The Simulation Wars

_{William Dembski

March 26, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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I’m currently writing an essay on computational vs. biological evolution. The applicability of computational evolution to biological evolution tends to be suspect because one can cook the simulations to obtain any desired result. Still, some of these evolutionary simulations seem more faithful to biological reality than others. Christoph Adami’s AVIDA, Tom Schneider’s ev, and Tom Ray’s Tierra fall on the “less than faithful” side of this divide. On the “reasonably faithful” side I would place the following three:

Mendel’s Accountant: mendelsaccount.sourceforge.net

MutationWorks: www.mutationworks.com

MESA: www.iscid.org/mesa

Comments

1) The phrase "however slightly" refers to choosing the best child out of the whole population of children. It doesn't say that some of the children may in fact not be an improvement, or may even be less fit. 2. You don't get the simpler bit. I'll give up on that one.hazel_{April 13, 2009
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PS: Joseph, right as rain. As Mr Dawkins -- I STILL cannot just put the name down, seems so abrupt -- said, cf 285: The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, the ‘progeny’ of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, however slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL . . . . That "however slightly" can only refer to a letterwise increment. And then multiply that by the published runs that show no reversions in a sample of 300+ with 200+ that in principle could revert. mix in cumulative selection etc etc. Ratcheting and latching drop our as very reasonable understandings of what was put down on record in 1986. Subsequent cases that do not show that behaviour reflect significantly different approaches to doing weasel, whether by different5 algorithm or -- as in the BBC Horizon case -- by most likely varying mut rate and pop size so that quasi-latching or non-latching emerge. [BACK to work . ..]kairosfocus_{April 13, 2009
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Hazel Why didn't you simply continue on with the same cite from no 343, point 4:
Not at all. [. . . continuing . . .] What I am saying — and have said many times now — is that the explicit latch mechanism searches per letter, and the implicitly latched case searches on the phrase as a whole and may exhibit implicit letter latching due to interaction effects of the pop size, mut rate and proximity-to-target filter. In the former case, once the letters hit home, they are locked off by a masking filter. In the latter, once the phrase hits home, it is locked off by an implicit masking filter, which is explicitly the halting subroutine. (And, I guess that term dates me . . . )
Per letter searches are conceptually simpler to develop and execute. As the programmers among us have both said and done -- notice they partitioned search tends to come first then the more elaborate ones. (Back to following up on PMBOK vs PRINCE2 vs PCM . . . paying for my sins doubtless.) GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 13, 2009
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Atom @342
690,301,700 queries and no target found using replication, mutation, and selection, but for Anagrams of that phrase.
I'm a little confused by this. Are you saying that random mutation followed by non-random selection can't find anagrams or are you saying that selecting for anagrams doesn't result in finding the target string? The first sounds like a bug. The seconds sounds like exactly what one would expect. Why would you keep running once you found an anagram? You can't select for one thing and expect another. JJJayM_{April 13, 2009
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Joseph @347
I have also noticed that YOU cannot provide a reference from TBW which states that with CS once a matching letter is found it is allowed to be lost.
On the contrary, I have noted on several occasions that the important term is "random mutation." From The Blind Watchmaker:
It now ‘breeds from’ this random phrase. It duplicates it repeatedly, but with a certain chance of random error - ‘mutation’ - in the copying. The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, the ‘progeny’ of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, however slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL.
There is no way to interpret this as preventing letters from changing once they are correct. You are purely and simply incorrect on this point. Joseph @349
IOW take what Dawkins says before and after, then take a look at the outputs and the inference of a ratcheting process is clear.
In other words, ignore the clear text of the description of the Weasel program and do whatever is necessary to avoid admitting error. Since you have difficulty understanding Dawkins', I suggest you try Jeremiah 5:21 instead.
Again that is the whole purpose behind cumulative selection.
