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Simply Not Credible

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This thread inspired the following observations.

The bottom line is that none of Dawkins’ computer programs have any relevance to biological evolution, because of this in WEASEL1:
Target:Text=’METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL’;
and this in WEASEL2:
WRITELN(’Type target phrase in capital letters’);
READLN(TARGET);

which allows the user to enter the “target” phrase. No search is required, because the solution has been provided in advance. These programs are just hideously inefficient means of printing out what could have been printed out when the program launched. The information for the solution was explicitly supplied by the programmer. Once this is recognized, further conversation about the relevance of the programs to biological evolution is no more illuminating than conjecture about the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.

The bottom line is that the proposed Darwinian mechanism of random errors filtered by natural selection makes no sense on its face, as an explanation for the kinds of highly sophisticated information-processing engineering we see in living systems. It is a claim that an inherently entropic process can produce unlimited neg-entropic results, from the lowest to the highest levels (the cell to the piano concerti of Rachmaninoff). The magic wand of “deep time” (which is not very deep in terms of probabilistic resources) cannot be waved to make this transparent lunacy believable.

The Darwinian mechanism as an explanation for all of life is simply not credible. Most people have enough sense to recognize this, which is why the consensus “scientists” — with all their prestige, academic credentials, and incestuous self-congratulation — are having such a hard time convincing people that they have it all figured out, when they obviously don’t.

Comments
Or not. :-)tgpeeler
October 5, 2009
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Let's do this your way. You tell me, one thing at a time, what I am wrong about and I will explain myself. That way we will stay focused on one thing and one thing only until it gets resolved and we can move on to the next thing. Right now we are all over the map and there are too many issues on the table to deal with them all at once. If this is ok with you then that's what we'll do.tgpeeler
October 4, 2009
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Fine with me.djmullen
October 3, 2009
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djmullen, I will get back to you on this. too many other irons right now. i hope by Sunday evening.tgpeeler
October 2, 2009
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tgpeeler @ 204: "You smuggled in design by “hiding” it in the first boat and pretending that no information would be required in building the copy. But this is clearly false." See my message # 205. I wasn't trying to illustrate the generation of information, I'm concerned with your claims that language is necessary for information. I think I've shown that it isn't. "This is a typical move that I find very frustrating because it’s intellectually dishonest." A common complaint from people who don't understand the subject under discussion. If what I say doesn't conform to your misunderstanding, it seems false. You are certainly not the only person on UD who does this and you're much more polite than some. "You say that what we need (indicating that your theory cannot stand on evidence and reason alone, but that you need something else) is something that reproduces itself. This is vintage Dawkins." It's vintage evolutionary theory. Evolution absolutely requires a reproducing group or at least a single organism that reproduces faster than the environment kills it and its offspring. Without that, it cannot possibly work. You have to have reproduction because defects in reproduction (mutations) feed new information into the organisms. You have to have a very fast reproducer or a group of reproducers because many mutations are going to kill the offspring and if you don't have a second offspring to take its place or can't produce a second offspring to take its place before you get killed, that's it. There's nothing left to reproduce. This principle goes back to Darwin and has been a bedrock portion of evolutionary theory for the last 150 years. "You then assert, without argument, that it has to be material ..." Since all life is material, I think we can assume the first living thing was material. "... and it has to form under the laws of physics. But I and others have spent tens of thousands of words showing you how physics cannot account for life because it can’t account for information." You say that because you have a very restricted view of what information is. It's much more than thoughts, symbols or language. It exists independently of all of them and it existed long before any of them. Language and symbols are a way human minds represent information that is in the external world. There is information in that rowboat and you can copy it into another boat. "It’s impossible because information is abstract and physics deals with the material world." The information in your mind and in books and electronic messages is abstract, but there's much more information than that. "Physics will never explain information because that’s not what physics does." Agreed. The "explanations" are found in the organisms that embody the information. Is a new DNA pattern meaningful or just noise? All of the physics in the world can't tell you. You have to try it out in an organism to see what it does. "You say that the first life needs to be “simple enough to form by chance.” But there is no such thing as simple life. Let me say that again. There is no such thing as simple life. Do an internet search and you will find that the simplest possible form of life still needs around (estimates vary) 300 or so genes." This is where evolutionists start grinding their teeth in frustration. EVERY thing alive today, from the simplest cell to a blue whale is the product of at least 3.8 billion years of evolution. It just gripes us no end when somebody points at a cell under a microscope and says, "That's way too complicted to have formed by chance." It is! Hooray! We agree on something! When a biologist, evolutionist or any other person familiar with the subject talks about the first living thing, we are talking about something dirt simple, something that