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Author
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Topic: The Characterization of Intelligent Causation
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LifeEngineer
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Member # 3446
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posted 01. September 2007 05:39
MEASURING SCIENTIFIC COMPETENCE
It has long been recognized that there is huge difference in competence between the professional golfer and the weekend hacker, between the professional baseball player and the little league wannabe, and between the productive scientific genius and the science teacher (them that can do, them that can’t teach). We have reasonably effective methods of measuring competence in golf or baseball. The ‘select the best theories’ analysis provides a simple, but apparently highly effective method of measuring scientific competence.
Science, real competence science, as we learned from grade school, involves formulating, testing and applying scientific theories. It therefore makes logical sense to test for scientific competence by testing the ability to formulate, test, and apply scientific theories. No one should be surprised that demonstrating or not demonstrating competence with scientific theories would provide a reasonable test for scientific competence.
What will come as a surprise to many is the prevalence of scientific competence in the academic community. It appears that if we attempt to test for competence among groups like academic biologists, we will find that less than 1 in 100 are capable of demonstrating even minimal competence. We will in fact find that less than 1 in 100 is even willing to step forward and have their competence tested. Biologists, despite their protestations to the contrary, are apparently aware of their lack of scientific competence.
Given an effective methodology for measuring scientific competence, we can start to move on to more interesting questions. Is it, for example, possible to increase the level or frequency of scientific competence in the academic community by making appropriate changes in the training curriculum? Can the effectiveness of scientific problem solving be materially improved by controlling and limiting the participation by scientific incompetents?
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LifeEngineer
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posted 01. September 2007 06:58
SCIENTIFIC COMPETENCE AND INTELLIGENT CAUSATION
Moderate or high levels of scientific competence appear to be relatively rare even under ideal or optimal conditions. The best or ideal conditions for developing or refining scientific competence appear to be areas where there are significant numbers of other scientifically competent individuals engaging in productive scientific analysis. Various engineering fields provide lots of examples of productive scientific analysis. Systems design, at least in the second half of the 20th Century produced lots of productive scientific analysis (along with lots of examples of incompetent and unproductive analysis).
In largely stagnant fields of research and in fields where standards have departed materially from hard science standards, developing scientific competence involves not only developing relevant skills, but also knowing how to deal with and reject the skills being taught that interfere with productive scientific analysis.
The study of any of the many manifestations of intelligent causation provides an important opportunity to measure scientific competence, because there is such a huge gap between the areas where intelligent causation is successfully and productively analyzed using hard science methodologies and the academic areas that not only don’t accept or teach scientific methods, but actively promote rejection of appropriate skills and methodologies.
Successful systems designers, successful engineers, and successful scientific analysts in all fields understand that intelligent causation and intelligent problem solving involve finding a appropriate method of changing something so that a problem can be solved. Human designers engaged in the intelligent problem solving routinely copy from and learn from the intelligent problem solving performed by other living systems. Only in the moronic anti-science dogma of academia do people pretend that intelligent causation and intelligent goal-directed problem solving behaviors are not exhibited by non-human life forms.
In the real world of real scientific analysis, competent scientists understand how to observe, define, and perform scientific analysis of intelligent causation. Only in the delusional world of academic science is there any support for the ‘we can’t understand or define or formulate intelligence based theories’. This gap or chiasm between real science and academic science explains why a simple test like select the best theories analysis produces such dramatic measures of scientific competence and scientific incompetence.
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IF
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posted 01. September 2007 09:01
LE,
quote:
MEASURING SCIENTIFIC COMPETENCE
...
Plus
SCIENTIFIC COMPETENCE AND INTELLIGENT CAUSATION
...
Are there others that you know who share your views in those two subjects? Both of those subjects would be a great new blog topic or reality TV shows!
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LifeEngineer
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posted 01. September 2007 11:06
IF,
Using the criteria the matters in hard science, no one is capable of falsifying the theories that support these conclusions and no one can propose better theories.
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IF
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posted 01. September 2007 11:35
LE,
quote:
Using the criteria the matters in hard science, no one is capable of falsifying the theories that support these conclusions and no one can propose better theories.
This statement is not clear to me! Can you elaborate?
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Daniel Smith
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posted 01. September 2007 13:43
IF and miosim,
The major finding of this new study was that most of the genome is being used. It is being transcribed into RNA - which is used for many, as yet undiscovered, functions.
quote:
"The new view transforms our view of the genomic fabric," explained Dr Tim Hubbard, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, "The majority of the genome is copied, or transcribed, into RNA, which is the active molecule in our cells, relaying information from the archival DNA copy to the cellular machinery. This is a remarkable finding, since most prior research suggested only a fraction of the genome was transcribed."
