Pope's astronomer dismisses ID and says Church was "spectacularly wrong" in its treatment of Galileo

[tonyrey]

Why is thought intangible if it is physical?

You are jumping the gun! How do you know thoughts are physical? That notion fits into your limited scheme of things but it is by no means self-evident.

The thought itself is the tangibility of thought. Thinking is grabbing hold of a thought. It doesn’t respond to nerves like a stone in your hand because it’s not nerve-based. It’s physical, just not nerve-driven for you experientially.

All these assertions require justification.

How can something physical know it is physical?

By learning about its own structure and physiology, of course!

You are assuming the brain is capable of insight.

The human brain does exhibit awareness of itself! Some people in certain operations can even physically see their own brain in real time, and even count numbers and hear their speech get messed up as the doctor manipulates different parts of said brain.

Again you are identifying the mind with the brain. For you the brain is no more than a biological computer. Does a computer know it exists? You are blithely ignoring one of the most intractable problems of neuroscience. Seeing one’s brain is a very far cry from grasping the abstract truth that it exists. There is no evidence that the brain understands anything. It functions blindly according to physical laws.

I have spent many years working on evolutionary algorithms for large networks, and given the base starting infrastructure we initialize a run with, it learns all kinds of things on its own, independently, things we never even contemplated, and which continually surprised us. It “programmed itself” beyond what we gave it, and even the architecture of the system is modeled on the human brain, in its ability to adjust, rewire, and optimize models in its neural network.

Evolutionary algorithms are not devised by computers but by persons. Their modifications are simply due to different circumstances. The novelty of their results means nothing - except that you were not expecting them. Their apparent independence is an illusion. You give the game away with your description “adjust, rewire, and optimize”. Do you think that amounts to reasoning? It is merely mechanical computation by machines incapable of insight or responsibility.

If humans are biological machines, they remain just as creative as they always have been. Beethoven’s “Eroica” is still what it is, even so.

“If”! Beethoven’s “Eroica” was not produced by a computer. When a computer creates a work of comparable emotion and beauty you will be on firmer ground but even then it will have been programmed by a person.

Go listen to “Eroica”, I suggest. It’s quite gratifying and enchanting as a bit of music for your Saturday evening. This is a “pointful” activity for both Beethoven, and for you and me, centuries later. The absence of an imagined God doesn’t diminish the actual, real purposes that humans adopt and realize, at all.

“actual, real purposes” are strong words for a subjective phenomenon… “gratifying and enchanting” are inappropriate to describe a work in which the funeral march communicates the horror of war, the pity of bloodshed and the futility of wasted lives. Beethoven’s belief in God was his main inspiration. He almost committed suicide when he was going deaf but his faith sustained him. His great masterpiece the Missa Solemnis was the climax of his creative life.

Reasoning and truth disappear utterly. If only matter exists nothing matters and nothing makes sense…

That doesn’t follow. Truth and reasoning obtain as they always have. To say “the moon exists” in a godless, deterministic world is just as true as it would be in a godful world, and arguably more, because in the godless world, the moon exists objectively, and its existence isn’t subject to the will or mind of any god.

According to you truth is no more than an isomorph of atomic particles…

Yet if nothing makes sense how can we reach the conclusion that nothing makes sense?

Nothing like that obtains. You’re just way out in left field, offended at the prospect of a world that coheres as it always has without your God.

Coherence from chaos! I’m not offended but flabbergasted by the literal absurdity of the hypothesis… From the Big Bang to Beethoven for no reason!

So much for the notion that if the scientist or researcher supposes that thought is a purely physical phenomenon of the brain nothing changes… Everything changes to next to nothing!

Doesn’t change it at all, and you’ve not shown any change whatsoever. The composer still finds pleasure, purpose and creative outlet in composing, on physicalism.

Again you have given the game away". “finds” implies that purpose is objectively real. You should have used the word “invents” or “whiles away his pointless existence by pretending that it is purposeful”. Compare your philosophy with that of one of our greatest poets, John Keats:

“A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness…
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven’s brink.”

