EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed - Science Under Attack

I am sure my example was very simplified.It does seem that you are trying to have a go at me. It seems that you are trying to play the game that I has been used on me before. It says, if I cannot attack the information, attack the ignorance of the person. Never mind that I could have very well reverberated the knowledge of what someone else wrote.If that game doesn't work. Attack traderdrew for playing the role of victim or attack the information by confusing it with more sophisticated material.If you really can refute what I state on a simple level, then why don't you just do it? As Nike says, "Just do it."

But DNA isn't trying to get thos effects. Any combination of DNA (assuming the start and end codons) will create an "effect." Some effects work better, and are thus passed on. Some don't work as well, so they don't get passed on. We (and indeed all life on the planet) are a circumstance of the better working effects getting passed on, with new ones being tested every time there's a mutation.For example, let's take your DNA string:
TA
GC
AT
TA
CG
CG
AT
GC
TAAssuming the start and end codons, this will create a protein of some sort. What that protein does once it's created will depend on it's size and shape. As long as it doesn't hurt the organism's chance at reproducing, it has a chance to be paossed on.Perhaps, a mutation occurs that changes the first AT group to a TA group. Now, the protein produced will be different, and the effects of that protein will again depend on the size and shape of the protein. Will the new one do something that helps the organism? Only time will tell.

I wouldn't say that DNA is trying. I would say a better analogy would be comparing it to code within computers. Where did the code in computers come from? We all know the answer. It came from an outside intelligence. You can't place a jumbled amount of unspecified information inside the hardware of a computer.I was just conducting searches and I found something. It would be fair to include that the information inside DNA creates 20 different amino acids as well as stop condons. I just got this off Yahoo answers:If you were building proteins and could only use each amino acid once, you would have 20 factorial possibilities, thats: 20! = 20 * 19 * 18 ... * 1 = 2,432,902,008,176,640,000

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That's if you could only use each amino acid once, so you can see how many possibilities there really are.With so many different possibilities, it appears that it has more flexiblity than specific molecules inside crystals. Crystals may appear to be designed but their organization appears to be very redundant.Right now you and I appear to be on OK terms and so I will be cool. I suppose you can say that DNA shows a complex form of redundancy. So where would I draw the lines? I will have to contemplate on this further. I have read that both Richard Dawkins and Bill Gates has stated that the information in DNA is uncannily like the information in a computer.By the way, I edited the guided transpermia post so it makes more sense now.A thought in my mind: It sure is easier to be a Darwinian evolutionist than to be a proponent of ID. Basic Darwinism is so seductively simple and you can extrapolate concepts from it that transcend away from the theory.Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

OK, basic biology for the ignorant and arrogant it is.You say This is not the case. DNA is composed of DeoxyriboNucleic Acids (where DNA comes from) not amino acids. The bonding affinities of the Purines (A and G) and Pyrimidines (T and C) are not based on their sugar phosphate backbone but the hydrogen bonding between complementary nucleotide elements, the purine and pyrimidine component of the DNA. But you don't provide any reason why we should believe this. Is there a reference for this figure? Again you repeat the mistake that DNA is composed of amino acids and also get the term codon wrong. This is all very well, yes a 75 aa long protein require 225 nucleotides to encode it, but it is important to understand that it doesn't necessarily require 225 specific nucleotides. The correspondence between DNA/RNA codons and amino acids is degenerate. There are 64 distinct possible codons and only 20 amino acids. Even allowing for the 3 stop codons that still leaves at least 3 codons for each amino acid.The main problem as PaulK pointed out is that you are trying to argue something that no ones disagrees with, i.e. 'DNA contains information', but you are doing it in such a way as to show you don't have a clue about the basics of biology and also missing the point that there are many methods of measuring genetic information. CSI as Dembski describes it is not a useful one. The paper Smooth Operator referenced in another thread produces a better attempt than Dembski to identify what they call 'functional information' which seems somewhat equivalent to CSI.Bottom line? No one should be discussing bioinformatics who doesn't at least know what DNA is made of.TTFN,WKEdited by Wounded King, : No reason given.Edited by Wounded King, : corrected quoting of wrong section from TDs post

