SETI, ID, and Science
by BilboSomewhere in Telic Thoughts, Mike Gene went on record as saying that he did not consider SETI to be science. Meanwhile, Zachriel said:
SETI is based on a well-defined, albeit weak, scientific hypothesis.
SETI's (the Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) hypothesis, if I understand it, is that if we found a narrow bandwidth radio signal from outerspace, it would be reasonable to conclude that it was generated by an extra-terrestrial intelligence. This is based on (1) the prior experience that we human beings generate such narrow signals, due to the energy required to produce a radio signal powerful enough to send long distances, and (2) the lack of knowing what non-intelligent causes would produce narrow bandwidth signals. Further evidence might come, if the signal is of a type unlikely to be produced by non-intelligent means, such as the prime numbers, from 2 to 101 (as in the movie, Contact).
As far as I know, that was the original hypothesis that SETI used when they began conducting their search. Now I'm not sure if we wish to call this "science" or not. What I find interesting is how they would go about identifying another intelligence in our universe: It resembles our intelligence (producing something we produce, for the same reasons we produce it), and we don't know of a non-intelligent way of producing it.
And that seems to be the sort of way proponents of ID reason about ID. We aren't at the stage of producing living cells, yet. But we can produce proteins and RNA (correct me if I'm wrong on that). And we don't know of a non-intelligent way of producing them. True, living cells reproduce them. But how were protein and RNA produced originally? Further, the more we investigate the cell, the more it resembles very advanced, sophisticated nanotechnology. It's beyond anything we are capable of doing at the current time. But it's what we are attempting to accomplish ourselves. So we understand the motives for doing so.
If Zachriel is correct, that "SETI is based on a well-defined, albeit weak, scientific hypothesis," then I think we can conclude that we have well-defined, albeit weak scientific evidence for ID.
April 8th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
That is not correct. A narrow bandwidth radio signal would be treated only as a candidate and would be subjected to a great deal of scrutiny, primarily attempts to falsify the claim. The SETI hypothesis is based on several assumptions.
* That life can spontaneously arise in certain environments, primarily due to the interaction of liquid water, carbon and other basic elements.
* That planets conducive to the origin of life are relatively plentiful.
* That when life occurs, it may sometimes result in intelligent civilization, meaning capable of radio communication.
* That the intelligent civilization will transmit such signals for such a period of time as to make their reception plausible.
(There's some math involved concerning population density over time, and the likelihood of detection.)
Unlike ID, SETI assumes that such a radio signal would be part of a chain of causation between the parties that would, in principle, be subject to investigation. And unlike ID, the identity of any purported ETI would be strenuously investigated.
Another difference with ID Movement. SETI doesn't claim to have discovered ETI.
Comment by Zachriel — April 8, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
April 8th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
Zachriel:
And if all attempts to falsify the claim fail?
Comment by Bilbo — April 8, 2008 @ 7:22 pm
April 8th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Zachriel:
This isn't a necessary assumption.
Comment by Bilbo — April 8, 2008 @ 7:29 pm
April 8th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Zachriel:
If most scientists accepted ID, then the identity of the designer would be strenously investigated.
ID doesn't claim to have discovered the designer, either. Just the evidence of one.
Comment by Bilbo — April 8, 2008 @ 7:33 pm
April 8th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
This conclusion does not follow from the rest of the argument. Perhaps you could say, "I think we can conclude that we have well-defined, albeit weak scientific hypothesis for ID." The existence of a hypothesis in no way counts as evidence for that hypothesis. Unfortunately even that statement would be incorrect since a hypothesis must be falsifiable and I've never gotten anyone around here to say what sort of evidence would ever falsify (or even count against) ID theories.
I've mentioned that I have little faith in the usefulness of SETI, and part of my reason is that the assumptions that their hypothesis are based on are shaky. I'm not convinced SETI is actually investigating a valid hypothesis since I don't think it can be falsified. I understand their appeal to the ID movement since they are basically rabbit chasers but they are given undo respect under the mantel of "science" simply because their theories are secular.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — April 8, 2008 @ 7:36 pm
April 8th, 2008 at 7:36 pm
It's doubtful a narrow-band signal, even with a Doppler shift, would be completely convincing. But then again, it is part of a chain of causation that can be investigated. Again, unlike ID.
We're talking about the possible discovery of ETI, a carbon-based life form (or its mechanical proxy), evolving on another planet by the usual means, transmitting a signal using known communcation techniques, in a frequency band devised for detection by distant civilizations, and a chain of causation that can be investigated"”even then the claim held skeptically. Then comparing this ETI to a firm conclusion of an unknown designer using an unspecified mechanism at some indeterminate time and place, with no chain of causation, we know it when we see it design, but completely beyond further investigation.
Of course it is. Otherwise, you may as well look for Lunarians. Or talk to your houseplants.
SETI: Why do we think that life is "out there"
Comment by Zachriel — April 8, 2008 @ 7:36 pm
April 8th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Todd B:
But the evidence I presented came before my conclusion.
Mike Gene's criteria for falsification: How non-discontinuous is it with nature? How non-analogous to known designed things is it? How irrational is it? How lacking in foresight is it?
Still waiting to hear from Zachriel on this one.
You and Mike Gene might agree on this one.
Comment by Bilbo — April 8, 2008 @ 7:43 pm
April 8th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
No one's stopping you. How do you intend to empirically investigate the designer?
Unlike the ID Movement, SETI doesn't claim to have discovered evidence of ETI. Furthermore, collecting data tests their assumptions. The lack of any candidate signals may mean that one or more of their assumptions are incorrect.
