Uncommon Descent

Yes, Calgary Herald columnist Rob Breakenridge has felt the need to respond to my response to his abuse of anyone who does not worship Darwin.

Could anyone here help Breakenridge’s readers understand better why the world in general does not worship Darwin?

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Many of the advocates of neo-Darwinism argue that abilities of evolution is obvious. The idea is that, given variability in a population, selection and/or environmental change will cause a population to move forward in fitness. Basically, the formula is variability + overproduction + selection = evolution. The problem is that the equation hinges on “variability” and its abilities to create the kinds of variations the Darwinists need.

The problem stems from the “variability” portion. What kinds of variability can happen? Let’s say that the variability is all negative? What happens to evolution then? Let’s say the variability is cyclical rather than directional. What happens to evolution then? The problem that most neo-Darwinists don’t realize is that they have assumed that “variability” will always lend them the type of variability that they want.

The problem is that the production of variability is a harder problem than most Darwinists presume. Because variability is seen in nature, and because it is assumed (usually silently) that these variations are haphazard, it follows for the Darwinist that variability must be easy to create. However, most people from the engineering professions know that this is not the case (hence the Salem Hypothesis). Because biologists work with nature, it is assumed that natural variations come easy. But engineers will tell you that variability, especially mix-and-match variability (which you get with sexual organisms) is actually a difficult achievement.

I once saw a Dilbert cartoon where a salesman was trying to sell a computer that was so easy to use, an idiot could use it. It didn’t have a keyboard or a mouse, it just had one button. Of course, the reason that is funny is because there is absolutely nothing useful that a stupid person could do with a one button machine (a complex system like Morse Code could be established, but then it is no longer simple — you have simply switched one form of complexity for another). With a one button machine, the only states you have are “pushed” and “not pushed”. If the machine is truly idiot-proof, then that means that all possible button states are accounted for. You essentially have a computer that can do two things — it can do one thing when the button is down, and something else when the button is up.

In fact, you can have a computer with a multitude of states and combination of states that is still idiot-proof. You just have to code for all of the possible combinations, and make sure that each possible state makes sense. Such an arrangement is good if you only have a limitted number of tasks you wish to accomplish, and perhaps may need a few independent arrangements of these tasks. You just have to flip the right switches and everything works out fine. In fact, even if you switch the wrong switches you will get a sensible result, even if it isn’t what you were trying to do. The reason for this is that the possible states and their interactions are preprogrammed.

But the problem is that in order to be foolproof, it is not very expressive - the system is limited in its variability to pre-coded arrangements. Any arrangement of switches is coherent, but most of the interesting parts are hard-coded, not in the arrangement of switches.

Now let’s consider a system which is slightly more programmable. Let’s say that you had a fixed set of existing tasks which could be rearranged, recombined, and repeated in fixed amounts. Now you are starting to have a semi-expressive system. This system is much more flexible than previous systems, but it is also much more open to programming errors. However, it is not yet fully programmable.

It is not until we add open-ended repetition constructs that we get a system that is fully programmable. But, with open-ended repetition, it is much more likely that small changes will result in catastrophic errors. It will also mean that rather than workable programs being very near to each other in solution space, they will instead be far apart. In the previous types of systems we conceived of, since the machine was handling all of the complex interactions, nearly every arrangement had some usable function. But at this point, most combinations will actually be unworkable, and there will be considerable distance between workable solutions. Multiple parts of the program will have to be changed simultaneously in order to jump from one workable solution to the next.

So this is why (in fairly simplistic terms) the production of structures is a bigger problem than most neo-Darwinists realize. If we want the structures to be produceable, then we have to assume that the system is parameterized (as in our first few example systems), and not open-ended (as in our last example system). However, this would mean that the majority of the interesting parts of organisms are actually pre-coded, as well as the lines for which they are variable (the number of lines of variability is probably enormous, but yet it is not open-ended - this would mean that evolution does not increase complexity). Open-ended evolution, however, cannot happen because it requires as its substrate a type of system that is too chaotic to be manipulated ad-hoc, but instead requires coordination of parts to move between functional areas.

The reason why engineers are more prone to recognize this is because engineers have to develop systems repeatedly, and know how much trouble it is to get parts to play well together. Adjusting the system requires adjusting multiple parts simultaneously, which can’t be accomplished without a guiding information system (which, in ID circles, is termed front-loaded evolution - which requires the action of an intelligent agent at the beginning) or the creativity and intervention of an intelligent agent at each step.

Most neo-Darwinists incorrectly think that ID’ers don’t understand the process of selection. That is simply not true. The difference is actually that ID’ers properly understand the problem of the generation of variability and the neo-Darwinists just take it as a given. For natural selection to work, each incremental step would need to be selectable. However, if evolution is truly occurring in an open-ended fashion, it would need to navigate a solution space in which most areas of workable solutions are completely surrounded (not just mostly surrounded - completely surrounded) by completely un-selectable space. If variability did happen on a large enough scale to make common ancestry workable (which I don’t think it did), it could only be done by front-loading the information needed for the variability at the beginning.

The problem is the production of variability, and neo-Darwinists have been assuming its veracity for so long that they have forgotten even that they are assuming it.

