tnf, you have a mission

[Nightshade]

Jules, have you read "A New Kind of Science"?

[[xeno]Julios]

No - but i've heard of it - also hear that it's an absolutely massive book.

[Nightshade]

It's a tome all right. It's on my (large) list of books to purchase, just trying to sort its position.

[[xeno]Julios]

I think i'll put it on my list too, come to think of it. Seems like there are some important insights that are worth having contact with.

[Nightshade]

http://www.wolframscience.com/

[Hannibal]

NY Time Book Review, for anyone not familiar with the overall gist of the book:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/15762

plus a whole bunch of other reviews here:

http://www.math.usf.edu/~eclark/ANKOS_reviews.html


NS, has your buddy ever stated to you what HIS position actually is...what arguments for ID that he finds cogent, etc.?

[Pooinyourmouth_needmerge]

I just watched Penn and Teller's Bullshit last night about creationism. Seems that most of these cooks really believe that the world was made about 6000 years ago. They have a fucking museum with an exhibit about how the crand canyon was made in a matter of days and other absolute junk science. Hell that's not even junk science it's just junk.

These fuckers have absolutly no basic science knowledge what-so-ever. It's really is nothing more than a last ditch effort for the church to get it's claws back into the school systems at the tax payers expence, and the problem is that they are winning on a few fronts.

Seems stupidity has a habit of getting its way.

[Massive Quasars]

NS, has your buddy ever stated to you what HIS position actually is...what arguments for ID that he finds cogent, etc.?

The burden is on your friend to support ID, not on you to demonstrate why ID isn't the best hypothesis currently known given the data available at this point (if a legitimate hypothesis at all).

He probably knows you're not fully armed to debate this topic, so he may ask questions to plant doubt in you. Questions you may not be able to answer.

Yep.

Btw, when you're done reading that ID book give us an informal book review.

[Geebs]

We may have the ability to create an infinite variety of sentences, but that doesn't require an infinite brain capacity.

I used to think this wasn't true, but then I read a post by plained and I have to admit, you've got a point :garble:

[Hannibal]

Yep.

Btw, when you're done reading that ID book give us an informal book review.

Just reiterating my point from the first page. :icon25:

And I may just do that.

[[xeno]Julios]

Understanding complexity will allow you to see that complexity can emerge (on biomolecular scales) without recourse to an intelligence, so long as you take the fundamental properties of the universe for granted. What understanding complexity will not allow you to do, is to explain these fundamental properties.

I still think this is the more interesting issue at hand. I imagine that ID proponents will eventually be cornered into this area.

[tnf]

First off, I freely admit that I'm not really equipped to fight this ID vs. Evolution battle. I have a cowrker here who is VERY smart and has done a lot of reading on this subject. I will say that he has me at a bit of a disadvantage, because he's quite good at turning the debate away from my argument and down line of reasoning.
My point is this: I don't want to accept ID, because it's based on belief in god, whether people will admit it or not. His core argument is one of complexity not being able arise naturally.
Here's an excerpt from our ongoing email war:

Him - "do you object to a design argument in general? or just the specific ones that get press?"

My response, with his comments in italics - "I think that it's more of a general objection, primarily because of all the religious "baggage" as you called it that associated with it. Some people that I talk to refer to it as junk science, and I tend to agree as there have been no experiments performed to support it. Then you get the whole "ARCHANGELS DID IT" type of nonsense.
-I think you are using that as a strawman argument.

They love to use the 'strawman' argument response.

Put it this way: If ID had not "evolved" (haha) out of Creationism, I'd be far more likely to listen to it. But, it is based on the acceptance of a god/designer/whatever you want to call it, and the proponents of ID don't just want it taught, they want Evolution Theory removed.
-How would you conduct an experiment to prove that complexity is by design, or that it wasn't? How do you get intelligence from a non-intelligent source? Where does "information" come from?

I'm really looking for some ammo regarding the complexity issue.

Lil' help?

Ask him how he would design said experiment.

Before going any further, I'd ask him how he defines 'irreducible complexity.'
I think rather than giving a lot of ammo up front, this would be better handled by giving you some questions to ask him.

