Sewing The Seeds Of Biology’s Post-‘Shannon Information’ Era

Cabal: If you looked before leaping to comment, you would have seen that I was citing a 1996 interview with Mr Schutzenberger [shortly before he passed off the scene], precisely in a context that reaches back a further 30 years to Wistar. (So, your 13 yo report would be about right [2009 - 13 = 1996], and confirms S's currency at the time in question. thanks for the inadvertent corroboration.) A glance in the report on the Wistar meeting [pp 73 ff] shows me that indeed the ideas in the 1996 interview were being brewed up 30 years earlier and had been put before the top tier of biologists and OOL researchers in the mid 60's. In short, functional complexity as a concept -- what the above was cited about [just scroll up] -- has roots at the top level that are 40+ years old. And, so, so does the more expanded term FSCI. Going beyond that, the informatics revolution is snowballing on both OOL and body plan level biodiversity. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

kairosfocus,

Gehring has recently discovered a segment of DNA which is both involved in the development of the vertebrate eye and which can induce the development of an eye in the wing of a butterfly. His work comprises a demonstration of something utterly astonishing, but not an explanation.

I am not certain you are quite up to date, Gehrig’s discovery isn’t all that recent; it was published thirteen years ago:

The Master Control Gene For Morphogenesis And Evolution Of The Eye by Walter J. Gehrig, Genes to Cells, 1: 11-15, 1996 - direct experimental test of hypotheses concerning eye evolution including the elucidation of the connection between the Pax6 gene and eye morphogenesis, and the experimental manipulation of that gene to control eye development

From: http://www.city-data.com/forum/religion-philosophy/354122-another-question-creationists-23.html I also wonder if maybe you are confusing the genetics of butterfly eyespots with the discovery of the eyeless gene. More about the eyeless gene and the wonderful world of evo-devo may be learned from Sean B. Carrol’s “Endless Forms Most Beautiful.” A most entertaining way to learn science. Cabal

Nakashima-san: I am speaking about the very orduinary acts of creartion we do when we construct posts, etc; as noted before. Ande while the inner secrets of mind have not -- as yet -- yielded to scientific studies, the import of the characteristics of designed objects definitely are measurably empirical and reliably distinguishable form products of blind mechanical necessity and/or chance. To illustrate, we may distnguish: [1] sssssssssssssssssssssssss [2]fwegtwjfcvaoerrt83e3hfq32fehcvshi [3] this is an oprganised functional message. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

KF-san, PPS: Observe: >> One [a minded creature] constructs a space within which one of the coordinates serves in effect as the thread of Ariane, guiding the trajectory toward the goal . . . >> That's fine. An entity more powerful than anything we can conceive precomputes the laws of physics and chemistry, and works out the history of the universe in advance so that evolution happens as we experience it. Got it. I agree that seems to be his position, and that he's comfortable that it is not science, and leads to no testable predictions or an ability to compute a measure of functional complexity. Elan vital. Nakashima

Mr Jerry, With all its magnificent accomplishments, science has done a poor job on a lot of origins. At least we found out where babies come from!! ;) Nakashima

Nakashima, you said "OK, I wasn’t sure if you were using macro-evolution as a term to encompass all aspects of the theory." You should know better by now. The debate is over macro-evolution so I am generally careful to use that term. Sometimes I forget when I am in a hurry or am careless. There is no debate over micro evolution or the fact that evolution took/takes place. It is just the mechanism for macro-evolution or the origin of novel complex capabilities that is a mystery. And information is at the heart of it. The title of this thread. There is also the separate debate over the OOL and the origin of the universe. With all its magnificent accomplishments, science has done a poor job on a lot of origins. jerry

PPS: Observe: >> One [a minded creature] constructs a space within which one of the coordinates serves in effect as the thread of Ariane, guiding the trajectory toward the goal . . . >> kairosfocus

PS: What may be un-formalisable -- i.e. not axiomatised etc (S is a Mathematician) -- is the mind, weaving a path to the goal through imagination, intuition and insight, complete with Eureka moments. [Can you formalise how you composed the thoughts that led to the sentences in the post above -- well beyond the 143 ASCII character in contextually responsive English limit? But, did you not -- Voila! Eureka! Poof! Magic step! MIND step! -- find a path to the goal, a goal utterly beyond the credible reach of chance and necessity on the gamut of our observable cosmos?] kairosfocus

