1- do not understand the meaning of INFERENCE concerning science

and

2- do not undrstand that the science of today does not and cannot wait for what the future may or may not reveal.

I see your question.

I first note that it is to some extent misdirected. For, we are not interested in whether the onion’s cells [including DNA, enzymes etc] show more evidence of FSCI than the onion’s or the converse. Instead, the material point is that BOTH are well beyond the reasonable threshold for being reached by chance forces on the gamut of the observed universe across any reasonable estimate of its lifespan.

What do I mean by that?

1 –> One can often easily enough estimate configuration spaces, and

2 –> can also reasonably identify that a function based on particular states within that space of possible configurations is prone to breakdown on perturbation of the relevant information.

3 –> These are the keys to identifying the search space and the relative size of the island of relevant function in that space.

4 –> FSCI is in the first instance based on finding a reasonable threshold of complexity [i.e. number of configs] that would exhaust the universe’s search resources to get to islands of function of reasonable size.

5 –> For practical purposes, when . . .

6 –> config spaces require more than about 500 – 1,000 bits [the latter to take in generous islands of function that leave a lot of room for "climbing" up hills of performance from minimal to optional by your favourite search algorithm . . .] and

7 –> function is vulnerable to perturbation of the information, THEN . . .

8 –> we are dealing with FSCI.

So, we have a reasonable lower bound on reliably inferring to directed rather than undirected contingency being responsible for an observed configuration that functions in some context or other. (This is entirely similar to standard hypothesis testing techniques that work off the principle that predominant clusters mean that small target zones are sufficiently unlikely to show up in reasonably sized samples that if we see these results, we are entitled to infer to intent not happenstance as the most reasonable cause.)

In the case of living systems, the current lower bound on an independent life-form plausible as first life is a geneome of about 300 – 500, 000 G/C/A/T elements (or possibly the RNA equivalent). That is a config space based on 4-state elements, and at the lower end, 4^300,000 ~ 9.94 * 10^180,617.

Both carrots and onions would be well beyond that threshold, and it is reasonable to deduce that the basic genome is explained by intelligence not chance.

If you then want to factor in the elaborations to get to the body-plans and peculiarities of the carrot or the onion, you are simply getting into overkill. On evidence, basic body-plans will require 1′s to 10′s or even 100′s of millions of additional DNA G/C/A/T elements.

Even the difference between a carrot and an onion would be well beyond the 500 – 1,000 bit threshold. We would reasonably infer that that difference is due to directed contingency, by whatever mechanisms such a designer would use.

As to metrics of FSCI that give numerical values as opposed to threshold judgements, we note that FSCI is a sub-set of CSI, so the Dembski models and metrics for CSI would apply. For instance in 2005, he modelled a metric [here using X for chi and p for phi]:

X = –log2[10^120·pS(T)·P(T|H)]

Thus we have a framework for supplying the table of CSI values, but to go beyond the threshold type estimate to that is a far harder exercise, and it would not make any material difference.

For instance post no 100 is an apparent message that is responsive to the context of this thread, and has in it 403 ASCII characters. 128^403 ~1.61 * 10^849, the number of cells in the config space for that length of text. I comfortably infer that this is message not lucky noise, per FSCI, as 1000 bits specifies about 10^301 states.

Are you willing to challenge that design inference?

On what grounds?

GEM of TKI

That, we exemplify intelligent agents and demonstrate on a routine basis that we leave FSCI as characteristic traces of our intelligent designs

Aplogies if this has been asked before, but do you have a list of objects and the FSCI contained within them? I’d be interested to see how the figures work out.

Do onions have alot of FSCI due to their unusual genonme for example? More then carrots?

Following up on a few points:

1] Patrick at 95: Links.

Excellent links!

Thanks.

I particularly like the remarks in mere Creation that explored the contrast between crystals and biopolymer based systems, with sidelights on Prigogine’s work. [BTW, Thaxton et al's TMLO has a very good discussion of Prigogine's work in the online chapters 7 - 9.]

2] Ratzsch example

Event & aspect: tumbleweed tumbles through small hole in fence.

EF look:

Contingent? Yes. (Also, various mechanical forces are at work: wind, interaction with ground, gravity, but that is not relevant to this aspect.)

Specified: yes

Complex in info storing sense? No.

In v .low probability sense? No.

Verdict: Chance (+ necessity).

3] 97: People build their little logical boxes based upon preconceptions and attempt to forcefit/mangle everything into it. I don’t want to “build” such a box and call it reality, I want to know what our box called reality really is.

Sadly apt.

Science, at its best is an unfettered (but ethically and intellectually responsible) search for the truth about our world, in light of empirical evidence and logical/mathematical analysis.

Too often, today, that is being censored in pursuit of the sort of politically correct materialistic agendas I cited from Lewontin at 86 above. In case some may be tempted to think that Lewontin is unrepresentative, I here excerpt from the US NAS’s latest [2008] version of their pamphlet against “Creationism”:

Definition of Science

The use of evidence to construct testable explanations and predictions of natural phenomena, as well as the knowledge generated through this process. [US NAS, 2008]

that sounds fairly innocuous, until you see the immediately preceding context:

In science, explanations must be based on naturally occurring phenomena. Natural causes are, in principle, reproducible and therefore can be checked independently by others. If explanations are based on purported forces that are outside of nature, scientists have no way of either confirming or disproving those explanations . . .

Cue: red flashing lights . ..

SOUND Effects: ERRMRR! EERMRR! ERRMRR! . . . SCREECH!

Black-suited, lab – coated jackbooted (actually, penny loafers are more likely . . . ) “Polizei”: “We’re the thought police and we’re here to help you!”

