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Topic: Actual Demonstration Experiments, Appeal to Correlation
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gedanken
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posted 02. November 2003 11:06
I've seen Walter Bradley speak, and he never to my knowledge said that abiogenesis was "impossible". He does refer to lack of completeness of knowledge of how it could have occurred, and even speaks of lack of completeness of understanding of evolutionary processes. But never to my knowledge about "impossibility" thereof!
What he does speak about at length is "fine tuning" arguments. For the most part my only argument with Bradley is that he promotes misunderstanding of his views by carefully leaving out or maneuvering away from speaking at length that his premises are only about lacks of knowledge, or about "fine tuning" of the universe characteristics per se. In neither case is he making a valid scientific case for "design"--rather it is philosophical in nature for the most part. As such my problem is more with how people misinterpret him than with what he says directly.
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Salvador T. Cordova
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posted 02. November 2003 13:37
Gedanken,
Point well taken. I stand corrected. I used the term "impossible" from Jerry Bergman from trueorigin.org which is also a good essay (with minor flaws).
Bradley argues very well from biochemical evidence in his book, "Mystery of Life's Origin," where he involves the known laws of nature and all available data.
To settle the issue of Bradley's thoughts, I quote from the website I referred to with Bradley in his own words:
"The similarity between such information in nature and the production of information by human intelligence argues persuasively for an intelligent creator or designer. "
You make a good observation that there is philosophy involved.
One of the problems is that all truth is not scientific. Science finds universal truth (like gravity), but not all truth (like history). This claim is from science itself: such as the laws governing irreversible processes (history), Godel's incompleteness, Heisenburg uncertainty, etc.
If life occured from a singularity, it will likely not be repeatable (history). Just like the Big Bang is not a repeatable phenomenon to test scientifically, we use science to estimate the nature of the singularity.
But note, Darwinian evolution, or specfically abiogenesis, is not practicably repeatable either! One needs millions of years and millions of earthlike environments to repeat the steps that supposedly went from dead matter to high information content self-replicators. Repeat that sequence a zillion times, and if it is successful, one has a scientific justification to believe abiogenesis, not to mention a specific number for probability of abiogenesis. Otherwise, from a Popperian viewpoint, many claims of abiogenesis are not at the same level as the law of gravity. For that matter biogenesis has stood the test of time as an empirically verifiable law, the search of abiogenesis is the search for an exception to this empirically verifiable law.
We can always appeal to the god of chance operating within known laws of nature, but at some point I think it is unreasonable to keep appealing to chance and the known laws of nature given finite time and resources as was illustrated in my coin flipping example with 500 coins.
The likelihood of von-Neumann style replicators arising by chance within the known laws of nature seems unreasonable given the finite time available (the sun's life) and resources (number of atoms in the universe).
This was a slightly off topic digression, but I felt it needed to be stated to give support for the thesis that correlation could be used to infer intelligence causes.
I have a few more thoughts to contribute to this tread, and if more specific questions are raised, I'd be happy to respond (if I have anything useful to say) in another thread.
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gedanken
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posted 02. November 2003 14:36
With regard to Bradley, I have not read his work, only seen a couple of presentations--so I could be in error.
But what I noticed was the marked difference between what Bradley presented, including its tone, and the presentations of many others at ID conferences. Bradley does not tend to bring up the number of points that seem easily refuted, as do many of the ID presenters. As such his ideas are more easily defended, but also much more circumspect in terms of strident claim.
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RBH
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posted 02. November 2003 15:15
Cordova wrote quote:
However, the spirit of the thread was to suggest a means of detecting intelligence. The thought of 100 young cows having identical DNA with a long dead cow would be attributable to:
1. miracle
2. human intelligence
3. unknown
It showed that correlation in a biological system in one specific case, when we have good data that it should not otherwise happen, is attributable to an intelligent cause (albeit human).
At this moment I have an avida run going on another machine on my network. The avida program, as I have mentioned before, uses only random mutations and imperfect replication in a selective environment as operators within the simulation. Nevertheless, there are clusters of genotypically identical clones in the population of 3,600. At the moment, there's a cluster of 276 identical genotypes, one of 187 identical genotypes, one of 124 identical genotypes, and a number of smaller clusters of genetically identical genotypes.
