The article starts off saying BIRDS–warm blooded animals–can do this too?!

Which birds?! I knew that newts, frogs, some insects (aphids) can do the partho-dance, but BIRDS?!

Implications for conservation indeed. Wow.

Off Topic but very interesting!

Any solution to interesting OFF TOPIC topic suggestions yet??

http://www.fredoneverything.net/Hornets.shtml

Therefore, there is nothing in standard ID arguments that would lead one to conclude that human beings have free will.

Not directly. However, the question of free will addresses the nature of mind. If minds have true free will, even tiny insect ones, then purely Darwinistic/Deterministic/Physical Law mechanisms are insufficient to explain behavior.
As it relates to ID, besides being evidence against Darwinistic determinism, the demonstration of true free will would indicate that the mind(s) behind the design of life is an independent actor on the natural universe.

What the authors are saying is that a deterministic system, the drosophila brain, is capable of chaotic output – but not completely random. But this is something that could easily be programmed into a machine. The logistic equation is an example of an extremely simple deterministic system with indeterminate output. If you’ve ever seen a fractal screensaver, you have seen essentially the behavior that the authors are describing in drosophila.

As far as that quote of Roger Highfield (btw, quoting Bjorn Brembs) on free will… He is not saying that free will actually exists. He is saying that neuronal output (behavior) may not be predictable if the circuitry rests on a chaotic foundation.

The really interesting part of this is that attractors may exist within the chaotic behavior – attractors that may be beneficial for the survival of the organism. I’m not really interested in debating whether this was designed or evolved.

And what does it have to do with ID? Even if flies and humans are strictly deterministic systems, the core arguments for ID (e.g. Behe’s irreducible complexity) would not be compromised in the slightest.

That’s an interesting point. There is nothing in the basic ID concepts of either IC or CSI that aren’t compatible with a completely deterministic universe, even if one supposes a non-deterministic and non-material origin for those IC/CSI features.

Consider the common examples of a mousetrap, outboard motor, or car that are often used in ID arguments. In all cases, even though the things in question are created with intention, that quality of intention is not passed over into the things that are created: the mousetrap, motor, and car are all material deterministic objects without any ability to willfully intend anything on their own.

Therefore, there is nothing in standard ID arguments that would lead one to conclude that human beings have free will.

This is something worth thinking about.

(P.S. This is from Jack Krebs, but my posts seem to be getting caught by the spam filter, as explained a few days ago, so I re-registered under another name to try to see if I could figure out what the problem is.)

And what does it have to do with ID? Even if flies and humans are strictly deterministic systems, the core arguments for ID (e.g. Behe’s irreducible complexity) would not be compromised in the slightest.

That’s an interesting point. There is nothing in the basic ID concepts of either IC or CSI that aren’t compatible with a completely deterministic universe, even if one supposes a non-deterministic and non-material origin for those IC/CSI features.

Consider the common examples of a mousetrap, outboard motor, or car that are often used in ID arguments. In all cases, even though the things in question are created with intention, that quality of intention is not passed over into the things that are created: the mousetrap, motor, and car are all material deterministic objects without any ability to willfully intend anything on their own.

Therefore, there is nothing in standard ID arguments that would lead one to conclude that human beings have free will.

This is something worth thinking about.

And what does it have to do with ID? Even if flies and humans are strictly deterministic systems, the core arguments for ID (e.g. Behe’s irreducible complexity) would not be compromised in the slightest.

With regard to predicting murder: I’d be very surprised if all murders are one day predictable — but what about individuals who are born with an innate, psychopathic predisposition to kill strangers? It would also be very surprising if a DNA pattern for that syndrome was never found.

Does that mean that QT can be used to
explain mental patients and other
abnormal behavior? No, because
our brains as well as other large
animals are too large, and therefore,
what we see are average properties emerging.
However, fruit flies brains are not so large. I
don’t know anything about fruit flies, but
it may be that fruit flies brains are small
enough that quantum effects are important and
therefore a purely “robotic” view of fruit flies will
never work