You have missed the whole point that Dawkins was making, namely that the cumulative selection is the result of mutation that is random with respect to fitness combined with reproduction that is dependent on fitness. JJJayM_{April 13, 2009
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JayM:
The full text of the description of the Weasel program is excerpted in my comment 182 above. Please point out, using that excerpt, how anyone can reasonably assume explicit latching (or ratcheting) based on that description.
As I have already told you the relevant phrases are before and after the "weasel" program (in TBW). There is a sentence after the "weasel" illustration which talks of "slight improvemnets". Not only that there isn't one reversal to be found is the printed results of the program. IOW take what Dawkins says before and after, then take a look at the outputs and the inference of a ratcheting process is clear. Again that is the whole purpose behind cumulative selection.Joseph_{April 13, 2009
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When I asked kf, “Are you saying that the “explicitly latched partitioned search” does NOT have a generation size, a mutation rate, and a filter?”, he answered
Not at all.
Good - I didn’t think you thought that. So why did you write, at 323,
So I simply repeat: That approach which simply takes Mr Dawkins’ TBW at face value and does a straightforward letterwise, explicitly latched partitioned search is conceptually and programmatically simpler to do than one that has to balance per generation size, mutation rates and a filter towards proximity to the target.
Both the explicit and implicit cases are conceptually identical in all respects except for the one difference that we have agreed on: Explicit: if the letter is incorrect, p(mut) = p if the letter is correct, p(mut) = 0 Implicit p(mut) = p? If this is the only conceptual difference in the program, why is explicit simpler than implicit?hazel_{April 13, 2009
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JayM, The whole purpose of cumulative selection is that once something is found the search for it is over. Pure and simple- just like you. I have also noticed that YOU cannot provide a reference from TBW which states that with CS once a matching letter is found it is allowed to be lost. Until you do that you don't have anything.Joseph_{April 13, 2009
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David Kellog
Joseph, your proposed test is mildly interesting. In any such test, though, subjects should read The Blind Watchmaker first.
Why?Joseph_{April 13, 2009
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OOPS: rage = rare . . .kairosfocus_{April 13, 2009
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PS: Feebish, glance up at 297, and see if that helps. The basic point is that we are looking at Weasel 1986, which shows an o/p where in 200+ of 300+ potentially changeable places, once a letter goes right, it stays right. The simplest way to view that is to see it as beinfg a letter wise search that locks in successful letters; which is why Dembski et al use "ratcheting." however, Mr Dawkins per recent reports, did not do that. It is also the case that you can latch IMPLICITLY. For that to happen, observe first that in the published runs c. 1986 we saw 40+ and 60+ generations of champions [selected off being simply closest to target] before target was hit, i.e no-change won about 1/2 the time, and 1 change dominated the rest; with no sampled cases of reversion. Now, the random mutations of letters with odds of say 4% is a binomially distributed probability, with 0-change a significant chance for a 28 letter "nonsense phrase." Odds are actually against any single letter change being to correct, but the odds in favour make it very observable. but, as we look at possibilities for multiple letters changing, we see a tail emerging in the distribution. The odds of a double mutation are low, and the odds of the double muts being both correct are far lower: product of the three odds. Similarly, while the odds of a change affecting a presently correct letter and making it go incorrect are as a rule higher, this has to be now coupled with odds of getting a presently incorrect letter to go correct if such a mutant is to have a chance to win against the no-change members of the population; the champion selecting filter is off proximity to target. And, odds of such a substitution with a further advance to the target in which a third letter goes correct are even lower yet. So, we will under certain circumstances see no change much of the time and single step advances the rest of the time. This is the implicitly latched case. [Play around with Atom's simulation to see this in action. Cf runs above.] In other cases, where we have a big enough odds of mutation per letter, and/or a large enough pop that what would otherwise be unlikely to come up in a sample will be more likely to occur [For sample size N and probability of occurrence p, observability in a sample improves as N*p --> ~ 1 from the lower side; i.e law of large numbers as applied to chances of seeing at least once], then we begin to see substitutions and onwards substitutions with advances, as 2-letter change and 3-letter change champions. Such champions will have the effect that we will no longer see latching, as once a letter reverts to incorrect status, it will on average take dozens of gens for it to go correct. At first, we would see rage reversions [quasi-latching] and then such reversions would become common [non-latching]. On preponderance of evidence the published Weasel runs of 1986 were implicitly latched. The videotaped run of 1987 which featured on BBC Horizon was non-latching. the best inference is that it was detuned -- probbaly for videographic impact.kairosfocus_{April 13, 2009
