Glancing at Uncommon Descent (I still do as Denyse O’Leary often reports on interesting science articles, as here*, and the odd comment thread can still provide entertainment), I see an OP authored by gpuccio (an Italian medical doctor) entitled The Ubiquitin System: Functional Complexity and Semiosis joined together, telling the story of the ubiquitin protein and its central role in eukaryote biochemistry in some considerable detail. The subtext is that ubiquitin’s role is so widespread and diverse and conserved across all (so far known) eukaryotes, that it defies an evolutionary explanation. This appears to be yet another god-of-the-gaps argument. Who can explain ubiquitin? Take that, evolutionists! I’m not familiar with the ubiquitin system and thank gpuccio for his article (though I did note some similarities to the Wikipedia entry.
In the discussion that follows, gpuccio and others note the lack of response from ID skeptics. Gpuccio remarks:
OK, our interlocutors, as usual, are nowhere to be seen, but at least I have some true friends!
and later:
And contributions from the other side? OK, let’s me count them… Zero?
Well, I can think of a few reasons why the comment thread lacks representatives from “the other side” (presumably those who are in general agreement with mainstream evolutionary biology).
- In a sense, there’s little in gpuccio’s opening post to argue over. It’s a description of a biochemical system first elucidated in the late seventies and into the early eighties. The pioneering work was done by Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko, Irwin Rose (later to win the Nobel prize for chemistry, credited with “the discovery of ubiquitin-mediated protein degradation”, all mainstream scientists.
- Gpuccio hints at the complexity of the system and the “semiotic” aspects. It seems like another god-of-the-gaps argument. Wow, look at the complexity! How could this possibly have evolved! Therefore ID! What might get the attention of science is some theory or hypothesis that could be an alternative, testable explanation for the ubiquitin system. That is not to be found in gpuccio’s OP or subsequent comments.
- Uncommon Descent has an unenviable history on treatment of ID skeptics and their comments. Those who are still able to comment at UD risk the hard work involved in preparing a substantive comment being wasted as comments may never appear or are subsequently deleted and accounts arbitrarily closed.
I’m sure others can add to the list. So I’d like to suggest to gpuccio that he should bring his ideas here if he would like them challenged. If he likes, he can repost his article as an OP here. I guarantee that he (and any other UD regulars who’d like to join in) will be able to participate here without fear of material being deleted or comment privileges being arbitrarily suspended.
Come on, gpuccio. What have you got to lose?
Way to entice him over Keiths 😀
RodW:
keiths:
RodW
Heh. Well, the enticements — a censorship-free discussion, and feedback from folks who can explain gpuccio’s errors to him — haven’t worked. Shaming sometimes works better with guys like Pooch.
gpuccio@UD,
I think you should stop for a moment and consider the issue a bit more carefully, because take a look back. Your claim is that the “complexity,” “functional information,” or whatever you want to call it, is beyond nature. That is clearly pointing to a “gap.” Pointing to something you cannot understand how it can be done naturally. Sorry, but that’s not just god-of-the-gaps, but even classic god-of-the-gaps. Let’s continue regardless.
And so, they’re but an example, a tiny one, of the way “information” is produced. It doesn’t matter if you refer to a subset of information that you want to call “functional,” or any other, it’s still subject to the energy flows requirement, and, ultimately, of the way nature works. Design follows from the way nature works. Nothing could be designed if there was no entropy (which “ensures” energy flow), etc.
I know that’s your point. I’m trying to get you to understand that your point seems correct only because you take a very narrow view of the process of design, and then fail to see the connections all around you in what nature does, and how it does it.
Even the conscious understanding and purpose you’re talking about work because of the way nature works. Energy flows and all. There’s no escape to this point. You’re putting the cart-before-the-horse in more than one way:
1. Instead of noticing that designers can do their designs only because of the way nature works, you think that what we do is above and beyond nature. Sorry, all those bits come from the energy flow that nature has provided.
2. Instead of looking at design as the tiny single instance of nature’s way of working, you take it as an exception. Sorry. No exceptions. Without the physics, you’d be unable to put together any amount of information, even those 500 bits you’re so impressed about.
3. Instead of noticing that the immensity of nature alone dwarfs anything humans have ever done, you pretend that we’re the giants. Sorry, but those 500 bits of information come from the calories that nature’s way of working allows you to use, and nature has much more of it to spare.
That’s not what we see. We see a huge nature, with lots of life forms doing their stuff with no intervention by any designer. I haven’t seen a single life form that needs to consciously control its metabolism, or its ubiquitin-related processes. When I look closer, I see that these things happen on their own. I don’t see designers intervening. I see energy flow though. Lots of it. Not only that, energy flow seems rather fundamental.
