Intelligent Design in Universities

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Rather than back this assertion up with a technical argument, you quoted a completely unrelated paper, and were soundly refuted by another poster.

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*chuckle* Soundly refuted by his suddenly getting the heck out of Dodge and no longer addressing my posts to him on the subject? Boy. If that's how you guys refute things in here then I suppose I must have been refuted a 100 times or so thus far. But, indeed, I will construct a technical argument to throw out.

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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.

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But, if you think otherwise, let's see the calculation. Unsupported assertions won't cut it.

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Yes, let's do, Doctor. And I expect you actually to do something mathematically to refute this, not refuse to address this post, run and hide and proclaim with hubris to the masses that you have refuted another IDist.I tried to show you this in our last major exchange but you simply refuse to answer the post even with me goading you a bit. Speaking, in this case biologically, considering the genome of vertebrates:As loose information is diffused, information entropy will tend to increase unless energy, guided by intelligence, is added into the system to stabilize it.In other words, since genes are loose information (information that is not "fixed" in a manner it cannot change as it diffuses, like a library book or video tape) we do not expect to see macroevolution via increasing information content due to random mutations in a population of organisms over time as Darwin asserted.In fact, we would expect to see just the opposite: a devolving genome by the increase of harmful mutations and that species headed toward extinction as we have observed 98% of the species doing in the fossil record. The trouble is that considering vertebrates, we never had any studies on this until Eyre-Walker and Keightley published their study in Nature on a comparison of the genomes of Chimp and Man over a period of about 6 million years considering homo sapiens evolutionary walk from hominids.Once this was published (See Mick? Here is a paper that supports ID but it's gasp...biology!) Eyre-Walker brought our observation into the scientific method experimentally because lo and behold, the researchers did not show the genome to be evolving via increasing information over time but to be devolving by the steady increase of detrimental mutations as this information is diffused down lineages from progenitors to progeny.In fact, the study concludes in the abstract: "Of these mutations, we estimate that at least 38% have been eliminated by natural selection, indicating that there have been more than 1.6 new deleterious mutations per diploid genome per generation. Thus, the deleterious mutation rate specific to protein-coding sequences alone is close to the upper limit tolerable by a species such as humans that has a low reproductive rate, indicating that the effects of deleterious mutations may have combined synergistically. Furthermore, the level of selective constraint in hominid protein-coding sequences is atypically low. A large number of slightly deleterious mutations may therefore have become fixed in hominid lineages."Note that these accumulating deleterious mutations are considered AFTER those that were weeded out by natural selection. Then knowing this, we can learn just how this study was accomplished having it further explained to us by professor of genetics James Crow (I believe at U of Nebraska) who served as an interpreter in this study. HERE we read: "Eyre-Walker and Keightley have made the analysis feasible by concentrating on protein-coding regions. They measured the amino-acid changes in 46 proteins in the human ancestral line after its divergence from the chimpanzee. Among 41,471 nucleotides, they found 143 nonsynonymous substitutions -- mutations where swapping one DNA base for another changes an amino acid, and therefore the final protein made by that gene."Now let's get into some mathematical physics with the physicist. I asked you: "Are you familiar with the work of Ludvig Boltzmann? Do you agree that he formulated the formula S = K log W, where S is the entropy of a given system, K is Boltzmann’s constant, 1.38 x 10^-23, and W is the total number of possible microstates in a given system?Do you also agree with the stipulation that with any chemically spontaneous event or reaction, entropy will tend to increase as stated here?" I'll answer this for since you simply refuse to, "Yes I do!" Thank you.The Eyre-Walker study showed this entropy increasing at the rate of 1.6 deleterious mutations accumulating in the human genome each generation and our plight is to show this entropically. It just so happens that W in this formula stands for statistical weight--the total number of ways that matter/energy can be arranged-- and can be calculated as Feynman told us how to calculate it: "The logarithm of that number of ways is the entropy. The number of ways in the separated case is less, so the entropy is less, or the "disorder" is less." ReferenceFeynman never used Boltzmann's formula in this particular lecture but it is clear he is referring to it. So let's calculate this. Infodynamic theorists (IDists) use the same statistical method as do thermodynamicists and physicists as those "numbers of ways" are calculated using combinatorials or factorials.The University of New South Wales, physics department has a good page on calculating entropy HERE.In fact they use the same formula that ID theorists use: This states that W will equal a factorial relationship of the differences of what we are considering (accumulating deletariously mutated genes as opposed to the rest of the genome) or W = (41469.4 + 1.6)! / (41469.4)!(1.6)! ~ (So let's just calculate our weight and then we can go to Boltzmann's math to calculate entropy.W = (41469.4 + 1.6)! / (41469.4)!(1.6)! --- 3.66 x 10^173494 / 2.14 x 10^173487W = 1.71 x 10^7Now we can do Boltzmann's math:S = K log W, S = (1.38 x 10^-23) log(1.71 x 10^7)S = 9.98 x 10^-23There is more than one way to skin a cat, of course. I can stick joules and degrees Kelvin in Boltzmann's formula if you are a math purest, but most no longer do this, and we can go with Uncle Claude and calculate this in bits, if you like, just holler.Anyhow, there you have it, my new friend. If I have pushed all the right buttons (which I'm prone to NOT do occasionally--just correct me), then the macroevolution inherent in Darwinism stands refuted both scientifically (the study) and mathematically because our final calculation shows increasing entropy in the human genome and therefore disorganization in that genome for the last 6 million years. There is no evidence it has been any different in the annals of human history. ID walks tall. See why the Darwinists refuse to publicly debate us in Kansas? They KNOW they would lose because the science and math is all in ID's camp!NOTE TO READERS: If you want to learn this type of ID insight for yourself sign up for my summer course on this at designdynamics.org ~This message has been edited by Jerry Don Bauer, 05-05-2005 09:31 PM

