Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

At Some Point, the Obvious Becomes Transparently Obvious (or, Recognizing the Forrest, With all its Barbs, Through the Trees)

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At UD we have many brilliant ID apologists, and they continue to mount what I perceive as increasingly indefensible assaults on the creative powers of the Darwinian mechanism of random errors filtered by natural selection. In addition, they present overwhelming positive evidence that the only known source of functionally specified, highly integrated information-processing systems, with such sophisticated technology as error detection and repair, is intelligent design.

[Part 2 is here. ]

This should be obvious to any unbiased observer with a decent education in basic mathematics and expertise in any rigorous engineering discipline.

Here is my analysis: The Forrests of the world don’t want to admit that there is design in the universe and living systems — even when the evidence bludgeons them over the head from every corner of contemporary science, and when the trajectory of the evidence makes their thesis less and less believable every day.

Why would such a person hold on to a transparently obvious 19th-century pseudo-scientific fantasy, when all the evidence of modern science points in the opposite direction?

I can see the Forrest through the trees. Can you?

Comments
ellazimm: re the metric: you are again shifting the burden. It is not my job to tell you what the evaluatory metric is; it is the job of those that claim chance* mutation and natural* selection sufficient to provide the metric that demonstrates those kinds of processes to be sufficient. However, just to move the conversation along: The unit of advancement you have available is a random* or chance* mutation. The accumulative pathway sorting process via eliminative algorithm you have available is natural* selection. The destination/goal you want to acquire is any highly functioning macro-evolutionary location - like winged flight or stereoscopic vision. The analytical metric would examine the capacity of any set of random* steps (mutations) to generate pathways (accumulative genetic mutations) to such a location, when the only modifier to the generated path is an eliminative algorithm that stops walks which produce sufficiently dysfunctional steps. Note that natural selection doesn't prescribe steps in any particular direction - it is not teleological; it is only capable of ending walks that are sufficiently dysfunctional. The metric would be an analysis of the capacity of chance* mutation walks modified by natural* selection eliminations (which really does nothing but limit pathways towards achieving the goal) to acquire any functioning macro-evolutionary location given the known parameters of volume of steps (how many mutations were likely to have occurred, given known mutation rates) in the time frame allowed. I guess that's one interesting thing I've gotten from this debate: I just realized that natural selection, an eliminative process, in a purely computational examination of random* steps towards a goal, does nothing but hinder progress towards finding the goal, because finding the goal might be more easily achieved via steps that in an organic world would result in eliminative selection. My profession is print designer, and when I'm designing print work, I often do things that, to a casual observer, make no sense or would seem detrimental to acquiring the final design. For example, when inputting design copy, i just type in the string of words without worrying about the typestyle, color size, location, etc. If the client were watching, they might think I'm ruining the piece, but I know all I'm doing is getting the text in so I can edit and fit it to the style of the piece later - choose fonts, colors, size, location, etc. The same is true of images I place in the piece, and how I arrange them for particular reasons. If one was to take the final piece of work and judge my path towards acquiring it, much of the process would not only not make sense to the observer, it would seem counter-productive and counter-intuitive - but that's only because they don't understand the design software, how it works, or what it is capable of. IOW, the design piece would have been long eliminated as dysfunctional by any editorial process that is not informed of the steps necessary to acquire the target. Natural selection - a teleologically blind process - might help in the organic world by reducing the quantity of entities competing for resources, but it certainly doesn't help in acquiring targets that it cannot have any idea how to acquire. Natural selection is like the client looking over my shoulder saying, "no, that doesn't look good, throw it out" when they have no idea about the final design I'm targeting or how to get there. They're only going to make it extremely difficult to acquire a workable, appealing final design, because every step along the way has to conform to their idea of a good design, just as every step along the way has to meet the blind doorman's (natural selection) idea of what a good mutation is.Meleagar
June 9, 2011
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In response to ellazimmm shifting the burden of determining whether or not the necessary mutations in question could be explained as "random" to me, I said: “In any event, it’s not my job to prove they are not random, it is the job of those that claim that they are random to demonstrate not only that they are (that would be the first part), but that they are sufficient, when combined with natural* selection, to produce what they are claimed to have produced.” To which ellazimm responded, doubling down on her burden-shifting: "Well, have you looked at all the statistical data and analysis of mutation rates? Have you read all the research looking at the observed occurence of mutations? You’ve got a question, fair enough. Have you gone and looked for the answer? The world is not obligated to you to come and present all the data to you. If you have a question then the obligation is partly on you to go and find out what research and information already addresses your concerns." No, ella. The world is not obligated to bring me the evidence I ask for; the obligation belongs to those who claim as scientific fact that random* mutations are sufficient. It is not my job to seek out and find the evidence that supports your assertions; it is your job to do that. I haven't asserted the converse; all I have done is ask you to support your assertion, and all you have done is avoid it.Meleagar
June 9, 2011
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So over on Cornelius Hunter's blog I came across the following:
Ergodic systems "forget" their initial conditions. In other words, from any random starting point the system will converge to the same "attractor".
