Active information defined… for the fourth time in nine years?

Yesterday, a couple of folks let me know of a paper that crypto-creationist [ETA: perhaps under reform] George Montañez had just posted at arXiv, “The Famine of Forte: Few Search Problems Greatly Favor Your Algorithm.” Below you’ll find my response to one of them. I should explain a few things, by way of introduction.

Montañez is a former advisee of the “Charles Darwin of intelligent design,” Baylor University professor Robert J. Marks II. Last I heard, he was pursuing doctoral studies in machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University. He worked not only with Marks, but also with William A. Dembski, the “Isaac Newton of information theory,” and Winston Ewert, the “Pooh Bear of evolutionary informatics,” on applications of measures of active information. He is still affiliated with them at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab. I refer to the core of affiliates who actually contribute to the output of the Lab — Marks, Dembski, Ewert, and Montañez — as Team EIL. The first three of them have a book scheduled for release by World Scientific on January 30, 2017. The title is Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics. I am trying to pull together a series of posts with the same title.

My email note follows.

[ETA: George Montañez has kindly responded here at TSZ. Contrary to what I guess below, he is not presently collaborating with the authors of the book.]

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Does Puncuated Equilibrium actually destroy evolutionary biology? Yes!

I just read, skimmed, struggled with Stephen Gould’s ” Structures of Evolution theory”  Its really one long argument for Punctuated Equilibrium.

Aside from many interesting observations on the substance and style the surprising thing i note is how PE actually disproves all of evolutionary biology if you think about it. No wonder Dawkins and the rest smelled it as trouble and resisted. Wikipedia also resists it on this subject. Continue reading

The ‘facts’ about what can and cannot be instantiated in matter

In the ‘decisions’ thread walto made this comment:

‘Hard problem’? Hah! Piece of cake. Everything is instantiated! Well, you know what sorts of things can be instantiated? Look it up.

When I suggested that I’d not be doing that Mung noted:

Translation: don’t bother me with facts.

Which implies to me that there is a verified list of what can and cannot be instantiated in matter (chemicals and the like). I.E. Facts.

This is contrary to what I had originally assumed, hence my reluctance to bother looking it up. So I’ve changed my mind. I am interested in ‘looking it up’. I’m always willing to learn. So the floor is yours Mung, walto.

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The purpose of theistic evolution

Dr. Joshua Swamidass, a theistic evolutionist, joined us recently at TSZ. I think the following comment of his will lead to some interesting and contentious discussion and is worthy of its own thread:

Third, if we drop “Darwinian” to just refer to the current modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, you are right that the scientific account does not find any evidence of direction or planning. I agree with you here and do not dispute this.
 
So the question becomes, really, is it possible that God could have created a process (like evolution) with a purposeful intent that science could not detect? I think the answer here is obvious. Of course He could. In fact, I would say, unless He wanted us to discern His purpose, we could not.
 
In my view, then, evolution has a purpose in creating us. Science itself cannot uncover its purpose. I find that out by other means.

The Sternberg-Collins Paradox for non-random SINE insertion mutations

One of the most brilliant evolutionary biologists of the present day, Richard Sternberg, PhD PhD was ousted and permanently blacklisted by the National Institutes of Health and the Smithsonian Museum for his ID sympathies.

Sternberg is neither a Creationist nor Darwinist but classifies himself as a Process Structuralist which means he is not much involved in the ultimate questions of how things came to be, he just appreciates the amazing patterns of similarity and diversity in biology.

He was labelled by some of his former supporters as an intellectual terrorist after he used his position as editor of a journal to publish an ID-friendly article by Stephen Meyer in 2004. He paid dearly for that decision, and his subsequent dismissal from the NIH and Smithsonian precipitated special investigations by members of Congress and the White House a decade ago. Unfortunately, nothing of consequence was done for Sternberg and he was destroyed professionally and personally.

Despite his circumstances, he continued to publish excellent essays such as the one that highlights the non-random patterns of SINES (presumed by some to be junkDNA) which are present in mice and rats (link below).
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ID In A Nutshell

ID is like the old locked room mysteries.

Scenario: Mr Body is found in a locked room with two bullet wounds in the back of his head. Lethal weapon found in his hand.

All the people known to profit from his death have airtight alibis. Security cameras show no one entering the room after Mr Body enters.

Only Mr Body’s fingerprints are found on the gun.

