Category: Comp. Sci. / Eng.
Baylor prof Robert Marks on evolutionary informatics
| January 20, 2012 | Posted by News under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Darwinism, News |
With special reference to ev, AVIDA, and WEASEL. more
Darwinian Speculation: The Antithesis of Legitimate Science
| December 13, 2011 | Posted by GilDodgen under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
I work for a great company. I frequently ask for permission to be sent away for training in state-of-the-art computational technology — computer simulations that involve finite element analysis (FEA), Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian/Fluid Structure Interaction (ALE/FSI), and Navier-Stokes Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). Today I spent the day with a group of brilliant students and a… more
Science historian George Dyson: Life is whatever you define it to be
| October 22, 2011 | Posted by News under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Culture, Evolution, News |
The next step might be the end of distinct species and the beginning of a more symbiotic life. more
New paper using the Avida “evolution” software shows …
| May 28, 2011 | Posted by News under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Evolution |
… it doesn’t evolve. Remember when AVIDA proved Darwin right? These results provide evidence that low-impact mutations can present a substantial barrier to progressive evolution by natural selection. Understanding mutation is of primary importance, as selection depends on the mutational production of new genotypes. Numerous changes that would be beneficial may nevertheless fail to occur… more
If the universe is at base computational, who is the programmer?
| May 17, 2010 | Posted by William Dembski under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Cosmology |
Judge rules DNA is unpatentable because it is INFORMATION not extracted chemicals
| March 30, 2010 | Posted by DLH under Biology, Chemistry, Comp. Sci. / Eng., Courts, Design inference, Evolution, Intelligent Design |
Judge Robert W. Sweet has turned the biotech patent industry into turmoil. See: After Patent on Genes Is Invalidated, Taking Stock By ANDREW POLLACK, March 30, 2010 Although patents are not granted on things found in nature, the DNA being patented had long been considered a chemical that was isolated from, and different from, what… more
Winston Ewert — With pro-ID grad students like this, Darwinian profs don’t stand a chance
| March 4, 2010 | Posted by William Dembski under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Informatics, Intelligent Design |
Graduate Student Challenges Avida in Scientific Paper Click here to listen. On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin interviews Winston Ewert, a graduate student in computer science at Baylor University who recently co-authored a paper titled, “Evolutionary Synthesis of Nand Logic: Dissecting a Digital Organism,” in Proceedings of the 2009 IEEE International Conference on… more
Can SETI’s algorithm detect intelligence?
| February 13, 2010 | Posted by DLH under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Cosmology, Design inference, Extraterrestrial life, Informatics, Intellectual freedom, Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life, Physics, Science |
TED granted Jill Tartar her wish to: “empower Earthlings everywhere to become active participants in the ultimate search for cosmic company”. TED and Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has set up SETIQuest.org to: . . . make vast amounts of SETI data available to the public for the first time. It will also publish… more
Jeff Shallit — leveling the charge of incompetence incompetently
| October 6, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Informatics, Intelligent Design, Science |
Jeff Shallit charges Jonathan Wells with incompetence for claiming that duplicating a gene does not increase the available genetic information. To justify this charge, Shallit notes that a symbol string X has strictly less Kolmogorov information than the symbol string XX. Shallit, as a computational number theorist, seems stuck on a single definition of information.… more
Diffusion Entropic Analysis to model natural complex time series vs CSI
| May 2, 2009 | Posted by DLH under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Global Warming, Intelligent Design, Laws, Science |
Nicola Scafetta has demonstrated that Diffusion Entropic Analysis can identify physical phenomena underlying complex time series, including non-Gaussian Levy and other series. This appears an important development in detecting complex physical phenomena resulting in time series measurements. Scafetta’s work promises to be important in detecting and distinguishing Complex Specified Information from natural complex phenomena. e.g.… more