But we write code in computers to get a specific result. If all we want is a result, we can put jumbled code in and something will happen, even if it's everything grinding to a halt. That would mean the random code entered wasn't a good one, so we throw another random code in, does it do something more than shutting everything down? No? We try another one. Does this do something better? Yes, just barely...we got the computer to make a bleep sound before shutting down.This is one of the biggest thing to try and get over from a religious/creationist/IDist viewpoint. WE ARE NOT THE INTENDED OUTCOME! We just happen to be the outcome, out of all the infinite possibile outcomes, that exist. You're right, it does. In fact, there are multiple codons that code for the same amino acid, so for some mutations, the end result would be the same. So, yes there is redundancy and flexibility, but that doesn't mean it was intended, or designed, that just means that a more flexible framework allows for more flexible patterns, and can create multiple possibilities that a crystal can't, and thus a crystal can't be alive or reproduce or anything. Flexibility and redundancy are things we would expect from a natural occurence that creates the diversity we see. A designed set of "blueprints" would need far less redundancy and flexibility, since a designer could wrinkle out all the unknowns and pare down the required elements. True, but for one thing, they're using it as an analogy from something we understand very well (since we created it). It's easy to take the analogy too far, and get confused on parts that don't match what they intended.For another, the fact that we mimic natural processes in technology is for a couple reasons. 1) We can see that it works by looking at nature. 2) There are a finite number of ways, using natural laws, to solve a particular problem. Just like with convergent evolution, the fact that we stumble upon the same or similar solutions as nature isn't surprising. I would agree with this, but that's for many reasons. The theory is so simple and elegant, as all "good" theories are and can lead to many ways to test it (predictions and extrapolations that can be tested and verified or tossed) and that confomrs to all the evidence rather than trying to cherry pick. I'm not saying you're deliberately cherry-picking. I don't know you or how your mind works or why you believe ID, but there are a lot of problems with ID that don't exist for Evolution. The people formulating these concepts are clearly cherry picking and either being deliberatly untruthful, or are lying to themselves. The math behind CSI just doesn't come out, it requires disproven ideas or conflation of terms. The lay people (the ground troops of ID, if you will) do not have the mathematical background to realize this, and conflation just makes things harder for someone not well versed in the science to see the errors. I hope so, and I hope you enter this debate with an open mind. The people who disagree with you may come off as gruff or condescending or arrogant, but that's because they usually are the mathematicians or scientists who have worked their entire lives at this, and someone who comes up to them attempting to "teach" them about their own field of study and then makes fallacious arguments comes off as condescending and arrogant as well.

But these wouldn't ONLY represent random mutations, they respresent a relatively intelligent designer seeking the best solution. I was being seduced by the dark side when I wrote what you responded too.No seriously, Wounded King was right in mentioning that I was arrogant. I don't know enough to refute most of the things he wrote and I know that I was wrong with one thing. But taking a risk is one way of learning.I'm sure you would agree that psychology has something to do with all of this. Our paradigms and our hermeneutics seem to pick out and filter what we see and this in turn effects how we think.There is so much information involved here. Darwin's simplistic way can make it seductive but the truth involves complexity. I think Lynn Margulis described Darwinism as something like sweet sugary candy but if fails to explain things when certain questions arise. It is so complex that science is learning new things all of the time. There is so much complexity that any one of us can subconciously filter out information especially if it doesn't interest us as much.My approach to these debates comes form irrationality of the mind. We tend to see patterns that don't exist and we make the wrong decisions at times. Why? Our irrational behavior gets in the way. But science is supposed to help us see through our irrational behavior. I remain unconvinced that it does.

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Forget about Dembski's definition. Unless you want to make the CSI argument as brittle as possible and then attack it.

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You seem to be forgetting some things. For a start you were the one who insisted on using Dembski's definition. For another Dembski is the ID proponent behind the CSI argument in the first place.But OK if you want to use a completely different measure of information - and one for which the 500 bit limit simply doesn't reply I can deal with that. It's not a problem for me.

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I did give you an idea of what CSI is (in another thread) but you rejected it. I will illustrate it in simplistic form again. Why does it have to be complicated?

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I don't think that you did. Anyway since now you are using a definition of CSI where "complex" means "complex" (instead of "very improbable") real CSI does need to be complex - by definition.Anyway, we know that evolution can produce specified information (even microevolution at the biochemical level would count). And we know that evolution-like processes can produce quite complex specified information (genetic algorithms) - and even IC functions (experiments with the so-called "artificial life" of Avida)And if you are going to deal with "specified information" in DNA you need to deal with the fact that the 64 possible triplets of codons only code for 20 amino acids - so there is some significant redundancy there - and proteins tend to be tolerant of mutations for much of their length. It's really rather less specific than you might think.