Nakashima-san: Actually, the situation is subtler than you imagine. In a world of matter-energy driven by chance and necessity, the problem is intractable. But in a world in which real, imagining and creative mind is a possibility . . . voila! (And remember I believe that such minds may even be actualisable by us someday, a la Derek Smith and even a version on R Daneel Olivaw; though I have doubts we will need to resort to electrons moving from the future to the past to do it.) And, long since, I have taken a different track on quantification at he first simple level: focus used info capacity on the context of islands of function (and more generally targets). Dembski has focussed on targets in spaces, and Durston et al focus on realised target islands of function in configuration spaces. So, the metric problem has been solved after all -- it's fourteen years on since this interview. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

KF-san, Yes, having identified the code and letters, he immediately goes on to say evolution isn't about that, can't be an accumulation of errors. When asked to formalize his ideas, he defines a space in which one coordinate is the thread of Ariane. His 'formalization' is simplt an appeal to teleology, which he is still happy to sniff at when he detects it in Dawkins' Weasel. The preliminary analysis is beyond the reach of empirical study. ... In terms of mathematical logic, the nature of this space is entirely enigmatic. So the formalization of functional complexity relies, not just on the thread of Ariane, but a preliminary analysis beyond the reach of empirical analysis and the construction of a completely enigmatic space. Good luck "computing" the functional complexity of anything using this kind of formality. Functional complexity is an attribute, but not a measurable one. Nakashima

PS: M-PS goes on to remark, on the next question: _________________ >> Q: You are a mathematician. Suppose that you try, despite your reservations, to formalize the concept of functional complexity... S: I would appeal to a notion banned by the scientific community, but one understood perfectly by everyone else -- that of a goal. As a computer scientist, I could express this in the following way. One constructs a space within which one of the coordinates serves in effect as the thread of Ariane, guiding the trajectory toward the goal. Once the space is constructed, the system evolves in a mechanical way toward its goal. But look, the construction of the relevant space cannot proceed until a preliminary analysis has been carried out, one in which the set of all possible trajectories is assessed, this together with an estimation of their average distance from the specified goal. The preliminary analysis is beyond the reach of empirical study. It presupposes -- the same word that seems to recur in theoretical biology -- that the biologist (or computer scientist) know the totality of the situation, the properties of the ensemble of trajectories. In terms of mathematical logic, the nature of this space is entirely enigmatic. Nonetheless, it is important to remember that the conceptual problems we face, life has entirely solved; the systems embodied in living creatures are entirely successful in reaching their goals. The trick involved in Dawkin's somewhat sheepish example proceeds via the surreptitious introduction of a relevant space. His computer program calculates from a random phrase to a target, a calculation corresponding to nothing in biological reality. The function that he employs flatters the imagination, however, because it has that property of apparent simplicity that elicits naïve approval. In biological reality, the space of even the simplest function has a complexity that defies understanding, and indeed, defies any and all calculations. >> _________________ kairosfocus

