I have sometimes had the idea that the best way for Intelligent Design advocates to make their case would be to build a giant museum replicating the complexity of the cell on a large scale, so that people could see for themselves how the cell worked and draw their own conclusions. Recently I came across an old quote from biochemist Michael Denton’s Evolution: A Theory in Crisis (Adler and Adler, 1985) which put paid to that idea, but which raised an interesting philosophical puzzle for people who adhere to scientific naturalism – which I define here as the view that there is nothing outside the natural world, by which I mean the sum total of everything that behaves in accordance with scientific laws [or laws of Nature]. Here is the first part of the quote from Denton, which I had seen before (h/t Matt Chait):
To grasp the reality of life as it has been revealed by molecular biology, we must magnify a cell a thousand million times until it is twenty kilometres in diameter and resembles a giant airship large enough to cover a great city like London or New York. What we would then see would be an object of unparalleled complexity and adaptive design. On the surface of the cell we would see millions of openings, like the portholes of a vast space ship, opening and closing to allow a continual stream of materials to flow in and out. If we were to enter one of these openings with find ourselves in a world of supreme technology and bewildering complexity. We would see endless highly organized corridors and conduits branching in every direction away from the perimeter of the cell, some leading to the central memory bank in the nucleus and others to assembly plants and processing units. The nucleus of itself would be a vast spherical chamber more than a kilometer in diameter, resembling a geodesic dome inside of which we would see, all neatly stacked together in ordered arrays, the miles of coiled chains of the DNA molecules. A huge range of products and raw materials would shuttle along all the manifold conduits in a highly ordered fashion to and from all the various assembly plants in the outer regions of the cell.
We would wonder at the level of control implicit in the movement of so many objects down so many seemingly endless conduits, all in perfect unison. We would see all around us, in every direction we looked, all sorts of robot-like machines. We would notice that the simplest of the functional components of the cell, the protein molecules, were astonishingly, complex pieces of molecular machinery, each one consisting of about three thousand atoms arranged in highly organized 3-D spatial conformation. We would wonder even more as we watched the strangely purposeful activities of these weird molecular machines, particularly when we realized that, despite all our accumulated knowledge of physics and chemistry, the task of designing one such molecular machine – that is one single functional protein molecule – would be completely beyond our capacity at present and will probably not be achieved until at least the beginning of the next century. Yet the life of the cell depends on the integrated activities of thousands, certainly tens, and probably hundreds of thousands of different protein molecules.
We would see that nearly every feature of our own advanced machines had its analogue in the cell: artificial languages and their decoding systems, memory banks for information storage and retrieval, elegant control systems regulating the automated assembly of parts and components, error fail-safe and proof-reading devices utilized for quality control, assembly processes involving the principle of prefabrication and modular construction. In fact, so deep would be the feeling of deja-vu, so persuasive the analogy, that much of the terminology we would use to describe this fascinating molecular reality would be borrowed from the world of late twentieth-century technology.
What we would be witnessing would be an object resembling an immense automated factory, a factory larger than a city and carrying out almost as many unique functions as all the manufacturing activities of man on earth. However, it would be a factory which would have one capacity not equalled in any of our own most advanced machines, for it would be capable of replicating its entire structure within a matter of a few hours. To witness such an act at a magnification of one thousand million times would be an awe-inspiring spectacle. (pp. 328 ff.)
Reading this passage vindicated my belief that a museum of the cell would be a great way to promote ID. “If we build it, they will come,” I thought. But there was more to follow, which I hadn’t read before. It turns out that we can’t build a replica of the cell, down to the atomic level:
To gain a more objective grasp of the level of complexity the cell represents, consider the problem of constructing an atomic model. Altogether a typical cell contains about ten million million atoms. Suppose we choose to build an exact replica to a scale one thousand million times that of the cell so that each atom of the model would be the size of a tennis ball. Constructing such a model at the rate of one atom per minute, it would take fifty million years to finish, and the object we would end up with would be the giant factory, described above, some twenty kilometres in diameter, with a volume thousands of times that of the Great Pyramid.
Copying nature, we could speed up the construction of the model by using small molecules such as amino acids and nucleotides rather than individual atoms. Since individual amino acids and nucleotides are made up of between ten and twenty atoms each, this would enable us to finish the project in less than five million years. We could also speed up the project by mass producing those components in the cell which are present in many copies. Perhaps three-quarters of the cell’s mass can be accounted for by such components. But even if we could produce these very quickly we would still be faced with manufacturing a quarter of the cell’s mass which consists largely of components which only occur once or twice and which would have to be constructed, therefore, on an individual basis. The complexity of the cell, like that of any complex machine, cannot be reduced to any sort of simple pattern, nor can its manufacture be reduced to a simple set of algorithms or programmes. Working continually day and night it would still be difficult to finish the model in the space of one million years. (Emphases mine – VJT.)
But there’s more, as Matt Chait points out (emphasis mine):
And let me add my two cents to this astounding picture. The model that you would complete a million years later would be just that, a lifeless static model. For the cell to do its work this entire twenty kilometer structure and each of its trillions of components must be charged in specific ways, and at the level of the protein molecule, it must have an entire series of positive and negative charges and hydrophobic and hydrophilic parts all precisely shaped (at a level of precision far, far beyond our highest technical abilities) and charged in a whole series of ways: charged in a way to find other molecular components and combine with them; charged in a way to fold into a shape and maintain that most important shape, and charged in a way to be guided by other systems of charges to the precise spot in the cell where that particle must go. The pattern of charges and the movement of energy through the cell is easily as complex as the pattern of the physical particles themselves.
Also, Denton, in his discussion, uses a tennis ball to stand in for an atom. But an atom is not a ball. It is not even a ‘tiny solar system’ of neutrons, protons and electrons’ as we once thought. Rather, it has now been revealed to be an enormously complex lattice of forces connected by a bewildering array of utterly miniscule subatomic particles including hadrons, leptons, bosons, fermions, mesons, baryons, quarks and anti-quarks, up and down quarks, top and bottom quarks, charm quarks, strange quarks, virtual quarks, valence quarks, gluons and sea quarks…
And let me remind you again, that what we are talking about, a living cell, is a microscopic dot and thousands of these entire factories including all the complexity that we discussed above could fit on the head of a pin. Or, going another way, let’s add to this model of twenty square kilometers of breath taking complexity another one hundred trillion equally complex factories all working in perfect synchronous coordination with each other; which would be a model of the one hundred trillion celled human body, your body, that thing that we lug around every day and complain about; that would, spread laterally at the height of one cell at this magnification, blanket the entire surface of the earth four thousand times over, every part of which would contain pumps and coils and conduits and memory banks and processing centers; all working in perfect harmony with each other, all engineered to an unimaginable level of precision and all there to deliver to us our ability to be conscious, to see, to hear, to smell, to taste, and to experience the world as we are so used to experiencing it, that we have taken it and the fantastic mechanisms that make it possible for granted.
My question is, “Why don’t we know this?” What Michael Denton has written and I have added to is a perfectly accurate, easily intelligible, non-hyperbolic view of the cell. Why is this not taught in every introductory biology class in our schools?
Based on the foregoing, I think it’s fair to say that we’ll never be able to construct a computer model of the cell either, down to the atomic level: the computing resources required would just be too huge. And in that case, it will never be scientifically possible to model a natural process (or a set of processes) and demonstrate that it could have given rise to the cell – or even show that it had a greater than 50% probability of doing so.
So here’s my question for the skeptics: if we have no hope of ever proving the idea that the cell could have arisen through unguided natural processes, or even showing this idea to be probably true, then how can we possibly be said to know for a fact that this actually happened? Knowledge, after all, isn’t merely a true belief; it has to be a justified true belief. What could justify the claim that abiogenesis actually occurred?
It gets worse. We cannot legitimately be said to know that scientific naturalism is true unless we know that life could have arisen via unguided processes. But if we don’t know the latter, then we cannot know the former. Ergo, scientific naturalism, even if were true, can never be known to be true.
There’s more. Scientific naturalists are fond of claiming that there are only two valid sources of knowledge: a priori truths of logic and mathematics, which can be known through reason alone; and a posteriori empirical truths, which are known as a result of experience and/or scientific inquiry. The statement that abiogenesis occurred without intelligent guidance on the primordial Earth is neither a truth of logic and mathematics nor a truth which can be demonstrated (or even shown to be probable) via experience and/or scientific inquiry. And since we cannot know that scientific naturalism is true unless we know that abiogenesis occurred without intelligent guidance, it follows that the truth of scientific naturalism cannot be known through either of the two avenues of knowledge postulated by the skeptic. So either there must be some third source of knowledge (intuition, perhaps?) that the skeptic has to fall back on. Yeah, right.
And please, don’t tell me, “Well, scientists have explained X, Y and Z, so it’s only a matter of time before they can explain life.” First, that’s illicit reasoning: performing inductive logic over a set of things is problematic enough (black swans, anyone?), but performing it over a set of scientific theories, concocted during a time-span of just 471 years – the Scientific Revolution is commonly held to have begun in 1543 – is absolutely ridiculous. And second, as I’ve argued above, there’s good reason to believe that our computing resources will never be up to the task of showing that the first living cell could have arisen via a natural, unguided process.
One last question: if we cannot know that scientific naturalism is true or even probably true, then why should we believe it?
Checkmate, naturalists? Over to you.
I think it would be more persuasive if, instead of relying on personal incredulity, you demonstrated that ID’s design-detection tools actually worked. Perhaps by testing them, so that you could show that ID is able to distinguish between natural and designed objects in a way that mainstream investigators cannot.
More broadly, isn’t this special pleading? We cannot, after all, model atomic decay precisely, either. Should we all become Intelligent Radiators?
Come to think of it, we also can’t model an intelligent being creating a cell. No intelligence we have ever observed is capable of it. If we apply your standards, why would we prefer that impossibility over any other?
Betteridge’s Law of Headlines applies to postscripts as well.
Learned Hand,
I keep offering free advice to IDers that they never accept. I tell them “if you think you’ve found a whiz-bang argument against your opponent’s position, stop for a minute and ask yourself a simple question: Could this argument be used against me?”
It’s amazing how many IDer mistakes would be caught if they just followed that one rule faithfully. It would be easier for us, too, as we’d end up spending less time correcting their errors.
Vincent apparently forgot to apply the rule.
I learned this lesson in my early teens. I was an evangelical Christian, and a friend of mine was a Mormon. We discussed religion a lot — he was the first Mormon I’d met, and I was fascinated — and I kept coming up with these great arguments against Mormonism, only to realize that with a few modifications, they worked equally well against my own Christianity! That realization was one of the things that got me started on the path to deconversion.
You go on at length regarding the difficulty of modelling a cell at the atomic level. Yes, and it would be even harder to model it at the sub-atomic level, and easier at the molecular level, and even easier at some higher (functional) level still. So which is it ? What level should we settle on ?
And why do we need a physical model at all ? Perhaps some simulation would work ? And why do we need a full model/simulation ? These aren’t needed to demonstrate underlying principles.
Straw man perhaps ?
Quick comment:
I wasn’t trying to argue for Intelligent Design but against naturalism.
Also, my argument is a reductio only for people who accept that there are two and only two sources of knowledge. I don’t. Got to go.
Keith S
Your supposed advice is noted, and trashed in the bin. How can we take your word for anything if you don’t even believe yourself?
You are the last person to dispense advice, of this you can be certain.
The cell is made up of naturally occurring chemical molecules which react and interact by well-known natural mechanisms. Why then should we invoke imaginary supernatural forces to explain it? Just because the cell is complex and we don’t have a step-by-step recipe to make a cell? Or because we can draw some poor analogies to man-made machines? That’s rubbish.
We know for a fact that man-made objects are designed because they don’t arise or sustain themselves naturally, and we can see and study the designers, their properties, tools and methods. No designer whatsoever is known for nature, let alone identify what it has designed, when and how. The supernatural designer is a purely fictitious, undefined entity. One can fit him into any scenario one wants! Such a designer has zero explanatory power.
Scientific naturalism is not an assertion, it is an observation. We have never observed any supernatural force tinkering with nature, past or present. On the contrary, we have copious data supporting naturalistic evolution and the evidence keeps on growing by the day as predictions made by the theory are confirmed by multiple disciplines of science. All supernatural alternatives to evolution, including ID, have spectacularly failed to propose testable hypothesis that can deseat evolution.
Natural evolution best explains the data. This is what school kids must be told about in science classes.
Dr Torley
Based on the responses from our materialist friends we can say with certainty that they don’t really understand the issue involved here 🙂 nice one!
P.S. Evolve….
The problem for materialism around the first replicators is an engineering problem…… hint hint…..
Vincent torley asks:
Who is claiming that life on Earth got started via purely physical and chemical processes is a fact? Being only able to detect material processes ourselves we cannot rule out the possibility that something goes on “invisibly”, “in other planes of existence”, immaterially” of which we are completely unaware. So long as the suggestion is not made that these can impinge on our material universe, they can be the subject of endless discussion and speculation. There are no entailments. As soon as you postulate a material effect from an immaterial source, you have an observable phenomenon that you can look for. If the unmoved mover moves something, at that moment, the physical laws of the universe must be violated – an apparently uncaused cause – a reaction without an action.
If an “intelligent designer” acted at some point in the very distant past to guide or bring about aspects of life on Earth 3 to 4 billion years ago, there is little chance of finding evidence now of how this occurred (unless SETI or other space exploration finds evidence suggesting life is not unique to Earth). How is this different from theistic evolution as a viewpoint? If the “intelligent designer” intervenes on a regular basis, then there’s something to look for.
Perhaps one day, an ID proponent will move beyond the mantra of “I can see no possible physical pathway for this phenomenon to arise, therefore design” to some suggestion of modus operandi. Until then, we are all left with our uncertainty. “I don’t know” is always a possible answer.
No. You are mistaken as that is EXACTLY what the Darwinist is claiming.
Vincent:
True, but your argument works against ID nevertheless.
You evade your own argument only if you can demonstrate the existence and reliability of your third source of knowledge. Merely believing in it is insufficient.
A third source of knowledge? Or trillions of sources?
So Keith S we actually have
true/false/maybe?
on/off/dim
Really Keith S?
Speak for yourself Mr uncertain…. something is either true or it is false or it is on or it is off .
No wonder you can’t believe yourself. I would struggle too if I was you.
Alicia
And hopefully one day you’ll move beyond your wild imagination that chemicals conspired to become alive…….
TSeriK writes:
Which Darwinist?
Remember the theory of evolution makes no prediction about how life on Earth got started, it merely proposes a mechanism (or suite of mechanisms) for how life could have diversified subsequently.
Even spawn-of-Satan Richard Dawkins does not rule out the possibility of God’s existence. He only gives his certainty level as 6 out of 7.
Why o why in the name of the FSM are these people ignoring abiogenesis? It is a cop-out! And why are you forgetting Darwin’s warm little pond?
If you can’t say how life started you can’t say anything about how it evolved…. mkay?
“He only gives his certainty level as 6 out of 7.”
How pathetic… And he is the talking head for science.
Andre writes:
I don’t know exactly how life got started on Earth. No matter how hard we look we can’t seem to find that spark, that élan vital that, according to some, we should find in vivo but not in vitro
Current research leaves you, me and everyone to speculate as wildly as they wish.
And I have told you……..
The problem is an engineering one…… It should leave you with a clue of what you need to do next but I don’t think you want to because I’ll bet my salary you’re too afraid of what you might find……
Why an engineering problem?
Because you can only reverse engineer things that are engineered.
Ask yourself these reverse engineering questions. Then look at Biomimetics.
1.The original manufacturer of a product no longer produces a product
2.There is inadequate documentation of the original design
3.The original manufacturer no longer exists, but a customer needs the product
4.The original design documentation has been lost or never existed
5.Some bad features of a product need to be designed out. For example, excessive wear might indicate where a product should be improved
6.To strengthen the good features of a product based on long-term usage of the product
7.To analyse the good and bad features of competitors’ product
8.To explore new avenues to improve product performance and features
9.To gain competitive benchmarking methods to understand competitor’s products and develop better products
10.The original CAD model is not sufficient to support modifications or current manufacturing methods
11.The original supplier is unable or unwilling to provide additional parts
12.The original equipment manufacturers are either unwilling or unable to supply replacement parts, or demand inflated costs for sole-source parts
13.To update obsolete materials or antiquated manufacturing processes with more current, less-expensive technologies
This is what it is all about….
“It can be said that reverse engineering begins with the product and works through the design process in the opposite direction to arrive at a product definition statement (PDS). In doing so, it uncovers as much information as possible about the design ideas that were used to produce a particular product.”
There is no means of rational discourse with a Darwinist when they simply avert their eyes from the blatant, brutal folly of their fanatical religion.
But there is more……
Anything that is engineered will always have a major draw back, the more complex the system the more likely that it will fail. That is why engineers build redundancy, fault tolerance stability control and trade-offs into their systems.
Biological systems as complex systems have all these mechanisms built in. But believe me they did not build it themselves how can they if they don’t know what’s critical, vital or what’s even needed to sustain itself?
The 18 truths about failure of complex systems
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/proj.....exity/6786
There isn’t any ToE and how life originated dictates how it evolved. It is only if unguided processes produced life would be infer/ assume unguided processes also produced its diversity.
OTOH if the OoL – intelligent design then the inference would be that organisms were designed to evolve and evolved by design.
That evos still cannot grasp that simple points says quite a bit about their science-free agenda.
All our opponents can offer is their “blah, blah, blah” and they cannot offer any supporting evidence for the claims of their position.
Why is that? And why can’t any evo find this alleged “theory of evolution”?
The OP reminds me of an article by the unrivaled Stephen Talbott; excerpt:
Fantastic post VJT. Thank you.
How can one continue to insist that blind, unguided natural forces created this wonder of nano-technology after reading this? Learned Hand, keith s, Graham2, and Evolve give you hints in their responses. The staggering levels of blind grit-your-teeth-in-the-face-of-the-plain-evidence faith displayed in those comments is a wonder to behold. I almost called their faith “leap in the dark” faith. But that metaphor is actually just the opposite of the case. The light is glaring and under that light we see a clear path. Their faith requires them to eschew the path revealed by the light and wonder off in the thickets. Instead of a “leap in the dark” faith, it might be called a “leap against the light” faith.
And the irony of it all is that they almost certainly think of themselves as skeptical rationalists while they sneer at us benighted faith-bound ID rubes. It is true that my worldview requires a certain level of faith (all worldviews do). But my faith commitments are dwarfed by the faith commitments of those who believe the accretion of random errors sorted by a fitness function can result in the technology VJT describes.
Can “leap against the light” fanatics such as these by reasoned with? William J. Murray sums up the prospects for such discourse nicely:
keiths
And again, the irony of your deconversion is that you traded a worldview that requires a small faith commitment for a worldview that requires staggering levels of blind grit-your-teeth-in-the-face-of-the-plain-evidence “leap against the light” faith. Though I am sure that irony is lost on you.
LH
That is certainly true. And yet you continue to believe that the accretion of random errors sorted by a fitness function is capable of it. It beggars belief.
Evolve
That statement is nonsense on a stick. Scientific naturalism asserts a negative: No force “outside” of nature acts within nature. Your fellow Darwinists have been howling for several days about the impossibility of proving a negative. Yours is a classic blunder, which Popper warned against. You have made what Popper called a “universal statement” and asserted it is a scientifically demonstrated fact. Wrong. Popper:
Evolve
Here you make the same error as Hume, which has been pointed out many times, though materialists refuse to learn:
Miracles do not happen.
How do we know?
Because they are counter to universal human experience.
But what about all of the reports of miracles?
We can disregard those.
Why should we disregard those reports?
Because miracles do not happen.
Nice tight question begging circle. Your faith commitments appear to be such that you don’t mind making obviously false metaphysical assertions and reasoning in a circle to support them. You might want to think about that.
Alicia Renard
Exactly! Now I postulate that Alicia Renard wrote a comment on a blog. Are there any observable phenomenon I can look for? Yes, right there at comment 8 is several hundreds bits of complex specified information that could not have been created by chance/law forces from the moment of the big bang until the heat death of the universe.
Welcome to the ID camp.
Here we are in perfect agreement. I commend you for eschewing the misplaced certainty we seem displayed so often on these pages by materialists.
Barry Arrington, I hope you and yours have a calm, happy Thanksgiving full of goodwill and cheer. You seem like you need it.
Learned Hand, Happy Thanksgiving to you as well. I will refrain from coupling my well wishing with a sneer, as I consider that to be unseemly.
With mounting evidence of fine tuning from the smallest scales to the largest scales, how long before the Question of Evil is joined by a companion question – Why would God be such a show off? Checkmate Theists.
How about information?
I will refrain from coupling my well wishing with a sneer, as I consider that to be unseemly.
Mission not accomplished, but I appreciate that you tried!
@Box #33:
‘How about information?’
‘Pass ….’
So, to recap:
1) Learned Hand fell back on the “argument from personal incredulity” defense. Not realizing that this means his position is simply one of “argument from personal credulity”, or faith (ably explained by BA in #25).
2) Keith S seems to think that the argument “methodological naturalism (random forces of physics, chemistry, etc.) is not capable of such intricate design” is somehow also an argument against the belief that “an intelligent designer (far more intelligent than humans) must have designed it”. No idea what he is talking about.
3) Graham2 seems to think that as long as we can computer-model some of the large scale effects of a thing, that we don’t have to actually have an explanation for the precise details (this is another common evolutionist defense – “hey, I computer modeled eye evolution in 500 steps so it must be possible!”).
4) Evolve combines Learned Hand’s
faithpersonal credulity with the other Evolutionist favorite – unlimited extrapolation. Because natural selection explains why some animals go extinct, and chemistry explains when atoms bind, obviously the design and assemblage of something as fantastically complex as the cell is simply an exercise in chemistry.5) Alicia operates on a completely different plane of consciousness than I do, so I’m not entirely sure what her point is. I think she is saying that she’s perfectly okay with saying that “I don’t know” is compatible with “but methodological naturalism is still the only correct answer until you prove an intelligence was involved”. Which, at the end of the day, goes back to BA’s post in 25. Oh – and the evolutionist talking point of “if ID can’t tell me anything about the designer, then it has nothing important to say about design detection”.
drc466 @ 36. Re Graham2. Indeed. Upon reflection Graham2’s argument is the ultimate black box argument. “Don’t bother me with questions about the steenkin’ details. I don’t need no steenkin’ details. I have this shiny black box.”
drc466:
You might want to look up “methodological naturalism”, drc466. It doesn’t mean what you think it does.
Huh? How did you come up with that?
That’s for sure.
Says Barry, who of course can supply all the “steenkin’ details” about how the designer designed and implemented the cell. Right, Barry?
You might want to reread my comment #2:
Give it a try, Barry. It will save you some embarrassment.
keiths, the poverty of your project is revealed when the best argument you can come up with is a tu quoque fallacy.
Barry,
I don’t think you understand the tu quoque fallacy.
Do you think that naturalism and theism are both false, since neither can supply the “steenkin’ details” you require?
keith s,
Obviously, when I said “methodological naturalism (random forces of physics, chemistry, etc.)”, I wasn’t defining mn, I was providing a list of forces available to mn – as should have been clear from the context of the following phrase: “is not capable of such intricate design”. I apologize – now that I know you are not a contextual reader, I will provide more explicit detail when aiming my comments in your direction.
