ID 101
by MikeGeneWhat is Intelligent Design? If you ask a critic, he will probably tell you that ID is a disguised version of Creationism and nothing more than a Trojan Horse to get God taught in the public schools. If you ask a typical proponent of ID, he will probably tell you that ID is the best explanation for various biotic phenomena. If you ask me, I'll give you a different answer.
For me, ID begins exactly as William Dembski said it begins "“ with a question:
Intelligent design begins with a seemingly innocuous question: Can objects, even if nothing is known about how they arose, exhibit features that reliably signal the action of an intelligent cause?
The first thing to note about the question is that you don't have to be a religious fundamentalist to ask it. You don't have to be a religious fundamentalist to consider it. In fact, you don't even have to be a religious fundamentalist to answer it.
The question is a good one, as it stems from the fact that certain things do exist in our reality only because they were brought into existence by an intelligent cause. If human beings did not exist, for example, Mount Rushmore would not exist. Thus, Mount Rushmore's existence is dependent on intelligent causation. So one begins to wonder if there are other aspects of our reality that are likewise dependent on intelligent causation. If so, can we detect them? If so, just how reliable is our detection?
This, in my opinion, is the very foundation of ID. It's not a position or socio-political movement or a system of belief. It is a question and expression of curiosity.
When we consider Dembski's question, many answer "˜no.' That is, they insist that we need to have information about the designers and their methods to detect design. This is the designer-centric approach.
The main problem with the designer-centric approach is that the truth of a design inference does not entail that we would also have independent evidence of the designers and their methods. For example, if some form of ETI seeded this planet with life 3.5 billion years ago, this would not entail that we would have the ability to study the ETI today.
Now, while I can respect the designer-centric approach, such that I do not demand its proponents abandon it, I think it illegitimate to expect everyone to answer Dembski's question with a "˜no.' In my mind, that is akin to throwing in the towel and giving up on an interesting question only because our current tools are inadequate to the investigative task. Yes, it is true that science relies on the designer-centric approach when it comes to things such as forensics and archaeology, but is this simply a matter of convenience or necessity?
If it is a matter of necessity, then it simply underscores the manner in which science is fundamentally limited in its ability to reconstruct the past. If intelligent design is indeed part of our biotic past, then science cannot ever hope to uncover it unless we are lucky enough to stumble upon the designers and/or their lab protocols and blueprints. Thus, science would be forced to look elsewhere and come up with an alternative story that does not involve intelligent design. While the non-teleological story may appear coherent and supported by pieces of circumstantial evidence, and while it can always be maintained with a bucket full of promissory notes, it would never converge on the reality of our past (again, assuming this reality includes ID).
The designer-centric approach not only gives up on the question of detecting design, but also gives up on trying to accurately reconstruct our past. There can be no evidence for design and there can be no evidence against design. Design would be forever hidden away firmly in our collective intellectual blind spot. The designer-centric position is thus fundamentally agnostic about ID.
On the other hand, things change if someone answers Dembski's question with a "˜yes.' At this point, we turn to these proposed methods for detecting design without the luxury of independent information about the designers. Do the methods work? If so, how reliable are they? And here you find all sorts of positions. The two most widely known methods are Michael Behe's concept of Irreducible Complexity and William Dembski's concepts of Specified Complexity and the Explanatory Filter. You will find people who think these methods have succeeded in detecting design and thus the payoff is in. On the other hand, you will find people who think these methods fail (this can either mean that there is no design or the methods are not up to the task of reliably detecting design). And then there are people somewhere in the middle (like yours truly), who is not convinced that the proposed methods have truly delivered a design inference, yet also think they are on the right track.
Thus, for me, ID becomes a challenging and exciting investigative search. If design, as a consequence of intelligent causation, exists amid biotic reality, it might only be the most difficult question any investigator can address. The obstacles are many. And one of the most annoying obstacles is not from Nature herself. It comes from the manner in which many are willing to paint the investigator as deceptive apologist for sectarian views simply because the investigator finds the Question to be so intriguing.
May 16th, 2007 at 7:44 am
This echoes a charge that has frequently been tossed my way in exchanges concerning OOL. Objections raised are also seen as evidence of giving up on research. Actually though, the unspoken objection to criticism of OOL, is not the fear that OOL research will be abandoned, but that an alternative proposal will be considered. But it is the consideration of alternatives that enables us to falsify or more strongly affirm a standard idea. Attempts to answer Dembski's question are consistent with the approach that human nature is best served when the human intellect has maximum freedom to explore, and analyze.
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2007 @ 7:44 am
May 16th, 2007 at 8:37 am
Hi Mike,
Not that you need/want my approval. But this is a good opening to a thoughtful thread. I approve.
Unfortunately, I have to run off to work, but I wanted to throw this into the mix.
As I have indicated in the past, I feel "Intelligent Design" is a loaded term. It has more value as a propaganda rallying cry than as a modest scientific proposal, in my opinion.
Bradford brings up good points when he talks about a holistic approach to approaching the study of evolution as opposed to when he is beating the Culture War drums.
Mike, when you talk about science, I see this holistic concept as the major thrust of your arguments. You present the idea that the RNA World and DNA World shouldn't be treated as separate things to be studied independently, because the evidence suggest otherwise.
Understandably, most scientists assume the RNA World couldn't have aspects fulfilling a future DNA World need because that would require some kind of predicting mechanism.
I look at the concept of "retrocausality" as an abstract concept of this prediction mechanism. To me, this concept covers not only the possibility of cosmological, time-independent processes but also a designing process predicting a future need.
I never got the time to look to see if there are scientists already discussing things like "holistic properties of evolution", but I wouldn't be surprised if there are. I, also, wouldn't be surprised to find this concept in your book, The Design Matrix.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 16, 2007 @ 8:37 am
May 16th, 2007 at 9:29 am
Hi MikeGene,
Perhaps you should place the blame for that where it belongs, which is with all the IDists who are deceptive apologists for sectarian views, who remain the loudest and most prominent advocates for IDism. If IDism had not come on the scene precisely as a vehicle to inject recycled creationist anti-evolutionary arguments into public school science classrooms, perhaps the perception would be different. As it is, you are in the unenviable position of being an honest used car salesman.
Comment by Aagcobb — May 16, 2007 @ 9:29 am
May 16th, 2007 at 9:46 am
Judging by the reception that other holistic and telic-oriented disciplines that challenge the core assumptions of a mechanistic, reductionistic, atheistic, accidental cosmos have received, I suspect not.
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 9:46 am
May 16th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Could you describe some of these disciplines? How do you know that these disciplines were mocked and marginalized because they offended dogmatists, rather than because they simply don't work? How is your statement different from the following?
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 10:00 am
May 16th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Hi All,
I know it is "wishful thinking" on my part, but would it be possible to discuss this without a continuation of the Culture War using different labels?
MikeGene has provided this opportunity for a compromised approach to addressing a scientific question.
Let's do science!
Provoking Scientific Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 16, 2007 @ 10:25 am
May 16th, 2007 at 11:49 am
Actually many of the "conventional" treatments in medicine appear to be mostly or entirely due to a placebo effect.
Heck, that even applies to exercise!
Application of the placebo effect can even provide anesthesia for surgery.
People who poo-poo the power of the mind to heal the body are living in the biomedical dark ages. We know that some patterns of thought and belief can literally kill you, is it such a surprise that other kinds of thought and belief can sometimes effect surprising or even seemingly "miraculous" cures? If certain kinds of medical practice are particularly effective in bringing about these kinds of cures, that is a good reason to use them, not to dismiss them.
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 11:49 am
May 16th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Parapsychology, for one.
Because the experimental literature, which you are evidently unfamiliar with, shows quite clearly that these phenomena are real.
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 11:52 am
May 16th, 2007 at 11:54 am
mcromer: Did you see me arguing that the placebo effect isn't real, or that mental states can't have a very real effect on the body? These things are quite demonstrable, and firmly within the realm of science. I was talking about claiming that the benefits of (insert practice here) are due not to the placebo effect, but to the manipulation of the patient's chi field, and that we really should be dropping some extra cash on chi research, because look, it works!
-Edit- Ah, a quick response.
Parapsychology has yet to, so far as I know, produce a useful result. James Randi would be pretty interested in hearing about it, I think.
I am unfamiliar with experimental literature demonstrating that chi fields or reflexology or any other manner of woo have existence and effect above and beyond that of a placebo. Did you have something to share?
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 11:54 am
May 16th, 2007 at 12:17 pm
I suspect not.
He doesn't even believe in the existence of hypnosis, which can be used to allow bone-sawing surgery without pain. But to him, hypnosis is just a weird belief system.
I think accepting the correlations of information transfer of psi is rather beyond him.
I was not referring to chi fields or reflexology. I am not aware of any double-blind replicated studies demonstrating those particular phenomena, unlike the case with psi effects.
In any event I have absolutely no issues with anyone practicing reflexology or any other kind of healing practice that is mostly or entirely based on placebo effects, since that is what much of "conventional" medicine gets its positive results from. And with the so-called alternative therapies, they are less likely to kill the patients through medication or surgery side-effects, as happens far too often in standard medical practice.
Of course there are instances where conventional treatment is highly effective, such as acute bacterial infection, trauma, or appendicitis. And the alternative healers I know would always refer patients to standard medical care in those cases. Generally the alternative practitioners are brought in to help facilitate the patient's own recuperative powers with chronic conditions where the standard medical treatment is ineffective.
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 12:17 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Um… what's a "chi field" and how does it work?
Comment by Joy — May 16, 2007 @ 12:26 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
No it wouldn't. Your perception would be then same. Instead of equating IDists with views associated with a small town in PA you would just find another excuse to avoid addressing Dembski's question.
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2007 @ 12:28 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
His encyclopedia is mute on the anesthetic properties of hypnosis, but mainly seems to say that the trance state is poorly-defined, and so claims about hypnosis can't really be evaluated.
The what?
If you have double-blind replicated studies, then how are you challenging the "core assumptions of a mechanistic, reductionistic, atheistic, accidental cosmos"
But that's just the thing–practitioners of homeopathy, reflexology, quantum chi dowsing or whatever else claim that they're not using the placebo effect. Do you have an issue with them lying about it? Do you have an issue when useless and highly unregulated alternative therapies take the place of medicine? Tell it to the orange man.
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 12:39 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Joy: Chi (sometimes romanized as Qi) is a Chinese concept of life energy. It's essentially The Force from Star Wars. Like so. Or so. Well, for the first half of the second one, at least.
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 12:45 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 12:51 pm
How do you know they lying about it? Are there published studies indicating that?
Unregulated does not necessarily mean useless.
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2007 @ 12:51 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 12:52 pm
Hi All,
I suspect many people assume I bring up things from my Christian Science upbringing (e.g. Scientific Statement of Being) because I want to dismiss teleological arguments as simply religious belief. This is not the case.
Christian Science is a comparatively logical religion and ethically resists compromising principles just because they might not be popular. For example, when I was younger I was told multiple times that my religion was "stupid" for not believing in hell.
In case you are interested in why I don't go around telling people I am a Christian Scientist, it has more to do with disagreeing with church dogma than religious reasoning.
Whether I am an open-minded Atheist or a Christian Scientist, I am open to the possibility of alternatives. However, I simply can't accept something without understanding it. And since I am an engineer, understanding usually means creating a mental model, a logically consistent description of how something can be true.
For reasons I think are apparent to most people, leaders of the ID Movement stay away from providing a "pathetic level of detail" that would allow understanding.
Salvador T. Cordova starts to provide such an understanding but, unfortunately, is too ready to hide behind Dembski's smoke and mirrors.
I believe MikeGene is working in earnest. At least his scientific arguments make sense to me.
There are plenty of people willing to start shaking their heads up and down in concert with others saying "it's obvious". I am not. I need to understand it and I am willing to do my share of work of providing a mutual, OMA model that others can share. However, don't be surprised if I ask a few provocative questions along the way.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 16, 2007 @ 12:52 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
Bradford:
Oh, no you don't. If I claim that I can heal your cancer with my bare hands, I don't get a pass because you haven't gone to extensive lengths to disprove me. We don't put drugs on the market simply because no one's proved that they're dangerous, and we don't accept woo simply because no one's proved that it doesn't work.
When a reflexologist, chi master or quantum dowser gets someone to regrow a missing leg, I'll be interested. Until then, a failure to submit to rigorous testing does not, in my book, buy them one whit of legitimacy.
I didn't say that they're useless because they're unregulated. They're dangerous because they're unregulated; they're useless because they don't work any better than placebos.
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 1:06 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Hi Bradford,
Actually, if IDism hadn't come on the scene the way it did, I probably would never have heard of it at all.
Comment by Aagcobb — May 16, 2007 @ 1:12 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
You're looking at the extremists and abuses and attempting to paint everyone with a broad brush. I'm personally familiar with one who advocates reflexology and with another who claims to have had treated some minor ailment as a result of it. I'm more conventional but do not rule out possibilities because they are not government sanctioned.
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2007 @ 1:12 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
Never heard of what- philosphical naturalism?
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Bradford:
What a coincidence; I don't either. I do default to assuming that any form of woo is snake oil unless I see evidence to the contrary. "Evidence" isn't a code word for "FDA approval"; the two are related, but they're not the same thing. So let's restate your last sentence:
Much better.
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Hi Guys and Gals,
Can we start talking about Science now?
MikeGene's OP talking about natural designers and ETI possibilities.
Here is a link to a Web Site that includes a multipage scientific paper discussing Nanobes. Nanobes are interesting and may be linked to the Martian metorite ALH84001.
Provoking Scientific Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 16, 2007 @ 1:24 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
I see you are presenting anecdotes instead of data.
Of course occasionally some wacky alternative treatment harms or kills a patient.
However, medical misadventure is the sixth leading cause of death in America. So the handful of people harmed by alternative medicine pales in comparison to the number killed by medical malpractice. If we add deaths due to medical side effects for non-malpractice events, this jumps to the fourth leading cause of death.
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 1:33 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:33 pm
Mike,
In principle I agree with everything you wrote. It is fair (and scientific) to ask whether designed objects exhibit characteristics that can be reliably detected by some methodology. The answer at the moment is a resounding "no," but that doesn't mean that the question is not scientific and worthy of study. What Dembski should have done is continue to develop and flesh out the CSI idea, instead of rolling up his first stab into a popularized book and declaring victory.
What ID needs is for people to get off their butts. If you think a CSI approach has merit, then take Dembski's work, correct his mistakes, improve it, and geez-Louise try it out "”as I have suggested before what I would do if I were a young ID researcher is work with circuits produced by genetic algorithms. (Are they designed or not?"”even before you apply your theory the field has to provide a definitive answer to that"”because if you can't, how could you ever decide if a flagellum was designed?) There you have a nice controlled laboratory. Imagine if your design inference engine decided that the 37,734th generation of a GA circuit was not designed, but the 37,735th generation was. You'd learn a helluva lot from such studies. You'd learn how to improve the methodology or you'd learn that it was time to give up and try something new. But in any case, you'd be doing scientific research.
Comment by David Heddle — May 16, 2007 @ 1:33 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 1:46 pm
That's not entirely fair. I'm just genrally not in the mood to type in all 300 pages of his writings.
There are two major components of ID:
1. Theories of Intelligence
2. Theories of Design
Dembski focuses most of his work on #2, especially codifying what architectures constitute a design. The starting premise is NOT that designs only come from intelligence, but rather he formalizes how man-made artifacts are identified.
Furthermore, he shows Darwinian evolution, when subjected to mathematical scrutiny yields absurd statements of the form
He does not delve much into #1 (theories of intelligence) nor would I expect him to because no one in the world can give an adequate definition of intelligence, not now, probably never. Even today we cannot really decide if Strong AI (Artificial Intelligence) is real.
Tipler, Penrose, others have explored theories of intelligence (both ultimate and proximal sources of intelligence), but there work has shown just how hard it is to define what intelligence really is.
Read the freely available writings on DesignInference.com to see things in detail and to understand theories of design and design identification. It really is not very different from the body of literature on cryptography and information theory and information science. You as an engineer, I expect would feel at home with the literature.
I am happy to discuss the notions with you. And remember:
Note that design is not defined by it's relationship to intelligent agency. When you understand that, you will have understood more than 90% of the people involved in this debate.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 16, 2007 @ 1:46 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
Bradford:
I would probably never had heard of IDism.
Comment by Aagcobb — May 16, 2007 @ 2:14 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 2:36 pm
grendelkhan:
Isn't the patient the best arbiter of whether or not a treatment is useful to him/herself? It sort of seems like concerns about traditional or woo-ful therapies people choose to avail themselves of is somewhat misplaced in a country that rates LAST among industrialized nations in safe and coordinated health care, where more than 100,000 people a year are killed by their health care providers.
Besides, many of our most effective medicines are derived from plant alkaloids known to traditional healers for hundreds or thousands of years. All that healers have ever done is try to facilitate the patient's own body to heal itself.
Ah, so. Vitalism. In Star Wars, manipulation of this vital force didn't rely on the existence of 'more evolved' intelligent life forms. It was mediated by single-celled blood parasites.
Comment by Joy — May 16, 2007 @ 2:36 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
mcromer: My anecdote was meant to point out that alternative medicine can be harmful when it takes the place of conventional medicine. But you're right; that's not data.
However, your comparison between the dangers of conventional medicine and those of alternative medicine isn't applicable. Can you say that, on the whole, the dangers of getting medical treatment, with its attendant risk of mistakes and malpractice, are greater than the dangers of essentially ignoring the illness? There is compelling evidence in favor of the efficacy of conventional medical treatment; there is no such evidence for the alternatives.
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 2:43 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 2:50 pm
No, they're not. There's a vast field of research on which treatments will lead to which outcomes, and how to diagnose symptoms. There's a reason why patients don't walk into the doctor's office and tell them what treatment they want.
A resurgence of woo may indeed have something to do with our broken healthcare system, but that doesn't suddenly make woo valid. And again, unless you can show me that fewer than 100,000 people would have died of their illnesses and injuries per year if they'd been treated with placebos instead of medical care, the rate of medical malpractice is a red herring.
To the first part, yes. Of course, you're probably better off taking aspirin than making willow-bark tea yourself; the dose and quality are much more tightly guaranteed, and you don't have to grind up bark. And yes, all this alternative stuff boils down to encouraging the patient, which is what the placebo effect is. Where I take issue is the claim that this makes their wacky claims about meridians of Force energy true, or that they're somehow a substitute for real medicine.
Heretic! Ain't no mystical energy midichlorians control my destiny. (But seriously, I was referring to the completely non-physical Force of the original trilogy.)
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Actually that's a very good question, one which mainstream materialist and reductionist Robin Hanson has been looking at very carefully in his academic research and covering on his blog.
And mustering an effective, high-quality placebo response is hardly the same as "ignoring the illness".
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 3:02 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
That number is only counting actual malpractice deaths.
You did not include those deaths caused by good medical practice that nonetheless caused the patient's demise because the treatments sometimes are lethal even when carried out properly (such as deaths in surgery, lethal side effects of appropriate medicines, etc.)
The actual rate of deaths caused by medical practice in the US is over 200,000 per year, which makes it the fourth leading cause of death, right behind heart disease, cancer, and stroke.
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 3:06 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 3:24 pm
Ooh, actual data! Thanks!
The RAND experiment to which Hanson refers appears to have compared necessary (as determined by the patient) medical treatment with necessary-plus-elective medical treatment. It did not compare patients who received medical care with patients who did not receive medical care. Also, you'd expect, if medical care were dangerous, that there be worse outcomes for those receiving more of it. The study definitely says something, but it doesn't say what you think it says.
As for the higher count of deaths due to medical care–are there instances where a procedure will be carried out that has a higher probability of mortality than doing nothing? I'd think that would be on-its-face evidence of malpractice, if any doctor went ahead and did that. As such, in a case where a procedure goes bad even though nobody actually made a mistake, the patient would presumably have had a significant chance of death in any case.
For example, take a thousand patients with a severe ailment. Half will die within six months if not treated. The surgery to fix it carries a one-quarter mortality rate, but if successful, has a very good (e.g., no more than baseline mortality) outcome. If you treat all one thousand patients, and the expected two hundred and fifty die of the surgery, I don't quite feel comfortable crediting those deaths to medicine, because the net effect of treatment was to save two hundred and fifty lives.
Okay, this is why I use anecdotes. The orange man mustered an expensive, high-quality placebo response. The outcome was the same as if he'd sat on his couch and kept his money. For some ailments, the placebo effect works well. For some, it doesn't. You can't placebo away cancer.
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 3:24 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
grendelkhan:
Excuse me? This is probably not the wisest thing to say to someone who just lost a loved one to the Amerikan Medical System. When you can demonstrate to me that our greedy or merely overworked doctors can reliably diagnose a problem and treat it without killing the patient - and that'll have to account for the reality Americans live (or die) with every day - I might consider them less dangerous than my local herbalist.
Besides, why do you think multinational pharmaceutical gigacorps spend billions every year advertising their drugs directly to potential patients on prime time television? Why, just come to our website and get a coupon for FREE drugs from your doctor! Gag me…
The case I am currently most familiar with isn't woo-ful at all. In fact, it's all about incompetent doctors and their dangerous drugs, complicated with singularly lousy hospital care. I could cure skin cancers (basal cell) with a beeswax-base salve I made once just to help my mother's skin heal before she started the next round of nasty chemical peels her doctor prescribed. She used it for two weeks before the next appointment, the cancer was gone by that time. Had to give that amazed doctor a jar and recipe because he said he wanted to have it analyzed.
Got most of the recipe from my father-in-law, who used to help his grandmother (who raised him) gather herbs out in southwestern Oklahoma. She was a tribal healer. For what he couldn't remember I substituted Mayapple root (American Mandrake), only because I'm partial to it because a sister was at one time the world's foremost expert on it as a treatment for cancer. It wasn't going to hurt anybody's skin, nor were the alcohol (to tincture the roots), the olive oil (for the Scotch pine shoots) or the water (decoctions of chickweed and cleavers). Quite good for wrinkles too, something I learned by having to remove greasepaint with olive oil for so many years.
Unless there's a reaction on a test patch, it won't hurt anybody, whether you've got sun-damaged skin or not. And it causes a lot less pain and disfigurement than those expensive prescription peels that cause open sores. Pokeroot or berry juice might work as well as Mayapple (both used traditionally to treat warts and skin cancers), but it would turn your skin purple…
I don't do the statistical analysis, the CDC, FDA, AMA, ABA, other oversight agencies and (in my link) the Commonwealth Fund do. I do know a little bit about gross medical malpractice (having spent 7 years to take the licenses of a few doctors who killed one of my children), but most of it is sheer incompetence and medical decision-by-accountant. A very great shame.
If you believe a hematite or quartz necklace cured your migraines, more power to you if it worked. I might try it myself if I develop migraines. Might work, won't hurt me. It seems you're more concerned about what people might believe than about whether or not traditional medicine will help or harm them.
What people choose to believe isn't a big concern for me. So long as they stay out of my way.
Comment by Joy — May 16, 2007 @ 3:50 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
David:
This is probably over my head, but I'll go for it, anyway: Did we design the GA? If so, then aren't we in effect designing the circuits? And I'm assuming that the whole process of circuitry designing is carried out via computers and automated machinery of some kind. Did we design that as well?
This is relevant, since Mike Gene's hypothesis of ID — front-loaded evolution — only claims that the original life-forms were designed. But that means the machinery that was in place to evolve was itself designed. How would you test this?
Comment by Bilbo — May 16, 2007 @ 3:59 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
Actually cancer is one of the diseases that is more responsive to mental effects.
There are very many, well documented cases of healing from cancer that involve prayer, faith healing, alternative medical treatments, and the like.
Of course, this does not mean that in some cases the traditional medical approach is not effective or should be abandoned. It all depends on the kind of cancer, cancer stage, outcome of traditional treatments, etc.
And not every person with cancer is going to get better with placebo-type healing. But some do, even after all standard treatments have failed. The medical literature on this is crystal-clear.
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 4:17 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 4:18 pm
Joy, I'm sorry to hear about your loss.
I've never met a doctor who didn't rail against those direct-to-patient ads as the worst idea the FDA ever had. They end up having the patient coming in and demanding drug X… which is, as I was saying, a bad idea.
Interesting! My cursory reading tells me that while basal cell carcinoma is rarely deadly, it doesn't just go away on its own. Did you ever get a follow-up from the doctor who had it analyzed? Did your mother receive any standard medical treatments in addition to the beeswax salve? (Note that my anecdote concerned a man who refused regular medical treatment for his cancer in the first place, and in fact delayed it because he wanted to try alternative therapy first.)
I'm offended by scam artists, especially those who cause harm. I wouldn't hold you at fault for buying a necklace; I do hold those hucksters who sell thousands of dollars in "medical magnets" responsible for cheating desperate people.
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 4:18 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 4:20 pm
Robin cites many additional studies that go into more detail about the net benefit of medical care.
The bottom line: not much benefit overall when you count the failures along with the successes.