So here's my question. Is a genetic algorithm an ergodic system?
This paper presents a fine-grained parallel genetic algorithm with mutation rate as a control parameter. The function of the mutation rate is similar to the function of temperature parameter in the simulated annealing [Lundy’86, Otten’89, and Romeo’85]. The parallel genetic algorithm presented here is based on a Markov chain [Kemeny’60] model. It has been proved that fine-grained parallel genetic algorithm is an ergodic Markov chain and it converges to the stationary distribution.
The transition matrix for the Markov chain suggests that the chain is irreducible and aperiodic. These two conditions establish the fact that this chain is ergodic and a unique stationary distribution of the population exists. These properties provide enough information about the convergence of the algorithm, although they do not guarantee the convergence to the global optimal solution. However, the algorithm provides a basis for the development of variants which will have global convergence.
http://www.intelligentmodelling.org.uk/Papers/rttg-publ28.pdfMung
June 8, 2011
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Hello again Ellazimm, Your most recent response to me suggests that evolutionist doctrine is in a priori part of your reasoning. Furthermore, forgive me for saying, it is causing you to miss the bleeding obvious! If only you subjected evolutionist assumptions to the same level of scrutiny as you are subjecting ID to. The fact that it took mankind, using artificial selection, to generate the “many and varied morphologies…which had no previous incarnation” should be leading you to ask: why didn’t natural selection manage it alone? You cannot call it a draw when you have zero observational or experimental evidence to support the occurrence of random mutations in a 5,000 year old genome which provided all the variety that only artificial selection could achieve. Especially when we know that random mutations only serve to degrade, not improve, pre-existing systems. “Originally, we all had brown eyes,” said Hans Eiberg. Can you really not see that this statement is utterly devoid of empirical support? It is pure speculation based on the assumption that we evolved from a brown-eyed ape-like common ancestor. Once again, you’re appealing to ‘peer review’ and ‘a large consensus’ as if these are decisive in your favour. The only thing that matters in science is observational fact and experimental results. Clearly you disagree with my comments about Lenski’s experiment. If you don’t want to leave me with the strong impression that this is just cognitive dissonance on your part, you need to explain why; instead of implying that “your sources” are better than mine. Again, you confuse the claim that eukaryotes evolved from prokaryotes with some sort of scientific finding. It is nothing of the sort. There is no observational evidence to support this claim and we cannot ‘evolve’ eukaryotes from prokaryotes in the lab. This claim is merely an appeal to some sort of unobservable, miraculous occurrence in the distant past. But, here’s the important bit, even if that miracle did happen, that doesn’t mean that we are descendants of bacteria. We would merely be descendants of the first eukaryotic cell. From that point (hundreds of millions of years ago) on, bacteria did not evolve into anything new whatsoever. They have effectively remained in unicellular stasis while the Cambrian Explosion occurred, while the dinosaurs walked the planet, right up until now. If evolution were true, and convergent evolution really does happen, then where are all the prokaryotic animals and plants? If you subjected evolutionist claims to scrutiny, you would urgently be asking why bacteria today is basically the same as it has always been. This is not a matter of interpretation, ellazim. It is a matter of who has true science (observation and experiment, not peer review and consensus) on their side. There can be only one of us that this applies to.Chris Doyle
June 8, 2011
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Greetings Lizzie, I mean for the terms Accident and Design to be as all-encompassing as possible – hence the initial capital letters. For me personally (going beyond the remit of ID science), either the Universe, and everything in it, is a product of the Grand Architect, or it just made itself without any kind of design whatsoever. With that emphasis in mind, I put it to you that *all* explanations that are on offer to explain existence ultimately fall into one of those two categories. The two main contenders in science - neo-Darwinian Evolution and Intelligent Design – are just competing explanations for Accident versus Design. There is no third way. Just saying there is one, without providing any details, doesn’t count by the way! This thread and others are littered with definitions of information. Either every single definition provided fails because the cell is just “a simple homogenous globule of plasm”. Or, actually, we all know what we’re talking about here (we can even see it in the video in the top right hand corner of this very webpage) and all this talk of ‘gathering dust’ and 1s and 0s is, at best, missing the point (at worst, deliberately avoiding it). Why choose ‘gathering dust’ as a starting point for information (particularly in the cell) when supercomputers and superfactories are far more obvious and accurate associations?Chris Doyle
June 8, 2011