can do only one thing: copy itself at least a little bit faster than the environment breaks it down. No metabolism, no enzymes to speed up the reactions, possibly no cell wall and just a simple oily bubble if there is one. Dirt simple. Very possibly a single molecule, if not then a collection of just a few molecules. Dirt. Simple. Low Information. One single skill: reproduction. So little information embedded in it that it can form by chance. Once you've got a population of these dirt simple reproducers, Darwinian evolution can start ratcheting improvements into them. "Anyway, you make no reference to the mechanism that is allegedly adding these base pairs." Darwin named it: Variation and Natural Selection. Mutations of DNA and Natural Selection in modern life. "Anyway, you make no reference to the mechanism that is allegedly adding these base pairs." Copying errors (mutations) add them. " You make no mention of the fact that the base pairs have to be FUNCTIONAL for the organism to survive." Natural selection tests every single added base pair as soon as it's added. If they don't have a useful function, then they're outta the genome. "Anyway, man, I’m really just kind of sad about this. And the “funny” thing is, you’ve STILL never addressed even one part of my argument. Not one. Of course, I started at the beginning, reasoned impeccably if I do say so myself, with a universally agreed to scientific truth, that life and information are inseparable. You have dodged that and dodged that and now are reduced to the vaguest sort of hand waving explanations that only expose the vacuity of your position. I’d either go after my argument or give it up, if it was me." It seems that way to you because you don't understand the argument. You're wrong about too many things, so my explanations don't jibe with the rest of your "knowledge", so it sounds false to you. That's a very, very common thing in ID.djmullen
October 1, 2009
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ScottAndrews @ 203: "How do you measure without numbers or some sort of measuring device?" You can use a measuring device. Calipers and and one of those adjustable angle thingies should do the work without language. "How do you distinguish between one material and another?" By looking at it. You can compare it to various materials if you want to. "Is the replication process the same as the initial construction, or would you have to also design and create new tools?" Replication is easier since you don't have to design it too. If you need to make some new tools, you can do it without language or symbols. At least apes and birds design tools and birds, at least, aren't supposed to have symbols. "By what sort of trial and error do you determine the order of assembly?" I'd start with the keel, but if you have the time, start anywhere. You'll get it right eventually. "As you proceed in that trial-and-error process, how do you record the failed attempts so as to improve upon them?" No need to, if you've got plenty of time. Otherwise, record them by not destroying the failed attempts. "If it’s plausible that this could be done without language, then perhaps we could get a monkey to do it." Probably.djmullen
October 1, 2009
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CJYman @ 200 djmullen: “But how could you do that unless all of the information you needed to build the second boat already existed in the first boat? Existed in the materials used, the shapes of the materials, their orientation, the way they were attached, etc?” … which doesn’t arise (isn’t defined) from any of the physical properties of the materials used. I'm not talking about how the information arose, I'm trying to get past the 'you need language and symbols to transfer information' fallacy. CJYman @ 201 "Can you provide any evidence that the “the materials used, the shapes of the materials, their orientation, the way they were attached” in the above example will arise from law+chance absent any intellignce?" This whole min-thread was set off by tgpeeler's message # 48: "So, if we want to explain life then we need to explain information. Now, if we want to explain information, we must explain language. For without language there is no information. This is a matter of definition. Languages are what encode information into physical substrates and enable it to be decoded on the receiving end. If you think that you, or anyone, or anything, can generate information apart from a language you just haven’t thought about it very hard." My point is that language is in no way necessary for information. You can have information without language, you can use it without language, you can copy it into a physical substrate and you can copy it into another device or cell without language. I think the boat example makes that clear. The boat example isn't about generating information because rowboats are obviously intelligently designed. Information is generated by mutation, however, and natural selection discards the non-useful info. Dembski actually covers generating information in his first book, which I have somewhere, but it's on the bottom of a very large pile. He copied the relevant paragraphs and put them on line somewhere, but I haven't had enough time to find them yet. Basically, he says something like this: Suppose you have a string, such as "ABCDEFG". If you copy that string, so you have ABCDEFG ABCDEFG you haven't made any extra information, you've just made two copies of what you had. (Some people who know more about information theory than I do dispute this, by the way, but I'm going with Dembski's definition here.) But if you change one of the strings as you copy it, like this: ABCDEFG AACDEFG you've generated new information because you never had the string "AACDEFG" before. That's what I mean when I say that mutation creates new information. If you have a chunk of DNA that goes CATGCAT and mutation changes it to CATTCAT you have new information because CATTCAT didn't exist before. And as I've said before, natural selection tests this new information by trying to use it to run a cell. If the cell runs ok, the new information is complex specified information. If it doesn't run as well or doesn't run at all, the new information is just noise and it's discarded. I'm not sure what you mean by, "if those properties are neither defined by law nor randomness (chance)." In the DNA example, the new information is manufactured by chance (mutation) and then tested by law (natural selection). joseph @ 202: See above.djmullen
October 1, 2009