The God thing is just superfluous to all of it, a cellophane veneer that when stripped away, leave the underlying reality, just a little more clearly visible, and a lot less plasticky.

“inspired” by an illusion which conceals the underlying reality that everything consists of purposeless particles which exist for no reason whatsoever? Inside your cellophane veneer lies emptiness and futility…

 

[reggieM]

“If”! Beethoven’s “Eroica” was not produced by a computer. When a computer creates a work of comparable emotion and beauty you will be on firmer ground but even then it will have been programmed by a person.

In the view of scientism, all of Beethoven’s works are reducible to molecular activity. The supposed-intelligence of computers could produce the same or better works through a random process.

It’s like the claim that monkeys could type the works of Shakespeare. Trillions of monkeys typing for a billion times the age of our universe would still have an extremely remote chance at the task. But even if they did, they wouldn’t know it. A human observer would need to recognize Shakespeare.

Computers lack that artistic awareness. Beethoven made many choices in the writing of his work. That’s the artistic genius at work – selecting from many options only the perfect combination to communicate meaning and experience to the listener.

A reduction of that process to a biological function is absurd.

 

[reggieM]

So, show us the calculation for the functional information in the human Cytochrome-C gene. If it can be measured, as you claim, then show us the ID papers where these measurements are given. This is science, we like to have some numbers to play with.

As I understand the anti-ID view, it works like this:

1. Design can be observed in nature. The Darwinian-fundamentalist, Richard Dawkins states that the appearance of design is “overwhelming”.
2. So, design exists and is observable.
3. However, science cannot measure design at all.
4. Therefore, science is incapable of measuring some aspects in nature which are observable.

In the same way.

1. fCSI exists. There is a difference in quality and quantity of compexity and function between letters produced randomly and the letters on a traffic sign. There is a difference between the functional information contained in a traffic sign and in computer code. There is a difference between the sophistication of computer code and the multi-levels of functional code found in the cell.
2. So, fCSI exists and is observable.
3. However, science cannot measure fCSI at all.
   4 Therefore, science is incapable of measuring some aspects of nature which are observable.

So, that’s a dilemma.

You can deny that design exists at all – and deny that one can observe any difference in functional-specified information versus randomness.

Or, you can accept that design exists and is observable, but then claim that science cannot measure it.

Or, you can claim that science “could” measure it, but nobody knows how and only ID scientists are interested in discovering how to do it.

The anti-ID position actually discredits science in this case.

 

[reggieM]

Rossum, the DI doesn’t do science, so it doesn’t use reliable numbers.

That’s a strangely consistent argument.

Premise:

DI doesn’t do science.

therefore …

Whatever numbers the DI produces are unreliable.

It actually makes this discussion far easier and simpler.

1. The DI doesn’t do science.
2. Since the DI doesn’t do science, all of its numbers are false.
3. Since ID is a function of the DI
4. Then ID is false.

Even easier.

1. Judge Jones told us that ID is not science.
2. Therefore, ID is false.

I find those to be far better arguments than the endless distractions we have with scientific research, information theory and various calculations.

 

[reggieM]

I found this explanation elsewhere:

Syllogism 1:

Major premise: Functional, incredibly-improbable, digital strings do not occur randomly.

Minor premise: DNA contains a functional, incredibly-improbable digital string.

Conclusion: The digital string in DNA is not random.

Syllogism 2:

Major premise: Functional, incredibly-improbable, digital strings do not occur as a result of mechanical necessity (i.e. physical law).

Minor premise: DNA contains a functional, incredibly-improbable digital string.

Conclusion: The digital string in DNA did not arise through mechanical necessity.

Syllogism 3:

Major premise: Since Aristotle we have known that all events are caused by random processes, mechanical necessity (i.e., physical law) or agency (i.e., design) or a combination of these three.

Minor premise: We have just established that the digital string in DNA was not caused by a random processes or physical necessity.

Conclusion: The digital string in DNA was caused by agency.

