To all TSZ Members and Readers!
The end of the year and the imminent arrival of the new decade made me wonder when exactly Dr Liddle set this blog up. I see it was in (or at least prior to) August, 2011. Lizzie put up her first opening post Where does information come from? here. You can tell it’s the first because the link is to “hello_world”, the example post that comes with the WordPress package. UD addicts may like to follow this link to exchanges between Lizzie and the charming Upright Biped that may have had some part in the birth of TSZ. So TSZ is well on the way to it’s first decade – a remarkable achievement considering Lizzie has not actively participated here for some years.
Then I mused how much material (over 1,300 opening posts, over a quarter of a million comments) has been buried under the scrolling over. Recently, I was reminded by a Vincent Torley post at Uncommon Descent from 2013 that popped up randomly as a blast-from-the-past of an excellent post here by Allan Miller, Journal club – Protein Space. Big, isn’t it?. Having just re-read it, it seems a shame to me that it lies buried deep in TSZ archives. There is also a follow-up article that is equally meaty (Vincent Torley’s acknowledgement). I then wondered whether some posts and threads here merit a bit of re-exposure. We can bring them to the top of the pile as a featured post for a few days to give an opportunity for further discussion in the light, for example, of further developments.
Does anyone else have a suggestion for a post or a comment that they think deserves more attention than it received first time around?
And wishing everyone a happy and prosperous New Year and decade!
Happy new year!
The so-called abstract of Eric Holloway’s (embargoed) dissertation, “What Cannot Create Information, What Can, and Why It Matters,” in its entirety:
Grammar is a mystery, where does it come from? I can’t help remarking that Eric opens his cute little teaser with comma-spliced sentences, and ends with a monstrosity that would be marginally acceptable if the semicolon were changed to a dash. Why not write simply, in the end, either that the proofs indicate the nature of the source or that the proofs indicate certain characteristics the source must have?
Instead of constantly attacking Eric, why not prove that your math applies to biology? You can begin with fitness.
You can show us the mathematical proof how out of 120,000 fertilized eggs of the green frog only 2 survive; naturally selected because they were the fittest ones…
That’s a great idea (because I posted the same, some time back). However, I’ll take this opportunity to notify you that the second part of my review of Nemati and Holloway is almost done. You’ll see that I’ve put quite a bit of work into it. But as much work as you see, there’s much more that I’ve done, struggling to make my response accessible to a greater number of readers. I’ve moved up the fold of the first part of the review, hoping that you’ll see fit to peg it with the second part.
Wow. You don’t even understand that the math is coming from him, not me, and that it’s he who has been challenged to show how his math applies to biology. You are now on ignore. Hopefully you will have the sense to move on to another topic.
Really? If that’s the case, why do you keep reminding him that his math has to apply to biology, as if yours would?
I know that neither yours nor his math applies to biology and that’s what makes so funny…
Both of you keep ignoring the fact that classical information has little or no application in biology.
I don’t have the math to prove you both wrong. Not yet😉
ETA: Keep dreaming about singlehandedly taking ID movement down… I think Dembski had a really good laugh when he found out that his retirement was related to your math…that is…in your dreams…lol
“Does anyone else have a suggestion for a post or a comment that they think deserves more attention than it received first time around?
I have not been around TSZ long enough to know this, but was there ever a post, or a comment, by someone whose personal experience (s) touched others as to why they have a hard time believing in a supernatural?
I know the prevalence of evil is very common. This subject I think I could understand and why many use as an obstacle to their lack of belief in ID/God. But how about other, less popular issues that people my use as an obstacle to their lack of faith?
Is there something that is worth mentioning again?
Tom English,
This has been the central issue for me with ID proponents since I was first aware of “Intelligent Design” as a concept in 2005. Whatever were the merits of Dembski’s math, there seemed to be no model of biology that approached biological reality.
No problem. Look forward to reading it.
A supernatural what?
Note to self: why am I even asking? 😉
Because pursuing a model that purports to undermine evolution should match (at least to the extent it can be used to predict outcomes) biological reality. Otherwise, what’s the point?
What is evilness other than people using the word “evil” as an emotional reaction to a particularly horrendous event or act? Can you define “evilness”?
Exactly! Most, if not all, should understand what Supernatural means…
Why then does Tom (and Joe) keep reminding Eric the math has to apply to biology? And, if it does, natural selection will come to their rescue…
The argument is set up to fail because natural selection can do anything and everything…
Good point!