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 4:20 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Bilbo:
If they'd only settle on a measure of information, you could just compare the complexity/amount of information in the program to that in the output, since (correct me if I'm wrong) it's frequently claimed that complex specified information (is there a definition for the 'information' part of that, if Shannon information isn't allowed?) doesn't increase through undirected processes.
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 4:22 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
What about scam artists in white coats who sell surgical procedures with no overall benefit? Like most ceasarian sections, for example?
At least spending $50 on magnets isn't going to kill you on the operating table. . .
Funny how your outrage is limited to people with little influence and power in society, instead of the folks at the top of the food chain whose products are just as unproven and often inherently much more dangerous. I suspect this is because your materialist ideology is hermetically sealed against the possibility of non-material causation, so anyone offering a plausible physicalist treatment is exempted from proving efficacy. No doubt if an alternative practitioner shows up with double-blind data showing their technique works you will disparage the research.
Comment by mcromer — May 16, 2007 @ 4:27 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
Indeed, OB/GYN practice is quite messed up in this country. What, did you think I was a big fan of C-sections or something?
Funny how several thousand becomes fifty. Yes, I'm less angry at small-time snake-oil salesmen than I am at big-time ones. Imagine that.
Oh, I have my own issues with the medical system. We're talking about alternative medicine because the claim was put forth that it's essentially ineffective. But it's an effective way to deflect attention from one set of scam artists–by pointing to another.
Instead of guessing, you could provide said research and see for yourself. But I suppose it's easier to accuse me of close-mindedness when confronted with nonexistent data.
Comment by grendelkhan — May 16, 2007 @ 4:34 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
grendelkhan:
The doctor (a Cuban immigrant) never got back to me on it. I figure he got his wife or committed assistant to produce it. I gave him a complete recipe, and he was a pretty good doctor, on a caring scale.
It's not easy stuff to make, but it works very well - at a certain stage of standard allopathic treatment, at least. Mom had done two of the chemical peel treatments. They left her face ravaged with open sores and scabs (places where the cancer was). My intent was solely to sooth and heal her skin before she had to start the third treatment. The cancer root was added as sort of an afterthought, because it couldn't hurt. And the salve was administered to ravaged skin - the sores where her cancers were.
I don't think the system (allopathic or alternative) is much interested in actual cures, though. Individual healers might be.
Scam artists are a dime a dozen, many of them cause harm, in all walks of life. But unless you can provide basic health care to upwards of 40 million citizens (and untold non-citizens) who have no access at all, you'll have people preying on desperation. A lot of 'em wear regular suits and work at insurance companies.
Alternatives do well because the system doesn't work like it should. That is NOT the fault of people who seek alternatives, before they get seriously sick or after "medical science" has sent them home to die.
If you've got to have major surgery to survive, good luck. Take your chances in the system, hope you don't die later of iatrogenic disease. If you've a serious condition, by all means get the best designer drugs available. But when I see good-looking, manly 30-somethings advertising Viagra or Cialis in prime time, I'm just flat disgusted. Why are 30-somethings having trouble getting it up? Why aren't we looking for reasons for THAT!!!??? What's wrong is something drugs can't really cure (and it causes blindness, just like your Mama told you!). But then you'll need more drugs to treat the side-effects of the drugs you think you have to have to survive or perform or just sleep at night and stay awake at work…
There's a lot of money in it. Money is reason enough for people to sell their souls. They do it quite often.
Comment by Joy — May 16, 2007 @ 7:12 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Hi Mike. I've given it long enough. The lack of interest in answering Dembski's question is striking. After all if ID is really all about religion one would expect an anti-IDist to soundly rebuke an affirmative response to this:
Because natural forces alone generate predictable outcomes when the precise conditions through which they operate are known and a characteristic of intelligence is a capacity to choose among options, a means of distinguishing between an intelligent cause and one that is not intelligently directed is suggested by differences in the respective properties of natural laws and a mind. Deterministic deviations would be an indicator and the origin of life a setting in which to search. Since the foregoing is obviously religious, anti-IDists are challenged to cite the specific book and related scriptural passage that inspired this.
Comment by Bradford — May 16, 2007 @ 9:52 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Short replies, because I'm dead tired.
Hi TP:
Yes, I understand that's how most people see it. But I have explained my reasoning about this term.
I often strive to see the big picture and in this case, my interest focuses more and more on the interface between ID and evolution. Of course, I'm not the brightest bulb around, but I make up for that with lots of patience.
The Matrix is intended as the first part of a trilogy.
Hi Aagcobb,
I don't waste too much energy on blame. I'm more focused on the implications. If indeed the "loudest and most prominent advocates for IDism" are "deceptive apologists for sectarian views," there is no reason it has to stay that way.
Hi TP,
Despite our differences, I'm starting to really appreciate seeing you around here.
It's only a hobby, so the earnest bit comes only with the spare time. But I do have a stack of science papers I hope to comment on throughout the summer.
Hi David,
And your analysis was spot-on.
Comment by MikeGene — May 16, 2007 @ 11:01 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 11:15 pm
Hi Bradford,
You wrote…
It's been a long day and I should be going to bed, but I'm not giving up.
Dembski's purpose for posing the question has nothing to do with "…a challenging and exciting investigative search." You know it, I know it, anyone seriously evaluating the pages and pages and pages of evidence Dembski provides knows it. Dembski is not searching, he is manipulating.
Mike appears to be searching. I believe him to be in earnest.
I am searching, I am in earnest.
When I hastily read the opening post, I thought Mike was attempting to compromise.
Maybe I was wrong and it was just another "I've given it long enough" tactic.So now what, Bradford? Does this mean you are MORE convinced that "the other side" has nothing to offer and you were right all along?Let's do science.
Science means posing questions to yourself, not to others.
Provoking Scientific Thought
P.S. Mike and I cross posted, I no longer doubt Mike's intentions with this post
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 16, 2007 @ 11:15 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Hi TP,
Now, to prove I am not the brightest bulb in the room, when I answered your question above, I interpreted 'earnest' to mean busy. I should point out that I am truly serious (and sincere) about my interest. I agree with you that it is not up to ID critics to answer (or even address) the question. We can ask them to see if they have anything useful to supply, but in the end, the question is intrinsically interesting and must be explored by the one who finds it interesting (and worthy of time).
Comment by MikeGene — May 16, 2007 @ 11:20 pm
May 16th, 2007 at 11:21 pm
Hi Mike,
Thanks, and you're welcome.
Sleep well.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 16, 2007 @ 11:21 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 12:16 am
I disagree with Mike. I don't think the typical IDist would say that ID is "the best explanation for various biotic phenomena." I think the typical IDist would be more likely to first slam "Darwinism" (whatever that's supposed to be) in one way or another, then say something vague about ID being somehow more "scientific." I speak from personal experience.
As a "movement," ID is almost entirely PR and politics, and nearly 100% science free. That's what I think.
Okay, psychoanalyze away!
Comment by takuan — May 17, 2007 @ 12:16 am
May 17th, 2007 at 6:49 am
Critics of ID are motivated by their religious convictions. Their criticisms are heavily laden with invective and short on scientific points. ID is generally imputed at point of origin, for both the universe and life on earth. Criticism of fine tuning arguments and ID friendly OOL flow from weak counter-evidence.
Comment by Bradford — May 17, 2007 @ 6:49 am
May 17th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Hi taukan,
Yes, that a very common perception. The question is whether you can distinguish the concept of ID, and its discussion, from the "movement." My experience shows me that most critics don't have this ability. So if I lay an argument on the table, are they really critiquing it or critiquing something their mind translates into existence?
Comment by MikeGene — May 17, 2007 @ 6:54 am
May 17th, 2007 at 6:54 am
Hi TP.
Dembski's purpose is to illustrate how utterly reasonable an intelligent design approach is. In addition, the question contrasts with the irrational refusal of critics to even consider the question. BTW, for doubters, my challenge still stands. Cite the religious book and the associated scriptural passage indicating this comment is religious in nature.
Comment by Bradford — May 17, 2007 @ 6:54 am
May 17th, 2007 at 7:35 am
Hi Bradford,
You wrote…
"There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.
All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all.
Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error.
Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal.
Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness.
Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."
The name of the book it came from is Science and Health with Key to the Scripture, by Mary Baker Eddy. link
Congratulations, you have manipulated me into do something I did not want to do. You can now accuse me a artificially conflating ID and religion and/or how Christian Science isn't the same thing as ID and/or any number of Culture War come backs.
Please try to listen. My attititude about ID being religious is SO WHAT?
Let's do Science.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 17, 2007 @ 7:35 am
May 17th, 2007 at 7:51 am
The hypothesis that an object is 'designed' immediately implies a designer and a mechanism to implement the design. Intelligent Design begins (and apparently ends) by assigning at least one characteristic to the designer"”intelligence.
When we attempt to establish that an object is an artifact, we look for the causal link between the artist, the art and the artifact; the perpetrator, the modus operandi, and the crime; the mechanic, the mechanism, and the machine. If we have a suspected artifact, we certainly do collect evidence concerning the actual object, and we look for evidence concerning aspects of its creation. The chisel marks. The footprints. The culture. If these aspects are missing, we would be very suspect of our conclusions. Any such claim should be held with great skepticism. And, indeed, the study of these aspects is the interesting part of the investigation. Just shouting "Design" reveals a shallow understanding, at best.
But the Intelligent Design Movement says that their claims are substantiated. And this is the false leap. They have at most a speculation, not even a hypothesis as the claim doesn't lead to specific empirical predictions. It is Designer-of-the-Gaps. There are many instances of inexplicable complexities in nature that were once attributed to a Designer; from planetary orbits to lightning hurled at the wicked.
[As an example of a silly CSI calculation, what are the odds that all seven ancient planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) would be in the same plane (within 7-degrees)? Well, that would be ((7/180)^7 = less than one in a billion. But the calculation is just nonsense as it is based on the false assumption that the orbits are randomly arranged. We now know that the ecliptic plane is due to an underlying symmetry, an artifact of the Solar System's creation from a rotating and collapsing stellar nebula.]
Certainly, it is possible that a monolith was placed on Earth millions of years ago to manipulate the human genome. But outside of human imagination, there is no evidence of such. Nor is there scientific evidence that agency was involved in the origin of life.
If the hypothesis doesn't imply specific empirical predictions, then, at best, you have speculation.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 7:51 am
May 17th, 2007 at 8:33 am
There is as yet simply no agreement or consensus among rational people about whether a science is or isn't possible that would be capable of determining whether a physical object of any sort"”–the universe, the Empire State building, electrons, a tree, a golf ball, a black hole, the Pyramids, or a bacterium"”—is or isn't the result of being designed by a mind.
If science aims to investigate and understand reality, then science ought to inquire into the nature of intelligence and of design, since we take those things to be real. Part of those inquiries will explicate the notions of 'evidence of intelligence' and 'evidence of design'. There will be some level of material complexity and/or functional structure that will generally count as evidence of intelligence and/or count as evidence of design.
If and when there are established, scientific criteria for intelligence and design (it's clear that they are nowhere near being established), then we can ask the question of whether the biological data furnish us with types of evidence that meet those criteria.
In the meantime, it is premature for either IDers or Darwinians to say that there definitely is, or that there definitely is not, evidence of intelligent design in the biological data, because there are no established scientific criteria for the applicability of those concepts.
We typically think that the existence of computers and computer code indicate intelligence and design. We need to make that inference more precise in order to be able to make, or rule out, a similar inference regarding biological data, if only because those data include computer codes, apparently.
It is not a good objection to say that we 'know' that computers and computer code are intelligently designed because we can see people at work doing the designing, and that this is why those cases are different from the evolution of species case. And that is because we don't, in fact, physically observe anyone's intelligent, designing consciousness. What we literally see when we look at a computer scientist at work are complicated material bodies in various states of mathematically intelligible motion. That's also what we see when we observe any life form or investigate its history. In other words, the cases of intelligent design that we 'know' about are no different in terms of physical observation from the cases in biology, except for the precise form and kinds of complexity involved.
If science is meant to explain the origin of species, it will have to explain the origin of codes. There must be a scientific way of making precise what types of material motions, or what types of complexity of structure and function license an inference to intelligent design, and what types do not.
The necessary degree of precision has not yet been established. ID in principle is essentially asking that scientific criteria of intelligence and design be established, and then used to evaluate the biological data we have, to see if those data license an inference to intelligent design.
I don't see anything unscientific in principle with that.
Comment by stunney — May 17, 2007 @ 8:33 am
May 17th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Hi Zachriel,
You write:
Yes, I address the designer-centric approach in my essay.
I never shout "Design."
I have never said that my claims are substantiated.
What type of data would cause you to suspect intelligent agency was involved in the origin of life?
Comment by MikeGene — May 17, 2007 @ 8:35 am
May 17th, 2007 at 8:40 am
Bradford, you don't know what my religious convictions are (I don't believe forums and blogs are a good place to be explicit about such things). Besides, this is supposed to be about science, isn't it? My motivation arises out of a sincere interest in science, and a desire to understand. Until and unless ID (individually or collectively) can show real progress beyond slamming "Darwinism," I will continue to be skeptical.
Comment by takuan — May 17, 2007 @ 8:40 am
May 17th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Just to be clear, I'm not posing an argument to your position, nor attempting to ascribe a position to you, but to the claims of the Intelligent Design Movement. I understand you may not agree with these claims which you had briefly quoted. You posed a rhetorical question.
The answer is probably not "reliably". But we know all sorts of things. When we examine an artifact, we compare it to a substantial library of knowledge. Arrowheads do not exist in an evidentiary vacuum.
And the response is that we can conceivably reach tentative conclusions, but should be very skeptical absent confirming evidence.
Trying again.
If we have a suspected artifact, we certainly do collect evidence concerning the actual object, and we look for evidence concerning aspects of its creation. The chisel marks. The footprints. The culture. If these aspects are missing, we would be very suspect of our conclusions. Any such claim should be held with great skepticism. And, indeed, the study of these aspects is the interesting part of the investigation. Just shouting "Design" reveals a shallow understanding, at best.
If the hypothesis doesn't imply specific empirical predictions, then, at best, you have speculation.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 9:25 am
May 17th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Zachriel wrote:
The scientific explanation of planetary orbits or lightning is couched in terms of 'laws of nature'. The origin, finely tuned content, and stability of these 'laws' is a far bigger mystery than planetary motion or lightning were ever considered to be.
These laws are not themselves physical objects but abstractions, and yet they are held to determine what happens to physical objects. How can abstract entities do that? But if, instead, the 'laws' are not real entities causally determining how physical objects must behave, but simply our shorthand descriptions of how physical objects normally behave, then how does the current behavior of physical objects control their future behavior—why does the behavior exhibit such an amazing degree of regularity? If there is no intentional control involved, it would be more likely that regularity would only obtain some of the time, and be interspersed with bouts of non-lawlike behavior.
Comment by stunney — May 17, 2007 @ 9:37 am
May 17th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Substantial evidence of large-brained, learning, problem-solving, plan-producing, hierarchically-organized organisms capable of abstract communication and tool-use constructing the Empire State Building strongly supports the scientific hypothesis that intelligent agency was involved in the process.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 9:53 am
May 17th, 2007 at 10:05 am
Sure. Of course, many laws of nature have been unified due to underlying symmetries. That's why we have terms such as "electromagnetic" or "electro-weak", and a Universal Theory of Gravity.
As more and more is learned, greater and deeper symmetries are found. Ultimately, the question can be restated as "why is there something rather than nothing." There is no known scientific answer to this.
"Likely?" That statement has no scientific foundation. There is no valid scientific answer as to why there is something rather than nothing, or regularity rather than irregularity. However, science can describe those regularities and resolve underlying symmetries. But this limitation doesn't allow one to justify ignoring what has already been learned.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 10:05 am
May 17th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Hi Zachriel,
I see. You want to inject the "claims of the Intelligent Design Movement" into this discussion.
What claims did I briefly quote?
Yes, I have addressed the designer-centric approach.
Which is what I do.
But this is not very helpful. What type of data would you count as "chisel marks" and/or "footprints?"
Comment by MikeGene — May 17, 2007 @ 10:15 am
May 17th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Once upon a time, (some rather naive) people used to explain a nail in the wall by a hammerer. But we now know, in fact, that the nail is explained by a hammer.
Comment by Brian Killian — May 17, 2007 @ 10:17 am
May 17th, 2007 at 10:19 am
And the really interesting question to ask is this: What type of hammer was used to drive that nail into the wall?
Comment by MikeGene — May 17, 2007 @ 10:19 am
May 17th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Zachriel wrote:
How do you know that the observed behaviors were instances of learning, plan production, problem solving, abstract communication, and tool use? These concepts presuppose intelligent agency. You can't know just from the behavior that something is a plan, a use of a tool, etc.
Maybe the behaviors were simply thrill-seeking. Maybe the behaviors were utterly irrational or self-defeating, as might be the case if these human organisms were trying to reach the center of the Earth, but kept making extremely bad mistakes, such as 'building a tunnel in the wrong direction'. Maybe what was designed was not the building, but the lunches the workers ate there, with the building itself being an unintended and largely unnoticed by-product of foraging for food.
Since you don't know what the goal was, whether the goal kept changing, or even if there was a goal, you don't know if the behavior indicates anything in particular to do with intelligent design.
Comment by stunney — May 17, 2007 @ 10:32 am
May 17th, 2007 at 10:34 am
No doubt you noticed, Mike Gene, that during all your ID 101 lectures some of the students were giggling amongst themselves, shooting spit balls at the other students, and occasionally dozing off.
Since I paid attention during the lectures I'm way ahead of these guys and wonder when the ID 201 classes begin.
Comment by Rock — May 17, 2007 @ 10:34 am
May 17th, 2007 at 10:40 am
Huh? You quoted Dembski.
There is no such evidence that I am aware of. That question would clearly be the responsibility of those claiming design.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 10:40 am
May 17th, 2007 at 10:44 am
The fact that a plan is drawn and then executed is intelligent agency by any reasonable definition.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 10:44 am
May 17th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Hi Zachriel,
So what? He asks a good question and I take it from there. Would you rather I pretend I came up with the question?
I was asking what type of data you would count as such evidence. You declared a truth statement about our shared world "“ "Nor is there scientific evidence that agency was involved in the origin of life."
Comment by MikeGene — May 17, 2007 @ 10:45 am
May 17th, 2007 at 10:47 am
Hi Rock,
LOL. You win the Comment of the Month award.
I'm waiting too. Hopefully, not much longer.
Comment by MikeGene — May 17, 2007 @ 10:47 am
May 17th, 2007 at 11:36 am
MikeGene, I'm rather surprised you are taking this tack. I've always found you to be very reasonable.
You said that it was I who "injected the 'claims of the Intelligent Design Movement' into this discussion." Yet you started your post with a quote by Dembski concerning what he considers the central issue of the Intelligent Design Movement.
I agree that it was a good question for exploring the scientific issues surrounding design. Your original post was well-thought, and I responded in detail.
A valid scientific hypothesis that leads to specific empirical predictions. Let's look at a case study:
We see a nail in a wall. We know about walls. We know about nails. We know about hammers. We know about hammerers. We know the history of walls, nails, hammers and hammerers. We compare our knowledge of nails with the nail that we observe. If, for whatever reason, we are still unsure, we study the nail in detail to see if it appears to have the marks associated with being pounded and driven through the wall. Perhaps, we could locate the plans, the contractor. And so on.
I am familiar with much of the scientific evidence, and I am aware of the arguments of Dembski et al. I am more than willing to learn. If you have specific empirical support, I would be happy to consider it.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 11:36 am
May 17th, 2007 at 11:50 am
Mike Gene wrote:
I've asked that question repeatedly over the past couple of years and have come to a conclusion that rather startled me when it first dawned on me: the most vociferous opponents of ID treat their own position in practice as unfalsifiable.
They're very reluctant to specify what would qualify as falsifying evidence a) because what they really believe is that nothing would qualify; b) because they already impose their interpretation on all the data, and find it very threaty to have their imposed interpretation challenged, even though it's an interpretation that's quite open to challenge, and specifying evidential criteria for falsifying their view would reveal this fact even more starkly; and c) because as soon as they proposed a reasonable candidate for being evidence against an unintentional origin for living species, ID would become a scientifically testable theory, which its opponents desperately don't want it to become, ever.
It's not that long ago there really wasn't any science, let alone good science, of theoretical entities like quarks and Higgs bosons, etc. Imagine if the scientific community today was as open to the possibility of developing a science of intelligent causes of design as it is to string theory.
I have to ask, why isn't it? Is it because intelligent causes of design (which we know exist"”such causes include at least ourselves), don't lend themselves as easily as, say, water to a reductionistic and materialist analysis? Not that I'm sugesting that any ultra-rational folks like the 'brights' among us would ever allow such nasty things as philosophical biases and prejudices to cloud the pristinely pellucid rationality of their thinking.
And what's amusingly ironic about all this is the implicit anti-Copernican spirit that seems to waft over much of the scientific establishment at convenient moments: the spirit that implies that designing causes at least as intelligent as humans are of necessity extraordinarily rare and special things that poor wee science can't reasonably, or even possibly, be expected to find evidence for.
Comment by stunney — May 17, 2007 @ 11:50 am
May 17th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Hi Zachriel,
You wrote…
I suggest you reread the exchange. Mike has the habit of parsing his words carefully. You and I may not like his implicit support of ID, but it is usually implicit, not direct.
Often, Mike and I end up in an argument where he claims he is just defending ID's right to free thinking. I have called it "shield bashing" in the past.
I only skimmed the exchange, but it looks like Mike is the one holding the shield and you are the one holding the sword. Even if that wasn't your intent.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 17, 2007 @ 11:53 am
May 17th, 2007 at 11:56 am
That is an open question for ID, however, Dembski has falsified the claims of the supposed proof of the adequacy of Darwinain or other naturalistic mechanisms. Naturalism (as in chance and necessity) has been demonstrated as an unrealiable mechanism for the orign and evolution of biotic reality.
His ideas were independently supported by Trevors and Abel's peer reviewed article on the Origin of Life:
Trevors and Abel stated the case succinctly and elegantly. Dembski was more detailed in the hundreds of pages he has written. But the above paragraph is as succinct a statement of falsification of naturalism as I've ever seen. Dembski adds rigor and formalism.
If then naturalism has been mathemetically demonstrated as an insufficient mechanism, other sources for the information content of genomes can be hypothesized.
However, from an operational standpoint (as in making money for biotech), the Design inference might be used to identify designs not easily detectable through traditional means.
The major area would be finding linguistic patterns in junkDNA which will lead to medical advances. That is right up ID's alley.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2007 @ 11:56 am
May 17th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
We see a nail in a wall. We know about walls. We know about nails. We know about hammers. We know about hammerers. We know the history of walls, nails, hammers and hammerers. We compare our knowledge of nails with the nail that we observe. If, for whatever reason, we are still unsure, we study the nail in detail to see if it appears to have the marks associated with being pounded and driven through the wall. Perhaps, we could locate the plans, the contractor. And so on.
I find that this "just-so" thehammererdidit theory strains all credibility.
You did not see the exact moment that the nail was purportedly driven by the alleged hammer into the once hypothetically pristine wall. Your suggestion that nail-less surfaces can somehow become walls with nails is therefore unproven.
Indeed if nails *could* be driven into walls we would see a transitional series, starting from nails near walls, including nails half-in walls and ending with the form we observe today, the nail entirely embedded in a wall. If nails *could* be driven into walls then just about every wall in the world would have a nail stuck into it, but how is it that my walls are innocent of nails?
It seems far more reasonable to me that the wall was built with the nail somehow embedded into it. Perhaps the bricklayer or carpenter put it there when the wall was half-built, only giving the impression of a nail driven into a wall by a hammer by building around the nail in such a way to embed it in the completed wall.
No, I do not propose to be able to explain why the wall-builder would do this. The wall was built a long time ago, and his methods were mysterious and abstruse. Anyway, your question is entirely outside the scope of the question I was trying to answer: "was this nail hammered into a wall?".
Once we have established that this nail was not and could not have been hammered into the wall, we can then go on to examine your question of motive. Until then, pleas stop complicating this matter with your absurd nail-hammering questions.
Let me put it another way, unless it can be shown beyond all doubt that the nail was hammered into a wall then the opposite must be true… it's a dychotomy, isnt it? If the nail wasn't hammered into the wall (as you have suggested) then it must have been put there by some other method, thus confirming my own theory of how nails get embedded into walls.
Sal
Comment by salimfadhley — May 17, 2007 @ 12:01 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
The point is however, in light of the fact naturalism and materialism have been mathematically falsified as adequate mechanisms, why keep driving science toward solutions that cannot possibly succeed.
At least ID has the advantage of not being self-defeating mathematically in it's quest. It is a better theory by defualt on those grounds alone.
Naturalism (as in chance and necessity) as an explanation for design in biology can not possibly be proven correct. Such a quest is the quest for square cicles and perpetual motion machines. It's a waste of time and money and it's bad science because it is illogical.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2007 @ 12:03 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 12:21 pm
Zachriel wrote:
What has no scientific foundation is the claim that the great regularity and symmetry characterizing the physical world is likely due to chance or to impersonal necessity.