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PS: In short, once one has identified that we are dealing with high contingency where on similar initial conditions we have a large variety of outcomes, we are not dealing with natural law rooted in forces of mechanical necessity. Once that is the case, the issue is whether the contingency is dominated by sheer statistical weight or is in a context where we see a rejection region -- and in classical Fisherian approaches for making serious decisions, RR's of 5% likelihood by chance are common. We are dealing with rejection regions that are far more remote than that. The basic argument is tha tif an event comes from a sufficiently remote region in the space of possibilities that such would not be credible on a random walk in the config space across the lifespan of the solar system or the cosmos [and this was shown to be the benchmark for searches of such a space by Marks and Dembski in their work on active information], depending, then we have reason to conclude that the reason we are in a zone of interest T that is well-fitted to a purposeful description is that we are there by choice. In short, if you are at Chesil beach and you see shingles spelling out Welcome to Chesil beach, you do not infer to mechanical necessity or chance as the best explanation, on an intuitive version of the sort of quantitative approach just described in outline and detailed elsewhere as linked.kairosfocus
June 8, 2011
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Dr Liddle: First, the null hyp is natural regularity [law]. If something is highly contingent, that kills the null. Then, the second null is that the thing is contingent reflective of a stochastic distribution. What kills that is being on a narrow zone of interest in a large enough config space, just as the analysis that supports the second law of thermodynamics highlights. In case you are interested, here is Dembski's phrasing (and recall, this is to be applied per aspect, as linked above):
“Whenever explaining an event, we must choose from three competing modes of explanation. These are regularity [i.e., natural law], chance, and design.” When attempting to explain something, “regularities are always the first line of defense. If we can explain by means of a regularity, chance and design are automatically precluded. Similarly, chance is always the second line of defense. If we can’t explain by means of a regularity, but we can explain by means of chance, then design is automatically precluded. There is thus an order of priority to explanation. Within this order regularity has top priority, chance second, and design last” . . . the Explanatory Filter “formalizes what we have been doing right along when we recognize intelligent agents.”
The steps are plainly valid, and are based on the way science commonly works, the difference being that the chance/choice contrast is decided on isolation to a zone of interest in so large a config space that arriving there by chance is utterly implausible on the gamut of the cosmos or at least the solar system. That is not something that requires big peer reviewed studies to support, but it is helpful to know that indeed essentially this sort of reasoning is the foundation of the second law of thermodynamics in stat mech. For, the direction of spontaneous change is towards clusters of microstates that are of much higher statistical weight. If you see something in a very special config [e.g. all the O2 molecules in a room at one end of it], that points to choice not chance as the most credible explanation. As for further instance occurs with the text of this post. It could after all be just lucky statistical noise on the Internet hitting on a config in an island of function. But instinctively we know better. The CSI- explanatory filter approach helps us give a quantitative way to make the same inference. One we make intuitively all the time. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
June 7, 2011
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Elizabeth Liddle, But we do not specify the solution. That is what the evolutionary algorithm does, and in that, they are directly comparable to natural evolution. But we can 'specify the solution' in principle, to whatever degree required. Whether or not we do is a reflection of our wants and abilities, not a reflection of GAs themselves. Indeed, we already 'specify the solution' to a degree just by employing GAs to begin with. They aren't utterly unpredictable to us (otherwise their practical use would be far more limited.) However, unlike artificial selection, where even the “solution” may be highly specified, in GAs it often is not. Indeed, some GA outputs it is quite difficult to figure out how they actually solve the problem. And again - this comes down to a statement about the limitations of abilities of a proximate designer, not the processes themselves. In other words, what's doing the work here in making these 'Darwinian' is not the processes themselves, but statements about the designer's knowledge (or lack thereof) of them. You're setting up a comparison where the principal metric to decide whether a designer using a GA 'designed' the results of a GA, is if the designer knew and intended the GA's results. But unless you have an ID style design detection filter, science is unable to determine the answer to the question in play - "Did a designer know and intend these results?" Note that this all comes prior to the question of whether or not the processes (variation and selection as defined by any evolutionary theory, given what we know about nature) are capable of achieving what they did, with or without designer input. Just as a GA, whether or not it was designed, likely couldn't go from a (to use a biological example) single cell to an elephant in 4 generations.nullasalus
June 7, 2011
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Cool :) It's lovely to get at least the point where you are in real disagreement - so often in these discussions, the battles are between straw men on both sides! Not that I'm blaming anyone (except perhaps myself) but finding common ground is Hard Work. I appreciate yours! But I have to go to bed, and I've got a pretty full day tomorrow. Hope you are maybe around later on. Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle
June 7, 2011
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ME: "As to your Shannon Information example. Even Shannon Information pre-supposes the existence of something called information. He just gives a way to measure it. True?" Elizabeth @166:
hmmm. Yes, I guess he does – no point in measuring something you don’t think exists :) But he also defines it in terms of what the receiver doesn’t know. That was one of the things I was getting at – whether a message is informative or not depends on whether it tells you something you don’t know.