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djmullen @199 I don't believe I have much to add to the other responses concerning the boat copying thought experiment except to say that this line of argument is illustrative of what I and others are trying to argue against. You smuggled in design by "hiding" it in the first boat and pretending that no information would be required in building the copy. But this is clearly false. This is a typical move that I find very frustrating because it's intellectually dishonest. When we argue from premises to conclusion we need to start our arguments at the BEGINNING. Otherwise, as I'll show you in a moment, you sneak things in that you don't really have (design, purpose, intelligence) but that your argument requires that you have. So since you deny those things, but you need those things, you hide them by starting in the middle. You said: "What we need for the first life is something that reproduces itself and is simple enough to form by chance. That first something has to be material and it has to form under the laws of physics. Once we have reproduction, Darwinian evolution can begin and ratchet new data in to the genome (or whatever passes for a genome in the first reproducing thing.) Three billion base-pairs in the human genome and at least 3.8 billion years since life began. That’s less than one pase-pair to be added each year. Less than two bits of data per year. Easy." Let's take a look and see if I can make my point with what you wrote here. You say that what we need (indicating that your theory cannot stand on evidence and reason alone, but that you need something else) is something that reproduces itself. This is vintage Dawkins. You then assert, without argument, that it has to be material and it has to form under the laws of physics. But I and others have spent tens of thousands of words showing you how physics cannot account for life because it can't account for information. It's impossible because information is abstract and physics deals with the material world. Physics will never explain information because that's not what physics does. If I had to explain the rules of tennis to you but all I had access to was the rules of golf then could I ever explain tennis? Of course not. The materialists are in that same predicament. You say that once things get going (another perfect example of starting in the middle - just assume what you need to have without any justification) THEN evolution can kick in and "rachet new information into the genome (or whatever passes for a genome...). You see, it's things like this that used to, as of two days ago, make crazy with anger because it's so, so, stupid. My God djm, think about it. Please. There is so much lacking in this "explanation" that it tires me to even think of identifying every error. But here are a couple. You say that the first life needs to be "simple enough to form by chance." But there is no such thing as simple life. Let me say that again. There is no such thing as simple life. Do an internet search and you will find that the simplest possible form of life still needs around (estimates vary) 300 or so genes. That's genes, each of which can be anywhere from several hundred to thousands of base pairs long. The odds of getting those base pairs in just the right order are impossible to overcome. If we say that each gene is only 100 base pairs long then times 300 genes we have 30,000 base pairs that need to be lined up just right. Since each base pair can be one of four nucleotides, A,T,C, or G, that is 4 ^ 30,000 power possible combinations of base pairs. You can convert that to scientific notation by taking the log of both sides and then you have 30,000 x .6 (which is the log of 4) or 24,000. So there are 10^24,000 power possible combinations of base pairs and you think you are going to get one right by chance???? Even if every atom in the universe was a nucleotide that is only 10^80th power and if they combined at Planck speed 10^43 for the entire time the universe has been in existence 10^17 you only have 10^140 possible "correct" answers. So you are still talking odds of .000 plus over 23,000 more zeroes before you get to your 1. Seriously man, are you kidding me? There's no way that CAN HAPPEN. Yet you blithely dismiss that by saying "all we need is simple life" and then you move right along with the rest of your argument as if you'd actually gotten somewhere. Then you say that the human genome has 3 billion base pairs but we have 3.8 billion years so that's less than one base pair a year - EASY. Deep breath. Relax. (Not you, me.) This, again, completely demonstrates that you have zero grasp of the issues that you are trying to explain. Quite honestly I am really surprised by this post since I thought you knew better. A lot better. Anyway, you make no reference to the mechanism that is allegedly adding these base pairs. You make no mention of WHY "nature" would add base pairs. You make no mention of the fact that the base pairs have to be FUNCTIONAL for the organism to survive. So you just can't add a base pair, wait a year, add another, and so on. It takes thousands of base pairs to build a protein, much less a human being. Anyway, man, I'm really just kind of sad about this. And the "funny" thing is, you've STILL never addressed even one part of my argument. Not one. Of course, I started at the beginning, reasoned impeccably if I do say so myself, with a universally agreed to scientific truth, that life and information are inseparable. You have dodged that and dodged that and now are reduced to the vaguest sort of hand waving explanations that only expose the vacuity of your position. I'd either go after my argument or give it up, if it was me.tgpeeler
September 30, 2009
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So you examine the boat to see what materials it’s made of and you measure the boat to see what shape to cut the materials into and what orientation they’re attached in and how they’re attached and you use that information to build me a nice wooden rowboat, just like the one I showed you. No plans involved, no written information at all. No language needed. You took the information you needed to build the boat directly from the first boat. How do you measure without numbers or some sort of measuring device? How do you distinguish between one material and another? Is the replication process the same as the initial construction, or would you have to also design and create new tools? By what sort of trial and error do you determine the order of assembly? As you proceed in that trial-and-error process, how do you record the failed attempts so as to improve upon them? If it's plausible that this could be done without language, then perhaps we could get a monkey to do it.ScottAndrews
