Steve Meyer on the future of ID research: ID 3.0

_{Denyse O'Leary

January 9, 2019

Culture, Intelligent Design}

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Starting at the 38-minute mark:

https://youtu.be/lgs6J4LqeqI?t=2279

Steve Meyer is the author of Darwin’s Doubt

See also: StTeve Meyer on the information enigma in evolution

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Hat tip: Philip Cunningham

Comments

Does anyone else have an issue with immaterial information residing inside of cells? Has anyone else read "The Programming of Life" by Dr Donald Johnson?ET_{January 11, 2019
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@BA77 great points regarding bad track record of evolution. Same track record as alchemy and astrology, yet believed in fervently by the same scientific establishment that considers those fields pseudosciences. Also good point from ET is the largely unexplored role of information in our universe.EricMH_{January 11, 2019
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For Mung- a couple of quotes by Dr. Behe to sacrifice for the ignorance of the Peaceful Science skippies, RE his views on evolution:
Scott refers to me as an intelligent design “creationist,” even though I clearly write in my book Darwin’s Black Box (which Scott cites) that I am not a creationist and have no reason to doubt common descent. In fact, my own views fit quite comfortably with the 40% of scientists that Scott acknowledges think “evolution occurred, but was guided by God.” Where I and others run afoul of Scott and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is simply in arguing that intelligent design in biology is not invisible, it is empirically detectable. The biological literature is replete with statements like David DeRosier’s in the journal Cell: “More so than other motors, the flagellum resembles a machine designed by a human” (1). Exactly why is it a thought-crime to make the case that such observations may be on to something objectively correct?
From ID is NOT Creationism This quote shows he is against evolution by means of blind and mindless processes (Joshua doesn't accept that is the mainstream PoV even when presented with Jerry Coyne saying it is so)
Again, as I made abundantly clear at trial, it isn’t “evolution” but Darwinism — random mutation and natural selection — that ID challenges. Darwinism makes the large, crucial claim that random processes and natural selection can account for the functional complexity of life. Thus the “burden of proof” for Darwinism necessarily is to support its special claim — not simply to show that common descent looks to be true. How can a demand for Darwinism to convincingly support its express claim be “unreasonable”? The 19th century ether theory of the propagation of light could not be tested simply by showing that light was a wave; it had to test directly for the ether. Darwinism is not tested by studies showing simply that organisms are related; it has to show evidence for the sufficiency of random mutation and natural selection to make complex, functional systems.
That quote was from Dr. Behe's response to Judge Jones- a document that definitely stir things up on PS if someone would just post it. But the first problem is to get Joshua to understand Dr. Behe is not fighting a strawman or caricature of mainstream evolutionary thought.ET_{January 10, 2019
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Mung:
If it’s immaterial then it doesn’t “reside in” anything.
That doesn't follow. Information is neither matter nor energy. Where does the information we use reside if not inside of us? ETA- The immaterial mind- does it just hover above us and follow us around? :cool:ET_{January 10, 2019
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(December 2018) (the physical reality of immaterial information) https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/a-new-unified-model-of-specified-complexity/#comment-669817 Information is physical (but not how Rolf Landauer meant) - video https://youtu.be/H35I83y5Uro Darwinian Materialism vs. Quantum Biology - video https://youtu.be/LHdD2Am1g5Ybornagain77_{January 10, 2019
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ET:
There is actual software, ie immaterial information that resides in each and every cell.
If it's immaterial then it doesn't "reside in" anything.Mung_{January 10, 2019
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The real exciting stuff is still to come. I don't know if Dr Meyer understands this but part of what ID claims is that life is not reducible to matter, energy and what emerges from their interactions. There is information running the show. And I am not talking about DNA sequence specificity nor amino acid sequence specificity. There is actual software, ie immaterial information that resides in each and every cell. It is what says what to edit, splice and all of the configuration information required for the protein machines it has. The ID research would be to flesh that out- ie to demonstrate there is an elan vital of sortsET_{January 10, 2019