Again, context apparently means nothing to you, so let me spell it out:
1) The title of the post, and the point of the content of the post is: “On the impossibility of replicating the cell: A problem for naturalism”.
2) Your first comment is “I tell them “if you think you’ve found a whiz-bang argument against your opponent’s position, stop for a minute and ask yourself a simple question: Could this argument be used against me?””.
Logical conclusion: Keith S believes that the argument that naturalism is incapable of creating the cell, is also an argument against ID, which believes that an Intelligent Agent is capable of creating the cell.
If you are referring to some other argument, perhaps you should be a bit more explicit – e.g. “I’m not referring to the post above at all, I’m just going to make a generally negative remark about ID proponents and religion here”.
Since the logical conclusion above makes no sense whatsoever, and the alternative (generally rude remark apropos of nothing) also seems to make no sense, I therefore assumed (and stated) that I have no idea what you are talking about when you say vjt is making an argument that works just as well against the ID position. Care to enlighten? Or would you prefer to continue non-responsive snarking? Either is fine by me.
The more I learn about the inner workings of a cell the more I become humbled at the mind behind it all. I do not think the question is whether there is a mind behind all of this. To ask such a question is so absurd it leaves me quite puzzled. It reminds me of scene out of a movie that I watched as a young boy in high school. I think it was called “The Man with Two Brains” starring Steven Martin. There was a scene in which he is staring at a picture of his dead wife and then proceeds to ask her if she approves of his new girlfriend. He says, “any sign at all”. At that very moment the picture begins to spin, the house begins to shake and loud voices start yelling, NO,NO,NO!!!! Once all of that comes to a stopping point, he then says something like, “just give me one sign, any sign at all”. This scene still cracks me up just thinking about it!!
My point is that Darwinist do the exact same thing. No matter how improbable something is and how huge the “sign” – they still have to say (because they cannot allow a “divine foot in the door”), “give me one sign, any sign at all”.
keiths @ 41. It is you who fails to understand the tu quoque fallacy.
From Wiki: “It attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it.”
You have done this twice in the space of this comment thread.
Of course. Obviously keith is ignorant of the fact that his is the position that says it has a step-by-step mechanism for producing the diversity of life, whereas ID has a step-by-step mechanism for determining nature, operating freely from signs of intelligent design. We have our side covered whereas keith’s is unknown.
Just think what would happen if archaeologists, forensic scientists and SETI had to know who and how before they could determine intelligent design was present (in the form of artifacts, crimes and specified narrow-band transmissions)?
Hopefully keith isn’t in the investigation business…
Ringo, “in the meantime I’ll put you in the closet” lol.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mkcKQmr7kRc
ppolish,
I have not seen that scene in years! It is still just as funny. And I love the very last line in this scene, “Any sign, I will keep a look out for it”. Makes my point fit even better. Thanks for that!
From keiths
Well, I for one am very glad that it seems that the one who fooled keith_s into taking the path of rejecting the truth and believing anything was none other than keith_s.
The cell is irreducibly complex, as I have said this on this blog many times…
All the components essential for the function of the cell have to be there at the same time or the cell will not function… All the so stories about RNA World or Larry Moran’s favorite metabolism first are just stories made up to fill the need of 2 % of people on the Earth that need to hear it because they don’t what to hear anything else… The sad part of it is that the vast majority of those people claim to be scientists and get offended when you tell them that they are teaching your kids lies…
BTW: I have recently been called in on the red carpet at my youngest son’s school… The biology teacher sent my son to the principal’s office because he disagreed with him that the tailbone is a vestigial organ…
The teacher told the kids that the tailbone is the remains of what used to be a monkey’s tail… My son said that his daddy told him that the so-called tailbone is essential for people to be able to sit up properly, which the bio teacher was a pain in the ass about that…
Conversely, three things started me on the path of losing my own faith in Darwin:
– The mutual dependency of geology and paleontology regarding dating fossils with respect to evolution
– The resemblance between van Helmont’s recipe for the spontaneous generation of mice to explanations of the origin of life
– The astounding number and complexity of the chemical cycles in cells
Later, I started realizing that the “magical” explanatory qualities of the theory of evolution revealed it as philosophical speculation, a relic from the Victorian age, rather than rigorous science.
-Q
Because believing that something can come from nothing and after having done so that something can through trillions and trillions of fortuitous collisions actually cohere into the vast living world including ourselves beats the alternative.
We just got very lucky. That’s all.
In other news, I am still waiting for a sequence of 40 consecutive heads to appear. That’s 40. Not 500.
Quest,
Your son’s biology teacher is misinformed about the existence of “vestigial” organs. Because the discovery of functions for previously assumed useless evolutionary detritus caused embarrassment for the True Believers in Darwin (there were 180 or so presented at the Scopes trial), the neo-Darwinist reformers now claim that vestigial organs DO actually have a function, but the function is slowly evolving over hundreds of millions of years by invisible increments into an organ or structure with a different primary
purposeadvantage, and actually ALL organs and structures are doing so. This effectively eliminates the “vestigial” category.However, your son’s biology teacher could actually be an evolutionary fundamentalist (oh oh) and might still be teaching discredited ideas such as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, and the evolution of peppered moths, Darwin’s finches, and ring species.
You might want to check. This material is definitely outdated and shouldn’t be taught in a science classroom.
-Q
Mung wrote
I wonder whether this is where the term “flipping idiot” came from! LOL
-Q
This is still a variant of the Mind-bogglingly Big Numbers argument which, in turn, is a species of the Argument from Incredulity.
It still doesn’t escape the implication, either, that however staggeringly complex, and hence improbable, the putative design might be, any designer capable of achieving such complexity must be even more complex and, hence, even more improbable.
This raises an obvious problem. If complexity implies a designer, who designed the this designer who must be more complex than the designs we observe? Or is it designers all the way down?
Sev @ 54. That you would still at the late date bring out the “who designed the designer” chestnut, demonstrates that you are have not been paying attention. It really is whack-a-mole with you people.
Who designed Reality?
Well, it is what it is.
And (at least on our planet) is loaded with intelligence.
Consciousness is primary.
Keith S @ 2: I totally dig what you’re saying with the whole “can this argument be used against” bit. That’s exactly what I thought when reading Learned Hands first post and how he’d be completely fail at providing any evidence, mechanism or just about anything that would explain how a cell could arise naturally and how he’d have to rely on personal credulity despite the failure of his proposition.
Seversky, congratulations, with your “who designed the designer” objection you have just made what many leading philosophers consider the worst possible objection to God:
In fact, atheistic philosopher Michael Ruse is embarrased that fellow atheists make the ‘Who Created God’ argument:
Lawrence Krauss, who couldn’t even properly define ‘nothing’ in the first place, was also called on the carpet by philosophers for making the ‘What Caused God?’ argument.
Moreover, consciousness does not suffer from the infinite regress argument as temporal material objects do. One of the main ancient philosophical arguments against the material universe being eternal, prior to our current scientific evidence for the Big Bang,,,
,,,was the infinite regress argument,,,
,,,The infinite regress argument is particularly devastating for atheistic materialism because it is impossible, due to the infinite regress, for there ever to be a today, or a ‘now’, if materialism were true,,,
Yet, Consciousness, (and information), does not suffer from the infinite regress argument because it is always ‘now’ for consciousness, (and information).
To clearly get this point across, Einstein was once asked by a philosopher,,,
Einstein’s answer was categorical, he said:
The ‘now’ quote from Einstein was taken from the last few minutes of this following video, and what the philosopher meant by the question can be read in full context in the article following the video:
Moreover, ‘the now of the mind’, contrary to what Einstein thought possible for experimental physics, and according to advances in quantum mechanics, takes precedence over past events in time.
i.e.,Sans LaPlace, quantum mechanics says of time (and by default says to the infinite regress argument), ‘I have no need of that hypothesis’. In fact, due to advances in quantum mechanics, it would now be much more appropriate to phrase Einstein’s answer to the philosopher in this way:
Learned Hand @ 1: we have no evidence of functional machines arising naturally. We are surrounded by functional machines created by intelligent designers. That’s why we’d prefer one “impossibility” over another.
It is also interesting to note how the perception of time radically changes for Near Death Experiencers who go through a tunnel to a higher heavenly dimension,,
As well, it is interesting to note that Einstien’s special relativity supports this ‘higher dimensional, ‘eternal”, view of time:
Of supplemental note:
Here are a few quotes, in regards to the primacy of consciousness in Quantum Mechanics, from some giants in Quantum Mechanics:
Of related note, Physicists are on the verge of closing the last ‘loophole’ for ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, quantum entanglement. i.e. The ‘free will’ loophole:
My only question right now is not if they will close the free will loophole but, “By how many standard deviations will they close it?”,,, These guys don’t mess around, they closed the last loophole by 70 standard deviations, and verified Leggett’s inequality by 120 standard deviations!
Verse and Music
I am quite puzzled by this post. When you have a very strong case, its not time to exaggerate. However, the cell described here is a eukaryote cell, where an archae cell would be much more appropriate to describe. Its a lot simpler, yet it still replicates. I know, we have reduced the size of our amazing city to that of a small city, rather than a super-city. But still well beyond impressive.
Further, trying to go deeper into the atom to add layers of complexity is just silly. Atoms are amazing, yes. But every stone is made of them. They are part of the amazing event of the universe formation, not part of the amazing event of first life.
Lets present the simplest possible case of life, and see the naturalists squirm rather than presenting something much more complex, allowing them some room for valid rebuttal.
God is the ‘uncaused cause’. Is this ‘sophisticated theology’ ?
Keith’s,
Is there a different sect of atheism that you might argue against and find your way back to conversion?
Graham2,
It’s the basics. There’s a whole world of theology out there that some great thinkers have contributed to. If you want to delve deep into it, check out the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Or Philosophical Foundations to a Christian Worldview. I find prayer even more enlightening and to answer the question some have had about a third way, there is such thing as revelation.
Moose Dr @ 61
Thanks for the same side goal.
The ‘uncaused cause’ is simply another way of saying: ‘my god is whatever is needed to do the job’. If everything was green, then my god is green, because that’s obviously what is needed. You cant be serious.
bornagain77 @ 58,
All those words explain who designed the designer ? No wonder everyone keeps asking the question repeatedly.
But alas Moose Dr, the atheists/materialists, since the Greeks, are the ones who have been arguing for a simplistic, ‘bottom up’, atomic view of reality in the first place. i.e. Its the bed they made, let them sleep in it! Its not our fault that the atom is far, far, more complex than the materialists/atheists had originally envisioned or anticipated!
History of the Atom – timeline image
http://wsc11sci.wikispaces.com.....istory.png
“Atoms are not things”
Werner Heisenberg
the complexity of computing the actions of even a simple atom, in detail, quickly exceeds the capacity of our most advanced supercomputers of today:
Delayed time zero in photoemission: New record in time measurement accuracy – June 2010
Excerpt: Although they could confirm the effect qualitatively using complicated computations, they came up with a time offset of only five attoseconds. The cause of this discrepancy may lie in the complexity of the neon atom, which consists, in addition to the nucleus, of ten electrons. “The computational effort required to model such a many-electron system exceeds the computational capacity of today’s supercomputers,” explains Yakovlev.
http://www.physorg.com/news196606514.html
Why Science Does Not Disprove God – April 27, 2014
Excerpt: “To explain the quantum-mechanical behavior of even one tiny particle requires pages and pages of extremely advanced mathematics. Why are even the tiniest particles of matter so unbelievably complicated? It appears that there is a vast, hidden “wisdom,” or structure, or a knotty blueprint for even the most simple-looking element of nature.”
Amir D. Aczel – mathematician
http://time.com/77676/why-scie.....prove-god/
Does the atom have a designer? When science and spirituality meet – LAKHI GOENKA an Engineer – May 2012
Excerpt: Atoms are machines that enable the physical, electromagnetic (including light), nuclear, chemical, and biological (including life) functioning of the universe. Atoms are a complex assembly of interacting particles that enable the entire functioning of the universe. They are the machine that enables all other machines. It is virtually impossible to explain the structure, complexity, internal dynamics, and resulting functionality of the atom from chance events or through evolutionary mechanisms. The atom is a machine that provides multiple functions, and every machine is the product of intelligence. The atom must have a designer.
http://www.annarbor.com/news/o.....-designer/
Seversky,
The answer to the question, “who designed the designer”? Is the same answer to the question,
Who painted the painter?
Q @ 53, lol!
Graham, even the atheists who delve into theology take this venerable idea seriously. It has been a central idea in theology since Aristotle.
Collin: … since Aristotle Exactly. Like free will, if we have been arguing about it for over 2000 years, its a clue that maybe we are asking the wrong question.
Evolve,
I hope you realize that what you really mean to say is
“You have never observed anything you INTERPRET as any supernatural force tinkering with nature.” Interpretation of the CAUSE of something is not OBSERVATION it is INTERPRETATION.
To try to make this clear to you, you can’t argue that there is no designer because you have never personally observed anything which you would call designing. (You certainly can also not speak for everyone else. )
You are sweeping under the rug all the evidence for design and simply declaring it not to be there. If it still is not clear, I will put your argument in clearer terms so you can see the obvious circular nature of it. Please, if you don’t think I have correctly characterized your argument, show me why it is not exactly like this.
1. I see things happen in nature.
2. Since these objects I observe follow natural laws, I assume no one designed them.
3. I don’t know the source of the natural laws these observations follow, but I’ll just assume the natural laws just are, and are not the result of design.
4. Even though it is clear that for some natural objects I observe obeying these natural laws, a mathematical calculation concludes they could not reasonably be built up by chance. AND even though the fact that they could not reasonably be built by chance is a good way for a designer to communicate that these things were designed, I will still assume they happen by chance because I don’t observe the design happening.
5. Therefore there is no designer.
I hope this helps you to at least not dismiss ID in such a simplistic manner. It is something I believe you really need to take seriously, because I believe your eternal destiny lies in the balance.
Learned Hand @ 30
Mission not accomplished, but I appreciate that you tried!
Pregnant with sincerity aren’t we. I’m certainly glad the young folks are watching the behavior of the participants here, they have some choices ahead.
vjtorley:
Science does not care whether we adhere to the philosophical belief of Naturalism or not. Only its adherents care that all else believe it.
As far as science is concerned something either exists or it does not. Since both hypotheses and theories must be testable (and have repeatable results) saying “God did it” does not work in science without naturalism either.
I found that the words “natural” and “supernatural” unnecessarily complicate matters. I no longer adhere to the philosophy.
vjtorley:
Science does not care whether we adhere to the philosophical belief of Naturalism or not. Only its adherents care that all else believe it.
As far as science is concerned something either exists or it does not. Since both hypotheses and theories must be testable (and have repeatable results) saying “God did it” does not work in science without naturalism either.
I found that the words “natural” and “supernatural” unnecessarily complicate matters. I no longer adhere to the philosophy.
I would like to see that too!
But with so much still unknown it’s too early to show even half of what goes on inside a cell. It could easily take hundreds of years to only almost get right.
I have to say the demarcation problem is causing many headaches. Lots of pseudo science is called science these days……
Gary
True but I hold that we will be able to reverse engineer the process, with biomimetics we are benefiting from our efforts….
But this will only become better when we drop the “chance” did it attitude and study nature in more detail on how it works.
http://www.bloomberg.com/slide.....tml#slide1
bornagain77 @ 58
Anyone who thinks the dilemma of Infinite Regress (IR) versus uncaused first cause (UFC) (or “who designed the designer” or “what caused God”) has been settled does not understand the arguments.
In the case of Infinite Regress, although our minds instinctively rebel against the concept because it is impossible to grasp, there seems to be no logical contradiction involved. There is no obvious reason why such a state of affairs could not exist. Of course, many find the notion absurd on its face and creationists reject it because it removes the need for a Creator but neither of those views make it impossible.
However, if we accept, if only for the sake of argument, that IR is impossible or, at the least, unacceptable then there is no option other than a UFC. The problem here is that if it is not logically necessary to choose that option it is an arbitrary choice. We are choosing it because we don’t like the alternative, nothing more. That’s hardly a compelling reason for thinking it might be true.
Further, if we assume that the UFC is more specifically the Christian God, we run into further problems. If God is to be our UFC then He must be a necessary being in the philosophical sense of not being contingent or dependent on anything outside Himself in the slightest. Leaving aside the irony of envisaging an infinite being to solve the problem of an infinite regress, the questions are, why did He create us now, indeed, why did He create anything at all? Christian theology answers by saying, for example, that He desires a loving relationship with His creatures. But that implies He is not self-sufficient, not necessary, and that is a contradiction.
“Who designed the designer?”, “Who created the Creator?”, “What caused God?” are all perfectly good questions. Many clever people have worked hard to answer them over the last couple of thousand years or so but, the fact is, so far no one has managed to nail it.
vjtorley:
Vincent,
As others have pointed out, it’s rarely necessary to simulate at the atomic level, and in fact it’s usually wasteful to do so. Smart modelers adjust the granularity of the simulation to fit the problem they’re tackling.
In my own field of processor design, we use a large number of models ranging from the highly concrete to the very abstract. It would be an utter waste of compute resources to run, say, a CPU-level logic simulation at the same level of detail as a custom RAM macro simulation.
In any case, computational biologists have already managed to do some amazing things with their simulations. See this New York Times article from a couple of years ago:
In First, Software Emulates Lifespan of Entire Organism
From the article:
Collin asks, regarding my #2:
That’s not how it works. 🙂
What that experience taught me was the importance of questioning one’s beliefs periodically, including the seemingly obvious and self-evident ones (especially those, in fact).
For practical reasons, you can’t do this all the time. If you spend every morning before work pondering whether your toothbrush is truly real, or just an elaborate illusion, you won’t get a lot done.
But it does pay to run your beliefs through the wringer from time to time. The beautiful thing about truth is that it holds up under scrutiny, so there’s no reason to be shy about asking hard questions. The truth will survive, and falsehoods will succumb.
Failing to ask questions, however, can lock you into a lifetime of error.
So yes, I question everything, including my atheism, but my atheism is holding up much better than my Christianity ever did.
Christianity is so full of contradictions and nonsensical ideas that it’s hard to imagine that it could actually be true, though I’m open to looking at any new evidence that arises. Having been a Christian as a kid, it would be easy for me to fit back into that culture — if the evidence were there.
It isn’t there, though, and I’m not holding my breath.
Barry:
You conveniently left out the next sentence of the Wikipedia article:
I am not doing that, so your accusation fails.
Instead, I’m pointing out that your argument against Graham2…
…works equally well against theism.
Hence my question:
How about answering the question this time?
Keith S
It is ironic that you somehow understand the concept of truth in this materialist world of yours, but that is another conversation
You should follow your own advice sometime……
drc466:
That’s irrelevant, because I am not a methodological naturalist.
drc466:
keiths:
drc466:
My point is that Vincent is applying the usual ID double standard by demanding detailed explanations from the naturalist, while failing to provide any details at all for ID.
His argument amounts to this:
1) Assume design by default.
2) If you can explain every single detail of, well, everything in terms of natural processes, then accept naturalism; otherwise stick with design.
The obvious question is: Why should design be the default?
Vincent hasn’t justified this unparsimonious move.
Keith S
Design is not the default, natural laws are until they fail……. In the case of a living cell natural laws fail so design becomes the default.
Can you give an account perhaps on how natural laws in an unguided manner could have possibly built a cell?
Seversky,
Who painted the painter?
logically_speaking @ 87
Self Portrait by looking into a mirror
Barry Arrington @ 28
///Scientific naturalism asserts a negative: No force “outside” of nature acts within nature.///
…which is exactly what we observe! What else do you observe? You want science to invoke supernatural forces without any evidence for such a thing! I’m baffled how inane your arguments can be!
Of course nobody can prove a negative. But you can prove a positive. if ID insists that supernatural beings interfered with earth, then the onus is on you to provide positive evidence for such beings. And you have clearly failed at that.
Science works on evidence, Barry, EVIDENCE.
Science HAS NO EVIDENCE for anything OUTSIDE nature —> Scientific Naturalism.
///Miracles do not happen.
How do we know?
Because they are counter to universal human experience.
But what about all of the reports of miracles?
We can disregard those.
Why should we disregard those reports?
Because miracles do not happen.///
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Why should we disregard claimed miracles? Because we have naturalistic explanations for the said miracles. Simple. Done.
Calm down! 🙂
To be fair, you could posit a shy supernatural tinkerer which avoids being detected, so miracles can happen but not when they can be documented.
I like the distinction of naturalism into philosophical and methodological flavours. Science uses methodological naturalism, i.e. for the purposes of doing science we only use naturalistic explanations. This does not necessarily mean that these are the only possible explanations, but that non-material explanations simply can’t be tackled scientifically. At best it can find problems that we can’t find material explanations for.
A problem is that we might not be able to find an explanation for phenomena because they have non-material causes, or because we haven’t developed an adequate theory. I can’t see a definitive way of distinguishing between the two: the best we can do is to repeatedly reject naturalistic explanations.
Me_Think,
logically_speaking @ 87
Who painted the painter?
“Self Portrait by looking into a mirror”.
Good answer, so relating it back to why the answers to the question WDTD and my WPTP are the same,
1. Does that make the painter a “Necessary being”?
Yes it does.
2. Does it create an infinite regress?
No it does not.
Anyone else want to answer the question of who painted the painter?
logically_speaking @ 91
1. Does that make the painter a “Necessary being”?
No. Another painter who doesn’t want to be painted will do.
2. Does it create an infinite regress?
Yes. The painter has to be created by someone who needs to be created by someone…[Question is Where did the painter come from ?]
Denton’s image doesn’t work because the individual components of the model cell, scaled up to the size of a city, would be utterly devoid of the atomic, chemical, electrodynamic, energetic and stochastic forces and interactions that mediate the functioning of the real thing. This is inadvertently hinted by Chait’s remark on Denton:
The fact that the simulation Denton envisions would require this additional work – and massive amounts of it – is indicative of the complete inappropriateness his imagined model as a functional simulation of an actual living cell. The image also suggests arrays of machine-like, and hence artifact-like, components visualizable as static, stable macrophysical objects, when the reality of the chemical and atomic components is very, very different.
Given that Denton’s imagined model badly mischaracterizes the phenomenon it purports to model, why should we be impressed by it, or draw implications from it about anything?
Seversky at 80, your hand waving that the infinite regress does not present much of a problem for materialism rings very hollow since we now know for a fact that the entire material universe came instantaneously into being at a definite moment in the past in the Big Bang.
Moreover, we now also know that not only did energy and matter come into being in the Big Bang but space-time itself came into being.
Seversky, the SCIENTIFIC evidence that all material reality, and space-time itself, came instantaneously into being, is, despite your handwaving to the contrary, very, VERY, impressive empirical confirmation that the infinite regress argument was/is a devastating logical problem for materialists. ,,,
Moreover, we find that the necessary cause for the universe, according to the scientific evidence itself, must possess many of the very same characteristics that Theologians have always traditionally held that God possesses.
Moreover, as if all that was not devastating enough for the committed atheist/materialist to deal with, quantum mechanics goes one step further and stops the infinite regress dead in its tracks by showing the continued existence of material reality (i.e. the visible) is dependent on a cause that transcends space-time (i.e. the invisible):
As to your personal opinion about Christian theology, other than me being unimpressed, I’ll hold my peace for now since you have yet to present ANY scientific evidence whatsoever that materialism/atheism is even remotely compatible to the scientific evidence that we now have in hand. (thus why should your further personal speculations in Christian theology have any of my respect?)