"But it is our new understanding of regulation of genes that stands out. The integrated approach has helped us to identify new regions of gene regulation and altered our view of how gene regulation occurs."
http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Info/Press/2007/070613.shtml
This is completely in keeping with the ID view of life. In fact this is the expected outcome. ID predicts such findings. Theories of natural selection on the other hand, have much more explaining to do. Now they must account for a "random walk" that will produce the entire genome - not just the 3-4% that codes for proteins.
When 95% of the genome was believed to be nothing more than evolutionary "leftovers", natural selection could conceivably make sense. Now that we're discovering that basically the entire genome encodes for functions, natural selection must be discarded as a viable mechanism.
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IF
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posted 01. September 2007 14:31
Daniel,
quote:
{From your reference link}
http://www.sanger.ac.uk/Info/Press/2007/070613.shtml
A major surprise was that many of the novel control regions are not shared with other species, but restricted to our human genome," continued Dr Dermitzakis. "We appear to have a reservoir of active elements that seem to provide no specific or direct benefit."
The scale of the collaboration brings new understanding of the interaction between our genome and the proteins that control gene activity and DNA replication. The results show that proteins called histones that bind DNA to package it within the cell nucleus are modified to promote or inhibit gene activity and can be used to predict better the location of novel genes.
"Specific types of modifications of the histone proteins near gene starts are a strong predictor of gene activity," explained Dr Ian Dunham, from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, "whereas further histone modifications at sites away from genes appear to be a signature of regulatory elements that can enhance transcription." A detailed analysis of these effects is also published by the Sanger Institute group in one of the companion papers in Genome Research.
"It is only from a study such as ENCODE that we can obtain such a valuable detailed view of our genome. This project has been a magnificent collaboration amongst some of the world's premier genome scientists, and has revealed many new insights. There is every expectation that a great deal more will be revealed as the project scales to the whole genome."
Although much that is new has been discovered, much yet remains to be understood. Similarity of DNA sequence between species is often a sign of the value of that sequence, yet a function has not been found for many DNA sequences that are conserved. The role of the massive new numbers of RNA transcripts is unknown. And the function of the large number of control elements is yet to be elucidated.
The ENCODE consortium is organized by the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI), whose Director, Francis S Collins, MD PhD, said: "This impressive effort has uncovered many exciting surprises and blazed the way for future efforts to explore the functional landscape of the entire human genome."
"Because of the hard work and keen insights of the ENCODE consortium, the scientific community will need to rethink some long-held views about what genes are and what they do, as well as how the genome's functional elements have evolved. This could have significant implications for efforts to identify the DNA sequences involved in many human diseases."
This is completely in keeping with the ID view of life. In fact this is the expected outcome. ID predicts such findings. Theories of natural selection on the other hand, have much more explaining to do. Now they must account for a "random walk" that will produce the entire genome - not just the 3-4% that codes for proteins.
When 95% of the genome was believed to be nothing more than evolutionary "leftovers", natural selection could conceivably make sense. Now that we're discovering that basically the entire genome encodes for functions, natural selection must be discarded as a viable mechanism.
I don't know yet if it is completely in keeping with anybody's view but, obviously, we will continue learning as long as we keep looking for answers.
We should all "buckle up".
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nosivad
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posted 01. September 2007 17:07
Karl Popper's nonsense about falsifying hypotheses (not theories) is ridiculous. Hypotheses can only be verified or not. If verified they become theories, if not they must be wrong. The Darwinians have cleverly constructed a scheme that is falsifiable proof by asuming that evolution has been gradual and there isn't time enough to observe it. Of course that is dead wrong. No species or any of the higher categories ever developed gradually as the fossil record demonstrates without question.
The word "theory" has so many dictionary definitions that it has lost all utility as a meaningful term. Whatever term is used, if it can't be verified it must be wrong. the Darwinian model has never been verified beyond the intraspecific variety which is all that 150 years of research has ever been able to establish. It is long past time for the scrap heap.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
[ 02. September 2007, 06:19: Message edited by: nosivad ]
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Daniel Smith
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posted 01. September 2007 21:59
IF,
No doubt we have much to learn.
ID predicts that functions will be discovered for pretty much all of the genome.
When they say: "We appear to have a reservoir of active elements that seem to provide no specific or direct benefit."; the key word is "active". These elements are being used, they just don't know how or why. They haven't figure it out yet, but they will!
What does your currently held theory (or more correctly "hypothesis") predict?
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nosivad
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Member # 767
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posted 02. September 2007 06:17
I hesitate to make predictions but in this case I will make a few which seem to be supported by reality.
The first is that creative evolution is a phenomenon of the distant past, an opinion shared by Robert Broom, Julian Huxley and Pierre Grasse as well.
