I have committed the unpardonable sin of promoting ID as theology and arguing ID is not science. ID is the lineal descendant of Paley’s natural theology (as in contrast to “revealed theology”). I’ve publicly disputed the use of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics as a general argument in favor of ID/Creation, and I’ve been mildly critical of the concept of specified complexity and its successors. I’ve suggested ID is most appropriately taught in college/seminary theology and philosophy departments. When I published a 2005 exchange between myself and Eugenie Scott of the NCSE regarding the appropriateness of ID being taught in college religion and philosophy departments, Eugenie was much kinder to me than some in the ID community who insist “ID is science.” See: Correspondence between Salvador Cordova and Dr. Eugenie Scott
To that end, in conjunction with university professors, deans of Christian and secular colleges (who are favorable to both Intelligent Design and belief in Special Creation), I’m helping build out the electronic component of courses that teach ID and concepts of Creationism for such venues.
The first order of business in such a course is studying Paley’s watch argument and modern incarnations of Paley’s watch. But I’ve found compartmentalizing the pure science and math from the theological issues is helpful. Thus, at least for my own understanding and peace of mind, I’ve considered writing a paper to help define terms that will avoid the use of theologically loaded phrases like “materialism”, “naturalism”, “theism”, and even “Intelligent Design”, etc. I want to use terms that are as theologically neutral as possible to form the mathematical and physical foundation of the ID argument. The purpose of this is to circumvent circular arguments as best as possible. If found what I believe are some unfortunate equivocations and circularity in Bill Dembki’s definition of Design using the explanatory filter, and I’m trying to avoid that.
VJ Torley was very kind to help me phrase the opening of my paper, and I have such high respect for him that I’ve invited him to be a co-author of the paper he so chooses. He of course is free to write his own take on the matters I specify in the opening of my paper. In any case, I’m deeply indebted to him for being a fellow traveler on the net as well as the example he has set as a meticulous scholar.
Here is a draft opening of the papers which I present here at TSZ to solicit comments in the process of revising and expanding my paper.
================================================
Multiverse or Miracles of God?
Circumventing metaphysical baggage when describing massive statistical or physical violations of normative expectations
Intro/Abstract
When attempting to set up a framework for expressing the improbability of phenomena that may turn out to have metaphysical implications, it may be helpful to isolate the metaphysical aspects of these phenomena from the actual math used to describe them. Additionally, the probabilities (which are really statements of uncertainty) can be either observer- or perspective-dependent. For example, in a raffle or a professional sporting league, there is a guaranteed winner. Using more formal terminology, we can say that it is normative that there is a winner, from the perspective of the entire system or ensemble of possibilities; however, from the perspective of any given participant (e.g. an individual raffle ticket holder), it is by no means normative for that individual to be a winner.
With respect to the question of the origin of life and the fine-tuning of the universe, one can postulate a scenario where it is normative for life to emerge in at least one universe, when we are considering the ensemble of all universes (i.e. the multiverse). However, from the perspective of the universe in which an observer happens to be situated, the fine-tuning of that particular universe and the origin of life in that universe are not at all normative: one can reasonably ask, “Why did this universe turn out to be so friendly to life, when it could have been otherwise?” Thus, when someone asserts that it is extremely improbable that a cell should arise from inanimate matter, this statement can be regarded as normative from the perspective of human experience and experimental observations, even though it is not necessarily normative in the ultimate sense of the word. Putting it more informally, one might say that abiogenesis and fine-tuning are miraculous from the human point of view, but whether they are miraculous in the theological or ultimate sense is a question that may well be practically (if not formally) undecidable.
The objective of this article is to circumvent, or at least minimize, the metaphysical baggage of phrases like “natural”, “material”, “supernatural”, “intelligent,” when formulating probabilistic descriptions of phenomena such as the fine-tuning of the universe and the origin of life. One can maintain that these remarkable phenomena are not explicable in terms of any accepted normative mechanisms which are known to us from everyday experience and scientific observation, and remain well within the realm of empirical science. However, whether fine-tuning and the origin of life are normative in the ultimate sense, and whether they are best explained by God or the multiverse, are entirely separate issues, which fall outside the domain of empirical science.