September 30, 2009
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djmullen, The information from the first boat was put there by its designer(s) and builder(s). All the third party is doing is trying to extract THAT information in order to make the requested boat. IOW the boat's information isn't the materials.Joseph
September 30, 2009
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djmullen, Can you provide any evidence that the "the materials used, the shapes of the materials, their orientation, the way they were attached" in the above example will arise from law+chance absent any intellignce? Why would we expect that if those properties are neither defined by law nor randomness (chance). Simply put, the same goes for life.CJYman
September 30, 2009
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djmullen: "But how could you do that unless all of the information you needed to build the second boat already existed in the first boat? Existed in the materials used, the shapes of the materials, their orientation, the way they were attached, etc?" ... which doesn't arise (isn't defined) from any of the physical properties of the materials used. In fact, Aristotle utilized this exact illustration to make a very similar point about the effects of intelligence. The "the materials used, the shapes of the materials, their orientation, the way they were attached" does not result from any law of physics -- mathematical descriptions of regularities emerging from the physical properties of the materials used. Thus, the information about the organization existing in the first boat is not defined by and does not result from the laws of physics. From here, we can carry on with the rest of tgpeeler's argument. Are you seriously not getting this yet?!?!?!?CJYman
September 30, 2009
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tgpeeler @ 196 First things first: it really doesn't matter how you came to exist. You are what you are. If you suddenly realized you evolved, it wouldn't change a hair on your head or a thought in your brain. (Excepting those thoughts that concern your origin and maybe your religion.) Ditto if you suddenly realized you were created by space aliens in their PoofOMatic Organic Realizer. Your hair would stay the same, ditto your eye color, your height, weight, IQ and everything else that is important. As far as being made in the image of God, having read the Bible and examined the world He is alleged to have made, I would not want to be anything like the God of Abraham, at least as far as morals are concerned. The only way your behavior would change if you turned out to be created would be if you were some sort of a psycho who was only holding himself back from committing murder and mayhem by the thought that God was watching him. You don't seem to be any kind of a psycho, so you would still be the same loveable tgpeeler, even if you have evolved or been poofed into existence by space aliens. On the origin of life. It's not just the laws of physics that determine everything. Without matter, time and space, the laws of physics have nothing to work on and are ineffective. What we need for the first life is something that reproduces itself and is simple enough to form by chance. That first something has to be material and it has to form under the laws of physics. Once we have reproduction, Darwinian evolution can begin and ratchet new data in to the genome (or whatever passes for a genome in the first reproducing thing.) Three billion base-pairs in the human genome and at least 3.8 billion years since life began. That's less than one pase-pair to be added each year. Less than two bits of data per year. Easy. I'll write more when I see your reaction to my boat-builder explanation of embedded information.djmullen
September 30, 2009
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kairosfocus: From the Wikipedia entry on information: "Information as a concept has a diversity of meanings, from everyday usage to technical settings. Generally speaking, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, >>>data<<<, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation." (My emphasis) Let me give another illustration. Suppose you own the GEM Boat Builders Company and I come up to you and say, "I'd like you to build me a boat." And you say, "Certainly. What kind of a boat?" And I give you a bunch of plans for a boat. You look at the plans and they tell you what materials to use, what shape to cut them into, what orientation to attach them in, how to attach them and all the other information you need to build a nice wooden rowboat. So you take the information from the plans and use it to build me the row boat I desire. No problems here? Ok, now suppose I say, "I'd like you to build me a boat." And you say, "Certainly, what kind of boat?" And I point to the wooden row boat on the trailer behind my car and say, "One just like that." So you examine the boat to see what materials it's made of and you measure the boat to see what shape to cut the materials into and what orientation they're attached in and how they're attached and you use that information to build me a nice wooden rowboat, just like the one I showed you. No plans involved, no written information at all. No language needed. You took the information you needed to build the boat directly from the first boat. But how could you do that unless all of the information you needed to build the second boat already existed in the first boat? Existed in the materials used, the shapes of the materials, their orientation, the way they were attached, etc? Same-same molecules in the cell. (And in tgpeeler's rock.) Does that make things clearer?djmullen
September 29, 2009
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kairosfocus Thanks for the definitions. They will come in handy. I'll use them next time so people won't think I just made this stuff up. :-)tgpeeler
September 29, 2009
