Signature of Controversy: New Book Responds to Stephen Meyer’s Critics

_{William Dembski

May 25, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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Signature of Controversy Critics of intelligent design often try to dismiss the theory as not worth addressing, as a question already settled, even as being too boring to countenance. Then they spend an amazing amount of energy trying to refute it. On this episode of ID the Future, Anika Smith interviews David Klinghoffer, editor of the new digital book Signature of Controversy: Responses to Critics of Signature in the Cell, featuring essays by David Berklinski, David Klinghoffer, Casey Luskin, Stephen C. Meyer, Paul Nelson, Jay Richards, and Richard Sternberg. Listen in as Klinghoffer examines the responses of these various critics in this new volume, available as a free digital book.

Click here to listen.

Comments

Shallit is all wrong about his "weather data". I've been gone for over a week. Will be back tomorrow, and can point to an exchange that maks Shallit look bad. He seems not to understand CSI in the least--but, of course, he thinks he understands it better than anyone. I'll dig out the exchange tomorrow.PaV_{May 27, 2010
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Off topic: Near Death Experiences - Scientific Evidence - Dr Jeff Long M.D. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4454627 Here is a pretty cool quote I found: “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 – Father Of Quantum Mechanics – (Of Note: Planck was a devout Christian, which is not surprising when you realize practically every founder of a major branch of modern science also had a deep Christian connection.) Near Death Experience (NDE) Song - The Way - Fastball http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4193448bornagain77_{May 26, 2010
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Phaedros, whose point?R0b_{May 26, 2010
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R0b- Ok. I still don't think you understand the point at all.Phaedros_{May 26, 2010
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gpuccio, I appreciate your points, but just as Meyer's point is independent of whether the loaded tape contains raw weather data or designed software, so is mine. Regardless of whether the data/information on the tape was produced by a conscious mind, and regardless of whether it constitutes dFSCI, the point is that it supervenes on the physical properties of the tape.R0b_{May 26, 2010
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R0b: but is there a distinction between simple data and designed information with regards to their supervenience on physical phenomena? From a causal point of view, simple data do not correspond to any originating conscious experience which has shaped the raw material to express itself. Designed information definitely does. From an empirical point of view, simple data never exhibit CSI, and in particular dFSCI. Never. Designed information exhibits dFSCI in such an abundance that our experience is saturated of it: language, programs, and so on. That is definitely a disctinction, and a very objective one. Simple data never give to their supporting medium the form of dFSCI. Designed information does that continuously. In case you are asking next thing what dFSCI is and why it is objectively recognizable, I repeat here my simple operating definition: any string of symbols, supported by any possible physical structure, which can be recognized by conscious intelligent beings, through a digital code, as expressing some function which can be explicitly defined and verified (if necessary, defining a quantitative threshold to affirm or deny its presence, like in the case of an enzymatic activity in a protein); and whose digital complexity can be explicitly computed. The complexity can be expressed in a simple way as the negative logaritm of the ratio between the number of digital strings expressing the function and the whole search space (usually at least the number of strings of same length in the same alphabet). (I hope I am doing no mathemathical errors, in case I am ready to stand corrected). For dFSCI to be observed, the specification must be present, and the complexity must be higher than a conentional threshold which is certainly context dependent, and whose puspose is to empirically rule out any inference to random causes. In general, we can use the limit of 500 bits as an universal threshold (for the well known reasons).gpuccio_{May 26, 2010
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kairosfocus, I've read and pondered all of the papers at EIL. Is there a reason that you won't tell me the point of your tautology in #43?R0b_{May 26, 2010
