Re: [asa] Biologic Institute

On Tue, May 13, 2008 at 9:00 AM, David Opderbeck <dopderbeck@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Steve M said: Onions and grasshoppers have genomes many times the size of
> ours. I can't begin to imagine how someone would assemble a design-based
> explanation for observations like these.
>
> I respond: I agree with Rich B.'s subsequent posts -- this is because the
> language of "design" has been hijacked by evangelical apologists into a
> highly rationalist modern version of Paley. I agree with you, Steve, that
> Paley's watchmaker design arguments can't handle observations like this
> unless there is some precise, mechanistic correlation between the size of
> the genome and the structure / functions of the organism, and as you've
> noted, this appears strongly not to be the case.
>
> But, as Mike Gene noted, there are "design" arguments that aren't just
> dusted-off versions of Paley. Getting back to the biologicinstitute.orgsite Randy linked at the start of this thread, here is a quote from that
> site: *"A few key ideas run through all of our work. One is the idea that
> information is as real and fundamental as physical quantities, like mass or
> energy. As a measurable substance with real-world effects subject to
> law-like constraints, information is undeniably the stuff of science. It is
> also the stuff of technology… which is the stuff of design."*
> **
> This, it seems to me, is the fundamental argument of more subtle versions
> of contemporary design arguments: "information" is a physical property that
> is not intuitively or empirically explainable without intelligence.
> Obviously, this claim is debtable for a variety of reasons, but I don't
> think the C-value paradox hurts it at all. In itself, it isn't a Paley
> watchmaker kind of claim. For the purpose of this claim, the watch could be
> the most ludicrously designed watch ever made from an engineering efficiency
> perspective -- maybe it includes lots of non-functional leftover gears or
> circuits from prior versions of a watch -- but so long as it contains
> "information," it reflects intelligence.
>
> (Before anyone starts bashing me on the merits, let me be clear that I'm
> only trying to restate and clarify the arguments as I understand them and
> not to endorse or not endorse the "information as physical property"
> argument).
>
>

While it sounds like information is different than the complexity argument
of Paley it is truly a distinction without a difference. Both are just as
captive to the materialist worldview of the late 18th century, namely the
mechanization of the Industrial Revolution. Life is not a machine and
creation is not engineering design of mechanical devices. In order to
distinguish things and not be falsely accused of denying teleology may I
coin a new term? Neo-paleyism. While the C-value paradox does not cause
problems with classical Kalamarov complexity (which is why in the paper I
cited it does gzips of the genomes to find out how much information there
is) it does in my opinion fatally kill Dembski's so-called "specified
complexity".

This debate has finally swung into an area where I have some detailed domain
knowledge and you need to understand something. Information *is* the stuff
of design but the way Dembski warps information theory it bears little or no
resemblance of what I as an engineer would recognize. About the only thing
it has in common with real information theory is the log function in the
equations. What the C-value paradox shows us is that information, as it is
understood everywhere except within neo-Paleyism, does not increase with
organismal complexity. As was noted in Taft et al the C-value is increased
by genome duplication via polyploidy. Note that such duplication does NOT
increase information. Sternberg's paper was on repeat sequences which also
does not increase information. This is why Dembski and Sternberg have to
fall back to special pleading with their "specified complexity" in order to
"increase" the information because it does not if they use the classical
definition.

Here's the fundamental difference between neo-Paleyistic and the
evolutionary explanation of the C-value paradox:

According to the evolutionary view, paleopolyploidy generates more material
to select from using alternative (non-redundant) paralogous functions. Or,
the evolutionary process uses as a raw evolutionary material
transposon-derived sequences that comprise half of the human and mouse
genomes. These latter sequences are also called repetitive sequences. The
reason why neo-Paleyism needs so desperately that these repeat sequences to
be functional is so that they can slip in the "specified" part of the
specified complexity because "normal" complexity does not increase at all.
You will recall I mentioned gzip above. The gzip algorithm will compress the
hell out of a repeat sequence proving there is no additional information.
The fact that the evolutionary process doesn't increase information is
because it doesn't need to generate the different kinds of life.

I have a research proposal for the Biologic Institute. If you look at Craig
Ventnor's genome they placed a "message" in it. BLAST found it without
breaking a sweat. If neo-Paleyism wants to prove its peculiar and bizarre
definition of information they need to show they are not begging the
question. A neutral third party can insert messages and random noise into a
genome sequence and I would really like to see them find which is which.

That's my scientific beef with neo-Paleyism but I believe I have a even more
profound philosophical and theological one. As I said before Paley was
influenced by the Industrial Revolution and the mechanistic science of the
day. Design and manufactured goods were roughly synonymous. Christians
rightly are critical of the reductionist tendencies of the atheistic
worldview, but how is this any different? Life as a machine is very
dehumanizing. In fact, think of the another synonymous with dehumanizing,
objectification.

In the 200 years since Paley advances in science have shattered both the
mechanistic worldview and the life-as-machine paradigm. Quantum physics has
done the former and electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography the
latter. One of the controversial aspects of the movie Expelled was the use
of the cell sequences allegedly copied from XVIVO and Harvard who are suing
the movie production company. The argument made by the movie company was you
can't copyright the "look and feel" of nature. But, it's not nature but a
very idealized schematic view of it. The XVIVO animator argued that the
process shown was highly simplified and parts were removed so that things
could be more easily seen. The movie copied the exact same simplifications
where other illustrators did it completely differently. Given that the
neo-Paleyists are sensitive to accuracy in science illustration (c.v. Icons
blowing a gasget over Haekel's embryo drawings) it would seem they would
have changed it to be more accurate. The problem is then life would not look
like a machine.

Case in point, the bacterial flagellum. It is the cover art for Dembski's
blog and an animation of it is used for Focus on the Family's "Truth
Project". Let's look at the idealized versions of the flagellum first:

http://sciencenotes.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/flagellum-metallic-uncommn-descent-header-lores.jpg
http://www.nanonet.go.jp/english/mailmag/2004/files/011a4s.jpg

Sure looks like a machine. Let's look at computer generated diagram of the
hook:

http://molvis.sdsc.edu/flagellar_hook/flagellar_hook_4.gif

Uh, looks kinda messy. How about looking at a cross section?
http://www.fbs.osaka-u.ac.jp/eng/publications/namba2003/BFilInLOutR-800.jpg

What happened to those smooth sides? How about looking down the flagella?
http://sciencenotes.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/flagellum-partial-atomic-model-filament-section_011a6.jpg

Whoa. These are diagrams, too, so maybe they are inaccurate. So what does it
look like in the electron microscope?

http://sciencenotes.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/flagellum-em-fig2a-khan1990-asm.jpg

What happened to the machine? For scale purposes the vertical tube is 20 nm.

Bad analogies make for bad theology. The history of the doctrine of the
Trinity is rife with bad analogies. The analogy of life as an amalgem of
machines to be manufactured made by neo-Paleyism is another one of those bad
analogies. It turns the Creator God who is sovereign over the Universe into
merely an engineer -- no, a hacker. It also turns teleology which deals with
God's plans, ends, and purposes into mechanistic design. Neo-Paleyism
creates God in man's image rather than the other way around. Hopefully,
McGrath et al will get "beyond Paley" as they advertise. Natural Theology
desparately needs some reform.

Rich Blinne
Member ASA

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Received on Tue May 13 16:26:50 2008