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We cannot live by scepticism alone

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Scientists have been too dogmatic about scientific truth and sociologists have fostered too much scepticism — social scientists must now elect to put science back at the core of society, says Harry Collins.

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Comments
kf:
It is very clear that the thread hijack attempt has now reached from red herring distractors to strawmen to ad hominems, now personally abusive.
I propose the following principle.
kairosfocus's law: As a debate with KF continues, the probability that KF will accuse others of some combination of red herrings, drawmen, and ad hominem approaches 1.
Bank on it.David Kellogg
March 11, 2009
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4] ALGOR, ALGOR . . . Let's summarise the algorithm in a nutshell, from Dawkins:
1] Select an initial sentence of 28 characters 2] Generate "mutations" at random, and test across the population for closeness to target. 3] Select the closest, and mutate-test- select again and again, with the new sentence as intial target. 4] Stop when the distance to target is zero.
The real problem [and clue] is how does a letter once selected, strongly tend to remain, under such circumstances? [Cf IT above.] _________ TRY1: Mutate all 28 letters at random, and select the closest result. (But, this would most likely derange the already selected letters that made the first winner "warmer" as there are 26 letters and 1 space, which means that on a random change, odds are 26:1 against keeping the correct letter. So the T1 version will not converge, it will simply circulate around a few selected letters.) TRY 2: Openly lock-in the selected letters, and only randomly shift the wrong ones. If you want, you can even cross-breed such mutants, to produce a population of those bred out from the mutants (This would plainly converge but if done very obviously will not be very persuasive. So, the issue is to try to get close to the results of T2 while more or less looking like T1. Notice as well, the pattern of convergence as published by Dawkisn shows that T2 is very close to the effective solution.) TRY 3: In turn, select a number of letters to vary, running from 0 to 28, then apply to the target sentence. From the resulting large population of "mutants" select the closest to the target. (This will give a large population of results, with the initial sentence, those varied at random by 1, then 2, then 3, then 4 . . . then 28 letters. of these, the overwhelmingly most likely winner at each stage will have the original set of correct letters to that stage, with up to a few more correct ones added. [Notice how in Gen 40, we see that one letter is out, and it takes a couple more to get to the final result. Why: the distance metric is probably a bitwise Hamming metric so that a closer initial letter that is not quite correct can win at a stage. Remember, BASIC allow3s subtraction of letters as well as numbers, based on ASCII code bit values. I used to do that on my old department's "TRASH-80."]) __________ T3 has the advantage of convergence, with the appearance of being a randomly generated mutant, and with just distance as the decisive factor. It also subtly manges to preserve most or all of the advances to date without EXPLICITLY exempting "correct" letters from random change. In short, by using targetted search with non-functional configs rewarded for relative closeness to the target, and with a subtle way of preserving advances to the stage, we can see how a Weasel program will do what Trueman, Gitt and Dembaki-Marks have noticed, while appearing to those looking on to be a case of the power of "evolution" to create the appearance of design. But, in fact, it is explicitly based on foresighted, targetted search design that uses a carefully calibrated injection of chance, and avoids the issue of functionality until the very last, halting step. In particular, there are ways that effectively [with high probability] ratchet-in advances up to a stage without having to explicitly lock-in the successful letters. thus, we can see how such a case would 5] A more advanced stage, i.e modern Weasels: In an example linked by Wiki, we can see a more advanced stage, a full genetic algorithm being used for a Weasel type program. {Notice how the author does NOT say that he is using the same algor as Dawklins.]
This exhibit, which was inspired by a description of a program in Richard Dawkins's excellent book The Blind Watchmaker, demonstrates the ability of evolutionary techniques to solve enormous problems rapidly . . . . The applet works like this. You provide a phrase to one part of the program, the Scorer, and another part of the program (the Breeder) tries to make the Scorer happy by breeding possible solutions until it matches the supplied phrase. The Breeder starts by making lots of random guesses and presenting each to the Scorer. The highest-scoring guess is then bred with other guesses (by combining parts of each guess) and some of the guesses are randomly mutated. The Breeder continues to breed and mutate guesses until it finds your original phrase. Along the way, the Scorer only tells the Breeder how close each guess is to the target phrase, not what the target phrase is. The Scorer doesn't even tell the Breeder which parts of its guess are right or wrong. ,i>This is vaguely like trying to find a random spot in the galaxy, being told only how "hot" or "cold" you are after each step.
