That does not surprise me, and I don't mean that sarcastically. I think the bottom line for me is that Williams asserts, but does not show, that since higher-level controls cannot be fully explained by the actions of the lower-level systems they control, there is no way they can naturally arise from those systems. (He also says that Polanyi made the same assertion, whereas the excerpts I posted show that Polanyi did no such thing.) To me, that's an unwarranted leap, and until he offers some support beyond analogies to nonliving machines, it's fatal to his argument.
[[I think the bottom line for me is that Williams asserts, but does not show, that since higher-level controls cannot be fully explained by the actions of the lower-level systems they control, there is no way they can naturally arise from those systems.]]
Well he does show it- in several ways- even by using non living systems- the post I’m workign on will show why species psecific systems can’t receive info they aren’t coded for to handle iwthin the metainfo- There probably is a problem with my post- and feel free to point it out- Hard to think today- and htere’s probably somethign I’m not takign into concideration in the analogy- if so, please point it out.
[[To me, that’s an unwarranted leap, and until he offers some support beyond analogies to nonliving machines, it’s fatal to his argument.]]
He does offer support- Both in the chemical purity, and the fact that lower systems woudl have had no higher syatems fro mwhich to draw the necessary Megaevolving info from if we’re to assume species Macroevolved from chemicals- He even offers support further down the line from abiogensis- The argument presented is reasonable, however, a coutner argument, as JS pointed out, ‘Might be’ that Created Metainfo at one time allowed for Mecroevolution, but now it doesn’t. While an extremely remote claime possibility, it might have a scant possibility- unless there is somethign in this paper that I’m not seeing that suggest otherwsie.
The issue would then become, IF there is a scant chance that Metaifno was designed to allow Macroevolution, then it’s just one more bilogical, mathematical, chemical, and natural law violating small hope for macroevolution, and how reasonable woudl it be to try to aergue the case in light of the compelte lack of evidnece for it?
Since I just answered fielded the same assertion with IL, I’m reprinting part of my response here:
Williams does no such thing. He was not focusing on Polany’s musings with respect to the origin of life. Rather he was focusing in on what he calls “Polanyi impossibilities.” And he quotes the relevant passage from Polanyi’s paper to illustrate what he’s talking about. Namely,
“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 let us not forget Polanyi’s unambiguous conclusion:
“Summary...Mechanisms, whether man-made or morphological, are boundary conditions harnessing the laws of inanimate nature, being themselves irreducible to those laws. The pattern of organic bases in DNA which functions as a genetic code is a boundary condition irreducible to physics and chemistry.”
Whatever Polanyi’s speculations with respect to origin of life research might have been, he clearly demonstrated that there are autopoietic “boundary conditions” that are “irreducible” to the “laws of inanimate nature.” Williams was right to point out that this renders naturalistic evolution a Polanyi impossibility, thus leaving Intelligent Design as the only historical inference that meets the criterion of the Law of Cause and Effect.
Not being able to project emergent properties from the properties of component parts suggests that design of emergent systems is impossible except via evolutionary algorithms.