Creationist argument about DNA and information

[RussDill]

Does Daniel appear to be the original source of his quote mines or is he quoting from some other source? I've seen a lot of quote mining but Daniel's seem to be new, to me at least.

It is a mix, on some it's copied from other creationists with spelling mistakes intact, on other's it's quotes he has found on his own.

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

To annoid then. Using your definition of information. Do lose nucleotides contain this?

 

[Darwin123]

It is a mix, on some it's copied from other creationists with spelling mistakes intact, on other's it's quotes he has found on his own.

So when he writes GENOME, we should read GNOME?

 

[marplots]

Don't be completely ridiculous. Ripples in the sand are a pattern. Ripples lead to the formation of further ripples. Please show me where the intelligence is in that.

It's where that bad argument is going to end up - the regularities in the universe, the natural laws themselves, are a product of intelligence. It's the Matrix, dude.

 

[turingtest]

Don't be completely ridiculous. Ripples in the sand are a pattern. Ripples lead to the formation of further ripples. Please show me where the intelligence is in that.

Good example. One that occurred to me was pulsars, whose periodicity were, IIRC, once thought to be signs of intelligence.

Humans are pattern seekers- what's sought and seen isn't always what's imposed from outside. Music is human imposition of pattern, useful mathematical division of a constant spectrum. I wouldn't dispute that patterns could be evidence for intelligence; but just to see them, by themselves, as sufficient evidence is to (as I've said) make god (or whatever Intelligent Agency), as a cause, indistinguishable from every effect- universal pareidolia. That seems (to me) to tie god down, to reduce him to human perception- he has no existence apart from what man can make of him. There's an illusion of omni-all there, but it's really just god brought to earth, defined and strait-jacketed by human expectation.

And this whole "we don't have a freakin' clue, man!"- well, I can only assume that the "we" is the royal we. People who do think we can have a clue are doing useful science with the clues while folks like annnnoid flap their arms* helplessly and hopelessly on the Internet. More power to 'em...

*Wasn't my first choice of images, but it seemed better to keep it family friendly.

 

[Reality Check]

Good example. One that occurred to me was pulsars, whose periodicity were, IIRC, once thought to be signs of intelligence.

Another example: the sorting of beach sand by waves.
Would Daniel claim that aliens (intelligent agents) are sorting beach sand?

 

[Daniel]

Don't be completely ridiculous. Ripples in the sand are a pattern. Ripples lead to the formation of further ripples. Please show me where the intelligence is in that.

Ripples, eh?

So if your marooned on an island and while walking on the shoreline you come across this in the sand:

"HELP!! There are Head Hunters on this island. I'm heading to the North Side in search of Fresh Water and Food".

Then dismissing it as the actions of wind and waves.



Or



Walking on a Beach with some buddies and happening by this...

Then commenting to your friends that you can't wait to come back tomorrow to see what the Wind and Waves will build next !!




How bout looking in Living Cells and finding thousands of these...

Yes, it walking (carrying packages!!)

Then concluding that "Natural Law" builds Hyper-Nanotech Robots !!


My Word

 

[Lowpro]

Ripples, eh?

So if your marooned on an island and while walking on the shoreline you come across this in the sand:

"HELP!! There are Head Hunters on this island. I'm heading to the North Side in search of Fresh Water and Food".

Then dismissing it as the actions of wind and waves.



Or



Walking on a Beach with some buddies and happening by this...

[qimg]http://cdn.lolwot.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/20-awesome-and-intricate-sandcastles-you-have-to-see-14.jpg[/qimg]

Then commenting to your friends that you can't wait to come back tomorrow to see what the Wind and Waves will build next !!




How bout looking in Living Cells and finding thousands of these...


[qimg]http://i158.photobucket.com/albums/t97/jstunja/Kinesin2_zpsf77fcb80.jpg[/qimg]

Yes, it walking (carrying packages!!)

Then concluding that "Natural Law" builds Hyper-Nanotech Robots !!


My Word

Okay so it's a matter of interpretation then? You assert that there's an intelligent agent to the arrangement of matter (let's get real: that's what we're talking about) while speaking for myself, I see the arrangement as just physics, waves in the sand.

