rear end about which definition we were using.jerry_{July 11, 2009
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