Now, does it make sense to speak in terms of what the receiver doesn’t know without any sense of aboutness? I think you are spot on here. I'm glad we've managed to come to this point. Shannon uncertainty is uncertainty about something and our reduction in uncertainty about something can be called information. I hope this will help you understand and appreciate UprightBiPed's question about, well, about. :) To modify what you wrote, I might put it this way: "how informative a message is depends on whether it tells you something about something you don’t already know." Any objection?
So sender and receiver are an important part of Shannon’s definition.
I think we probably agree on this. It is a theory of communication, after all. lol. I'm not sure that Shannon's measure can't be generalized though to situations without a sender/receiver pair.Mung
June 7, 2011
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Upright BiPed:
Sorry, can’t take that seriously.
Well, that's a shame. As I said, I'll do my best, but right now, I don't even know if you mean this thread or some other thread. Anyway, I hope I find it, but my response may take some time. That's why I asked for a link.Elizabeth Liddle
June 7, 2011
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^sorry, messed up a tag :(Elizabeth Liddle
June 7, 2011
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Would you please stop with this? I say again you misrepresent GA’s. We don’t use GA’s because Darwinian mutation and selection can produce the appearance of design. Ga’s are inherently teleological, and that’s why we use them. Darwinian evolution is not.
I think there is a confusion here. Yes, of course, we use GAs because we have a purpose - we want to solve a problem. Therefore we design a fitness function (an environment if you will) in which critters that are better at solving our problem are selected. But we do not specify the solution. That is what the evolutionary algorithm does, and in that, they are directly comparable to natural evolution. In this way GAs are to natural selection as artificial selection is to natural selection. The difference is that in GAs and artifical selection, humans define the fitness landscape. However, in all three cases, it is Darwinian processes that produce the "solution". However, unlike artificial selection, where even the "solution" may be highly specified, in GAs it often is not. Indeed, some GA outputs it is quite difficult to figure out how they actually solve the problem.
In a GA we know the problem we are trying to solve. We find a way to represent potential solutions. We define a way to tell us whether our potential solutions are more or less likely to reach our goal.
Yes. But we do not design the solutions. That is my point. The actual clever bit - the problem solving bit, is done by the GA.
Darwinian evolution is not like this.
It is in the aspect that matters - the actual finding (indeed inventing) the solution. However, as I said above, that is always assuming that the variance the critters can exhibit bracket viable solutions. So that seems to me to be the challenge Darwinian evolution has to meet. We know selection works very well, given a rich enough choice of incremental solutions. It's the origin of of that variance that needs more research, IMO (and where understanding how genes have phenotypic effects has produced so much relevant evidence).
Elizabeth Liddle
June 7, 2011
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#163 Sorry, can't take that seriously.Upright BiPed
June 7, 2011
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I just received The Plausibility of Life, which is pretty cool
I have that one too :) Let us know what you think of their arguments against ID. For example:
These secular theories, labeled intelligent design, argue against evolution ... attempting to show from first principles why evolution is impossible.
YIKES! And:
Advocates of intelligent design have introduced the term irreducible complexity. It is meant, in principle, to contradict the theory of evolution by arguing that complex physiology is too improbable to have ever been assembled by chance.