While the avida shell is obviously intelligently designed, the processes operating within it are mindless evolutionary operators - random mutation and imperfect replication with heritable variability that affects reproductive fitness. Clusters of clones emerge in that mindless undirected environment even in the absense of an extrinsic fitness function through simple reproductive competition for a limited resource, space in the avida world.
Cordova wrote quote:
A replica of a cell is a complex specified entitity. It is complex because of the large amounts of aperiodic data, it is specified because it is a replica. That is why intelligence is inferred, just like the penny example. RBH ravines example is to amorphous to test for correlation, anything digital (like DNA) are better candidates.
On the contrary, if the statistics describing the patterns and distributions of ravines are consistent from case to case, it is perfectly appropriate to relate (= correlate) the variations in those statistics to properties of the physical environment in a naturalistic account of the patterns and distributions of ravines. The situation is analogous to a front-loading ID account: No matter what started it off (gods, aliens, or some other unknown intelligent agency), the processes proceed from that start according to natural laws.
Cordova's assertion that a cell "is specified because it is a replica" introduces a notion of specification that is much broader than its use in most ID writing. I suggest that Cordova read Dembski's definition of "specified" and consider whether mere replication is sufficient for an attribution of "specification" in Dembski's sense. The definition of specification as replication is a considerable problem for ID, since it immediately admits crystals and other perfectly physical phenomena to the "specified" category. Every single biological structure, process, and organism is "specified" in Cordova's sense beause they are all the products of replication. That smears the notion of "specification" to a blur that makes no discriminations at all.
Finally, I have a problem with Cordova's shifting back and forth between abiogenesis and evolution. He wrote quote:
Adami's work is a simulation of existing biological systems. Since abiogenesis is nearly impossible, biological systems are reasonably inferred to be designed by intelligence in the first place, thus it is a tautology to appeal to biological systems as illustrations of correlation arising without the aid intelligence since such an appeal presumes that life did not have intelligent genesis in the first place.
With gedanken, I take issue with the "nearly impossible" locution. "Unknown" and "impossible" are not synonyms. I again call attention to the work of Adami and colleagues (available here). In that work, "correlations" arise in a purely evolutionary process. It does not speak to abiogenesis, but given only replicators that can do nothing but replicate, it illustrates how evolutionary processes can generate entities that display correlations of two interesting sorts, (1) clusters of clones (Cordova's criterion for ID), and (2) the relationships between the distribution of entities in a population and the abstract topography of the selective environment.
As with most ID arguments, Cordova's invocation of "correlations" requires an additional premise, namely "natural processes can't create the observed correlations." That's as problematic as Behe's now-refuted claim that evolutionary processes can't create irreducibly complex structures. Since we know that Cordova's cows normally reproduce sexually and thus clusters of clones are rare in nature, we can make an inference from finding too many clusters of identical cows. That inference depends on knowing the 'normal' mode of reproduction. If we did not know that cows normally reproduce sexually, finding clusters of clones would be uninformative with respect to ID. Thus in order to infer intelligent design from an anomolous pattern of correlations, we must know that the pattern cannot be produced by natural processes. But that is once again an argument from ignorance: if we don't know what produced the pattern, we are to attribute it to intelligent design. We are unsurprised at finding clusters of clones among whiptail lizards because we know they reproduce parthenogenically. We would be surprised to find similar clusters of clones in cows because we know they (normally) reproduce sexually. If we find clusters of clones in a species whose mode of reproduction we do not know, the appropriate working (and testable) hypothesis is parthenogenesis, not intelligent design.
RBH
[ 02. November 2003, 15:40: Message edited by: RBH ]
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gedanken
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posted 02. November 2003 15:32
Another thought about "correlation":
When scientists try to find physical relationships, especially relationships in complex situations in which there is a lot of noise, they typically use "correlation" of proposed cause and measurement of proposed effect. The better the correlation, the better the association. So "correlation" per se is used as a measure of correctness of mechanistic interpretaiton.
Now there is an issue of too perfect of correlation, as in missing the noise that should be present. But here one has to be very careful, because a variety of causes could be at heart. And furthermore, the "correlation" seen in evoluiton is typically not of the type that is "too perfect", therefore this case does not even apply in the area of interest.
