Intelligent Design in Universities

For that matter, how would you convince a Catholic scientist who sees ID, in its present form, as scientifically of poor quality, and as theologically unnecessary, and perhaps even a presumptuous human misconception of limitations on modes of divine action?Personally, in its present state of development, I don't see where ID has earned the status as an intellectual discipline to demand a "workable compromise" for its inclusion in curricula.At the university level, it should probably remain in voluntary student clubs, and perhaps introduced at the sole discretion of individual faculty as a properly contexted topic of discussion where related.

The trouble with these sorts of analogical arguments from quantum mechanics, aside from their imprecision and vagueness, is that they are just as consistent with Buddhist concepts of an impersonal disembodied universal sentience as they are with the Abrahamic God concept.You're still faced with theological arguments to resolve that conundrum, and a program that really is not "research" in any real sense, because it does not produce testable and falsifiable predictions, but instead confines itself to attempting to critique scientific concepts it finds incompatible with previously constrained theological concepts.You aren't willing to go wherever the evidence leads, even if it forces a reassessment or abandonment of your preconceptions. If you want to claim to be scientific, you have to be willing to go where the evidence leads, like it or not.

So you would agree that ID is philosophy, not science ? Of what use is it to a practicing scientist, then ?

How would inorganic chemistry of the transition metals using ID differ from inorganic chemistry of the transition metals using methodological naturealism ?

Well, as regards ID then, I'm with Laplace. I have no need of that hypothesis.

Problem for IDists is, this isn't ancient Greece. And that's a good thing. The Greeks probably failed to reach the industrial age because they were wed to their deductive approach to science, and never developed modern empiricism and the ability to follow the evidence wherever it leads. And you'd have us go back to that. How misguided.In 2005 A.D., we have evidence that stochastic processes can indeed generate designs. In fact, humans use them. Genetic algorithms are used in the layout of elements on VLSI circuits, among other things.You'll no doubt say something along the lines of "yes, but someone has to design the algorithm or cost function". There is evidence however, that that is not the case with respect to biological structures. It's certainly not the case in condensed matter physics. Nature itself seems to generate the algorithms and cost functions for biological evolution or crystal structure, among other things.If you want to learn some real thermodynamics, instead of the sham version you seem to have picked up, you might look for information on simulated annealing. This is an optimization algorithm that was developed in the modern scientific era not by teleological analogies, but by the quite opposite idea of modeling the stochastic thermodynamic process of annealing in metals.The argument that the human eye, or bacterial flagellum, or biostructures in general, cannot arise from stochastic processes, is just specious argument from incredulity. The biologists have plausible scenarios, supported by evidence, that say otherwise.Unless and until ID can generate testable scientific hypotheses, it's not going to get much respect from those who do science for a living.And you really should consider checking your hubris about your scientific knowledge at the door of the forum. There are several Ph.Ds in physical sciences that participate on this forum. To paraphrase Pauli, your assertions about the 2LOT are so bad, they're not even wrong.You come across as the type who would step into an operating room after reading an undergraduate anatomy textbook, and tell the surgeon "Stand aside, I'm taking over !" Certainly not in ID. With your "wedge strategy", you reveal a postmodern view of scientific knowledge as something socially and politically constructed to conform to a particular ideology, right down there on all fours with Lysenko or the leftist postmodernists that Allan Sokol so thoroughly exposed.

He's got some papers on his site. Looks like handwaving estimates of the size of a parameter space, without any consideration of optimization within the parameter space. Pretty much useless.This message has been edited by paisano, 05-05-2005 11:24 AM

I've yet to see any evidence in your posts of anything other than an ability to quote equations. Let's see you develop one of your assertions with a technical argument.

Well, let's review the history. Back at Post 37 you made the following assertion: Rather than back this assertion up with a technical argument, you quoted a completely unrelated paper, and were soundly refuted by another poster .I don't think you can construct a technically sound argument that the 2LOT supports your position, because the 2LOT simply does not have the implications you think it does.But, if you think otherwise, let's see the calculation. Unsupported assertions won't cut it. I haven't seen either of you do it yet. All I have seen is unsupported assertions .

