No Free lunch pages 148-49
Biological specification always refers to function. An organism is a functional system comprising many functional subsystems. In virtue of their function, these systems embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the same sense required by the complexity-specification criterion (see sections 1.3 and 2.5). The specification of organisms can be crashed out in any number of ways. Arno Wouters cashes it out globally in terms of the viability of whole organisms. Michael Behe cashes it out in terms of minimal function of biochemical systems. Darwinist Richard Dawkins cashes out biological specification in terms of the reproduction of genes. Thus, in The Blind Watchmaker Dawkins writes, “Complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance, that is highly unlikely to have been acquired by random chance alone. In the case of living things, the quality is specified in advance is…the ability to propagate genes in reproduction.”
The central problem of biology is therefore not simply the origin of information but the origin of complex specified information. Paul Davies emphasized this point in his recent book The Fifth Miracle where he summarizes the current state of origin-of-life research: “Living organisms are mysterious not for their complexity per se, but for their tightly specified complexity.” The problem of specified complexity has dogged origin-of-life research now for decades. Leslie Orgel recognized the problem in the early 1970s: “Living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals such as granite fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; mixtures of random polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity.”
Where, then, does complex specified information or CSI come from, and where is it incapable of coming from? According to Manfred Eigen, CSI comes from algorithms and natural laws. As he puts it, “Our task is to find an algorithm, a natural law that leads to the origin of [complex specified] information.” The only question for Eigen is which algorithms and natural laws explain the origin of CSI. The logically prior question of whether algorithms and natural laws are even in principle capable of explaining the origin of CSI is one he ignores. And yet it is this very question that undermines the entire project of naturalistic origins-of-life research. Algorithms and natural laws are in principle incapable of explaining the origin of CSI. To be sure, algorithms and natural laws can explain the flow of CSI. Indeed, algorithms and natural laws are ideally suited for transmitting already existing CSI. As we shall see next, what they cannot do is explain its origin. (bold added)
The very next section, section 3.8 is titled “The Origin of Complex Specified Information”- yes that means there is more evidence that CSI pertains to origins.
If anyone has something to the contrary then please post it. Otherwise let’s stop beating this horse.
Please remember the rules, folks. Rule-breaking comments will be moved to guano.
I see that as evidence that CSI pertains to fiction (making up stuff as you go along) and to Christian apologetics.
How many ID threads are you going to start then bail out on FrankenJoe? That you don’t understand ID or evolution is blatantly obvious. That’s why you run from every question.
In The Design of Life (2008) complex specified information is “information that is both complex and specified. Synonymous with SPECIFIED COMPLEXITY.” p. 311
specified complexity An event or object exhibits specified complexity provided that (1) the pattern to which it conforms identifies a highly improbable event (i.e., has high PROBABILISTIC COMPLEXITY) and (2) the pattern itself is easily described (i.e., has low DESCRIPTIVE COMPLEXITY). Specified complexity is a type of INFORMATION. p 320
I don’t see any hint that it must pertain to origins. Chapter 7 is on Specified Complexity. I’ll take a look at that next.
Now there’s a definition which sums up the entire scientific value offered by ID. 😀
This is a job for the turbo deconfabulator.
Perhaps I misunderstand the point of the OP, but if it’s that CSI doesn’t apply to Darwinian evolution I’d have to disagree.
For example:
Who let the trolls out?
“Design theorists, far from trying to make it difficult to evolve irreducibly complex systems such as the bacterial flagellum, strive to give the Darwinian selection mechanism every legitimate advantage for evolving such systems. The one advantage that cannot legitimately be given to the Darwinian selection mechanism, however, is prior knowledge ofthe system whose evolution is in question. That would be endowing the Darwinian mechanism with teleological powers…” (p 182)
Why are we talking about csi like its a real thing?
The scientifically literate here aren’t. FrankenJoe brought it up and good little ID foot-soldier Mung bravely jumped in to squirt squid ink.