Nakashima-San: Have you focussed on this part of Mr Schutzenberger's interview [alas, a few months before his passing it seems . .. ]: _______________ >> Q: Isn't the significant explanatory feature of Darwinian theory the connection established between chance mutations and natural selection? S:With the discovery of coding, we have come to understand that a gene is like a word composed in the DNA alphabet; such words form the genomic text. It is that word that tells the cell to make this or that protein. Either a given protein is structural, or a protein itself works in combination with other signals given by the genome to fabricate yet another protein. All the experimental results we know fall within this scheme. The following scenario then becomes standard. A gene undergoes a mutation, one that may facilitate the reproduction of those individuals carrying it; over time, and with respect to a specific environment, mutants come to be statistically favored, replacing individuals lacking the requisite mutation. Evolution could not be an accumulation of such typographical errors. Population geneticists can study the speed with which a favorable mutation propagates itself under these circumstances. They do this with a lot of skill, but these are academic exercises if only because none of the parameters that they use can be empirically determined. In addition, there are the obstacles I have already mentioned. We know the number of genes in an organism. There are about one hundred thousand for a higher vertebrate. This we know fairly well. But this seems grossly insufficient to explain the incredible quantity of information needed to accomplish evolution within a given line of species. [Yep, all of that "junk" DNA and epigenetic information and organisation are doing something too, nuh?] Q: A concrete example? S: Darwinists say that horses, which were once mammals as large as rabbits, increased their size to escape more quickly from predators. [Subtle irony: rabbits are of course also highly successful, so we see a theory that explains rabbits that grow to horses and rabbits that remain rabbits with equal facility, i.e it has no real predictive bite.] Within the gradualist model, one might isolate a specific trait -- increase in body size -- and consider it to be the result of a series of typographic changes. The explanatory effect achieved is rhetorical, imposed entirely by trick of insisting that what counts for a herbivore is the speed of its flight when faced by a predator. Now this may even be partially true, but there are no biological grounds that permit us to determine that this is in fact the decisive consideration. After all, increase in body size may well have a negative effect. Darwinists seem to me to have preserved a mechanic vision of evolution, one that prompts them to observe merely a linear succession of causes and effects. The idea that causes may interact with one another is now standard in mathematical physics; it is a point that has had difficulty in penetrating the carapace of biological thought. In fact, within the quasi-totality of observable phenomena, local changes interact in a dramatic fashion; after all, there is hardly an issue of La Recherche that does not contain an allusion to the Butterfly Effect. Information theory is precisely the domain that sharpens our intuitions about these phenomena. A typographical change in a computer program does not change it just a little. It wipes the program out, purely and simply. It is the same with a telephone number. If I intend to call a correspondent by telephone, it doesn't much matter if I am fooled by one, two, three or eight figures in his number. [I.e. he highlights vulnerability to modest perturbation, and thus the reality of islands of function in a sea of non-function . . . ] Q: You accept the idea that biological mutations genuinely have the character of typographical errors? S: Yes, in the sense that one base is a template for another, one codon for another, but at the level of biochemical activity, one is no longer able properly to speak of typography. There is an entire grammar for the formation of proteins in three dimensions, one that we understand poorly. We do not have at our disposal physical or chemical rules permitting us to construct a mapping from typographical mutations or modifications to biologically effective structures. [notice the issues of informational functionality, complexity and specificity driven by linear sequence and the consequent physico-dynamic least Gibbs free energy mapping from one to the other] To return to the example of the eye: a few thousand genes are needed for its fabrication, but each in isolation signifies nothing. What is significant is the combination of their interactions. [irreducible complexity . . . ] These cascading interactions, with their feedback loops, express an organization whose complexity we do not know how to analyze (See Figure 1 [a cross section of the cochlea]). It is possible we may be able to do so in the future, but there is no doubt that we are unable to do so now. Gehring has recently discovered a segment of DNA which is both involved in the development of the vertebrate eye and which can induce the development of an eye in the wing of a butterfly. His work comprises a demonstration of something utterly astonishing, but not an explanation. >> __________________ On the evidence just highlighted, Nakashima-san, you are plainly wrong. Mr Schutzenberger is plainly discussing: 1 --> Observed, organised functional complexity that requires fine-tuned, mutually well-adjusted interaction of multiple components acting together at operating points 2 --> Expressed in/assembled through digital strings based on codes using alphabets of symbols 3 --> Significantly parallel to well known cases of information systems in the technological world 4 --> But occurring in the biological world at multiple levels. 5 --> And which it is simply not plausible that complex functional organisation could be created through simple accumulation of typographical accidents as the degree of complex interaction involved in the function demands a threshold of initial complex organisation that is highly resistant to step by step building up by small changes. 6 --> Indeed, Schutzenberger goes on to say this to Dawkins and his Weasel:

Q:But Dawkins, for example, believes in the possibility of a cumulative process. S: Dawkins believes in an effect that he calls "the cumulative selection of beneficial mutations." To support his thesis, he resorts to a metaphor introduced by the mathematician Emile Borel -- that of a monkey typing by chance and in the end producing a work of literature. It is a metaphor, I regret to say, embraced by Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the double helix. Dawkins has his computer write a series of thirty letters, these corresponding to the number of letters in a verse by Shakespeare. He then proceeds to simulate the Darwinian mechanism of chance mutations and selection. His imaginary monkey types and retypes the same letters, the computer successively choosing the phrase that most resembles the target verse. By means of cumulative selection, the monkey reaches its target in forty or sixty generations. Q: But you don't believe that a monkey typing on a typewriter, even aided by a computer... S:This demonstration is a trompe-l'oeil, and what is more, Dawkins doesn't describe precisely how it proceeds. At the beginning of the exercise, randomly generated phrases appear rapidly to approach the target; the closer the approach, the more the process begins to slow. It is the action of mutations in the wrong direction that pulls things backward. In fact, a simple argument shows that unless the numerical parameters are chosen deliberately, the progression begins to bog down completely. Q:You would say that the model of cumulative selection, imagined by Dawkins, is out of touch with palpable biological realities? S: Exactly. Dawkins's model lays entirely to the side the triple problems of complexity, functionality, and their interaction.

_____________ THAT IS: Monsieur Schutzenberger has aptly described what we have been discussing under the term of description: functionally specific, complex information. FSCI for short. As a bonus, Dembski uses the FC term in his ID the bridge book, p. 107, in the context of the cluster of ideas associated with CSI: Behe's IC, Schutzenberger's FC and Dembski's CSI are "alternate routes to the same reality"; where of course WD also argues that IC is a subset of CSI, and teh above shows that specific functionality is one way of getting tot he specification in CSI. [Sparc et al, if you are watching, there is your answer.] GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Mr Jerry, OK, I wasn't sure if you were using macro-evolution as a term to encompass all aspects of the theory. Nakashima

"How about the use of animals as models of disease and other processes in humans? Universal common descent and some metric of cladistic distance motivate the use of animal models and predict some of the limits of particular models." Actually I thought of homologies and its use for testing but that doesn't necessarily flow from Darwin. It could just as well flow from design and a lot of it could be micro evolution. Remember there is no known mechanism for macro evolution. jerry

Mr DATCG, I hope to be visiting several sites associated with Mendel in the next few weeks. While I understand why you would want to bring him up because of his occupation as a monk, his population genetics is exactly the sort of reductionism that Schützenberger is scoffing at. Everything that is said here on UD about FCSI he would laugh at. If formal logic has no grip on this special something, it is completely innumerate. The whole analogy with computers and codes is blown away. Nakashima

Mr DATCG, You may be confused about which French doctor we are discussing. Q: What is it that makes functional complexity so difficult to comprehend? S: The evolution of living creatures appears to require an essential ingredient, a specific form of organization. Whatever it is, it lies beyond anything that our present knowledge of physics or chemistry might suggest; it is a property upon which formal logic sheds absolutely no light. Whether gradualists or saltationists, Darwinians have too simple a conception of biology, rather like a locksmith improbably convinced that his handful of keys will open any lock. Darwinians, for example, tend to think of the gene rather as if it were the expression of a simple command: do this, get that done, drop that side chain. Walter Gehring's work on the regulatory genes controlling the development of the insect eye reflects this conception. The relevant genes may well function this way, but the story on this level is surely incomplete, and Darwinian theory is not apt to fill in the pieces. What is this "special ingredient"? Elan vital? Why hasn't it shown up in all of the sequencing and genomics research? Why wasn't there a Human Elan Vital Project devoted to it? Oh, yes, physics, chemistry and formal logic can't touch it. You can't sequence elan vital. You can't store its sequence in a database. Down tools, then. Lets stop fighting disease, cancer, and aging with physics, chemistry, and formal logic. Schützenberger has informed us they don't work. Except of course when they do work. Except when regulatory gene networks are mapped out without somehow needing a blank space filled with the ineffable, nouminous elan vital. That might work on some level, Schützenberger says, but it is surely incomplete. My knee was hurting last week, so I went to the vitalist. I told him about my pain. He told me my knee was a complex functioning part of my body, as anyone with medical training can see. Its pain was special, very specific and related to its complex function. I said, yes that was all very nice, but it still hurt. He gave me this interview to read, and charged me his normal fee. Nakashima

