Category: Complex Specified Information
Evolution, Intelligent Design and Extraordinary Claims – Part III
| June 2, 2013 | Posted by DonaldM under Biology, Complex Specified Information, Darwinism, Design inference, Evolution, Evolutionary biology, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Philosophy, Selective Hyperskepticism |
This my third installment of a discussion I began here and continued here on the validity of the claim that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”, or what I call the EC-EE claim. In the first installment we looked at the EC-EE claim itself and asked whether the EC-EE claim is an example of an EC-EE… more
The ghost of William Paley says his piece in reply to Darwin and successors, on the commonly dismissed “watch found in the field” argument
Over at the KF blog, we have recently been entertaining some ghosts from our civilisation’s past, who are concerned about its present and now sadly likely future in light of the sad history recorded in Acts 27, of a sea voyage to Rome gone disastrously wrong because the voyagers were manipulated into venturing back out… more
Quality, Quantity and Intelligent Design
| May 27, 2013 | Posted by niwrad under Complex Specified Information, Intelligent Design, Philosophy |
In all things there are two different kinds of characteristics: quality and quantity. While quantity is relatively easy to define, quality is difficult to define or specify. Consider an apple. It is easy to grasp what is the difference between one apple, two apples, three apples… only an integer number changes, representing the amount of… more
VIDEO: Doug Axe on making odds on getting to a protein by chance in Amino Acid sequence space
| May 19, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Functionally Specified Complex Information & Organization, ID Foundations, Irreducible Complexity, Origin Of Life, Video |
In Illustra Media’s Darwin’s Dilemma, there is a clip on proteins as islands of function in amino acid sequence space: embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt Food for thought. As a stimulus to such, let us next note how the bloggist Wintery Knight has given an interesting summary of the challenges involved if a chance-dominated process… more
Siding with Mathgrrl on a point, and offering an alternative to CSI v2.0
| May 18, 2013 | Posted by scordova under Complex Specified Information, Intelligent Design, Mathematics |
There are two versions of the metric for Bill Dembski’s CSI. One version can be traced to his book No Free Lunch published in 2002. Let us call that “CSI v1.0″. Then in 2005 Bill published Specification the Pattern that Signifies Intelligence where he includes the identifier “v1.22″, but perhaps it would be better to… more
The “ID is Creationism in a cheap tuxedo” smear championed by Eugenie Scott et al of NCSE is now Law School Textbook orthodoxy . . .
From ENV — even as Dr Eugenie Scott of NCSE retires (having championed the ID is Creationism in a cheap tuxedo smear for years and years in the teeth of all correction . . . ) — we see a development, courtesy a whistle-blowing Law School student: The latest attempt to insert creationism into the… more
A “simple” summing up of the basic case for scientifically inferring design (in light of the logic of scientific induction per best explanation of the unobserved past)
In answering yet another round of G’s talking points on design theory and those of us who advocate it, I have outlined a summary of design thinking and its links onward to debates on theology, that I think is worth being somewhat adapted, expanded and headlined. With your indulgence: _______________ >> The epistemological warrant for… more
FOR RECORD: AF’s insistent strawman misrepresentation tactics and false accusation of fraud (“CSI is a bogus concept so it would not figure in anyone’s calculations . . . “) exposed . . .
| April 26, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Atheism, Complex Specified Information, Creationism, Design inference, Functionally Specified Complex Information & Organization, ID Foundations, Science, worldview issues and society, Selective Hyperskepticism |
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Sometimes, it is necessary to speak for record on rather unpleasant matters. This is one of them, in response to longtime objector AF’s willfully continued misrepresentations and false accusations. Accordingly, I clip 479 in the Oldies thread, with reference to my corrective at 459 and AF’s retort at 465 that compounds the misrepresentations and false… more
Chance Ratcliff’s video screen and the significance of search spaces
| April 24, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Functionally Specified Complex Information & Organization, ID Foundations, Intelligent Design |
In a comment in the oldies thread on Sunday evening, Chance Ratcliff raised a very instructive case study for a search space that is well worth being headlined. Let us adjust a bit on the calc of the config space, and reflect: _____________ CR, 111, Oldies: >> An illustration might be of some help. For… more
ID Foundations, 18 (video): Dr Stephen Meyer of Discovery Institute presents the case for Intelligent Design (with particular reference to OoL)
Here, HT WK: embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt Take an hour and a half to learn what ID is about (yes, what it is really about [and cf. here at UD for correctives to common strawman distortions . . . ]), with particular focus on the origin of cell based life [OoL], through watching a… more
Oldies but baddies — AF repeats NCSE’s eight challenges to ID (from ten years ago)
| April 19, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Complex Specified Information, ID Foundations, science education, Science, worldview issues and society, Selective Hyperskepticism |
In a recent thread by Dr Sewell, AF raised again the Shallit-Elsberry list of eight challenges to design theory from a decade ago: 14 Alan FoxApril 15, 2013 at 12:56 am Unlike Profesor Hunt, Barry and Eric think design detection is well established. How about having a go at this list then. It’s been published… more
EA’s “oldie but goodie” short primer on Intelligent Design, Sept. 2003
| April 12, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Complex Specified Information, ID Foundations, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Science, worldview issues and society |
Sometimes, we run across a sleeper that just begs to be headlined here at UD. EA’s short primer on ID, drawn up in Sept 2003, is such a sleeper. Let’s observe: __________ >> Brief Primer on Intelligent Design Having read a fair amount of material on intelligent design and having been involved in various… more
ID Foundations, 17a: Footnotes on Conservation of Information, search across a space of possibilities, Active Information, Universal Plausibility/ Probability Bounds, guided search, drifting/ growing target zones/ islands of function, Kolmogorov complexity, etc.
