What mixture of “design” and “evolution” is possible as the IDM collapses?

This offers the simplest “neutral” colloquial mixture of “design” and “evolution” that I’ve seen in a long time. The site is no longer maintained, but the language persists.

“As a designer it is important to understand where design came from, how it developed, and who shaped its evolution. The more exposure you have to past, current and future design trends, styles and designers, the larger your problem-solving toolkit. The larger your toolkit, the more effective of a designer you can be.” http://www.designishistory.com/this-site/

Here, the term “evolution” as used just meant “history”. The author was not indicating “design theory evolution”, but rather instead the “history of designs” themselves, which have been already instantiated.

The topic “design is history” nevertheless enables an obvious point of contact between “evolution” and “design”. They both have histories that can be studied. Present in the above meaning of “design” are the origin, processes and agent(s) involved in the “designing”. This differs significantly from the Discovery Institute’s version of “design theory”, when it comes to history, aim, structure and agency, since the DI’s version flat out avoids discussion of design processes and agent(s). The primary purpose of the DI’s “design theory”, meanwhile, is USAmerican religious apologetics and “theistic science”.

The quotation above likely didn’t come from an IDist, and it isn’t referencing “Intelligent Design” theory as a supposed “scientific theory”. The “designer” in the quotation above is a (more or less intelligent) human designer, not a Divine Designer. This fact distinguishes it “in principle” from the Discovery Institute’s ID theory, which is supposed to be (depends on who you’re speaking with in the IDM) about first biology, then informatics, and statistics. The DI’s ID theory is not actually focused on “designing by real designers”, but rather on apologetics using “design” and informational probabilism.

The Discovery Institute’s failure to distinguish or even highlight the differences and similarities between human design and Divine Design, and instead their engagement in active distortion, equivocation, double-talking, and obfuscation between them, are marks of its eventual downward trend to collapse.

1,506 thoughts on “What mixture of “design” and “evolution” is possible as the IDM collapses?

  1. Kantian Naturalist,

    “the probability of a world with physics and chemistry as the only guiding forces producing life without guidance”.

    The calculation tells you that life as we know it is highly improbable. I agree we cannot cover all the unknowns. The problem with your statement having practical meaning is that once an enzyme arrives it must be matched by other molecules and those molecules are restricted to the physics and chemistry of the first enzyme.

    The probability challenge is change form molecules to man and all the innovative steps in-between.

  2. colewd: The calculation tells you that life as we know it is highly improbable.

    Bill neither you nor any other IDiot has ever produced any slightly plausible probability calculations for anything concerning biological life. NOT EVER.

    This is just one more instance of your classic Dunning Kruger everyone and their uncle has informed you of.

  3. colewd: Start by observing atoms and see if there are purposes behind their function. If you observe car tires do you then claim there is no purpose?

    More Bill stupidity. If an object we know was designed for a purpose exists then everything thing in the universe must be designed and have a purpose too.

    Seriously Bill I’ve never seen anyone with less self-awareness.

  4. colewd: I think I don’t know is an acceptable answer.

    An acceptable answer to what? I claim that the scarcity of optimized function in sequence space cannot be used to calculate the probability of such function evolving. Numerous people have explained the reasons why multiple times. “I don’t know” doesn’t cut it.

    I also think a mind being responsible is a hypothesis to be considered as we have currently no model with a mechanism that is less powerful. A “mind” solves the probability issues that natural explanations face. The conclusion of a mind helps let us know the answer may be outside of science.

    So if one has philosophical problems considering a mind behind what is being observed just go with I don’t know.

    I like your argument here. Principally because one can substitute “invisible pink unicorn” for “mind” without impairing the validity or soundness of the argument at all. That’s cool.
    😀

    , for reasons that have been explained to you many, many times.

    Are you saying I should accept your argument from authority? If you are talking about your TSS argument with gpuccio that was a poor argument IMO.