oonnnnhhh haahaaa.. oui oui... le witty, le magnifique, le proverbial francois... On n'apprend pas aux vieux singes à faire des grimaces. You cannot teach old monkeys to make faces. Darwinites always have that bitter beer face. Maybe that is an english inheritance? The Darwinites only see themselves in solutions. But voila... le french doctor... Louis Pasteur Famous Christian scientist who did more to help the world in his little pinky than anything Darwin promoted in his book. Lets see how do I rank them? Vaccines, germs, destroying spontaneous generation thoughts, microbiology, pasturization, etc., etc. Or, Bears swimming with mouths open eventually turning into whales? Arrête ton char! Stop your bluffing. Darwin is meaningless to society today. Pasteur is leap years beyond him, so is Mendel and many other scientist that deserve much more credit. You've built an idol to worship. Now you watch it crumble daily before your eye. C'est la fin des haricots. Thats the end of the beans. C'est la vie... 'Laissez les bons temps rouler. Darwin is dead, vaccines, pasteurization lives on. DATCG

So much for Kabuki theatre... Where real breakthrus take place and not story-telling:

Gregor Mendel (1822-1884) Mendel was the first to lay the mathematical foundations of genetics, in what came to be called "Mendelianism". He began his research in 1856 (three years before Darwin published his Origin of Species) in the garden of the Monastery in which he was a monk. Mendel was elected Abbot of his Monastery in 1868. His work remained comparatively unknown until the turn of the century, when a new generation of botanists began finding similar results and "rediscovered" him (though their ideas were not identical to his). An interesting point is that the 1860's was notable for formation of the X-Club, which was dedicated to lessening religious influences and propagating an image of "conflict" between science and religion. One sympathizer was Darwin's cousin Francis Galton, whose scientific interest was in genetics (a proponent of eugenics - selective breeding among humans to "improve" the stock). He was writing how the "priestly mind" was not conducive to science while, at around the same time, an Austrian monk was making the breakthrough in genetics.

Amazing how history repeats itself. Maybe the theartre is not closed yet. Dawkins in the same contentious bluster of Galton, forms organizations to bully, insult and intimidate. He rants that the religious are dumb, yada, yada. This is nothing more than a repeat of his Darwinian Eugenics ancestor, cousin Vino Galton. Meanwhile, men like Mendel, utilized the very math skills Darwin could never master to make breakthrough discoveries in genetics. DATCG

Nakashima, "How about the use of animals as models of disease and other processes in humans..." Chuckles, u r witty too. Thats not based upon Darwinism. Medicine, though limited, long before Darwin, examined animals for comparisons and learning in relation to humans. I find it hard to believe you are not aware of these facts. Gosh, are you guys rewriting written history now? Not content to coax fables from dead bones anymore? Operational field work in anatomy, disease, etc., is all based upon science, not fairy tales of the past. Lets not confuse variation and mutations with macro-evolution. Nor, operational sciences with bear swimming stories turning into whales. That was OK for Darwin, or I guess even Dawkins belief in "cloven hoofed" ancestors. Click, click, click, anythings possible in Oz. DATCG

As for the practical value of materialism and its supposedly scientific arm Darwinism I see none. Separate evolution which I accept and the role of mutation and selective pressures which no one denies and all that's left is the claim that undirected microchanges are the engine of all creation. I don't see that that's got us anywhere. Rude

Mr Jerry, Can anyone think of any practical applications that flow from Darwin’s theory of macro evolution? Besides selling books? Jurassic Park! OK, maybe that is still in the bookselling category. :) How about the use of animals as models of disease and other processes in humans? Universal common descent and some metric of cladistic distance motivate the use of animal models and predict some of the limits of particular models. Nakashima

Can anyone think of any practical applications that flow from Darwin’s theory of macro evolution? Besides selling books? How about this? Mesut Tez. (2008)Cancer is an adaptation mechanism of the aged stem cell against stress. Rejuvenation Research. 11(6): 1059-1060 Or this? Marlo LMF, JW Pepper, BJ Reid, and CC Maley (2006). Cancer as an evolutionary and ecological process Nature Reviews Cancer6: 924-934. Dave Wisker

Rude@12, thank you for your answer. There seems to be quite a variety of ideas on how specificity should be defined. R0b

bfast:

ROb, I understand your frustration. This is why some of us are attracted to the concept of FSCI, function specifying complex information.