But of course, by rewarding "hot, hotter hottest," you are telling the breeder how to move forward. The randomising part actually simply adds in some inefficiency into the process, as the breeder is not being allowed to directly trace out then follow up the steepest ascent trend line until it stops giving advances. (Such a randomised approach is helpful in real-world cases where you have a working entity but are not sure that it is near optimal for its neighbourhood. So,a bit of random wandering may help spot a trend of advance. there are a lot of real-world design problems where we know how to get a working solution but not how to get an optimal one, so such a technique is useful.) Observe again, the search is targetted, with a broadcasting oracle that rewards warmer, and punishes colder. But in this case, the Weasel search will NOT necessarily or with high probability preserve and ratchet-in advances up to that stage on a letter by letter basis. (This is clearly different from what Dawkins did circa 1986, as the record shows very explicitly.) What such a GA does is more like throwing out a ring of guesses and going to the hotter section of the ring, then throwing our another ring of guesses and so on until the final ring is narrow enough to capture the target. 6] The role of Active information and the issue of rewarding closeness to a target You will see that in each case, whether the classic "letter- locking- in" Weasel or the modern GA Weasel, the focus of the search is a target, and closeness to the target is rewarded. This feeds in what Dembski and Marks call active information. By contrast chance Variation and natural selection can only act on presently FUNCTIONING entities and can only reward current differential success in an environment. In short, Sir Fred Hoyle's issue of getting to complex and irreducible functionality all at once by non-foresighted mechanisms tracing to chance + necessity only has not been answered on the merits, eitehr in 1986 or at present. And, Weasel is as I have described it -- in especially the classic form, the one that ratchets the letters. More modern forms can escape that secondary problem, but they do not get around the core Hoylean challenge. GLF, methinks the ball is in your court. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
March 11, 2009
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Onlookers (and GLF adn Rob): It is very clear that the thread hijack attempt has now reached from red herring distractors to strawmen to ad hominems, now personally abusive. Thus, we see how the selective hyperskeprticism game plays out to its conclusion: turning us away from common-sense and natural justice based civil dialogue towards truth towards verbal, ideological and political fights driven by polarising and demonising rhetoric, which are now ripping our civlisation to pieces before our eyes. It is very plain, for instance, that GLF now wishes to brand me a liar. This is outright false and utterly un-civil accusation. (Cf the similar patterns of smearing the idea that the biblical civil law on marriage was in effect materially the same as child prostitution, and the similar pattern of demonising those who point outt hat when we look at the patterns of thought in Origin and Descent of Man, we see a worrying pattern of racism that had a traceable influence on history in succeeding decades.) Instead of legitimising such disrespectful conduct by directly addressing it, let us simply go back to the track of the truth, by way of a cor4rective case study on what logic and facts -- as opposed to polarising rhetoric -- can show us. Now the issue he raised in this thread in 236 (accurately citing or summarising my remarks evidently from an earlier thread) is to challenge the force of:
Weasel sets a target sentence then once a letter is guessed it preserves it for future iterations of trials until the full target is met. That means it rewards partial but non-functional success, and is foresighted. Targetted search, not a proper RV + NS model.
I will now substantiate this point further, noting that I have already pointed to why this is correct above. 1] Blind Watchmaker? The key thesis of Mr Dawkins' 1986 book is that spontaneous chance variations and natural selection, the presumed driving forces of origins, are sufficient to create the appearance of design, without intelligent, foresighted action. So, Paley's Watchmaker has been neutralised, at least as far as Dawkins thinks. (But we all know -- for decades, since the 1960's - 70's [Hence Orgel 1973 etc.] -- that we have found in the cell that (i) a stored-data, stored instruction digital information system has been implemented with molecular technologies, (ii) complete with data strings, controlling instructions, step by step physical instantiation of algorithms to e.g. make proteins by reading off the DNA-RNA code one codon at a time in succession, and (iii) that this COMPUTER is at the centre of the core life processes. Worse, (iv) such an entity -- as any computer technician knows, is complex, and irreducibly so. Thus, (v) it screams out that design is its best explanation. Consequently, those who wish to avert such an inference or overturn it, properly, should show empirically that such can arise from prebiotic soups that are geologically and/or astrophysically reasonable by reasonably probable processes, and that the onward innovations required to give body plan level biodiversity also are reasonable and probabilistically credible. This of course is just what has not been done, by Dawkins or any one else. But, let us discuss the Weasel case as an example of how the failure on the merits may be perceived as a success, on the rhetoric.) The Weasel example is against the above backdrop, and appears in I believe Ch 3 of BW in response to inter alia Sir Fred Hoyle's probability estimate on getting to a first cell on grounds that the cell is in effect irreducibly complex with many interacting molecular namomachines. [Rule of thumb: Sir Fred may be wrong (e.g. on the Steady State theory), but he ain't dumb. Not by a loooong shot. So, don't bet against him unless you have a cast iron case.] 2] Putting some further facts into play: Now, let's see an excerpt from BW, ch 3, that is an inadvertent admission against interest by Wiki in trying to justify the Weasel example:
I [Dawkins] don't know who it was first pointed out that, given enough time, a monkey bashing away at random on a typewriter could produce all the works of Shakespeare. The operative phrase is, of course, given enough time. Let us limit the task facing our monkey somewhat. Suppose that he has to produce, not the complete works of Shakespeare but just the short sentence 'Methinks it is like a weasel', and we shall make it relatively easy by giving him a typewriter with a restricted keyboard, one with just the 26 (capital) letters, and a space bar. How long will he take to write this one little sentence? . . . . We again use our computer monkey, but with a crucial difference in its program. It again begins by choosing a random sequence of 28 letters, just as before ... it duplicates it repeatedly, but with a certain chance of random error – 'mutation' – in the copying. The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, the 'progeny' of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, however slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL.
