On Being an Amateur ID proponent
by BilboOleg(t) has dismissed most of us ID proponents as being nothing but a bunch of amateurs. I won't deny his accusation. When it comes to the field of biology, most of us are amateurs. (Of course, when it comes to recognizing other conscious minds and products of intelligent design, I think we are all experts.) But I will deny the relevance of his accusation. You see, the experts of biology, Dawkins, Coyne, Ken Miller, and others, keep writing popular books for us amateurs, in order to convince us of the truth of evolution. Why? Apparently they think we are capable of evaluating the evidence if it is presented to us properly. If they think we are capable of evaluating the evidence, then I see no need to listen to the accusation of another rank amateur telling us that we are not capable of evaluating the evidence.
I value Oleg(t)'s opinion, if for no other reason than that he is one of the only regular critics who hasn't been banned from TelicThoughts, yet. If he wishes to contribute to the discussion and debate of ID in biology, I think we should welcome his opinions. If he only wishes to remind us that we are mostly amateurs, we should thank him for the reminder, and continue on with our discussion and debate. But I grow weary of those who want to engage Oleg(t) on that accusation, or even start hurling insults at him. As usual, I will ban them from my threads. This means you, ID Guy and Gringo Royale. If it were up to me, both of you would be banned from TT, and proper critics, such as Arthur Hunt, Zachriel, or Raevmo would be allowed back.
February 12th, 2011 at 1:47 pm
How do you define "proper critics" and "contribute"? Don't ya think a proper critic and contributor would actually stand up and beat back ID with real scientific data instead of just acting like a schoolyard bully or an obfuscatory pontificator?
And are you saying it is OK for olegt to attack us because he is one of the few anti-idists tht post here? Did ya see the way he attacked Mike Gene's methodology without providing anything like an example of his position's methodology? That would be a proper critic- leading by example.
Perhaps you should take some time to see what is going on- wake up and smell the coffee, so to speak.
Just sayin'
Comment by ID guy — February 12, 2011 @ 1:47 pm
February 12th, 2011 at 3:20 pm
We're a bunch if michief makers and misfits with the exception of Mike Gene. Mike is the most respectable among us, because, as far as I know, he's the only one among us to make money of ID (with his book).
I think it is good that first rate critics like KC, Nick Matzke, Steve Matheson, Allen MacNeill, Olegt, Aiguy, etc. visit TT. They've raised the stature of this blog considerably. I hope TT will be an environment that allows continued exchanges with them.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 12, 2011 @ 3:20 pm
February 12th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
I think it is dangerous for any discipline to reject the criticisms of amateurs out-of-hand. I have been programming computers for 25 years, have a book on programming that is used at Princeton University, have taught programming, and have numerous papers and articles on programming published by IBM and others.
Nonetheless, I still, often, have customers who come up with ways of doing things that I don't think of – customers who have never programmed a day in their life. I know many people who dismiss their customers ideas out-of-hand because they don't believe that non-programmers have valid input. That is total B.S. The fact is, being a non-programmer gives someone an outside look at the issues that aren't obscured with all the things us programmers normally worry about that, and sometimes that opens their minds up to possibilities that we don't see.
It doesn't mean that I take their ideas without criticism – there are more bad ones than good ones (which is expected, because they are outside the field, and aren't familiar with the issues). But nonetheless, I would be a lesser developer if I used the fact that these people are non-experts as a reason to dismiss what they had to say.
This also often requires translating what the have to say. Non-experts often use terms wrong, have a bad understanding of the way certain concepts work together, and the like. But *my* job is not to use my expertise as a way of beating their ignorance over their heads, but rather to *translate* their conceptualizations of their ideas into full-fledged, implementable ideas. So, rather than using my expertise to knock down, I use it to build up – to find a way to understand the non-experts in the most gracious light, and find a way for them to be right.
Doing so improves us both.
Comment by johnnyb — February 12, 2011 @ 3:26 pm
February 12th, 2011 at 4:22 pm
Sal:
Unfortunately , Steve Matheson jumped ship. I say unfortunately because he just authored an excellent post on the fruits of combining phage display as the means to couple genotype and phenotype, with high throughput DNA sequencing to track large numbers of variants as rounds of selection were carried out. He's much better at self-bannage than Olegt, obviously
I don't see it as that much of a loss really, if I want to read Matheson or even to discuss with Matheson I jump over to his blog or to Pandas thumb, I don't whine about it here. 