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

My op-ed piece published in The Calgary Herald, Saturday, August 16, 2008, responding to radio host and commentator Rob Breakenridge, with links to sources:

In rebuttal - Theory needs a paramedic, not more cheerleaders

Denyse O’Leary

Re “What is it about evolution theory that Albertans don’t get?” (August 12, 2008), Rob Breakenridge has cobbled together key talking points of the American Darwin lobby. The resulting column is an excellent illustration of why one should not write about big topics without basic research.

The 2005 Judge Jones decision in Pennsylvania, to which Breakenridge devotes much of his column, has not crimped the worldwide growth of interest in intelligent design. That is no surprise. A judge is not a scientist, and Jones cannot plug gaping holes in Darwin’s theory of evolution. Evolution is—contrary to its (largely) publicly funded zealots— in deep trouble, for a number of reasons.

The history of life has not been the long, slow “survival of the fittest” transition that classical evolution theory requires. Life got started on Earth soon after the planet cooled. All the basic divisions of animal life took shape rather suddenly in the Cambrian seas, about 550 million years ago. Later, there was, for example, the “Big Bang” of flowers and the Big Bang of birds, where many life forms appear quite suddenly.

Modern human consciousness is one of these leaps, judging from the superb cave paintings from recent millenniums. The creationists whom Breakenridge derides may be wrong on their dates, but not on much else.

Breakenridge hopes that we can enlighten backward Albertans by teaching more “evolution” in Alberta schools. But that won’t help. Textbook examples of evolution often evaporate when researchers actually study them (instead of just assuming they are true).

For example, the peacock’s tail did not evolve to please hen birds; hens don’t notice them much. The allegedly yummy Viceroy butterfly did not evolve to look like the bad-tasting Monarch (both insects taste bad). The eye spots on butterflies’ wings did not evolve to scare birds by resembling the eyes of their predators. Birds avoid brightly patterned insects, period. They don’t care whether the patterns resemble eyes. Similarly, the famous “peppered moth” of textbook fame has devolved into a peppered myth, featuring book-length charges and countercharges.

And remember that row of vertebrate embryos in your textbook years ago? It was dubbed in the journal Science one of the “most famous fakes” in biology—because the embryos don’t really look very similar. And Darwin’s majestic Tree of Life? It’s now a tangleweed, or maybe several of them.

We seldom see evolution happening. Michael Behe’s Edge of Evolution (2007) notes that for decades scientists have observed many thousands of generations of bacteria in the lab. And how did they evolve?

Well, they didn’t. Worse, when evolution is occasionally observed (and widely trumpeted), it often heads the wrong way. For example, bacteria evolve antibiotic resistance by junking intricate machinery, not by creating it. Cave fish lose their eyes. But we don’t need a theory for how intricate machinery gets wrecked. We need a theory for how it originates and how it develops quite suddenly. Evolution, as we understand it today, apparently isn’t that theory.

We aren’t going to improve science education by teaching Darwinian fairy tales.

Breakenridge informs us that in a recent Angus Reid poll, “A shockingly low 37 per cent of Albertans supported the position that humans beings evolved from less advanced life forms over millions of years.” Well, good, let’s drive the numbers lower still. That position is an article of atheist dogma. Evidence for it is hailed as a truth we must all embrace; evidence against it is shrugged off as a temporary setback. Try doubting the dogma, and you could end up starring in Ben Stein’s Expelled, Part II.

Breakenridge also frets, “An even greater number of Albertans—40 percent—agreed that humans were created by God within the last 10,000 years.” That’s easy to explain. It was the only other option (barring “don’t know”). The ever-popular “God uses evolution” choice wasn’t offered.

Forced to choose between excluding God and including him, I’d pick option two, even though I accept NASA’s estimate of our Earth’s age (4.5 billion years) and consider common ancestry a reasonable idea.

My guess is, Albertans diverged from the national norm because they considered the question more carefully than some folk. History, anyone?

This summer a meeting of key evolutionists took place at Altenberg, Austria, to revise the theory. So, Albertans, if you haven’t started believing it yet, don’t bother. Right now, the theory needs a paramedic, not more cheerleaders.

Denyse O’Leary is a journalist and blogger who is the author of By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy and co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist’s case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

(Note: I put this opinion piece up because I was beginning to receive correspondence about it, but could not find a link to the Herald, and in any event wanted to link readers to my sources. Thanks to Jane Harris-Zsovan for the scan.)

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

MAJeff doesn’t quite rise up to the frackin’ cracker author himself but we have to give him credit for trying.

This is my body…

Who is MAJeff?  Anyone?  Bueller?

 

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

In a Dec 21, 2005 American Spectator article, Jay Homnick wrote:

It is not enough to say that design is a more likely senario to explain a world full of well-designed things…Once you allow the intellect to consider that an elaborate organism with trillions of microscopic interactive components can be an accident…you have essentially “lost your mind”.

