On Uncommon Descent, poster gpuccio has been discussing “functional information”. Most of gpuccio’s argument is a conventional “islands of function” argument. Not being very knowledgeable about biochemistry, I’ll happily leave that argument to others.
But I have been intrigued by gpuccio’s use of Functional Information, in particular gpuccio’s assertion that if we observe 500 bits of it, that this is a reliable indicator of Design, as here, about at the 11th sentence of point (a):
… the idea is that if we observe any object that exhibits complex functional information (for example, more than 500 bits of functional information ) for an explicitly defined function (whatever it is) we can safely infer design.
I wonder how this general method works. As far as I can see, it doesn’t work. There would be seem to be three possible ways of arguing for it, and in the end; two don’t work and one is just plain silly. Which of these is the basis for gpuccio’s statement? Let’s investigate …
A quick summary
Let me list the three ways, briefly.
(1) The first is the argument using William Dembski’s (2002) Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information. I have argued (2007) that this is formulated in such a way as to compare apples to oranges, and thus is not able to reject normal evolutionary processes as explanations for the “complex” functional information. In any case, I see little sign that gpuccio is using the LCCSI.
(2) The second is the argument that the functional information indicates that only an extremely small fraction of genotypes have the desired function, and the rest are all alike in totally lacking any of this function. This would prevent natural selection from following any path of increasing fitness to the function, and the rareness of the genotypes that have nonzero function would prevent mutational processes from finding them. This is, as far as I can tell, gpuccio’s islands-of-function argument. If such cases can be found, then explaining them by natural evolutionary processes would indeed be difficult. That is gpuccio’s main argument, and I leave it to others to argue with its application in the cases where gpuccio uses it. I am concerned here, not with the islands-of-function argument itself, but with whether the design inference from 500 bits of functional information is generally valid.
We are asking here whether, in general, observation of more than 500 bits of functional information is “a reliable indicator of design”. And gpuccio’s definition of functional information is not confined to cases of islands of function, but also includes cases where there would be a path to along which function increases. In such cases, seeing 500 bits of functional information, we cannot conclude from this that it is extremely unlikely to have arisen by normal evolutionary processes. So the general rule that gpuccio gives fails, as it is not reliable.
(3) The third possibility is an additional condition that is added to the design inference. It simply declares that unless the set of genotypes is effectively unreachable by normal evolutionary processes, we don’t call the pattern “complex functional information”. It does not simply define “complex functional information” as a case where we can define a level of function that makes probability of the set less than 
. That additional condition allows us to safely conclude that normal evolutionary forces can be dismissed — by definition. But it leaves the reader to do the heavy lifting, as the reader has to determine that the set of genotypes has an extremely low probability of being reached. And once they have done that, they will find that the additional step of concluding that the genotypes have “complex functional information” adds nothing to our knowledge. CFI becomes a useless add-on that sounds deep and mysterious but actually tells you nothing except what you already know. So CFI becomes useless. And there seems to be some indication that gpuccio does use this additional condition.
Let us go over these three possibilities in some detail. First, what is the connection of gpuccio’s “functional information” to Jack Szostak’s quantity of the same name?
Is gpuccio’s Functional Information the same as Szostak’s Functional Information?
gpuccio acknowledges that gpuccio’s definition of Functional Information is closely connected to Jack Szostak’s definition of it. gpuccio notes here:
Please, not[e] the definition of functional information as:
“the fraction of all possible configurations of the system that possess a degree of function >=
Ex.”which is identical to my definition, in particular my definition of functional information as the
upper tail of the observed function, that was so much criticized by DNA_Jock.
(I have corrected gpuccio’s typo of “not” to “note”, JF)
We shall see later that there may be some ways in which gpuccio’s definition
is modified from Szostak’s. Jack Szostak and his co-authors never attempted any use of his definition to infer Design. Nor did Leslie Orgel, whose Specified Information (in his 1973 book The Origins of Life) preceded Szostak’s. So the part about design inference must come from somewhere else.
gpuccio seems to be making one of three possible arguments;
Possibility #1 That there is some mathematical theorem that proves that ordinary evolutionary processes cannot result in an adaptation that has 500 bits of Functional Information.