Notice: The computer examines the mutant nonsense phrases, the 'progeny' of the original phrase, and chooses the one which, however slightly, most resembles the target phrase, METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL. In short, just as I TRUTHFULLY said originally and above in this thread: this is most certainly targetted, foresighted search. Thus, this is no BLIND watchmaker at work. And, such a targetted search, as the following tabulated example shows, rewards NON-FUNCTIONAL configurations based on CLOSENESS TO TARGET. That means it is precisely not parallel to natural selection, which can only reward differential FUNCTION. In short, I spoke accurately again. (And, truth is that which -- GLF -- says of what is, that it is; and of what is not, that it is not. Truth cannot be a lie.) 3] Tabulating the Dawkins-published result:
Generation 1: WDLMNLT DTJBKWIRZREZLMQCO P Generation 2: WDLTMNLT DTJBSWIRZREZLMQCO P Generation 10: MDLDMNLS ITJISWHRZREZ MECS P Generation 20: MELDINLS IT ISWPRKE Z WECSEL Generation 30: METHINGS IT ISWLIKE B WECSEL Generation 40: METHINKS IT IS LIKE I WEASEL Generation 43: METHINKS IT IS LIKE A WEASEL
That is, Dawkins is using an oracle and the warmer/colder broadcast principle. AND, we can see that once a letter is in place, it tends strongly indeed to be preserved from one generation to the next. The IT in the above is a clear illustration of that inconvenient truth. So, each main point I made -- and Dembski's point on ratcheting too -- stands substantiated. As TRUTH. Which cannot be a lie. But, we need a little more, so let's do a bit of algorithm reverse engineering on the Weasel algorithm circa 1986. [ . . . ]kairosfocus
March 11, 2009
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George, The first on the list is Bioinformatics, genomics and evolution of non-flagellar type-III secretion systems: a Darwinian perpective It does NOT demonstrate that a type 3 secretory system can "evolve" via an accumulation of genetic accidents from a population that never had one. Then there is From The Origin of Species to the origin of bacterial flagella, Absolutely nothing on how the bac flag evolved. Just some notes about protein homologs- that is similar proteins tat go into making them bac flag are found in bacteria. The authors act as if this is enough to show that it evolved via an accumulation of genetic accidents when in fact it does no such thing. So the bottom-line is all you can do is pull a literature bluff.Joseph
March 11, 2009
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StephenB, I was right: your concepts of "logical error" and "proof" are both quite elastic, stretching to conform to whatever you claim. You certainly do not use them in any philosophically rigorous way. However, a word like "wrong" can, apparently, only be used as you determine. If you think I cited the Bible as evidence of child prostitution, you are not reading carefully. I cited the bible as evidence of unstable definitions.
Which fact would you care to challenge?
What I question among your "facts" is the relevance of relativism. You write:
Of course, you should also keep the fire warm for any tome which causes you to question the existence of unchanging truth.
But I like my Bible! I have nothing to withdraw.David Kellogg
March 11, 2009
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Kariosfocus
Now, I note that my original point was that Weasel is a targetted search example, i.e active information based.
