Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
Sometimes very active discussions about peripheral issues overwhelm a thread, so this is a permanent home for those conversations.
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.
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.
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.
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…
Again- CSI pertains to ORIGINS- which means before natural selection is even involved.
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
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…
Yes, it seems to be idiosyncratic.
OK Joe- I will expose your quote-mining of NFL- stay tuned
Hogwash- my ass…
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.
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.
No Free lunch pages 148-49
O-R-I-G-I-N-S-> CSI pertains to origins
My only mistake is trying to be reasonable with you.
Right, and we also have observations of what blind and undirected processes can do- so we have knowledge of cause and effect relationships.
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.
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:
I think a fair few theistic evolutionists would probably agree with you.
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.
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.
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.
He misrepresents CSI- meaning Joe F’s excercise is meaningless
oleg- we have told you how to do it- what is your problem?
One HUGE detail you have overlooked- CSI pertains to ORIGINS
How old is the earth, Joe?
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….
Please demonstrate that the first organism that had a wing evolved one from a non-winged population via blind and undirected processes.
Good luck…
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.
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….
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.
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.
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?
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):
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).
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.”
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…..
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?
Wow, I really like where you’re going with this!
Joe G, how does ID get around this?
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….
dr who:
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!
1. Forever has no beginning
2. That with no beginning was not created
3. any CSI there must therefore be bootstrapped…
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.
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
Prove that it is a non-starter.
Best guess given the data, Joe. Don’t be shy.
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…
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.
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.