OMagain,
Specifically in the popularity of Behe’s book and the growing number of people I encounter believing it is credible.
I see this growth online. For example, a couple years ago, it’d be hard to find an ID positive comment on engineering sites like Hacker News. Now, whenever there is an article posted that is supportive of ID, often the top ranked comment states they find the ID position most persuasive.
I also see it in person with interactions with atheists and agnostics. They find the “ID as science” position pretty interesting. Evolution is obviously unsupportable, and people are interested in alternatives.
Please Bill, read the whole thing. Now I’m mostly repeating myself:
Again, information is about coupling. The environment provides “information,” it is what the organism has to deal with in order to survive. Again, only in the environment case it’s easier because the target is less specific. Survival can be attained by many ways of coupling the organism’s characteristics with the environment’s. That’s the information Bill, what’s needed to survive given an environment. Do you get it? Thus, the information doesn’t have to be “provided” by an intelligence, it’s “provided” by the characteristics of the environment.
Intelligence itself requires some foundational level of organization: what’s another way of thinking about organization? Information! So, it’s information first Bill, not intelligence first. You’re putting the cart before the horse.
Of course we can, and we get several “answers” rather than just one. This has been done plenty of times in the lab.
Nope. We have validated that selection makes a huge difference with the WEASEL program, that mere random variation is not what’s meant by evolution.
Then the hypothesis is falsified from the get go, because it’s the other way around, genetic information is what’s needed in order to have intelligence. There’s plenty of mutations that result in defective development of intelligence Bill. Here you have it backwards yet again.
On the contrary, if my worldview had the foundational philosophical problems of yours, then I’d be in trouble. But it doesn’t look that way.
Entropy,
I do but I am trying to keep it focused. You tend to want to complicate. The part of your argument I find interesting is the chicken and egg. Intelligence first or information. The universe appears to be information based. How was all this information generated?
The problem with your Weasel argument is that the environment cannot generate a functional sequence of a length required to sustain life. If you can demonstrate this you will not only prove me wrong but I will point you to a 10 million dollar prize you will collect. Let’s focus on functional sequences as using information as an analogy is getting the discussion side tracked.
The facts we are uncovering inside the cell are very problematic for evolutionary theory (UCD) to the point I would claim that UCD fails at the cellular level.
How long has it been since you have read the old testament?
I would say that’s not quite right. There are three components for a search process:
1. target
2. fitness function
3. search strategy
All three have to line up for evolution to work. In the Weasel example, there is a fitness function precisely tied to the target, and the search strategy is allowed to ratchet up successes. So, there is a lot of information being supplied to the search process in order for it to reliably hit the target “METHINGS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL” in only 40+ steps. If we were to randomly select from the range of possible fitness functions and search strategies, it’s highly unlikely we’d accidentally select such a good process. The high amount of bias necessary to achieve the successful search has to come from an external source. colewd is correct in his analysis.
When it comes to evolution, it is not obvious that ‘natural selection’ + ‘random mutation’ provides enough information to generate the great diversity of very complex, precise adaptations to environmental constraints that we see. So again, it seems most plausible that the information which makes evolution work has to have come from elsewhere.
If something’s not clear you could ask. I do not want to complicate, things are complicated. This is why it’s so hard to fix the misinformation produced by apologists (ID-creationists are nothing but apologists). Getting the concepts right takes a lot more work than simply buying into the rhetorical twists, fallacies, of apologetics.
And you don’t want me to complicate things? It’s a combination of the initial tiny states of the universe where quantum phenomena prevail, thus giving us a “seed” of random disequilibrium, which, in combination with the more deterministic phenomena result in places with a lot of concentrations of energy and matter, others not so much, thus energy flows, meaning complex organization / information. Sorry, no easy way to explain this, but focus: energy flows, material organization / entropy / information are all related.
