Does gpuccio’s argument that 500 bits of Functional Information implies Design work?

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 $2^{-500}$.  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?

1,971 thoughts on “Does gpuccio’s argument that 500 bits of Functional Information implies Design work?

  1. OMagain,

    What scientists are commenting on FI in relation to Intelligent Design? Support your claim, for once. Seems to me the only ones doing that are on this thread. And it ain’t helping ID’s case.

    -Kirk Durston
    -Cornelius Hunter
    -Mike Behe
    -Doug Axe
    -John Sanford
    -etc

  2. colewd: So how has functional FI increased moving from Dave to Dale?

    Let me know if you ever get an answer to this.

    It’s like saying that a mutation from 11111111 to 111111110 increases FI. I just want to see how that works. Did that mutation increase the FI of 11111111 or did it increase the FI of something else?

  3. DNA_Jock: I have a nasty feeling that you don’t understand what a CDF is.

    I don’t, and I don’t mind admitting it. Why does it matter?

    As keiths would be happy to tell you, I make no effort to hide my ignorance. 🙂

  4. DNA_Jock: You claim that my case also rests on the premise that for every FI value, there is a single sequence. That is so obviously wrong as to be deranged; you are going to have to unpack that for me.

    Yes, good point. In the view you are espousing more than one sequence can have the same FI.

    But the larger point remains, which is that this shows the two concepts are not logically the same, which is the claim that you made, which I am disputing. And if the two concepts are not the same, then it is a non sequitur, because you still have a missing premise that you have yet to provide.

    If that premise exists, please make it explicit.

  5. colewd: The argument is that design (conscious intelligence) is the best explanation for functional information and irreducibly complex structures.

    Human conscious intelligence plus knowledge and ability. Unfortunately functional information seems to have preceded humanity.

    With that removal of only known CI , the argument becomes An assumed entity ,possessing consciousness and intelligence , knowledge, ability, and opportunity, used an indeterminate means of design for an indeterminate reason to create functional information is a better explanation than evolutionary mechanisms.

    It doesn’t require evolution to fail it just has to be a better argument for those specific observations.

    It ( abstract design) is simplest explanation , “unknown disembodied conscious intelligence” did something. Unfortunately that only explains who ,not how.

    So if one wants to explain how, evolutionary mechanisms are a better explanation

    Therefore an advocate must eliminate evolutionary mechanisms as impossible.

    “How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?”

    It maybe an argument you disagree with but it is an argument. What you have failed to do is counter it with anything but denial or straw man arguments

    Good point since you argument does not contain any specifics, it is unfalsifiable.

  6. newton,

    With that removal of only known CI , the argument becomes An assumed entity ,possessing consciousness and intelligence ,

    Do you consider the existence of atoms assumed? Be careful not to ignore inductive reasoning.

    Good point since you argument does not contain any specifics, it is unfalsifiable.

    The demonstration of evolutionary mechanisms for complex structures would move it in the direction of falsification.

    Have you thought about the issue that the TOE is standing on the argument of forcing the alternative to prove a negative? This is not a very strong position 🙂

  7. Mung: If that premise exists, please make it explicit.

    Well, I am still uncertain as to what the grand non-sequitur is.
    It appears to be between the statement

    an FI can be calculated for each possible function level

    which you agree with, and

    and thus for each possible sequence in the space

    which you claim is the non-sequitur.
    1) Each sequence has an associated activity level Ex.
    2) For every Ex, we can calculate an FI
    3) The FI of a sequence is the FI of its activity level.
    Since you explicitly agree with 2, and 3 is a definition (Hazen’s), not a premise, I guess the problem is with 1.

    What a CDF is matters, because FI is merely a log-transform of the CDF.

    1) Every sophomore student at LHS has a GPA
    2) For each GPA, there is a class rank.
    3) The class rank of a student is the class rank of their GPA.

  8. colewd: Have you thought about the issue that the TOE is standing on the argument of forcing the alternative to prove a negative? This is not a very strong position

    That actually is even worse for you. After all, what does it say about your position that is has been unable to convince more then a handful that it is correct despite the alternative not having a strong position at all?

    When you are losing against a weak position it’s time to rethink, don’t you think?