Comment by Guts — February 12, 2011 @ 4:22 pm
February 12th, 2011 at 9:49 pm
Hi Bilbo,
In that thread, Olegt provided a link to a speech from Richard Feynman. I strongly encourage you to read it. Feynman identifies one trait that separates “Cargo Cult Science” from good science – the willingness and ability to admit you are wrong.
When it comes to the relationship between the professionals and the amateurs, listen to what Feynman says:
Comment by MikeGene — February 12, 2011 @ 9:49 pm
February 12th, 2011 at 10:53 pm
Bilbo wrote:
I have nothing against amateurs per se. If you go back to my comment you will see that my criticism was leveled not at the ID fan base but at the ID theorists. If they wish to prove that ID is relevant to biology they should come up with a research program guided by their principles. But so far as I can tell, there is no such program and they are not even planning to come up with one.
Why not? Several reasons, in my view. First, the vast majority of ID theorists are not biologists. They are all sorts of people: lawyers, engineers, philosophers, theologists, mathematicians, and so on. The one thing that unites them is a desire to prove evolutionary biology wrong. If this is the primary goal, making a positive contribution to biology takes a back seat.
Secondly, even if they wished to make a positive contribution to biology, and I am sure the few biologists among them would be thrilled to prove themselves right, the ID paradigm does not allow anything of the sort. It just says: this feature of a cell is too complicated to arise by natural means, it must have been made by someone sufficiently advanced, most likely God. God can do anything in any way He pleases. With our limited knowledge, we may not be able to grasp His intention. End of the story.
There is nothing the ID fan base can do to change this.
Comment by olegt — February 12, 2011 @ 10:53 pm
February 12th, 2011 at 11:14 pm
MikeGene,
It's worth reading the entire graduation speech. Feynman explains why fooling yourself (not to mention others) does not make sense in science. It's because of a peculiar way in which science works.
Cargo cult science (CCS) is bad not because people practicing it are intrinsically bad. Scientists as human beings are not necessarily better than the rest of the population. The problem is people practicing CCS do not have the kind of quality control available in real science. You can assign numbers to your subjective approach, but that won't make it any less subjective.
Comment by olegt — February 12, 2011 @ 11:14 pm
February 12th, 2011 at 11:34 pm
The point of assigning numbers is not an attempt to make it objective, but to make exchanges about the subject in question open and honest.
Comment by Guts — February 12, 2011 @ 11:34 pm
February 13th, 2011 at 12:00 am
Olegt,
I did indeed read the whole speech. As I hinted before, I was pleasantly surprised how nicely it converges with the 10 signs of intellectual honesty that I posted.
Sure. But that’s because the quality control comes from measurements. And even then, it can get a quite mushy, as illustrated by many of Feynman’s examples of scientists not repeating experiments for various reasons and/or choosing results that conform to previous measurements.
When it comes to the issues that rile people on blogs like this, there is no way to measure whether or not design is at work in life/evolution. So both sides must step outside of science to render their judgments on that issue. Thus, we need to recognize that arguments for and against design are not science. Now, if science cannot resolve the dispute, we are left with two options: a) embrace agnosticism about it all and move on to other things or b) come up with some alternative approach.
Your criticism of my approach is fundamentally confused. As you know, for a long time I have been very upfront that my approach is not science, so it is unreasonable to complain it does not have all the features of good science. That my approach is subjective simply means none of us can escape subjectivity when it comes to arguing for or against design. My approach does not magically make subjective judgments objective nor does it pretend to do so. My approach deals with the subjectivity by making it, from both sides, more transparent and intellectually honest.
Comment by MikeGene — February 13, 2011 @ 12:00 am
February 13th, 2011 at 12:19 am
Olegt,
If you are sincere about wanting to understand my approach, then I encourage you to read this very brief posting that is mostly quotation:
http://designmatrix.wordpress....
If you would rather keep posturing to retain your perception of me as a bogey man, then don't bother.
Comment by MikeGene — February 13, 2011 @ 12:19 am
February 13th, 2011 at 12:39 am
Is Arthur Hunt a proper critic because of his expertise? If so you appear to be advancing Olegt's argument. Are the other two (currently posting) worthy of banning because of their behavior? If so you should look back on some of the behavioral issues connected with the "experts."
