Shallit’s Chronic Foot-in-Mouth Disease
| November 27, 2009 | Posted by William Dembski under Intelligent Design |
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I knew Jeffrey Shallit as a reasonable computational number theorist at the University of Chicago in the 1980s. When it comes to ID, however, he simply can’t think straight. Repulsed by Thomas Nagel’s high praise of Stephen Meyer’s SIGNATURE IN THE CELL (noted here at UD), Shallit calls Nagel a fool and then cites as evidence Nagel’s acceptance of Meyer’s claims about information:
Meyer claims, over and over again, that information can only come from a mind — and that claim is an absolutely essential part of his argument. Nagel, the brilliant philosopher, should see why that is false. Consider making a weather forecast. Meteorologists gather information about the environment to do so: wind speed, direction, temperature, cloud cover, etc. It is only on the basis of this information that they can make predictions. What mind does this information come from? SOURCE
Perhaps Shallit has not read Meyer or is just being willfully obtuse, but Meyer stresses over and over again in his book the difference between specified and unspecified information. Shallit here confuses the two.
55 Responses to Shallit’s Chronic Foot-in-Mouth Disease
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So, I see. You were clever to avoid discussion of the bits of information in the manufactured ingredients, like flour. Turtles all the way down.
You don’t see.
By the time one gets to that level of detail it should already be obvious that agency involvement was required.
However if one really wanted to one could go into as much detail as one wants in order to get a more comprehensive estimate as to how much information is required to make any specific cake.
Dr. Dembski,
Meyer’s claim that information always originates from intelligence certainly applies to specified information. But it’s not clear to me that he applies this claim only to specified information.
For instance, in his op-ed in the Boston Globe, he says:
There is nothing in the op-ed about specified information. I hope we all can agree with Shallit that weather information does not arise from an intelligent source, even when that information is conveyed in hieroglyphics, a book, or a radio signal.
I also note that in the first chapter of his recent book, he points out that there are several different conceptual approaches to information. He introduces Shannon’s and Gilder’s approaches as examples, and says:
This seems to indicate that his claim applies even to Shannon’s definition of information. If that isn’t Meyer’s intent — and I don’t think that it is — then his words are misleading.
Meyer’s account of information is confusing at best. He talks of “specific” information in his book, but I don’t recall him telling us what he means by that. Your (Dr. Dembski’s) concept of specificity isn’t explained until almost the end of the book, in a chapter entitled “Another Road to Rome.”
Furthermore, it seems that in Meyer’s mind, the terms “complexity” and “information” indicate both irregularity and improbability. That is, they indicate an intersection of algorithmic and classical information. Contrast this to CSI, which indicates an intersection of low probability (under natural hypotheses) and a lack of algorithmic information.
In summary, Meyer’s usage of the term information is unclear and inconsistent. Perhaps Meyer is guilty of poor articulation rather than mistaken ideas. If so, he might consider explaining to Shallit and other critics exactly what it is that he’s claiming.
Borne @ 3:
If you know of any information theory curriculum that teaches the distinction between “specified” and “unspecified” information, I’d love to hear about it.
What makes you think that Meyer’s claim applies only to “specified” information? What does “specified” information even mean to Meyer?
R0b:
He- Meyer- says it refers to biological function.
And Shallit is clueless.
R0b:
The weather information arises from hard work- mainly observations and computer modeling.
Then exactly where does weather information come from?
Does it come from the atoms of hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen?
Is information actually contained within a thing of interest, or is it about a thing of interest?
And if it is about a thing of interest, then what must take place for that information to be realized?
jitsak:
Yes I am.
As I said the recipe captures the actions required to make the cake.
Sure you can.
However that goes against what I said.
Perhaps you should read what I posted- just click on the links in comments 25 & 30.
As a said “so easy an evolutionitwit couldn’t do it”.
So thanks for proving my point.
From The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories By Dr Meyer:
Joseph:
This may have been discussed in the amusing thread to which you have linked, but I haven’t time to read the whole thing right now.
A fatal problem with your definition is that to attain the “minimum amount of information required” typically entails assuming knowledge in the user of the recipe. You may express an instruction minimally as “whip two eggs” and boil down the bit content of that statement. However, that assumes that the reader knows what eggs are and how to whip them. Knowledge of chicken eggs, how to attain them, and how to whip them must reside somewhere or no cake will be made; hence that information too is properly part of the minimal information required to make a cake. Squeezing your instructions down to a minimum does nothing more than assume that the reader is a repository of some required information. The information content of your recipe will therefore vary with these assumptions and the resulting detail and resolution of each step.
Voice Coil,
Yes it was an amusing thread seeing that the evolutionitwits who posted there didn’t have a clue.
It is a capturing of the actions- that is all I am trying to do.
I explained that.
It appears that you have reading comprension issues.
So let me explain-
It is obvious by reading my post on Measuring Information/ specified complexity, that I am talking about reproducing the ACTIONS of the designer(s) in order to get a representation of the information the designer(s) imparted onto/ into their design.
Data collection and compression. (six sigma DMAIC- define, measure, analyze, improve, control)
A recipe is nothing more than a capturing of actions. The baker is the artist, the cake is the art.
Joseph:
That does nothing to solve the problem. Your instruction may read “Whip two eggs,” but correct execution of the action specified (“whip”) still depends upon background knowledge of the user of the recipe – e.g. how one whips an egg, with what tool, for how long, to what end, etc. Again you’ve depended upon off-loaded knowledge of actions such as “whip,” which can be assumed/described with varying degrees of resolution.
“Squeezing your instructions down to a minimum does nothing more than assume that the reader is a repository of some required information.”
Yes, indeed. That is a prerequisite of semiotic information processing. The receiver necessarily has some initial tuning, i.e. knowledge of the alphabet, the syntax, some initial vocabulary and the semantics. The receiver already anticipates some information input. E.g. if I say “tree”, this will mean a plant in English but the number 3 in Russian, for example. So context is crucial. And until such times as you resolve possible ambiguities, no semantic information is actually passed.
It is a capturing of the actions- that is all I am trying to do.
VC:
What problem?
I fully understand that it is information all the way down.
I also understand that someone can try to make things more difficult then they are or have to be.
That problem I do not care to solve. And as far as I can tell that may be the only problem here.
Joseph:
The fact that you’ll never be able to arrive at an objective value describing the CSI of your cake because the content of the description of the actions required to make that cake varies depending upon an arbitrary decision (dictated by pragmatic concerns) regarding how much of this required background information you include (do you include instructions for growing sugar cane?)
VC:
That is OK.
Getting an exact number isn’t important when dealing with objects.
All that needs to done is to show what is required to get it accomplished- for example to make the cake.
All that needs to be done is to prove that Jesus is the son of God. Information and specified complexity and complex specified information and semiotic and DNA prove that Jesus is the son of God, so you can take all your dumb criticisms, and your stupid requests for clarity and mathematical rigor and just shut-up! Just shut-up, because Jesus is the son of God!
LYO, you seem to have come unhinged by the observable physical evidence of a semiotic state in protein synthesis.
If you have a “request for clarity”, the I am all ears.
No thanks. I already understand your arguments and concluded that they are wrong.
…and I bet if you are pressed on the issue, you would be able to articulate how they are wrong…is that right?
or….is this the point (articulating how the physical observations are wrong) where you’ll regress into silence?
I suppose that answers that question…