On a more serious note did it ever occur to the NAS . . .

a –> that we do not only contrast natural/ supernatural, but also natural/ artificial (i.e. intelligent)?

b –> That, we exemplify intelligent agents and demonstrate on a routine basis that we leave FSCI as characteristic traces of our intelligent designs?

c –> That such empirical signs of design allow us to reasonably infer that where we see further instances, we can on the same confident grounds that we provisionally accept explanatory laws, and chance models, accept that intelligent action is being detected?

d –> That inferring from the sign tot he signified,t hen discussing who the possible candidates are, is a legitimate and empirically anchored, testable process?

e –> That a supernatural, intelligent, cosmos generating agent is logically possible and that such an agent might just leave behind signs of his action in the structures and operations of the cosmos? [And, in fact many scientists of the founding era and up to today, think and have done their science in the context of accepting that this is so, including classically Newton in the greatest scientific work of all time, Principia.]

f –> That when we join the finetuning of the observed cosmos for life as we observe it, to the evident FSCI that pervades the structures of the cell up to the major body plans of life forms, it is not unreasonable to infer that a credible candidate for the author of life is the same author of the cosmos? (Indeed, at least as reasonable as any materialist system of thought.)

g –> That many scientists, past and present (including Nobel Prize winners) have successfully practised science in such a “thinking God’s thoughts after him” [Boyle, if memory serves] paradigm, and have obviously not been ill equipped to so practise science?

h –> that re-opening up the vista of scientific explanations to include and accept chance, necessity and intelligence is just that, an opening up to permit unfettered, uncensored, empirically controlled pursuit of the truth, not a closing down?

4] JT, 93: why isn’t an ordinary snowflake in nature complex and specified on the same basis. It seems clearly it is.

This has already been answered, more than once.

The issue is that we need specification and complexity in the same aspect of the object, event or process. That is what sets up the large config space and the narrow island of functionality.

In the naturally occurring snowflake [not my suggested Langley mod for steganographic coding purposes]:

a –> the simple, tight, elegant specification of hexagonal crystalline structure is set by forces of polarisation and the geometry of the H2O molecule. [There are considerations that suggest this molecule looks like an elegant cosmological level design in itself, as a key to life -- but that's another story.]

b –> this exhibits, by virtue of the dominant forces, low contingency, so it will not store information. [One could in principle store information in artfully placed defects, e.g similar to a hologram, but then that is going to be a high contingency that may in future be directed but is undirected.]

c –> in the case of e.g. dendritic star flakes, teh dendrites show high contingency based on the peculiar circumstances of their formation, giving rise to the story that no two snowflakes are exactly alike. Plainly, high contingency, and high information storage potential. but, we see not informational patterns and so infer that the dendritic growths reflect chance acting.

d –> I proposed a technique for storing a bit-string around the star’s perimeter using snowflakes, or more realistically computer manipulated images thereof. the idea was, that like the prongs on a Yale-type lock’s key, the dendrites would serve as a long-string coded pattern.

e –> Such would be directed contingency, and would function as a pass-code, i.e an electronic or software based key. [We could do a physical form of it, a six-prong update to the Yale Lock . . .]

f –> were that to be done, we would at once see that we specify function through a tight island of functionality, in a very larger configuration space. [BTW, I think that the typical Yale Lock has about six pins, with three possible positions. the no of configs is 3^6 = 729; multiplied by the number of slot and angle arrangements on the key's body. . That's enough to be pretty secure in your house or car, but it would be a lot fewer than the hypothetical snowflake key or the more relevant DNA and protein cases! [Well, a car has a two-sided Yale key, or 531,441 basic tumbler positions; though typically they just do a symmetrical key(thus tumbling from 1/2 million to an island of less than 1,000). Lock picks allow thieves or locksmiths to "feel" and trigger the pins.]]

5] . . .some completely different ontological category of causation called “Intelligent Design” which some say doesn’t even exist

And thereby fall immediately into self-referential absurdity and selective hyperskepticism, for they themselves are intelligent, are designers and have conscious minds.

So, to then turn around and object to the implications of such empirically established phenomena reflects very sadly indeed on the current state of the intellectual life in our civilisation at the hands of the evolutionary materialists.

As has already been pointed out. Details here.

______________

At this stage, the ball is plainly in JT’s court.

G’day

GEM of TKI

Many of the recent arguments seem to be along these lines: “I do not like the results so I am going to redefine the variables to get the results I desire.”

What is occurring is an attempt to rationalize away reality.

Mere Creation

Page 12 of No Free Lunch also has a reference to crystals, but it’s not on google, although snowflake examples are.

“Refutations” by Darwinists seem to typically consist of mangling the concepts to be whatever they want (aka strawmen). For example:

Ratzsch, Nature, Design, and Science. The example of a false positive produced by the EF given in this book (pp. 166-167) is a case of driving on a desert road whose left side was flanked by a long fence with a single small hole in it. A tumbleweed driven by wind happened to cross the road in front of Ratzsch’s car and rolled precisely through the sole tiny hole. The event had an exceedingly small probability and was “specified” in Dembski’s sense (exactly as a hit of a bull’s-eye by an arrow in Dembski’s favorite example). Dembski’s EF leads to the conclusion that the event in question (tumbleweed rolling through the hole in the fence) was designed while it obviously was due to chance; this is a false positive.

Where’s my “rollseyes” button?

Of course, ID would indicate the drawing to be.

And any digital string encoding the drawing of the log, as well, presuming the encoding method can be found.

The same thing would be true of a drawing of a rotted log. Are you saying that ID would indicate the log was designed?

Of course, ID would indicate the drawing to be.

OK I’ll quit monopolizing this thread and see if I can figure out from KF’s post and Jerry’s what FCSI is all about.