Comment by Zachriel — April 8, 2008 @ 7:44 pm
April 8th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Zachriel:
Yes, which is why the addition of a complex mathematical signal would be helpful.
Library closing now. I'll get back to this tomorrow.
Comment by Bilbo — April 8, 2008 @ 7:52 pm
April 8th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
The hypothesis is weak. I do understand why you might reject it as valid science. Many scientists do. However, the expense is relatively small, privately funded, uses existing equipment, and it's one of those things you'd really not want to overlook. Furthermore, it is a fundamental question.
A sweeping claim of ETI can't be falsified, but specific hypotheses can be. The current search is of limited duration and will set limits on the current assumptions. Other tests have been proposed, but all of them are finite in extent.
Comment by Zachriel — April 8, 2008 @ 7:53 pm
April 8th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Todd B:
Surely in this vast universe there must be vast numbers of earth like planets. If the laws of nature are the same and life is simply a result of chemical reactions then the expectation is clear. C'mon man, don't be such a pessimist.
It's a field of study. Didn't you get the memo?
Comment by Bradford — April 8, 2008 @ 8:10 pm
April 8th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
There is a great deal of uncertainty as to the evolution of technological intelligence. Even granting that, another critical weakness is the assumption that radio communication would be common for long enough periods of development as to be plausibly detectable. Humans are already starting to abandon narrow-band radio technology. And the civilization of Socrates would be undetectable, in any event.
Comment by Zachriel — April 8, 2008 @ 8:22 pm
April 9th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Zachriel Says:
The reason we would suspect (if not conclude) ETI, is that we know how to transmit narrow-band radio signals; we know why — communication; and we don't know of any natural means to do so.
Now let's suppose that we detect a narrow-band signal, but are unable to determine its location. The signal is just as strong, no matter where we aim our antennae. So no Doppler shift. We have no way of determing where this signal is transmitting from. However, in this transmission there are various, alternating, complex mathematical signals — prime number series, square root of pi to the first 100 places, etc. Do we ignore it or strongly suspect that it is designed by some mysterious intelligence? I think we would opt for the latter.
Likewise, in the case of the original living cells on Earth, we are beginning to know how to do it (desiging proteins and RNA) — advanced nanotechnology; we can understand why — bringing about intrinsically valuable life; and we don't know how it could have been done by natural means. Using the same reasoning as for SETI, we should at least suspect intelligent design. And the method need not be "mysterious". Francis Crick, for example, was willing to consider directed panspermia. Fred Hoyle believed in undirected panspermia.
We can have other reasons for thinking life is out there. For example, if we suspect that life is designed, then we can reason that the designer probably seeded other planets with living cells.
Zachriel:
Other than locating the ETI signal, unless it's relatively close, I'm not sure how we investigate ETI, either. However, if most scientists accepted ID, no doubt many of them would suspect directed panspermia, and take this as additional reason to search for ETI.
And it might be right in front of their noses all this time.
Comment by Bilbo — April 9, 2008 @ 1:18 pm
April 9th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Bilbo:
I think you're wrong. Just as with complex information coding at the root of life, complex mathematical signals we could not pinpoint to any location would more likely be presumed a natural phenomenon sans any possible consideration of intelligence. Some might say it confirms their Platonic leanings (big-t Mathematical Truths) and use it as an excuse for why we can apprehend big-t Mathematical Truths. No designer or intelligence necessary, just a normal, natural phenomenon of reality we've just now learned how to decipher.
IOW, everything we could ever discover that is ubiquitous in reality will be automatically assumed 'natural' - defined as being without intelligent design. That the classification into which it would be filed - "Laws of Nature" - is identical to the conceptualization of "Laws of God" won't matter. Hardly anybody working in the fields these days has even the most rudimentary grasp of philosophy of science. Or so I presume, given that these Culture Warriors ignore or dismiss it so consistently.
Comment by Joy — April 9, 2008 @ 3:36 pm
April 9th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Or the designer could have decided to make life on Earth unique. That's the problem with a ill-defined claims. It leads to ill-defined predictions. You would need substantial information about the designer's means and motives to make any such determination.
I note you didn't respond to the point I raised concerning the differences between SETI and ID:
Comment by Zachriel — April 9, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
April 10th, 2008 at 7:20 am
by Terry Bisson [source]
"They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"Meat. They're made out of meat."
"Meat?"
"There's no doubt about it. We picked up several from different parts of the planet, took them aboard our recon vessels, and probed them all the way through. They're completely meat."
"That's impossible. What about the radio signals? The messages to the stars?"
"They use the radio waves to talk, but the signals don't come from them. The signals come from machines."
"So who made the machines? That's who we want to contact."
"They made the machines. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Meat made the machines."
"That's ridiculous. How can meat make a machine? You're asking me to believe in sentient meat."
"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are the only sentient race in that sector and they're made out of meat."
"Maybe they're like the orfolei. You know, a carbon-based intelligence that goes through a meat stage."
"Nope. They're born meat and they die meat. We studied them for several of their life spans, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of meat?"
"Spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part meat. You know, like the weddilei. A meat head with an electron plasma brain inside."
"Nope. We thought of that, since they do have meat heads, like the weddilei. But I told you, we probed them. They're meat all the way through."
"No brain?"
"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of meat! That's what I've been trying to tell you."
"So . . . what does the thinking?"
"You're not understanding, are you? You're refusing to deal with what I'm telling you. The brain does the thinking. The meat."
"Thinking meat! You're asking me to believe in thinking meat!"
"Yes, thinking meat! Conscious meat! Loving meat. Dreaming meat. The meat is the whole deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"
"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of meat."
"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of meat. And they've been trying to get in touch with us for almost a hundred of their years."
