The AP Model and Shannon Theory Show the Incompleteness of Darwin’s ToE

self | January 26, 2009 | Jean F. Drew

[betty boop]

The AP Model and Shannon Theory Show the Incompleteness of Darwin’s ToE

By Jean F. Drew

“The commonly cited case for intelligent design appeals to: (a) the irreducible complexity of (b) some aspects of life. But complex arguments invite complex refutations (valid or otherwise), and the claim that only some aspects of life are irreducibly complex implies that others are not, and so the average person remains unconvinced. Here I use another principle—autopoiesis (self-making)—to show that all aspects of life lie beyond the reach of naturalistic explanations. Autopoiesis provides a compelling case for intelligent design in three stages: (i) autopoiesis is universal in all living things, which makes it a pre-requisite for life, not an end product of natural selection; (ii) the inversely-causal, information-driven, structured hierarchy of autopoiesis is not reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry; and (iii) there is an unbridgeable abyss between the dirty, mass-action chemistry of the natural environmental and the perfectly-pure, single-molecule precision of biochemistry.”

So begins Alex Williams’ seminal article, Life’s Irreducible Structure — Autopoiesis, Part 1. In the article, Williams seeks to show that all living organisms are constituted by a five-level structured hierarchy that cannot be wholly accounted for in terms of naturalistic explanation. Rather, Williams’ model places primary emphasis on the successful transmission and communication of relevant biological information.

Note here that, so far, science has not identified any naturalistic source for “information” within the universe, biological or otherwise. And yet it appears that living organisms remain living only so long as they are “successfully communicating” information. When that process stops, the organism dies; i.e., becomes subject to the second law of thermodynamics — the consequences of which the now-deceased organism had managed to optimally distance itself from while alive.

Evidently Williams finds Michael Behe’s irreducible complexity arguments insufficiently general to explain biological complexity and organization, and so seeks a different explanation to generically characterize the living organism. Yet his proposed autopoietic model — of the “self-making,” i.e., self-maintaining or self-organizing and therefore living system — itself happens to be irreducibly complex. That is to say, on Williams’ model, any biological organism from microbe to man must be understood as a complete, functioning “whole,” transcending in the most profound way any definition of a particular organism as the “mere” sum of its constituting “material” parts.

Further, the idea of the “whole” must come prior to an understanding of the nature and function of the constituting parts. Williams terms this idea of the “whole” as inversely causal meta-information; as such, it is what determines the relations and organization of all the parts that constitute that “whole” of the living organism — a biological system in nature.

Just one further word before we turn to Williams’ autopoietic model. To begin with the supposition of “wholeness” flies in the face of methodological naturalism, the currently favored model of scientific investigation, and arguably the heart of Darwinist evolutionary theory. For methodological naturalism is classical and mechanistic (i.e., “Newtonian”) in its basic presuppositions: Among other things, it requires that all causation be “local.” Given this requirement, it makes sense to regard the “whole is merely the sum of its parts” as a valid statement — those parts being given to human understanding as the objects of direct observation of material events. The presumption here is that, given enough time, the piling up of the parts (i.e., of the “material events”) will eventually give you the description of the whole. Meanwhile, we all should just be patient. For centuries if need be, as a collaborator once suggested to me (in regard to abiogenesis. See more below).

Yet subsequent to classical physics came the astonishing revelations of relativity and quantum theory, both of which point to “non-local” causation. The transmission of information across widely spatially-separated regions (from the point of view of the biological organism as an extended body in time) so as to have causative effect in the emergence of biological life and its functions is decidedly a “non-local” phenomenon. Indeed, non-local causation seems ubiquitous, all-pervasive in the living state of biological organisms, as we shall see in what follows.

Williams’ Autopoietic Model
Williams lays out the five-level, autopoietic hierarchy specifying the living system this way (parenthetical notes added):

(i) components with perfectly pure composition (i.e., pure elements)
(ii) components with highly specific structure (i.e., molecules)
(iii) components that are functionally integrated (i.e., components work cooperatively toward achieving a purpose or goal)
(iv) comprehensively regulated information-driven processes (DNA, RNA)
(v) inversely-causal meta-informational strategies for individual and species survival (we’ll get to this in a minute)

Pictorially, the model lays out like this:

Figure 1 summarizes the five-level, hierarchical specification of any living organism, microbe to man. But how do we get a handle on what this hierarchy actually means?

An interesting way to look at the problem, it seems to me, is to look at the available potential “information content” of each of the five “levels” or “manifolds” of the hierarchy.

You’ll note that Figure 1 depicts an ascending arrow on the left labeled “complexity.” For our present purposes, we’ll define this as “algorithmic complexity,” understood as a function that maximally yields “information content.” If we can find complexity measures to plug into the model, we might gain additional insight thereby.

