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Author
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Topic: Nature reports on Intelligent Design, University Research Ideas
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Salvador T. Cordova
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Member # 959
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posted 18. May 2005 23:06
Art,
The bride example does not supply enough information. It's not a good example. I'm asking for useful contributions to help enlighted students to do research.
The example of bridge only serves to show that there are cases where there is not a sufficient description to even begin to do an analysis.
Salvador
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Salvador T. Cordova
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posted 18. May 2005 23:09
A very good candidate for advanced research would be "convergences", but that is way far away. Some of our IDEA members have done research on this, but that is not typical.
Aside from specified complexity, I think studies in population genetics are fair game. Revisiting Haldane's dilemma would be an excellent topic, for example.
I think the study of DNA convergence or other molecular convergences would be outstanding subject matter accessible almost down to the undergraduate level.
Those sorts of things are amenable to CSI analysis.
Work on the biological turing machine would also be very intersting. DNA and linguistics, etc.
[ 18. May 2005, 23:14: Message edited by: Salvador T. Cordova ]
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Jerry D. Bauer
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posted 19. May 2005 00:20
quote:
FWIW, IMO, if one cannot answer this question, one isn't ready to tackle the issue of (C)SI in biology.
Well this taker isn't done just yet. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I don't play bridge, so I am at a disadvantage here. How many cards are in a bridge deck? Then, how many cards are dealt in a bridge hand?
When I know this, and combining those numbers with the fact that any card is equiprobable of being dealt from a deck providing that deck is well shuffled, I will then calculate the specificity for you and you can easily see this is not CSI (or anything close to it).
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Art
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Member # 179
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posted 19. May 2005 07:54
quote:
Art,
The bride example does not supply enough information. It's not a good example. I'm asking for useful contributions to help enlighted students to do research.
I disagree. The "bridge example" illustrates very nicely the nuances associated with the concept of specification. It also poses a non-trivial challenge that should occupy budding ID theorists for hours on end.
quote:
The example of bridge only serves to show that there are cases where there is not a sufficient description to even begin to do an analysis.
Quite incorrect. One only has to go down to Barnes and Noble and buy a book that explains how bridge is played.
(Hmm.... upon reflection, if one really is of the opinion that bridge is inherently recalcitrant to analysis vis-a-vis ID, CSI, etc., then one must reach a similar conclusion regarding biology.)
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Art
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Member # 179
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posted 19. May 2005 07:58
quote:
I don't play bridge, so I am at a disadvantage here. How many cards are in a bridge deck? Then, how many cards are dealt in a bridge hand?
When I know this, and combining those numbers with the fact that any card is equiprobable of being dealt from a deck providing that deck is well shuffled, I will then calculate the specificity for you and you can easily see this is not CSI (or anything close to it).
Hi Jerry,
Recall that I was asking about the quantity of specified information. Whether it's complex or not is not really relevant.
The tricky part to this exercise is the specification. That's what one is supposed to do with the problem - identify (rule book in hand - there're no secrets here) the specification and proceed.
'Tis not an easy problem, to be sure. But it's easier than the corresponding matter of specification in biology.
[ 19. May 2005, 08:00: Message edited by: Art ]
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andyg
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posted 19. May 2005 12:31
We seem to be having a disagreement between Jerry and Salvador. Jerry says that a string like "thishascsi", or the telephone number of the White House does not have CSI, whereas Salvador (and Dembski) seem to say it does.
Jerry also thinks that a bridge hand cannot have CSI, whereas Art does. Once again, I think Jerry is wrong - or perhaps he has never played bridge?
Could Jerry and Salvador discuss this?
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Salvador T. Cordova
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posted 19. May 2005 13:58
Andy,
I'm happy to discuss, but can you state what books by Dembski you have handy. This will make the discussion go a lot more smoothly if I know you have the books.
Thanks.