Comment by Bradford — February 13, 2011 @ 12:39 am
February 13th, 2011 at 12:46 am
Mike,
I am fully aware that you consider your approach subjective. I'm just amused that you wish to put some sort of numbers on that subjectivity in the hope that it would keep you "intellectually honest." That quote to which you link seems to suggest that subjectivity would be hard to quantify. You can't ever check these numbers! It's another great way to fool yourself.
Comment by olegt — February 13, 2011 @ 12:46 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:03 am
Olegt, don't get too hung up on the number aspect of this. The more important point is that intellectual honesty can be revealed by positions taken on sub issues. For example, NJ is abuzz over proposed cuts in heating assistance to low income people (affecting half a million people in this state alone). Guess who the author of the proposal is? None other than the Obama administration. Guess who opposes it? None other than liberal NJ Democratic Senator Menendez. It may be in the self interest of Menendez but despite being a supporter of the President he opposes him on this sub-issue. He could tag a number to the issue from 1 to 10 to affirm his stance but either way he is bucking the party establishment. That enhances his credibility in my view even as these things are largely subjective. Subjectivity does not necessarily conflict with honesty and you can be honest to the detriment of a larger more encompassing position you support. That can be a litmus test for credibility.
Comment by Bradford — February 13, 2011 @ 1:03 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:07 am
Yeah if you state clearly your evidence for some thing or other and it's obvious to me that that evidence is dubious, but you nevertheless assign a number of "10" (out of a scale of 1 to 10) as to the strength of that evidence, I would pretty much conclude that you're delusional. You can avoid that by being honest not just with your opponents, but with yourself.
Comment by Guts — February 13, 2011 @ 1:07 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:14 am
Guts,
Your opponent can say the exact same thing about you. That's the problem with subjective judgments. No wonder philosophy turned out to be a lousy way to understand the workings of our world.
Comment by olegt — February 13, 2011 @ 1:14 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:17 am
Another indicator of intellectual dishonesty is contradiction. I recall an ID critic once claiming that he did not take a stance on any issue without solid physical evidence for it. Knowing his position on a number of non-ID issues I challenged this. It was an easy challenge.
Comment by Bradford — February 13, 2011 @ 1:17 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:19 am
Olegt, you are guided by your own philosophical predilections.
Comment by Bradford — February 13, 2011 @ 1:19 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:20 am
Olegt, you don't understand the point of philosophy if that's what you think it's purpose is.
Comment by Guts — February 13, 2011 @ 1:20 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:26 am
Like other critics, philosophy kicks in for Olegt when evidence for his position runs short. Why not own up to it?
Comment by Bradford — February 13, 2011 @ 1:26 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:27 am
Guts,
I'm not talking about modern philosophy, whose scope is fairly narrow. In the past, however, philosophy tried to deal with lots of subjects, including nature. It didn't work out all that well.
Comment by olegt — February 13, 2011 @ 1:27 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:27 am
olegt
You insist subjective judgement is problematic, and then make a subjective judgement on the success of philosophy.
Comment by Euphrates — February 13, 2011 @ 1:27 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:33 am
I explained this to you before. The DM approach actually moves in the direction of the ideal that Feynman advocates. How so? By having to a) assign a numerical score and b) defend it, the even-handed approach Feynman speaks of will work itself into play. If a design proponent gives a system a score of 5, we can ask why it is 5 instead of 3 or 4? We can ask what it would take to get the 5 to a 3 or 4. If an ID critic gives a system a score of -5, we can ask why it is -5 instead of -3 or -4? We can ask what it would take to get the -5 to a -3 or -4. That’s an approach that strikes at the heart of both confirmation and disconfirmation bias (the sources of cargo cult science).
Two problems here. First, you are hung up with trying to transform subjectivity into objectivity. When it comes to this topic, no one, including you, has been able to devise a way to do this. So it would seem the next best solution would be to make the subjectivity more transparent.
Second, yes people will always be able to fool themselves. Until someone devises an objective measure for determining whether or not design is in play, that cannot be helped. What can be dealt with is how the scorer (who may be fooling himself) is fooling others. To quote Feynman:
Yet neither side does this when it comes to this debate. So if people are not going to show others how they might be wrong, it would help to have them score their view and defend their score. Of course, people will cheerlead their own side. But others, who are truly trying to get handle on this issue by striving toward an open-minded and intellectually honest perspective, can better assess those views.