How has it happened that a majority of our intellectuals have lost their minds? I think I can explain. When one becomes a scientist, one learns that science can now explain so many previously inexpliable phenomena that one comes to expect that nothing will escape the explanatory power of our science forever (though the big bang, quantum mechanics and the fine-tuning of the laws of physics are beginning to raise doubts). When one becomes a biologist, or a paleontologist, one discovers many things about the origin and development of life, such as the long periods involved and the similarities between species, that give the impression of natural causes (”this just doesn’t look like the way God would have created things”). When one studies history (especially the history of religion), one may become overwhelmed by the misery and confusion of the human condition, and wonder, why is it so hard to see evidence of the hand of God in human history?

But notably absent from any list of reasons why intellectuals reject Intelligent Design is any direct scientific evidence that natural selection of random mutations or any other unintelligent process can actually do intelligent things. Bill Dembski’s “specified complexity” arguments and my second law arguments (which are similar, see the footnote here ) are just attempts to state in more “scientific” terms what is obvious to non-scientists like Jay Homnick: “you idiots, unintelligent forces cannot do intelligent things.” However strong may be the philosophical, psychological and religious reasons why many of our greatest minds reject ID, the argument for ID is still crystal clear to the unindoctrinated mind: once you allow yourself to seriously consider the possibility that the human body and the human mind could be entirely the products of unintelligent forces, “you have lost your mind.”

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

When I first started covering this beat, about six years ago, it was pretty straightforward. Earnest people were trying to convince me that blind cave fish losing their eyes was just the same thing as creatures developing eyes in the Cambrian. Bacteria junking fancy equipment to survive antibiotic assaults was just the same thing as creating the equipment in the first place.

Life forms, I was told, self-assemble gradually from their component parts via natural selection, without design or purpose, just the way the Corvette had.

Shut up, they explained.

So what’s different now? Unbelievable explanations, not content to remain small and unbelievable, have grown grand and incomprehensible. Increasingly, I hear that there are many universes, and ours just happens to work. Richard Dawkins flirts with this, and here’s another quite recent attempt to make the multiverse plausible.

I am told, those other universes must be out there because if they aren’t, we have no explanation for the fine tuning of our universe, and Darwinism doesn’t work.

As Antony Flew says, it’s like the boy whose teacher wouldn’t believe that the dog ate his homework. So the boy changed his story: A huge pack of dogs ate his homework.

The story must be true because the boy doesn’t have the homework.

My sense is that people who are skeptical of Darwinian fairy tales now are not likely to be persuaded by extravagant cosmologies that support them.

The Darwinians will, of course, continue to get considerable help from the pop science media, which can be relied on to inflate even the slightest glimmer of hope into news of an imminent jackpot. After all what else can they do? It would take years to catch up to the real story.

Also, just up at Colliding Universes:

The number 137 has its own Web page? Why?

Origin of life: Random origin of life was exploded by 1970s discovery - who didn’t get the memo?

Astronomer argues that we can test whether Earth is fine-tuned as a science lab

Our unique solar system is less probable than our universe? - a reader writes

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Nick Matzke’s problematic evolutionary narrative of the Type Three Secretory System (TTSS) into the bacterial flagellum quickly made it into a peer reviewed journal while the response from the ID camp took two years longer. Our position, which I mentioned several times in the past, was that the flagellum preceded the TTSS in nature and thus the TTSS represents a devolution from flagella rather than flagella being evolved from a TTSS. Nick had it ass-backward. No surprise there. Devolution is much easier than evolution, Nick. Always look for devolutionary explanations first. I’d like to say that devolution being far easier than evolution is something that ID predicts but alas, it’s predicted by nothing more than common sense. Of course ID is predicated by common sense too so there is that kinship to consider.

The evolution of the flagellar assembly pathway in endosymbiotic bacterial genomes

Molecular Biology and Evolution 2008 25(9):2069-2076
doi:10.1093/molbev/msn153

The evolution of the flagellar assembly pathway in endosymbiotic bacterial genomes

Toft C and Fares MA

Department of Genetics, Smurfit Institute of Genetics, University of
Dublin, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland.

Genome shrinkage is a common feature of most intra-cellular pathogens
and symbionts. Reduction of genome sizes is among the best-characterised
natural strategies adopted by intra-cellular organisms to save and avoid
maintaining expensive redundant biological processes. Endosymbiotic
bacteria of insects are examples of biological economy taken to
completion because their genomes are dramatically reduced. These
bacteria are non-motile and their biochemical processes are intimately
related to those of their host. Because of this relationship, many of
the processes in these bacteria have been either lost or have suffered
massive re-modelling to adapt to the intra-cellular symbiotic lifestyle.
An example of such changes is the flagellum structure that is essential
for bacterial motility and infectivity. Our analysis indicates that
genes responsible for flagellar assembly have been partially or totally
lost in most intra-cellular symbionts of gamma-Proteobacteria.
Comparative genomic analyses show that flagellar genes have been
differentially lost in endosymbiotic bacteria of insects. Only proteins
involved in protein export within the flagella assembly pathway (type
III secretion system and the basal-body) have been kept in most of the
endosymbionts whereas those involved in building the filament and hook
of flagella have only in few instances been kept, indicating a change in
the functional purpose of this pathway. In some endosymbionts, genes
controlling protein-export switch and hook length have undergone
functional divergence as shown through an analysis of their evolutionary
dynamics. Based on our results we suggest that genes of flagellum have
diverged functionally as to specialise in the export of proteins from
the bacterium to the host.