You used a form of the Boltzmann equation, S = k ln W, that is only valid for a case in which there is an ensemble of microstates to the parameter space of the system in which each microstate is equiprobable. In that case, and only in that case, can you simply plug in the number of microstates = W. = your factorial expression.However, this assumption is completely unwarranted for the system that you tried to do the calculation on ( a human genome, with the microstates the genetic sequences) . You certainly presented no arguments that you either understood the more general form of the Boltzmann equation for non-equiprobable microstates , nor any technical motivation for your - again - unwarranted assertion that the microstates of this system are equiprobable.As only one example, you forgot about the role of natural selection. This imposes constraints on the microstates of the system such that they are not all equiprobable. Not to mention all the other modalities of genetic change that you neglected. I'll let the biologists comment on those if they like.Further, you appear to have confused thermodynamic entropy with Shannon information entropy. The two cannot be equivocated. The 2LOT does not apply to Shannon information entropy. Shannon entropy is a measure of the macroscopic information of a system like a communications channel in terms of its avaliable states, and there is no constraint on this that is analogous to the 2LOT. Macroscopic and microscopic entropy are two different animals.It's literally like comparing the change in entropy of a deck of cards due to shuffling it with the change due to heating the deck with a hair dryer. The latter is orders of magnitude larger.I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but the only thing you computed is a meaningless number, and the only thing you refuted is the already slim evidence that you actually understood either thermodynamics or information theory.This message has been edited by paisano, 05-05-2005 11:04 PM

Well, actually you are further proving my point with more equivocation. That's exactly my point. The generalized Boltzmann equation, and the Shannon entropy equation, are of the same form. They represent two different quantities, however.You used S= k ln W for your computation. I said you were assuming , without evidence, the the microstates were equiprobable. Those little p's with the little subscript i's are the microstate probabilities. If you assume the microstates are equiprobable, you get the simplified equation.That is why your calculation was completely specious. You can't assume equiprobability. Your arguent is doomed by a fundamental error from the start. More equivocation. You asserted that the human genome was "best when designed, and degraded over many generations". Now you are moving the goalposts by asserting one generation.Your posts are the very definition of pseudoscience - crafted to resemble science to a layperson, but with fatal, fundamental flaws
that are obvious to someone with some training.I see your errors, and so do others in this forum. That you are uncorrectable is regrettable, but not surprising. After all you aren't about to let your postmodern agenda be derailed by the facts.

It doesn't. The 2LOT applies to thermodynamic entropy and heat. Period.dS = dQ/TIt does not apply to information entropy, which is what is being computed in the coin example. No matter how much IDists want it to, it just does not apply.Hence the equivocation.

Speak for yourself. You're just sort of slinging unrelated thermodynamics around, but have yet to construct a coherent case for why your argument is evidence for anything. You've made physics mistakes, and you've made biology mistakes. I think your argument depends on insisting the mistakes aren't really mistakes, and collapses if you admit they are mistakes. But try again, omitting the mistakes, if you like. This logical entropy appears to be a creationist/IDist invention. It certainly is not physics. There is thermodynamic entropy, there is Shannon information entropy, and there is Kolmogorov entropy, which has applications in chaos theory.They aren't interchangeable, and the 2LOT only applies to the thermodynamic entropy, so you can't invoke it if you are going to make arguments based on Shannon entropy, as you appear to be attempting to do.Perhaps logical entropy represents the tendency of creationist/IDist arguments to become ever more incoherent with their duration ? Exactly my point. Throwing things and hoping they'll stick isn't scientific argument.Try making a coherent, logical case for your position.

What does this prove ? They're adding two unrelated quantities. Like your attempts, theirs is incorrect.Even the ICR has Ph.Ds. So why should that sway the argument ? Try quoting something from Phys. Rev. or another actual physics journal, if you want to quote references.I haven't seen any of the other mainstream physicists on here correct any errors I've made, and I'd hope they would do so.Try computing the thermodynamic entropy change caused by heating a deck of cards, or the coins in the coin example, by 1 degree K, and the Shannon entropy change of reshuffling the cards or coins. The thermodynamic entropy change is orders of magnitude larger, because there are many more microstates of the molecules in the substances, than there are permutations.And you made it even worse in your next post by trying to equate thermodynamic and Shannon entropy with E = mc**2. This is the mother of all non-sequiturs. Neither the thermal motion of molecules in, or the permutations, of coins or genes, is relativistic. You've got chutzpah, I'll give you that.My point is that you are the one making equivocating claims that the 2LOT applies to Shannon entropy, and you are the one that should retract that argument, because it's false. OK. When in a hole, stop digging. I shouldn't need to quote standard undergraduate thermo/stat mech texts like Kittel or Reif, but I was laboring under the impression that you did know enough at this level for discussion. If you in fact have studied at this level, sadly, it evidently hasn't availed you much. Well if that thought comforts you, whatever. But you've not shown any evidence that it is the case. Quite the contrary.

Well, that in itself is an emotional argument.Speaking only for myself, I bear no personal hostility toward Jerry or anyone else.In the sciences, tough, even trenchant, but topical, debate on the issues is the order of the day. The first year of graduate school consists largely of getting what you think you know constantly tested and attacked, again in a topical but nonpersonal manner, by faculty, and your fellow students. This is training for the peer review process ,and it is how science, pure and applied, is done on a daily basis.