In case you don’t realize it Seversky, that IS NOT a minor concern for the integrity of your position!
Verse and Music:
On the state of the argument about the ultimate cause –
Nothing is settled rationally, so what? It never will. There is no end to rational wrestling. I have been observing the debate for quite a while now. IN my opinion, it simply shouts to us that our world is based on belief. We have to make choices. We necessarily do so in our daily life. We just have to face the fact we need to do it with respect to answering the eternal questions of who we are and why we are around here.
Science cannot prove or disprove anything. It is a rational delusion to think otherwise.
Science just offers indicators. Indicators are indicators, nothing more. The ultimate decision is down to our free will.
keith is proudly ignorant:
LoL! keith’s is the position that sez it has a step-by-step process and all we are doing is asking to see it. No one can show it so keith has a hissy fit.
As for ID we say we have a step-by-step process for determining nature, operating freely and intelligent design. And we have provided it.
keith s, proud top be an ignorant loser.
How can ID be the default when other alternatives are given active consideration first? Add the word “default” to the list of things evos are ignorant of.
Querius: The mutual dependency of geology and paleontology regarding dating fossils with respect to evolution
Geology has the principle of superposition. Paleontology has fossil succession. Physics has radiometric dating. Biology has branching descent. So we have four separate lines of evidence which point to the same result. In science, having independent measures adds confidence to a theory.
Querius: The resemblance between van Helmont’s recipe for the spontaneous generation of mice to explanations of the origin of life
Helmont reported an erroneous observation of spontaneous generation. Modern research into abiogenesis is well grounded in science, and no one of note has claimed to know the details of how life began.
Querius: The astounding number and complexity of the chemical cycles in cells
As Darwin proposed a theory to explain complex adaptation, pointing to complex adaptation doesn’t falsify the theory.
Querius: Your son’s biology teacher is misinformed about the existence of “vestigial” organs.
Being vestigial does not mean it has no function.
“An organ, serving for two purposes, may become rudimentary or utterly aborted for one, even the more important purpose, and remain perfectly efficient for the other.” — Darwin, “Origin of Species”
Gary S. Gaulin: Science does not care whether we adhere to the philosophical belief of Naturalism or not.
That’s very true. You can be a Catholic or a Buddhist or an atheist, and still be a scientist. You just have to follow the scientific method when wearing your scientist smock.
Naturalism is not the scientific method, in fact the scientific method itself cannot be reduced to naturalism. Moreover, naturalism leads to the epistemological failure of science. For atheists to arbitrarily impose naturalistic answers onto science prior to investigation, with their insistence on ‘methodological naturalism’, is self serving in the least and outright dishonest when looked at objectively!
Bob @ 90
/// To be fair, you could posit a shy supernatural tinkerer which avoids being detected, so miracles can happen but not when they can be documented. ///
No, this is useless. If there’s no way you can identify and define the tinkerer, then he has zero explanatory power. You can fit such a tinkerer to any evidence you want because he’s completely unknown. This is exactly the mechanism by which creationists of all kinds operate and that’s why their arguments always fail.
/// I like the distinction of naturalism into philosophical and methodological flavours. Science uses methodological naturalism, i.e. for the purposes of doing science we only use naturalistic explanations. ///
False distinction. Science only works on testable hypotheses and evidence – whether they’re natural or not. Science can also propose testable hypothesis for the supernatural. The only requirement is that there should be evidence to support the supernatural hypothesis.
Zachriel @ 98
Mathematics is a language. It can express lots of ideas, not necessarily practically warranted e.g. models of spontaneous organization of life. The creators of these models take for granted what should not be taken for granted to stay fair. People conflate order with organization and present as genuine results that bear a footprint of their own involvement in experiments.
Evolve:
Then unguided evolution is not science. Thank you Evolve.
Evolve:
And that is why unguided evolution is not science. Thank you, Evolve.
Evolve @ 100.
Here is a hypothesis for you:
Obviously this hypothesis cannot be tested as Popper noted. Therefore, it is not science by your own definition.
EugeneS: People conflate order with organization and present as genuine results that bear a footprint of their own involvement in experiments.
Are you saying scientists who study abiogenesis, such as Jack Szostak, don’t know how to run an experiment?
http://molbio.mgh.harvard.edu/szostakweb/
Querius wrote:
“…However, your son’s biology teacher could actually be an evolutionary fundamentalist (oh oh) and might still be teaching discredited ideas such as ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, and the evolution of peppered moths, Darwin’s finches, and ring species…”
As far as I know, most schools in Canada still teach the above mentioned by you… As far as I know, nothing has changed and nothing will despite the claims that things are changing…The old crap is still taught and like one reasonable biology teacher said; “…without the finches, the pepper moth, and the rest of the “icons of evolution” there is nothing else to teach about evolution…only nonsense…
Me_Think,
“logically_speaking @ 91
1. Does that make the painter a “Necessary being”?
No. Another painter who doesn’t want to be painted will do”.
Lol this is just hilarious, do you know what the definition of SELF PORTRAIT is? A self-portrait is a representation of an artist, drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by the artist. Another painter who doesn’t want to be painted will certainly not do, as that will become just a normal portrait.
“2. Does it create an infinite regress?
Yes. The painter has to be created by someone who needs to be created by someone…[Question is Where did the painter come from ?]”
Why did you change the word painter for the word created?
Are you seriously admiting that painters have to be created?
Do you understand what you just did?
Would you like to ignore your own answers, and try having a go at the original question again?
Zachriel #105
No, I am not making that particular claim about that particular researcher. I am saying that inherent here is the issue of interpretation of results. Sometimes, interpretations are unwarranted and do not correspond to what has actually been achieved.
See e.g.
No.
Your question was ‘who painted the painter?’. I supplied the answer Self Portrait.
Yes, because not everyone can be a painter.You need to teach and guide a child before he can become a painter , or ID has to create a preordained painter.
Keiths and others,
I understand your objection that ID theory does not identify the designer or explain how he interfered with nature/life.
I think the objection has some merit.
But I think it needs to be kept in mind that ID theory is not like Darwinism or Creationism. It does not attempt to explain EVERYTHING. It does not assert a worldview or necessarily explain the origin of species. Indeed, it does not attempt to explain the origin of the bacterial flagellum. It merely, and humbly, asks the narrow question: Can we detect design? It may be that the bacterial flagellum came about mostly through unguided processes, but that we can detect that design must have been part of the process. ID theorists are attempting to work out the processes, tests, and theories that we would use to decide when an artifact of unknown origin was designed, regardless of who the designer was or how he did the design.
Let me give an example: Let’s say on Mars we discover a tablet with a bunch of unknown scripts/characters of the same font carved into it. In order to know if it were designed or a natural event, I don’t think we need to identify the writer or explain how he came about, or explain how their language evolved over time or even explain what the message is to make the conclusion that it was designed. Same thing with life, imo.
“I keep offering free advice to IDers that they never accept. I tell them if you think you’ve found a whiz-bang argument against your opponent’s position, stop for a minute and ask yourself a simple question: Could this argument be used against me?”
If that even were so why would/should IDers abandon it if it shows ID to be equally rational -especially when its the position of said opponents that ID is less rational?
So at best your counter, even if it were valid, shows its still a whiz-bang argument against the opponent’s position.
Collin @ 110
ID claims to detect only design but CSI, which is supposed to do that, is woefully inadequate.
As for the Mars example, you are giving an example of an obviously designed artifact. Biological process and structures are not obviously designed and therein lies the problem.For eg, if you look at a protein even through a Scanning Electron Microscope, all you will see is a squiggly tubular structure. Your personal incredulity of the iterative process that created the structure cannot be the basis for deciding whether it was designed or not.
EugeneS: I am saying that inherent here is the issue of interpretation of results.
In science, interpretation means support or falsification for a given hypothesis. No one of note claims to have solved the riddle of the origin of life, however, there have been many scientific advances made during research into abiogenesis.
Collin: Let’s say on Mars we discover a tablet with a bunch of unknown scripts/characters of the same font carved into it.
You mean something consistent with known human design? Then we would posit something consistent with a human-like entity. Then we would test this entailment by determining how the artifact was made, looking for other artifacts known to be associated with human-like entities, such as tools or settlements, and if possible direct evidence of the entity.
CSI is only inadequate when in the hands of the incompetent.
We do not know how the Antikythera Mechanism was made. We do not know who made it and we do not know what tools were used to make it.
By Zachriel’s logic we should doubt that it is an artifact. 🙄
Joe @ 114
And that includes Dembski himself.
Seeing that we only look for an intelligent designer AFTER we have determined the existence of intelligent design, the argument that ID is lame because it does not identify the intelligent designer is lame at best and demonstrates ignorance with respect to investigative processes.
Intelligent Design is about determining AND studying intelligent designs in nature. And guess what:
Reality dictates that in the absence of direct observation the ONLY POSIBBLE way to make any scientific claims about the designer(s) or specific process(es) used, is by studying the design(s) and all relevant evidence.
That our opponents refuse to grasp that scientific fact demonstrates that they are on an anti-science crusade.
Me Think- My comment pertains to all evolutionists. Dembski has used it to infer design, no one can refute that inference and that bothers you.
Happy Thanksgiving
Joe,
Happy Thanksgiving
Me_Think and Zachriel,
Neither of you addressed my main point. I wasn’t even arguing that ID is true (although I reserve the right to do so). I was merely responding to the objection of “who is the designer.” That’s all I was doing.
Collin: Neither of you addressed my main point.
You were arguing for design without entailments. Your example had obvious entailments.
BA77, “But alas Moose Dr, the atheists/materialists, since the Greeks, are the ones who have been arguing for a simplistic, ‘bottom up’, atomic view of reality in the first place.”
You miss my points. I agree that the atom is complex, wizardly. However, it did not come into existence at the time of first life. Rather it is is rightly part of the miracle of first creation (presumed to be the big bang).
Second, making the simplest possible case produces a case that is overwhelming. By jazzing it up with eukaryotes and sub-atomics, the case actually becomes harder to see.
Zachriel,
Please define entailments.
Collins: Please define entailments.
Implied as a necessary result. More specifically, empirical predictions deduced from a scientific hypothesis. For instance, if we assume a liquid is made up of molecules, what does that mean in terms of the motion of observable particles.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi....._large.gif
Moose Dr,,
To Model the Simplest Microbe in the World, You Need 128 Computers – July 2012
Excerpt: Mycoplasma genitalium has one of the smallest genomes of any free-living organism in the world, clocking in at a mere 525 genes. That’s a fraction of the size of even another bacterium like E. coli, which has 4,288 genes.,,,
The bioengineers, led by Stanford’s Markus Covert, succeeded in modeling the bacterium, and published their work last week in the journal Cell. What’s fascinating is how much horsepower they needed to partially simulate this simple organism. It took a cluster of 128 computers running for 9 to 10 hours to actually generate the data on the 25 categories of molecules that are involved in the cell’s lifecycle processes.,,,
,,the depth and breadth of cellular complexity has turned out to be nearly unbelievable, and difficult to manage, even given Moore’s Law. The M. genitalium model required 28 subsystems to be individually modeled and integrated, and many critics of the work have been complaining on Twitter that’s only a fraction of what will eventually be required to consider the simulation realistic.,,,
http://www.theatlantic.com/tec.....rs/260198/
Simplest Microbes More Complex than Thought – Dec. 2009
Excerpt: PhysOrg reported that a species of Mycoplasma,, “The bacteria appeared to be assembled in a far more complex way than had been thought.” Many molecules were found to have multiple functions: for instance, some enzymes could catalyze unrelated reactions, and some proteins were involved in multiple protein complexes.”
http://www.creationsafaris.com.....#20091229a
First-Ever Blueprint of ‘Minimal Cell’ Is More Complex Than Expected – Nov. 2009
Excerpt: A network of research groups,, approached the bacterium at three different levels. One team of scientists described M. pneumoniae’s transcriptome, identifying all the RNA molecules, or transcripts, produced from its DNA, under various environmental conditions. Another defined all the metabolic reactions that occurred in it, collectively known as its metabolome, under the same conditions. A third team identified every multi-protein complex the bacterium produced, thus characterising its proteome organisation.
“At all three levels, we found M. pneumoniae was more complex than we expected,”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....173027.htm
There’s No Such Thing as a ‘Simple’ Organism – November 2009
Excerpt: In short, there was a lot going on in lowly, supposedly simple M. pneumoniae, and much of it is beyond the grasp of what’s now known about cell function.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscie.....s-of-life/
Three Subsets of Sequence Complexity and Their Relevance to Biopolymeric Information – David L. Abel and Jack T. Trevors – Theoretical Biology & Medical Modelling, Vol. 2, 11 August 2005, page 8
“No man-made program comes close to the technical brilliance of even Mycoplasmal genetic algorithms. Mycoplasmas are the simplest known organism with the smallest known genome, to date. How was its genome and other living organisms’ genomes programmed?”
http://www.biomedcentral.com/c.....2-2-29.pdf
Seversky @ 80
Re: Infinite Regress (IR) versus uncaused first cause (UFC)
Your post fails to note that while in the IR scenario particular events possess an infinite chain of causation, the entire system in total is uncaused. So with the IR scenario we have two irrational ideas to grapple with- infinite regress of particular events within an uncaused system. With the UFC we only have one- the uncaused ontology of the “prime mover.”
If we accept that there is an irrational brickwall, so to speak, that defies human reason, why is there a need to add infinite regress into the mix when a single irrational idea will suffice?
The UFC idea is more philosophically parsimonious.
The essential confusion of ID is the assumption that there are two different types of causes in the world. ID calls the first type of cause “natural causes”, meaning “causes that proceed according physical law”. The second type of cause it calls “intelligent causes”, which is supposed not to follow physical law. ID attempts to show that certain features of the universe cannot have arisen by means of “natural causes”, and this supposedly justifies the conclusion that these features are best explained by “intelligent causes”.
The mistake, of course, is the assumption that there is any such thing as a cause that somehow transcends physical cause. ID often refers to physical processes as “unguided”, implying that in contrast “intelligent causes” are “guided” by something that is not itself a physical process. But of course this notion that intelligent actions of living things transcend physical cause is nothing but a metaphysical assumption – empirically untestable, and highly controversial. The fact that ID is predicated on the reality of this dualism means that ID is an exercise in metaphysics and nothing more.
Once you remove this metaphysical assumption from ID, what ID is left with is “Certain features of the universe cannot currently be explained by means of any known cause. Therefore, some other, currently unknown cause must be responsible”.
Joe, how old are you?
Me_Think,
Me: Would you like to ignore your own answers, and try having a go at the original question again?
You: No.
My response: Fine, but now you will have to deal with the consequences.
Me: Lol this is just hilarious, do you know what the definition of SELF PORTRAIT is?
You: Your question was ‘who painted the painter?’. I supplied the answer Self Portrait.
My response: But to the follow up question you changed your answer from a self portrait to a normal portrait.
Which means you have two options you can change your original answer, in which case I will ask you another follow up question. Or you can stick with your self portrait and change your answer to the follow up question.
You seem to want to stick with self portrait, which means that you cannot invoke any other agencies to do the painting apart from the painter (THE VERY DEFINITION OF SELF PORTRAIT). So again I ask you the follow up question, does that make the painter a “Necessary being”?
Me: Why did you change the word painter for the word created?
Are you seriously admiting that painters have to be created?
You: Yes, because not everyone can be a painter. You need to teach and guide a child before he can become a painter , or ID has to create a preordained painter.
My response: You didn’t answer the question to why you changed the word painter to created.
You are claiming it takes intelligence to be a painter, a self portrait in this case. You claim that you need to teach a child before they can paint. But why can’t a painting be created by natural forces? How much information needs to be imparted specifically for the child to become a painter? Can you please show your math? Was this child the original painter in the original question?
As for preordained painter, your self portrait answer actually requires it, maybe you will see that in time.
Aiguy says,
what ID is left with is “Certain features of the universe cannot currently be explained by means of any known cause. Therefore, some other, currently unknown cause must be responsible”.
I say,
Not quite, as another thread has demonstrated ID is left with..
“Certain features of the universe cannot ever be explained by means of any algorithmic cause. Therefore, some non-algorithmic cause must be responsible”.
That is quite a different statement is it not?
peace
RDFish,
I think FMM has a point.
Personally, (and I only speak for myself), I don’t look at the issue as one of natural causes or non-natural causes. But the distinction between guided and unguided is real.
Humans, obviously, have insight, foresight, and goals. We can “project” into the future in ways that natural laws are not understood to do. Maybe “natural law” (whatever the hell that is) is ultimately responsible, but if you make that affirmative claim then it’s up to you to demonstrate it.
Part of the “problem” is that we (that is, humans) have a certain “in the know” position here. We know, in a primary, fundamental, conscious way, that we have these powers of foresight and because of it can manipulate the rest of reality in ways not known to be possible by “blind natural law” (again, whatever the hell that is.) We (at least I do) see ourselves as somehow outside of the normal woof and warp of “blind” natural causation (causation that is not forward looking.) To deny that is to deny myself, which I’m not about to do, given that it is the most fundamental thing I know.
ID (that is, humans using their reasoning powers in light of our own powers of foresight and comprehension of “natural forces”) think that certain features of reality are better explained by something that has similar, if not expanded, powers of foresight by virtue of the fact that we see this in ourselves in a limited way. It’s not so much as a metaphysical position, as a humanistic position. Dogs and chimps are not arguing over ID vs unguided emergence and evolution of life… nor do they “do science” in general. We cannot take ourselves out of the equation.
fifthmonarchyman, what say you to the IDers who claim that algorithms, whether front loaded or later added/modified, are a or the mechanism of intelligent design-creation?
Why did you attribute a comment by RDFish to “Aiguy”?
Because it is the same person.
BA77 (125) Yes! That’s the real story! Great links as always.
Pachyaena asks.
what say you to the IDers who claim that algorithms, whether front loaded or later added/modified, are a or the mechanism of intelligent design-creation?
I say,
I say, I’m on your side. A non-algorithmic cause is more than capable of using algorithms to accomplish it’s ends.
I’m doing that right now as I type this post on a computer.
peace
Zachriel @ 98,
At their foundations, evolutionary biology, geology, and paleontology each point to their neighbor for credibility. The first polystrate fossils should have been sufficient to falsify the lot. But there’s always a story that can be used to explain anything. Fine, but that’s not science.
You didn’t get my irony regarding Von Helmont—the research into abiogenesis was also well–researched in Von Helmont’s day . . . and in Pasteur’s.
Finally, please reread what I actually wrote about “vestigial” organs–I know that the concept has now been thrown under the bus by Darwinists on the assumption that ALL organs and biological structures are evolving, and thus are “vestigial.”
-Q
Quest @ 106
Exactly.
I wish Darwinists were at least honest about what they’ve found and haven’t found. I see no problem with following the data, but in general they cherry pick the data that they want to follow and ignore or marginalize the rest. The theory of evolution is not science. It’s the opposite of science. It’s a big squishy paradigm that can accommodate anything in retrospect.
-Q
Joe @ 115,
Good point! Considering how much easier it is for the Antikythera mechanism to evolve by unguided chance in the ocean than a living cell billions of times more complex, we should actually be finding a lot more of these!
However, since Darwinists like to claim that they just follow the data, why aren’t they suggesting that quickly evolving bacteria evolved their biological environments that we call “animals” as their habitation? Instead, we get to read things like this:
Once again, the theory of evolution can accommodate ANY new data!
-Q
fifthmonarchyman: “Certain features of the universe cannot ever be explained by means of any algorithmic cause. Therefore, some non-algorithmic cause must be responsible”.
As we pointed out before, an analog neural net can exhibit non-computable behavior. Nothing magical about that.
Vishnu: Humans, obviously, have insight, foresight, and goals. We can “project” into the future in ways that natural laws are not understood to do. Maybe “natural law” (whatever the hell that is) is ultimately responsible, but if you make that affirmative claim then it’s up to you to demonstrate it.
While there’s no ‘proof’, there is evidence that the brain is the seat of human consciousness, and that it works by physical principles. Furthermore, computers models show that physical processes can model and project.
Zac says,
As we pointed out before, an analog neural net can exhibit non-computable behavior. Nothing magical about that.
I say,
I’m not saying any of this has to be magical just non-Algorithmic.
I do have a question though. Can a physical process like an analog neural net interact with a larger system in any way besides Algorithmically?
If not then does the overall system containing a feature like an analog neural net become de facto algorithmic?
No argument just a question
peace
Zachriel @ 113
Collin: Let’s say on Mars we discover a tablet with a bunch of unknown scripts/characters of the same font carved into it.
Zachriel: You mean something consistent with known human design? Then we would posit something consistent with a human-like entity.
Me: The bacterial flagellum contains a motor with stator and rotor, a clutch, a drive shaft connected to a propellor via a universal joint. Do you think this is consistent with known human design?
Zac,
Have I shown you this
http://www.blythinstitute.org/.....tlett1.pdf
check it out
fifthmonarchyman, are you’re claiming that nothing in or about the universe is an algorithm and that nothing in or about the universe is caused by or dependent on any algorithm, except algorithms invented by humans?
fifthmonarchyman: I’m not saying any of this has to be magical just non-Algorithmic.
You haven’t even shown that.
fifthmonarchyman: Can a physical process like an analog neural net interact with a larger system in any way besides Algorithmically?
A neural net can receive and communicate non-algorithmically. Neutral nets can interact with other neural nets.
fifthmonarchyman: If not then does the overall system containing a feature like an analog neural net become de facto algorithmic?
Even if the neural net is a robot that interacts with the world algorithmically, its decision-making can be non-computable.
CharlieM, why is that you IDers describe life forms in such mechanistic ways while also claiming that intelligent design is not mechanistic and that the ‘ID inference’ is not a ‘mechanistic theory’?
CharlieM: The bacterial flagellum contains a motor with stator and rotor, a clutch, a drive shaft connected to a propellor via a universal joint.
If you were to propose humans as the designer, you would have to show means and opportunity. We can reject a human designer. In other proposing a designer has entailments. If there is an artifact, then there is a causal chain linking that artifact to the art and to the artisan.
We have a great deal of evidence supporting evolution. If evolution were also responsible for the flagellum, it might be hard to find evidence because it is such an ancient structure, and hasn’t left fossils. However, we could predict that the components in the flagellum also evolved, and that cousins of those components might be found in the cell.
Pachyaena: why is that you IDers describe life forms in such mechanistic ways while also claiming that intelligent design is not mechanistic and that the ‘ID inference’ is not a ‘mechanistic theory’?
It’s like there should be a little homunculus building his
outboardinboard motor flagellum.zac says,
You haven’t even shown that.
I say,
Well that is the rub then. I feel confident that I have you think I haven’t.
How can we settle such a profound disagreement.
I know, let’s do science
Get to work on an algorithm that can fool an observer and put it to the test
peace
Pachyaena, I haven’t described life forms in a mechanical way. I have described the mechanical aspect of the component of an organism. In a similar way I could describe the mechanics involved in someone landing a punch without going into an details about their motives, the history behind the event, etc.
What do you see that is wrong with describing the mechanics of a physical system?
RDFish:
False.
RDFish:
False.
RDFish:
False.
RDFish:
False.
Wow. Four consecutive statements not one of which is true.
How do you manager that?
Zachriel, I haven’t proposed any designer for the flagellum. I merely commented on the design.
logically_speaking @ 129
Did I change painter to creator? I said Yes, because not everyone can be a painter. You need to teach and guide a child before he can become a painter , or ID has to create a preordained painter. I said painter has to be taught by someone or ID has to create the painter. I didn’t change ‘Painter’ to ‘Creator’.
