Posted on 01/12/2009 7:23:26 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
I understand. No offense and in all kindness, but it's considered bad form to discuss a fellow forum member and not give him a ping.
Are you claiming that Intellegent Design isn't a religious theory? Then can you provide any evidence at all that supports it?
You obviously have no evidence at all and want to move on. I can agree with that : ) Bye
(See my Tagline)
I don't know that. But "controlled by" is not the same thing as "caused by." For example, say you're building a wall unit in your living room, and you know you're eventually going to want to put in a home theater system. You don't own the components yet, but you drill holes for the cables anyway so they're there when you need them. The information about your future purchase controls where you put the holes, but it doesn't cause the holes. Your drill causes the holes. That's why it's not an example of inverse causality for you to drill the holes today for something you're going to buy later.
It's definitely worth trying to figure out how stegosaur genes got the information they needed to make plates in advance of their need. But despite Williams' claims, it doesn't violate the Law of Causality.
I have limited time--I am currently writing an article for a journal much like the ones I posted. I'm not going to spend hours studying and research the article at the head of this thread--I have my own research to do.
When I see an article from a website dedicated to religious apologetics I frequently don't waste my time with it because I know what its conclusions must be. That is what the Statement of Faith I posted from that website shows--they cannot and will not come up with any conclusions other than permitted by that Statement of Faith. Hence they are doing apologetics, not science.
If you want to improve your knowledge of science, then please ignore those creationists sites for a while and seek out sites that present real science.
And I participate here now more in the role of a teacher than anything else. There was a time I could learn a great deal from this site, but most of the scientists have either been banned or left. What is left is becoming more and more of a YECho chamber each day. I doubt I'll last much longer. I'm surprised I haven't been banned already for my views.
When evos claim that Behe equated ID w/ astrology, they're probably just parroting a claim from some kook evo website.
What Behe said was that ID was falsifiable just as astrology had been falsified.
Evos don't have the critical-thinking skills to make the distinction.
Thanks. I didn’t follow what took place at that trial.
As in all trials, it’s not who has the evidence that matters but rather who gets to decide what is evidence.
I don't think the theory at all “disallows” evolution. Nor do I believe it requires that each living system has to be specially designed and created uniquely.
I think you’re thinking in terms of species evolution, though, not the evolution of the individual (which would include such things as cell repair, reproduction, etc., etc.). Yet strictly speaking, it is not the “species” that adapts to, say, environmental change. It is the individual. And if the five-level autopoietic system is “intact,” then the organism has resources and access to “strategies” that enable it to do just that. Thus the organism is “evolving” (the “arrow” of linear time in full effect here). And at the end of the day, it seems to me that a species description would be impossible without taking that into effect. “Species” is an abstraction, a classification of a set of objects. Strictly speaking it is not the “species” that evolves, for “species” is not a living being. Well, just thinking out loud....
As for “special creation,” Williams does not refer to that in his article, or even suggest it as far as I can tell. In any case, I don’t think it’s needed. I’ll try to explain why.
First a recap of the AP hierarchy: (i) components with perfectly pure composition (i.e., pure elements); (ii) components with highly specific structure (e.g., molecules); (iii) components that are functionally integrated (i.e., can work cooperatively toward achieving a purpose or goal); (iv) comprehensively regulated information-driven processes (DNA, RNA); (v) inversely-causal meta-informational strategies for individual and species survival (we’ll get to that in a minute).
But what does this hierarchy mean?
An interesting way to look at the problem, it seems to me, is to look at the available potential “information content” of each of the five “manifolds” or “dimensions” of the hierarchy.
(For the present purpose, we’ll assume that “algorithmic complexity” is a function that yields “information content.”)
(i) gives us the atomic numbers of all the elements: their natural fingerprints or IDs by which they can be identified. It also gives us all the laws of physics. (i) is the physical foundation of all life forms. [As you may recall, Chaitin estimated the algorithmic complexity of the physical laws as ~103 bits.)
(ii) gives us the elementary bonding laws; indeed, it gives us all of physical chemistry. It is based on (i), but it is not reducible to (i). Indeed, irreducibility is a property of each of the hierarchical dimensions (i)–(v) with respect to the one(s) prior to it in the hierarchy. [I’m not aware that anyone has ever tried to calculate the algorithmic complexity of the chemical laws. But it must be greater than 103 bits; for chemistry rests on physics, plus its own unique “value-added” which level (i) does not anticipate.]