What I don't get it how you're seeing the agency, the intelligence here. Not whether it's REALLY there or not, but what's your logic to it. I mean this is the Watchmaker Analogy that you're pushing, which is a type of special pleading.

I get that you don't buy the biochemistry (you don't have to buy into it, it's true regardless...) but why buy into the Watchmaker?

 

[ComfySlippers]

Okay so it's a matter of interpretation then? You assert that there's an intelligent agent to the arrangement of matter (let's get real: that's what we're talking about) while speaking for myself, I see the arrangement as just physics, waves in the sand.



What I don't get it how you're seeing the agency, the intelligence here. Not whether it's REALLY there or not, but what's your logic to it. I mean this is the Watchmaker Analogy that you're pushing, which is a type of special pleading.



I get that you don't buy the biochemistry (you don't have to buy into it, it's true regardless...) but why buy into the Watchmaker?

This is what creationists do. Their gotcha moments to prove goddidit are achieved by arguing over the meanings of words such as "Information", "Theory", "Law", "Rules" etc.

Equivocation Fallacy for four year olds.

As I've said, this thread has nothing to do with DNA, he's using creationist-think to demonstrate that he doesn't understand how words are used.

 

[Lowpro]

This is what creationists do. Their gotcha moments to prove goddidit are achieved by arguing over the meanings of words such as "Information", "Theory", "Law", "Rules" etc.

Equivocation Fallacy for four year olds.

As I've said, this thread has nothing to do with DNA, he's using creationist-think to demonstrate that he doesn't understand how words are used.

Oh I know, I've stepped in before, called him out for quote mining at which point he said something about Pol Pot and flowers or something, it was weird, he's a conman plain and simple.

But what I'd like to hear is why buy into the Watchmaker Argument? It sounds so asinine because it demands intelligent design when it's unnecessary. For all the kinesins, DNA, proteins, eyes, etc you're still stuck with actually investigating the same principles of physics. Intelligent Design isn't even an explanation or a solution. I don't see its value as an alternative explanation because it isn't explanatory. If we want to say "Fine, DNA is a message, and it is designed (whatever that means...)" we're still stuck with the problem of DNA being part of a continuum of inheritance undergoing the same physics as the rest of matter. The designer will be as blind as the watchmaker, and as intelligent as the waves and sand.

So yea, asinine.

 

[jimbob]

The Venn diagram is great. One change I would make is to make DanielScience an irregular blob (like the Spaghetti Monster!) with tenticles reaching into Science (to represent something akin to quote mining science).

I'm thinking of something like a Klein bottle

 

[Daniel]

Okay so it's a matter of interpretation then?

It's a matter of ground squirrel level reasoning. A 4 year old can differentiate between Functional Sequence/Specific Complexity and a Sand Dune or 'Ripples' in less than a Planck Time.

You assert that there's an intelligent agent to the arrangement of matter (let's get real: that's what we're talking about)

Yea, it's been the Corner-Stone Pillar of my Entire Argument for over 100 posts now. Glad to have you finally On-Board.

while speaking for myself, I see the arrangement as just physics, waves in the sand.

I mean this is the Watchmaker Analogy that you're pushing, which is a type of special pleading.

So the reckoning of an Intelligent Designer of a Sand Castle or Kinesin is Special Pleading, eh? How so....?

I get that you don't buy the biochemistry...

Wha ha ha ha ha ha. If you only knew who you were making that comment to.

regards

 

[jimbob]

Don't be completely ridiculous. Ripples in the sand are a pattern. Ripples lead to the formation of further ripples. Please show me where the intelligence is in that.

That's easy - that's why it's evidence of God.


What is he saying?

"I have written the story of the Earth in these very rocks for those with eyes to see and minds to contemplate, yet some blasphemers prefer the fallible myths of fallible men*.



*There were some women, but mostly they were men.

 

[Reality Check]

Daniel: Idiotically ignoring the decisions made by animators writing an animation

How bout looking in Living Cells and finding thousands of these...