If houses built themselves, it's more probable that they would not be symmetrical nor exhibit great regularity in the materials and styles used since there are many more ways to be constructed than just the symmetrical and regular ways.
Comment by stunney — May 17, 2007 @ 12:21 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
That is not a typical use of the word "naturalism" and subjects your statements to misinterpretation or confusion. There are two uses of the word "natural".
1) natural-artificial
2) natural-supernatural
"Naturalism" nearly always refers to the second sense of the word. (As opposed to "natural" which may be used in either sense). In this sense, there is nothing unnatural about human activities and subject to scientific investigation.
There seems to be a problem with the peer-review at Cell Biology. If the proof is mathematical, it would seemingly belong in a mathematics journal.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 12:30 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Crystals are highly regular and symmetrical structures that scientifically appear due to "impersonal necessity". However, as I previously stated, there is no ultimate scientific explanation as to why there is something rather than nothing, or why there are regularities rather than not.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 12:38 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
And notice, "natural" has meaning only in reference to an intelligent agency.
1. natural-artificial (artificial meaning made by human intelligence)
2. natural-supernatural (natural as contrasted to supernatural intelligence)
Thus, as I pointed out before, "naturalism" and "naturalistic explanations" are worthless to try to describe science by because:
1. If God exists, naturalism is false
2. If God does not exist, "natural" doesn't not really have any meaning except maybe in contrast to man-made objects, but this too is problematic since if man only natural, it's hard to justy a demarcation except only for convenience
Natural has meaing in the context of a universe with intelligent agencies that are decoupled from what is natural.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2007 @ 1:01 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:04 pm
Salvador said:
This is worrisome. I would have thought that a design inference automatically implied intelligent agency. Where have I gone wrong?
Comment by onething — May 17, 2007 @ 1:04 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:13 pm
But not all intelligence is necessarily supernatural (nor is every supernatural influence necessarily an intelligent agency), hence the possible confusion. No one can make you use standard terminology, but not doing so might lead to unnecessary confusion.
True by the definition of Naturalism and God.
Sense 1) "except maybe in contrast to man-made objects" is one valid and very important use of the word.
Sense 2) Because we can create categories for the purposes of discussion that might be empty, this sense is also valid even if Philosophical Naturalism is true.
In any case, just reading your single sentence is enough to show how important it is to be careful in the application of these terms. I don't want to belabor the point, but will bring it up again if it results in conflation.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 1:13 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Zachriel wrote:
Yes, science teachers illustrate this by pouring little spheres into a square box, etc.
How do the spheres get to be identical? Oh, that's easy.
By intelligent design at the supplier's factory. Impersonal necessity then does its part.
Comment by stunney — May 17, 2007 @ 1:19 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I have no idea what that means. However, crystals can be observed forming in a variety of natural settings. Ironically, gemstones were once thought to be forged by gods.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 1:25 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
It would be an invalid deduction to say it automatically did. Dembski was correct to be circumspect.
Now, one can hypothesize design only proceeds from an intelligent agency. It is a falsifialble hypothesis, and thus is in the form of a Popperian scientific hypothesis.
All scientific theories in the strict formal absolute sense are unprovable, but they are in principle falsifiable ala Karl Popper.
It is however, scientifically appropriate to say: "only intelligent agencies can create complex designs". It is an unprovable, but falsifiable hypothesis ala Popper.
If that seems to vague, we can argue for specific artifacts, i.e. "only intelligent agencies can build self-replicating Turing Machines". That is a hypothesis which can be described to what ever level of detail one wishes with little or no ambiguity. It is formally unprovable, but it is falsifiable, therefore it is in the form of a scientific hypothesis.
Getting back to your concern:
Consider that it is impossible to formally prove that there are other conscious intelligent beings in the universe aside from yourself. How do you know, for example that a person really experience the world like you do? This question was related to the Turing Test.
Thefore if we cannot formally prove there exists conscious intelligent beings (aside from yourself), one cannot formally prove ID in the absolute strictest sense. But neither can we prove the validity of science either. What we can do is argue that the ID inference is as reasonable as any other unprovable assertion which we accept . Examples of such accepted but unprovable assertions are:
1. the sun will rise tomorrow,
2. human beings are conscious intelligent beings like me
etc.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2007 @ 1:25 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:32 pm
Zachriel wrote:
Near-perfect symmetrical structures can be produced simply by pouring a stream of small balls into a square box, whereupon a pyramid inevitably forms. The balls either settle in a pyramid-building position or bounce out. The resulting shape—like crystalline structures found in the natural world—-appears to have been carefully designed; in fact it is merely a consequence of the random flow of spherical objects over a square framework.
My point is that the little balls were designed to be identical. If they were of random size, or not almost perfectly spherical, the symmetrical pyramid effect would not occur. Impersonal necessity then does its part.
Comment by stunney — May 17, 2007 @ 1:32 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:34 pm
We see a nail in a wall. We know about walls. We know about nails. We know about hammers. We know about hammerers. We know the history of walls, nails, hammers and hammerers. We compare our knowledge of nails with the nail that we observe. If, for whatever reason, we are still unsure, we study the nail in detail to see if it appears to have the marks associated with being pounded and driven through the wall. Perhaps, we could locate the plans, the contractor. And so on.
To paraphrase MG, the really interesting question is what type of hammer was it.
Things are not that murky. We know the end of this story even if we cannot, with certainty, nail down the begining in fine detail.
We would see transitional states to minimal genones and DNA with sequentially functional codons forming in extra-cellular environments. If that did not occur because a random/selection process is not implicated in the origin of life then there should be fingerprints to that effect. There are.
Comment by Bradford — May 17, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:39 pm
A scientific hypothesis has to lead to specific empirical predictions. Hypothesis, a tentative assumption made in order to draw out and test its logical or empirical consequences.
Is an astrolabe a complex design? Are complex planetary orbits across the sky designed?
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 1:39 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
MikeGene: So what? He asks a good question and I take it from there. Would you rather I pretend I came up with the question?
.
You introduced the phrase into the discussion with Mike. Mike posed what you described as a "good question for exploring the scientific issues surrounding design." The fact that the author of the question is Dembski does not make Mike's use of the question an example of an "Intelligent Design Movement."
Comment by Bradford — May 17, 2007 @ 1:40 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
Are you making a scientific claim that atoms are "round" due to design? What are the empirical implications of this design assertion? How can you distinguish these designed atoms from something non-designed?
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 1:40 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
The way to solve it is to excorcise "naturalism" as a necissity for scientific inquiry. It adds little value. Mark Perakh (of all people) seemed to agree, for the very problem of definitional issues. A statement is true or false. Saying whether a statement is consistent with naturalism or not is less important that if it's true or false.
Thankfully the discourse can be formalized such that these philosophical discussion need not be addressed. One can simply ask, "is mechanism X sufficient to create outcome Y". That was the question Trevors, Abel, and Dembski have asked.
I have tried to point out, the question is really not far from asking, "is this body of information compressible to a more compact representation."
We ask that question all the time in the realm of data compression (ZIP files, Mp3s, etc.). But there is a very parallel issue with respect to the proposed mechanisms of evolution. That is where the discussion is more rigorous and not subject to philosophical fluff.
If natural means:
1. chance and necessity, then Trevors and Abel and Dembski have argued why it cannot be the cause of life or other designs (like self-replicating Turing Machines)
2. not intelligently made then one has the various definitional problems we discussed.
At least definition #1 can be somewhat quantified or described mathematically.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2007 @ 1:48 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
Philosophical Naturalism is not required in science. I don't find the natural-supernatural dichotomy to be particularly useful, especially in scientific discussions. I prefer a methodological definition that avoids most of the demarcation problems. Science is as science does.
We observe some aspect of the natural world. We form a generalization concerning those observations. We then deduce from that generalization an empirical test. We then verify this prediction with new observations. We modify or discard our generalization as necessary, all the while shaving off extraneous assumptions. We communicate our results so that other observers can replicate and extend our findings. We continue this process and eventually build confidence in our model.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 2:04 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Cool! I don't think I've won anything since a high school track meet. (Blue ribbon in the 400.)
Some students didn't even understand Dembski's "seemingly innocuous question."
Even human designers design and construct objects and processes that no theory of "natural" science predicts.
I.e., designers do things that "natural" science does not predict–Or even apparently accept the existence of!–Does the Empire State building actually exist?!
I don't think so! No ("natural" science) theory either accounts for or predicts its existence.
IOW you don't have an alternative theory to design. All you have is spit balls.
Comment by Rock — May 17, 2007 @ 2:19 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Sal said,
and Zach replied,
Well, that was easy.
Next!
Comment by onething — May 17, 2007 @ 2:35 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Zachriel wrote:
As of now, there are no scientific criteria that can be used to reliably detect whether any given object is or isn't intentionally designed.
However, I am making the claim—not as a matter of physical science but as a matter of rational inquiry (the latter has broader scope than just science)—-that atoms were indeed intended to have the essential properties they in fact have (which properties are crucial for intelligent life). That is, I am claiming that it's reasonable to believe that they have those properties by intentional design, because their having them is mindbogglingly improbable if due to mere chance, and very improbable if due to impersonal necessity, there being no necessity that atoms nor the universe exist at all.
One empirical prediction deriving from the design hypothesis is that the properties of atoms will be such as to be intelligible by rational minds, since those properties were designed by a rational mind. Something undesigned need have no such consequence. Living creatures certainly don't need to grasp the Standard Model of particle physics to survive.
I've asked this question before, but no-one on the Other Side ever answered as far as I know:
If you were to go into a very large warehouse, and observed the following: 50 million solid gold spheres of exactly one inch diameter; 250 million solid silver spheres of exactly half an inch diameter; 1 billion solid copper spheres of exactly a quarter of an inch diameter; 5 billion identical white golf balls; 10 billion identical half-black and half-green ping-pong balls, and a sign above the entrance saying "These objects were produced and delivered to the warehouse 13.7 billion years ago"; would you consider it irrational to infer that this array of objects was more likely to have been the result of some intelligent design activity, than that they all just popped into existence as a result of a chance fluctuation in a quantum vacuum?
Comment by stunney — May 17, 2007 @ 2:35 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 2:47 pm
Just to be clear. Peer review and publication is merely the first step of the scientific review process. This is followed by replication and extension of the results by others in the field–a process the authors hope will eventually convince their peers.
And in this case, if the argument is not based on biological facts, "not a matter subject to overturning by future empirical data," but on mathematical proof, then the review process was done by presumably unqualified experts–biologists rather than mathematicians.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 2:47 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
Actually, I did. Here it is again:
All the evidence indicates that snowflakes were naturally created from amorphous water vapor suspended in air currents, air currents that might also very well form clouds in the shape of an avenging angel.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 2:55 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 2:58 pm
Hi Rock,
Is civil engineering not a science? I don't know; I'm just a lawyer, and law definitely isn't science.
Comment by Aagcobb — May 17, 2007 @ 2:58 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
It's not "civil engineering," Aagcobb.
And as a lawyer you should know the federal court rulings.
If "natural science" can't account for any design, and it can't, then what is the argument against design based upon?
I think I know!–It's an argument from ignorance!
Comment by Rock — May 17, 2007 @ 3:03 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Civil engineering has to do with infrastructure.
Engineering generally doesn't work through the scientific method, but is an application of science. (We usually don't want our bridge-builders to experiment too much, but apply well-tested scientific knowledge.) However, there can be significant overlap, especially in extreme-engineering.
(That is not to minimize engineering. Though a lot of people make reference to the difficulty of rocket science; in fact, rocket science is easy, rocket engineering is hard.)
I'm not sure where you get that idea from, but there are entire fields of scientific research which concern 'design', such as archaeology and forensics.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 3:12 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Zachriel, are you congenitally incapable of answering questions? You didn't answer it before. You didn't answer it this time either.
Here's the question:
would you consider it irrational to infer that this array of objects was more likely to have been the result of intelligent design activity, than that they popped into existence as a result of a chance fluctuation in a quantum vacuum?
Yes? No? Don't Know?
Or, Unwilling To Answer Because of Intellectual Bad Faith?
Comment by stunney — May 17, 2007 @ 3:14 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
It should have been obvious from my reply.
Knowing the properties of warehouses, the various materials, the behavior of humans, and the etymology of the "inch", I would surmise that humans built the warehouse and shaped the materials into spheres by harnessing natural processes. Oh, and I would surmise that the sign is a joke.
Knowing the properties of water, I would surmise that natural forces shaped the spherical droplets found in a cloud, while I might stand in awe of the avenging angel.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 3:22 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 3:55 pm
Hi Zachriel,
Why think something has changed? I'm being quite reasonable here too.
Sure, in response to your own words: "Just to be clear, I'm not posing an argument to your position, nor attempting to ascribe a position to you, but to the claims of the Intelligent Design Movement."
This doesn't make any sense to me. You admit it is "a good question for exploring the scientific issues surrounding design" and noted my "original post was well-thought." Thus, my questions remain unanswered:
Are you saying that if you ever quote Dawkins or Dennett, we can all start talking about the claims of the New Atheist Movement?
You have it backwards. I'm not out to teach you anything. I'm more focused on investigating in light of the question. Thus, I'm the one willing to learn if you have something that would be useful to my intellectual hobby. And I have learned. When you say there is no evidence for ID, what you really mean is that you are not convinced by Dembski et al.'s arguments. And you have no idea about the type of data that would cause you to suspect life was designed.
Comment by MikeGene — May 17, 2007 @ 3:55 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 4:00 pm
Zachriel, why would the objects have to be made by humans? I didn't say the warehouse was on this planet, or even in this galaxy.
Let's say it's on a planet in Andromeda, and you're the first human to leave this galaxy, taking advantage of newly developed near lightspeed travel technology.
Would you consider it irrational to infer that this array of objects was more likely to have been the result of some intelligent design activity, than that they all just popped into existence as a result of a chance fluctuation in a quantum vacuum?
What we see looking at Standard Model particle physics is an array of classes of subatomic particles, displaying very precise order, understandable by very sophisticated mathematical reasoning. What we see looking at cosmic background radiation and other data is the 'warehouse sign' saying this amazingly ordered stuff was delivered to the universe about 13.7 billion years ago.
That the extremely precise, marvellously intelligible, and life-friendly order possessed by this array is due to chance is hugely improbable. That it's due to impersonal necessity is also very improbable, given Hawking's admission that it is very puzzling that the universe goes to the bother of instantiating any theoretical model, let alone the one it does instantiate, and given that alternative universe models are perfectly conceivable and have predictable physical consequences if instantiated.
Comment by stunney — May 17, 2007 @ 4:00 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
Sal, is the complete text of Trevors' and Abel's article available on-line?
Comment by Bilbo — May 17, 2007 @ 4:04 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Off-topic quibble. Please feel free to ignore.
You are being reasonable–though I could quibble about who interjected Dembski's ideas or the relevance of the Intelligent Design Movement. I have tried to ignore this line of discussion as uninteresting and irrelevant.
Please refer back to my original comments.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 4:26 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 4:34 pm
I am not convinced by Dembski's arguments. To make a scientific assertion, it must result in specific and distinguishing empirical implications. We could dream up all sorts of scenarios; alien artifacts, abstract messages in the genome, a monolith in on the Moon. Literature is full of such speculations and imaginings. But the available evidence strongly indicates that life has spontaneously evolved, diverging from common ancestors through ad hoc evolutionary processes.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 4:34 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 4:41 pm
That's why I used the term "surmise". I am only dealing with a very limited data set filtered by your argument.
I'd say, "Gee whiz! Who would have thought they would play golf on Andromeda?" In other words, we would note the similarity to humans and posit a similar cause. Then we would look for additional evidence to support or refute this premise. And more evidence to support or refute our refined conclusions.
It was odd to the Ancients that all the planets were so close to being in the same plane. It was odd that the gravitational and inertial constants were identical. It was odd that electricity and light traveled at the same speed. It was odd that atoms could be sorted in a table by chemical property. It was odd that light could be broken into pieces then reassembled by prisms.
There are underlying symmetries. Many of these are explained by deeper symmetries. The source of the deepest of these symmetries is scientifically unknown. You can apply your metaphysical juice there is you want. Have fun. But don't think you can "prove" that your metaphysical juice is more potent than anyone else's.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 4:41 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 6:29 pm
Many of Dembski's arguments do not center directly on the issue of empirical claims. Dembski is a theoretician. His role was roughly equivalent to the one Darwin played. He asked questions like the one Mike alluded to in an effort to open up new avenues of inquiry. Sure, the efforts of Paley and others predated Dembski's addressing the design issue. But they lived in a different time period and lacked the data Dembski has access to.
Before one introduces data to back a claim one needs to have an idea as to what type of data would truly support the claim. That type of foundation work was in part done by Dembski.
It is difficult to assign spontaneity to events occurring in geologic eras. What may appear spontaneous when viewed in retrospect may have looked like a process back then. Sudden spontaneity is something that would strongly hint of intelligent agency.
Comment by Bradford — May 17, 2007 @ 6:29 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Zachriel wrote:
I believe you attributed a Rock quote to Aagcobb. I think what Rock was getting at was an issue I've raised before namely, distinguishing between a gap in knowledge and an indicator that a paradigm shift is in order. You are right in citing the above examples but I (and Rock?) would argue that natural forces (meaning ID is excluded) do not explain life's origin.
Comment by Bradford — May 17, 2007 @ 6:41 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
Darwin's Theory of Evolution leads to direct and specific empirical predictions. That's why Darwin's Theory of Evolution has been so influential for so many generations: it is scientifically fecund.
Spontaneous in its scientific sense, e.g. water spontaneously crystallizes when cold. Not forced.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 6:45 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Bradford: Many of Dembski's arguments do not center directly on the issue of empirical claims. Dembski is a theoretician. His role was roughly equivalent to the one Darwin played.
Darwin's theory has been notable for its reliance on a self-replicating cell and difficulties in scenarios where that is absent. The assumption that predictions, encompassing selection, would necessarily exclude a design inference is a dubious one.
Comment by Bradford — May 17, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
Wouldn't be the first time I screwed up an attribution. Oh well.
Rock claims that "natural science" can't account for design. That's the problem with the term "natural". It is subject to constant conflation. If by "natural" he means the universe and natural laws, then he is wrong. If by "natural" he means the areas of science specifically excluding design, then he hasn't actually made a significant statement.
If [those sciences that don't account for design] can't account for design, and they can't, then what is the argument against design based upon? Um, the other sciences that do. Further than that, Rock would have to clarify his statement.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 7:09 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Zach,
It would be interesting to find out more about this, i.e., how they came about their data. Surely, at some point, what with all those underlying symmetries you mentioned, it would be appropriate to relate one field, say biology, to another, say mathematics. It really can't be so that only a person with a double PhD in math and biology could ever legitimately write such a paper.
At any rate, it seemed a quick and easy dismissal of what I thought a very, very interesting post.
Comment by onething — May 17, 2007 @ 7:16 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 7:21 pm
As to your more specific point. Let's look at the Gap argument more closely, but let's start with the Universal Negative.
Universal Negatives are generally very difficult to demonstrate. But if the entire universe can be thoroughly searched, then we may be able to make a reasonably confident statement. We usually do this by first limiting what we mean by the entire universe. In the search for living T. Rex's, we can pretty well conclude there are none left on Earth. We've looked just about everywhere, and they are pretty big and make a lot of noise.
(At one time, after the first discovery of dinosaurs, when some people refused to believe that God could have created organisms just to be destroyed, they were sure dinosaurs must be lurking somewhere. Hence, fantasies of Skull Island.)
But we have to be careful. We can think we looked everywhere, and still miss them. Not everything is as easy to spot as a T.Rex. Or we may think we have a valid search criteria, but be fooling ourselves. Or we might misjudge the domain thereby misstating the extent of the universe examined. We may simply be lacking some important piece of information.
With that said, the Gap argument has a further problem even beyond the Universal Negative that results in it being a fallacy. That's because even if we eliminate known causes, there are still an infinitude of unknown causes. You still can't justify your metaphysical paste being better than anyone else's.
So, even if you find that the mechanisms supposed to account for a pheneomena don't seem to be sufficient, it could be another mechanism you can't detect or haven't thought of.
As to the specifics you allude to, many advances in understanding plausible abiogenetic pathways have been discovered in just the last generation, including self-replicating molecules. It's hardly much of a Gap when it keeps eroding from all sides.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 7:21 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Bilbo,
I was able to get it because I have institutional access. Try the following link and let me know if it works. It works for me, but maybe not for everyone:
Chance and necessity do not explain the origin of life
My take on the paper is here: Perfect architectures which scream design
It should be noted that in another paper, Trevors and Abel Cited Dembski and 3 of ID's founding fathers (Thaxton, Bradley, Olsen) favorably while simultaneously slamming Richard Dawkins. I reported on this here:
William Dembski and 3 IDers cited in a significant OOL peer-reviewed article by Trevors and Abel
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 7:26 pm
The current Theory of Evolution may not properly apply to the origin of cellular life where horizontal evolution may be prevalent.
I'm having troubles parsing this sentence. Nothing necessarily excludes design. Science requires forming a valid hypothesis, making empirical predictions, and then testing them.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 7:26 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
Apparently, data isn't important because they claim data can't falsify their result. "This is a mathematical truism, not a matter subject to overturning by future empirical data."
Anyone can submit a paper. Einstein was a patent clerk.
We wouldn't expect Stephen Hawking to peer review a paper on biology. Convincing your peers is the whole purpose of publishing"”not convincing your bartender or blog-buddy. And publishing is only the first step in communicating with your peers.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 7:33 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
The truism they refer to is not difficult to understand if one has an open mind. I have stated it in symbolic form. They simply point out (with different words) the illogic of the following statement:
Specifically they refer to Shannon. One can take their narrative words about shannon and cast it into the symbolic form I offer above.
Their version was:
The problem here is that it appears is you're presuming their statement is incompetent. For individuals like myself, I see it as supremely competent, and the evolutionary community and OOL community as mostly incompetent (with the exception of guys like Fisher, Haldane, Kimura and Crow :smile:).
Dembski took the same notion and showed how Darwinian claims try to hide this embarassing fact. He showed evolutionary algorithms require design to make anything and recast the No Free Lunch theorems. Using the No Free Lunch theorems, one can show Darwinian claims lead to the non-sensical statements I wrote above. Trevors and Abel and Voie demonstrated this for OOL, Dembski demonstrated it for Darwinian evolution.
This is basic stuff, Zachriel, and it's amazing that like the search for perpetual motion machines and spontaneous generation of life, the quest for mindless OOL has continued for so long.
But even on a more down to Earth level, how reasonable is it that a weakly specified stochastic process will create a self-replicating Turing machine, full up with operating systems and self-healing mechanisms at the nano-molecular level. To be strictly formal, it doesn't necessitate ID, but formally speaking one cannot argue stochastic type mechanisms (chance) nor deterministic mechanisms are a probable cause.
Dembski goes beyond Trevors and Abel and shows that neither combinations of chance and necessity, nor natural selection will solve the problem. Dembski tackled the more difficult arena. I'm hoping Trevors and Abel's next paper on evolutioanary algorithms will be accepted as I expect it will be very favorable to Dembski's work. At some point scientists with any sort of conscience will have to accept the facts and go against the prevailing views.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2007 @ 7:42 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Zachriel wrote:
The question wasn't, "What would Zachriel say?"
The question was, "Would you consider it irrational to infer that this array of objects was more likely to have been the result of some intelligent design activity, than that they all just popped into existence as a result of a chance fluctuation in a quantum vacuum?"
Would you consider it irrational to make that inference?
And why are you so strenuously avoiding giving a straightforward answer? Amazingly and amusingly , you still haven't answered it. What are you so frightened of?
Quit with the irrelevance. Are you denying that such an array is hugely improbable if due to chance?
Or, as seems obvious, are you desperately blowing smoke?
I've seen less sign of being threatened in cornered rats.
Zachriel, why do you think that all particles of a given class and all atoms of a given element all having the same identical class properties all the time is analogous to a tiny subset of clouds being observed to somewhat resemble a figure of an avenging angel?
Is it because you've been over-indulging in your metaphysical kool-aid because of an irrational, overwhelming fear of threaty questions which you can't summon up sufficient intellectual courage to answer honestly?
Comment by stunney — May 17, 2007 @ 7:57 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
By the way Zach, although we disagree, I'm glad to see you here.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2007 @ 8:04 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
Yes, I read an advance copy. I was somewhat surprised it was accepted.
Self-organization is often applied to naturally occurring systems, such as weather. Weather is organized into system complexes. The authors redefine self-organization to apply only to what they refer to as algorithmic organization or a cybernetic system. It's quite alright to make special definitions in scientific papers, but then they berate others for using the term in the usual sense saying of self-ordering and self-organization, "The illegitimate merging of the two concepts now seems almost universal."
The authors group weather and other dissipative structures into self-ordering phenomena, but then say "Function is never an issue with the self-ordering phenomena of nature" and "Self-ordering events do not pursue design and engineering success." Yet, if we consider the function of weather to pump water over the land, then it certainly functions to that purpose.