If you claim paintings are created by natural forces, it is you who needs to explain. I am curious why you think a manifestation of human creativity has to be explained by natural forces ?
How do I know ? It’s your question. You are entitled to think whatever you want.For me it doesn’t matter whether that child is painter in original question or not.
Now I can imagine why metaphysics, or philosophy or whatever you call this discussion, is so exciting!
Zachriel, human design and creativity begins with the thinking mind prior to a tangible product. Why concern yourself with the builder? As a general rule builders follow the plans of the architect.
What I can’t comprehend about scientists’ inability to replicate the “simplest” of cells is that evolutionists believe that that dumb luck is smarter than the smartest of scientists in the field, who are working on RE-CREATING LIFE… They are trying to replicate, what according to them dumb luck “created first”… the funniest part it that is IF someone does re-create life, the Nobel Prize will go to him for re-creating something that dumb luck did… Is that even fair to dumb luck that people get Nobel Prizes for discovering something that dumb luck did first…?
I mean these people get recognition for discovering something that according to them dumb luck created…
Can anyone imagine a ceremony of The Nobel Prize winner Jerry Coyne:
“…Congratulation professor Coyne on your accomplishment of DISCOVERING (what the dumb luck did in the first place) the new mechanism of evolution called now Coyne Quantum Evolution… Congratulation again and keep up the good work….
CharlieM @ 153
ID falters at design detection stage. Any further, it disintegrates. That’s the reason there is so much resistant to the question of designer(s). Even to know if there is a single or multiple designers you need to know about the designer.
It’s not plain dumb luck. It is dumb luck + NS + trillions of trails in billions of cells + years of time. You know, if a process has even a slight probability, it will happen. I am sure you know the math behind it so I won’t bore you with details.
Quest,
Have you heard of Orgel’s Second Rule?
PS Yes, that Orgel.
Andre:
At first it seemed like mimicking biology would be a little help, but a culture changing way of thinking that encourages looking for answers in how biology works would accelerate scientific progress in novel ways. For example the theory I’m defending is able to include artists who are helping to evidence things like “Movement is Happiness” as is expected from a cognitive model that has a hedonic system controlling motor/muscle actions from a sensory addressed memory. An academic scientist is perhaps the last person to figure out how to test hypotheses like this. Yet others don’t even need a science paper full of science jargon to intuitively know that some hypotheses are true.
Those who are expecting ID theory to conform to the “publish or perish” methodology are the ones out of the science loop, still waiting for something that they long ago missed. A Discovery Institute originated IDea led to things like ID Labs and Grid Cell Network models at Planet Source Code, which ultimately have increasing scientific impact that cannot be measured by how many academic citations the IDeas received. It’s possible you are talking about the same kind of thing, where what matters includes making science accessible to those who not normally be part of the pioneering action. Or at least biomimetics seems to have the potential for the same sort of benefit to science.
ZAC says
Even if the neural net is a robot that interacts with the world algorithmically, its decision-making can be non-computable.
I say,
you make this too easy Zac
from here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.....al_network
quote:
For example, a neural network for handwriting recognition is defined by a set of input neurons which may be activated by the pixels of an input image. After being weighted and transformed by a function……. (determined by the network’s designer)……….., the activations of these neurons are then passed on to other neurons. This process is repeated until finally, an output neuron is activated. This determines which character was read.
end quote:
So an artificial neural network is an elaborate process to implement a function determined by the network’s designer.
Is that the sort of straw you are reduced to grasping at?
peace
Collin #110:
I agree. In that scenario we would note
a) the similarity with human writing, which is a designed phenomenon, and
b) the absence of unintelligent natural processes capable of plausibly explaining the phenomenon.
Under the circumstances, design would be the best explanation.
Definitely not. Terrestrial life doesn’t have the characteristics of a designed phenomenon (which is what my “Bomb” argument capitalizes on), and there is a plausible explanation in terms of unintelligent natural processes. Hence my conclusion that unguided evolution is literally trillions of times better than ID at explaining the evidence.
Relating this back to Vincent’s OP, the problem is that Vincent is applying a double standard. He is arguing that unless naturalists can supply detailed naturalistic explanations of everything, we should assume design by default. But why not do the opposite? Why not assume naturalism by default — it is far more parsimonious, after all — and then accept design only if IDers can provide detailed, step-by-step explanation of how biological systems were designed?
IDers would object that the latter is unfair, and I would agree. But if the latter is unfair, then so is the former. Vincent is being unfair by demanding naturalistic explanations of everything before agreeing to accept naturalism.
Science is a long way off from being able to explain everything. In the meantime, we should accept the best available explanation, even if it is incomplete. And since unguided evolution is trillions of times better as an explanation versus ID, any rational person will choose it over ID.
keiths:
mikeenders #111:
If the original argument is intended to show that naturalism is implausible, but can be turned around and applied equally well to ID, then the IDer is in the uncomfortable position of denying both naturalism and ID.
Hence my question to Barry in #41:
Vishnu #126,
Sure, but why assume that the UFC is godlike?
CharlieM said:
“I haven’t described life forms in a mechanical way. I have described the mechanical aspect of the component of an organism. In a similar way I could describe the mechanics involved in someone landing a punch without going into an details about their motives, the history behind the event, etc.
What do you see that is wrong with describing the mechanics of a physical system?”
CharlieM, this will likely shock you but I am not as gullible or stupid as you obviously think I am, and you’re being dishonest by saying this: “I haven’t described life forms in a mechanical way.”
Bacteria, including the ones with flagella, are life forms. Describing a component/components of life forms as “…a motor with a stator and rotor, a clutch, a drive shaft connected to a propellor via a universal joint” is describing life forms and their components in a mechanistic/mechanical way. Yes, I notice that you like to change words, and I didn’t say anything about motives, history behind the event, etc.
My question, again, is: “why is that you IDers describe life forms in such mechanistic ways while also claiming that intelligent design is not mechanistic and that the ‘ID inference’ is not a ‘mechanistic theory’?” I’d appreciate an honest and non-diversionary answer (even though I already know the real answer).
You asked: “What do you see that is wrong with describing the mechanics of a physical system?”
I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with describing the “mechanics” of a “physical system” as being mechanistic or mechanical (you left out those last five words) if it can legitimately be described that way, but I see a lot wrong with IDers conveniently and contradictorily going back and forth between describing life forms and/or their components in a very mechanistic-mechanical way while also claiming that intelligent design is not mechanistic-mechanical and that the ID inference, hypothesis, theory, or whatever you call it is not a mechanistic-mechanical inference, hypothesis, theory, or whatever you call it. Make up your minds and stop playing dishonest, contradictory games.
And since you describe bacterial flagella as a “physical system”, maybe you’d like to describe how, when, and where the alleged non-physical designer-creator designed and created physical bacterial flagella?
P.S. Landing a punch is not a “component” of someone, at least not in the same sense that a flagellum is a “component” of a bacterium.
Me_Think @155 made the unsupported assertion:
Really? Could you give an example? Let’s say you find a piece of obsidian with several conchoidal fractures. How would you determine intelligent design?
-Q
keith s @ 157 . . .
Orgel’s First Rule
One wonders what propels this magical ability. Dark energy? Intelligence? Personification? Wishful thinking?
Orgel’s Second Rule
Absolutely has to be so!
As everyone suspects, software at Microsoft, Adobe, Citrix Systems, and most other large software corporations have now laid off their programmers in favor of Evolutionary Code Generation (ECG). Computers are able to generate billions of iterations of random code mutations, the best of which are released as patches to be tested by millions of users.
Leslie Orgel was a genius who was almost as smart as evolution.
-Q
Pachyaena @ 163 wondered:
This is not known any more than the magical mechanistic origin of life on earth, the origin of the earth, or the origin of the big bang.
What you don’t understand is that ID doesn’t take a position on the who or how. All that ID advocates is that if something seems designed, study it as if it were.
Unfortunately, die-hard Darwinists who insist against all experience and observation that the profoundly complex intricacies of life are random, mindless, and purposeless, and that anything without an obvious utility must by definition be junk, are deleterious to scientific progress.
-Q
We describe them in such a way because that is what they are…… If it functions exactly as a stator, then it is a stator!
No need to confuse the issue..
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stator
Dionisio:
Thanks for wishing the best. But the problem is that I already had enough years of the head games. It’s also a way for a system that had better be as scientifically precise as I have to remain complacent. It’s like I just explained in this reply, a matter where greater academia is out of the loop in regards to making science accessible to more people:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-532919
I welcome the challenges that test the theory. But it is unrealistic to ask vague questions that would very seriosly turn out to be four years of free time to fully cover. Academic teachers already teach how a RAM and other things work, and where you need help with that then at least say so. Asking me to start from the beginning on all that this theory covers is way more information than you can imagine. For me, it was a scary amount to look forward to.
I’m sorry where I may seem to have seemed to have overreacted. I had to make sure that you know this is a Dinosaur Train preschool on up thing, where it very much helps for you to ask the right questions. Otherwise, your posting of papers that even I find interesting become associated with other ridiculous demands I have received that in turn lead to half a billion dollars worth of lab work from me. It’s possible you were expecting theory that can be covered in a few paragraphs, but in this case there is a computer model to experiment on your own to gain experience with so you know what intelligence looks like when it’s there and when it’s not the dumb flat-lines of unintelligent random behavior. I can only wish I could make it all that easy for you.
Keith S: On the question of parsimony, there is a huge gap in understanding here (between the pious & the heathens that is): the former don’t regard an invisible friend in the sky as particularly unlikely. I regard a disembodied intelligence floating around our heads as stupendously unlikely, but the pious just don’t see it that way, the supernatural generally (god, mind, soul, angels, etc, etc, etc) are all in a days work.
It took me a while to grasp this.
Graham2:
It’s interesting, isn’t it? I was the same way back in my Christian childhood. I just took the existence of God for granted, never realizing what a stupendous claim it was.
Most believers make the mistake of being satisfied as long as their religion provides answers to the Big Questions. They don’t check to see if those answers are the best answers, and often they don’t even check to see if the answers make sense. A superficial plausibility is all that they require.
Case in point: the Christian doctrine of the Atonement. It’s a bizarre and indefensible doctrine on many levels, but it has a superficial plausibility: I’m guilty, someone has to be punished, Christ took the punishment for me, thank you Jesus!
How many Christians actually think about it and ask the obvious questions? I know Vincent has, but few of the other Christians I know have ever really thought about it (until I bring it up, that is). 🙂
Querius @ 164
An IDer is asking me to detect design despite having CSI,dFSCI, FSCI/O in his design detection toolkit. Here goes : Obsidian is byproduct of cooling of Felsic volcano lava which means obsidian is rich in silica. Silica makes it brittle and when brittle things with layered silica breaks, you get conchoidal fractures.If the fracture point is away from the conchoidal circle, then the conhoid is a limacon, if the point is on the circumference of circle you get cardoid. If the limacon has a inner loop, you get a trisectrix. There is no ID here, only the structure of layered silica guides the conchoid.
I believe Dembskis End of Christianity ‘solves’ (mangles?) the problem by proposing that the effects of the Fall go back in time, or something. This is what religion does to the brain. Are you sure you haven’t some pathology left over from your time in the wilderness ?
Graham2:
He’s actually trying to solve a different problem: Why was there suffering and death before the Fall?
The Atonement is even harder to explain, in my opinion.
There appears to have been no permanent damage. 🙂
My experience as an evangelical Christian is actually helpful in discussions like these, because I seem to understand my opponents’ mindset much better than they typically understand mine.
I had an interesting exchange at TSZ with Flint, who likened religion to an addiction:
Flint:
keiths:
There’s also this post at Jerry Coyne’s place in which an ex-Christian describes how addicting it is to be “drunk in the Spirit”.
I asked CharlieM: “And since you describe bacterial flagella as a “physical system”, maybe you’d like to describe how, when, and where the alleged non-physical designer-creator designed and created physical bacterial flagella?”
Querius responded: “This is not known any more than the magical mechanistic origin of life on earth, the origin of the earth, or the origin of the big bang.”
Then why do you IDers believe and claim that ‘God-did-it’ as described in the biblical story of Genesis?
“What you don’t understand is that ID doesn’t take a position on the who or how. All that ID advocates is that if something seems designed, study it as if it were.”
Isn’t it way past time for you IDers to be honest? You know damn well that all of you “take a position on the who
orand how”.“Unfortunately, die-hard Darwinists who insist against all experience and observation that the profoundly complex intricacies of life are random, mindless, and purposeless, and that anything without an obvious utility must by definition be junk, are deleterious to scientific progress.”
Irrelevant and incorrect rant noted.
Querius, please describe in detail how the study of bacteria and/or their flagella (and/or any other life form) would change for the better if it were assumed/believed by the scientists doing the studying that bacteria and/or their flagella (and/or any other life form) were/are designed-created by the biblical god.
Graham2 you state:
Dembski states the thesis of “The End Of Christianity’ as such:
In a atheistic/materialistic view of reality this line of reasoning would indeed be, as you hold, nonsense. Yet, as quantum mechanics has now shown, we do not live in a materialistic universe as you presuppose that we do but we instead live in a Theistic universe!
And in the Theistic world of quantum mechanics, having our free will choices reach back in time and effect events in the remote past is not impossible at all but merely all in a days work.
This following experiment extended Wheeler’s delayed choice double slit experiment to highlight the centrality of ‘information’ in the Double Slit Experiment and refutes any interference ‘detector centered’ arguments for why the wave collapses:
In other words, if my conscious choices really are just merely the result of whatever state the material particles in my brain happen to be in in the past as materialists hold, (deterministic), how in blue blazes are my choices instantaneously effecting the state of material particles into the past? This experiment is simply impossible for any coherent materialistic presupposition!
You can see a more complete explanation of the startling results of the experiment at the 9:11 minute mark of the following video
Thus Graham2, no matter how bizarre you may find it to be, Dr. Dembski’s thesis is very plausible given our current state of knowledge about quantum mechanics.
Of related note, physicists are about to close last ‘loop hole’ for quantum entanglement,,, they are about to close the setting independence, i.e. ‘free will’, loop hole for quantum entanglement:
My only question right now is not if they will close the free will loop hole but, “By how many standard deviations will they close it?”,,, These guys don’t mess around, they closed the last loophole by 70 standard deviations, and verified Leggett’s inequality by 120 standard deviations!
Verse and Music:
And exactly as would be expected on a Theistic view of reality, we find two very different eternities in reality. A ‘infinitely destructive’ eternity associated with General Relativity and a extremely orderly eternity associated with Special Relativity:
Special Relativity, General Relativity, Heaven and Hell
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_4cQ7MXq8bLkoFLYW0kq3Xq-Hkc3c7r-gTk0DYJQFSg/edit
Oh my a bunch of atheists in conversation, they don’t know everything, they can’t even trust their own thoughts but they know there ain’t no God….. Priceless!
Of course it does
Nonsense. Unguided evolution can’t even get beyond populations of prokaryotes given starting populations of prokaryotes. So keith’s “argument” relies solely on rejecting the obvious and nonsense.
I would say that SETI, archaeology and forensic science also say that.
That is false and demonstrates a willful ignorance as you have been told that the ID inference must also have a POSITIVE element. It is not enough to eliminate necessity and chance. We have a design criteria that also has to be met.
NS is impotent and doesn’t do anything. And your scenario isn’t science as throwing time at the issue isn’t science.
fifthmonarchyman: Get to work on an algorithm that can fool an observer and put it to the test
How does that show that “certain features of the universe cannot ever be explained by means of any algorithmic cause”?
Try this: state your hypothesis, then show the deduction that leads to your prediction.,
Mung: Four consecutive statements not one of which is true.
False. (Hint: handwaving isn’t much of an argument.)
CharlieM: I haven’t proposed any designer for the flagellum. I merely commented on the design.
If you claim something is an artifact, then there is a necessary chain of causation from the artifact to the art to the artisan.
Quest: What I can’t comprehend about scientists’ inability to replicate the “simplest” of cells is that evolutionists believe that that dumb luck is smarter than the smartest of scientists in the field, who are working on RE-CREATING LIFE
Evolution isn’t dumb luck.
fifthmonarchyman (quoting): So an artificial neural network is an elaborate process to implement a function determined by the network’s designer.
Not sure what point you are making. An artificial neural network on a digital system is not actually an analog neural network as it only approximates real number variables.
Querius: Let’s say you find a piece of obsidian with several conchoidal fractures. How would you determine intelligent design?
By comparing it with other similar pieces of obsidian. Most fractures will be natural. If you propose the fractures were made artificially, we would look for a connection between the obsidians and the hypothesized designer, by studying the process by which the hypothesized designer may have made the fractures, searching for signs or remains of the designer, finding the left-over fragments, and possibly the purpose of the reshaping of the obsidians. The more obsidians we collect, the more evidence we have connecting the obsidians to a designer, the stronger our conclusion will be.
http://www.bu.edu/today/2013/knapping-rocks/
Querius: All that ID advocates is that if something seems designed, study it as if it were.
But ID advocates never actually do that. Study it, that is. They conclude design and then stop.
Zachriel:
That is your uneducated opinion.
The ID hypothesis AGAIN:
1. High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design.
2. Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity.
3. Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity.
4. Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems.
Unguided/ blind watchmaker evolution is nothing but sheer dumb luck. Natural selection is impotent and doesn’t do anything that would change that.
And AGAIN:
Seeing that we only look for an intelligent designer AFTER we have determined the existence of intelligent design, the argument that ID is lame because it does not identify the intelligent designer is lame at best and demonstrates ignorance with respect to investigative processes.
Intelligent Design is about determining AND studying intelligent designs in nature. And guess what:
Reality dictates that in the absence of direct observation the ONLY POSIBBLE way to make any scientific claims about the designer(s) or specific process(es) used, is by studying the design(s) and all relevant evidence.
That our opponents refuse to grasp that scientific fact demonstrates that they are on an anti-science crusade.
Evolve in posting # 6 says:
We have never observed any supernatural force tinkering with nature, past or present.
There have been people who walk through fire, which ordinarily would be impossible to even approach, were it not for the intervention of a “god”. Whether or not a real entity is involved could be debatable, but the fact remains that in some way the supernatural has “tinkered with nature”.
69
logically_speaking
re: Who designed the designer?
The Creator created time. Outside of time, there is no “before”.
Zac say,
state your hypothesis, then show the deduction that leads to your prediction.,
I say,
Hypothesis: Irreducibly Complex configurations are not computable
Deduction:
Premise one: Irreducibly Complex configurations contain information beyond the sum of the information contained in their individual parts. (self evident from the definition of IC)
Premise two: This additional information is not accessible by algorithmic means. (self evident given the “transcendental/above the string” nature of the additional information)
Hope you understand. Not sure how many more ways I can express it.
Maybe you could restate what you believe my point to be in your own words and then explain why you believe it is not valid.
Or if you wish why you believe my prediction does not follow necessarily from my premises
peace
I have no doubt about that the brain is the organ of thought, an interface of consciousness to spacetime, and the thing that determines what consciousness experiences. We don’t know much about how the brain does what it does. It’s controversial. (See Penrose, Hammeroff, and Chalmers. Yes, they have their detractors, but they have, IMO, successfully answered them.) How do you go from molecular networks to the subjective experience that you and I have of “blue”, for example?
Nobody knows what the hell consciousness is. It rightly deserved to be in a category by itself. Chalmers thinks consciousness is primary. So do I. Moreover, the entire brain does not appear to be directly associated with consciousness, only parts of it. Why only some parts and not others? What is special about the parts of the brain that are directly associated with consciousness? Nobody knows. Daniel Dennet essentially “explains” it by denying it exists. Some explanation. Maybe he’s a zombie.
I’m not sure what your reply has to do with my post. My point is, the starting point of ID is implicitly ourselves. We know we have powers of foresight and we know we can manipulate matter in ways unknown to “blind natural forces” as we understand and define them. It is natural for us to look at biological objects that appear designed and to question whether they were in fact designed or not. This is the proximate basis for ID. Blind evolutionary biology has by and large rejected this line of inquiry. And arbitrarily so.
Quite right. And those computer models are endowed with their ability from humans. One candle kindling another, so to speak. What endowed human brains with their powers of foresight? If one asserts that blind naturalistic forces are capable of it, one has quite a challenge in demonstrating that. Of course, ID has its challenges too.
Are you asking me why assume that the UFC is conscious and has powers of creation, such as the ability to make a universe and create life on at least one planet? If so, the question is beyond the scope of my statement, which deals with the philosophical parsimony of IR vs UFC.
But to answer your question (for the hell of it), people have all kinds of reasons for holding this or that view of the UFC. I doubt this is the thread to start such a discussion.
fifthmonarchyman: Hypothesis: Irreducibly Complex configurations are not computable
You really should avoid using the term Irreducible Complexity as your use of the term is contrary to the established meaning.
Your next two statements incorrectly use the word “premise”. They are presumably the deductions from your hypothesis (premise).
fifthmonarchyman: one: Irreducibly Complex configurations contain information beyond the sum of the information contained in their individual parts. (self evident from the definition of IC)
That’s not a deduction, but a restatement of your definition. Okay.
fifthmonarchyman: two: This additional information is not accessible by algorithmic means. (self evident given the “transcendental/above the string” nature of the additional information)
That’s not a deduction, but a conclusion. You introduced a new term, transcendental, then claim without support that it is non-algorithmic.
fifthmonarchyman: Maybe you could restate what you believe my point to be in your own words and then explain why you believe it is not valid.
No, you did fine expressing your view. Your #one is not a deduction, but just a restatement. Your #two is not a proper deduction from the hypothesis.
Vishnu: I have no doubt about that the brain is the organ of thought, an interface of consciousness to spacetime, and the thing that determines what consciousness experiences.
An interface to spacetime? Any evidence of this?
Vishnu: We don’t know much about how the brain does what it does. It’s controversial.
Most of the controversy seems to be philosophical, not scientific.
Vishnu: My point is, the starting point of ID is implicitly ourselves.
And the starting point in biology is the commonalities between human and non-human cognition. This technique of scientific inquiry has led to many scientific advances, while philosophical musing largely reached a deadend centuries ago.
Seems RDFish was just trolling.
As for Zachriel, see vjt’s latest OP.
As far as handwaving, I assume that when people come here to UD and start handwaving that it must be their preferred method of communication and I should wave hands back.
There’s no point in treating nonsense as if it’s a replacement for rational discussion and RDFish has been here long enough to know better.
ZAC say,
No, you did fine expressing your view.
I say
cool
maybe I’m not understanding your request then
What exactly are you looking for here? Your critique seems incoherent to me but I’m sure it’s just poor reading comprehension on my part
Peace
ps
I’m going to take a break for a while I’ll get back to this when I can
Me_Think,
Me: You didn’t answer the question to why you changed the word painter to created.
You: Did I change painter to creator?
My response: yes you did, when asked whether a self portrait by looking into a mirror creates an infinite regress you replied, “Yes. The painter has to be created by someone who needs to be created by someone”.
All this is the face of the obvious fact that no self portrait has ever actually created an infinite regress.
You: I said Yes, because not everyone can be a painter. You need to teach and guide a child before he can become a painter , or ID has to create a preordained painter. I said painter has to be taught by someone or ID has to create the painter.
My response: How much information needs to be imparted specifically for the child to become a painter? Can you please show your math?