Use of such a theorem was attempted by William Dembski, his Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information, explained in Dembski’s book No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence (2001). But Dembski’s LCCSI theorem did not do what Dembski needed it to do. I have explained why in my own article on Dembski’s arguments (here). Dembski’s LCCSI changed the specification before and after evolutionary processes, and so he was comparing apples to oranges.
In any case, as far as I can see gpuccio has not attempted to derive gpuccio’s argument from Dembski’s, and gpuccio has not directly invoked the LCCSI, or provided a theorem to replace it. gpuccio said in a response to a comment of mine at TSZ,
Look, I will not enter the specifics of your criticism to Dembski. I agre with Dembski in most things, but not in all, and my arguments are however more focused on empirical science and in particular biology.
While thus disclaiming that the argument is Dembski’s, on the other hand gpuccio does associate the argument with Dembski here by saying that
Of course, Dembski, Abel, Durston and many others are the absolute references for any discussion about functional information. I think and hope that my ideas are absolutely derived from theirs. My only purpose is to detail some aspects of the problem.
and by saying elsewhere that
No generation of more than 500 bits has ever been observed to arise in a non design system (as you know, this is the fundamental idea in ID).
That figure being Dembski’s, this leaves it unclear whether gpuccio is or is not basing the argument on Dembski’s. But gpuccio does not directly invoke the LCCSI, or try to come up with some mathematical theorem that replaces it.
So possibility #1 can be safely ruled out.
Possibility #2. That the target region in the computation of Functional Information consists of all of the sequences that have nonzero function, while all other sequences have zero function. As there is no function elsewhere, natural selection for this function then cannot favor sequences closer and closer to the target region.
Such cases are possible, and usually gpuccio is talking about cases like this. But gpuccio does not require them in order to have Functional Information. gpuccio does not rule out that the region could be defined by a high level of function, with lower levels of function in sequences outside of the region, so that there could be paths allowing evolution to reach the target region of sequences.
An example in which gpuccio recognizes that lower levels of function can exist outside the target region is found here, where gpuccio is discussing natural and artificial selection:
Then you can ask: why have I spent a lot of time discussing how NS (and AS) can in some cases add some functional information to a sequence (see my posts #284, #285 and #287)
There is a very good reason for that, IMO.
I am arguing that:
1) It is possible for NS to add some functional information to a sequence, in a few very specific cases, but:
2) Those cases are extremely rare exceptions, with very specific features, and:
3) If we understand well what are the feature that allow, in those exceptional cases, those limited “successes” of NS, we can easily demonstrate that:
4) Because of those same features that allow the intervention of NS, those scenarios can never, never be steps to complex functional information.
Jack Szostak defined functional information by having us define a cutoff level of function to define a set of sequences that had function greater than that, without any condition that the other sequences had zero function. Neither did Durston. And as we’ve seen gpuccio associates his argument with theirs.
So this second possibility could not be the source of gpuccio’s general assertion about 500 bits of functional information being a reliable indicator of design, however much gpuccio concentrates on such cases.
Possibility #3. That there is an additional condition in gpuccio’s Functional Information, one that does not allow us to declare it to be present if there is a way for evolutionary processes to achieve that high a level of function. In short, if we see 500 bits of Szostak’s functional information, and if it can be put into the genome by natural evolutionary processes such as natural selection then for that reason we declare that it is not really Functional Information. If gpuccio is doing this, then gpuccio’s Functional Information is really a very different animal than Szostak’s functional information.