    And it’s simply not true in any case. Can you link me to anybody who says that TOE stands or falls on Intelligent Design supporters disproving it? The fact of the matter is that your position is marginal, interest in Intelligent Design has fallen through the floor and it’s delusional to think that most people working in science related to TOE have even heard of Intelligent Design.

    You are losing against an opponent who has a weak position. Logically therefore your position must be weaker still or by definition it would be succeeding.

    Fail.

  9. colewd: No one has come up with an argument how another mechanism other then conscious intelligence can create 10 bits of FI from scratch

    What does “from scratch” mean? These goalposts of yours just never stops moving do they?

    If I were to answer that mutation can create it, you would just claim that there was already some sequence there that mutated, so it’s not “from scratch”. It’s the same stupid endless moving of goalposts. Every time we answer your challenge, you come back and change the rules.

    The latest rule made-up after the previous challenge was met, is now this nebulous “from scratch” bullshit you felt the need to put in there, because otherwise you’d have to concede that the LDH enzyme function evolving by mutating a duplicate of an MDH enzyme would have met the 500 bits challenge.

    So by re-inventing the challenge to “from scratch” you have essentially pushed the problem back to the origin of life. How did the very first genetic sequence arrive? Since that genetic sequence must have in effect mutated and duplicated into all the sequences know from the diversity of life, that means all sequences were created by mutation, but incremental change doesn’t count, so no new FI has been created at all even if evolution produced literally every single sequence we see.

    AAA can mutate to
    AAG can mutate to
    AGG can mutate to
    GGG can mutate to
    GGT can mutate to
    GTT can mutate to
    TTT can mutate to
    TTC etc. etc.

    But you see, there was AAA to begin with, and any on of these “steps” is the same as moving from Dave to Dale, which you don’t consider creating any FI.

    colewd: So how has functional FI increased moving from Dave to Dale? Although gpuccio is cutting your side some slack with his 500 bit rule Mung is not.

    Right? So from Dave to Dale is no FI.
    Then AAA to AAG is no FI.
    and so on.

    So incremental change cannot, by definition, result in FI. So you have effectively defined evolution to be impossible. You have not SHOWN or ARGUED it is impossible, you have DEFINED it to be impossible, because you have ruled out incremental change.

    Congratulations! You have successfully convinced yourself by patently invalid reasoning (by straight up assuming your conclusion) that evolution can’t create any FI.

    But what is the difference between just creating AAA and then creating TTT, or evolution mutating a copy of AAA incrementally into TTT? Well who knows, all we know is that inside your head that kind of transformation makes it magically and mysteriously not count as creating any FI.

    That TTT sequence, no FI was created that wasn’t already there in the AAA sequence IF AND ONLY IF the TTT sequence came about incrementally by mutation.

    But if an intelligent designer were to just create the TTT sequence “from scratch”, then magically and mysteriously that TTT sequence has FI it wouldn’t have if it had incrementally mutated from the AAA sequence.

    Your whole case is build on special pleading, question begging, ad-hoc, goal-post-moving nonsense.

  10. colewd: Do you consider the existence of atoms assumed?

    What is your purported Intelligent Designer made of? Atoms or something else? If something else, what made that something else? Are you assuming the existence of that thing?

    More to the point how do you know? Ponder that last point for a while why don’t ya.

    You know why it’s called god of the gaps right colewd? Because it’s exactly what you are doing now. That gap just keeps on shrinking. Yesterday it was evolution cannot create FI, now it’s that evolution can only create insufficient FI and in any case it can’t create it from scratch.

    Your desperation is showing. You know these threads will likely persist for the entire of human history at this point, right? How do you feel about that?

  11. Where, when and how does FI get injected into the genome colewd?

    colewd: Have you thought about the issue that the TOE is standing on the argument of forcing the alternative to prove a negative? This is not a very strong position

    If you can’t answer then does that not make that statement somewhat absurd?

  12. colewd: Have you thought about the issue that the TOE is standing on the argument of forcing the alternative to prove a negative?

    And once again you have conveniently forgot that YOU are the one who has taken on that burden yourself. YOU are the one claiming to have a method that accomplishes exactly that. That it rules out evolution so that you can infer design.

  13. OMagain:
    You could even say it’s the topic of the thread! ;P

    After all, it is Gpuccio who wrote:
    “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.”