    No, I am not saying that. Since this has been explained to you many times, it is not an ‘argument from authority’ at all. We have explained the fallacious nature of the “rarity in sequence space” boondoggle in excruciating detail, repeatedly.
    The TSS fallacy is a whole other reason why gpuccio is a twit. Which we have also explained in detail. You have never engaged with that argument either, so your opinion of its merits is just that: your uninformed opinion.
    But hey, surprise us all: approximately how many different 80mers are there that can bind ATP? What does this fact do to gpuccio’s claim that he is not guilty of TSS?

  5. colewd to Kantian Naturalist,
    I agree we cannot gain absolute knowledge here. The question is can we make a judgement based on empirical evidence?

    Yep. All life runs on the very same physics and chemistry as everything else. Therefore, the possibility of going from non-living to living seems rather real. Not only that, we witness it everyday, only we do not notice because it is quickly catalyzed by already living forms. There’s good reasons to think that other catalysts could have acted at the beginning of life, just like catalysts from life do it today.

    colewd to Kantian Naturalist,
    We can estimate the probability of a world with physics and chemistry as the only guiding forces producing life without guidance.

    This is a contradiction of terms. How could guiding forces act without guidance? They’re the guidance by definition Bill. You answered your own question: the probability of life arising with physics and chemistry as the only guiding forces is 1. I know because life, as far as we know, runs on those exact guiding forces.

    colewd to Kantian Naturalist,
    We have empirical evidence of a minimal cell that can process energy and self replicate and this is around 400 Genes.We can calculate a range ofhow rare these 400 genes are in sequence space based on available experiments.

    That’s a modern cell Bill. And you’re focusing on a modern cell’s machinery, rather than on the guiding forces. If you focused on the guiding forces, then you’d realize why I, if not we, do not find any trouble with life arising from physics and chemistry. Hey, minds themselves run on physics and chemistry. there’s no magic in minds. Our minds require as much physics to overcome information “barriers” as any other natural phenomena requires. You know that our brains need a constant amount of energy flow, right? that it gets very hot out of the physics going on inside your head, right?

    colewd to Kantian Naturalist,
    I agree with you that we will not obtain absolute knowledge of all the possibilities but we can make estimates that show the origin of life functional information is a powerful challenge in a world driven by only physics and chemistry.

    If those rules were true, no minds would exist at all Bill. Your “Mind” would have no chance of doing anything. By proposing a “Mind” you’re proposing something that requires the physics and chemistry in the first place before being able to overcome any obstacles, which are, again, overcome because of the physics and chemistry themselves. You’re proposing that life arose from physics and chemistry, but you want to add a step in between that’s just backwards.

    colewd to Kantian Naturalist,
    I would argue that there is some quantification around this beyond a deep feeling. Does that make sense?

    A wrong one, an ignorant one, a misguided one. One that starts at the wrong point, and focusing on the wrong “elements.” One that presumes that life must have started as a modern cell, and that forgets the most basic functionings of cells, of life. A cart-before-the-horse one. One that ignores the fundamentals for the sake of magical beings in the sky.

    Granted, you did not have to know about those fundamentals. However, maybe you should at least try and understand them before buying into the backwards physics and chemistry of the IDiots.

  6. colewd:
    Flint,

    Start by observing atoms and see if there are purposes behind their function.If you observe car tires do you then claim there is no purpose?

    The problem here is, you CANNOT determine purpose from function. Not even for car tires. Now, you CAN determine the purpose of tires by asking those involved in designing, manufacturing, and maintaining car tires. But you are determining the purpose based on what people intend, not what tires intend. Function is not purpose. Teleological thinking is not your friend.

  7. The sequence space argument, I discover with alarm, was discussed at length in 2013. Still not seeing how a Mind helps. Suppose there is a particular needle in a needlestack 1 in a squillion in extent. Your task is to locate it, using only your mind …

  8. colewd: The conclusion of a mind helps let us know the answer may be outside of science.