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Footnotes: 1] Ratcheting: As used by Dembski et al, relates to Weasel 1986, and to cumulativeness in the context of latching of o/p. this can be implemented explicitly or implicitly. Beyond a threshold of pop-mut rate, quasi-lathing takes over [rare reversions] then there will be no evident tendency to latch as such. Given evident o/p latching on "good" published runs circa 1986, Weasel latched the o/p. Explicit latching is a viable explanation, but is not the "best" per the statement reported of Mr Dawkins that he did not explicitly latch. 2] DK, 336: neither Hoyle nor Lewontin have anything to do with how Weasel works Just the opposite. Weasel (as Wiki testifies, in yet another admission against interest as it sought to justify what Weasel did) was designed to make it SEEM that Hoyle's challenge to the evo mat scenarios for origins had been answered. This, undfortunately was by injecting active tartgetted informaiton into the process of search. Thus, Weasel has inherent intelligent design embedded, in a context -- recall, "BLIND watchmaker" [which ALSO makes Paley relevant] -- that supposedly tries to show that intelligence is not required to get to complex functional entities. In so doing, it further failed to address the issue that until you can get TO shores of functionality credibly per the search space implied by the info basis for function, befoe resorting to hill-climbing cumulative selection. And, Mr Lewontin's remarks show how by inserting evo mat at the outset, the institutional science tends to defy common sense logic, and fundamentally begs the question, censoring out obviously relevant alternatives. So, the attempted deflections above are distractive not cogent on the merits. 3] DK, 335: The selected phrase is likely to contain previously correct letters but does not have to.” The phrase is what is selected. Of course it’s likely to contain letters that were correct before. Here we see the failure to understand that a probabilistic barrier is a barrier, though it is not an enforced explicit one. Similarly -- and the context of statistical thermodynamics is specifically relevant -- there is nothing in principle that PREVENTS "heat" [roughly: random, molecular scale thermal motion] flowing from cold bodies to hot ones. And as a matter of fact, that happens all the time. just, by the balance of probabilities under the circumstances, the NET flow is from hot to cold. For a sufficiently large body on observable times and scales, the flow is sufficiently certain that classical thermodynamics saw an observable regularity, hence the classical forms of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. In the case of Weasel under relevant circumstances, the zero-change and single change mutations dominate the champion selection process. As, the probabilities of getting substitutions and substitutions with further advances to target are sufficiently low that for specified relevant mutation rates and generational pop sizes, the latter are effectively unobservable. So, we see the cases as published where Weasel implicitly latches. 4] Hazel, 332: Are you saying that the “explicitly latched partitioned search” does NOT have a generation size, a mutation rate, and a filter? Not at all. What I am saying -- and have said many times now -- is that the explicit latch mechanism searches per letter, and the implicitly latched case searches on the phrase as a whole and may exhibit implicit letter latching due to interaction effects of the pop size, mut rate and proximity-to-target filter. In the former case, once the letters hit home, they are locked off by a masking filter. In the latter, once the phrase hits home, it is locked off by an implicit masking filter, which is explicitly the halting subroutine. (And, I guess that term dates me . . . ) 5] AF, Cite , in 328. Thanks for confirming further the accuracy of the cites discussed in 285 and 88 above. Here is my remark on the section you cite:
Although the monkey/Shakespeare model is useful for explaining the distinction between single-step selection and cumulative selection, it is misleading in important ways. [--> if you know from the outset that an exercise in public education is "misleading in important ways," why do you still insist on using it? --> Other than, it is the intent to make plausible on the rhetoric what would on the merits be implausible?] One of these is that, in each generation of selective ‘breeding’, the mutant ‘progeny’ phrases were judged according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target, [--> He knows -- from the outset -- that promotion to generation champion based on proximity without reasonable criteria of functionality is misleading in important ways!!!!!!!!!!!!!] the phrase METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. Life isn’t like that. [--> he knows that this artificially selected, targetted search without reference to functionality is irrelevant to the issues over the origins of information rich systems in life] Evolution has no long-term goal. There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection, [ --> That is he knows that he has used artificial selection off proximity to a desired future state, not natural selection based on differential functionality, begging the question of origin of function --> thus, the underlying question of the BLIND Watchmaker creating complex information rich functionality at the threshold of realistic function is being ducked and begged . . . ducking Hoyle's Q and that asked by ID] although human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution. In real life, the criterion for selection is always short-term, either simple survival or, more generally, reproductive success. [--> that is, he knows right from get-go, that he has begged the question bigtime, but he obviously thought his rhetoric would work. --> From abundant evidence, that is all too well -- albeit cynically [I doubt that "weasel" is an accident; this paragraph being an exercise in weasel words] — judged.]
Care to comment on that? _______________ ATOM, keep up the good work. And give The Luminous One a special greeting from us all (still an excellent proof of aesthetically excellent design!). Enjoy your vac! GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 13, 2009
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Final Query count for "Methinks it is like a Weasel" Anagram Search: 690,301,700 queries and no target found using replication, mutation, and selection, but for Anagrams of that phrase. Compare this to the 12,200 queries it takes on average to find the same phrase using a Proximity Reward Fitness function with the same setup (population size 100, mutation rate 10%) and the huge number of queries necessary for blind search. AtomAtom_{April 12, 2009
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333 Joseph "04/12/2009 9:35 am Cumulative selection, as described and illustrated via the “weasel” program in TBW, is a ratcheting process. Isn’t that what the Dembski/ Marks paper refers to it as?" After skimming through this very long thread, I'm not sure it's a ratcheting process as much as it is a demi-ratching process. Kairosfocus could be helpful here, perhaps, if he could flesh out some of the ideas he has sketched out thus far.feebish_{April 12, 2009
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PS I'll be gone next week traveling to the Grand Canyon and Colorado. I probably won't have net access (since we'll be on the road) so I'm sorry if I won't be able to answer questions that come up. Just keep playing with the GUI and let me know via email if you guys find any more bugs in the Beta version. AtomAtom_{April 12, 2009
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Hey guys, I updated Weasel this morning fixing a small bug I found with one of the modes (Partially-Neutral: CRC32) and adding the "Partially-Neutral: Simple Sum Distance" fitness function I described above as a standard mode. Also, for Anagram Search to eventually find your target you will need to tailor the mutation rate so that you get at least two letters changed per child, since an Anagram cannot change only one letter and still have it be an Anagram (unless the change randomly replaces with the same letter.) So if you only change one letter at a time starting from one anagram, the mutated string will always be less fit, since it will no longer be an anagram. Therefore, you'll want to create a "swapping" effect, where two letters in the Anagram can swap place, and eventually you will find the target, if your target space is small enough. Some preliminary results with Anagram Search: The four letter phrase "BITS" has an unassisted random search median of 368,000 queries, but Anagram Search found the phrase with a median of 193,000 queries after 1,000 runs. The five letter word "HELLO" has an unassisted random search median of 9,950,000 queries, whereas Anagram Search found the phrase with a median of 804,500 after 1,000 runs. The eight letter phrase "METHINKS" has a blind search median of 196,000,000,000 queries, but Anagram Search appears to have a median of about 200,000,000 queries (the length of runs is insufficient so far to accurately estimate, so this is a guess based on the few runs completed.) The 28 letter phrase "METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL" has an unassisted search median of 8.30 x 10^39 queries, and an Anagram Search of over 500 million queries has yet to find the target. If it eventually does, I'll post those results. The other results confirm my intuition: The set of Anagrams is smaller than the set of all