"Omigod. So what does this meat have in mind?"
"First it wants to talk to us. Then I imagine it wants to explore the Universe, contact other sentiences, swap ideas and information. The usual."
"We're supposed to talk to meat."
"That's the idea. That's the message they're sending out by radio. "˜Hello. Anyone out there? Anybody home?' That sort of thing."
"They actually do talk, then. They use words, ideas, concepts?"
"Oh, yes. Except they do it with meat."
"I thought you just told me they used radio."
"They do, but what do you think is on the radio? Meat sounds. You know how when you slap or flap meat, it makes a noise? They talk by flapping their meat at each other. They can even sing by squirting air through their meat."
"Omigod. Singing meat. This is altogether too much. So what do you advise?"
"Officially or unofficially?"
"Both."
"Officially, we are required to contact, welcome, and log in any and all sentient races or multibeings in this quadrant of the Universe, without prejudice, fear, or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the records and forget the whole thing."
"I was hoping you would say that."
"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with meat?"
"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? "˜Hello, meat. How's it going?' But will this work? How many planets are we dealing with here?"
"Just one. They can travel to other planets in special meat containers, but they can't live on them. And being meat, they can only travel through C space. Which limits them to the speed of light and makes the possibility of their ever making contact pretty slim. Infinitesimal, in fact."
"So we just pretend there's no one home in the Universe."
"That's it."
"Cruel. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet meat? And the ones who have been aboard our vessels, the ones you probed? You're sure they won't remember?"
"They'll be considered crackpots if they do. We went into their heads and smoothed out their meat so that we're just a dream to them."
"A dream to meat! How strangely appropriate, that we should be meat's dream."
"And we marked the entire sector unoccupied."
"Good. Agreed, officially and unofficially. Case closed. Any others? Anyone interesting on that side of the galaxy?"
"Yes, a rather shy but sweet hydrogen-core cluster intelligence in a class-nine star in G445 zone was in contact two galactic rotations ago, wants to be friendly again."
"They always come around."
"And why not? Imagine how unbearably, how unutterably cold the Universe would be if one were all alone . . . "
Comment by JackT — April 10, 2008 @ 7:20 am
April 10th, 2008 at 10:42 am
When you drill down into that meat, you find the meat is made out of machines.
Machines making machines.
You'd think they'd know that.
Comment by kornbelt888 — April 10, 2008 @ 10:42 am
April 10th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
None of those have been offered as methods of falsifying ID, they are only considered methods for rejecting a piece of evidence as supporting ID. Also since all those criteria are rather subjective it is easy to claim whatever positive evidence is collected outweighs whatever negative evidence is collected. In fact, the methodology of "chasing the rabbit" is all about ignoring any negative evidence to focus on the positive evidence.
I do think it is likely there is other life in the universe, its that I don't think SETI is likely to discover evidence to support that using their current methods. What they are looking for is unlikely to be found even if the universe it teaming with advanced civilizations.
Philosophy and religion are also fields of study, but they don't have any valid hypothesis either. I can't see how your quip is relevant to the discussion.
In your signal case, as you mention we would first eliminate all possible natural explanations. Our next step would be to eliminate earth-based sources (reflected signals, hoaxes, defective satellites, etc). Since we have a known entity (humans) capable of doing the work we'd first have to rule that out. In the OOL example, we might not know the details but we can easily conceive of theoretical natural processes by which life could have formed. Just as with SETI we would first have to rule out all these possible natural causes, which is what science is trying to do.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — April 10, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
April 10th, 2008 at 3:34 pm
It's a field of study. Didn't you get the memo?
SETI can scan particular regions of the universe utilizing a technology geared to detect a specified type of signal. If the hypothesis involves the following x galaxies and results are negative you have falsified the hypothesis that intelligent life, emitting the electromagnetic signal looked for, was detected within the scanned region. Of course intelligent life could exist nevertheless. As Zachriel has pointed out it may not be detectable utilizing the methodology in question.
Comment by Bradford — April 10, 2008 @ 3:34 pm
April 10th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Todd B wrote:
But does the main SETI hypothesis, that intelligent life exists somewhere else in the universe, really need to be falsifiable? For example, compare the following two assertions: (1) Life (primitive microbial life, for example) does not exist on Mars, and (2) Life does exist on Mars. To prove assertion #1 one has to search Mars exhaustively"”every nook and cranny on the surface as well as under the surface– a task that is practically speaking impossible. So #1 is, for all practical purposes, is falsifiable* but un-provable; but, what about #2? To prove #2 one only has find a single or few instances of life. But is number #2 falsifiable? Ironically, #1 is the only way we could falsify #2, isn't it? So, #2 is affirmable but not really falsifiable (since #1, the assertion that life does not exist on Mars, is un-provable.) How then, is any of this different than the main hypothesis of SETI? Is the SETI hypothesis, if not a falsifiable one, at least an affirmable one?
(*obviously, the discovery of Martian life would falsify the #1's assertion.)
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — April 10, 2008 @ 3:59 pm
April 10th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
By definition, to be a valid scientific hypothesis it must be both testable and falsifiable. While that broad statement can be tested by looking for specific things in unexpected locations it cannot be falsified through any means available to us. As such the broad statement is not a valid hypothesis. Some more specific statement might serve the same goal and still be falsifiable. As Bradford points out above and as Zachriel has mentioned SETI tries to limit themselves to more narrowly defined hypothesis so that they can be falsified.
