Why Engineering Science is Critical Concerning an Objective Evaluation of Darwinian Theory

Robert: I see no hope of engineering being as intellectual as even rudimentary understanding of biology. And yet, aside from Behe's efforts, biology's "understanding" doesn't even rise to the level of having testable, predictable theories, a rudimentary tenet of intellectual science, and a pre-requisite of engineering. I'm not impressed by "intellectual" biology which rather than attempt to understand the complexity of intron sequences, instead dismisses them airily as "junk". The world sees physics as more complex then engineering and rewards physicists with the greater crown of intelligence. Yes, but then the world thinks tax returns are complex, and anyone who knows more than a news reporter is a "genius". Charles

Charles. I have a problem with you seeing understood concepts as complex as concepts not yet figured out. I chose biology as the example. I see no hope of engineering being as intellectual as even rudimentary understanding of biology. (I mean beyond what one can watch but the true nature of it.) The world sees physics as more complex then engineering and rewards physicists with the greater crown of intelligence. To me it all comes down to creativity or wisdom. If nothing new is presented then both studies are just knowledge studies however demanding of being careful. Robert Byers

related: see the current issue of IEEE Spectrum, where they discuss turning genetic engineering into engineering: creating "well characterized" building block components so that they can be selected from a library and build any kind of, say, protein, desired, without having to do each one in a customized manner. es58

Robert Byers: Engineers deal with limited options and so its not that complicated. You are partly right, but overlook the implications. Yes, engineers deal with limited options, but knowing with precision what those limits are is very complex. The theoretical physicist has the "simplicity" of ideal laws. As an extreme example, it is quite easy to employ the formula "circumference = Pi x Diameter", but quite complex to actually compute the value of Pi or to determine just how much resolution is needed on any given measurement/computation. The real world is often literally irrational whereas the theoretical world often is not. The engineer must literally "prove" that any approximations in fact will have negliable deleterious effects, whereas the scientist can usually ignore limitations on their own authority as little more than ego is usually at risk. Those limited options apply to every component of a system, and in fact they "multiply". For example, to have a space shuttle with only a 1,000 interdependent parts be 99.01% reliable each of those 1,000 parts must be 99.999% reliable. The space shuttle has tens of thousands to millions of parts, depending on how pedantic one wishes to be. Ensuring the 99.01% reliability of the shuttle is perhaps the singularly most complex engineering feat ever achieved (a possible exception being the LHC). These same considerations apply to airplanes, computers, even automobiles. The engineer must further address degradation over time and use. Reliability is almost never a concern for the scientist, an extremely simplifying advantage. The "complexity" for the scientist is more accurately termed "difficulty" and arises from the obstacles to collecting accurate information (whether on the quantum scale, molecular scale, or galactic scale). The objects of their interest are usually relatively simple in comparison, with notable exceptions such as DNA, the brain, weather, a galaxy. Ironically, as engineers increase the complexity of the scientists' observation tools, the difficulty for scientists decreases. The complexity for the scientist is theoretic and conceptual, understanding the what and why of reality: the requirement is to accellerate some particles with more energy than ever before in a big ring, collide them, and analyze the debri trajectories (analysis being the complex part for the scientist). Complexity for the engineer is practical and systemic, to circumvent the myriad of "limited options" and build a machine: the requirement is to design and build a working LHC, within budget, maintainable with high precision and reliability. The system complexity of the LHC may well be greater than of the shuttle. Yet biology is so complicated, healing us is way behind, I would note that the goal posts have moved from Gil's original "Darwinian evolutionary “theory,” which is perpetually amorphous, explains everything and nothing at the same time, is impossible to pin down, and is impervious to logic, reason, mathematical scrutiny, or evidence." to biologists in search of cures. While they have the discipline of biology in common, the Darwinist, especially those in academia are not attempting to apply Darwinian theory in the development of cures. Were they to do so, they'd be making use of Behe's observation of evolutionary barriers when researching a cure for chloroquine-resistant strains of malaria, by designing a chemical or protein which would require the malaria bacterium to evolve a triple chloroquine-complexity cluster mutation, the probability of such a resistant mutation being beyond RM/NS (as per Behe). If biologists are behind in cures, perhaps the issue is not engineering complexity but rather obstinate myopia. The biologists in agritech companies are advancing by leaps and bounds to produce genetically modified (engineered) plants and herbicides to feed the world, safely. And biologists have little difficulty anymore in mapping genomes or producing "knock-out" mice. So the constraint is not so much technology as it is failure by the Darwinist to exploit the limits of Darwinian evolution. Anybody can tell "just so" stories, even children. But were Darwinist academicians to attempt to actually engineer such a malarial cure as Behe proposes, they would have my respect. Charles

Charles. I don't mean "scientists" are smarter then engineers or math folks. In fact I do see the that the thing being discovered or invented complexity determines the ability of the professional. Yet biology is so complicated, healing us is way behind, that this why ideas about it are not settled and wrong ideas easily survive. I disagree that engineers or math are very complex. Since indeed , as you said, answers must be settled it limits and shows the limits of complexity of what is being dealt with. Engineers deal with limited options and so its not that complicated. In biology and geology discovery is way behind because results can't reproduced and so put boundaries on options. Indeed in YEC there are biblical boundaries and so give a advantage to drawing conclusions and rejecting conclusions. Again I do see inventors as doing the more intellectually difficult job as opposed to "scientists" unless they really accomplish a new thing. Wisdom is better then knowledge as Solomon said. Wisdom is the manipulation of knowledge. Wisdom is the unescourted insight. Robert Byers

Please elaborate on your view of the Darwinian negation of what they call evidence, then.

