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Author
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Topic: Foray into Steganography and the Biotic Message Theory
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Salvador T. Cordova
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Member # 959
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posted 14. June 2005 08:56
Two of the most far reaching ID theories are William Dembski's Steganography research and Walter ReMine's Biotic Message theory:
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(from becoming a disciplined science )
William Dembski writes:
10. Steganography
Finally, we come to the research theme that I find most intriguing. Steganography, if you look in the dictionary, is an archaism that was subsequently replaced by the term "cryptography." Steganography literally means "covered writing." With the rise of digital computing, however, the term has taken on a new life. Steganography belongs to the field of digital data embedding technologies (DDET), which also include information hiding, steganalysis, watermarking, embedded data extraction, and digital data forensics. Steganography seeks efficient (that is, high data rate) and robust (that is, insensitive to common distortions) algorithms that can embed a high volume of hidden message bits within a cover message (typically imagery, video, or audio) without their presence being detected. Conversely, steganalysis seeks statistical tests that will detect the presence of steganography in a cover message.
Consider now the following possibility: What if organisms instantiate designs that have no functional significance but that nonetheless give biological investigators insight into functional aspects of organisms. Such second-order designs would serve essentially as an "operating manual," of no use to the organism as such but of use to scientists investigating the organism. Granted, this is a speculative possibility, but there are some preliminary results from the bioinformatics literature that bear it out in relation to the protein-folding problem (such second-order designs appear to be embedded not in a single genome but in a database of homologous genomes from related organisms).
While it makes perfect sense for a designer to throw in an "operating manual" (much as automobile manufacturers include operating manuals with the cars they make), this possibility makes no sense for blind material mechanisms, which cannot anticipate scientific investigators. Research in this area would consist in constructing statistical tests to detect such second-order designs (in other words, steganalysis). Should such second order designs be discovered, the next step would be to seek algorithms for embedding these second-order designs in the organisms. My suspicion is that biological systems do steganography much better than we, and that steganographers will learn a thing or two from biology -- though not because natural selection is so clever, but because the designer of these systems is so adept at steganography.
and
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The Central Claim of Message Theory
Life was reasonably designed for survival and for communicating a message that tells where life came from. The biotic message says, "Life is the product of a single designer -- life was intentionally designed to resist all other interpretations of origin."
Walter has done research on population genetics. In reviewing his work, I conclude that there are sizeable sections of DNA not subject to natural selection. That is a reasonable interpretation of interpretation of Kimura, Ohta, and Haldane. To maintain and fix large sections of DNA would require killing off large sections of the population, so much so extinction would be indicated.
A bold prediction by ReMine has been that Natural Selection can not be a substantial force to account for many features in biology. That too is consistent with Davison, Berlinski, and the neutralists like Kimura. We have had a recent study that seems supportive of the these theoretical predictions:
University of Chicago study overturns conventional theory in evolution
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For a pseudogene – a stretch of DNA sequence that resembles a gene but has no function – its Ka/Ks ratio is approximately 1.0, which means that synonymous and nonsynonymous mutations are accepted at the same rate since the gene is functionally irrelevant.
This fact is actually consistent with Biotic Message theory and the search for Steganography. There are some bold predictions related to this which occured to me in a brainstorm.
One of the IDEA members at George Mason is a protein engineer. One of the ways that she is able to alleviate the difficulty of exploring the large combinatorial space to elucidate the protein structure is to study what are called as "conserved" regions in the DNA. These "conserved" regions are identical across species and are believed to be "conserved" because selection pressure is enforcing the similarity.
If pseodo-genes are not subject to selection pressure and have been preserved over time to be also "conserved" as the genes they map too, this raises a very troubling problem for population genetics and Darwinian theory. However it would be consistent with the Steganography thesis and the Biotic Message. I would like to offer my brainstorm:
1. I make the bold prediction pseudo-genes will be shown to be statistitically inconsistent with both selectionist and neutralist interpretations of population genetics
2. I will discuss why this is consistent with Biotic Message theory and it's implications for steganography research
I open this thread to discuss the statistical predictions that can be empirically validated over time. Biotic Message Theory and Steganography research have made the climate friendly for novel interpretations of population genetics. I'm cautiously optimistic the emprical data will bear out my prediction. If I'm wrong, I'm happy to buy someone a beer (a root beer). ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
[ 14. June 2005, 09:06: Message edited by: Salvador T. Cordova ]
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Salvador T. Cordova
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Member # 959
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posted 16. July 2006 23:12
John Davison,
I belive you meant to post this comment here:
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I presented powerful evidence, first revealed by Schindewolf. that the similarties beween marsupial and placental mammals indicate a common design which, in my view, must have been "prescribed" in the genomes of both lines. Schindewolf himself used the word "designed" to describe those similarities, a word which to this day inflames the atheist mentality of the Darwinian zealot. They are simply incapable of accepting any indication of purpose in the universe. It boggles my mind that such souls still exist, utterly oblivious to that which is so obvious to some of us. They simply must be "born that way."
It is most beautifully illustrated in the figure from Schindewolf in my PEH paper comparing the skulls of placental and marsupial saber-toothed cats, species separated by millions of years in time and thousands of miles in geographic locale. There is no conceivable way that such profound similarities could ever have arisen through natural selection of allelic mutations.