    Works for me. It is people insisting that this is a scientific conclusion and should therefore be taught in schools and at universities that I disagree with.

  9. Flint: The problem here is, you CANNOT determine purpose from function.

    colewd does not seem to see the problem with observing atoms using things made of atoms where those observations are understood by things also made of atoms.

    It seems the “purpose” of atoms are to observe other atoms and see that those atoms have purpose?

    Incoherent drool.

  10. So, what’s the purpose of a photon? Is it to stop my atoms flying apart, or keep me up to speed on what’s around me? I suppose some things can be dual purpose…🤔

  11. CharlieM: Me Still no. Not ‘orthogonal’ to it either (such a pretentious word when used in such a way, I find). What does that even mean? If the dogma is not challenged, why mention it?

    Charlie: You ask what it even means, although whatever it does mean you are sure it is wrong!

    By ‘orthogonal’ I take him to mean that creative changes need not originate at the level of the gene.

    Haha, so you’re not sure either! Yet you posted with approval. The Central Dogma states that sequential information flow is from nucleic acid to protein, never the other way round. So unless he has an example of a violation, then the dogma stands, whichever geometric stance he prefers to express it by.

  12. CharlieM,

    Me: An important keyword there is ‘clonal’. Care to have a stab as to why I’d say that?

    Charlie: Because it involves mitosis as opposed to meiosis?

    Kinda. But the key here is their genomic identity. The genome of a clone gets copied irrespective of which cell in the clone it is copied from. That creates a setting in which most cells can be ‘persuaded’ to forego their direct reproduction in favour of the identical copies in other cells, allowing for specialisation. This is how multicellular organisms work, for one thing, and provides a rationale for cooperative behaviours among clonal cultures in some circumstances.

    Charlie: I would say that alternative splicing displays a similar level of control not governed by the genome.

    Me: You would be dead wrong. How else does a tissue-specific isoform arise consistently in every member of a species, if not under genetic control?

    Charlie: Under the control of cellular processes.

    A non-answer. How are those ‘cellular processes’ differentiated according to bodily position? Why does the liver of every rat produce the same isoform, but the spleen a different one, consistently? Cellular processes? They are both made of cells, as is a zygote or blastocyst, so that simplistic rejoinder can’t be it.

    Me: Again, you’re attaching limpet-like to the work of people you perceive as ‘revolutionaries’ without troubling to learn the basics, or follow the counterargument.

    Charlie: I’m learning continually. I try to question everything.

    That is not my perception. You question the things the ‘revolutionaries’ pick at, because something about conventional approaches bugs you. You seem uncritical of the revolutionaries themselves.

    Me: But there’s a reason the likes of Talbott are not widely proclaimed as visionaries in biological circles.

    Charlie: Time will tell.

    Sure. This is you ‘questioning everything’.

  13. CharlieM:
    Me: As to the genetic basis of control itself, I went into this in some detail. If you can find an exception to the rule that control ultimately resides in DNA, I’d be interested to hear it. But make sure it really is an exception, and not an artefact of your failure to follow the causal chain.

    Charlie: Your detail includes allosteric regulation, chromatin remodelling, histone modifications, DNA modifications, promoter and repressor binding, RNA titration, and you say you could go on. No need. There is no causal chain here, there is an orchestration of interacting processes. The DNA sequence is just one component of the system. All of the processes you mention above involve the action of protein complexes.

    Stop right there. The professor rushed into the lab. “I’ve just discovered why gene centrism and the Central Dogma are wrong. It’s not genes at all, it’s … proteins!!!!”. Knowledgeable colleagues would look at each other sadly, wondering why the old man hadn’t been put out to grass years ago.

    Can you see why?

  14. CharlieM: At no point in the repeated reproduction through the generations are the living entities reduced to below the level of the cell.

    Perhaps you could take this insight to Richard Dawkins. I’m sure he’s completely unaware of this fact, which blows his contentions clean out the water.