Odd, considering how I brought the subject up in the first place. You now make out that your original point has been hijacked. Stop trying to confuse the issue. The issue is not if there is a target or not (there plainly is) or if the target is relevant, the issue is quite simple. You say the letters are fixed in place. I say they are not. I can back my case up. You cannot back your case up. The honorable thing to do would be to simply say "I learnt something today" and stop saying such in future (which once you have been informed of the true facts would be lying). If you can't concede a point even if you cannot provide any evidence to support your position then it's plain that it's just dogma. As such, onlookers, I have to wonder how much of his copy+paste style of debating is also invalid or disproven already but he's simply refused to concede the point and update his arguments.George L Farquhar
March 11, 2009
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Joseph @ 300
Start with the first one. I didn’t read anything about an accumulation of genetic accidents. Not one thing. Ya see George “evolution” is not being debated.
The "first one" may be different, depending on how google feels. Could you link directly to the paper? Could you start with a summary of what you think is wrong with the paper you link to and we can continue from there?George L Farquhar
March 11, 2009
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Kariosfocus
Weasel words are often strategically chosen and placed qualifying words that allow an evasive, deflective response when the main force of a point is challenged. (They do not affect significantly the persuasive force of the argument in the main; that’s why they are used.)
No quote? How strange, I gave you some time to comb the literature and yet you've failed to come up with a single quote.
Now, beyond reasonable dispute, making a test case of such a famous example would not have passed peer review if it had been a misrepresentation.
So, still no quote? And appeals to authority? As we can see from following JayM's links even Dawkins himself says the letters are not fixed in place How is it that you know better then Dawkins how his example works? For $100,000 you think you could do better then this......George L Farquhar
March 11, 2009
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----“David Kellogg: “I didn’t notice any logical errors on my part that you corrected. Would you kindly point those out to me?" Your first logical error consists in not recognizing that when the word “wrong” is used without qualification, it always means objectively wrong. That error persists, by the way. Your second logical error is appealing to the Bible as evidence of child prostitution as if that would prove anything. Even if it were true, it would prove nothing. If something is wrong, then it doesn’t matter where you find the practice, even if you find it in the Bible. Of course, it is no small problem that child prostitution can be found nowhere in the Bible, which means that your bad logic is compounded by your false evidence.StephenB
March 10, 2009
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-----David: “What I did notice was this: you claimed to prove something, then claimed it couldn’t be proven, then argued by assertion, again and again, sans evidence.” I did assert that the natural moral law is a fact, and I did argue that “again and again” without evidence. That is true for one simple reason: The natural moral law is a self-evident truth. Self-evident truths cannot or need not be proven. What I did prove most successfully is that you do not follow your own doctrine of moral relativism by complaining about my “contemptible” behavior. In other words, I proved that you believe in objective morality in spite of yourself. On the other hand, I did not prove it in the abstract nor can I. If I wrote something that led you to believe otherwise, or, if more clarity is needed, there it is. ----“As to particular moral issues, I assure you, I object to infanticide; despise racism, ethnic bigotry, classism, misogyny, and homophobia; and support universal human rights. We relativists can and do advocate for human rights as much as you. You’re a supporter of gay marriage, too, I take it, or is gay identity contrary to universal morality? If so, what a peculiar universalism!” Do you object to these things at all times in all places and all circumstances, or do you object to them only in close proximity to you. You did not specify, and, as a moral relativist, you need to make that explicit. I notice that you left out abortion on your list. Would you care to go on record denouncing abortion as something that is inherently evil? If I understand your position accurately, you don’t think anything is “inherently” evil. I support gay rights insofar as gays have a right to be treated with equality and respect. They have every right to pursue happiness in their own way and without interference, including the right to enter into civil unions. I do not support the perversion of gay marriage because it violates the principle and the integrity of the institution. -----“Your concluding jeremiad contains some bizarre fantasies about what philosophical relativism leads to, or against. (What “secular tyrants . . . immerse children in pornography”?) Most of them seem to be cartoon versions of the local news, all about the world going to hell and weren’t things better back in the old days.” Which fact would you care to challenge? -----“Interesting side note: who led the Senate hearings exposing the Tuskegee study you allude to? Ultra-liberal Ted Kennedy.” Yes, reason dictates that injustice should be condemned whatever its source. Though it may seem so, I am not an ideologue. -----“FYI, here are some books I’m currently reading that apparently I should burn in favor of Lewis and Chesterton: John Ashbery, Collected Poems 1956-1987, Sharon Crowley, Toward Civil Discourse: Rhetoric and Fundamentalism, Cicero, De Inventione, De Optimo Genere, Oratorum Topica, The Bible (whoops! how’d that slip in there?), Arthur I. Miller, Insights of Genius: Imagery and Creativity in Science and Art, and Bruce Fink, Lacan to the Letter: Reading Ecrits Closely. Will you throw the match, Objective Moralist?” The only books you should burn are the ones which prompt you to reduce morality to personal preference and popular opinion. Of course, you should also keep the fire warm for any tome which causes you to question the existence of unchanging truth. Exception: If you can read these books while being grounded in the knowledge that truth exists, that’s different. In that case, you can read almost anything with profit.StephenB