possible strings and since the Anagram set contains the target phrase, an Anagram Search will eventually find the target by selecting only for anagrams, and do so faster than an unassisted search would. However, since we are limiting the amount of active information encoded in our reward matrix (rewarding based on Anagram distance rather than distance to the target, therefore introducing a level of uncertainty), it takes longer than Proximity Reward Search. Since Anagram Search selects based on the Anagram subset, a small muation rate and large enough population size will ensure that selection keeps your search close to the Anagram subspace, where your target resides. This keeps the "relevant" search space smaller than the total search space, hence the improvement in search performance. It appears that the more information about your target you use in your fitness function, the easier it is to find your target and the more you limit the target specific information present, the closer your search will behave like unassisted blind search. These results are consistent with that hypothesis. Atom Happy Easter everyone!Atom_{April 12, 2009
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Joseph @331
As for people wanting me to supply quotes from TBW- Been there, done that and now the book is back at the library. But tomorrow I will go back and order it again- it isn’t at the local so they will get it from another library in their network. Ya see I had already made my case using the book but I know I can do it again but I need the book to do so.
If you've already made such a strong case using direct quotes from the book, you could, you know, just provide a reference to those posts. JJJayM_{April 12, 2009
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Joseph, your proposed test is mildly interesting. In any such test, though, subjects should read The Blind Watchmaker first.David Kellogg_{April 12, 2009
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kairosfocus, Happy Easter! That Lewontin quote never gets old, does it? Nor does referring to Hoyle. Of course, neither Hoyle nor Lewontin have anything to do with how Weasel works, but they're always fun to mention.David Kellogg_{April 12, 2009
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Clive [322], I should have been clearer. I should have said "The selected phrase is likely to contain previously correct letters but does not have to." The phrase is what is selected. Of course it's likely to contain letters that were correct before. It just doesn't have to. Letters will revert because mutation is random, but the phrase that is selected for the next generation (that is, the best phrase among the mutatated phrases) is not likely to have a reverted letter.David Kellogg_{April 12, 2009
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Joseph @333
Wasn’t the paper peer-reviewed which should mean that someone checked their references- one of which being TBW?
Peer review is the beginning, not the culmination, of the assessment of a paper. If the mistake is allowed to persist until publication, there will no doubt be refutations published.
Take 100 educated people- scientists- and have them read the Dembski/ Marks paper. But these people cannot have any knowledge of this specific debate- no pre-biases. Then have them read “The Blind Watchamker”- at least the relevant chapter- and have each one decide if the paper’s inference on the ratcheting properties of cumulative selection is correct.
The full text of the description of the Weasel program is excerpted in my comment 182 above. Please point out, using that excerpt, how anyone can reasonably assume explicit latching (or ratcheting) based on that description. Please directly address Dawkins' use of the term "random mutation" to describe the creation of progeny.
I would bet the majority agrees with the inference.
I would bet that you are incapable of addressing the plain text of The Blind Watchmaker. JJJayM_{April 12, 2009
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Cumulative selection, as described and illustrated via the "weasel" program in TBW, is a ratcheting process. Isn't that what the Dembski/ Marks paper refers to it as? Wasn't the paper peer-reviewed which should mean that someone checked their references- one of which being TBW? The following would be a good test- Take 100 educated people- scientists- and have them read the Dembski/ Marks paper. But these people cannot have any knowledge of this specific debate- no pre-biases. Then have them read "The Blind Watchamker"- at least the relevant chapter- and have each one decide if the paper's inference on the ratcheting properties of cumulative selection is correct. I would bet the majority agrees with the inference.Joseph_{April 12, 2009
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At 323, kf writes:
So I simply repeat: That approach which simply takes Mr Dawkins’ TBW at face value and does a straightforward letterwise, explicitly latched partitioned search is conceptually and programmatically simpler to do than one that has to balance per generation size, mutation rates and a filter towards proximity to the target.