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Salvador T. Cordova
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posted 03. November 2003 12:07
Thank you all again for your thoughtful contributions. I will try to limit my comments when I feel I can assert something truthful, a correction (even my own), and on topic. Thank you all for your patience with me.
Brainstorms are for original thought, and I cite others only if some of my ideas need support.
Correction: the link provided earlier was Bradley's reprint of some of Dembski's work.
Professor Emiritus, Bradley's original work is "Mystery of Life's Origin" co-authored with Thaxton and Olsen is a classic. Bradley's scholarly tone (which Gedanken referred to) in his book has commanded great respect among researchers of chemical evolution.
RBH:
>definition of specification as replication is a >considerable problem for ID, since it >immediately admits crystals and other perfectly >physical phenomena to the "specified" category.
Many in ID believe crystals are specified (even Dembski). Even the Gausian distribution is a specified entity (ISCID fellow Carlos Puentes wrote a book about the Bell curve). Many in ID believe random noise is complex (even Dembski).
It is the when both qualities (specification and complexity) are found simultaneously, that one considers the possibility of intelligence. One does not see obvious intelligence in dumb salt crystals, but consider the proverbial monkey example I gave above, and the penny example. Random coin flips or monkey typing cannot be immediately associated with great intelligence, but when one sees the appearance of replication of something supposedly random, at some point it becomes reasonable to infer intelligence and deliberate intent. Hence my facination with replicas of complex phenomena.
This fact did not go unnoticed by Wigner in simple cell replicaton, that's why he attempted his sweeping proof. He saw it as a miracle and tried to justify that claim via proof. Wigner's proof, as Pim rightly observed was too weak, but comments by Baez of Wigner's proof suggested how stringent the front loading had to be to even allow the possibility of self-replication. The Cosmological Anthropic Principle (ISCID fellow Tipler and company) suggest strong front loading.
I believe there is a case for detectable front loading of biological systems. "Mystery of Life's Origin" by Bradley, Thaxton, Olsen shows quite to my satisfaction that a singularity (like the big bang) in biology is a reasonable possibility (although I believe Bradley's personal views are for Progressive Creation "Miracle + Process").
I'm reluctant to cite some of Bradely's finest essays, because they have strong theological bent, but they are rich in scientific insight, I provide them here for only reference. One may discuss his points outside this thread, but I provide it here for reference.
ISCID fellow Bradley's personal thoughts are at
http://www.leaderu.com/real/ri9403/evidence.html
http://www.leaderu.com/offices/bradley/docs/trustworthiness.html
RBH:
>While the avida shell is obviously intelligently >designed, the processes operating within it are >mindless evolutionary operators...
RBH running of the Avida program is a demonstration of the power of intelligent front loading. A von-Neuman self-replicator machine can be mindless, like computer viruses. Further these machines can be programmed with adaptability to a fore-ordained environment through "random" search.
ID does not exclude the possibility of front loaded design.
In the absence of a fitness function, you get a dead computer, and no creatures to begin with. A fitness function is implicit from the start. The environment has to be fine tuned for even a digital creature to have a chance to survive much less evolve.
Furthermore the digital creature has to be programmed to survive. Random bits in a computer don't generally replicate without intent and design at some point, both of the environment and the creature. A computer virus is a better anology. Just because compter viruses are mindless does not mean they were not intelligently designed.
To argue Avida's digital creatures are simple requires decoupling the software which enables replication from the definition. It would be like decoupling the the software from a self-replicating computer virus.
It's a tuatology to keep appealing to the wonderfully designed computer programs to demonstrate random chance working on undesigned natural laws resulting in replication. The environment and the digital creatures are designed even in these environments. No-design up front, you get a dead program.
von-Neumann style self-replicators have the marks of intelligence and deliberate intent. The ability of the digital life forms to replicate should not be de-coupled from the life form. It doesn't make sense to me to appeal to finely tuned intelligent shells like the Avida program to justify that the universe or abiogenesis happened with mindless forces from the start.
What is very obvious to me is that intelligently designed shells have to be built for self replication and evolution to even have a chance.
ID does not exclude the possibility of front loaded design. Although, to clarify, I believe it may be possible to detect interventions and suspensions of known natural laws. Afterall, implicit in the Big Bang theory is the belief known natural laws did not necessarily have the form they have now before Plank time.