Adapa,
None of the work has been done to take it or them seriously
If my fellow IDists wish to promote ID through CSI, that’s up to them, but I think Mathgrrl/Patrick demonstrated it will likely be a fruitless approach.
When I teach ID to the children of YECs in my church, I start with the law of large numbers, not CSI. They get it very quickly. If I took them down the CSI route, they’ll just be banging their heads and not computing any thing useful as Mathgrrl/Patrick showed.
Sorry to tell you Sal but your “law of large numbers” and phony probability calculations are just as much bullshit as CSI and just as worthless.
LLN is real. I’m not sure it helps UD though, because there may be ‘many winning hands’ and they are not necessarily spontaneously generated.
I fail to see how LLN is relevant to biological evolution. Nothing in biology is hampered by probabilities.
Sal managed to get past bogus 2LoT arguments. Will he ever figure out how evolution works?
You are absolutely right and that is a spot on piercing insight which my pro-ID associates don’t adequately deal with. There are an infinite number of ways to implement a replicating system….
Instead the UD crowd, especially in KF, has been in full Turbo Encabulator mode with FSCO-I, CSI, 2nd law and fishing reels rather than dealing with valid criticisms. Then they proclaim ID is triumphantly moving forward without acknowledging valid objections like the one you just raised.
I tried to deal with the objection you raised, but I don’t think I did as good a job as I wanted to. I pointed out there are an infinite number of ways to build a lock and key system, but that doesn’t mean the lock-and-key system is highly probable. The difficulty is that we are still left with ambiguous numbers, or at least numbers I’m not convinced are unassailable. Anyway, here was my first attempt. It leaves a lot to be desired, but I think it was better than most of what you’ll see at UD:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/coordinated-complexity-the-key-to-refuting-postdiction-a
Because it is. Leslie Orgel defined Specified Information and discussed Specified Complexity (without any thought of basing on it an objection to the power of natural selection to explain adaptations).
In simple population-genetic models we can define SC and CSI (using Dembski’s original versions of them). If Dembski claims to have an argument based on that that refutes natural selection, then his argument should work in those models. It doesn’t. But that is why it is important to define CSI for those models, so we can investigate that. And we can, in spite of your certainty that CSI is not “a real thing”.
Joe Felsenstein,
Well there are a few versions around, yet I’ve never seen any convincing CSI calculations from ID proponents (except for Joe Gallien’s CSI of Cake). So it might it simply becomes a code word for ‘designed’ without the necessary empirical grounding.
ID/Creationist “CSI” bears much the same relationship to Orgel’s “CSI”, as the “macroevolution” of ID/Creationist propaganda does to the “macroevolution” of mainstream science. That is to say, “CSI” is yet another instance of ID/Creationists latching onto a scientific term with a valid definition, and attaching to said term a weird caricature of its valid definition.
If Dembski’s Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information actually worked in simple population genetics models to show that evolution could not succeed in bringing about adaptation, he would have invalidated nearly a century of work in theoretical population genetics. I would write his nomination for membership in the National Academy of Sciences myself.
However it does not work, as it compares apples to oranges. But the apples are the correct apples — CSI is not a flawed concept. It’s just that one needs to compare the apples to apples. His theorem only works with apples compared to oranges.
You are conflating CSI with IC
The reason for this OP was due to Felsenstein’s insistence that CSI does not pertain to origins. Clearly it does.
And yes it is true that even given CSI that Darwinian processes are not capable of producing more CSI- but then how can you tell if the processes are Darwinian if you are starting with what you need to explain and you don’t understand the CSI you are starting with?
That is why the OoL is so important. It is only if the OoL was purely materialistic would we say that its subsequent evolution was also materialistic, ie non-telic.
Frankie
Moved comments, mostly yours, to guano. Read the rules.
