UD member Timothy in another thread writes

But in principle it is possible to arrive at this particular unique combination of symbols using a simple brute force algorithm (like, for example, an elementary counting algorithm) that works through all the possible combinations of symbols. Thus, given such a systematic algorithm, all the books of the world, those written and those yet to be written, are implied by it.

I thought this was important enough to deserve a thread of its own. Read More ›

The best argument for Intelligent Design is to clearly state the opposing view, which is that physics explains all of chemistry (probably true), chemistry explains all of biology, biology explains intelligence, and intelligence explains computers, science textbooks and the Internet; ergo, physics explains computers, ergo, my little parable “My Failed Simulation”, which has now appeared at Human Events here . They re-titled it and added a subtitle that I don’t like, but otherwise I’ll take responsibility for the content. I added the adjective “imaginary” to “friend” in the third paragraph to make sure no one took this parable too literally, but it looks like that may not have been sufficient, to judge by the first comment.

As some UD readers are aware, one of my interests is artificial-intelligence computer programming, especially games-playing AI (here, here, and here).

In producing retrograde endgame databases for the game of checkers, with massive computational resources (two CPUs performing approximately a billion integer operations each per second over a period of two months, for a total of 10,000,000,000,000,000 [ten thousand trillion] mathematical calculations), some very interesting results were produced, including correction of human play that had been in the books for centuries. But did the program produce any new information? Well, yes, in a sense, because the computer found stuff that no human had ever found. But here’s the real question, which those of us at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab are attempting to address: Was the “new information” supplied by the programmer and his intelligently designed computational algorithm, or did the computer really do anything original on its own, in terms of information generation?

The answer is that computers do not generate new information; they only reshuffle it and make it more easily accessible. Here’s an example:

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I deleted this thread because I found the comments offensive. Let’s keep postings and comments germane to ID. Addendum by DaveScot: For the same reason I deleted the “Sterling Example of Anti-Religionists” thread due to many complaints that it was offensive. I want to extend my apologies for my own vulgar contributions that many found to be offensive. When I find myself among the crude and vulgar I tend to participate at the same level rather than rise above it as I should.

The same publisher that brought you DARWIN’S BLACK BOX and THE EDGE OF EVOLUTION (i.e., The Free Press) is paying Richard Dawkins $3.5million for his next book, to be titled ONLY A THEORY? I’m told, however, that other titles are still in the running, including MERELY A HYPOTHESISMERE DARWINISM (this and the last to attract fans of C. S. Lewis)THE NADIR OF SCIENCEDARWIN’S DEAD IDEAEVOLUTION: THE ILLUSION OF POSSIBILITYDARWINISM DEVOLVINGEVOLUTION: THE SENESCENT YEARS $3.5million is a lot of money. The question I have is whether Dawkins still worships exclusively in the temple of Darwin or if he now also attends services at the temple of Mammon.

For me, the importance of this piece in Nature is not so much that, by assuming what is to be proven, it is possible to demonstrate the obvious (that heavily spined fish will not have an advantage where there are no predators). The significance is that this trivial example of existing trait filtering and selection is then touted as a major discovery of Natural Selection at work in the fossil record. Is this not an admission that microevolution is the best that the fossil record ever shows? Evolutionary biology: Darwin in the fossils Andrew P. Hendry (heavily edited excerpts) “Although adaptation by natural selection is thought to drive evolution, it has been difficult to confirm this process in the fossil record. The evidence has been there Read More ›

Posted by Denyse O’Leary for Jane Harris At one time, hybrids were thought to be common among plants but rare among animals. But as more animal hybrids are found, some scientists ask whether hybrids are not a more common means of creating new species than previously thought. … An intense focus on Darwin’s theory that natural selection is the main cause of new species has often meant that other possibilities are neglected. For more, go here.

I’m not sure what inspired Professor Dembski to quote C.S. Lewis on Bulverism at this particular point in time but the recent and somewhat unexpected rise of Barack Hussein Obama over Hillary Rodham Clinton in the democratic primaries might have been it. I predict that whatever legitimate criticism is leveled at him the Bulverians will be out in great number rejoining with “You’re only saying that because he’s black.” Mark my words. That is going to become a household phrase before November. My support, of course, will be for John McCain. I preferred McCain over Bush in 2004 and nothing has changed. I hope to see him team up with Mike Huckabee as VP. I don’t envy them the task Read More ›

Or are we just connecting to the universe, as the Design of Life authors think.I’ve always found the connection between soft math and useful information easy (like, you get charged for a side of fries you never ordered, and never would have ordered). But HARD math? That’s about something else for sure. Go here for more about why hard math matters. Also: Today at the Post-Darwinist Christianity Today features news item on young astronomer denied tenure Catholic Darwinists to congregate in Rome? Also: Today at The Mindful Hack: The myth of the Christian Right: What happens when you ask Democrats if they too are born again? God must exist, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to enjoy this debate.