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RBH
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posted 03. November 2003 13:25
Salvador wrote quote:
It's a tuatology to keep appealing to the wonderfully designed computer programs to demonstrate random chance working on undesigned natural laws resulting in replication. The environment and the digital creatures are designed even in these environments. No-design up front, you get a dead program.
It's not at all a tautology. I don't argue with the proposition that simulations such as avida are compatible with a front-loading version of ID. In fact, it seems to me that they provide evidence that front-loading is the only scientifically viable version of ID available because they demonstrate that the features of biological entities invoked by Dembski and Behe to indicate interventionist intelligent design, like irreducible complexity, can arise naturally in the course of the operation of purely evolutionary operators in populations of replicators evolving in a sufficiently complicated physical environment, without "in-flight" interventions by the designer.
Salvador wrote quote:
von-Neumann style self-replicators have the marks of intelligence and deliberate intent. The ability of the digital life forms to replicate should not be de-coupled from the life form. It doesn't make sense to me to appeal to finely tuned intelligent shells like the Avida program to justify that the universe or abiogenesis happened with mindless forces from the start.
I did not and do not argue that shells like the avida platform address the question of abiogenesis, say nothing of the origin of the universe! In fact, I explicitly denied that. On 30 Oct I wrote quote:
Quite obviously the original Ancestor is not evolved within the avida simulation. Abiogenesis is a different question from those that can be studied in the avida environment. But given a simple replicator and the basic evolutionary operators, these simulations demonstrate that in a sufficiently complicated environment, entities with complex structures can evolve, however one wants to define "complex."
That is not 'justifying' the proposition that "the universe or abiogenesis happened with mindless forces." It explicitly denies that the avida simulation speaks to those questions. Hence I don't understand why Salvador seems to attribute the oppposite to me.
Salvador wrote quote:
In the absence of a fitness function, you get a dead computer, and no creatures to begin with. A fitness function is implicit from the start. The environment has to be fine tuned for even a digital creature to have a chance to survive much less evolve.
In that posting I specified (in italics) the absence of an extrinsic fitness function, one imposed from the outside by some external agency. With respect to fitness functions, reproductive competition in an environment characterized by limited resources is sufficient for evolution to occur. If the physical environment varies (in space and/or time) in ways that subpopulations of replicators can differentially exploit to increase their reproductive fitness, then so much the better for them.
Salvador wrote quote:
What is very obvious to me is that intelligently designed shells have to be built for self replication and evolution to even have a chance.
What is obvious to me is that an appropriate environment (shell) has to exist; whether it has to be "built" (with connotations of "designer" and "intelligence" attached to "built") is the question at issue. It can't be answered by simple assertion. In the laboratory one grows cultures of bacteria in Petri dishes, but that does not constitute evidence for the proposition that Petri dishes must exist (and have been intelligently designed) in nature in order for bacteria to grow in the world outside the laboratory.
Finally, Salvador wrote quote:
ID does not exclude the possibility of front loaded design. Although, to clarify, I believe it may be possible to detect interventions and suspensions of known natural laws. Afterall, implicit in the Big Bang theory is the belief known natural laws did not necessarily have the form they have now before Plank time.
I see no necessary or even useful connection between pre-Plank time Big Bang cosmology and conjectured subsequent "suspensions" of natural laws. That seems to me to be an extremely loose analogy that confuses more than it illuminates.
RBH
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Salvador T. Cordova
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posted 03. November 2003 20:14
RBH,
Points well taken. I apologize if I mis-represented you or anyone else. You are right to be a little irritated. My sincere apologies, RBH. It is not my intent to misrepresent. I appreciate your insights and clarifications. My intent is to explore testable and defendable ideas: namely, situations where correlation is an indicator of intelligent influence.
In regards to pre-plank time, the thought was that we test properites of matter in the lab or whatever and we get the impression those those properties are eternal, immutable. However, as we survey all the evidence, we conclude the possibility of very rare singularities, and matter did not have those properties forever. In fact such singularites possibly occur in black holes today. The known laws of physics suggest it, but there are possibilities we don't have all the laws. Many non-Theists believe in the possiblitiy of non-repeating "natural laws". Hence I think Bradley makes a good distintion between repeatable "operation science" (classical science), and non-repeatable "origin science".