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Design Dynamics

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Exactly how is ID, which posits an unknown force capable of manipulating events on many scales in some unknown yet effective manner (a decent definition of a deity) not just a sham for simple religious creationism?

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I can see how it looks that way, sort of how it can look like atheists and/or secular humanists support darwinism.I don't see how creationists could support ID...they differ on too many KEY issues...This message has been edited by Limbo, 05-05-2005 09:14 PM

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Perhaps you can answer a simple question. I doubt it, but I will give you a shot.

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Mike, if you learn one thing from this thread I hope you will learn that people will not respond to provocative posts like this at the professional level. We all tend to trade insults and that's human nature, but in the first post? Think about that.

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Design Dynamics

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Mike asked:
Perhaps you can answer a simple question. I doubt it, but I will give you a shot.

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Quite the contrary, I'm only giving you a shot. I'm responding not to persuade you, but to encourage sympathetic readers.

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Exactly how is ID, which posits an unknown force capable of manipulating events on many scales in some unknown yet effective manner (a decent definition of a deity) not just a sham for simple religious creationism?

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ID is rooted in interpretations of physical law, therefore it qualifies as a hypothesis (not necessarily proven truth, but a hypothesis). Biblical Creationism is based on a religious text and faith positions. Where the ID and Biblical Creationism arrive at the same conclusions, some have considered it as a candidate for scientific creationism, as listed here by Stephen Meyer:
Can there be a scientific theory of creation?If the ID inferences are derived purely from interpretations of physical law and empirical evidence, then what is the problem? If the emprical evidence is consistent with the creation account, then that does not negate the plausibility of the inference. Many IDists make no bones about the fact that they are also creationists. Walter Bradley and Paul Nelson are good examples. ID is not a sham. The creationists in the ID movement have adopted the "Science Alone" approach to promote ID.When they promote ID and/or creationism, as I do, we customarily indicate when what we are saying is outside of ID and based on religious text and Biblical Creationist interpretations. I certainly do that in my discussions. I delineate an ID inference versus a creationist hermaneutic. So what if the two happen to coincide, as long as the science is correct. In fact, at the university level, if ID were purely religious, there would be no need to offer it as a separate class from creationism. But because ID derives it's inferences from science alone, it is appropriate to be separated from Biblical Creationism. At the university level, I hope both will be offered, because 55% of the students want undiluted creationism. Where as only 14% want pure ID. From a marketing standpoint, it makes sense to offer creationism in addition to ID.

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Also, at what point is it appropriate, if the god of ID exists, is it proper for researchers to stop and say "goddidit"?

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That is the researchers choice. I personally am glad some have just kept going at it and finding nothing. That re-inforces the design hypothesis. I suppose if the creationists are right, the researchers will know one day, won't they? But if Antony Flew's conception is correct, I guess, no one will ultimately know...

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In light of my admisson, maybe you would like to recant on your claims that a biology professor saying that they do not know a thing is somehow support for creationism (or ID... whichever... same thing). Since you have the ability to look up a fallacy on the web, perhaps you might take the time to look up false dichotomy.