Then the authors discuss the Gap in abiogenetic theory. Misstate the nature of Work in physics. Make a vague reference to the Universal Probability Bound. Then end with a rousing rendition of predictions of what will never be observed.
Of note is that the paper has had no significant influence on their peers, either in the biological or mathematical communities (though it is still fairly new).
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 9:11 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 9:30 pm
I clearly answered that if we found golf balls on Andromeda, we would adopt a tentative conclusion of human-like intelligence. But, as with all scientific conclusions, we would use this tentative hypothesis to frame new observations to support, refine, extend or reject the hypothesis. I would be very curious is their golf courses had 18 holes.
I not only said it would not be irrational, but that it would be a reasonable, albeit tentative, inference. That's because we have experience with warehouses, golfers and identical white golf balls. Oh, and I would still surmise that the sign was a joke.
If you are referring to the "array of classes of subatomic particles", they are presumably not due to chance, but belie an underlying symmetry.
And the relevance was clear. Just as the symmetries of the chemical properties of atoms was due to the underlying symmetries of quantum mechanics, so too might the symmetries in particle physics be due to other, even deeper symmetries.
The original question was re-posed in this fill-in-the-blank format:
It was meant to provoke you to reconsider the intent of your question.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 9:30 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
That is ultimately however not the issue. The issue is whether they are correct.
Consider the wise word's of Bertrand Russell
Thanks for your other comments on their self-organization paper. Though I disagree, I found your objections substantive.
This paper extends some of their notions in their other OOL paper which I quoted.
Why? Because it was fundamentally incorrect, or because peer-reviewers are biased?
I emphasize, mathematical truism they offered (and which Dembski extends) is formidable. If you like, I can walk through simple examples and quasi-proofs if there is something you don't understand.
The issue is why certain artifacts coincide so easily to engineered artifacts. It's hard to argue that the system of rain to water pumps is as powerfully analogous as pumps in biology are analogous to pumps in engineering. And of course my favorite analogy is that of man-made computers to the computers of the cell.
The argument you offer is that we can postdictively fit rain systems to water pumps. Your argument is actually a decent one albeit insufficient if we are deling with artifacts which contain more than 500 bits of independent specification. The postdiction argument will fail (if you are curious as to why I can show you mathematically). Post diction is like painting bullseye's around arrows randomly shot in order to give the appearance a target was hit. ID literature deals with how to avoid this problem. The 500 bit threshhold was part of this, and the controversial Phi_S(t) calculation in one of Dembski's papers is the other part of it.
Postdiction perceptions are the last resort to explaining the appearance of design because as Trevors and Abel, Voie and Dembski have shown — chance, necessity, and natural selection cannot be mathematically expected to succeed as explanations. A search for such explanations is the quixotic. It does not automatically mean ID is true, but it at least shows what ideas are definitely false.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2007 @ 9:37 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
ZACH,
On the contrary, they obviously think they have strong data to make such a claim of a truism.
Yes, before the days of peer review…
No, we wouldn't, but then you have avoided commenting on the point. What with all the underlying symmetries, how is it even possible to let the biologists have the only say in what can happen via RM and NS? RM is by its nature mathematical, in part. An event as important and all-encompassing as the evolution of life surely has components that reach into other disciplines. And furthermore, the paper they wrote was not written in a bartending journal. Maybe it's time some biologists tried to convince their peers with a little math. After all, would they listen to a math expert?
I'd like to think that a person with a PhD in the sciences and who has taken a strong interest in a topic that has mathematical aspects, could get a pretty decent working understanding of the mathematics involved.
Just so. The evolutionary biologists are to be insulated within their field. When the mathematicians fight back (and they have) the evolutionists cry foul. Here we've got biologists themselves using a mathematical argument and we can't have that, either.
Well, Zach, if we got an author with a double PhD to write that article, which type journal could they publish it in?
Comment by onething — May 17, 2007 @ 9:42 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 9:46 pm
Because it is incorrect; and if they claim it is a mathematical truism, it needs to be presented to their mathematical peers, not cell biologists.
Though there is no complete theory of abiogenesis, there is a valid Theory of Evolution. More specifically, it is known that evolutionary algorithms can generate complex and novel designs. Evolutionary algorithms, complexity, emergence, are important areas of research in the mathematics community. By conflating these two areas of research, one of which is known with some certainty, you weaken your argument considerably.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 9:46 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
You are invited to state why. This is a pre-requisite to ID 101. Can 1 or more of the following create life:
1. law
2. chance
3. combination of law and chance
You are invited to defend the opposing position on the grounds of math. I am happy to defend my side for the sake of the readers.
I appreciate your resolve to argue your position. I appreciate your civility in discourse. But at the end of the day, these question are the ones that are crucial to the success or failure of ID.
If you prove 1,2, or 3 are adequate mechanisms then you win. I must prove the even harder proposition: that 1,2 or 3 will never be proven to be adequate mechanisms.
And speaking of mathematical peers, the following statement ought to be acceptable to any undergrad in math or electrical engineering.
Consider thet statement. If wish to refute Trevors and Abel, you will have to argue something to the contrary. You need to demonstrate that stochastic ensembles will likely acquire algorithmic programming prowess. That cannot be done. It is the search for a square circles.
Intelligently Designed evolutionary algorithms with teleological goals are inappropriate analogies to supposedly undesigned evolutioanry processes with no goal in mind.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2007 @ 10:03 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
If it requires data, it isn't a truism. All empirical findings are considered tentative, no matter how strongly supported. Eppur si muove is not a truism.
Einstein's 1905 paper on Relativity was reviewed by no less than Max Planck.
There is actually a great deal of mathematics, especially statistics, in modern biology. When necessary, statisticians and computer scientists are engaged. There are even entire fields of bioinformatics and computational biology. However, this is applied mathematics. Proofs would still normally be sent to the math dept. I'm sure there are exceptions, though.
Yes, they could. There's actually no significant use of equations in the Trevors & Abel paper. It's all qualitative.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 10:26 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
There is no complete theory of abiogenesis. No one knows how life originated on Earth. Your claim is that it can't spontaneously originate. You may attempt to support that claim if you wish.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 10:34 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 10:42 pm
As if theoretical population biology did not employ mathematical truisms in it's models.
Same observation. Don't look for mathematical proofs in biology journals, we don't need no stinking proofs.
Comment by Mung — May 17, 2007 @ 10:42 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
Life is applied science.
Life is not a theory.
In case anyone hasn't noticed, however much theoretical science has changed your conception of the world, it is designers and engineers who have changed it materially.
Either learn something about design or fail the next course.
Btw, Mike Gene. you're not grading on the curve are you?
Comment by Rock — May 17, 2007 @ 10:55 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Good example. Consider Hardy-Weinberg. If a certain set of conditions are met; diploid, sexually reproducing, discrete generations, random mating, infinite (very large) population size, no selection, no mutation, no migration; then it is a truism (a formal mathematical proof exists) that the allele distribution will remain at equilibrium. What is important about this finding is that if the allele distribution is not at equilibrium, then one or more of those conditions must not be met. Typically, this can be used to test for selection, or in small populations drift and fixation will occur.
And this finding was made independently by Harold Hardy, a pure mathematician, and Wilhelm Weinberg, a doctor who retired to study population genetics through epidemiological studies in humans. The former worked from mathematics, the latter from empiricism. Quite interesting, and a plausible example of the interplay between the two fields as suggested by onething.
Comment by Zachriel — May 17, 2007 @ 10:58 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Zachriel, there is no doubt that mathematics has been successfully applied to some biological models. It seems to me though that the study of existing biological systems is the basis for mathematical models and that historic biological theories are, for the most part, superfluous add ons.
Comment by Bradford — May 17, 2007 @ 11:23 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Sal, you said, "…naturalism and materialism have been mathematically falsified…"
You claim that this is a fact, but it is crazy talk.
Mathematics is useless for determining whether naturalism (I assume you mean the philosophical sort) is true or false. Mathematics is equally useless for determining whether most any philosophical or religious proposition is true or false.
I suspect you're mistaking Dembski's tortured "mathism" for mathematics.
Comment by takuan — May 17, 2007 @ 11:43 pm
May 17th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
I don't expect the laws of thermodynamics will be overturned by future empirical data. Such supposed data isn't important because it doesn't exist, nor do we expect it ever will. It's always possible to try, but most will find the exercise rather pointless.
Evolutionary theory asserts the information equivalent of perpetual motions machines (perpetual motion machines violate thermodynmics). Their demand for certain kinds of empirical proof from ID proponents (in some cases) is like demanding empirical proof that perpetual motion machines don't exist nor ever will. What sort of experiment will demonstrate perpetual motion machines are impossible? A similar issue is at play here.
In Euclidean geometry, sqaure circles don't exist. It's pointless to search for empirical data to prove that they do exist. OOL is the search for square circles, and many have not come to terms with it. Oh well, that's their problem.
For the readers benefit, in brief here is an illustration of the principles of the truism:
1. a two-headed coin has no information bearing capacity since every configuration of the coin yields heads. It has no uncertainty in outcome, thus no capacity to convey information. To convey information, one needs the capacity for uncertainty. The coin (or coins) can convey information if each has the capcity to be heads or tails. Each coin has 1 bit of information it can convey. It can convey information because it has the capacity for uncertainty.
That is also why deterministic laws in and of themselves cannot create life. They do not allow the possibility of uncertainty (like a computer bit or a coin). That is a mathematical truism. A mechanism with purely deterministic outcomes cannot in and of itself originate life. A self-replicating Turing Machine cannot be constructed by materials that are bound by strictly deterministic outcomes. No way! It must be constructed of materials that allow for uncertainty of outcomes.
2. chance cannot create information.
The mathematical truism is that high information implies high improbability. This fact cannot be escaped!!!! Chance cannot in principle be a good explanation if the genomes have high information content.
To understand this, consider that weather forcasts are given with relatively high probabilities (say 10% -90%).
-log2( 10%) = 4 bits approximately if the forecast is correct
-log2( 90%) = 1 bits approximately if the forecast is correct
A weather forecast whose outcome yields 1 bit of information (90% chance of being true, and thus a 90% reduction of uncertainty) is of great value to us.
Ironically, when dealing with genomes, one almost desires the opposite.
It is desirable the chemical properties of a genome allow a great deal of uncertainty in it's configuration. For the genome to be informative, we want it to have a high capacity for uncertainty. This is contrary to scientific intuation which seeks high levels of certainty!!!!
In effect we don't want a genome that allows us to easily predict or make forecasts as to what it will be in the absence of specific boundary conditions.
To give an idea of how strange this is, by way of comparison it is like seeking weather forecasts with an almost zero chance of being right. For example, a weather forcast with a
.000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance of being true has
-log2( .000000000000000000000000000000000001%) = 127 bits
of information IF the forecast is correct. Does one want to be dealing with explanations with a remote chance of being true?
Well that's something of the catch-22 that OOL must face. Not a pretty sight.
Does something seem strange about all this. If we are searching for answers to high information content genomes, we must look to solutions that are increasingly unlikely!!!!!!! :shock::shock::shock:
A possible recourse is one Paul Davies suggests, namely, genomes are not as information rich as we suppose, that they are actually simple, but only look complex to us. This argument fails however since self-replicating Turing machines are not simple, nor can they be, even in principle.
A second possible recourse is to appeal to time and the size of the universe, but this fails for even moderately sized genomes since there is only so much time and so many molecules in the universe.
A third recorse is to suggest multiple universes which cannot be ever seen. Hard to justify philosophically. One could explain anything with that argument!
3. a mix of chance and necessity or natural selection. Dembski deals with this in his displacement theorem.
4. Post diction. This argues that life just seems improbable. We're merely projecting improbability after the fact. This argument is decent but it fails as we find information content convergences between man-made artifacts/specifications and biological artifacts. A good example is the convergence between man-made computers and biological computers.
That is an outline of the math anyway.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 17, 2007 @ 11:55 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 12:09 am
I was not referring to philosophical naturalism (God doesn't exist), but rather methodological naturalism (all things describable by laws).
And Godel proved methodological naturalism is not possible. Consider: Irreducible Complexity in Mathematics, Physics and Biology.
Philosophical naturalism is of no relevance to science, hence I use the methodological sense which appeals to laws as explanations. Godel proved laws cannot capture all truths. Thus methodological naturalism fails to explain all truth that is mathematical. By way of extenstion, it will fail to explain all truth that is physical. One can make the same conclusion through Algorithmic Information Theory as Chaitin indirectly alludes to.
Davies has a book with a chapter, "The Death of Materialism" which talks of how physics has destroyed materialism. Of all people, Ken Miller showed how physics argues against pure materialism! Miller used arguments from quantum physics. See: Ken Miller : "physics has rescued religion".
I see however, we're graduating form ID 101 into more advanced topics.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 18, 2007 @ 12:09 am
May 18th, 2007 at 1:36 am
Salvador, this might be of interest to you:
Comment by stunney — May 18, 2007 @ 1:36 am
May 18th, 2007 at 7:49 am
That doesn't make the Laws of Thermodynamics truisms and empirical data irrelevant. The Laws were devised in response to specific observations with heat engines. No matter how clever the engineer, there appears to be a limit to efficiency. And, in fact, the Laws may not properly apply in the quantum domain or at gravitational singularities.
Sorry, that claim is unsupported by the mathematics and by the empirical facts. By the way, you slipped into the subject of evolution again. While there is no complete theory of abiogenesis, there is a well-substantiated and well-supported Theory of Evolution.
That assertion is based on observations from a wide variety of fields. Making a complex contraption doesn't resolve this issue. Each of the components will continue to follow the Laws of Thermodynamics, but it may be sufficient to fool the gullible.
However, in essence, that is correct. No on can prove that some new principle will not be discovered. But what point are you really trying to make? We all know that scientific assertions are always considered tentative and subject to change in the light of new evidence.
The Laws of Thermodynamics are not a truism. If you have evidence that perpetual motion machines can be devised, you are more than welcome to present it. If you have evidence that there is some barrier to spontaneous abiogenesis, then present it.
Square circles is a definitional question, and Euclidean geometry is not an empirical study. Are you claiming that Life can't originate spontaneously *by definition*? Or is this merely rhetoric? This is an entirely different argument. Amazing.
That's information as defined by Claude Shannon.
That is a false statement in Shannon Information. A random sequence has more information, surprisal value as you yourself defined it, than Shakepeare's Hamlet. Because of the uneven use of letters in the English language, its information entropy was estimated by Shannon as 1.3 bits per symbol.
It is only necessary in a mathematical proof to show a single error to invalidate the entire argument. But let me point out that you are here kicking the ball down the road.
There is no mathematical evidence of a barrier to abiogenesis, and the more closely science peers, the more consistent the evidence is with a spontaneous origin of life. But no one knows exactly how this process may have happened.
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 7:49 am
May 18th, 2007 at 8:08 am
Huh? I drop two different weight stones from the Tower of Pisa. They hit the ground at the same time. I conclude that Aristotle's assertions concerning falling bodies are false. That's methodological naturalism.
Methodological Naturalism doesn't concern "truths" or "all truth that is mathematical", but observed regularities in nature. Furthermore, we might be able to limit the domain of science to a finite number of observed particles. Nor may the laws of nature be formally recursively enumerable, a requirement of Gödel's Theorem.
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 8:08 am
May 18th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Zachriel: "Methodological Naturalism doesn't concern "truths" or "all truth that is mathematical", but observed regularities in nature."
Right. But Methodological Naturalism cannot explain why nature is regular in the first place. Centuries ago people (like Newton) believed in the Law (and therefore sought out it's regularity) because they believed in a Lawgiver. Methodological Naturalism has it's roots in Philosophical Supernaturalism.
The problem today is that many scientists have quietly replaced Methodological Naturalism with Philosophical Naturalism without "full disclosure." Many of them don't even seem to know the difference.
Comment by kornbelt888 — May 18, 2007 @ 8:58 am
May 18th, 2007 at 9:22 am
That is correct.
Most scientists are not also philosophers. That's not a bug, but a feature of the scientific method. You can be a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, an atheist, a nihilist, or even a zombie, and still do useful work in science. Just provide the data. It's all about making specific and distinguishing empirical predictions–and the data.
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 9:22 am
May 18th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Zachriel said:
How do you justify describing this method as being "naturalist" What does naturalism mean here?
Naturalism as a philosophy is commonly defined in terms of existence. If this is so, what could it possibly mean as a scientific method? And if, as a method, it does not entail anything about existence, how does one justify calling it "naturalism"
Comment by Brian Killian — May 18, 2007 @ 9:36 am
May 18th, 2007 at 10:22 am
That would be termed Philosophical Naturalism, or just Naturalism. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I do not find the distinction of natural in the scientific method to be particularly useful. I suppose it is to keep people from invoking the Deity as an explanation whenever the chemicals in their beaker turns blue.
The nice thing about a methodological definition is that you don't have to believe that science does say anything about the so-called real world. Only that we can observe certain generalizations leading to verifiable predictions. You can believe the World was created Last Thursday, or that everything is just an illusion, but there is no scientific evidence of this.
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 10:22 am
May 18th, 2007 at 10:56 am
Hi Zach,
For me, this is a bug in the scientific method. It is very useful as far as it goes but it is useless to tell us what we all really want to know which is how we got here and is there any significance to us being here. The materialists are always saying how the knowledge gaps are being filled in but I only see them getting wider.
Me not a scientist, philosopher, or theologian but ISTM that any scientific question that is addressed on this blog turns into a philosophical/theological debate. In fact people seem to be much more interested in the philosophy than science. It might be more correct to say that most scientist are not trained philosophers but they seem to know more about it than me.
Besides, couldn't the scientific method be called a philosophy?
I thought mcromer made a strong point that quantum theory provides scientific evidence suggesting everything is an illusion, Why is this not so?
Comment by WedgeHead — May 18, 2007 @ 10:56 am
May 18th, 2007 at 12:01 pm
That's not a bug, it's a limitation. A car that stalls out every few miles has a bug. A car that doesn't fly is simply limited. If you expect your car to fly, the problem is with you, not the manufacturer. Yet, cars are "very useful as far as it goes".
Perhaps you should try an airplane. Or when it comes to finding the "significance to us being here", you could try philosophy or religion.
Every scientific discovery leads to more questions. That's part of the process. You can recognize a good hypothesis by the number of new questions it raises. Most of the natural universe is unknown and humanity lives in a sea of ignorance. The trick of the scientific method is being able to reach at least some valid, albeit limited and tentative, conclusions. So we may not know what aliens are thinking about in the Andromeda Galaxy, but we know that the Earth rotates causing the Andromeda Galaxy to move across the sky. You may think this knowledge is insignificant, but to each their own. Eppur si muove.
It's a methodology. You can hold any philosophy or no philosophy and do science. Just provide the data.
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 12:01 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
Zachriel wrote:
Using just the scientific method, how would one discover what the limits of the method are?
Let's take the nature of rationality, the nature of consciousness, the nature of morality, the nature of mathematical understanding or knowledge, and the origin, nature, and stability of the laws of nature. How would we know, just using the scientific method, whether these could or could not be fully explained by science?
Comment by stunney — May 18, 2007 @ 12:14 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Kornbelt888 said:
zachariel replied:
The problem we have today is that scientists do not understand what they are defending. Philosophical materialism or naturalism is not science nor is it a viewpoint that is necessarily closer to science or the scientific method. Much of the acrimony that is centered around the current debate over ID would go away if both sides would make a more careful distinction between the methodological and metaphysical.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — May 18, 2007 @ 12:30 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
You can't in general, only in the particular. It's possible to conceive of a chaotic world where the scientific method would not be particularly useful. You apply the scientific method to a particular phenomena, and see whether it converges. Science's conclusions are always limited and tentative.
"Fully explained" is a rather nebulous phrase in this context as scientific conclusions are necessarily limited and tentative. Science has not been particularly adept in many fields. However, we can determine with a measure of confidence whether or not our generalizations are capable of making consistent empirical predictions, especially when the data comes from a variety of sources. So, the great age of the Earth can be supported by evidence from geology, biology, physics, planetary science, etc.
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 12:38 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Zachriel wrote:
Earlier you made reference to Last Thursday. What empirical predictions do the sciences you mention make regarding the great age of the Earth that Last Thursdayism does not make?
Also, what relevance does the scientific evidence concerning the age of the Earth have with respect to whether the universe, or life, is a result of intelligent design?
'Fully explained' is not nebulous. What's nebulous is how much science can explain, even in principle. Nutjob science- worshippers say things which entail the view that we can in principle give a complete explanation of how the Empire State building came to be without mentioning or positing any intelligent design by rational minds, but only material processes covered by physical laws.
A useful (albeit quite favorable-to-physicalism) discussion of the nebulous limits of methodological naturalism can be read here.
Comment by stunney — May 18, 2007 @ 1:29 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Last Thursdayism makes the claim that the universe was created last Thursday (Thanks be to Queen Maeve) with the appearance of great age. This assertion yields no distinguishing empirical predictions, so it does not constitute a valid scientific hypothesis.
I have no idea. You might ask someone who thinks there is scientific evidence of Intelligent Design. In my experience, they are all over the map on the issue. I was answering a question about the limitations of the scientific method and used the great age of the Earth as an example of a strongly supported scientific assertion.
Science doesn't offer any finality in its findings. The cup is never full. Each new discovery brings new questions. I'm not sure how many ways I can say this.
They might be nutjobs, then. Every scientist I know of would agree that substantial evidence of large-brained, learning, problem-solving, plan-producing, hierarchically-organized, tool-using organisms capable of abstract communication constructing the Empire State Building strongly supports the scientific hypothesis that intelligent agency was involved in the process. (Of course, some people find no contradiction between 1. intelligent design by rational minds, and 2. material processes covered by physical laws.)
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 1:49 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Or philosophers.
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 1:57 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Zachriel, you, hilariously and yet again, did not answer the question. Here it is again:
What empirical predictions do the sciences you mention make regarding the great age of the Earth that Last Thursdayism does not make?
If you simply don't wish to answer the actual questions I pose, just say so, since your non-answers to the actual questions posed are a waste of valuable time.
You, hilariously and yet again, are being intellectually dishonest. For you know perfectly well that the age of the Earth is irrelevant to whether the universe, or life, is a result of intelligent design.
I'm not sure how many ways I can say that science doesn't get to decide whether a phrase is nebulous or not. Nor am I sure how many ways I can say that the provisionality of scientific results is a completely different issue from the issue of what kind of results can or cannot even in principle be generated by science, in particular with respect to the nature of rationality, the nature of consciousness, the nature of morality, the nature of mathematical understanding or knowledge, and the origin, nature, and stability of the laws of nature.
I'm one of those people. I've never asserted there was a contradiction, contrary to your completely unsupported and unjustified insinuation.
What I've asserted is that science has a potentially huge lacuna in its description of how the Empire State building, and everything else in the world came to be, a lacuna which science is incapable of even seeing as long as it is wedded to the monolithic god of methodological naturalism.
And you know what Jesus said about that, dontcha: there are none so blind as those who won't see. Not 'can't see', but 'won't see'.
If you think an inference to intelligent design is warranted in the Empire State building case, why is it not warranted in the case of life, or the universe in general? Why is it warranted to take large-brained, learning, problem-solving, plan-producing, hierarchically-organized, tool-using organisms capable of abstract communication as evidence for mind (though learning, plan-producing, problem-solving, being capable of abstract communication and tool-using are all concepts that presuppose mindhood), but not the nature of the universe or life, when both the universe and life exhibit massively greater evidence of mathematical problem-solving, goal-oriented, planned/designed intelligent activity?
You don't get to define 'intelligent designer' as 'physical intelligent designer'. You don't get to smuggle in definitions that are not proven by science, but are merely materialist prejudices. You don't get to define what is and isn't science on the basis of your personal worldview.
Science does not get to define 'mind' as a material entity unless it's okay for scientists, but not for the rest of us, to assume their conclusions in the premises of their methodology.
Or are you saying it's okay for scientists, but not for everyone else, to do that?
Comment by stunney — May 18, 2007 @ 3:36 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
I even provided cites. The empirical predictions may (or may not depending on the flavor of Thursdayist sect) be the same, but Last Thursdayism adds an addition assertion with no empirical consequences.
It may or may not. It depends on the flavor of Intelligent Design. That's why you have to ask someone who makes those varieties of assertions. (Ignoring or outright rejecting some of the most profound empirical data concerning the nature of the universe seems an odd way to substantiate a claim, though–but it's common enough in the ID Community.)
I wasn't thinking of you, but the run of the mill materialist.
I provided evidence as to why the Empire State Building is the result of intelligent agency.
That evidence doesn't seem to apply in the case of life or the universe in general.
We don't need to presuppose anything about "mind". We can define intelligence as the ability to learn (e.g. avoidance), model (e.g. problem-solve), and reflect (e.g. self-consciousness).
What is the "goal" of life? What is the "goal" of the universe?
I don't.
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 4:05 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
Zachriel wrote:
So do the sciences you mention! Their additional assumption is that the scientific method they rely on is, er, reliable. That assumption is necessary to treat their standing as being superior vis-a-vis Last Thursdayism, but cannot non-circularly be justified by using the scientific method.