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gpuccio, I certainly appreciate the importance of consciousness, but I could have just as easily said "weather data" instead of "Hamlet's soliloquy" with no effect on the point I was making. I would probably receive some semantic objections from those who define information in a way that excludes data from nature, but is there a distinction between simple data and designed information with regards to their supervenience on physical phenomena? That is what I was referring to when I said "In this regard".R0b_{May 26, 2010
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En passant Thanks for the concerns; I hope it ends soon but not too soon, we need to lance and clean out the abscess. GP, you again have hit home hard. There are several papers at Evo Informatics that Rob needs to ponder. Cheerio all GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 26, 2010
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R0b: In this respect, I don’t see a principled distinction between Hamlet’s soliloquy and rocks and hurricanes. What is so special about information that its mere existence requires a special explanation? I have followed your arguments, and I think they show clearly the difference between a materialist and reductionist approach, and an approach which recognizes the empirical reality and importance of consciousness. At the cost of being repetitive, I state here again that all the difference between designed information and simple data (like weather) is that designed information is the output of conscious intelligent beings, and is the espression of conscious representations of reality, and not merely of mechanical external laws. Hamlet is what it is becasue it was thought, felt, represented and intuited by Shakespeare, and then and only then, converted to digital information which, when appraised by other conscious intelligent beings, can recreate in them, at least in part, the conscious experiences of the author's mind. This point is fundamental, and no real understanding of ID can be achieved, IMO, without recognizing the central role of consciousness. Consciousness and conscious processes have to be considered as empirical realities, as facts which must contribute to our description of reality, because they are part of reality. Subjective experiences do exist, and nobody in the world can explain them in a reductive, materialistic way. It is no surprise that many materialists, probably aware in some way of the impossibility to explain consciousness in materialistic ways, just try to deny it. Take, for instance, the concept of function, which is a special form of purpose. It originates in consciousness. Matter has no purposes, as far as we can understand. The atoms in a machine are not aware in any way of the function they help perform. But it was a man who built the machine to realize his conscious, purposeful representations, and another man, seeing the machin performing its function, can usually understand what it is doing, and the purpose behind it, exactly as a man reading Hamlet can feel the perspective, the feelings, the genius which was in Shakespeare. Now, just follow me. Here comes the importance of CSI, or of the related concepts, like FSCI or digital FSCI. Design is always specified, but it can be simple, and it often is. I can design just a simple arrow. It is certainly designed, and in my consciousness it has a purpose, that is to point in one direction. But, in the absence of any context, an observer could doubt that the attow was designed, because it could easily be the result of casual forces. In other words, my arrow has a specification (it points in one direction), but it is not complex. It is designed, but it is not recognizable as such with any certainty. The problem is more clear if we shift the discussion to digital symbolic information. That's why I always prefer to discuss digital FSCI, instead of CSI in general. So, let's pretend we happen to observe a string of digital symbols (recognizable on a medium of some kind). Let's say we observe a string of two symbols which could be interpreted as a sequence of 0s and 1s, in other words as a binary string. Let's say we observe 8 "digits", and that their sequence, if interpreted as 0s and 1s, corresponds to the byte which, in the ASCII convention, represents the letter "a". Would that demonstrate that the string is designed? No. It could have been designed, but we don't know for certain (unless we saw the author writing it down). The fact is, that string is specified (in a bibary code and in the ASCII interpretation of binary numbers), but it is not very complex. It is just 8 bits. The search space is only 2^8, that is 256 possible outputs. If our two symbols, which we interpret as 0 and 1, whatever their physical support may be, have been mixed up by some random non intelligent force, like the wind on a beach, or electromagnetic noise acting on a magnetic tape, there would still be one chance in 256 that a string of eight of those symbols represented the letter "a". But let's pretend that our string is much longer, and that its interpretation in ASCII corresponds exactly to the full text of Hamlet. Any serious inquirer would no more attribute it to random forces. Any serious