Sandbox (1)

Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.

1,772 thoughts on “Sandbox (1)

  1. William J. Murray: Do you ever apply the principle of charity, Liz, or do you just jump on every opportunity to derail, obfuscate, and rabbit-hole? Do you really not know what Joe meant there?

    Yes, I do apply the principle of charity, quite frequently, William. In fact, the founding principle of this blog is: “assume others are posting in good faith”. It’s why Joe is here at all tbh. And while I confess to being an inveterate derailer (a tendency I try to curb, however), I do not ever deliberately “obfuscate”. And, my response to Joe was dead serious, although delivered with a little levity – my serious point is that his reasoning is fallacious: it’s of the form:

    All cats have four legs
    This animal has four legs
    This animal is a cat.

    Only he compounded the error with his 100%, which tickled me.

  2. Elizabeth: You have directly contradicted yourself here, Joe!

    In what way did I contradict myself there, Liz?

    Try again:

    The whole point behind CSI is right now every time we have observed CSI and knew the cause, it has always been via some agency- always, 100%- almost law-like

    So when we observe CSI and didn’t directly observe it we infer some agency was involved.

    And to refute that inference all one has to do is step up and demonstrate blind and undirected processes can produce CSI starting with no SI at all.

  3. Elizabeth:
    It does represent NS.That’s exactly what it does.Read the paper, download the program, and get back to me when you’ve played around with it for a bit.

    Liz- I provided a paper that proves AVIDA has nothing to do with biological reality- you just ignore it.

    Not only that it starts with the very stuff that needs explaining as CSI pertains to ORIGINs- Joe Felsenstein’s quote-mine has been exposed.

  4. All cats have four legs
    This animal has four legs
    This animal is a cat.

    Sorry, but YOU are twisted as that has nothing to do with what I said.

    The whole point behind CSI is right now every time we have observed CSI and knew the cause, it has always been via some agency- always, 100%- almost law-like.

    So when we observe CSI and didn’t directly observe it we infer some agency was involved.

    And to refute that inference all one has to do is step up and demonstrate blind and undirected processes can produce CSI starting with no SI at all.

    What I said would be more like-

    All quadrupeds have four legs

    This cat has four legs

    This cat is a quadruped

    Geez if you can’t even follow a simple argument, no wonder you post the stuff you do…

  5. Again- CSI pertains to ORIGINS- which means before natural selection is even involved.

  6. Joe G:

    And yes I read Joe F’s post- it doesn’t make any sense, doesn’t have anything to do with functional information and still doesn’t have any real-world support.

    Re-reading it ain’t going to help, Liz- it is bogus from the start- as I have said, and proven, CSI pertains to origins. Not my fault that Joe F quote-mines “No Free Lunch”.

    Hogwash. I am not going to get into a name-calling contest, but I utterly reject Joe G’s characterization of my posts and comments.

    If there is anyone else here who agrees with him bout that, we can discuss that. If not, well it is just his idiosyncratic opinion.

  7. Joe Felsenstein: Hogwash. I am not going to get into a name-calling contest, but I utterly reject Joe G’s characterization of my posts and comments.

    If there is anyone else here who agrees with him bout that, we can discuss that.If not, well it is just his idiosyncratic opinion.

    I don’t care Joe- Read “No Free Lunch” CSI pertains to ORIGINS

  8. I’m saying that this is refuted by the demonstration that evolutionary processes (self-replication with heritable variance in reproductive success) can result CSI –

    What is wrong with you? By starting with self-replication you are starting with what needs an explanation in the first place.

    You just refuse to grasp the concept…

  9. Joe Felsenstein:
    I can’t improve on most of what Elizabeth says in response to Joe G’s notions.His ideas are not Dembski’s, that is clear.

    However, let me disagree with one item in that response.Joe G had said:

    and Elizabeth responded:

    It is not a fitness measure but it can be.Dembski in No Free Lunch describes CSI in terms of a rejection region, usually on some sort of scale.He then
    says on page 148:

    so he explicitly allows fitness (or components of it) to be the scale.And so I have used fitness, in an attempt to get away from the sterile arguments about who understands information theory better than who.It also connects it to a fundamental issue: whether natural selection can be the reason we see so much adaptation.

    OK Joe- I will expose your quote-mining of NFL- stay tuned

    Hogwash- my ass…

  10. Joe G: What is wrong with you? By starting with self-replication you are starting with what needs an explanation in the first place.

    You just refuse to grasp the concept…

    As I said, Joe, if the ID argument is that we can’t explain OOL, fine. So far, we don’t have a good account of OOL.