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

We’ve come a long way since Laplace’s nebular hypothesis…

Solar System Is Pretty Special, According To New Computer Simulation

ScienceDaily (Aug. 8, 2008) — Prevailing theoretical models attempting to explain the formation of the solar system have assumed it to be average in every way. Now a new study by Northwestern University astronomers, using recent data from the 300 exoplanets discovered orbiting other stars, turns that view on its head.

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

I would like to introduce  retired Australian political science prof Hiram Caton’s new Web site on the pious Darwin legends that currently infest popular media. 

Caton, a friend and associate of the late David Stove, author of Darwinian Fairy Tales, has done extensive research on the real story behind Darwin and his Origin of Species - and no, it is not the pious legends you will be hearing on public television. Bet you guessed that.

Both Caton and Stove are recognized as agnostic philosophers with limited use for pious legends in science, as in religion (must be something in the air Down Under?)

Anyway, here is Caton’s beginning stab at hauling away the trash (and his deceased colleague would be proud):

^Belief that the Origin was a ‘revolutionary’ scientific breakthrough conflicts with the fact that public opinion was at the time saturated with the evolution idea. It was so widespread that in 1860 the showman P T Barnum put on display a freak, styled Zip the Pinhead, alleged to be the ‘missing link’ between apes and humans.

^The natural selection principle was first stated in 1831 by Patrick Matthew, and was independently discovered in 1836 by Darwin’s naturalist colleague, Edward Blyth. Herbert Spencer came close to a formulation in 1852, and Alfred Wallace discovered it in 1858.

^The Origin did not found modern biology. By 1850 it was a thriving science whose leading men were Louis Pasteur, Claude Bernard, Rudolph Vircow, and Robert Koch. Darwin, a naturalist, was not involved in this research mode. Conversely, evolution was not a parameter of experimental biology.

^The Origin did not instigate a ‘revolutionary’ disruption of science from religious belief. That antagonism became a cultural force thanks to the French Revolution. By the 1830s, French and British radicals invoked evolution as a rebuttal of religious beliefs about God’s creation.

By 1860 this position was widespread throughout Europe and Latin America. Conversely, numerous scientists and clergymen believed in the compatibility of science and religious faith. That includes the discoverer of the first quantitative biological laws, Gregor Mendel.

^The only practical application of Darwinian theory with potential cultural impact was eugenics, devised by Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton. Three of his sons were dedicated to the eugenics cause, and one of them, Leonard, was the patron of a key figure in the creation of neo-darwinism, R A Fisher, as well as President of the Eugenics Society

Dr. Caton tells me that his Web page, Whither Progress? on “Major Changes in Evolution Theory” is almost finished, and thanks me for reporting his views accurately, noting

I believe that you know that I don’t believe that the extensive revisions and corrections of Neo-Darwinism imply rejection of evolution; rather the improvement of our understanding of it.

Yes, I got that, prof.

He argues that ” … the Modern Synthesis is obsolete, and that a new grasp of evolution is in the making, has been argued by numerous authors. My purpose here is to highlight some major innovations that have transformed evolution science.”, which he does.

Darwintrolls, this is not for you. Serious thinkers, have a look.

Check out his deprogram from Darwin legends here.

Also, just up at The Post-Darwinist:

Science education: Yawn Central … oh, no, wait! This just in ….

When science becomes oppressive religion: Do they use propane instead of faggots for the stakes?

Darwinism: Sociologist’s book on ID controversy denounced by three-star Darwin bore

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Having reported news on the ID scene for about five years now, I could give a number of reasons why I think ID is slowly winning the intellectual battle, but let me focus on just one for now: The increasingly preposterous claims made by anti-ID zealots.

At the high end, we have this editorial in New Scientist, in which we are advised,

But perhaps we have the very notion of intelligence wrong. Scientists are beginning to see that the toughest problems - how to control complex traffic flows, for example - are better solved through the random evolution or self-organisation of artificial systems than by human reasoning (see “Law and disorder”). Such thinking appears to be moving towards the mainstream, as societies increasingly face complex problems that overwhelm the human mind. Engineers are finding that their task is not so much to find solutions as to design systems that can discover their own.

If the NS editors were right, we should see non-life evolving slowly into life all around us, but for some reason we don’t. The most fundamental lesson early biologists learned was that life does not self-organize - i.e., it is NOT spontaneously generated; it is passed on, life to life.

Not only should spontaneous generation be true if they are right, but so should magic, Magic, after all, is simply another name for sudden self-organization.

That’s right folks - just toss the bedclothes into the air and they’ll come down in a perfect mitred-corner bed. Just toss whatever into the stew pot, sans cookbook, and you’ll evolve a gourmet dinner. How generations could have come and gone, and no one ever noticed that before is beyond me. Cinderella’s* fairy godmothers, after all, did the housework via self-organizing sprinkles of magic dust.

My point is that if they need to descend to arguments like this in order to avoid considering design, they might as well start examining design seriously. It’s not going away; in fact, the signal is getting louder all the time.

And what’s all this stuff about “complex problems that overwhelm the human mind”? Human problems are complex because different people see solutions in different directions. Many lobby governments on behalf of their disparate views, hence the continual cacophony, to which one must learn to listen selectively for some shards of common sense. People who feel overwhelmed by it shouldn’t be offering advice to the public.