I appreciate the distaste for interventionist scenarios (a distaste shared even by some Theists), but if the data supports it, I'm willing to accept it. The hard research work by done so far lends experimental credence.
ISCID fellow Behe in http://www.arn.org/docs/behe/mb_trueacidtest.htm
highlighted Halls experiment with E. Coli (which Miller mistakenly uses as a counterexample). In Hall's own words,
"Adaptive mutations are mutations that occur in nondividing or slowly dividing cells during prolonged nonlethal selection, and that appear to be specific to the challenge of the selection in the sense that the only mutations that arise are those that provide a growth advantage to the cell. The issue of the specificity has been controversial because it violates our most basic assumptions about the randomness of mutations with respect to their effect on the cell."
The mutation was correlated to the environment because of possible front loading, not randomness.
One thing that is repeatable scientifically: human intelligence + laws of physics create biologically related entities on a regular basis which dead inert matter can't in specified time limits. i.e. synthesize Polio in the lab in a short time. That at least lends credence to intelligent design via pan-spermia like Crick (although I do not subscribe to that on scientific grounds). ID does not rule that out pan-spermia either. In fact if germ warfare ever gets going, we will have to account for intelligent design in biological systems whether we like it or not. But the interesting issue is did life happen by a deliberate (perhaps all-powerful)intelligence in the first place (notwithstanding benevolence questions regarding an intelligence that makes germs)? I think so, for the following types of reasons:
Even accepting that correlation occurs without front loading (I do not accept it, but for the sake of argument let's grant it). What kind of naturally occuring environments could correlate to the creation of a Monarch Butterfly in finite time? A petri dish offers little change to a bacterium, what series of environments make a Monarch Butterfly? Even brilliantly designed Avida style programs could not simulate natural environments sophisticated enough to make Random Mutation, Natural Selection creatures form into anything like a Monarch Butterfly in minute detail from a bacterium.
It would be a most impressive simulation to create a digital creature and a series of environments in chemical detail which cause a crawling bug to go into an environment where it becomes advantageous to build a cocoon, then another environment where it's advantageous to liquify itself in the cocoon, then another environment where it's advantageous to form wings from the liquification, then another environment where it forms a sophisticated navigation system to fly point to point over 3 thousand of miles, then another environment to develop instincts to cause migration every 4th generation -- even granting full correlation, I find this a stretch scientifically. Natural selection to me would favor simplicity (even lifelessness) than something as complicated as a Monarch Butterfly.
Behe used to be a Darwinist, and I appreciate the reasons for his reservations about Darwin's claims when I consider facts like these.
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Pim van Meurs
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posted 03. November 2003 23:43
Salvador: What I am saying is that we cannot account for the ORIGIN ( not operation) of life from KNOWN laws of physics.
I see no reason to reach this conclusion yet, OOL research is quite in its infancy but has come up with some fascinating hypotheses. Are you suggest that you believe that once life originated, intelligent designers were not needed (anymore?)
Salvador: but it is sufficient for reasonably inferring a superior intelligence that formed biological life in the first place given the near impossibility of abiogenesis with known laws of physics as stated by Walter Bradley.
In fact many of these 'probability' calculations tend to be somewhat misleading. If Bradley wants to believe that life was designed then why should he be interested in the possibility of natural abiogenesis? After all the two are quite unrelated.
Even if one were to accept Bradley's tentative conclusions that "Not only has science failed to provide naturalistic explanations for the mathematical form of nature, the coincidence of cosmological constants, and the emergence of living things, but also these facets of nature all demonstrate the essential element of design, namely, information." we cannot justify this as evidence for intelligent design.
Salvador: Correlation is a means of detecting intelligence if we can rule out natural reasons for correlation (such as in crystalline structures).
Thus correlation is not enough, we need causation as well? But what if we do not know the answer, is that a reason to infer intelligent design, just because we are ignorant?
What about the following 
Is this designed?
Salvador: Since abiogenesis is nearly impossible, biological systems are reasonably inferred to be designed by intelligence in the first place.
Totally begging the question. First of all there is no convincing evidence that abiogenesis is nearly impossible and secondly the absence of such evidence should not be mistaken for evidence for intelligent design.
Salvador: If information increases in the genome, it was because the biological system arose by intelligent, non-random causes to begin with.