  11. Joe G: Sorry, but YOU are twisted as that has nothing to do with what I said.

    The whole point behind CSI is right now every time we have observed CSI and knew the cause, it has always been via some agency- always, 100%- almost law-like.

    So when we observe CSI and didn’t directly observe it we infer some agency was involved.

    And to refute that inference all one has to do is step up and demonstrate blind and undirected processes can produce CSI starting with no SI at all.

    What I said would be more like-

    All quadrupeds have four legs

    This cat has four legs

    This cat is a quadruped

    Geez if you can’t even follow a simple argument, no wonder you post the stuff you do…

    Well, you’ve just made the same mistake. You observe CSI in two places: stuff made by intelligent biological organisms; and biology itself.

    That doesn’t entitle you infer that biology was made by intelligent biological humans, nor does it entitle you to infer that biology was made by intelligent non-humans.

  12. No Free lunch pages 148-49

    Biological specification always refers to function. An organism is a functional system comprising many functional subsystems. In virtue of their function, these systems embody patterns that are objectively given and can be identified independently of the systems that embody them. Hence these systems are specified in the same sense required by the complexity-specification criterion (see sections 1.3 and 2.5). The specification of organisms can be crashed out in any number of ways. Arno Wouters cashes it out globally in terms of the viability of whole organisms. Michael Behe cashes it out in terms of minimal function of biochemical systems. Darwinist Richard Dawkins cashes out biological specification in terms of the reproduction of genes. Thus, in The Blind Watchmaker Dawkins writes, “Complicated things have some quality, specifiable in advance, that is highly unlikely to have been acquired by random chance alone. In the case of living things, the quality is specified in advance is…the ability to propagate genes in reproduction.”

    The central problem of biology is therefore not simply the origin of information but the origin of complex specified information. Paul Davies emphasized this point in his recent book The Fifth Miracle where he summarizes the current state of origin-of-life research: “Living organisms are mysterious not for their complexity per se, but for their tightly specified complexity.” The problem of specified complexity has dogged origin-of-life research now for decades. Leslie Orgel recognized the problem in the early 1970s: “Living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals such as granite fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; mixtures of random polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity.”

    O-R-I-G-I-N-S-> CSI pertains to origins

  13. Well, you’ve just made the same mistake.

    My only mistake is trying to be reasonable with you.

    You observe CSI in two places: stuff made by intelligent biological organisms; and biology itself.

    Right, and we also have observations of what blind and undirected processes can do- so we have knowledge of cause and effect relationships.

    That doesn’t entitle you infer that biology was made by intelligent biological humans, nor does it entitle you to infer that biology was made by intelligent non-humans.

    Yes, it does- again knowledge of cause and effect relationships is the key- and as I said someone can always step up and try to refute any given design inference- that is how it has been done wrt archaeology. Someone thinks they have an artifact until someone else comes along and demonstrates weathering can produce it.

  14. Elizabeth: As I said, Joe, if the ID argument is that we can’t explain OOL, fine.So far, we don’t have a good account of OOL.

    What do you mean “if”?

    All this time and you had no idea what ID was about?

    The OoL is a huge deal, Liz- if living organisms were designed then the safe bet is they were also designed to evolve/ evolved by design.

  15. Joe G: What do you mean “if”?

    All this time and you had no idea what ID was about?

    The OoL is a huge deal, Liz- if living organisms were designed then the safe bet is they were also designed to evolve/ evolved by design.

    Fine, Joe. You seem essentially to be in the same position as Darwin, then:

    There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

    I think a fair few theistic evolutionists would probably agree with you.

  16. Liz- Darwin did NOT posit “designed to evolve/ evolved by design”- he posited natural selection to replace any and all requirements for a designer.

    As for TEs, well they seem to deny that we can detect design.

  17. Joe G: So are we clear that CSI pertains to origins?

    Dembski doesn’t set the definitions and concepts in science. He never has.

    You are challenged to find a chemistry or physics textbook used in the training of chemists and physicists – along with their biochemist and biophysics counterparts – that uses CSI in describing what goes on with atoms and molecules.

    You won’t find any mention of CSI anywhere in such textbooks or in any of the research on the origins of life.

    So the answer is NO. CSI has nothing to do with anything.

  18. Joe G: So are we clear that CSI pertains to origins?

    Perhaps the disagreement is deeper. Since AFAIK you reject universal common ancestry, you will see many “origins” in things others will look as events in continua of descent. Regardless of what you think Dembski meant.