Are you saying that the “explicitly latched partitioned search” does NOT have a generation size, a mutation rate, and a filter? My understanding is that the general form of both the explicit and implicit case is exactly the same: 1) The current parent produces a population of size N of children 2) Each child is formed by subjecting each letter in the parent phrase to the possibility of mutation 3) All the children are compared to the target to see how many correct letters they have 4) The child with the most correct letters becomes the parent of the next generation (with some kind of rule to break ties. 5) The process is repeated until we have a child which has all the correct letters. Is this a correct summary of the general form of the program for both the explicit and implicit case?hazel_{April 12, 2009
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As for people wanting me to supply quotes from TBW- Been there, done that and now the book is back at the library. But tomorrow I will go back and order it again- it isn't at the local so they will get it from another library in their network. Ya see I had already made my case using the book but I know I can do it again but I need the book to do so.Joseph_{April 12, 2009
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hazel:
b) Programs, including Atom’s, that show that explicit latching is not necessary to produce the kind of results shown in BWM
You have issues- serious issues. I have NEVER said anything about exlicit latching. As a matter of fact I said that the latching takes place given the proper parameters. And that is a fact.Joseph_{April 12, 2009
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hazel, With cumulative selection- according to how it is portrayed in TBW- once something useful is found the search for it is over. With a partitioned search- same thing. After writing about the "weasel" program Dawkins made it clear about CS and "slight improvements". Now ONLY an intelligent designer could have a reversal as a slight improvement because designers can figure out future issues may force a reversal but that the reversal can then be used to get an improvement. There isn't anything in TBW which states nor implies that with cumulative selection once something is found it can then be lost such that it has to be found again. Also the watchamker that is cumulative natural selction has never been observed in nature to do anything more than provide slight variations that fit perfectly well within the creation framework of variations within a kind.Joseph_{April 12, 2009
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Joyeuses Pâques à tous! BTW form page 50 of "The Blind Watchmaker": [Weasel] is misleading in important ways. One of these is that, in each generation of selective "breeding", the mutant "progeny" were judged according to the criterion of resemblance to a distant ideal target, the phrase METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. Life isn't like that There is no long-distance target, no final perfection to serve as a criterion for selection, although human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution.In real life, the criterion for selection is always short-term, either simple survival, or more generally, reproductive success. If, after the aeons, what looks like progress to some distant goal, seems, with hindsight, to have been achieved, this is always an incidental consequence of many generations of short-term selection. The "watchmaker" that is cumulative natural selection is blind to the future and has no long-term goal.Alan Fox_{April 12, 2009
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And, as the Easter Sun rises: A happy Easter to all. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 12, 2009
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PS: Mr Lewontin immediately goes on to a telling further remark: The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen. a --> At best, this is utterly ignorant of the fact that the major founders of modern science were precisely such theists who believed in the miraculous. They saw God as the Creator who made and intelligible and orderly cosmos that we can understand, being gifted by him with minds matched to our world. So, science started out as "thinking God's [creative and sustaining] thoughts after him." b --> In that context, miracles are not chaotic, whimsical or arbitrary: God, for good reason acts in extraordinary ways in the world, and this action points to himself as our loving Lord and Saviour. For such miracles to stand out as signposts, they REQUIRE a predictable general order to creation. [Thus for instance the signpost significance of a resurrection of a certain crucified Saviour, witnessed by 500+ eyewitnesses as 1 Cor 15:1 - 11 outlines in the first written record of the C1 church's testimony circa 35 - 38 AD; a signpost significance that among other things tells us, as Paul said in Acts 17 to the Athenian elites on Mars Hill, that we are eternally accountable before God. And, are therefore called to change our thinking and behaviour in that light of evidence. That is, to