However, most people would probably know what “evilness” is, especially those who were the victims of evil; i.e. injustice or mistreatment…
Homosexuals could argue they are the victims of evil, if there is a God. War, crime etc. affects most…
Well, for me it is synonymous with “unobservable” (any phenomenon that can be observed, however indirectly, is real) and “imaginary”. I’ve yet to see any legitimate alternative use for the word.
Not sure about that.
You’ve defined “evilness” as injustice and/or mistreatment – especially when one is a victim of such.
But describing prejudice, discrimination or mistreatment of any disadvantaged group or individual as evil gives no insight into or information about the acts so described.
ETA spelling
Alan Fox,
How so? Is this because you believe there are almost infinite needles in the haystack?
Well, there are certainly many sequence solutions to function problems. And evolution is not a search process, so stumbling over an adequate function does not require an exhaustive search of sequence space. Did you get round to reading Andreas Wagner?
Alan Fox,
I did read his book and found it interesting however he did not really universally address the sequence problem. He was focused on metabolic pathways.
The data surfacing from sequence comparison is generating serious doubt about your conclusions. Data will ultimately help decide who is right. In any event the dialogue is interesting.
Happy New Year Alan 🙂
Très bien!
That’s the point. Phenotypes are selected, not sequences. A selective advantage may be gained by an addition of a function such as a metabolic pathway. That function may be made available by more than one set of sequences. Bacteria and Archaea are very distantly related, sequence-wise but have many similarities in phenotype, the iconic example being their propulsive systems.
There isn’t a conflict. There’s a relationship between sequence and function but it is not one-to-one and it is not a relationship of uniqueness.
Happy New Year to you and yours, Bill!
Alan Fox,
This turns out to be unlikely (if your hypothesis is a step by step process) based on the data but it is a very cleaver argument your side has put forth.
Once a irreducibly complex structure like a muscle protein starts to form the second protein is dependent on the first with a step by step process.
6 different mammal animals including humans and mice alpha actin skeletal proteins sequenced with 100% alignment. The variation you are claiming is in doubt here. Alpha actin is dependent on myosin and titin in muscle cells.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sarcomere.svg
I’m claiming there can be, and there are many examples of such, more than one solution (in terms of sequences) to the same “problem”. The archaean flagellum and the bacterial flagellum is a particularly fine example, as I already mentioned. Two unrelated solutions to motility.
Alan Fox,
Good point.
They both however require the building of a structure with 30 plus proteins that all have to work together to allow a motor to spin rapidly enough for mobility.. 4^100000 of possible DNA combinations. How many can build a functioning rotary motor? 4^10? 4^100? A mind can find this sequence theoretically. It is also is a good explanation for multiple models which add burden to low probability events.
Happy New Year to TSZ! Lizzie was a saint in her exchanges at UD, and she was pilloried there as a liar and ultimately, I gather, banned. Banned, in effect, for being too politely persistent and too effective. Then the crazed banninations of 2012 came, with even some pro-ID commenters banned as Two-Gun Barry shot himself in the foot (hilariously, in my opinion). So Lizzie very kindly offered one and all this forum.
I have been busy devoting my posting efforts to Panda’s Thumb, but if I think of particular past TSZ posts that deserve revisiting, I will send along the suggestions.
Happy New year to one and all when it comes or if it has already come for you 🙂
All of them. Prove me wrong.
Everyone else, happy new year.
Happy New Year.
I was a saint and got banned here.
Lizzie didn’t do anything to stop that.
OMagain,
The population of protein complexes that are not flagellar motors. ATP synthase is similar but performs a very different function.
Happy New Year 🙂
There are different definitions of sainthood. I’m sorry to hear that you can’t make comments at TSZ.
Yes, that was exactly my point. You can claim she was a saint all you want, and Barry can claim she wasn’t following the rules.
How is that any different than what Alan does here? He changes the rules, says someone he doesn’t like isn’t following the rules, applies the rules differently whenever he wants, does his own form of censorship by warning some but not warning others, on, and on..
So your claim that Lizzie wasn’t treated fairly at UD can just as easily be turned around and used to show that the same happens here.
Alan can’t fully utilize his desired censorship, because then he looks like a total hypocrite, given that this was the whole reason for Lizzie starting this site, but its not for a lack of trying.
Phoodoo is being somewhat disingenuous. There was a short period a while ago when his comments were pre-moderated. He’s never been banned.