Not if we keep throwing in random changes to the original code. It's only an intelligent designer if we stop and try to figure out a change that will create something better. The random changes are the same as mutation, the deciding if the change is a good thing or not is the same as natural selection. But the analogy obviously breaks down because what we're doing isn't the same as DNA replication and transcription, but as a general overview of evolution, it works pretty well. Well, part of it is that what Darwin proposed 100 years ago has been changed and refined as we learned more about the world. His idea said nothing about genetics or mutation, per se. So, saying Darwinism is perhaps a bit outdated, as we don't revere what Darwin did, but instead have changed what he did and come up with a better process to explain the same things he did. His idea was just the starting board, and in fact, wasn't even a unique idea. A number of other scientists at the time were formulating and coming up with much the same idea.Much the same that we don't call everyone who believes in gravity a "Newtonist," partially because his ideas have been refined and changed, most dramatically by Einstein, but also because gravity isn't controversial, so there are no "points" to be made by rebranding your opponents. The Republicans do this all the time, talking about the "Democrat Party." The correct term is the Democratic Party, and by misnaming them, they have shown their disrespect for the positions and the people by acting as if it't not important to get the term right. Well, you're right that people get stuck in patterns and ruts and can't always see outside of their paradigm. But the process of science, with the requirement of replication and peer review. The use of mathematics that anyone with enough math knowledge can double check, and the fact that many people work on the same problems, with their ideas competing in the literautre ensures that the best answer generally shakes out.If you know of a better way to try and weed out human biases, let me know. It could lead to a better process for determining the nature of the universe.

You didn't mention that in your computer/tinkerer analogy. That changes things and this steers this debate right back to a basic starting point....pure Darwinism vs. ID. Sit down and day trade the S&P 500 or another highly liquid market with no trading system for as long as you can.

This doesn't weed out human bias at all. In fact, it makes human bias and "hunches" the sole means of making decisions, and as you've so astutely implied, it won't work for very long before I fall on my face, or worse, in debt.

Yes there is that potential debt problem isn't there? Read either one of the two books, "Mean Markets and Lizard Brains" or "Mean Genes". Unfortunately for me, it would make you a better opponent if you can incorporate a higher amount of rational thought into your debate.Consider the following brain teaser:Imagine that you are a doctor and one of your patients asks to take an HIV test. You assure her that the test is unnecessary as only one woman out of a thousand with her age and sexual history is infected. She insists, and sadly the test result indicates viral infection. If the HIV test is 95% accurate, what is the chance that your patient is actually sick?(Don't reply here. Take note of your answer and I will provide the answer sometime later.)In my experience, I tend to find the advocates of ID more rational than the Darwinists.Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

I don't see how any of this has to do with evolution vs ID. You're the one talking about probabilities, saying that it's so improbable for evolution to work that it didn't. I'm the one saying, yes it's improbable, but so is everything that's even remotely complex, especially when you look at it from the end result.So, I would test the girl, despite it being improbable. You, as an IDist would say, it's so improbable for you to be infected that you aren't. Then, after the test comes back, you would say, well, the test was flawed, since the probability of her being infected is so low, despite the evidence in front of me, I'll continue to believe that she is not sick, and I'll use that 5% error as wiggle room.

You are correct in believing that she is not sick. Actually there is a 2% probability of her being sick.Let me give you some examples from this forum of how the study of irrationality has helped me.Someone around here claimed something like, ID research assumes that there was a creator science doesn't work like that and so ID starts from a flawed premise.My rational thought thinks, do Darwinists not approach science with the perspective that a creator does not exist? Is this not an equally flawed premise? Any rational mind sees that a creator isn't involved with everything that goes on, at least in the way that we can see.Another one said, "Never say never in science." If you think about it, science says never all of the time. You can extrapolate this from the laws of thermodynamics. It is obvious that if a creator exists, and I believe there is a God, then God went through a certain amount of measures to stay pretty much hidden from our detection. The question is why?I believe that irrationality is connected and related to your biases. Edited by traderdrew, : No reason given.

I think that traderdrew is making a totally nonsensical argument. That sort of thing is not really a test of rationality it is a test of being able to comprehend some quite non-intuitive statistics. I find it very hard to believe that the average IDer would be better able to answer his question than the average evolutionist.That being said you are missing the point of his argument and setting yourself up for a 'gotcha'.Ben Goldacre had a nice post over on Bad Science detailing how even tests with high specificity and sensitivity can be poor indicators in a population where a condition is very rare. Where this does not fit in with traderdrew's set up though is that you need to be testing a lot of people for this problem to arise. I'm not sure that the same issue applies in the case of just 1 person from the rare population coming in for testing, I'm not 100% sure though. In my defence I only did a foundation level course in statistics and that was almost 15 years ago.TTFN,WKP.S. I hate this habit of setting people up for Gotcha's. Someone from the evolutionary side was just doing it talking about genetic algorithm's. Its a cheap tactic when creationists do it and it is a cheap tactic when people on the evolutionary side do it too.

No, typically "Darwinists" do not approach science with the perspective that a creator does not exist. There are a few exceptions.