  14. Or, more directly to the point, gpuccio said:

    … 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.

  15. The Grupccio 500 reminds of Daytona 500, for some reason…
    Anybody has the same feeling?

  16. colewd:
    The demonstration of evolutionary mechanisms for complex structures would move it in the direction of falsification.

    No need. ID doesn’t even qualify as a reasonable proposal.

    Also, please, no amount of evidence will ever convince you that evolutionary mechanisms have produced complex structures. There’s plenty of evidence, but your standards are excessively high for evolution. In your mind it’s “God” and nothing else. Evidence is not important to you. This is why your standards for ID are so painfully low.

    colewd:
    Have you thought about the issue that the TOE is standing on the argument of forcing the alternative to prove a negative?

    ID is not al alternative. It’s an unreasonable proposition. That it assumes that it has proven a negative (that evolution cannot do it), is but one more sign of ID’s foundational philosophical problems.

    colewd:
    This is not a very strong position

    Well, since ID starts with deep philosophical and scientific problems, there’s no way ID could be defended reasonably, so, of course, getting it to actually justify its presumptions leads to more philosophical problems, like having to prove a negative.

    I, for one, see no reason to try and defend ID’s presumptions. Since it’s a failure from the very foundations, everybody should just leave it at that and forget about this sad attempt at disguising creationism for science. It just doesn’t work.

  17. Rumraket,

    YOU are the one claiming to have a method that accomplishes exactly that. That it rules out evolution so that you can infer design.

    My claim is that conscious intelligence is a known generator of FI and mutation/selection is not. Since it is a known generator of FI it is a better inference for what we are observing then the mutation and selection mechanism.

    Especially as gpuccio points out, when we observe large information jumps during evolutionary history. So far your claim that mutation and selection can create FI is unsupported.

  18. colewd:
    newton,

    Do you consider the existence of atoms assumed?Be careful not to ignore inductive reasoning.

    IBM claims it is capable of manipulating individual atoms. But say you are asking about atoms in the 1918 then yes they would just be assumed.

    What happened in the last hundred years? Our tools improved to allow what is unseen to be seen, much like instruments used to detect the existence of planets circling other stars.

    The demonstration of evolutionary mechanisms for complex structures would move it in the direction of falsification.

    If evolutionary mechanisms are capable ,then we have a wealth of demonstrations already around us.

    I think what you mean is a demonstration on a certain time scale that would be convincing to you.

    In fairness would you accept the need for a demonstration by the designer to increase the FI in a same time scale using non evolutionary mechanisms to be convinced of ID?

    Neither scenario would falsify ID, one could merely claim that evolutionary mechanisms were being guided by an unseen ,undetectable hand.

    Have you thought about the issue that the TOE is standing on the argument of forcing the alternative to prove a negative?

    IDists seem to relish that position which is not suprising, it is the only arrow in the quiver. There is no discussion of mechanisms of design beyond it requires a generic ,undefined intelligence doing something ,somehow about functional bits.

    Creationism was the dominant explanation before Darwin, was creationism standing on argument that forced the alternative to prove a negative? Darwin did not prove God did not create the world, he demonstrated the how it might have come to be, and linked disparate features under a unifying explanation.

    Just as Einstein did not prove Newton false, he imposed a different view which explained the previous unexplained about Mercury , made unexpected predictions which proved to be correct.

    This is not a very strong position

    I guess, worse would seem to me to have an hypothesis without any specifics.

  19. colewd: Especially as gpuccio points out, when we observe large information jumps during evolutionary history. So far your claim that mutation and selection can create FI is unsupported.

    We have reached a milestone. After 1520 comments, perhaps a record for TSZ, colewd’s argument has returned to the start, to gpuccio’s assertion that led me to the post that started this thread.

    What comes next? It is easy to see. Just go back to comment #1 and read from there. Ultimately you will end up here. Then you can go back around. And continue that indefinitely …

  20. colewd: Especially as gpuccio points out, when we observe large information jumps during evolutionary history. So far your claim that mutation and selection can create FI is unsupported.

    Alas. information jumps in pre existing genes, but not “from scratch’ which is defined as:

    A sequence that does not require the pre existence of another sequence such as the one you generated above.