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Look djm. I will admit to having let you annoy me and thus I made some intemperate and rude remarks. This goes for ROb, and Seversky, too. To you all, I apologize. Really. That said, let's seriously deal with this issue because it matters. It makes all the difference in the world whether or not we are created beings in the image of God or whether we are just, and only just, random collections of sub-atomic particles organized by time and the laws of physics into really cool bags of water that can do remarkable things, i.e. have the capacity to reason and make moral choices. And play golf. The question of the origin of life, as has been stated by origin of life researchers from decades ago until today, is the question of the origin of biological information. I would really like for someone on the other side of this to actually engage the argument I have made. The argument starts out with a broad definition of naturalism and thus includes the more restrictive ontologies of materialism and physicalism. In other words, I have given naturalism its most generous construal, which allows for mathematics and "other abstracta." (None of said abstracta, of course, have causal power.) So if naturalists are committed to the metaphysical view that all that exists is nature (roughly the physical world and the properties of the physical things) and they are, and if naturalists are committed to the principle of causal closure, and they are, then nothing save physics can possibly have any explanatory power in nature. Therefore, my first premise is: If naturalism is true, then physics can explain life. This is the first part of what will be a modus tollens argument which is a valid form of argument. I could have made the stronger statement that: If naturalism is true, then physics can explain everything. This would also be a true premise but I want to narrow the focus to the purported explanation of life by naturalist means. In other words, If physics can explain everything, and if life is a subset of everything, then physics can explain life. Thus I arrive at the first premise: If naturalism is true, then physics can explain life. So can we agree just to this point that if you hold to a neo-Darwinian view of life, i.e. the naturalist story of life, that you embrace the philosophical constructs that form the basis for the theory? And that you agree that the first premise is true because naturalism entails that only physics has explanatory powers? Let's start there and hash this out and then we can move on.tgpeeler
September 29, 2009
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PPPS: AmhDict: met·a·phys·ics (mt-fzks) n. 1. (used with a sing. verb) Philosophy The branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality, including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value. 2. (used with a pl. verb) The theoretical or first principles of a particular discipline: the metaphysics of law.kairosfocus
September 29, 2009
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PPS: AmHSci Dict: language (lnggwj) 1. A system of objects or symbols, such as sounds or character sequences, that can be combined in various ways following a set of rules, especially to communicate thoughts, feelings, or instructions. See also machine languageprogramming language 2. The set of patterns or structures produced by such a system. The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.kairosfocus
September 29, 2009
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PS: AmHDict: lan·guage (lnggwj) n. 1. a. Communication of thoughts and feelings through a system of arbitrary signals, such as voice sounds, gestures, or written symbols. b. Such a system including its rules for combining its components, such as words. c. Such a system as used by a nation, people, or other distinct community; often contrasted with dialect. 2. a. A system of signs, symbols, gestures, or rules used in communicating: the language of algebra. b. Computer Science A system of symbols and rules used for communication with or between computers.kairosfocus
September 29, 2009
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DJM: 1] It has already been pointed out (and linked onward), on the observations of the OOL researchers from the 1960's - 80's, that organised, specified, functional complexity is different from the sort of order found in crystals, and from the sort of tangled random patterns that are found in organic tars, etc. (Darwin's warm little pond struck by lightning, or other scenarios, would be drastically more likely to create at most some organic muck, than organised cell-based life.) 2] Also, we do not have observed cases of origin of functional information apart from purposefully directed, meaningful, code-bearing contingency -- as the use of ASCII characters to communicate English text or program source code illustrate; algorithmic code and associated data structures being very closely analogous -- indeed, both instantiate digital algorithmic information -- to what we have discovered in DNA and associated molecules. 3] Note the "definitions" of information, intelligence, design and intelligent design, from the UD Glossary, courtesy Wikipedia etc:
Information — Wikipedia, with some reorganization, is apt: “ . . that which would be communicated by a message if it were sent from a sender to a receiver capable of understanding the message . . . . In terms of data, it can be defined as a collection of facts [i.e. as represented or sensed in some format] from which conclusions may be drawn [and on which decisions and actions may be taken].” Intelligence – Wikipedia aptly and succinctly defines: “capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn.” Design — purposefully directed contingency. That is, the intelligent, creative manipulation of possible outcomes (and usually of objects, forces, materials, processes and trends) towards goals. (E.g. 1: writing a meaningful sentence or a functional computer program. E.g. 2: loading of a die to produce biased, often advantageous, outcomes. E.g. 3: the creation of a complex object such as a statue, or a stone arrow-head, or a computer, or a pocket knife.) Intelligent design [ID] – Dr William A Dembski, a leading design theorist, has defined ID as “the science that studies signs of intelligence.” That is, as we ourselves instantiate [thus exemplify as opposed to “exhaust”], intelligent designers act into the world, and create artifacts. When such argents act, there are certain characteristics that commonly appear, and that – per massive experience — reliably mark such artifacts. It it therefore a reasonable and useful scientific project to study such signs and identify how we may credibly reliably infer from empirical sign to the signified causal factor: purposefully directed contingency or intelligent design . . .