I put New Scientist at the high end. For the low end, try this stuff. These people sesem, for the most part, incapable of a civilized argument - or at least that is how they choose to represent themselves. That can’t be good news for their cause.

*Bill Dembski has written me to point out that it was Sleeping Beauty, not Cinderella, who had the fairy godmothers who magically self-organized their housework. Bill’s children are way younger than mine, and this proves it. My apologies.

Also, just up at The Mindful Hack
The neuroscientist and Shakespeare - no, actually, this is The neuroscientist and Shakespeare - no, actually, this is fun!

Philosopher: Why you cannot be both an evolutionist and a materialist

Coffee break! Why two heads are NOT better than one!

The Spiritual Brain: Vindicating Alfred Russel Wallace, the “other” discoverer of natural selection?

Neuroscience: why the carrot and the stick motivates donkeys but not people

Religion: It got started to avoid the spread of disease?

Prayer: Asking for more than healing

Prayer: Are studies of intercessory prayer an insult to God?

What we see is as much reality as we can deal with

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

A friend of mine told me about this interesting link:

www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

Regardless of whether you agree with the economic philosophy presented here, it suggests a useful approach to presenting ID.

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

This discussion was spawned in the Artificial Life commentary and I think it deserves thread of its own.

First of all Laws of Nature are those things which are observed over and over and over again without exception. We need not have physical theories to explain them. One such Law of Nature is the law of gravity. We have observed its effects countless times without exception. Mass is attracted to other masses. We don’t have a physical theory to explain the mechanism by which gravity works but due to empirical observations it is considered a law nonetheless. An exception may exist that disproves the law but until an exception is observed the law remains intact.

Another law that doesn’t get as much press is called the Law of Biogenesis - life comes only from life. It is supported by countless observations without exception. An exception may exist but until it is observed the law remains intact.

In Artificial Life pursuits there are two distinct approaches. One is a hands-off approach where natural environments are simulated, inanimate chemical suspects are put in contact, and we watch to see if anything interesting happens - if more and more complex self-replicators evolve without help. That has not yielded any fruit after many decades of trying. As the prior article pointed out even simulating this process in a computer has not borne fruit. In the words of principle investigators “something is missing”.

In the other approach we attempt to create artificial life with no holds barred. We throw all the intelligent intervention at the problem we can possibly come up with. This approach holds significant promise. And, here’s the kicker, this approach if and when successful is no exception to the Law of Biogenesis - life in that case still comes from life. It doesn’t come from inanimate chemicals dancing to the tune of law and chance alone. It comes together through the efforts of another living thing.

After getting into a discussion about Artificial Intelligence it occured to me there’s another law that is at work. Intelligence only comes from intelligence. This law, like all laws, is supported by countless observations without exception. Until an exception is observed the law remains intact.

Like the pursuit of Artificial Life the pursuit of Artificial Intellegence has two main approaches. One is a hands off approach where we throw together all the components we think are required for intelligence and see if anything interesting emerges by law and chance. This approach has not yielded any fruit. Nothing we could possibly call an independent intelligent agent has emerged.

On the other hand when we employ all the intelligent intervention we can come up with we have things with promise. Some even meeting a rudimentary definition of intelligent agency. The best example of this I’ve seen is the autonomous vehicles that completed the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge. The challenge was to get a vehicle to self-navigate through 100 some miles of difficult desert terrain filled with obstacles. The vehicles were not allowed to contain a detailed course map. They were basically given the goal of getting from point A to point B with no more than the map a human driver might have. The vehicles were given sensory apparatus to gather input from the real world, they were given controls to alter their course and speed, and they were given the ability to model reality so that different control inputs could be tested in the abstract to see which result in furtherence of their goal. In other words as these vehicles go along they observe, predict, decide, and act accordingly. This is rudimentary intelligent agency. Granted it’s light years away from the sophistication of human intelligence but there’s nothing in principle that says we can’t keep improving the intelligence in these devices until they are that sophisticated.

But even if that happens, we do create an artificial intelligence similar in capability to our own intelligence, the law remains unbroken. It will be a case of one intelligence creating another intelligence. That will do nothing more than add further evidentiary weight to the proposed law that intelligence only comes from intelligence.

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Buffalo hit an all time record low high of 64 degrees for this day breaking the previous record of 66 degrees set in 1882. Global warming is MIA in this neck of the woods. I’m just sayin’.

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

An interesting article talking about the progress, or lack thereof, in evolution of computer “life”.

Can we make software that comes to life?

A few choice snips:

On January 3 1990, he started with a program some 80 instructions long, Tierra’s equivalent of a single-celled sexless organism, analogous to the entities some believe paved the way towards life. The “creature” - a set of instructions that also formed its body - would identify the beginning and end of itself, calculate its size, copy itself into a free region of memory, and then divide.

Before long, Dr Ray saw a mutant. Slightly smaller in length, it was able to make more efficient use of the available resources, so its family grew in size until they exceeded the numbers of the original ancestor. Subsequent mutations needed even fewer instructions, so could carry out their tasks more quickly, grazing on more and more of the available computer space.

