Textbook wars: The fact that something evolved does not mean that Darwinism caused it

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 12, 2012

Books of interest, Intelligent Design, science education}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

A blog repeats a whole lot of stale stuff about Americans not believing in evolution, in support of a 2013 textbook, whose cover shows insects that look like leaves.

It’s a great cover, but what does it show? That Darwinism is true? Almost everyone crabbing about the fact that Americans do not believe in evolution means that Americans do not believe in Darwinism – the only theory of evolution ever developed explicitly to destroy the idea of design.

Somehow or other, looking five percent like a leaf was supposed to prevent the original forebears of these insects from getting eaten as often as their own forebears did. And the Darwinist’s usual response to any doubt about this explanation has been ridicule – and court cases, if ridicule doesn’t work.

Normal people push back.

By the way, an equally interesting example is the praying mantis that looks like dropped petals. It’s amazing. But it is not evidence for Darwin’s theory either.

Hat tip: Pos-Darwinista

Comments

"There can be things designed that appear to have been caused naturally, such as the faux texture I applied to my wall when I painted my office..." Are you saying that 'faux texture' (which I've also experienced myself applying) could be said to have been 'caused naturally'? I'd challenge you to find three 10yr-olds out of a thousand or one 20 yr-old out of 500 with higher education who would say that. Most people know that faux texture is by definition not a 'naturally caused' thing, so this appeal is to the vast majority, to 'common sense'. The difference between human design and extra- or non-human design is significant here, wouldn't you say? The point is that "the very narrow issues addressed by ID" are only so if and when they are totally un-reflexive. But 20th century sociology of science has shown that is an impossible or 'unreal' scenario. 'Recognizing' or 'detecting' intelligible patterns necessarily involves human reflexivity and cannot escape it in a dialogue between people. This may be a different point than what CLAVDIVS is making ('inherently subjective'), but it is nevertheless relevant to the question of whether or not something is naturally evolvable. So perhaps it can be said that I'm drawing limits around 'evolution' that ID is not when it claims that "ID cannot...confirm that something wasn’t designed"?Gregory_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
08:20 PM
8
08
20
PM
PDT}

Hi Joe @ 89
So a stable planetary orbit for one system may not resemble a stable planetary orbit for another system.
It may not, but my understanding -- as a non-astrophysicist -- is that there are relatively few orbital patterns that remain stable over long periods under a wide variety of conditions, out of a very, very large "space" of all possible orbital patterns.
Is there any way to predict what orbit will be the stable planetary orbit? Or it just is what it is?
In principle, you can predict what orbits will be stable for any system, and this has been proved for 2 and 3-body systems. The problem is purely a practical one in that the calculation is too complex to perform in a realistic timeframe for systems with more than 3 gravitationally bound bodies.
And now you have planets attempting to do things. What happens when planets attempt to knock out other planets? That’s right- we end up with super jupiters with tight orbits and no other planets around- sometimes there can be only one stable orbit… But anyway, go ahead-> planetary selection via the stable orbit fitness [landscape]
It was just a metaphor, Joe, to try to explain things more clearly. Obviously I don't mean that planets are agents. My point was, there is a blind, undirected and lawlike "selection mechanism" at play in orbital mechanics, that progressively removes planets from the system if their orbits are not stable. The result, after many orbits, is an orderly and stable arrangement of planets. What I'm interested in is: What's the in-principle difference between the planetary scenario and an evolutionary algorithm applying a fitness function in a computer program, such that that former is an example of blind/undirected processes, and the latter is not? CheersCLAVDIVS_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
07:51 PM
7
07
51
PM
PDT}