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I'm afraid I should not recant because scientific hypotheses are not formulated under structure subject to pure dichotomy. The Popperian formulation of scientific theories is based on testablity and falsfiability. Scientific theories are not absolutely proven in the formal logical sense, they are proposed, tested, and established to have survived a degree of falsification. And then offered as a faith claim that the hypothesis will survive further attempts at falsification.The questions the IDEA members pose to their professors, such as the plausibility of Prokaryotic to Eukaryotic transitions, are subject to falsification if a plausible detailed evolutionary trajectory is ever proposed. Thus the hypothesis is tested and exposed to falsification. Scientific theories, therefore do not fall into the either/or dichotomy, they fall within the framework of falsifiable statements under the Popperian formulation.And incidentally, despite Popper's weak retraction, Darwinian theory does not classify as a scientific theory in the Popperian sense:

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Evolutionary biology, in contrast with physics and chemistry, is a historical science--the evolutionist attempts to explain events and processes that have already taken place. Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques for the explication of such events and processes. Instead one constructs a historical narrative, consisting of a tentative reconstruction of the particular scenario that led to the events one is trying to explain.

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Ernst Mayr

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This message has been edited by scordova, 05-05-2005 09:54 PM

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This states that W will equal a factorial relationship of the differences of what we are considering (accumulating deletariously mutated genes as opposed to the rest of the genome) or W = (41469.4 + 1.6)! / (41469.4)!(1.6)! ~ (So let's just calculate our weight and then we can go to Boltzmann's math to calculate entropy.

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Can you go into a little more detail about how that equation, which apparently is used to calculate the entropy associated with a box filled with gaseous particles, can be applied to the genome the way you did?Also, can you explain how finding the solution to a state function indicates a change in something? That is, usually when I see someone showing the change in entropy is decreasing or increasing using the Boltzmann equations, they use (change)S=k ln (W2/W1). This is because S is just the entropy associated with the state of matter (or energy), not the change in entropy.I'm also not trying to imply your wrong, since my background in entropy is limited to chemistry and physics, and I'm not sure how to apply to information.

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He is a classic creationist, ducking and running when challenged. I am pretty sure you are the same, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

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Well, don't give it to him just yet...Check out his reply to my message #78.

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Soundly refuted by his suddenly getting the heck out of Dodge and no longer addressing my posts to him on the subject? Boy. If that's how you guys refute things in here then I suppose I must have been refuted a 100 times or so thus far.

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Jerry, a reply to meassage #78 in this thread please, especially after your above comment.

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

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I can see how it looks that way, sort of how it can look like atheists and/or secular humanists support darwinism.

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You know what other groups accept the evidence for the Theory of Evolution?Catholics
A large majority of Protestants
A large majority of Mulims
Hindus
Buddhists
A large majority of JewsIt's only a very small minority of radical fundamentalist protestant Christians, Orthodox Jews, and some radical fundamentalist Muslims who reject science in favor of religion.In summary, there are people of many, many religions, and also of no religion at all, who accept evolution.What is the common denominator of the people who reject evolution?Do we see a trend here?

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Catholics
A large majority of Protestants
A large majority of Mulims
Hindus
Buddhists
A large majority of Jews

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Seems to me that they would be equally entitled to accept evidence for ID. If they were to do so, would it mean that ID is creationism in disguise?This message has been edited by Limbo, 05-05-2005 11:56 PM

Justin, I will try you one more time because you seem a nice guy at heart. But if you go getting snippy on me again, I will ignore your posts as the big moose moderator (lol, whoever that was) advised in our last thread. Don't get FRUSTRATED. I'm not out to degrade you personally, I simply disagree with your arguments. And, fairly vigorously so.

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Can you go into a little more detail about how that equation, which apparently is used to calculate the entropy associated with a box filled with gaseous particles, can be applied to the genome the way you did?

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It doesn't matter what it applies to, it is the total number of ways that something can be arranged. Any something; and that's what the statistical weight is in infodynamic formulas, such as Botzmann's S = K log W, or Shrodinger's S = K log 1/D.Consider a simple system created by the flipping of 4 coins. One would think that total microstates might be calculated as the total number of available states (heads or tails) taken to the power of the number of coins, or with 4 coins, 2^4 = 16 ways. Well, this is partially true, and here they are: But this only relates to the state of each coin and not how that state interacts with other states. IOW, we can take it further and discover more microstates. But we must calculate it combinatorially to do so, or 4! = 24. When we allow each coin to be represented by a color, it is easier to see how they really interact: There are really 24. With me? I might also jog your memory and remind you that Boltzmann fully considered his expanding atoms in a gas as information. Here is how he defines the entropy in the formula I used: "Gain in information is loss in entropy"Finally, as I stated, we can also calculate it with Shannon's information formula:

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Also, can you explain how finding the solution to a state function indicates a change in something? That is, usually when I see someone showing the change in entropy is decreasing or increasing using the Boltzmann equations, they use (change)S=k ln (W2/W1). This is because S is just the entropy associated with the state of matter (or energy), not the change in entropy.