Front loading? But that does not make sense, it can be shown that non intelligent processes can increase information thus there is no real need for intelligent designers.
Salvador:
The thought of 100 young cows having identical DNA with a long dead cow would be attributable to:
1. miracle
2. human intelligence
3. unknown
Or chance or regularity or ....
Salvador:
It showed that correlation in a biological system in one specific case, when we have good data that it should not otherwise happen, is attributable to an intelligent cause (albeit human).
But you already ruled out correlation to be sufficient to infer design.
Salvador: A replica of a cell is a complex specified entitity.
Is it? Since the argument is that complex specified entities must be intelligently designed, this may be a bit begging the question. In fact I would argue that specified complexity can arise naturally.
I fail to see how Salvador's appeal to correlation can be helpful since it is known that not all correlation is attributable to intelligent design as he admits himself.
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Pim van Meurs
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posted 03. November 2003 23:49
Quick response about Salvador's statement about Hall: The mutation was correlated to the environment because of possible front loading, not randomness.
quote:
ADAPTIVE MUTATION
Derived idea - the mutation rate at particular loci increases under stress, eg, nutritional deprivation
An interesting Article on some of the confusing terms
quote:
The most conservative explanation is that cells may simply sustain higher rates of random mutations (hypermutation) under stress. This may be for no other reason than that the resting bacteria experience a breakdown of their normal biochemical processes. Therefore, rare beneficial mutations will numerically occur more often. A more radical explanation is that the genetic tool box of cells selectively mutates portions of its DNA with a much higher likelihood of achieving beneficial results. A debate of these issues can be found in Science.5 In my opinion, the weight of evidence seems to be on the side of non-random mutation (shades of Lamark!). God seems to have incorporated into life the ability to "find a way."
Actually the mutation was correlated to the environment because of selection. Adaptive mutations were shown to be simple responses to stress in the environment which caused hypermutations followed by selection.
Adaptive mutations has the unicorn landed?
quote:
Reversion of an episomal Lac2 allele during lactose selection has been studied as a model for adaptive mutation. Although recent results show that the mutations that arise during selection are not “adaptive” in the original sense, the mutagenic mechanism that produces these mutations may nonetheless be of evolutionary significance. In addition, a transient mutational state induced in a subpopulation of starving cells could provide a species with a mechanism for adaptive evolution.
More recent Amplification-mutagenesis: evidence that "directed" adaptive mutation and general hypermutability result from growth with a selected gene amplification. Hendrickson H, Slechta ES, Bergthorsson U, Andersson DI, Roth JR.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2002 Feb 19;99(4):2164-9.
quote:
When a particular lac mutant of Escherichia coli starves in the presence of lactose, nongrowing cells appear to direct mutations preferentially to sites that allow growth (adaptive mutation). This observation suggested that growth limitation stimulates mutability. Evidence is provided here that this behavior is actually caused by a standard Darwinian process in which natural selection acts in three sequential steps. First, growth limitation favors growth of a subpopulation with an amplification of the mutant lac gene; next, it favors cells with a lac(+) revertant allele within the amplified array. Finally, it favors loss of mutant copies until a stable haploid lac(+) revertant arises and overgrows the colony. By increasing the lac copy number, selection enhances the likelihood of reversion within each developing clone. This sequence of events appears to direct mutations to useful sites. General mutagenesis is a side-effect of growth with an amplification (SOS induction). The F' plasmid, which carries lac, contributes by stimulating gene duplication and amplification. Selective stress has no direct effect on mutation rate or target specificity, but acts to favor a succession of cell types with progressively improved growth on lactose. The sequence of events--amplification, mutation, segregation--may help to explain both the origins of some cancers and the evolution of new genes under selection.
Salvador: What kind of naturally occuring environments could correlate to the creation of a Monarch Butterfly in finite time?
Long time (3.5 billion years or so, and small steps). Tracing back animal and plant life on earth we get a better understanding of many of these issues.
Salvador: Natural selection to me would favor simplicity (even lifelessness) than something as complicated as a Monarch Butterfly.
That makes totally no sense. Lifelessness is not really selectable now is it? Natural selection in fact can be shown to increase complexity in the genome. Perhaps youc could explain your thoughts here?
Salvador: Behe used to be a Darwinist, and I appreciate the reasons for his reservations about Darwin's claims when I consider facts like these.