| April 6, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Fine tuning, Functionally Specified Complex Information & Organization, ID Foundations, Informatics, Intelligent Design, Mathematics |
(previous, here) There has been a recent flurry of web commentary on design theory concepts linked to the concept of functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information (FSCO/I) introduced across the 1970′s into the 1980′s by Orgel and Wicken et al. (As is documented here.) This flurry seems to be connected to the announcement of… more
ID Foundations, 17: Stephen C. Meyer’s summary of the positive inductive logic case for design as best explanation of the FSCO/I* in DNA
(Prev. : No 16 F/N: 17a, here) *NB: For those new to UD, FSCO/I means: Functionally Specific Complex Organisation and/or associated Information From time to time, we need to refocus our attention on foundational issues relating to the positive case for inferring design as best explanation for certain phenomena connected to origins of the cosmos,… more
Why on Earth would a layman accept Darwinistic claims?
| March 18, 2013 | Posted by William J Murray under Biology, Chemistry, Complex Specified Information, Darwinism, Evolution, Evolutionary biology, Human evolution, Mind, Origin Of Life |
First, by “Darwinistic” I mean “atheistic-materialist neo-Darwinist”, which includes the view that even the origin of life can be explained by reference to chance and natural law. As Alan Fox points out, many of those here are “laymen” when it comes to evolutionary biology. Most of us are not specifically schooled or trained in that… more
Who really understands what an island of function is or is not?
| March 16, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Functionally Specified Complex Information & Organization, ID Foundations |
Earlier today, I decided to check back at TSZ, to see if they have recovered from the recent regrettable hack attack. They are back up, at least in part. The following however, caught my eye: Intelligent design proponents make a negative argument for design. According to them, the complexity and diversity of life cannot be… more
Is Human Intellect Degenerating?
| February 19, 2013 | Posted by DLH under Complex Specified Information, Design inference, Evolutionary biology, Genetics, Genomics, Human evolution, Intelligent Design |
Geneticist Gerald R. Crabtree reviews evidence showing genomic mutations are degrading the 2000 to 5000 genes needed for our intellectual and emotional function: New developments in genetics, anthropology, and neurobiology predict that a very large number of genes underlie our intellectual and emotional abilities, making these abilities genetically surprisingly fragile. . . . more
Now, draw me one — of square circles and contradictions in terms (being a challenge to those who play rhetorical games with contradictions and confusions in order to reject the design inference)
| February 12, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Functionally Specified Complex Information & Organization, ID Foundations, Logic and First Principles of right reason, Science, worldview issues and society |
The Online Dictionary’s Thesaurus tells us: contradiction in terms – (logic) a statement that is necessarily false; “the statement `he is brave and he is not brave’ is a contradiction” As a capital, classic example, say the following words: “Square Circle” Now, riddle me this, riddle me that, guess me this riddle and perhaps not:… more
A Simple Argument For Intelligent Design
| January 20, 2013 | Posted by William J Murray under Complex Specified Information, Functionally Specified Complex Information & Organization, Intelligent Design |
When I come across a new idea, I like to see if there are any relatively simple and obvious arguments that can be levied for or against it. When I first came across ID, this is the simple argument I used that validated it – IMO – as a real phenomenon and a valid scientific… more
Wiki’s F – - on ID, 7: The polarising false narrative about “Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design”
| January 14, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under academic freedom, Atheism, Functionally Specified Complex Information & Organization, ID Foundations, Science, science education, Science, worldview issues and society |
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(To comment, kindly go here) The title of this post is taken from a 2004 book by Forrest and Gross, which further intensifies the earlier accusation that Intelligent Design is “Creationism in a cheap tuxedo.” Given the agenda-driven hatchet job on Intelligent Design presented as a neutral point of view objective survey of Intelligent Design… more