Subjects: Evolutionary computation. Information technology–Mathematics.
World Scientific is pitching Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics, by Robert Marks, William Dembski, and Winston Ewert, to a general readership, but with particular note of enthusiasts of apologetics. The book features the Conservation of Information Theorem, which was the centerpiece of Dembski’s religio-philosophical treatise Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information (2014). So there is no denying that the authors regard their mathematical arguments as support for their religious views. And there is no great surprise in learning that the nonprofit Center for Evolutionary Informatics, operated by Marks and Dembski, has the alternate name Arbor Ministries in public records. The forthcoming book includes a section titled “The Genesis,” and this leads me to hope that the authors, mindful of the canonical teachings of Jesus, have made a clear statement of faith.
No one lights a lamp and hides it in a clay jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, they put it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light. For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Therefore consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them.
The Library of Congress has, on prepublication review of the book, classified the authors’ technical contributions as I did in a post last year: “Engineering mathematics. Engineering analysis.” Not scientific analysis. The Conservation of Information Theorem does not apply to scientific modeling of an evolutionary process as it does to engineering of an evolutionary computation to solve a problem. Marks, Dembski, and Ewert cannot use their math to demonstrate that an evolutionary process was formed to serve a purpose, because the math itself prespecifies a purpose. Everyone, no matter how uncomfortable with math, knows that a proof of a theorem is not a proof of what the theorem assumes to be true in the first place. Put less abstractly, you cannot identify an event that occurred in an evolutionary process, analyze the process under the assumption that the event was specified in advance as an objective, and derive support for the claim that the process was engineered to achieve that objective. In my post, I identified a theorem that applies when scientists model a process given by nature, not when engineers design a process to solve a given problem, and used it to show that the “information” addressed by the Conservation of Information Theorem is not conserved.
Now, if you’re a Christian who would like very much to believe that two Christian engineers and a Christian mathematician can use engineering analysis to provide evidence that evolution is engineered, how are you going to respond to what I have to say? What you need to do is to grapple with their mathematics, and interpret it for yourself. But, unless you’ve studied quite a bit of college-level math — material in courses that students in engineering and computer science take after they’ve completed courses in calculus — you’re not going to understand it. I’m quite sure of that, having read everything that Marks, Dembski, and Ewert have published on evolutionary informatics, having published a half-dozen papers of my own that are related to theirs, and having taught much of the requisite math. The advertisement for Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics makes the claim:
Built on the foundation of a series of peer-reviewed papers published by the authors, the book is written at a level easily understandable to readers with knowledge of rudimentary high school math.
But you need only take a whiff of the very next sentence to detect the stench of a salesman.
Those seeking a quick first read or those not interested in mathematical detail can skip marked sections in the monograph and still experience the impact of this new and exciting model of nature’s information.
How convenient. I am telling you that the devil is in the detail, and that you should not place your trust in a gloss, no matter how godly.
When I was working with the geneticist Joe Felsenstein on a response to “A General Theory of Information Cost Incurred by Successful Search” (2013), in which the Conservation of Information Theorem is proved, I advised him to ignore what the authors wrote in plain language about the math, because it was positively misleading. (Last year, in an exchange here in The Skeptical Zone, Joe recognized Markov’s inequality in my attempt at explaining the theorem — with a very helpful prompt from Alan Fox, I should add. The upshot is that we have reduced the theorem to something much simpler than what the authors have identified, and that I have found easy derivations of results much stronger than any that they have published.) The “conservation of information” rhetoric remains much the same as it was in Dembski’s No Free Lunch: Why Specified Complexity Cannot Be Purchased without Intelligence (2002), even though Dembski and Marks changed the meaning of information from specified complexity to active information in “Life’s Conservation Law: Why Darwinian Evolution Cannot Create Biological Information” (2010; preprint 2008). Active information is loosely the opposite of specified complexity. Yet Dembski and Marks have never mentioned that they made the change, let alone explained why it was necessary. Dembski opens his most recent (2014) treatment of conservation of information with a gobsmacking denial of reality:
Being as Communion is the final book in a trilogy. The two earlier books were The Design Inference and No Free Lunch.
His only reference to specified complexity, the main concern of the two earlier books, is in a list of examples of “materialist-refuting logic,” buried in footnote 30 of Chapter 8.
I submit that the authors of Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics have been more concerned with preserving the story of “intelligent design” (avoiding any suggestion that Dembski blundered horribly in his earlier work) than with providing a clear explanation of what the math actually says. Of course, I have not read their forthcoming book. I would love to see them turn over a new leaf. Dealing with intellectual psychopathy is a royal pain in the tuckus. I would love to see them succeed in making their work “easily understandable to readers with knowledge of rudimentary high school math.”
Nothing would suit me better than to engage you in terms of the math, and not in terms of the misleading rhetoric that they attach to the math.