Hi Eric @ 79
We can talk about planetary orbits and evolutionary algorithms, but you mentioned “information” in a general sense, so I think we might need to step back to a basic starting point just to make sure we are using the same terminology and are on the same page. Do you think there is any difference in the information contained in a pile of rocks versus the same rocks arranged to spell “to be or not to be”? I’m not being facetious. This is a basic issue we need to agree on or the rest of the discussion is meaningless.
Yes, there is a difference in information between a pile of rocks and rocks arranged into an English sentence. However, the information I am referring to is semantic i.e. it has meaning only to an intelligent agent.* Accordingly, such information is inherently subjective. This means there are some situations where it may not be possible to tell whether the pile of rocks has more or less information content than the rocks arranged into a sentence - for example, to an alien intelligence with no clue about human semiotic conventions, the pile of rocks may appears as a famous line of poetry in their language, whilst Shakespeare looks like a random jumble. Or, as another example, one could say a pile of rocks arranged as a grave marker has more semantic content than the sentence. Cheers * I'm assuming you're not referring to information measures like Shannon's or Kolmogorov's which can be objectively computed, although I wouldn't know how to do so in this scenario.CLAVDIVS_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
07:29 PM
7
07
29
PM
PDT}

fitness landscape, not function... But anyway, go ahead-> planetary selection via the stable orbit fitness landscapeJoe_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
06:35 PM
6
06
35
PM
PDT}

So a stable planetary orbit for one system may not resemble a stable planetary orbit for another system. Is there any way to predict what orbit will be the stable planetary orbit? Or it just is what it is? And now you have planets attempting to do things. What happens when planets attempt to knock out other planets? That's right- we end up with super jupiters with tight orbits and no other planets around- sometimes there can be only one stable orbit... But anyway, go ahead-> planetary selection via the stable orbit fitness function....Joe_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
06:34 PM
6
06
34
PM
PDT}

Hi Joe @ 81
C: So, if we grant that selecting stable planetary orbits by culling unstable orbits is a blind/undirected process, then what is so different about an algorithm that culls via a mechnistic, lawlike fitness function? What is a stable planetary orbit? Any orbit that exists unimpeded? Do you have a rigorous mathematical definition for a “stable planetary orbit”?
Yes, you have it exactly - it's very difficult to provide a rigorous mathematical definition of a stable orbit in an N-body system. However, over the course of many orbits, the blind process of gravitational acceleration selects certain planets for removal from the planetary system -- they either collide with other objects and are destroyed, or fall into the sun, or are flung away into interstellar space. The ones that remain behind are in "stable orbits" ... for now. One very abstract way to look at this is that the planets are attempting to maximise their number of orbits before being removed from the system. Those that remain after many orbits exhibit a high fitness relative to this goal, due to the shape of their orbit, their distance from the sun, their mass, their position relative to cometary orbits etc. etc. CheersCLAVDIVS_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
05:47 PM
5
05
47
PM
PDT}

Hi CLAVDIVS- What is a stable planetary orbit? Any orbit that exists unimpeded? Do you have a rigorous mathematical definition for a “stable planetary orbit”? ;)Joe_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
05:43 PM
5
05
43
PM
PDT}

Hi Joe @ 80
C: Do you exclude natural sorting and selecting mechanisms from being blind/undirected? No, however I have never seen nature select.
That's the point of the planetary orbit example -- it's a blind/undirected selecting process. A sieve is a similar example - it selects only objects small enough to fit through the holes, in a blind and undirected manner. There are naturally occurring sieves e.g. zeolite. CheersCLAVDIVS_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
05:31 PM
5
05
31
PM
PDT}

Gregory @82: I'm trying to keep us focused on the very narrow issues addressed by ID, not get off on a discussion about the 'image of God' or whatever, as interesting as that may be. Intelligent design does not attempt to identify all things designed. There can be things designed that appear to have been caused naturally, such as the faux texture I applied to my wall when I painted my office or the "riverbed" of rocks in my front yard. ID cannot, and has never claimed to be able to, confirm that something wasn't designed. ID does, however, claim to be able to identify that some things are designed. ID is a very limited enterprise. It isn't a theory of everything. --- Incidentally, your response and questions confirm and underscore the very point I was making: you acknowledge that the rocks laid out to spell a phrase is an example of intelligent activity. While the pile of rocks only could be. This distinction is basic. And quite critical.Eric Anderson_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
05:08 PM
5
05
08
PM
PDT}

Yes Gregory, intelligent agencies can mimic nature, operating freely, ie leave no trace of their involvement behind. So what?Joe_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
04:41 PM
4
04
41
PM
PDT}

