The last five years for ID: All renovation projects start as teardowns
| September 2, 2011 | Posted by O'Leary under Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
In “The last five years: Darwin’s failures are positive sources of information for ID,” I noted
Failures of Darwinism are not merely a negative. They are a positive. The growing number of stress points at which Darwinism fails can, taken together, form a picture, one that points to general laws that govern how high levels of information are produced in life forms. Obviously, as with dpi, the more such points, the clearer the picture. We can’t have too many of them, though eventually, there will be enough to work productively with.
Throwing out assorted Darwinisms is like renovating a shamefully treated century home. The first thing we do is rent a dumpster. Because we must clear away the rubbish to rescue the core value.
One outcome is that 99% of the initial work is, unavoidably, teardown.
In the case of evolution, as Mike Behe realizes, we must compute the edge of natural selection’s ability to create new information: Just beyond that edge – or further – lie the principal sources of new information.
Computing the edge alone involves a number of questions: Is it the same for all life forms? If not, which ones differ and what characteristics might they have in common? Can a general law be derived?
Of course, sidelining the usual, tiresome, untethered “Darwin dunit” accounts would be a plus, but it is certainly not the motive for the project. The motive is to understand what really happened, not to demolish a crumbling elite piety.
See also: How far has ID come in the last five years
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5 Responses to The last five years for ID: All renovation projects start as teardowns
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Hmm. Say that one discovers the “edge” of evolution in a single step is, say, X bits. What then prevents a system that has successfully acquired X bits from acquiring another X bits in another step? And another, and another…
Darwinism, Nick, as in blind, undirected chemical processes.
But anyways “bits”? Really? Do you have anything which demonstrates an accumulation of genetic accidents can construct new and useful multi-part systems?
Say a system has thousands of parts- remember Dr Behe’s mousetrap only had 5- what is the positive evidence that accumulating accidents can produce such a thing?
Nick, Your question about ‘functional information bits’, adding up cumulatively, reflects the main question of dispute that is between Darwinists and IDists. i.e. Where is the functional information coming from? Darwinists maintain that the fantastic, and unmatched, levels of complex functional information, we find in life, simply ‘cumulatively emerged’ from a chance and necessity process operating on a material (energy/matter) basis over vast eons of time, whereas IDists correctly observe that no one has ever seen such complex functional information ‘emerging’ in such a fashion from any material basis. As well, IDists correctly observe that intelligence is the only known entity that has ever been seen generating complex functional information, and implementing the complex functional information onto a material basis to solve specific problems that need to be solved (most clearly demonstrated with robotic computer systems). So since the question of, “What is the source of complex functional ‘information’?”, is the main point of dispute between Darwinsts and IDists, Nick, let us take a closer look at what ‘information’ really is and see if we can shed a little more light on who is correct, Darwinists or IDists, in this dispute;
As Professor McIntosh points out in the preceding video, information is a very elusive entity to nail down, for though we can write it down, encode it, and transfer the information from one material medium to another completely different material medium, the information never changes its meaning though the material mediums, on which the information is stored, are completely different upon the information’s transfer.,,, It is also interesting to note that a Compact Disc crammed with information on it weighs exactly the same as a CD with no information on it whatsoever.,, i.e. Information, from our everyday experience, gives every indication of being completely transcendent of any material basis. i.e. Information gives every indication of being ‘real’ and yet it also gives every indication of being transcendent of time and space though it may be stored on various material mediums. Moreover, although our everyday experience gives us a very enigmatic picture of ‘information’, breakthroughs in quantum mechanics have given us a more complete picture of ‘information’ and its place (prominence) in the overall structure of reality;
Quantum entanglement is shown to be related to ‘functional information’ by the following evidence;
And yet Quantum Entanglement/Information, which falsified ‘local realism (materialism), is found to be in life:
Indeed the ‘computation’ accomplished by the quantum entanglement within DNA is very impressive:
continued:
Anton Zeilinger, a leading researcher in Quantum mechanics, relates how quantum entanglement is related to quantum teleportation in this following video;
And quantum teleporation showed that atoms, which are suppose to be the basis from which functional information ‘emerges’, in the neo-Darwinian framework, are now shown to be, in fact, reducible to the functional information that the atoms are suppose to be the basis of!
Nick, please tell me how quantum information/entanglement can ‘emerge’ from any material basis of atoms when atoms are now shown to reduce to a transcendent basis of quantum information? Do you see the problem here Nick???
Moreover, as you well know Nick, the dispute between IDists and Darwinists has, thus far, not focused on quantum information so much, but has instead focused on ‘classical information’,
Yet, though the dispute between Darwinists and IDist has been over ‘classical information,, classical information is shown to be a subset of quantum information by the following method:
And quantum information is shown, empirically, to be ‘conserved’:
Further notes:
The “edge of evolution” refers to extent of the changes that evolution can effect, not the size of the individual steps. At present there is no reason to think that edge encompasses the transition from single-celled organisms to humans, land mammals to whales, or even rodents to bats.
What seems intuitive to most people has been supported by research. Variation and selection produce change, but only so much change.
It’s no wonder the term “microevolution” is scorned. It separates what is observed from what is imagined, when it’s so much more convenient to lump the two together.