Your approach, on the other hand, seems to be, “I’m the expert. I have opinions about something science cannot resolve. But because I am the expert, you need to agree with me or shut up.” Maybe I am misreading you, but that is all I have been able to decipher.
Comment by MikeGene — February 13, 2011 @ 1:33 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:37 am
The true nature of philosophy is the same today as it was eons ago. Anyway, to get back to the current argument, if one of my subjective arguments regarding cells being front-loaded with enough information to impose a direction on evolution is true, then my arguments, no matter how subjective, are correct, and therefore justified. The only reasonable response is to either show how those arguments are logically/evidentially flawed or to simply reject them out of principle.
Comment by Guts — February 13, 2011 @ 1:37 am
February 13th, 2011 at 1:52 am
Guts,
Well said. Consider what Tyler said:
Look, if someone tells me that chances are a trillion to one that God does exist, or does not exist, it’s going to be very hard to take that person as a serious, open and fair-minded investigator. They are going to present themselves as an apologist for all to see. And that ties into Bilbo's questions about the relations between professionals and amateurs.
Comment by MikeGene — February 13, 2011 @ 1:52 am
February 13th, 2011 at 2:02 am
Olegt,
Yet all arguments, for and against design, are subjective judgments. If you have come up with an objective measurement that can tell us whether or not life was designed or evolution was influenced by design, I’m ears.
Comment by MikeGene — February 13, 2011 @ 2:02 am
February 13th, 2011 at 3:20 am
? – Not sure what you mean by this. My argument that Mars has two moons because that idea gives me a warm fuzzy feeling might be correct, in that Mars has two moons, but that argument is not therefore justified.
Comment by Nick Matzke — February 13, 2011 @ 3:20 am
February 13th, 2011 at 3:31 am
This is because ID proponents typically make their hypothesis so incredibly vague — vague to the point of maybe including supernatural miracles, maybe not, maybe including quantum-level influence, maybe not — thus not even restraining the hypothesis by e.g. basic physical laws — that the hypothesis imposes no constraints on the data, therefore there is no way to test it against the data.
This is not a virtue of ID, and it does not increase it's plausibility or give it any kind of "who knows, might as well put the odds at 50-50!" sort of plausibility. It's an indication of the bankruptcy of the whole business.
Comment by Nick Matzke — February 13, 2011 @ 3:31 am
February 13th, 2011 at 11:02 am
MikeGene wrote:
Yeah, design is like Russell's teapot. Perhaps it's out there, but one can neither prove, nor disprove its existence.
Comment by olegt — February 13, 2011 @ 11:02 am
February 13th, 2011 at 11:32 am
Nick Matzke: ? – Not sure what you mean by this. My argument that Mars has two moons because that idea gives me a warm fuzzy feeling might be correct, in that Mars has two moons, but that argument is not therefore justified.
Except Guts did not allude to a warm fuzzy feeling as a justification. He alluded to his belief being true.
Comment by Bradford — February 13, 2011 @ 11:32 am
February 13th, 2011 at 11:47 am
It has been pointed out by many that a physical system in which physical entities are placeholders or symbols for other physical entities or concepts is an indicator of design. These sentences are designed. So are genetic expression components. You can map letters to words and words to concepts. You can map codons to amino acids and amino acids to biologically functional proteins with physical translating intermediaries. Like a bulletin board flashing messages design is not needed once the system is in place. It runs itself as long as a power supply is available. The design was in the initial programming. So too biological constructs change and adapt- as long as the programming was there beforehand to initiate the process. All with objectively measurable components.
Comment by Bradford — February 13, 2011 @ 11:47 am
February 13th, 2011 at 2:26 pm
Olegt, you’ve engaged in philosophy here when making this analogy. Whether or not the analogy holds is ultimately a subjective opinion. So you are making my point by helping us see that none of us, not even you, can escape the subjective dimension on this issue.
Anyway, it’s not an issue of proving or disproving things, as there is a huge span of middle ground between the disproven and the proven.
Comment by MikeGene — February 13, 2011 @ 2:26 pm
February 13th, 2011 at 2:34 pm
That sounds much like the argument the Gnus use against theists. But instead of going there, simply note that you are involved in a blame game while I’m trying to point out the state of affairs we all find ourselves in. The inability of anyone to come up with an objective measurement that can tell us whether or not life was designed or evolution was influenced by design is something that holds true independent of any ID proponent or the “whole business.”