The Watchmaker analogy - the criticism includes the question who designed the watchmaker?
The ignorance of not citing the source of his image from Daniel.

18 March 2016 Daniel: Idiotically ignoring the decisions made by animators writing an animation showing a few of the processes in a cell !
This is almost as bad as citing a Disney animation (does the image evoke the broom and bucket scene in Fantasia to anyone else?).

The image is a still from an animation of some processes in a cell: The Inner Life of the Cell

The Inner Life of the Cell is an 8.5-minute 3D computer graphics animation illustrating the molecular mechanisms that occur when a white blood cell in the blood vessels of the human body is activated by inflammation (Leukocyte extravasation). It shows how a white blood cell rolls along the inner surface of the capillary, flattens out, and squeezes through the cells of the capillary wall to the site of inflammation where it contributes to the immune reaction.[1]

That was the animation that was plagiarized by the ID move "Expelled".
David Bolinsky: ‘Expelled’ ripped off Harvard’s ‘Inner Life of the Cell’ animation

 

[Shalamar]

It's a matter of ground squirrel level reasoning. A 4 year old can differentiate between Functional Sequence/Specific Complexity and a Sand Dune or 'Ripples' in less than a Planck Time.

Appeal to Incredulity.

Yea, it's been the Corner-Stone Pillar of my Entire Argument for over 100 posts now. Glad to have you finally On-Board.

We all know. You have the conclusion before you've done any of the work. Your constant quote mining proves it.

So the reckoning of an Intelligent Designer of a Sand Castle or Kinesin is Special Pleading, eh? How so....?

Yes it is. Mainly because if you assert that everything in the result of some incompetent 'intelligent designer', then where did the designer come from?

Wha ha ha ha ha ha. If you only knew who you were making that comment to.

regards

The laughter, the insults, and the not understanding science imply that you are rather poorly educated. If that is not the case, why not state your credentials?

 

[Lowpro]

Wha ha ha ha ha ha. If you only knew who you were making that comment to.

regards

Right back at ya man

Anyways the special pleading in the Watchmaker Analogy is that observed stuff (described as "complexity" or "functional sequence") must have been the product of an intelligence. But you have to pick and choose what stuff is "complex enough" to need that intelligence in order to distinguish it from the waves and sand. That's the special pleading part, and ideas of irreducible complexity, misuses and faulty interpretations of Information Theory (Shannon's Information theory and computer coding versus Kolmogorov Complexity and emergent functions, and trying to wed these ideas with chemistry and physics) have come before and failed to be a valuable alternative to just "physics over time".

When Jesus's face appears in your toast, I tend to investigate the toaster's role in all that, not so much believing the toast intercepted Jesus's selfies.

 

[annnnoid]

Please see the hilited part of your response. Are you saying that there is no such thing as matter or energy? Are you saying that since we don't know what matter and energy are, we cannot know what information is?

If I have your argument stated correctly, then that is absolutely bonkers! If not, please clarify what you mean by the hilited statement.

It’s got nothing to do with what we can or cannot do. We simply do not know what information is…any more than it is known what you or I actually are (it’s hardly a stretch to notice the obvious connection). There are patterns, and there is the ability to adjudicate the patterns. Patterns are information. The ability to adjudicate the patterns is intelligence. The ability to intentionally create patterns is also intelligence.

Don't be completely ridiculous. Ripples in the sand are a pattern. Ripples lead to the formation of further ripples. Please show me where the intelligence is in that.

Look in the mirror. Otherwise…see below.

To annoid then. Using your definition of information. Do lose nucleotides contain this?

Anything from which meaning can be extracted by an intelligent agent possesses information. Which would mean that everything is information.

Another example: the sorting of beach sand by waves.
Would Daniel claim that aliens (intelligent agents) are sorting beach sand?

…of course there are no intelligent agents. Waves, sand, wind…they’re all a result of the laws of physics.

Ooops, forgot…they’re not actually the result of the laws of physics…the laws of physics just describe what happens. Nobody has ever discovered any ‘laws of physics’ causing anything to happen.

So…the waves, sand, wind…they’re the result of the interaction of matter and energy.