Is gpuccio doing that? gpuccio does associate his argument with William Dembski’s, at least in some of his statements. And William Dembski has defined his Complex Specified Information in this way, adding the condition that it is not really CSI unless it is sufficiently improbable that it be achieved by natural evolutionary forces (see my discussion of this here in the section on “Dembski’s revised CSI argument” that refer to Dembski’s statements here). And Dembski’s added condition renders use of his CSI a useless afterthought to the design inference.
gpuccio does seem to be making a similar condition. Dembski’s added condition comes in via the calculation of the “probability” of each genotype. In Szostak’s definition, the probabilities of sequences are simply their frequencies among all possible sequences, with each being counted equally. In Dembski’s CSI calculation, we are instead supposed to compute the probability of the sequence given all evolutionary processes, including natural selection.
gpuccio has a similar condition in the requirements for concluding that complex
functional information is present: We can see it at step (6) here:
If our conclusion is yes, we must still do one thing. We observe carefully the object and what we know of the system, and we ask if there is any known and credible algorithmic explanation of the sequence in that system. Usually, that is easily done by excluding regularity, which is easily done for functional specification. However, as in the particular case of functional proteins a special algorithm has been proposed, neo darwininism, which is intended to explain non regular functional sequences by a mix of chance and regularity, for this special case we must show that such an explanation is not credible, and that it is not supported by facts. That is a part which I have not yet discussed in detail here. The necessity part of the algorithm (NS) is not analyzed by dFSCI alone, but by other approaches and considerations. dFSCI is essential to evaluate the random part of the algorithm (RV). However, the short conclusion is that neo darwinism is not a known and credible algorithm which can explain the origin of even one protein superfamily. It is neither known nor credible. And I am not aware of any other algorithm ever proposed to explain (without design) the origin of functional, non regular sequences.
In other words, you, the user of the concept, are on your own. You have to rule out that natural selection (and other evolutionary processes) could reach the target sequences. And once you have ruled it out, you have no real need for the declaration that complex functional information is present.
I have gone on long enough. I conclude that the rule that observation of 500 bits of functional information is present allows us to conclude in favor of Design (or at any rate, to rule out normal evolutionary processes as the source of the adaptation) is simply nonexistent. Or if it does exist, it is as a useless add-on to an argument that draws that conclusion for some other reason, leaving the really hard work to the user.
Let’s end by asking gpuccio some questions:
1. Is your “functional information” the same as Szostak’s?
2. Or does it add the requirement that there be no function in sequences that
are outside of the target set?
3. Does it also require us to compute the probability that the sequence arises as a result of normal evolutionary processes?
I must admit that I have assumed all along that you were offering up precisely what gpuccio does with FI in order to get Mung to shoot holes in it. An exercise in irony, as it were.
Just like ubiquitin ligase and ATP synthase, right?
Bill cannot go eight hours without contradicting himself. That he fails to realize what he did is the icing on the cake.
DNA_Jock,
So if you knock out ATP synthase you believe that the ubiquitin system will continue to work?
This is all truly amazing. They’re all just arguing in what appears for the hell of it.
The pieces? No way. You need to calculate the FI for the whole sequence! The fact that most of the sequence evolved (or was designed, if you like) in the context of another function is irrelevant.
Bzt, wrong. You cannot partition out the bits that “RMNS added”. What you calculate is the FI of the whole thing. This is the point I have been trying to get across all along: Once a sequence, pathway or protein complex gets co-opted, the FI of the whole configuration counts towards the new function.
No word salad for me today, thank you.
After lecturing Rumraket about calculating FI for days, you make the same mistake as Bill. You don’t get to partition out the FI of “those few changes”. As soon as the duplicated protein is recruited into a novel function, you have to calculate the FI for the-whole-darn-thing. It is true that I have not calculated the FI of the protein (how could I? I have no idea how many random protein sequences are capable of converting pyruvate to lactate), but if the paper by Keefe et al. is anything to go by, this is not a trivial amount. I can definitely get 500 bits of FI by using gpuccio-math and changing my function to “converting pyruvate to lactate the way Apicomplexans do”
Nonsense, he is summing FI over different functions, exactly the thing that Mung was accusing Rumraket of. What is the function of the F1 subunit of ATP synthase? Is that the same function that the alpha chain and beta chain perform? No, it isn’t, so you can’t sum the FI of the latter two to get the FI of the former.