Thank you, bfast. I've seen you and jerry promoting function specifying complex information on this forum. Are there others who promote it? From what I've seen, most people here talk about specified information rather than specifying information. R0b

Can anyone think of any practical applications that flow from Darwin's theory of macro evolution? Besides selling books? jerry

I tire of hearing that until ID serves up vast dishes of practical application it had better step aside and genuflect to materialism. Why should we concede that materialism has given us anything? The push to look for regularities in nature came from theists, and without the respect for an honest inquiry provided by the West’s Judeo-Christian heritage there would have been no science. Cultures do not necessarily reward curiosity and honest inquiry. To say so is to impugn the intellect of societies where science did not arise. Rude

ROb 2 wonders about specificity. In regard to ID I’d say it has to be as broad as intention. Did some mind intend it? Inasmuch as a mind is rather unlimited it may be that only a mind—not a limited algorithm—could recognize the intention of another mind. There are instances, say in archaeology (or on an alien spacecraft?), where the function of an object is not discernable, yet it is possible to determine intent. It was meant for something. I’m sure we could make a list of the various hallmarks of design: functionality, symmetry, mimicry, code properties, etc. In fact this might make an interesting study for someone. But perhaps the classifications have to be a bit open ended, for who really understands all the potential of a mind? Rude

Linguists worry not just about the storage capacity of a string of symbols, nor just whether the symbols store information, they also concern themselves with matters of coherence and redundancy. Human language is multi-propositional—with each proposition/clause being negotiated between speaker/writer and a literal or imagined interlocutor. Each information unit (proposition or clause) contains something old and something new. A clause that does not relate to the discourse is incoherent, one lacking something new is redundant. I once knew a linguist who went to work for a large corporation that had involved itself with artificial intelligence. His job was to figure out a way for a machine to find the new information in a text, in fact it was even more than that: it was to detect information not stored in its data banks. The problem was not distinguishing strings of symbols not yet stored in its data bank, it was to determine new information. Humans are very good at this. If someone is just droning on with stuff you already know you are soon bored. There are many ways to say the same thing and we readily recognize when its something you already know or whether its something new—this whatever the words being used. Those who are multilingual will remember things they’ve learned in the mileu of another culture, maybe even in a language they’ve mostly forgotten. It’s not the exact words they remember—it is the information. Somehow I suspect my linguist colleague never solved the problem. Surely this is an interesting problem and one the AI folks should be working on, but I expect it may be mostly beyond the ken of any machine. It may require understanding, which may not be an entirely mechanical process. Rude

Nakashima-san: That French wit has put its finger aptly on a sore-spot in the materialist program of reduction. that reductionists will ignore objections to their research programme when they hold power to do so may say more about them than it does about the balance on the merits. And, it seems to me this was a foreshadowing of what looks more and more like the wave oft eh future: Design thought, and its applications lie in not only cryptanalysis -- we'll doubtless hear more on that in 50 years or so -- but in reverse engineering nature. GEM of TKI kairosfocus

Unless they're functionally specified French whitticisms? OK, I guess those too should be ignored. CannuckianYankee

"Probably because the vitalism and anti-reductionism of this approach have not resulted in any application, any results beyond French witticisms." Nakashima can always be counted on for meaningless observations. *Note to biologists wishing to advance a rationale: Beware of French witticisms. Upright BiPed

GEM, that was a gem! "Now, why do you think that is?" Because "Darwinians have too simple a conception of biology, rather like a locksmith improbably convinced that his handful of keys will open any lock." I remember as a child discovering that our car key worked on my uncle's car. Darwinists point to periodic "beneficial mutations". IDers cannot say that beneficial mutations can never happen, periodically the handful of keys will open a lock, but not nearly often enough to assume that the locksmith's chain is enough to qualify him to universally pick locks. bFast