Fortunately, algorithmic complexity measures have been obtained for certain levels of the hierarchy; i.e., Level (i) and Levels (iv) and possibly Level (v). For the latter two, the measures were taken with respect to the living human being. Figure 1 can thus be expanded as follows:

Notes to Figure 2:

¹ Gregory Chaitin: “My paper on physics was never published, only as an IBM report. In it I took: Newton’s laws, Maxwell’s laws, the Schrödinger equation, and Einstein’s field equations for curved spacetime near a black hole, and solved them numerically, giving ‘motion-picture’ solutions. The programs, which were written in an obsolete computer programming language APL2 at roughly the level of Mathematica, were all about half a page long, which is amazingly simple.”

On this basis, Chaitin has pointed out that the complexity we observe in living systems cannot be accounted for on the basis of the chemical and physical laws alone, owing to the paucity of their information content.

² George Gilder: “In each of the some 300 trillion cells in every human body, the words of life churn almost flawlessly through our flesh and nervous system at a speed that utterly dwarfs the data rates of all the world’s supercomputers. For example, just to assemble some 500 amino-acid units into each of the trillions of complex hemoglobin molecules that transfer oxygen from the lungs to bodily tissues takes a total of some 250 peta operations per second. (The word “peta” refers to the number ten to the 15th power — so this tiny process requires 250 x 10¹⁵ operations.)

A Word about Abiogenesis
Darwin’s evolutionary theory does not deal with the origin of life. It takes life for granted, and then asks how it speciates. Moreover, the theory does not elaborate a description of the constitution of the individual living organism, such as Williams’ irreducibly complex/autopoietic (“IC/AP”) model proposes.

It’s important to recognize that neither Darwin’s theory, nor Williams’ model, deals with the origin of life. It seems to me that evolution theory and ID are not necessarily mutually-exclusive. One deals with the species level, the other the biological structure of living individuals, the “building blocks” of species, as it were.

Yet there is tremendous hostility towards intelligent design on the part of many orthodox evolutionary biologists, which has gotten so bad in recent times that the more doctrinaire Darwinists have run to the courts for “protection” of their cherished beliefs (and interests personal and institutional), insisting that ID “is not science.” Judges are not scientists; in general they are ill-equipped to make judgments “on the merits” of scientific controversies. Yet they render judgments all the same, with profound implications for how science is to be taught. I fail to see how this redounds to the benefit of scientific progress.

If science is defined as materialist and naturalist in its fundamental presuppositions — the currently-favored methodological naturalism — then ID does not meet the test of “what is science?” For it does not restrict itself to the material, the physical, but extends its model to information science, which is immaterial. The problem for Darwinists seems to be that there is no known source of biological information within Nature as classically understood (i.e., as fundamentally Newtonian — materialist and mechanistic in three dimensions).

The problem of abiogenesis goes straight to the heart of this issue. Abiogensis is a hypothesis holding that life spontaneously arises from inert, non-living matter under as-yet unknown conditions. Although evolution theory does not deal with the problem of the origin of life, many evolutionary biologists are intrigued by the problem, and want to deal with it in a manner consistent with Darwinian methods; i.e., the presuppositions of methodological naturalism, boosted by random mutation and natural selection. That is, to assume that life “emerges” from the “bottom-up” — from resources available at Levels (i) and (ii) of the IC/AP model.

There have been numerous experiments, most of which have taken the form of laboratory simulations of “lightning strikes” on a properly prepared chemical “soup” (e.g., Urey, Miller, et al.). At least one such experiment managed to produce amino acids — fundamental building blocks of life (at the (ii) level of Williams’ hierarchy). But amino acids are not life. On Williams’ model, to be “life,” they’d need to have achieved at least the threshold of Level (iii).

For it is the presence of “functionally-integrated components” that makes life possible, that sustains the living organism in its very first “duty”: That it will, along the entire extension of its complete biological make-up (whether simple or highly complex), globally organize its component systems in such a way as to maximally maintain the total organism’s “distance” from thermodynamic entropy. An “organism” that couldn’t do that wouldn’t last as an “organism” for very long.

And so in order for the materialist interpretation of abiogenesis to be true, the “chemical soup” experimental model would have to demonstrate how inorganic matter manages to “exempt” itself from one of the two most fundamental laws of Nature: the second law of thermodynamics.

From cells on up through species, all biological organisms — by virtue of their participation in Levels (i) and (ii) — are subject to the second law right from creation. Indeed, they are subject to it throughout their life spans. A friend points out that the second law is a big arguing point for Macroevolutionists, who try to argue that the second law is irrelevent, i.e., doesn’t apply to living systems, because “it only applies to closed systems and not to open ones.” Thus they say that living systems in nature are “open” systems. But what this line of reasoning does not tell us is what such systems are “open” to.

And yet we know that every cell is subject to the second law — simply by needing to fuel itself, it subjects itself to the effects of entropy, otherwise known as heat death. And although it can and does stave off such effects for a while, doing so requires the cell or species constantly to deal with maintaining distance from entropy in all its living functional components, organized globally. Entropy plays a big part in all life — from cells to completed species.

