The Chewbacca Defense?

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Eric Anderson, at UD writes, to great acclaim
:

Well said. You have put your finger on the key issue.

And the evidence clearly shows that there are not self-organizing processes in nature that can account for life.

This is particularly evident when we look at an information-rich medium like DNA. As to self-organization of something like DNA, it is critical to keep in mind that the ability of a medium to store information is inversely proportional to the self-ordering tendency of the medium. By definition, therefore, you simply cannot have a self-ordering molecule like DNA that also stores large amounts of information.

The only game left, as you say, is design.

Unless, of course, we want to appeal to blind chance . . .

Can anyone make sense of this? EA describes DNA as “an information rich molecule”. Then as a “self-ordering molecule”. Is he saying that DNA is self-ordering therefore can’t store information? Or that it does store information,therefore can’t be self-ordering? Or that because it is both it must be designed? And in any case, is the premise even true? And what “definition” is he talking about? Who says that “the ability of a medium to store information is inversely proportional to the self-ordering tendency fo the medium?” By what definition of “information” and “self-ordering” might this be true? And is it supposed to be an empirical observation or a mathematical proof?

On the malleability of language

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Barry Arrington has a new post at UD:

where he objects to the discussion, particularly by thaumaturge, on an earlier thread:

The earlier thread is based on the accusation that Jerry Coyne and Richard Dawkins “believe the fundamental questions in biology have been settled and all that is left is to suss out the details.”

Suppose that I were to argue that

  • water is wet;
  • therefore roses are red.

Continue reading →

Welcome back guys!

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Well, a welcome of sorts.  Unfortunately, the hackers emptied the user file, and so we are down to three users right now (which is a considerable improvement from zero, as I can at least now access the admin panel!)

The bad news of course is that that means that you may get a bunch of spam from the hackers 🙁

I am slowly registering more people, as I can get details from your posts, but I don’t think there will be any problem in you just re-registering.  I’m still wall-to-wall with stuff, but should have some time on Sunday to find out whether there is any other damage, and try to fix it.  Also, maybe, post 🙂

Missed you guys.

Cheers,

Lizzie.

Robert Byers’s views on evolution

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Canadian YEC Robert will be familiar to many from various evolution/anti-evolution blogs. He showed up in my ‘macro/microevolution’ thread, and I am creating this as a thread for Robert to air his views and for those who choose to engage with him to do so. I am moving certain posts here from macro/micro, as they are off-topic for that thread.

Chance and Morality

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Scenario 1

 

Bob is drunk and driving too fast on rain-slicked streets. He runs a red light and doesn’t even see Belinda, a pedestrian who is crossing the street. He hits her and she dies.

Scenario 2

Bob is drunk and driving too fast on rain-slicked streets. He runs a red light. Belinda, a pedestrian, is about to cross the street. Luckily she spots Bob’s speeding car in time and remains on the curb. She lives.  Bob doesn’t even see her.

Bob’s behavior is identical in the two scenarios, and the difference in outcome is due to something completely outside of Bob’s control: whether Belinda spots his car in time.

Questions for discussion

1. In moral terms, is Bob equally blameworthy in both scenarios, or does his culpability depend on the outcome?

2. The legal system will punish Bob far more harshly in the first scenario than in the second.  Is this appropriate?

Justify your answers.

Macro/microevolution

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A number of posts have appeared at Uncommon Descent on the topic of macroevolution. Comments here have been appended to other threads, but I thought it an appropriate subject for its own thread.

The posts start here with a link to chemist James M Tour’s blog, on which he posted some personal musings on the creation-evolution debate. Numerous follow-on posts have appeared on UD subsequently, in a rather recursive comments-becoming-posts-spawning-more-comments-that-become-posts manner. I won’t detail them all, but they comprise the bulk of UD threads between 18th and 22nd February.

Tour admits his lack of credentials in the subject, but fundamentally expresses doubts that microevolution (which he accepts) leads to macroevolution. The issue has taken a bizarre turn since, apparently, a couple of UD regulars have offered to stump up costs for Nick Matzke to have lunch with Tour in a meeting that will be witnessed by one of them (it’s his dollar!) but, at Tour’s request, will not be recorded or discussed externally. A personal tutorial. Matzke’s mission, should he choose to accept it, is to prove to Tour’s satisfaction that the extrapolation is justified – that macroevolution is sufficiently explained by iterating the small degrees of microevolution.