Now if you didn't know better, would you want to come here to UD and argue against ID based on this book?Mung
June 7, 2011
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Elizabeth:
The real challenge to Darwinism, it seems to me, is not whether natural selection can produce the appearance of design (it can – indeed it can actually design, which is why we use GAs)
Would you please stop with this? I say again you misrepresent GA's. We don't use GA's because Darwinian mutation and selection can produce the appearance of design. Ga's are inherently teleological, and that's why we use them. Darwinian evolution is not. In a GA we know the problem we are trying to solve. We find a way to represent potential solutions. We define a way to tell us whether our potential solutions are more or less likely to reach our goal. Darwinian evolution is not like this.Mung
June 7, 2011
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"No, Stephen, I read more than the “contents pages”. What he seemed to be saying was that the genetic code couldn’t have emerged from purely physical/chemical processes. That seemed unsubstantiated to me, and, in any case, an argument from lack of evidence/alternative model rather than a positive argument." Well now you see that's where you're wrong, and I find it odd that you would comment on a book without having read it. I think we had a discussion about this particular matter recently. His book is not about a lack of evidence for Darwinian process. Far from it. His book is about evidence that points in another direction than Darwinian process based on what we already know about designers. I think you need to read the book, and read it carefully.CannuckianYankee
June 7, 2011
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Mung: well, I'm still waiting for The Signature in the Cell, but I just received The Plausibility of Life, which is pretty cool:) However, I'll take yet another opportunity to plug this: http://videolectures.net/eccs07_noble_psb/ It's worth listening to whether you are an IDist or a "Darwinist". I hope Dawkins has read the book :)Elizabeth Liddle
June 7, 2011
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Mung:
: Elizabeth Liddle @93: when DNA…is read in a cell…linearly, what is it that constrains it to be read linearly? What stops it, if not physical/chemical forces, from reading it non-linearly? What constrains it? First, I’d like to commend you on your effort.
aw shucks :)
But we have known systems of information storage and retrieval. Why not appeal to those for an analogy? Take a hard disk, or CD/DVD or RAM. Think about whether the data is read from them in a linear fashion, and why. What is it about matter, energy, or information that requires that it be read in a linear fashion?
Nothing, and it doesn't, always. But the reader (or reading head) has to do it right in order to make sense of it. What I was asking was what guides (physically) the reading head in a cell? Not why is it so guided?
Could the information that is stored in DNA be read in a non-linear fashion?
Well, in a sense it is. It's certainly not read from start to finish. It's read more like a database, in which only relevant information is read, and then, only as needed. That's in teleological language :) But the individual genes are read in one direction, guided by the physical properties of the molecules. That was my point really. Not that the molecules aren't intelligently arranged, but that once arranged, they are physically constrained to be read as they are.
What is it about DNA that says that the three bases that code for a particular codon must be arranged in a linear manner on the DNA strand?
Ah. Well,that's the way it's arranged in DNA. It may not be the only possible way. If we ever do find life in other parts of the universe it will be interesting to know how unique the DNA arrangement is.
As to your Shannon Information example. Even Shannon Information pre-supposes the existence of something called information. He just gives a way to measure it. True?
hmmm. Yes, I guess he does - no point in measuring something you don't think exists :) But he also defines it in terms of what the receiver doesn't know. That was one of the things I was getting at - whether a message is informative or not depends on whether it tells you something you don't know. If I send the same string of ones and zeros to Upright Biped over and over, it will become so predictable that it will no longer contain any information, meaningful or otherwise. It will go straight to his/her spam folder! So sender and receiver are an important part of Shannon's definition. That's why, when people talk about information in the cell (which I think is perfectly valid - I think the cell is full of information) - I'd like to know what the analogues of "sender" and "receiver" are. I should say that I'm particularly interested in gene-expression, of course, because I'm interested in neurotransmitters. But I don't primarily see DNA as the "the blueprint for the bodyplan". I don't think it is. It's the database on which the cells draw for their repertoire of potential behaviour, which depends on far more than the DNA. None of which is at odds with ID of course, but I just thought I'd put it out there :)Elizabeth Liddle
June 7, 2011
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The real challenge to Darwinism, it seems to me, is not whether natural selection can produce the appearance of design (it can – indeed it can actually design, which is why we use GAs) but whether mutational processes can provide a sufficient range of potentially advantageous options to select. I’d be more than happy to discuss that, but it seems to me that’s the real chink in Darwin’s armour, not natural selection. Where does the variance come from, and why should there be enough variants that are actually more advantageous than what preceded them to make it work?
My copy of The Genetic Basis of Evolutionary Change by R.C. Lewontin arrived yesterday. :) "For I now realize that the question was not simply, How much genetic variation is there? nor even, How much genetic variation in fitness is there? but rather, How much genetic variation is there that can be the basis of adaptive evolution?"Mung
June 7, 2011
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Elizabeth:
The null hypothesis for the H1: “Darwinian evolutionary processes account for the appearance of design in living things”: is not “an Intelligent Designer must have accounted for the appearance of design in living things” but “Darwinian evolution does not account for the appearance of design in living things”.