Gregory: --'A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him [sic] the image of a cathedral.' – Antoine de Saint-Exupery What is your interpretation of that passage? How does it relate to ID theory? --“Does ‘imago Dei’ really have absolutely nothing to do with ‘intelligent design theory’?” Why do you think “image Dei has something to do with ID theory?StephenB_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
04:03 PM
4
04
03
PM
PDT}

"Do you think there is any difference in the information contained in a pile of rocks versus the same rocks arranged to spell “to be or not to be”?" - Eric Anderson The latter is an example of human intelligence, specifically, it is a phrase originally attributable to the British poet and author/creator/designer/composer/writer named William Shakespeare (though there are some people who think such a singular man in human history didn't really write many or all of the things attributed to him). Whoever (meaning a person) hypothetically arranged those rocks to spell 'to be or not to be' in the second example either them-self read or else somehow knew about Shakespeare's phrase. That is, without the historical Shakespeare phrase (precedent), the specific 'intelligence' in the well-known phrase would be unknowable (cf. anonymous), ‘un-designed’ or else a neologism. When CLAVDIVS says "there does not in principle appear to be a way to put blind/undirected processes to the test," I'm wondering what Eric would/could offer as an example/explanation that the former ROCK PILE is 'not designed information' while at the same time he believes the latter 'is designed information'? A pile of rocks *could* be ‘planned’ to be next to impossible to detect as a ‘pile:’ what guarantees that no 'intelligence' was involved in the ‘piling?’ One of my challenges, to begin to address nullasalus' open (problem) question to me above, is that 'un-designed information' seems not to be part of the IDM's scope, just as 'unevolved' things are not part of evolutionism’s scope as a universal ideology. Thus, designism demonstrates the same ‘type’ of ideology that evolutionism does when there are no limits placed/acknowledged on design/Design. “A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him [sic] the image of a cathedral.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery Does ‘imago Dei’ really have absolutely nothing to do with ‘intelligent design theory’?Gregory_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
03:15 PM
3
03
15
PM
PDT}

So, if we grant that selecting stable planetary orbits by culling unstable orbits is a blind/undirected process, then what is so different about an algorithm that culls via a mechnistic, lawlike fitness function?
What is a stable planetary orbit? Any orbit that exists unimpeded? Do you have a rigorous mathematical definition for a "stable planetary orbit"? ;)Joe_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
01:50 PM
1
01
50
PM
PDT}

Do you exclude natural sorting and selecting mechanisms from being blind/undirected?
No, however I have never seen nature select.Joe_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
01:45 PM
1
01
45
PM
PDT}

Clavdivs: No, I'm not defining the processes that way. I'm using the standard concepts of chance and necessity. We can talk about planetary orbits and evolutionary algorithms, but you mentioned "information" in a general sense, so I think we might need to step back to a basic starting point just to make sure we are using the same terminology and are on the same page. Do you think there is any difference in the information contained in a pile of rocks versus the same rocks arranged to spell "to be or not to be"? I'm not being facetious. This is a basic issue we need to agree on or the rest of the discussion is meaningless.Eric Anderson_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
08:42 AM
8
08
42
AM
PDT}

Hi Eric
C: But we also observe natural processes that result in orderly outcomes, like the sorting of grain size by sedimentation, or the selection of stable orbits for planets via removal of bodies with unstable orbits. Such processes do not appear to involve agency. Of course not. They involve law. And don’t generate complex specified information.
Well, I assume you're not defining blind/undirected processes to be those that do not generate complex specified information. That would be begging the question. So, if we grant that selecting stable planetary orbits by culling unstable orbits is a blind/undirected process, then what is so different about an algorithm that culls via a mechnistic, lawlike fitness function? Based on my reading, it does not appear that ID advocates accept the latter as valid instance of blind/undirected processes. I think the reasoning is that a fitness function imports information from the surrounding fitness landscape, so therefore the function is directed. But isn't that exactly what's happening with the planets - they import information about which orbits are stable via a lawlike rule that removes them from the orbital system if their orbits are unstable; whatever is left after N orbits is stable. In both cases, the "culling" rule is a lawlike mechanism with no intelligence, agency or intentionality. What in your view are the significant differences between these two scenarios that makes one directed, and the other blind and undirected? CheersCLAVDIVS_{March 19, 2012
March
03
Mar
19
19
2012
12:30 AM
12
12
30
AM
PDT}