4] Weasel inadvertently demonstrates the power of intelligent design using a set "target" [!] and a hill-climbing algorithm that rewards non-functional "nonsense phrases" [!!] on mere increments in proximity to target. It thus illustrates artificial selection, across randomised non-functional phrases (with come constraints -- thus that tangential debate on latching and ratcheting . . . initiated and sustained by Darwinist objectors BTW, TGP) in light of knowledge of target, distance to target metric and comparative measures, i.e. highly intelligent design. (This general pattern of problems, with variations, hampers evolutionary algorithms in general.) _________________ I suggest a perusal of the Weak arguments correctives as well. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
September 29, 2009
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tgpeeler @ 189 "So tell me, what kind of information is encoded in a crystal? Or a stone? Or a clump of dirt?" Information on the types of atoms, their states, their locations, their orientations - all the data you'd need to make a duplicate of that crystal, stone or clump of dirt. "And information to whom?" To nobody. Quit thinking of communications when you think of information. 99.99999+ percent of all information in the universe has nothing to do with communication. " “Another way to look at it is that every group of atoms contains the information that would be needed to duplicate that group of atoms.” You are joking? Right? How does the group of atoms that makes up a rock contain the information needed to duplicate that rock?? This isn’t even coherent." In the same way that tRNA has to measure the 3-d shape and electrical charges of a triplet of RNA bases and select the correct amino acid accordingly, you have to measure the type of atoms, the position, orientation and internal quantum states they're in and then build the duplicate with that information. Don't think so? How would you build a duplicate without that information? If a previously unknown statue, The Rutabaga by Michelangelo, was discovered, could you sculpt a duplicate without examining the original? Of course not, you need the information contained in the original statue to duplicate it. "Your ignorance of the cell exceeds even mine and I’m not even a biologist." No it doesn't and I believe you about not being a biologist. "A strand of human DNA ... specifies the structure of an entire organism." Only partially. There are no instructions for making a cell wall in the DNA, for instance, just the various parts that go into one. These parts require a pre-existing cell wall to fit themselves into. You can actually remove the cell wall from a living cell, leaving just the gossamer membrane under it and the cell will live, but it will never replace the cell wall because it hasn't got a template to fit replacment pieces into and there are no instructions in the DNA for building such a template. Likewise, your DNA required an initial chemical gradient in your mother's egg cell to define the original orientation of your developing body. Without it, you would never have been born. These aren't serious mistakes and most people don't know about them, but I do and you apparently don't. "Yeah, I guess it takes more than a look up table and a start and stop codon to make a language. It takes symbols and rules, neither of which can be explained by physics." You've got more than just physics at work here. You've got the creation of information by random mutation and you've got natural selection vetting that information against the cell's existing operation and the environment it's living in. And that's all it takes to generate the information in the DNA as well as the symbols and rules that concern you.djmullen
September 29, 2009
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tgpeeler @ 188: Glad you understand that every individual part of the cell is dead. Just checking. Yes, my description of Weasel is rational. (Except my line about "Finally, assume no combinations will work except the original 'ABCD…' and 'METHINKS…'" is mistaken. So long as no combinations work better than "METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL", the simulation will work.) It may not seem rational to you, but people on this site have a well known (and very entertaining) lack of understanding of how models work. See the various claims about having to modify the computer hardware to really simulate evolution for examples of this misunderstanding. Yes, Weasel is intelligently designed. It's a SIMULATION of a natural phenomena and it takes intelligence to produce a simulation. That's what modeling is all about, whether you're modelling the weather, the stock market or evolution. Given that our intelligently designed simulation is modifying its data just like in the real world - random mutations and natural selection saving any improvements, then it is creating information without intelligence and so is the real-world process that it's modeling. And if you're wondering where that information comes from, in the model it comes from the target phrase and in the real world it comes from the environment the modeled cell is living in. "What, are you a college freshman taking his first evolutionary biology class and you are just regurgitating the talking points without any understanding of the logical fallacies they contain?" You know, argument by insult is one thing, but when the insulter first shows that he doesn't understand the most basic things about information and modeling, it looks a little ... like standard UD blogging.djmullen
September 29, 2009