Well, this does bring up an interesting question which I hope you'll take some time to think about even if only over tea. This question about the appearance of design. It seems that neither H1 nor H2 makes much sense without dome idea of what things appear to be designed and what things do not appear to be designed. Darwin and Dawkins seem to just take this appearance of design for granted. But what is it actually, that Darwinian evolutionary processes are supposed to explain? How do you decide, scientifically, what has "the appearance of design" and what does not? It's hard to believe that Darwinism can be an acceptable scientific explanation for some phenomenon that cannot even be scientifically identified and described. What it is, exactly, that gives a thing "an appearance of design"? Scientifically speaking, of course. Since were all here doing science. Right?Mung
June 7, 2011
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@Upright BiPed
Could you remind me which one, UB? With a link if possible, or a thread title.” You needn’t look far, its the one you just posted on. Scroll north.
Sorry, you'll have to be more specific. The thread immediatetly above this one is one I haven't posted on. If you mean this thread, then I'm going to need a post number. I'm trying my best to address all the responses that people have made to my posts, but it's going to take me some time.Elizabeth Liddle
June 7, 2011
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ellazimm:
And really, truthfully, most people here already know my arguments because they are nothing new or original.
Right. We're familiar with the arguments. It's your reasons for believing them that has us scratching our heads.Mung
June 7, 2011
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Kairosfocus @ #
I trust this will help clarify. GEM of TKI
It doesn't, unfortunately, Kairosfocus, although I do hugely appreciate the efforts you went to. I did start a point by point reply, but the thing got really unwieldy. So let me try a more summary approach: Regarding the "null hypothesis" approach to hypothesis testing: you seem to have a very different idea of what this consists of to the one I understand. In conventional empirical science, fisherian hypothesis testing consists of a study hypothesis, often called H1, and a null hypothesis, often called H0. The null hypothesis is simply the hypothesis that H1 is false. However, "retaining the null" is not the same as falsifying H1 (which is, in practice very difficult). But this puts great constraints on what hypothesis can be tested. The null hypothesis for the H1: "Darwinian evolutionary processes account for the appearance of design in living things": is not "an Intelligent Designer must have accounted for the appearance of design in living things" but "Darwinian evolution does not account for the appearance of design in living things". In other words, the null is always framed in reference to H1, otherwise the stats don't work. You can, of course, instead of comparing H1 to H0, compare two competing hypotheses: you can say: "intelligent design accounts for the appearance of design in living things better than Darwinian evolutionary processes do". But to do that, you would have to make differential predictions for the two hypothesis, not just infer that if one fails, the other is supported. It is perfectly possible for two theories to be false! Regarding your comments about upper probability bounds; from my PoV they seem irrelevant. I'm not saying they are, but I am certainly not seeing their force. Yes, some things are so unlikely that we would not expect to see them in the knowable universe (flying spaghetti monsters, perhaps, or a teapot orbiting Mars). But in order to ascertain the probability of some event, we need some priors, and I think it is your priors that I dispute. It's not that my priors are "right" and yours "wrong" (the whole point of priors is that they are adjustable in the light of new information, and they are probabilities anyway - we can even put priors on our priors being right!) It's just that to me, there are plenty of promising leads in the search for antecedents of the "minimal first modern cell", so I am not at this stage prepared to say: the probability that the first modern cell had viable antecedents is zero. Of course I agree that the probability that the first modern cell self-assembled by chance is on the order of Flying Spaghetti Monsters and orbiting teapots. So that is not the source of our disagreement (at least I don't think so). Lastly, re random walks: Darwinian evolution is not a random walk - or rather it is a biased random walk. Imagine a drunkard's walk where the terrain slopes gently downwards. Except that you have to imagine an army of drunks, so huge that the whole terrain alters under their weight :) Understanding of drift has made a big difference, however, and we know know that the terrain is much flatter than we thought (although it may have the odd gully. Nonetheless it slopes. The real challenge to Darwinism, it seems to me, is not whether natural selection can produce the appearance of design (it can - indeed it can actually design, which is why we use GAs) but whether mutational processes can provide a sufficient range of potentially advantageous options to select. I'd be more than happy to discuss that, but it seems to me that's the real chink in Darwin's armour, not natural selection. Where does the variance come from, and why should there be enough variants that are actually more advantageous than what preceded them to make it work? If that can work, I think that showing that CSI can be generated is pretty easy :) Anyway, thanks for the conversation. I'm sorry I've been a bit sporadic, and that will continue, but I'll try to respond to everyone eventually. If I miss any posts or threads, I'd be grateful if people could jog me with a link. Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle
June 7, 2011