You cannot know that. On the other hand, If we measured this in energy flow terms, we’d see that there’s more than enough energy flow for this to happen (way way more, like orders of magnitude more).
I doubt any prize can be collected. this has been proven in many different ways many times, but it’s, ahem, complicated enough to allow apologists to twist it and to refuse to understand it.
It’s you who started it. Why? Because you think that information can only come from intelligence, yet, I’ve shown you that the opposite is the case. Intelligence cannot exist without the organization that sustains it.
You’re a bit mistaken. UCD is a hypothesis about the historical divergence of life in our planet. Evolutionary theory doesn’t fail if UCD is false. Evolutionary theory is about how evolution happens, not about whether it has resulted in UCD. With that in mind, I’d wonder what you mean by those facts that make UCD problematic (I think that UCD has other problems, but nothing to do with the facts inside the cell, which cell?).
Why?
😀
Entropy,
This is an interesting idea.
I am pretty sure this is true. I have played with Weasel quite a bit and understand its strengths and weaknesses. If you can find a model that can find a target without the target of 100 string length with 20 possibility characters I would be interested but given this would save the theory and has never been demonstrated I am not optimistic. In addition there are just too many possible arrangements for non focused search to not get lost.
Functional sequences is a more specific description of what we are discussing.
I agree here if you see problems with UCD we have common ground here. At the cellular level it is the appearance of new genetic complexity that require long sequences to produce.
.
Just started studying it and ancient Jewish history (Josephus)
Started interestingly enough with a discussion w keiths.
There’s your brutal ignorance of actual evolutionary biology rearing its ugly head again. Do you ever do anything besides argue from personal ignorance?
The biological details are irrelevant for the mathematics of evolution. Insofar as evolution is a stochastic process, the ID argument applies, and evolution cannot create CSI. It can only pump out as much CSI as was placed in its initial conditions.
Now, insofar as the biological details demonstrate the creation of CSI from nothing, then that means there is more than the laws of physics at work within evolution. This could be the hand of God, other intelligent agents, vitalism, or a as yet undiscovered teleological force of nature.
It is mathematically impossible for the laws of physics to generate CSI, so there is no way a purely materialistic form of evolution can work.
This is scientistic, sloppy & unhelpful.
EricMH so far hasn’t ponied up to face the crushing blow that distinguishing proper or real design theory, design thinking & design thinkers (many) from ‘Intelligent Design theory’ (it’s capitalized because ID-opponents are more honest than most IDists) and ‘Intelligent Design’ theorists (relatively few), brings with it. Does EricMH himself know why he runs away from ever facing that clear, simple, important distinction for helpful and sincere communications purposes?
This desire of EricMH’s for the appearance of “ID as science” displays one of the on-going sins of the IDM’s leadership; the pride of seeking ‘scientific’ validation and recognition for their ideology. Sadly for them, the Abrahamic theists who are world-leading natural scientists (not just armchair amateurs like the author this thread), across all of the fields that the IDM touches on, almost entirely reject the so-called ‘scientificity’ of ‘Intelligent Design’ theory as an unnecessary temptation and distortion of ‘theology’ as ‘science.’ Salvador is of course correct about this, in his usual confused way because admitting “ID is not science” would serve to destroy the IDM from inside.
Design theories and design thinking are alive and well in the Academy and today. Design theorists are not persecuted. EricMH would be a liar to suggest they are. ‘Design’ is already understood as a way of describing ‘change-over-time’ in a generally ‘non-evolutionary’ way, though this is far from what is most important about design thinking and practices. It is largely among the most unimportant of things that the DI hangs its ideological hat on.