The second is that it will not resume. Just as ontogeny terminates with the death of the individual, so phylogeny does also with the extinction of the species.
The third is that all higher life will soon disappear from the earth as man is destroying his habitat at an unbelievably accelerating rate. I see no possibility of its being reversed.
The fourth is that in the very near future Darwinian mysticism will finally succumb and join the Phlogiston of Chemistry and the Ether of Physics in its rightful place as just one more example of a hyperactive, completely unfettered human imagination.
I hope this answers your question.
"A past evolution is undeniable, a present evolution undemonstrable."
John A. Davison
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LifeEngineer
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posted 02. September 2007 09:20
SCIENTIFIC STANDARD OF TRUTH
IF finally comes forward and has his scientific competence tested (and he fails the test). People with scientific competence should understand the scientific standard for establishing truth and they should recognize that the scientific standard is very different than the various ‘subjective approval’ standards associated with academic science.
Scientific truth is exclusively a property of scientific theories. A scientific theory is recognized as true or currently true if 1) it meets all the formal requirements for a non-trivial predictive theory, 2)it is logically consistent with all members of the set of related theories and 3) it passes all testing (it satisfies the one failure falsifies requirement).
Under most conditions, for a particular causal relationship being analyzed there will only be a single scientific theory that satisfies all three requirements. If at some point in time two conflicting theories exist and neither has been falsified, then both would be considered currently valid. This situation would exist only until someone was able to design and perform a test that confirmed one of the theories and falsified the other.
Note that all competent scientists recognize and accept the same standards of scientific truth and all competent scientists recognize and accept the results of testing. No competent scientists would continue to support a theory that does not meet scientific standards or a theory that has been falsified. The reason that competent scientists can resolve issues and reach consensus is that they all adhere to the same concept and standard of scientific truth and they all accept the current truth established be scientific methodologies.
A scientist may be actively working to falsify and replace an existing theory that he believes is flawed or inadequate, but he still accepts the current scientific truth of currently valid theories. It is only the scientifically incompetent academic scientist who continues to support oft falsified theories like Darwinian theories and continues to reject valid theories because they don’t agree with his personal subjective beliefs. The fact that scientific incompetents don’t understand and don’t accept scientific concepts of truth, means that scientific incompetents can never resolve any issue. The fact that scientific incompetents don’t understand or accept scientific standards explains why academic scientists can continue to support theories that are obviously incompatible with the available evidence.
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LifeEngineer
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posted 02. September 2007 09:46
From the for what it’s worth department, I was discussing select the best theories technique with a friend who is an engineer. He agreed with the principle or concept that the ‘best’ theory will always be one that satisfies basic requirements like well defined variables and well defined functional relationships, a theory that is logically consistent with related theories and that passes testing. He was not, however, familiar with the actual use of the technique and he was intuitively surprised that such analysis could produce results materially different from the results produced by peer review.
I suspect his reaction is similar to that of most individuals with a reasonable degree of scientific competence. Most scientifically competent individuals will understand the concepts and principles involved with select the best theories analysis, but until they actually spend some time performing or reviewing the analysis, the results produced by the analysis will remain very unexpected and somewhat difficult to accept.
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IF
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posted 02. September 2007 12:04
LE,
Are you a competent scientist?
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IF
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posted 02. September 2007 12:16
Daniel,
quote:
ID predicts that functions will be discovered for pretty much all of the genome.
How much is "pretty much"?
quote:
What does your currently held theory (or more correctly "hypothesis") predict?
I don't know for sure! I'm not a scientist. I hope that it predicts that we will find out everything about the function of every part of the DNA molecule which will then allow us to "backtrack", so to speak, if given enough time, resources, and the willingness to find out.
Do you know what it predicts?
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Daniel Smith
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posted 02. September 2007 13:32
quote:
How much is "pretty much"?
I'm a little hesitant to say "all" because there could be some of the genome that is presently unused, but was either previously used or is dedicated for future use. I guess though that - with that considered - the answer is really "all of it".
I think the entire genome shows evidence of being the result of planning and not the result of anything even remotely random. That's one of the hallmarks of intelligent causation - evidence of planning. It's how we determine premeditation at crime scenes, and how we'll identify radio signals from alien races (if there are any) - by the evidence of planning.
quote:
I don't know for sure! I'm not a scientist. I hope that it predicts that we will find out everything about the function of every part of the DNA molecule which will then allow us to "backtrack", so to speak, if given enough time, resources, and the willingness to find out.
Do you know what it predicts?
That's the problem with the "theory" of evolution - it predicts nothing and accepts everything as evidence of it's validity. Therefore, it cannot ever be falsified.
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