Kevin Padian: The Archie Bunker Professor of Paleobiology at Cal Berkeley

It is beyond my ability to see why “supposedly reasonable scientists” will go to such extraordinary length to deny the truth of the apparent design found in nature. Especially when it is backed up with such solid work as yours Dr. Dembski. Is the concept of a designer that scary for them? What are they so scared of?

You tell them, Dr. Dembski. Why anyone would listen to a bunch of guys critiquing groundbreaking work outside their area of expertise is beyond comprehension. But, there you have it. Credulity is a powerful tool when you have an axe to grind.

Way the go!

The general public–and that includes the media and academics and leaders and just about everybody outside the mathematical community–isn’t going to follow the mathematics of ID nor appreciate it that much. But all should be glad it’s there! It’s a front line component in the struggle and I think it’s in the hands of a strong and competent individual.

And if it wasn’t a fight–if there were no struggle against malignant forces–there would be no heroes. Just intelligence. And maybe not even that, for is real intelligence ever awakened apart from passion? And what inspires more than to face down the enemies of reason and endure a little persecution for the cause?

Does he mean David Wolpert, a co-discoverer of the NFL theorems? Wolpert had some nasty things to say about my book NO FREE LUNCH, but the upshot was that my ideas there were not sufficiently developed mathematically for him to critique them.

Bill, you forgot to mention that David Wolpert is going to become one of the best supporters of your theses, although (and this will be even more significant) probably he will never state so. After having stated what follows in his paper on IEEE Trans. in December 2005, D. Wolpert states the same concept in many speeches. For example:

http://www.mis.mpg.de/talks/abstracts/4444.html

Special Seminar

David Wolpert
(NASA Ames Research Center, USA, + MPI MIS, Leipzig)

No Free Lunch Theorem

Abstract - “At least since Hume, people have wondered whether there are first principles limitations on what humans can deduce / infer about reality.
…
In contrast to the traditional optimization case where the NFL results hold, in self-play there are free lunches: in coevolution some algorithms produce better champions than other algorithms, averaged across all possible problems. However in the typical coevolutionary scenarios encountered in biology, there is no champion. There the NFL theorems still hold.”

It is also quite interesting to see the comment by a well know PT guy (M. Perach):

http://www.pandasthumb.org/arc....._free.html

After somenone had given him the reference to Wolpert’s paper on IEEE Trans., he wrote:

“Yes, Bob, this is the paper I meant. Thanks for pointing to it. Whether or not the NFL theorems are valid for biological evolution (they are), including co-evolution (where they may be invalid in certain situations - see the referenced Wolpert/Macready’s paper) is irrelevant because the uniform average does not tell anything about the actual performance of search algorithms, as only the performance on a specific landscape is what counts, and there always are algorithms that outperform blind search on given specific landscapes, and this is true regardless of whether the landscape is co-evolving or not. Moreover, evolution is not a search for a target (contrary to what Dembski asserts), therefore his calculations of probabilities of finding a “target” are likewise irrelevant. Maybe I’ll write one more brief essay about it and post it here.”

It seems that the defense line has been moved back. As now (after Wolpert’s work) the reference of NFL theorems in biology cannot be anymore labelled as non sense, the new position is to claim that in evolution the landscapes are specific and favourable for search. But this is pretty wishful speculations! Bill, I think that your work will be more and more vindicated.

Whilst I believe chance to be an inadequate explanation for life, I feel the upper probability bound of 10^150 rests on pure speculation. Who can really say, with any empirical basis, there are only 10^80 elementary particles in the universe? For all we know the universe could be twice this size, or ten times or even infinite in size.

Archie Bunker? That’s Arnold Horseshack.

Mr. Kaaahta, Mr. Kaaahta, if I design somethin does that make me intelligent?

Why I love Kevin Padian –

When he is talking outside his expertise (i.e. about ID), he is actually helpful, as the only thing that shows through is his anger.

On the other hand, when he is talking within his expertise, he gives powerful evidence of Biblical Creationism.

Aquiescence:

I see Prof Dembski has immediately pointed out the obvious flaw in your:

the upper probability bound of 10^150 rests on pure speculation. Who can really say, with any empirical basis, there are only 10^80 elementary particles in the universe? For all we know the universe could be twice this size, or ten times or even infinite in size.

He aptly observed: The size of the known physical universe is — at the risk of sounding tautological — well known. What’s beyond it is a matter of speculation.

I add, that it is not just “speculation,” but specifically METAPHYSICAL — i.e. philosophical, not scientific — speculation.

And that brings in all the apparatus of serious comparative difficulties analysis across the live metaphysical options, e.g. including Theism as well as evolutionary materialism and Pantheism. You have therefore stepped beyond the reasonable bounds of science, in order to facilitate a dismissal argument.

On the wider field of comparative difficulties, I am not at all so sure that Evolutionary Materialism, often simply but inaccurately called “Science,” is the best present explamation, relative to:

1] factual adequacy [note how you have had to speculate counter to the observations we have in hand, and that a quasi-infinite cosmos as a whole is inherently unobservable . . . noting meanwhile that the specified complexity in view in many cases is many orders of magnitude beyond the 500 bit limit, e.g. DNA 500k - 3 bn or so base pairs, each being 2 bits.]

2] coherence [not least as Ms O’Leary often points out, there are major difficulties accounting for a credible mind, not to mention morals]

3] Explanatory elegance vs either ad hocness or being simplistic.

So, do you really want to go down that speculative road? [And, what does the resort to such speculation tell us about the problems with the attempted case against the design filter.]