…ooops, forgot again. There is no such thing as matter and energy. Those are, once again, merely phenomena described by our models. Physics quite effectively demonstrates that neither matter nor energy occur as anything but…something else.

Questions for smart people:

What actually is ‘reality’?
What makes it occur / function / happen the way it does?
If we ‘discover’ the laws of physics, does that mean they actually exist (…that’s a slightly incoherent question…we obviously couldn’t discover them if they didn’t exist)?
Since ‘intelligence’ is the only thing we know of with the capacity to create / discover / comprehend a ‘law of physics’…how is it not reasonable to conclude that …since the laws of physics exist (since we discover rather than create them)…some manner of superior intelligence is somehow behind them?

 

[Daniel]

Right back at ya man

Really? Well we'll just see about that.

Anyways the special pleading in the Watchmaker Analogy is that observed stuff (described as "complexity" or "functional sequence") must have been the product of an intelligence.

You're confused...

There are 3 Types of Complexity 1) random sequence complexity (RSC), 2) ordered sequence complexity (OSC), or 3) Functional Sequence Complexity (FSC)."

Random (RSC): fgskztosbclgdsk.

Order (OSC): hhhhhhdddddduuuuuu: Crystals, Snow Flakes, Sand Dunes, Fractals.

Functional Sequence Complexity (FSC): "It Puts The Lotion in the Basket", Sand Castles, The Genetic CODE, Barbecue Grills, Indy Cars, Hyper-NanoTech Machines and Robots (Kinesin, ATP Synthase, Flagellum, Cilia....ad nauseam) et al.

So RSC and OSC = "Nature" construct, "Shannon Information"

FSC = Intelligent Design Construct.

"In brief, living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity. Crystals are usually taken as the prototypes of simple well-specified structures, because they consist of a very large number of identical molecules packed together in a uniform way. Lumps of granite or random mixtures of polymers are examples of structures that are complex but not specified. The crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity; the mixtures of polymers fail to qualify because they lack specificity"
Leslie E. Orgel, The Origins of Life: Molecules and Natural Selection, pg. 189 (Chapman & Hall: London, 1973

"The attempts to relate the idea of order...with biological organization or specificity must be regarded as a play on words that cannot stand careful scrutiny. Informational macromolecules can code genetic messages and therefore can carry information because the sequence of bases or residues is affected very little, if at all, by [self-organizing] physicochemical factors".
H.P. Yockey; "A Calculation of Probability of Spontaneous Biogenesis by Information Theory"; Journal of Theoretical Biology 67, 1977; p. 390.

But you have to pick and choose what stuff is "complex enough" to need that intelligence in order to distinguish it from the waves and sand.

We just reconciled that above.

That's the special pleading part, and ideas of irreducible complexity, misuses and faulty interpretations of Information Theory (Shannon's Information theory and computer coding versus Kolmogorov Complexity and emergent functions, and trying to wed these ideas with chemistry and physics) have come before and failed to be a valuable alternative to just "physics over time".

1. DNA/LIFE have absolutely nothing to do with either...

"As Abel and Trevors have pointed out, neither RSC nor OSC, or any combination of the two, is sufficient to describe the functional complexity observed in living organisms, for neither includes the additional dimension of functionality, which is essential for life [5]. FSC includes the dimension of functionality [2, 3]. Szostak [6] argued that neither Shannon's original measure of uncertainty [7] nor the measure of algorithmic complexity [8] are sufficient. Shannon's classical information theory does not consider the meaning, or function, of a message. Algorithmic complexity fails to account for the observation that 'different molecular structures may be functionally equivalent'. For this reason, Szostak suggested that a new measure of information–functional information–is required [6]"
Kirk K. Durston, David K. Y. Chiu, David L. Abel, Jack T. Trevors, "Measuring the functional sequence complexity of proteins," Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling, Vol. 4:47 (2007)