Touring the AlloSphere
| April 16, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Intelligent Design, Science |
Check out this video at TED. Note the phrase “finding new patterns in the information.” That’s the business of ID. Can the AlloSphere be used as an engine for detecting design? Here’s the link. more
Dino’s Whiplash
| April 2, 2009 | Posted by Tim under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Culture, Evolution, Just For Fun, Philosophy |
A short article in the popular press reports that certain sauropods with long necks could not have held those necks upright. I read the article, leaned back in my chair and did a lot of serious thinking. . . more
AI, Materialist Dodgeball and a Place at the Table
| March 13, 2009 | Posted by Tim under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Intelligent Design |
Ari N. Schulman, “Why Minds Are Not Like Computers,” The New Atlantis, Number 23, Winter 2009, pp. 46-68. Article Review “The problem, therefore, is not merely that science is being used illegitimately to promote a materialistic worldview, but that this worldview is actively undermining scientific inquiry.”—UncommonDescent Read the entire article here. Unless otherwise noted, all… more
ID and the Science of God: Part I
| January 5, 2009 | Posted by Steve Fuller under Biology, Comp. Sci. / Eng., Creationism, Culture, Education, Global Warming, Informatics, Intelligent Design, Origin Of Life, Philosophy, Religion, Science, The Design of Life, theistic evolution |
In response to an earlier post of mine, DaveScot kindly pointed out this website’s definition of ID. The breadth of the definition invites scepticism: ID is defined as the science of design detection — how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. But is there really some single concept of ‘intelligence’… more
Mathematics and Darwinism — Plus a Math Problem to Solve
| September 21, 2008 | Posted by GilDodgen under Biology, Comp. Sci. / Eng., Intelligent Design |
Over at Telic Thoughts Bradford resurrected a discussion based on my UD essay, Writing Computer Programs by Random Mutation and Natural Selection. In reference to the quote, “The set of truly functional novel situations is so small in comparison with the total possible number of situations that they will never occur, which is the point… more
Thoughts on Parameterized vs. Open-Ended Evolution and the Production of Variability
| August 17, 2008 | Posted by johnnyb under Biology, Comp. Sci. / Eng., Darwinism, Informatics |
Many of the advocates of neo-Darwinism argue that abilities of evolution is obvious. The idea is that, given variability in a population, selection and/or environmental change will cause a population to move forward in fitness. Basically, the formula is variability + overproduction + selection = evolution. The problem is that the equation hinges on “variability” and its abilities to create the kinds of variations the Darwinists need. more
Biological Neg-Entropy
| June 28, 2008 | Posted by GilDodgen under Biology, Comp. Sci. / Eng., Intelligent Design |
Some of you might have heard that Jonathan Schaeffer and his team at the U. of Alberta recently solved the game of checkers. It made big news in the computer science world. I first met Jon at the First Computer Olympiad in London (organized by the famous David Levy of chess and computer-chess fame) at… more
Craig Venter – 18 months to 4th generation biofuels
| May 30, 2008 | Posted by Dave S. under Biology, Comp. Sci. / Eng., Intelligent Design, Science |
Awesome. The alternative biofuel part of the talk starts at 13 minutes. I highly recommend watching it all. more
Bogus Computer Simulations
| May 27, 2008 | Posted by GilDodgen under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Evolution, Religion |
This one, published by New Scientist, really takes the cake. From the article: God may work in mysterious ways, but a simple computer program may explain how religion evolved. By distilling religious belief into a genetic predisposition to pass along unverifiable information, the program predicts that religion will flourish… The model assumes… that a small… more
Gambler’s ruin is Darwin’s ruin
| May 3, 2008 | Posted by scordova under Comp. Sci. / Eng., Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science |
The same day I first watched “Expelled” in theaters, I also watched the movie “21″. The movie “21″ is based on the true story of MIT students who made a fortune in Las Vegas casinos through the use of mathematics. The real story behind the movie began with an associate of Claude Shannon by the… more