    Don’t forget to put the goal posts back in their original position before trying to score, Bill 😉

  21. Joe Felsenstein: Just go back to comment #1 and read from there. Ultimately you will end up here. Then you can go back around. And continue that indefinitely …

    But in the meantime I finally learned what functional information is and how it is calculated. Thanks, Joe.

  22. Joe Felsenstein: We have reached a milestone.After 1520 comments, perhaps a record for TSZ, colewd’s argument has returned to the start, to gpuccio’s assertion that led me to the post that started this thread.

    What comes next?It is easy to see.Just go back to comment #1 and read from there. Ultimately you will end up here.Then you can go back around.And continue that indefinitely …

    That’s Bill in a nutshell. Honestly, I don’t know why you guys still put up with him.

  23. dazz: Honestly, I don’t know why you guys still put up with him.

    Something to do while you eat lunch?

  24. Corneel: But in the meantime I finally learned what functional information is and how it is calculated. Thanks, Joe.

    Exactly so. Many of my misconceptions have been clarified.

  25. newton,

    Just as Einstein did not prove Newton false, he imposed a different view which explained the previous unexplained about Mercury , made unexpected predictions which proved to be correct.

    I agree that Einstein did not prove Newton to be false. He came up with a better model that worked better with cosmology and showed a single mass was primarily responsible for the effect.

    What Darwin did not know is the complexity of the cell and its dependence on FI.

  26. Joe Felsenstein,

    What comes next? It is easy to see. Just go back to comment #1 and read from there. Ultimately you will end up here. Then you can go back around. And continue that indefinitely

    Harshman’s design vs common descent went 5000 comments so your just in the late second inning 🙂

    I have enjoyed the discussion especially between you Mung and Jock. I don’t see that you have established any alternative to the creation of FI other then conscious intelligence yet I don’t think that matters as the discussion of FI is interesting without trying to establish the cause.

  27. Corneel,

    Don’t forget to put the goal posts back in their original position before trying to score, Bill 😉

    Are you claiming that there were no novel functional systems created since the first prokaryotic cells?

  28. colewd:
    What Darwin did not know is the complexity of the cell and its dependence on FI.

    He didn’t need to. What he could see was enough to establish the idea of natural selection and evolution. He could observe that individual within populations have lots of variation, that if all offspring survived there would be no space to hold a single species in the planet, that therefore not all individuals make it to reproduction, and that their differences could influence which individuals survived. He then gathered evidence showing that diverging populations lead to new species. Done.

  29. colewd: Are you claiming that there were no novel functional systems created since the first prokaryotic cells?

    Just pointing out that the information in the “jumps” fails to meet your brand new criterion that FI needs to be created from scratch.

    If you think of new rules during the game, it is only fair that they apply to everybody, right?

  30. colewd:
    I don’t see that you have established any alternative to the creation of FI other then conscious intelligence.

    It’s the other way around. You have to establish that FI in biology comes from conscious intelligence, which is a contradiction of terms. Conscious intelligence requires biological FI, therefore it cannot be its source. We’re left with nature as the source. While most of us here understand how that happens in nature, it doesn’t matter how much you refuse to understand it, you’re still very far away from establishing your philosophically and scientifically absurd position. You just can’t establish it Bill. It’s nonsense. If I didn’t know about natural selection, or energy flow, or biochemistry, or protein function, etc, I’d be on the “I don’t know” camp. I would certainly not buy into something as faulty as ID. Why not? Because it’s simply absurd. The most basic reasoning leads to nature being first. Intelligence much much much later. Sorry.

  31. Corneel,

    Just pointing out that the information in the “jumps” fails to meet your brand new criterion that FI needs to be created from scratch.

    The claim is that conscious intelligence can create information from scratch. It is a better explanation then a mechanism that cannot for the origin of novel functional features observed during the formation of life’s diversity.

  32. Entropy,

    Conscious intelligence requires biological FI, therefore it cannot be its source.

    So far this is merely an assertion on your part. The natural world is all that exists assertion despite evidence that you are wrong.

  33. colewd: The claim is that conscious intelligence can create information from scratch.

    Even that’s not true. Every “conscious intelligence” you can point to is part of a chain reaching back to the origin of life. From scratch does not really mean anything when you’ve been trained for ~10 years to be a human being.