Corollary:

All functional, incredibly-improbable digital strings for which we can adduce their provenance by direct observation (as opposed to inference from secondary data) are the result of agency. In other words, our overwhelming experience is that functional, incredibly-improbable digital strings come from one and only one source. They are the product of intelligent design.

 

[rossum]

As I understand the anti-ID view, it works like this:

1. Design can be observed in nature. The Darwinian-fundamentalist, Richard Dawkins states that the appearance of design is “overwhelming”.
2. So, design exists and is observable.
3. However, science cannot measure design at all.
4. Therefore, science is incapable of measuring some aspects in nature which are observable.

Your understanding is incorrect. At #3 science is perfectly happy to measure design, as with Forensic Science or Archaeology. A Forensic Scientist can tell design, a murder, from non-design, death by natural causes. An archaeologist can tell design, a hand-axe, from non-design, a pebble. Since your initial understanding of the anti-ID view is incorrect, the argument you make that follows from it is also incorrect.

It is also worth noting at #1 that Dawkins says that the appearance of design is an artefact of our brains and that the appearance is just an appearance, not substance. He proposed the word ‘designoid’ to describe such ‘appearance of design without actual design’. A snowflake might be described as designoid. It looks as it it were designed but in fact is not designed. The appearance of design is an illusion and is just down to the crystallisation properties of water.

rossum

 

[StAnastasia]

1. Judge Jones told us that ID is not science.
2. Therefore, ID is false.

How does #2 follow from #1?

 

[rossum]

I found this explanation elsewhere:

Syllogism 1:

Major premise: Functional, incredibly-improbable, digital strings do not occur randomly.

Minor premise: DNA contains a functional, incredibly-improbable digital string.

Conclusion: The digital string in DNA is not random.

Correct. Natural selection is not a random process.

Syllogism 2:

Major premise: Functional, incredibly-improbable, digital strings do not occur as a result of mechanical necessity (i.e. physical law).

Minor premise: DNA contains a functional, incredibly-improbable digital string.

Conclusion: The digital string in DNA did not arise through mechanical necessity.

Correct. Random mutation is not a process of ‘mechanical necessity’.

Syllogism 3:

Major premise: Since Aristotle we have known that all events are caused by random processes, mechanical necessity (i.e., physical law) or agency (i.e., design) or a combination of these three.

Minor premise: We have just established that the digital string in DNA was not caused by a random processes or physical necessity.

Conclusion: The digital string in DNA was caused by agency.

False. You omitted the “combination of these” part of your major premise. Evolution, taken as a combination of random mutation (chance) and natural selection (mechanical necessity) is just such a combination. Your conclusion fails until you can eliminate that combination from the Major premise. The correct conclusion should read:“The digital string in DNA was caused either by a combination of random processes and mechanical necessity or by agency.”

Your corollary fails because the conclusion on which it was based fails.

rossum

 

[reggieM]

Here’s an explanation on how functional complex specified information can be measured, from one of the co-authors of the Durston paper:

In the previous post, I presented Hypothesis H: a unique property of intelligence is the ability to produce significant levels of functional information. I then suggested that an essential property of functional anomalies is the functional information required to produce them. Thus, we have a link between intelligence and functional anomalies. We now need a method to quantify these functional anomalies in terms of functional information.

In a recent paper in PNAS, Hazen et al, propose a method to measure the functional information encoded within biopolymers (Hazen, R.M., Griffen, P.L., Carothers, J.M. & Szostak, J.W. (2007) ‘Functional information and the emergence of biocomplexity’, PNAS 104, 8574-8581). This paper was an outcome of an earlier article in Nature in 2003 by one of the coauthors of the Hazen paper (J.W. Szostak (2003) ‘Molecular messages’, Nature Vol. 423, p. 689). Hazen’s equation was almost identical to an earlier equation published by Leon Brillouin in 1951.

In Hazen’s equation, Functional information I(Ex) is defined as

I(Ex) = – log2[M(Ex)/N] (1)

where Ex is the degree of function x, M(Ex) is the number of different configurations that achieves or exceeds the specified degree of function x, ? Ex, and N is the total number of possible configurations, both functional and otherwise. For proteins, N is simple to compute,

N=20^L

where L= the length of the sequence. The problem, however, is computing M(Ex).