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Meleagor @139: "Unfortunately, even if mutations were in fact unpredictable, this wouldn’t help your case any, because you are making a case against intelligence, and intelligence is also often unpredictable." Well, I think you're making an assumption about the designer which I have promised to avoid. "Then it shouldn’t be a problem directing me to the model of mutations that shows chance* mutations sufficient (combined with natural* selection) to generate macro-evolutionary success." I refer, as always, to the modern evolutionary synthesis and all its supporting documentation. "ellazimm said: “Selection IS NOT random!” I guess that statement would be relevant had I ever claimed it was." I have tried very hard to find the reason for me making that statement and I have failed to do so. If I have misrepresented one of your arguments then I apologise and retract the statement. "I want to measure the capacity of chance* mutation and natural* selection to produce the macro-evolutionary features they are claimed to have the power to produce.? Okay, what do you propose as a unit of measure? What should we be comparing and to what standard? "In any event, it’s not my job to prove they are not random, it is the job of those that claim that they are random to demonstrate not only that they are (that would be the first part), but that they are sufficient, when combined with natural* selection, to produce what they are claimed to have produced." Well, have you looked at all the statistical data and analysis of mutation rates? Have you read all the research looking at the observed occurence of mutations? You've got a question, fair enough. Have you gone and looked for the answer? The world is not obligated to you to come and present all the data to you. If you have a question then the obligation is partly on you to go and find out what research and information already addresses your concerns. above @140: "I am not taking shot at you ellazim. I am merely pointing out to the fact that your model is just as much a matter of faith as anyone else’s. The point that everyone is trying to make here no scientific metric available (not even in principle in fact) that will demarcate the issue. The whole “nature-did-it” is just belief and rhetoric." I understand. But I do not see that ID has multiple threads of evidence like the modern biological synthesis. And no one has yet proposed a definition of a metric or even what units it would be measured in. You can talk about a metric but until you give me some idea of what measurable quantity you want to be measured, what units that measurement will be done with and what scale the measurement will be compared to then . .. it's all just kind of vague and meaningless. You want a yardstick. Okay. Give me the units on the stick at least. allanius @152: "They obtain hegemony through the thirst for identity. “God has put eternity into the hearts of men,” and for that reason all men desire an immortal identity. One way to achieve it is through procreation. A better way is through the apparent justification the comes from investing one’s identity in the prevailing point of view." Another way to achieve that is to assume an eternal afterlife overseen by an benign creator. Please be honest and complete in your analysis. And let me offer my apologies to all participants in this thread. I may be very dull but I do have a life and, just now, it precludes me from monitoring things as well as I would like. I'm sure I've missed some things. I shall do the best I can but my family and my job come first. And really, truthfully, most people here already know my arguments because they are nothing new or original. I am only repeating things that have been elucidated by others to much greater effect.ellazimm
June 7, 2011
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Mrs Liddle, "Could you remind me which one, UB? With a link if possible, or a thread title." You needn't look far, its the one you just posted on. Scroll north.Upright BiPed
June 7, 2011
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Chris @128: "1. Artificial selection in dogs and cabbages acted purely upon the pre-existing gene pool. Any claim that random mutation was part of these varieties needs to be supported by scientific fact. Absent that, you must concede." Perhaps. Since I cannot produce the pre-existing genome of the Brassica genus from 5,000 years ago then I suspect the best we can do at this point is to declare a draw. But, it is the case, that many and varied morphologies were observed and recorded which had no previous incarnation. "The notion that humans were all brown-eyed before blue eyes somehow appeared is just that: a notion. There is absolutely no observational or experimental evidence to support this notion. Sorry. The research you appeal to is simply unscientific (it makes the unwarranted assumption that all humans were brown-eyed originally)." From Wikipedia: The inheritance pattern followed by blue eyes is considered similar to that of a recessive trait (in general, eye color inheritance is considered a polygenic trait, meaning that it is controlled by the interactions of several genes, not just one).[10] In 2008, new research revealed that people with blue eyes have a single common ancestor. Scientists tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. "Originally, we all had brown eyes," said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen.[35] Eiberg and colleagues showed in a study published in Human Genetics that a mutation in the 86th intron of the HERC2 gene, which is hypothesized to interact with the OCA2 gene promoter, reduced expression of OCA2 with subsequent reduction in melanin production.[36] The authors concluded that the mutation may have arisen in a single individual probably living in the northwestern part of the Black Sea region (around modern Romania) 6,000–10,000 years ago during the Neolithic revolution.[35][36][37] Eiberg stated, "A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a 'switch,' which literally 'turned off' the ability to produce brown eyes." The genetic switch is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 and rather than completely turning off the gene, the switch limits its action, which reduces the production of melanin in the iris. In effect, the turned-down switch diluted brown eyes to blue. If the OCA2 gene had been completely shut down, our hair, eyes and skin would be melanin-less, a condition known as albinism.