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Moreover, besides failing to deliver on technological or medical breakthroughs, it can also be forcefully argued that Darwinian evolution, besides not bearing any useful technological or medical fruit, has had a tremendous negative impact on society in so far as it has influenced society at large:
How Darwin's Theory Changed the World Rejection of Judeo-Christian values Excerpt: Weikart explains how accepting Darwinist dogma shifted society’s thinking on human life: “Before Darwinism burst onto the scene in the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of the sanctity of human life was dominant in European thought and law (though, as with all ethical principles, not always followed in practice). Judeo-Christian ethics proscribed the killing of innocent human life, and the Christian churches explicitly forbade murder, infanticide, abortion, and even suicide. “The sanctity of human life became enshrined in classical liberal human rights ideology as ‘the right to life,’ which according to John Locke and the United States Declaration of Independence, was one of the supreme rights of every individual” (p. 75). Only in the late nineteenth and especially the early twentieth century did significant debate erupt over issues relating to the sanctity of human life, especially infanticide, euthanasia, abortion, and suicide. It was no mere coincidence that these contentious issues emerged at the same time that Darwinism was gaining in influence. Darwinism played an important role in this debate, for it altered many people’s conceptions of the importance and value of human life, as well as the significance of death” (ibid.). http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn85/darwin-theory-changed-world.htm The Cultural Impact of Darwinian Evolution - John West, PhD - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFh4whzh_NU If we present man with a concept of man which is not true, we may well corrupt him. When we present him as an automation of reflexes, as a mind-machine, as a bundle of instincts, as a pawn of drives and reactions, as a mere product of instincts, heredity, and environment, we feed the despair to which man is, in any case, already prone. I became acquainted with the last stages of corruption in my second concentration camp in Auschwitz. The gas chambers of Auschwitz were the ultimate consequence of the theory that man is nothing but the product of heredity and environment—or, as the Nazis liked to say, of ‘Blood and Soil.’ I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some Ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers. —Viktor E. Frankl, Holocaust survivor and Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry, University of Vienna Medical School; from his book, The Doctor and the Soul: Introduction to Logotherapy, 1982, p. xxi). How Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Marx, and Lenin were all directly influenced by Darwinian ideology https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/historian-human-evolution-theorists-were-attempting-to-be-moral-teachers/#comment-668170
Thus, in regards to Francis Bacon's criteria of determining whether a theory is scientific, i.e. “Of all signs there is none more certain or worthy than that of the fruits produced: for the fruits and effects are the sureties and vouchers, as it were, for the truth of philosophy”, Darwin's theory has miserably failed to meet Bacon's criteria of "fruit produced". Verse:
Matthew 7:18-20 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
bornagain77_{January 10, 2019
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At the 51:00 minute mark Stephen Meyer mentions the promising work of Dr. James Tour that seeks to destroy cancer cells by modifying some of the molecular machines found in life so as to target cancer cells individually, latch onto them and drill down through the surface of cells so that either drugs, or the drilling itself, can destroy the cancer cells.
Steve Meyer On The Future Of ID Research: ID 3.0 - video https://youtu.be/lgs6J4LqeqI?t=3064
Dr. Meyer called this promising area of ID based research "Biomimetics". Biomimicry is Imitating Design Found In Life and Nature. And indeed biomimetics has already been a very fruitful area of research, for example,,