A creature appeared with about half the original number of instructions, too few to reproduce in the conventional way. Being a parasite, it was dependent on others to multiply. Tierra even went on to develop hyper-parasites - creatures which forced other parasites to help them multiply. “I got all this ecological diversity on the very first shot,” Dr Ray told me.

Hmmm… starts out complex and then gets simpler and simpler. Yup. That’s how Darwin described it. Right? Oh hold it. That was our side who said life had to begin with all the complexity it would ever have because RM+NS can’t generate CSI.

Other versions of computer evolution followed. Researchers thought that with more computer power, they could create more complex creatures - the richer the computer’s environment, the richer the ALife that could go forth and multiply.

But these virtual landscapes have turned out to be surprisingly barren. Prof Mark Bedau of Reed College in Portland, Oregon, will argue at this week’s meeting - the 11th International Conference on Artificial Life - that despite the promise that organisms could one day breed in a computer, such systems quickly run out of steam, as genetic possibilities are not open-ended but predefined. Unlike the real world, the outcome of computer evolution is built into its programming.

More Darwinian predictions confirmed? Hardly. Front-loading confirmed by computer modeling of evolution. Again.

His conclusion? Although natural selection is necessary for life, something is missing in our understanding of how evolution produced complex creatures.

Truer words were never said!

By this, he doesn’t mean intelligent design - the claim that only God can light the blue touch paper of life - but some other concept.

Gratuitous disclaimer regarding ID required to get by peer review. Can’t leave that out.

I don’t know what it is, nor do I think anyone else does, contrary to the claims you hear asserted,” he says. But he believes ALife will be crucial in discovering the missing mechanism.

Dr Richard Watson of Southampton University, the co-organiser of the conference, echoes his concerns. “Although Darwin gave us an essential component for the evolution of complexity, it is not a sufficient theory,” he says. “There are other essential components that are missing.”

Dangerously candid admission with only one ID disclaimer. Does this guy have a death wish or something?

Here’s a clue, doc. The missing mechanism you’re searching for is commonly called “programmer” or “engineer”. Or in a more inclusive form a “designer”.

One of these may be “self-organisation”, which occurs when simpler units - molecules, microbes or creatures - work together using simple rules to create complex patterns and behaviour.

Yeah, that would be one way. One imaginary way with no empirical support whatsoever. These things somehow just “self-organize”. No intelligence needed. They just poof into existence through some unknown laws of self-organization. Good science there alrighty.

Heat up a saucer of oil and it will self-organise to form a honeycomb pattern, with adjacent “cells” forming as the oil turns by convection. In the correct conditions, water molecules will self-organise into beautiful six-sided snowflakes. Add together the correct chemicals in something called a BZ reaction, and one can create a “clock” that routinely changes colour.

Ah, the old snowflake argument. The modern version of Darwin’s blobs of protoplasm are ice crystals. Now all that’s left is the minor detail of how snowflakes become complicated machines made of thousands of interdependent components each of which has its specification encoded in abstract digital codes. No great leap there. No sir. Space shuttles and computers, both of which pale in complexity compared to the molecular machinery in any single protozoan, form in same manner as snowflakes. There’s some real science for ya!

“Evolution on its own doesn’t look like it can make the creative leaps that have occurred in the history of life,” says Dr Seth Bullock, another of the conference’s organisers. “It’s a great process for refining, tinkering, and so on.

What’s this? Someone gets it! Yay!

But self-organisation is the process that is needed alongside natural selection before you get the kind of creative power that we see around us.” [Bullock concludes]

Crap. Spoke too soon.

At least he got the requirement for organization right. Maybe Bullock will get a clue and figure out that complex things don’t just “self” organize like a magic origami. What a dope. Where do they find these clueless chuckleheads and how do they possibly get advanced degrees?

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Warwick U sociologist Steve Fuller, author of Dissent over Descent, and I have been corresponding about how scientists who are sympathetic to intelligent design can make a bigger impact, and what the next generation of ID textbooks should look like.

Me: So what should the ID guys do? Create a complex life form from scratch in under 100 days? That would show that intelligent design is required. Nature never done that. But if they can’t do it, does that prove intelligent design is not necessary? I don’t think so.

He: First, ID needs to stop living up to its critics’ image of the movement as purely negative, i.e. ‘not-evolution’. Because ID has been largely cultivated in a US context, ID supporters have been reluctant to admit theology’s role in informing ID’s scientific imagination.

As a result, and especially when under pressure, ID has tended to focus exclusively on the very real problems in Neo-Darwinism. But not surprisingly, to a disinterested observer, this looks opportunistic and even disingenuous, as it suggests that ID is justified simply if Neo-Darwinism has enough holes it can’t plug.

Me: Yes, I see what you mean. Bear in mind, however, that the icons of evolution I grew up with are mostly exploded now. For example,

For more, go here

Anti-ID bluters: Please give this lots of publicity, so we can find a rich publisher. I absolutely  love all publishers, but rich publishers are more convenient than poor publishers, if only for money-related reasons.  But we will make do with what we get.