You seem to assume that if statement A is not a hypothesis then its opposite, statement !A, must be a hypothesis. This doesn't necessarily follow. Both statements might be too vague to be a testable and falsifiable hypothesis. I think you're also realizing the whole "you can't prove a universal negative" issue. Only an exhaustive search of everything can completely prove something doesn't exist and such a search is never feasible. Thus "never life on Mars" cannot be tested (so is not a valid hypothesis) and "once life on Mars" cannot be falsified (so is not a valid hypothesis). Instead you need to make more specific claims.
In summary, if the "SETI hypothesis" is "intelligent life exists elsewhere" then that is not any different than your example but its also not a valid hypothesis because it cannot be falsified.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — April 10, 2008 @ 5:20 pm
April 10th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Joy,
Somebody named Jules had your very idea, but changed his mind:
http://www.iscid.org/ubb/ultim...
Then he found a paper that used the idea for this:
http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/physic...
I'd be curious in what you think.
Oh, and Jules' original thread:
http://www.iscid.org/ubb/ultim...
Comment by Bilbo — April 10, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
April 10th, 2008 at 8:51 pm
Zachriel:
True, or abiogenesis could have just happened once.
If you read Jack T's amusing little story, you would see this isn't a necessary premise, either.
Yeah, well most designing in our universe depends upon some fundamental force or other. If living cells were designed, would those cells still depend upon those forces?
Yes, this would increase the likelihood of our picking up the signal, and increase the likelihood that we would think it was intelligently designed. Likewise, if we find features in living cells that seemed optimized and part of the original design (little or no evidence or proto-states), we might suspect more strongly that they were intelligently designed.
Unless the signal is coming from a probe, or a Star Treck like creature — you know, one of those gaseous, quasi-physical entities that would be super intelligent and powerful. Or unless we can't determine where the signal is coming from, as I hypothesized before.
Yes, after they think they've discovered a signal from SETI, how do we investigate next?
If SETI decided that present day living cells were the descendants of ETI-nanotechnology, would they stop searching? Probably not. Nor should they.
I didn't realize ETI was a proper noun.
Nanotechnology. True, how it got here is unspecified. But this could motivate us to look even more vigorously for ETI.
I take life to be intrinsically valuable. If you could create living cells and send them to a lifeless planet, would you? But even in the movie Contact, there was debate as to why ETI was communicating with us: Friendly or unfriendly?
Appeared on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago.
Read Mike's book and say that.
Some of us suspect so. If SETI finds the right radio signal tomorrow, this difference between the two would be eliminated. So I don't see this as essential, do you?
Comment by Bilbo — April 10, 2008 @ 8:51 pm
April 10th, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Todd B:
Todd, if you had read Mike's book, you would notice that the four categories have both positive numbers and negative numbers: positive numbers (+1 to +5) when there appears to be evidence of analogy, discontinuity, rationality, and foresight. Negative numbers (-1 to -5) when there doesn't appear to be any of those characteristics. So the more disanalogous, the more continuous with nature, the more irrational, the less foresight, the less we should believe that something was intelligently designed. That's a falsifiability criterion.
It's subjective, but not easy. And no, the methodology of "chasing the rabbit" is to try to disentangle the designed from the non-designed.
Comment by Bilbo — April 10, 2008 @ 9:00 pm
April 10th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
For your information I did read Mike's book. The rating system is a method for determining whether specific pieces of evidence count for or against an ID conclusion, not a method for scoring a theory as a whole. Rejecting one piece of evidence does not in any way speak against the ID theory, rather Mike proposed a Explanatory Continuum whereby all the positive evidence moves you from "possible" towards "plausible." Although Mike mentions the idea of contrary evidence none of it is discussed in the book. Instead a rabbit chasing metaphor is adopted which promotes the idea of ignoring negative evidence just to see how deep the rabbit hole might be. If you disagree then please quote any passage from the book where Mike discuses anything that would falsify ID theories. I remember no such passage.
I don't know, assuming "God did it" seems pretty easy to me. Anything subjective is easy, you just inject personal belief where ever there is a lack of empirical evidence.
You seem to be stating this as an opinion so I'll simply choose to disagree with you. My opinion is that its an intentional embracing of confirmation bias.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — April 10, 2008 @ 10:15 pm
April 10th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Bilbo:
I think these guys are having fun being theoretical physicists, thus getting paid (by DOE and the NSF) to sit about and reason all day. I love the national labs' pre-print servers (use the arXiv mirror). They'll publish anything!
I'm not even going to try and go through the Lie algebra matrices. Everybody's got their favorite math & geometry to prove their favorite theory - including Penrose and Pitkaanen. While I also like the "universe as science fair project" scenario, I doubt we've got a good enough handle on some of the possibilities Hsu and Zee suggest to be able to decipher such a cosmic message. Besides, I think a cosmic message might be something more simple and obvious than just the 'correct' cosmological equations. We've already got plenty of evidence for fine tuning. How many True BelieversTM in random quantum fluctuations has it convinced?
I also like the 'nested hierarchy' of universes better than entirely disconnected multiverses. I wouldn't call them whole 'universes' though, because each subset in the nest is still part of a single whole. This could be shorthand for dimensionality - IOW, if our 4D universe is actually a sub-verse of an 11D universe, our 4 dimensions still count - there's just another 7 'extra' in the next larger nest.
Were that the case, we could not expect to sensually perceive anything in 11 dimensions - it could be right here with us all the time and we wouldn't know it. We cannot rule out the existence of consciousness - or life of some variety - there, because we can't know anything about 'there'. All we could perceive of it is what's manifest in our 4 dimensions. What if our universe of blazing suns and galaxies were just the flame on a match head some 22 dimensional scientist is lighting his pipe with? What if he blows us out?