But we also observe natural processes that result in orderly outcomes, like the sorting of grain size by sedimentation, or the selection of stable orbits for planets via removal of bodies with unstable orbits. Such processes do not appear to involve agency.
Of course not. They involve law. And don't generate complex specified information.Eric Anderson_{March 18, 2012
March
03
Mar
18
18
2012
09:48 PM
9
09
48
PM
PDT}

Clavdivs:
A depressing thought indeed. If the issue is a philosophical one, then this is a straightforward explanation for why ID is having trouble being recognised as science. If something can’t be objectively defined and empirically tested – for whatever reason – then it can’t really be called science.
I presume you understand the philosophical issue is on the materialist side, and you aren't trying to twist my statement to make it sound like the design inference is philosophical?Eric Anderson_{March 18, 2012
March
03
Mar
18
18
2012
09:47 PM
9
09
47
PM
PDT}

Hi Joe
To elab:- We observe nature, operating freely, ie blind and undirected processes. We observe leaves being blown by the wind, erosion from wind and water, storms forming and things like that which do not require agency involvement.
You've highlighted various processes that have chaotic outcomes. But we also observe natural processes that result in orderly outcomes, like the sorting of grain size by sedimentation, or the selection of stable orbits for planets via removal of bodies with unstable orbits. Such processes do not appear to involve agency. Do you exclude natural sorting and selecting mechanisms from being blind/undirected? CheersCLAVDIVS_{March 18, 2012
March
03
Mar
18
18
2012
06:02 PM
6
06
02
PM
PDT}

Hi Eric
C: ... there does not in principle appear to be a way to put blind/undirected processes to the test where both ID proponents and ID opponents can agree that blind/undirected processes are in fact being tested. You may be right, but that is a philosophical/psychological issue, not so much a scientific one. I think the processes can be tested. And when they have been tested, they have been found wanting. ... You’re right, though. It would be great if everyone across the board could agree on a once-and-for-all test and then accept the results dispassionately. Unfortunately, it isn’t going to happen . . .
A depressing thought indeed. If the issue is a philosophical one, then this is a straightforward explanation for why ID is having trouble being recognised as science. If something can't be objectively defined and empirically tested - for whatever reason - then it can't really be called science. CheersCLAVDIVS_{March 18, 2012
March
03
Mar
18
18
2012
05:01 PM
5
05
01
PM
PDT}

And this is exactly my point — there does not in principle appear to be a way to put blind/undirected processes to the test where both ID proponents and ID opponents can agree that blind/undirected processes are in fact being tested.
1- That is YOUR position's issue 2- I am sure you are mistaken To elab:- We observe nature, operating freely, ie blind and undirected processes. We observe leaves being blown by the wind, erosion from wind and water, storms forming and things like that which do not require agency involvement. ID's entailments are the same as for archaeology and forensics-> namely that when intelligent agents act within nature they tend to leave traces of those actions behind. Then we come along, find and evaluate those traces.Joe_{March 18, 2012
March
03
Mar
18
18
2012
06:21 AM
6
06
21
AM
PDT}

Clavdivs: ". . . there does not in principle appear to be a way to put blind/undirected processes to the test where both ID proponents and ID opponents can agree that blind/undirected processes are in fact being tested." You may be right, but that is a philosophical/psychological issue, not so much a scientific one. I think the processes can be tested. And when they have been tested, they have been found wanting. Now if the question is whether ID opponents are willing to acknowledge that evolutionary algorithms and similar exercises actually incorporate the information through the back door, that is quite a different question. That acknowledgement may require an admission that the alleged creative mechanism of the materialist creation myth is not really able to do much; or at the very least that there still hasn't been a good example found and that more searching is required; or perhaps it just takes too long and we'll never be able to find it; or perhaps it usually doesn't work, but we just got lucky in our particular universe. Lots of fallback positions available, to be sure, but acknowledging the failed test is a hard pill for many to swallow. So they keep coming up with games about how this or that process or this or that algorithm has produced specified complexity, only for the more careful thinkers to have to point out that the process doesn't actually do much. A couple of years later when everyone has quietly lost interest in the prior "demonstration," someone comes up with a new algorithm or a new example that is (fingers crossed this time) going to demonstrate that blind material processes can do all that work of creating. You're right, though. It would be great if everyone across the board could agree on a once-and-for-all test and then accept the results dispassionately. Unfortunately, it isn't going to happen . . .Eric Anderson_{March 17, 2012
March
03
Mar
17
17
2012
05:29 PM
5
05
29
PM
PDT}