  15. DNA_Jock,

    An acceptable answer to what? I claim that the scarcity of optimized function in sequence space cannot be used to calculate the probability of such function evolving. Numerous people have explained the reasons why multiple times. “I don’t know” doesn’t cut it.

    This statement does not make any sense. No-one is using this vague statement to calculate anything.

    This is a contradiction of terms. How could guiding forces act without guidance? They’re the guidance by definition Bill. You answered your own question: the probability of life arising with physics and chemistry as the only guiding forces is 1. I know because life, as far as we know, runs on those exact guiding forces.

    Guiding the forming of a functioning sequence vs the guiding we observe in physics.

    No, I am not saying that. Since this has been explained to you many times, it is not an ‘argument from authority’ at all. We have explained the fallacious nature of the “rarity in sequence space” boondoggle in excruciating detail, repeatedly.

    Saying you have explained something as to determine the matter is closed is an argument from authority. You have closed the possibility for disagreement and since all science is tentative this rhetorical technique is not science.

  16. Flint,

    But you are determining the purpose based on what people intend, not what tires intend. Function is not purpose. Teleological thinking is not your friend.

    The people who designed the tires had a purpose. Observing a car running can help you infer the purpose of the tires.

  17. Corneel,

    Works for me. It is people insisting that this is a scientific conclusion and should therefore be taught in schools and at universities that I disagree with.

    Works for me too.

  18. Allan Miller,

    The sequence space argument, I discover with alarm, was discussed at length in 2013. Still not seeing how a Mind helps. Suppose there is a particular needle in a needlestack 1 in a squillion in extent. Your task is to locate it, using only your mind

    You can’t imagine how a mind can help you obtain an attractive girls telephone number 🙂

  19. colewd: Works for me too.

    Then why do you keep trying to ground your faith in science? Sequence space, atoms are designed and have purpose?

    colewd: Guiding the forming of a functioning sequence vs the guiding we observe in physics.

    Believe what you believe and stop trying to pretend science supports your belief. Then you’ll generate much less rancor.

    colewd: Guiding the forming of a functioning sequence vs the guiding we observe in physics.

    That’s your belief. You can’t demonstrate it scientifically. Just stop talking about science. Stop talking about the origin of life. Stop talking about the minimal cell. You have your beliefs, they will never change, and you will never be able to ground then scientifically.

    So just stop already. Start a theology thread and talk in there about theology. Stop talking about physics. Stop talking about ‘minds’.

    You accept what you are talking about is not scientific. So why not start acting like it?

    colewd: Saying you have explained something as to determine the matter is closed is an argument from authority. You have closed the possibility for disagreement and since all science is tentative this rhetorical technique is not science.

    That would only be true had you then shown some understanding and produced a cogent objection to what had been explained to you. In the minds of the people who explained it to you, and understood it, you did not provide a cogent response.

    Hence the matter is closed for them, and nothing you can say or do can change that. The only person who has closed the possibility for disagreement is you as you are unable to disagree in the required manner and you are further unable to see that you are unable to disagree in the required manner (i.e. making an argument based on facts).

    Progress is therefore impossible in such a situation. And the problem lies solely with you and nobody else. If that were not true then why do you get the same reactions everywhere you try these ‘arguments’?

    To repeat: Disagree in the proper manner and discussion will continue. That’s your only choice.

  20. colewd: This statement does not make any sense. No-one is using this vague statement to calculate anything.

    Quite. That was my point. Sadly, some poor souls think they can. Be a doll, would you, and let this “We can estimate the probability” guy know.

    colewd: Saying you have explained something as to determine the matter is closed is an argument from authority. You have closed the possibility for disagreement and…

    WTF? I have been saying that I (and others) have explained these things because we have. I am not “determining the matter is closed”. Far from it, I am always open to having a discussion. In the very comment that you are replying to, I noted that it is you, Bill, who has resolutely refused to actually engage, and even offered you yet another opportunity to do so, asking:

    But hey, surprise us all: approximately how many different 80mers are there that can bind ATP? What does this fact do to gpuccio’s claim that he is not guilty of TSS?