Why? What makes Behe so special in your eyes?
[ 04. November 2003, 00:02: Message edited by: Pim van Meurs ]
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Salvador T. Cordova
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posted 04. November 2003 13:10
Pim wrote:
>That makes totally no sense. Lifelessness is not >really selectable now is it? Natural selection >in fact can be shown to increase complexity in >the genome. Perhaps youc could explain your >thoughts here?
Glad to clarify. Unless something like Tipler's Omega Point comes true or Divine intervention, nature will burn out, the sun will burn out, the universe will die. Barring a miracle, nature will select lifelessness for everyting in the end. Because life is abundant on Earth, it is easy to get the impression that life arises easily, and life is completely able to overcome any environment.
Expectations that von-Neumann style self-replicators are inevitable and that they will increase in sophistication in any environment are obviously false. They increase information in only specific environments (i.e, germs aren't expected increase in information at 10 degrees Kelvin or 15000 degrees Kelvin, and both extremes exist in the known universe).
Possible fine tuning of the environment is part of ID. Of interest is whether fine tuned environments under the constraints of known laws of physics are even sufficient for life. That is the aim of origin of life research.
Pim wrote:
>It can be shown that non intelligent processes >can increase information thus there is no real >need for intelligent designers.
Can non-intelligent processes generate information in large quantities? I commented above that Adami's program and biological systems should be ruled out as examples. If these systems were the result of intelligent processes to begin with, by definition they are the outcome of an intelligent cause, thus information increase is attributable to intelligence, even if the life forms (like digital creatures) themselves are "mindless".
Thus the study of abiogenesis is crucial to see if the most primitive biological systems are reasonalby attributable to intelligence.
I should note that if we insist on the repeatable experimental scientific method, the law of biogenesis has held. The impression of it's immutability is so strong, that if we find a possible counterexample in the testtube, we would suspect an error or the intervention of intelligence (such as in the synthesis of artificial Polio).
The fact that researchers keep looking for specific conditions that life could arise, implies specificity. Specificity combined with complexity suggests intelligence.
Pim wrote:
>Thus correlation is not enough, we need >causation as well? But what if we do not know >the answer, is that a reason to infer >intelligent design, just because we are ignorant?
Very good point. Nothing is ulitimately provable, not even math, as Godel showed. But there are some ideas more reasonable than others. The correlations I see in biological systems is suggestive of intelligence, but obviously this is insufficient evidence for many at this time. I accept that, and nonetheless appreciate the important and rich technical contributions of those with differing views and the citations of relevant works even within this thread.
Pim, thanks for the Patricia Foster article.
In the same article, "Adaptive mutations are a strategy, not a mechanism." Strategy implies intelligence. Darwinian mechanism may be used, intelligence may be the creator of the mechanisms.
One could write an adaptive computer virus with Darwinian mechnanism for adaptablity. Thus the programmer in his creative genius demonstrates creation of a Darwinian process. He showed that Darwinian processes can emerge from intelligent causes, and not the other way around (assuming abiogensis is impossible without intelligence).
However, much of ID is studying the possible insufficiency of Darwinian mechanism to account for many biological phenomenon. Darwinian mechnisms are possibly only one mechanism (such as in microevolution). Darwinian mechanisms have not been convincingly demonstrated to be sufficient in abiogenesis, protein evolution, etc. It is only a hope that Darwinian processes are sufficient, it is not an experimentally demonstrated fact.
However, what has been demonstrated expermentally is that intelligence is sufficient to create and modify biological systems (artificial polio, transgenic animals, engineered tomatoes, etc.) So as far as demonstrable causes under laboratory conditions, intelligence has a better score card than Urey-Miller and friends. ID does not exclude panspermia (although I don't personally believe it).
Patricia Foster wrote:
"Nonetheless this mechanism would provide a population with a means to evolve adaptively when confronted with adverse conditions."
"When confronted"? A Pre-programmed adaptive mechanism for adverse conditions that have not yet been realized? This hints of intelligent origin with prevision for possible environments.
Hopefully further research will settle the issue, to that end, this thread on "Actual Demonstration Experiments, Appeal to Correlation" has been offered.