Again putting the cart before the horse. The “subjective experiences of understanding meaning and having purpose” are all dependent on the way nature works. neither of them is magic. So, saying that nature cannot do this, and using a product of nature to demonstrate so is kind of contradictory.
I wasn’t trying to be insulting. It’s pathetic to put the cart before the horse because of the immensity of nature. I don’t think that you’re ridiculous.
Either way, I supported my statements all right. You fail to understand my point(s): you say that nature cannot do things we can do. I look around and see such a huge nature, a nature that makes me feel very tiny and the whole of humanity as very fragile. Not only that. I see patterns emerging all the time: solar systems, stones ordered by size in the beach, meteorites melting a land and then the cooling ordering the minerals into “veins,” crystal growth, spiral galaxies, caves, lakes, rivers, then, yes, life itself. Well, sorry, but I don’t have the arrogance to think that what I do is beyond nature. More importantly because I notice our incontrovertible dependence on nature to do the things claimed to be beyond nature by people like you.
Sure. Point to the ones you were able to produce without any dependence on energy flow.
I hope I did. I hope I was clear. Surely you will counteract with some claims that none of those things is functional information, but after declaring that functional information is about the probability of finding a rock to use as a hatch, you proceed to use the probability of a singular outcome as your definition for functional information. I guess if and only if it’s about some human-produced stuff, or some biological thing. the latter because, well, those are the ones you want to define away from the more generic understanding of information in physics. Guess what? Probability made the connection between information, statistical mechanics, entropy, and thus energy flow. The connection between information, whether you want to call it functional or not, and energy, is inevitable.
All this time I thought we were starting to have a decent and respectful conversation. 😩
Ok. Let’s.
I think we can do even better, but I really had little time to spare today. Maybe instead of piece meal I should have tried to make a single point clear, but I hope this gives you an idea of where I’m coming from. We can discuss the stuff for better clarity later.
gpuccio@UD,
You should avoid making these kinds of statements. I know you get something similar from this side of the fence, but just remember: those with religious inclinations abound on your side. So in trying to denigrate people on “the other side,” you end up denigrating most of those who agree with you. Even if they don’t “get a clue.”
And if not, at least one can enjoy watching them fail over and over again to make any sort of competent claim for design.
Glen Davidson
I always knew you were the FSM. Who else would have a pirate’s parrot for an avatar?
What are you talking about? gpuccio has formulated his design hypothesis in very precise and eloquent terms. Check it out:
LMFAO
gpuccio @ UD,
Sure.
Yes there is. This might work better by example. The specificity of lactate dehydrogenase is often measured by its catalyzing of the reaction when putting lactate as a substrate compared to malate as a substrate. This gives us a some-thousand-fold better catalysis of lactate’s oxydation/reduction than of malate with the help of this proteinaceous catalyst. In other words, the protein can catalyze both reactions, only it’s more efficient towards one than towards the other. (A single amino-acid change can reverse this specificity.) Not only that, different LDHs have different specificities towards the two substrates.
Potential for cross reactions are so frequent that it is not uncommon to give the “wrong name” to an enzyme because it was put together with the “wrong” substrate. For example, a substrate that it never encounters in its environment. However, once the correct substrate is found, it looks rather obvious in the efficiency / specificity of the enzyme towards it, compared to the “wrong” substrate. Where does all of this lead? To the realization that enzyme activities are not as perfect as presented in kinder-garden biochemistry, that they range in potential towards substrates other than their “normal” ones, and that, thus, there’s such a thing as “ladders” of specificity available for enzyme evolution. Not only that, after understanding this issue, it seems rather obvious.
The same is true about physical interactions. They are also measured. Why would they if they’re so specific and perfect according to kinder-garden biochemistry? Shouldn’t we just see a complex and be done? Well, no, the formation of the complex depends on the relative concentrations of the proteins in question, which depend on their relative affinities towards each other. Wait! Relative affinities? Yes. They have pseudo-affinities towards other proteins. So, here, again, we see that there’s an obvious “ladder” for protein-protein interactions to evolve, and thus to the evolution of protein complexes.
I hope that gives you enough of a hint.
This is but a derivation of question number 1. So, see above.
I guess I kind of agree with Gpuccio on the nature vs. intelligence idea. I mean, there isn’t anything that we can do that is utterly impossible for nature to do sans intelligence, but the likelihood of unintelligent nature doing any number of things is astonishingly against.