inquirer would be certain that some conscious agent, a human being, wrote that string, either directly, or through some machine (computer or else), where anyway the string had been previously inputted. Whatever we can say, Hamlet does not come out by chance. Not by the wind in the beach, not by random electromagnetic noice. It does not originate by chance and never will, not in 15 billion years, not in 15 billion universes. Because Hamlet is the product of intelligent (and, let me say, wonderful, deep and exciting) conscious representations. And why are we so sure that the Hamlet string did not originate by chance? If we don't understand it immediately, probably because in some way we have lost our common sense and our feelings, then reason and science may come to help us: we just have to compute the complexity of the string. The specification is already there: it is immediately recognizable to any human being who understands english (and, obviously, the intermediate ASCII code). Hamlet definitely "means" something: a lot of things, indeed. But how much is the complexity? Well, if anybody here knows the length of the Hamlet text in ASCII, it is easy: starting from the byte value, it is 8^number of letters (including punctuation marks, spaces, etc.). Anybody wants to try to give the result? So, no Hamlet without consciousness. And, obviously, you know very well how my discourse would go on from here...gpuccio_{May 26, 2010
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aqeel states: "Maybe you should show more humility and strive in the way of Jesus." And maybe you should give more glory to God where and when it is due instead of projecting fault onto me when I called you on your complacency to compromise.bornagain77_{May 26, 2010
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kairosfocus, your point is still lost on me, but that's okay. I hope the violence in Kingston ends soon.R0b_{May 26, 2010
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ba77 said: "Hide in what shadows you may" I'm not sure what shadows I am trying to hide in. I was merely promulgating my view on a certain point.If you don't agree with me then fine. "Aqeels, just where do you think all this knowledge and information comes from anyway? Do you think it just magically emerges from some material basis given vast eons of time? I should beg to differ is that is the basis of your reasoning!" Knowledge comes from the gift that we call the mind. A gift form God if you will. With this gift we are allowed to infer things, and understand the universe we occupy. True, that all knowledge is from God but this is a trivial point to someone who believes in God. Maybe you should show more humility and strive in the way of Jesus.aqeels_{May 26, 2010
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vjtorley, your comments are indeed helpful.
I interpret Dr. Meyer’s point to be that even if information cannot exist without matter or energy, it is a purely formal property rather than a material one. Matter and form complement one another; neither is reducible to the other, and neither can exist without the other.
I'm familiar with formal vs. material causes, but not with formal vs. material properties, so I'll need some help here. (I sincerely appreciate you sharing your expertise in philosophy with us.) Is the state of water -- i.e. liquid, solid, or gas -- a material property or a formal property? Is the difference between a hot dog and a magnetic tape material or formal? If Dr. Meyer's two tapes are materially equivalent but formally distinct, then your interpretation makes sense. Not understanding the distinction between material and formal properties, I can't say what conclusions can be drawn from the material equivalence of the two tapes. Can we conclude, as Meyer has elsewhere, that there is no materialistic explanation for the origin of information? You rightly point out the multiple-realizability of information. Multiple-realizability is a property of high-level descriptions, which capture some aspects of the underlying thing and ignore others. The description can be divorced from a particular underlying thing, but there is always some underlying thing that has the properties captured by the description. In this respect, I don't see a principled distinction between Hamlet's soliloquy and rocks and hurricanes. What is so special about information that its mere existence requires a special explanation?R0b_{May 26, 2010
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kairosfocus- I pray for you and Jamaica. I hope this ends soon.Phaedros_{May 26, 2010
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Rob Please go to evolutionary informatics lab and look up. Surely, you have been around UD long enough to know the import of active info. Ah gawn. Drones, jets, choppers, artillery and the like with hammer-anvil tactics are what are on my mind today, with casualties in W Kgn at 44 and climbing [plus 20+ elsewhere]; in the context of a bleeding homeland. At least, druggie warlordism may be getting a mortal wound [may this be so!], opening up possibilities for a better future. Gkairosfocus_{May 26, 2010
