In the current discussion on [Mis-]Representing Natural Selection, UD commenter Bruce David has posed a significant challenge: . . . it is not obvious that even with intelligence in the picture a major modification of a complex system is possible one small step at a time if there is a requirement that the system continue to function after each such step. For example, consider a WWII fighter, say the P51 Mustang. Can you imagine any series of incremental changes that would transform it into a jet fighter, say the F80 and have the plane continue to function after each change? To transform a piston engine fighter in to a jet fighter requires multiple simultaneous changes for it to work–an entirely Read More ›

We recently reported the thought-provoking findings that our genes are not only regulated by our own microRNA—those small snippets of transcribed DNA which were often considered to be useless junk—they are also regulated by the microRNA in the food we eat. In other words, food not only contains carbohydrates, proteins, fat, minerals, vitamins and so forth, it also contains information—in the form of these regulatory snippets of miRNA—which regulate our gene production.  Read more

In the Pulsars and Pauses thread, Petrushka raised a rather revealing assertion, to which MH, EA and I answered [U/d and GP just weighed in]: P: >> I find it interesting that when it seems convenient to ID, the code is digital (and subject to being assembled by incremental accumulation). But at other times the analogy switches to objects like motors that are not digitally coded and do not reproduce with variation. >> I have of course highlighted some key steps in the underlying pattern of thought: (i) design thinkers think one way or another at convenience [–> TRANS: we “cannot” happen to have either honestly arrived at views, or warrant for our views . . . ] (ii) our arguments Read More ›

Dr Moran, sorry for the delay. Other responsibilities intervened for a bit. Certainly the sequence in DNA is driving reactions. (And there are many varieties) In your comments you refer to the use of the term “information” within nucleic sequences as a useful analogy, and you say that there is no expectations that it should “conform to the meanings of “information” in other disciplines.” I certainly agree with you that it conforming to other meanings would be a telling turn of events. And I assume your comment suggests that the nucleotide sequence isn’t expected to share any of the same physical characteristics as other forms of information – given that we live in a physical universe where information has physical Read More ›

The Wikipedia hit-piece on Intelligent Design (NWE’s introductory article is much fairer and better informed) leads with an illustration of a watch; an invidious allusion to William Paley’s famous parable of stumbling over a stone in a field vs. finding a watch in the same field, that appears in Ch I of his 1802 [- 6 ] Natural Theology:

>>IN crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there, I might possibly answer, that for any thing I knew to the contrary it had lain there for ever; nor would it, perhaps, be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that for any thing I knew the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone; why is it not as admissible in the second case as in the first? . . . >>

He continues:

For this reason, and for no other, namely, that when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive—what we could not discover in the stone—that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e. g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that, if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, or placed after any other manner or in any other order than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it.

This is of course, an invitation to the argument by inference to best explanation of empirical observations.

However, it is usually dismissed today as an example of the weakness of attempts to argue by analogy (itself an error, credible analogy is a key facet of real world inductive argument, the cornerstone of science), and the issue put on the table in rebuttal is usually that unlike watches, living things can self-replicate at cellular level, and reproduce with variation, thus evolve. Problem solved, nothing to see here, let us move on.

Not so fast, this dismissal argument is a strawman fallacy. Read More ›

 (Series)

Emile Borel (1871 – 1956) was a distinguished French Mathematician who — a son of a Minister — came from France’s Protestant minority, and he was a founder of measure theory in mathematics. He was also a significant contributor to modern probability theory,  and so Knobloch observed of his approach, that:

>>Borel published more than fifty papers between 1905 and 1950 on the calculus of probability. They were mainly motivated or influenced by Poincaré, Bertrand, Reichenbach, and Keynes. However, he took for the most part an opposed view because of his realistic attitude toward mathematics. He stressed the important and practical value of probability theory. He emphasized the applications to the different sociological, biological, physical, and mathematical sciences. He preferred to elucidate these applications instead of looking for an axiomatization of probability theory. Its essential peculiarities were for him unpredictability, indeterminism, and discontinuity. Nevertheless, he was interested in a clarification of the probability concept. [Emile Borel as a probabilist, in The probabilist revolution Vol 1 (Cambridge Mass., 1987), 215-233. Cited, Mac Tutor History of Mathematics Archive, Borel Biography.]>>

Among other things, he is credited as the worker who introduced a serious mathematical analysis of the so-called Infinite Monkeys theorem (just a moment).

So, it is unsurprising that Abel, in his recent universal plausibility metric paper, observed  that:

Emile Borel’s limit of cosmic probabilistic resources [c. 1913?] was only 10⁵⁰ [[23] (pg. 28-30)]. Borel based this probability bound in part on the product of the number of observable stars (10⁹) times the number of possible human observations that could be made on those stars (10²⁰).

This of course, is now a bit expanded, since the breakthroughs in astronomy occasioned by the Mt Wilson 100-inch telescope under Hubble in the 1920’s. However,  it does underscore how centrally important the issue of available resources is, to render a given — logically and physically strictly possible but utterly improbable — potential chance- based event reasonably observable.