repent.] c --> Thus, the suppression of the relevant history of scientific thought and debates is a disservice to our understanding of even science, much less our worldview options. d --> And, since the very founders of modern science predominantly practiced in a specifically theistic context, we have no good grounds for the idea that such a theistic view is inherently antithetical to the scientific outlook or to rationality. e --> But if one can be induced to think that science = evolutionary marterialism and that rationality = rationalism, then the confusion is easy to account for. f --> The solution is just as plain: a little instruction in the true history of science and the real range of credible scientific approaqches, would at once stop the rot. (Newton's general Scholium to the Principia would be a good start point . . . and a real look at what Mr Paley actually argues in his much derided book, would be a good stopping point along the way too, as would be an examination of Malthus' work and the consequences of Malthusianism in say Ireland in the 1840's. [After all, it IS the backdrop of Darwin's theory, is it not?]) g --> But, that might not fit the preferred outcomes of certain powerful agendas exemplified by the attitude of Mr Lewontin . . . To which I respond: truth and fairness are much more important than agendas. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 12, 2009
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10 --> Therefore, the real issue is, what sort of search is credibly able to get us to those shores? 11 --> And, remember, we have found that the technology of life rests on information rich bio-polymer molecules working together in an integrated information system that exhibits: digital data storage in data structures, codes for the data and for working with them, codes in computer languages, step by step processes that physically instantiate algorithms, and self-replication capacity [i.e the blue print and self assembly mechanism are also part of the system]. 12 --> Such an entity is deeply dependent on functionally specific, complex information well beyond the search capacity of our whole cosmos, and is irreducibly complex as well. (If you doubt the latter, take components out of your PC at random and/or change its software at random, and see how well it works.) 13 --> Indeed, we have not5 stumbled across Paley's a stone vs. a watch in a field, but instead a COMPUTER in the heart of cell-based life. (And, BTW, when we brush aside the many strawmen mischaracterisations and dismissals, then actually read Paley, we will see that 200+ years ago he raised some serious questions on the matter, including the point that self-replication implies further complexity and functionality, not less. [Indeed, he actually discussed the issue of a self-replicating watch being found in that field and what that would really call forth by way of best explanation . . . ]) 14 --> So, the real issue has long been on the table, but has for 150 years now been cleverly distracted from and ducked through what in the end turns out to be a grand begging of the question. Well, the time for question-begging is over, long since over. 15 --> First, we have plainly seen for thousands of years three well known mechanisms for phenomena: [a] mechanical forces/dynamics, [b] undirected stochastic contingency (chance) and [c] purposefully directed contingency [design]. They can act together, but we routinely separate these factors as aspects in our analyses of circumstances, objects and events. (Just think about how a die falls to the ground and tumbles then comes to rest with a particular reading. the fall is dynamical per gravitation. The tumbling and coming to a reading is chance or design, depending on whether it is fair or loaded. [And believe it or not, there has been much pretense that this is unclear and/or controversial in recent months at UD. I'd say that if one is sufficiently confused not to be able to understand something as simple and familiar as a tossed die, then that does not speak well of the explanatory power of one's materialistic worldview.]) 16 --> There has been no credible fourth alternative, and after 2300 + years of waiting, we cannot take unredeemed promissory notes seriously that there is a fourth factor. Those who suggest such plainly now have the burden to warrant their claims. 17 --> Dynamical necessity of course starts from initial conditions [which may exhibit contingency] and unfolds the future by forces of necessity. If Condition X occurs under forces F, then consequence C(t) will flow forth, reliably and with low contingency relative to X, per whatever differential equations apply. (In cases of sensitive dependence on initial conditions or quantum uncertainty etc, the issue is not the predictability of dynamics but the uncertainly or physical unobservability to us (or "nature") of the initial conditions. [Which includes Schrodinger's poor poisoned cat.]) 18 --> Undirected stochastic contingency has a definite signature: outcomes are orderly at the next level: statistical distributions, once we can identify the way in which the underlying patterns act. 19 --> In that context -- pace much distractive digital ink spilled over recent weeks -- MOST reasonably large samples will pick up the bulk patterns of the distributions, and as the size of samples grows, we will see tails [or other isolated target zones] playing a role as sample size N goes large enough that the relative statistical weight of the target zone, p [often in the guise of a probability metric], will act thusly: N*p --> ~ 1. That is, the target zone is now credibly observable. 