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aqeels, There is no debate to be had! Hide in what shadows you may, but the facts are that a devout Christian was behind the founding of practically each major branch of modern science. "If an appreciation for math and the cause-and-effect workings of nature were sufficient to generate modern science, how does one explain the historical fact the the founders of modern science were all found in a *particular* culture that just happened to be shaped by a Judeo-Christian world view? Instead of measuring energy in joules, why don't we measure it in platos or al-Asharis?" http://ldolphin.org/bumbulis/ "However we may interpret the fact scientific development has only occurred in a Christian culture. The ancients had brains as good as ours. In all civilizations, Babylonia, Egypt, Greece, India, Rome, Persia, China and so on, science developed to a certain point and then stopped. It is easy to argue speculatively that science might have been able to develop in the absence of Christianity, but in fact, it never did." Robert Clark http://www.leaderu.com/offices/schaefer/docs/scientists.html ,,,Ageels I'd prefer if he had said "sustained scientific development" because I do not ignore the contribution of some individuals who were not Christian, But the point remains unscathed that there is a undeniable correlation between Christianity and the birth of Science and I find this undeniable correlation very comforting to my belief that God is the primary source of all true knowledge. And To put even more significant weight behind my claim that only God, as I understand Christ to be, is the only true source of knowledge, I submit the following for evidence. The Real Reason American Education Has Slipped - David Barton - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4318930 Aqeels, just where do you think all this knowledge and information comes from anyway? Do you think it just magically emerges from some material basis given vast eons of time? I should beg to differ is that is the basis of your reasoning!bornagain77_{May 26, 2010
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kairosfocus:
It is pretty plain that performance of systems beyond random walks is on active info.
This is true by definition. If this was addressed to me, then I'm afraid I've missed your point.R0b_{May 26, 2010
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Rob: It is pretty plain that performance of systems beyond random walks is on active info. I have other issues on my heart and mind today [beyond the press blackout; which I suppose is an act of kindness given impact on an already reeling nation], so pardon short and sharp. Gkairosfocus_{May 26, 2010
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aqeels- I would suggest Rodney Stark- The Victory of ReasonPhaedros_{May 26, 2010
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ba77, I can also reel off many "youtube" videos in my support but I don't wish to as I believe that the premise of proving a particular religion in this way is faulty. Let's all be a little more mature.aqeels_{May 26, 2010
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ba77, I don't wish to compile lists that we can argue over till the cows come home. In fact I dont think we are in total disagreement. My point was that making tenious links between the progress of science versus religious creed should be avoided. At the heart of scientific endeavour is the absolute thirst for truth and knowledge. I am absolutely sure that the greatest advancements came from people that in one shape or another had humility on their side and they recognised that there is some mysterious force behind it all. Einstein is classic case in point. I know you are Christain and indeed I respect you for that, but if you wish to debate religion and its validity I am sure there are forums for that. Suffice to say that the scientific method was pioneered by the Arabs. Optics, Alchemy (henceforth known as Chemistry), astronomy and medical science were all built upon and taken up by others. It is a shame that these great achievements are still not properly acknowledged in the west. Either way it makes no difference as scientific endeavour can come from any individual, Christian or otherwise.aqeels_{May 26, 2010
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kairosfocus, thank you for your frank words. BTW, I note that you join Nelson and Phaedros in rejecting Dembski's ostensibly proven Law of Conservation of Information:
The reply was to note that weather is a physical phenomenon that so far as we can see varies under chance plus necessity and is as it is, i.e though complex it is not functionally specific and its variation has no informational significance until we collect and process it whether by common sense observation ["red sky at night . . . "] or more formal weather data collection systems.