Yet to EricMH, the DI’s leadership has done *nothing* wrong. The partisanship resists & stunts his learning curve. Shutting off & disengaging when uncomfortable conversations for IDism come up does not make a successful discussion strategy.
This pattern of evasion will likely be repeated again here because EricMH knows full well that proper and real design theory is valid and under no threat of persecution or silencing. IDT otoh is a fringe movement of largely USAmerican under-educated sheltered non-mainline evangelical Christians, with a few radical Catholics and Jews in the mixture. In this light, onlookers can see ‘IDism’ for what it is: EricMH’s & the IDM’s ‘precious’ (ring of power fantasy).
“Did Darwin Kill God?” – Conor Cunningham
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x3JJILFmU4
Thank you for revealing this. It will be added to my list of IDists’ peculiar coulda, shoulda-style in the science, philosophy & theology/worldview discourse. ID is supposedly a ‘strictly scientific’ theory, but the Designing “could be the hand of God”? It’s clearly a type of suggestive apologetics & surely not ‘simply scientific’.
Evangelical Protestant rationalistic idolatry has these days in some of its bad forms turned into a kind of disguised ‘theistic science,’ spreading FUD about ‘good science’ and even ‘good theology,’ and largely ignoring philosophy, with a Darwin-fetish & almost reckless humanistic abandon. EricMH saw this 1st hand at the DI’s summer program, as did I.
Not sure you went to the same program I did. Part of our reading for the event were works by Plantinga and others discussing the philosophy of science. I don’t remember any theology being discussed. If it was, nothing really stood out to me. Mostly science, some math from Dembski, and some philosophy of science. You are probably right the ID movement is majority Protestant. Dembski, Marks, West, Meyers, Tour and Axe are Protestant. But, there is also Richards (Catholic), Behe (Catholic), Wells (Unification Church), Berlinski (agnostic Jew), and Gelenter (orthodox Jew).
I’m also not sure why you keep accusing me of intellectual dishonesty. The design theorists you mention seem interesting, and I’ve told you before how they are related to ID work. For example, Dembski has proposed looking into the Soviet Triz research project as a library of design patterns. As I’ve mentioned repeatedly, ID theory for the most part is very mainstream. The only reason ID theorists are persecuted is because they apply these mainstream theories to evolution. There is nothing wrong about the theories themselves, insofar as I’ve been able to discover by myself and after many lengthy dialogues on this site and reading the critics. I’m genuinely interested in ID theory because it makes novel testable claims and also can be applied to potentially great benefit. It is the last point that is most interesting to me: applied ID. I’ve discovered a number of domains it can be directly applied from the mathematical theory of Dembski, so as far as I’m concerned, ID passes the sniff test as a viable research platform. All controversy around the movement is just noisy emoting.
And as I mentioned, no one really takes evolution seriously anymore. In bioinformatics they used to, but have found the farther they go from evolution theory the better the algorithms work, so now any mention of evolution is just to placate the complainers. They are yet still shackled to some extent as I’ve recently found out working with some bioinformaticians, but they are seeing how information theory and computer science can be applied to analyzing DNA sequences, which would be impossible if it was just assembled through evolution. So, ID is alive and well within the ranks of those who get things done, in execution if not in word.
Good question.
Using the term “rules” tends to imply an external ruler. Human built machines are constructed and operate according to external rules. But living beings are very different to machines. IMO all living beings have an etheric principle which gives the body its form and this etheric principle is far more complex than the physical body. Physical form is a concentration of matter from the etheric. So we observe an increase in complexity from “rules” that are within living beings. That is why I believe the machine metaphor is inappropriate.
As long as its made clear what is meant by “in built rules” I don’t have a problem with this terminology.
In the past I have read about it, been taught about it, Googled it and, last but not least, experienced it. Rather than what I have learned, I prefer to think about what I continue to learn.
HI Eric,
I hope this comes back clear enough for you.
