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.
So Joe is suggesting, in his masterful way, that early organisms did need proteins to make proteins? And he has some reason to suppose this beyond the undoubted fact that modern ones do?
I love it when I get the “blah, blah, blibbidy-blibbidy,blah” response. Joe can’t think of anything to say, Joe still has to say something.
‘Scuse me, Mr Focus! How does discussing the actual features of the actual system, plausible means by which such features could indeed have arisen without ‘semiotic choice’, and the very real molecular limitations upon even the most able of designers operating within physics, amount to ‘distraction’ from the thrust of UB’s argument as presented? Not to mention the entirely legitimate coach-and-horses that can be driven through the fundamental logic (Essentially: I have never found an X that did not also have quality Y, therefore all X’s have quality Y. And this is an X if I ever saw one.).
I wonder if anyone ever presented an ID argument you didn’t buy hook, line and sinker?
You would think it would be detectable as a skew or anomaly in the distribution. Best leave it to Providence, and not attempt an explanation. At least Biblical Creationists aren’t afraid to state a mechanism.
And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. — Genesis 2:7
I feel this is their main strength – the fact that there is no central repository of what ID is. There are as many versions of ID as there are ID supporters. As many mechanisms as can be imagined including “design” itself!
And yet they then can point to that cloud of non-explanations as their explanation! Look, it’s a cloud! Clouds are things, things are not nothing therefore ID is not nothing!
Yes, if we were all on UD, by now, MOST of us would OFF UD.
There’s nothing like showing onlookers how poor and badly thought out the ID position is.
UB has still not shown how the first “arbitrary semiotic codes” get downloaded into a cell.
If he can’t do that, why should onlookers believe the “semiotic codes” are truly “arbitrary”?
The really interesting question is why no one in the ID community is asking UPB to publish his theory at ENV or Bio-Complexity.
Isn’t that the whole ID schtick?
“Somewhere there must have been arbitrariness. If ever we can show that arbitrariness, THAT’S where the designer dunnit. Hallelujah!”
I don’t know if it’s even possible to prove past arbitrariness, but it sure as heck is going to be difficult.
UB, of course, blithely assumes it.
What’s the difference between arbitrary and contingent?
The best I can get out of UPB’s months of ranting is that the genetic code couldn’t have evolved. His opinion, embedded in mountains of philosobabble. Does he actually think he has a new idea?
Good point!
Has Behe been informed of UB’s theory?
Maybe someone should tell him about.
Behe and UB could become that point in history where ID finally gets the credibility it’s seeking.
You definitely did NOT show us any ID courage when you refused to take a stab at providing evidence for the downloading of the first “arbitrary semiotic codes” and the “onlookers” have noted that.
They see us asking you for mechanisms and your side providing none.
Cowardice? Aren’t there rules about name-calling on UD – poster-children for want of civility and all that stuff?
I’d be more than happy to debate on UD, but I find myself unable to post there any more, for reasons unknown. Meanwhile UBP says that he is happier with the ‘arm’s-length’ style, where he chooses not to continue here and we are disbarred from going there. So … we is kind of stuck with the circumstances we is stuck with, Cap’n.
All manner of things in biology are ‘arbitrary’. The specific sequences of ubiquitin or histones aren’t absolutely essential to enable their biochemical roles, yet they are among the most highly conserved proteins around (and non-catalytic – who’d a-thought it?). Many other sequences could have done the same basic job (molecular tag and DNA packaging spool respectively).
But they have become so deeply embedded within multiple systems that to change them now would be catastrophic. Kind of like (a metaphor I have used elsewhere) the http:\\ tag. It’s arbitrary but now unvariable. So … would that fundamental arbitrariness mean that ubiquitin can’t have evolved? UBP? Joe? KF?
More excuses from Upright at UD:
People do think you’re afraid to clarify it. You have at least four options to choose from, any of which would clarify your argument. If you were confident, you’d just pick one and be done with it. Yet you refuse. Of course people think you’re afraid.
Option 1:
Here’s my nine-line summary again, for your convenience:
Do you agree with this summary? If so, tell us. If not, then amend it while maintaining its explicit and concise format.
Option 2 involves answering onlooker’s questions, which obviously makes you very uncomfortable, so let’s skip that one for now.