Oh come off it. The universe could have popped into existence in the state it was in last Thursday, er, last Thursday; or it could have an infinite past. Either way, it could be the result of an intelligent designer's activity.
.
No it doesn't. The age of the universe is what it is, regardless of what anyone thinks it is. Regardless of what anyone thinks about the age of the universe, the truth-value of the proposition that the universe is the result of intelligent design remains unaffected, and that value is possibly 'TRUE'. You know it and I know it and I know that you know it and you know that I know that you know it. So stop pretending otherwise. You're not fooling anyone except possibly yourself, or you're merely making a fool of yourself.
Ignoring pertinent questions and evidence concerning the the existence and nature of rational minds is even more common in the anti-ID community, to the point that it's practically an article of faith. As is not allowing by fiat any possibility of an empirical challenge to its naturalist assumptions .
There's a vast amount of evidence that the universe and life are the result of intelligent agency. You are just choosing not to call it evidence, that's all.
Using my ID hypothesis, Catholic theism, I predict that the laws of nature won't undergo such radical change as to render the agency of rational minds ineffectual. By contrast, the naturalist hypothesis doesn't even predict the existence of rational minds, let alone the perduringly predictable, understandable character of natural law. If impersonal Nature is all there is, we have no way of justifying the prediction that it will continue to be predictable and understandable. It might be an instinctive assumption, but it's one we cannot logically derive from the hypothesis that impersonal Nature is all there is.
Yeah, because you are implicitly gerrymandering your definition of intelligent designer as having to have a human brain. You do realize, don't you, that such an implicit definition rules out the possibility of intelligent agency elsewhere in the universe? And that the universe is even bigger than a very big thing?
Talk about anti-Copernican anthropocentrism!:lol:
Water exhibits oil-avoiding behavior. Are you suggesting water once learned what to do?
Maps model terrains. Does that mean maps exhibit problem-solving behavior?
I'm not sure what you mean by 'reflect'.
Sunglasses reflect. Are you suggesting they're self-conscious?
Please supply rigorous definitions of the key terms you're using, and justification for the utility to human understanding of those definitions.
Meanwhile I have to laugh at your penchant for accusing others of smuggling the conclusions of their arguments into definitions used in the premises of those arguments.
J'accuse:lol:
My Jesuit high scool motto was, 'Ad maiora natus sum'. And we started all our written work with 'AMDG'—-which means Ad maiorem Dei gloriam—-at the top left corner of the page.
I think the Jesuits had the answer to your questions.:cool:
So, I just imagined the bit about large-brained organisms. I see.
Comment by stunney — May 18, 2007 @ 5:59 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Nope. Science is not reliable in any absolute sense. And modern statistics allows us to assign relative confidence to results: as sure as the Dawn. Whether you find this satisfactory is irrelevant. That's what science is.
I'm for one am not claiming that science is "superior", whatever that might mean. Last Thursdayism might be "superior", might even be true. But it isn't science. Science is as science does.
Sure it could! But not all of those claims are scientifically valid.
I'm surprised you are still confused on my position after all this time.
Well, that depends on what you mean by Intelligent Design (note the caps). Intelligent Design generally claims to have a scientific basis. As such, it makes false claims. And that you have a different flavor of Intelligent Design that appears to be metaphysical, just reinforces the point.
(I understand this blog is founded on a somewhat different idea of Intelligent Design, and sometimes I use "Intelligent Design Movement" or "Intelligent Design Community" for clarity. I certainly don't expect you to carry the load for other people's ideas.)
I have no objection with you or anyone claiming there is a metaphysical or deistic intelligence in the universe. As long as you don't falsely claim you have scientific or theoretical proof of such.
I am perfectly aware of the philosophical issues surrounding the existence of mind. However, my only concern is science. Intelligence can be reasonably defined and empirically studied.
I often type "scientific evidence". The snippet you quoted, "I provided evidence" was linked to "scientific hypothesis", so the intent should have been clear. But for clarity, "scientific evidence".
Hypothesis is usually reserved for scientific assertions tentatively held in order to test their empirical implications. Your prediction is without scientific content.
The scientific method does not lead to certainty. But that's not a problem for science. Perhaps for you personally. Scientific understanding does lead to cures for disease and robot spacecraft.
The evidence strongly indicates that the intelligent designers involved in building the Empire State Building had human brains. That is hardly "gerrymandering".
I have no idea why you would think that. It is certainly not my position. But I have examined the evidence for the origin of the Empire State Building, and it appears that human brains were involved. They weren't disembodied though, and used hands to manipulate tools.
As far as I know, water always had that property.
Perhaps a more precise example would be a Mapquest, which calculates a route (i.e. problem-solving). So yes, primitive computers exhibit primitive intelligence.
Reflect. Consider. Philosophize. Internal modeling of the self. Big advantage in complex cultural interactions.
So you believe the goal of the universe is *you*. That's fine. I have no objection to your personal metaphysics.
No, really. They're made out of meat, and they built the Empire State Building.
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 6:50 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Zachriel wrote:
What's without scientific content is your unsupported assertion that my hypothesis is not tentatively held in order to test its empirical implications.
I do test my hypothesis's empirical predictions on a daily basis. I couldn't give two hoots if you happen to be unwilling to describe my hypothesis as scientific because it doesn't meet your gerrmandered definition of empirical testability which you've carefully derived and crafted from your philosophical prejudices. Materialists don't get to determine what reason
is by fiat. Hence they don't get to decide that a naturalist universe entails a predictable universe. Logically it does not. By contrast, Catholic theism does predict the universe will be suitable for rational agency, not least in the enterprise of science.
Your mind is closed. Closed off to reality because you use an inherently limiting and rationally unjustifed physicalistic filter, which won't let you even use your mind to make the reasonable abductive inference that generates a hypothesis that explains nature's lawfully ordered, predictable, and understandable character.
You're like a deliberately intellectually self-impoverishing blind man. But that's fine with me if it's fine with you.
Comment by stunney — May 18, 2007 @ 7:25 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
I was thinking I might use a car for most of my transportation needs but if I really want to go far fast, I might choose the airplane of philosophy or the rocket of theology.
I'm sure this is not what you mean since the atheists would stop doing science immediately before the gaps get wider and more God is necessary to fill in. Put another way, science would seem to be an exercise in futility to understand nature.
But isn't the method based on the philosophy that the universe is precitable. Others have put this more coherently than me but I think you know what I mean.
From all of this I conclude, to be revealed here for the enlightenment of all: possibly bad scientific question, good philosophical question, no-brainer theological question.
Comment by WedgeHead — May 18, 2007 @ 9:47 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
Your insistence doesn't render your prediction scientifically valid. To be a valid empirical prediction it must distinguish the hypothesis from the infinitude of other such hypotheses. In other words, you have failed to empirically distinguish a universe of observed regularities due to your "Catholic theism" from a universe of observed regularities due to Queen Maeve. Or from such a universe due to unknown causes. Or from a universe of observed regularites that just is. Your prediction is scientifically vacuous.
Nor am I a materialist.
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 11:22 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
Zachriel wrote:
'Nemo dat quod non habet'.
You can't get reason from unreason, sunshine.
It's obvious that when you attempt to discuss Catholic or any other form of theism, you literally have no idea what you're talking about.
None.
Zachriel, when it comes to the issue at hand, I'm not sure of the best way to say this, but unfortunately it needs to be said. You're clueless. You're an ignoramus.
Stick to your day-job of looking for codes arising unintentionally from non-codes, or reason arising unintentionally from unreason.
Just don't talk about subjects of which you haven't got even the flimsiest grasp, such as theism. It just makes you look really, really stupid.
Comment by stunney — May 18, 2007 @ 11:42 pm
May 18th, 2007 at 11:44 pm
Quite so! One should choose the method of transportation appropriate to the journey.
The Gaps don't get wider. Just the questions become more informed. (In paleontology, we might find an intermediate organism that fills a Gap, but it trivially creates two new Gaps, albeit smaller ones.)
In any case, many of us would sacrifice the comfort of philosophical certainties in order to harness the very real analytical power of science to cure childhood diseases or send robots to explore other planets.
Yes, I believe I do understand your gist. However, it doesn't require such a philosophy. Think of a robotic intelligence that collects data, makes generalizations, tests those generalizations, adjusting or discarding them as required. (Computer intelligence can do this within limited abstract universes, by the way.) The robot may have no philosophy. It just does the mechanics of the methodology. If the robot finds regularities, it will converge on a solution. However, if the universe it finds itself in is chaotic, it may never converge, but instead will continue to meander.
With humans, it usually helps to have some confidence that regularities will be found. I think I can. I think I can. It's a matter of motivation, something robots don't seem to have a problem with.
It turns out that the natural universe exhibits regularities, and with modern statistics, we can assign relative confidence to our conclusions.
Excellent response.
Comment by Zachriel — May 18, 2007 @ 11:44 pm
May 19th, 2007 at 7:43 am
Hi,
I posted a full response to this post here;
Unintelligent Question
Comment by psiloiordinary — May 19, 2007 @ 7:43 am
May 19th, 2007 at 8:55 am
psiloiordinary:
What procedure, pray tell, did you use to read Mike Gene's mind? Surely you don't want us to accept your statement on faith?
Comment by Krauze — May 19, 2007 @ 8:55 am
May 19th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Just read the rest of my posting. Dembski is my supporting authority
Comment by psiloiordinary — May 19, 2007 @ 10:34 am
May 19th, 2007 at 12:53 pm
Dembski is your supporting authority when it comes to Mike's mind?
Comment by Krauze — May 19, 2007 @ 12:53 pm
May 19th, 2007 at 1:17 pm
Despite my moniker, I think that there is just as much evidence in favour of mind reading as there is in favour of ID.
Don't you have any substantive arguments to make in this debate?
Comment by psiloiordinary — May 19, 2007 @ 1:17 pm
May 19th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
Oh come now, Krauze! Everybody knows that once a person is initiated into the Great NDS Mystery Cult, reading minds becomes child's play. They're ALL psychos - they just know these things.
Comment by Joy — May 19, 2007 @ 1:18 pm
May 19th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Hi psiloiordinary,
"Despite my moniker, I think that there is just as much evidence in favour of mind reading as there is in favour of ID."
Then there's something you need to explain to me. If not from mind reading, where did your perception of Mike as edging towards "Wow things look designed, there must be a designer, praise be to god" come from? From reading Mike's writings? From exchanging emails with him? Or did it come from a big helping of anti-ID stereotypes?
Comment by Krauze — May 19, 2007 @ 1:30 pm
May 19th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
Hi Mike,
Can't you control your class? Maybe you should start handing out detention slips to those throwing spit balls.
Some of us are actually trying to learn here. For example, I did some outside reading on holistic evolution and ran across Peter A. Corning's work. It looks like his work and opinions are close to yours (at least supports it). He published a book called Nature's Magic: Synergy in Evolution and the Fate of Humankind which he retitled Holistic Darwinsim (I suspect to increase sales via controversy). Here is a quote from the abstract…
link
[stick tongue out in response to "brown noser" cat-calls]
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 19, 2007 @ 2:09 pm
May 19th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
TP,
I read the link, but I have no idea what this is about.
Comment by onething — May 19, 2007 @ 4:07 pm
May 19th, 2007 at 4:16 pm
Hi Onething,
The link was to website describing the book I was talking about.
The author wants you to buy the book by teasing you with the abstract and showing you the table of contents.
My purpose for providing the link was to point to an existing gray area between the two extremes of the ID/Darwinism conflict.
I can give you my ideas about holistic evolution if you are interested.
I suggest going to Mike's latest thread, "A Prediction About Evolution". I provided more thought there.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 19, 2007 @ 4:16 pm
May 20th, 2007 at 6:28 am
Hi Krauze,
My posting talks about "the ID crowd" and quotes one of their "leading lights" i.e. Debmski.
So does this mean you still have nothing substantive to add to the debate?
For example let's discuss the reason why my conclusions are invalid either through faulty premises, application of logic or context? Oh hang on we can't because you haven't given us any yet.
ps Thank you for your insult Joy, I am not considered a "psycho" by my family or friends, some of whom are people of faith and who also agree with every word of my posting.
Thanks again for raising the tone and content of the debate :roll:.
Comment by psiloiordinary — May 20, 2007 @ 6:28 am
May 21st, 2007 at 9:17 pm
The context of the discussion was specified information, not unspecified information. It's understandable that you may then have jumped to that conclusion since I may not have been explicit.
Now that I'm more explicit, you can not resort to that argument again.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 21, 2007 @ 9:17 pm
May 21st, 2007 at 10:13 pm
Many people have troubles with Information Theory. You defined information in such a way that it was clearly Shannon Information. Each coin has 1 bit of information it can convey. It can convey information because it has the capacity for uncertainty.
Now, you are claiming you meant specified information, but being specified (to name or state explicitly) doesn't mean a sequence ceases to be Shannon Information. A random sequence can certainly be specified, and is"”everytime a lottery is drawn, or a pair of dice are rolled.
This is at the very heart of Information Theory. We have a communications channel. It takes more bits to transmit Shakespeare than it does a short repetitive sequence, and even more to transmit a random sequence. The random sequence becomes *specified* when so transmitted. In other words, it is not just any random sequence, it is *that* random sequence. It is specified.
–
Now, let's consider Dembski's notion of "specified", which is to "conform to an independently given, detachable pattern." Given a specified input to a communications channel, which is "an independently given, detachable pattern", we measure what is required to transmit and receive this message. This remains true whether the message is a short repetitive sequence, Shakespeare, or a specified random sequence (with the random sequence requiring the most information bandwidth to transmit).
Perhaps you meant Algorithmic Information, but that doesn't fit your argument either, though Kolmogorov Complexity does vaguely fit with "conform to an independently given, detachable pattern." Of course, every pattern conforms to a simple readout of the sequence, and sequences can often be compressed. The measure of Kolmogorov Complexity is the shortest description in a given description language. The problem with Kolmogorov Complexity is that there is no general solution to determine the shortest Kolmogorov description of a sequence in a given language.
In general, the term "given, detachable pattern" as used by Dembski is ill-defined and relies on false intuition. It has more to do with human notions of order than anything else. If you wish to continue to use this argument, I would ask that you provide precise definitions of the terms.
Comment by Zachriel — May 21, 2007 @ 10:13 pm
May 21st, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Where did I say it does? Specified Information is a subset of Shannon Information. Dembski makes that clear.
That subset is inaccessible to weakly specified stochastic mechanisms. You are invited to prove otherwise.
Trevors and Abel said it alternatively:
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 21, 2007 @ 10:21 pm
May 21st, 2007 at 10:23 pm
No I did not mean Algorithmic Information. That's misrepresentation has been promoted by Shallit and Elsberry.
By the way, Zach, do you have Dembski's writings. Which books do you own that you are so highly critical of.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 21, 2007 @ 10:23 pm
May 22nd, 2007 at 7:19 am
I would be happy to. Please provide a definition of "specification". You have said that "information" is Shannon Information. We know how Shannon defines "specification""”the same way I did above.
You say you are using Shannon Information, but you are apparently defining "specification" in a different manner. Please provide a concise definition.
Comment by Zachriel — May 22, 2007 @ 7:19 am
May 22nd, 2007 at 7:27 am
As you haven't provided a precise definition, I am left merely guessing. I introduced Algorithmic Information for purposes of discussion. You are welcome to clarify your claims.
They're in the library. But it was your claim that I disputed. I introduced Dembski only for the purposes of discussion. You may clarify your claim.
In order to prove or disprove the claim, we need a definition of specification that gives a precise and consistent result. We input a sequence and output the "specification". You said it was a subset of Shannon Information, but your use and conclusions are not consistent with Shannon's.
Comment by Zachriel — May 22, 2007 @ 7:27 am
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:52 am
Before I continue, it would be instructive to describe the significance of the paper from which the quote above comes. The legendary paper can be found here. It relates how many bits can be pumped through a communication channel. It depends on the amount of noise in the channel and on the presumption that we're dealing with long streams of information (N is the number of symbols in the message, and N is large).
For example the classic line:
has 37 alphabetic symbols. This phrase has a certain minimum number of bits required to properly describe it (with certain caveats). For example, it cannot be specified with only 3 bits (I dare anyone to try!). It cannot be specified with only 4 bits, 5 bits, …..
But it can be specified with 174 bits [log2( 26^37)] , and possibly less. The question is how much less!
Shannon's paper helped clarify how to arrive at that number. This is obviously important in the rea world of building internet communications and memory storage devices that are adequate to hold the information we wish to process.
"Specification" in the ID sense is still related to Shannon's notion, except, being a subset of Shannon information, the word specificaiton in the ID sense deals with even more specific specifications.
The added constraint is that we are dealing with specifications which identify design is that they are sufficiently complex and independently (not postdictively) given. Shannon's specifications were more general than ID specification. Hence ID specifications are a subset of the specification which Shannon was describing.
Shannon was dealing with communication channels where the message appearing at the receiving end was SPECIFIED by the message being put out at the transmitting end. ID theory had to adapt Shannon Transmit-Receive paradigm to the detection of design. Hence, some modification to the notion of SPECIFIED was certainly in order to apply it to ID since the Trainsmit-Receive metaphor is not so obvious in design detect. Still it was not a radical departure from Shannons original notion. It is helpful to realize :
1. ID's specified information is a subset of shannon information
2. ID's specifications are a subset of shannon's notions of specifications
Drawing a Venn Diagram will help visualize this. Sometimes, shorthand phrases like "information" instead of "ID version of complex specified information" are used in discussion.
Dembski alludes to this fact:
The definition for specified information whcih I like to work from can be found in :
Response to Elsberry Shallit 2003
The more rigorous definition of complex specified information is available at:
Specification: The Pattern That Signifies Intelligence.
The more rigorous version deals with the controversial area of factoring out post-dictive projections. You will see the Phi_S(t) calculation which estimates the level of postdiction which must be factored out.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 22, 2007 @ 11:52 am
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:55 am
By the way, since we are talking about Shannon's paper, it is evident to me we are discussing ID way beyond ID 101.
Dembski's papers deal the MDL theory and sigma-algebras and Renyi entropies (which I know only in passing). We're now at ID 440!
Yeah baby.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 22, 2007 @ 11:55 am
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
On the topic of ID 201, I consider two fundamental theorems or laws as the basis of ID.
1. Barrow, Tipler's derivations and solution to the Universal Wave Function (meaning God exists). See: The Anthropic Cosmological Principle
Also, see this article by a Physics Professor: How Quantum Physics may defeat Atheism
2. Dembski's displacement theorem. Visit: Displacement Theorem
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 22, 2007 @ 5:21 pm
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Hi Salvador,
You wrote…
I have to hand it to Zachriel, he is better at getting you to act like an engineer than I. Thank you for providing a link with equations I can use. While these are familiar to me (I have read a lot of Dembski) I needed you to point to something you will stand behind. As an engineer, you will stand behind these equations right? You understand them right?
If so, I would very much like to take them for a spin as an engineer and see how they work. Are you up for that?
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 22, 2007 @ 5:24 pm
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:55 pm
I understand most of them. Don't quote me on the sigma-algebras however. Even though I also have a math degree in addittion to computer science and electrical engineering degrees. However, my training in sigma algebras was a bit weak. There was even one symbol in the Displacement theorem which I would not feel comfortable interpreting.
I stand behind the equations from an intuitive viewpoint. If you want to grind me through the math, I'm willing to go theorem by theorem, even if I have to re-learn or learn something new. However, I don't think it really need quite that much. We can almost take more elementary notions and make a good case for design inferences.
Salvador
PS
I invite you to ask most Electrical Engineering or other IT-related college seniors to define information. I wouldn't be surprised if most could answer this basic question about their very own field of study for 4 years!
I myself did not really appreaciate what I learned as an undergrad till I studied ID from an information science/theory perspective.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 22, 2007 @ 5:55 pm
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Hi Salvador,
Or I could ask myself. I have a BSEE and have been dealing with "information related" problems for a couple of decades.
I will take your response "I'm willing to go theorem by theorem…" as accepting my request and that I won't be wasting my time testing the equations by using them. You will confirm or deny the test, won't you?
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 22, 2007 @ 6:40 pm
May 22nd, 2007 at 7:21 pm
Feel free to test drive them in their appropriate domain.
Let's give it a try.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 22, 2007 @ 7:21 pm
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:21 pm
Hi Salvador,
You wrote…
To me, the "appropriate domain" is a simple domain, an engineering domain.
Let's play "Yahtzee".
Here is the fundamental equation that defines "specified complexity".
χ = "“log2[ U "¢ Ï•(T) "¢ P(T|H) ]
With "U" being some complex sounding universal probability bound determined to be 10^120. The Yahtzee domain is simpler. There is only 1000 trials. That's it, from big bang to big crunch.
U = 1000
Ï•(T) = 1 (since it is one word "Yahtzee")
P(T|H) = 1 / 7776 (five dice = 6^5 = 7776)
χ = "“log2[ 1000 "¢ 1 / 7776 ] = 2.96 and instead of "Yahtzee" we get to say "Designer did it!"
Now I understand there may be some confusion as to the appropriate Ï•(T) value. Dembski has taken some critisism there, but it doesn't matter if the value is 2 (because "all sixes", "all fives", … are all two words) or even if the value is 6 because there are six possibilities. χ will still be greater than 1.
I am looking forward to your response and being enlightened as to what I don't understand.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 22, 2007 @ 8:21 pm
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:43 pm
Greetings,
I don't play Yahtzee, so you'll have to help with the rules….
Pertaining to the equation you quote, it is from page 21 of Dembski's paper on specification. The formula you give for tilde-chi is for context-dependent specified complexity, not the generalized form of specified complexity.
The value "tilde-chi greater than 1" implies "it is less likely than not that an event of T's descriptive complexity and improbability would happen according to H". It does not mean chance could not be the explanation.
The inference, from a pure math perspective is that the chance hypothesis will generate that outcome 12.86% (2.96 bits) of the time. Thus "Designer did it" would not be an appropriate conclusion.
Tilde-chi greater than 1 means only chance (as described H) is less likely as an explanation. It does not mean chance was not the explanation. However, the higher the number of bits, the more remote chance can be appealed to as a causal explanation. It does not mean it is impossible through chance. That would be an invalid inference.
The Da Vinci Code example Dembski gives may lead one to think that is how design inferences are made by simply saying tilde-chi greater than 1 implies design automatically for every case. It is applicable in that case since we are talking about 1 event in 100 years. But I don't think that tilde-chi greater than 1 in general means "designer did it", but I can understand how people can misinterpret the Da Vinci Code example and arrive at that interpretation.
Moving on….
Phi_S(t) can be 1 if we are dealing with specifications given BEFORE the rolls occurred. These are pre-specifications. Pre-specification have a Phi_S(t) = 1.
Furthermore, the way you arrive at T is significant. If T is composed of serveral possible winning dice sequences, then T needs to be described in terms of multiple-possibilities, thus, P(T|H) = N / 7776 , where N is the number of possible winning sequences.
But let me point out where these arguments are going. Anti-IDists will uwittingly claim that Tilde-Chi is much much less than zero for various features of life. After all, in their mind, mindless evolution is fact, fact, fact. Fact, fact, fact implies tilde-chi much much less than zero.
In contrast, if ID proponents show the very distributions anti-IDists work from result in tilde-chi much greater than zero, then that will refute their claim that tilde-chi is much less than zero. Such a derivation does not inherently prove "Designer did it", but it does show the anti-IDists are wrong to claim mindless evolution is fact, fact, fact.
Recall I said, anti-IDists argue for square circles. Their claims lead to the following non-sensical conclusions:
You may ask, as an engineer, "what value tilde-chi is acceptable to infer design?" Well, what value would you accept?
I think tilde-chi above 500 bits is pretty good. RSA encryption with 60 bits was adequate for quite some time.
If no number is high enough for you, then I respect that. I mean that sincerely. A good engineer will be skeptical, and I can't fault you for wanting the threshhold for tilde-chi to be awfully high.
But for the record, tilde-chi greater than 1 does not automatically mean "designer did it".
regards,
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 22, 2007 @ 10:43 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:42 am
Then you may want to provide the correct formula with a short description of the terms. Like this,
Comment by Zachriel — May 23, 2007 @ 7:42 am
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:54 am
Hi Salvador,
Thank you for pointing out my mistakes. I will correct them.
First of all, let's take Zachriel's suggestion and change…
χ = "“log2[ U "¢ Ï•(T) "¢ P(T|H) ]
…to…
X = "“log2[ U "¢ S(T) "¢ P(T) ]
X = "context-dependent specified complexity"
U = Number of trials in the specific context
T = Pattern
S(T) = Number of T-like patterns in the Semiotic agent's lexicon.
P(T) = Probability of pattern T happening
Like I said before, S(T) is one of the more controversial aspects of Dembski's equation.
Dembski said…
"X depends on S's background knowledge through S(T), and therefore appears still to retain a subjective element, the elimination of chance only requires a single semiotic agent who has discovered the pattern in an event that unmasks its non-chance nature."