You quoted me:
Then you said (answers piecemeal):
We’re not starting well. I was trying to explain to Bill where the “information” that he’s looking for, is when we refer to the environment, you went back to a whole conceptual framework that then you mistake for evolution. You’re mistaking our conceptual frameworks for the way nature works (this is called reification). A fitness function is something we use to represent the effects of variables on the fitness of an organism, but evolution does not look at an equation and then tries to follow it. We make those equations to try and describe/understand what’s going on. For evolution to work all the population needs is variability, and environments where some variants or others would be better equipped to survive than other variants.
That’s it. No equations, no targets, no strategy. Variation is inevitable, environmental conditions are unavoidable (some more so than others), survival is not a strategy. We use equations, targets and strategies to try and understand or somewhat mimic what’s going on, to isolate one effect or another, but we should be careful not to pretend that our equations and conceptual frameworks are the same as the phenomena they try and represent.
This is somewhat obvious. In order for evolution to proceed, it feeds from energy flows, and most if not all of the energy comes from the sun. No solar energy, much less information to talk about. (Radiation is another source, but I’m not sure I could call it “elsewhere,” same for other chemical/physical sources of energy.)
Who are “they”? Oh, you can’t tell because they would lose their grants from the evil evolutionist establishment, right?
Okay. Allan, Joe, Rum, Entropy and the rest of the evilutionists, blink twice if you’re being held captive in Richard Dawkins’ dungeon
Have you proved that Mutual ASC is identical to CSI?
I have seen your demonstration of conservation of mASC, but not any of the rest of the alphabet soup.
Details and citations please. This strikes me as obviously wrong.
Since your math doesn’t map to the physical realities of actual biological evolution at all that means your claim is worthless.
Everyone else can see this easily. You need to take off your ego blinders.
EricMH,
Yes, EricMH, it was same ID Summer Program. Y’know, the one Swamidass & Lents just applied for, but were not ‘accepted’? I was there at Seattle Pacific University, just like you were. Do you accept that?
Ah, well, we watched “The Case for a Creator” by Lee Stroebel. The “Sourcebook for Seminar on ID” that they issued has theology in it. The first article in that Sourcebook starts with “Attributes of God.” It’s not like you were doing any serious or real ‘theology’ at the DI’s Summer Program. It’s that the program is drenched in evangelical Protestantism just as much as Charles Thaxton had the Abrahamic monotheistic God in his mind when he coined the term ‘Intelligent Design’ based on an analogy made up after reading a popular mechanics magazine. That’s part of the history & content of the IDM & IDism.
Yes, you’ve responded with TRIZ before. Yes, Dembski looked into it. Then stopped. I let you know last time you raised TRIZ that I wrote the encyclopedia entry for TRIZ at ISCID. I’ve studied it (& Altshuller, who invented it) much more thoroughly & closely than Dembski has & written about it more than he has. And I certainly didn’t first hear about TRIZ through Dembski.
Identifying “a library of design patterns” (& this is not what Altshuller called his inventory, just IDist wannabeism) does not automatically equate with ‘design theory.’ Do you have any other example of real design theory, design thinking & design theorists? TRIZ isn’t a good example.
It’s not about me being probably right or not. This isn’t about me. I learned this reading IDist writings & speaking with IDists themselves. Mine is not inexperienced critique of IDism. Dembski himself has spoken about the Protestant bias of the IDM. So did the ‘father of the IDM,’ y’know, Phillip Johnson, who the DI doesn’t cite much anymore:
The ‘make attractive IDism’ strategy hasn’t really worked. The Catholics I’ve met across the board reject IDism. Feser, Beckwith & Barr have denuded it of any pretense to glory. Jay Richards is a lost California couch surfer compared with them. You forgot Denyse O’Leary, who converted from Anglicanism. But again, she’s much more divisive than unifying & bar-lowering than bar-raising. And another Catholic convert Bruce Chapman, but he offers nothing on the ‘scientificity’ of ‘Intelligent Design,’ only the religious meaning of ‘Design’ & the Republican diplomacy.
