tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post2612305926253974040..comments2024-03-27T14:50:47.345-04:00Comments on <center>Sandwalk</center>: William Dembski Disproves EvolutionLarry Moranhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-29464192111115922482014-01-19T19:08:15.692-05:002014-01-19T19:08:15.692-05:00The evolution camp seems to be unaware that the ev...The evolution camp seems to be unaware that the evolutionary research is actually a kind of creation research: Could the Creator create the known flora and fauna by the mechanisms of Darwinian evolution? (The answer is no as Dembski and others have shown) Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12817509180067311644noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-73226443585923527402011-12-13T13:18:17.890-05:002011-12-13T13:18:17.890-05:00Oops, that is supposed to have been "Search F...Oops, that is supposed to have been "Search For a Search", not "Dearch For a Search".Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-11389124338722882982011-12-13T09:17:49.809-05:002011-12-13T09:17:49.809-05:00lee_merrill responded to my question as to whether...lee_merrill responded to my question as to whether he agrees that William Dembski's main arguments are incorrect:<br /><br /><i>I would agree, though with the caveat that I may be misunderstanding some point about the No Free Lunch argument. I'm would say Bill Dembski is not one to make a simple mistake here, so I would be glad to have him clarify.</i><br /><br />The criticism of his No Free Lunch argument that I made was made (by about 7 other people) multiple times since 2002. Dembski has never responded to it, except to point to his more recent papers. However those papers raise a totally different argument (his Dearch For a Search) argument), one which does not rule out the effectiveness of natural selection.<br /><br />If you can get him to respond and clarify why he has not withdrawn his assertions, you would be doing everyone a favor. Because his No Free Lunch argument is repeatedly cited by ID proponents as an unanswerable criticism of the effectiveness of nstural selection.<br /><br />In fact, just today, at Uncommon Descent, the ever-astonishing Denyse O'Leary is <a href="http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/memo-to-barry-arrington-why-baloney-arguments-against-id-are-much-more-effective/" rel="nofollow">baiting and imsulting Kenneth Miller</a> for allegedly erecting a strawman of ID rather than dealing with its actual arguments. And how does she start her article? With this sentence:<br /><br /><i>The threatening part of ID is Dembski’s No Free Lunch hypothesis. In a world looking for secular magic, it is the most deeply threatening idea imaginable.</i>Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-39971579736195344042011-12-12T21:57:04.170-05:002011-12-12T21:57:04.170-05:00Joe Felsenstein: But Dembski's arguments that ...Joe Felsenstein: But Dembski's arguments that are the subject of the video in Larry's original post are wrong. Are we agreed on that?<br /><br />I would agree, though with the caveat that I may be misunderstanding some point about the No Free Lunch argument. I'm would say Bill Dembski is not one to make a simple mistake here, so I would be glad to have him clarify.lee_merrillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08757197085138422700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-80563074448746645472011-12-11T16:38:20.001-05:002011-12-11T16:38:20.001-05:00lee_merrill said:
I agree, the fitness landscapes...lee_merrill said:<br /><br /><i>I agree, the fitness landscapes we see are a subset of all possible landscapes, and evolution does much better in these smoother landscapes than random variation would. Evolution would have no overall advantage over all possible landscapes, but that does not constrain it from doing well on a subset.</i><br /><br />It seems that this means you agree that William Dembski's arguments for the ineffectiveness of natural selection lack force.<br /><br />(His more recent "search for a search" arguments are arguments about information needing to be built into the universe to enable natural selection to work, and that is a different matter as this does not rule out natural selection being effective).<br /><br />Of course, this does not mean that all arguments for ID are necessarily wrong. But Dembski's arguments that are the subject of the video in Larry's original post are wrong. Are we agreed on that?Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-21527908569718192982011-12-11T11:09:38.087-05:002011-12-11T11:09:38.087-05:00Joe Felsenstein: I have argued that the NFL does n...Joe Felsenstein: I have argued that the NFL does not establish this because it averages over all possible fitness surfaces.<br /><br />I agree, the fitness landscapes we see are a subset of all possible landscapes, and evolution does much better in these smoother landscapes than random variation would. Evolution would have no overall advantage over all possible landscapes, but that does not constrain it from doing well on a subset.lee_merrillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08757197085138422700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-63192909522752854002011-12-11T08:52:52.047-05:002011-12-11T08:52:52.047-05:00lee_merill wrote: I do believe (not only SI, but) ...lee_merill wrote: <i>I do believe (not only SI, but) CSI can increase via any process that allows for all possibilities, this includes random variation, this includes evolution</i>.