ETA: plus what DNA_Jock said
As I showed earlier in this thread it will be practically impossible to reduce the FI of a function below 500 bits for even an average protein because it would require producing so many sequences they’d fill the universe.
Stated another way, there is no realistic degree of lack of conservation that could reduce the FI of a >200 AA protein below 500 bits. You’d need something like 10^110 different homologues before you’ve got enough just to get to 499 bits. They’d have more mass than the observable universe.
I wouldn’t call it an accusation, I’d call it an observation. And Rumraket has admitted that is in fact what he is doing, so it shouldn’t even be in dispute.
Even dazz has observed that is in fact what Rumraket is doing.
Huh?
That’s what I have been saying. So why are you and Rumraket trying to partition out the FI of the parts in order to arrive at the FI of the whole?
If you think you’ve added 500 bits of FI above and beyond what was there originally you need to show how you did so.
Well that’s a huge problem for anyone claiming that they now have 500 more bits of FI than they had before. Don’t you first need to know the initial value and the final value to say you have “evolved” or “created” or “generated” 500 bits of FI?
If you start with 500 bits of FI and you end with 500 bites of FI, taht’s not 500 bits more than you started with.
Yes, I’ve been pointing out all along just how malleable FI is. Why do you think I keep arguing for a strict interpretation of it and against claims that one can evolve it by merely moving the goalposts?
You’re giving him too much credit. 😉
And you aren’t?
I’m arguing because I believe I am right. I’m also arguing because I think others are wrong. In addition, I am arguing because if we cannot agree on some of these issues the debate over gpuccio’s use of FI, or what we can take away from how much FI there is, is pointless. FI can be anything we want it to be. whoop-dee-do. So we can prove anything and it’s opposite with FI.
Corneel,
If I calculate as you request I am not describing the process but a Cornell TM virtual construct. You are describing mutations from a protein that has 500 bits of enzyme capability. You start the process there not from the first random sequence.
Not me. I generally agree with you on that. That’s between Rum and you.
And here’s the meat. gpuccio’s claim is:
What we observe is a protein that reduces pyruvate to yield lactate and it exhibits complex functional information. I think it is safe to say that it exhibits more than 500 bits of FI, but you may differ on that. Let’s assume it does for the sake of the argument. Can we safely conclude it was designed to perform that explicitly defined function? No, we can’t. Because we know that the damn thing was co-opted as a duplicate from a protein that performed a different function.
So now what? Should we just say: “Oh look. This lactate dehydrogenase is definitely designed, because it exhibits over 500 bits of FI to reduce oxaloacetate to malate. Oh, and “those few changes” that evolutionary processes added to change its function obviously don’t count.” Is the watchmaker secretly a toy maker, whose designs were put to a different purpose? The design inference doesn’t have a lot of entailments, but at the very least we expect designs to do what they were designed for, right?
Agreed, so let’s stick to the function we are trying to explain and attribute the FI of the whole sequence to evolutionary processes. The ancestral function is irrelevant in this calculation.
So now “enzyme capability” is the function we are trying to calculate the FI for? Shall we stick to “lactate dehydrogenase activity”? See my response to Mung above.
I specifically asked gpuccio whether the mere presence of 500 bits of FI was enough to infer design and he made it clear, at least to me, that is not the case.
So I think you (and others) are misinterpreting gpuccio. Ii happens.
My Question:
His Response:
So if you have 499 bits and one bit gets added you don’t then infer design because now you are at 500 bits. The transition itself must consist of at least 500 bits.
The question is, how much FI was introduced in the transition from the ancestral state to the new state. And is it more than 500 bits.
I’ve think I’ve asked both you and Rumraket what the initial FI was. Your response:
Stalemate? 🙂
But Joe still seems to think that FI is useful for something.