Well of course nature can do what we can do, since we’re a part of nature (duh? But creationists/IDists really don’t think so, in the main).
Yes, life itself. No evidence that it’s beyond nature, while it appears very consistent with nature. But nature (on earth anyway) did take a great leap in what it could do after intelligence arose, and writing and all of that.
Much of it’s beyond unintelligent nature, except for very low probabilities, many of which wouldn’t mimic even once a number of things that we do during the life-supporting time of the universe. A computer chip isn’t going to arise from just unintelligent nature. If we find writing on Pluto (before we’ve put any there, of course) we can be pretty sure that it’s done by intelligence.
Point to the ones that would arise without any dependence on intelligence (with any realistic chance, at least).
The problem with Gpuccio is that he’s drunk the Kool-Aid, and thinks that functional complexity itself is evidence of design. He can’t make a case for any of his design claims, nor can he explain why evolution can’t produce life, including intelligent life, without any design. Nor how any designer ever works via evolution, an intelligence that is necessary to transcend evolutionary limits, indeed, while still being constrained by evolutionary limits. What has never once been observed is life in general being produced by intelligence and evolution (no, a little artificial selection doesn’t cut it), let alone anything that has the intelligence, longevity, and utter stupidity to produce what we see in life over billions of years.
But of course intelligence can and does routinely produce what unintelligent nature never would in a limited universe. What it has never produced is life itself, nor anything much like it, particularly in its incapacity even to see any options outside of modified inheritance (and a bit of HGT). There’s nothing about life that indicates design, thus the only thing that Gpuccio and the rest of the “scientists” at UD can do is to take the obvious functionality of life and try to claim by analogy with the functionality of our products that it has to have been designed. They just have no evidence for that at all, while the evidence that life has all of the characteristics of having been honed by evolution, while basic starting “designs” have been decided by nothing other than blind inheritance, is very common indeed.
Glen Davidson
Whoa, now, a design system includes design processes, and a non-design system doesn’t?
My God, the intellectual output of ID is mind-
numbing, uh, blowing.Glen Davidson
Some more hilarious stuff from that UD thread:
Oh my, this is an endless source of entertainment
dazz,
Their brilliance is only matched by their humility.
Glen Davidson
GlenDavidson,
Of course what we do is awesome, but it is still not that much of a big deal for nature. It takes very little of all the energy that nature has available to sustain our activities, even if by our relative stature it looks rather ginormous.
We’re talking about the amount of bits, not about the particular form of the bits produced. Even then, intelligence also depends on energy flow. Thus, intelligence is but one of energy’s “pipes.” Intelligence is but one way in which nature can produce bits.
Clearer on that point now? (I know I made quite a mess, sorry about that. I hope clarifications will be possible. I’d advice, though, to read carefully and allow the ideas to mature in your mind before complaining).
Note: Edited quite a bit. 🙂
Nicely put!
So if the designer of life is constrained by energy requirements and can’t poof energy out of nowhere then it can’t be the Creator of the universe, right? I guess given 6 days she can figure it all out
colewd (Bill),
Perhaps you’d be so kind to tell gpuccio that his two simple questions were answered?
I should say though, that I think that trying to find questions that we might not have answers for doesn’t strike me as the most convincing way to promote the idea that ID is not a god-of-the-gaps argument.
Also, I can find plenty of questions I have no answers for, and when confronted by them, I don’t feel any inclination to say “oh shit! I don’t know! must be god did it!” Maybe that’s just me, but what about we just agree that lack of knowledge just means lack of knowledge and nothing else?
Odd, the entertainment aspect ended for me four or five years ago. I stick around here because some really bright people post stuff I haven’t heard before.
gpuccio indeed accepts common descent, but is rather indifferent to it. I am guessing that he only gets excited about finding the handiwork of the Designer.
The “preserved historically” part is the issue for you. We do not have access to the genomes of extinct organisms, so the only way to detect conserved sequences is by comparing the genomes of extant organisms and applying phylogenetic methods to it. If you want to have this piece of the cake, you need to accept common descent.
Didn’t gpuccio demonstrate that “conserved functional information” (whatever that is) has been added into our lineage during the course of evolution? Is that not the evidence of interim sequences that you require? We are merely disputing the source of this information. Unless you reject gpuccio’s conclusions of course.
Is that a fact? How come multicellular bacteria can do without it then?
Beer volcanoes and all of it.
