On this very long thread we exhausted thousands of posts exploring information theory and molecular biology. The emphasis was autonomy and self-organizing complexity. Somewhere along the way I offered the hypothesis that algorithm at inception is proof of intelligence design and provided several methods of falsification. The debate on that thread is particularly informative because of contributions of many Freeper experts and thinkers. There is a lot of useful information to be “had” – but it cannot be realistically copied into this thread.
I don’t wish to argue the case again here, but I do suggest anyone interested in the particulars of the debate might want to click on the above link.
Indeed. It was for that very reason that I prepared my much-reviled "List-o-Links," so that we could begin each new thread with some references to an ever-growing backlog of previously-discussed material. But the creo side kept complaining to the mods, so I gave it up. I understand their gripe. It's much better for their side if each new thread starts with an empty slate. That way they can repeat the same often-refuted material over and over.
Thanks for posting the link to the thread, it should be read by those interested in the problem of information theory. It also has lots of links for even more information.
I think the question of algorithm at inception is pretty much of a closed book by now. Since all living things known to man have DNA and that DNA symbolic code is translated completely arbitrarily into amino acids by RNA, it is impossible to say that there was no algorithm at the inception of life. Unless materialists can show that rocks, carbon and other inert matter started a school to teach RNA how to read the code, a materialist origin for life is utter nonsense.
However, the question here goes further. The materialists are tyring to work backwards as one could say. They are trying to prove by saying that life can arrange itself intelligently to save the theory of evolution now that it is obvious that the complexity of organisms require intelligent programming to change it and make those changes work. The evolutionists have no evidence for such a thing of course. It is also an obvious fact that until recently not even man could genetically change itself - whether he wished to or not. So to say that species have been intelligently modifying themselves since the beginning of life is to me totally absurd and without any validity.
One of the key issues in these debates has been whether random events plus selection can produce something new. I concede that the computer program under discussion does not model biological evolution. I granted this up front. The issue is whether the process of selection can build new things without specifying their structure.
Regardless of the long term utility of this programming "trick", it has demonstrated once and for all that design can occur in the absence of preconceived ideas about structure. Only the behavioral outcome needs to be specified. It is critical to point out that the circuit being patented could not have been designed by the programmers, because they still don't understand how it works.
It is really quite amazing that so little attention is being paid to this.