In 2005 a paper was published that defined three subsets of sequence complexity. The three types were defined as ordered sequence complexity (OSC), random sequence complexity (RSC) and functional sequence complexity (FSC). At that time the authors were uncertain as to how to measure FSC. I contacted them with a method, and we went on to publish a paper proposing a measure of FSC . For both Shannon information and Kolmogorov information, an equivalent term is ‘complexity’ rather than ‘information’. It is the same here. Functional complexity is equivalent to functional information. To check this, the more sophisticated equation for functional complexity presented in the Durston et al. paper can be simplified, with certain assumptions, to the Hazen et al. equation. The beauty of the Durston et al. equation, is that it can actually be evaluated using real data. I have found that if I have at least 500 aligned sequences, the sample size is starting to get large enough to adequately estimate M(Ex), although I prefer to work with at least 1,000 sequences for any protein family.

For those interested in working with functional complexity, it is important to read the Durston et al. paper and get a firm grasp of the null state, the ground state, and the functional state. The functional complexity of a system is the change in functional uncertainty (defined in the paper) between the ground state and the functional state. The null state can be a special case of the ground state. Also, for basic properties determined by physics, the basic functional state is identical to the ground state, in which case zero functional information is required to produce the effect. This also holds true if the ground state is the null state. All objections I have seen result from a lack of understanding of these three states. The most common is a failure to note that if the functional state is the null state, then a vast number of possibilities are functional, but the functional information required is zero. As Abel and Trevors point out in their paper on three subsets of sequence complexity, there are only three major areas we have ever observed FSC. One is human languages, the other is human-designed software, and the third is in biopolymers such as DNA and proteins. Something to think about.

We now have a method to measure functional information and can apply it to more than just sequences, but to many other artifacts, effects, and configurations as well, including uses in archeology, forensics, SETI, genetics and even suspected cases of fraud in lotteries and casinos. Once you have an estimate of M(Ex), you then have an estimate of the target size M(Ex)/N for the search. For functional folded proteins, that target size is miniscule, to the point of approaching zero for all normal scientific problems. Keep in mind, it is physics that determines which amino acid sequences have stable folds, not biology. So a biological search engine does not make proteins, it must find them and physics is the ‘keeper of the combinations’ that work. The next step in my method to detect examples of ID is to determine what the threshold is for nature, regarding how much functional information/functional complexity we might reasonably expect to observe within the ‘noise’ of the natural system. I’ll pause here, however, to give people a chance to clear up any questions they may have.

 

[reggieM]

Your understanding is incorrect. At #3 science is perfectly happy to measure design, as with Forensic Science or Archaeology. A Forensic Scientist can tell design, a murder, from non-design, death by natural causes. An archaeologist can tell design, a hand-axe, from non-design, a pebble. Since your initial understanding of the anti-ID view is incorrect, the argument you make that follows from it is also incorrect.

What metrics do these scientific disciplines use to measure design? I’d like to see the mathematical formulas used to determine various quantities and qualities of design here also.

How does science measure the difference between functional-complex-specified information, complex-specified information, and non-complex, non-specified information?

A snowflake might be described as designoid. It looks as it it were designed but in fact is not designed. The appearance of design is an illusion and is just down to the crystallisation properties of water.

Again, how do you measure the difference in the quality of information contained in the design of a snowflake and that of software meta-code which controls other codes which produce a variety of purposeful functions?

What are the limits to the kind of functional-specified-complex information that can be produced by an entirely stochastic process?

Those are questions involving measurement of design, so science should have the numbers to support this kind of inquiry.

 

[tonyrey]

In the view of scientism, all of Beethoven’s works are reducible to molecular activity. The supposed-intelligence of computers could produce the same or better works through a random process.