March 10, 2009
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StephenB, I didn't notice any logical errors on my part that you corrected. Would you kindly point those out to me? I'd wager your definition of "logical error" is as elastic as your definition of "proof." What I did notice was this: you claimed to prove something, then claimed it couldn't be proven, then argued by assertion, again and again, sans evidence. As to particular moral issues, I assure you, I object to infanticide; despise racism, ethnic bigotry, classism, misogyny, and homophobia; and support universal human rights. We relativists can and do advocate for human rights as much as you. You're a supporter of gay marriage, too, I take it, or is gay identity contrary to universal morality? If so, what a peculiar universalism! Your concluding jeremiad contains some bizarre fantasies about what philosophical relativism leads to, or against. (What "secular tyrants . . . immerse children in pornography"?) Most of them seem to be cartoon versions of the local news, all about the world going to hell and weren't things better back in the old days. Interesting side note: who led the Senate hearings exposing the Tuskegee study you allude to? Ultra-liberal Ted Kennedy. FYI, here are some books I'm currently reading that apparently I should burn in favor of Lewis and Chesterton: John Ashbery, Collected Poems 1956-1987, Sharon Crowley, Toward Civil Discourse: Rhetoric and Fundamentalism, Cicero, De Inventione, De Optimo Genere, Oratorum Topica, The Bible (whoops! how'd that slip in there?), Arthur I. Miller, Insights of Genius: Imagery and Creativity in Science and Art, and Bruce Fink, Lacan to the Letter: Reading Ecrits Closely. Will you throw the match, Objective Moralist?David Kellogg
March 10, 2009
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David, if you think that I do not understand moral relativism, you delude yourself. Moral relativism and moral subjectivism are both evasions from moral responsibility, pure and simple. I have read many authors who promote this idea and it is no chore at all to uncover their logical errors, just as it was no chore to uncover your logical errors. I listed some of them earlier, to which you had no answer. Moral relativism is poison for the mind, destructive to the culture, and useless as a guide for jurisprudential wisdom and prudence. People really do have a human nature and there really is a morality appropriate to human nature. Because there is such a morality, we can, if we follow history and evidence, make responsible decisions about really important issues. There are only two responses to the information that the world reveals to us: Either desire conforms to truth (rationality) or truth conforms to desire (political correctness). It is this latter idea that causes people to lose their freedom, their opportunities, and even their life. Running away from truth doesn’t just make people stupid, it gets them killed. To deny that babies really are people is to encourage abortion and infanticide. To deny the inherent dignity of the human person is to promote eugenics and genocide. To question the natural moral law is to support racism, bigotry, and ethnic division. Your morality of subjectivism/relativism cannot speak to any of these social problems. Indeed, it contributes to them because it militates against the only possible solution to all social problems---a universal morality that binds everyone regardless of race, religion, creed, or nationality. Skepticism is a cultural mental disturbance brought on by mentally disturbed power seekers who would remake culture in their own image and likeness. Having lost control of their appetites and passions, they would lead us all down the same road. Because these power hungry social climbers act like animals, they want everyone to act like animals, especially children. So, they breed dutiful little worker bees in form of moral relativists, who will disbelieve anything accept evolution, which they have been brainwashed to accept without question. These dupes are capable of almost any level of self deception. They can, without a qualm say, “I’m personally opposed to abortion, but I have no opinion about public policy.” Then can, without embarrassment, observe a baby it a mother’s womb sucking its thumb, and wonder if it is really a living human being. They can, without hesitation, complain about soccer violence while ten year-old- children are having sex on school buses? They can, and did, withhold penicillin from blacks to study ways in which syphilis spreads and kills. This is what secularism, skepticism, and moral relativism have brought us. Yes, I know religious zealots have also created a few problems along the way, but that is not our current problem. When religious enthusiasts force children to pray, I will cross that bridge. My immediate concern is over secular tyrants who immerse children in pornography and train them to put condoms on cucumbers---in the name of moral relativism, of course.StephenB
March 10, 2009
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Kairosfocus @331
Notice how non-functional iterations that happen to have letters in the right place move forward and thereafter those correct letters don’t change;
Their frequency in the population does change. You are seeing sampling bias. The letters are not locked down as you claim. My comments have been delayed by the moderation system, but see 302 and 314 for links to discussions of the actual algorithm used by Dawkins' Weasel.