As for Berlinski, he’s in the anti-Darwin(ism) movement, not the pro-ID one. I guess you don’t follow what people paid by the DI say in public. Berlinski is “warm but distant” to ID, “the same attitude that I display in public toward my ex-wives.” So, you’re an ex-wife promoting your ex-husband who doesn’t actually support your ‘theory’? Another way to say it: I think you confuse an evolution skeptic with an Intelligent Design advocate. This is common among IDists, so don’t count yourself special for doing this. http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/features/2008/the_paranoid_style_in_american_science/a_cranks_progress.html
Ok, let’s deal fairly. Be honest & I’ll stop pointing out your dishonesty in trying to cover for the DI, who I know from the inside just as well as you and from the outside, much better. The DI has been & is being dishonest with its double-talking that you cannot or will not give a direct answer for. Please stop pretending to be paragons of virtue (self-victimization & virtue-signalling as apologetics) when dishonesty is part of the DI’s MO, too obvious to deny.
Please link to where you’ve “told me before” anything about a single non-IDist design theorist. I don’t recall you doing this. Would it pain you to address proper & real design theory & design thinking & actually address living breathing ‘design theorists’ other than IDists? I challenge you to do so because one of the most embarrassing things I’ve seen for ID ‘theory’ was a large room full of design thinkers & design theorists actually laughing at the so-called ‘scientificity’ of ID. You’ve swallowed the DI’s ideology & are in the period of your life when you feel you should proudly display ‘Intelligent Design’ as ‘science.’ That’s on you & your integrity for doing that; I chose differently than you & am thankful for it.
This is simply untrue. That you try to foist it on people reveals a lack of fidelity to the truth.
ID theory, just among Abrahamic monotheists, leave aside atheists & agnostics, is marginal at best. The DI targets partners at evangelical Protestant private universities, like the one in Brazil where the DI recently gained a strange foothold. There is not a single ‘mainstream’ scientist or theologian who promotes IDT in a coherent & defensible way. It’s Christian apologists, pastors & youth group leaders who champion ‘Intelligent Design’ (substitute for creationism).
IDists are critiqued by at least 2 groups. EricMH wants to focus on atheist & agnostic critiques. Yet he goes silent & runs away from sound, reasoned, clear, simple, direct critiques by Abrahamic monotheists, who reject IDism for what it is, not just due to some misunderstanding of it. IDists are critiqued properly for their double-talking & over-the-top rhetoric. That you refuse to critique the IDM or ID leaders for anything just reflects your herd mentality, no more than that, EricMH.
Ah yes, the dictator’s mentality. You want to be a social engineer, is that correct? You want to be a god in the society in which you live. You want your ‘Intelligence’ to be respected & for people to listen to what you believe is a good & just society. You want to be the Architect of the social matrix you live in using “applied ID.” Is this in the ironic ball park?
Actually, that’s called sociology. We’ve been watching the IDM & find it badly lost & wanting. Yet you went to the DI, got brainwashed by their ideology, & now promote IDism as far as you can push it. That’s the sad but true sociology of the IDM, luring young protestant evangelicals with sciency apologetics.
Utter nonsense. BioLogos is just one inconvenient example for you. Few people take ID seriously, only ideologues in sheeps’ clothing.
Would you be willing to list a Top 5 things IDists have ‘got done’ in the past 24 years? Please stop faking execution with ideology. The IDM is one of the most under-producing movements I can think of; it puts more money into making ideological films than producing actual scientific knowledge. And you study computers & mathematics, knowing little about this. For goodness sake, finally let yourself be filled in with healthy ‘knowledge’ for this conversation, rather than further imbibing the DI’s ideology & soiling your credibility in the process.
No one in evolution takes the blustering Baghdad Bob proclamations of a scientifically illiterate mathematician seriously, that’s for sure.