You: I didn’t change ‘Painter’ to ‘Creator’.
My response: Of course you did, that’s why you are talking about how painters are created, while I was talking about how painters are painted.
You: You claim that you need to teach a child before they can paint. But why can’t a painting be created by natural forces? How much information needs to be imparted specifically for the child to become a painter? Can you please show your math?
If you claim paintings are created by natural forces, it is you who needs to explain. I am curious why you think a manifestation of human creativity has to be explained by natural forces ?
My response: I didn’t claim that natural forces CAN create a painting, I ASKED why CAN’T they, big difference.
But then its interesting that you don’t use your very own criteria for when you claim natural forces created for example molecular machines.
Lets change a few words (because that seems ok to you) to make my point here,
“If you claim MOLECULAR MACHINES are created by natural forces, it is you who needs to explain. I am curious why you think a manifestation of ANY creativity has to be explained by natural forces”?
You: Was this child the original painter in the original question?
How do I know ? It’s your question. You are entitled to think whatever you want.For me it doesn’t matter whether that child is painter in original question or not.
My response: Actually the child is YOUR invention based on an extrapolation of YOUR original answer, YOU have to explain YOUR own imagination.
You: Now I can imagine why metaphysics, or philosophy or whatever you call this discussion, is so exciting!
My response: I agree, plus it’s very interesting to see how your logic works, at the moment not so good.
Ok lets see what we can make of all this so far.
Your answer to my original question of who painted the painter now seems to be, a child who was taught to paint, painting a self portrait.
Fine, now my follow up questions with my answers,
1. Does that make the painter a “Necessary being”?
Yes it does.
2. Does it create an infinite regress?
No it does not.
Are you sure you don’t want to start again?
Mjazzguitar,
re: Who designed the designer?
The Creator created time. Outside of time, there is no “before”.
I know that. I agree. I am pro ID.
Me_Think @ 155
You say: ID falters at design detection stage. Any further, it disintegrates. That’s the reason there is so much resistant to the question of designer(s). Even to know if there is a single or multiple designers you need to know about the designer.
Me:
More realistically, ID research is forcefully resisted and design is not allowed to be considered as an option. You may say that evolution is a fact of life, well so is intelligent design, and not just as an activity practiced
by humans. Do you not think that swallow’s nests, beaver’s dams and termite mounds are intelligently designed?
And who do you think resists the question of designer(s)? I will happily discuss my views of the designer(s) with you, and from what I have read, most ID are quite open about their beliefs about the designer(s). But this has little to do with ID as a scientific endeavour.
Critics are desperate to keep ID tied to creationism because that way they feel justified in barring ID from the field of science. What you imagine to be resistance to the topic of designers is in fact you witnessing ID critics getting nowhere when they try to force the subject of designers into the science of ID. They get nowhere because the subject is not something that the ID advocate need concern himself/herself with.
Pachyaena @ #163
I don’t see what your problem is. Of course the bacterial flagellum can be described as a mechanism. they can measure its speed, the torque it generates and describe how it propels the cell through the medium. What is not mechanistic about that.
The op proposed building a gigantic model of the cell. Do you not think that this could only be achieved by manipulating physical materials and using mechanical tools? Or do you think that an ID advocate would expect it to be poofed into existence just by the power of thought? I can assure you that it will only be built by adhering to the laws of physics.
You say:
P.S. Landing a punch is not a “component” of someone, at least not in the same sense that a flagellum is a “component” of a bacterium.
No but the bones, muscles, nerves, etc that achieve this are components of someone in the same sense that a flagellum is a “component” of a bacterium.
fifthmonarchyman: What exactly are you looking for here?
An entailment is a deduction from the hypothesis. Your #2 is not a deduction. You introduced a new term, transcendental, then claim without support that it is non-algorithmic.
Again, look at historical examples. Given Newton’s Gravity, then through a series of calculations (deductions), a comet will appear in 1758.
http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/ast.....alley.html
LoL! @ Zachriel! Notice that Zach didn’t use evolutionism as an example of providing scientific entailments. 😛
Zachriel correctly stated: “But ID advocates never actually do that. Study it, that is. They conclude design and then stop.”
Joe dodged: “Seeing that we only look for an intelligent designer AFTER we have determined the existence of intelligent design…”
Joe, since you and all other IDers claim to have long ago determined the existence of intelligent design, what’s stopping you from studying the design and looking for “an intelligent designer”? The answer to those questions is obvious. You already have your minds made up as to who the designer is: the biblical-koranical god.
No one is stopping you IDers from studying anything that you want to study. IDers want and expect all scientists everywhere to devote all of their studies to intelligent design even though no IDer has or can point out even one thing that would change for the better in the scientific study of nature if all scientists were to believe that intelligent design exists in the ways that IDers claim it does and incorporate that belief into their scientific studies.
If belief in intelligent design and the incorporation of that belief into scientific studies were a better way of conducting scientific studies of nature, IDers would be the ones making all of the productive scientific discoveries and accurate predictions, and IDers would be the ones proposing and conducting new, detailed, productive avenues of further scientific research. In other words, ID science would be noticeably superior to non-ID science. In reality, adding the label “ID” to the scientific study of nature accomplishes nothing productive in any way.
Zac said,
An entailment is a deduction from the hypothesis.
I say,
Ah you want an entailment why did you not say so?
Hypothesis:
IC configurations are not-computable
entailment:
IC sets can not be created or expanded by algorithmic means
specific example
a program to expand the set of Shakespearean sonnets sufficiently to infallibly fool an observer is impossible
hope that helps
peace
CharlieM said: “Of course the bacterial flagellum can be described as a mechanism. they can measure its speed, the torque it generates and describe how it propels the cell through the medium. What is not mechanistic about that.”
Thank you for confirming my point (that you IDers describe life forms in a mechanistic way).
“The op proposed building a gigantic model of the cell. Do you not think that this could only be achieved by manipulating physical materials and using mechanical tools? Or do you think that an ID advocate would expect it to be poofed into existence just by the power of thought? I can assure you that it will only be built by adhering to the laws of physics.”
So then, you’re claiming that intelligent design is mechanistic-mechanical and that the ID inference, hypothesis, theory, or whatever you call it is a mechanistic-mechanical inference, hypothesis, theory, or whatever you call it. Now, maybe you and other IDers would like to describe how, when, and where the alleged non-physical designer-creator designed and created physical bacterial flagella and other “physical systems” and life forms?
I said: “P.S. Landing a punch is not a “component” of someone, at least not in the same sense that a flagellum is a “component” of a bacterium.”
You responded: “No but the bones, muscles, nerves, etc that achieve this are components of someone in the same sense that a flagellum is a “component” of a bacterium.”
Thank you for confirming my point (That landing a punch is not a “component” of someone, at least not in the same sense that a flagellum is a “component” of a bacterium.) You’re the one who erroneously equated a flagellum with someone landing a punch. You might as well have said that driving a car or flushing a toilet is a “component” of someone.
fifthmonarchyman, you seem to have missed my question at number 143 so here it is again:
Are you’re claiming that nothing in or about the universe is an algorithm and that nothing in or about the universe is caused by or dependent on any algorithm, except algorithms invented by humans?
Pachyaena
Are you’re claiming that nothing in or about the universe is an algorithm and that nothing in or about the universe is caused by or dependent on any algorithm, except algorithms invented by humans?
I say,
No not at all. What ever in the world would possibly have lead you to draw such a bizarre conclusion?
sock puppet:
We are studying the design. We just don’t have your seemingly stupid agenda.
What would change for the better? LoL! Even Dawkins understands that we would be looking at a totally different biology- ie one ruled by intelligent design as opposed to contingency. We would also be looking for immaterial information that runs biology. And to top it all off we would understand that there is a purpose to our being.
There isn’t any blind watchmaker research going on. No one would even know what to do. And that bothers you.
CharlieM # 196
That is what ID propaganda wants you to believe. Nothing stops ID from putting out their scientific proof. Nothing stopped them from putting out CSI and white noise search landscape – not even lack of proof.
one more time, all together now – Evilutionists are not the road block, it is lack of proof that stops ID from progress.
Me Think- There isn’t any blind watchmaker research even though you have all the resources. No blind watchmaker progress- nothing. You don’t even have a theory.
BTW science isn’t about proof and there is plenty of positive evidence for ID in peer-reviewed journals. You are just too dim to assess that evidence
I have all I need.
One’s philosophy colors one interpretation of evidence which necessarily affects scientific interpretations. Current scientific interpretations are quite weak.
ID is not merely philosophical musings. And ID is a young endeavor with a lot of opposition from an entrenched philosophy and ideology. We’ll have to wait and see what happens over the next generation or two.
Vishnu:
Zachriel:
Vishnu:
😀
Replicating the cell…? How about making the cell membrane with all the necessary components in the environment even life can’t resist….
It is a fairy-tail beyond science… beyond reason… it is wimpy BS…
Me_Think @ 171 noted
That’s obviously your default assumption.
The problem is that in some cases, it’s widely accepted that these types of fractures were intelligently created by paleolithic humans as choppers and scrapers. Oops.
The ID position is if it looks like it’s designed, study it as if it were. Do you see what I mean?
-Q
Pachyaena @ 174 incorrectly noted:
ID takes no position on the identity of the designer(s). You’re confusing ID with Creationism. ID is a paradigm for studying complex systems using the constraints of the scientific method based on assuming that if something has the appearance of design, it should be studied as if it were.
In contrast, Creationism is a religious belief out of the domain of the scientific method.
-Q
Zachriel @ 181 responded with a description of how one would intelligently differentiate between conchoidal fractures that are natural versus those that are designed to be stone tools. Nicely stated, and I agree.
No, the opposite is true. Maybe you’re confusing ID with Creationism. If not, could you provide an example for your assertion?
Thank you.
-Q
Querius said:
“ID takes no position on the identity of the designer(s). You’re confusing ID with Creationism. ID is a paradigm for studying complex systems using the constraints of the scientific method based on assuming that if something has the appearance of design, it should be studied as if it were.”
Hogwash. Are you IDers ever going to be honest?
“In contrast, Creationism is a religious belief out of the domain of the scientific method.”
I agree, and since ID is just creationism with a dishonest label, it is a religious belief out of the domain of the scientific method.
For a start (yes, there is much more evidence):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Of_Pandas_and_People
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_strategy
fifthmonarchyman: Hypothesis: IC configurations are not-computable
entailment: IC sets can not be created or expanded by algorithmic means
That’s just a restatement of the hypothesis. Nor is it a specific observation that can be tested. It’s a broad claim that is conflated with human technical ability. In other words, if you can’t produce such an algorithm, what does it show?
Zachriel: An interface to spacetime? Any evidence of this?
Vishnu: I have all I need.
Perhaps, but you can’t or won’t provide support for your position.
Zachriel: But ID advocates never actually do that. Study it, that is. They conclude design and then stop.
Querius: No, the opposite is true. Maybe you’re confusing ID with Creationism. If not, could you provide an example for your assertion?
That’s funny. You want an example of something said not to exist.
Querius: ID is a paradigm for studying complex systems using the constraints of the scientific method based on assuming that if something has the appearance of design, it should be studied as if it were.
Now that you’ve identified design, what have you discovered thus far? What research program is based on ID beyond merely the claim that something is designed? As there is a causal connection between an artifact, the art, and the artisan, what can you tell us about the art? What of the mechanisms by which the artisan imposed his design? What characteristics can you infer about the artisan from a study of the art and the artifacts?
Querius: Maybe you’re confusing ID with Creationism.
At least Creationism provides a rudimentary model.
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.
ZAc says
It’s a broad claim that is conflated with human technical ability.
I say,
No Zac I believe you are mistaken. The original paper on the non-computability of consciousness gave a mathematical proof that eliminates the possibility of algorithmically creating or expanding IC configurations. This proof holds universally regardless of the technical ability of the programer.
The only way around the proof is to establish that IC configurations don’t actually exist in reality.
I am pretty sure you know this already
Zac says,
Nor is it a specific observation that can be tested.
I say
Actually it can be phrased in a very specific way
X is IC therefor X can not be created or expanded by algorithmic means.
Substitute any IC configuration for X and you are ready to test.
The X we have been using here is “Shakespearean Sonnets” but “bacterial Flagellum” works just as well
ZAc says,
In other words, if you can’t produce such an algorithm, what does it show?
I say,
Again you are looking at this the wrong way if you produce such an algorithm you falsify the hypothesis.
Your failure to do so provides only indirect support to the hypothesis.
A negative cancer screening does not prove you are cancer free but repeated negatives indirectly supports that contention
peace
fifthmonarchyman: The original paper on the non-computability of consciousness gave a mathematical proof that eliminates the possibility of algorithmically creating or expanding IC configurations.
You are presumably referring to Maguire et al., Is Consciousness Computable? Quantifying Integrated Information Using Algorithmic Information Theory, Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society 2014. We already pointed out several problems with their proofs.
They define integrating function such that “the knowledge of m(z) does not help to describe m(z’), when z and z’ are close”, which is exactly contrary to how people learn and developing understanding.
They also state, “An integrating function’s output is such that the information of its two (or more) inputs is completely integrated.” But we know from simple observation that people integrate information incompletely. In other words, information is always lost during the process of learning. People integrate new knowledge within the parameters of what they already know.
fifthmonarchyman: X is IC therefor X can not be created or expanded by algorithmic means.
Yes, that’s your claim. You keep using IC in an idiosyncratic manner. It doesn’t appear explicitly defined on this thread. It means the sum of information is greater than the information of its parts. Is that correct? Please define information.
fifthmonarchyman: Again you are looking at this the wrong way if you produce such an algorithm you falsify the hypothesis.
Okay. But no such algorithm is known. Does this tell us anything? No.
fifthmonarchyman: Your failure to do so provides only indirect support to the hypothesis.
It doesn’t even do that unless you can show why humans should be able to explore the realm of algorithms sufficiently to solve the problem. Frankly, we’re not even sure you can define it specifically enough to know when we have solved the problem.
Zachriel @ # 181:
If you claim something is an artifact, then there is a necessary chain of causation from the artifact to the art to the artisan.
I agree. But why do you stop short at the artisan? In your proposed scheme the flagellum is the artifact, the way it is constructed, maintained and put to use is the art and the bacterial cell is the artisan.
In relation to arrow heads the specimen is the artifact, the way it is constructed and used is the art and the individual who made it is the artisan. But we can go further. Before arrows were first contructed and used some person held the idea in their minds. The thought preceeded the construction by the artisan. It is extremely unlikely that we will ever know who first came up with the idea, but that doesn’t stop us studying and admiring the artifact and the art, and speculating about how the artisan developed the skill and with whom did the skill originate.
CharlieM: I agree. But why do you stop short at the artisan? In your proposed scheme the flagellum is the artifact, the way it is constructed, maintained and put to use is the art and the bacterial cell is the artisan.
Notably, you didn’t mention an artisan other than the bacterium.
CharlieM: It is extremely unlikely that we will ever know who first came up with the idea, but that doesn’t stop us studying and admiring the artifact and the art, and speculating about how the artisan developed the skill and with whom did the skill originate.
We can research how they developed the skill, by replicating the process.
Sorry, not sure how to edit, but in my last comment only the first sentence is by Zachriel, all that follows is my reply.
Zachriel, why would I mention any other artisan? We see from observation that bacteria make flagella. What is your point?
CharlieM: We see from observation that bacteria make flagella.
That’s fine. We’re in agreement.
Glad to hear it 🙂
Pachyaena @ 214 said,
“Hogwash” might be your opinion, but it’s not a cogent argument. Questioning my honesty is an ad hominem attack, which means that you’ve run out of arguments and have conceded the point.
Goodbye.
-Q
Zachriel @ 215,
You made the unsupported assertion that “ID advocates never actually do that. Study it, that is. They conclude design and then stop.” It’s your onus to support it, not mine to chase behind you and falsify your every wild assertion.
I did not identify design, and as I said before, ID takes no position on the designer(s). I simply said that the ID position is that if something looks designed (whatever that might be), to study it as if it were. Popular examples include a mechanical engineering approach to studying the construction and operation of flagellar motors, and the assumption that “junk” DNA is not junk, but designed for a purpose.
However, the inferences you’re asking about are in the realm of philosophy or religion.
Are you reading my posts? ID is not a model, it’s a paradigm. Creationism asserts that the Genesis narrative is an accurate description of the origins of the universe and life on earth. It is not a model in any scientific sense.
-Q
Querius said: “Questioning my honesty is an ad hominem attack, which means that you’ve run out of arguments and have conceded the point.”
I’m not “Questioning” your honesty. I’m saying that you are dishonest, and so is anyone else who claims that “ID” is not relabeled creationism.
“Intelligent Design opens the whole possibility of us being created in the image of a benevolent God.” (William Dembski)
“The job of apologetics is to clear the ground, to clear obstacles that prevent people from coming to the knowledge of Christ…. And if there’s anything that I think has blocked the growth of Christ as the free reign of the Spirit and people accepting the Scripture and Jesus Christ, it is the Darwinian naturalistic view…. It’s important that we understand the world. God has created it; Jesus is incarnate in the world.” (William Dembski)
“The mechanical philosophy was ever blind to this fact. Intelligent design, on the other hand, readily embraces the sacramental nature of physical reality. Indeed, intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.” (William Dembski)
“This is really an opportunity to mobilize a new generation of scholars and pastors not just to equip the saints but also to engage the culture and reclaim it for Christ. That’s really what is driving me.” (William Dembski)
“But there are deeper motivations. I think at a fundamental level, in terms of what drives me in this is that I think God’s glory is being robbed by these naturalistic approaches to biological evolution, creation, the origin of the world, the origin of biological complexity and diversity. When you are attributing the wonders of nature to these mindless material mechanisms, God’s glory is getting robbed…And so there is a cultural war here. Ultimately I want to see God get the credit for what he’s done – and he’s not getting it.” (William Dembski)
“Thus, in its relation to Christianity, intelligent design should be viewed as a ground-clearing operation that gets rid of the intellectual rubbish that for generations has kept Christianity from receiving serious consideration.” (William Dembski)
“My thesis is that all disciplines find their completion in Christ and cannot be properly understood apart from Christ.” (William Dembski)
Want more evidence?
P.S. If what you say is true, every point ever made by IDers has been conceded many, many, many times, so you (Querius) might like to have a chat with your fellow IDers about ad hominem attacks and conceding points.
Querius: You made the unsupported assertion that “ID advocates never actually do that. Study it, that is. They conclude design and then stop.”
We’ve never seen any study in a scientific journal concerning the hypothesized designer, or much of anything for that matter. Perhaps we are mistaken. Do you have a few citations for consideration.
Querius: I simply said that the ID position is that if something looks designed (whatever that might be), to study it as if it were.
No one is holding you back. Having determined something was designed, what else have you determined?
Querius: However, the inferences you’re asking about are in the realm of philosophy or religion.
What? Asking about the designer of the Empire State Building isn’t philosophy or religion.
Querius: ID is not a model, it’s a paradigm.
And because it doesn’t propose a model, it has no entailments, and is scientifically sterile.
ID has entailments and Zachriel has been made aware of them. So either Zachriel is willfully ignorant or very dishonest.
OTH unguided / blind watchmaker evolution doesn’t have any entailments and as such is outside of science.
And anyone who sez that ID is relabeled creationism is also willfully ignorant or very dishonest. ID doesn’t have anything top do with religion and ID does not require God.
If the Bible were refuted creationism would fall but ID would not be effected.
Joe, do you thoroughly understand the alleged intelligent design-creation of life itself, humans and all other species that have ever existed, the formation and geological history of this planet, and the formation and history of everything else in/about the universe, including time, light, gravity, etc., and allegedly immaterial and/or supernatural designer-creator-god(s), information, consciousness, souls, etc.?
Pachyaena said:
ID theory is basically a science-based, modern version of the teleological argument, which goes at least as far back as 400 BC. Creationists may be using the ID argument to advance their view, better their argument, or as the basis of some social agenda, but ID is most certainly not relabeled creationism per se.
Quoting what leading ID advocates have said in various contexts wrt their personal, philosophical or religious views doesn’t change the fact of what ID theory is and states, any more than quoting Darwinists without context can define what Darwinistic evolutionary theory is and states.
Joe said: “And anyone who sez that ID is relabeled creationism is also willfully ignorant or very dishonest. ID doesn’t have anything top do with religion and ID does not require God.” (my bolding)
Oh really? Have you verified all of that, and especially the bolded part, with Dembski, Meyer, West, Kenyon, Howard Ahmanson, kairosfocus, bornagain77, VJ Torley, O’leary, Barry Arrington, WL Craig, Egnor, Behe, Wells, Luskin, McLatchie, and all other IDers? Maybe you can get all of them to come here and honestly speak about that.
Joe, if ‘the designer’ isn’t “God”, who or what is ‘the designer’?
“If the Bible were refuted creationism would fall but ID would not be effected.”
How about the koran, Joe? And are you claiming that all creationists are Christians?
Pachyaena @200:
Well, actually, up to very recently ID was exactly the view that undergirded scientific exploration for hundreds of years. The ID premise is in fact logically necessary for the expectation of a natural world and corresponding human faculty of understanding that would make the world comprehensible in terms of natural laws and forces.
Why do you think natural laws are expected to be elegant? Why do you think anyone should expect nature to be efficient? Why would we assume natural laws are universal?
These are certainly not concepts derivable from the idea that a universe sprang into existence from nothing.
Indeed, most of the greatest, most useful concepts in science stemmed from the assumption of ID, that we were uncovering “the mind of god”. The scientific literature is full of corresponding assumptive design and teleological terminology.
Indeed, the scientific method itself is dependent upon the assumption of a reliably consistent, orderly, law-bound universe – something we would only have an expectation for if we assumed something was imposing such an orderly, universal system onto the behavior of matter and energy in the first place.
Please try and remember, natural laws describe behavior, they don’t cause the behavior. We have no idea why matter should behave the way it does. Without a heuristic of investigation that provides a framework as to why we should expect order, regularity, universality, elegance, efficiency and comprehensibility in the first place, then scientific investigation flounders in a primitive state as it did for centuries under other, less adequate worldviews.
For atheistic materialists to basically “take over” the halls of science built by theists before them and then pronounce ID useless or counterproductive to science while still using their foundation and their principles is laughable.
William J Murray said: A bunch of dishonest hooey.
Are you IDers ever going to be honest? Will you PLEASE be honest?
I’m not of any Abrahamic faith – or any organized religion – and I’m an advocate of ID. Even if all IDists were abrahamic creationists and they all were using ID to advance some social agenda, that wouldn’t change the fact that ID theory itself is an entirely valid scientific undertaking.
You have to be able to separate the message from the messenger to see if the message has any validity; who delivers the message and why has no bearing on it.
Pachyaena said:
Calling me dishonest doesn’t point out the dishonesty. I strive to be entirely honest, even to the point of giving information that can be used against me in an argument.
If you can point to where the actual theory of ID requires creationism, you’d have a point. But it does not. Even if the theory of ID was carefully crafted by creationists to avoid any creationist entanglements, that doesn’t mean the theory it self has any necessarily creationist aspects.
Once again, who offers the theory and why doesn’t make the theory a bad theory. What matters is what the theory actually asserts.
Similarly, because a bunch of victorian-age racists first advanced the theory of evolution doesn’t make it a scientifically non-valid theory.
William J Murray said: “These are certainly not concepts derivable from the idea that a universe sprang into existence from nothing.”
Tell that to every IDer who believes that “God” sprang into existence from nothing and created the universe from nothing.