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aqeels- Yes there were some advancements in Islam, but it didn't flourish nearly like it did in the west, obviously. It's not only the individuals but the presuppositions of each religion.Phaedros_{May 26, 2010
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ageels,, want to compare lists of founders of branches of science? Christianity Gave Birth To Science - Dr. Henry Fritz Schaefer http://www.tangle.com/view_video?viewkey=8b121425f7e044148a1b Christianity and the Birth of Science http://ldolphin.org/bumbulis/ Scientists of the Christian Faith: A Presentation of the Pioneers, Practitioners and Supporters of Modern Science http://www.tektonics.org/scim/sciencemony.htmbornagain77_{May 26, 2010
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ba77 said "(Of Note: Planck was a devout Christian, which is not surprising when you realize practically every founder of a major branch of modern science also had a deep Christian connection.)" I hope you are not deliberately ignoring the illustrious contributions of the the muslim arabs? Let us not try and prove ones religion or denomination based on the achievements of individual who were of a certain persuasion. We can find individuals through history that contributed hugely but did not belong to any particular religion or creed. I am sure you can think of a few.aqeels_{May 26, 2010
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Thank you vjtorley, It did help. You are actually touching on a definition for detecting natural occurring patterns vs. designed patterns. I was just thinking? If it were the case that information is not independent of the matter it is expressed in, then it is theoretically possible to erase all abstract entities like numbers, the laws of logic the laws of nature.mullerpr_{May 26, 2010
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Rob (and Sooner, also Phaedros and VJT et al): Let us observe that a standard die weighs the same, whether it reads 1 or 6. But as anyone who has played Monopoly knows [much less; the less innocent games in Las Vegas], a 1 and a 6 carry very different meanings and implications. A tray of 200 dice all set to 6 would be beyond reasonable doubt set up that way by art, as would a tray of such dice set up to carry a coded message that by happy circumstance we can read. Information may be stored in or expressed through material media, magnetisation state [and tapes are based on magnetic powders in a varnish on a mylar strip or the like] or electromagnetic waves, or even the lengths of pins in a Yale-type lock; but it is distinct from the properties modulated in a conventional way to encode the information. So, Rob, I will observe on your responses to Phaedros' remark [4] that:
weather data is nothing like the coded information in cells. First off, without a human to ascertain that data it wouldn’t be data it would just be a natural occurrence. Secondly, it takes humans to create the necessary data processors to use that data. Humans did not create the data processing mechanisms inside the cell. Furthermore, the data, such as temperature or pressure, is not “in” the weather but it is ABOUT the weather that humans use to understand it.
Namely, your remarks:
[6] And the coded information in cells would be data without a human to ascertain it? . . . . According to your thinking, there were no data in the cell prior to humans ascertaining them, so it would seem that humans converted natural-occurrence-processing mechanisms into data-processing mechanisms simply by studying the cell. [8] Can two systems be chemically equivalent and have different information? [13] I can’t wrap my brain around the idea that two systems can be physically equivalent but informationally different.
1 --> We can see quite a platoon of strawmen there. 2 --> Phaedros plainly contrasts the presence of a recognisable code based information processing system in the cell, that was NOT a human artifact. 3 --> And, this is obviously correct, for our bodies and those of life forms all the way back to the first are based on cells using the information system that is based on the DNA codes. 4 --> The attempted rebuttal to Meyer's point, was to pose weather, which is complex, as a counter example. The reply was to note that weather is a physical phenomenon that so far as we can see varies under chance plus necessity and is as it is, i.e though complex it is not functionally specific and its variation has no informational significance until we collect and process it whether by common sense observation ["red sky at night . . . "] or more formal weather data collection systems. 5 --> By contrast, the workings of he cell, as we may see from this video that has been linked ever so many times over the past weeks -- or the one that is a fixture on every UD page, are essentially based on stored digital information in DNA. 6 --> So, plainly, in 6 above, Rob, you put words in Phaedros' mouth that do not belong there. In fact, you actually reversed what Phaedros (and before him, Meyer) said. 7 --> As to the remark in 8, the difference between a die that reads 1 and one that reads 6, or a magnetic tape that is blank vs one with a movie on it or a computer program or data shows that chemically equivalent or identical systems can have distinct information in them. Indeed, the very same object in different states can carry different informational import, and perhaps with very large consequences. 