(BTW, that is also just as Dembski and Marks show in their peer-reviewed analysis.
If this claim is still in the article, it is incorrect. See my comment 314 for a link to where this was pointed out to Dr. Dembski quite some time ago.
Do you think peer reviewers would pass such an analysis of such a specific case if it were not accurate tot he case? And if you think so, what then is the point of the much vaunted peer review?)
Peer review is the first hurdle a paper has to clear, not the last. Once a paper is published it gets far more detailed review from far more people, if it is at all interesting. Peer review, like all human processes, is an imperfect process. Sometimes mistakes are made, sometimes errors slip through. They get caught in subsequent iterations. Science is self-correcting, not immediately ideal. JJJayM
March 10, 2009
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karosfocus @ 320
In the cell we find digital information storage, coupled to algorithmic information processing, using machines that physically implement encoded data and instructions. That is not mere analogy, that is instantiation.
In the cell we find long strings of molecules of different shapes and sizes. Strands of these molecules are copied by taking a reverse impression of their shapes which are then used as templates to make positive copies of the originals. It is analogous to the way keys were copied by taking a wax impression and then cutting a new key to fit the wax outline. Shall we say that the inner workings of a cell are actually a locksmiths?Seversky
March 10, 2009
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kairosfocus:
All you are telling us is that you are unable to see the truth when it stares you in the face. [Do I need to point to the story of a certain cave again? Seems so. Sadly.] Please, open your eyes and LOOK again at the sequential table of the changes in the 28-letter phrase. (A table that is credibly accurate to what Dawkins himself published.)
Is this obvious to you in the same way that ID is obvious?
Notice how non-functional iterations that happen to have letters in the right place move forward and thereafter those correct letters don’t change; ... by sharpest contrast, you can SEE that non-functional text goes forward, thanks to being a bit “warmer.”
If you don't understand how these results are obtained from a non-partitioned search, then you need to code it and try it out yourself. Again, unless your mutation rate is too high or your population is too low, those results are what we expect from the algorithm that Dawkins describes.
even through non-function, is rewarded. this is targeted, oracular search, not non-foresighted chance variation coupled to a reasonable analogue of natural selection. For, NS must select from differential success in FUNCTION.
Of course it's a targeted. Dawkins said so explicitly. And that means that there's an oracle that knows the target. Who said otherwise? And who said that it was supposed to be a reasonable analogue of natural selection? The point of WEASEL was to contrast cumulative selection with a monkey at a typewriter.R0b
March 10, 2009
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kairosfocus:
Now, beyond reasonable dispute, making a test case of such a famous example would not have passed peer review if it had been a misrepresentation.
I find it interesting that you trust the peer review process as applied to an as-yet-unpublished paper in an unknown venue. Do you feel the same about peer review as applied to the stacks of published evolutionary biology literature?R0b
March 10, 2009
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kairosfocus, I think I've answered Stephen reasonably well. I first ventured into the previously-offered example of child prostitution in [161], when I said I was "certainly against" it and that someone sells his child for money "should go to jail." Stephen responded [165] by asking "Why are you against it if there is nothing wrong with it?" -- a continuation of his previous misunderstanding of relativism. His whole comment there is so wrong-headed that it's hard for me to think that it's not wilful. But it fits a pattern of how relativism is misunderstood generally (as discussed by B. H. Smith in Belief and Resistance: Dynamics of Contemporary Intellectual Controversy, Harvard University Press). So I assume that the misunderstanding is not deliberate and that Stephen is arguing in good faith (although -- as I have said before -- with tactics I'd consider low).David Kellogg
March 10, 2009
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Rob: All you are telling us is that you are unable to see the truth when it stares you in the face. [Do I need to point to the story of a certain cave again? Seems so. Sadly.] Please, open your eyes and LOOK again at the sequential table of the changes in the 28-letter phrase. (A table that is credibly accurate to what Dawkins himself published.) Notice how non-functional iterations that happen to have letters in the right place move forward and thereafter those correct letters don't change; i.e. closeness to target, even through non-function, is rewarded. this is targeted, oracular search, not non-foresighted chance variation coupled to a reasonable analogue of natural selection. For, NS must select from differential success in FUNCTION. by sharpest contrast, you can SEE that non-functional text goes forward, thanks to being a bit "warmer." (BTW, that is also just as Dembski and Marks show in their peer-reviewed analysis. Do you think peer reviewers would pass such an analysis of such a specific case if it were not accurate tot he case? And if you think so, what then is the point of the much vaunted peer review?) There is no material misrepresentation of the Weasel program, or of its rhetorical intent, context and effect. (Indeed, onlookers, the minimising language now appearing above sounds a lot like damage control to me.) GEM of TKI PS: David, cf, SB at 329 to see a summary of what I fond seriously wanting on your part over the past few days.kairosfocus
