genetic-id, an instance of design detection? (topic revisited)
| May 11, 2006 | Posted by scordova under Intelligent Design |
(In an effort to help my IDEA comrades at Cornell I revisit the issue of Genetic-ID. My previous post on the issue caused some confusion so I’m reposting it with some clarifications. I post the topic as something I recommend their group discuss and explore.)
The corporation known as Genetic-ID (ID as in IDentification, not ID as in Intelligent Design) is able to distinguish a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) from a “naturally occurring” organism. At www.genetic-id.com they claim:
Genetic ID can reliably detect ALL commercialized genetically modified organisms.
I claim that detecting man-made artifacts (like a GMO) is a valid instance of applying the Explanatory Filter.
The Explanatory Filter is used all the time (implicitly):
The key step in formulating Intelligent Design as a scientific theory is to delineate a method for detecting design. Such a method exists, and in fact, we use it implicitly all the time. The method takes the form of a three-stage Explanatory Filter.
I want to emphasize, the Explanatory Filter (EF) is used ALL the time. When ID critics say the EF has never been used to detect anything, they misrepresent what the EF is, because the EF is used ALL the time.
The Explanatory Filter faithfully represents our ordinary practice of sorting through things we alternately attribute to law, chance, or design. In particular, the filter describes
how copyright and patent offices identify theft of intellectual property
….
Entire industries would be dead in the water without the Explanatory Filter. Much is riding on it. Using the filter, our courts have sent people to the electric chair.
(bolding mine)
When we detect design in a physical artifact, we detect the Complex Specified Information (CSI) the artifact evidences. That means we see that a physical artifact conforms to an independent blueprint.
In the Bill’s book, No Free Lunch (NFL), the concept of CSI if formalized. CSI is detected when the information from a physical artifact (physical information) conforms to an independent blueprint or conception (conceptual information). CSI is defined as:
The coincidence of conceptual and physical information where the conceptual information is both identifiable independently of the physical information and also complex.
It is important to note CSI is defined by two pieces of information not just one
CSI is consistent with the basic idea behind information, which is the reduction of possibilities from a reference class of possibilities. But whereas the traditional understanding of information is unary, conceiving of information as a single reduction of possibilities, complex specified information is a binary form of information. Complex specified information , and specified information more generally, depends on a dual reduction of possibilities, namely a conceptual reduction (i.e., conceptual information) combined with a physical reduction (i.e., physical information ).
Genetic-ID uses PCR (polymerase chain reaction) to detect whether an organism has physical characteristics (physical information) which match a known blueprint (conceptual information) for a GMO. This is a relatively simple case of design detection since the pattern matching method is exact and highly specific. Genetic-ID’s technique is a somewhat trivial example of design detection, but I put it on the table to help introduce the concept of the Explanatory Filter in detecting designs at the molecular level.
But how about less specific pattern matches to detect GMO’s? Do you think we could detect a GMO such as this:
Data stored in multiplying bacteria
The scientists took the words of the song It’s a Small World and translated it into a code based on the four “letters” of DNA. They then created artificial DNA strands recording different parts of the song. These DNA messages, each about 150 bases long, were inserted into bacteria such as E. coli and Deinococcus radiodurans.
Or how about this kind of GMO, a terminator/traitor which does not have a published specific architecture : Terminate the Terminator.
Terminator technology (sometimes called TPS-Technology Protection System or GURTs-Genetic Use Restriction Technologies) refers to plants that are genetically engineered to produce sterile seeds. If commercialized, the technology will prevent farmers from saving seed from their harvest for planting the following season. These “suicide seeds” will force farmers to return to the seed corporations every year and will make extinct the 12,000-year tradition of farmers saving, adapting and exchanging seed in order to advance biodiversity and increase food security.
Extending these ideas, can we in principle detect nano-molecular designs such as a nano-molecular computer? If we find a physical molecular artifact conforming to the blueprints of a computer, should we infer design?
With that question in mind, I point to the fact that biological systems are computers, and self-replicating computers on top of that! This fact was not lost upon Albert Voie who tied the problem of the origin-of-life to the fact that the physical artifacts of biology conform to a known blueprint, namely, a self-replicating computer. I commented on Voie’s landmark outline of the origin-of-life problem here.
In as much as biology conforms to the blueprints of a computer, are we justified in inferring design? And finally, are not the claims of Darwinian evolution ultimately claims that blindwatchmakers can create “Gentically Modified Organisms” (so to speak) from pre-existing organisms? What then do we make of Darwinian evolution’s claims?
64 Responses to genetic-id, an instance of design detection? (topic revisited)
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hypermoderate,
I do not see any fundamental circularity in Dembski’s argument. It basically boils down to “if it’s ludicrously unlikely that it was produced by unintelligent materialistic causes, it can be comfortably inferred that it was produced by some kind of intelligent agency.” False positives will occur, but they should be ludicrously infrequent. The informative, non-circular essence of the argument is that a probabilistic framework for this kind of thing might be arranged so that we can make reasonable inferences on these matters similar to the kind of inferences we make concerning whether the sun will come up tomorrow, etc. Think what you may about logistical details involved in making such a calculation, but I don’t see it as inherrently circular or tautological.