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

I’ve been reading Paul Davies’ book, The Goldilocks Enigma (published in the U.S. as “Cosmic Jackpot”) over the last week or so. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a full appreciation of scientist’s thinking about the world we live in. Davies is, IMO, the best expositor of the ‘popular science’ book. He blends, better than anyone else I’ve read, the more technical aspects of physics and real-world analogies that help one to grasp the technical depth he presents.

The Goldilocks Enigma is about what we would call the “anthropic principle”. But Davies, if you will, ups the ante with the inclusion of the implications he says derive from treating ‘dark energy’ in a quantum mechanical way (that is, including so-called ‘quantum fluctuations’). While all of life seems, from the free parameters that we measure, ‘fine-tuned’, the greatest ‘fine-tuning’ comes from the calculation that one does to determine the density of dark matter assuming quantum fluctuations all across the electro-magnetic spectrum up to, and including, EM waves having Planck length (about 10^-33 cm). This calculation results in a density figure of 10^93 grams/cubic centimeter. What is the actual density of dark energy as actually measured? 10^-28 gram/c.c. Thus, the calculation is off by a factor of 10^120. Davies also tells us that calculations have been made indicating that if the dark energy density was off by a factor of 10—that is, if it was 10^-27 instead of 10^-28, then galaxy formation would not be possible; and, hence, no life. This means that dark energy density is ‘fine-tuned’ to one in 10^120.

This last number gets Davies’ attention. Here is what he writes:

“Logically, it is possible that the laws of physics conspire to create an almost but not quite perfect cancellation [of the energy involved in the quantum fluctuations]. But then it would be an extraordinary coincidence that that level of cancellation—119 powers of ten, after all—just happened by chance to be what is needed to bring about a universe fit for life. How much chance can we buy in scientific explanation? One measure of what is involved can be given in terms of coin flipping: odds of 10^120 to one is like getting heads no fewer than four hundred times in a row. if the existence of life in the universe is completely independent of the big fix mechanism—if it’s just a coincidence—then those are the odds against our being here. That level of flukiness seems too much to swallow.” (italics in the original)

Well, anytime someone starts talking about science and coin flips, IDists are interested.

Isn’t it something that Davies finds such ‘odds’ disconcerting when it comes to physical constants, but doesn’t seem too troubled about it when it comes to similar ‘coin flip’ arguments when it comes to simple biology. Sir Fred Hoyle contented himself rather quickly that Darwinian evolution could not account for the diversity of life using a calculation for the probability of forming the DNA sequence coding for the cythochrome C protein—a protein that is remarkably similar along all lines of animals and which is absolutely necessary for cell division to take place. Cytochrome C is about 115 a.a long, equivalent to 345 nucleotides. 4^345, the probability that all those nucleotides came together through pure chance, is equivalent not to ‘four hundred heads in a row’, but 690 heads in a row. If ‘400 hundred heads in a row’ is a level of flukiness that seems too much to swallow, then are we IDists supposed to swallow the odds of 690 heads in a row coming up? Why is this kind of head-shaking taking place when it comes to physical constant, but not when it comes to biological reality?

I haven’t finished the book, but what Davies is proposing as a way around this ‘level of flukiness’ is the notion of ‘pocket universes’. If we assume that the Big Bang goes back all the way to a point, then in order to come up with an infinity of different possible universes — which overcomes the ‘odds’ — we have to have an infinite number of Big Bangs. That’s not very reasonable. However, if the Big Bang goes back to something ‘rounded off’, and not a ‘point’, with this ‘rounding off’ due to ‘quantum fluctuations’, then it is possible that when the original inflation of the early universe took place, the ‘inflation energy’ broke out, but in a quantum mechanical way, with different ‘fluctuations’ resulting in rare, higher-energy states, which would, in turn, begin to ‘inflate’ and result in a ‘pocket universe’; that is, a ‘universe’ within a ‘universe’. This would mean that only ONE Big Bang would be needed, and the rest could be explained by quantum fluctuations, with our ‘universe’ simply being a ‘pocket universe’ that, because of ‘inflation’, is cut-off from the rest of the hugely larger, real universe. This is the so-called “multiverse theory’.

Faced with the above, unacceptable ‘level of flukiness’, Davies writes this:

“What made a difference was the idea of a multiverse, which offers the opportunity to explain the weird bio-friendliness of the universe as a straightforward selection effect, without invoking divine providence.” (my emphasis) ‘Selection effect’? Yes, you read that correctly. It is Darwinism come to the rescue.

This is confirmed when a little further on Davies writes:
“If the universes vary at random, then we would be winners in a gigantic cosmic lottery [hence the U.S. title of “Cosmic Jackpot”], which created the illusion of design. Like many winners of national lotteries, we may mistakenly attribute some deep significance to our having won (being smiled on by Lady Luck, or suchlike), whereas our success really boils down to chance.” (my emphasis) I would think Richard Dawkins’ would be very happy with this wording.

I don’t know about you, but I sure feel lucky today!

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Joel Verwegen, a University of Toronto psychology and biology student, hopes that regular Post-Darwinist and Uncommon Descent readers will respond to his invitation to view a PBS debate on the subject and answer a questionnaire. (The debate link is in the q-aire.)