8 --> Of course, when it comes to the system in view, DNA is a collective term. It is differences in the sequence of specific chains of GCAT that store information though the monomers being sequenced in a coded pattern. 9 --> And, the codes work by the matching of different bases in the ladder between the two strands, much like pins in a Yale type lock. (The root of remarks on key-lock fitting.) 10 --> On your remarks at 13, plainly, information is coded in systems by altering physical properties, i.e modulation. Physically IDENTICAL systems, if information bearing, would have the same information. 11 --> But all of this is in the end distractive. The point is that the cell is indeed plainly -- cf video linked above if you are inclined to doubt or dismiss -- a digital, code based, algorithmic information processing system that is functionally specific and complex well beyond a threshold where blind chance plus necessity on the gamut of the observed cosmos can be a credible explanation. Absent institutional power based imposition of a priori materialism. 12 --> And that is also the proper reply to SE's namecalling and demonisation. Plainly, there is a scientific issue to be addressed, the causal source of FSCI, relative to what we know about the routinely observed cause of FSCI and the want of capacity of chance and necessity to generate it. ============== Pardon a few frank words, Rob and Sooner [et al]. Beyond a certain point, when cartoonish distortions are persistently made, the question is no longer that of mere misunderstanding. It moves to the far more serious issue of willful, agenda serving distortion or even outright slander. Especially when one refuses to acknowledge that there is a scientific question on the table and resorts to ideologically laced rhetorical accusations about politics, in a context where people, real scientists are being career-busted for challenging the evolutionary materialist establishment. So, Sooner and Rob, please, please, please, think again. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{May 26, 2010
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Off topic video upload: The Deep Connection Of Sound To Reality - Evan Grant -Allosphere - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4672092 please note at the end of the video the similarity of geometric patterns generated in rising frequencies of electron spin in the Allosphere to the geometric patterns generated by Cymatics earlier in the video. of note: Here is a pretty cool quote I found: "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 - Father Of Quantum Mechanics - (Of Note: Planck was a devout Christian, which is not surprising when you realize practically every founder of a major branch of modern science also had a deep Christian connection.)bornagain77_{May 26, 2010
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R0b I've just been reading the discussion you've been having with Phaedros on information. Let's accept for argument's sake that information is always associated with some sort of physical state. (Thus we'll leave aside the metaphysical question of whether disembodied souls, angels or God can be said to "contain" any kind of information.) I interpret Dr. Meyer's point to be that even if information cannot exist without matter or energy, it is a purely formal property rather than a material one. Matter and form complement one another; neither is reducible to the other, and neither can exist without the other. Dr. Meyer is not saying that information is separable from matter, but that it is irreducibly distinct from matter. Now, you might be tempted to think of information as just another "odd" property of a piece of matter, along with its color and crystal structure. But I put it to you that there is a difference. Properties such as color and crystal structure are by their very nature properties whose description refers to the piece of matter that they are associated with. Information, on the other hand, is (a) not tied to any particular piece of matter for its individuality or "this-ness" and (b) "matter-detachable," in the sense that it can at least be conceptually divorced from its underlying substrate. Regarding (a): it has been pointed out in a previous post that the same information can be encoded in a variety of different ways, and in a variety of material substrates. But more importantly, the identity of this piece of information (e.g. an SOS message) is not tied to a particular piece of matter. For instance, a message can be successfully transmitted from object A to object B, without losing its individual identity. You can't do that with colors or crystal structures. Their individual identity is bound up with the piece of matter they are associated with. Regarding (b): when you are describing the actual information encoded in a piece of matter (e.g. the actual message written on a piece of paper), you are not in any way referring to the stuff (or matter) in which this information is encoded. But when you describe the color or crystal structure of a physical object, you cannot separate these properties, even mentally, from the underlying stuff that is colored or arranged in a particular structure. By the way, I entirely agree with your point that two pieces of matter which are in every respect physically identical would have the same information content. I hope that helps.vjtorley_{May 26, 2010
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