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Denis Venema wants to explain evolution to evangelical Christians because he doesn’t think it is understand sufficiently. But he asks us to use our imagination and avoids a carefully modelled defence of evolution. If that is the best Darwinists can do then is it any wonder that many of us reject it? See: Venema Understanding Evolution: An Introduction to Populations and Speciation Firstly, Venema follows the common evolutionary practice of presenting evidence for evolution by focussing upon the micro changes and then extrapolating without evidence to the macro evolutionary scale by assuming it happens by similar means. But the micro changes, such as that of his exampled stickleback fish, are simply uncontested even by young earth creationists, but what is Read More ›

Those of you who have been following this blog, as well as Evolution News & Views, for some time, will be aware that I have previously discussed, across multiple articles, the phenomenon of endogenous retroviral inserts into the genomes of primates. Those familiar with the debate over origins will also be familiar with the various arguments for common descent which are based upon these fascinating genetic elements. A friend recently asked me if I would compile my thoughts on the topic into a single article, and hence that is what I intend to do here. Since my previous articles on the topic (and since my progression from undergraduate to postgraduate status), my knowledge of the subject has increased and I Read More ›

In “Family ties doubted in Stone Age farmers” (New Scientist, 01 July 2011), Michael Marshall reports that

Blood may not always be thicker than water, if a controversial finding from one of the world’s best-preserved Stone Age settlements is to be believed. At Çatalhöyük in Turkey, it appears that people did not live in families. Instead, the society seems to have been organised completely differently.

How do we know? TheÇatalhöyük people (7500-5500 BCE) “buried their dead beneath the floors of the houses, suggesting that people were buried where they lived.”

The researchers measured the teeth from 266 individuals, assuming that teeth are are more similar among relatives and that people buried together would be more closely related.

But she found no pattern at all. “It does not appear that individuals that were buried together were closely related to each other,” she says. “Çatalhöyük was likely not centred around nuclear families.”

In the best tradition of the assured results of modern science, further speculations follow. In the rush to confirm a trendy idea (families are optional), no one seems to consider that Read More ›

A reader writes to offer a suggestion about how to communicate about stuff that really matters, so that people know why it matters, based on his experience as a flight school instructor:

Early in the training for a private pilot certificate we were required to introduce the student to stalls and their proper recovery. If I introduced the lesson by announcing that we were going to take a detailed look at the aerodynamics of stalls and an associated condition known as a spin, the response was always one of polite attention but with the eyes rolled back into the head.

However, Read More ›

JGuy made the following comment in response to my comment in that thread: I like your comment on the guys from three hundred years ago. This is the kind of stuff that amazes me…today, we think we (conditioned society) are so much more civilized and evolved.. bah!.. I say, you take the most intelligent person three hundred years ago, and put him in all the same schools as today’s most intelligent person. I’d put my bets on the less degenerate genes/mind of 300 years ago. The guys I referred to were the great mathematicians Lagrange and Euler, who lived almost 300 years ago and came up with the basic mathematics we now use in computational fluid dynamics. JGuy is a Read More ›

(That’s how Moshe Averick, rabbi and author of Nonsense of a High Order:The Confused, Illusory World of the Atheist explains the difficulty with many Darwinists’ arguments.)

Logic is not science. Logic is a commodity which cannot be hoarded or monopolized by any particular occupation or profession. Logic is an intellectual tool available equally to both scientist and non-scientist. If the issue at hand is not a question of scientific data or knowledge itself, but a logical comparison, deduction, or conclusion involving scientific data or knowledge, scientific credentials are for the most part irrelevant. At that juncture, the scientist, historian, plumber, and taxi-driver are all on equal footing, providing their logic is sound. No one made the point better than Nobel prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman, indisputably a genius of the highest order and one of the greatest scientific minds of the 20th century: “I believe that a scientist looking at non-scientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.”

It is my contention that many of the hottest areas of dispute in the so called “battle” between science and religion have relatively little to do with the actual science involved. They are to a great extent problems of logic.

Along the way, he wonders whether PZ Myers has “gone mad,” but read it for yourself to see why. He has somewhat to say about Myers audience as well … and Jerry Coyne … (Note: UD News does not think Myers has gone mad. Much depends on the emphasis … )

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I was recently engaged in correspondance with someone who told me that the theory of ID isn’t scientific because it doesn’t make scientific predictions. We’ve all heard it, right? Indeed, most of you are probably bored to tears having had to address, and respond to, this argument over and over, seemingly to no avail. As with so many things in this discussion, the constantly re-iterated response seems to repeatedly fall on deaf ears. So, I took a few moments to ‘brain storm’ and jot down those scientific predictions, made by ID, which immediately came to mind. This is what I came up with: Predictions In Astronomy/Cosmology ID predicts that the Universe had a beginning. ID predicts an increase (and not Read More ›

Mobile DNA, Finding Treasure in Junk, by Haig H. Kazazian is available free for download at Barnes and Noble:

In Mobile DNA, leading geneticist Haig Kazazian thoroughly reviews our current understanding of the substantial role mobile genetic elements play in genome and organism evolution and function. He offers an accessible intellectual history of mobile DNA, rich and insightful perspectives on how investigators ask and answer research questions, and his predictions about future developments and research directions for this active field. Read More ›