It’s like the claim that monkeys could type the works of Shakespeare. Trillions of monkeys typing for a billion times the age of our universe would still have an extremely remote chance at the task. But even if they did, they wouldn’t know it. A human observer would need to recognize Shakespeare.

Computers lack that artistic awareness. Beethoven made many choices in the writing of his work. That’s the artistic genius at work – selecting from many options only the perfect combination to communicate meaning and experience to the listener.

A reduction of that process to a biological function is absurd.

The absurdity is heightened by the further reduction of that process to the movements of atomic particles!

 

[Touchstone]

As I understand the anti-ID view, it works like this:

1. Design can be observed in nature. The Darwinian-fundamentalist, Richard Dawkins states that the appearance of design is “overwhelming”.
2. So, design exists and is observable.
3. However, science cannot measure design at all.
4. Therefore, science is incapable of measuring some aspects in nature which are observable.

Haven’t read beyond this, so I’m sure others have probably objected already, but I’ll register my objection with #3. That’s not the view of science against ID at all. science can and does measure design as a routine part of its investigations – think about anthropologists trying to make sense of the various artifacts and putatitive tools and implements found at a site where hominid skeletons are also find – this is the design inference at work. ID lacks a crucial piece of the equation, is all - the putative designer to which to assign design as a theory. Without that, there’s no scientific basis to proceed in making the inference. This is a conspicuous problem for ID, but as above, with other scientific endeavors, you have putative designers available on the scene. We conclude that Stonehenge (or Mt. Rushmore, for that matter) is designed because of a match we can make between the phenomena, and the availability and capabilities of the ostensible designers. ID has nothing to go on this way.

In the same way.

1. fCSI exists. There is a difference in quality and quantity of compexity and function between letters produced randomly and the letters on a traffic sign. There is a difference between the functional information contained in a traffic sign and in computer code. There is a difference between the sophistication of computer code and the multi-levels of functional code found in the cell.
2. So, fCSI exists and is observable.
3. However, science cannot measure fCSI at all.
   4 Therefore, science is incapable of measuring some aspects of nature which are observable.

Again, at #3 this goes off the rails. Insofar as fCSI is mathematical, and in some applications it can be, and dFSCI is even more straightforward when we can use Kolmogorov Complexity as the measure for digital strings. What’s not established is the provenance of CSI or dFSCI itself. It may be that human expressions of CSI are just extended manifestations of natural, impersonal processes that produce CSI, one of those being designing humans. In the absence of any evidence for a designer on the scene, this reasoned conclusion, especially as our understanding grows of the creative power of cumulative processes exploring a search landscape. dFSCI would be one of the outputs of that search activity in nature.

So, that’s a dilemma.

You can deny that design exists at all – and deny that one can observe any difference in functional-specified information versus randomness.

Any programmer can tell you that randomness is the most value resource there is for creativity. Unchannelled, unharnessed noise is just noise, but if you want a system to be creative on its own, you need a) laws or rules, b) random variation and c) a cumulative filter that tends to select and cull outputs toward some goal (fixed or dynamic). An evolutionary algorithm can quickly embarrass the most creative human designers in coming up with innovative designs against some design criteria, and all that’s needed is the above – fixed principles with random (name removed by moderator)uts to provide variation (iteration over a search landscape), and a way to provide feedback on the search, promoting good results for further variation and demoting bad results.

It’s a conceptual error, then to pit functional specified information against randomness; randomness is an effective and predictable way to produce creative designs, and CSI as output. Design isn’t inherent in the data, though, any more than randomness is. Design is a term that denotes a particular kind of history for that data, just as ‘randomness’ is a term than denotes a lack of any known pattern, plan, or purpose (e.g. a knowable history) for that data.

Or, you can accept that design exists and is observable, but then claim that science cannot measure it.

That’s like saying “murder is observable in the body of the victim”. We may find evidence that best fits a conclusion of “murder”, but we don’t see murder under the microscope when the forensic investigators do an autopsy. We see cells and substances and traces of this and that which may be crucial in inferring that a violent death occurred at the hands of another. But we don’t see “murder” or “design” in the artifacts directly.