    Tellingly, you skipped that part of my comment when you responded; almost as if… nevermind.

    …since all science is tentative this rhetorical technique is not science.

    Yikes! Conversations on the internet, however erudite, are not science*, Bill.
    I am always happy to discuss science with pretty much anyone; just don’t confuse that activity with doing science, Bill.

    *except in the sense that, say, TSZ is a sociological experiment, of course 😉

  21. colewd: Guiding the forming of a functioning sequence vs the guiding we observe in physics.

    So you missed the whole point, again. Might be the hundredth time I explain and you jump all over it. I know, I know, perhaps too dense in information for you. But, isn’t that telling you something? That maybe you do not understand enough to be trying this hard to “argue”, often by mere declaration, that life could not arise but by the actions of a “Mind”? That maybe you do not have the knowledge for making such a “triumphant” declaration?

  22. colewd: Saying you have explained something as to determine the matter is closed is an argument from authority. You have closed the possibility for disagreement and since all science is tentative this rhetorical technique is not science.

    It’s amazing how you’re able to pack so much stupid in so little space. No one said anything about the matter being closed. Second, that’s not what an argument from authority is (will you ever learn the meaning of the fallacies you accuse others of committing? Nah, you’re obviously incapable of doing that).Third, you are guilty of dismissing other people’s conclusions based on false fallacies, which would be fallacious even if you were right about the fallacies, but it’s even worse when those don’t exist. You do this all the time: you throw a couple fallacy names out there (not knowing what they even mean or when they apply) to simply avoid the argument.

    I bet it makes you feel smart, but that’s not how others see you, believe me.

  23. dazz: It’s amazing how you’re able to pack so much stupid in so little space.

    Sadly he’s had an awful lot of practice.

  24. colewd:
    Flint,

    The people who designed the tires had a purpose.Observing a car running can help you infer the purpose of the tires.

    What you are inferring is the purpose of the people. I notice adapa has posted a picture of a tire. What purpose do you infer? Tires have been used for quite a few different functions, from seawalls to artificial reefs to sandals and many more. In each case, you can certainly infer the purpose of the people putting the tire to such uses. But from the tire alone, no, you cannot infer purpose.

  25. DNA_Jock,

    But hey, surprise us all: approximately how many different 80mers are there that can bind ATP? What does this fact do to gpuccio’s claim that he is not guilty of TSS?

    How so you think this relevant to gpuccio’s claims?

  26. Flint,

    What you are inferring is the purpose of the people. I notice adapa has posted a picture of a tire. What purpose do you infer? Tires have been used for quite a few different functions, from seawalls to artificial reefs to sandals and many more. In each case, you can certainly infer the purpose of the people putting the tire to such uses. But from the tire alone, no, you cannot infer purpose.

    From the observing the tire performing its function you can infer purpose.

  27. colewd to DNA_Jock,
    How so you think this relevant to gpuccio’s claims?

    gpuccio’s claims contain many layers of mistaken notions, among them imagining that there’s only one sequence that can do a job. Here gpiccio’s claims would be contradicted by the fact that many different sequences can bind to ATP: many sequences can do a job. The guy goes and claims that little sequence space can be explored, imagining that only one sequence can do some job, but then goes back to “calculating” “added information”, by a method that accepts that different sequences can do a job, since not all of it is equally “informative,” and that a lot of sequence space has been explored, since “saturation” of a sequence requires a lot of mutating to happen, then goes to imagining that proteins work by telepathy, since he thinks that affinity has nothing to do with how proteins work, huge etc.

    It’s impossible to clean it all up and still have anything left in gpuccio’s favour.

    I thought, given the effort he put on his mistaken arguments, that gpuccio deserved some respect at least for that. Then I made the mistake of trying to explain the mistakes to him, only to find an arrogant fool where I expected a respectable, if mistaken, individual.