I like to think that in a nested hierarchy we might expect to encounter some phenomenon that's just an interaction here in 4D of something occurring in 11D, that would at least alert us to the fact that there's More. Physics of late is leaning toward explaining gravity on these terms, I think they're too reluctant to let go of Higgs and add mass to that interaction. But that's just me, physics doesn't care what I think (on subjects like this).
This sort of rumination can be a lot of fun. So can playing with equations if you're into that sort of thing (just ask Max!). But I sincerely doubt people like Zach or Todd B. or any notable DDs out there would consider this to be science. Now that you've pointed out this lark of a paper to them, and it admits its Superior Being comports with deism (and for one of them, intelligent design), it'll simply be assigned to crazy theoretical physics geeks uploading their most recent drunken weekend's highlights to the LANL server ("nobody takes THEM seriously!"). I imagine that if PRL ever were to publish it the sky would fall and I'd probably hear the howls of outrage bouncing right off my mountain.
Thanks for the reference, I enjoyed it (just 3 pages). Physicists don't tend to be nearly so dogmatic as biologists, also tend to appreciate the limits to their knowledge more. In physics, it's kind of nice to know that the theorists aren't nearly as self-censoring or concerned about the bad ol' Culture War as the experimenters are.
Comment by Joy — April 10, 2008 @ 10:24 pm
April 11th, 2008 at 8:14 am
Precisely.
A hypothesis is a tentative assertion that entails specific and distinguishing empirical predictions. SETI makes the assumption, along with several others, that abiogenesis is a common phenomena. Then they test their assumptions.
ID, on the other hand, offers no specificity, and no hypotheses entailing specific and distinguishing empirical predictions.
Comment by Zachriel — April 11, 2008 @ 8:14 am
April 11th, 2008 at 8:20 am
The free play of ideas can be an important component of developing hypotheses. As long as it is meant to, at some point, lead to distinguishing predictions (and reasonably consistent with current data), then it might be considered as science. But not everything of value is science. It might be valid mathematics, or just play.
Comment by Zachriel — April 11, 2008 @ 8:20 am
April 11th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Zachriel:
The late Carl Sagan used to say that in a universe as large as ours there ought to be many (I believe he said millions) of astronomical circumstances giving rise to earth-like planets having conditions favorable to life. If life arises from organic chemistry there is every reason to expect to find life on planets having circumstances similar to earth. The connection and logic is clear. What would be the explanation though if that were not the case? If earth were unique with respect to life, even by comparison to planetary systems giving rise to earth-like conditions, then a missing factor in the analysis is strongly indicated. If physical laws are the same everywhere then the indicator points to an ID based explanation.
Comment by Bradford — April 11, 2008 @ 9:11 am
April 11th, 2008 at 9:24 am
Joy:
I assume you can back this up with some published research. Otherwise I would be tempted to conclude that you are quite the dogmatic stereotyper.
Comment by Raevmo — April 11, 2008 @ 9:24 am
April 11th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Bradford:
That life does not spring so easily from organic chemistry.
Why? It still would leave unexplained why other earth-like planets did not get life ID-ed on them.
Comment by Raevmo — April 11, 2008 @ 9:30 am
April 11th, 2008 at 9:38 am
Yes, that's a reasonable extrapolation, but the claim does not itself comprise a falsifiable hypothesis.
Knowing that would require an exhaustive search of the universe, something not generally considered possible"”or more practically, a search of what can be shown to be a representative sample. Absent evidence, the answer is we don't know.
Comment by Zachriel — April 11, 2008 @ 9:38 am
April 11th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Joy and Bilbo,
That preprint by Hsu and Zee was published in Modern Physics Letters A 21, 1495 (2006); doi:10.1142/S0217732306020834. That is, indeed, a journal that would publish pretty much anything.
The idea, of course, isn't new. Tony Zee has previously discussed it in his book Fearful Symmetry. Note also references to late-1980s-early-1990s papers [2]. They predate Jules.
You should also note that this isn't a serious physics paper: the subject category on the arXiv is Popular Physics.
Aside note, Joy: arXiv's headquarters have moved (along with its creator Paul Ginsparg) to Cornell. That's where the main server is now. Los Alamos is one of the mirrors.
Comment by olegt — April 11, 2008 @ 9:44 am
April 11th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Oleg:
Hahahaha… [wipes eyes]. And I didn't hear a single echoed howl off my mountain! Or maybe the singing train was going by at the time, and I just missed it in the symphony.
Never read Zee's book. Though I have encountered such ideas before, always in the context of 'Wild Ideas' exploring what might be beyond the limits of our knowledge, particularly in regards to greater dimensionality and/or multiverses of some description or other.
Perhaps it's okay then to speak of gods/God in "popular" and theoretical terms and not excite the heavy hand of materialistic outrage. I do have Heinz Pagels' Perfect Symmetry, a book I love and read fairly often for its well-framed history and interesting extrapolations. Was quite sad to learn his mountain killed him (too young). Also have Lederman's The God Particle (a hilarious little tome), so of course it's obvious that whenever gods/God can help sell an idea to those who get to pay the bills, it's okay to mention the unmentionable.
Since you're here, is Wiggly Higgly still MIA? I have been too busy to keep up.
Comment by Joy — April 11, 2008 @ 10:10 am
April 11th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Thanks for the heads up on arXiv, oleg. I have it bookmarked but haven't visited in awhile (no time to play much with pdfs, had to replace the computer again). It saves time, but ya gotta have time to save… §;o)
Comment by Joy — April 11, 2008 @ 10:20 am
April 11th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Raevmo:
You long ago came to conclusions about me, my dear. And I long ago decided to keep you around for amusement's sake just to illustrate so graphically what's wrong with dogmatic die-hards. Heck, I've even defended you as harmless from time to time when your sarcasm manages to bite someone harder than it should (i.e., they take you seriously).