Or, you can claim that science “could” measure it, but nobody knows how and only ID scientists are interested in discovering how to do it.

The anti-ID position actually discredits science in this case.

CSI is still fundamentally confused and lazy in its terminology and concepts. Before it goes anywhere, it still has major work to do in defining and distinguishing terms like “information” and “complexity”. Even Bill Dembski cannot keep the terms straight, and used with precision, and the problem gets worse with all the other variants on the idea that have come up from other people.

Fundamentally, though, CSI is a fail because it rests on an ignorant yet dogmatic premise that information cannot be created by biological processes. That’s what biology does according to modern biological theory – it creates new information via the combination of random and deterministic processes.

-TS

 

[edwest2]

To reggieM -

Here is some additional material:

reasons.org/splicing-together-case-design-part-1-2

Click on Part 2 at the bottom of the page.

God bless,
Ed

 

[wanstronian]

Dogmatic belief in materialism is the crudest form of superstition in that it derives the power of reason - on which materialists rely to reach their conclusions - from processes which lack insight and understanding.

It must be very galling for you that the thing you hate so much is so consistently successful in describing our universe, while the thing you hold most dear fails so abjectly.

Incidentally it is a mistake to equate belief in Design with Creationism.

Come on, who are you trying to fool? It’s well documented and well known, that ID is a thinly-disguised attempt to get Creationism into science classes.

It is abundantly clear that Design is the most **rational **explanation of the immense value, richness and beauty of life and the universe.

Yes, yes, you keep saying these things, but repetition doesn’t make it true. If you want me to believe your assertion, show me some evidence. Who was the designer? What did he, or she, design? Where did he, or she, come from? Describe a predictive experiment that tests any of the claims you are making.

If values are subjective the value of rational arguments is also subjective. In other words they are simply a matter of opinion…

Not really sure what you’re talking about here, you seem to be suggesting that an opinion based on pie-in-the-sky supernatural superstitious wishful thinking, is just as valid in assessing a truth claim, as an opinion backed up with proper scientific evidence. But while you’re heavy on rhetoric, you’re typically light on substance.

 

[rossum]

Here’s an explanation on how functional complex specified information can be measured, from one of the co-authors of the Durston paper:

[Snip for brevity]

In Hazen’s equation, Functional information I(Ex) is defined as

I(Ex) = – log2[M(Ex)/N] (1)

where Ex is the degree of function x, M(Ex) is the number of different configurations that achieves or exceeds the specified degree of function x, ? Ex, and N is the total number of possible configurations, both functional and otherwise. For proteins, N is simple to compute,

N=20^L

where L= the length of the sequence. The problem, however, is computing M(Ex).

That last is the downfall of FCSI, computing M(Ex). We can observe that a particular DNA sequence performs a given function. How do you propose to measure the number of all possible DNA sequences that could perform that specific function? Not just the sequences we observe in living animals. Not just the obvious derivations of those sequences, but all possible sequences.

As an illustration of the problem here is the start of the amino acid sequence for Cytochrome-C from a number of different species:

H/C:          mgdvekgkki fimkcsqcht ...
Frg:          mgdvekgkki fvqkcaqcht ...
Fly:     mgvp agdvekgkkl fvqrcaqcht ...
Sun: masfaeap agdpttgaki fktkcaqcht ...

H/C - human and chimpanzee; Frg - bullfrog; Fly - fruit fly; Sun - sunflower

Note that these functional sequences are of different lengths. In principle we can add any non-functional header to a functional Cytochrome-C and come up with a possible functional Cytochrome-C. Since a non-functional header can be of any length we can have as large a value as we like for M(Ex). This renders getting a meaningful value from the equation dubious at best. We can effectively pick any value we want for M(Ex) depending on how many possible sequences we decide to look at.

It is also worth noting that the differences from the Human/Chimp sequences (which are identical) increase with the evolutionary distance of the species from Homo sapiens. This is part of the evidence for evolution. On a technical note the DNA start codon, AUG, codes for the amino acid Methionine so all sequences start with ‘m’.

rossum

 

[rossum]

What metrics do these scientific disciplines use to measure design? I’d like to see the mathematical formulas used to determine various quantities and qualities of design here also.