(iii) is where things really get interesting. This signals the first evidence that a life form actually exists. It should be obvious that such a phenomenon cannot be explained on the basis of the information available at levels (i) and (ii). It’s as if (i) and (ii) “didn’t even see it coming,” though both were necessary to (iii).
To put it another way, it is the presence of “functionally-integrated components” that makes possible the very first “duty” of any living organism: That it will, along the entire extension of its body, globally organize its components in such a way as to maximally maintain the total organism’s “distance” from thermodynamic entropy. An “organism” that couldn’t do that wouldn’t last as an “organism” for very long.
Then there are the other potentialities you get “for free” with (iii): metabolism, cell repair, reproduction, etc., etc.
It has been proposed (A. Grandpierre) that a global EM field corresponding to the extended body is the facilitating basis for the non-local communications that would be necessary to integrate the various sub-components of the body for functional, that is, “goal-directed” behavior. Here we are referred back to (i).
As for the algorithmic complexity of (iii), I haven’t got a clue how it could be calculated. It doesn’t reduce to the information sets provided by (i) and (ii). Yet as compared with the AC of (i) and (ii), it must border on the astronomical.
I do know of an instance, however, of a calculation of the algorithmic complexity of the human brain, by A. Grandpierre, who estimates it as ~ 1015 –1017 bits. And then he immediately wonders why that number is smaller than the genetic complexity of the human body (including the brain!) that he had also calculated— i.e., ~102 –109 bits. Most perplexing!
The really interesting property of (iii) is its dependence on the communication of information. And yet all of science tells us: There is no known cause of biological information locatable within the natural world. (I.e., (i) and (ii) do not provide it.)
(iv) makes this clear. “Comprehensively regulated information-driven processes” cannot have arisen from (i) and/or (ii). (iii) notices that they are necessary for living beings to exist. (iv) implements them. But still the information source is not given. So far, it has not been found in Nature. [Until the source is found, there is no way to estimate its algorithmic complexity.]
(v) tells us that, indeed, the information source does not lie in Nature. At least not in the Nature defined by classical physics/mechanics, in the three-dimensional space that we humans ordinarily live in and sense, proceeding along the (thermodynamic) arrow of time.
Which is why I find shibumi’s proposal regarding hyperdimensional space so very appealing. Along the lines of his suggestion, I would follow Penrose, and not try to “establish” additional spatial dimensions, compact or otherwise. So long as we humans pay obeisance to the “arrow of [linear] time,” we lack an adequate time concept that can “integrate” the spatial dimensions involved in level (v). What I would be looking for would be an additional temporal, or “timelike” dimension.
It seems to me whenever one is dealing with universals, one has already touched upon the problem of the “Eternal Now.” For the physical laws are universals: they are (theoretically) the same for all observers in whatever spatiotemporal locations, any and every “time” whatever (in quantum physics, time is usually defined in terms of Planck time, or “the most-infinitesimal unit of time that the human mind can detect.”) — which is sort of a rough approximation of a “something” within the meaning of the Eternal Now. So to the extent that we apply the physical laws to the data of Nature, we are already “participants” in the Eternal Now.
It seems to me that what (v) asserts — inversely-causal, meta-informational strategies accessible to biological organisms which are necessary for the proper maintenance of biological life against the “odds” of the second law of thermodynamics — is that there is no “natural” explanation for this that can be given from the information levels (i)–(iv) of the autopoietic hierarchy, singly or in any combination. And I think Williams’ description of (v) is not sufficiently clear as it stands….
And so it seems this is a good time to take a breather.
But I do have to go back to our original topic #2, special creation.
Special creations would require that absolutely everything that exists has to be uniquely fashioned, one at a time. But what a spectacular redundancy of principle would be involved! Why would God (say; or any designer in general) want to make everything from “scratch,” every single time??? I mean, when He’s (its) already loaded all the “ingredients” He would need in the very fabric of Nature itself? And that “load” consists of: Information — as indicated by our old friends (i)–(v).
Thank you for your patience, tacticalogic — and for your good company.
Then why waste your time on such a trashy venue.
”When I see an article from a website dedicated to religious apologetics I frequently don't waste my time with it because I know what its conclusions must be.”