This.
The whole question of whether we can add up FI for separate functional entities and arrive at the FI for some whole is not directly relevant (it is a side-issue that pertains to a broader question concerning the idea of “more” or “less” functional information in different systems or forms of life) to the main subject of contention between Gpuccio and us, which is whether the 500 bits rule is valid.
We have argued that it is not in several different ways, and I have given an example of an enzyme function which I contend undermines the 500 bits rule. But there is now an issue between Mung and I regarding what the correct way to calculate FI for the LDH function is. This problem essentially comes down to the fact that in order to calculate FI for a function you have to set a minimum threshold for function. But that minimum threshold is actually an arbitrary and subjective limitation you set. None of us can say to the other person “you are objectively wrong to have set the minimum threshold to X”.
This puts us in a conondrum, because if we are to prove each other wrong we must be able to show to the other party that there’s something wrong about where they set the minimum threshold.
This is where I would agree with Joe Felsensteins comment earlier, that the only sensible threshold for function at least in the context of biology, is fitness. Ultimately if a function performs so poorly that either the species that otherwise depends on it to survive and reproduce nevertheless goes to extinction, or the function itself is so weak it has no measurable effect on fitness and therefore is not maintained by purifying selection, nor driven to higher levels of activity by positive selection, then it has failed to meet the minimum threshold for a biological function.
With fitness being the ultimate arbiter of what the minimum threshold for a biological function should be, we can show that the LDH enzyme function evolving from a very weakly promiscous MDH-specialized ancestor constitutes a bona fide case of enzymatic neofunctionalization where before no sequences met the minimum threshold of function (so FI = undefined), because the ancestral level of LDH activity was so small that that it could not have been the subject of selection and were not driven to higher levels over extended periods of time, and only after a particular mutation of very large effect had occurred did it then become significant enough to be visible to selection and start climbing further up a slope to produce a truly specialized LDH enzyme. And subsequent to the mutation of large effect in one of the duplicates, the FI-value for the LDH function changed to 500 bits (where before it was “undefined”).
But here’s the problem; Mung, Gpuccio, and Bill Coll can just say “nah, I don’t like fitness as the arbiter of the minimum threshold for a biological function”, and we’re back to just throwing opinions at each other.
Using fitness in place of degree of function is just as silly (and just as wrong) as trying to add up the FI of the parts to get the FI of the whole.
How does your method of calculating FI by adding up the FI of the parts even work using “fitness” (whatever that means) as the minimum threshold of function (whatever that means when trying to use fitness instead of function).
Corneel,
No, we are simply trying to determine where the “transition” started.
I don’t see it as a side issue, I see it as the main objection to his claim. The assertion from your side is that gpuccio can’t rule out “evolutionididit”, therefore his inference is faulty.
And how does evolution allegedly perform its miracles? By adding up tiny bits of FI, bit by bit. So how to determine the FI of the finished product is relevant, as is how to determine how much FI has been added by the process.
If you take the “but evolution can do it” claim off the table, what’s left as an objection to gpuccio’s claim?
Corneel,
Gpuccio’s method of calculating FI is not direct but we can obtain numbers from empirical data and come up with an actual calculated number for FI.
Yes. I have been saying that all along. So you can change the FI by merely changing the minimum threshold. And what does that prove. Nothing.
Looks like we’ve found another point of agreement. 🙂
Is there? Aren’t you calculating the FI for the LDH function the same way you do for MDH? Perhaps we need to step back.
Didn’t you arrive at 1400 bits for MDH? How did you arrive at that figure? I certainly have no recollection of you arriving at that figure by decomposing MDH into “parts” and calculating the FI for each part and then summing those values to get the FI of the whole. Did I miss something?
Mung,
I just did a calculation using Gpuccio’s method at uniprot. The total FI count of LDH initially was 100 bits as only 6% is conserved between rabbits and bacteria.
Which means no selection pressure, so using fitness is a non-starter.