    It’s like claiming that Mozart composed all his work “from scratch” as he is a “conscious intelligence” but if you actually know anything about it you’ll know he cribbed from his those that came before. For pity’s sake, somebody had to show him how to use a piano the first time. Does that count as “from scratch”?

    No conscious intelligence creates anything “from scratch”. Given you are apparently incapable of creativity, I’m not surprised you don’t understand this.

  34. colewd: So far this is merely an assertion on your part.

    I guess a ghost could create FI?

    colewd: The natural world is all that exists assertion despite evidence that you are wrong.

    Believe in ghosts do we?

    Tell me, what is your “evidence” that more exists then “the natural world”, whatever that even means?

  35. Corneel,

    If you think of new rules during the game, it is only fair that they apply to everybody, right?

    You have accused me of moving the goal posts yet that is based on your unsupported assertion that past the origin of life no new information created from scratch was required.

    The goal posts are solidly in place until you can support your claim.

  36. colewd: The claim is that conscious intelligence can create information from scratch.

    No, it can’t. Everything we do had precursors. Shakespeare had to learn to read and write before he created his plays “from scratch”. Somebody had to teach him english.

    Nobody creates anything “from scratch” in the way you mean it.

  37. colewd: You have accused me of moving the goal posts yet that is based on your unsupported assertion that past the origin of life no new information created from scratch was required.

    Who introduced the phrase “from scratch” into this thread? You did. Therefore you moved the goalposts.

    colewd: The goal posts are solidly in place until you can support your claim.

    You are in league “don’t count” so bully for you.

  38. OMagain,

    No conscious intelligence creates anything “from scratch”.

    Mozart did not create information from scratch. I love this claim 🙂

  39. OMagain,

    Who introduced the phrase “from scratch” into this thread? You did. Therefore you moved the goalposts.

    How is that moving the goal posts in a discussion of FI? I am merely pointing out a unique feature of the capability of conscious intelligence.

    You are welcome to point out all the cool features of random mutation and natural selection.

  40. colewd: Mozart did not create information from scratch. I love this claim

    That’s because you don’t know anything about creativity. It does not occur in a vacuum.

    colewd: How is that moving the goal posts in a discussion of FI?

    The goalposts have moved after it was determined by gpuccio that small amounts of FI can be created by evolution. You then moved the goalposts to include “from scratch”. I don’t really care if this is convincing you or not that this happened, I’m not the only one saying it.

    colewd: I am merely pointing out a unique feature of the capability of conscious intelligence.

    Sure you are, sure you are.

    colewd: You are welcome to point out all the cool features of random mutation and natural selection.

    I’ll do that once you have described how the designer creates FI from scratch.

  41. colewd: Mozart did not create information from scratch. I love this claim

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart#Influence

    Mozart always had a gift for absorbing and adapting valuable features of others’ music. His travels helped in the forging of a unique compositional language.[105] In London as a child, he met J. C. Bach and heard his music. In Paris, Mannheim, and Vienna he met with other compositional influences, as well as the avant-garde capabilities of the Mannheim orchestra. In Italy he encountered the Italian overture and opera buffa, both of which deeply affected the evolution of his own practice. In London and Italy, the galant style was in the ascendent: simple, light music with a mania for cadencing; an emphasis on tonic, dominant, and subdominant to the exclusion of other harmonies; symmetrical phrases; and clearly articulated partitions in the overall form of movements.[106] Some of Mozart’s early symphonies are Italian overtures, with three movements running into each other; many are homotonal (all three movements having the same key signature, with the slow middle movement being in the relative minor). Others mimic the works of J. C. Bach, and others show the simple rounded binary forms turned out by Viennese composers.

    But no, he did it all from scratch……

  42. Mozart always had a gift for absorbing and adapting valuable features of others’ music. Mozart always had a gift for absorbing and adapting valuable features of others’ music. Mozart always had a gift for absorbing and adapting valuable features of others’ music. Mozart always had a gift for absorbing and adapting valuable features of others’ music.

    perhaps if I repeat it many times it may penetrate.

  43. OMagain,

    I’ll do that once you have described how the designer creates FI from scratch.