  28. colewd:
    Flint,

    From the observing the tire performing its function you can infer purpose.

    So what is the purpose of a tire? I listed a number of different functions, but what is the purpose of a tire?

    Here is a hint: people with a variety of purposes can use tires to meet those purposes. Apparently you simply cannot grasp the notion that function and purpose are two distinct things. You continue to insist that the TIRE has a purpose, yet you continue to illustrate the purposes PEOPLE have.

  29. colewd: How do you think this is relevant to gpuccio’s claims?

    We have explained this to you already. Many times.
    I say this, not to “determine the matter is closed”, but rather to illustrate your never-ending refusal to actually engage. It’s pathetic.
    gpuccio’s calculations rest on the implicit assumption that function X can only be achieved by amino acid sequence Y. He’s off by at least 90 orders of magnitude.

  30. Flint,

    Here is a hint: people with a variety of purposes can use tires to meet those purposes. Apparently you simply cannot grasp the notion that function and purpose are two distinct things.

    Where did I say they were the same?

  31. DNA_Jock,

    We have explained this to you already. Many times.
    I say this, not to “determine the matter is closed”, but rather to illustrate your never-ending refusal to actually engage. It’s pathetic.
    gpuccio’s calculations rest on the implicit assumption that function X can only be achieved by amino acid sequence Y. He’s off by at least 90 orders of magnitude.

    He does not make the assumptions you assigned to him.

    gpuccio’s calculations rest on the implicit assumption that function X can only be achieved by amino acid sequence Y. He’s off by at least 90 orders of magnitude.

    You have made this determination by measuring the complexity of a can opener yet he is measuring the space shuttle, Your assumption is that they are equivalent and they are not.

    You are also assuming that like a can opener the space shuttle has fitness peaks or that better fitness can be helpful in guiding it’s construction.

  32. colewd: You have made this determination by measuring the complexity of a can opener yet he is measuring the space shuttle, Your assumption is that they are equivalent and they are not

    Today’s leader in the clubhouse for dumbest most inappropriate Creationist analogy.

  33. colewd: He does not make the assumptions you assigned to him.

    Oh, I am quite confident that he does. Entertainingly, I am also quite confident that YOU recognize that he makes this assumption, since only this February you claimed:

    There are more than one flagellar sequence but to make a dent in this problem you need the number of flagellar sequences to be larger than the number of sub atomic particles in the universe.

    Which, of course, there are. You did not react well to this bit of news.
    In my comment on this thread that you are responding to, I linked to our February exchange. We keep explaining things to you over and over again, and you keep evading with hopeless non-sequiturs, then forgetting the previous interaction. As demonstrated yet again here. This pattern has an appalling effect on how you are perceived.

  34. colewd:
    DNA_Jock,
    He does not make the assumptions you assigned to him.

    Yet in your sentences after writing that you claim that he does, by making the analogy between sequences and space shuttles as if to mean that there can be only one way to make a space shuttle and only one sequence to perform a function. So, which is it? Does he claim that only sequence X can have function Y or not?

  35. DNA_Jock,

    Oh, I am quite confident that he does.

    Confidence is not evidence. You do have lots of confidence:-)

    Which, of course, there are.

    Again, we have evidence of confidence but evidence of a supported claim…. not so much.

    Why a bright guy like you gets yourself into losing arguments like this is beyond me.

    We keep explaining things to you over and over again, and you keep evading with hopeless non-sequiturs, then forgetting the previous interaction.

    You cannot help yourself on appealing to authority. If my argument was a non sequitur then demonstrate. The non sequitur appears to be on your side in comparing a can opener to the space shuttle and assuming the functional information to build it is the same.

  36. colewd: Confidence is not evidence. You do have lots of confidence

    We also have all the evidence Bill. Every last piece.

    Again, we have evidence of confidence but evidence of a supported claim…. not so much.