But I know, from considerable experience as a student and an educator, that understanding the math takes a great deal more work than most people are willing to do. The authors have already issued a number of accounts of their “new and exciting model of nature’s information” through the Discovery Institute, e.g., “Conservation of Information Made Simple” (2012). They have not yet found the magic words to imprint mathematical abstractions on the minds of the mathematically uninclined. But all things are possible with God, and hope springs eternal: the faithful will not rule out miracles in the new book.
Stay tuned to this “Evo-Info” series for basic insights into evolutionary informatics that almost certainly will not appear in Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics.
The Series
Evo-Info review: Do not buy the book until…
Evo-Info 1: Engineering analysis construed as metaphysics
Evo-Info 2: Teaser for algorithmic specified complexity
Evo-Info sidebar: Conservation of performance in search
Evo-Info 3: Evolution is not search
Evo-Info 4: Non-conservation of algorithmic specified complexity
Evo-Info 4 addendum
Good luck operationalizing that. Are you new to science?
I would tend to define it in terms of making pragmatic decisions.
I’ll note that evolution is itself pragmatic. “Survival of the fittest” comes close to “do what works”.
Fair enough. Now we need clear definitions of “know”, “perceive” and “understand”.
Many of us ID types are well aware that programs like Avida are engineered to achieve an objective, as are most GA’s. It might help if the “skepticism” here at TSZ extended to the claims that they model the evolutionary process.
That life is designed is an observation.
Did you bother to read the OP? You can’t engineer a model of unintelligent evolution and then use it to claim that evolution is unintelligent.
Yet it can’t create direction to a process if in every generation, nevermind in every millennium, the target and way of achieving that target varies.
If one reproduces because they are fast, and another reproduces because they are slow and strong, then the result is one becoming less fast and one becoming less strong.
You can’t build a great car by first trying to make a mini-van to carry five kids, then wanting it to handle like a Ferrari going around corners, and also be the most fuel efficient, and also have a big engine, and also a small engine and also be cheap and also use the best parts and also be recyclable, and also last forever, and also be red and also be green, and also be the lightest, and also be the sturdiest, and also be shaped sexy, and also be shaped plain, and also be the safest, and also use intelligent software, and also use no software so it can’t break…
What kind of car do you think you would end up with? A Yugo with tail fins, and that burns coal for fuel, has three wheels, and is the size of a mack truck, and has no brakes, but has a Tesla screen, and autopilot but without any sensors.
You’re not strengthening the case for “unguided evolution” either, in spite of what some folks might think.
What do you mean by define?
LOL! Creationists love their empty bluster.
Evolution might be pragmatic but by definition it can’t “decide”.
peace
Glen doesn’t seem to think so.
Actually I think Tom is strengthening the argument for ID, even though he doesn’t realize it.
ID argues that things that appear to be produced by something other than randomness likely are. Tom then points to crabs arranging shells in order, or waves sorting pebbles by their size and weight, and wants to say that see, look, these things appear like they aren’t just random, and guess what, YOU ARE RIGHT, THEY AREN’T! Your intuition was exactly correct, it actually was made that way by waves and crabs.
You intuition for spotting things that aren’t random is excellent!
Iron filings obviously know where the magnet is. From there’s it’s just a couple simple steps to computer intelligence.
Anyone have the heart to tell Poopoo the process of evolution isn’t all random?
Nah, why spoil his Christmas.
Adildo,
Adildo,
Of course it is random. What lives and dies is random. What mutates is random.
Its funny how your side fears your own ideas so much.
Evolution, the theory, doesn’t decide.
Evolution, the process, does.
Evolution is itself producing by other than randomness.
Neil Rickert,
What do you mean by evolution? What do you mean by producing? What do you mean by randomness? What do you mean by itself?
LOL! Poor Poopoo, all confused because evolution has a random component (genetic variation) and a non-random component (selection).
Casinos just LOVE IDiots like you who think playing roulette should pay 50-50 because all the spins are “random”. 😀
What do you mean by produced? What do you mean by randomness? What do you mean by likely?
Yea, you might want to take that up with Neil, not me. He is the one who is struggling to define every word in the English language. I think he is in a support group with Lizzie.
Your logical fallacy is (still) argument from personal incredulity.
Avida doesn’t “model the evolutionary process”, it is an example of an evolutionary process.
You’d end up with a bunch of different cars, each specialized for a particular niche. Does that remind you of anything?
It reminds me of evolution by intelligent design- you know the type of evolution that genetic algorithms model quite nicely.
And when given realistic parameters nothing new evolves. That is evolution in action for ya.
phoodoo,
I think what you are saying has merit but what I think Tom and Joe are arguing is that natural selection is not a completely random and here I agree with them. To your point while it certainly has been shown to help with adaptions in single celled organisms its ability to innovate is certainly in doubt. This idea is not longer just a creationist position but gaining general acceptance.