Acartia- I know what falsifiable means. I have said what it would take to falsify ID. Darwin said what it would take to falsify evolutionism. His requires proving a negative whereas ID’s requires that you support the claims of your position.
CSI is real and is used by people every day.
Joe Felsenstein,
ID is not anti-evolution, Joe. And you cannot show that natural selection can produce any adaptations. To do so you would first have to show that all mutations are happenstance events and we don’t have a methodology to do so
Richardthughes,
Your unknowing is not an argument.
Kirk K. Durston, David K. Y. Chiu, David L. Abel, Jack T. Trevors, Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins, Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, Vol. 4:47 (2007):
Moved more comments to guano. Complaints should be made in moderation issues thread – not here.
Examples please. Let’s see those CSI calculations.
So now CSI = FSC, functional sequence complexity ? Another change in your Jello definition?
Yes- Biological specification refers to function- read the OP. CSI is based on the sequence specificity required.
Adapa,
And Durston relies on the assumption that function is rare in sequence space.
Which seems an odd assumption considering that humans carry about 10 unique mutations per person in protein coding regions. And haven’t died off yet.
No, I am not. Did you mean to say I was conflating CSI with SC? That too would be incorrect, as the quoted texts from The Design of Life clearly indicate they are the same concept.
What point is the OP trying to establish? Is it that CSI does not apply if natural selection is involved or evolution? Because that too would be incorrect.
The OP establishes that CSI pertains to how it originated.
That is your opinion and if you are right you should be able to show that he is wrong. We await your work
The code is redundant and in most cases the protein’s shape is not determined merely by the amino acid sequence
Richardthughes,
That’s definitely true in most cases, but to be fair vjtorley did use Dembski’s equation to calculate the CSI of a gene duplication event. He got the “wrong” answer, namely that a known evolutionary mechanism could generate CSI by Dembski’s definition. He immediately backtracked saying “I therefore conclude that CSI is not a useful way to compare the complexity of a genome containing a duplicated gene to the original genome….” rather than admit that ID’s best metric is flawed. He then went on to write at length about why it is unreasonable to expect to calculate CSI at all.
Patrick,
Umm, “known evolutionary mechanism” is nothing but an equivocation. You need known blind watchmaker mechanisms. And gene duplication requires the very CSI you need to explain.
Frankie,
Non of them are directed. Unless they target extinction, in which case it’s very accurately targeted.
Also undirected evolution cannot be modeled whereas directed evolution’s power is demonstrated nicely by genetic algorithms. But even then it uses the CSI it has and does not add anything outside of what the program allows.
So at least ID has that- along with a better falsification criteria and an actual positive case.
… turbo encabulator!
Richie, I have the noise filter on and you aren’t making it through. 😛
But here http://intelligentreasoning.blogspot.com/2012/07/oleg-tchernyshyov-still-ignorant-of-gas.html
A certain Chubby YEC said “Yup ole Oleg is at it again, this time he thinks that just because the “inventors” of genetic algorithms called them genetic algorithms that means they are GENETIC algorithms.
Unfortunately those alleged “genetic” algorithms do not have anything to do with genetics!”
Although previously he had informed us, “Look at it this way- Star Trek: Next generation- Lt Data was able to rewire his neuro networks due to the algorithms INSIDE OF HIM
If today’s programmers could figure out a way to get the GA inside of their organisms, they would- now they are doing the best they can”
*That’s* expertise, ladies and gents…
There seems to be some confusion here. Genetic algorithms do not have to have anything to do with actual genetics in order to have everything to do with directed evolution. My claim is about the latter, not the former.
“Noise filter” Frankie returns to the fold, after the only other commentator was.. me. What’s a reasonable inference?
Me quoting Joe Gallien:
But of course we can safely discount anyone who says ” “Look at it this way- Star Trek: Next generation- Lt Data was able to rewire his neuro networks due to the algorithms INSIDE OF HIM” as any authority on GAs.
Amazing that Joe knew a would quote him at length!