    This is your strawman so go ahead and argue with yourself.

    You are claiming that random mutation and natural selection can create sufficient FI to account for the diversity of life. Think it possible that you may be mistaken 🙂

  44. OMagain,

    perhaps if I repeat it many times it may penetrate.

    You don’t need to repeat yourself just support the claim that Mozart did not create any information from scratch.

  45. colewd:
    So far this is merely an assertion on your part.

    Are you saying that you know of conscious intelligences that are not built of the very things, loaded with FI, you claim to be the product of intelligence? If so, please present those conscious intelligences that do not require FI just too exist.

    You keep going on about how conscious intelligence can produce FI. Why should I not use the very same data to show that conscious intelligence requires FI in the first place? Why are you allowed to cherry-pick whatever you like about conscious intelligences, yet I’m not allowed to point to the cart-before-the-horse of your position? Why should I ignore the needs for intelligence? Why are you allowed to ignore them?

    I can go even further. Intelligence also requires the existence of something to be intelligent about. It therefore doesn’t make sense for it to exist in vacuo. It has to be under an environment where it can operate. So, here again, it becomes obvious that not only does conscious intelligence require FI just to exist. It doesn’t make sense for conscious intelligence to exist without something to be conscious, and “intelligent,” about. Therefore environment first, intelligence much later. Since there’s plenty of ways for life forms to deal with environments, other than conscious intelligence, then, again, environment first, intelligence much later, if at all.

    You won’t allow yourself to think about the deep problems with your position. I have no commitments to stop me from checking things coldly and fairly. No double standards. I can therefore reach a reasonable position, while you’re there defending an absurdity.

    colewd:
    The natural world is all that exists assertion despite evidence that you are wrong.

    1. Where is that evidence? Please show me, because I’d be very intrigued.

    2. Even if there was something besides the natural world, if that makes any sense, the problems still exist. FI is required for intelligence to exist. If FI has another form, besides the natural one, intelligence would still require it before existing. Intelligence would still be a way to dealing with the environment, whatever form that might have in a non-natural world. Consciousness is transitive. We’re conscious of something. So, it doesn’t make sense for a conscious intelligence to exist without being conscious of something. Again, environment, natural or non-natural, first, intelligence much much later.

    Non-naturalism doesn’t solve the problem. It just expands it into whatever “non-natural” might mean.

  46. colewd: This is your strawman so go ahead and argue with yourself.

    Why is it a strawman? Don’t you think the designer created FI from scratch?

    colewd: You are claiming that random mutation and natural selection can create sufficient FI to account for the diversity of life.

    And you are claiming it cannot.

    colewd: Think it possible that you may be mistaken

    I do. But you’ve given me no reason to consider that from what you’ve said.

    colewd: You don’t need to repeat yourself just support the claim that Mozart did not create any information from scratch.

    I just did.

    Mozart always had a gift for absorbing and adapting valuable features of others’ music.

    Nobody creates any information “from scratch”. Like biology, we build on what came before otherwise there is no possibility of anything at all.

    I don’t expect you to understand this, given you are not a creative person.

  47. colewd: This is your strawman so go ahead and argue with yourself.

    I ask specifically, why is this a strawman? Don’t you believe that your designer creates FI from scratch? Have I misunderstood? Even if your designer tweaks existing designs most of the time at some point it had to create the first FI “from scratch” right?

    Or is it that you claim “strawman” so you don’t have to expose the paucity of your reasoning?

    We’ll see, won’t we when you explain why that’s a strawman.

  48. One has to wonder why Mozart did not create Rock and Roll music, given he had no dependance on anything and created everything “from scratch” with no precursors or relations. He could have therefore created anything at all given the blank slate he was starting with.

    Sure, he created original compositions. But “from scratch”? Seems to me there was already a system in place for musical notation. The western world has a very specific musical scale. The instruments of the day were many and varied. If the piano was never invented I’m sure that would have been no barrier to Mozart, as he was creating it all from scratch anyway.

    It was all created from a vacuum with nothing prior. Yep, that makes sense.

    This is why it’s absurd that you now talk about “from scratch” with regard to FI in biology. It’s also why you cry “strawman” when asked how the designer creates FI “from scratch”. Uncomfortable questions you literally cannot face.

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