I am neither an archaeologist nor a forensic scientist so I will have to pass on that question. I can say that all that is required is a digitised binary metric:* 0 → no design.

• 1 → design.
  Any more than that will depend on the exact details of the problem. For instance SETI is looking for narrowband radio signals. Archaeologists do not look for narrowband radio signals but for other things. AIUI there is no single method but a number of different methods tailored to match the specific design problem being observed.

How does science measure the difference between functional-complex-specified information, complex-specified information, and non-complex, non-specified information?

You will have to ask the originators of those concepts. It is up to the originators to tell others how to measure them. If they are found to be useful then they will be used. If they are found not to be useful then they will be ignored.

Again, how do you measure the difference in the quality of information contained in the design of a snowflake and that of software meta-code which controls other codes which produce a variety of purposeful functions?

Ask the Discovery Institute; it is they who are telling us that we can measure the presence of design. I have not seen any calculations from them for a snowflake.

What are the limits to the kind of functional-specified-complex information that can be produced by an entirely stochastic process?

Again, you will have to ask the DI as FCSI is a DI concept. It is up to them to do the work to support their own concepts. For example, it might be interesting to see an FCSI calculation for the bacterial flagellum.

Those are questions involving measurement of design, so science should have the numbers to support this kind of inquiry.

Agreed. It is up to the DI and their Biologics lab to produce those figures. That is part of what is needed to make ID a science, to actually do the work of science and begin to produce the calculations to back up what until now have been heavily theoretical concepts with very little actual lab work to follow them up. This is science, not theology, so lab work is part of the equation.

rossum

 

[reggieM]

I am neither an archaeologist nor a forensic scientist so I will have to pass on that question. I can say that all that is required is a digitised binary metric:* 0 → no design.

• 1 → design.

Actually, more subtle and detailed measurements of design are required for a number of scientific purposes.

It is up to the DI and their Biologics lab to produce those figures. That is part of what is needed to make ID a science, to actually do the work of science and begin to produce the calculations to back up what until now have been heavily theoretical concepts with very little actual lab work to follow them up. This is science, not theology, so lab work is part of the equation.

I think that brings us back to the dilemma I mentioned. Various kinds of information can be distinguished from the result of random outputs. It’s a scientific research project to evaluate the kinds and quantities of information that can be observed. Information theory works on those kinds of projects.

It doesn’t make sense to me to hear that it’s simply up to the DI and their lab alone to engage in this work and research this area.

It’s a gap in scientific knowledge. Even the very starting point (which you seem to question) is a gap.

Is there is measurable difference between a random string and a complex string of information? Yes - Shannon information measures the improbability or complexity of an information string.

This is not a question reserved for the Discovery Institute. It’s mainstream science - information theory.

The gap then appears …

Is there information that generates non-random patterns or functions?

There is a gap in scientific knowlege here. I don’t think that something to proclaim as a victory for science at all. The Anti-ID view sounds like:

Science cannot answer this.

or

Science doesn’t know and will not try to know.

… another thought added at the last minute:

Again, you will have to ask the DI as FCSI is a DI concept.

It’s a risk (from your perspective) to say that because it leaves the door open for ID to contribute a valuable scientific innovation.
That is, if science accepts that there is information beyond Shannon Information in specified, functional complexity – then we’ll have to credit the DI for inventing that concept.

Personally, I can’t see how that could miss. We can observe information which is more specified, complex and functional than Shannon. Nobody else has labelled it yet.

Also – consider that Shannon measures are statistical and built on probabilities.
Why would you think that the same approach would not work for information that generates functional results?

 

[rossum]

Actually, more subtle and detailed measurements of design are required for a number of scientific purposes.

Hardly. Dembski’s Explanatory Filter uses a ternary decision: regularity, chance and design.