I think it is telling that you focus on nitpicky, pedantic things. The only criticism I see where you actually address the substance of the EASC paper is incorrect (claiming L is q in section 3) and shows you either willfully misrepresent the paper, or did not comprehend the sections.
Anyways, I look forward to your part 2, hopefully you get around to a substantive, correct criticism. I have never seen one from any ID skeptic, and I’ve been looking for quite awhile now.
That is why he is a saint, he can miraculously make his posts appear despite being banned.
You are blissfully unaware , there were no rules, it was Barry’s whim.
If one has no need to be accurate.
Happy new year everyone!
What are you talking about? What about this by Tom?
“Grammar is a mystery, where does it come from? I can’t help remarking that Eric opens his cute little teaser with comma-spliced sentences, and ends with a monstrosity that would be marginally acceptable if the semicolon were changed to a dash. Why not write simply, in the end, either that the proofs indicate the nature of the source or that the proofs indicate certain characteristics the source must have?
To improve your grammar Eric, all you have to do is follow the syntactic dimension (grammar) of the molecular-genetic language found in DNA. Sheer dumb luck is really good at it and we can probably expect proof for it in Tom’s Evolution Is Not Search 77 OP.
The real bummer about this fact is that each basepair contains more than one set of quantum information of the neighbouring basepair.
How could it evolve? Supernatural selection is magical..
Both Barry Arroganceton and Lizzy deserved each other.
If hell existed, they should be roommates…
Found a twenty on the street, sheer dumb luck.I wasn’t even searching for it.
Happy new year!
What’s the likelihood of finding 250 other twenty-dollar bills, next to each other, aligned according to their serial numbers?
About the same as the likelihood that a creationist will one day understand why that’s a stupid argument and doesn’t apply to anything in nature
Not really. Lizzie consistently broke multiple clear rules at UD: she was always polite, she was always patient, she wrote clearly, she stayed on topic, and (worst of all) she knew what she was talking about.
The parallels between Barry’s creationism and Trump’s politics are uncanny — ideology is far more important than truth, and both ideologies are relentlessly false and must necessarily regard truth as a terrible enemy.
(And for the insanely curious, I found another ideology which genuinely rivals creationism for combining sheer wrongheadedness with rigid rejection of reality. I found it here:
http://evans-legal.com/dan/tpfaq.html
those trying to talk to creationists will see a lot of familiar territory.)
Happy New Year TSZ! I don’t post very often, but I’m glad the site exists.
Alan Fox,
There’s two things to note. To begin with, a mathematical model almost identical to Dembski’s has already been applied to Biology, much in the same way that Dembski did, by Hubert Yockey. His formulas for why RNA world did not exist were the same as the formulas specified complexity. The primary difference is that Dembski set a much higher probability bound than Yockey. The only difference is that Yockey said that “Life is an Axiom” while Dembski said “life is intelligently designed”. They are very similar statements, with the exception that Dembski’s actually allows for further investigation, while Yockey’s explicitly does not. Yet Dembski’s is classified as anti-science and Yockey got published.
Additionally, Dembski’s work showed that design *can* be pushed back indefinitely (that is, any amount of evolution is possible), but that makes the originating design *bigger*, not smaller. This is a subtle nuance that almost no one seems to pick up on. While Dembski is *personally* an old-earth creationist, he *never* claimed that the math specifically pointed to that. He only said the math pointed to design. It can be pushed back as far as you want, but, rather than starting with a simple creature, you are starting with an organism that has a huge amount of information in it, like the installer for an operating system.
Oh, here we go again. (1) Dembski’s 2002 argument in No Free Lunch did not succeed in proving that natural selection could not account for Complex Specified Information, (2) Dembski’s 2005 argument in his paper on Specification could only diagnose Design in cases where you had already diagnosed it by some other, unpspecified means, and (3) Dembski and Marks’s “active information” allowed for natural selection but then argued that a fitness surface that smooth required Design to account for its existence (wrongly: physics could account for it).
We’ve been over this a million times before but if you absolutely need to, I can respond to this and explain these points yet again.
You think calling a ban “pre-moderation” isn’t one of Alan’s whims that isn’t in any rule?
Alan is another one of Joe’s saints? Why couldn’t he follow the rules at UD?
OK, I guess Jon Bartlett’s argument is really just about point (3). So less work if that, the “active information” argument is all that needs refuting.