March 10, 2009
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StephenB, your concluding recommendation that I burn some books is a refreshing moment of intellecctual candor on your part. It strikes me as revealing. This distinguishes it from the rest of your comment, which is characterized by repeated misunderstanding and your characteristic smugness. From the beginning, I said that I was against child prostitution. By this I mean that I would oppose child prostitution in any situation in which I might find myself. Somehow that was not enough for you, who are more concerned with my allegiance to abstractions than with moral action. Despite your characterization, I have never appealed to objectivity in this discussion. (BTW, back when I was an evangelical, I read Lewis voraciously. I have read him some recently but find him tiresome and juvenile as a philosopher. I never found Chesterton very interesting or even particularly funny.)David Kellogg
March 10, 2009
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---David Kellogg: "I have consistently held that moral standards are shared and social, not merely individual. That does not make them objective: that merely makes them widespread. They can even be deeply and closely held." Of course having shared moral standards doesn't make them objective. It makes them collectively subjective, which is another word popular opinion, which can be anything. If I transported you back to 1950, would you suddenly abandon your current moral relativism because an earlier generation would have found your views as bizarre as I do. In those days, almost everyone believed in objective morality. So, would you have simply accepted THAT majority without giving the matter another thought. Early in this dialogue, I asked you a very simple question: Is child prostitution wrong. At the time, I thought that surely you understood that “wrong” means wrong for all people at all times and under all circumstances, in other words, objectively wrong. In any case, you evaded that question and began laboring over the definitions of the word “prostitution” and the word “child.” Not many people would respond that way, least of all not not those in the majority with which you claim to identify. Having refused to give me a straight answer to a straight question, you began your foray into Old Testament exegesis, informing me that the Bible promoted child prostitution, apparently in an effort to characterize the act as a cultural phenomenon. When I explained to you that, in fact, there was no child prostitution in the bible, and it is a fact, it didn’t move you at all. Indeed, you (and one of your colleague) upped the anti and described forced marriages in the Bible as just one more example of child prostitution. When I informed you that, once again, you were in error, you continued on as sleek as ever. Even after all this, you would not acknowledge the simple fact that child prostitution is wrong. So, I decided to raise the bar a little bit myself and find out just how far you would take it. Since it was clear to me that you would never give me a straight answer, I decided to speculate that you may not find anything wrong with child prostitution, hoping to finally awaken you from your relativist slumber and to provide an example of your self refuting philosophy by taking note of the expressions of outrage that I knew would come. So, you did finally provide me with an answer---sort of. For you, child prostitution is wrong, however, I was not to take that as an admission that it is objectively wrong. Clearly, you didn’t understand that wrong means “objectively wrong” and you clearly still don’t understand that. On the other hand, you described my tactics for smoking out this admission as “contemptible,” an admission, by the way, that I likely would never have obtained without that tactic. Either way, I found it bizarre that a moral relativist would appeal to an objective standard for justice to criticize my behavior as immoral. Even at that, you didn’t understand the irony that was hidden in your outrage or the curious twist that your criticism of my behavior was based on a hidden appeal to the very objective standard of justice that you disavow. Now that you do understand that, (I hope), you now revert back to your moral relativism, which of course you never really left, and acknowledge that we are both entitled to our own subjective morality, except that you don’t approve of my subjective moral standard based on your subjective moral standard. Whatever books you are reading, burn them and start reading G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis.StephenB
March 10, 2009
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kairosfocus, Thank you for the clarification. I don't have anything to withdraw. The passage from Exodus clearly expresses a moral perspective we would find objectionable today. But it's a different world.David Kellogg
March 10, 2009
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kairosfocus:
And I strongly doubt that Mr Dawkins will ever publicly admit to his oracular, foresighted search tactics that he passed off as a true representation of what RV + NS (especially the selection part) is supposed to be able to do. But that is what he plainly did back to the 1980’s, as can be seen by inspection of his examples as they zero in step by step on eh preselected solution. ... You need to be a bit more skeptical of the claims and magic-show demos of Darwinist advocates.