You wrote:
Oh, good! That means you can choose option 3:
How about it, Upright? Get one or more of these specialists to write up your argument, showing how the “Semiotic Theory of ID” demonstrates that the protein synthesis system was designed. They can post anonymously, of course, or you can post their write-ups for them. Just make sure that they have better writing skills than you and that they follow the concise and explicit format I used in my summary.
You continue:
Oh, good! That means you can choose option 4:
How about it? You can ask Barry or anyone else to do it for you.
Your own statements show that even if you refuse to answer onlooker’s questions, you’re in a position to choose any of the other three easy options for clarifying your argument.
Or you can refuse to clarify, thus confirming our suspicions about your lack of confidence.
PS: Don’t forget: if it doesn’t lead to a conclusion of design, it’s not a “Semiotic Theory of ID”.
You cannot “determine X” without testing whether X is possible.
Case 1) X = “Darwinism”. Should we exclude putting “Darwinism” to the test to see if it is possible?
Case 2) X = “Design”. Should we exclude putting “Design” to the test to see if it is possible?
You yourself claim “Darwinism” fails the test of being a possibility which means you did the test.
Why would any onlooker or student accept your not putting design to the same scrutiny?
Get some courage and show the onlookers you treat science with respect.
Why don’t you want to show how wrong Allan’s position is?
If Allan could post, you could show everyone there how wrong he is.
Instead, you seem to be happy that he can’t.
As KF would say, “Very telling”.
It is incredible to me that UB still thinks onlookers believe this!
Let me demonstrate.
1) UB: 2 + 3 = 6.
2) RB: No, that is not a valid use of the “+” operator.
3) UB: Does 5 + 5 = 10?
4) RB: Yes, that is a valid use of the “+” operator.
5) UB: AHAAA! You concede that 1) is valid!
🙂
Do you see where you went wrong UB?
Does any onlooker agree with UB that RB conceded 1) was valid?
Joe:
Excellent. I choose ‘not’, then. That was easy.
Are you saying we can “determine Darwinism” without testing whether “Darwinism” is possible?
Your favourite argument, that we have “no evidence that Darwinism is possible”, becomes useless.
UB loves to speak in military metaphors, particularly “the flanking maneuver.” But what was most apparent in his flight from the TSZ back to the bosom of UD was “disorganized rout.”
Most salient in UB’s UD posts since beating that hasty retreat is that he prefers to reside in a bizarrely distorted recollection of the recent past, rather than address the questions that were on the table at the time of his departure, and that prompted his disappearance.
Namely: Keiths’ request, and the following:
Upright Biped, please tell us what class of mechanisms you, or semiotic theory, assert is required to create (result in, cause) the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state.
Also, please tell us what class of mechanisms you, or semiotic theory, claim cannot create the entailments/the TRI/a semiotic state.
Justify those claims.
Lastly, if the entire output of your efforts is “it will therefore require a mechanism capable of establishing a semiotic state” yet semiotic theory is silent on mechanism/causation – what good is it?
But you Joe, have accepted design without testing whether it is possible.
How do you get the first “arbitrary semiotic codes” into the cell?
Nothing like prejudging the issue, eh? I’m presuming you mean that I have no vial of cells busily making peptide bonds using an all-RNA system, perhaps? Or a system you can watch in real time moving from monotonous peptidyl transferase linkage to a versatile mRNA-docking multi-acid library? Or evidence that LUCA was not functionally close to the very first cells?
Your case seems to hinge upon what cells do now being, in the fundamentals, what cells have always done. Modern cells are the only cells we can study. And they cannot make protein without protein. As for history … we can simply deny it! All of it, if necessary – dead cells can’t talk!
This all seems to be victory by repeated denial. Regardless of anything anyone says, it is possible to keep returning “you have no evidence”, or “you have not refuted the material observations” till Doomsday. I could pursue a case that Hitler was Welsh in like manner. I have put it before specialists and they concur.
Yet ‘naturalistic’ evolution is the accepted paradigm throughout academia – even of the sainted Genetic Code. I can think of just two biochemists who might demur – Behe and Fazale Rana (the second isn’t really). And I don’t think either of them would be so ignorant as to commence with the assertion that there was no evidence on the opposing side. You may not have seen the evidence, or may not be sufficiently literate in the field to appreciate its significance, but this is a big topic in the literature, and a bold statement indeed that there is ‘no evidence’ that it evolved. Have either of them commented on the Semiotic Theory of ID vis a vis protein evolution?