And you do realize, don’t you, that by claiming ID goes at least as far back as 400 BC and that ID undergirded scientific exploration for hundreds of years you’re contradicting IDers who claim that ID is “young” and you’re making it very difficult for you IDers to claim that IDers have been blocked from science.
William, I have to go for now but I’ll leave you with a question: You’re a theist who believes in one creator god and that that god is the source (creator) of all existence, right?
Victorian-age racists? Sheesh.
I don’t know of any IDers that believe any of that. Nor do I.
What IDers claim that ID is “young”? The current, scientific theory form of ID is relatively young – before the middle ages it was largely a philosophical argument. I think the complaint now about ID theorists being ostracized from the current scientific community is largely due to the response to the new, scientific formulation of the ID argument which materialists & atheists find threatening to their ideology.
It would be more accurate to say that I have chosen to provisionally assume and act as if such a god exists, not that I actually believe such a god exists. Whether such a god actually exists or not is largely irrelevant to me.
However, I think it would be difficult to reconcile my concept of god and reality with most IDists. That being said, I can easily see that ID is certainly a valid scientific theory by any reasonable measure.
Now, whether or not their means of discerning ID is rigorously valid or not I do not know, but in principle ID presents sound scientific arguments that, from my perspective, anti-ID advocates act like madmen attempting to deny and derail.
Zachriel:
That is a very defamatory statement. Especially from someone who did not even bother to properly study what an ID advocate such as myself has been explaining. For example:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-533481
You are just being another stereotype filled trash talking troll filling up the forum with scientifically irresponsible junk. Instead of studying and discovering how intelligence and intelligent cause works, as at least some of us are making progress in, you and others only throw insults in order to justify your scam that gives control of everything to an academic industry where you must be affiliated with a prestigious institution or not even bother putting your name on it because you’re already marked as a nobody in that realm anyway. All else that goes on in science and science education is easily unfairly discredited by a discriminatory system that is not as fair as it claims to be. Even defamatory statements and appeal to authority are by you believed to be how the integrity of science is maintained. I find your tactics to be very disturbing.
… just another stereotype filled trash talking troll …
Where is Barry when we need him. ?
Graham2:
Well the bright side is that I now feel much better, after having personally taken care of that one.
I did not intend to get so emotional. But I too have a job that takes a lot of my time and deserve better than constant slaps in the face from those who see nothing wrong with repeating harmful stereotypes that slow down and destroy my credibility, science work, life, everything. It’s a very frustrating situation to be in.
GSG: You piqued my interest: what has your job got to do with ID ? How could criticisms of ID ‘slow down my Science work’ ? Do you mean you actually work in ID ? (surely not!)
Graham2 @ 244
Gary S. Gaulin is a leading proponent of ID 🙂 He has a 51 page pdf document on ” Intelligence Design Laboratory and its Theory of Operation the Theory of Intelligent Design” (just click on his name to go to his awesome blog) . He also has a VB6 program of intelligent critter. He is able to predict evolution of intelligence with the help of a read/write operation graph:
I clicked on the link … jeeeez. Why am I reminded of the time-cube ?
I don’t think GSG is welcome here: what he is proposing looks completely materialistic, no gods, no mind, no soul, no morality.
Graham2:
I work in the graphics arts industry (yes surely not in ID) at a family printshop where my job is to keep the machinery repaired and running on a shoestring budget that does not afford calling up a repair tech when something is not right. The pay is not all that great (could be worse though) but it’s not a bad job for someone like me who likes electronics, mechanics and other sciences that the job involves.
As with Barry who more or less had a similar meltdown in his Moderation at UD article I also have a job and my ID related work is an unpaid and often thankless labor of love, not a job that I can support myself with! Complaints about not having completed several hundred thousand hours of additional work necessary to please everyone are ridiculous demands to expect of me.
My ID science work is in addition to paleontology related work at Gaulin Tracksite that is thankfully right here in my yard because I can’t afford a car to get around with anymore. I am known and respected by local scientists, teachers and I am in no need to make a name for myself, I feel I already did. The best of the trace fossils found at the site are now at the Springfield Science Museum including a relatively large amount safely stored in the basement vault and is being documented by those who have the experience to do so, which I do not have but others I know who are experienced academic scientists get that science work done right. From many years of earlier work I am not at all a scientific outcast or feel shunned by academia. It’s more the opposite. I know I am lucky to have made it where I did in science. The problem is that I already have an overwhelming amount of science work, in addition to my day-job, and don’t have time for the headgames!
I have the theory in book/booklet form that you may have already seen and I could print some sample copies at any time. But getting an honest opinion from those who appointed themselves to be the science defenders is almost useless. Instead of mentioning where I could add or improve a sentence I have to endure excuses for brushing off the whole thing, which attempt to destroy my scientific credibility then I get stuck having to defend myself against mostly personal attacks. I don’t mind legitimate scientific challenges, but most of what I get is of no help at all. It’s like I ended up having to constantly stop all the science work that I can afford, just to battle stereotypes that sabotaged it.
Graham2:
And there we go again. While I was writing my reply to you you were were writing junk that does not even address the actual content of the theory. It is nothing less than irresponsible to say that a theory to (from the genome up) explain how intelligence and intelligent cause works is explaining “no mind”. Talking about “gods” like you did is not even science, but who cares right?
Graham2:
Gary is a squeak toy for the regulars at AtBC. There’s an entire thread dedicated to his nonsense.
GSG: I did a quick scan through the PDF. Not a thorough read, but I think I got the drift.
Its heavy on the machine-control stuff (im tangentially involved in this sort of stuff myself) but I have absolutely no idea how it is related to ID. Sure, the little critter may display clever behaviour, but its no more than any well-programmed system could do. But what does any of this have to do with an intelligent creator ?
Are you suggesting the machine displays intelligence ? I don’t get the point.
A ‘squeaky toy’. You really are terrible, aren’t you.
Graham2:
I am showing what happens when the scientific evidence is properly followed to wherever it leads in search of an “intelligent creator” (or whatever you want to call what created us) starting from the premise of ID theory which states:
The journey lead to ID Labs at Planet Source Code, where in the how-to community it’s a “goal of further research and challenge for all” to experiment with:
http://www.planetsourcecode.co.....8;lngWId=1
And there is no telling what will happen next to help antiquate the Darwinian mindset, like this new challenge that helps makes things much more scientifically challenging than getting away with throwing insults:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-533655
All together is this illustration to show where intelligent causation is at, and when it first happened on this planet:
https://sites.google.com/site/intelligenceprograms/Home/Causation.GIF
Instead of whining and complaining about people wanting to discover new things that muddle the Darwinian empire I’m helping out by showing what scientifically defeats their opponents, while remaining thousands of times more faith friendly than the generalization filled Darwinian paradigm that it antiquates. Regardless of the theory being made of routine cognitive science basics that explain how intelligence works and “intelligent cause” being something already being programmed towards it’s still a whole lot better than the ID movement having nothing at all in the science arena that easily enough beats their Darwinian opponents at their own game.
Graham2,
You’ve got to admit, it’s the perfect metaphor. 🙂
Good points all, Gary. I enjoyed your website as well.
Some of the detractors here have offered nothing but unsupported assertions and mean-spirited vituperation as we can all see. My suggestion is simply to ignore them—just let them rant and rave.
By resorting to abuse, they have conceded the argument.
Best wishes,
-Q
Querius @ 254,
Yes Gary, specially the incredible way you predict evolution of intelligence with the help of a read/write operation graph:
BA77 has finally met his match.
Querius said: “By resorting to abuse, they have conceded the argument.”
Yeah, I’ve noticed the abuse by Joe, kairosfocus, Quest, Box, Vishnu, Mung, Mapou, Gary, and plenty of other IDers too.
I asked William J Murray: “You’re a theist who believes in one creator god and that that god is the source (creator) of all existence, right?”
I got this and a lot of other evasive, diversionary gibberish from William in response:
“It would be more accurate to say that I have chosen to provisionally assume and act as if such a god exists, not that I actually believe such a god exists. Whether such a god actually exists or not is largely irrelevant to me.”
With that in mind, here are some statements by William:
“My premise that god is the source of cause and effect, existence, logic, intention is not the same as your misrepresentation that my premise allows for other, similar gods. I do not postulate god as “a” source of those things, but as “the” source of those things, which means – under my premise – that other such gods (as “the” source of those things) cannot exist.”
“Being uncaused, god has always existed”
“As the premised god is the source of all existence, you cannot insert independent “conditions” or “a void” or “nothing” or “other entities’ that exist without being caused to exist by the very god I’ve premised as the source of all existence.”
“My belief that free will exists (necessitated by how I must actually behave) doesn’t comport (that I can tell) with any founding premise other than theism. Similarly (and in correlation), my beliefs of first/sufficient cause, an objective good, and that true statements exist and can be deliberately discerned do not comport with any fundamental premises other than theistic ones that I am aware of.”
“One can’t just “throw away” the premises and keep the product of those premises and still maintain that their worldview is logically justifiable (consistent). The idea of an “objective good” is especially untenable without a creator god.”
“Yes, it’s my view that an innate, eternal quality of the god that created existence is what we refer to as “good”. Thus, god cannot change what is good by command”
“Second, we’re not talking about “a” creator, but “the” creator, as in the ground of being.”
“God is the ground of being, the source of mind, the source of existential purpose, that necessarily infuses its characteristics in that which it creates.”
“God doesn’t select from various purposes; god is the white light of pure, fundamental purpose; all other purposes are prism refractions, so to speak of that pure purpose; or exist as the rationally necessary lack thereof (not-A).”
William really likes to go around in circles and argue just for the sake of arguing and I’m sure that he will respond accordingly.
Graham2 as to:
“BA77 has finally met his match.”
Thanks for the unintended compliment, in your round-a-bout way, but I, as you noted IDers should, do not agree with Gary’s premises,,,
“Gary S. Gaulin, consciousness is not co-terminous with matter”
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-524013
Bornagain77, if you can meet the requirements of science with a testable model then you are welcomed to supply the missing information. From theory:
Gary as to,,,
“causes all of our complex intelligence related behaviors to connect back to the behavior of matter, which does not need to be intelligent to be source of consciousness.,,,
It is not possible to rule-out electronic or algorithmic consciousness existing,”
It is on you to empirically prove that matter can be the source of subjective consciousness. It is not on those who find your claim unbelievable to prove it impossible.
To see just how daunting of a task that is for you, please see this video on ‘the hard problem’ of consciousness by David Chalmers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK1Yo6VbRoo
William J Murray: Indeed, the scientific method itself is dependent upon the assumption of a reliably consistent, orderly, law-bound universe – something we would only have an expectation for if we assumed something was imposing such an orderly, universal system onto the behavior of matter and energy in the first place.
No. You just have to assume it’s orderly, or rather act as if it is; methodological orderliness.
What’s interesting is that one of the fundamental ordering principles in biology is evolutionary descent.
William J Murray: If you can point to where the actual theory of ID requires creationism, you’d have a point.
It’s pretty clear that modern ID evolved from creationism.
http://ncse.com/creationism/le.....onentsists
William J Murray: Once again, who offers the theory and why doesn’t make the theory a bad theory.
Sure.
William J Murray: What matters is what the theory actually asserts.
Actually, what matters in science are its testable entailments.
The Origin of Intelligent Design: A brief history of the scientific theory of intelligent design
by Jonathan Witt, Ph.D.
Executive Summary:
Critics of the theory of intelligent design often assert that it is simply a re-packaged version of creationism, and that it began after the Supreme Court struck down the teaching of creationism in Edwards v. Aguillard in 1987. In reality, the idea of intelligent design reaches back to Socrates and Plato, and the term “intelligent design” as an alternative to blind evolution was used as early as 1897. More recently, discoveries in physics, astronomy, information theory, biochemistry, genetics, and related disciplines during the past several decades provided the impetus for scientists and philosophers of science to develop modern design theory. Many of the central ideas for the theory of intelligent design were already being articulated by scientists and philosophers of science by the early 1980s, well before the Edwards v. Aguillard decision.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/T.....Design.pdf
as to:
“Actually, what matters in science are its testable entailments.”
Glad to see you finally agree with what I was telling you yesterday about Neo-Darwinism having no OBSERVATIONAL evidence to support its claims.
#256 Graham2
The above quote clearly qualifies as the “most clueless statement of the year”.
That shows, once more, that some interlocutors here are not interested at all in having a serious discussion. Really pathetic.
bornagain77: Glad to see you finally agree with what I was telling you yesterday about Neo-Darwinism having no OBSERVATIONAL evidence to support its claims.
Of course it does. While outmoded, neodarwinism still has a great deal of utility, especially in terms of population genetics, though it certainly is only an incomplete description of evolution.
Zach as to:
“Of course it does.” (have observational evidence)
No it doesn’t!
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-533360
as to:
“neodarwinism still has a great deal of utility, especially in terms of population genetics,”
Population genetics, contrary to what you believe, is a shining example of the failure of Neo-Darwinism to have ‘testable entailments’:
Lynn Margulis Criticizes Neo-Darwinism in Discover Magazine (Updated) – Casey Luskin April 12, 2011
Excerpt: Population geneticist Richard Lewontin gave a talk here at UMass Amherst about six years ago, and he mathemetized all of it–changes in the population, random mutation, sexual selection, cost and benefit. At the end of his talk he said, “You know, we’ve tried to test these ideas in the field and the lab, and there are really no measurements that match the quantities I’ve told you about.” This just appalled me. So I said, “Richard Lewontin, you are a great lecturer to have the courage to say it’s gotten you nowhere. But then why do you continue to do this work?” And he looked around and said, “It’s the only thing I know how to do, and if I don’t do it I won’t get grant money.” –
Lynn Margulis – biologist
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....45691.html
In fact, instead of a rigorous science, neo Darwinism is a full fledged pseudo-science on par with tea-leaf reading:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-533577
Science owes nothing to Darwinism
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ent-531669
#256 Graham2
The above quote clearly qualifies as the “most clueless statement of the year”.
Aren’t GSG’s ideas close to the ‘third way’ and other materialistic worldview positions, shared by Graham2 and his comrades? Are they so confused that can’t even recognize their own buddies and fellow travelers?
Obviously, GSG’s worldview seems diametrically opposite to BA77’s. They are irreconcilable.
BA77 hasn’t met his match yet, and most probably won’t. 🙂
His Maker created him unique. 🙂
bornagain77: Lynn Margulis Criticizes
Second-hand quote mines don’t constitute an argument. Lewontin was referring to pure equations of population genetics, which are very limited. Computer simulations provide a much better view of the process.
In any case, population genetics explains many findings, such as the persistence of sickle cell anemia, sex ratios, how variants move through populations, kin selection, etc.
Keep in mind that Neodarwinism is not current theory, so try to avoid arguing with a strawman. If you want to post something, try just posting a single link for discussion rather than a slew of only tangentially related claims and quote-mines.
bornagain,
Here’s why you shouldn’t use polemic sources.
The writer conflates Neodarwinism with Darwinism. Margulis is an avowed Darwinist, but rejects Neodarwinism. Do you understand the distinction?
Zach you claim
“Computer simulations provide a much better view of the process.” (of population genetics)
And the view we get is not conducive to Darwinian explanations in the least:
Using Numerical Simulation to Test the Validity of Neo-Darwinian Theory – 2008
Abstract: Evolutionary genetic theory has a series of apparent “fatal flaws” which are well known to population geneticists, but which have not been effectively communicated to other scientists or the public. These fatal flaws have been recognized by leaders in the field for many decades—based upon logic and mathematical formulations. However population geneticists have generally been very reluctant to openly acknowledge these theoretical problems, and a cloud of confusion has come to surround each issue.
Numerical simulation provides a definitive tool for empirically testing the reality of these fatal flaws and can resolve the confusion. The program Mendel’s Accountant (Mendel) was developed for this purpose, and it is the first biologically-realistic forward-time population genetics numerical simulation program. This new program is a powerful research and teaching tool. When any reasonable set of biological parameters are used, Mendel provides overwhelming empirical evidence that all of the “fatal flaws” inherent in evolutionary genetic theory are real. This leaves evolutionary genetic theory effectively falsified—with a degree of certainty which should satisfy any reasonable and open-minded person.
http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/techn.....Theory.pdf
Using Numerical Simulation to Better Understand Fixation Rates, and Establishment of a New Principle – “Haldane’s Ratchet” – Christopher L. Rupe and John C. Sanford – 2013
Excerpt: We then perform large-scale experiments to examine the feasibility of the ape-to-man scenario over a six million year period. We analyze neutral and beneficial fixations separately (realistic rates of deleterious mutations could not be studied in deep time due to extinction). Using realistic parameter settings we only observe a few hundred selection-induced beneficial fixations after 300,000 generations (6 million years). Even when using highly optimal parameter settings (i.e., favorable for fixation of beneficials), we only see a few thousand selection-induced fixations. This is significant because the ape-to-man scenario requires tens of millions of selective nucleotide substitutions in the human lineage.
Our empirically-determined rates of beneficial fixation are in general agreement with the fixation rate estimates derived by Haldane and ReMine using their mathematical analyses. We have therefore independently demonstrated that the findings of Haldane and ReMine are for the most part correct, and that the fundamental evolutionary problem historically known as “Haldane’s Dilemma” is very real.
Previous analyses have focused exclusively on beneficial mutations. When deleterious mutations were included in our simulations, using a realistic ratio of beneficial to deleterious mutation rate, deleterious fixations vastly outnumbered beneficial fixations. Because of this, the net effect of mutation fixation should clearly create a ratchet-type mechanism which should cause continuous loss of information and decline in the size of the functional genome. We name this phenomenon “Haldane’s Ratchet”.
http://www.icr.org/i/pdf/techn.....Theory.pdf
as to:
“Keep in mind that Neodarwinism is not current theory”
Then why is Neo-Darwinism, i.e. the modern synthesis, taught in schools, by force of law, as if it were an unquestioned fact?
Evidence for Creation now banned from UK religious education classes – July 2012
Excerpt: Recently, evolutionist Suzan Mazur published a book entitled, The Altenberg 16: An Exposé of the Evolution Industry.,, The Altenberg 16 is a group of top university academics who met together at a symposium held at Altenberg in Austria in 2008. According to Mazur, these leading evolutionary scientists ‘recognize that the theory of evolution which most practicing biologists accept and which is taught in classrooms today, is inadequate in explaining our existence.’ Some of the delegates would clearly go further. According to molecular biologist, Professor Antonio Lima-de-Faria, not only is the Darwinian paradigm wrong, but it ‘actually hinders discovery of the mechanism of evolution.’ Professor Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini spoke for a number in stating simply that natural selection ‘is not the way new species and new classes and new phyla originated.’ Professor Jerry Fodor confessed, ‘I don’t think anybody knows how evolution works.’ If scientists can’t point to a natural process that can drive evolution, why should evolution (by force of law) be taught as science, (as a fact), in school classrooms?
http://creation.com/creation-religious-education
Scientists stunned by the public’s doubt of Darwin – April 22, 2014
Excerpt: (Stephen) Meyer said that view under-represents the real facts being discovered in evolutionary biology.
“Very few leading evolutionary biologists today think that natural selection and random mutation are sufficient to produce the new forms of life we see arising in the history of life,” Meyer said. “And then when the public is catching wind of the scientific doubts of Darwinian evolution and expresses them in a poll like this, these self-appointed spokesmen for science say that the public is ignorant. But actually, the public is more in line with what’s going on in science than these spokesmen for science.”
http://www.worldmag.com/2014/0....._of_darwin
Z: Keep in mind that Neodarwinism is not current theory, so try to avoid arguing with a strawman.
bornagain77 {points to limitations of Neodarwinian models anyway.}
Mendel’s Accountant has a demonstrable flaw which virtually eliminates the known empirical effects of selection.
Lynn Margulis is far more antagonistic to the neo-Darwinian stranglehold on science than you want to admit:
Darwin’s Frog Defies Evolution – July 5, 2013
Excerpt: Lynn Margulis in an interview with Mazur pronounced,
“neo-Darwinists are a… religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon Biology.”
http://www.darwinthenandnow.co.....evolution/
Lynn Margulis: Evolutionist and Critic of Neo-Darwinism – Stephen C. Meyer – April 25, 2014
Excerpt: in Chapters 15 and 16 of Darwin’s Doubt, I addressed six new (that is, post neo-Darwinian) theories of evolution — theories that proposed new mechanisms to either supplement or replace the reliance upon mutation and natural selection in neo-Darwinian theory.,,
I show that, although several of these new evolutionary theories offer some intriguing advantages over the orthodox neo-Darwinian model, they too fail to offer adequate explanations for the origin of the genetic and epigenetic information necessary to account for new forms of animal life — such as those that arise in the Cambrian period.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....84871.html
A Group of Darwin-Skeptical Scientists Seeking a “Third Way” in Biology – May 2014
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....86231.html
The Third Way
“J.A. Shapiro a professor at the University of Chicago, , and other top researchers, is searching for a “third way,” a scientific, non-Darwinian way.”
http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/people
podcast – Non-Religious Skeptics of Darwinian Evolution – Aug 2014
http://intelligentdesign.podom.....7_31-07_00
Darwin’s Doubt (Part 9) by Paul Giem – video – The Post Darwinian World and Self Organization
Chapter 15 and 16 of Darwin’s Doubt in which 6 alternative models to neo-Darwinism, that have been proposed by evolutionists (such as those of the Altenberg 16) to ‘make up’ for the inadequacy in neo-Darwinism, are discussed and the failings of each model is exposed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....Ow3u0_mK8t
Zach, the computer simulations are accurate to real world data. Sanford is certainly no slouch in population genetics having invented the gene gun,,,
Moreover, that you would have to appeal to computer simulations, which are intelligently designed by the way, to try to put some type of observational evidence on the table is a joke!
Z: Second-hand quote mines don’t constitute an argument… If you want to post something, try just posting a single link for discussion rather than a slew of only tangentially related claims and quote-mines.
bornagain77: {posts a bunch of links anyway}
bornagain77: the computer simulations are accurate to real world data
That is incorrect. The program is written in Fortran, and has a demonstrable flaw.
bornagain77: Then why is Neo-Darwinism, i.e. the modern synthesis, taught in schools, by force of law, as if it were an unquestioned fact?
Neodarwinism is not written into law. Rather, Neodarwinism is taught just like Newton’s Theory is taught, because it is a good first approximation according to a consensus of the scientific community.
You never answered the question. Margulis is an avowed Darwinist, but rejects Neodarwinism. Do you understand the distinction?
Zach , I’m not your puppet, and I don’t care if you don’t like the quotes I cite! Get over your self importance! If I were you, I would worry about the fact that I have exposed you as a liar several times!
as to accuracy, its your deists/atheists’ word against Sanford’s. I’ll take Sanford’s word since I have caught you deists/atheists blatantly lying repeatedly about practically every thing of importance in biological science!
,,,Neo-Darwinism is not a good first approximation but is a pseudo-science that is protected by lawsuits issued by atheistic fundamentalists.
In fact, state legislatures have to pass legislation protecting teachers from harassment from atheists for teaching valid criticisms against Neo-Darwinism,, for instance,,
Scientists Issue Letter Supporting Louisiana Science Education Act
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....46881.html
The tyranny of neo-Darwinists in academia is well known and for you to pretend academic freedom is the norm is delusional at best or an outright lie at worst:,, See EXPELLED the movie and Bergman’s Slaughter of Dissidents for proof
I understand pretty much exactly what Margulis believed, so what does that have to do with the fact that you have misrepresented (read lied), about the adequacy of Neo-Darwinism and its stranglehold on public education?