20 --> The law of large numbers, in short, is legitimate, relevant and important [which is not even controversial in any other context of consequence . .. ]. 21 --> Indeed, the heart of the complex specified information challenge to the chance + necessity view of our world, is that the whole cosmos acting as a sampler is insufficient to get us to that threshold of observability for the relevant functionally specific, complex information-rich phenomena of life. 22 --> In a nutshell, a contingent system that has 1,000 bits of information storage capacity, will have a config space of 2^1,000 ` 10^301. Since the number of quantum states of our observed cosmos of some 10^80 atoms is about 10^150, the whole universe acting as a search engine can only sample up to about 1 in 10^151 of the config space of just 1,000 bits. That means that something that functions based on such information of at least that threshold is in effect unobservable per chance and/or necessity. At least, on the gamut of the observed universe. [And this last, onlookers, is an invitation to go to the multiverse concept, which immediately implies a resort to the unobserved and inescapably metaphysical; not scientific.] 23 --> But in fact, the OBSERVED life forms [those who put up RNA worlds etc must justify such EMPIRICALLY] start at 500 - 1000 k bits worth of DNA. And, knockout studies etc strongly suggest that 300,000 4-state elements is a lower limit for independent life. that is, we are looking at 600,000 bits, or about 10^180,617 configs,as the realistic threshold for life. this is utterly beyond any reasonable chance + necessity based search capability of our cosmos. [And id one infers to a law of nature that has "life" written on it: [a] where is the independent empirical warrant for such, and [b] would that not be very suggestive about the designed character of the laws of our universe?] 24 --> This is what gives so much bite to the challenge of the tornado in a junkyard spontaneously forming a jumbo jet put up by the late, great Sir Fred Hoyle. 25 --> The precise challenge that Weasel distracts attention from by begging the question. 26 --> The precise challenge that if it cannot be cogently answered utterly demolishes the plausibility of the chance + necessity in rpebiotic soups --> life, models of evo mat. 27 --> The same challenge that decisively undercuts the pre-existing life + RV + NS --> body plan level bio-diversification macroevolutionary models. 28 --> And yet, we all know, per massive experience and observation, that intelligent designers exist and are ROUTINELY capable of generating directed contingencies that create information rich functional systems that go well beyond the 1,000 bit threshold. 29 --> So, intelligent design of FSCI is well warranted empirically. Indeed, in every case where we directly know the causal story, FSCI is the product of such design. For instance just look at the posts in this thread and blog, or the PCs we use to access it. 30 --> Thus, we are properly entitled to use FSCI as a reliable sign of such design,and we routinely do so every time we infer to authors not lucky noise as the best explanation for posts in this thread etc. 31 --> All of this is reasonably accessible to an intelligent high school student [much less College professors and members of the US National Academy of Sciences, etc], so, why do we see the sort of question begging Weasel represents [most recently exposed at 285] used to stoutly resist the obvious and well warranted? 32 --> ANS: Because of what Mr Lewontin [a member of said NAS] has so openly confessed: "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, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door." ________________ In short folks, the root issue is not whether or not Weasel latches explicitly or implicitly. It is not even whether or not the evidence points to the o/p of Weasel circa 1986 is latched, which it plainly does. The root issue is that Weasel is a case study on how science is being subverted from being an unfettered search for the truth about our world based on evidence to being a tool of manipulative rhetoric and advocacy for evolutionary materialistic atheism and associated secularist, radical relativist and [a]moral -cultural agendas, frankly to the ruin of our civilisation. And science education is the means by which this captivity of science to an agenda is imposed on the general public. So, on this Resurrection Celebration Day, let us rise up and throw off the shackles of mental slavery! GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{April 12, 2009
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