No-one in biology is bothered by the presence of translated protein in the protein translation system. Is that because they are ideologues, or because they are capable of recognising that plausible mechanisms can readily account for it? aaRSs, in particular, appear to be much younger than proteins of their type. If they were fundamental, they would be expected to be among the oldest proteins.
Would an all-RNA system be any less ‘semiotic’? If it did not have to code for a repertoire of amino acids in early versions, then yes it would – despite the relationship between tRNA, acid and charging enzyme/ribozyme being eternally ‘arbitrary’, due simply to separate binding domains. The acid is stuck on the tRNA like solder on a soldering iron. The rest of it snuggles into the ribosome, with modern affinity for specific triplets. But since neither end of tRNA is a ‘representation’ of the other, those ends can change independently.
Now, I have no such system in my back pocket. And it is an ‘arbitrary relationship instantiated in matter’, and ‘unambiguous’ (or nearly so) in its modern form, so if that is all you want conceded, I think everybody conceded that months ago. But the real issue is evolvability, and I don’t think you have done anything to support your case that it isn’t evolvable, by virtue of arbitrariness, ‘semiosis’, proven irreducible complexity or anything else.
Allan,
That’s good enough for Upright!
Upright just unleashed a flurry of lies, hoping to divert attention away from his failure to provide an argument showing that the protein synthesis system is designed.
It’s not working, Upright.
And by the way, this excuse is pitiful:
No one is asking you to identify anyone. Read what I wrote:
Please, no more dishonest excuses.
Which is precisely what I’m asking, how do you do that?
Here’s a cell.
Download some “arbitrary semiotic codes” into it.
Do you understand what all the readers are expecting?
They want to see how it’s possible.
Step up Joe.
How is it done?
The irony is that it means that ubiquitin is anything but the needle in a giant haystack or the island in a giant ocean that KF keeps inventing to support his views. “Arbitrariness” is bad news for I.D.
So far, in relation to I.D., Upright Biped has merely presented us with an unsupported claim: that Darwinian evolution cannot take place without a “semiotic system” (by his definition) in place. Not only is it unsupported, but he may well have inadvertantly refuted it himself. He eliminated autocatalytic molecules from his definition of recorded information.
Would Upright Biped like to explain on U.D. or here why an autocatalytic molecule that replicates with the occasional variation cannot exist? That would be necessary to his claim. If he agrees that they can exist, he should retract the claim. Which would mean there’s nothing left, although we could certainly have an interesting discussion on what systems it can be useful to describe as “semiotic”, and on biosemiotics in general. But that’s got nothing to do with I.D.
UPB is counting on slow progress in chemistry, and indeed many chemists are pessimistic about OOL progress. I view this as a tremendous hurdle for design. Other than an omniscient god, what designer has the index to the Library of Babel? The one that stores all the emergent properties of all possible molecules?
Yes, but I also realize that biology is NOT like a computer.
UB’s claim is that the cell contains “arbitrary semiotic codes”.
If that is the case, there are many hurdles that have to be addressed to “download” those “arbitrary” codes.
The first hurdle is determining what to download. Unless you know the exact configuration that will work, your “download/test” cycles will exceed the UPB and design fails.
The second hurdle is downloading itself.
If you have a cell without data, how can you consider it alive yet?
If the cell is NOT yet alive, how do you start its life processes after the download?
Does it start living automatically after only a portion of the download is complete?
If so, does that mean part of the “code” is junk?
If it waits for the download to complete, does a “reset function” have to be activated?
There are a lot of questions that suggest the theory that the cell contains “arbitrary semiotic codes”, is lacking in substance.
You don’t have to load the code Joe, just address some of the high level issues.
Since “download/test” cycles will exceed the UPB, you have to see into the future to hit your “specified complexity” target.
Joe,
Here is your problem in a nut-shell.
KF, like most IDists, you reach a conclusion before vetting your premises!
A one word answer to your faulty “software only” conclusion is: “2708”. 🙂
Actually, IF we were to model the cell as a computer, it would be more accurate to call DNA a “look-up table”.
In other words, UB’s “arbitrary semiotic codes” would provide a level of indirection for conversion in this model.
This still begs the question, “How do you download the data” ?
Not only did I not say that, but if I did, would that do anything to change the fact that you were wrong about “RB” conceding your point?
In desperation, you are trying to equate possible errors in issue X as having something to do with a completely separate issue Y.
RB did not concede that your first usage, your “invalid” usage, was a “valid” usage.