I've known more physicists than biologists (though I am related to a biologist, who is quite nice). In any group of people in any field you're going to get a range of personalities and proclivities of mind. It's just that in physics the limits on our knowledge are more apparent - at least, under current theoretics - than in biology, which tends to insist it already knows everything and resists limitations with considerable fury.
That's a metaphysical commitment, not a scientific one. Interestingly, many True BelieversTM in the metaphysics don't seem to recognize where the science leaves off and the metaphysics kicks in. You'll have this generally in people who can't tell the difference.
Comment by Joy — April 11, 2008 @ 10:37 am
April 11th, 2008 at 10:49 am
I cannot fathom how life being uncommon in the universe supports an Intelligent Designer. I can see where it supports Judeo-Christian Mythology, but in no way does it generally support the generic notion of a designer. I guess its hard to propose ID theories that don't end up fairly directly showing their true religious origin.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — April 11, 2008 @ 10:49 am
April 11th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Todd B:
You truly cannot understand that if, among a million earth like planets in a vast universe the earth were the only one with life, there would be a need to abandon (or at the very least consider doing so) the idea that life springs forth from chemical pathways in the absence of intelligent guidance? Astronomy, chemistry and life are not mythological concepts.
Your uncritical acceptance of weakly supported scientific theories indicates your religious motives. Not x is a religious statement if you consider x inherently religious. There is nothing inherently religious though about SETI.
Comment by Bradford — April 11, 2008 @ 11:22 am
April 11th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
SETI sounds "ID" to me. The basic confidence (Assumption? Hypothesis? Prediction?) is that SETI researchers can identify a signal with an intelligent source, distinguishing it from any and all other signals. (I wonder if SETI researchers are aware of Dr. Dembski's work?)
I glanced through the SETI Institute fellows' pubs and oddly enough the basic problem (as I just stated it) doesn't seem to be a preoccupation with them. Seems like a doozy of a problem to ignore. Without a solution to that problem in hand I can't imagine how they will ever get off the ground, so to speak. (Other than by standing on the shoulders of some addle-pated, deep-pocketed patron"¦ just like ID!)
What do you think, Bilbo? A "weak hypothesis" or no hypothesis at all?
Given the current status of space exploration, it seems to me our best hope for discovering any form of life beyond Earth would be the detection of such a signal, which seems pretty hopeless judging by what I've read in these discussions.
Comment by Rock — April 11, 2008 @ 12:06 pm
April 11th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Todd B wrote:
Are you familiar with the 2 Viking missions to Mars in the mid seventies? Are you aware that they had instruments on board to test for the possible existence of life? Did either spacecraft discover the existence of life? Did the Viking mission prove that life does not exist on Mars? Were these experiments scientific?
Joy wrote:
Albert Einstein once said that scientists are very poor philosophers. Ironically, insights like this rank Einstein among the best of philosophers
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — April 11, 2008 @ 12:53 pm
April 11th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
JOHN_A_DESIGNER:
John, be reasonable. NASA was probably unfamiliar with the arguments of TT's critics.
Comment by Bradford — April 11, 2008 @ 2:13 pm
April 11th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
The only thing this would tell us is that the odds of life forming are astronomically small. Since the main ID objection to abiogenesis seems to be that the odds are astronomically small then a single life baring planet in all the universe seems to speak against ID by agreeing with their own conjecture. Also if an Intelligent Designer created life for some purpose it doesn't make sense to assume that purpose can only be met on this one planet among all the universe. Rather I would think it makes more sense to suspect that purpose would be cared out in many locations.
To answer your questions: Yes. Yes. No*. No. Yes. The key here is they were actually testing very specific predictions. For example, consider this hypothesis: Martian soil will consume oxygen and release CO2 (or vice-versa) due to the presence of organic lifeforms in the soil. Its testable (sample some Martian soil) and falsifiable (test for the gases, if they don't change levels the theory is false). That is the hypothesis that the Viking GEX experiment tested (not exactly, but approximately), which for both probes concluded no life was present.
* The consensus is no life was found on Mars although some people have suggested otherwise and undoubtedly some people still disagree today.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — April 11, 2008 @ 4:14 pm
April 11th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Todd B:
It tells us more than that. The universe is a huge laboratory where natural laws are not only shared, they do not play favorites. If selection was a factor in the generation of cells from an organic soup then we would expect to see the same outcome played out whenever conditions are favorable. Odds should have little to do with it. If life is such a freak accident then it is beyond scientific explanation. Plausible scientific theories are not formed around one time accidents.
That's your own personal view as to what makes most sense.
Comment by Bradford — April 11, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
April 11th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Zachriel:
But one could also make the assumption that the designer seeded many planets and test that assumption. Maybe abiogenesis is common, maybe it isn't. Maybe the designer seeded many planets, maybe only one. We know that life appeared on Earth relatively soon after it was able to survive. Why? Because abiogenesis is easy? Or because the designer waited to seed Earth until it was able to sustain life? By itself, discovering that there is life on many other planets doesn't tell us which of the reasons is correct. We would need to know more: Same genetic code? Same four nucleotides? Same 20 amino acids? Or completely different? And if different, more easily explained by natural means? Or more difficult?
If SETI succeeds, the frustration will be wanting to know the answers to these and thousands of other questions, and being too far away to get answers.