So in the simplified Yahtzee game. The Semiotic Agent recognizes two patterns "Yahtzee" and "Not a Yahtzee". With a "Yahtzee" being five dice being all the same. And you are correct that I should have used N/7776 instead of 1/7776 and I should have taken into account the Semiotic Agent's full lexicon of pattern recognition. This means the contextual universe needs to be simpler, 100 trials.
X = "“log2[ U "¢ S(T) "¢ P(T) ]
X = "“log2[ 100 "¢ 2 "¢ 6/7776 ] = 2.696
Salvador, you reference to what Anti-IDists do or don't do shouldn't be relevent to this excersize. We are trying to make Dembski's equations work all by themselves, right?
I am using the simple Yahtzee example to make sure I and others UNDERSTAND the equations before we complicate things. Have I calulated "context-dependent specified complexity" for the extremely simple Yahtzee universe? (100 throws of five dice)
If so, I am ready to go to a more complicated Yahtzee universe
I will continue this later.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 23, 2007 @ 8:54 am
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:03 am
Hi Salvador,
Continuing the ID 101 subject of Specified Complexity and its practical (engineering) application…
X = "“log2[ U "¢ S(T) "¢ P(T) ]
Where"¦
X = "context-dependent specified complexity"
U = Number of trials in the specific context
T = Pattern
S(T) = Number of T-like patterns in the Semiotic agent's lexicon.
P(T) = Probability of pattern T happening
Now I will explore the importance and power of the "S(T)" term. This is the term that differentiates between "specified" verses just "unlikely". To do this, I will expand the Semiotic agent's lexicon to"¦
"Yahtzee" (five dice all the same)
"Straight" (five dice in sequence)
"One"
"Two"
"Three"
"Four"
"Five"
"Six"
This would provide for different patterns having different probabilities yet be able to fully describe any single throw. For example the "One", "Two", "Three", "Four", "Five" throw could be simplified to "Straight" whereas "Two", "Five", "One", "Six", "Four" can't be reduced to a simpler pattern. Both throws have equal probably but one is more specified than the other.
Now let's take the practical application of my sister and I playing Yahtzee in the livingroom. We set up the game and I go to the kitchen to get a drink. My sister rolls the dices and yells out that she got "Four", "Five", "One", "Six", "Two", I say "fine". Mathematically S(T) is 7778 since the lexicon we are using doesn't allow for pattern reduction.
X = "“log2[ U "¢ S(T) "¢ P(T) ]
U = 1 (first throw)
S(T) = 7778
P(T) = 1/7776
X = "“log2[ 1 "¢ 7778 "¢ 1 / 7776 ] = slightly negative, definitely less than 1
After this I take my turn and notice I forgot to put ice in my drink and return to the kitchen. My sister rolls again and yells out that she got a "Three", "Three", "Three", "Three", "Three". I respond with "I think you cheated". This time the lexicon allowed for pattern reduction to something the Semiotic agent (me) could recognize as a "Yahtzee". In this case S(T) is 8.
X = "“log2[ U "¢ S(T) "¢ P(T) ]
U = 2 (second throw)
S(T) = 8
P(T) = 6/7776
X = "“log2[ 2 "¢ 8 "¢ 6 / 7776 ] = 6.34
Being the nice brother I am, I let my sister get away with it and take my turn. This time I carefully watch her take her next turn. With me watching, she rolls a "Yahtzee" of fives. Flabbergasted, I do the math"¦
X = "“log2[ U "¢ S(T) "¢ P(T) ]
U = 3 (third throw)
S(T) = 8
P(T) = 6/7776
X = "“log2[ 3 "¢ 8 "¢ 6 / 7776 ] = 5.75
Even though the answer is still greater than 1.0 I don't accuse her of cheating because, and this is important, I HAVE NO ALTERNATIVE HYPOTHESIS!
I need to get back to work, I will continue this later.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 23, 2007 @ 11:03 am
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:38 pm
Greetings,
Using Dembski's equations to refute claims by anti-IDists is "making Dembski's equations work all by themselves". I'm not aware of any major ID proponent who would say one equations says for sure "The Designer Did It". The closest to making such a claim is Frank Tipler.
The goal of much of Dembski's writings is to demonstrate and extend the notion of "No Free Lunch". The claim by Dembski: "Specified Complexity Cannot by Purchased without Intelligence" is a falsifiable claim (in the Popperian sense), the claim is not offered as an immutable truth.
The equations simply make ID a more promising hypothesis, it does not demonstrate it's absolute truthfulness. Where it may be useful from an industrial and technological viewpoint is if it is able to uncover linguistic constructs to reverse engineer the architectures of biology.
For example, if you listen to a modem signal, one might conclude it can be characterized by a somewhat normal distributions of 0s and 1s. If you stop there, and presume the signal is properly characterized by a stochastic representation, you miss out. The real intersting thing is to decode the signal by filtering it through specifications.
In fact, if you take even the known functioning genome, the sequential layout looks like it can be described stochastically, but in fact, that is not the whole story. When we uncovered the genetic code, we confirmed the genome was a specification for the organism. It was a rather obvious deduction that the genome specified certain proteins, but what we don't know is what other things the genome may specify! Up until lately, it was presumed most of it was noise (like a modem signal sounds like white noise). But now we know better. The Explanatory Filter may speed the process of finding legitimate linguistic patterns in what on the surface appears noise (after all modem signals appear on the surface no different than noise)….
We suspect Junk DNA has linguistic patterns. Detection of specified patterns may help decode it. The body of knowledge ID proponents are applying in this case should be perfectly comfortable to those in the encryption and decryption industry. The math offered is not radically different, only the audacity to apply it to unexplored frontiers….
I appreciate your dialogue. You tower over most of those skeptical of ID in terms of your comprehension and willingness to engage the ideas fairly.
regards,
Salvador
PS
Like you, I too participate sporadically today.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 23, 2007 @ 12:38 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Hi Salvador,
Continuing the ID 101 subject of Specified Complexity and its practical (engineering) application"¦
Hopefully, you will agree that my previous comments essentially describe the application of Dembski's equation in the simple domain of a Yahtzee universe. Now we could make the universe more complicated and assume there were 10^120 trials since the "game" started. We could also increase the lexicon to 10^5 terms. I suggest that even with these complications, the math stays essentially the same.
Does this mean I thought of something Dembski hasn't? No. I have no doubt Dembski is very smart and he understands all of this far better than I. All I have managed to do (if you agree) is explain things, in simple engineering terms, up to the end of chapter 7 of the link you provided.
Chapter 8 is where the PhD smoke and mirrors explainations start to happen. In Chapter 8 Dembski explains…
Now, in many statistical applications, the elimination of H (whether on Fisherian or Bayesian or other grounds), does not rule out chance as such but merely invites alternative chance hypotheses H´.
Notice how Dembski slipped in "alternate CHANCE hypotheses". The qualifier was unnecessary. Rephrasing…
Which, hopefully, we now all understand is the implication of the practical application of Specified Complexity. Let's jump to Dembski's summary as to why PhD logic trumps engineering understanding…
In conclusion, suppose that our best understanding of the processes that could have been involved in the occurrence of an event E suggests that if E happened by chance, then one of thechance hypotheses in {Hi}i∈I was responsible. Suppose, further, that the specified complexity associated with each of these chance hypotheses, that is, χi = "“log2[ 120 10 · Ï•S(T)·P(T|Hi)], is strictly greater than 1. In that case, we've eliminated all the chance hypotheses that might explain the occurrence of E (where E conforms to the pattern T). The inference to design is now immediate. Certainly it is a necessary condition, if a design inference is to hold, that all relevant chance hypotheses be eliminated. But this condition is also sufficient in that unknown chance hypotheses have no epistemic significance in defeating design…. once specified complexity has rendered all relevant chance alternatives inviable, chance as such is eliminated and design can no longer be denied.
That's it, that's the core of Dembski's ID 101.
As I have indicated before, it seems many PhD types enjoy telling us engineering types how difficult or impossible something is while we just try to make our prototype models work. And if MikeGene's Front-loading model comes together with Joy's new time model along with Hameroff's idea that the Cambrian explosion marked the dawn of conciseness, Dembski will be continue to be content that he was right all along. Dembski can claim he was right all along no matter what working model appears before him since he doesn't provide one himself.
Excuse me if I am not impressed.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 23, 2007 @ 12:41 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:06 pm
You are excused. I mean that sincerely. Your ability to accurately represent the literature is the most I can resonably hope for. The value you place on an idea is fully your decision. However, I credit you with trying to understand the literature accurately. Like a good engineer you set your feelings aside in the process of trying to accurate analyze the hypothesis. I think highly of individuals who will set aside their feelings in the interest of fairness.
Here are some more clarifications:
The above is true if we are dealing with generalized specifications. However, in the case of pre-specification, S(T) = 1, in fact, the term could be dropped altogether.
Thus before the game starts, define all of the winning possibilities. The set of all winning possibilities is a Set, that set is T. Set S(T) =1 since that is a pre-specification.
S(T) is used to help factor out the possiblity we are projecting postdictively (after the fact) onto an event or artifact. For example, you see all sorts of artifacts which you've never seen before and infer design. You implicitly have an S(T) in operation whether you realize it or not when you make such inferences. The case of pre-specifications, however, is much easier. I generally work with those as there is no ambiguity as to what S(T) should be, namely S(T) = 1.
You pointed out something important with the notion of H'. I'll write on that seperately.
regards,
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 23, 2007 @ 2:06 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Recall, formally speaking, design does not automatically imply ID. What Dembski is showing is that such an artifact will meet his formal definition of design if it will resist all possible chance hypotheses…..
To clarify, if we are talking about dice, we presume each die face has a probability of 1/6. H is customarily based on that presumption. Let us call H based on the assumption of equiprobabiliy H_0 to distinguish it from other distributions.
But the die could be loaded or lopsided. In fact one die could be loaded in one way and another die another way such that they wil tend to have a high probability of certain outcomes. We can call the appropriate distributions H_i .
How then can we be assured we are dealing with the proper H_i???
There are at least two solutions:
1. have a design that is independent of whatever H_i is chosen
2. show experimentally a proposed H_i is reasonable
Regarding #1, I think there is actually solution, imho. I have mentioned the solution before, namely, the self-replicating Turing Machine. Dr. Albert Voie, a cellular biologist and specialist in Artificial Intelligence had a peer-reviewed paper accepted on that topic. His paper can be used to argue any self-replicating Turing machine will be independent of H_i. See: Another Pro-ID Paper Passes Peer Review. Trevors and Abel, Hubert Yockey also make similar arguments. See: Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life.
Regarding #2, one can try to see experimentally if a distribution is reasonable. For example, we can use quantum theory, chemistry, and experiment to see if DNA will be strongly biased to have particular configurations. It turns out, whatever bias there is, the bias is not sufficient in-and-of-itself to create functional proteins much less self-replicating Turing machines.
The idea of an inherent chemical bias was among the first self-ordering theories, it was known as Biochemical Predestination and was pioneered by Dean Kenyon. After 20 years, Kenyon concluded his hypothesis was incorrect, and then became an ID proponent. His book was the focus of the Dover trial….
In Kenyon's case, he concluded the physical evidence was not consistent with the notion a viable H_i exists anywhere on Earth.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 23, 2007 @ 2:33 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Hi Salvador,
I was attempting to use the story of my sister and I as an after-the-event pattern recognition. Please don't try to wave away any and all testable examples as not being relevent.
This is how PhD types can always claim they were correct because concrete examples are "not relevent" to their abstract ideals.
For all those with PhD's listening in. Please understand to me, as an engineer, a "PhD type" are individuals that tend to respond to requests for possible solutions by offering explainations as to why it is a problem in the first place. I.E. aren't helpful when dealing with direct, practical ENGINEERING issues.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 23, 2007 @ 4:03 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 4:42 pm
That's why they are Doctors of Philosophy - philosophy being synonymous with useless.
Comment by Raevmo — May 23, 2007 @ 4:42 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:21 pm
[I have comment in the spam buffer pertaining to H and H-prime]
I apologize for my lack of familiarity with Yahtzee. What is a Yahtzee of fives? Is it 5,5,5,5?
In anycase, by the calculations offerered 5.75 bits corresponds to something that happens about 2% of the time with an equiprobably H-hypothesis. Many peer reviewed journals allow a failure rate of 1% because the results were due to chance, when in fact there was not due to any real phenomenon.
I wouldn't personally reject H-equiprobable as a causal hypothesis for something that happens 2% of the time.
However, the math gives you a way to calculate a number to estimate some level of confidence in the chance hypothesis. It is for you to decide if the number is adequate to reject H-equiprobable. What number is acceptable to you?
Personally, if I see a 10 sigma event with respect to H-equiprobable, I begin suspect H-equiprobable is an insufficient causal mechanism, and then I turn to H-loaded as a possible distribution.
[Again, my post regarding the space of all possible H's is being held up in moderation].
I suppose the question goes, what would constitute a miracle for you? If the answer is "nothing", I respect that. Skepticism is good.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 23, 2007 @ 5:21 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:59 pm
I'm still waiting for a clear answer. If CSI (complex specified information) represents an actual measure, please provide the function so that we can calculate it for various examples.
For a prespecified result this? X = "“log2[ U "¢ P(T) ]
For a not prespecified result this? X = "“log2[ U "¢ S(T) "¢ P(T) ]
I just want to be sure before delving further into this.
Comment by Zachriel — May 23, 2007 @ 5:59 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:33 pm
Go to page 24 of Specification, The Patterns that Signify Intelligence
You will see the equation there.
CSI is measured with reference to the observers specifications and chance Hypothesis H.
The measurements are observer dependent. That is completely appropriate in information science.
To make a measurement fill in the parameters. If you feel uncomforatable with S(T), then use pre-specifications, such that S(T) = 1.
To understand the observer dependence issue consider the question: "does a 100 Meg JPeg file which was compressed from a 1 Geg Avi file have 100 megs or 1 Geg?" What is the proper way to measure the bits in an uncompressed file?
Even in classical mechanics, one has reference frames from which relative ansewers are made. The parameters for the calculation of CSI define the reference frame of the observation. S(T) helps estimate how much of the design inference is the result of postdiction (after-the-fact-projection).
The equations are formulated to help negate the problems caused by observer dependent measurements.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 23, 2007 @ 6:33 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 6:51 pm
The formula you pointed to is not quite the same as the one Thought Provoker and you were discussing. Now we have "the specified complexity of T given H":
χ = "“log2[ 10^120 · Ï•S(T) · P(T|H)].
For clarity, please tell us what each term represents. Then we can grapple with them in detail. I appreciate your forbearance.
Comment by Zachriel — May 23, 2007 @ 6:51 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:05 pm
If we begin with the simplest examples, it is possible to understand where this is headed. The simplest examples are the ones that can be independently verified.
There are at least two ways to detect design:
I will pick examples where #2 can be used to independently verify an inference deduced by #1. If one will never accept #1 without access to #2, that is a reasonable position which I respect.
However, for the sake of undertstanding the math, I will pick examples of detecting man-made designs…….
One can give the following exercise to students to detect man-made designs. Give each of them (or each team of them ) 1000 coins with a number painted on them to help make each coin identifiable.
Tell the students to create designs with the coins such that a design inference is undeniable. That other humans will recognize. In addition to the design of the coins themselves, the coins are to be arranged with respect to each other will suggest design (as opposed to the coins being poured out on the table randomly).
Notice there could be layers to the design. They could stack the coins, lay them out in a nice line, or make specific coins heads or tails. I will focus on the configuration of heads or tails. Since the coins are numbered, I can represent them sequentially:
For the sake of brevity I might represent hypothetical examples by listing them compactly like:
Assuming H is equiprobable, for a single pattern like all heads,
P(T|H-equiprobable) = 1 / 2^1000
S(T) = 1 since the notion all heads is well defined and has been seen (specified previously) before. Thus it is a pre-specification.
Therefore, supposes the students took 1000 coins and made them all heads.
X = log 2 ( 10^120 * 1 * 1 / 2^1000 ) = 601 bits which is greater than 1, thus we are strongly inclined to reject H-equiprobable as being causally adequate to generate the pattern.
H-unfair-coins might be considered as a hypothesis. For example, if the coin favored heads 75% of the time P( T | H-unfair-coin) for all heads is:
P( T | H-unfair-coin) = .75^1000
X ( T-all-heads, H-unfair-coin ) = 16.4 bits
However, H-unfair-coin would fall apart as a hypothesis if the coins were tested empirically and found to be generally fair. If the coins were found fair, then H-equiprobable would be the better chance hypothesis to measure the specified complexity.
That's an example anyway…
regards,
Salvador
PS
Thank you to the mods for releasing my post on H-prime.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 23, 2007 @ 8:05 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:37 pm
I didn't ask for another example, but for "what each term represents" so that we could "grapple with them in detail". I'm a slow learner and need to comprehend this in steps. (It may be of some value to our readers, as well.)
T is the given pattern.
H is the hypothesis that the pattern is due to some probability distribution.
P(T|H) is the probability of the pattern occurring given the chance hypothesis, that is, due to the hypothesized probability distribution.
S is the semiotic agent trying to determine whether pattern T occurred by chance according to some chance hypothesis H".
Ï•S(T) = "the number of patterns for which S's semiotic description of them is at least as simple as S's semiotic description of T".
10^120 is an arbitrarily big number introduced as a boundary condition.
-log2 perhaps to convert the inverse to binary bits.
Is this correct so far?
Comment by Zachriel — May 23, 2007 @ 8:37 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:05 pm
Correct. It is a specific description of a possible outcome. i.e. T = "all coins heads" = H H H……
Generally correct. H is associated with a specific probability distribution. For example, if you think the distribution is equiprobable for each outcome, H has a particular form, if not, H has a different form. A set of fair coins has an appropariate H, and a set of biased (unfair) has a different H.
Correct!
Correct!
Correct! But in plain English, this is a compensating term to account for possible post-dictive (after the fact) projections. It is best to deal with situations where you don't use this term, namely, it is better to deal with situations where you have pre-sepecifications, and thus set Ï•S(T) = 1.
Not quite. 10^120 is derived from the number of possible atomic interactions that could possibly happen in the universe. It is deduced from the observed boundary conditions of the unvierse (such as age and size of the universe). It is not an arbitrary number used as a boundary condition. It is a number derived from observed boundary conditions. It is a measure of the computing power of the whole universe.
This was likely due to the fact that the arguments were framed in terms of information theory. It is a left over from the No Free Lunch arguments.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 23, 2007 @ 9:05 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Note: T can be associated with single event or a set of events. The "single target" objection is invalid, as the definition of specified complexity deals with this.
for example, the set two possible outcomes like "all coins heads" and "all coins tails" can be, at the observers discretion, made into one target.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 23, 2007 @ 9:15 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:27 pm
If Ï•S(T) = 1, then the formula doesn't say anything other than what has been known since Pascal spent his nights with gamblers, womanizers and free thinkers. Unlikely events are unlikely; so don't bet even money on filling an inside straight.
There are already evident problems with the formula. A chance hypothesis may be false without an indication of anything other than there may be an unknown cause. If we toss iron filings on a table, they might not align in any particular way. But if we were to find ourselves in a magnetic field, then they may align together. This is exactly what happens with compasses. All the compasses of all the sailors on the seas align the same way. It's not random. We agree on that. But in our ignorance of a mechanism, do we then claim it's agency? We would hope not. You can calculate however many compass needles you want to achieve the so-called Universal Probability Bound.
The semiotic agent is even more fraught with problems, but we'll let you respond to the previous point.
Comment by Zachriel — May 23, 2007 @ 9:27 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:29 pm
Sorry, I had already edited that comment. Let it be the number of bits, then.
Comment by Zachriel — May 23, 2007 @ 9:29 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Hi Zachriel and Salvador,
Apparently my understanding and explaination wasn't clear enough. In this post I will focus on trying to clear up what I am saying and make no arguments.
χ = "“log2 [ 10^120 · Ï•S(T) · P(T|H) ].
I think everyone understands P(T|H) is the probability of a given pattern occuring assuming a given hypothesis.
10^120 is the number of "trials" that have occured in the known universe since the beginning of time. In my simplified Yahtzee example the number of trials is much less.
Ï•S(T) is the tricky term. It has the direct effect of eliminating rare, but unspecified patterns. In a card hand, saying "king of hearts, ten of spades, seven of diamonds, six of clubs and two of spades" fully describes a hand. Saying "Royal Straight Flush in hearts" describes a different hand. Both hands are equally rare but one required more words to specify it than the other. The more words needed to describe the patter, the larger Ï•S(T) is.
Ï•S(T) is why this equation quantifies SPECIFIED Complexity and not just simple complexity/probability.
Salvador, I think if you look again, you will see that your 2% probability is an improper use of a Specified Complexity calculation as opposed to a probability calculation.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 23, 2007 @ 9:52 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:05 pm
How many times have I said that most of the math is nothing new!!!!!
The problem is that what has been known has not been applied by OOL researchers and evolutionary biologists (with an anti-ID bias) to see the futility of their enterprise.
That is what the majority of the math is about, refuting the claims of proponents of mindless evolution. If their ideas are subject to very basic mathematical scrutiny as outlined in Dembski's works, the claim of mindless evolution being "fact, fact, fact" starts to become doubtful.
It doesn't make ID true, however, it demonstrates the claims by the anti-IDists are doubtful at best if not completely wrong.
Indeed it can be false. But what is especially ironic when that chance hypotheses are argued to be true when it can be demonstrated to be false (or at best shown to be full of obfuscations). That is a problem which OOL and mindless evolution face. They claim their ideas are 100% true when scrutiny might demonstrate otherwise.
That was the major issue that No Free Lunch and Dembski's writings address. Intelligent agency is suggested as a solution, however, even without that suggestion, the work can be used to refute claims of the adequacy of mindless evolution.
Prior to calculating X, it is presumed natural law causes like magnetic fields have been ruled out.
Now there is always the chance a natural law cause was prematurely rulled out. However, if the design of the artifact is resistant to explanations via natural law (both known or yet-to-be-discovered), then one may start exploring possible chance hypotheses. One such design which resist natural laws is a biological Turing machine:
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 23, 2007 @ 10:05 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Hi Salvador,
You wrote…
THIS is a PhD Zealot talking, not an engineer.
PhD types pontificate on how difficult the problem is and how others are doing it all wrong. Engineers make prototypes and models and THEY MAKE THEM WORK.
Salvador, Are you an engineer or not?
Give me a workable, alternative hypothesis to what is being done and I will listen.
I think MikeGene is working on one. His choice of scientific articles and movie clips provide hints to what it is. I am looking at revising my ID proposal to include things from Penrose/Hameroff.
You have provided hints of your model. Get out from behind Dembski's smoke and mirrors and present it. Be the engineer you are.
Provoking
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 23, 2007 @ 10:23 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:33 pm
No one of significance in biology posits that organic patterns are random assemblages.
The name of the article we are discussing is Specification, The Patterns that Signify Intelligence.
There is no complete theory of abiogenesis. And evolution is not a random process.
I tried to evoke the situation of ancient mariners using magnetic compasses. They can't rule in or out magnetic fields they are ignorant about. (Nor can I provide an example of a natural law that is not known.)
Consider again the example of ancient mariners using magnetic compasses. They are confronted with a decidedly non-random pattern. They reject the chance hypothesis, but what are they left with? A Gap. Being superstitious, they may very well imagine a spiritual force, but that is not a scientifically valid conclusion. Those who were scientifically minded wouldn't use the Universal Probability Bound. They would notice that there appeared to be a pattern. (You don't need 10^-120, one in a few hundred would probably suit for a tentative hypothesis.) They could do a test to confirm the pattern. They would then experiment with the needles to see if they could determine the mechanism. Even if the mechanism were a spirit, they would want to know more about it.
You can't rule out what you don't know.
Trevors and Abel are simply wrong on this. Their paper is merely a sweeping claim, not a proof which is required of a "truism". I note they published their paper on the mathematics of evolutionary algorithms in Cell Biology. I doubt it was reviewed by mathematicians. In any case, they have failed to convince the vast majority of experts in the mathematical community, or cell biology for that matter.
And we still haven't dealt with Ï•S(T).
Comment by Zachriel — May 23, 2007 @ 10:33 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:36 pm
Well said. And that is why such specifications (those generated by combining many elementary concepts in ones lexicon) should be treated with greater suspicion as post-diction becomes a serious factor. A larger Ï•S(T) will then help to discourage the use of such specifications. Small Ï•S(T) good, big Ï•S(T) bad. Ï•S(T) = 1, the best.
It quantifies (perhaps with a scaling factor) the specified complexity one may be postdictively projecting onto an artifact.
Finally, consider the fact that one can only have a finite nubmer of 500-bit pre-specifications. If one had an infinite number of 500-bit pre-specifications, design inferences would not be possible since one could always find a pre-specifcation in ones repertoire to fit over any given artifact.
If however, one only has a finite nubmer of 500-bit specifications, then one will be surprised if an artifact matches one of the pre-specifications in ones inventory. This is the notion of the adequacy of "specificational resources". The "specificational resources" must be sufficiently limited to allow the chance hypothesis H to be rejected.