Actually, browsing through the thread, I see that jules has already mentioned the definition of complexity. I would take it one step further and ask him what criteria he uses to define a system as being 'irreducibly complex.'

You'll see where this is going as we start to dissect his answer.

It looks like you've got a lot of good advice here already. Jules, MQ, and Hannibal all do a marvelous job of looking at an arguments philosophical merits (and often its scientific merits). Compared to them, I'm an amatuerish boob who knows a lot about science. But I'm happy to help in the fight against Creationism's Trojan Horse.
If this thread gets buried or too unwieldy, just PM me his responses or any other questions.

[Nightshade]

This what I sent him today:

I'm not using it as a strawman argument, it's part and parcel of ID and its proponents. It doesn't address the entire issue, but it's completely relevant in the context of some of the arguments you've posed. To wit: That debate I told you about wherein the ID theorist stated that archangels were to blame for the vestigial vitamin C synthesis pathway in humans.

How would YOU perform an experiment to show complexity by design? By your logic, none of ID theory is provable and must be accepted prima facie.
As to your other questions, define "intelligence" and "information" for the purposes of this debate.


He has yet to respond. The core of his argument seems to be that evolution is an overused buzzword, that there's never been a documented case wherein a mutation caused an increase in complexity, and the watchmaker argument. He also tries to throw vague statistical concepts at me, but being the math junkie that I am, I told him to zip it until he can accurately model the processes by which life progresses. He didn't have an answer for that. My reason for that was that he keeps stating that it's so statistically unlikely for complex organisms to occur naturally that it's ludicrous. I don't think he can make that statement due to the lack of understanding (on everyone's part) of just exactly how life progresses.

I'll ask him about his definition of irreducible complexity.

[tnf]

He is implying directionality in his argument, i.e. that a mutation must give some new, novel function that we have in mind or that we can idenitify immediately.

Again, it all boils down to his definition of complexity and irreducibly complex systems.

If you want some more reading - do some searches for critiques of Michael Behe's "Darwins Black Box." I don't have the links at the moment, but I know there are places where you can find the writings of brilliant evolutionary biologists who deconstruct every major argument in Behe's book.

For example, Behe argues that a system like blood clotting could not have evolved because if you pull one of the proteins out, the entire thing falls apart. He claims that a system like this, one where a continuous chain of events is required for 'function,' could not have evolved. This ignores the fact that the components in the system could have had other roles before mutations resulted in their new 'function.' And, I can explain to you how a system like this could have evolved, quite easily, using known genetic phenomena like deletions, insertions, etc.

I'd avoid getting into the Archangel stuff at the moment, and focus on him defining every aspect of ID. Then you can hit him with the horribly bad design that is so prevalent in nature, and see how he reconciles it. If you keep bringing up the 'decay of the perfect creation angle' he will fall back to the strawman bit again and again.

If all this fails, just beat him retarded and call it a day.

[tnf]

Also, always go back to the simple addage -
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

ID is intellectual surrender in almost every sense of the term. If we followed its ideals today we'd still believe that disease was caused by evil spirits, etc....

What happens when something they feel is irreducibly complex is shown not to be?

[Nightshade]

I really think that a great deal of the so-called logic in this type of thinking stems from people needing to fill a vacuum in their lives. I think that if people have their religious beliefs yanked out from underneath them, they'll lose their minds.
I keep trying to explain to him that I don't need to attribute things I can't understand to some divine power, I'm fine with saying "I don't understand that" and leave it be.
I think it has to do with people being indoctrinated into a certain way of thinking and never really having to search for answers and come up short. I don't know if that's the case with my coworker, as he's a pretty smart guy. Maybe he's just never had anything shockingly bad happen to him. I have. I've had a lot of really shitty things occur in my life that have left me feeling quite sure that the whole "God" bit is sorely lacking.