  19. In Joe F’s exercise, CSI was SPECIFICALLY defined in terms of FITNESS, where a genome that confers higher fitness has higher CSI:

    He misrepresents CSI- meaning Joe F’s excercise is meaningless

  20. olegt: You don’t like the concept of fitness. Fine. Tell us how we should measure (or calculate) CSI in an organism or species.

    oleg- we have told you how to do it- what is your problem?

  21. Dembski’s CSI

    Posted on March 12, 2012 by Elizabeth

    Time to look at this in detail, I think

    One HUGE detail you have overlooked- CSI pertains to ORIGINS

  22. Joe G:
    So are we clear that CSI pertains to origins?

    The issue is whether it applies only to the Origin Of Life. Creationists often use the word “origins” in a way that conflates OOL with subsequent changes. In the quote that Joe G gave from No Free Lunch Dembski does mention OOL but does not anywhere restrict his argument to it. Dembski rather approvingly cites Dawkins and Wouters as “cashing out” CSI in terms of viability of whole organisms or in terms of reproduction of genes. Those are concepts which are given meaning only after the Origin Of Life.

    Is there any other defender of ID here who agrees with Joe G that CSI is intended to apply primarily to the OOL?

    Otherwise we’re back to where we were in a previous thread — Joe G wants CSI to apply primarily to the OOL. And he admits that natural selection (oops, he wants me to say something like “reproduction in the presence of differences in fitness among genotypes” instead) can explain why the distribution of genotypes moves further and further out on the scale of fitness.

    I will stick to my position that Dembski intended his LCCSI to show that natural selection can’t do things like that. Is there anyone here who thinks that his LCCSI does prevent that?

  23. Joe Felsenstein: The issue is whether it applies only to the Origin Of Life. Creationists often use the word “origins” in a way that conflates OOL with subsequent changes.In the quote that Joe G gave from No Free Lunch Dembski does mention OOL but does not anywhere restrict his argument to it. Dembski rather approvingly cites Dawkins and Wouters as “cashing out” CSI in terms of viability of whole organisms or in terms of reproduction of genes.Those are concepts which are given meaning only after the Origin Of Life.

    Is there any other defender of ID here who agrees with Joe G that CSI is intended to apply primarily to the OOL?

    Otherwise we’re back to where we were in a previous thread — Joe G wants CSI to apply primarily to the OOL. And he admits that natural selection (oops, he wants me to say something like “reproduction in the presence of differences in fitness among genotypes” instead) can explain why the distribution of genotypes moves further and further out on the scale of fitness.

    I will stick to my position that Dembski intended his LCCSI to show that natural selection can’t do things like that. Is there anyone here who thinks that his LCCSI does prevent that?

    Whatever Joe F- According to Dembski AND Meyer biological Intelligent Design, and therefore CSI, pertains to the origin of life.

    BTW natural selection is a result and doesn’t do anything and CSI does not pertain to biological fitness.

    And you quote-mined Dembski for that Dawkins bit….

  24. Walter Kloover: William-
    So the first organism that had a wing either (1) had more CSI than its parents did or (2) was designed and manufactured without a parent?

    Please demonstrate that the first organism that had a wing evolved one from a non-winged population via blind and undirected processes.

    Good luck…

  25. Joe G: So are we clear that CSI pertains to origins?

    On the CSI thread, you stated that the only occasions on which we observe CSI and know the cause, it is intelligently designed (or words to that effect). Presumably you were referring to things that humans intelligently design which contain “CSI”. So, surely this means that CSI is something that doesn’t pertain solely biology , let alone solely to the OOL.

    Within biology, are you claiming that [i]all[/i] CSI comes from intelligent “frontloading” and that there is no intelligent “sideloading”? If so, your view seems to be radically different from that of I.D.ists like Michael Behe.

  26. To Joe Felsenstein-

    “No Free Lunch”- there is a section, section 3.8 that is titled “The Origin of Complex Specified Information”- it starts on page 149- the page after your quote-mine….

  27. Joe G:
    Hi Mike- for all of your rantings it is a bit strange that you cannot offer up any evidence to support your position.

    You want to know what else we won’t find anywhere in any textbooks- evidence for materialism.

    Hi Joe- for all of your rantings it is a lot strange that you cannot offer up any evidence to support your position.

    You want to know what else we won’t find anywhere in any textbooks- evidence for your designer God.

  28. Joe G: oleg- we have told you how to do it- what is your problem?

    Who is “we”, and what is your problem?

    You say you have told how to measure (or calculate) CSI in an organism or species but you can’t or won’t do it. Pick an organism or species and measure (or calculate) the CSI in it. It should be easy for you if you’re as expert as you claim to be.

  29. Joe G: Please demonstrate that the first organism that had a wing evolved one from a non-winged population via blind and undirected processes.