If one adds the requirement the pre-specification is not post-dictive, then the design inference to artifacts matching ones repertoire of 500-bit pre-specifications becomes more reasonable. Strictly speaking it proves design (the artifact satisfies a mathematical definition of design), it does not necessarily prove intelligent design. However, the falsifiable (but not provable) hypothesis is that proving design also implies intelligent design.
Ï•S(T) helps us identify designs for which pre-specifcations may not exist. For example, you can read sentences which you've never seen before and still infer the sentences are designed. You did not have a pre-specification to recognize the sentences as designed. You are implicitly applying Ï•S(T) in the process of recognition.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 23, 2007 @ 10:36 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:50 pm
I take you at your word.
http://www.creationscience.com by Engineer MIT PhD Walter Brown reflects as complete a model as there is out there. The model is highly empirical, and not quite so esoteric. His views accord with mine. That is however, creation science, not ID proper.
I have said Sanford's genetic entropy suggests recent special creation. His model is emprically falsifiable when Solexa technology matures.
These specific models which I subscribe to will put me at variance with Bill Dembski's views of evolution as well as those at TT. I still think his critique of Darwinain evolution is substantive.
There you have it. I hope to have http://www.YoungCosmos.com up and running some day to discuss the specific empirical evidences.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 23, 2007 @ 10:50 pm
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Hi Salvador,
You wrote…
I happen to be one of those people that believes Creation Science is more scientific than what you have called "mainstream ID". The steady state model of the universe is also scientific. Both of these models are falsifiable and, I believe, falsified.
But I will listen to what Walter Brown has to say by thoroughly reading what is at the link you provided and, if you are interested, tell you my opinion of it.
Regards,
TP
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 23, 2007 @ 11:05 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 12:23 am
Zachriel wrote:
Um, why is there electromagnetism?
Are you going to invoke yet another Unknown-Material-Process-of-the-Gaps 'explanation' to add to all the others?
the existence of the universe or the multiverse; the origin of laws of nature; why these laws have the scientific content they have; the origin and specific magnitudes of physical constants; the initial conditions; life; consciousness; reason; morality; the emotional qualia associated with music; language; codes; how thought represents the world; the difference between what physical facts constitute something's being intelligently designed and what physical facts constitute something's not being intelligently designed. Et cetera.
Magicmatterdidit somehow, but definitely unguided, unintentionally, unconsciously and for absolutely no reason or purpose! That is the 'Explanation' we get from your team.
I can't say I'm overly impressed.
Comment by stunney — May 24, 2007 @ 12:23 am
May 24th, 2007 at 2:54 am
Although I appreciate your willingness to defend an idea which you subscirbe to, I think that statement needs clarification.
What does "evolution is not a random process" mean? Does that mean evolution has a direction toward something? Or does it aim for nothing in particular? Does that mean natural selection is not stochastically described? Does that mean there exists a mathematical description of how natural selection will act? I would suppose if one says mindless evolution is not random, such non-random behavior should described or approximated mathematically.
How does one argue logically and mathematcally that evolution is non-random? If one says it is non-random because the fittest always survive, that seems awfully tautological and rather circular. Even allowing the tautology, does fact the fittest survive necessarily imply it results in the generation of large scale specified complexity?
Because I like you, I hesitate to put you on the spot. But….if evolution is not a random process, and it is not stochastically described, what is it and how is it described mathematically in a way that makes it seem plausible from first physical principles?
I think there are no substantive answers to those questions because the supposed emergence of large scale novelty through mindless evolution is incosistent with empirical data.
I'm afraid such a paper was already accepted, and it was Shannon's legendary paper:
Note figure 7 on page 11. It indicates H=0 bits when P or Q is certain (100% probability). That is exactly consistent with Trevors and Abel, or shall I say Trevors and Abel are consistent with Shannon:
If the input to logic gates in a computer are certain, there is no point in making a logic gate! For a computer to work, it must admit materials which allow parts of it to have uncertainty. This allowance for uncertainty is incosistent with rigid law-like determinism. Computers cannot be built with logic gates stuck in one state because of law-like mechanisms. Uncertainty is a nessessity somewhere in the computer architecture.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 24, 2007 @ 2:54 am
May 24th, 2007 at 5:42 am
Salvador wrote:
It means that all else being equal, polar bears will not evolve black fur. The environment constrains evolution in a non-random way.
The fittest don't always survive. Isn't that obvious?
Plausibility is subjective. Who knows what it would take to make evolution plausible to a promiscuously teleological mind like yours?
There are plenty of mathematical models of evolution in the literature if you care to look.
Zachriel wrote:
Salvador wrote:
The idea that the Shannon information goes to zero as the probability goes to one is a truism, and a boring, uncontroversial one. What Trevors and Abel are claiming is quite different and is not covered in Shannon's paper. They claim, in the excerpt you quoted, that if natural law is deterministic or nearly so, that it cannot produce enough information to account for the complexity of existing genomes.
Their error is in misunderstanding the nature of Shannon information and the role of sender and receiver. The Shannon information is effectively a measure of the reduction in the receiver's uncertainty when a message is received.
If natural law were deterministic, and if the receiver were already aware of the state of every particle in the universe, then it could, by itself, predict the future state of the universe at any given time with probability 1. Any messages it received would not reduce its uncertainty, because the uncertainty was already zero, and so the information content of the messages would also be zero.
But this is not the situation with the genome. The genome does not contain a complete model of external reality which would allow it to predict every external event with probability one. To the genome, the outside world is not perfectly predictable, even if it is in fact deterministic. Information can be transferred into the genome from the outside world, even if the laws of nature are deterministic (or nearly so), because the information in the genome is incomplete (and therefore uncertain).
That's simply not true. If I program a working computer to calculate square roots and give it the number 25 as an operand, it will produce the answer 5 with no leeway and no uncertainty. It is completely deterministic.
The inputs to its internal logic gates will vary, but don't confuse that with indeterminism. They will vary in a predictable way.
Comment by keiths — May 24, 2007 @ 5:42 am
May 24th, 2007 at 6:15 am
Salvador T. Cordova wrote:
Salvador, he's talking about 'The fit survive because they're fit and they're fit because they survive because they're fit survivors endowed with fitness that's conducive to survival of the fit', ahem, Explanation"¦
You're just not getting it, thus disqualifying you from enjoying 'bright' status.
Comment by stunney — May 24, 2007 @ 6:15 am
May 24th, 2007 at 6:36 am
Here is some selection logic:
Suppose there is a population where individuals have different Z-values (Z is a trait like body mass). Then the mean value of the Z-distribution changes from one generation to the next according to
E(Z)(new)= E(Z)(old) + cov(Z,W)/E(W)
Where cov(Z,W) is the covariance between the trait Z and survival W, normalized by the mean survival E(W). It combines in a logical way information about how phenotype (Z) and survival (W) covary (stochastically or deterministically or a combination thereof), and how this predicts the evolution of Z.
This is the celebrated Price Equation. Also known as the Secondary Theorem of Natural Selection, although Fisher's Fundamental Theorem is a special case: replace Z by W, then
E(W)(new)=E(W)(old)+var(W)/E(W)
This says the change in mean survival (fitness) is proportional to the amount of variance in survival. Fisher was quite proud of it and likened the role of E(W) in evolution to the role of entropy in the SLOT.
These equations are also used by breeders in practice:
R=h^2 S
R is the response to (artificial) selection, h^2 the heritability, and S the (applied) strength of selection.
Comment by Raevmo — May 24, 2007 @ 6:36 am
May 24th, 2007 at 7:47 am
Hi Salvador,
You wrote…
Allow me to attempt to provoke some thinking by restating this using a differently…
But"¦.if design is a stochastic process, and it is not randomly described, what is it and how is it described mathematically in a way that makes it seem plausible from first physical principles?
One if the things Dembski does in Specification: The Pattern That Signifies Intelligence is assume a perfect design.
When comparing hypotheses, he gives design the default status by assuming it is not a "chance hypothesis" and, therefore, P(T|H) = 1.
I suggest that is an inappropriate assumption. All real world, ENGINEERING hypotheses have a mixture of random and deterministic elements. A rocket designed to go to the moon can blow up on the launch pad.
Evolution may be a poor "designer", but that doesn't mean it is totally random.
In turn, Front-loading would be a real-world "designer", but that doesn't mean it is totally stochastic.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 24, 2007 @ 7:47 am
May 24th, 2007 at 7:52 am
I seem to have a comment "awaiting moderation". Why is that?
Comment by Raevmo — May 24, 2007 @ 7:52 am
May 24th, 2007 at 7:53 am
It always surprises me when someone who has obviously spent some time on the subject, and who apparently has some knowledge of mathematics repeats such misconceptions. Random in science means a probability distribution (typically uniform) or a non-correlation of variables.
It's not circular if "fitness" is derived from empirical observations of specific traits. In any case, most biologists use a more precise definition, variable reproductive success due to heritable differences. And again, it is rooted in observation.
We can observe organisms evolve in response to their environment. There is no question that natural selection is a real phenomena.
Just citing Shannon in a paper doesn't mean that Shannon's Information Theory supports the conclusions of the paper. Keiths already responded in more detail.
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 7:53 am
May 24th, 2007 at 7:57 am
You left out part of my argument, "Even if the mechanism were a spirit, [those with a scientific bent] would want to know more about it."
And as I said, merely filling the Gap with a spiritual force is not scientifically valid assertion. Calling it a spirit adds nothing to our scientific understanding and leads to conflation with other spiritual notions. But if you want to call the electromagnetic force a spirit, I have no objection; but the claim is without scientific content.
The electromagnetic force is a manifestation of the electroweak force, and there is reason to believe there are even deep symmetries with other forces.
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 7:57 am
May 24th, 2007 at 8:44 am
Zachriel wrote:
You didn't answer my questions. You seem to have a gift for that.
The questions were:
Um, why is there electromagnetism?
and
Are you going to invoke yet another Unknown-Material-Process-of-the-Gaps 'explanation' to add to all the others?
"I don't know" and "Yes" would suffice, you know.
I don't know why you are so strenuously and hilariously addicted to evading straightforward questions put to you. It makes it seem that your mind is ruled not by reason, but by craven submission to the dictates and talking points of an ideology. At least, that's the impression you give, just like a Biblical fundamentalist.
Are you suggesting that filling the Gap with an unknown material process is any more of a scientifically valid conclusion?
If so, why? I assume it wouldn't be for anything so crass as a mere philosophical prejudice, since such prejudices are not scientifically valid conclusions.
Getting back to the mariners and their compasses, what, if anything, would be irrational about their inferring an intentional, intelligent cause of magnetic phenomena, given that they infer intentional, intelligent causes for both their compasses and their ships? And themselves, for that matter.
Comment by stunney — May 24, 2007 @ 8:44 am
May 24th, 2007 at 9:26 am
Zachriel wrote:
I think you must have edited your comment after seeing my last one.
But you still haven't answered my questions.
I know what electromagnetism is. I've read all about the electroweak force, quantum chromodynamics, quantum electrodynamics, the search for guts and toes, M-theory, and all that jazz.
I want to know, however, why there is such a thing as electromagnetism, and why so exquisitely obedient to my compatriot's famous equations.
'Deep Symmetries' sounds deep alright. But why should an impersonal, unintended universe be so concerned with obeying deep symmetries? Why would the universe care about that, if it's unintended, impersonal, purposeless, and meaningless? Clearly it can't care if it's ultimately impersonal.
If houses built themselves, would they care about how they looked? Would they care about appearing symmetrical rather than ramshackle? Only architects and builders with conscious rational minds would care about how houses ought to look.
How can it be that mathematics, being after all product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality? — Albert Einstein.
It is difficult to avoid the impression that a miracle confronts us here, quite comparable in its striking nature to the miracle that the human mind can string a thousand arguments together without getting itself into contradictions, or to the two miracles of laws of nature and of the human mind's capacity to divine them. — Eugene Wigner
Comment by stunney — May 24, 2007 @ 9:26 am
May 24th, 2007 at 9:50 am
I have answered this question for you previously.
Electromagnetism can be scientifically described as an expression of underlying symmetries, as I explained.
Yes, because it is specific rather than vague and leads to distinguishing empirical predictions.
We can call the phenomena anything we want. The term "electromagnetism" was coined because it is the scientific unification of other specific phenomena that were previously described. Calling everything a "spirit" has no scientific utility because it doesn't help us distinguish the various differences in the phenomena, and can lead to conflation with other notions.
One could posit such a "intentional, intelligent cause", but it doesn't lead to specific and distinguishing empirical predictions. However, the assertion that there is a magnet in the Earth, much like smaller magnets, does lead to such predictions. Of course, our mariners may not be aware of these properties. From a scientific vantage, all they know is that they see a pattern.
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 9:50 am
May 24th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Off-topic
It couldn't have been after you posted your comment, but perhaps after you downloaded it in order to compose your reply. There is a 30 minute window for editing. In this case, it was an addendum, I had hoped for clarity. I apologize.
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 9:55 am
May 24th, 2007 at 10:00 am
Hi Stunney,
You wrote to Zachriel…
That would have been a neat trick considering Zachriel's comment was timestamped 7:57 making 8:27 the cutoff time for making changes. Your comment was timestamped 8:44. How could Zachriel react to your comment before it was posted?
Retrocausality?
Provoking
P.S. I see Zachriel provided a reasonable explaination. BTW, I also edit comments after posting them. I try to make only grammatical changes (I R a eenginear) but sometimes it gets more substantial than that. If it get's too lengthy (like this one) I put it in a "P.S.".
I have also gotten into the habit of rechecking comments before hitting the send button just to make sure I don't look too foolish if things have changed when I wasn't looking.
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 24, 2007 @ 10:00 am
May 24th, 2007 at 10:16 am
If you say "Random in science means a probability distribution (typically uniform) or a non-correlation of variables " and then say evolution is non-random, you should be able to point to the non-random function or what variables are correlated, and justify why they should be correlated. I don't believe that is possible with respect to large scale specified complexity.
In years of discussing this subject, I've not seen one non-random mindlessly originated evolutionary function offered in a manner that speaks to the development of large scale specified complexity. I've certainly not seen it justified from empirical observations. It strikes me a being merely an assertion, not a theoretically or empirically defensible claim. Not to mention, Lewontin casts doubt on the ability to defend the existence of such non-random functions mathematically. See his Santa Fe Winter 2003 article.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 24, 2007 @ 10:16 am
May 24th, 2007 at 10:22 am
There is no question species go exinct either. It does not imply the extinction of species necessarily leads to the development of large scale specified complexity. It's hard to argue that the subtraction of things implies the creation of things.
In fact, there is substantial direct empirical evidence, natural selection favors simplicity, not complexity. If we view the weight of direct observation, it is more consistent with Genetic Entropy, not the evolution of large-scale novel complexity.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 24, 2007 @ 10:22 am
May 24th, 2007 at 10:32 am
You just modified your claim. Do you understand how you did this? Then please explain why you did this.
We're not talking about extinction, but evolution within a population due to selection. That is, differential reproduction due to heritable differences.
How do you jive this with your previous comments concerning natural selection having no empirical merit?
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 10:32 am
May 24th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Zachriel wrote:
Er, what specific, non-vague predictions flow from saying that electromagnetism is the result of an unknown material process?:smile:
Getting back to the mariners and their compasses, what, if anything, would be irrational about their inferring an intentional, intelligent cause of magnetic phenomena, given that they infer intentional, intelligent causes for both their compasses and their ships?
The fact that the mariners can't derive specific empirical predictions from their inferences that their ships and compasses were intelligently designed doesn't strike me as even relevant to the question of the rationality of the inferences to intelligent design with respect to the origin of their ships and compasses. So why should it be relevant with respect to the original cause of magnetic force?
Comment by stunney — May 24, 2007 @ 10:53 am
May 24th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Hi Salvador,
You wrote…
This gets us back to the topic, ID 101 and Dembski's definition of specified complexity.
χ = "“log2[ 10^120 "¢ Ï•(T) "¢ P(T|H) ]
As I pointed out in the example of my sister and I playing Yahtzee. This is a COMPARISON of hypotheses. The probably that my sister cheated while I was in the kitchen was very, nearly 1.0 (my sister cheats all the time). This makes the "cheated" hypothesis more likely than "highly improbable" hypotheses.
However, if I eliminate the "cheated" hypothesis by watching her very closely then my choices of hypotheses are limited to "highly improbable" ones. In this case a highly improbable hypothesis is correct because it actually happened.
Unless you are postulating perfect design, even your hypothesis includes an element of chance.
It is inappropriate for you and Dembski to keep the design hypothesis safe and protected from being compared to all others. It is inappropriate because it is just using smoke and mirrors to say "God did it, I believe it, that settles it"
It is well within your rights to believe in the Ultimate Engineer (God). But dont make us other, lesser engineers go head-to-head with him without telling us that is what we are doing.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 24, 2007 @ 10:53 am
May 24th, 2007 at 10:59 am
So returning to Specification, The Patterns that Signify Intelligence. The entire project appears doomed. All it means is that if we observe a pattern, we seek the cause. I've already discussed the problems with P(T|H). Briefly, that unlikely events are unlikely and that we should look for a unifying element, intelligent or otherwise, to explain such correlations. Nothing new to science there.
Now, to Ï•S(T). This one's a lot of fun! Let's start with S, the semiotic agent. Who is this guy? What is the extent of his knowledge. It seems that the calculation of specified complexity is determined by how observant S is. If he is bad at math, he might miss a simple pattern. If he is a prodigy, he might be able to factor a very large number into two large primes (even though there is no general solution to this problem).
So how do we actually calculate Ï•S(T)? Let's look at one of Dembski's examples, "Royal Flush". But what does the term "Royal Flush" really mean? Well, if you don't play poker, it doesn't mean much. So the description of a "Royal Flush" has to include the rules of poker, or at least enough of the rules to describe the hand completely. We have to discuss ranking. The King is above the Queen. I guess that's because the prevailing paternalistic culture. But what is the Ace doing on top? Something about the French Revolution. So recognition of a "Royal Flush" may not be apparent to someone who doesn't play poker. And its description is much longer than it first appears to someone familiar with the game.
Perhaps, we could imagine an omniscient S. But how could we then calculate Ï•S(T)? (e.g. we can't generally factor the product of two very large prime numbers.) I assume that as specified complexity is posited as an empirical device, that we should be able to calculate it. So we can't posit an omniscient S.
You mentioned that this had nothing to do with Algorithmic Complexity, but the article makes substantial mention of Algorithmic Complexity, specifically Kolmogorov Complexity. And in Kolmogorov Complexity, sequences are described in terms of a reference or description language, but the language must be carefully defined, and it can be proven that you cannot generally calculate the shortest description.
Anyway, it is an interesting question, but the general calculation of Ï•S(T)is intractable. What we can do is look for patterns. When we find patterns, we look for underlying causes, intelligent, random or otherwise. Yes, we may be able to eliminate naive randomness, but that doesn't inevitably lead to a conclusion of design. We still need to form an appropriate hypothesis, then test the predictions of the hypothesis.
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 10:59 am
May 24th, 2007 at 11:28 am
Because electromagnetism is not merely some vague "unknown material process", but a specific process the posited existence of which leads to well-defined empirical predictions.
The claim was "filling the Gap with a spiritual force is not a scientifically valid conclusion". We can apply rationality without reference to scientific empiricism, e.g. mathematics, philosophy.
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 11:28 am
May 24th, 2007 at 11:55 am
Ï•S(T)
Speaking of our semiotic agent. Sometimes a verbal description of a number may be longer than the number itself, but without knowledge of the description, the number may seem rather dull.
So one of the most important and intelligent of all semiotic agents, GH Hardy, failed to recognize this particular pattern.
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 11:55 am
May 24th, 2007 at 12:23 pm
One of my posts, on Ï•S(T), appears stuck in moderation.
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 12:23 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
Z: Rock claims that "natural science" can't account for design. That's the problem with the term "natural". It is subject to constant conflation"¦
I conflate the natural sciences with those sciences whose current practitioners call them natural sciences.
Other than just calling it a natural science, what makes a science natural is not knowledge of what nature is/not, since such knowledge obviates the definitive object of the natural scientists designs upon nature: to acquire knowledge of nature.
You don't even have to ask what the natural scientist means by "nature," because he may not know himself, or will drearily repeat some philosophical babble. Simply observe what he is investigating and you will have gained some insight into what he thinks "nature" is and what he thinks it means to be practicing natural science.
In the design sciences we study designs. Whereas the natural scientist investigates objects and processes that were not, or he does not believe, were designed.
The natural scientists investigates what he believes is not (and maybe never has been) under the control of an intelligent agent. Except himself of course… He understands that in performing an experiment he is exercising a controlling influence, over the very outcomes of the experiment. Acting as an "intelligent agent" or "intelligent designer." So he certainly does not deny the existence of such entities, nor deny that such entities act to control nature to effect outcomes that would not obtain if no such action was taken.
There is a bit of a dilemma entailed naturally, so to speak, in Dembski's "innocuous question": The natural science must ask himself Dembski's very question and must answer it Yes–otherwise he doesn't know what "natural science" is. How do I know my results are "true of nature" or only reflect the effects of my own actions?
The "dilemma" may be real in any particular case, but there is no such dilemma for natural science generally. That is because the natural scientist draws upon a collected body of tested reliable knowledge of design (a "design theory") that he applies to detect (and predict) and, most importantly with his specific objective in mind) subtract the effects of his own actions, his designs, from his results so that he can say with some level of confidence that his results are of true of nature. Not design.
Natural science.
The natural scientist can be said to be practicing natural science only because he effectively applies a theory of design.
This distinguishes the natural scientist from the ID-scientist. Because as we all know, the ID-scientist has no design theory. Ironic, huh?
Clarifying? Nyaah, I doubt it. I gave it a shot. What can I do?
Comment by Rock — May 24, 2007 @ 12:30 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 1:28 pm
But I would dispute that it was highly improbable, and I would dispute that Bill and I elude comparisons.
With reference to the replicational resources within the whole universe, your sister's roll would hardly justify outright rejection of the chance hypothesis. There are 7 billion people in the world, an event happening 2% of the time for each person that engages in a particular activity is hardly grounds for rejecting chance outright. Nor would I have confidence to make a design inference for such outcomes.
If you were referring to your sister's Yatzee roll, I already said I wouldn't have made a design inference nor would I have even rejected the chance hypothesis, thus there is no comparison to be made in that case since no design inference was made. In fact it is precisely because we compared her rolls to the larger hypothesis that includes all the people in the world and all the opportunities for chance to make an event with a 2% probability eventually happen that I would not infer design.
For the record, I have once rolled 4 sevens in a row in casino style craps at home. I wasn't particularly inclined to infer design nor miracles, so it's futile to presume I (or for that matter Bill Dembski or any ID theorist) would make a design inference from such outcomes.
The formula for generalize specified complexty which uses M*N = 10^120 is a good benchmark rejecting the chance hypothesis. It is not an immutable claim, but it's about as good as anything else we have for operational practice.
By way of comparison, for the longest time, public PKI encryption was conducted with 64 bits, that is far less stringent than what M*N = 10^120 provides for Dembski's calculations.
If no number for M*N is too high for you, I already said I respect that. However if someone came to me and it was shown his hypothesis had a 1 chance in 10^120 of being correct, how believable would that be? It does NOT automatically mean "designer did it", it does mean that particular chance hypothesis is to be doubted if not out rightly rejected.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 24, 2007 @ 1:28 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Hi Salvador,
You wrote…
Let me try to be clearer.
A REAL-WORLD DESIGN HYPOTHESIS IS A CHANCE HYPOTHESIS!
It is only by presuming a perfect design or designer that you get to say it isn't. A rocket designed to go to the moon has a CHANCE of blowing up on the launch pad.
Provoking Thought
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 24, 2007 @ 1:48 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Keiths responded:
You made that comment because you didn't reprsent the sense of what I was trying to say, so let me try to articulate it more clearly.
There is :
1. Deterministic with respect to a particular input or set of boundary condtions. For example, such determinism can be illustrated by something like the truth table for an AND logic gate
T T => T
T F => F
F F => F
F F => F
Thus the gate's output provide for the possibility of uncertainty because there is uncertainty in the input. But this wasn't the sense of "rigid" that I referring to. What I was referring to is #2 (below).
2. Deterministic indenpendent of boundary conditions, only one outcome possible. For example, This can be illustrated by "logic" gate with the following truth table
T T => T
T F => T
F F => T
F F => T
There is no uncertainty whatsover in the output, irrespective of the input.
Keiths used the sense of "deterministic" in #1 to argue against my sense of "deterministic" in #2.
What Trevors and Abel merely pointed out, materials like salt crystals that have effectively no degree of uncertainty in their outputs will (in and of themselves) fail to become computers. That may seem obvious today, but it wasn't several decades ago [recall Dean Kenyon].