KF-san, Probably because the vitalism and anti-reductionism of this approach have not resulted in any application, any results beyond French witticisms. Nakashima

bFast: It might interest you to see Schutzenberger's discussion, which seems to trace back to Wistar, 1966; here. Here's a little slice of the cake:

Q: What do you mean by functional complexity? S: It is impossible to grasp the phenomenon of life without that concept, the two words each expressing a crucial and essential idea. The laboratory biologists' normal and unforced vernacular is almost always couched in functional terms: the function of an eye, the function of an enzyme, or a ribosome, or the fruit fly's antennae -- their function; the concept by which such language is animated is one perfectly adapted to reality. Physiologists see this better than anyone else. Within their world, everything is a matter of function, the various systems that they study -- circulatory, digestive, excretory, and the like -- all characterized in simple, ineliminable functional terms. At the level of molecular biology, functionality may seem to pose certain conceptual problems, perhaps because the very notion of an organ has disappeared when biological relationships are specified in biochemical terms; but appearances are misleading, certain functions remaining even in the absence of an organ or organ systems. Complexity is also a crucial concept. Even among unicellular organisms, the mechanisms involved in the separation and fusion of chromosomes during mitosis and meiosis are processes of unbelieveable complexity and subtlety. Organisms present themselves to us as a complex ensemble of functional interrelationships. If one is going to explain their evolution, one must at the same time explain their functionality and their complexity. Q: What is it that makes functional complexity so difficult to comprehend? S: The evolution of living creatures appears to require an essential ingredient, a specific form of organization. Whatever it is, it lies beyond anything that our present knowledge of physics or chemistry might suggest; it is a property upon which formal logic sheds absolutely no light. Whether gradualists or saltationists, Darwinians have too simple a conception of biology, rather like a locksmith improbably convinced that his handful of keys will open any lock. Darwinians, for example, tend to think of the gene rather as if it were the expression of a simple command: do this, get that done, drop that side chain. Walter Gehring's work on the regulatory genes controlling the development of the insect eye reflects this conception. The relevant genes may well function this way, but the story on this level is surely incomplete, and Darwinian theory is not apt to fill in the pieces . . . . Q: Isn't the significant explanatory feature of Darwinian theory the connection established between chance mutations and natural selection? S:With the discovery of coding, we have come to understand that a gene is like a word composed in the DNA alphabet; such words form the genomic text. It is that word that tells the cell to make this or that protein. Either a given protein is structural, or a protein itself works in combination with other signals given by the genome to fabricate yet another protein. All the experimental results we know fall within this scheme. The following scenario then becomes standard. A gene undergoes a mutation, one that may facilitate the reproduction of those individuals carrying it; over time, and with respect to a specific environment, mutants come to be statistically favored, replacing individuals lacking the requisite mutation. Evolution could not be an accumulation of such typographical errors. Population geneticists can study the speed with which a favorable mutation propagates itself under these circumstances. They do this with a lot of skill, but these are academic exercises if only because none of the parameters that they use can be empirically determined. In addition, there are the obstacles I have already mentioned. We know the number of genes in an organism. There are about one hundred thousand for a higher vertebrate. This we know fairly well. But this seems grossly insufficient to explain the incredible quantity of information needed to accomplish evolution within a given line of species. Q: A concrete example? S: Darwinists say that horses, which were once mammals as large as rabbits, increased their size to escape more quickly from predators. Within the gradualist model, one might isolate a specific trait -- increase in body size -- and consider it to be the result of a series of typographic changes. The explanatory effect achieved is rhetorical, imposed entirely by trick of insisting that what counts for a herbivore is the speed of its flight when faced by a predator. Now this may even be partially true, but there are no biological grounds that permit us to determine that this is in fact the decisive consideration. After all, increase in body size may well have a negative effect. Darwinists seem to me to have preserved a mechanic vision of evolution, one that prompts them to observe merely a linear succession of causes and effects. The idea that causes may interact with one another is now standard in mathematical physics; it is a point that has had difficulty in penetrating the carapace of biological thought. In fact, within the quasi-totality of observable phenomena, local changes interact in a dramatic fashion; after all, there is hardly an issue of La Recherche that does not contain an allusion to the Butterfly Effect. Information theory is precisely the domain that sharpens our intuitions about these phenomena. A typographical change in a computer program does not change it just a little. It wipes the program out, purely and simply. It is the same with a telephone number. If I intend to call a correspondent by telephone, it doesn't much matter if I am fooled by one, two, three or eight figures in his number. Q: You accept the idea that biological mutations genuinely have the character of typographical errors? S: Yes, in the sense that one base is a template for another, one codon for another, but at the level of biochemical activity, one is no longer able properly to speak of typography. There is an entire grammar for the formation of proteins in three dimensions, one that we understand poorly. We do not have at our disposal physical or chemical rules permitting us to construct a mapping from typographical mutations or modifications to biologically effective structures. To return to the example of the eye: a few thousand genes are needed for its fabrication, but each in isolation signifies nothing. What is significant is the combination of their interactions. These cascading interactions, with their feedback loops, express an organization whose complexity we do not know how to analyze (See Figure 1). It is possible we may be able to do so in the future, but there is no doubt that we are unable to do so now. Gehring has recently discovered a segment of DNA which is both involved in the development of the vertebrate eye and which can induce the development of an eye in the wing of a butterfly. His work comprises a demonstration of something utterly astonishing, but not an explanation. Q:But Dawkins, for example, believes in the possibility of a cumulative process. S: Dawkins believes in an effect that he calls "the cumulative selection of beneficial mutations." To support his thesis, he resorts to a metaphor introduced by the mathematician Emile Borel -- that of a monkey typing by chance and in the end producing a work of literature. It is a metaphor, I regret to say, embraced by Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the double helix. Dawkins has his computer write a series of thirty letters, these corresponding to the number of letters in a verse by Shakespeare. He then proceeds to simulate the Darwinian mechanism of chance mutations and selection. His imaginary monkey types and retypes the same letters, the computer successively choosing the phrase that most resembles the target verse. By means of cumulative selection, the monkey reaches its target in forty or sixty generations. Q: But you don't believe that a monkey typing on a typewriter, even aided by a computer... S:This demonstration is a trompe-l'oeil, and what is more, Dawkins doesn't describe precisely how it proceeds. At the beginning of the exercise, randomly generated phrases appear rapidly to approach the target; the closer the approach, the more the process begins to slow. It is the action of mutations in the wrong direction that pulls things backward. In fact, a simple argument shows that unless the numerical parameters are chosen deliberately, the progression begins to bog down completely. Q:You would say that the model of cumulative selection, imagined by Dawkins, is out of touch with palpable biological realities? S: Exactly. Dawkins's model lays entirely to the side the triple problems of complexity, functionality, and their interaction.