First and foremost:

The horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would anyone trust the conviction of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind? - Charles Darwin

All these Darwin evangelists ought be taken no more seriously than a bunch of monkeys preening and chattering for female attention. Mung

Allanius - Please elaborate on your view of the Darwinian negation of what they call evidence, then. mggarrison

Recent findings give us a clue what could be the purpose of "junk" DNA. 1.Cell needs the whole DNA (98% is "junk") otherwise it wouldn't spend tremendous resources to copy-replicate it. 2. Scientists from Harvard found the DNA fills certain volume inside nucleus in shape of Peano curve. That provides for well organized structure instead of chaotic tangle. 3. DNA Skittle visualization tool ( free download) clearly shows repetitive patterns interchanging with randomly distributed nucleotides in non-coding DNA. Also, interference and modulation type patterns are visible. 4. Humans use two dimensional data storage in form of data matrices (ex. QR codes). It is possible to layer (stack) multiple two dimensional data matrices to fill volume. 5. Combining previous three points it is possible to envision form of data storage as a purpose for non-coding DNA. It is possible we are dealing with three dimensional chemical data storage system. 6. Similar to holographic recording I would expect huge capacity and inherent information redundancy. Smaller, broken off section of holographic recording will show the whole picture but with lower resolution. Eugen

Gil, This is neat, scientists in Sweden just elucidated a motor within a motor,,, they found another motor within the ATP motor,,, (How's that for engineering???) ATP Synthase Ratchets Up the Case for Intelligent Design - April 2011 Excerpt: While biochemists generally understood the operation of this enzyme, they lacked a detailed understanding of the chemical mechanism that drives the generation of ATP from ADP (adenosine diphosphate) and Pi (an inorganic phosphate molecule)—until now. New work by scientists from Sweden reveals the missing mechanistic details. It turns out that the chemical reaction that generates ATP from ADP and Pi occurs at three distinct sites located on the turbine portion of the F1 complex. Specifically, these sites reside in the three grooves between the subunits of the turbine. Each time the rotor turns 120° a molecule of ATP is made, with three molecules of this high-energy compound generated for one full rotation of the rotor. The researchers discovered that the 120° step consists of two steps comprised of 90° and 30° rotations, respectively. These sub-steps correspond to two distinct transition states as ATP is made from ADP and Pi. Once these transition states are formed, two separate chemical barriers in the turbine groove force the reaction to ratchet forward, thereby preventing the reverse reaction. In other words, the reaction is driven to completion by a Brownian motor, a special type of molecular-scale machine. The bottom line: there is a motor within a motor architecture for the F0-F1 ATP synthase. The rotary motor translates electrical energy into mechanical energy, thereby erecting the energy barrier for the Brownian motor to drive ATP production.,,, http://www.reasons.org/atp-synthase-ratchets-case-intelligent-design ---------------- Evolution Vs ATP Synthase - Molecular Machine - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4012706/ Molecular Machine - The ATP Synthase Enzyme - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4380205/ bornagain77

Test Driven Development Test Driven Design Mung

Mung: Software is art, not engineering. Posted with tongue-in-cheek, but I'm compelled to point out software as understood by the computer science student perhaps is "art", but not as purposed by the professional engineer. Software is a fascinating and highly complex aspect of engineering. Software has no material or physical limitations, which is its virtual strength and simultaneously its virtual weakness as there are no inherent rules to govern its testability. Testability and correctness must be designed and engineered into software at all layers... firmware, os, compiler(s), and application stack(s). The QA/testing permutations become prohibitive. Yet, engineering software that can be tested now and proven to work reliably years and billions of dollars later, millions of miles away in a space probe in planetary shadow under conditions only guessed at, where it can't be patched, involves no more "art" than the craft's hardware. The engineering rigour is in keeping the "art" out of the process and building predictability in. (note to the geneticists here, I've often wondered how much of "junk dna" has a self-test, self-destruct aspect to it. ... enough similarity to encode a non-functional comparative test somehow, yet functionally allowing/modifying/disallowing replication depending on how far out of compliance are the test results. That and treating the base-pair sequences like ordered parameter lists which are recognized like content-addressable memory) Charles

GilDodgen: Darwinian theorizing, most of which is just making up stories and declaring the problem solved. Well... in the appropriately selected gnuiverse, it is solved. Charles

Software is art, not engineering. :) Mung

Here is my first attempt to understand DNA replication as automation programmer. See http://img638.imageshack.us/i/sfc15.gif/ Eugen