The gradualist, incremental interpretation by the Darwinists is a myth like every other aspect of the Darwinian fairy tale. Every true species appeared full blown in its final configuration with the possible exception of slow imcremental changes that MAY have taken place over vast periods of time. These include the tendency toward gigantism which without exception has invariably led to extinction as proven by the fossil record of the successive ages of the Amphibians, Reptiles, Birds and Mammals. Even they were probably saltational, without transitional forms.
"We might as well stop lookimg for the missing links as they never existed"
Otto Schindewolf
"The first bird hatched from a reptilian egg."
ibid
Thank you for your input.
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 17. July 2006 07:41
Salvador
Well thank YOU!
We a;eady have direct evidence that gene families were present long before they were expressed much later in evolution. I refet to the following from my PEH paper.
"Further support for the Prescribed Evoluitionary Hypothesis comes from one of the most primitive of the animal phyla, the Cnidaria (Kortschak et al, (2003). Working with the planula stage of the coral Acropora millepora, they found it to be genetically very complex, containing many genes previously thought to be vertebrate innovations."
I would like to take this opportunity to predict that these same gene families would be silenced in the adult coral. Like ontogeny, phylogeny resulted in part at least from the loss of potentiality rather than its gain. The Acropora larva has far greater potentiality than does the adult which it becomes.
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Bruce Fast
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Member # 924
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posted 17. July 2006 13:18
Salvador, I gave your post a careful read last night, and thought about it a bit. The idea that the designer would have carefully embedded what might be considered his "signature" or "copyright notice" seems somehow ludicrous. The designer seems somewhat elusive, seems to have taken care to not be easily scientifically detectable for some reason, so I fail to see why he would suddenly change tack at this point. It is certainly clear that the ID meta-hypothesis does not require that this hypothesis be valid.
However, I do seem to see some evidence that just such a signature does exist. I produced a thread on this site discussing pentadactylism. It was very interesting. It would seem that polydactylism is one mutation away in many, if not all, quadrupeds. If RM+NS is the driving force of nature, then some animals would have found it advantageous in their environment (snow, sand, water, underground) to implement this tiny little mutation. Yet it appears that pentadactylism came into existance twice, and has been surprisingly tenacious. The only good reason for its tenacity is that the desiger likes 5.
Then there's Denton's claims reguarding the tree of life imaged in the mutations of the cytochrome C gene. His logic is impeccible. Why would a bug's cytochrome C differ from that of a pea by the same amount as the humans? One would think that the bug is a "lower" for of life, therefore having a higher mutation rate. You would also think that the bug's high generation rate would increase its mutation rate. Therefore the bug's cytochrome C, by all good logic, should have drifted farther from the pea than the human's. The cytochrome C's tree seems to be an example of steganography to me.
I must admit, Salvador, that the discussion about marsupial/placental convergence is highly intriguing. This intrigue is, as you know, pointed out by Dr. Denton and by Dr. Davison -- and many others I'm sure. This level of convergence certainly makes no sense from an NDE foundation. I am not sure, however, if this is a true example of steganography, or if it is better explained by PEH. Ie, is this the copyright watermark of the designer, or is this an artifact of the mechanism of evolution -- prescription.
Dr. Davison, your description of the genes in the Cnidaria is intriguing. Again you present data that is hard pressed to be explained by NDE. However, it seems to be better explained by your PHE hypothesis than by steganography.
I have not seriously considered steganography as a biological concept (I have considered it, and worked with it, in the digital world) however as I do consider it, I find reason to expect that it may prove valid. I will reiterate, however, that whether it proves valid or not hardly will challenge the ID position.
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John A. Davison
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Member # 1425
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posted 17. July 2006 15:26
We must dispose of the notion that natural selection was ever a creative element in evolution. It most definitely was not! Quite the contrary, natural selection prevented evolution just as sexual reproduction always did and still does.
Even as an anti-evolutionary device it typically failed as species became extinct because they could not change to keep pace with significant alterations in the environment. That is most dramatically illustrated right now when species are disappearing at an alarming rate as man destroys their habitats with gay abandon. There is not a shred of evidence that any of the many countless and probably thousands of species that have become extinct in historical times have been replaced with new life forms. That is just one more of my several challenges that continue to remain unanswered or even acknowledged.
Why do I continue to waste my time?
Like my many sources I too simply do not exist!
Whether we like it or not the vast bulk of the evidence pleads that evolution is finished just as both Robert Broom and Julian Huxley claimed long ago. Pierre Grasse suggested as much as well. To continue to blindly assume otherwise is intellectually inexcusable, ideologically driven by confirmed atheist mentalities and, above all, dangerous to our own survival.
Extinction is to phylogeny what the death of the individual is to ontogeny. Both are irreversible, inevitable and, like every other aspect of life on this planet, "prescribed."
"The one thing we learn from history is that we do not learn from history."
anonymous
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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Bruce Fast
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Member # 924
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posted 17. July 2006 17:41
Dr Davison, "We must dispose of the notion that natural selection was ever a creative element in evolution."
I am confused. In my post I never suggested anything positive about natural selection. I mentioned the inadequacy of NDE and of RM+NS, but only because the NDE hypothesis is the predominant viewpoint of the current scientific community. I did positively discuss "evolution", but when doing so I had other evolutionary hypotheses in mind besides NDE, such as your PEH.
I don't think that Salvador sees NDE as valid, and I certainly don't. I'll give up on pointing out its inadequacies when the majority of the biological community has finally seen the light.
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posted 13. July 2006 02:43
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