1. Suicide?
2. Magic or Divine Intervention?
3. Space Aliens having unknown technology?
4. Something else?

Interestingly, number one has actually been put forward in at least one actual, recent case.
If we substitute biogenesis for Mr Body’s death, ID proponents assume number two or number three.
If we substitute evolution for Mr Body’s Death, then Michael Behe and Mendel’s Accountant proponents assume number two or number three.

What do you guys think? What assumption do you think is most reasonable? I’m not asking what really happened. I’m asking what is the first working hypothesis that comes to mind?

New data on human genomic diversity

The extent of variation present in human populations and the consequences of genetic load seem to be topics of perennial interest here (see, for example, recent comments in the Evolution Visualized thread).  Recent issues of Nature have published a flurry of papers aimed at getting a better handle on just how much genetic diversity is likely to exist among humans.   One notable paper from last August is the following:

Analysis of protein-coding genetic variation in 60,706 humans

In this study, Monkol Lek and many, many colleagues sequenced the exomes–i.e., the portion of DNA sequences that code for proteins along with some accompanying untranslated regions–of more than 60,000 people.  The results were pretty spectacular.  The paper is incredibly dense, but here are some highlights:

  • The authors found more than 7 million reliably identified variants.  Most were single base pair substitutions, but the variants also include more than 300,000 insertions/deletions.
  • On average, 1 out of every 8 nucleotides is variable.  However, the overwhelming majority of variants are rare.  That is they are found in only a single or a few individuals
  • The frequency of different kinds of variants is proportional to both the rate at which they occur as well as the extent to which they are likely to be deleterious.  This is not at all surprising, but it’s neatly demonstrated.  For example,  63.1% of all possible CpG transitions (i.e., a cytosine adjacent to a guanine that mutates to a thymine) were observed, while only 3% of possible transversions were present.  CpG transitions are among the most common type of substitution in mammals, while transversions are less frequent.  Likewise, the proportion of possible synonymous variants that were actually observed was much higher than the proportion of possible nonsynonymous variants that were observed, which is consistent with the generally accepted notion that nonsynonymous mutations are usually subject to stronger purify selection than synonymous mutations.
  • They identified almost 180,000 different protein truncation variants (PTVs), which are protein-coding genes predicted to be shortened due to an introduced stop codon, a frameshift, or removal of a critical splice site.  Amazingly (to me at least), the average genome in their dataset includes 85 PTVs in the heterozygous state and almost 35 PTVs in the homozygous state.
  • They identified more than 100 variants previously thought to contribute to disease phenotypes that are present at anomalously high frequencies in human populations (> 1%).  Based on the fact that the evidence of pathogenicity for most of these variants is actually extremely weak, the authors suggest that these variants are most likely benign.

There is a lot more in the paper that’s worth chewing over, so give it a read.  This is easily the largest dataset of its type ever generated, but it has limitations.  The sampling is heavily biased toward Europeans, and there is likely some variation missing, especially in Central and Middle Eastern Asia.

I imagine that within a few years, we’ll have datasets of similar size consisting of high-coverage, whole genome sequences, which will no doubt show even larger amounts of genomic variation.  It’s an exciting time to be interested in biology!

Scientific Metaphysics & Its Consequences

In a recent comment, Fifthmonarchyman engaged with my accusation that his remarks on what brains can’t do is based on his ignorance of neuroscience. He responded by saying

it’s not about neuroscience it’s about ontology.

Brains don’t comprehend because they are not minds. I would think that someone so enamored with philosophy would have a handle on different categories of existence.

It is precisely as a philosopher that I want to express my complete rejection of the assumptions implicit in this remark.

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Is TSZ one of the Penumbra of Attack Sites?

As most know, our favourite author and commenter of incoherent word salad over at Uncommon Descent, He Who Shall Not Be Named, often makes reference to those nasty attack sites. More recently, he has referred to the penumbra of attack sites

i was was just wondering if people here thought that TSZ is one of these attack sites referred to by GEM.

 

 

Cumulative Selection Explained!

The battle over cumulative selection and Dawkins’ Weasel program has raged on for some months [years?] here at TSZ and across numerous threads. So can it possibly be that we now, finally, have a definitive statement about cumulative selection?

Mung: And whether or not my program demonstrates the power of cumulative selection has not been settled…

To which keiths responded:

keiths: Anyone who understands cumulative selection can see that it doesn’t, because your fitness functions don’t reward proximity to the target — only an exact match. The fitness landscapes are flat except for a spike at the site of the target.