    Good luck…

    Please demonstrate that the first organism that had wings acquired them from a non-winged population via the actions of an intelligent designer. Also, define a wing.

    While you’re at it, please explain what CSI is and exactly how it applies only to origins. By origins do you mean the origin of life on Earth, the origin of species, the origin of the Earth, the origin of the universe, the origin of certain body parts, or what?

  30. Creodont: Who is “we”, and what is your problem?

    You say you have told how to measure (or calculate) CSI in an organism or species but you can’t or won’t do it. Pick an organism or species and measure (or calculate) the CSI in it. It should be easy for you if you’re as expert as you claim to be.

    Complex specified information is a specified subset of Shannon information. That means that complex specified information is Shannon information of a specified nature, ie with meaning and/ or function, and with a specified complexity.

    Shannon’s tells us that since there are 4 possible nucleotides, 4 = 2^2 = 2 bits of information per nucleotide. Also there are 64 different coding codons, 64 = 2^6 = 6 bits of information per amino acid, which, is the same as the three nucleotides it was translated from.

    Take that and for example a 100 amino acid long functioning protein- a protein that cannot tolerate any variation, which means it is tightly specified and just do the math 100 x 6 + 6 (stop) = 606 bits of specified information- minimum, to get that protein. That means CSI is present and design is strongly supported.

    Now if any sequence of those 100 amino acids can produce that protein then it isn’t specified. IOW if every possible combo produced the same resulting protein, I would say that would put a hurt on the design inference.

    The variational tolerance has to be figured in with the number of bits.

    from Kirk K. Durston, David K. Y. Chiu, David L. Abel, Jack T. Trevors, “Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins,” Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, Vol. 4:47 (2007):

    [N]either RSC [Random Sequence Complexity] nor OSC [Ordered Sequence Complexity], or any combination of the two, is sufficient to describe the functional complexity observed in living organisms, for neither includes the additional dimension of functionality, which is essential for life. FSC [Functional Sequence Complexity] includes the dimension of functionality. Szostak argued that neither Shannon’s original measure of uncertainty nor the measure of algorithmic complexity are sufficient. Shannon’s classical information theory does not consider the meaning, or function, of a message. Algorithmic complexity fails to account for the observation that “different molecular structures may be functionally equivalent.” For this reason, Szostak suggested that a new measure of information—functional information—is required.

    With text we use 5 bits per character which gives us the 26 letters of the alphabet and 6 other characters. The paper below puts it all together- peer-review. It tells you exactly how to measure the functional information, which is exactly what Dembski and Meyer are talking about wrt CSI. So read the paper it tells how to do exactly what you have been saying no one knows how to do- it isn’t pro-ID and the use of AVIDA as evidence of “emergence” is dubious*, but the math is there for you to misunderstand or not comprehend.

    Here is a formal way of measuring functional information:

    Robert M. Hazen, Patrick L. Griffin, James M. Carothers, and Jack W. Szostak, “Functional information and the emergence of biocomplexity,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, Vol. 104:8574–8581 (May 15, 2007).

    See also:

    Jack W. Szostak, “Molecular messages,” Nature, Vol. 423:689 (June 12, 2003).

  31. dr who: On the CSI thread, you stated that the only occasions on which we observe CSI and know the cause, it is intelligently designed (or words to that effect). Presumably you were referring to things that humans intelligently design which contain “CSI”. So, surely this means that CSI is something that doesn’t pertain solely biology , let alone solely to the OOL.

    Within biology, are you claiming that [i]all[/i] CSI comes from intelligent “frontloading” and that there is no intelligent “sideloading”? If so, your view seems to be radically different from that of I.D.ists like Michael Behe.

    Biology- CSI refers to the OoL- and in general CSI pertains to its origin- as in how did it get there? The ORIGIN of the CSI.

    Side-loading/ intervention is OK as the ORIGIN of that SI is still the agency.

    “Well how did I get here? This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.”

  32. Evos are having such a difficult time with information I had to find out why. So I disguised myself by going to a local library and setting up an account from which I could start posting on forums as an die-hard atheistic evolutionist.

    I have been doing this for just over a year- started around Darwin’s birthday 2010.

    Finally I have been let in on the secret technology they use to measure information and I managed to smuggle out some pictures:

    evo information measuring technology (IMT)
    They also have a more complex IMT

    And finally, the one I have been waiting to uncover this yellow thingy.

    So that is the problem. Dealing with evotards is like dealing with someone who cannot speak nor understand the language. It doesn’t matter how many times or how loud you tell them. Might as well talk to a wall.