I think that brings us back to the dilemma I mentioned. Various kinds of information can be distinguished from the result of random outputs. It’s a scientific research project to evaluate the kinds and quantities of information that can be observed. Information theory works on those kinds of projects.

We can indeed distinguish between random and non-random information; cryptographers do it all the time. However natural processes are perfectly capable of generating non-random information, pulsars for example. ID is attempting to distinguish something different, it is trying to find design which is a very different proposition. Going back to cryptography, any decent encryption system is designed to have an output that appears to be random by as many tests as possible. In that case it is designedly very difficult to distinguish between randomness and design. Any cryptosystem for which such a distinguisher exists is considered weak. For example, RC4 is obsolescent because of the existence of work like The Most Efficient Distinguishing Attack on VMPC and RC4A. A great deal of such work is going on, but none of it is coming out of the Discovery Institute.

It doesn’t make sense to me to hear that it’s simply up to the DI and their lab alone to engage in this work and research this area.

There is a great deal of research in the area of information, it is just that so far the DI has not shown that there is any real use for CSI, FCSI etc. beyond their own press releases. For instance, taking the cryptographic example above, has anyone tried using FCSI to distinguish between a true random source and some encrypted cyphertext? If FCSI is useful then it should be able to do that. Doing that reliably would be of great interest to the NSA and various other agencies. Why isn’t the DI working on that problem?

Is there is measurable difference between a random string and a complex string of information? Yes - Shannon information measures the improbability or complexity of an information string.

Not always. Again, the output from a good cryptosystem will appear as random Shannon Information.

It’s a risk (from your perspective) to say that because it leaves the door open for ID to contribute a valuable scientific innovation.

That is not a risk, I have no problem with the DI making a useful scientific breakthrough. It is instead an opportunity for the DI, and one which currently they are not taking. A good general purpose cryptographic distinguisher would have a major impact on cryptography and might even go some way towards solving the P=NP problem, for which there is a $1 million prize.

rossum

 

[wanstronian]

OnEdit: OK, don’t respond here on this, I created a thread here where we can go deep on your CSI claims. Please respond there.

Looks like Buffalo suddenly found something more urgent to do! He’s been awful quiet since having his bluff called.

 

[reggieM]

There is a great deal of research in the area of information, it is just that so far the DI has not shown that there is any real use for CSI, FCSI etc.

I should return to the Anti-ID arguments that I commented on previously to explain this notion that ID = DI.

But if we have it on record that CSI and FCSI are concepts invented by the DI, then whatever work is done to support those concepts is credited to the DI as the originator.

As for uses of Complex Functional Information, this paper (not a publication of DI and by non-DI scientists) points out that measuring this kind of information is valuable in building artifical life programs (Avida) among other things.

Functional information and the emergence of biocomplexity
Robert M. Hazen,† Patrick L. Griffin, James M. Carothers,‡ and Jack W. Szostak§, 2007

Complex emergent systems of many interacting components, including complex biological systems, have the potential to perform quantifiable functions. Accordingly, we define “functional information,” I(Ex), as a measure of system complexity. For a given system and function, x (e.g., a folded RNA sequence that binds to GTP), and degree of function, Ex (e.g., the RNA–GTP binding energy), I(Ex) = −log2[F(Ex)], where F(Ex) is the fraction of all possible configurations of the system that possess a degree of function ≥ Ex. Functional information, which we illustrate with letter sequences, artificial life, and biopolymers, thus represents the probability that an arbitrary configuration of a system will achieve a specific function to a specified degree. In each case we observe evidence for several distinct solutions with different maximum degrees of function, features that lead to steps in plots of information versus degree of function.

Szostak and coworkers (15, 34) introduced “functional information” as a measure of complexity. They proposed that the complexity of an information-rich system, such as RNA aptamers (RNA structures that bind a target molecule), can be quantified in the context of specific functions of the system, in contrast to prior formalisms based on genomic, sequence, or algorithmic information (e.g., refs. 13 and 35). Here we examine applications of this formalism to letter sequences, the artificial life platform Avida (36), and RNA apatmers.