A commenter to my article about John McCain supporting the teaching of ID in public schools replies that he won’t vote for McCain because of it. The stated reason is the United States is falling behind other industrialized countries in science literacy. Piffle! The notion that science literacy in the U.S. is substandard is rooted in the results of science surveys that include questions about evolution. Without doubt a much larger fraction of the US populace doesn’t believe in mud to man evolution than compared to any other industrialized nation. So in those surveys they give the “incorrect” answer to questions about the origin of life. In all other category of science questions Americans score as well as or better Read More ›

Clandestine meeting of skeptics with strange deists & theists. Details at TheBRITES.

Well, he could be, at least about some things.Don’t shoot! Look, no one expected that the human being would have only a few more genes than the worms that survived a space shuttle blowup and were returned to their owners. We could be wrong about lots of other things too. Anyway, here’s Jane Harris-Zsovan’s story, just up at The Design of Life: Lolle’s 2005 paper with Robert Pruitt of Purdue University, Genome-wide non-mendelian inheritance of extra-genomic information in Arabidopsis”, suggested that a mutant variety of this species overrides its genetic code and does indeed revert back to its wild state.Starting in the 1990s, the researchers began using specimens of A. thaliana to study plant cuticles. Lolle and Pruitt bred plants Read More ›

Recently, Bill Dembski and Jonathan Wells published a textbook supplement called The Design of Life. It’s pretty controversial, as you can tell by all the ignorant remarks and insults at the Amazon site.

The book explains the reasons why Darwin was wrong. Stuff you won’t find in the textbook your taxes pay for (or your student loan pays for if your prof puts it on the course.)

You can find out more about the book (or even buy it) here.

Meanwhile, trusty Canadian bloggers Jane Harris-Zsovan and I blog at the Design of Life blog on items that help explain why the book was written: To help students understand the facts of life that don’t mesh with Darwinism.

Now, maybe you know all this stuff. Great! Have you considered encouraging friends or family who DON’T know it to have a look?

Remember, your nearest and dearest are always hearing from legacy media, schools, and museums why Darwin was right (your tax dollars at work again, usually).

If you don’t help them understand why that’s mainly propaganda in the service of materialism, can you really blame them for just saying, “Okay, whatever … whatever they want me to believe, I’ll just believe, so they will shut up and go away … “?

For example, here are some stories that someone you know might appreciate:

Origin of life: Popular science media solve the origin of life every few weeks. Huh?

Origin of species? Check out the beefalo and see if you STILL believe the textbook. Read More ›

Discussions of evolution (theistic and materialistic) have too often been cast within a Darwinian framework.  From M. A. Corey’s special pleading for deistic evolution (see his Back to Darwinism [1994]) to the recent sparring match between Robert A. Larmer and Denis O. Lamoureux in a series of exchanges in Christian Scholar’s Review (see issues for fall 2oo6 and fall 2007), discussions are invariably cast within a framework of how much or how little theism Darwinism will admit.  Seldom is Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913) ever brought up.  But, in fact, Wallace completely revised the theory he independently founded.  I suggest he did so within a much older Hermetic tradition in science.  What, you ask, does Wallace have to do with Hermeticism?  I’ll admit on its face it appears unlikely. But such a seemingly strained connection is relaxed considerably by seeing Wallace less as an evolutionist-turned-crackpot and more as a prescient thinker himself evolving a teleological view of nature on the one hand and seeing Hermeticism as less a curious exercise in medieval and early modern superstition and more as a viable metaphor for a more integrated worldview on the other.  By re-visioning both we may indeed find the foundation for a historically coherent — certainly a more historically rooted — ID paradigm.

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Help this guy. He wants to know when artificial intelligence will surpass human intelligence.Here are his numbers so far: A question very simply crafted poll I’m asking a few friends to gain a better perspective on the time-frame for when we may see greater-than-human level AI. Results posted below… if you wish to participate, email me (bruce-at-novamente.net) an answer for the following: [ ] 2010-20 [ ] 2020-30 [ ] 2030-50 [ ] 2050-70 [ ] 2070-2100 [ ] Beyond 2100 [ ] Never [ ] Prefer not to make predictions [ ] Other: __ He recounts, “Many people have replied Never, so I’ve separated this answer from the replies and have added it to the survey results (above). – Read More ›