    Heh. Like that huge amount of positive evidence your claimed disembodied mind used MAGIC to POOF everything into existence? 😀

  37. colewd,

    It is touching how reliant you are on unsupported assertions.

    The non sequitur appears to be on your side in comparing a can opener to the space shuttle and assuming the functional information to build it is the same.

    Well, this seems unlikely. Nobody on our side has been talking about can openers or space shuttles, that would be YOUR non-sequitur. Proteins are not nuts and bolts, Bill.
    But, in your poor analogy, it appears that ATP-binding is your “can opener” and a flagellar rotor is your “space shuttle”.
    As I explained to you in February, this doesn’t help you at all.

    Well, that just makes the problem worse for you.
    Try to stay focused, Bill. You are claiming that the sequence space for the flagellar rotor is sooooooooo biiiiiiiiig that you would need to have 10^86 solutions [particles in the universe] in that space to “make a dent in this problem”.
    I am pointing out : “not a problem”, since, even in the relatively tiny sequence space of 80mers (a mere 10^104) there are still 10^93 different ways of binding ATP.
    In your hypothetical sequence space (4^100k = 10^60206, ROFL! do you even understand what you did there?) there’s gonna be at least 10^60000 flagellar rotors…
    You and gpuccio are sticking with the “we are off by a bit, but it doesn’t matter because the numbers are so big” argument, failing to realize that, as the denominator scales, so too does the numerator, more or less.
    This.has.been.explained.to.you.

    Notice the bit with the numbers, ‘n’all. You should read the last page and a half of that thread: various people patiently explained your errors to you. All you could manage was hand-wavey changes of topic.
    Your modus operandi is transparent.

  38. DNA_Jock,

    Notice the bit with the numbers, ‘n’all. You should read the last page and a half of that thread: various people patiently explained your errors to you. All you could manage was hand-wavey changes of topic.
    Your modus operandi is transparent.

    Your argument is based on two assumptions.

    -The sequence space does not matter.
    -All protein functions have the same amount of function available in that sequence space.

    The sequence space does matter as it get larger you need exponentially more solutions. The window of finding a function gets smaller.

    Your other assumption is that the number of times ATP stuck to a 80 AA peptide sequence has relevance to how many solutions there are for something gpuccio was testing such as the AA substitutions measured over time such as ubiquitin proteins, splicing proteins or vertebrate proteins in the brain.

    When your objective is merely to defeat an argument you rarely are able to understand it. Gpuccio’s argument is based on the observation of real biological function.

    Notice the bit with the numbers, ‘n’all. You should read the last page and a half of that thread: various people patiently explained your errors to you.

    You again appeal to authority. These people have not yet demonstrated understanding of gpuccio’s work. You are also using labels like “error”.

  39. colewd: The sequence space does matter as it get larger you need exponentially more solutions. The window of finding a function gets smaller.

    Ah, the famous argument from not listening.

  40. Corneel: Ah, the famous argument from not listening.

    His post is an echo of the famous Gish Gallop – one falsehood after another after another after another, what one fact-checker of Trump’s town hall called “a firehose of lies”. The goal isn’t to listen, it’s to prevent others from doing so.

  41. colewd: These people have not yet demonstrated understanding of gpuccio’s work.

    You talk about it as if it’s been published somewhere and is not just a collection of comments and blog posts smeared across years.

    If you or he wants people to put effort into understanding gpuccio’s work then condense it down into its core argument and publish it so citations can be made to a single, unchanging, version of that argument.

    That’s called engaging in the process.

  42. Corneel: Ah, the famous argument from not listening.

    It is cute.
    What cracks me up the most about poor Bill’s fingers-in-the-ears routine is that it is fairly obvious that neither Bill nor gpuccio [!] understands gpuccio’s argument, whereas we do.
    By way of illustration, I explained to gpuccio in 2014, re his TSS fallacy:

    gpuccio
    IOWs, we must observe both the bullethole and the target. The bullethole is our object. The target is a function defined independently from it. And the bullethole is in the target, but not because we have painted it after the bullet hit the wall. IOWs, the position of the bullethole has not generated the target, the bullethole has only hit a target which already existed.