Comment by MikeGene — February 13, 2011 @ 2:34 pm
February 13th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
What Bradford said.
Comment by Guts — February 13, 2011 @ 2:36 pm
February 13th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Not a fair analogy. Doubtful that the real existence of Russell's teapot is a live issue for anyone. While I don't think ID has reached the level of a scientific theory, and may never, there are strong reasons to suspect there's something to it. A) Coded/Functional Complex Specified Information in the absence of any plausible "blind" explanation. B) Intelligent agents, such as human, can do things like that (albeit, on a smaller scale, so far), C) claims for thousands of years by all cultures of encounters of "higher powers" and "gods." D) Lack of a contrary proof to the contrary
Comment by kornbelt888 — February 13, 2011 @ 3:08 pm
February 13th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
Olegt -
Actually, I think many of the ID ideas are quite readily usable in experimentation, and I have personally been trying to find a research group interested in using them.
Active Information is especially interesting. You can calculate, for instance, from the existing literature, that the somatic hypermutation process of the immune system contributes 22 bits of information to its own evolution. I believe I have come up with an experimental process to calculate how much information other, more complex biological processes (such as the bacterial SOS system) contribute to their evolution as well.
The question would be – how much of the mutations which occur in bacteria in response to stress are a result of the mutation rate, as opposed to the mutation specificity (i.e. the Active Information). The procedure would be:
1) Estimate the mutation rate under the SOS response for the organism (or use someone else's)
2) Grow two populations of the bacteria. Population A would have key pieces of the mutagenic part of the SOS response knocked out (and thus would not generate mutations on its own in response to stress), and Population B would have the full SOS response in place.
3) Subject Population B to a given stress
4) Subject Population A to the same stress, plus an X-ray or similar mutagenic treatment that would produce mutations at the same rate as estimated in #1 above
5) Compare the adaptive outcomes of Population A and Population B.
The difference, if any, between the rate of adaptation in the two populations can then be measured, and Active Information equations can be applied to see how much (or how little, or even how negative) information the SOS process is contributing to evolution.
Comment by johnnyb — February 13, 2011 @ 3:14 pm
February 13th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
For the sake of argument, let as assume ID is not science, it does not preculde affixing numbers to our perceptions of designed or potentially designed artifacts.
Case in point:
A 1 meg JPEG file can be decompressed to 100 megs of data or more. The numerical scores we affix the number of bits and bytes is purely subjective. It is not rooted in subjective perception.
When we say a nucleotide of DNA represents 2 bits of information ( log base 2 of 4 states AGTC = 2 bits), it is a subjective perception. As others have pointed out, DNA also can be multi-framed, therefore it is possible for the 2 bits to represent more if we apply the decomression algorithms we presume are there. The metric of how much information is there is subjective.
Subjectivity in applying measurments does not immediately negate it as a quantitative discipline. It's par for the course if one is doing pattern matching and recognition. One might argue it is not science, fine, it does not mean subjectivity and statistics don't mix, they often do in the information "sciences" and engineering.
Designs themselves are subjectively perceived. It doesn't not mean the patterns don't exist or they don't have significance or that statistics and measurements can't be applied. As I said, that is the norm in information "science".
Mike's scoring system is perfectly reasonable. The notion of "design" is a subjective perception. What defines "life" as life is not rooted fundamentally in chemistry or physics, but rather what we choose to call "life".
If we say the Design Matrix is invalid because it uses subjectivity, by the same standard, we could argue the "life sciences" are invalid because we have nothing to objectively define what constitutes life except our subjective notions.
If we admit information science into biology we admit subjectivity. The subjectivity does not make the discipline inherently wrong. When we say DNA is decoded, that is a subjective use of metaphors, few will argue that this subjectively rooted discipline of DNA decoding is inherently flawed.
Why don't we use other metaphors to decribe DNA decoding, like "flowing", "climbing", why is the metaphor "decoding" used? That is a subjective choice, but scientists in the field will argue that that is the right term even if they can't justify the usage with appeals to chemistry and physics.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — February 13, 2011 @ 3:16 pm
February 13th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
johnnyb,
Dembski's "active information" is a useless concept. He defines it as the difference between the performances of a blind search and a search in question and says that the difference represents an input of information from an intelligence. He calls that a conservation law.
The problem with this approach is that Dembski has no way of measuring independently the information supplied by the intelligent agent. As a result, his conservation law turns into a tautology.