GEM of TKI

[…] Recent Comments gpuccio: Bob: “Firstly, and this might surprise you, Behe’s work… kairosfocus: Aquiescence: I see Prof Dembski has immediately pointed o… j: [Just for laughs:] Robert Pennock in Discover (Februa… Freelurker: … in other words, the systems must be designed… johnnyb: Why I love Kevin Padian — When he is talking outside his… tribune7: So, in the same way that Christians don’t hate Allah, s… tribune7: Archie Bunker? That’s Arnold Horseshack. Mr. Kaaahta, Mr… Jehu: Am I missing something? Why is TalkOrigins bothe… Patrick: Would you be so kind as to point out which of th… jerry: Salvador, The old expression “Follow the money” drives th… feed » […]

To retain my sanity, I try to remain cognisant of the wider setting–in this case I’ll call it: fallen NATURE.

Dembski [5] The size of the known physical universe is — at the risk of sounding tautological — well known. What’s beyond it is a matter of speculation.

It’s the point beyond it – the matter of speculation – that my point was regarding, not the size of the known universe. You’re right, the size of the known universe is known, but beyond it could lie considerably more elementry particles meaning the size of your UPB would need to be revised.

Although to be fair, you do make this clear in The Design Inference p.217

”In making this admission, however, let’s be clear what it would mean to underestimate the probabilistic resources in our universe… (1) the number of elementry particles in the universe…[UPB] varies inversely with these numbers [number of elementary particles, age of the universe, events per second], so that as they increase, [UPB] decreases. Hence if these numbers are off, then so is [UPB]”

H’mm:

1] Let’s go back, for a moment, to the core fallacy in Mr Padian’s claim as cited in the original post:

Here is Padian’s take on my work: “His [Dembski’s] notion of ’specified complexity’, a probabilistic filter that allegedly allows one to tell whether an event is so impossible that it requires supernatural explanation, has never demonstrably received peer review, although its description in his popular books (such as No Free Lunch, Rowman & Littlefield, 2001) has come in for withering criticism from actual mathematicians.”

–> WHOA! Since when — apart from in evolutionary materialists’strawman attacks — has the design inference been inherently an inference to the SUPERNATURAL; as opposed to an inference that, the null hyp of chance and/or necessity having on good though revisable reason failed, AGENCY is then the most reasonable alternative explanation?

–> Worse yet, this claim has consistently explicitly rejected by Design thinkers and theorists in the Dover trial and elsewhere, including in the book that the ACLU and their tame judge tried to make this a trial about without giving the publishers a chance to speak for themselves, Pandas and People. [So, if there is ignorance there, it is willfully negligent ignorance; but, given Mr Padian’s links to the NCSE, I doubt that “ignorance” is the correct explanation. This alone is sufficient to discredit him and his associates in my mind, as on the evidence openly dishonest and exploitive of the trust that others have unwisely put in them.]

–> Similarly, did the vaunted peer reviewers and editors of Nature bother to do a basic fact check? [What does that tell us about the practical import of such peer reviews in a climate where the likes of a Gonzalez can be shabbily trwated as he was?]

–> Also, so far as I can tell, as discussed in Crandaddy’s July 6 “Events, Causes . . .” thread, this pattern of differential causal inference across chance, necessity and/or agency [though now developed in statistical inferential form] traces back to say, Plato in his The Laws, Book X:

. . . we have . . . lighted on a strange doctrine . . . . The wisest of all doctrines, in the opinion of many . . . . The doctrine that all things do become, have become, and will become, some by nature, some by art, and some by chance . . .

–> Thus the quest to differentiate the three possible causes of events by looking for credible empirical traces of the one or the other at work, is plainly legitimate, useful and indeed it is commonly resorted to in Science. [BTW, 1 in 10^150 is a lot tighter than the usual 1 in 20 or 100 in most Fisher-style statistical inference testing . . .]

–> Prof Dembski has more than adequately addressed the allegation that the UPB has not been peer reviewed, for whatever that is now worth given what we just saw. (And of course Nature failed to check with the leading Scientific publisher before comitting to print . . .)

2] Now, back to the attempted distractor, on the validity of the UPB. [Observe, too, how Aquiescence fails to reckon with the implications of his resort and the issues it opens up, as per issues in no 8 above. No prizes for guessing why.]

[WD] You’re right, the size of the known universe is known, but beyond it could lie considerably more elementry particles meaning the size of your UPB would need to be revised.

–> Of course, first, since when was this need to be open to revision a novelty on any empirically anchored scientific inference, up to and including not only observations but also the laws and theories of Science in general? Thus also, is there empirical evidence that currently credibly warrants such a revision, on any material scale?

–> As A has plainly conceded, there is no current data to warrant the revision he hopes for. As I pointed out, the hoped for quasi-infinite scale is inherently unobservable, as the finite cannot observe the infinite, though we may infer to it.

–> Let us imagine for a moment the universe is ten times the present scope, as A raises in no 4: 10^81 particles. That shifts the number of possible quantum states across the known scope of the universe across its lifetime to:

10^81 particles * 10^25 seconds * 10^45 quantum states/second = 10^151.

–> Similarly a scope of 100 times would raise the number of particles to 10^82, leading to the UPB going to 10^152 etc. (This is why Prof Dembski more or less made a simple footnote on the issue of scope of the observed universe affecting the UPB, a scope that has been more or less moving only a few orders of magnitude for decades. TO affect his main point a DRAMATIC expansion in the scope would be required . . .]

–> E.g., with the known fact that once knockouts on small micro-organisms go below about 360k base pairs, life function disintegrates, we can easily enough see that the configuration space in question encompasses 4^360k ~ 3.95*10^216,741 possible states.

–> This is so many orders of magnitude beyond ~ 10^150 that it is not at all reasonable that any random walk-based search [even with various augmentations/adjustments, as WD has long since seriously addressed] in even a far larger cosmos than the one we observe, would get to the first functional life form based on DNA by necessity and chance alone. Thus, the inference to agency is well warranted relative to what we know — as opposed to what some may wish to speculate over. (And, if there lurks a natural law that cuts down that scope dramatically,that simply tightens the cosmic fine-tuning argument . . .)

–> It gets worse. A modern arthropod (a fruit fly) has about 180 mn base prs. Let us cut that down for argument to 60 mn, and compare the Cambrian explosion window, of say 10 mn yrs [~ 31.6*10^12 s] on an earth of mass 6*10^24 kg [ ~ 3*10^50 C atoms at 12 AMU/atom, reasonable as we here look at the surface as the biosphere]. The UPB-Cambrian now falls to 1 in 9*10^109, while the config space to get the dozens of new body plans, on a per plan basis is ~ 3*10^36,123,599. Config space explodes, UPB collapses, underscoring the relevance of agency tot he origin of body plan level biodiversity — as Meyer pointed out in that now famous peer-reviewed paper.

3] Of course, my math can be checked and is subject to correction in details, but the underlying message in the main is plain: ever since Plato, the inference to design on materially important cases is a credible one, and the current situation owes more to the politics of worldview agendas in the institutions of science, than to the balance of the case on the merits.

GEM of TKI

PS: To clarify a point. Tyler (in the article Prof Dembski links) notes that The president of the NCSE is none other than the reviewer, Kevin Padian.

PPS: I think Mr O’Leary’s take here will also be helpful. Padian’s review looks worse and worse all the time, and with it so do Nature — let’s not forget, the leading general purpose Science Journal — and the vaunted peer review process. (Aquiesce pardon my misreading of your handle . . . a right brain long story issue.)

Kevin Padian: The Archie Bunker Professor of Paleobiology at Cal Berkeley

Oh my goodness, I didn’t realize an endowned chair was created in honor of Archie Bunker.

Arnold Horseshack.

Mr. Kaaahta, Mr. Kaaahta, my paper’s not ready because I’m wating for the words to evoooolve.

NB: Minor arithmetic correction: at 31.6*10^6 s/year [86,400 s/day * 365.25 d/yr], we have 316*10^12 s/10Myr. That moves the calculation of The UPB-Cambrian to 1 in 9*10^110. Missed a factor of 10 . . . no material effect.

I agree that many of the critics
step far away from their areas of
expertise (not sure how wildlife
and fisheries give you expertise
in complexity theory…). Here is
a piece that criticizes the
filter from the point of view of
mathematical statistics, written
by somebody who seems to know what
he is talking about:
www.math.tulane.edu/~polofsson/IDandMathStat.pdf

Hi Prof Olofsson:

Took a look — seems to be your own paper. On selective points on a quick run through:

1] Overly simplifies Irreducible Complexity, to the point of a strawman fallacy. Behe’s actual claim is that there is a core in some systems, that is so constituted, that ‘An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced directly… by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, because any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition non-functional.’ So, ‘although irreducible complexity does rule out direct routes, it does not automatically rule out indirect ones.’ Howbeit, as complexity of such a biosystem rises, ‘the more unlikely the indirect routes become.’ [DBB, 10th aniv. edn.]

2] The same happens with the claim: the key concept for evolution critics is improbability. Nope, we ID thinkers — ever since Plato in his The Laws Bk 10, 2400 years ago, look at a three-way split on causation, and infer from a pattern that is COMMONLY and reliably used in statistics, courtrooms, management and in common sense life, that CSI is a reliable indicator of design not chance and/or natural regularity only. [BTW, how often do practical investigators compose “all” alternative hyps and compute conditional probabilities relative to them then deduce the most/least improbable, before drawing conclusions? Or is it that most often Fisher’s approach is used of finding a rejection region that meets specification and improbability then rejecting the null . . .?]

3] Also, there is a world of difference between critiquing NDT and its wider context of evolutionary materialist models and critiquing “evolution.”

4] Citing a string of critics on one side of a debate among research level scientists as though they have the last word is obviously an improper appeal to authority.

5] Sober’s critique is about Bayesian vs Fisherian inference testing: sound scientific practice require that conclusions are based on comparative reasoning. Perhaps a chance hypothesis confers a small probability on the evidence, but how do we know that a design hypothesis does not confer an even smaller probability?

–> H’mm first a comparison of chance and/or necessity vs design relative to what we directly observe and know about CSI systems we see being made is a simple elimination based on mere improbability?

–> Next, in fact Fisherian type reasoning is more used in practical stats and science than is Bayesian, and the latter is in part at least dependent on the first. [This Dembski discusses in details on his site. I see nowhere any sign of interaction with Dembski on this, who is knowledgeable in the Math and Stats and associated probability.]

6] It is by no means clear — given the known pattern of agent causation of CSI systems, and the longstanding recognition that chance, necessity and/or agency are known (and the only known) major causal forces - that the concept “design” is simply taken to mean neither regularity, nor chance.” That is the concept of design by an agent who leaves empirically detectable traces of his work is not at all vacuous or mysterious – unless you have begged the metaphysical question and reject the possibility of such an agent before looking at the facts.

. . .

Cont’d:

7] Neither is it proper to dismiss that Dembski simply claims that any biological system that has a recognizable function must be specified, and also adds that no biologist he knows would question this conclusion . . .

–> Bio-function is in fact tightly restricted based on the DNA-ribosome-enzyme system and the requisites of life in general, and such functionality is known to be relatively isolated in the configuration space of DNA strings of biological length, i.e 500 k to 4 bn base pairs. [cf what mutations at random often do, and look at the config space implied by 4^500,000 to 4 bnth powers]

8] The Caputo case: here we see a strawman being set up, i.e by manufacturing a very loose specification, the real issue is subverted, by getting to a case where any one of the above could happen has probability 38%. [The case was in fact a real world one, and a it hinged on the fact that there was 1 of 40 cases where R led the ballot in which context there was good reason to infer that this was not just by happenstance. This is defeatable but beyond reasonable doubt, the standard of “proof” in a real world case. Try your argument on a real world judge on a discrimination case sometime – other than |with “ACLU copycat” John E Jones III.]

9] A similar pattern extends to the case of E coli. For, it is probable that far less than 10^500 life forms have ever existed in the known universe — given that 10^150 exhausts the number of quantum states that can exist across the same gamut across its estimated lifespan. 4^500,000 vastly swamps the range, and that is the lower end of the complexity of the DNA in life – that is, the odds of getting to the islands of bio-functionality from an arbitrary initial configuration are vanishingly small; and, it is reasonable to see that to move from one major body plan to another is likewise vastly improbable. There are commonly available estimates on the metabolism first route that look at ~ 200 enzymes and the probability of getting to the working molecules for life. 1 in 10^ 40,000 is the well-known estimate that results, and led Crick to Panspermia in his despair.

11] Similarly, the proper comparison to grammatically correct English words and phrases in a prebiotic concept — given the point that there is no reason to suppose that DNA code etc are written into the fundamental laws of the universe — is the Laplacian equiprobability of configurations assumption. Trying to make the outcome less improbable by saying one can pick a different distribution, e.g English letters or words in the typical patterns of English already smuggles in all sorts of syntax and semantics. (Cf my micro-jets in a vat example in the App 1 to the always linked.]

12] Dismissing this by adverting to “Creationists” — namecalling, in an academic context — and dismissing microscopic tornadoes in junkyards [BTW, have you studied statistical thermodynamics as it relates to this issue, the relevant science on this one?] of course simply ducks the point that there is in the OOL field no robust model of abiogenesis. That after decades of trying hard and hyping minuscule “encouraging” results like the now notorious spark in a beaker-type experiments. [Cf my always linked, on abiogenesis.]

We could go on and on, but by now the pattern is sadly obvious: obfuscation and dismissal rhetoric.

GEM of TKI

Hi kairosfocus,

Thanks for your comments! I have not yet had the time to read them through carefully, but I think you have missed some of my points. I will get back shortly so we can sort it out. I don’t think it is fair to blame me of obfuscation and dismissal rhetoric though; I certainly did not intend any of these. If you re-read my piece, you can see that I am far more benevolent to the filter than most other critics and that my criticism comes from the point of view of statistical hypothesis testing which is Bill’s (yes, we have dropped the titles!) main source of inspiration. If you prefer, we can debate via email instead. You’ll find me at peterolofsson.com.

Best,

PO

“If you prefer, we can debate via email instead. You’ll find me at peterolofsson.com.”

Since this is such an interesting topic I would hope kairofocus and you could hash it out here. Thanks

Vivid

Kairosfocus,

I don’t see any real arguments against my main points among your 12 comments. Nevertheless, let me address them.

1. My article does not deal with irreducible complexity; I only wanted to mention it very briefly. Yes, it is simplified but as I don’t argue against it, that seems to be a very moot point and hardly worthy of your “strawman” label.

2. Whereas a traditional creationist may argue that Darwinian evolution contradits the bible, ID arguments are based on improbability. If you don’t agree, I think he burden of proof is on you. What features of Darwinian evolution are likely, yet contradicted by ID theorists?

3. True, but a bit nitpicky in this context, don’t you think?

4. Complete misunderstanding on your part. In scholarly contexts, it is customary to refer to earlier work on the same subject. I don’t build upon these references and do not “appeal to authority.” My sole point is that others have criticized the filter but I have a different point of view. Whether I agree with their criticism or not is a different topic.

5. I am merely describing Sober’s criticism so if you have objections, you have to bring it up with him. Considering that Bayesian statistics predates hypothesis testing, I doubt that you can argue it is dependent upon the latter but that’s another discussion.

6. After necessity and chance are ruled out by the filter, design is inferred without further specifying what it means. I have no particular problem with this from a logical point of view.

7. This is no dismissal; it is what he claims. I don’t have his books here so I can’t give you precise references but I will look it up later.

8. Another complete misunderstanding. I am only describing how statistical hypothesis testing works and use the Caputo example as illustration. What on earth do you mean by “strawman” and that I should “try my argument”? I’m not even making one!

9. Sorry, I don’t understand what you are arguing for or against here.

10. Well, I can’t argue against that!

11. Again I am just trying to explain something, this time how words like “chance” and “random” have different meanings in daily language and in probability theory.

12. There is no “name-calling.” Dembski compares the composition of the flagellum to randomly shopping for cake ingredients. If you mean that “creationist” is an insult, I don’t think of it as one. It is being liberally used on creationism.org. Besides, I didn’t say that Dembski is one; he obviously isn’t.

In conclusion, you have not addressed any of my main points. Rather, you have selected a few pretty irrelevant passages and criticized them and completely misunderstood others. Based on this, it is hard to see how you can honestly claim that I engage in “obfuscation and dismissal rhetoric.”

Best,

PO

Prof Olofsson (And VB):

First, thanks for the responses on this “quietening down” thread. Vivid, I bear in mind your concern for side-tracking the thread. However, some of the Padian-NCSE mis-perceptions are still operative, and so there is a need to address here. (Beyond this I suspect that perhaps indeed an email exchange will help and will also send this to Prof Olofsson that way.)

I therefore note too, that a core concern above with Prof Padian, head of NCSE, is that the NCSE has trumpeted to the academic, legal, media and educational communities, serious misrepresentations of what the Design movement holds and thence has clouded and poisoned the atmosphere. So this exchange shows the impact of the resulting confused atmosphere, a sad development that nature — the leading general purpose peer-reviewed scientific journal in the world — has now unfortunately accommodated within its pages. And, I will not hold my breath waiting for them to publish a correction . . .

We need to reckon with that poisonous atmosphere before doing anything else and make a careful effort to clear it before anything serious can be done.

PO, unfortunately, you have — plainly inadvertently (given your onward concerns, protests and surprise) — drawn from this misleading “consensus” and have consequently used rhetorical devices that fall under the several strictures I made above. In short, the “work” of Padian et al has been effective. So that is lesson 1 from this exchange within the thread: ID is commonly misrepresented and misperceived, so it would be wise to look up and even better interact with original sources before tilting at a strawman. Also, since there are many disciplines which bear with profit on the issue, one would be well advised to bring to bear an inter-disciplinary perspective, partnering with those who are not playing rhetorical games.

Now on particular points of interest:

1] IC: You need to address the rhetorical effect of a simplistic and in effect dismissive summary of another’s case, at the outset of your own. (That is the notorious strawman fallacy, as just linked.)

2 & 12] ID is not “un-traditional Creationism.” It is not Creationism, period — a point that the Creationists underscore by critiquing ID from their own perspective. ID’s classical progenitors are people like Plato, Socrates and Cicero, and the issue of credibly and empirically distinguishing sources of causation across chance, natural regularity and agency. And in light of the above, any resort to the term, becomes namecalling. (if you are unaware that “Creationist” is legally and academically loaded and prejudicial language, you are unfamiliar indeed with the ongoing discussion. But then, a long time ago, a lot of people were not aware that a certain N word was a term of contempt in most contexts.)

3] Similarly, many ID advocates [and Creationists!]accept NDT mechanisms tot he level where they have been empirically demonstrated — microevolution, so we are not dealing with critiques of “evolution” as such. Further to this Behe and I believe Dr Dembski too [?], accept common descent of life on earth and the usual projected timeline, but reject the notion that RM + NS predominantly shaped it, given the evidence of design in the process as they trace it.

4] In your citations, you have summarised only one side of a contentious issue among the Guild. Therefore your lit survey has, rhetorically speaking [though probably inadvertently], improperly appealed to authority and has thereby stacked the deck.

. . .

Cont’d:

5] In noting on Sober, I am pointing you to just such a presentation from the other side of the case, a source that can be accessed through the sidebar’s link to Uncommon Descent. There you can see also why I noted that there is another side to the Bayes-Fisher story. And as a Mathematician, surely you know that the accident of chronology does not necessarily show the logical pattern in a process of reasoning. (Cf the “rooting” of Calculus in C19 - 20 after its “practical” emergence in C17.)

6 - 7] The inference across chance, necessity and agency has a 2400 year documented context, and an associated wealth of underlying issues and instances and ties to epistemology, the theory of knowledge. Dembski wrote in that context, which should be explicitly engaged. The reference to bio-systems implicates all that has been discovered from 1953 on about the information systems at the root of biology at cellular level as well.

8] The Caputo case is aptly illustrative of how real world inference to design works, and works reliably. In your addressing of it — in a fairly lengthy discussion — you indulged a series of arguments and claims that would be very properly tossed out of court. (In the real world of fact, means, opportunity and motive, we look for moral not demonstrative certainty; and in fact that is all that science is capable of. As a post-Goedel mathematician you can appreciate the point.)

9 - “10″] I see I missed a number! On 9, I was pointing out the sort of configuration spaces we are dealing with and the sort of very generous upper limit on the population of organisms that can have lived in our observed universe across its lifetime. Even such a crude calculation immediately shows how isolated viable life systems are in the config space of just DNA or proteins as potentially informational polymers. In short the strategy of expanding the specification set fails in the relevant case, spectacularly. (And this, through Leslie’s “fly on the wall gets hit by a bullet” [cf my always linked] argument, holds even if radically different architectures of life are feasible. All that is required is local isolation, which is what the mutation leads to damage effect shows. In short, and extending Behe, life as we know it is fine-tuned, and such is again a strong and reliable empirical pointer to a Fine-Tuner.)

11] You used the example of getting to a grammatically and semantically functional English text by chance, using techniques to make the config space smaller. I pointed out that absent a serious fine-tuning argument that writes the DNA code etc into the laws of nature, this is an unjustified move relative to the basic standard null position: equiprobable distributions. Such a postulate is foundational to the success of statistical thermodynamics, which is the precise science that addresses the behaviour of molecules in Darwin’s still warm pond.

In short, I am not so sure as you seem to be, that I have not addressed your points sufficiently for the purposes of this semi-popular level forum, directing you to more serious sources for the technical level discussion.

Okay, I will email . . . so we can let the thread remain on focus on Padian, Nature et al.

GEM of TKI

PS: I poked around Prof Olofsson’s web site and came across this article [under his ID section] which was apparently published in Skeptical Inquirer magazine. On the strength of that article, it seems that Prof Olofsson is part of the circle of those who have misrepresented ID in public repeatedly, using the sort of questionable rhetoric I noted on above. In short,the above interaction with him may be more germane to the core issues of this thread than at first appears.

PPS: I meant the Sidebar’s link to the Design Inference web site.

“Vivid, I bear in mind your concern for side-tracking the thread”

kairos,

I think you may have misinterpreted wha I was asking for. I was not concerned that the thread would be sidetracked I was expressing my desire that you and the professor continue to have the type of discussion you are having right here on this thread rather than through e mail. Hope that helps. BTW your site has been very helpfull to me Thanks

Vivid

Kairosfocus,

I’m not part of any circle hat I know of. My piece on Ms. Coulter was just a little lighthearted retort to her chapters on evolution in “Godless.” Lighten up!

PO

olofsson, just curious but how do you define “creationism”?

Tribune7,

In the context of my article, I mean the literal interpretation of Genesis: Earth is young, all species were created separately, and so on.

PO

Kairos and Vivid,

I am afraid this does not promise to be a very interesting discussion. My article is a criticism of Dembski’s filter from the point of view of mathematical statistics, no more and no less. The main points of criticism is the problems with (a) the rejection region (”specification”) and (b)ruling out all chance hypotheses by only testing one (see the quotes in my article). I am truly interested in hearind how these would be addressed by a “filter supporter” (regardless of the ID/Darwinism debate).

Kairos, you do not address my main points but keep picking on words and phrases and bringing in other arguments that have nothing to do with the filter per se. You don’t seem to gasp the narrow focus of my criticism. I will again address a few points below, but I don’t think this debate will lead much further.

Vivid, I encourage you to read my article and ask me any questions you have. Email please, I agree that this thread ought to be saved for its initial purpose. I posted the link to my article in response to Dembski’s list of mathematicians for and against the filter. There is no probabilist on either side so I thought the view of one would be appreciated.

On to Kairos’s points:

4. As I am criticising the filter, I list others who have done the same to point out that (a) I am aware of this and (b) I am presenting a different type of criticism. It is not a literature survey and there is no “appeal to authority.” I certainly don’t view some of these people as authorities.

5. Bayes vs Fisher is intersting in its own right but let’s do that via email instead. As you notice, I accept the Fisherian approach in my filter criticism.

8. Again, I am using the Caputo case to illustrate hypothesis testing, just like Dembski uses it to illustrate his filter, and as you can see, I point out that the statistician and the design theorist would reach the same conclusion.

Now, please, tell me how I “indulged a series of arguments and claims that would be very properly tossed out of court.”

11. The space does not change, only the probability distribution. There is no such thing as a “basic standard null position.” I have no expertise in statistical thermodynamics but I seem to recall that the normal distribution plays a prominent role.

Prof Olofsson:

I await your substantial response.

In the meanwhile, I find it necessary to say a few frank things:

1] “Circles” — for that, read “movement.”

The problems with the rhetorical approach in the first article you linked and the one I subsequently found, reflect the patterns of a movement centring on Mr Padian and his ilk.

Those patterns are damaging and misleading, and should be corrected forthwith. This holds for a one-sided presentation on Bayes vs Fisher, just as it holds for the sort of antics Judge Jones indulged when he more or less copied a post-trial submittal by the ACLU, misrepresentations, basic and easily corrected factual errors and all.

2] “Lighthearted”?

Funny, but that is the same excuse currently being offered by the woman who thought it an excusable “lighthearted” action to deliberately mislocate books in a bookstore and boasted of it on the web.

That sort of “fun and games” rather reminds me of the frog speaking back to the boy who had just thrown a couple of rocks at him:

“Fun fe yuh is death to me!”

. . . in my native dialect.

In short, there are basic, well-known duties of care we owe to people on the other side of important issues.

To try to make light of failing to live up to the duty to respect, to not distort and misrepresent [leading to setting up and knocking over a strawman caricature] and the like, are inexcusable.

Period.

BTW also, there is more than one side to the Sokal incident, as even the Wiki article on the affair will show. In sum — and as one who objects to pomo thought for what I consider excellent reasons — I must say this in fairness: there is serious reason to infer that Mr Sokal betrayed a trust put in him by the editors of the relevant experimental journal, then trumpeted it to the world as a triumph.

_________

Sorry to have to be so direct, but the matter at stake is deeply important, and has already cost serious people on “my” side great and undue damage to their careers and reputations at the hands of some on “your” side.

As the descendant of slaves and a relative of a man hanged by an oppressive state in 1865 for standing up for the rights of poor, oppressed people, I tend to take such things seriously indeed.

I trust you will understand why, and will reconsider your “lighthearted” approach.

GEM of TKI

PS: Onlookers may wish to look up the “first level,” relatively accessible Dembski paper I spoke of, on the debate between Fisher and Bayes, here.

PPS: By your definition, the ID movement is NOT a creationist movement of thought [as I have already noted in outline], and many of its leading proponents are precisely not creationists [as I have also noted].

PS. So “creationist” is now like the N-word. Any chance we can get Hitler into this as well…?

Kairos,

Have you read Ms Coulter’s book?

PO

I agree with what you say about Sokal’s hoax. Also, I don’t view ID as creationist. In fact, I recently pointed out to Behe that he is scientifically much closer to Richard Dawkins than to Ken Ham.

Anyway, I am sorry if you feel offended by my Coulter Hoax article. I can assure you that many, many more have felt offended by Ms Coulter’s writings over the years. My piece was an attempt to show that one does not have to hate her or feel offended by her.

Kairos,

We may have overlapped. My response was posted 3 minutes before yours. So, look above your posting and you’ll find more answers and, for a change, a question for you.

PO

Olosfsson – I mean the literal interpretation of Genesis: Earth is young, all species were created separately, and so on.

OK, thanks. Then you agree ID is not creationism?

Prof Olofsson:

I see you have now put up some points, including repeating that I am not addressing your point in the main.

You will please observe that I have long since pointed to where you can profitably engage a serious level presentation of the Fisherian side of the debate, in a paper from Mr Dembski - first by reference to his site which is accessible in the sidebar, then now at length by emailing you a copy and by providing a direct link here.

In short, the ball is in your court, not mine.

In the above, I have pointed out by excerpting or summarising points that reflect the trend of your serious level paper, problems with the broader pattern of your argument, starting with a one sided and distorted presentation of the position of Mr Dembski and Mr Behe too.

The general audience needs to know that, and those who are interested can easily enough read the two papers and make up their own mind in absence of your own serious interaction with Mr Dembski’s points.

Now, on further notes:

1] Filter issues

As a reader can see by looking at the head of the thread and by exmaining the Fisher-Bayes paper just linked, there is a DEBATE on Fisher and Bayes in Statistics, which Mr Dembski presents and addresses making his own basic point, in 12 pp.

In that context, he points out that, and how, the CSI filter helps to resolve the debate. (And, on my reading of your remarks, and his, your issues with the specification class etc are precisely those typically raised by Bayeians; which he aptly answers.]

When you can show us that you have interacted seriously with what Dembski actually has to say,t hen we can profitably move the issue forward.

2] The Caputo case:

Dembski answers precisely to several of your objections, in the linked.

Let’s see an accurate summary of what he said in the linked, and then your further response to that.

(The case as he discusses will show just why your argument would have been tossed by a savvy judge as a clear case of selective hyper-skepticism in the teeth of what is well-received, reliable praxis in practical statistics.)

3] Laplacian indifference

Onlookers: when we have no reason to prefer certain of the outcomes from a set of possible outcomes, the default position is to allocate as the default that outcomes are equiprobable. This is as common as assessing the odds of a six on tossing a presumably “fair” die: 1 of 6 or 1/6.

It for instance commonly appears in managerial decision-making, as a precursor to “loading” the possible outcomes, e.g on the scenarios for the collapse or otherwise of the current volcanic dome here in Montserrat through expert elicitation.

4] Stat Mech:

The core principle of statistical mechanics I was pointing to is the principle that for a given macroscopically observable state of a thermodynamic system, there are in general many microstates that are possible, and as a first option we take it that each microstate is equiprobable.

From this base, much of modern physics was built.

[The normal distribution is more relevant to the assessment of experimental errors of observation, due to many interacting and independent sources of error, e.g. in observing the location of a star through a telescope — precisely what Gauss was doing.]

My discussion in the always linked, appendix 1 will bring out the issues at stake in abiogenesis.

GEM of TKI

tribune7,

Yes.

PO

olofsson, welcome aboard

Kairos,

Regarding the Caputo case, you claim that I “indulged a series of arguments and claims that would be very properly tossed out of court.”

Can you please explain what you mean. What are my arguments? What are my claims?

PO

tribune7,

Thanks! Ehm…aboard what?

PO

Kairos,

While I wait for your answer to my previous questions, let me correct another of your misunderstandings. You say:

“And, on my reading of your remarks, and his, your issues with the specification class etc are precisely those typically raised by Bayesians”

Not sure how many times I’ve said it, but my entire criticism is from he point of view of hypothesis testing, that is, the Fisherian pont of view. There is nothing Bayesian in any of my arguments. But because you claim it is, perhaps you can point out exactly where?

PO

The good Ship of Knowledge

Oh Captain, my Captain!

PO

PO,

If I understand correctly one of the problema you point out is that in your opinion Dembskis filter uses unrealistic uniform probabilty distributions whereas biologists realistic models of millions of years of evolution , reproduction and natural selection.

You also say that the evolutionary biologist would say that the formation of the flagellum is an event of probability that is far from negligible.

But then you also say that it is unrealistic to expect biologists to calculate these probabilities.

Well if they cannot calculate them how do they know they are far from negligible?

Furthermore what scenarious are you referring to

Vivid

Onlookers:

At one level, all of this is an apparently pointless distraction from Prof Dembski’s point about Dr Padian and others of his critics.

Dig deeper: at the next level, the exchange above, sadly, all too aptly illustrates EXACTLY how Dr Dembski is being mistreated by his critics of the ilk of Padian et al.

(Critics who won’t do him the basic courtesy of accurately representing and responding to what he has to say, and to the fact that there are many serious thinkers who have sophistication in Mathematics who respect a lot of what he has to say. That tells us more about such critics than it does about the merits of the case for the design filter, and/or the real challenges faced by design thought.)

So, the ball is firmly in Prof Oloffsson’s court. Let’s see if he plays or is willing to forfeit the case by default.

GEM of TKI

“whereas biologists realistic models of millions of years of evolution , reproduction and natural selection.”

This should read “whereas biologists use realistic models..”