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Is evolution of proteins impossible?

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At Uncommon Descent, “niwrad” has posted a link to a Sequences Probability Calculator. This webserver allows you to set a number of trials (“chemical reactions”) per second, the number of letters per position (20 for amino acids) and a sequence length, and then it calculates how long it will take for you to get exactly that sequence. Each trial assumes that you draw a sequence at random, and success is only when you exactly match the target sequence. This of course takes nearly forever.

So in effect the process is one of random mutation without natural selection present, or random mutation with natural selection that shows no increase in fitness when a sequence partially matches the target. This leads to many thoughts about evolution, such as:

  • Do different species show different sequences for a given protein? Typically they do, so the above scheme implies that they can’t have evolved from common ancestors that had a different protein sequence. They each must have been the result of a separate special creation event.
  • If an experimenter takes a gene from one species and puts it into another, so that the protein sequence is now that of the source species, does it still function? If not, why are people so concerned about making transgenic organisms (they’d all be dead anyway)?
  • If we make a protein sequence by combining part of a sequence from one species and the rest of that protein sequence from another, will that show function in either of the parent species? (Typically yes, it will).

Does a consideration of the experimental evidence show that the SPC fails to take account of the function of nearby sequences?

The author of the Sequences Probability Calculator views evolution as basically impossible. The SPC assumes that any change in a protein makes it unable to function. Each species sits on a high fitness peak with no shoulders. In fact, experimental studies of protein function are usually frustrating, because it is hard to find noticeable difference of function, at least ones big enough to measure in the laboratory.

ID, ENCODE and the Happy Isles of Fitness

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As Neil Rickert was foolish enough to grant me posting rights, I had better take advantage of the offer before the sysops sensibly change their minds.

Consider an argument used consistently by the ID community: that the natural processes of genetic mutation and environmental selection acting upon the resultant variation are incapable of generating speciation.

Their recurring metaphor is of improbable islands of fitness separated by unbridgeable seas of non-functionality. Even if the hill-climbing capability of “random mutation plus natural selection” is real (and even incorporating unselected allele frequency changes), evolution can’t work because “you can’t get there from here”. For brevity, let me acronymise this argument as CANTSWIM.

CANTSWIM has a great many shortcomings as a metaphor for how evolutionary processes actually work, and you don’t need me to enumerate them. But let me hand over the title deeds to the evolutionary farm, and assume that CANTSWIM is factual.

At the same time, the ID community has adopted the claim made by the leadership of the ENCODE program that >80 per cent of the human genome is functional. The devil, of course, is in the detail of how “functional” is defined.

Continue reading →

David B. Hart and the problem of evil

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Why do evil and suffering exist if the world is presided over by a God who is all-knowing, all-powerful and perfectly loving? That is the “problem of evil” in a nutshell.  In an earlier post (and in the comments) I explained and argued against two common theistic responses to the problem of evil.  Now I’ll tackle a third response from Eastern Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart.

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Gun Control!

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I don’t think this is an appropriate subject for this blog (although Barry Arrington and KF found it quite suitable for UD).  However, it interests me and I have written a small piece on my own blog. So I thought I would take the opportunity to advertise it here.

[Comments closed for this topic.  Please comment at Mark’s blog (link above). – Neil Rickert]

I assume most here are atheistic materialists

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Michael Todd has joined our discussion, and makes the assumption in the title of this thread.  Michael introduced himself with “Greetings all. I’m new here. I’m also a Christian.”

Here’s the rest of what Michael said in that comment:

I assume most here are atheistic materialists. Fine. However, the dilemma is yours. Why? Glad you asked. Materialistic determinism. Everything that happens, according to the necessary tenets of your creed, is a result of the properties inherent in matter. This would include all of your mental life – personality, memory, and perceptions. This would mean that all of your assertions are nothing more than expressions of an unrelenting matter/energy cascade.

The discussion started by Michael will be moved to this new thread.