I thought scientists did not comment on things they did not first study. That’s a bad example for a teacher to exhibit.
”. . . please ignore those creationists sites”
Your assumption is that I frequent those sites? You assume too much and know too little. One (One) reason I frequent FR is too see what utterly ludicrous conclusions can be drawn about very important issues by people who think (or so they claim) that everything they need to know can be gleamed from science textbooks and journals, from the field, or from the lab.
”I participate here now more in the role of a teacher than anything else.”
Your debate tactics destroy any good that you do.
”I doubt I'll last much longer.”
Don’t be so hard on yourself.
It’s not a matter of hard, it’s a matter of being a predictable result of posting a lot in support of evolution.
The ax can fall as much as two months after the last post, so we never know.
Thus, the anti-biological science side of these arguments appears considerably stronger than in the real world.
Have you a conspiracy theory boy-o?
”The ax can fall as much as two months after the last post, so we never know.”
Wait for the signal from Gozer. Then all oppressed people will rise as one and strike a blow for FREEDOM!
Complete balderdash, Coyoteman. All you do is go around insulting and belittling people who you disagree with. But you do it in a hit and run manner. I would imagine if you stuck around and issued an endless train of insults towards your fellow YEC or ID FReepers, then you might get your wish. But alas, not even that is a guarantee of success. Take poor Solition, for instance. Going around insulting his fellow FReepers was not enough to get himself banned, so he had to create an entire thread devoted to directly insulting FR (a kind of suicide by moderator attempt). But not even that was enough. He had to insult FReepers on that very thread for hundreds of replies before being banned. Indeed, Jim Robinson himself dropped by and chuckled at the spectacle that Soliton was making of himself...AND SOLITON STILL DIDN'T GET BANNED. JimRob even wished him a Merry Christmas (although, now that I think about it, Soliton probably would have taken that as an insult). I'm not sure what finally got Soliton banned, but rest assured, it was a slow and agonizing death. Don't let the same thing happen to you. Rather than going around and insulting everyone, always wondering (or hoping?) if you're going to get banned. Why not try following the Golden Rule, and treat others as you would like to be treated yourself. I'm trying it, and while I have crossed the line of good manners here and there, I find that this is far more satisfying and effective than I originally imagined. I'm actually having a meeting of the minds with those I disagree with, whereas I would have normally blew them off as recently as a few days ago. Although, I have to admit, it's quite a bit more difficult to treat the other side with respect. Because then you actually have to justify your position, rather than resorting to cheap one-liners.
“Have you a conspiracy theory boy-o?”
No.
It is noted that you did not ask if I had any data to back my statement.
I don’t think I’ll reply further on this thread. Science is not about rigged “debates.”
==You say “point out,” I say “assert without evidence.” As I’ve pointed out, Polanyi himself seemed to think that the irreducible principles could “continuously emerge” from the lower-level systems they control. Williams just says, No they can’t.
Like I said, Williams is obviously not interested in Polanyi’s speculations. He focused in on one thing, and one thing only—namely, Polanyi’s contention that:
“The recognition of certain basic impossibilities has laid the foundations of some major principles of physics and chemistry; similarly, recognition of the impossibility of understanding living things in terms of physics and chemistry, far from setting limits to our understanding of life, will guide it in the right direction.”
And the right direction, says Williams, is intelligent design, because it is the only explanation for life’s origin that “meets the criterion of an acceptable historical inference according to the Law of Cause and Effect.”
There's enough frontloaded to allow wide variation within species so that they can adapt to changes within their environment so that they can stand a better chance for survival. That doesn't imply by default that enough variation can occur to give rise to entirely new species.
That conclusion is extrapolated from the fossil record. The evidence can demonstrate relationships just fine, but not guarantee common descent where some mammalian ancestor produces ALL the mammals we see today.
Maybe two. One would be that the stuff came from somewhere.
The other is that it went *BANG*.
A good way to demonstrate this would be to make some predictions about the plasticity of some specific genomes. Like actual hypothesis formation and testing.
And you can never know that it was for support of the ToE then. That just smacks of a persecution complex.
I'm just soliciting comments on the possibilities.
I don't think we've got nearly enough information to be saying anything definitive at this point, but if you've got something to suggest where the limits and boundaries can be drawn, put it up for consideration.
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