So there you have it. You need a target and a fitness function that rewards proximity to the target.

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What is a decision?

Arcatia has stated that before any thought can occur, first there must be a chemical change in the brain.  So if before any decision is made, we first need a chemical change, then it is not really a decision, now is it?  It is merely a response to that chemical change, for which we have no control over.

 

On several occasions keiths has ducked and dodged away from this problem.  Arcatia now seems to want to run away from it, as has every other materialist here on this forum.  About the best you can hope for is some kind of obfuscated rant about what is meaning, what is will, how do we know we know, what’s the epistemological  nature of the epistemology…and on, and on the deflections to anything that could be considered an answer go.  Generally people here pretend that if you stick the suffix “sian” at the end of any name, you have said something profound.

 

So it deserves it own thread.  Let the bullshit answers speak for themselves.  In the end we will see if anyone actually tries to address it.  Its the toughest question for materialists to wiggle out of in my opinion.

Is language a search?

syntax_tree_for_colorless_green_ideas_sleep_furiosly

Given sentences can be expressed in a hierarchy / taxonomy that can have moveable, functional elements, are they amenable to exploitation / investigation by GAs? (We already know Markov Chains work – http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/idbots/ )

If All ideas can be expressed in language then could digitally evolved sentences be genuinely creative? It’s like genetic programming for people language 😀

H/T Mung.

A One Line GA

Please post your software implementation of a GA that can be expressed in a single line of executable code.

Here’s mine:

#

A minimalist GA – Inspired by Allan Miller at TSZ

#
pop = Array.new(10) {“I AM APE-ISCH”}.map! {|ape| ape.dup}

The original population is copied and eliminated.

Further Thoughts on the Evolution of Consciousness

Continuing a discussion I and one or two others were having in the thread vincent-torleys-disappearing-book-review it is of little surprise that those responding to what I said, along with many of the posters here, regard consciousness as a product of matter. I believe that it is the other way round. As with Owen Barfield and John Davy, I came to this conclusion many, many years ago, and for me like them, Rudolf Steiner was a big influence in solidifying this view. Here is an extract from an article about Owen Barfield from Richard A. Hocks

Barfield’s precoccupation with the history of consciousness is different from even the most saturated analyses of the past, such as Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis. Barfield maintains that, in any thoughtful consideration of evolution, it is both more reasonable and more illuminating to hold that mind, or consciousness, precedes matter rather than the reverse–though not individualized mind or self-consciousness. Not only does the origin of language point toward this supposition but also the content of the great myths, indeed even the very archetypes that a thinker like Jung explores so deeply yet without ever considering that that they might inhabit the world “outside” the human head–or a vast collection of human heads. In other words, evolution for Barfield begins with mind as anterior to matter, as a given “field” out of which, as it were, matter compresses. Barfield’s thesis herein does not merely challenge the Darwinian argument; in a sense it turns that argument on its head: for not only does mind precede and bring matter into being, and a form of intentionality replace chance-ridden natural selection, but the very same physical evidence used in support of the received position is never directly challenged or discredited, but interpreted differently…

Here are some words from John Davy (pseudonym, John Waterman) who gives an overview of Steiner’s thoughts on the evolution of physical life better than I ever could:

John Davy:

The evolution of man, Steiner said, has consisted in the gradual incarnation of a spiritual being into a material body. It has been a true “descent” of man from a spiritual world into a world of matter. The evolution of the animal kingdom did not precede, but rather ;accompanied; the process of human incarnation. Man is thus not the end result of the evolution of the animals, but is rather in a certain sense their cause. In the succession of types which appears in the fossil record-the fishes, reptiles, mammals, and finally fossil remains of man himself-the stages of this process of incarnation are reflected. Continue reading

The Tide Turns in Landlocked Ohio

Back in May of this year, Zack Kopplin reported that an Ohio school district was teaching creationism using a video from Harun Yahya. Yahya is the pseudonym of Adnan Oktar, an Islamic televangelist and creationist.

Hemant Mehta, The Friendly Atheist, notes the that new CEO of the Youngstown school district is putting a stop to that. Starting immediately, science classes in the district will conform to state standards. Creationism, including the intelligent design variant, are definitely not part of those standards.

It looks like a good start to the school year in Ohio.