I'm being posed with good questions relating to the thread topic, I want to comment on the good questions posed, but I solicit ideas relating to correlation and actual experiments involving correlation as a test for intelligent intervention.
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Salvador T. Cordova
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posted 04. November 2003 13:52
Following up on the 4th law of thermodynamics and conservation of information (related to correlation). I offer the following thoughts (and I admit my limited qualifications to do so)...
A computer, a universal turing machine is fed a program. That program has random number generators that are deterministic, but not detectably deterministic to an outsider looking at the random number generators' outputs.
Extending the Denton's thesis with my own twist:
The program is front loaded (including random number generators modules in the program). All the infomation is there from the start, regardless of how many different states the turing machine occupies during the run.
Analogous to a turing machine calculating the digits of pi, the algorithm is compressible even though the output is large.
During the run, creatures arise in the program and are capable of exploring the digital environment with limited means.
The Digital creatures deduce the 4th law of thermodynamics everywhere except in life forms. Seeing their existence violates the 4th law, the creatures conclude the were designed, END OF PROGRAM.
Admittedly, this is a caricature of Denton's Nature's Destiny, but I was attempting to resolve the apparent paradox with front loading versus the 4th law of thermodynamics.
I can hear the objections coming already. So be it, I'm no expert on thermodynamics:)
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gedanken
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posted 04. November 2003 22:56
Interesting example, the Turing Machine.
But a fractal compression algorithm, or at least a brute force search, can (at least in principle) detect the algorithm used to create the random numbers. Thus they are not truely random And Dr. Dembski has given some discussion of the issue of pseudo-random generators not being random, and of measures based on program length.
But there is a problem. Real world systems are not limited to pseudo-random generators for which one can in fact detect the generator algorithm as compact. Rather in the real world, random processes can produce truly random numbers (such as a termal or quantum randomness based hardware random generator) which would substitute the pseudo-random generator with a truely random source.
Also, are you familiar with Godel's theorem, and the computability equivalents?
[ 04. November 2003, 23:02: Message edited by: gedanken ]
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Salvador T. Cordova
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posted 05. November 2003 00:32
Gedanken,
I'm vaguely familiar with Godel and Chaitin's algorithmic information theory. I'm not familiar with computability equivalents.
Now pondering your comment, I realized a traditional Turing machine might be very challenged to implement anything like physical reality.
However, the gist of my thought was that front loading might occur in such a way as to generate laws of thermodynamics and still be consistent with LCI. Perhaps I should not have even mentioned Turing machines! I don't know.
I leave it to others to pursue or refute these ideas. I have no opinion. This topic is way way beyond my knowledge space...
Gedanken, you know far more than I on this one! Thanks for the insights.
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Pim van Meurs
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posted 05. November 2003 00:47
Salvador: However, what has been demonstrated expermentally is that intelligence is sufficient to create and modify biological systems.
For the latter one it has been shown that natural selection and mutation may be sufficient. So lacking any positive evidence of these designers, and given the observability and testability of mutation and selection, what do you think the best hypothesis is?
As far as origin of life, human intelligence has not been shown to be able to create it, so at most there seems to be a tie here.
Salvador: However, much of ID is studying the possible insufficiency of Darwinian mechanism to account for many biological phenomenon.
The problem is two fold, 1) ID has done little to provide for mechanisms that would eliminate Darwinian mechanisms 2) even if Darwinian mechanisms are eliminated, that should not be confused with evidence FOR design. In fact the issue may not even be of design but of the designer(s). In that area evolution has provided good candidates. What has ID to offer here?
Salvador: Can non-intelligent processes generate information in large quantities?
Sure. What makes you think it couldn't?
Salvador: I commented above that Adami's program and biological systems should be ruled out as examples. If these systems were the result of intelligent processes to begin with, by definition they are the outcome of an intelligent cause, thus information increase is attributable to intelligence, even if the life forms (like digital creatures) themselves are "mindless".
A slippery slope indeed which shows that even if intelligent design may be infered, it may not be proximate causes. But in case of Adami none of the information was attributable to intelligence. Similar effects can be shown in nature. Unless of course selection is deemed to be intelligent your arguments seem to be begging the question.
Let me ask you: Do you accept that Adami showed that random mutation and selection can increase information?
[ 05. November 2003, 00:52: Message edited by: Pim van Meurs ]
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