Patrick,
I am arguing against a trial and error process where that ultimate successful sequence is unknown at the beginning of the process and must be generated. Do you have a counter argument or are you satisfied trying to discount my argument on technical grounds.
There is no “ultimate successful sequence”. There are many successful sequences, none of them is “ultimate”, and evolution only has to come up with some of them.
Why are there lots of animals? 😉
The only case I want to make is that ID is a repeatedly botched program of fabricating a scientific alternative to mainstream evolutionary theory.
You’d think after 20 years they’d at least have the basics of Intelligent Design down and have moved into studying Intelligent Manufacturing. Instead they just sit around on blogs insisting that they Are Not Creationists.
That’s that’s not what legitimate scientific revolutions look like, but I doubt they’ll ever figure that out.
I think it’s important, when discussing Avida with IDers, to distinguish the platform from the experiments. Design of the platform is not design of the processes instantiated using the platform.
Yet another evolutionary theory then!
I don’t think Patrick knows the difference.
Surely you’re not suggesting that anyone would deliberately conflate the two? That would be deliberately confusing and derailing the discussion.
Neil Rickert,
Evolution has to come up with advantage out of an almost unlimited search space. Mobility is an advantage and takes 30 proteins to perform the task. Evolution has to search 100k nucleotides to create mobility.
If you want to hypothesize that mobility can be achieved with less than 30 proteins then how would you support this claim?
Tom English,
As an overall program you may be right here. Do you think there are any ideas worth exploring?
The canard that evolutionists make, that “evolution is not random” is not only a weaseling way to distort what they mean, but it is also irrelevant to my point.
It doesn’t matter if what dies is not random, what creates is random. They keep trying to sweep that fact under the carpet so we forget it. But if we don’t give the thing that creates a target, but instead we give it 50 targets, 100 targets, and say hit any target, and use any way you want to hit the target, then you can’t create any meaningful design, because as I stated with the car example, you are taking some elements because they are big, other because they are small other because they are soft, others because they are hard…there is NO CONSISTENT theme of design. It is blind and unguided.
So when you keep something because it makes a good carburetor (or lung), but then next you keep something that makes a totally different use of fuel, like coal burning, you can’t design anything. The design relies on each part being good for the same purpose-but that is not what evolution would do. It would choose light bones for one generation, because it helps for flying, and the next generation it might choose an armoured shell because it helped the animal protect itself from sand storms. The next generation after that it might choose a long tail because chicks liked it, and the generation after that it might choose a tail that can be used for stinging, but that chicks hate.
There would never be one coherent reason for choosing. There would be 100 targets, each with their own need. Plus luck-which makes up 98% of life anyway.
Its a nonsense theory if you really unravel it. Just like Lenskis bacteria, if we choose for nylon digestion, but then what you need is pesticide resistance, your choosing for nylon digestion is useless. You have to undue what you just chose for. What’s the next step in the bacteria’s evolution- better nylon digesting? And then even better? Until, you have bacteria that is completely incapable of digesting anything else-but then there is no my nylon-but the bacteria is useless at digesting anything but nylon. And it also now dies more easily when exposed to the sun, because we were choosing for nylon, not durability.
Logic has never been part of the theory. And when someone claims the system is not random, honesty is also not part of the theory. Unless of course you believe it is not random, which is what ID is.
Evolution isn’t a search.
There is no such niche which only has one survival criteria. So instead of different “cars” for different niches, you would have a car made for fifty different purposes, including being able to vacuum well, being used for a night light, and tasting good.
The car would never be good at being a car.
It only has to be better than its competitors
You mean like designing a car by first taking some parts from an apple peeler, some dandruff shampoo, three hair curling irons, some roof shingles, a crossbow, and four martini glasses?
That kind of designing?
What’s the next step in nylon eating bacteria evolution?
So when photons of light, coming from the sun, randomly strike parts of the world, then it must be that the light that enters your eyes is random and it must be that you are completely blind, since only random photons reach your eyes.
That’s an implication of your reasoning.
Neil Rickert,
OK. Replace the word search with sequence.
More metaphysics. There are multiple interpretations of probability. The use of probabilisitic models in biology is not an assertion that the modeled processes are in reality indeterministic. Have you not noticed that Jerry Coyne is an advocate of determinism? I try to stay out of metaphysics. My point is that it rarely matters to the biological modeler whether uncertainty is due to randomness inherent in nature or to unpredictability inherent in complex (perhaps deterministic) processes or to something else.
Then why is it presented as a search and modeled as a search?
Photons aren’t random.
Just as a smart phone is no good at being a phone.
Yes, but only in (engineering) analysis of the use of samplers in problem solving.