Hi kairosfocus
Going on to the algorithmic simulation of evolutionary mechanisms, so-called evolutionary algorithms, this is exactly the pattern that plays out: if you stick with the genuinely random, you get nowhere interesting, and — from Weasel on — the exercises that do generate interesting looking results invariably are loaded with intelligent inputs.
And this is exactly my point -- there does not in principle appear to be a way to put blind/undirected processes to the test where both ID proponents and ID opponents can agree that blind/undirected processes are in fact being tested. At 47 above, blind/undirected was defined as "being reducible to matter, energy, necessity and chance". In my view (and Eric's it seems) it's possible in principle to model and test such processes in silico, with careful controls. But it appears you have a different definition of blind/undirected processes than given at 47 i.e. that they may only behave like "million monkeys" tests, involving random sampling based of a search space with full replacement every iteration. The problem with this, as I see it, is that as a test it is trivial and uninformative. Everybody agrees that "million monkey" processes cannot create specified complexity in reasonable timeframes. Such is not entailed specifically by ID, but its just common sense and as such is entailed by pretty much every concept of origins imaginable, including atheistic ones. A test that provides equal to support to all competing hypotheses is not really a useful test. I believe ID proponents need to generate some clearer entailments of their hypothesis that are empirically testable, so the results of the test actually make a difference to what we know about the world. Until then, ID may struggle to find acceptance in the sciences. CheersCLAVDIVS_{March 17, 2012
March
03
Mar
17
17
2012
04:18 PM
4
04
18
PM
PDT}

F/N: Once we keep the ball in view, i.e. function, it is fairly easy to have objectively recognisable or even measurable cases of specification. That a particular key fits a specific lock and opens it is quite objective, thank you. Also, subjectivity is not the opposite of objectivity, no more than the personal aspect of knowledge undermines its objectivity as well warranted. KFkairosfocus_{March 17, 2012
March
03
Mar
17
17
2012
06:00 AM
6
06
00
AM
PDT}

Null: Pardon if I communicated an EQUATING of IBE and Sci Method, that was not intended. Sci methods -- plural is deliberate -- at their best -- identification of a not always achieved ideal is also deliberate -- infer to best current, empirically based explanatory constructs, such as models, laws and theories; through a social and rational process of observation, pattern recognition, abduction of hyps etc, elaboration of consequences (brings in predictions), empirical testing and discussion among the informed. That qualifies and restricts considerably. Am I clearer to you now? KFkairosfocus_{March 17, 2012
March
03
Mar
17
17
2012
05:40 AM
5
05
40
AM
PDT}