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 24, 2007 @ 1:53 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 1:58 pm
Much better. We form a hypothesis, let's say naive randomness, make predictions and perform the appropriate test. When playing cards, we know the expected distribution based on the *arbitrary* markings on the cards. Knowing this distribution, and knowing the dealer, we may decide the odds are that someone is cheating.
Now compare to our iron filings all lining up. Maybe your friend is as surprised as you are. Only when you notice that there is a giant magnet in the next room does it begin to make sense. In each case, we have to posit a specific cause, then attempt to collect evidence to support our claim. Preemptively accusing your companion of cheating (a declaration of intelligent design) is a sure way to lose friends.
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 1:58 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
1. If a given input always yields the same output, the result can be said to be deterministic.
2. If the same output occurs regardless of input, then the result is said to be predetermined.
Computers are considered classic deterministic devises. Hope that helps.
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 2:04 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Speaking of dice, some believe the boundary conditions of an otherwise random artifact can be set such that dice will not behave randomly. Last year I had an outcome which exeeded 3.5-sigma over the course of 160 rolls at one of the Hilton places (yes, one of Paris's places, God bless her).
I have experimental evidence to suggest dice thrown from short distances can result in slightly non-random outcomes. The question is how far can this non-random control be exerted.
A toss from 1 foot is believable, but 9 feet away?
Controlling the dice in this way is a form of front loading. See: Dice control 
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 24, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Hi Salvador,
You wrote…
Unless perfectly designed, reducing randomization does not eliminate it.
It becomes one of MANY chance hypotheses that can be compared to each other.
Real-world design hypotheses are chance hypotheses.
Provoking
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 24, 2007 @ 2:17 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
You do realize that the entire gambling establishment lives for people like you. Everyone in Vegas has a system or lucky charm (except the House, which has a business model).
Comment by Zachriel — May 24, 2007 @ 2:24 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
I very very much appreciate your background in population genetics. That was a beautiful explanation.
ID proponents actually have a great deal of respect for population genetic theories (after all, the father of genetics was a creationist).
There is no question that selection can be characterized when it happens. That traits can sometimes be correlated to the environment. The objection ID proponents make is that there is no evidence environmental correlation implies causation, especially in the emergence of large scale novelty (like say the difference between Eukaryotes and Prokaryotes). Nor is there a generalized statement as to how much correlation can be found. There is doubt that Natural Selection has much to do with many features of life (i.e. the majority of molecular evolution).
It would believable if some reconstruction of such an evolutionary pathway were achieved. If John Doe has claimed to sail a ship from point A to point B, even if I, in an attempt to repeat the feat, don't sail the same exact route but still manage to travel from point A to B, can believe that John Doe did it because I was able to do it. But I find nothing comparable in present evolutionary biology. The attempts at massive transmutation via various empirical means have been stunning failures.
I must confess though the evidence is reasonable for common ancestry (even though I personally reject it), asserting Darwinian evolution as the primary mechanism of creating the features of biology seems premature at best.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 24, 2007 @ 2:33 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 5:35 pm
Anyway (LOL), natural science is predicated upon the ability of the natural scientist to reproduce, by his own designs, natural phenomena.
The natural scientists must agree also, on the basis of his own (and shared) experience that in acting as a scientist (designer) he actually changes the results.
He chenges "nature."
Natural science does nothing other than prove design.
Comment by Rock — May 24, 2007 @ 5:35 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Salvador,
I can see from your last comment that you're still confused about the concepts of uncertainty and determinism.
The main problem is that you're failing to distinguish uncertainty from variability, as when you claim that unless a system's outputs are uncertain, it cannot function as a computer. In reality, they only have to be variable, not uncertain.
If I write a program that uses the sieve of Eratosthenes to find all of the primes between 1 and 100, the input is known in advance, and the output is perfectly predictable from the input. It's a deterministic system. It's also performing a computation, even though the inputs and outputs are certain. The key is that the inputs and outputs are variable. They don't need to be uncertain.
I hope that clears things up for you.
Comment by keiths — May 24, 2007 @ 7:47 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 8:34 pm
Information is defined as the reduction of uncertainty. It is not defined in terms of variability.
For example, in Shannon's paper. The word uncertainty appears 13 times and variability 0 times.
From Wikipedia:
A computer is an information processing system. For there to be information, there must be in principle, a capacity for uncertainty somewhere in the system.
It does NOT mean the computer will not behave deterministically with respect to certain states. It means at specific locations in the system, there will be uncertainty with respect to its possible states if the the states in the rest of the computer are not unspecified (.i.e. a memory storage location may be 1 or 0, it is NOT guaranteed to always be 1).
Information processing is defined with reference to uncertainty. The terminology I used is consistent with technical literature. Your terminology was aberrant, but if you want to use it for your own sake fine. But don't accuse me of being the one who was confused.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 24, 2007 @ 8:34 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Salvador,
In a previous comment, I explained how Trevors and Abel badly misinterpreted information theory in reaching their conclusion that complex genomes cannot be explained in terms of deterministic (or near-deterministic) natural laws.
I've come up with another example which makes the point even more explicitly:
Imagine a deterministic universe U, in which there are two computers, A and B, which are linked by an errorless communications channel. B flips a coin over and over (either literally or via a pseudorandom number generator) and transmits the results of each flip over the channel to A.
A has no prior knowledge of the flips. As far as it is concerned, each flip has an equal probability of coming up heads or tails. Only when it receives a message from B does it know the results of the flip.
Shannon's theory tells us that the information content of each message is exactly one bit. The initial uncertainty (two choices, either heads or tails) is replaced with certainty (one choice) when the message is received.
But now look at U, the deterministic universe containing A and B, from the perspective of Trevors and Abel. Since U is deterministic, all of its future states can be predicted with probability 1. Every coin flip, and thus every message, can be predicted with perfect foresight. But if the probability of each message is 1, then it contains no information at all according to Shannon theory.
So, according to Trevors and Abel, computer A does not receive any information at all from computer B, just as genomes do not receive any information at all from the environment.
But this contradicts our earlier calculation that each message from B to A carried one bit of information. What is the source of the discrepancy?
The example makes it easy to see.
Computer A does not know the results of each flip until it receives the corresponding message from B. From computer A's perspective, each message from B really does contain one bit of information.
Now look at the situation from the perspective of a superintelligent entity S that knows the state of every particle in U. From this perspective, there really are no surprises, and the information content of each message from B to A is in fact zero.
What Trevors and Abel missed is that the information content of a message depends not only on the message itself, but on the knowledge possessed by the receiver. Computer A really does get one bit of information from each message, and S truly gets no information at all.
A genome is not a superintelligence like S. Thus there is no reason to assert, as Trevors and Abel do, that the deterministic (or near-deterministic) nature of physical law prevents information from being accumulated in the genome in significant quantities.
Can you defend their position, Salvador?
Comment by keiths — May 24, 2007 @ 8:46 pm
May 24th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Salvador wrote:
Salvador,
You're not properly distinguishing information in the Shannon sense from information in the computational sense.
Imagine you run an identical computation twice. The first time around, the result is news to you and you derive a certain amount of Shannon information from it. The second time around you get the same answer, but it contains no Shannon information. The probability of getting the same answer was one, and you knew that, so your uncertainty has not been reduced by running the computation a second time. If the probability is one, the Shannon information is zero.
From a computational perspective, of course, this is nonsense. Both computations, being identical, involve the same amount of information.
It's crucial to keep your definitions straight.
Comment by keiths — May 24, 2007 @ 9:51 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 6:13 pm
Salvador,
You may not be able to answer my criticisms of Trevors and Abel — if you were, I suspect you would have done so by now — but that's no reason to cease your defense of Dembksi's equation for specified complexity.
You might want to start with Zachriel's points regarding the subjectivity of Ï•S(T).
Comment by keiths — May 25, 2007 @ 6:13 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
I actually agree with Keiths.:shock: It does not happen very often.
Comment by Bradford — May 25, 2007 @ 6:33 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
Yawn Keiths. I thought it a waste to respond as I suspect the pro-ID readers find nothing compelling in your arguments. I certainly don't. I see little more than sophistry and the stressing of irrelevancies and trivialities which would otherwise not appear if you were willing to give a fair and charitable reading of what people say.
Note to the readers:
If any you all pro-ID readers want me to respond to Keiths last few posts, speak now or forever hold your peace. Silence by you all implies to me you find his argument not worth considering.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 25, 2007 @ 6:40 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Hi Salvador,
You wrote…
I would like to hear your opinion on of subjective nature of Ï•S(T). Of course, I would also like to hear your response to my conclusion that Dembski's equations is a comparison of multiple hypotheses including combination chance/design hypotheses. Only the pure, perfect design hypothesis is excluded.
As for me being "pro-ID". While it might not be "mainstream ID", I have an ID proposal complete with an Intelligent Designer here. Or does my religious status disqualify me?
Provoking
P.S. If you don't respond I will assume you automatically disqualify self-proclaimed "atheists" from being "Pro-ID".
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 25, 2007 @ 7:00 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Bradford wrote:
Bradford,
I appreciate your willingness to say so. I hope it doesn't do lasting damage to your reputation!
Comment by keiths — May 25, 2007 @ 7:04 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 7:23 pm
Salvador,
For someone who likes to crow about how information theory proves that Darwinian evolution is incapable of producing biological complexity, it's funny how you suddenly get bored (yawn) and decline to respond when someone presents a challenge to your central point on information-theoretic grounds.
If you can't defend Trevors and Abel, then why do you depend on them to make your point?
Comment by keiths — May 25, 2007 @ 7:23 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
There is a way to make the Ï•S(T) moot, namely assume the lexicon is as large as the UPB.
The human lexicon is estimated by Dembski at 10^5 elementary (single "word") concepts.
But here is the recourse: if you assume the human lexicon at 10^120 elementary concepts you've alleviated yourself of having to worry if your estimate of Ï•S(T) is too small. The reason for this is that there is no way possible for any creature or thing in the universe to have a lexicon exceeed UPB!
There is not enough memory storage, much less processing power, to store a lexicon of that size. But 10^120 is overkill, imho!
In otherwords, you do have recourse to select an Ï•S(T) that is large if you're worried the Ï•S(T) you've selected is too small. An Ï•S(T) based on a 10^120 lexicon would be adequate for the reasons I outlined.
What you would do is then consider the level of austerity you are applying to the design inference you are seeking to decide verus any inference you make about anything else.
If took your Yatzee example, then using this enormous lexicon:
P(T|H) = 6 / 7776
Ï•S(T) for "all same number" = 10^120^3
UPB = 10^120
X = -log2 [ .....] = some negative number
which implies chance not rejected, design not inferred. But I invite you to ponder if your level of austerity is an Ï•S(T) = 10^120, what sort of patters will yo be dealing with. Will you be considering only patterns greater than 10,000 bits? In light of the fact PKI today is operated at 256 bits or so, that seems a bit too austere.
I think you're making it harder for yourself than you need to. There is nothing in the basic math that should be astonishing in terms of trying to see if a stochastic process can create a particular pattern. That is all…..
The bulk of Dembski's work is on trying to take basic notions of probability (and you have seen these are basic notions, used frequently in industry), and demonstrating that Darwinian evolution and OOL ideas are incompatible with these basic notions.
Let me make an observation. Dembski's theory is merely suggesting that something is designed. His question is "Whether it is designed?".
In contrast, you strike me as someone willing to be persuaded if an ID proponent can answer "How is it designed?". When you realize that your line of reasoning is different than Dembski's you will understand some of the reasons why you don't like Dembski's work.
Your line of reasoning would demonstrate "sufficient but not necessary conditions" for inferring design. Dembski's line of reasoning is maybe not quite as sufficient, it probably is barely sufficient in the eyes of some, so much so that some would even say it iis only "necessary but not sufficient".
Of course, you as an engineer, will believe something is designed if someone can explain how. Proof for people like us is understanding how.
However, that is not what Dembski's math is about. His math makes the very very modest claim, "if it's is designed, it is unlikely it was achieved via a stochastic process."
In fact, after a lengthy proof, that effectively what he said:
Fundamental Theorem of ID
Of course, for individuals like yourself, for engineers at heart, the coveted "how" is not answered, and thus ascent to a design inference does not happen. I sincerely say, I respect your position, because I understand. For someone like you, the simple conclusions of "No Free Lunch Regress blocks our attempts to account for assisted searches in terms of stochastic mechanisms" is not satisfying.
On the otherhand, the theorem shows rigorously that ID's mortal enemies, the Darwinists, will never be able to theoretically or empirically defend their position. For people like me, though I'm an engineer, there is some satisfaction one's competitors will not prevail. They cannot possibly win in the end.
Figuratively speaking, I may not be able to reach the stars, but Dembski's math has shown for certain, neither will my opponent. There is some satisfaction in that.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 25, 2007 @ 7:56 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
It's true, I find it hard to muster up the incentive to defend Trevors and Abel's arguments from someone's in sophistry.
If Universe (U) is totally deterministic, then uncertainty is only a lack of knowledge on our part of all the relevant variables.
Scientific explanations operate on the assumption of our uncertainty of somethings from our perspective [we even have a name for that principle, dare I mention Heisenburg]. Thus, on the assumption of our uncertainty of somethings in the universe BUT assumed certainty of other things, then this assumed certainty (a physical law) cannot be the cause for the creation of computers in-and-of-itself.
Trevors and Abel were making arguments from the perspective the observers living in the real world ( that is with Heisenberg uncertainty), but still wishing an explanation for life in with the back drop of such uncertainties, not in terms of some hypothesized All-knowing certainty which they will never attain. Thus you're supposed refutation is not only sophistry but inconsistent with Heisenberg.
Now, let me point out for the reader another aspect of why I find your line of reasoning sophistry. If U is deterministic, for it to be a proven scientific explanation that U is deterministic, you would have to prove U deterministic. But for you to do such a thing, you would have to be all knowing to prove U deterministic, but in such case you would God. Hence it would be rather pointless to be exploring scientific explanations or arguing with me wouldn't you say?
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 25, 2007 @ 8:20 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Hi Salvador,
Thank you for responding.
You closed with…
I hope you realize this stalemate is what critics think is the true goal of the ID Movement. Nick recently said… "Proving research futile: the ultimate goal of ID." I think it is safe to consider Nick an ID critic.
I really don't have anything to add to the subjective nature of Ï•S(T) and I hope people refrain from piling on in trying to get you to restate your admission over and over.
You said…
I say…
The bulk of Dembski's work is using basic notions of probability to suggest that ANY REAL-WORLD HYPOTHESIS (design or not) is incompatible with these basic notions.
Dembski is attempting to eliminate ALL chance hypotheses. There is no allowance for error. Error means chance. No error means "God".
I suspect Dembski is well aware of this and I wouldn't be surprised if it doesn't bother him, and possibility you, in the slightest.
It's ok to believe in God. It's even ok to suggest that God can be mathematically proven. It is unethical to use complicated smoke and mirrors to hide what you are doing.
Provoking Thought
P.S. I appreciate the respect you have shown me. Your action in responding to me demonstrates a sense of ethics I admire. I hope my pointing it out will help others see your good qualities too.
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 25, 2007 @ 8:46 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
That's rather odd. I would have thought that convincing those who may not hold your position to be the point of a discussion.
Ï•S(T) is a function that varies with T. It is a count of patterns that have descriptions as "simple" as those that describe T. Creating a huge or infinite lexicon doesn't solve the problem of actually calculating such a number. It multiplies it. I've already mentioned just a few of these problems. What is the empirical value of a function that can't be calculated?
Comment by Zachriel — May 25, 2007 @ 10:04 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Thank you for the kind words. Whether it is of interest to you or not, I will mention something for the benefit of the interested readers.
One chance hypothesis may have a higher information content than another. Dembski attempted to quantify and rank the information content of various chance hypotheses:
Information as a Measure of Variation
For example, we might have a distirbution that describes the behavior of a fair pair of dice thrown by an ordinary individual. Call the appropriate chance hypothesis H-equiproable.
However, a machine or expert dice thrower can slightly de-randomize the dice over short distances. Call this distribution H-expert. H-expert might be shown to have a different information content than H-equiproable. An expert thrower might have his distribution characterized by a far more sophisticated distribution that is dependent on the numbers he is trying to hit in order to win money (box numbers, field numbers, hardway numbers, hop numbers, etc.)
Dembski's recent papers try to quantify the differences in the bit measures associated with the distributions.
One can see that if we hypothesize increasing sophisticated H-distributions, one H-distribution will be more front-loaded with information than another (in fact Dembski uses the phrase "front loaded" in his papers).
Darwinian evolution, when described in detail sufficient to guarantee an outcome, will be shown to have a certain information content. For cases like anti-biotic resistance, the content is small (it's easy to find such selective scenarios). For other things, much harder. For such hypothetical cases we have:
What Dembski's recent work does is more subtle than just merely eliminating chance, it quantifies how sophisticated and information rich a chance hypothesis must be to create specified complexity. Since not all chance hypotheses are equal (pure chance verus chance + selection), Dembski's math helps rank the plausibility of one chance hypothesis over another.
It states (with tedious rigor) what one would intuitively expect. A simple chance distribution is more likely to exist in the real world than a sophisticated chance distribution (i.e. Darwinian evolution which combines selection with chance). If this is the case, then this implies, the existence of a Darwinian pathway is more improbable than a rather bland, plain vanilla chance pathway.
For example, one can roll four dice and offer a chance hypothesis on a simple equiprobable distiribution. Contrast this to the difficulty of forming a chance hypothesis explanation for dice outcomes in terms of natural selection.
This is of course ridiculuous since dice don't have offspring. However, this illustrates there exist phenomenon where selective scenarious would be clearly improbable if not impossible to realize. His theorem shows in general, the existence of such selection forces to create specified complexity would be more improbable than simple chance creating specified complexity.
Darwinists only claim such selection forces existed in the past, they never give the details. They never explain HOW. Contrast this to their eagerness to explain "HOW" for antibiotic resistance. They can do so because they are not arguing for the evolution of specified complexity. They falter however in providing HOW explanations for more complex phenomenon. That's because it was unlikely to have been the cause for the complex features of life in the first place.
His proof shows that it will be prohibitively difficult for OOL and Darwinian researchers to create a plausible pathway which they can repeat in the lab to create complex features of life.
Up until recently, it seemed promising that we would be able to "solve" the problem" (that is find plausible Darwinain pathways). Dembski's theorem, like Heisenburg uncertainty, shows the limits of what can be inferred. For simple things like anti-biotic resistance, a pathway can be found. For other things, never. He has shown effectively an uncertainy principle which will preculde discovery of such a pathway for specified complexity.
Dembski's proof accords with common sense. We don't see evidence of spontaneous generation of life. Further we won't expect the world's most expert fish breeders to breed fish into horses (whcih supposedly Darwinian evolution achieved in the deep past).
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 25, 2007 @ 10:10 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Zach, it's pointless to argue with a committed sophist. The argument by Trevors and Abel was that any discoverable empirical law would not be the cause of life.
Empirical as in discoverable data.
In trying to refute that claim, Keiths argued in principle there could be law that is decribed by the entire universe.
He then argues that there there could exist in pricniple such a law. Sure why not, Deism argues for that.
He conveniently leaves out the fact that discovering empirically such a law implies we violate Heisenberg uncertainty, not to mention we become God in the process. Minor problem with his hypothesis I'd say.
Trevors and Abel were talking about discoverable laws, not ones that violate laws of physics (like Heisenburg uncertainty) or require us to become God to discover. How much sophistry will I have to endure before you stop defending Keiths and start defending me?
I invited the ID proponents to give me feedback as to whether they were really interested in hearing a response. I gave one any way because the stupidity of Keiths "counter example" made me chuckle.
Ï•S(T) is a measure of information in one's lexicon, it IS bounded by the UPB. The miriam webster dictionary has a finite lexicon, so do you because you have a finite number of atoms.
For example, my lexicon of about 10^5 words, I'm able to form sentences with you with that limited lexicon.
In principle, you can:
1. take patterns you already know (pre-specifications)
2. take pre-specifications and modify them a bit to form new ones
You can't always be generating new specifications in your mind and storing them. That's wasteful. Rather, when you recognize an artifact as designed, you take your pre-existing templates and use your lexicon to form a new matching template.
If the template has a few elementary concepts, you infer design. You do that all the time without realizing it. That's why you recognize sentences as designed, even though you've never seen certain sentences before.
Take the notion of :
Dembski describes it in detail in the paper on specification.
What if you saw a sequence that was the Chapernowne Sequence but all bit positions were flipped to their opposite (their complement). You would still recognize design. However, to be safe, you would want to account for this lexical transformation of the Chapernowne Sequence. The new pattern is roughly
Dembski suggests how to use your estimate of your lexicon size to create S(T).
But bear in mind, there are only so many ways one can massage the Chapernowne Sequence to form a new pattern.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 25, 2007 @ 10:40 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Hi Salvador,
You wrote…
You are welcome. You earned them.
Believe it or not, I want to be shown where I am mistaken. That means I learn something. So, yes, I am interested.
You wrote…
The reason I waited until you pointed to a set of equations is because if anyone knew where to find the latest, it was you (or Dembski himself). The paper you pointed me to was Specification: The Pattern That Signifies Intelligence
This paper is dated August 15, 2005. I have read it. I believe I understand it and can make it WORK for me in things like the Yahtzee examples. This recent work of Dembski's concludes with…
"In conclusion, suppose that our best understanding of the processes that could have been involved in the occurrence of an event E suggests that if E happened by chance, then one of the chance hypotheses in {Hi}i∈I was responsible. Suppose, further, that the specified complexity associated with each of these chance hypotheses, that is, χi = "“log2[ 120 10 · Ï•S(T)·P(T|Hi)], is strictly greater than 1. In that case, we've eliminated all the chance hypotheses that might explain the occurrence of E (where E conforms to the pattern T). The inference to design is now immediate."
Now you're telling the that Dembski has yet another trick up his sleeve and this is not the latest. I am not surprised. Can you please point me to the latest and greatest version? The other links you provided were earlier papers and looked like they were just blowing a lot of PhD smoke. They are nothing like this one which laid out Dembski's argument in a clear and concise way so engineers like us could understand it.
Let me help with direct questions…
Has Dembski modified his mathematical definition of Specified Complexity?
If so, what is the new formula?
Has Dembski modified his pass/fail criteria?
If so, what is the new criterion for selecting one Hypothesis over another?
Regards,
TP
P.S. As a bonus please explain how Dembski has changed from saying "we've eliminated all the chance hypotheses … The inference to design is now immediate." since August 2005.
Comment by Thought Provoker — May 25, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Um, Salvador –
You apparently didn't notice that it was Trevors and Abel who assumed determinism in order to make their argument, not me. I just accepted their premise and showed that their reasoning was incorrect, since they didn't take the receiver into account when calculating the Shannon information.
They are the ones who need the probabilities to be close to one in order to claim that the Shannon information is close to zero. By denying the validity of their deterministic assumption, you have completely undercut their argument.
They wrote:
So not only is their reasoning flawed, given their premises; according to you, their chief premise is invalid, so their argument doesn't even get off the ground.
Way to shoot yourself in the foot, Sal.
Comment by keiths — May 25, 2007 @ 10:50 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
I believe the S(T) criteria was not completely novel by dembski. It was probably derived from MDL (minimum description length) theory. (let the reader google MDL).
In communication engineering, one might consider the the lexicon of the receiver on the other end of a channel in order to compress the data through the channel more efficiently.
For example, you pump some words through which the receiver has never seen. However, in the process you have increased his lexicon. You might, in principle be able to use this information to data compress future transmissions.
I don't think the notion of S(T) was synthesized out of nowhere, I suspect it has some grounding in real world applications.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 25, 2007 @ 10:51 pm
May 25th, 2007 at 10:56 pm
Their claim clearly assumes a universe with some uncertainty (ala Heisenburg, ala the universe we live in, ala the fact we live in a reality with uncertainty) and in reference to a universe where the scientist aren't an all knowing God.
Their explanation was respect to such a universe. Not some universe a sophist concocts when desperately tryiing to save face. Did you read the response above. Any more sophistry Keiths?
Except for the fact you serve as a foil, you're a waste of time.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 25, 2007 @ 10:56 pm
May 26th, 2007 at 12:02 am
Salvador,
You have a talent for ignoring the obvious.
Trevors and Abel say:
A probability approaching 1.0 is less random and more certain, Salvador.
Their argument depends on low Shannon uncertainties, which means the probabilities must be high, which means that natural law must be highly deterministic. Why else would they have chosen the phrase 'cause-and-effect determinism', Sal?
Deny it all you want, Salvador. It's right there, in their own words. Everyone reading this thread sees exactly what you are doing.
Comment by keiths — May 26, 2007 @ 12:02 am
May 26th, 2007 at 8:35 am
First of all, Trevors and Abel are claiming a mathematical truism, not a matter subject to overturning by future empirical data. Heisenberg's Principle is a scientific statement and can therefore be overturned by empirical data. Truisms are not subject to being overturned.
Trevors and Abel claim to have a proof, but fail to provide one. Anytime they refer to empiricism, it is irrelevant to providing such a formal proof. So take their paper and remove all references to empirical facts, and see what you have left. Handwaving.