Yep. Part of my point is to showcase the astounding cherry-picking and cart-before-the-horse involved in ID. They want to pick from humans, not even the ability to design, but, rather, what intelligent design looks like. Nothing else. They’d rather ignore what it takes to design, and what it takes for designers to just exist. They’d rather ignore that they’re claiming that the very designers they’re cherry-picking from, are part of what they’re trying to explain as being designed. They’re claiming that designers designed designers. If they just took an honest look they’d understand that they’re not really unbiased seekers of knowledge and truth (as much as some of them might actually believe so). They’re deluding themselves at best (deeply dishonest at worst), and arguing is circles. All of that makes it obvious that their arguments are irredeemably and profoundly influenced by their beliefs in magical beings, as Origenes was so kind to acknowledge.
gpuccio@UD
On the semiosis anthropomorphism.
Good!
Surely, which makes it extra important to be aware of the potential for anthropomorphisms. We should be very careful, right?
Let’s!
I think this is more like you’re unaware that they’re metaphors and analogies. Either that, or you redefine semiosis to mean whatever you’re looking at. But, redefining a word meant to be about some human thing, like producing meaning, etc, to mean something you’re looking at in nature, would be a bit like cheating, like an equivocation fallacy. You wouldn’t do that now, would you?
Hum. I suspect you’re preparing to redefine …
Really? I think that a symbolic code is more of an abstraction. An abstraction produced consciously. A representation. “Arbitrary mapping,” while trivially true, sounds a lot like you’re cherry-picking from symbolic codes to redefine life features into design by analogy (a.k.a. equivocation).
We could go on and on discussing whether the genetic code is arbitrarily mapped, or not, but that would be useless to your aims and my point. If we went for arbitrary mapping” then there’s plenty of ways it would have worked evolutionarily/naturally speaking. Lots of options. Fewer “functional” bits than the code would “contain” if it wasn’t arbitrarily mapped. At the same time, nothing linking this “mapping” to consciousness other than calling it “semiosis,” and thus extrapolating from the analogy, rather than from the facts.
I’d go much farther into the “arbitrariness” of the ubiquitin system and propose that the specific sequence of ubiquitin might be a “frozen” accident. The “arbitrary” mapping could have been to many other peptides to act as ubiquitins, it just happens to be that one. The more arbitrary the better. Fewer “functional” bits to talk about. Right?
The arbitrary mapping? Sure. Calling it “semiosis”? Nope.
Of course they are metaphors and analogies. You demonstrate so when you take but one characteristic from semiosis/symbolic codes, and then proceed towards an equivocation to infer that conscious activity is involved.
I think you need to seriously consider the potential for anthropomorphisms.
They do that all the time. I remember in the fine tuning thread, the same guys that constantly argue that complexity points to design shamelessly affirmed the elegance and simplicity of the laws of physics is the hallmark of design.
This curious ID syndrome makes them incapable of evaluating two claims at the same time for potential inconsistencies. But they don’t see the need cause deep inside they know they’re right. They must be!
Corneel,
Have you followed the argument at UD? You will see that there is no knock out punch here. Lets assume for argument sake that genomes are custom designed for species groups with very limited common descent (between fish for example). Also we assume that the blueprint for a specific protein function is the same across species. If the fossil record is true and species emerged at different times and we see proteins preserved (same AA sequence between species of different age) then gpuccio’s argument is supported without common descent. He makes the case that it is stronger with the common descent assumption and I agree with him.
Only if the evidence pointed to transitions with very small information jumps say under 100 bits. The eukaryotic cell is north of 100k bits from it’s “ancestors” so we can’t even get the party started without design.
I am not sure they can but lets assume for argument that they can. The reason for variable cell rates is the requirement for rapid embryo development (including cellular differentiation) moving to stasis as the organism matures. This is important for sexual species with large cell counts. It is also critical for differentiation as different tissue has different regeneration requirements. I would be pretty confident with the hypothesis that the ubiquitin system had to be optimized and ready for the Cambrian explosion.
You made good points. I will post at UD.
I’m still amused by watching Gpuccio come up with a lot of lame “just so” claims about how the Designer is constrained by evolution, when pressed to explain the dumb kludges existing in life.
Apparently a lot is known about the Designer. It’s capable beyond belief when it comes to dealing with extreme complexity when making first life and also for putting new information into life, yet it can’t think of how to move a great feature across separate lineages.
We can see how avian testes beat mammals’ descent of the testes, but the Designer of Life can’t. Or if it can, it somehow can’t or won’t pick the better version even for humans, the telos of Design according to them.
Glen Davidson
It’s really akin to sympathetic magic.
And about as scientific.
Glen Davidson
I’ve been reluctant to comment in this thread as I can see that gpuccio is trying to keep his argument focused and I don’t have sufficient knowledge of the ubiquitin system to make specific comments about it.