CLAVDIVS Re:
If a proposed test for ID involves testing blind/indirected processes, but blind/undirected processes cannot be clearly and unambiguously operationally defined for empirical testing, then that’s one possible reason why some ID concepts are not considered science.
Pardon me but that is rubbish, and given that there is reasonably accessible corrective material out there, you should know that. With all due respect, you are sounding uncomfortably like you are of the prior conviction that design thinkers do not know what they are talking about, so it is only a matter of finding where the big blunders lie, i.e. you seem to be assuming such big blunders MUST be there. (Has it ever dawned on you that maybe we do know what we are talking about and just maybe, it is the a priori materialism driven critics of design theory who just may have the real problem?) Problems, similar to the following from Lewontin (and there are many more like this, cf here on):
It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute . . . [This is such a cat out of the bag clip that all sorts of assertions are made to try to pretend that it is quote mining, kindly read the just above linked to see for yourself that this is NOT quote mining, then read the other four quotes in succession thereafter to see that this is a pervasive problem, not an idiosyncrasy.]
(Let me suggest, further, that you may find the wider context here on a useful, 101 level first read on how design theory operates, including addressing your underlying issue.) Okay, let's deal with the basics. If you want to generate an absolutely random source of bits that is "easy" to do, indeed here is a whole industry out there that does it, e.g. by setting up a Johnson counter that would drive a pseudorandom sequence by itself, and then coupling it to a sky noise or a Zener noise source to generate a white noise spectrum source that gives genuinely flat-random numbers. (This flattens off the natural random noise sources.) Such a source can then be used to drive genuinely random searches of a config space, the classic example being million monkeys at the keyboards type exercises. Here is the result, citing wiki testifying against known ideological interest:
A website entitled The Monkey Shakespeare Simulator, launched on July 1, 2003, contained a Java applet that simulates a large population of monkeys typing randomly, with the stated intention of seeing how long it takes the virtual monkeys to produce a complete Shakespearean play from beginning to end. For example, it produced this partial line from Henry IV, Part 2, reporting that it took "2,737,850 million billion billion billion monkey-years" to reach 24 matching characters: RUMOUR. Open your ears; 9r"5j5&?OWTY Z0d... Due to processing power limitations, the program uses a probabilistic model (by using a random number generator or RNG) instead of actually generating random text and comparing it to Shakespeare. When the simulator "detects a match" (that is, the RNG generates a certain value or a value within a certain range), the simulator simulates the match by generating matched text . . .
So, we see the result of such random text generation exercises, which is well short of the 73 ASCII character threshold (500 bits) for the solar system resources threshold for FSCI or more broadly CSI. You may wish to see the derivation (here) of the simple metric: Chi_500 = Ip*S - 500, bits beyond the solar system threshold. Going back to Wiki, we can now see a very revealing immediately following passage:
More sophisticated methods are used in practice for natural language generation. If instead of simply generating random characters one restricts the generator to a meaningful vocabulary and conservatively following grammar rules, like using a context-free grammar, then a random document generated this way can even fool some humans (at least on a cursory reading) as shown in the experiments with SCIgen, snarXiv, and the Postmodernism Generator.
But of course, what is now happening is that a whole lot of intelligently directed active information is now at work. This is precisely NOT random document generation, but intelligent document generation with controlled randomness. And the difference is not at all that hard to spot, but of course we see Wiki's bias at work. Going on to the algorithmic simulation of evolutionary mechanisms, so-called evolutionary algorithms, this is exactly the pattern that plays out: if you stick with the genuinely random, you get nowhere interesting, and -- from Weasel on -- the exercises that do generate interesting looking results invariably are loaded with intelligent inputs. As a rule, they start within an island of function and indulge in some species of hill climbing or other. That's why famed mathematician Gregory Chaitin, in a recent paper, Life as Evolving Software (Sept. 7, 2011), has observed:
. . . we present an information-theoretic analysis of Darwin’s theory of evolution, modeled as a hill-climbing algorithm on a ?tness landscape. Our space of possible organisms consists of computer programs, which are subjected to random mutations. We study the random walk of increasing ?tness made by a single mutating organism. [[p.1]
In short, the simulations address how to climb hills in an island of function; design theory -- by contrast -- is about the challenge to get to the shorelines of such islands of function in config spaces that are beyond the random search capacity of the solar system [500 bits] or the observed cosmos [1,000 bits]. Until you have function, your fitness function must have value zero, so you have no differential success to ratchet off with a hill-climbing algorithm. And until you have an adequate theory of getting to shores of such islands of function, you have a theory of micro-evolution, not macro- evolution. The only known, empirically observed source of functionally specific complex information is design, as the posts in this thread -- being digital strings -- exemplify. What is the relevance of all of this to life forms? Observed life forms are based on metabolic automata with built in self-replication facilities, that use DNA codes. Those codes per observation, start out in the range of 100 - 1,000 k bits. In short we are 100 - 1,000 times the observed cosmos threshold for FSCI already, for the simplest observed cell based life forms, which use a digital code (actually, it seems several codes). Worse, the very existence of specific codes doing specific algorithms and the like, implies a tight restriction on the particular case, something which is confirmed by the results from sufficient random perturbation. The islands of function in a sea of non-function effect is real. (For the Darwinian smoothly varying and branching tree of life to have happened instead, there would have to be in effect a vast continent of function that starts out at a level of simplicity sufficient for there to be a plausible access on the gamut of available cosmic resources, and then leading on by increments to the diversity and complexity we see. After many decades of trying, starting with OOL studies, there is nowhere the faintest trace of that continent of function, only a lot of evidence for the reality of the expected islands. To see why, look above at the random text generation exercises.) What design theory suggests is that this is an example of a feature of the natural world that exhibits a known phenomenon, a phenomenon that on empirical observation and related analysis, is a reliable sign of intelligent design. To break that conclusion, all that would be required is to show that FSCI can be credibly created by chance plus necessity without undue intelligent intervention. The threshold of undue intervention is not too hard to spot, as was shown above. Nor is this a new challenge, it has been on the table since the 1970's and 80's, once the concept that cell based life shows functionally specific complex organisation and associated information had been fully worked out. What has happened over the past 30 - 40 years, is that it is increasingly clear that the prevailing evolutionary materialist paradigm has not got a clue as to how to solve the problem. That is why we see ever so many tangential discussions and exercises presented as though they were real answers, of which Weasel of course is the most notorious. The problem is not that the key ID concepts or proposals are not amenable to empirical test, but that the tests strongly point where the materialist establishment does not want to go. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{March 17, 2012
March
03
Mar
17
17
2012
01:08 AM
1
01
08
AM
PDT}