He said that your *other* usage, your *second* usage, was “valid”, not the *first* “usage” which is *still* “invalid”.
How would slow progress in chemistry help Upright Biped support his claim that Darwinian evolution cannot take place without a “semiotic system” in place? He can’t make the claim if the chemistry hasn’t been done. That unsupported claim is his “theory” of I.D.
I see the observation that intelligence is a biological phenomenon as the biggest hurdle in the way of any intelligent design inference relating to the origins of biological phenomena. And that’s an observation, not a philosophy or an ideology, and people like KF and UB should learn to distinguish observation from ideology.
If I was teacher, I would give KF an “F” for the above.
First off, TX and RX are peer nodes in communications, they do NOT belong to two different classes of objects.
You can’t say TX is a “representation of information” and RX a “protocol”.
How can you have a “protocol” which only the receiving port is a part of?
This is an example of how a simple protocol actually works:
>>>successful transfer:
TX: <slave address><packet number><length><data><CRC>
RX:<host address><packet number><ACK>
>>>unsuccessful transfer:
TX: <slave address><packet number><length><data><CRC>
RX:<host address><packet number><NAK>
This is how a “protocol” works.
Notice that the “data” is of no concern and might be composed of “arbitrary semiotic codes”.
TX and RX are two separate intelligent nodes both making decisions to facilitate the transfer.
Where is that in a cell?
Slow progress in science gives creationists a chance to sell their books and get out of town.
Perhaps UBP would be kind enough to offer up a counterexample to the material observation that intelligence requires a material, biological substrate.
I expect your side to be looking for answers but the response is always, “Once design is implied, we don’t need mechanisms”.
That won’t do since science textbooks would then have nothing teach outside of, “Let there be life!”.
Look at your own conclusions critically hard enough to say, “Wait a minute, that may not be possible. “
Then find a way around it.
If you keep coming up with roadblocks that you can’t solve at even a very high conceptual level, your theory has a problem.
Your first problem is, how do we know what to load?
How would you solve that?
You have two choices, trial and error like human designers, or by knowing exactly “what will happen” before it actually happens.
Upright is still desperately trying to avoid any clarification of his argument. Who knew desperation could be so boring?
I’ve asked Upright at least a half a dozen times:
Onlooker pointed this out, and Upright replied:
Let’s take a look at that so-called “response”:
Did he “modify it while maintaining its clarity and explicitness”? No. Has he ever done so? No. (“You think otherwise? Post the link.” Heh.) Will he ever “modify it while maintaining its clarity and explicitness”? Doubtful. He appears to be afraid that if he does, then its flaws will become obvious and it will be shot down immediately.
Upright,
When will you stop trying to lead us down rabbit holes and face up to your responsibility? It’s your “Semiotic Theory of ID.” It’s your responsibility to support your claims. Can you use the “Semiotic Theory of ID” to show that the protein synthesis system is designed?
If you can’t, then just admit it. You aren’t the first ID proponent who worked on an idea for years, only to have it explode in a ball of flames a few seconds after liftoff.
Ah, more hilarity! People trying to make the reality work like their metaphor. Transcription/translation is a ‘program’? Downloadable and everything? Not just like a program? The filling in my latest chuckle sandwich.
KF, are you saying that the mechanism for downloading “arbitrary semiotic codes” is comprised partly of a serial link?
How long would it take to download all the “bits” at the maximum speed that biological processes allow?
That’s exactly what “keiths” did and UB didn’t like it.
It appears you are on “keiths” side here, and not on UB’s.
That’s how I understand it.
Am I right?
How do you ‘download’ a molecule? I mean, really? Molecules are matter. They interact, and retain their own integrity, via forces. They respond to those forces and shed energy, following thermodynamic gradients. They don’t need ‘programming’ to do that. Of course, not every molecular configuration will form a self-replicating chemical system, one that creates copies of itself in following those gradients, by harnessing an energy source that scoots them up the thermodynamic hill.
But I can’t even conceive of how they think you could ‘download’ a molecular system that can. I can buy that one could conceive of it being constructed (though I think engineers, both hard and soft, are utterly clueless if they try to simply scale down their experience to molecular-scale interactions. Physics does not scale).
Because Barry won’t let us post there! 🙂
Barry knows a thing or two about keeping hard questions away from the pro ID crowd.
That is very light on specification.
Typically, we get a spec and then the project manager helps guide the project.