<br /><br />Good, I think this constitutes agreement that Dembski's Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information (LCCSI) does not work to justify his Design Inference (also called Design Detector). For the observation of high fitness, high enough that it could not have come about even once in the history of the Universe if all we had was mutation without natural selection.<br /><br />Thus the many assertions one hears from ID supporters that CSI is evidence for ID because we know of no natural phenomenon that can produce it, are simply wrong.<br /><br />I think we now agree about that.<br /><br />Now what about the No Free Lunch argument? In your view does the NFL Theorem establish that the particular fitness surfaces we find in living systems are so rough that natural selection cannot do any better than search by random mutation? I have argued that the NFL does not establish this because it averages over all possible fitness surfaces. Do you agree?Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-51030087464270970392011-12-10T15:47:34.358-05:002011-12-10T15:47:34.358-05:00"The story you cite shows not that genes for ..."The story you cite shows not that genes for antibiotics resistance sat silently waiting, but that there were genes conferring resistance to natural antibiotics"<br /><br />Antibiotics resistance was really a bad example. Better is the Trichoplax genome. The ancient genes in Trichoplax, could they perhaps be part of the regulation system too? <br /><br />http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7207/abs/nature07191.htmlPentti S. Varisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-88223943446843808642011-12-10T14:14:25.553-05:002011-12-10T14:14:25.553-05:00Joe Felsenstein: ... so are we in agreement about ...Joe Felsenstein: ... so are we in agreement about the invalidity of Dembski's LCCSI argument, and thus of his Design Inference?<br /><br />I do believe (not only SI, but) CSI can increase via any process that allows for all possibilities, this includes random variation, this includes evolution.lee_merrillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08757197085138422700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-37446699590578209202011-12-10T07:38:42.307-05:002011-12-10T07:38:42.307-05:00lee_merrill commented about Dembski's use of t...lee_merrill commented about Dembski's use of the No Free Lunch Theorem (NFL):<br /><br /><i>And I checked the No Free Lunch book, and it seems the argument takes "no algorithm has an advantage in reaching any arbitrary goal" to "no algorithm has an advantage in reaching a particular goal" i.e. a particular subset of the space, such as high fitness regions.<br /><br />But I'm not seeing the connection here to make this transition, and as you note, evolutionary algorithms and evolution both work better than random searches.</i><br /><br />I hesitate to support Dembski's argument, but if "any arbitrary goal" includes a set of the highest-fitness points in the space (i.e. if that is the set you arbitrarily pick as the goal), then the NFL does apply.<br /><br />Where the problem is, is that the NFL does not apply to one fitness surface, it applies to an average behavior over all possible fitness surfaces. With P points in the space amd P different fitness values, there are P! (P-factorial) ways you could associate fitnesses with points (genotypes).<br /><br />A typical one of these is a random association of points with fitnesses. Yes, that has disastrous consequences for evolution. A one-mutation change brings you to a fitness <i>randomly chosen from the set of all fitneses in the space</i>. In other words:<br /><br />1. A 1-mutation change basically almost-always kills you, and<br /><br />2. A 1-mutation change is just as bad for your fitness as changing all sites in the genome.<br /><br />A moment's consideration will show that real fitness surfaces are smoother than that -- a <i>lot</i> smoother. So evolution has a good chance of succeeding on them, even though it would do horribly on fitness surfaces that randomly associate fitnesses with genotypes.<br /><br />There is nothing wrong with Wolpert and Macready's NFL Theorem. The problem is that in using it Dembski effectively assumes that an infinitely jaggy fitness surface is typical. Considerations of physical reality work against that.Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-9211558791723089172011-12-09T19:07:52.345-05:002011-12-09T19:07:52.345-05:00I have to hand it to them, whoever makes their doc...I have to hand it to them, whoever makes their documentaries are competent, if only them.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-31205988392579711962011-12-09T18:51:12.378-05:002011-12-09T18:51:12.378-05:00lee_merill said:
Yes, I agree, evolution can incr...lee_merill said:<br /><br /><i>Yes, I agree, evolution can increase SI, and faster than a random search.</i><br /><br />Good, that's progress towards agreement between us.<br /><br />and merill also said, about my argument that then only 250 of these searches need to occur to get up to Dembski's 500-bit threshold, which he thinks he has shown is unreachable:<br /><br /><i>I would disagree, for your hill is extraordinarily high! Most fitness landscapes do not have hundreds of steps where you don't reach any local maxima.</i><br /><br />Dembski's argument is supposed to show that it is <i>impossible</i> to get to 500 bits, no matter what the fitness surface. So "my" hill is very relevant.<br /><br />It disproves Dembski's argument. But how can it do that when he claims to have proven that this is impossible? See <a href="http://ncse.com/rncse/27/3-4/has-natural-selection-been-refuted-arguments-william-dembski" rel="nofollow">my 2007 paper</a> where I argue that he changes the specification in midstream to make his argument, when one should not, if one is modeling increase of a function such as fitness. My argument here does the relevant thing, which is to keep the specification the same, so that his LCCSI theorem does not apply, even if it were totally correct.