On Paul Nelson on macro-evolution

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Paul Nelson has argued against macro-evolution, and I sense that some folk here want to discuss it.  So here’s a thread where we can do that without taking other threads off-topic.

First, some references.  There are three UD threads on this:

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Why Mung is an ID supporter

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In the tradition of offering threads to our visitors from Uncommon Descent (Gil Dodgen, Upright BiPed, gpuccio and others), I’m creating a thread in which Mung can explain why he is an ID supporter.

Mung continually complains that we misrepresent ID at TSZ.  Here’s his chance to set the record straight, to tell us what ID really is, and to explain why he thinks the case for ID is strong.

Take it away, Mung.

(Thanks to OMTWO for the suggestion.)

Things That IDers Don’t Understand, Part 2a – Evolution is not stranded on ‘islands of function’

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Intelligent design proponents make a negative argument for design.  According to them, the complexity and diversity of life cannot be accounted for by unguided evolution (henceforth referred to simply as ‘evolution’) or any other mindless natural process.  If it can’t be accounted for by evolution, they say, then we must invoke design. (Design, after all, can explain anything.  That makes it easy to invoke, but hard to invoke persuasively.)

Because the ID argument is a negative one, it succeeds only if ID proponents can demonstrate that certain instances of biological complexity are beyond the reach of natural processes, including evolution.  The problem, as even IDers concede, is that the evidence for evolution is too strong to dismiss out of hand. Their strategy has therefore been to concede that evolution can effect small changes (‘microevolution’), but to deny that those small changes can accumulate to produce complex adaptations (‘macroevolution’).

What mysterious barrier do IDers think prevents microevolutionary change from accumulating until it becomes macroevolution?  It’s the deep blue sea, metaphorically speaking.  IDers contend that life occupies ‘islands of function’ separated by seas too broad to be bridged by evolution.

In this post (part 2a) I’ll explain the ‘islands of function’ metaphor and invite commenters to point out its strengths and weaknesses.  In part 2b I’ll explain why the ID interpretation of the metaphor is wrong, and why evolution is not stuck on ‘islands of function’.

Read on for an explanation of the metaphor.

Continue reading →

Is Scepticism a Worldview?

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During the recent debate with Gpuccio at one point he claimed was that it was my prior adoption of particular ideology or worldview that led me to exclude design as an explanation. Thus reducing our disagreement to a choice of worldviews.  I am not sure I know what a worldview is – but scepticism falls far short of being an ideology.  All it amounts to is the demand for strong evidence before believing anything.  This is just an approach to evidence and is compatible with all sorts of beliefs about the nature of reality.

To take the particular issue of whether life is designed.  Scepticism does not exclude design. It just asks that a design explanation is evaluated by the same standards as any other explanation. It is not sufficient that other explanations are considered to be inadequate.  If you happen to believe in a designer with the appropriate powers and motivation then you may well accept that as the best explanation for life. If you happen to believe in a designer with evil motivations and sufficient power then that is a perfect explanation for natural disasters. But these are beliefs which need to be separately evaluated with their own evidence. You cannot use the fact that a designer is a good explanation for life as evidence for that designer.

What has Gpuccio’s challenge shown?

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(Sorry this is so long – I am in a hurry)

Gpuccio challenged myself and others to come up with examples of dFSCI which were not designed. Not surprisingly the result was that I thought I had produced examples and he thought I hadn’t.  At the risk of seeming obsessed with dFSCI I want assess what I (and hopefully others) learned from this exercise.

Lesson 1) dFSCI is not precisely defined.

This is for several reasons. Gpuccio defines dFSCI as:

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Upright Biped’s “Semiotic Theory” redux.

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I have been having an exchange with Upright Biped here about his perception of how his “semiotic theory of Intelligent Design” has fared among sceptics. In the hope that he will be prepared to re-engage with us in addressing a few outstanding points, I post his argument, originally published at lawyer Barry Arrington’s Uncommon Descent blog

1.  A representation is an arrangement of matter which evokes an effect within a system (e.g. written text, spoken words, pheromones, animal gestures, codes, sensory input, intracellular messengers, nucleotide sequences, etc, etc).

 

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