2. Irreducible Complexity has Failed??

This is quite elementary to understand; Let's use a Bicycle: You have the frame, handle bars, handle grips, seat, mirror, 2 wheels, chain, peddles, flag. What Irreducible Complexity is speaking to is there are certain parts of the system that must be present/complete and "functioning" to make a Bicycle a "Functioning" Bicycle. With our parts above, which are absolutely necessary? Frame, Handle Bars, both Wheels, Chain, Peddles. These are absolutely necessary; Ergo...the system is Irreducibly Complex

For our example, lets take a wheel away....Does the Bike still Function? If that wheel is used as a "Functioning" Roulette Wheel for ground squirrels or the spokes repatriated and used for Shis Kababs is the Bicycle still Kaput?
Does the mere fact that the parts of the wheel are now functioning for another purpose Preclude the Fact that the Bike is a Football Bat? Will the Frame, Handle Bars, Chain et al get together and reconstruct the missing wheel? Do Stupid Atoms and Molecules have Sentience, Prescience, and Intelligence? Welcome to Irreducible Complexity it's as right as rain.

And btw, the "debunking" blusters from the peanut gallery ALL (Kenneth Miller lol) IN TOTO argue 'The Stamp On The Forehead' Strawman Fallacy...that the existence of the Roulette Wheel and Shis Kabobs dis-annuls the Irreducible Complexity of the Bike.

It's Mind Numbing.


Please Reconcile this Irreducibly Complex System..

(Abbreviated version minus Translation) ....To make ONE "Functional Protein": DNA (Blue-Print/Instructions/SOFTWARE) needs to be Unzipped, Read and Copied (Transcription). RNA Polymerase (RNAP- "Functional Proteins" + RNA) A mind boggling Complex Molecular Rotary Motor, Tape Reader, and Copy Machine (not including roughly 70 other Co-Regulators that have to work in Concert with RNAP that if not working properly, gives you BUPKIS!)....that means the process is Irreducibly Complex!!

If RNAP is missing or 1 of the 70 Co-Regulators ("Functional Proteins").... do you get 1/71 of a "Functional Protein" or No "Functional Protein"? Ya get ZERO!!.... The "process" is Irreducibly Complex.

** Moreover; how are you getting the first "Functional Proteins" when you need "Functional Proteins" (CODED Specifically for on DNA), to make "Functional Proteins"?

Is that like the Space Shuttle giving Birth to the Space Shuttle Assembly Plant?

Go....?


regards

 

[Reality Check]

You're confused...

Daniel is definitely "confused" .
Lowpro writes about the watchmaker analogy and the invalid concepts of intelligent design

Right back at ya man

Anyways the special pleading in the Watchmaker Analogy is that observed stuff (described as "complexity" or "functional sequence") must have been the product of an intelligence. But you have to pick and choose what stuff is "complex enough" to need that intelligence in order to distinguish it from the waves and sand. That's the special pleading part, and ideas of irreducible complexity, misuses and faulty interpretations of Information Theory (Shannon's Information theory and computer coding versus Kolmogorov Complexity and emergent functions, and trying to wed these ideas with chemistry and physics) have come before and failed to be a valuable alternative to just "physics over time".

When Jesus's face appears in your toast, I tend to investigate the toaster's role in all that, not so much believing the toast intercepted Jesus's selfies.

gets an incoherent rant about irrelevant stuff in reply.

 

[Reality Check]

Daniel: A strawman argument about bicycles and irreducible complexity

2. Irreducible Complexity has Failed??

This is quite elementary to understand; Let's use a Bicycle...

It is certainly boggling that Daniel is dumb enough to persist with the bicycle example after being shown how ridiculously bad it is 17 days ago !

You are making the same mistake that Behe made originally, Daniel. You are constructing a strawman argument that has nothing to do with evolution. That is very elementary to understand !
Behe and others have suggested a number of biological features that they believe may be irreducibly complex and none are Irreducibly Complex.

Evolution does not say that a structure retrains the same function as it evolves. For example the flagella of certain bacteria have as their core the body of the Type III secretion system. For your example -take a wheel away from a bicycle and you have a functional unicycle ! Take the other wheel away and you have a functional exercise bike. Keep on taking way parts and you end up with a functional tomato frame .

1 March 2016 Daniel: A strawman argument about bicycles and irreducible complexity.