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Yep, correct. I was calculating S considering only a single generation. But you can bring an argument that I also could calculate deltaS, or the change in entropy from generation to generation. The formula you threw out is a valid one I am very familiar with. Or it works as well with simple subtraction such as deltaS = Sf - Si, or change in entropy is represented by final entropy minus initial entropy. It doesn't matter as long as we all use the same math to compare when we are quantifying the same system.

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I'm also not trying to imply your wrong, since my background in entropy is limited to chemistry and physics, and I'm not sure how to apply to information.

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Matter is information. A pebble laying in the road is information, as an information channel (light reflecting from the pebble to my eyes) is established and an information recipient (me) records the fact that a pebble is there into the neurons of my hard drive. Boltzmann was correct that his atoms were information. IOW, there isn't a difference in this particular situation if we wish to define one atom as one bit of information, under Shannon's description of bits in his original paper, we can certainly do so.Now we be doin' some ID!

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Design Dynamics

I am hardly here to learn from you.

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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.

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This post is absolutely ludicrous and contains no science at all. Is this why you posted no references to back up your assertions? Did you note that I posted references with every step in my post to you? Why can you not, because it's all Darwinist propaganda claptrap with no science or math anywhere in it?You see, it is very common to do exactly what I did and scientists often express statistical entropy thermodynamically. Yet, I did not express mine thermodynamically because thermodynamic entropy always deals with heat. Thermo means heat in Greek. Did you see any heat in the form of Joules/degrees Kelvin in that calculation?No, but I could rightfully do so as others before me have. Here's a page with a college professor expressing the flipping of quarters thermodynamically; in heat never-the-less. Florida State College at Jacksonville Also, I'm afraid you do not even know what Shannon entropy is. Shannon entropy is summed over and calculated via this formula: Now did you see this anywhere in the post I just sent to you? No. Therefore your assertion that I am confusing thermodynamic entropy with Shannon entropy is simply ridiculous and obvious to any reader. The fact is, I calculated logical entropy. You might want to Google that as you obviously are not that familiar with the infodynamics in your field.And finally, your implication that natural selection was ignored and that this should be considered in only one generation of a population is just as preposterous. Change by mutation and selection in one generation? Talk about punk eek!

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Design Dynamics

I'm sorry. Do you recall that I gave you the last word on our argument? Please format your final post on it and it will stand.There simply has not been any science in your posts that I can address.According to you, I am a creationist and all creationists do not understand methodological naturalism. Despite the fact that most of science used in the lab today was brought to you complements of creationists.I asked you to show pakicetus to be true under your qualifications as to what is science and you did not. You just came back with more opinion.Fine. You are entitled to hold opinions as we are all and I grant you that right. But I cannot scientifically refute opinions as those are subjective. So you win. Your opinions stand as your opinions!Accept this and move on to another discussion as ours is over. Thank you for your participation.In fact, have a great evening!This message has been edited by Jerry Don Bauer, 05-06-2005 01:19 AM

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Design Dynamics

Of course, inevitably, you try not to persuade those who have examined your ideas and seen the flaws, but the impressionable who you can fool. Go, Big P! No, it is rooted in Mistaken interpertations, as is being show elsewhere in this thread.Creationism (I never said biblical creationism) is the belief that some supernatural entity was the motive force in the arising and development of life. ID says the same thing. That would be true, if the evidence were consistent. It isn't. Again, see other entries in this thread. As it is religious, you are correct, there is no need to seperate them... they are one. See above. And you think profit motive is an appropriate way to choose subject matter for universities? Also, if creationism were to be taught, which myth would you choose? Christianity's or some other?That you think there is ANY point where inquiry should stop, or more precisely, that people who think that way should be allowed to do science is disturbing. The search for real knowledge must never stop, especially for religious reasons.You completely missed the point at which you posed your false dichotomy. Try again, then we can proceed. If you can't get it this time, I will explain it.