Eyeballing Design "Biomimetics" Exposes Attacks on ID as Poorly Designed By: Casey Luskin - December 2011 Perhaps the most familiar example of biomimetics is the body shape of birds serving as the inspiration for aircraft design. But the list of fascinating cases where engineers have mimicked nature to develop or improve human technology goes on and on: • Faster Speedo swimsuits have been developed by studying the properties of sharkskin. • Spiny hooks on plant seeds and fruits led to the development of Velcro. • Better tire treads were created by understanding the shape of toe pads on tree frogs. • Polar bear furs have inspired textiles and thermal collectors. • Studying hippo sweat promises to lead to better sunscreen. • Volvo has studied how locusts swarm without crashing into one another to develop an anti-collision system. • Mimicking mechanisms of photosynthesis and chemical energy conversion might lead to the creation of cheaper solar cells. • Copying the structure of sticky gecko feet could lead to the development of tape with cleaner and dryer super-adhesion. • Color-changing cuttlefish have inspired television screens that use a fraction of the power of standard TVs. • DNA might become a framework for building faster microchips. • The ability of the human ear to pick up many frequencies of sound is being replicated to build better antennas. • The Namibian fog-basking beetle has inspired methods of desalinizing ocean water, growing crops, and producing electricity, all in one! http://www.discovery.org/a/18011
,,, And while now-a-days Popper's falsification criteria is the most popular method by which to determine whether a theory is scientific,,,
Darwin’s Theory vs Falsification – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rzw0JkuKuQ
,, besides Popper's falsification criteria there are also other methods by which people seek to determine whether a theory is scientific,
“There are five standard tests for a scientific hypothesis. Has anyone observed the phenomenon — in this case, Evolution — as it occurred and recorded it? Could other scientists replicate it? Could any of them come up with a set of facts that, if true, would contradict the theory (Karl Popper’s “falsifiability” tests)? Could scientists make predictions based on it? Did it illuminate hitherto unknown or baffling areas of science? In the case of Evolution… well… no… no… no… no… and no.” – Tom Wolfe – The Kingdom of Speech – page 17 Darwinian Evolution Fails the Five Standard Tests of a Scientific Hypothesis - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7f_fyoPybw
In regards to Wolfe’s fifth test of a hypothesis to determine if it is scientific,,,
5. Did it illuminate hitherto unknown or baffling areas of science?
Francis Bacon, a Christian whom many consider to be the founder of the scientific method, put it this way,,, “Of all signs there is none more certain or worthy than that of the fruits produced: for the fruits and effects are the sureties and vouchers, as it were, for the truth of philosophy.”
Is Biology Approaching the Threshold of Design Acceptance? - January 8, 2019 Excerpt: Simultaneously, biomimetics fulfills one of the goals of Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the champion of systematic, methodical investigation into the natural world. In Aphorism 73 of Novum Organum, Bacon told how best to judge good natural philosophy, what we call science: “Of all signs there is none more certain or worthy than that of the fruits produced: for the fruits and effects are the sureties and vouchers, as it were, for the truth of philosophy.” Good fruits are pouring forth from the cornucopia of biologically inspired design. What has Darwinism done for the world lately? https://evolutionnews.org/2019/01/is-biology-approaching-the-threshold-of-design-acceptance/
This is a particularly interesting failure of Darwinian evolution to think about. Scientific theories have a history of deepening man’s understanding of Nature, and thus providing man with beneficial technological breakthroughs because of that deepened understanding of nature (For instance, Newton’s theory of Gravity was ‘good enough’ to land men on the moon). Evolution, unlike those other scientific theories, has completely failed on this account to foster research and deliver technological breakthroughs:
“Certainly, my own research with antibiotics during World War II received no guidance from insights provided by Darwinian evolution. Nor did Alexander Fleming’s discovery of bacterial inhibition by penicillin. I recently asked more than 70 eminent researchers if they would have done their work differently if they had thought Darwin’s theory was wrong. The responses were all the same: No. I also examined the outstanding biodiscoveries of the past century: the discovery of the double helix; the characterization of the ribosome; the mapping of genomes; research on medications and drug reactions; improvements in food production and sanitation; the development of new surgeries; and others. I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin’s theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss. Darwinian evolution – whatever its other virtues – does not provide a fruitful heuristic in experimental biology.” Philip S. Skell – (the late) Emeritus Evan Pugh Professor at Pennsylvania State University, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. – Why Do We Invoke Darwin? – 2005 “Truth be told, evolution hasn’t yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasn’t evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of ‘like begets like’. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.” Jerry Coyne, “Selling Darwin: Does it matter whether evolution has any commercial applications?,” reviewing The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life by David P. Mindell, in Nature, 442:983-984 (August 31, 2006). “In fact, over the last 100 years, almost all of biology has proceeded independent of evolution, except evolutionary biology itself. Molecular biology, biochemistry, and physiology, have not taken evolution into account at all.” Marc Kirschner, Boston Globe, Oct. 23, 2005 “While the great majority of biologists would probably agree with Theodosius Dobzhansky’s dictum that “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution”, most can conduct their work quite happily without particular reference to evolutionary ideas. Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superflous one.” A.S. Wilkins, editor of the journal BioEssays, Introduction to “Evolutionary Processes” – (2000). “Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved. It might be thought, therefore, that evolutionary arguments would play a large part in guiding biological research, but this is far from the case. It is difficult enough to study what is happening now. To figure out exactly what happened in evolution is even more difficult. Thus evolutionary achievements can be used as hints to suggest possible lines of research, but it is highly dangerous to trust them too much. It is all too easy to make mistaken inferences unless the process involved is already very well understood.” Francis Crick – What Mad Pursuit (1988)
In fact, instead of fostering discovery, it can be forcefully argued that Darwinian evolution has hindered scientific discovery, and has also led to medical malpractice, by falsely predicting both junk DNA and vestigial organs. On the other hand, Intelligent Design, far from hindering science as Darwinian evolution has done, is found, as Dr. Meyer touched upon in his talk, to be a ‘driver of science’:
“It has become clear in the past ten years that the concept of design is not merely an add-on meta-description of biological systems, of no scientific consequence, but is in fact a driver of science. A whole cohort of young scientists is being trained to “think like engineers” when looking at biological systems, using terms explicitly related to engineering design concepts: design, purpose, optimal tradeoffs for multiple goals, information, control, decision making, etc. This approach is widely seen as a successful, predictive, quantitative theory of biology.” Systems Biology as a Research Program for Intelligent Design – David Snoke – 2014 http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/viewArticle/BIO-C.2014.3 How the Burgeoning Field of Systems Biology Supports Intelligent Design – July 2014 Excerpt: Snoke lists various features in biology that have been found to function like goal-directed, top-down engineered systems: *”Negative feedback for stable operation.” *”Frequency filtering” for extracting a signal from a noisy system. *Control and signaling to induce a response. *”Information storage” where information is stored for later use. In fact, Snoke observes: “This paradigm [of systems biology] is advancing the view that biology is essentially an information science with information operating on multiple hierarchical levels and in complex networks [13]. ” *”Timing and synchronization,” where organisms maintain clocks to ensure that different processes and events happen in the right order. *”Addressing,” where signaling molecules are tagged with an address to help them arrive at their intended target. *”Hierarchies of function,” where organisms maintain clocks to ensure that cellular processes and events happen at the right times and in the right order. *”Redundancy,” as organisms contain backup systems or “fail-safes” if primary essential systems fail. *”Adaptation,” where organisms are pre-engineered to be able to undergo small-scale adaptations to their environments. As Snoke explains, “These systems use randomization controlled by supersystems, just as the immune system uses randomization in a very controlled way,” and “Only part of the system is allowed to vary randomly, while the rest is highly conserved.”,,, Snoke observes that systems biology assumes that biological features are optimized, meaning, in part, that “just about everything in the cell does indeed have a role, i.e., that there is very little ‘junk.'” He explains, “Some systems biologists go further than just assuming that every little thing has a purpose. Some argue that each item is fulfilling its purpose as well as is physically possible,” and quotes additional authorities who assume that biological systems are optimized.,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/07/when_biologists087871.html