Salvador
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andyg
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posted 19. May 2005 14:10
I don't have any books by Dembski handy. I can read articles by him on the Web.
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Salvador T. Cordova
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posted 19. May 2005 14:30
Thank you for telling me. That's fine. That helps me assess how to answer your question more clearly.
A telephone number evidences CSI not because of the number in and of itself, but because it is corresponds to the physical circuitry that rings a specific telephone.
Unless an number has some association with a physical artifact, such as a telephone number that correspondes to specific telephone connection, then there is nothing inherently special about the number that makes the number CSI.
I highly encourage you to read this thread:
Christine, IDEA GMU, experiment
And keep reading till you get the explanation of the "trick question".
Please post the definition of CSI in this thread, and we can go on and answer more of your questions.
[ 19. May 2005, 14:31: Message edited by: Salvador T. Cordova ]
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andyg
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posted 19. May 2005 14:53
I read through the experiment, and the trick question, in which you took a random series, and then intentionally posted that random series, thus claiming it to be designed. You cited Dembski's statement that CSI is:
quote:
The coincidence of conceptual and physical information where the conceptual information is both identifiable independently of the physical information and also complex
If I understand correctly, you took her (random) physical information and said "Aha! I will take this random string of numbers and post it as a question". Your intention consitutes the design. The design cannot be detected, thus you get a false negative. In this example, the only person who is aware of the conceptual information is you.
How am I doing so far?
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Salvador T. Cordova
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posted 19. May 2005 15:58
In Post 79
Christine made the following random roll of 16 dice and got:
code:
Case A:
V R Y G C W B P V R Y G C W B P
6 6 3 6 3 4 3 1 2 6 3 2 4 1 2 4
Much later I took the pattern she had and designed my string of dice match the configuration above. Then, I posted that configuration on the net. I did not take any shortcuts. The configuration of my dice in that case was:
code:
Case B:
V R Y G C W B P V R Y G C W B P
6 6 3 6 3 4 3 1 2 6 3 2 4 1 2 4
In Case A, the string:
code:
6 6 3 6 3 4 3 1 2 6 3 2 4 1 2 4
is NOT CSI
however
in Case B, the very same string:
code:
6 6 3 6 3 4 3 1 2 6 3 2 4 1 2 4
IS CSI.
In the second case, it is true, I was the only one who knew it was designed, no one else figured that out.
quote:
You asked:
If I understand correctly, you took her (random) physical information and said "Aha! I will take this random string of numbers and post it as a question". Your intention consitutes the design.
Not quite, the reason, Case B, evidences CSI is that CASC B coincides with Case A, and Case B happened at a later date. Thus Case B has a coincidence of conceptual information (from the blueprint which Case A provided) with the physical information of Case B.
The physical information in Case A, served as the conceptual information of Case B.
Do you understand the difference between conceptual and physical information and what the coincidence between the two mean?
[ 19. May 2005, 16:01: Message edited by: Salvador T. Cordova ]
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andyg
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posted 19. May 2005 16:19
quote:
Not quite, the reason, Case B, evidences CSI is that CASC B coincides with Case A, and Case B happened at a later date. Thus Case B has a coincidence of conceptual information (from the blueprint which Case A provided) with the physical information of Case B.
Do you understand the difference between conceptual and physical information and what the coincidence between the two mean?
No. I'm still confused. How did the initial random string (physical information) become conceptual information? As I understand, it was your intention to re-use it that brought about the change.
Sorry to be dense about this, but I am finding the exchange useful.
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Jerry D. Bauer
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posted 19. May 2005 20:42
Have you guys figured out yet why they call this brainstorming?
1) Would anyone disagree that CSI is hinged on the upper probability bound of one chance in 10^150 of an event occurring and that anything falling below this UPB is not CSI? It can be specified information without being complex specified information. There is a difference in terms here. And.....the fact that systems above 10^150 must be designed does not also extrapolate to, therefore, all designed systems are CSI. We must use other methods of detection when design is suspected but the system calculates out at less than the UPB.