I commented on this elsewhere.
Comment by olegt — February 13, 2011 @ 4:07 pm
February 13th, 2011 at 7:55 pm
It actually worked out quite well. The problem was that people lumped ancient philosophy (which explained the universe quite well) together with ancient science (which was obviously flawed and limited) and threw out the baby with the bathwater.
Aristotle had a far more coherent philosophical view of the universe than most modern philosophers do. When they abandoned his formal and final causes, they suddenly had a multitude of "philosophical problems" (such as the "mind-body interaction problem") that did not exist under his metaphysics. These "problems" remain unresolved in modern philosophy – a testament to the greatness of Aristotle.
Aristotle was rejected largely because his scientific ideas were outdated (but how could they not be?)
He made two observations that still pose a fundamental challenge to modern science:
1. Things appear to have "natures" or "essences" above and beyond their parts. A tree is not just a collection of atoms, it is an entity that conforms – either well or not so well – to the nature or essence of "tree-ness".
2. Things appear to have purpose or goals. The molecules in a tree work single-mindedly – again, either well or not so well – toward the "goal" of building and sustaining a tree.
Science did itself a great disservice when it abandoned these underpinnings. I say this because, even though science is ostensibly just about measuring and observing the world, scientists still try to "make sense" of that data. They do this by fitting the data into a philosophical framework.
The modern philosophical framework into which they fit that data is that the universe is blind, purposeless and random.
Big mistake.
ID could step in and work from the premise that the universe is NOT blind, purposeless and random, but (as I've repeatedly pointed out) it seems to be all about trying to argue that the universe MIGHT BE designed. And they seem to want to insert "design" into modern science – which is interpreted exclusively within the current philosophiocal framework. There's literally no hope of squeezing design into that!
Comment by Daniel Smith — February 13, 2011 @ 7:55 pm
February 13th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
For an enjoyable read – and a possible explanation as to why olegt eschews philosophy – try this gem by Ed Feser:
Why are (some) physicists so bad at philosophy?
Comment by Daniel Smith — February 13, 2011 @ 8:04 pm
February 13th, 2011 at 8:56 pm
Olegt says:
"No wonder philosophy turned out to be a lousy way to understand the workings of our world."
Oh, the irony!
Comment by SteveK — February 13, 2011 @ 8:56 pm
February 13th, 2011 at 10:29 pm
"Just savor the manifest contradiction: The universe comes from nothing, because a law like gravity is responsible for the universe."
Comment by kornbelt888 — February 13, 2011 @ 10:29 pm
February 14th, 2011 at 11:09 am
Geez Nick perhaps you could post a proper example of an evolutionary hypothesis. The point being, Nick, is your position is so vague I bet you can't post a testable hypothesis for your position.
Comment by ID guy — February 14, 2011 @ 11:09 am
February 14th, 2011 at 11:16 am
We have and we have also told you about them. OTOH you have failed to produce any research program guided by your principles.
Two points-
1- The design inference extends beyond biology
2- Understanding biology takes more than being a biologist
Well in order to reach a design inference FIRST we must eliminate chance and necessity. Geez don't you understand how it works?
Wrong again.
Nope, ID doesn't say that. Geez do you know anything? Apparently you don't know anything about ID and even worse you cannot produce anything to support your position.
Comment by ID guy — February 14, 2011 @ 11:16 am
February 14th, 2011 at 11:18 am
Useless to you. However your position is useless to science.
Comment by ID guy — February 14, 2011 @ 11:18 am
February 14th, 2011 at 11:21 am
Still waiting for that objective methodology that was used to determine all genetic changes are errors/ mistakes/ accidents and also the objective methodology used to determine they can build useful functioning systems.
Proper critics would have done that ages ago, as would people who want to contribute to the discussion.
Comment by ID guy — February 14, 2011 @ 11:21 am
February 14th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Olegt –
"Dembski's "active information" is a useless concept. He defines it as the difference between the performances of a blind search and a search in question and says that the difference represents an input of information from an intelligence."
Yes. This is based on the NFL theorems.
"He calls that a conservation law."
I'm not terribly interested in whether that is a conservation law or not.
"The problem with this approach is that Dembski has no way of measuring independently the information supplied by the intelligent agent."
