Upright Biped,
Before fleeing the discussion in July, you spent months here at TSZ discussing your “Semiotic Theory of ID”. During that time we all struggled with your vague prose, and you were repeatedly asked to clarify your argument and explain its connection to ID. I even summarized your argument no less than three times (!) and asked you to either confirm that my summary was accurate or to amend it accordingly. You failed to do so, and you also repeatedly refused to answer relevant, straightforward questions from other commenters here.
Here is my most recent attempt at a summary of your argument, from July 22nd:
X1. All irreducibly complex systems are designed.
X2. All semiotic systems are irreducibly complex.
X3. Therefore, all semiotic systems are designed.Y1. A system involving representation(s) and protocol(s) is a semiotic system.
Y2. Protein synthesis involves a representation and a protocol.
Y3. Therefore, protein synthesis is a semiotic system.Z1. All semiotic systems are designed (by X3).
Z2. Protein synthesis is a semiotic system (by Y3).
Z3. Therefore, the protein synthesis system is designed.If you think this is an accurate summary, then tell us. If you don’t, then please make corrections while maintaining the explicit and concise format of the summary.
I reiterate the challenge, with special emphasis on the bolded part above. Note that since you claim that your argument is an argument for ID, it must lead to conclusion Z3 or something similar:
Z3. Therefore, the protein synthesis system is designed.
If it does not, then it fails as an argument for ID.
Also worth repeating are some observations I made earlier regarding your evasions:
Upright doesn’t realize how obvious his predicament is to the rest of us.
Suppose he had a strong argument (or at least thought that he did). Then he would have every reason to make his position clear and to answer questions forthrightly, secure in the knowledge that his argument would stand up to scrutiny and criticism. On the other hand, he would have no reason to evade or obfuscate, as doing so would only create the impression that his position was weak.
Now suppose that his argument is weak, and that Upright knows this. Clarifying his position in this case would be disastrous, as it would lay bare the flaws in his argument and render it vulnerable to decisive refutation. Evasion looks weak, but at least it allows him to pretend that his argument is strong and that the only problem is that people have failed to understand it properly.
So far Upright’s behavior matches the second scenario perfectly. We thus have every reason to believe that Upright’s argument is weak and that he knows it.
You can choose to evade and obfuscate, Upright, but be advised that we know exactly why you do it.
I invite you to prove me wrong. Either confirm that my summary above is correct, or amend it while maintaining its explicit and concise format so that it accurately represents your argument.
Clarify or evade. It’s your choice.
Upright BiPed and Mung would be terrible project managers.
How could you ask someone to perform a task you can’t properly describe?
Here’s a scenario kairosfocus could understand.
UB: We want you, Toronto and kairosfocus, to write a program for the batch processing on weekends, of data collected during the week.
Mung: And furthermore, the system must be real-time!
Toronto: What? I don’t understand what you want.
kairosfocus: What? I don’t understand what you want.
UB: Do you not understand what the term “batch processing” means?
Mung: And “real-time”, you understand that don’t you?
What do you think kairosfocus?
What do they want?
LOL. My first programming job was with a COBOL shop, working on a “real-time” batch system. The existing system had been designed for punch cards. The system when I arrived substituted terminals for the punch cards, but kept the 80 byte format of the cards. The goal of the system I worked on was to replace the 80 byte format with an interactive system, without changing anything about the actual way the system worked.
So we programmed a CICS system that duplicated all of the edits of the batch system in real time. In a sense we were predicting whether the transaction would process successfully.in the batch run. If not, we sent an immediate message explaining the problem. It was a 1982 forerunner of online banking. I don’t think anything has changed except the programming language and the terminal GUI.
It does not seem to me that there is “no material/physical connection between a codon and the effect it evokes”. It is precisely because the codon bases are molecules, not ‘representations’, that allows the damn thing to work at all – it all proceeds by physical binding and entropic gradients.
But I do agree that codon/amino acid assignments are ‘arbitrary’ – to a point. Where that gets us, heaven alone knows!
The core function of the ribosome complex is to physically align amino acids to a peptide chain, with various energies of binding and bonding providing the energy needed to drive peptidyl transferase against its thermodynamic gradient. It will even do it using small molecules such as puromycin (the base “A” with a tyrosine stuck to it) with -CCA aminoacylated with N-formyl methionine in place of peptidyl tRNA (the normal peptide chain with the ‘previous’ tRNA stuck to it). These are, effectively, charged tRNAs with, respectively, everything but the terminal base or the last 3 bases chopped off and discarded. Meaning: the anticodon is not essential for peptide bonding. The ‘effect’ – joining an acid to a chain – is achieved without any ‘code’ whatsoever, arbitrary or otherwise. This provides the possibility of nonspecific peptide synthesis – and if there is only one amino acid available, eg in early evolution, then this is all you need.
But reaction rates are greatly improved with better alignment, and this you get from the rest of tRNA, and mRNA. The energy of the binding that causes this alignment is doing the work of driving peptidyl transferase further in its ‘unnatural’ direction. Some of this free/activation energy comes from the energetic bond with which the acid is bound to the tRNA, some from the energy released when the tRNA follows a thermodynamic gradient and settles into a lowest-energy state, which is provided by docking with the mRNA codon with which its anticodon most strongly binds.
The ‘strongest binding’ codon for a particular tRNA is the one complementary to its anticodon. This is far from ‘arbitrary’. But the acid tacked onto the other end of this physical substance is arbitrary – it is not influenced by the anticodon (usually).
And that’s precisely why the damned thing can evolve! If there is no absolute chemical necessity for a particular pairing, it can start off general and become more acute, increasing the acid library and subdividing codon groups in a chemically conservative manner as it does so. The result: a ‘semi-arbitrary’ code, where neighbourhoods have similar chemical properties because evolutionary substitution was likely constrained to favour chemically conservative mass-substitutions over disruptive chemical novelty. And a gradual increase in specificity and versatility.
Even as a non-chemist it is obvious to me that all of UPB’s obfuscation is aimed at directing the argument away from chemistry.
What he wants to do is make an abstract model of the chemistry and derive its laws and behavior from the abstraction.
Early in the discussion I accused him of reifying an abstraction. That’s what I meant. He wants to determine what chemistry can and cannot do through apologetics. If it were not so pathetically transparent it would at least be amusing.
But what else can ID do? They cannot risk doing what Thornton did, which is examine two branches of an evolved sequence and see if there is a way to account for the steps leading to divergence without losing function.
Wow. Upright is desperate enough to quotemine within scrolling distance of the original. Not only that — he removed a sentence that was in bold in the original.
Upright:
Yet here’s the comment he is quotemining, which appears just five comments earlier:
I wonder — does he really think his readers won’t notice the quotemine? Or how terrified he is at the thought of clarifying his argument?
He goes on to bluster:
I guess he’s hoping that if he loudly accuses others of incontinence, no one will notice the warm puddle at his feet.
Meanwhile, we’re still waiting.
Upright,
If you believe that my summary is inaccurate, then modify it while maintaining its clarity and explicitness.
Or ask one of your “specialists” to do it. Or anyone else in the world who understands your argument and has better writing skills than you. Or answer onlooker’s questions so he or she can do the work for you.
Or, if you’re ashamed of your argument and would prefer to hide it, then keep evading.
I think this is pretty close to what that UD site is all about. It is clearly driven by sectarian apologetics and intense hatreds of “materialists,” “atheists,” and “Darwinists;” all of which are routinely conflated. They leave no doubt over there that those names are epithets.
As to their understanding of science, I think it is also pretty clear that not one of those who pontificate regularly over there understand any science at even an eighth grade level. The copy/paste routines are quite revealing. Those characters that do it the most are clearly not in command of any concepts whatsoever in science; they simply quote mine and copy/paste anything that appears to support their arguments.
It is also easy to see what attracts them to the stuff they quote mine. If it contains words like “information,” it is sure to be quote mined. But attaching “information” or “semiotic” to any well-understood scientific concept doesn’t suddenly change it into something else. Attaching “unicorn droppings” to the equations for calculating entropy doesn’t suddenly make unicorns any more real than attaching “information” or “semiotic” makes things designed.
It is rather peculiar to watch people who are presumably adults apparently believing that simply attaching different words to an equation or a physical phenomenon suddenly brings into existence the things with which those words are associated. That is a superstition more likely to be seen with small children or in primitive cultures.
Despite their attempts to disavow sectarian motives for pushing ID, they can’t seem to hide their sectarian angst; they just have to work it in somewhere in their rants about “materialist, Darwinistic, atheists.” Their assertions, that “materialists” are hanging onto “materialistic” explanations because they are avoiding their sectarian deity, ring hollow. That set of peculiar sectarian beliefs is simply one set among literally thousands of sectarian beliefs. Why is anyone obligated to give that set of sectarian beliefs any consideration at all, let alone primary consideration?
Daniel King asks Upright to indicate “what kind of specialists you were citing and what they said.”
Upright evades Daniel’s question by pretending that Daniel asked him to identify the specialists:
It’s also interesting that “specialists” (plural) seems to have become “specialist” (singular) over the last couple of days.
Upright on 9/12:
Upright on 9/14:
Upright, Daniel is not asking you to identify your specialists, whether they are really plural, as you’ve claimed, or singular. He’s asking you to indicate “what kind of specialists you were citing and what they said”.
Will you do that, or will you continue to pretend that he asked a different question?
Maybe Upright is simply saving time here. After all, if nothing he attributes can be associated with anyone in particular, he can confect whatever he finds suitable, and attribute it to “specialists” of whatever field he chooses. Sooner or later, someone is going to want to verify these claims by going straight to the source. And then, what if the source didn’t actually say any such thing (or doesn’t even exist)?
So by anticipating this kind of due diligence and heading it off at the pass, Upright is saved the annoyance of having to invent specialties or opinions of someone within them.
“We have top men working on it right now.”
“Who??”
“TOP men.”
Why does kairosfocus keep missing those obvious things?
Simply counting bits won’t do in the real world.
What information do we get if we count the growth rings in a tree trunk?
If we focus only on the bits, we get the number of growth seasons, but if we look at the width of them and the spaces between, we get to see what years were kinder to the growth of this tree.
If that extra “information” is not available as “bits”, does it exist?
In communications, we sometimes send KF’s 7 bit ASCII code with a parity bit that is set or reset.
The TX side loads a 7 bit value that is actually transmitted as 8 bits without the TX side knowing about it. The same thing happens on the RX side as the 8th bit is stripped when the RX side reads the data from the UART.
Not only is this 8th bit not part of the data stream, but it is completely dependent on the other 7 bits that we are concerned with.
That means that bit added no information that was not *already present* in the original 7 bits, in other words, that data bit is redundant.
Not only that, but its presence does not increase the amount of codes from 128 to 256 in the data stream, since its only purpose is to test the integrity of the physical switching of the comms circuitry.
You can still send only 1 of 128 codes despite the presence of this bit on comms line.
Let’s look at pi.
If I send you a value of pi expressed numerically with 1,000,000 bits of data, it will not be as accurate as sending the ASCII text, “Pi is the relationship of a circle’s diameter to it’s circumference”.
When we’re talking about “information” in the real world, “counting bits” doesn’t tell the whole story.
Then KF, you should be telling Dembski to “stick to his guns” in the face of “groupthink”.
Tell Dembski that if he thinks the science does not support a literal “Noah’s Flood” story, then he should refuse to knuckle under even if he gets fired or thrown out of his church.
Information is NOT simply something that can be modeled by mathematics or “counted as bits”.
The ID side needs it to be that way so they can come up with their silly “improbability” arguments.
Alright then, let’s count the bits in “Pi is the relationship between a circle and its diameter” and the first 1,000,000 bits in the value of Pi as calculated by our best and finest computers.
The information in the text stream contains information that is not only 100% accurate, but also gives us the information that allows us to calculate a NOT 100% value of PI, of 1 billion bits or a trillion bits if we feel like it.
The million bit representation of PI is NOT accurate and stops us in our tracks for further processing.
The text string is a lot shorter but contains “information” that can be extended bit-wise in this case to infinity.
So which “representation” contains more “information”?
“Bits” and math are used for modelling, but should not be directly considered to be real-world “information”.
And this is the chap giving lectures on ‘want of civility’? You disagree with ID, you can’t think for yourself, you’re lying or you’re mad. Take your pick.
Tremendous stuff!
— Mung’s first science lesson! 🙂 ——
* Scientist: You can’t just “count bits” for information.
* IDist: Why not?
* Scientist: Because “bits” only reflect the “unique” model you are working with. If you use a different model, you get a different number of bits due to a different way of “measuring” your information.
* Scientist: Let me show you with the help of my star student, Mung.
* Scientist: Mung, count the first million bits of Pi. How many bits do you get?
* Mung: Let’s see.., hmmm, …let me get my calculator, …mmm.. 1,000,000!
*Scientist: That’s right Mung! Good job!
*Scientist: Now count the number of bits in the string, “Pi is the relationship of a circle to its diameter”.
* Mung: Wow, looks like a lot less!
* Scientist: Yes, but the shorter “information” string, more accurately reflects what Pi is. As a matter of fact, it’s perfect!
* Scientist: So what did we learn Mung?
* Mung: That simply counting bits does not accurately reflect the amount of “real world information” that any particular model of reality reflects!
* Scientist: I’m shocked that you catch on so fast Mung! That’s why you’re my favourite student!
I keep asking for an example from the history of science where a phenomenon was explained by the activities of demiurges. There’s a rather famous letter by Newton putting forth this hypothesis, and a later response by Laplace. When I last brought this up in a discussion with KF, my posts suddenly stopped appearing. I’m still trying to figure out the point of this thread. Could we have a concrete example illustrating the point?
As ‘Upright Biped’s’ “Semiotic theory of Intelligent Design” does not seem to be gaining traction here (or anywhere else), could I just offer a little encouragement to ‘Upright Biped’.
Let me say, I admire your self-confidence and I congratulate you in maintaining it in the face of an unenthusiastic and sceptical audience. This could be due to the fact that everyone here is incapable of following your logic. On the other hand, referring you to the header:
Living in a country where the language is not the one I learned to speak as a child, I find that one way to avoid misunderstanding is to ask a question along the lines of “So you are saying…” and adding my guess as to what has been said.
It seems to me that Keiths is using a comparable strategy in an attempt to clarify what it is that is so obvious to you but less obvious to anyone else.
All you need to do, as I see it, is to address three points:
1) Clarify the logic. There is a set of processes. Some processes can be described as semiotic and some are not. The way to tell the difference is…?
Perhaps you need to explain what the difference is between a semiotic process and a process that is not semiotic. It would also help if you were to say something along the lines of “when I use the word ‘semiotic’ I mean …
2) Clarify the biochemistry. You seem to be suggesting that at least part of what goes on in protein synthesis is ‘semiotic’. Without a clarification about what you mean in the context of biochemical processes, it is not informative. You also use the words “symbols” and “protocols” but it is unclear how these map to biochemical processes.
3) Clarify how 1) and 2) lead to a conclusion of “Intelligent Design”. The suspicion is that 1,2 and 3 boil down to an argument from incredulity similar to Behe’s irreducible complexity and Dembski’s CSI that claim “intelligent design” by default.
Have you approached other ID proponents and asked for constructive criticism? Why not distill your ideas in to one monograph that you can refer to and link to as the definitive version of your argument? Biocomplexity.org seems a likely place that might consider publishing your ideas. Why not polish up your theory and submit it? At the very least, you could get some useful feedback.
It is entirely up to you what to do next, of course, but I think any fair observer is entitled to conclude that, so far, you have not succeeded in presenting a coherent case for a “semiotic theory of intelligent design”. Whether there is such a case to be made remains to be seen.
— I give Joe his first reading lesson. —
A) You **can’t just** “count bits” for information.
B) You **can’t** “count bits” for information.
We’ll ask Mung to mark Joe’s responses at UD.
Do “Sentence A” and “Sentence B” have the same meaning?
Which sentence did Joe use?
Which was the original sentence?
That’s a tough call.
Do you know why?
Because you “** can’t just **” count bits to determine that! 🙂
Try.
Good grief! I’m famous. Kairosfocus picks up on my previous comment to Upright Biped to start a thread taking issue with my point that the design inference is simply an argument from incredulity and all re-workings such as UB’s “semiotic” musings are variations on the same theme.
Remarkably, he does this by pointing out that Dembski’s “Explanatory Filter” requires TWO steps before arriving at the default conclusion! Apart from the minor issue that nobody, not Dembski even, can show any effective use of the EF procedure, what difference does the number of steps before assuming design as default make?
The voice of reason, in the form of gpuccio, adds in a comment:
He said it. It must be so!
link
In a further comment, gpuccio merely repeats the default-to-design argument.
Sure we can and it’s a question we keep asking you.
Show us empirical evidence of the designer, not implied probabilities against “Darwinism”.
If Sherlock Holmes thinks the butler did it, he looks for hard evidence. He doesn’t stop at his first hunch and claim the case is solved.
Since gpuccio claims the existence of a designer is supported by empirical evidence, let him show that evidence.
kairosfocus and Joe doesn’t claim to have any so this should be interesting.
Kairosfocus continues in the vain hope I am corrigible!
Kairosfocus gives me a dictionary definition confirming that “semiotics” refers to the theory and study of signs and symbols especially language and then makes the leap of faith to assert that the biochemical processes that result in protein synthesis are semiotic. Interactions between molecules involve their chemical properties; charge, conformation, level of hydrophilic and lipophilic residues etc. Nothing analogous to language goes on here. I respectfully remain unconvinced of UB’s argument from incredulity.
In the thread linked to above, Upright Biped paraphrases a design sceptic:
Again with the default argument. The correct answer to a question that we don’t yet know the answer to is we don’t know. We can be convinced that the “Intelligent Designer” has been at work, somehow, somewhere but there is no scientific justification in assuming it by default.
link
RUpright Biped responds at UD:
The crux of the process that results in the synthesis of a peptide chain of a particular sequence of amino acid residues is the various aminoacyl tRNA synthetases. Sure, one could say that the origin of the connection between each synthetase and amino acid was arbitrary. So?
This statement makes no sense. Could UB elaborate? The connection between each aatRNA synthetase and its amino acid residue is physical (material, if you like) and the system of protein synthesis works.
Well, it doesn’t violate any physical law.
So?
link
gpuccio:
Dr who: (b1) Also, all known intelligent designers have that property, and it’s a prerequisite for their existence. That’s an observation, gpuccio and KF, not an ideology. With inductive/abductive reasoning, it’s important to make all the relevant observations that we can.
The first abductive hypothesis that you might have come up with is that humans, as the only established “source” of this dFSCI, are responsible for all of it. That would be the stronger abduction, but it’s easily falsified. You’ve gone from inferring A as the source of all B, when A is the only observed source of B, to inferring that C is the source of D, when C and D can be seen as analogous to A and B. Making up a description like dFSCI to cover both life and our digital artifacts is like using the description “waterways” to cover both rivers and canals in an attempt to infer that rivers are intelligently designed by unknown designers because we make canals. They (rivers) weren’t.
Any induction, however weak, could be described as scientifically “valid” at the hypothesis level. I have no problems with that.
Hold your horses! Apart from the demonstrably weak induction, you’ve forgotten that biological information is an apparent prerequisite for intelligent designers. (Observation, not ideology).
As you can see from my observations, no ideology is required to reasonably dismiss your hypothesis as very unlikely to be correct. Are you sure you’re not projecting when you see “ideology”? 🙂
Again, kairoscfocus brings up his pet term “FSCO/I”.
Please, KF, if function X was specified in advance, *who* specified function it?
Was it a perfect implementation?
At what level of failure do we accept that the specification was not met?
How can we calculate what the “acceptable” functionality is?
We routinely see unacceptable performance from human designs, but how do we test the acceptability of the “designers” design?
Since we can do this for human design, why the fear of judging the “designer”?
Why does everything related to human design specs not also apply to the “designer”?
ID is biased towards their “designer” because if they weren’t, they would treat him and his designs like we do the human equivalent.
ID is not science, period.
As long as you don’t take the step of being as critical with your own “theories” as mainstream scientists are with theirs, we stand a good chance of keeping you out of school science programs forever.
But that’s an immediate loss for your side Joe.
“IF only humans generate X” THEN “before humans, X could not be generated”.
What’s not to like about their designer? He can do anything for any reason. He is not limited by time or space or resources. Not limited by any need or desire to minimize pain and suffering.
You criticize their designer and they storm your embassies.
I’ll bet Upright Biped is breathing a sigh of relief. KF’s new thread is deflecting attention away from Upright’s abject failure to show, using his “Semiotic Theory of ID”, that the protein synthesis system is designed.
Do you suppose Barry will move Upright’s thread back to the top of the page to give him another chance?
Well, what’s his beef? Until we show molecules doing … something undemonstrable in real time, to a spec we do not know, ‘our position’ has nothing. So there is a kind of symmetry there.
Of course, UB’s fundamental issue is that he cannot conceive of a mechanism by which ‘disorganised molecules’ can establish ‘the symbol system’. and the ‘information processing machinery’. I can. But then, he doesn’t appear to know much about molecular interaction or the general field of biochemistry. He is convinced, right down to his boots, that life is not possible without protein, and protein is not possible without the modern system of 20 aaRSs, 50-61 tRNAs, a ribosome and mRNA. As are most ID-ers. Meh.
If he doesn’t, it’ll be Barry who shoulders the loss!
It means that you’ve just said that Upright BiPed’s claim that “information transfer” requires an “instantiation of matter” is false.
You make it sound like people have to actually be of above average intelligence to understand ID is really “Biblical creationism”.
Does that mean you’ll come back here for a second attempt?
gpuccio:
To gpuccio: “Apparent” is the point. That is how we can distinguish between observation and ideology. Your mechanism, I think we both agree, is one or more non-living intelligent designers. You cannot reach an induction to the best explanation of the OOL without establishing that the genre exists. If you want to use humans as examples, that’s fine. But you need to base your view that we intelligently design things with non-material minds on observation rather than “ideology” and/or arguments like “lots of people believe it”.
Are there any established example of humans continuing to execute intelligent designs in this world after they are brain dead? If not, on what positive evidence are you making your case?
I agree that things like “NDEs” should be central to I.D. research. Has anyone claimed to have designed something digital during one of these?
Do you agree with me that the existence of non-living intelligent beings has not yet been established by observation?
Do you agree with the observation that dFSCI is a prerequisite in all established cases of executed intelligent design? (Examples: humans making cars and, from Kairosfocus, beavers making dams).
Steve:
UB flees TSZ for UD, from which we are all banned, and we can’t take the heat?
Is it any wonder UB’s argument appeals to Steve?
Do you have any evidence “intelligent design” is actually possible as opposed to being simply a concept?
In some operating systems, a linker performs run-time binding for downloaded modules so that some software components of the system can be updated while still running.
This would be necessary for any biological modification on a living system by a designer.
At what point would this download occur?
How would you propagate this change through a population?
Would the same modification have to be made billions of times throughout history?
Where would you keep a log of who got the update?
How would the designer keep track of modifications that were not compatible?
Joe, you need to ask kairosfocus about how feedback is used within a system.
“Natural selection” works like feedback in evolution.
Am attribute that helps your population survive is “positive” feedback while an attribute that prevents your population from surviving, is “negative” feedback.
Again, you don’t need to take my word for it, just ask KF.
But you can’t just focus on the organism.
If the environment changes, what used to be positive feedback may become negative and what was negative may pay off with better survival.
It is the environment that “controls” the feedback loop, not the organism.
Organisms AND environment are the system.
You are right about generation to generation feedback but the feedback loop works on the system level like this:
[A]<———feedback loop from B to A————[B]
[A]—->(organism/environment)—–>[B]
Of course “feedback” does something.
Radio receivers wouldn’t work well without “feedback” that they get from simply monitoring the strength of the RF signal received.
An overly successful “predator” population will get “feedback” from an unsuccessful “prey” population in the form of less available food resources which will cause the “predator” population to decline eventually leading to a recovery of the “prey” population.
“Natural selection” is simply a term used to describe the success or failure of certain populations.
There is no claim that “natural selection” does something the way an “intelligent designer” does.
Your side has a bigger problem in that your “designer” is as “blind” as you claim “natural selection” to be.
If he can’t see the future functionality required, how does he know *what* to design?
Power corrupts!
LOL. The non-moderator voice in the ceiling.
Upright lays down the gauntlet:
Onlooker accepts the challenge:
Upright regrets laying down the gauntlet and tries to change the subject:
Upright,
You made the challenge. Onlooker accepted it. Now you’re trying to change the subject. What was that were you saying about ‘guts’?
You sound like Monty Python’s “Black Knight”! 🙂
Wait a minute!
gpuccio has refuted UB.
Mung declares victory:
Mung,
It’s a bit premature to claim victory when the game hasn’t even started. We’re still waiting for Upright (or anyone else, including you) to present an intelligible argument for ID using the “Semiotic Theory of ID.” Then we can see if it stands up to critical scrutiny. Until that happens, declarations of victory are just hot air.
When I attempted to summarize Upright’s argument and asked him to amend my summary so that it accurately reflected what he was trying to say, he refused.
When onlooker offered to write a summary, Upright refused to answer onlooker’s questions.
When I asked Upright to get one of his “specialists” to write a concise, explicit and anonymous summary of his argument, he refused. His excuse was that he wasn’t willing to reveal the identity of “that person”, even though nobody had asked him to.
When I asked Upright to get anyone at all to summarize his argument, provided that they had better writing skills than he, he refused.
He seems to be so ashamed of his argument that he will do anything to avoid revealing it.
Perhaps you are braver, Mung. Can you present an intelligible argument for why the protein synthesis system is designed, using the “Semiotic Theory of ID”?
Gpuccio starts out well, but seems to think you can eliminate false positives simply by counting bits without regard to the question of how the bit stream originated. Lots of functional bits means they couldn’t possibly have accumulated via evolution.
Assuming what you need to prove, GP.
Why not start at the other end and demonstrate a method of originating coding sequences without evolving them?
Show us that design is feasible without evolution.
My first comment on the first of these threads at TSZ:
Responding to UB’s item number 1:
RB:
UB ignored this teeny little problem.