2) Let me address Art's hand of cards first. I don't play bridge, but I play other games and they cannot be THAT much different. I play spades and hands of 13 cards are dealt from a deck of 52. Providing that deck is well shuffled, I have a 1 in 52 chance of getting any card in the deck because they are all equiprobable.
So the odds I will get the hand I got is 52^13, or rounding, 10^22. Now is 10^22 anywhere close to 10^150? This is not CSI by any stretch. This is not even specified as one card works just the same to form a randomly dealt deck as does any other.
3) I haven't read Dembski's writings on telephone numbers but I fail to see anything close to CSI in one of those either. Considering that phone numbers are 7 digits assigned from a pool of available numbers I will receive 7 of 10 numbers: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8, and 9. So, the odds of me receiving the telephone number I have is 7^10, or rounding, 10^9.
This is not CSI. However it may be specified information if we consider that an operator designed the number and it was not random. But specified information is not necessarily complex specified information.
4) Finally, Sal’s dice. System A is random and system B is designed and therefore specified, but neither are complex specified information because neither meet the UPB criterium.
Each die has 6 possible states it can come to rest in and there are 16 dice in the system. So, we have 6^16 = 10^13. This also is not close to 10^150, thus, even though it may be designed and each die is specified in system B to play a particular role in coming up with that particular sequence, SI is not CSI.
[ 19. May 2005, 20:45: Message edited by: Jerry D. Bauer ]
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andyg
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posted 19. May 2005 21:28
Jerry's definition of CSI is very different from either Salvador's or Dembski's. For Jerry, the essence of CSI is its improbability: quote:
Would anyone disagree that CSI is hinged on the upper probability bound of one chance in 10^150 of an event occurring and that anything falling below this UPB is not CSI? It can be specified information without being complex specified information. There is a difference in terms here. And.....the fact that systems above 10^150 must be designed does not also extrapolate to, therefore, all designed systems are CS
This is clearly wrong. A string of random digits of sufficient length would be labeled as designed according to Jerry. I cannot believe this is what he means. For Jerry, specificity is equal to the amount of information - at least that's what he seems to be saying. Feel free to correct. Specificity sensu Dembski requires a pattern.
Complexity sensu Dembski seems similar to Kolmogorov complexity - i.e. the number of bits that you can compress a string to without losing information. So a string of a million random decimal digits is complex sensu Dembski, but a string of a million repeated 01s is not, as it can be expressed by a far shorter string. A string of a million random decimal digits is not specified sensu Dembski, as it does not exhibit a pattern.
The problem that I am grappling with is how one recognizes Demsbki's "pattern". I am hoping that Salvador will enlighten me.
For example, in the case of his "trick question", the only people who could possibly have identified his second string as CSI would have been a) Salvador himself and b) and readers of the thread with eyes/memories sharp enough to realize that the string he had posted had already been posted by someone else. If you showed that string to an ID specialist who had not been following the thread, there is no conceivable way they could have correctly identified the string as having CSI.
Comments?
[ 19. May 2005, 21:30: Message edited by: andyg ]
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Art
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posted 19. May 2005 22:31
quote:
2) Let me address Art's hand of cards first. I don't play bridge, but I play other games and they cannot be THAT much different. I play spades and hands of 13 cards are dealt from a deck of 52. Providing that deck is well shuffled, I have a 1 in 52 chance of getting any card in the deck because they are all equiprobable.
So the odds I will get the hand I got is 52^13, or rounding, 10^22. Now is 10^22 anywhere close to 10^150? [Smile] This is not CSI by any stretch. This is not even specified as one card works just the same to form a randomly dealt deck as does any other.
The deal is only the beginning of the exercise. What needs to be factored in is not just the presence of a given card, but the probability that said card will win a trick. (It's more involved than this, but we can start here for the moment.)
So, how do we get a handle on this?
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