But I do have a comment that bears on RM, NS and common descent in general. I would like to know in what way a finding that I linked to in a previous thread is explainable in terms of the consistency mentioned above?
It concerns an interesting study:
How did the exact same 63 AA sequence come to appear in both species? Can the probability be estimated? I don’t know.
CharlieM,
Are the sequences identical?
What’s symbolic about DNA?
It’s that in part. But the symbolic nature certainly isn’t due to any of that. Hence the anthropomorphism that you constantly inveigle into the discussion.
Oh, how indirect does it have to be?
More importantly, being symbolic is a cognitive issue. It has nothing to do with being direct or indirect. Is a rubber stamp non-symbolic because all you have to do is ink it, then press it down on paper? Of course not.
Really? How did it become a mental issue–symbolic–simply by being mapped arbitrarily?
You really just throw out the stupid as you blither along, Poochy. There is no excuse for considering anything about DNA to be symbolic before it was cognized by humans.
As anyone can see, you just anthropomorphically assume symbolism when you see data working according to a code. You seem unable even to imagine how it could be otherwise, you’re so stuck in your anthropomorphism.
Basically, you assume that DNA is symbolic in God’s mind (yes, we know), and never imagine that a code might exist because, besides the ability of coded systems to store information compactly, sequential codes work very well for producing the sequences of proteins, among other things.
Glen Davidson
So you’ve exhausted all other possibilities?
And you’ve explained how the eukaryotic cell has been “started by design”? Or, alternatively, you have evidence of a designer whose processes you don’t understand yet empirically is shown to be able to make such things?
Of course not, you’re just playing the same stupid fallacious game that you always have, pretend that design is a given if you’re ignorant of how it could occur otherwise. And, since you’re very ignorant, that leaves it all open to you.
I’d like just once for you to pretend that you can write something even-handed. You learn nothing but bias from your favorite “experts,” however, and thus are pleased to reveal your deficient reasoning without pause.
Glen Davidson
Yes according to John Harshman
CharlieM,
You have about 250 bits of shared information. Interesting case study.
How dumb:
Evolutionary algorithms running on computers. Combining two things that belie Pooch’s mindless claims.
Glen Davidson
GlenDavidson,
Besides that’s not an acknowledgement, that’s just a claim.
Hey gpuccio! Compadre!
Let’s continue (hopefully you’ll also find my answer to your “two” simple questions. The ones you have been waiting for your whole life … or something to that effect). 🙂
OK, let’s see what you wrote.
OK, agreed. I won’t use that word (yes, it can be ambiguous). You seem to prefer “non conscious systems.” I’ll find my way, because yours is kinda biased (understandably, since you want consciousness to be behind everything in reality, not just aware of it). Maybe I’ll settle to that, with reservations, for the sake of continuing this thing.
But you understand the point, don’t you?
Same thing. You think there’s a gap, therefore god-did-it.
I know you do. That’s because you cannot imagine how this could happen without conscious intervention. Gap, meet god-of-the-gaps.
I agree. Rather simple. This should be so clear by now. Yet here we are, coming at it again, and again, as if this wasn’t clear enough.
Nice! Consciousness is part of nature. We’re advancing here!
This is very misinformed. There’s tons of advances in the field of consciousness. What stops people from realizing that there’s at least some levels of scientific understanding is their mystification of consciousness. Nothing else.
Because it’s not some configuration of matter. It’s an activity. Activities are not just configurations. This activity depends on the dynamics between “configurations” of matter, their dynamics (the configurations are not static), energy flows, chemical reactions, etc. But, of course, it’s not just a configuration. Scientific understanding is not about explaining things in terms of configurations of matter. It’s about the whole of physics/chemistry/biology.
Sorry, but that’s not an acknowledgement, that’s a claim. A gigantic claim based on scientific ignorance and religious inclinations that don’t allow you to see the fallacies involved in the construction of the claim.
It’s simple and it’s false. Scientists have understood for quite a while that information arises from the dynamics between energy flows and the nature of physical/chemical “entities.” As long as there’s tons of energy, and systems out of equilibrium, we’ll have information, quite complex, all over the place. Your problem seems to be a double mystification: one for consciousness, and another for information.
There you have it. I’ll answer the next one(s) you posted later.
So, evolution can generate a few bits of complexity, but for loads of bits of complexity we need Intelligent Design?
Anyone ask them yet if pennies add up into dollars or what?