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djmullen @168 "That’s a very basic mistake you’re making. Every arrangement of atoms, every arrangement of anything, contains information. The information, as I’ve said, includes what kind of atoms, their internal states, their arrangement, their orientation – anything that can be measured or observed." That is complete and utter nonsense. So tell me, what kind of information is encoded in a crystal? Or a stone? Or a clump of dirt? And information to whom? You really just don't get it, I'm thinking. "Another way to look at it is that every group of atoms contains the information that would be needed to duplicate that group of atoms." You are joking? Right? How does the group of atoms that makes up a rock contain the information needed to duplicate that rock?? This isn't even coherent. "But at no time would any language be necessary. Languages are much higher level than anything you’ll find in a statue or a cell. It takes more than a look-up table and a start and a stop codon to make a language." Your ignorance of the cell exceeds even mine and I'm not even a biologist. Higher level than you'll find in a cell? Are you kidding? The cell contains a spectacular information technology that humans could only dream of reverse engineering. A strand of human DNA has 3.3 BILLION base pairs (letters) or so in it and it specifies the structure of an entire organism. It's about 6 meters long and is only visible under the most powerful microscopes. Yeah, I guess it takes more than a look up table and a start and stop codon to make a language. It takes symbols and rules, neither of which can be explained by physics. I wish I could be finished with this. My patience runs short. A serious failing of mine. But I know you are going to come back with something irrelevant or irrational and I won't be able to let it go. What is my problem??? (That's rhetorical. I know the answer.)tgpeeler
September 29, 2009
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djmullen @ 166 "tgpeeler from 59: You never answered my question: Which individual parts of a cell are alive? Just askin." The entire cell is alive. The cell is the smallest unit of life. See cell theory. And this bears on what? How? "Haven’t you been reading all the Weasel threads? Or have you been concentrating on all the “latched – non latched” silliness and ignoring the information transfer? Let me explain Weasel to you in short, simple sentences: Remember the “target”, “METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL”? Pretend that’s an exotic form of DNA with 27 different bases. Further assume that that particular pattern is the best possible DNA of length 28. Finally, assume that the original starting DNA is “ABCDEFGHIJKLM NOPQRSTUVWXYZ” and that this pattern will just barely run the cell. It will grow, but slowly, and it will divide, but slowly. Finally, assume no combinations will work except the original “ABCD…” and “METHINKS…" Are you serious? You think this passes for rational discourse? Assume, assume, assume. That's a big part of your problem. You assume that you have resources that your ontology denies. The weasel program only illustrates two things. One is that it takes intelligence to generate information, in this case, instructions written in code, and two, that it is completely irrelevant to evolution by blind natural selection because Dawkins provides the target. How asinine is this to claim that this proves or even demonstrates anything? What, are you a college freshman taking his first evolutionary biology class and you are just regurgitating the talking points without any understanding of the logical fallacies they contain? This is a ridiculous claim, even by evo standards. "Do you realize what we’ve done here? We’ve added information to the genome! Not only that, but it’s SPECIFIED information – it meets the specification of running a cell successfully and it does it better than the original “A”" YES!! I do realize what we've done here!!! We've intelligently designed a process to generate information!!!!!! I'm so excited!!!!! Wait, you think this proves that evolution somehow did it, don't you? Oh well. Back to the drawing board. C'mon man. Get serious. "Did you notice that it was a two-step process to add this new Specified Information? The first four times we added new information to the left-most position, but it wasn’t good information, so we threw it away. That is, when we tried to run the resulting new cell, it didn’t do as well as the original and the cell died out and took that DNA pattern with it. Then, the fifth time, we hit paydirt. We changed the left-most position AND when we attempted to run the new cell with the new DNA pattern it ran BETTER than the original and replaced it. Evolution in action!" NO. Designed process in action. I cannot believe I am having this conversation again. "Weasel" is a fraud. Just like evolution. Try dealing with the argument. I would give up but it just annoys the hell out of me that some people can be so, so dense. "That is the true meaning of the Weasel program. ID is going to have to stop wasting their time on latching foolishness and deal with the fact that variation and natural selection CAN add Complex Specified Information to the genome AND do it in reasonable lengths of time." We've already seen what the true meaning of the weasel program is. It's intelligent design. It doesn't even begin to model evolution by 'natural selection.' What a crock. And I was so looking forward to having actual arguments to engage with.tgpeeler
September 28, 2009
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Clive @ 185 "Metaphysical" is an idea found in the human mind. Our minds contain imperfect models of the outside world. The idea of metaphysics is one of those imperfections. If there is anything in reality (or superreality) that corresponds to this idea, you'll have to show us. The IDEA of "metaphysical" undoubtedly does exist in your mind and it is possible, in principle, to find the information in your brain that corresponds to your belief in metaphysics and change it to make you believe with just as much certainty in a ten foot tall fire-breathing corduroy duck quacking, "Webcor, webcor!" and make this feel completely real and as obvious as metaphysics to you. Because there's a part of your brain that generates that feeling of obviousness and, like your belief in metaphysics, it's material and thus susceptible to manipulation. And if you don't believe me, I can introduce you to some people who will sell you some drugs that will do just that, or something just as weird. And that is the logical and physical end of your material illusions about metaphysics.djmullen