Yeah, just look at how many papers the ID flagship journal BIO-Complexity has published this year. HINT: the number rhymes with “DONE”. 😀
Gregory,
I understand you don’t like the movement. Whats wrong with the argument?
ETA: The phrase “I think you confuse an evolution skeptic with an Intelligent Design advocate,” seems likely a paraphrase coming from someone else, though I couldn’t find the source. The name Stephen Barr was beside my note, though I didn’t find a link with him in a quick search.
Berlinski is of course one thing, Gelernter [sic above] is another. The latter’s recent article displays the newest version of computational IDism IDism with Meyer, West, Axe & the fellas in a further distorting & double-talking way that they simply won’t stand up & be responsible for. Yet after his “Giving up Darwin,” this comes as no surprise: “Page not Found” https://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/bios/gelernter.html
colewd,
Top 5 things colewd. Do your best. I’m not up for your bait. Do some work first. Show some ‘intelligence’ in doing so. I’ll be waiting for your Top 5 list. Good for you.
It’s not a matter of ‘not liking the movement’. This is such shallow conceptualist thinking. I’m a sociologist. Thus, I seek to understand people and societies and to share that knowledge with others. I’ve been doing this for years regarding the IDM & their ‘arguments’.
“IDists as ideologues” is a topic that folks like colewd don’t understand & won’t make any effort or attempt to discover. If they did, we would hear back from them about it with their findings, instead of silence. They cannot see what they are standing in when they double talk design with Design (cf. avoiding real design theory, design thinking & design theorists). It’s a chronic ideological failure that most educated Abrahamic monotheists have by now seen through.
Sorry that you are not yet able to use your eyes & ears for this purpose, colewd. There’s a better, clearer path than IDism available. Are you uninterested?
Did you get to voice your opinion at ID’s summer program, Gregory? That would be fun to watch
dazz,
Yes, rather gently.
It was & it wasn’t. They were & are decent people, most of them. The anti-ID & anti-creation(ist) folks here are comparatively serpents to them as doves. IDists may be wrong, but they are not intentionally dehumanizing with anti-religious or ‘teach no controversy’ religious neutrality in (public) ‘education’ propaganda.
Yet dazz too can change in his heart, instead of just calcifying his mind around materialist, naturalist & anti-theist ideologies that narrow, harm & degrade his humanity.
Straight up & with all due respect, dazz, it would also be fun to watch you actually stand up for the worldview you’ve been steadfastly pushing here, instead in front of a less partisan agnostic & atheist audience. I don’t trust TSZ, the leaders, nor the Admins. They are all atheists & agnostics, some of them anti-theists.
IDists otoh are at least almost entirely Abrahamic monotheists and that makes a big /all the difference.
How can you possibly believe they’re decent people when you know they’re lying and deceiving people?
I’m still waiting for a convincing argument to believe in your abrahamic cult.
Gregory,
I am interested. I am not tied to the ID group from an ideological stand point. I do think, however, that the argument is interesting whether it is categorized as science, philosophy or theology.
dazz,
The first step is not to label it before you understand it. The next is to try to understand it and the evidence supporting it. There was a book written which claims divine inspiration. There are now online tools that can help you get an understanding of the overall theme of the book in a relatively short period.
https://thebibleproject.com/
If the biology is not relevant to the mathematics, then the mathematics is not relevant to the biology.
You have experienced the evolution of warm-bloodedness?
Please tell us about that experience.
I would disagree. The computer architecture is irrelevant as far as comp. sci. is concerned. Regardless of how quantum fancy the architecture is, it can never solve the halting problem.
The details of the clever contraption you have invented are irrelevant as far as physics is concerned. Regardless of how fancy your use of magnetism and the earth’s magnetic field is, you can never create a free energy device.
It is the same with evolution. Regardless of whatever exotic mechanisms the evo biologists make up, they will never be able to contradict the conservation of information.
These fundamental limitations don’t care about the details of the systems they describe.