[35] Dawkins: “It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet somebody who claims not to believe in evolution, that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or wicked, but I’d rather not consider that).” I agree, that statement is nasty and demeaning. Not my style at all. But he is completely straight forward and honest. You know where you stand with Dawkins. ". Be honest, ellazimm. You did not know what I told you about E. coli until you read my words, did you. If the “very honest” Dawkins didn’t know, then what chance did you have!? Seriously, Lenski’s research simply shows that, with extreme efforts, you can make some E. coli do what other E. coli has been doing all along. Big deal. If you disagree, what exactly did you have in mind?" You have your sources, I have mine. I think mine are backed up with peer review and a large consensus about what is known and established. I am NOT just depending on my own view or ability to interpret the data. "5. “Hey, we may all be descendent from bacteria. Who says it hasn’t give rise to other life forms?” Oh dear. You certainly saved the best to last! Bacteria are prokaryotic lifeforms. All plants and animals are eukaryotic lifeforms. Therefore, science says bacteria did not give rise to plants and animals. I’m sorry to say that to even ask such a question demonstrates a massive lack of understanding. You don’t even need to read the research! Even Wikipedia will do on this occasion." Read http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK28340/ to see a discussion of the current state of understanding regarding this issue. Chris @121: "Lizzie and ellazimm, like United, have given their best but have found our assaults on their position indefensible! At least they tried. The likes of paragwinn, who didn’t try, should try and follow their example." I would say you have disagreed over our interpretation. Is that fair?ellazimm
June 7, 2011
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I see that Dr Liddle continues to drop back in, but has yet to return to the thread she was previously involved in. I do hope she finds the time.
Could you remind me which one, UB? With a link if possible, or a thread title. I'm afraid having been more used to forum than blog format recently, I haven't yet got the hang on keeping track of different threads. I've now got into the habit of bookmarking each one, but I'm still behind, and I'm aware that there are a lot of posts addressed to me on this one. I'm fairly tied up this week, but I will try to respond to everyone eventually, and I promise not to start any more hares until I've done so! Apologies LizzieElizabeth Liddle
June 7, 2011
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Hi again Chris :)
Hiya Lizzie, my turn to butt in! I see that you are arguing over the definition of information. This seems to be a recurring and pointless argument.
No, I'm not arguing over the definition of information. I want to put this absolutely straight. I don't have "a problem" with the concept of information. Or even with any given definition. But there are several, and in science, if you want to demonstrate something, you need what is called an "operational definition". It doesn't matter much what it is, as long as it is clear, and it can differ from study to study, as long as it is clear. Because if someone makes a claim that X cannot be Y, then unless we have an operational definition for X we cannot either verify or falsify the claim. What it is doesn't actually matter, although obviously the person making the claim should approve the definition.
Disagreement over the definition of information cannot change the fact that information, particularly in the cell, is an observable phenomenon that needs to be accounted for, and, ultimately, there are only two possible sources for that account: Accident or Design.
Well, only if "Accident" and/or "Design" encompass very much more than they usually do, because there are more causal phenomena in the universe than are covered by those two terms, in their normal usage.
It’d be interesting to hear about any kind of empirical basis you have for the notion that the information contained in the cell arose by accident.
And I'd be more than happy to respond, once I have your operational definition of information! I certainly won't argue about it - I just want a definition that is tight enough to serve as an objective criterion by which we can judge whether or not the information I cite in support conforms to your definition. Above, I gave the example of gathering dust "informing" neighbours that the occupant of a house was dead. In one sense that dust conveys information - but that was not (and clearly was not, which was my point) the kind of information Upright BiPed had in mind. I also gave the example of a series of 100 of ones and zeros drawn from a flat probability distribution. By some definitions that series contained 100 bits of information. But again, was not the kind of information Upright Biped had in mind (clearly, as again was my point), so he/she rightly asked a follow up: what was the information "about". Which implies that Upright Biped's concept of information is a semantic communication between a sender (me) and a receiver (him/her) who share a common language. So I asked, if, as seems perfectly reasonable, he/she regarded "information" as a communication between a sender and a receiver, who or what were the equivalent of the sender and receiver in the context of DNA? (I'm hoping there's an answer to my question above, but I haven't checked yet). It's not that I have any issue with any of these definitions - I'm happy to accept any of them as long as they are operationalised. The most promising candidate seems to be that the relevant information is CSI. If someone can point me at an up-to-date operational definition of CSI, I'd be more than happy to use that. Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle
June 7, 2011
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I see that Dr Liddle continues to drop back in, but has yet to return to the thread she was previously involved in. I do hope she finds the time.Upright BiPed
June 7, 2011
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