<br /><br />OK, so are we in agreement about the invalidity of Dembski's LCCSI argument, and thus of his Design Inference?<br /><br />(As for the No Free Lunch argument, I will deal with that in a subsequent comment).Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-69360631717573052212011-12-09T16:41:47.075-05:002011-12-09T16:41:47.075-05:00Hundreds of investigations show that this is true,...<i>Hundreds of investigations show that this is true, e.g. the genes which cause antibiotics resistance are very old</i><br /><br />Worse and worse. The story you cite shows not that genes for antibiotics resistance sat silently waiting, but that there were genes conferring resistance to <i>natural antibiotics in the contemporary environment of the bacteria that were studied</i>. Not front loading, but natural selection.Judnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-83655661503906868432011-12-09T15:01:38.140-05:002011-12-09T15:01:38.140-05:00@Jud:
"The Creator was so incompetent that i...@Jud:<br /><br />"The Creator was so incompetent that instead of doing "just in time inventory," which even we humans are smart enough to do, He apparently made all life carry that genetic baggage for 3.5 billion years."<br /><br />Hundreds of investigations show that this is true, e.g. the genes which cause antibiotics resistance are very old<br /><br />http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/science/01gene.html?_r=2<br /><br />The all the time discovered new regulation systems of the genes, that causes e.g. that one gene produces many different proteins, are so complicated, that they are not jet fully understandable. See e.g.<br /><br />http://vizbi.org/Videos/26206370Pentti S. Varisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-17113493579138439392011-12-09T11:28:34.874-05:002011-12-09T11:28:34.874-05:00lee merrill says,
But I would be interested in yo...lee merrill says,<br /><br /><i>But I would be interested in your take on Behe's Edge of Evolution--I wish Larry Moran would discuss that in his class instead of Icons of Evolution. </i><br /><br /><i>The Edge of Evolution</i> is much too complicated for second year students who aren't majoring in biochemistry or genetics. That's why I don't use it in class.<br /><br />Behe presents two main arguments. <br /><br />The first is an argument about the probability of epistatic mutations. Imagine a fitness benefit when two mutations occur where either one alone is detrimental. Behe argues that the probability of these two mutations happening simultaneously in the same organism is extremely low. Too low to happen in most populations. This defines one "edge of evolution." Behe is basically correct here, given his assumptions.<br /><br />The second argument concerns protein-protein interactions. Behe develops "The Two-Binding Site Rule" for such interactions. The question he asks is ...<br /><br /><i>... how difficult would it be for two proteins that initially did not bind to each other to develop a strong, specific interaction by random mutation and natural selection?</i><br /><br />He claims that you need three or four mutations in order to get binding where each of them causes trouble if they occur singly. Thus, in order to create a new binding site on a protein you need three or four simultaneous mutations and this is "far beyond the edge."<br /><br />Again, given his assumptions, Behe is correct. That's not going to happen. We are never going to see such events in the history of life.<br /><br />There are only two possible conclusions one can draw after reading Behe's book. Either his assumptions are wrong or God exists.<br /><br />If you know anything about evolution, biochemistry, and genetics, it's trivially easy to show that his assumptions are incorrect. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to explain it to people who are not familiar with those subjects and that's why it's more difficult for undergraduates than Jonathan Wells' book <i>Icons of Evolution</i>.Larry Moranhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05756598746605455848noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-55287714005826031052011-12-09T10:19:19.883-05:002011-12-09T10:19:19.883-05:00Joe Felsenstein: I showed that natural selection (...Joe Felsenstein: I showed that natural selection (not "random processes") could put 2 bits of Specified Information into the genome.<br /><br />Yes, I agree, evolution can increase SI, and faster than a random search.<br /><br />> In my example only 84 generations were needed to get 2 bits of SI. As long as we get to start the Universe before 4004 BC there seems to be ample time.<br /><br />I would disagree, for your hill is extraordinarily high! Most fitness landscapes do not have hundreds of steps where you don't reach any local maxima.<br /><br />And I checked the No Free Lunch book, and it seems the argument takes "no algorithm has an advantage in reaching any arbitrary goal" to "no algorithm has an advantage in reaching a particular goal" i.e. a particular subset of the space, such as high fitness regions.<br /><br />But I'm not seeing the connection here to make this transition, and as you note, evolutionary algorithms and evolution both work better than random searches.lee_merrillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08757197085138422700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-40339263471797319502011-12-09T09:23:12.745-05:002011-12-09T09:23:12.745-05:00I would be interested in your take on Behe's E...