    🙂 hugs and kisses , Liz…..

  33. Joe G: Biology- CSI refers to the OoL- and in general CSI pertains to its origin- as in how did it get there? The ORIGIN of the CSI. Side-loading/ intervention is OK as the ORIGIN of that SI is still the agency.”Well how did I get here? This is not my beautiful house. This is not my beautiful wife.”

    The origin of the CSI? As CSI is a prerequisite for all known intelligent designers, how does it make sense to propose intelligent design as an explanation for the origins of CSI?

    I propose an observation based “first law of CSI”.

    CSI is a prerequisite for all intelligent designers.

    This would be falsified by the discovery of one or more intelligent beings who did not depend on CSI for their existence.

    Because this is such a strong law, we need to think of a way in which we can get from basic low information to the high level required for the production of intelligent designers.

    I propose the theory that basic chemical self replicators that replicate with variation combined with physical environmental constraints could increase the basic information found in all molecules to the level of CSI required for intelligent designers. The added informational input comes from the environments of the replicators (side loading).

    I think that the I.D. movement should incorporate my theory as the best general explanation of how intelligent designers could come into existence in the first place, as they are interested in such beings.

    So, what do you think of my First Law, and my theory, Joe? Should the Movement adopt it?

  34. dr who: “I propose an observation based “first law of CSI”.

    CSI is a prerequisite for all intelligent designers.”

    Wow, I really like where you’re going with this!

    Joe G, how does ID get around this?

  35. Joe G:

    Finally I have been let in on the secret technology they use to measure information and I managed to smuggle out some pictures:

    The first link is broken, the second one leads to a warning that the image in question was stolen…

    Why am I not surprised?

  36. madbat089: The first link is broken, the second one leads to a warning that the image in question was stolen…

    Why am I not surprised?

    I corrected it and Liz put the corrected post in guano….

  37. dr who:

    This would be falsified by the discovery of one or more intelligent beings who did not depend on CSI for their existence

    We have only been saying that forever.

  38. Joe G:

    We have only been saying that forever.

    Wow. So you HAVE discovered an intelligent being that does not depend on CSI for its existence? Do tell!

  39. Joe G: We have only been saying that forever.

    1. Forever has no beginning
    2. That with no beginning was not created
    3. any CSI there must therefore be bootstrapped…

  40. Joe G: dr who:We have only been saying that forever.

    Are you sure? I thought you had been trying to explain CSI by attributing its origin to intelligent designers, which is a non-starter unless my law can be falsified.

    Isn’t it far better to incorporate the theory I suggested in order to explain intelligence in the first place. To expand on the theory, the environments of the self-replicators are biased in favour of what functions in them, and even rudimentary intelligence would attract positive selection, as it is a general attribute that is useful to self-replicators in all environments. Therefore, a system such as the one I’ve suggested seems to me to be the best explanation we have as to how CSI packed intelligent designers could arrive on the scene in the first place. They then should be able to transfer their CSI to artifacts that they make and voila we have Intelligent Design.

    I think this is the best supported I.D. theory going, and I think your movement should seriously consider its merits.

  41. madbat089: Wow. So you HAVE discovered an intelligent being that does not depend on CSI for its existence? Do tell!

    We have been saying that ID would be falsified if someone could demonstrate that there is an intelligent being that does not depend on CSI for its existence

  42. I thought you had been trying to explain CSI by attributing its origin to intelligent designers, which is a non-starter unless my law can be falsified.

    Prove that it is a non-starter.

  43. Joe G: We have been saying that ID would be falsified if someone could demonstrate that there is an intelligent being that does not depend on CSI for its existence

    Really? Huh. And here I thought that ID needed an intelligent designer to exist that didn’t itself depend on CSI for its existence. Because otherwise, it’s turtles all the way down…

  44. Joe G: Prove that it is a non-starter.

    I can’t conclusively prove that there aren’t rocks that speak French. But if someone were to put forward the hypothesis that the French language originated from rocks that then taught it to people, the hypothesis would be a non-starter unless the very strong observation based law that rocks do not speak could be falsified.

    In the same way, it is a non-starter to hypothesise that intelligent designers are responsible for the origin of all CSI unless the very strong observation based law that CSI is a prerequisite for all intelligent designers can be falsified. That’s why I suggested my alternative theory, which explains the presence of the CSI we observe in intelligent designers like ourselves.

  45. Joe G: We have been saying that ID would be falsified if someone could demonstrate that there is an intelligent being that does not depend on CSI for its existence

    You’ve got it the wrong way round. That would be the first piece of real support ever for your hypothesis, and a falsification of my law.

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