Clavdivs @64 and 66: It is true that many experiments which allegedly show complex specified information arising through natural processes actually incorporate through the back door the information the experimenter alleges is arising through natural processes. In that sense, those experiments could be considered "contaminated." In addition, it is true that human intelligence often intervenes to help the result along toward the desired path (e.g., Miller-Urey and other OOL experiments). However, that does not mean that it is impossible to design an appropriately blind or undirected experiment. Further, as a practical matter, particularly in the chemistry area, some aspects of the experiment must often be controlled and directed. That is OK, as long as they are clearly identified as such, the limitations are acknowledged, and the results are appropriately tempered and accurately described. There is no fundamental obstacle to creating an appropriately blind/undirected experiment. It just has to be carefully done and scrupulously described when reporting the results.Eric Anderson_{March 16, 2012
March
03
Mar
16
16
2012
10:25 PM
10
10
25
PM
PDT}

Hi kairosfocus
k: I wonder why you are trying to raise the issue of getting a chance based search process to be an obstacle.
Because Eric Anderson said(at 30) "I’m struggling to understand why ID would not be considered science" and we're exploring that issue. If a proposed test for ID involves testing blind/indirected processes, but blind/undirected processes cannot be clearly and unambiguously operationally defined for empirical testing, then that's one possible reason why some ID concepts are not considered science. CheersCLAVDIVS_{March 16, 2012
March
03
Mar
16
16
2012
07:25 PM
7
07
25
PM
PDT}

C: Passing through. Are you familiar with random walks, monkeys art keyboards and the like? Similarly, with typical situations in a vat of mixed up chemicals that may react at will? Chance based blind searches are commonplace, so I wonder why you are trying to raise the issue of getting a chance based search process to be an obstacle. KFkairosfocus_{March 16, 2012
March
03
Mar
16
16
2012
09:13 AM
9
09
13
AM
PDT}

Hi Joe @ 47
C: ... what science would call for, in my view, are unambiguous definitions of blind/undirected processes and CSI, and a procedure to test the claim that the former can’t produce the latter — Or is it “originate CSI” rather than “produce CSI”? This would need to be clearly defined as well. J: ... blind and undirected processes refers to being reducible to matter, energy, necessity and chance
But is that definition of blind/undirected processes able to be operationalised so it can be empirically tested? If human intelligence is not reducible to matter, energy, necessity and chance, then it would seem any test performed by humans would be automatically "contaminated" by intelligent design, and would not be a true test of blind/undirected processes. CheersCLAVDIVS_{March 16, 2012
March
03
Mar
16
16
2012
02:06 AM
2
02
06
AM
PDT}

Prev 1 2 3 4 5 Next

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply