Michael Behe, Eric Anderson, David Chiu, Kirk Durston mentioned favorably in ID-sympathetic Peer-Reviewed Article
| April 4, 2009 | Posted by scordova under Intelligent Design |
Congratulations to Michael Behe, Eric Anderson, David Chiu, Kirk Durston (members of ISCID). They were mentioned in the peer reviewed journal International Journal of Molecular Sciences. References were made to Darwin’s Black Box by Michael Behe, “Irreducible Comlexity Reduced” in ISCID’s PCID by Eric Anderson, and peer-reviewed works by David Chiu and Kirk Durston.
Here is the paper: The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity
Great paper!
The cause and evolution of complexity are frequently addressed in the literature [10, 134-141]. How complexity relates to life has attracted innumerable papers [6, 142-148]. Systems Biology emphasizes the growing genomic and epigenetic complexity [149-151]. Attempts to deal with Behe’s “irreducible complexity” [152] are appearing more often in scientific literature [153-157].
The much vaunted Avida community is indirectly criticized:
Despite the appealing similarities of terms like “chromosomes,” GA’s have no relevance whatsoever to molecular evolution or gene emergence. Inanimate nature cannot define a fitness function over measures of the quality of representations of solutions. GAs are no model at all of natural process. GA’s are nothing more than multiple layers of abstract conceptual engineering. Like language, we may start with a random phase space of alphabetical symbols. But no meaning or function results without deliberate and purposeful selection of letters out of that random phase space. No abiotic primordial physicodynamic environment could have exercised such programming prowess.
Neither physics nor chemistry can dictate formal optimization, any more than physicality itself generates the formal study of physicality. Human epistemological pursuits are formal enterprises of agent minds. Natural process GAs have not been observed to exist. The GAs of living organisms are just metaphysically presupposed to have originated through natural process. We can liberally employ GAs and so-called evolutionary algorithms for all sorts of productive tasks. But GAs cannot be used to model spontaneous life origin through natural process because GAs are formal.
The OOL community is indirectly criticized. “Choice with intent” might be a stealth phrase for intelligence. “Choice with intent” is required of any agency that creates organization:
Organization ≠ order. Disorganization ≠ disorder. Self-ordering of many kinds occurs spontaneously every day in nature in the absence of any organization. Spontaneous bona fide self-organization, on the other hand, has never been observed.
“Self-organization” is logically a nonsense term. Inanimate objects cannot organize themselves into integrated, cooperative, holistic schemes. Schemes are formal, not physical. To organize requires choice contingency, not just chance contingency and law-like necessity. Sloppy definitions lead to fallacious inferences, especially to category errors. Organization requires 1) decision nodes, 2) steering toward a goal of formal function, 3) algorithmic optimization, 4) selective switch-setting to achieve integration of a circuit, 5) choice with intent.
The only entity that logically could possibly The only entity that logically could possibly be considered to organize itself is an agent. But not even an agent self-organizes. Agents organize things and events in their lives. They do not organize their own molecular biology, cellular structure, organs and organ systems. Agents do not organize their own being. Agents do not create themselves.
…
We will point to hundreds of peer-reviewed papers with “self-organization” in their titles. But when all of these papers are carefully critiqued with a proper scientific skepticism, our embarrassment only grows with each exposure of the blatant artificial selection that was incorporated into each paper’s experimental design. Such investigator involvement is usually readily apparent right within Materials and Methods of the paper.
passing mention of macro evolution is made:
Linear digital prescription in physical nucleic acid has thus far invariably been associated with life. A fully post modern anthropocentrism cannot argue a logically consistent macroevolutionary paradigm.
the conclusion:
To focus the scientific community’s attention on its own tendencies toward overzealous metaphysical imagination bordering on “wish-fulfillment,” we propose the following readily falsifiable null hypothesis, and invite rigorous experimental attempts to falsify it:
“Physicodynamics cannot spontaneously traverse The Cybernetic Cut [9]: physicodynamics alone cannot organize itself into formally functional systems requiring algorithmic optimization, computational halting, and circuit integration.”
Notes:
1. “choice is the defining feature of intelligence” — William Dembski
2. The relationship of “choice” versus “chance and necessity” as well as the relationship of “choice” and “intelligence” was discussed peripherally at UD here: Cosmological ID in 1744?
3. The only mention of Darwin in this paper was in the title of with Behe’s book and in sentences with words like “confused”.
While Allen MacNeill has built a firewall between OOL and evolution, this has not stopped many who discuss OOL from using things like natural selection, survival of the fittest, more efficient use of resources in a scarce environment in their search for a chain of events from molecules to microbes.
jerry,
that’s it? but you said “even hardcore atheists and evolutionary biolgists admit that darwin is dead”, which sounds plural to me, and makes it sound like there is some kind of consensus, when in fact it’s just one guy commenting on a blog. thanks for the clarification.
of course natural selection is critical to all forms of adaptive evolution. it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for adaptation to occur. but no one ever said it was a creative force, so you seem to be arguing against your own version of it.
i was using that as a simple illustration of gradualism.. the actual evolution of the eye itself is much more complex, as you’ll find when you read this paper:Lamb TD, Collin SP, Pugh EN Jr. (2007) Evolution of the vertebrate eye: opsins, photoreceptors, retina and eye cup. Nat Rev Neurosci 8(12):960-76.
ps i still want to know who is furiously defending common descent, and from whom.