It's strange that a toy illustration of cumulative selection would be controversial at all. That the ID camp continues, decades later, to promote the controversy and a misrepresentation of the simple algorithm is beyond strange. Dawkins describes the mutation in WEASEL as random. There is no indication that the mutation mechanism is smart enough to target only incorrect letters, or that the oracle provides any information about which letters are correct. Kairosfocus, you need to put some more thought into this before jumping to conclusions and unwarranted accusations. Or better yet, try it yourself. Unless your mutation rate is very high or your population is very small, you'll see the same monotonic improvement that Dawkins reports. (Note that the Evo Lab's Weasel Ware uses a population of 1, which obviously does not match Dawkins' description.)R0b
March 10, 2009
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David Cf esp. 164 - 5 on, especially the use of an Exodus reference and the onward discussion of child prostitution in the context of arranged marriages. Please, think about what you are implying by what you say. (And remember that in more traditional societies childhood effectively came to an end in the early teens.) While you are right that we have changed our views and approaches to the relevant timing of statuses, and thus to the suitable/advisable age for marriasge, that has more to do with the circumstances of our society than the difference between marriage and prostitution. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
March 10, 2009
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kairosfocus, Huh? For the first time ever, I think you have erred on the side of brevity. DavidDavid Kellogg
March 10, 2009
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David: Look at what ELSE you have said. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
March 10, 2009
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kairosfoocus, back in [161], where I first discussed the issue, I said explicitly that trying to equate Biblical arranged marriages and modern child prostitution "is kind of meaningless." My point was that no definition is historically stable. There is no objective standard. For example, communities -- not some external measure -- decide what a child is. When I made this simple observation, StephenB accused me of not being opposed to child prostitution. And I'm the one being "grossly offensive"? Please.David Kellogg
March 10, 2009
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Seversky: I have not sid that arranged marriages are a perfect or preferrred altertnative. What I have sd=said is that here plainly is something to be said for the way most marriages in most cultures were done across most history, inclduing Eurioopean history up to very recent times. I have not said that they were not open to abuse in a fallen world; as are all institutions. [For instance I see your govt just went back to funding the killing of embryos for scientific experimentation, in a context where it seems that non ethically challenged sources of stem cells have been advantageous on success and actual treatments. What does that say about the state of democracy, media, government, medicine and science in our civlisation? I am sure that 60 - 70 years ago, that would have been unthinkable in a society that still had significant respect5 for objective morality rooted in an understanding that there are moral truths that are as plain and as established as any truths.] What I have said is that they are emphatically not to be equated with prostitution or child prostitution. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
March 10, 2009
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Daviod You have plainly said much more than you now represent on the matter, alleging or strongly suggeasting an equation of arranged marriages -- which I do not necessarily agree with [but can see why they were in place in most societies for most of time] -- with child prostitution. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
March 10, 2009
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Seversky: In the cell we find digital information storage, coupled to algorithmic information processing, using machines that physically implement encoded data and instructions. That is not mere analogy, that is instantiation. GEM of TKIkairosfocus
March 10, 2009
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kairosfocus @ 315
A footnote: eh longstanding cultural situaiton of arranged marriages, and the associated dowry system, are NOT to be equated to prostitution, much less child prostitution. In fact, my profs from India often noted on how arranged Indian marriages were more stable and often more loving and mutually caring and trusting than western ones. In one case I knew fairly closely, that seemed to be a very real fact.
That marriages were arranged which successfully furthered the social, cultural and political ends of the participating families is not in dispute. Neither is the fact that some of those marriages developed into the loving and durable relaionships that we all hope marriages of any type will become. What we do not hear so much about are those arranged marriages which did not turn out so well and what proportion of the total they form. Some people look back nostalgically to what they believe were much more stable families and marriages in the nineteenth century. What they forget, or choose to ignore, is that, in those days, it was far harder for a woman to survive outside of marriage than it is today. We may never know how many women were trapped in miserable, loveless relationships for life because there was simply nowhere else for them to go. By the same token, in those cultures where marriages are still arranged, at least in some cases, if a woman leaves the marriage she can find herself exiled not just from her home but from her family, friends and culture as well. That is a terrible price to pay for someone else's mistake. In a few of the worst cases, as I'm sure you know, the women have been killed by their own relatives for the perceived dishonor they have brought upon the family. The strongest argument against arranged marriages, however, is that they are a breach of the human rights of the two partners in that they are deprived of the freedom and power to choose for themselves.Seversky
March 10, 2009
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