As a scientist, I would be mildly concerned with sampling bias coming in to play, though. Assuming they can be calculated–however ludicrous the probabilities might turn out to be–**if** our existence as questioners was, in fact, contingent upon such occurrences happening via nonintelligent mechanisms, then the probability of our, as reasonably complex sentient beings, observing such complex structures is shifted to 1. So ultimately I think Dembski may have to make an even stronger case. Not only is achieving a certain threshold of specified complexity highly unlikely given the overall system, but it is, in fact, not possible at all. Only then can the anthropomorphic “sample bias” argument be finally put to rest. I would be interested to hear people’s thoughts on this.
great_ape wrote:
“I do not see any fundamental circularity in Dembski’s argument. It basically boils down to “if it’s ludicrously unlikely that it was produced by unintelligent materialistic causes, it can be comfortably inferred that it was produced by some kind of intelligent agency.â€Â
Hi great_ape,
If that were Dembski’s argument, there would be little to object to. There would also be nothing new, as that argument has been around since long before Dembski. To restate, it simply says “Everything is either at least partially designed, or it is undesigned. If one of these alternatives is extremely unlikely, the other is overwhelmingly likely.” It’s just an application of Aristotle’s Law of the Excluded Middle.
What Dembski is trying to do is different. He’s trying to introduce a concept, CSI, as an independent, reliable indicator of design. Find something with CSI, and you know it was designed. Salvador certainly interprets Dembski’s argument this way, which is why he suggests that “some architectures are recognized by engineers as designed, and it’s only a matter of asking if a biological system conforms to our pre-conceived pattern and if the pattern can be shown to have 500 bits of information.”
But the very definition of CSI requires that unintelligent causes be incapable of producing it, and so via the excluded middle something that has CSI is by definition designed. So to say that CSI is a reliable indicator of design is simply to say “Something that is designed can be reliably inferred to have been designed.” Quite true, but also quite circular.
And we’re left with exactly the same question we had before the concept of CSI was introduced, which is “Could natural selection (or other unintelligent causes) have produced the living structures we see around us today?”
Translated into Dembski’s terms, we would say “Structures with CSI are designed, but it’s an open question whether living structures have CSI, by Dembski’s definition of the term.”
You’re about to get the boot for stupidity. According to you the following is circular reasoning:
Given: Sparrows can’t make bicycles.
Therefore: If you see a bicycle, it wasn’t made by a sparrow.
This isn’t circular reasoning. It’s a simple deduction. Stop wasting comments with this idiocy. Last warning. -ds
great_ape,
Your concern about sampling bias is a valid one. I would answer it this way: In science, we sometimes have to choose between two hypotheses which fit the data equally well. If the two hypotheses have a chance element, it makes sense to prefer the one which is more probable. If we choose the more probable explanation, we’re more likely to be correct, although there is no guarantee. We might be wrong. In any case, we keep our eyes open and are prepared to modify or abandon our chosen hypothesis as more data comes in.
In Dembski’s framework, there are two possible explanations for why we are here. One of them, as you suggest, is that a statistical fluke occurred which created CSI via sheer luck, leading to us. Another is that we were designed. Dembski would presumably argue that the second is overwhelmingly more probable than the first. Though you cannot rule out the first absolutely, you’re far more likely to be right by betting on the second.
It reminds me of something I’ve thought about in connection with the multiverse hypothesis. If there really exists an infinitude of universes with differing physical constants, laws, and starting conditions, then presumably there exists a universe somewhere much like ours, but where every coin ever tossed has come up heads. Scientists there are convinced that there is some deep explanation for this regularity, but have been unable to find it. From our perspective we can say “You just got (extremely) lucky (or unlucky).”
Inside that universe, the right thing to do is to look for a deterministic explanation of the coin-tossing phenomenon, because the alternative is so improbable. From the outside, we know that the improbable alternative happens to be the true one.
Okay, that’s it. Find somewhere else to babble. -ds
Dave, you’re mischaracterizing hypermoderate’s argument. A more accurate analogue would be as follows:
Given: Snukldorf is defined to include only things that sparrows can’t make.
Therefore: if you see snukldorf, it wasn’t made by a sparrow.
I submit that hypermoderate is correct, and that the tautological nature of the CSI argument has been pointed out by several people and never addressed by Dembski. You can do one of four things with this assertion:
1. Demand that I back it up with evidence.
2. Explain why it’s incorrect.
3. Proclaim it wrong, but offer no explanation.
4. Censor it and ban me.
I’m hoping you’ll take one of the first two options, but I suspect you’ll go with #4.
You missed the fifth option. Pat you on the head and say “that’s nice, sonny”. -ds