If all sides can agree that Darwinian evolution doesn’t explain the origin of life, I’m content to accept that.
All sides don’t agree Sal. In fact, the determination to separate ool from evo by Darwinians seems to be based more on conditions and expediency rather than with the goal to enlighten i.e. Evolution 101 — from soup to cells– the origin of life
Stephen B in #346
It is not I who is on the sidelines and not on the field of play. It is devout Darwinian mystics like Allen MacNeill, Richard Dawkins, Stephen J. Gould, Ernst Mayr and P.Z. Myers that are now on the sidelines. No one even cites them any more because an enlightened evolutionary community has rejected the Darwinian fairy tale as without foundation, a house of cards which never had anything to do with speciation or the origin of any other taxa in either the plant or animal kingdoms.
Darwinian evolution has achieved the same credibility as Phlogiston and Ether, neither of which even exist! Get used to it as I and countless others already have. Just because Allen MacNeill insists on remaining a Darwinian doesn’t mean anyone else should.
If you don’t want me to respond here, don’t say silly things like that snd i won’t have to respond.
John,
Such inflammatory comments have nothing to do with the topic at hand, and you are referencing discussions outside of this thread with no relevance to this thread.
Sal
Thank you for the info Tribune. It demonstrates there may be a variety of viewpoints on the definition.
But as a matter of principle, it is more important to discuss the plausibility of materialistic OOL. Arguing over whether it should be lumped in or not with evolutionary theory is a sideshow and is therefore a distraction.
Suffice to say, I will let defenders of evoutionary theories compartmentalize the ideas whichever way they wish, it won’t change the fundamental problems of OOL.
I have never gotten a complaint for separating the two ideas from the anti-ID side for making the separation. I’ve never improved my defense of ID by lumping OOL and biological evolution together.
I don’t think there is much to gain by insisting the two concepts be lumped together.
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Suffice to say, I will let defenders of evoutionary theories compartmentalize the ideas whichever way they wish, it won’t change the fundamental problems of OOL.
That’s not a bad policy Sal and you are right with regard to OOL
Personally, I don’t care if OOL is included with NDE, but if an NDE defender insists that it’s not it is appropriate, and necessary, to point out that he is either speaking for himself or demand that he join us in condemning things like that Berkeley site or museum exhibits or textbooks that conflate them.
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What you write has nothing to do with Abel’s paper and the topic of this thread.
UD is under no obligation to keep posting numerous off topic comments by repeat offenders.
Besides John, you said:
I have a responsibility to the readers to help keep the discussion on topic.
Scrdv
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Now disemvowel this one too!
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“The one thing we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.”
anonymous?
It is hard to believe isn’t it?
Not any longer it isn’t!
To conserve cyberspace -
http://www.iscid.org/ubbcgi/ul.....108#001620
my comment April 15, 2009, 8:40 AM
One of the better objections to Abel’s paper was put forward by Olegt, a very fine Condensed Matter Physicist at a very fine school. He posted his comments at TelicThoughts (where this discussion actually began as referenced in the original post).
Here was my comment 226701:
Here was Olegt’s response 226774
[Here was my response (226792) to Olegt's very fine critique:]
olegt,
Thank you for the insights. Your above paragraph is already the best critique that I have seen regarding Abel’s paper. I will reference your comments at UD because I think the objections you raise are substantial.
Agreed, I retract my earlier statement. I stand corrected.
And my understanding is that even solutions to differential equations may entail discrete states. For example there may be infinite solutions to Schrodinger’s equations in various circumstances, but these solutions occur only in discrete states, i.e. the allowed energy levels of the electron correspond to the solutions of Schrodinger’s differential equation, and these levels occur at discrete level.
It is because the universes is subject to quantum law that some argue that the universe as a whole is a giant quantum computer. I found passing mention of this here: Church Turing Thesis.
But the question of OOL is not merely whether a system is capable of computation, but whether the system will compute and construct physical replicas of itself.
When a stone is thrown in a still pond, a wave is formed, and in a sense a wave “replicates” itself through the water as it travels.
It is certainly conceivable that Ising’s work would suggest that a configuration of spins could replicate and propagate in a material, but this does not seem at all analogous to the propagation of replicas that we see in bioogical systems.
It seems the question of what kind of replication constitutes life. I think more work in understanding what is meant by replication is in question.
The question of what constitutes was indirectly raised by John Baez’s commentary on Eugene Wigner’s paper: Is Life Improbable.
Baez left open the question of what constitutes replication. I think the question is not whether replication is possible, but the kind of replication taking place, namely the sort involving the materials we see in life. As Baez pointed out, as best as I can tell, one can define what observables one wishes to observe, and one can see a replication if one chooses to. [That's at least how I interpet Baez' paper].
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Incidentally, Nobel Laureate Wigner was skeptical of Darwinian evolution.
The essay by Wigner which was referenced above through John Baez paper was mentioned favorably in the book which founded the 1984 ID movement, Mystery of Life’s Origin.
Wigner wrote his essay in Polanyi’s book around 1960 just before he was awarded the Nobel prize.
I don’t believe his essay is beyond repair if we increase the dimensions of H to be non-trivial, but that is just a guess at this point. I have to look into it more.
Sal