If you can find a “mutation of very large effect” of 500 bits I think you’ll have made the case against gpuccio.
ETA:
What was the FI at the point of the change introduced by “the mutation of large effect”?
Isn’t it important to know that, or at least calculate it, so that we can know how much FI was added subsequent to that change?
He needs to start making YouTube videos. 🙂
So where on earth did I get 1400 bits from, lol!
Only you IDiots claim it requires miracles
And you just take it on blind dogmatic belief lacking any empirical verification that it doesn’t require miracles.
bullshit. you know where to shove that projection
You can’t even answer a basic question about evolution. Blind belief.
Here it is again for you.
Lucky for you you’re at a site where you are not alone. No one else wanted to touch this either.
Mung,
Thank you for the link to the conversation at UD, it made for an interesting read, both colewd’s complete and utter misconstrual of the conversation he and I had on this thread, and gpuccio’s explicit admission that his FI is a measure of his level of ignorance about the provenance of a sequence.
Mung,
Seems rather obvious to me (and I’ve said this before) that sequences that split billions of years ago showing significant similarity, and are later relatively conserved, are evidence of evolution under significant functional constraint, and evidence for NS at work, I’ve already commented on that. Even if most (slightly?) beneficial mutations drift away, the evidence points to good old evolutionary mechanisms as the source of the transition. What makes you think that simple question puts evolution in trouble? Do you think you’re so much smarter and knowledgeable than experts in population genetics?
But the bottom line is, enough with the “miracle” crap. For the emptienth time, that’s your thing, not ours
I don’t need to be smarter than them, I just need to be smarter than you.
I noticed that you still you failed to answer the question. Was it because you didn’t understand the question, don’t know the answer, or know the answer but don’t want to admit what the answer is?
The authors of the paper Rumraket cited claim that “beneficial changes are usually retained.” We know from population genetics that is patently false. Yet their evolutionary scenario you all are depending on depends on it. An honest evaluation would admit that their scenario is vastly improbable.
So yes, you believe in miracles and do so based on your blind belief in the mystical powers of evolution.
You’re welcome. And if gpuccio thinks you can get the FI of the whole by adding up the FI of the parts I disagree with him too and am not afraid to say so. But he seems to be saying in some cases you can and in other cases you cannot, so it’s not a general rule for him.
Yup, and colewd helpfully provided us with the first step in that decision process:
This strikes me as somewhat circular.
Because you say so, dunning-Kruger poster boy?
Yes, I do, for quantifying adaptive information, in the case where the scale we use is fitness. Not for drawing conclusions about Design. But …
That’s not what this thread is about. This thread is about gpuccio’s claim that the observation of 500 bits of FI is a reliable indicator of Design. It is gpuccio who thinks that FI is useful, for that purpose. But he has provided no argument for that generalization, aside from asking his critics to disprove it.
Do you even know the probability of the alleged gene duplication that allegedly led to LDH? No? Blind dogmatic belief.
Do you even know the size of the population where the alleged gene duplication that allegedly led to LDH took place? No? Blind dogmatic belief.
Sorry, but that’s a misrepresentation of his argument.
Joe Felsenstein,
Some think you may be mistaken with this assertion 🙂
Here are two whole paragraphs from the Texas Sharpshooter post at UD, just to be sure I am not taking a part of a sentence out of context:
Given that, it might help clarify things if gpuccio would explicitly disavow that statement and say that it was incorrect.
Joe Felsenstein,
Do you believe that this:
and this:
Are the same?
Then you are just fantastically clueless. Seriously. Then I don’t even know what to say to bring you up to speed because it is now clear to me that can’t be done.
If you really honestly maintain that the main objection to Gpuccio’s claim offered by us here is that FI for some several individual but distinct functions can be added up to the total FI for those functions combined, then you have completely lost your mind. I actually AGREE with Gpuccio that we can do that. He does it, I do it, I don’t have a problem with it. It is YOU who claim one cannot do that.