September 28, 2009
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djmullen @ 171 "Because he then muddies the water by including symbols, rules and language. Symbols and rules are parts of language, not information. Language uses information, but it’s not identical to it." Have you actually read anything I've written? It's not apparent from this comment. Symbols and rules comprise language - they enable the encoding, transmission, and decoding of information. They are not information. How much clearer can it get. I've said that at least a million times already.tgpeeler
September 28, 2009
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djmullen, Metaphysical means not physical. If you think the reasoning process is physical, then you should be able to centrally locate the philosophy which claims this, and remove it, or change its composition to the point that you will begin to believe something else instead. This is the logical and metaphysical end to your mind=matter paradigm.Clive Hayden
September 28, 2009
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CJYman @ 179 Nobody claims that the organization of the base-pairs in DNA is defined by the laws of physics. It's randomly changed by mutation and then tested and either selected or rejected by natural selection. Clive in 177 doesn't believe that metaphysical understanding is material in nature. I maintain that it's as material as the neurons, synapses, memory and signals of Clive's brain.djmullen
September 28, 2009
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CJYman @ 178 Having re-read your message # 141, I'm going to stick with my answer. Forming the "letters" in DNA is a random process - like the child putting letters on fridge. However, to continue the analogy, there is already a message on the fridge that "does something" - specifically it operates the cell. Each additional letter must contribute to that operation or it is rejected. There is never a time when we see the haze of "random" letters clear to reveal a functioning cell. That's there from the get-go, or at least as far back as we have DNA. That's something that seems to escape all ID enthusiasts. Since the first super simple self-reproducing whatever, we always have a functioning organism. All mutations either add to that function or they are discarded and we go back to the original function. Since mutation rates are reasonably low, we never mutate all organisms at once. We just take a chance on changing a few and discard them and go back to the unmodified DNA if they aren't an improvement. Also, if you study the functioning of a cell closely, I think you will be less likely to say "That is why if you take all the constituents of a cell and mix them in a test tube, they will not organize themselves into a functioning cell." It turns out that how a lot of real cell chemistry actually works. Although there are elaborate transportation mechanisms in cells, most of the work of getting small chemicals to where they are needed is done by having them float around in the cell, being pushed around randomly until they connect with some place that needs them and they are consumed on the spot. Also, Craig Ventor is hard at work building an artifical cell right now and I think he plans to more or less pour the ingredients into an empty cell wall and have it start working. With his track record, we should know within a year.djmullen
September 28, 2009
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djmullen @ 175 "I say that ALL language is MATERIAL. Please show me any language that is not material. And good luck with showing anybody anything that is not material." The symbols part of all languages is material. That could be ink on paper, smoke in the sky, etc... I think I already made that point but maybe not. The RULES which govern the use of the symbols are immaterial. They are abstract. What am I missing here? Are you being deliberately obtuse? Is that the game? Oh, I get it. You really agree with me but you are pretending that you don't so I can demolish all of these feeble objections. Thanks. I appreciate it. As far as showing anybody anything that is not material, how's this for good luck? What about the laws of physics AND the mathematics, the language in which they are written????? Do we really have to do this? Do I have to describe matter and energy and then go down the list and show you that the laws of physics (or the laws of anything, for that matter) or the language of mathematics are not material? OK. Just this one time, in case you haven't figured this out. Matter has: mass, inertia, is subject to gravity (so are photons even though they are massless), is locatable in space/time, is empirically detectable, and can be converted to energy. Energy can move or heat matter and is empirically detectable. Although necessarily brief, I believe this just about covers it. Let's run mathematics down this list. Does math have mass? NO. Does math have inertia? NO. Is math subject to gravity? NO. Is math locatable in space/time? NO. (It's not in your closet, is it?) Is math empirically detectable? NO. You cannot smell it, touch it, taste it, see it, or hear it. Can math be converted to energy? NO. Can math heat matter? NO. Can math move matter? NO. Trick question coming now. Is math nevertheless real? YES. I'll stop here so we can deal with one thing at a time. Defeating your materialism seems like a good place to start. I await your reply. p.s. Extra credit question. How is it that a material mind (in your construal of mind, apparently) can comprehend completely abstract things like math? How does that work? How are quarks and leptons able to "get outside of themselves" and contemplate abstract things?tgpeeler
September 28, 2009
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