Sometimes the spec is adjusted to the realities of the project and this is the main problem for any design process.
The spec does not accurately reflect what is required and sometimes, what is possible.
We need to know, before we deliver something, what functionality is required and what will be accepted because in real life design, we rarely get it right the first time.
This is where ID misses the mark.
It claims that “specific functionality” is 100% attained and that is not the case at all.
Ask KF.
Even when we are within 90% of the target, that missing 10% is 90% of the headaches.
That’s why I’ve asked you to take a stab at imagining how any biological design might be accomplished.
It shows that ID has a huge problem unless it can foresee the future.
If the “Intelligent Designer” can’t foresee the future, he will exceed the UPB on his failed attempts.
Toronto:
But infected with a problems that are equally fatal: It only works if you assume your conclusions, and is therefore useless for “successful confirmation” or generating other testable inferences.
Me:
Joe:
I’d say that if you have an ‘artificial ribosome’ and it does not function, you probably do not have an artificial ribosome. You have a piece of RNA. A non-functioning artificial ribosome is much like my artificial heart made of lettuce, my sundial with the ice gnomon and my sand car. It does not become what you say it is just because you say it.
It’s not ‘programming’ that is lacking, it is the correct molecular configuration to perform ribosome function. Chemistry is not programming. Programming, meanwhile, is not chemistry.
KF
Thanks for the Youtube pointer, but I, like many of those people stuck in their ‘comfortable ideology’, learnt my biology at a university. You know, big building, full of bumfluffy students and beardy eggheads? And I write code for a living. So I have kind of learnt to tell the difference, over the years.
What you describe in that and the succeeding paragraphs is a modern cell. It is no surprise to anyone that they are complex, integrated, controlled. But chemistry is still not programming.
The rest of the post is a roundup of KF’s usual suspects – Divine Feet, ideologues, afraid of God, Lewontin, civilisation heading over the cliff if they don’t buy Divine Programmers and, for perhaps the thousandth time, red herrings and “intoxicating smoke of burning ad hominem soaked strawmen”. And New Atheists! ID is not Creationism? You’re sure about that?
It all looks quite desperate, as an attempt to show how desperate ‘evolutionists’ are. They elucidated every step of every process he looks upon as programmatic marvels, but “thanks very much scientists, but I think we programmers/engineers can see what’s really going on in the cell (indulgent chuckle). It’s all here in Wikipedia”.
Why do we even need a ‘theory’ of ID, semiotic or otherwise, when you can just crank up the KF Assert-o-Matic?
Do you feel your ideology is as threatened as you say mine is?
Dembski’s bosses at the University where he worked called him onto the carpet for Dembski claiming there was no science to back up a literal “Noah’s Ark” story.
Are you on Dembski`s “science side” or the University`s “ideology side”?
This is not my idea, but it bears repeating often. The problem with ID is not that it is wrong but that it doesn’t suggest any research.
Research looks for regularities in nature, not miracles.
There is one other thing about ID that is cockeyed if not outright wrong, and that is its characterization of design as something analogous to a miracle. For a more balanced view of the design and invention process, google “I, pencil.” This is the kind of process that got Darwin thinking about incremental change and invisible hands. It’s a bit ironic that politically conservative people cannot accept Adam Smith’s idea.
Ah, invisible hand, Divine hand, what’s the difference?
I see UB’s problem.
He uses the term “arbitrary” in a way that it is easily understood, but the relationship he’s claiming exists is not properly described as “arbitrary”.
What is “arbitrary” are the “codes” we have assigned, but chemically, the “relationship” and the “effects” are physically connected.
Is this understandable and does it make sense?
Adam Smith is all about complex things — products and social structures — assembling without a central plan.
Depending on your temperament this is either a loose metaphor that triggered the idea of natural selection, or it is a general principle governing systems that are governed by feedback.
I once had a “discussion” with someone at UD about the invention of the light bulb. He could not grasp the notion that light bulbs were a laboratory plaything for a hundred years before someone undertook an exhaustive search of materials looking for a suitable filament. the key invention was the exhaustive search as a method.
Now my opinion is not science, but it seems consistent with things being said by scientists. Based on comments by Lenski regarding his long- running experiment, evolution is capable of doing exhaustive searches of nearby sequences. That seems to be the best documented way of .inventing new alleles. There are, of course, several possible kinds of mutations, but they all are “nearby” in the sense that they don’t suddenly produce a flagellum from zilch.