And, that's not just blog commenters at UD speaking . . . the issue has been on the table at he very highest levels for over forty years, but has been largely ignored, for decades. Now, why do you think that is? GEM of TKI kairosfocus

ROb, I understand your frustration. This is why some of us are attracted to the concept of FSCI, function specifying complex information. If what is specified is something that functions, that can perform a specific task, then the nature and parameters of specificity become much clearer. bFast

"I have yet to find a closed definition" A good dictionary might help or common sense use of the term. From the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language "To determine or bring about (a specific result): a gene that specifies the synthesis of a single protein." I am sure you will find other helpful definitions in other dictionaries. jerry

I have yet to find a closed definition, much less a closed operational definition, of specificity. Is there a fixed set of criteria outside of which everything is non-specified, or at least not verifiably specified? Specificity seems a key concept in ID, but it also seems quite malleable. For instance, Robert Deyes equates specificity with semantic content, but Dembski says that specified information is not the same as semantic information. Without a fixed, preferably operational, definition, it's too easy to come up with ad hoc reasons for saying that something is or is not specified. R0b

In this sense I hit upon an interesting opinion that DNA belongs actually to phenotype and not genotype. It is information which is important. DNA is only phenotypic expression of given information. In this sense the same genes in population are actually redundant and have no additional meaning. http://cadra.wordpress.com/ VMartin