Re: [asa] Innate design detector?

That Dembski uses 'standard' probablities does not help the fact that
he is mostly arguing a biological strawman.
Let's look at this from a different perspective. According to Dembski
most any protein larger that about 1100 the designer will be quite
busy..

As Wesley Elsberry and Jeffrey Shallit in Information Theory,
Evolutionary Computation, and
Dembski’s “Complex Specified Information” 2003 argue http://
www.talkreason.org/articles/eandsdembski.pdf

<quote>Even if Dembski’s intuition concerning the values he assigned
to these factors was proven to be uncannily precise, there remains
an interesting observation concerning the application of a
perturbation probability to the calculation of porig for a particular
protein. Dembski utilizes an analogy of a supermarket stocked with
plenitude of different grocery products.
Each of those products, he argues, may have its own porig value [19,
p. 301]. Given Dembski’s
values for the perturbation tolerance and identity factors, what one
finds without much
difficulty is that porig for any individual protein of length ≥ 1153
is less than Dembski’s
“universal small probability.” Further, any collection of proteins
with a combined length
≥ 1153 also has porig less than Dembski’s “universal small
probability.” Dembski elsewhere
tags biological function as a sufficient stand-in for
“specification.” The result is that, using
Dembski’s proffered values and equations, any functional protein of
length ≥ 1153 has CSI
and must be considered to be “due to design.” This is already a low
bar for finding CSI
in biological systems, but the “universal small probability” is not
in any sense a threshold.
Dembski merely argues that a probability below the “universal small
probability” obviates
the need to justify a “local small probability.” By doing so, many
shorter proteins may also
be found to have CSI and be classed as “due to design.” A Dembskian
designer intervening
in biology would appear to be exceedingly busy over the course of
life’s history.
</quote>

What van Till argues, and what Dembski does not address is that the
processes mimicked by Dembski have NO relevance to how things
actually happen and or evolutionary processes.
One cannot blame Dembski for his unfamiliarity with biology but one
should realize that whenever Dembski speaks about such issues, one
should take care to ask the question if Dembski's portrayal of the
scenario relevant from a biological perspective.

Both van Till and Miller have pointed out much of the same problems
with Dembski's arguments, as have others:

In his response to Miller Dembski argues

<quote>But in fact they do. My point in section 5.10 was not to
calculate every conceivable probability connected with the stochastic
formation of the flagellum (note that the Darwinian mechanism is a
stochastic process). My point, rather, was to sketch out some
probabilistic techniques that could then be applied by biologists to
the stochastic formation of the flagellum. As I emphasized in No Free
Lunch (2002, 302): "There is plenty of biological work here to be
done. The big challenge is to firm up these numbers and make sure
they do not cheat in anybody's favor."</quote>

So by calling Darwinian mechanisms a stochastic process, one can thus
take a strawman version of a stochastic process and say see... it
won't work. But remember that a in Dembski speak, while looking at
'stochastic formation' it was purely based on chance alone. No
attempt to take into consideration biologically relevant data. There
is indeed much work to be done especially since the data surely
cheated in favor of ID. As such at most we can conclude is that
according to Dembski's flawed strawman, evolution and indeed protein
formation is impossible. In other words, we have a very busy designer
focusing on such irrelevant concepts as putting proteins in their
right location etc...
Is that the kind of designer we have in mind?

On Nov 4, 2006, at 2:46 PM, David Opderbeck wrote:

> Thank you, this is interesting and helpful. I'll admit that now
> I'm getting out of my depth and resorted to Googling. So here's
> how Dembski responds to the core of Van Til's critique:
>
> But the genes follow the proteins which follow the function, and
> not vice versa, so my analysis is the correct one. Even so, since
> genes map to proteins, the probabilities assigned to the
> flagellum's proteins and assemblage can easily enough be
> backtracked to the genes themselves (this is standard probability
> theory, in which probabilities on the space mapped into backtrack
> to probabilities on the space mapped out of).
>
> Why is this wrong?
>
> On 11/4/06, Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dembski in his NFL book descibes a very similar argument which
> basically shows that proteins cannot organize themselves because of
> localization, origination, configuration
>
> P(orig) = the origination probability = the probability that the
> requisite building blocks for the structure in question will
> originate, by chance,
>
> P(local) = the localization probability = the chance probability of
> localizing these building blocks in one place once they become
> available, and
>
> P(config) = the configuration probability = the chance probability
> of configuring the building blocks into the particular structure
> once they are localized.
>
>
> Amongst many Howard van Till showed how silly (scientifically
> speaking) these arguments really are.
>
> http://www.meta-library.net/id-hvt/isthe1-body.html
>
> According to these calculations, Dembski has effectively argued
> that every time a flagellum forms, there needs to be a design
> taking place. Imagine that, how busy such a designer would be with
> the billions of flagella that arise almost continuously. And that
> is just flagella. And why would a designer be so concerned about
> the flagella which are found in some pretty nasty bacteria?
>
> Or as van Till observes
>
> <quote>But, of course, no biologist has ever taken the bacterial
> flagellum to be a discrete combinatorial object that self-assembled
> in the manner described by Dembski.Dembski has not defeated any
> actual biological proposition. He has slain nothing more than an
> imaginary dragon - a fictitious adversary that Dembski himself has
> fabricated from a stack of rhetorical straw.</quote>
>
> This is one of the major worries I have about ID. Their arguments
> may sound clear and convincing to the uninformed but in fact they
> are often equivocating or plain wrong. Imagine the damage that
> could be done to faith for instance when faithful followers of ID
> suddenly are exposed to the scientific vacuity of said argument?
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: David Opderbeck < dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> To: Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com>
> Cc: David Campbell < pleuronaia@gmail.com>; asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Saturday, November 4, 2006 12:31:24 PM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Innate design detector?
>
> Angus seems to be arguing against much of any system arising by
> chance and regularity, even in embryos
> I'm sure he is, and I'm not intending to say here that he's right.
> What I'm asking is specifically whether those availability,
> synchronization, localization, coordination, and interface
> compability criteria are reasonable. Perhaps they are reasonable
> criteria and chance and regularity can meet them. I'm just curious
> whether the criteria make sense, and if not, specifically why not.
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On 11/4/06, Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com > wrote:
> The argument is that IC is a strawman argument which insists that
> the original function should be maintained through its evolution.
> Now that at least in principle there are no scientific objections
> to IC systems arising, IC like complexity or complex specified
> information has lost its value as design detectors.
> Which explains why its proponents are now asking for unreasonable
> detailed pathways for such systems and presume design when such
> details remain lacking rather than assume the more scientific
> position of "we do not have all the answers"
>
> As Angus remarked, it seems highly improbable to me that... So once
> again, our ignorance leads us to design inferences...
>
> So remind me again how does Intelligent Design explain the
> flagellum? And since design does not even necessitate agency, why
> should a design inference for let's say the flagellum have any
> significance.
>
> <quote>
>
> More recently Ryan Nichols pointed out that Dembski has made a
> significant concession
>
> Before I proceed, however, I note that Dembski makes an important
> concession to his critics. He refuses to make the second assumption
> noted above. When the EF implies that certain systems are
> intelligently designed, Dembski does not think it follows that
> there is some intelligent designer or other. He says that, "even
> though in practice inferring design is the first step in
> identifying an intelligent agent, taken by itself design does not
> require that such an agent be posited. The notion of design that
> emerges from the design inference must not be confused with
> intelligent agency" (TDI, 227, my emphasis).
>
> Source: Ryan Nichols, The Vacuity of Intelligent Design Theory
>
> </quote>
>