You do understand the distinction between lying and telling the truth don’t you?
Pachyaena @258:
It seems to me you’re not really interested in honest dialogue/debate, since you are insisting that all ID views fit into your preconceived box of oversimplified creationism and that anything other than that which conforms to your cartoonish template is, as you put it, “evasive, diversionary gibberish”.
There exist more interesting and logically robust forms of theism than that which can be gleaned from watching South Park and The Simpsons. I was fortunate enough to run across those views in the midst of my militant atheism a few years ago. Perhaps you will, too. That is, if you can stop dismissing them out of hand long enough to actually evaluate them fairly.
@271 Zachriel
I don’t understand the distinction. Can you explain it, please? Thank you.
Dionisio, Margulis believed life evolved, but not in the manner held by Neo-Darwinists,,,
“Throughout most of her career, Margulis was considered a radical by peers who pursued traditional Darwinian “survival of the fittest” approaches to biology. Her ideas, which focused on symbiosis—a living arrangement of two different organisms in an association that can be either beneficial or unfavourable—were frequently greeted with skepticism and even hostility.”
http://www.britannica.com/EBch.....n-Margulis
She, begrudgingly accepted, was a constant thorn in the side for neo-Darwinists:
“This is the issue I have with neo-Darwinists: They teach that what is generating novelty is the accumulation of random mutations in DNA, in a direction set by natural selection. If you want bigger eggs, you keep selecting the hens that are laying the biggest eggs, and you get bigger and bigger eggs. But you also get hens with defective feathers and wobbly legs. Natural selection eliminates and maybe maintains, but it doesn’t create…. [N]eo-Darwinists say that new species emerge when mutations occur and modify an organism. I was taught over and over again that the accumulation of random mutations led to evolutionary change — led to new species. I believed it until I looked for evidence.” (Quoted in “Discover Interview: Lynn Margulis Says She’s Not Controversial, She’s Right,” Discover Magazine, p. 68 (April, 2011).)
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....84871.html
bornagain77: I don’t care if you don’t like the quotes I cite!
That’s fine. No one can require you to support your positions, or answer simple questions. We can, however, point out when you don’t.
bornagain77: I’ll take Sanford’s word
The problem with his software is demonstrable. The usual response at this point is to ask for support, rather than relying on misplaced authority.
bornagain77: I understand pretty much exactly what Margulis believed
Margulis was an avowed Darwinist, but rejected Neodarwinism. Do you understand the distinction?
Dionisio: I don’t understand the distinction. Can you explain it, please?
Sure. Neodarwinism is the old synthesis of Darwin’s theory with Mendelian genetics. It posits a model of variation where changes are primarily through mutational steps and homologous recombination. It’s somewhat outmoded now, but still describes many aspects of population genetics.
Margulis was using Darwinism conventionally to refer to the theory that natural selection is the primary mechanism of adaptation. She accepted Darwinism, but she rejected Neodarwinism as an oversimplified model, and she provided important examples of evolutionary change that were not due to mutational steps, including her theory of endosymbiosis. Nonetheless, she realized that endosymbiotes only persist because of natural selection.
Margulis proposed her endosymbiotic theory in the early 1970s. (See Margulis, The Origin of Eukaryotic Cells, Yale University Press 1972). That the theory is now a standard part of the theory of evolution shows that naïve Neodarwinism was long ago outmoded. Neodarwinism is still taught as a simplified model in evolutionary biology, just as Newton’s Theory is taught as a simplified model in physics. They both explain many phenomena, though they are both limited in their domains.
Zach, my quotes are accurate in so far as they go. You didn’t like them and tried to nitpick on side issues with them,,, thus, ONCE AGAIN, I don’t care if you don’t like my quotes!,,,
Zach, computer simulations are all programmed by intelligence, do you REALLY think that computer simulations that are Intelligently Designed help you in any way, shape, or form, to prove that life was not designed?
Moreover, if you don’t like Sanford’s work, which I consider above reproach, we can always go into Dembski and Mark’s work and further expose you as a fraud.
LIFE’S CONSERVATION LAW: Why Darwinian Evolution Cannot Create Biological Information
http://evoinfo.org/publications/
I asked you if you understood the distinction between lying and telling the truth since you seem to be having such a hard time telling the difference, yet, instead of answering the question honestly, you repeated the Marguilas question after I had already cited Encyclopedia Britannica on her position,,, DUH!
Thus I guess you did answer the question on honesty in your own round-a-bout way. Apparently you could care less about truth and are only interested in rhetorical tricks.,,, Too bad. I actually had some hope that you would be a bit different than most Darwinists.
bornagain77: computer simulations are all programmed by intelligence, do you REALLY think that computer simulations that are Intelligently Designed help you in any way, shape, or form, to prove that life was not designed?
The question concerned the use of computer simulations of population genetics. Computer simulations are models, which are then compared to observations. Many observations are explained by basic processes associated with population genetics. See Mendel, Experiments in Plant Hybridization, Proceedings of the Natural History Society of Brünn 1865.
bornagain77: if you don’t like Sanford’s work, which I consider above reproach
As we said, the problem with the software is demonstrable.
bornagain77: you repeated the Marguilas question after I had already cited Encyclopedia Britannica on her position
The article you cited above concerning Margulis conflated Darwinism and Neodarwinism. That’s the problem with relying on polemics for scientific information.
Bornagain77,
The problem is that a lot of the antagonists here don’t seem to be open to any contrary evidence or innovative thinking. Why bother answering a hail of unsupported assertions followed by personal attacks? One of them complained about Margulis’ daring to think for herself, and there was the complaint about a program written in FORTRAN (gasp) as if that made any difference. This is hopeless. When they get trapped by evidence or logic, they announce that they’ve won or resort to personal abuse. Personally, I think they’re delusional.
Thanks once more for the quotes and vids along with your commentary. I’m sure that vituperation will follow.
-Q
Zach you state:
“The question concerned the use of computer simulations of population genetics. Computer simulations are models, which are then compared to observations. Many observations are explained by basic processes associated with population genetics.,,,,
the problem with the (Sanford’s) software is demonstrable. ”
It is interesting to note that you pick on intelligently designed software to look for a fault whereas Sanford relies on real world evidence to back up his claim that his ‘intelligently designed’ model is correct!. For instance, his claim about slightly detrimental mutations that are below the power of natural selection to remove from the genome is more than backed up by empirical evidence:
Multiple Overlapping Genetic Codes Profoundly Reduce the Probability of Beneficial Mutation George Montañez 1, Robert J. Marks II 2, Jorge Fernandez 3 and John C. Sanford 4 – May 2013
Excerpt: It is almost universally acknowledged that beneficial mutations are rare compared to deleterious mutations [1–10].,, It appears that beneficial mutations may be too rare to actually allow the accurate measurement of how rare they are [11].
1. Kibota T, Lynch M (1996) Estimate of the genomic mutation rate deleterious to overall fitness in E. coli . Nature 381:694–696.
2. Charlesworth B, Charlesworth D (1998) Some evolutionary consequences of deleterious mutations. Genetica 103: 3–19.
3. Elena S, et al (1998) Distribution of fitness effects caused by random insertion mutations in Escherichia coli. Genetica 102/103: 349–358.
4. Gerrish P, Lenski R N (1998) The fate of competing beneficial mutations in an asexual population. Genetica 102/103:127–144.
5. Crow J (2000) The origins, patterns, and implications of human spontaneous mutation. Nature Reviews 1:40–47.
6. Bataillon T (2000) Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? Heredity 84:497–501.
7. Imhof M, Schlotterer C (2001) Fitness effects of advantageous mutations in evolving Escherichia coli populations. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 98:1113–1117.
8. Orr H (2003) The distribution of fitness effects among beneficial mutations. Genetics 163: 1519–1526.
9. Keightley P, Lynch M (2003) Toward a realistic model of mutations affecting fitness. Evolution 57:683–685.
10. Barrett R, et al (2006) The distribution of beneficial mutation effects under strong selection. Genetics 174:2071–2079.
11. Bataillon T (2000) Estimation of spontaneous genome-wide mutation rate parameters: whither beneficial mutations? Heredity 84:497–501.
http://www.worldscientific.com.....08728_0006
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010
Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.
http://behe.uncommondescent.co.....evolution/
Moreover, when the Darwinian evolutionary algorithms are analyzed in detail, we find that information is ‘smuggled’ into them:
LIFE’S CONSERVATION LAW – William Dembski – Robert Marks – Pg. 13
Excerpt: (Computer) Simulations such as Dawkins’s WEASEL, Adami’s AVIDA, Ray’s Tierra, and Schneider’s ev appear to support Darwinian evolution, but only for lack of clear accounting practices that track the information smuggled into them.,,, Information does not magically materialize. It can be created by intelligence or it can be shunted around by natural forces. But natural forces, and Darwinian processes in particular, do not create information. Active information enables us to see why this is the case.
http://evoinfo.org/publication.....ation-law/
You go on about Marguilis being a Darwinist, not a neo-Darwinist, … SO WHAT! Her quote on population genetics still stands:
Lynn Margulis Criticizes Neo-Darwinism in Discover Magazine (Updated) – Casey Luskin April 12, 2011
Excerpt: Population geneticist Richard Lewontin gave a talk here at UMass Amherst about six years ago, and he mathemetized all of it–changes in the population, random mutation, sexual selection, cost and benefit. At the end of his talk he said, “You know, we’ve tried to test these ideas in the field and the lab, and there are really no measurements that match the quantities I’ve told you about.” This just appalled me. So I said, “Richard Lewontin, you are a great lecturer to have the courage to say it’s gotten you nowhere. But then why do you continue to do this work?” And he looked around and said, “It’s the only thing I know how to do, and if I don’t do it I won’t get grant money.” –
Lynn Margulis – biologist
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....45691.html
If you disagree with her that the math of population genetics is useless as a predictive tool for telling us how the unfathomed complexity we find in life randomly evolved, then perhaps you can help this guy out:
The next evolutionary synthesis: from Lamarck and Darwin to genomic variation and systems biology – Bard – 2011
Excerpt: If more than about three genes (nature unspecified) underpin a phenotype, the mathematics of population genetics, while qualitatively analyzable, requires too many unknown parameters to make quantitatively testable predictions [6]. The inadequacy of this approach is demonstrated by illustrations of the molecular pathways that generates traits [7]: the network underpinning something as simple as growth may have forty or fifty participating proteins whose production involves perhaps twice as many DNA sequences, if one includes enhancers, splice variants etc. Theoretical genetics simply cannot handle this level of complexity, let alone analyse the effects of mutation..
http://www.biosignaling.com/co.....X-9-30.pdf
Or perhaps you can help these guys out who took the problem one step further and found the problem with population genetics irresolvable:
Biological Information – Overlapping Codes 10-25-2014 by Paul Giem – video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OytcYD5791k&index=4&list=PLHDSWJBW3DNUUhiC9VwPnhl-ymuObyTWJ
Moreover, I can cite empirical studies that back up the claim that detrimental mutations are far more likely to fixate than beneficial mutations,,,
Of supplemental note to overlapping codes, (which our best computer programmers can only dream of imitating)
At the 10:30 minute mark of the following video, Dr. Trifonov states that the idea of the selfish gene ‘inflicted an immense damage to biological sciences’, for over 30 years:
Second, third, fourth… genetic codes – One spectacular case of code crowding – Edward N. Trifonov – video
https://vimeo.com/81930637
In the preceding video, Trifonov elucidates codes that are, simultaneously, in the same sequence, coding for DNA curvature, Chromatin Code, Amphipathic helices, and NF kappaB. In fact, at the 58:00 minute mark he states, “Reading only one message, one gets three more, practically GRATIS!”. And please note that this was just an introductory lecture in which Trifinov just covered the very basics and left many of the other codes out of the lecture. Codes which code for completely different, yet still biologically important, functions. In fact, at the 7:55 mark of the video, there are 13 codes that are listed on a powerpoint, although the writing was too small for me to read.
Concluding powerpoint of the lecture (at the 1 hour mark):
“Not only are there many different codes in the sequences, but they overlap, so that the same letters in a sequence may take part simultaneously in several different messages.”
Edward N. Trifonov – 2010
‘It’s becoming extremely problematic to explain how the genome could arise and how these multiple levels of overlapping information could arise, since our best computer programmers can’t even conceive of overlapping codes. The genome dwarfs all of the computer information technology that man has developed. So I think that it is very problematic to imagine how you can achieve that through random changes in the code.,,, and there is no Junk DNA in these codes. More and more the genome looks likes a super-super set of programs.,, More and more it looks like top down design and not just bottom up chance discovery of making complex systems.’ –
Dr. John Sanford
Psalm 139:14-15
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Hillsong – Mighty to Save – With Subtitles/Lyrics
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-08YZF87OBQ
bornagain77:
Unless you can present a testable model or reliable scientific evidence explaining how consciousness works the Theory of Intelligent Design must pertain to intelligence only. Attempting to go beyond what the theory was premised to explain only gets you into speculations that sabotage its scientific integrity.
As you can see other than what theory suggests I clearly have no opinion either way, I just stated the possibilities then again made it clear that the theory does not need to explain consciousness.
You are welcome to rephrase parts of the paragraph. As long as it briefly states the possibilities without taking sides I’ll change the text to that instead.
Querius: One of them complained about Margulis’ daring to think for herself
Why would anyone complain about someone thinking for herself? Margulis was clearly an original thinker who did important work in evolutionary biology. Her ideas concerning endosymbiosis are now a standard part of evolutionary theory.
Querius: there was the complaint about a program written in FORTRAN (gasp) as if that made any difference.
There’s nothing wrong with Fortran. Our comment just pointed out that someone familiar with this common language could understand the problem with the software.
By the way, did you have something to say concerning the topic?
bornagain77: It is interesting to note that you pick on intelligently designed software to look for a fault whereas Sanford relies on real world evidence to back up his claim that his ‘intelligently designed’ model is correct!
The program has a demonstrable error, and therefore doesn’t correctly model observed population genetics.
Heh. I noticed you again cited the article about Margulis that conflates Darwinism with Neodarwinism.
Gary, you are the one making the extraordinary claim that consciousness can arise from matter. Can you provide evidence for that claim or not? It is not on me to prove your claim impossible, it is on you to prove your claim possible, or even prove it remotely reasonable, which would be an improvement over your present position, ,,,
As to providing ‘reliable scientific evidence explaining how consciousness works’, I will do that as soon as you can tell me how energy ‘works’:
Quantum Mechanics – Double Slit Experiment. Is anything really physical? (Prof. Anton Zeilinger) – video
Quote: “The path taken by the photon is not an element of reality. We are not allowed to talk about the photon passing through this or this slit. Neither are we allowed to say the photon passed through both slits. All this kind of language is not applicable.”
– Anton Zeilinger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayvbKafw2g0
Double Slit Experiment – Explained By Prof Anton Zeilinger (a leader in quantum mechanics) – video
Quote: “We know what the particle is doing at the source when it is created. We know what it is doing at the detector when it is registered, but we do not know what it is doing in-between”
– Anton Zeilinger
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/6101627/
“Mass-energy is “everything” that constitutes the physical structure of our universe. However, when asked what “that stuff”, which manifests itself in such diverse and mutually intertransformable appearances, really is, science replies with an embarrassed silence. We know how to measure it, but we simply do not know what it is. To quote Richard Feynman, from his legendary The Feynman Lectures on Physics: “It is important to realize that in physics, today, we have no knowledge of what energy is.”
– Manfred Eigen
of supplemental note:
Erwin Schrödinger – “Do Electrons Think?” (BBC 1949)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCwR1ztUXtU
Zach all of your intelligently designed evolutionary computer models have the fatal software error of ‘smuggling information’ into them.
But I guess, given your apparent dishonest nature in dealing with the evidence at hand, smuggling is OK with you as long as it supports Darwinism?
🙂
Gary, to put the problem for you more simply, besides not having consciousness, computer algorithms do not have free will, and free will is tightly correlated with the creation of new information:
Algorithmic Information Theory, Free Will and the Turing Test – Douglas S. Robertson
Excerpt: Chaitin’s Algorithmic Information Theory shows that information is conserved under formal mathematical operations and, equivalently, under computer operations. This conservation law puts a new perspective on many familiar problems related to artificial intelligence. For example, the famous “Turing test” for artificial intelligence could be defeated by simply asking for a new axiom in mathematics. Human mathematicians are able to create axioms, but a computer program cannot do this without violating information conservation. Creating new axioms and free will are shown to be different aspects of the same phenomena: the creation of new information.
http://cires.colorado.edu/~dou...../info8.pdf
More specifically “behavior of” matter:
It is possible to add a qualifier or rephrase it, but believe me, if it at all seems to indicate that atoms and ordinary molecules are intelligent then the Darwinian camp will be all over it.
bornagain77: all of your intelligently designed evolutionary computer models have the fatal software error of ‘smuggling information’ into them.
We’re not discussing evolutionary algorithms, but simulations of population genetics. Population genetics explains many important biological phenomena, though it certainly isn’t a complete explanation of evolutionary history.
Bornagain77 this is the illustration being explained in the paragraph:
https://sites.google.com/site/intelligenceprograms/Home/Causation.jpg
Or optionally:
https://sites.google.com/site/intelligenceprograms/Home/Causation.GIF
The theory is connecting back to what we are made of, matter.
Zach, why are you not concerned with the fact that material processes cannot create information? Even when using the brute computational power behind modern computers? If you were honest you would admit this is a fatal blow to your materialistic beliefs.
As to computer simulations of population genetics, why not cite any real world evidence to counter Sanford’s claim? I cited plenty showing him to be correct! (or why don’t you ever cite real references to back up any claim you make instead of just literature bluffs?, am I suppose to take your word for your claims?),,, The reason you refuse to be honest, as you well know, is that you have no substantiating evidence that will withstand scrutiny and yet, for whatever severely misguided reason, you want Darwinism to be true.,,, I don’t care what you WANT to be true! I only care for what is actually true!
Why not admit what is readily apparent that Darwinism is grossly inadequate to explain the unfathomed complexity we are finding in life???,,,, why all the smoke and mirrors with you? Don’t you care for truth in the least?
==========
“The computer is not going to generate anything realistic if it uses Darwinian mechanisms.”
Dr. David Berlinski: Accounting for Variations – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW2GkDkimkE
On Algorithmic Specified Complexity by Robert J. Marks II – video
paraphrase (All Evolutionary Algorithms have failed to generate truly novel information including ‘unexpected, and interesting, emergent behaviors’) – Robert Marks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=No3LZmPcwyg
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010
Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.
http://behe.uncommondescent.co.....evolution/
Gary, quantum mechanics, with Leggett’s inequality, has now brought us to the point where we can confidently say that matter is derivative from consciousness,,,
Do we create the world just by looking at it? – 2008
Excerpt: In mid-2007 Fedrizzi found that the new realism model was violated by 80 orders of magnitude; the group was even more assured that quantum mechanics was correct.
Leggett agrees with Zeilinger that realism is wrong in quantum mechanics, but when I asked him whether he now believes in the theory, he answered only “no” before demurring, “I’m in a small minority with that point of view and I wouldn’t stake my life on it.” For Leggett there are still enough loopholes to disbelieve. I asked him what could finally change his mind about quantum mechanics. Without hesitation, he said sending humans into space as detectors to test the theory.,,,
(to which Anton Zeilinger responded)
When I mentioned this to Prof. Zeilinger he said, “That will happen someday. There is no doubt in my mind. It is just a question of technology.” Alessandro Fedrizzi had already shown me a prototype of a realism experiment he is hoping to send up in a satellite. It’s a heavy, metallic slab the size of a dinner plate.
http://seedmagazine.com/conten....._tests/P3/
And to further solidify the case that ‘consciousness precedes reality’ the violation of Leggett’s inequalities have been extended. This following experiment verified Leggett’s inequality to a stunning 120 standard deviations level of precision:
Experimental non-classicality of an indivisible quantum system – Zeilinger 2011
Excerpt: Page 491: “This represents a violation of (Leggett’s) inequality (3) by more than 120 standard deviations, demonstrating that no joint probability distribution is capable of describing our results.” The violation also excludes any non-contextual hidden-variable model. The result does, however, agree well with quantum mechanical predictions, as we will show now.,,,
https://vcq.quantum.at/fileadmin/Publications/Experimental%20non-classicality%20of%20an%20indivisible.pdf
The preceding experiment, and the mathematics behind it, are discussed beginning at the 24:15 minute mark of the following video:
Quantum Weirdness and God 8-9-2014 by Paul Giem – video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=N7HHz14tS1c#t=1449
“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”
Max Planck – The Father Of Quantum Mechanics – Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797)
Bornagain77:
I saw the links and the math shown in the video but that’s way too speculative. Even where true that does not explain how consciousness works. Or helps explain how intelligence works either.
As the theory now stands: the reciprocal cause pathway back to the behavior of matter (all forces, energy) qualifies as a prayer/though path leading back to the source of consciousness, whatever that source may be.
One wrong move in how the logic is connected can easily have unintended consequences that lead to contradictions that make the Theory of Intelligent Design a mockery of religion, and no longer be scientific. I must be very careful to avoid that from happening.
Gary, Leggett’s inequality confirmed to 120 standard deviations is hardly speculative as far as empirical science is concerned.
As to your concern that ID may no longer be considered scientific if we allow consciousness its rightful place in the scheme of things, exactly how do you propose to rationally do science in the first place if you deny the reality of your own mind and free will?
Sam Harris’s Free Will: The Medial Pre-Frontal Cortex Did It – Martin Cothran – November 9, 2012
Excerpt: There is something ironic about the position of thinkers like Harris on issues like this: they claim that their position is the result of the irresistible necessity of logic (in fact, they pride themselves on their logic). Their belief is the consequent, in a ground/consequent relation between their evidence and their conclusion. But their very stated position is that any mental state — including their position on this issue — is the effect of a physical, not logical cause.
By their own logic, it isn’t logic that demands their assent to the claim that free will is an illusion, but the prior chemical state of their brains. The only condition under which we could possibly find their argument convincing is if they are not true. The claim that free will is an illusion requires the possibility that minds have the freedom to assent to a logical argument, a freedom denied by the claim itself. It is an assent that must, in order to remain logical and not physiological, presume a perspective outside the physical order.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....66221.html
Leggett’s inequality is not for explaining how consciousness works. I can even do better by algorithmically confirming that 1+1=2 and with zero deviation. But that does not explain how consciousness works either.
The equation 1-1=0 indicates that nothing becomes something when it becomes two equal parts. But that does not explain how all the forces in the universe work and their origin.
Quantum mechanics theory has plenty of bugs in it, to begin with. It’s not reliable enough for this theory.
Quantum theory is doing quite well thank you.