Comment by Bilbo — April 11, 2008 @ 5:05 pm
April 11th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Bilbo:
Todd B:
Chapters 3-5 discuss clues or "positive evidence" that would at least make us suspect ID. Then Chapter 6 points out the challenge: Darwinian Evolution, where the blind watchmaker seems to be able to explain all the clues in chapters 3-5. The rest of chapter 6-9 try to offer ways of how to evaluate between blindwatchmaker explanations and design explanations. In Chapter 10, Mike offers his Matrix, and then tries it out on a few examples, to see how it works. Some of them come out scoring high for design. Some of them come out scoring high for non-design. Some are neutral. Show me the confirmation bias.
(Edited for errors in chapter numbers)
Comment by Bilbo — April 11, 2008 @ 5:12 pm
April 11th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
If it could be shown that any combination of chemicals known to be naturally abundant could form replicators under conditions likely to exist during or shortly after planetary formation then it becomes entirely about the odds. So far this cannot be demonstrated, but that line of thinking does lead to many scientific experiments. If any man-made mechanism for abiogenesis is eventually discovered then you would obviously need to ask what the likelihood of those same conditions arising naturally might be. In fact Dembski pulls random numbers out of his assumptions in following exactly this sort of reasoning. He claims the chance is beyond the universal probability bound, but his numbers are meaningless because no mechanism is discussed and no empirical data about actual probable conditions is incorporated.
Exactly, my point being that the Judeo-Christian Mythology based opinion of "alone in the universe means God created us" does not follow from the ID position as you suggested above. It was also just an opinion, yet you stated your amazement that I would not share the same opinion.
My evidence is the DM itself, for example the second paragraph on page 287 could pretty much be summarized as, "Believe in the rabbit on faith and eventually it will be as well supported as the duck, honest." The whole chapter that introduces the Rabbit metaphor sounded exactly like "yeah confirmation bias, we love you" to me. In a way this is actually ok since Mike isn't claiming to be making a scientific argument anyway and is simply advocating collecting data based on the desire to confirm an opinion. But you won't convince anyone that the DM is anything more than an intellectual game if the theories contained within are fundamentally unfalsifiable. The whole duck-rabbit deal is basically a claim that any evidence could support the ID theory if you simply apply the right conformational bias.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — April 11, 2008 @ 5:50 pm
April 11th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
The prediction has to be entailed in the tentative assertion, like this. It's called hypothetico-deductive. We state the hypothesis, then deduce its consequences. The predictions should be specific and distinguishing.
An unnamed designer for unknown purposes by unspecified means at an undetermined time and place is not a valid hypothesis. In science, you have to be willing to risk your beautiful hypothesis against pesky facts.
Comment by Zachriel — April 11, 2008 @ 5:52 pm
April 11th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Todd B:
ID has nothing to say either way about whether or not life on earth is unique. That's because organic chemistry cannot give us answers to such questions. My amazement is centered around your inability to restrain your religious comments. It indicates your bias. We all have biases but you would never know that by listening to ID critics who think they are objective and IDists the ones biased.
Comment by Bradford — April 11, 2008 @ 6:14 pm
April 11th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
I agree, and yet not long ago you said, "If earth were unique with respect to life, even by comparison to planetary systems giving rise to earth-like conditions, then a missing factor in the analysis is strongly indicated. If physical laws are the same everywhere then the indicator points to an ID based explanation." So you claimed that life on earth being unique and physical laws being universal would support ID. Its nice to see you can admit you were wrong and confess that you were simply stating an opinion.
I've never tried to hide my bias in favor of scientific methodology as our best tool for expanding our knowledge. Nor have I tried to hide my bias in favor of a secular society. Niether of those biases are relevant to the point I was making, which is that the statement you made which I quoted above was incorrect (or rather mearly an opinion). My later comment was simply an observation that the origin of your biases seem quiet clear. I'm simply following the Explanatory Continuum by collecting evidence to support the non-scientific theory that most ID supporters are simply trying to push religion as if it was something else. I learned that methodology reading the DM.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — April 11, 2008 @ 8:24 pm
April 12th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Hey, if the theory about the motivations behind ID is non-scientific, and scientific methodology is the best tool for expanding our knowledge, wouldn't that mean that attempts to dismiss ID on the grounds that it's a religious abuse of science should itself be dismissed?
This 'twisting words' game is fun! Beats the hell outta Scrabble.
Comment by nullasalus — April 12, 2008 @ 12:44 am
April 12th, 2008 at 12:50 am
It's not so nice to see you twist what I say. It's a form of dishonesty. I said ID makes no prediction about whether life on earth is unique. However, if it were shown that life on earth is unique that observation would favor ID. One statement is made in the absence of data and the other assumes sufficient data to designate earth as unique.
Comment by Bradford — April 12, 2008 @ 12:50 am
April 12th, 2008 at 1:12 am
I can only assure you that I am not intentionally twisting your words. What I have written above is honestly how I interpreted what you said.
So in other words, once again this evidence can either support ID or else have no relevance to ID. And once again we are left with it being impossible to falsify ID since no evidence ever speaks against it, which once again shows the whole thing is nothing more than a means to amplify existing confirmation bias. How exactly are we to gain knowledge about the world with a theory that can only be supported and never falsified?
Comment by Todd Berkebile — April 12, 2008 @ 1:12 am
April 12th, 2008 at 1:30 am
I never said the evidence was irrelevant to ID. If the universe is teeming with life I would expect naturalists to claim this supports the chemical genesis idea.
The way to falsify ID is to demonstrate that under specified conditions, reactions involving substances a, b, c… occur which constitute a definable set of pathways leading to a cell.