Vivid

Kairos,

Well, as the onlookers can see, I have posted a few questions for you. Let me repeat:

1. Regarding the Caputo case, you claim that I “indulged a series of arguments and claims that would be very properly tossed out of court.”

Can you please explain what you mean. What are my arguments? What are my claims?

2. What Bayesian issues do I have with specification? Already in the abstract I point out that my criticism is Fisherian, not Bayesian.

Please answer the questions instead of just repeating that the “ball is in my court” and referring to writings by Dembski.

I have patiently and repeatedly tried to answer your questions and points of criticism and pointed out that I identify two main problems (a) specification and (b) chance hypotheses (see the article for details). If you have any meaningful criticism against my arguments regarding (a) and (b), let’s hear them now, succinctly and preferrably wihout referring to Plato, Dembski, and without calling me obfuscatory or dismissive.

There are plenty of balls in your court, I see none over here!

PO

Vivid,

Good point! I think such probailities are very difficult to compute, hard to know what assumptions to make etc. A biologist would not agree with the “random assembly” model though and, at least qualitatively, argue that evolution of some particular feature is not that unlikely. I have no expertise in evolutionary biology, not arguing from that point of view. The fundamental problem with Dembski’s application to the flagellum is that he has previously stated that he must rule out all chance hypotheses, yet, he tests only one.

PO

PO,

“I have no expertise in evolutionary biology, not arguing from that point of view”

But you are assuming that evolutionary biologists have a more realistic probabilistic model…what is that model and how do they know that the formation of the flagellum is not probalisticly negligible. This assumption is an important part of your critique.

“The fundamental problem with Dembski’s application to the flagellum is that he has previously stated that he must rule out all chance hypotheses, yet, he tests only one.”

What are the other ones?

Vivid

The fundamental problem with Dembski’s application to the flagellum is that he has previously stated that he must rule out all chance hypotheses, yet, he tests only one.

PO

The one that he tests has the least information content relative to all other possible “chance” distributions, namely, some sort of rote equiprobable one.

The other distributions which have a stronger chance of creating a pattern can be ranked in terms of their information content via the Radon-Nikodym derivative….

This ranking of distributions then says nothing of intention, merely information content with equiprobable at the bottom and one equal to the pattern itself at the top.

By your comments here, your assessment is out of sync with his latest work. He is not ruling out that there are other possible distributions, but rather points out the information content those “improved” distributions would have relative to the equiprobable one.

It then remains to be seen how believable a distribution is based on:

1. its existence from physical first principles

2. the fact an information rich distribution is suggestive of front loading

I’m afraid Dembski has outrun his critics and they are shooting at the earlier form of his ideas some 15 years ago. He has since evolved his ideas, and they are more virulent and resistant to what the critics can throw at him these days.

Salvador

Vivid,

I doubt evolutionary biologists use probabilistic models, but that’s not really the point, nor an important point of my argument.

PO

Hi Salvador,

Nice to meet you, I saw you on TV the other night on C-Span!

I don’t doubt that his ideas have evolved (or, should we say, have become better designed…?). I’d be glad to learn more. I think the problems I point out are quite fundamental and not easy to fix, but I keep an open mind.

Cheers,

pO

Nice to meet you, I saw you on TV the other night on C-Span!

Yes. That was me. Funny thing is I didn’t watch the clip.

Nice to meet you as well.

” I think the problems I point out are quite fundamental and not easy to fix”

I thought Bill’s solution was quite good, as good as can be done.

In math, it is hard to say the statistics of a physical phenoma are the result of intention or not. What we can say however is the degree of likelihood a particular distribution can be successful at resulting at a given pattern. I don’t think this should be controversial…

If there are other distributions than some simple equiprobable distribution, they can be ranked in order of their front-loaded information content relative to the equiprobable one.

For example, if my reference distribution predicts a 99% chance of an event happening (say it is based on current knowledge of physical experiments), a different distribution, say one that allows only a 1% chance of this same thing happening, will have about 6.6 bits more information for that distribution based on the Radon-Nikodym derivative. [see: Information as a Measure of Variation]

What this line of reasoning tells us is how much different the past must have been than today for evolution to happen. Darwin was arguing that observed mechanism today are adequate to explain the distant past. Dembski’s line of argumentation shows how divergent Darwinian evolution must be from current reality to be sustainable as a theory.

What does this mean. If there is a 99% chance of rain in a given location (say the rain forests), but maybe sometime in the past there was only a %1 chance, in terms of bits, it’s only 6 bits going from one distribution to another. It is a believable step. It is a believable change in distributions even in the absence of physical knowledge of the details.

However, when we start having to invoke distributions that are on the order of megabits from conditions we see to day, how believable can that be in the absence of empirical knowledge? By the standards of science, we certainly would be reluctant to ascribe to it the status of a scientific theory.

One does not have to accept the ID part of Dembski’s claim to see that his math adequately casts doubt on the adequacy of Darwinian mechanisms. I have asserted that his math, the form of the explanatory filter, demonstrates that Darwinian evolution essentially makes statements of the form:

E = not-E

Bill shows this in mathematical terms. The EF was not phrased in terms of Intelligence, but rather how well a phenomena can be claimed to be the result of a given distribution. Whether one thinks this implies intelligent causation is another matter.

The motivation of the EF was to show that whatever distribution evolutionary biologist suggests, it will lead to a fatal contradiction of the form

E = not-E

The EF led to No Free Lunch arguments which both Bill and Bob Marks are now working on. It might be worthwhile to look at their more recent papers. It is quite different than the writings they offer for popular consumption…

regards,
Salvador