The following articles give us a small glimpse as to what it truly means for Leggett’s inequality to be confirmed to an order of ‘120 standard deviations’:
Standard deviation
Excerpt: Particle physics uses a standard of “5 sigma” for the declaration of a discovery.[3] At five-sigma there is only one chance in nearly two million that a random fluctuation would yield the result.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S.....le_physics
SSDD: a 22 sigma event is consistent with the physics of fair coins? – June 23, 2013
Excerpt: So 500 coins heads is (500-250)/11 = 22 standard deviations (22 sigma) from expectation! These numbers are so extreme, it’s probably inappropriate to even use the normal distribution’s approximation of the binomial distribution, and hence “22 sigma” just becomes a figure of speech in this extreme case…
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....air-coins/
As to 1+1=2, you might be interested to know that 1+1+2 is considered mathematically ‘incomplete’. i.e. the truthfulness of 1+1=2 is not within the equation itself, but to derive the truthfulness for 1+1=2 one is forced appeal to something outside the equation to hold that it is true:
Kurt Gödel – Incompleteness Theorem – video
https://vimeo.com/96082228
Even where in the future it’s demonstrated to be a part of the process “entangled particles” are a different phenomenon than “consciousness”.
“I’m going to talk about the Bell inequality, and more importantly a new inequality that you might not have heard of called the Leggett inequality, that was recently measured. It was actually formulated almost 30 years ago by Professor Leggett, who is a Nobel Prize winner, but it wasn’t tested until about a year and a half ago (in 2007), when an article appeared in Nature, that the measurement was made by this prominent quantum group in Vienna led by Anton Zeilinger, which they measured the Leggett inequality, which actually goes a step deeper than the Bell inequality and rules out any possible interpretation other than consciousness creates reality when the measurement is made.” – Bernard Haisch, Ph.D., Calphysics Institute, is an astrophysicist and author of over 130 scientific publications.
Preceding quote taken from this following video;
Quantum Mechanics and Consciousness – A New Measurement – Bernard Haisch, Ph.D (Shortened version of entire video with notes in description of video)
http://vimeo.com/37517080
Nonlocal “realistic” Leggett models can be considered refuted by the before-before experiment – 2008 – Antoine Suarez Center for Quantum Philosophy,
Excerpt: (page 3) The independence of quantum measurement from the presence of human consciousness has not been proved wrong by any experiment to date.,,,
“nonlocal correlations happen from outside space-time, in the sense that there is no story in space-time that tells us how they happen.”
http://www.quantumphil.org/SuarezFOOP201R2.pdf
A simple approach to test Leggett’s model of nonlocal quantum correlations – 2009
Excerpt of Abstract: Bell’s strong sentence “Correlations cry out for explanations” remains relevant,,,we go beyond Leggett’s model, and show that one cannot ascribe even partially defined individual properties to the components of a maximally entangled pair.
http://www.mendeley.com/resear.....relations/
Quantum theory survives latest challenge – Dec 15, 2010
Excerpt: Even assuming that entangled photons could respond to one another instantly, the correlations between polarization states still violated Leggett’s inequality. The conclusion being that instantaneous communication is not enough to explain entanglement and realism must also be abandoned.
This conclusion is now backed up by Sonja Franke-Arnold and collegues at the University of Glasgow and University of Strathclyde who have performed another experiment showing that entangled photons exhibit,, stronger correlations than allowed for particles with individually defined properties – even if they would be allowed to communicate constantly.
http://physicsworld.com/cws/ar.....-challenge
In the following article, Physics Professor Richard Conn Henry is quite blunt as to what quantum mechanics, specifically Leggett’s Inequality, reveals to us about the ‘primary cause’ of our 3D reality:
Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger by Richard Conn Henry – Physics Professor – John Hopkins University
Excerpt: Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the “illusion” of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism (solipsism is the philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist). (Dr. Henry’s referenced experiment and paper – “An experimental test of non-local realism” by S. Gröblacher et. al., Nature 446, 871, April 2007 – “To be or not to be local” by Alain Aspect, Nature 446, 866, April 2007 (Leggett’s Inequality: Verified, as of 2011, to 120 standard deviations)
http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/aspect.html
To that I can sum up my well formed opinion (by having personally modeled from QM) by saying Albert Einstein was right. QM is incomplete. Very.
See: Yves Couder Explains Wave/Particle Duality via Silicon Droplets [Through the Wormhole]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9yWv5dqSKk
And Albert Einstein, much like his ‘greatest blunder’ of introducing the cosmological constant to general relativity to reflect a eternal universe instead of a universe that had a beginning, has been shown to be completely wrong in his EPR postulations of hidden variables:
Quantum Entanglement – Bohr and Einstein – The Failure Of Local Realism – Materialism – Alain Aspect – video
https://vimeo.com/98206867
Einstein vs quantum mechanics, and why he’d be a convert today – June 13, 2014
Excerpt: In a nutshell, experimentalists John Clauser, Alain Aspect, Anton Zeilinger, Paul Kwiat and colleagues have performed the Bell proposal for a test of Einstein’s hidden variable theories. All results so far support quantum mechanics. It seems that when two particles undergo entanglement, whatever happens to one of the particles can instantly affect the other, even if the particles are separated!
http://phys.org/news/2014-06-e.....today.html
Quantum Measurements: Common Sense Is Not Enough, Physicists Show – July 2009
Excerpt: scientists have now proven comprehensively in an experiment for the first time that the experimentally observed phenomena cannot be described by non-contextual models with hidden variables.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....142824.htm
of related note:
The visible comes into existence from the invisible: Quantum Physics and Relativity 2: – Antoine Suarez PhD – video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxuOE2Bo_i0&list=UUVmgTa2vbopdjpMNAQBqXHw
Consciousness and the double-slit interference pattern: six experiments – Radin – 2012
Abstract: A double-slit optical system was used to test the possible role of consciousness in the collapse of the quantum wavefunction. The ratio of the interference pattern’s double-slit spectral power to its single-slit spectral power was predicted to decrease when attention was focused toward the double slit as compared to away from it. Each test session consisted of 40 counterbalanced attention-toward and attention-away epochs, where each epoch lasted between 15 and 30 s(seconds). Data contributed by 137 people in six experiments, involving a total of 250 test sessions, indicate that on average the spectral ratio decreased as predicted (z = -4:36, p = 6•10^-6). Another 250 control sessions conducted without observers present tested hardware, software, and analytical procedures for potential artifacts; none were identified (z = 0:43, p = 0:67). Variables including temperature, vibration, and signal drift were also tested, and no spurious influences were identified. By contrast, factors associated with consciousness, such as meditation experience, electrocortical markers of focused attention, and psychological factors including openness and absorption, significantly correlated in predicted ways with perturbations in the double-slit interference pattern. The results appear to be consistent with a consciousness-related interpretation of the quantum measurement problem.
http://www.deanradin.com/paper.....0final.pdf
And a few pages of related information:
http://www.fractalforums.com/l.....verything/
bornagain77: why are you not concerned with the fact that material processes cannot create information?
Please define information.
bornagain77: As to computer simulations of population genetics, why not cite any real world evidence to counter Sanford’s claim?
It doesn’t model even basic population genetics, such as how a beneficial mutation spreads in a population. That’s because the program has a significant flaw which virtually eliminates the effect of any beneficial mutation.
bornagain77: I cited plenty showing him to be correct!
No, you spewed a list of citations, most of which don’t seem relevant. Please provide one citation that actually uses the software to make quantitative predictions, and we’ll take a look.
Zach,,,, “Please define information.”
Can you cite any OBSERVATIONAL evidence of unguided material processes creating any of these following types of functional information?:
Can We Falsify Any Of The Following Null Hypothesis (For Information Generation)
1) Mathematical Logic
2) Algorithmic Optimization
3) Cybernetic Programming
4) Computational Halting
5) Integrated Circuits
6) Organization (e.g. homeostatic optimization far from equilibrium)
7) Material Symbol Systems (e.g. genetics)
8) Any Goal Oriented bona fide system
9) Language
10) Formal function of any kind
11) Utilitarian work
http://mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/ag
The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity: David L. Abel – Null Hypothesis For Information Generation – 2009
Excerpt of conclusion pg. 42: “To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it: “Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse The Cybernetic Cut: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.” A single exception of non trivial, unaided spontaneous optimization of formal function by truly natural process would falsify this null hypothesis.”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm.....MC2662469/
To get a bit more technical, Dr. Don Johnson, who taught computer science for over 20 years, explains the difference between Shannon Information and Prescriptive Information, as well as explaining ‘the cybernetic cut’, in this following Podcast:
Programming of Life – Dr. Donald Johnson interviewed by Casey Luskin – audio podcast
http://intelligentdesign.podom.....7_53-08_00
Programming of Life – Information – Shannon, Functional & Prescriptive – video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3s1BXfZ-3w
….Zach, you have no observational evidence to substantiate your Darwinian claims for ‘coordinated beneficial mutations’ building up functional complexity in the first place, (negative epistasis, Lenski’s LTEE after 50,000 generations), and yet you want a “intelligently designed” computer model to prove that completely unguided material processes can build functional complexity/information??? Logic certainly does not seem to be your strong suit!!!
The Scientific Method – Richard Feynman – video
Quote: ‘If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL6-x0modwY
“The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010
Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.
http://behe.uncommondescent.co.....evolution/
Michael Behe talks about the preceding paper on this podcast:
Michael Behe: Challenging Darwin, One Peer-Reviewed Paper at a Time – December 2010
http://intelligentdesign.podom.....3_46-08_00
Michael Behe: Intelligent Design – interview on radio program – ‘The Mind Renewed’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9SmPNQrQHE
Where’s the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q-PBeQELzT4pkgxB2ZOxGxwv6ynOixfzqzsFlCJ9jrw/edit
This is the ‘prediction’, i.e. null hypothesis, for you, as a materialist, to try to falsify:
The Law of Physicodynamic Insufficiency – Dr David L. Abel – November 2010
Excerpt: “If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise.”,,, After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone.”
http://www-qa.scitopics.com/Th.....iency.html
Before They’ve Even Seen Stephen Meyer’s New Book, Darwinists Waste No Time in Criticizing Darwin’s Doubt – William A. Dembski – April 4, 2013
Excerpt: In the newer approach to conservation of information, the focus is not on drawing design inferences but on understanding search in general and how information facilitates successful search. The focus is therefore not so much on individual probabilities as on probability distributions and how they change as searches incorporate information. My universal probability bound of 1 in 10^150 (a perennial sticking point for Shallit and Felsenstein) therefore becomes irrelevant in the new form of conservation of information whereas in the earlier it was essential because there a certain probability threshold had to be attained before conservation of information could be said to apply. The new form is more powerful and conceptually elegant. Rather than lead to a design inference, it shows that accounting for the information required for successful search leads to a regress that only intensifies as one backtracks. It therefore suggests an ultimate source of information, which it can reasonably be argued is a designer. I explain all this in a nontechnical way in an article I posted at ENV a few months back titled “Conservation of Information Made Simple” (go here). ,,,
,,, Here are the two seminal papers on conservation of information that I’ve written with Robert Marks:
“The Search for a Search: Measuring the Information Cost of Higher-Level Search,” Journal of Advanced Computational Intelligence and Intelligent Informatics 14(5) (2010): 475-486
“Conservation of Information in Search: Measuring the Cost of Success,” IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics A, Systems & Humans, 5(5) (September 2009): 1051-1061
per ENV
as to
“you spewed a list of citations,”
Actually, the many citations that I ‘spewed’, which you referred to so disparagingly, are to real world empirical evidence that undermine your belief in neo-Darwinian evolution. I will take real world evidence over computer models, (which are notorious for being inaccurate to the real world), any day!
bornagain77: you have no observational evidence to substantiate your Darwinian claims for ‘coordinated beneficial mutations’ building up functional complexity in the first place
We have direct empirical evidence of how specific beneficial mutations spread through a population, and this can be modeled with population genetics.
Zach, you state,,,
“empirical evidence of how specific beneficial mutations spread through a population”
that was not my claim, (although there are problems with even that claim of yours),, my claim was
‘coordinated beneficial mutations’ building up functional complexity, i.e. negative epistasis:
Epistasis between Beneficial Mutations – July 2011
Excerpt: We found that epistatic interactions between beneficial mutations were all antagonistic—the effects of the double mutations were less than the sums of the effects of their component single mutations. We found a number of cases of decompensatory interactions, an extreme form of antagonistic epistasis in which the second mutation is actually deleterious in the presence of the first. In the vast majority of cases, recombination uniting two beneficial mutations into the same genome would not be favored by selection, as the recombinant could not outcompete its constituent single mutations.
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....ach-other/
Mutations : when benefits level off – June 2011 – (Lenski’s e-coli after 50,000 generations)
Excerpt: After having identified the first five beneficial mutations combined successively and spontaneously in the bacterial population, the scientists generated, from the ancestral bacterial strain, 32 mutant strains exhibiting all of the possible combinations of each of these five mutations. They then noted that the benefit linked to the simultaneous presence of five mutations was less than the sum of the individual benefits conferred by each mutation individually.
http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1867.htm?theme1=7
A Serious Problem for Darwinists: Epistasis Decreases Chances of Beneficial Mutations – November 8, 2012
Excerpt: A recent paper in Nature finds that epistasis (interactions between genetic changes) is much more pervasive than previously assumed. This strongly limits the ability of beneficial mutations to confer fitness on organisms. ,,,
It takes an outsider to read this paper and see how disturbing it should be to the consensus neo-Darwinian theory. All that Darwin skeptics can do is continue to point to papers like this as severe challenges to the consensus view. Perhaps a few will listen and take it seriously.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....66061.html
Moreover, population genetics quickly breaks down as the level complexity being dealt with increases, and thus population genetics certainly cannot provide testable ‘predictions’ as to how the unfathomed integrated complexity in life came about:
The next evolutionary synthesis: from Lamarck and Darwin to genomic variation and systems biology – Bard – 2011
Excerpt: If more than about three genes (nature unspecified) underpin a phenotype, the mathematics of population genetics, while qualitatively analyzable, requires too many unknown parameters to make quantitatively testable predictions [6]. The inadequacy of this approach is demonstrated by illustrations of the molecular pathways that generates traits [7]: the network underpinning something as simple as growth may have forty or fifty participating proteins whose production involves perhaps twice as many DNA sequences, if one includes enhancers, splice variants etc. Theoretical genetics simply cannot handle this level of complexity, let alone analyse the effects of mutation..
http://www.biosignaling.com/co.....X-9-30.pdf
Bornagain77,
I don’t think material determinists know what to do with the Radin experiments, just as they can’t seem to comprehend Gödel’s incompleteness theorems or Chaos theory, probably wishing that they all would just go away. Conversely, they seem to attribute magical, even godlike qualities to random interactions—all Victorian fantasies that are crumbling under the weight of scientific progress!
-Q
Oh, and they’re obviously not happy that undifferentiated protoplasm gave way to something that’s turning out to be spectacularly complex. Too much too explain how this could develop in only a billion years or less (probably much less).
Thanks again for posting the references to Radin’s experiments. Naturally, I wonder whether this is unique to human consciousness or a quality of all consciousness.
-Q
Querius, they even attribute ‘godlike’ power to material particles in the Many Worlds interpretation, i.e. whenever we try to observe a particle in the double slit, instead of the wave function simply collapsing, the materialists, in order to avoid the Theistic implications of wave collapse, postulates that the material particle, with apparently all the power of God to create universes at will, creates a quasi infinite number of parallel universes.
If that is not the mother of all ad hoc hypothesis nothing is! 🙂
of related note to 309
Waiting Longer for Two Mutations – Michael J. Behe
Excerpt: Citing malaria literature sources (White 2004) I had noted that the de novo appearance of chloroquine resistance in Plasmodium falciparum was an event of probability of 1 in 10^20. I then wrote that ‘for humans to achieve a mutation like this by chance, we would have to wait 100 million times 10 million years’ (1 quadrillion years)(Behe 2007) (because that is the extrapolated time that it would take to produce 10^20 humans). Durrett and Schmidt (2008, p. 1507) retort that my number ‘is 5 million times larger than the calculation we have just given’ using their model (which nonetheless “using their model” gives a prohibitively long waiting time of 216 million years). Their criticism compares apples to oranges. My figure of 10^20 is an empirical statistic from the literature; it is not, as their calculation is, a theoretical estimate from a population genetics model.,,,
The difficulty with models such as Durrett and Schmidt’s is that their biological relevance is often uncertain, and unknown factors that are quite important to cellular evolution may be unintentionally left out of the model. That is why experimental or observational data on the evolution of microbes such as P. falciparum are invaluable,,,
http://www.discovery.org/a/9461
Here Dr. Behe responds to Durrett and Schmidt’s “attempted rebuttal” in a 5 part essay:
Waiting Longer for Two Mutations, Parts 1-5
http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2009/03/
summary at the end of part 5 is here:
Waiting Longer for Two Mutations, Part 5 – Michael J. Behe – March 2009
Excerpt: “as I show above, when simple mistakes in the application of their model to malaria are corrected, it agrees closely with empirical results reported from the field that I cited. This is very strong support that the central contention of The Edge of Evolution is correct: that it is an extremely difficult evolutionary task for multiple required mutations to occur through Darwinian means, especially if one of the mutations is deleterious. And, as I argue in the book, reasonable application of this point to the protein machinery of the cell makes it very unlikely that life developed through a Darwinian mechanism.”
http://behe.uncommondescent.co.....ns-part-5/
Don’t Mess With ID (Overview of Behe’s ‘Edge’ and Durrett and Schmidt’s paper at the 20:00 minute mark) – Paul Giem – video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JeYJ29-I7o
Thou Shalt Not Put Evolutionary Theory to a Test – Douglas Axe – July 18, 2012
Excerpt: “For example, McBride criticizes me for not mentioning genetic drift in my discussion of human origins, apparently without realizing that the result of Durrett and Schmidt rules drift out. Each and every specific genetic change needed to produce humans from apes would have to have conferred a significant selective advantage in order for humans to have appeared in the available time (i.e. the mutations cannot be ‘neutral’). Any aspect of the transition that requires two or more mutations to act in combination in order to increase fitness would take way too long (greater than 100 million years).
My challenge to McBride, and everyone else who believes the evolutionary story of human origins, is not to provide the list of mutations that did the trick, but rather a list of mutations that can do it. Otherwise they’re in the position of insisting that something is a scientific fact without having the faintest idea how it even could be.” Doug Axe PhD.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....62351.html
Dr. Behe’s number, (1 in 10^20), has now been confirmed in the lab:
An Open Letter to Kenneth Miller and PZ Myers – Michael Behe July 21, 2014
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2.....88041.html
“The Edge of Evolution” Strikes Again 8-2-2014 by Paul Giem – video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnO-xa3nBE4
Bornagain77,
Although widely criticized, the confirmation of Behe’s back–of–the–envelope prediction is about as good as they come. Naturally, there’s a misunderstanding of “simultaneous” by desperate darwinists, who on this forum have insisted that the binomial theorum is time–dependent, which it’s not. For example, the odds for rolling a 7 on two fair, six–sided dice is 1/6, regardless of whether both dice are rolled at once or individually. Failing this, they’ve resorted to claiming that the experiment was not equivalent to Behe’s prediction, and then introducing a variety of interesting details, all of which probably were factors in the final experimental outcome (and are worthy of further study), but irrelevant to Behe’s vindication, which must indeed be a bitter pill for them to swallow. So much for their claims of being willing to follow the data!
-Q
Querius: Although widely criticized, the confirmation of Behe’s back–of–the–envelope prediction is about as good as they come.
Pointing out that rare events are rare is hardly a profound insight. As for chloroquine resistance, it actually requires multiple mutations, yet it still evolves. That’s because some of the mutations are beneficial. See actual research Summers et al., Diverse mutational pathways converge on saturable chloroquine transport via the malaria parasite’s chloroquine resistance transporter, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2014.
The question is did it evolve via blind watchmaker processes? And if that adaptation is so difficult just think about all others that require multiple mutations- and that the mutations have to occur in some specified sequence. Then you are out of luck (pun intended).
Population genetics doesn’t seem to model the real world. That would make it suspect wrt your claims.
You can calculate using Discrete Uniform distribution too.The odds of single out come is always small. How about the probability of the total > or =7 ? It is 58.4% (0.584), the point being dice and coins are irrelevant in calculating biological process and structures’ odds.
MT:
How do you know that? And what else do you have seeing that you don’t have any evidence?
Joe,
This is simply another unsubstiated assertion as we frequently see coming from darwinists.
Why should chance processes differentiate between a physical chance process such as a die roll and a biological chance process such as a mutation? In the end they’re both physics, and neither are magic.
Behe’s predictions were right on the money. His detractors now have to explain why he had such a lucky guess. It will become harder to refute Behe if he keeps making more “lucky” guesses.
-Q
Querius @ 321
Thanks for the same side goal. You just admitted that while the exact number of process is impossible, processes greater than or equal to the exact number is highly probable in biology too!
LOL, Me_Think.
Yes, I freely “admit” to the binomial theorum. However, there’s no “greater than” in this case. Behe’s prediction was right on the money with later experimental results.
Instead of trying to find fault with me, why don’t you examine Behe’s prediction about malaria in The Edge of Evolution for yourself? It’s a good read and deals with an area of Behe’s own research about this terrible disease.
-Q
Querius: Behe’s prediction was right on the money with later experimental results.
Behe, Edge of Evolution, Free Press 2007.
White, Antimalarial drug resistance, Journal of Clinical Investigation 2004: “This suggests that the per-parasite probability of developing resistance de novo is on the order of 1 in 10^20 parasite multiplications.”
Nor does Behe’s simplistic model come close to matching the actual evolutionary pathway of chloroquine resistance.
Drug cocktails to defeat quickly evolving diseases were around long before Behe. His contribution of pointing out that rare events are rare is negligible.
Querius @ 323
Apart from what Zac pointed out, you should be aware that Behe has moved on from probability to landscape search and now to ‘dematerialized information’.
Let’s see how Behe brings in information and consciousness together and manages to dematerialize design and weave it into biological processes. His next book should be interesting.
Zachriel said: “As for chloroquine resistance, it actually requires multiple mutations, yet it still evolves.”
Joe said: “The question is did it evolve via blind watchmaker processes?”
Joe, you should already be able to easily answer that question and demonstrate irrefutable evidence to support your answer. You have claimed many times that you can determine the difference between ID and what you call “nature operating freely”. You have claimed many times that unguided/blind-watchmaker evolution is the cause of diseases and deformities. You have also claimed many times that all mutations are front-loaded/guided except the ones that cause disease, deformities, and/or death.
You have claimed many times that you have the tools/methods/models/hypotheses/evidence to determine and demonstrate design vs. “nature operating freely” (by your claims and definition, the same thing as ‘unguided/blind-watchmaker’ evolution at least in the case of biology). You’ve claimed that models can only be made if something is thoroughly understood, so you apparently must thoroughly understand the mutations that result in chloroquine resistance and all other mutations of any type that have ever occurred in every biological entity that has ever existed, otherwise your claims are just lies.
So, Mr. Know-it-all-IDer, let’s see what you’ve got on the mutations that result in chloroquine resistance. How, when, where, why, and who. Show your work and don’t skimp on the details.
Me_Think:
Are you confusing Behe with Dembski?
Querius said: “Instead of trying to find fault with me, why don’t you examine Behe’s prediction about malaria in The Edge of Evolution for yourself?”
Paging Diogenes!
Querius, Behe’s claims regarding malaria have been crushed to a pulp.
No, Behe’s math was correct both on the malaria resistence mutation example he used in the book and again more recently on chloroquaine resistant malaria.
I haven’t seen any specific challenge to his math here except from a guy who claimed he was a statistician, but failed a simple probability question, later claiming his wrong answer was a typo.
If any of you want to demonstrate why the binomial theorum doesn’t apply here, be my guest.
-Q
Querius said: “I haven’t seen any specific challenge to his math here…”
You need to get out more. There’s more to the world than this stifling blog.