One question about gpuccio’s burden shift… err… I mean challenge:
Aren’t all those transitions he claims involve large “information jumps” mostly developmental, with little (or no?) need for new “complex protein functions”?
gpuccio@UD (disappointingly),
Excuse me! You’ve been complaining that this question has been in your mind, and in your blog, for eons, only to then ignore the answer? Really? You find a factoid and stop reading any further?
The worse of it is that I just knew that if I mentioned that amino-acid change you’d stop reading and miss the point. Yet, I gave you the benefit of the doubt. I have a proposition though: you read the whole thing and try and get the point. Deal? That way I might get over the disappointment. Of course, if you’d rather not do that, then any time you mention that there’s no answers to your challenge, I’ll mention that you’re not interested in understanding the answers when provided.
There you have it.
ETA:
P.S.
You’d show your appreciation much better if you read the whole thing for comprehension, rather than being distracted by the factoid. Then you’d realize that there’s no challenge left to talk about.
gpuccio@UD (link is to the first of several shorter comments),
You claimed that ‘Conscious understanding and purpose are necessary to “put that amount of information together”‘ and that “Caonscious systems can do that. Non sconscious systems cannot do that, even if the necessary energy is available.”
Thus my emphasis. I see non-conscious systems doing that all the time. You seem to forget that this happens in life forms all the time with no consciousness involved. They put those amounts of information together with no conscious activity involved. Most life reproduces with no conscious activity involved. All life forms duplicate their DNA, transcribe it, translate the RNA into proteins, etc., thus putting together quite a bit of information, with no conscious activity involved.
Now, of course I understand what you think. You think that the first round, or rounds at strategic points in the evolution of life, come about by magical means. I mean, by the conscious activity of “God,” I mean, by the conscious activity of a god, I mean, by the conscious activity of The Intelligent Designer (shit I used capitals!), I mean, by the conscious activity of some unnamed intelligent designer(s). Maybe that after that it works on its own.
However, that comes only to show that you prefer to ignore that we can see it happening all the time. Systems being put together with no conscious activity involved. You pretend that we should ignore that and instead imagine that at some point(s) that wasn’t/isn’t so. that it required/requires, conscious involvement. I really don’t see why I should ignore that it happens on its own, and that it never seems to go against what’s possible given the way the physical world works. From that, I can start working towards some further/actual understanding of how it works, and how it came to be, rather than imagine a conscious involvement that doesn’t show any time I take a peek.
I hope the point became clearer now. (Yes, I knew you’d be perplexed. Got your attention, right?)
…
So you made that connection already! Good! We’re progressing. 🙂
Well, it’s implicit in my name! Now seriously, I have trouble translating the idea into humanly understandable terms, but the reason is that scientists, some of them, already understand a lot about information, probability, etc. That knowledge makes counting bits unimpressive.
And so, consciousness is not what’s required to put together some amount of information. Energy flow/Systems-out-of-equilibrium are (starting to develop a different way of explaining, please be patient).
Without energy flow making your consciousness possible, you’d be unable to have any control over those other bits of energy flow. 🙂
You should put a hidden camera. Make sure it doesn’t notice though. Kidding aside, of course not. I didn’t say that any energy flow transforms into writing. I said that energy flow transforms into information. Complexity is what happens when systems out of equilibrium move towards equilibrium. For as long as equilibrium isn’t reached, we have information. Yes, that includes “functional” information.
The point exists, only it’s not that easy to grasp. As you said, you use these conversations to improve your arguments. Well, I might improve my explanations by trying to get this somewhat-not-directly-intuitive idea across.
…
I was just irony-ing back. 🙂
Is gpuccio a Giuseppe?
You can stop right here. Why would I accept this? Wouldn’t different species have different requirements? Maybe the differences are functional (I believe you have argued this yourself for cytochrome c).
What ancestors? You don’t have access to ancestral genomes remember? Therefore you have no evidence that all of this information was introduced at once. In fact, this is the claim that ID proponents are trying to establish with irreducible complexity: everything needs to be introduced at once or it won’t work. The interesting thing though is that you yourself have rejected that argument in your discussion with John about the evolution of flight and that you acknowledged that existing features could be co-opted in a new function. That conveniently allows for that information to be introduced piecemeal.
So what is the use of the ubiquitin system to unicellular eukaryotes? Is there any?
I’m just going to respond to one of Gpuccio’s comments now:
Oh, your assertions are “answers,” are they? ‘Fraid not. Try for evidence once if you can. You can’t, of course, as you haven’t the first bit of good evidence for design.
Your logic is abysmal. You affirm the consequent. Because symbols may signify a relationship, therefore you pathetically think that because DNA has a relationship to transcripts and thus to proteins, etc., it must be a symbol. It’s an egregiously stupid way of “reasoning.” Just because a code can be symbolic doesn’t mean that every code is.