<i>I would be interested in your take on Behe's Edge of Evolution</i><br /><br />I liked Behe's example of malaria, sickle cell anemia, and the manufacture of drugs against malaria. This shows how evolution is more productive than is intelligent design. While sickle cell anemia still is effective against malaria, malaria has managed to evolve resistance against several intelligently designed drugs.<br /><br />TomSAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-29258706853445685982011-12-09T02:25:29.138-05:002011-12-09T02:25:29.138-05:00Lee Merrill said: I agree that random processes ca...Lee Merrill said: <i>I agree that random processes can generate specified information, as in the proverbial monkeys typing the works of Shakespeare.</i><br /><br />In the example in my paper, which you have read, I showed that natural selection (not "random processes") could put 2 bits of Specified Information into the genome. I thought that you already agreed that this was so. Right?<br /><br />It's not just typing monkeys, as you have already agreed.Joe Felsensteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06359126552631140000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-21764060771112588412011-12-08T22:07:13.675-05:002011-12-08T22:07:13.675-05:00Joe Felsenstein: ... are Lee Merrill and I agreed ...Joe Felsenstein: ... are Lee Merrill and I agreed that Dembski's LCCSI and NFL arguments don't work?<br /><br />I agree that random processes can generate specified information, as in the proverbial monkeys typing the works of Shakespeare. I haven't really examined the NFL argument, but it seems unlikely to me that this would provide a limit to what evolution can do--for we are not dealing with an algorithm over all possible input sets, but with an algorithm starting on a local hill in a hilly landscape. But I have Dembski's book! It now behooves me to read it.<br /><br />But I would be interested in your take on Behe's Edge of Evolution--I wish Larry Moran would discuss <i>that</i> in his class instead of Icons of Evolution.lee_merrillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08757197085138422700noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-14380528203283217772011-12-08T17:12:01.818-05:002011-12-08T17:12:01.818-05:00Yes, but it will not take long time before we can ...Yes, but it will not take long time before we can agree with that:<br /><br />"We fooled ourselves into thinking the genome was going to be a transparent blueprint, but it's not," says Mel Greaves, a cell biologist at the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, UK.<br /><br />http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100331/full/464664a.html<br /><br />Many investigations point towards a radical paradigm shift in genomics and..evolution.<br /><br />http://www.starcitynews.com/study-finds-that-assault-of-genetic-parasites-triggered-modern-mammalian-pregnancy/8871/#more-8871<br /><br />http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v454/n7207/edsumm/e080821-05.htmlPentti S. Varisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-72332476692109221352011-12-08T13:22:20.321-05:002011-12-08T13:22:20.321-05:00The complex multicellular animal´s genome does con...<i>The complex multicellular animal´s genome does contain many important genes, which has been silent in its one-celled "simple" ancestors perhaps 100 000 000 years.</i><br /><br />Oh dear, "front loading" again. The Creator was so incompetent that instead of doing "just in time inventory," which even we humans are smart enough to do, He apparently made all life carry that genetic baggage for 3.5 <i>billion</i> years. (Not 100 million, wherever did you come up with that figure?) <br /><br />So is that your answer - life was created by an entity so stupid He'd be fired by any competent logistics or manufacturing firm today?Judnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-67856548376052913062011-12-08T09:38:26.454-05:002011-12-08T09:38:26.454-05:00@Pentti S. Varis
No extant one-celled "simpl...@Pentti S. Varis<br /><br />No extant <i>one-celled "simple"</i> organisms are the ancestors of metazoa. You are misunderstanding, not disproving, evolution.The Other Jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17570666738076378921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-89493439798547522712011-12-07T17:17:07.796-05:002011-12-07T17:17:07.796-05:00The complex multicellular animal´s genome does con...The complex multicellular animal´s genome does contain many important genes, which has been silent in its one-celled "simple" ancestors perhaps 100 000 000 years. This should be cognized in trying mathematically refute "darwinism".. <br /><br />http://www.panspermia.org/whatsnew67.htmPentti S. Varisnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-38452470520163515782011-12-07T11:29:40.391-05:002011-12-07T11:29:40.391-05:00Atheistoclast said:
RRRKRTAYTRYQLLELEKEFLFNRYLTRR...Atheistoclast said:<br /><br /><i>RRRKRTAYTRYQLLELEKEFLFNRYLTRRRRIELAHSLNLTERHIKIWFQNRRMKWKKEN<br /><br />You get a cookie if you tell me what the sequence does.</i><br /><br />Oh, here, let me give it a shot. Does it make you break out in a rash of the Virgin Mary with a pulsing "JESUS IS LORD" on your chest? Because it would take something like that to prove the case of where you're ultimately going in praising introns and the like.<br /><br />You can keep the cookie and the grape juice for Sunday morning.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37148773.post-29691356085551031982011-12-07T09:25:47.622-05:002011-12-07T09:25:47.622-05:00At one time, Prof. Dumbski allowed as how common d...At one time, Prof. Dumbski allowed as how common descent and an old earth might possibly be true. In his current position in a fundy school, he now is a young earth creationist who rejects common descent.SLCnoreply@blogger.com