    Jock
    Yet again repeats your TSS fallacy. The bullet did not hit a target that already existed. You do not ‘observe’ the target. All of the bullet holes, both the ones we have noticed and the ones that we have not noticed, were present before any humans existed. Humans arrive after the fact and apply paint. What you are doing is imbuing the wall with a new and wonderful property – saying in effect that particular spots on the wall are super-special, and the bullets, amazingly, hit these super-special spots. You genuinely believe that these spots are special; that you are guided by the texture of the wall when you choose where to apply paint. But you are not. As you have demonstrated twice on this thread, you are applying paint where you have observed bullet holes.
    [emphasis in original]

    In particular, note my observation that gpuccio is “guided by the texture of the wall” when he decides where to paint. He genuinely believes that these spots are super-special.
    In 2014, he failed to understand the objection, writing “I really think that you are deeply wrong on this point.”
    Three and a half years later, he revisits the topic in a truly epic tour de farce, mentioning me 20 times whilst re-hashing the previously refuted arguments, but introducing one new argument: some of the bricks in the wall are “green”, they have a super-special property such that, absent any painting of targets, we can see that the fact that bullets hit these green bricks constitutes a highly improbable event.
    So Bill, in 2014 I explained to gpuccio the nature of the error he was making. He did not comprehend his own argument. In 2018 he comes along and demonstrates precisely the error I attempted to explain to him previously.

  43. DNA_Jock,

    So Bill, in 2014 I explained to gpuccio the nature of the error he was making. He did not comprehend his own argument. In 2018 he comes along and demonstrates precisely the error I attempted to explain to him previously.

    How do you know it’s an error? He could be perfectly correct and its simply your lack of understanding.

    Have you thought about a set of bullet holes on 10 different walls that exhibit a similar pattern? Have you thought about a set of bullet holes on 3 different walls exhibiting a highly similar pattern and then the pattern changing on 7 other walls all containing a similar pattern with a less similar relationship to the first 3 walls?

    The TSS is relevant to drawing a target around the pattern. We don’t need a target to draw a conclusion from observing 10 similar sequences in 10 different organisms and comparing the patterns and drawing a hypothesis as to the cause of those patterns.

  44. Yummy, a Gish Gallop for dessert.

    colewd: The TSS is relevant to drawing a target around the pattern. We don’t need a target to draw a conclusion from observing 10 similar sequences in 10 different organisms and comparing the patterns and drawing a hypothesis as to the cause of those patterns.

    Yup.
    And the hypothesis would be “common descent”, which gpuccio is fully on board with on days containing a “u”. You might notice that it forms part of his “massive injections of FI” shtick.
    You appear to have conceded the TSS argument, and wish to change the subject to either phylogenetic methods (which work), or to using the sequence conservation of extant proteins to do probability calculations re searching sequence space (which doesn’t work). We have explained why repeatedly.
    Like I said, your modus operandi is transparent.
    But if you cannot see that “If he [the functionary] had chosen a cousin … we should have chosen the target space which includes cousins and brothers (because brothers are nearer than cousins). ” is a beautiful example of TSS, then I cannot help you.

  45. colewd:
    These people have not yet demonstrated understanding of gpuccio’s work

    That’s a very strong claim. Let’s refresh your memory a bit: I and someone else detected a problem with gpuccio’s “work,” that it implied exploration of a huge sequence space. can you remind me who made the mistake of using a sequential, ordered, mutation “model” to illustrate that we were mistaken, instead of a random mutation one? Who was condescending while making this mistake?

    Remember that in the end someone was abe to get gpuccio to change the sequential “illustration” for a card collector one, and that gpuccio did not apologize, nor did he admit that we were on to something.

    So? What say you?

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