Charles: Engineering must “function” in the very difficult real world, where unknowns must be quantified and compensated, not ignored, and things have to work, work right, work cost effectively and work reliably. Make mistakes and airplanes crash, buildings collapse, bridges fall, refineries explode, nuclear reactors meltdown, lives and fortunes are lost and you go out of business. It is quite literally “math and science” with the added complexity of having to correctly allow for the incompleteness of theoretical understanding, imprecise measurements, imperfection of materials and processes, and unpredictable environments. You made my point much better than I did! Now compare what you just pointed out to Darwinian theorizing, most of which is just making up stories and declaring the problem solved. GilDodgen

Not to sound like a broken record, but the applied science of engineering once again brings up the question of the zeitgeist and the possibility of change. We have just lived through a theory-centered age. Four great theories of being prevailed: natural selection, relativity, dialectical materialism, and the theory of sex. The appeal of theory is that it uses the force of resistance found in the mind to render unified, simple value judgments about being. Its corresponding weakness is that it must negate the varieties of experience in order to work its simplifying magic. Intellectual history, at least since the Middle Ages, can be described as a succession of constructs of being, and theory, or their negation. Constructs like the Transcendental Aesthetic arise and produce cultural identities like Romanticism with its glorification of nature. Over time we become weary of them as their tropes become stale and we realize that they cannot give us the happiness they promised, and they are supplanted by theory-centered identities such as Modernism. But those identities are also self-limiting. In order to glorify intellect and its unifying capacity for resistance, its idealizing power, they must devalue the sensuous universe that actually exists. This results in nothingness and leads to restlessness and dissatisfaction in the end. The modern musical theorist, for example, tried to turn himself into a superman and go “beyond good and evil” by negating melody, harmony and rhythm. But since these are the actual sensuous substance of music, the limitations of Modern music became clear over time and led to a loss of power over the public imagination. What Darwinism must negate in order to preserve the pristine quality of the theory is a lot. Deep time is intoned again and again to stand in for the complex explanations that are needed in order to account for the evolution of even a simple cell and its marvelous machinery. The same people who love the theory and its simplicity are naturally, psychologically averse to the complexity and middle terms that are required for describing sensuous being. The more they cling to their idealizing love of resistance, the more they expose the weaknesses of the theory and make themselves vulnerable to cultural change. The engineer may never be a philosopher, but he must work in the real world in order to produce real results. And the real world and a new construct of being is what’s looming in the mirror. allanius

NZer: This is why it seems to me to be pure arrogance to claim that junk DNA is in fact junk. To know this would require disassembling the DNA code and figuring the meaning of all code sections. A very difficult challenge indeed. Indeed it is difficult as well as highly complex. And yet as you note, academic biologists nonetheless ignore that complexity and proclaim most of it "junk" that can be ignored. OTOH, biologists in agritech companies attempting to engineer new traits in corn, soybeans, rice, wheat, etc, don't ignore that complexity and instead work to understand, isolate and compensate for it. The success, profitibility, and safety of their product depends on their rigour, a rigour notably lacking in academia. Charles

Robert Byers: I see them [engineering and math] as easily drawing conclusions because they are not very complicated subjects. Nothing could be further from the truth. Engineering must "function" in the very difficult real world, where unknowns must be quantified and compensated, not ignored, and things have to work, work right, work cost effectively and work reliably. Make mistakes and airplanes crash, buildings collapse, bridges fall, refineries explode, nuclear reactors meltdown, lives and fortunes are lost and you go out of business. It is quite literally "math and science" with the added complexity of having to correctly allow for the incompleteness of theoretical understanding, imprecise measurments, imperfection of materials and processes, and unpredictable environments. It is often remarked that a theoretical physicist could not build a TV set, let alone a computer, yet an engineer can build his computer controlled particle accellerator (though the engineer would be at a loss to interpret its output). That is not to say engineers are "better" or "smarter" than scientists. They are not. But they are arguably confronted with just as much, if not more, genuine complexity than are scientists, but engineers none the less are cut far less slack. OTOH, what biologist loses his grant, let alone his professional certification, for unproven theorizing in a publication or classroom, or dropping his butterfly collection? Charles

"because they are not very complicated subjects" I would agree that engineering is not very complicated compared to some sections of science. The fact is however that software is often very hard to get right and extremely complicated. Many orders of magnitude more difficult still is reverse engineering software (think StuxNet for example). A few instructions in a HLL can compile to many instructions at machine code level. But this is, and I'm sure Gil would agree, what biologists must do to "disassemble" or "decompile" the DNA code. They must reverse engineer the DNA program and determine what each part does. This is why it seems to me to be pure arrogance to claim that junk DNA is in fact junk. To know this would require disassembling the DNA code and figuring the meaning of all code sections. A very difficult challenge indeed. Making such a claim on the other hand speaks volumes about the perspective held by those who were pushing the junk DNA bandwagon. NZer

In short in engineering and math conclusions are clearly true or not. Theres no questioning. I see them as easily drawing conclusions because they are not very complicated subjects. Biology is very complicated and this is the great point why it demands great proofs, if i may say so, before confidence in conclusions can be had. It has to be figured out. Children and idiout -savants and computers can master math. However they can't figure out biology unless merely memorizing data. Intelligent people must demand old evolution to prove its case. Robert Byers