Indeed it can be, and has been, argued that the presumption of Intelligent Design lay behind the founding, and current practice, of modern science itself. And thus the very success and technological 'fruits' of modern science can be forcefully argued to vouch for the surety of the truthfulness of Intelligent Design:
Science and Theism: Concord, not Conflict* – Robert C. Koons IV. The Dependency of Science Upon Theism (Page 21) Excerpt: Far from undermining the credibility of theism, the remarkable success of science in modern times is a remarkable confirmation of the truth of theism. It was from the perspective of Judeo-Christian theism—and from the perspective alone—that it was predictable that science would have succeeded as it has. Without the faith in the rational intelligibility of the world and the divine vocation of human beings to master it, modern science would never have been possible, and, even today, the continued rationality of the enterprise of science depends on convictions that can be reasonably grounded only in theistic metaphysics. http://www.robkoons.net/media/69b0dd04a9d2fc6dffff80b3ffffd524.pdf The Threat to the Scientific Method that Explains the Spate of Fraudulent Science Publications - Calvin Beisner | Jul 23, 2014 Excerpt: It is precisely because modern science has abandoned its foundations in the Biblical worldview (which holds, among other things, that a personal, rational God designed a rational universe to be understood and controlled by rational persons made in His image) and the Biblical ethic (which holds, among other things, that we are obligated to tell the truth even when it inconveniences us) that science is collapsing. As such diverse historians and philosophers of science as Alfred North Whitehead, Pierre Duhem, Loren Eiseley, Rodney Stark, and many others have observed,, science—not an occasional flash of insight here and there, but a systematic, programmatic, ongoing way of studying and controlling the world—arose only once in history, and only in one place: medieval Europe, once known as “Christendom,” where that Biblical worldview reigned supreme. That is no accident. Science could not have arisen without that worldview. http://townhall.com/columnists/calvinbeisner/2014/07/23/the-threat-to-the-scientific-method-that-explains-the-spate-of-fraudulent-science-publications-n1865201/page/full Several other resources backing up this claim are available, such as Thomas Woods, Stanley Jaki, David Linberg, Edward Grant, J.L. Heilbron, and Christopher Dawson.
bornagain77_{January 10, 2019
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For Darwinism, junk DNA was a prediction. ID doesn't depend on there being no junk DNA but rather on there being only some, which is what we might expect in a designed system. I use an analogy to a closet. Some stuff in a closet is of no value; other stuff is not in current use but has value. However, you would need to know the details in order to know what value it has.News_{January 10, 2019
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I absolutely agree with Meyer that we can use the ID paradigm to get new exciting perspectives in biology. My own very humble experience has been that using functional information as a guide, a lot of interesting things can be observed in the existing genomes and proteomes. Those things are already there, but unless we use the concept of functional information, they cannot be seen. So, for example, the huge information jump in the transition to vertebrates is not obvious, until we try to measure it from the point of view of functional information. In that light, the transition from the first chordates to the first vertebrates, which could seem a reather "continuous" event (it took place in only 20-30 million years, at most) reveals its wonderful and rich engineering context. These things are very exciting, and ID is a real science builder, the only paradigm that can save us from the science-stopping effect of the wrong neo-darwinian ideology.gpuccio_{January 10, 2019
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Interesting comment: for anyone with a fair-minded approach, the case has been made. That is, we may credibly infer on empirical signs such as functionally specific complex information (and organisation tantamount to the same) that an entity exhibiting such signs is designed. Thus, the next stage is to build a new school of thought on predictive success, starting with the junk dna issue. The matter of design patterns in software is significant. I suggest too that principles of technological evolution (cf. TRIZ) will also come to the fore. Biological cybernetic systems will prove to be just that, cybernetic.kairosfocus_{January 10, 2019
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Very exciting stuff, and about time! Also great point that ID correctly predicted junk DNA is minimal.EricMH_{January 9, 2019
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