Ridiculous. You don’t seem to know that just because symbols can have a certain relationship that doesn’t mean that anything with a similar relationship must be a symbol. You’re fallaciously arguing from the particular to the universal, and there’s no justification for your incompetent “logic.”
Yeah right. Just go on with your religious apologetics while denying that it is religious apologetics.
The only thing you have to claim that is your abysmal logic of arguing from particulars to universals.
I have to state the trivial to someone like you who ignores it in order to make baseless claims. You ignore the fact that life simply needs to have something like a code in order to function, and that the function itself points to nothing like “design.”
You’re claiming that it’s all semiosis and symbols, when the real issue is function, and for any honest evaluation, how it evolved. The point is that we have functionality, and you don’t get to just assert that it’s all “design” or use your fallacies to “argue” that it is.
Then deal with that in an honest fashion for once. Not with your fallacious “logic,” your endless bypassing of evidence to make baseless assertions.
Glen Davidson
I don’t care how many times you write “define” or what emphasis you put on it. It’s a very tautologous “definition,” which ignores the issues of design. Presumably a “design system” is actually supposed to deal with design.
The trouble is that we’re used to IDists glibly resorting to cheap definition and bad logic in order to make “points.” Like functional complexity supposedly indicating design (when it’s clear that it’s really an attempt to define life as designed), when of course much design is not functionally complex and is still perfectly evident as having been designed. Meaning that functional complexity is not any wonderful mark of design. Or claims that DNA is symbolic by illegitimately arguing from particulars to universals.
You’re bypassing the issues of what design actually is with your “definition,” and it’s, well, rather trivial to come up with such a definition anyhow (I mean, who needs it?). I know what IDists do with those sorts of definitions, plug in the favorite ID assertion of what design is, and ignore the fact that identifying design is actually varied and complex (often easy to do, not so easy to say quite how it’s done across disparate phenomena), nothing like the simple ideas that IDists have for “identifying design.”
Glen Davidson
Yes, he wants us to look at the red herring. Tough beans for him!
I don’t know either. It seems that no genetic analysis has been performed, which might provide some clues (possible homologs etc). The toxin may perhaps also be obtained from the diet, like poison dart frogs do?
So why did you mention this, given that you seem to be aware that this is an exceptional finding?
gpuccio@UD
Alas, not true. Neo-darwinism is the theory of population change through natural selection put on more secure genetic footing than Darwin did. That doesn’t rely on common descent, I fear.
If CD were not true, design explanations would still fail to make an ounce of sense.
Just keep regurgitating the same crap and pretend you’ve made a positive case for anything. Unbelievable.
ETA: also, no. “Neo-Darwinism” doesn’t pretend to explain your pathetic CSI ripoff. Sorry to break it to you, but no one in the scientific community gives a flying fuck for your “work”. Go ahead and throw a hissy fit now about the establishment, censorship, conspiracy theories to keep your groundbreaking findings from getting the attention they deserve, blah, blah, blah
Well, it seems that you think consciousness is something beyond natural causation, at least in its origins, hence it’s hard to see how you consider it part of nature, unless you’re just calling whatever we ordinarily see as “nature.” To be sure, I don’t care for the term “nature” at all, except as a term of convenience. Natural vs. artificial seems the most useful distinction, in my view, since I have no idea if, say, gods or ectoplasmic beings would be part of nature or not (certainly not without observing them).
I don’t know why. “Intelligence” is the term I used, and it seems to fit what I wanted to say. I rather think that dogs are conscious, but not too bright, hence I expect little in the way of design from them.
What would be a mark of consciousness? Vs. computers, say, or philosophical zombies?
Yes, we’ve heard that. Just not a justification for that.
Not if the consciousness is that of dogs, or of lesser intelligences than dogs.
But fine (don’t want to try to make a lot of the caveat above) some conscious intelligences can produce information of that sort. We’ve not seen any that could or evidently would create life.
Trouble is, you’d have to justify your premises.
It has to do with the fact that your premise a) isn’t sound, and that life exhibits very undesign-like characteristics. Why don’t any organisms use radio waves to communicate? Why do bats have wings adapted from mammalian forelimbs, rather than from bird or pterosaur wings? What designer begins to make wings with forelimbs rather than the wings available to intelligence? At least give the bats contour feathers, for aerodynamic purposes (there are some advantages to their wings for certain lifestyles, but again, why make it out of a mammalian hand in the first place?).