Comment by Bradford — April 12, 2008 @ 1:30 am
April 12th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Todd B wrote:
I would argue that it is not really falsifiable because conditions favorable to the experiment may exist other places on Mars. You have only shown negative results for 2 specific locations on the planet. Of course it's also possible that Martian life has a chemistry that is so dissimilar to terrestrial life that the Viking experiments were simply unable to detect it. Are you saying that planetary scientists shouldn't consider these alternative possibilities?
Comment by JOHN_A_DESIGNER — April 12, 2008 @ 12:44 pm
April 12th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Sure, they might have looked in the wrong place, but that isn't relevant to the hypothesis. The hypothesis predicted life in all Martian soil just as we find life in virtually all Earth soil. If the hypothesis had been that there is life someplace on Mars then it wouldn't have been a valid hypothesis since it could not be falsified. This is why scientist make limited and specific claims rather than general broad-sweeping claims.
Scientists did consider many possibilities. There was another life detecting experiment on the Viking probes that was based on the assumption that Martian life would be based on organic chemicals (i.e. carbon-based) regardless of gas cycles. Radioactive organic chemicals were mixed with the soil and then they looked for complex molecules that had absorbed these isotopes. The idea is that the lifeforms would eat the food and then you can detect the results. This is the experiment that generated a false positive leading them initially declare that they had found life on Mars. Some people still believe this test actually found life on Mars. So many theories can and should be investigated. The important requirement is that you need to be able to make specific testable predictions.
Comment by Todd Berkebile — April 12, 2008 @ 2:37 pm
April 12th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
The only scientific project currently operating to detect life anywhere in the Universe is SETI.
Somebody address the questions I asked: The basic confidence (Assumption? Hypothesis? Prediction?) is that SETI researchers can identify a signal with an intelligent source, distinguishing it from any and all other signals. (I wonder if SETI researchers are aware of Dr. Dembski's work?)
I'm embarrassed for you, Bradford! Why do you allow yourself to be drawn into such diversions?
Comment by Rock — April 12, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
April 12th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Rock:
Sorry, Rock, I didn't have time to get to your question yesterday. You probably know more about this stuff than I do. Do we know of natural (non-intelligent) ways to produce narrow-band radio transmissions? Do we know of natural ways to produce long mathematical patterns, such as the prime number series from 2 to 101?
If the answer to both of these is No, then it seems reasonable to conclude that such a transmission was intelligently designed.
How do we confirm that it was? Travel to the place where the transmission occurred. Of course, by the time we get there, the source may not be there anymore.
So I think I would agree with Zachriel that we would have weak scientific evidence of ETI. But I think it would be strong enough for us non-scientists.
Comment by Bilbo — April 12, 2008 @ 4:44 pm
April 12th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
Todd:
No, the whole duck-rabbit deal is a claim that that the evidence can be interpreted to support either non-directed evolution or ID. The point of the DM is to find a fair way to evaluate the evidence. But since concepts such as discontinuity, analogy, rationality, and foresight are not easy to quantify, there will probably always be differences in how one individual scores the evidence in comparison to someone else. But if the differences are extreme, we can suspect confirmational bias. Did you find any of Mike's examples in chapter 10 to be suffering from confirmational bias?
Comment by Bilbo — April 12, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
April 12th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Zachriel:
So SETI hypothesizes that the early appearance of life on Earth is because abiogenesis is relatively easy. They then scan the universe for radio transmissions, or light transmissions, or designed objects, or what have you. If they don't find any, does that mean their initial hypothesis was wrong?
Comment by Bilbo — April 12, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
April 12th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
Huh? It's always interesting to see how others interpret my words. What you need to do is this. First, type out the second paragraph on page 287. Second, use your reasoning skills to connect those words with your spin - "Believe in the rabbit on faith and eventually it will be as well supported as the duck, honest." I'd like to see your reasoning process before continuing.
I don't think you understand what confirmation bias is. Either that, or you failed to grasp the point of chapter 6.
Wrong again. The desire is to know whether the suspicion has any merit.
Won't convince anyone? Did someone appoint you Representative of All Humanity? Where did you get the authority to speak for everyone else? You do better when you simply speak for yourself, which is all that you can legitimately do. So you, Todd Berkebile, remain unconvinced that the DM is anything more than an intellectual game. Did I claim you are supposed to be convinced?
Really? That I don't even claim to have an "ID theory" should tell readers that you don't know what you are talking about. And that's just for starters.
Comment by MikeGene — April 12, 2008 @ 5:31 pm
April 12th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
You probably know more about this stuff than I do…
Not likely, Bilbo, because, unlike some of the other correspondents, I don't know anything about life other than life on Earth and not much about life on Earth for that matter.(I've asked before if SETI could detect life or intelligent life on Earth. Can they? If not, what the hell are we arguing about?!)
Do we know of natural (non-intelligent) ways to produce narrow-band radio transmissions?
Yes. That's exactly how we determine the signal of alpha-hydrogen is different from the characteristic signature of carbon-16, e.g. But the real question is if life or intelligence utilizes only "narrow-band" signals. We don't.
Do we know of natural ways to produce long mathematical patterns, such as the prime number series from 2 to 101?
Yes and No. I.e., we know of natural ways to produce long mathematical patterns, but not how naturally a series of primes may produced, other than by design. Because numbers and their theories are our designs. The question is would other life forms arrive at the same theories? Marvin Minsky argued, many years ago that they will, must, and should. Ya know, its hard to argue otherwise, but I just don't know. I could only know if we discovered other life forms. But I also think that maybe there are other life forms on Earth, even intelligent or semi-intelligent by our standards, who don't (e.g., chimps, or even children (!)) who don't use our number systems.
If the answer to both of these is No, then it seems reasonable to conclude that such a transmission was intelligently designed
I hardly answered y