You have apparently never written a compiler, assembler, interpreter, or virtual machine.
Except information isn’t a conserved property in real life biology. Natural processes are empirically observed to create new information every day.
You really should make the effort to learn at least a little on the subject, unless you like making yourself look like a fool.
Adapa,
Can you support this claim?
Conservation of information in a mathematical model only shows that new information cannot come from the mathematics. So it has to come from the biology.
Your mathematics does not demonstrate a problem with evolution. Rather, it demonstrates a limitation of the mathematical modeling.
Neil Rickert,
The problem with evolution is identifying the mechanism that generates large amounts of information. Ie the mechanism that can generate the DNA sequence that builds a flight feather. The first step is to identify the mechanism and then build a model. Until then we are dealing with an untestable hypothesis.
Science knows the mechanism. You’re only had it explained to you about a hundred times at C/E sites all over the web in the last few years.
Why do you like staying so willfully ignorant?
Can and have to you dozens of times Bill. Gene duplication followed by point mutations to the copy is an empirically observed example of new genetic information being created.
Why do you like playing “Dory” and staying so willfully ignorant?
Adapa,
You are claiming this is new information. What is the source of the information that was copied?
It evolved from earlier precursors.
Seriously Bill you have to be an idiot to keep asking the same already answered question dozens of times. Are you an idiot? Or just really dishonest.
Adapa,
I may be dishonest or wrong but I think the claim that you have been repeatably making is false so let’s see if you have the courage to defend your claim.
I would assume then that based on your hypothesis that copying information and having that information altered creates new information. My hypothesis is that process is much more likely to degrade information than improve it. We can test that by making random changes to your internet name adapa. This is a 5 letter code representing you.
One other small question is where did the DNA mechanism that copies information come from? That cannot be the same process right?
That’s because you are looking at things the wrong way.
You are saying: this needs a feather, and therefore the information to build a feather.
Biology looks at it as: this need adaptation to a changed environment. So it can use trial and error to try to find a solution. To a first approximation, this amounts to mutation and natural selection. A feather is only one possibility for adaptation. You make the problem impossibly difficult, because you look for too narrow a range of solutions.
In particular, adapa described a process in which a sequence is duplicated and then the duplicates diverge.
Could you provide a definition of “information” under which this process has NOT led to an increase in “information”. To qualify, your definition should NOT lead to an increase in information in scenarios where the FI of both sequences has increased.
Eric is also welcome to try his hand at answering this question.
Yep, you’re an idiot. You may have heard about this thing called natural selection. If a mutation degrades a genome the genome has less chance of its owners reproducing and it will tend to get weeded out of the gene pool. If the mutation is beneficial it increased the chance of its owner reproducing and the new improved genome may spread through the gene pool.
Never mind the fact genomes are much more tolerant of genetic changes than English words are to letter changes. But how about
bill –> bill bill–> bill bull.
Duplication plus subsequent mutation shows Bill is full of bull. 😀
Or even
adapa -> adapa adapa –> adapa adapt.
Even your own “gotcha” fails. 🙂
Neil Rickert,
Where is the model that supports the claim of a flight feather being build by trial and error. Over 100 keratin proteins need to evolve to build this.
Adapa,
Ok now you have shown an intelligently guided mutation can add information. Dawkins proved that true with weasel. Now try it with 5 to 10 random mutations.
..and right on cue come the rocket powered goal posts. Every time one of Bill’s idiot claims get demolished he trots out another demanding more details.
No Bill, mutations in the genomes of living creatures aren’t “intelligently guided”. That’s the claim you have totally failed to support.
Here ya go Bill. Feel free to explain what this research got wrong.
Adapa,
I thought the new and improved theory was that most mutations are neutral but we can table that for now. So random changes will pile up.
Adapa,
It’s not a cellular explanation. Evolutionary claims such as universal common descent fail at the cellular level. You keep thinking Tim that’s what you are good at.