> All that ID proponents have done so far is downplay evolutionary
> evidence (especially Darwinian pathways) but they have failed to
> explain why such is evidence of design?
>
> Why do you find Menuge's objections carrying significance?
>
> How does it affect scientific explanations as provided by Nicholas
> Matzke, "Evolution in (Brownian) Space: A Model for the Origin of
> the. Bacterial Flagellum.
>
> So what are Angus's arguments
>
> <quote>
> Menuge finds five problems that co-optational-based accounts of the
> origin of irreducible complexity cannot overcome:
>
> "For a working flagellum to be built by exaptation, the five
> following conditions would all have to be met:
> "C1: Availability. Among the parts available for recruitment to
> form the flagellum, there would need to be ones capable of
> performing the highly specialized tasks of paddle, rotor, and
> motor, even though all of these items serve some other function or
> no function.
> "C2: Synchronization. The availability of these parts would have to
> be synchronized so that at some point, either individually or in
> combination, they are all available at the same time.
> "C3: Localization. The selected parts must all be made available at
> the same `construction site,' perhaps not simultaneously but
> certainly at the time they are needed.
> "C4: Coordination. The parts must be coordinated in just the right
> way: even if all of the parts of a flagellum are available at the
> right time, it is clear that the majority of ways of assembling
> them will be non-functional or irrelevant.
> "C5: Interface compatibility. The parts must be mutually
> compatible, that is, `well-matched' and capable of properly
> `interacting': even if a paddle, rotor, and motor are put together
> in the right order, they also need to interface correctly." (pg.
> 104-105)
> </quote>
>
> Angus seems to be arguing against much of any system arising by
> chance and regularity, even in embryos... Such a position is not
> dissimilar to Dembski's hilarious strawman of protein evolution.
>
>
> Pim
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: David Opderbeck < dopderbeck@gmail.com>
> To: Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com>
> Cc: David Campbell < pleuronaia@gmail.com>; asa@calvin.edu
> Sent: Saturday, November 4, 2006 5:34:15 AM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Innate design detector?
>
> It should be clear by now that neither complexity nor irreducible
> complexity is really a problem for evolution.
>
> Can you clarify this -- are there now arguments that IC systems can
> arise more or less intact, or are you referring to the standard
> responses (cooption)?
>
> Concerning cooption, here's something I'd asked a while back about
> cooption / exaptation from Angus Mengue's book Agents Under Fire.
> Resurfacing it because it didn't draw any responses:
>
> I'll probably oversimplify, but on exaptation, Menuge says that the
> cooption of parts requires availability, synchronization,
> localization, coordination, and interface compatability of the
> system's parts. For a biological-mechanical system like the
> flagellum, a limited number of protiens are available to do the
> specialized jobs of the paddle, rotor, and motor, particularly
> considering interface compatibility. Though we can perhaps
> identify parts from other systems that theoretically could be
> coopted to make a flagellum, it seems highly improbable that the
> further requirements of synchronization, coordination, and
> interface compatibility could be met with respect to those parts in
> relation to the whole system.
>
> I have seen that Ken Miller and others cite a number of journal
> articles showing parts that could have been coopted to form the
> flagellum. Do those articles collectively satisfy all Menuge's
> requirements, or is a significant amount of "time and chance of the
> gaps" still required? Or are Menuge's requirments all wet?
>
> On 11/4/06, Pim van Meurs <pimvanmeurs@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > It should be clear by now that neither complexity nor irreducible
> complexity is really a problem for evolution. This also helps
> explain why Behe is now asking for mutation by mutation pathways
> for IC systems. And yet it's sufficient for ID to argue that it
> looks designed thus it must be...
> > There appears some imbalance between what is good for the goose
> and good for the gander.
> >
> >
> >
> > ----- Original Message ----
> > From: David Campbell < pleuronaia@gmail.com>
> > To: asa@calvin.edu
> > Sent: Friday, November 3, 2006 2:10:03 PM
> > Subject: Re: [asa] Innate design detector?
> >
> >
> >
> > Perhaps geology can provide some useful data here. Complex
> molecules such as clay minerals can be produced by ordinary
> chemical reactions in the environment, yet they have a large number
> of components (atoms) arranged into a specific configuration,
> giving them properties that are not present if the components are
> reaaranged or partially removed. They thus have specified
> complexity, yet any design must be attributed to fine tuning in the
> laws of chemistry and physics rather than to intervention-style
> direct action.
> >
> > --
> > Dr. David Campbell
> > 425 Scientific Collections
> > University of Alabama
> > "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres of clams"
> >
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

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Received on Sat Nov 4 18:34:13 2006