Active Information *is* the way to measure the information that is in the system. Let's pretend that there is no way to tell if the information comes from an intelligent agent. I would dispute that claim (and I think Dembski did a good job of that in his reductio), but nonetheless the measurement still is (a) valid, (b) useful to biology, and (c) inspired by the ID movement.
"As a result, his conservation law turns into a tautology."
No, it's a measurement.
Comment by johnnyb — February 14, 2011 @ 2:24 pm
February 14th, 2011 at 3:21 pm
Nick Matzke,
Just wondering: why didn't you ever write that blistering, devastating review of the The Design Matrix?
After years and years of criticizing Mike on ARN, TT, PT and elsewhere, I'm a bit surprised that you punted when his "Magnum Opus" was finally published.
How is it that 'Kirk Cameron talks to a UCLA coed about evolution' gets an entire blog post from you, but the publishing of Mike's Pro-ID book hardly got mentioned?
Comment by chunkdz — February 14, 2011 @ 3:21 pm
February 14th, 2011 at 9:27 pm
johnnyb,
I don't see what the NFL theorems have to do with active information. Active information is defined as the difference in performance between some search algorithm and a random search for a specific task. The NFL theorems state that all optimization algorithms perform equally well when averaged over all possible functions. So one is problem-specific, the other is on average for all possible problems. And if you really wish to use the square peg for the round hole then active information loses its meaning: once you average over all possible landscapes, a given algorithm would yield the same performance, on average, as a random search and the amount of active information (so defined) will be zero.
Your other point, that active information is a measurement, is not particularly cogent. Sure, you can compute the difference in performance and get a number. What use is the number? What can you predict on the basis of that number? With energy conservation, knowing the amount of work done on an object by external forces you can predict by how much the speed of an object will increase—and verify that experimentally. What is the quantity that can be predicted—and independently measured—on th ebasis of knowing active information?
Comment by olegt — February 14, 2011 @ 9:27 pm
February 14th, 2011 at 10:54 pm
It would be a gauge as to how much agency involvement is required.
The level of intelligence required.
Comment by ID guy — February 14, 2011 @ 10:54 pm
February 15th, 2011 at 11:53 am
"once you average over all possible landscapes, a given algorithm would yield the same performance, on average, as a random search and the amount of active information (so defined) will be zero."
Exactly. The point is that an algorithm which performs significantly better-than-average is tailored to the actual landscape space, rather than an arbitrary one.
Measuring active information allows us to know, quantitatively, *which* adaptive situations organisms are geared to evolving solutions for. And, since it is quantitative, we can even compare adaptive responses using it.
In the larger scope, Aristotle argued for teleology on the basis of consistently finding patterns which were related to usefulness. If we consistently find positive active information towards biologically likely contingencies, then that is an Aristotelian argument for extending teleological understanding into evolutionary biology.
Comment by johnnyb — February 15, 2011 @ 11:53 am
February 16th, 2011 at 8:21 am
johnnyb wrote:
That does not answer my second question:
Comment by olegt — February 16, 2011 @ 8:21 am
February 16th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
Salvador T. Cordova:
I wouldn’t call Matzke, Matheson or Olegt first rate critics. Their so called criticism has very little to do with sound logical argumentation and relies on things like character assassination and guilt by association. Pick up any book on formal or informal logic and you will discover that that kind of argumentation is fallacious.
Of course, who are the experts who write books on logic? What is their field of study? They’re philosophers. I guess if you don’t give much credence in philosophy and philosophers in the first place, you’re not going to put much stock in logical reasoning.
Ironically it appears like any incompetent amateur they simply make up their own rules as they go along.
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — February 16, 2011 @ 1:54 pm
February 16th, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Of course there are books from both sides aimed at a general audience. But these books contain highly reprocessed data. So you are heavily relying on the faithful representation of the overall evidence in the field. It is as if you were to taste a burger and then ought to decide whether the cow should continue to get growth hormones.
Comment by 3rd commenter — February 16, 2011 @ 2:28 pm
February 16th, 2011 at 9:29 pm
ID Guy,
At least Oleg(t) is raising interesting challenges to Johnnyb's ideas and not engaging in insults. And Johnny is taking the challenge. Thus we have an interesting discussion taking place. Whereas you are contributing your usual blather. You haven't crossed the line, yet, but I think I'll ban you now and save myself the trouble of needing to constantly check up on you.
Comment by Bilbo — February 16, 2011 @ 9:29 pm