Then again, maybe that's just my framework, and I just can't understand it. Oh well, doesn't bother me. :icon26:

[Hannibal]

Where the hell is Coriolios when we chat about this stuff? :icon33:

I've now read some Behe and his 'complexity' stuff. Tnf is on target. I'm convinced that if more people (especially scientists!!) took the time to study the history of the various sciences, this shit would get zero airtime.

[tnf]

Where the hell is Coriolios when we chat about this stuff? :icon33:

I've now read some Behe and his 'complexity' stuff. Tnf is on target. I'm convinced that if more people (especially scientists!!) took the time to study the history of the various sciences, this shit would get zero airtime.

Compared to Creation Scientists, ID folks are usually more tactful and charismatic. In fact, they actively look for very engaging speakers who are really good at all statistical and mathematical slight of hand that exemplifies most of their arguments. Their brand of deceptive idiocy is difficult to stomach, but gets them the airtime they desire.

[Hannibal]

What I find interesting is that, unlike their intellectual forefathers who at least had the 'young earth' theory to fall back on, the ID folks of today don't seem to really offer any positive account of how 'intelligent design' figures into the history of life on our planet. They also seem to be horribly confused about what is involved in falsifying a theory.

[rgoer]

haha that's true jules--using something the along the size and complexity of, say, a computer we could probably simulate some infinitessimal portion (a few particles, maybe) of the universe with complete accuracy (although, I'm not so sure--the entire universe acts as an influence on all of its parts, so how can you isolate a small piece of it and claim to simulate the entire universe's influence? You can make approximations, but I just don't think you can have a perfect representation)--in any case, in order to run enough of these small "chunk" simulations that they would add up to a full simulation of the entire universe using any finite amount of computing power would require more time than the functional lifetime of the universe, I think.

[plained]

im good at wraping any facts around any cause and custumizing it to fit perfectly .

its just i doen believe in doing that.

i use my superpowers only for good ey hehe

[Dek]

I have a big cock in my ass!

[[xeno]Julios]

haha that's true jules--using something the along the size and complexity of, say, a computer we could probably simulate some infinitessimal portion (a few particles, maybe) of the universe with complete accuracy (although, I'm not so sure--the entire universe acts as an influence on all of its parts, so how can you isolate a small piece of it and claim to simulate the entire universe's influence? You can make approximations, but I just don't think you can have a perfect representation)--in any case, in order to run enough of these small "chunk" simulations that they would add up to a full simulation of the entire universe using any finite amount of computing power would require more time than the functional lifetime of the universe, I think.

depends on how broad of a metaphor you use for the term "computer"

There are some incredibly sophisticated analogue computers

for example, take this problem:

you have a wooden board with four randomly placed dots on it. The task is to find the shortest distance that connects all the points (this is similar to the traveling salesman problem)

A digital computer would have to taxonomically go through all possible combinations of routes, and compare distances. Even then, it can only approximate since there are finer and finer scales of distances involved.

A more elegant analogue solution is to nail four pins into those holes, and dip the entire thing into soapy water.

Because of the natural laws of physics, when you remove the board from the water, the soap bubbles will form the shortest distance between the four points.

Then there is the issue of what we mean by simulation: if we are to simulate the universe, it wouldn't necessarily require us to input all the particle states and iteratively calculate their positions using brute force. There may be more elegant and efficient processes that give rise to this complexity (i think this is what wolfram is getting at, but not sure).

So long as we understood those fundamental processes, it'd be conceivable to then choose an output space, so we can decide to examine a certain spatiotemporal slice of space. Of course, if the output representation is digital, then we'd also have to ask for what sampling level you'd require. I suspect that the outputs are "fractal" in nature, in which case there is no deepest resolution. In that case, we'd just choose to sample at whatever resolution we desired.

[rgoer]

yeah, I get the comparisons you're trying to make julios

I still maintain that even you were able to run a compressed simulation, from which you could gleam data of a fractal nature, the extrapolation required on the part of the observer makes all the difference between what you are suggesting and an actual, absolutely accurate representation of the entire universe

and yet again let me say that I do not think there is any reason to think that an absolutely accurate representation of the entire universe would be useful or necessary for any type of science whatsoever

[[xeno]Julios]

agreedio