He tells me,

a) This is a social cognition study for the ID-evolution community.

d) Though no personal information will be collected or released, should individuals wish to insure anonymity, I will be accepting submissions from anonymous email services.

b) The study involves viewing a short debate and completing a questionnaire.

c) Time requirements are ~30 minutes.

He assures me that no attempt will be made to shrink wrap your head. So do oblige him if you possibly can, will you? If you wish to contact Joel, you may find him here: debateresponse@gmail.com

Also at The Post-Darwinist

Fish swap genes? Or Darwinists swap stories?

Roundup, plus, Focus, guys, focus: To restore civil rights, get our laws changed, don’t attack individuals

Look out math nerd world!: Legacy media poised to force girls on you!

Bring out your inner lab rat: Take this test to find out if you are truly an intelligent design type - or not

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

If you are concerned over trillion of dollars of future “taxes” from climate policy and massive impact on the third world of high energy prices, Watts highlights a key opportunity for input by August 14th. NASA’s document currently claims climate change is due to anthropogenic causes and strongly advocates control. This parallels government policy on teaching evolution. DLH ————-

An important call for public comment on the NASA Climate Change Science Program

6 08 2008

Foreword: For all of my readers, I can’t stress enough how important Dr. Herman’s message is. Please consider his requests for public comments. Something that most people don’t know is that you do not need to be a citizen of the USA to submit a comment. Time is of the essence, as comments close on August 14th, and there will not be another opportunity. For other bloggers and website operators, this post can be duplicated verbatim, and I encourage you to do so. Thank you for your consideration. - Anthony

A guest Post by Dr. Ben Herman

I recently received a NASA Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) preliminary report that I imagine many of you have also received,  For those who may not have received it, I’ve included a link at the end of this comment. NASA is asking for responses to this report for those who have comments, suggestions, etc that they would like to pass on to the CCSP committee. I have read through the report personally and feel there is much in the report that requires additional clarification.

On pages 6 and 7 of the report there are several “bullets” which summarize the issues and findings. More detail on each of these points may be found in the report. It is my feeling that these bullets and the additional detail discussions contain much information that requires further input due to it being still controversial, incomplete, and in some instances very misleading.

This report will undoubtedly play an important role in future climate related research programs supported by both NASA and NOAA, and therefore it is very important that all issues identified as important in the report be clearly and completely explained, and where controversial, both sides of the issue be included. This is important to ensure all important aspects of future research are given equal opportunity for funding, which is the basic reason I am requesting your input.  Instructions for submitting comments to the CCSP are in the link below.

Thanks for your cooperation.
Ben Herman

Instructions for submitting comments can be found in the following link:

http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/usp/public-review-draft/instructions.php

The complete CCSP report may be found in the following link.
http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/usp/public-review-draft/

Dr. Herman is past director of the Institute of Atmospheric Physics and former Head of the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Arizona. See his list of publications here.

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Jeff Schloss, formerly an ID supporter and Senior Fellow of Discovery Institute (until August 2003 — click here for Way Back Machine), has since been distancing himself from ID and even going on the offensive against it. I witnessed the beginnings of this offensive at a symposium featuring Ron Numbers, Howard Van Till, Schloss, and me in 2007 at Grove City College (go here for the program). His criticisms of ID at that event seemed to me naive and ill-considered. Yet he did seem to advance them sincerely, and I hoped to have an opportunity try to persuade him otherwise, which unfortunately never happened.

Schloss’s critical review of EXPELLED, however, raised his opposition against ID to a new level and frankly upset me for what I perceived as its disingenuousness (the review appeared with official sanction of the American Scientific Affiliation [ASA] on its server here). By offering so many nuances and qualifications, his review missed the bigger picture that many ID propoents really are getting shafted. I confronted Jeff about this and we had an exchange of emails. As it is, Jeff and I go back and had been friends. He contributed to the MERE CREATION volume (1996) that I edited (his essay was a fine piece on altruism and the difficulties conventional evolutionary theory has in trying to account for it). I even had occasion to visit him in the hospital after he had a surfing accident. The exchange ended with my asking him to admit the following four points:

(1) ID raises important issues for science.
(2) Politics aside, ID proponents ought to get a fair hearing for their views, and they’re not.
(3) A climate of hostility toward ID pervades the academy, which often undermines freedom of thought and expression on this topic.
(4) That climate has led to ID proponents being shamefully treated, losing their reputations and jobs, and suffering real harm.

As it is, Schloss never got back to me. I suppose I could have responded to him on the ASA website — Randy Isaac, the executive director of the ASA, invited me, as an ASA member, to do so. But by putting Schloss’s review front and center as the official position of the ASA on EXPELLED, I saw little point of trying to argue for EXPELLED in that forum.

In any case, Richard Weikart has now responded to Schloss’s review on the most controversial aspect of EXPELLED, namely, the Nazi connection. Weikart’s response may be found by clicking here.

,

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana

Contrary to last year’s hysteric proclamations that arctic sea ice would completely vanish this summer it has instead increased to an extent not seen since 2004.

Antarctic sea ice extent has been slowly increasing since 1979 (pay attention JAD)

Data courtesy of The National Snow and Ice Data Center

Copyright © 2008 Uncommon Descent. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact legal@www.uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
Plugin by Taragana