Mung, what the actual fuck?
As for my(our) main objection to Gpuccio’s use of FI in the 500 bits rule whereby he seeks to establish that there isn’t a way for evolution to produce 500 or more bits of FI (therefore design), merely on his ability to collect some number of known sequences that perform some particular function and calculate that for those sequences the FI meets or exceeds 500 bits:
We have argued at length how he can’t do that because he doesn’t know the shape of the fitness landscape outside known sequences, and so can’t claim there isn’t some way for mutation and/or selection to have moved some primordial sequence without or with lower levels of function, to the current location in sequence space (which judged by the degree of conservation implies how strong purifying selection has been).
Simply calculating that for known sequences with the function, FI > 500 bits, does not accomplish that.
That’s it. That has been my main objection. If I recall here my only other objection has been to give a counterexample (the LDH function evolving from MDH).
You even agreed to that earlier in this thread:
Rumraket: Calculating that the system exhibits 500 bits of FI (which could be true) doesn’t actually show it couldn’t evolve.
Mung: I agree with you. And Joe. It doesn’t show that either the sequence or the function could not have evolved. FI does not address that question. I think I’ve said that before. 🙂”
So we agree that what Gpuccio thinks the 500-bits-rule does, it doesn’t.
But when you say our(or at least that my) main objection to that rule is that one cannot sum FI for individual functions to get the total FI for those functions, that’s just false Mung. Completely false.
Well we have actually argued that with some elaborate explanations so it’s not like we’ve just blindly asserted it, but yeah that is why his inference is faulty.
I don’t think it performs miracles. I wouldn’t describe mutations happening, their new or altered functions, nor the fact that they might be useful to the organism, as miracles. I’m still not sure what you even think a miracle is, you’ve not defined it anywhere that I’m aware of.
Technically I don’t think it has to add it up by tiny bits at all. I think it can basically arrive all at once potentially by a single mutation. Like the 6 amino acid insertion in MDH that drove the LDH function up to a level that made it visible to selection. This put it at a threshold where it affected the fitness of the organism, thus (in my view which I take from Joe Felsenstein’s earlier post) and thus it met the minimum threshold for function. So for the LDH function, the insertion changed the FI from “undefined” to over 1400 bits.
Insofar as it goes from not meeting the minimum threshold for function, to meeting the minimum threhsold, it goes from undefined to whatever number of bits we can calculate for it.
His inference is patently invalid. It’s a conclusion drawn essentially from ignorance. We don’t have to go to “but evolution can do it”. And you agree.
I did ask him to clarify and he did clarify.
Go back and read what I actually wrote. At no point did I say that your main objection to that rule is that one cannot sum FI for individual functions to get the total FI for those functions. You’ve totally misunderstood my post.
Yea. That’s what I said. Here it is for you again, minus the first sentence, which seems to have greatly confused you.:
Yet that’s exactly what you do. It seems funny to me that you would end your post with that comment after having just argued that evolution can do it.
So once again we manage to find something we agree on. 🙂
As a theistic evolutionist, Mung, you accept that evolution can do “it”. It just needs some deities help in some undefined way.
Agreed?
Then your post was badly worded because you seem to explicitly reject my statement that it is a side-issue whether FI for individual functions can be added:
It is pretty clear what I claim is a side-issue, and by extension when you claim it isn’t a side-issue (using my own words) you must be referring to the same thing I claim is a side issue. But now you’re saying what you meant is that our main objection to the 500 bits rule is what I agree has been the main objection. Okay, fair enough.
I also do that even though I don’t actually have to, yes.
Thank you for informing us what you find amusing?
I’m glad you agree. The matter is pretty much settled then, we are left with only Gpuccio and Bill Cole thinking that calculating 500 bits of FI establishes that evolution couldn’t do it and so on that basis one can infer design.
I must have missed the part of his clarification where he said that his statement in the Sharpshooter post was incorrect and that readers should not pay attention to it.