Above all, the question is, why not mix and match function and need without regard to interbreeding of organisms? Certainly designers don’t stick with almost entirely modifying parts (I’m talking morphology) from older models.
I know that when you use your premises that way that it’s formally a positive argument. The trouble is that the crucial premise a) is not sound, it has not been shown to be true by the evidence. Indeed, the evidence is contrary to it, since life is peculiarly lacking in aspects that one gets from observed designers.
I don’t know where I said that. I’m sure I’ve said it, but I don’t use that as an argument against ID per se. I consider arguments from analogy proper in many cases. I don’t think they’re proper for “design” of life, however, because the analogy is poor, and as used by IDists there is much that is left out because those aspects are disanalogous.
Uh, yeah. Find anywhere that I’ve said otherwise.
And there’s the non sequitur. Life is very much unlike the things that we design, and evolution appears to be the primary reason for this.
No, it is what explains the highly derivative nature of life, most often (and in many cases nearly entirely) vertically, that is, life is extremely derivative of its ancestors in many cases (HGT matters more for prokaryotes, yet even there the vertical signals remain strong).
I realize that syncretism can put evolution and design together, but there’s no indication that there’s anything that really does design through evolutionary time (no, our domesticated organisms hardly count).
Be that as it may, there’s no justification for your reasoning with or without neo-darwinism, particularly for premise a).
It would have to be legitimate first. You have to show that “No system of the a) type can generate complex functional information,” is actually true. If you’re using a false premise, there’s no falsification possible. And it’s at the least an unsound premise, as it has never had the evidence to demonstrate that it is so.
No, premise a) is unsound, at best. And your “designer” fails to transcend evolutionary limits in the ways that we have observed actual designers to routinely transcend. Why don’t we have avian testes instead of ones that develop in the ancestral position, then descend into the scrotum?
I suspect you do that in order to use, rather than question, your unsound premises, notably premise a). Consciously or not.
When you rely on an unquestioned and unsound premise, it’s easy. The trouble is, it’s not justified.
Yes, it tries to smear life and functional complexity into one category. Again, unsound. Life is rather unlike designed functional complexity in many ways, especially with respect to the ancestrally-derivative nature of life vs. actual designed items.
The trouble is, in science you don’t just get to make up causes for your effects. Such work very well in the abstract, indeed, but you have to match up putative design effects to actual design causes, not to some vague unobserved “designer” who can cause most any effect seen.
That’s right. That’s why it won’t do to just lump life together with every other bit of design. And you might ask why life isn’t like designed things.
Yes, you don’t make sound distinctions. That is typical for ID.
Glen Davidson
gpuccio@UD,
What I wrote:
What gpuccio answered:
Bring the evidence that an arbitrary mapping means that there’s plenty of options for the mapping? Are you kidding me? That’s in the very definition of the word arbitrary gpuccio! Arbitrary means that there’s no reason why it would be A, rather than B or C. A, B and C would be equally likely options because it’s arbitrary.
I’d go on, but you seem to have a talent to missing the point when confronted with more than one idea. Once you get that I’ll go for the rest. Please let me know if you’ve got it this time, then I’ll explain the other points you didn’t get (or maybe when you get this one the others will fall into place in your mind).
I’m very disappointed at gpuccio. The guy seems quite willing to try and run sequence comparisons, find the word “bits” in the results, take sequences from different groups of organisms, assume that further similarity between sequences means added “functional” information, try and justify his assumptions in that and other respects, etc, etc, etc. Yet, he finds a parenthetical factoid, and imagines that was the whole point. Not the full three paragraphs written, no sir. A single sentence between parenthesis. Then he doesn’t know what the word arbitrary means, after he’s been using that very word to justify his “semiosis” anthropomorphisms. I wonder what he thinks the word means, and how would that definition help his case. It seemed clear to me, but, since he doesn’t really know what the word means, who can know what he actually had in mind all this time.
I thought this would lead nowhere with gpuccio. That I was as likely to change his mind as to change the orbit of our planet. However, I didn’t expect the reason to be the usual creationist illiteracy.
Wait a minute! No new complex protein functions in that transition? No “informational jumps”? That looks a lot like the kind of transitions that, according to your own criteria, should be perfectly feasible to achieve by RV+NS. I’m positive what follows is an acknowledgment and the pertinent retraction of your absurd claims…
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
gpuccio seems to be about to close shop. He thanks the UD crowd for the “success” of his “private party.” No thanking Alan Fox, of course. That had nothing to do.
Private party too? Then why beg for comments from “the other side” at all?
Anyway, I can get a clue. I leave the guy to his private party. It’s not as if he will suddenly start reading for comprehension.