When the successful communication of meta-information begins to slow down and break down, cells and species then begin to succumb to the effects of entropy, to which they have been subjected all their entire life. This is because they can no longer combat, or stay ahead of the “entropy curve,” due to inefficient communication processes and, thus, degradation of the maintenance procedures communicated to the cells via the meta-information system that is specific to each particular biological entity and to each particular species. After all, any species description is necessarily an informed description.

Yet another origin-of-life approach — the Wimmer abiogenesis experiment — is highly instructive. He managed to “create” a polio virus. He did so by introducing RNA information into a “cell-free juice,” and the polio virus spontaneously resulted.

Wimmer used actual DNA to synthesize polio RNA based on information about the polio virus RNA which is widely available, even on the internet. The RNA information was truly “pulled” from the DNA, which “resides” at the next-higher level. He could not synthesize RNA directly; he first had to synthesize the DNA from the raw information and then synthesize the polio RNA from the synthetic DNA.

Yet RNA information, like all information, is immaterial. In terms of the Williams’ hierarchy, clearly Wimmer had obtained an organism functioning at about Level (iii) — because it had sufficient information to propel it to that level, as “pulled” by the information available at the next-higher level where DNA information “resides” — Level (iv).

Unlike biological organisms expressing all five levels of the Williams model, the polio virus, though fully autonomous as an information processor (leading to its “successful communication” in Wimmer’s laboratory), somehow still doesn’t have everything it needs to be fully “autonomous” as a living being. A virus, for instance, is dependent on a living host in order to execute its own life program. As such, it is a sort of “quasi-life.” Shannon Information Theory helps us to clarify such distinctions.

Before we turn to Shannon, it’s worth mentioning that, according to H. H. Pattee and Luis Rocha, the issue of autonomy (and semiosis — the language and the ability to encode/decode messages) is a huge stumbling block to abiogenesis theory. For that kind of complexity to emerge by self-organizing theory, in the RNA world, the organism would have to involuntarily toggle back and forth between non-autonomous and autonomous modes, first to gather, and then to make use of information content as an autonomous living entity. The question then becomes: What tells it how and when to “toggle?” Further, it appears the source of the information content that can toggle non-life into life remains undisclosed.

Shannon Information Theory
The DNA of any individual life form is exactly the same whether the organism is dead or alive. And we know this, for DNA is widely used and proved reliable in forensic tests of decedents in criminal courts of law. And so we propose:

Information is that which distinguishes life from non-life/death.

Information, paraphrased as “successful communication,” is the reduction of uncertainty (Shannon entropy) in a receiver or molecular machine in going from a before state to an after state. It is the action which facilitates any successfully completed communication. Thus Shannon’s model describes the universal “mechanism” of communication. That is, it distinguishes between the “content” of a message and its “conduit”: The model is indifferent to the actual message being communicated, which could be anything, from “Don’t forget to put your boots on today — it’s snowing,” to Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The value or meaning of the message being transmitted has no bearing on the Shannon model, which is the same for all messages whatever. Pictorially, the Shannon communication conduit looks like this:

Information is further defined by its independence from physical determination:

“I came to see that the computer offers an insuperable obstacle to Darwinian materialism. In a computer, as information theory shows, the content is manifestly independent of its material substrate. No possible knowledge of a computer’s materials can yield any information whatsoever about the actual content of its computations. In the usual hierarchy of causation, they reflect the software or ‘source code’ used to program the device; and, like the design of the computer itself, the software is contrived by human intelligence.

“The failure of purely physical theories to describe or explain information reflects Shannon’s concept of entropy and his measure of ‘news.’ Information is defined by its independence from physical determination: If it is determined, it is predictable and thus by definition not information. Yet Darwinian science seemed to be reducing all nature to material causes.” — George Gilder, “Evolution and Me,” National Review, July 17, 2006, p. 29f.

Referring to the Shannon diagram above, we can interpret the various elements of the model in terms of biological utility, as follows:

Note the head, “noise.” Biologically speaking, with respect to the fully-integrated, five-leveled biological organism, “noise” in the channel might be introduced by certain biological “enigmas,” which broadly satisfy the requirements of Williams’ model and, thus, are living organisms. Shannon Information Theory describes such “enigmas” as follows:

Bacteria — typified by autonomous successful communication; bacteria are single-cell organisms. Because they are autonomous entities, communications follow the normal flow in Shannon theory — source, message, encoder/transmitter, channel, decoder/receiver. The bacteria’s messages are not “broadcast” to other nearby bacteria but are autonomous to the single-cell organism.

Bacterial Spores — typified by autonomous successful communication. Bacterial spores, such as anthrax, are like other bacteria except they can settle into a dormant state. Dormant bacterial spores begin regular successful communication under the Shannon model once an “interrupt” has occurred, for instance the presence of food. Anthrax, for instance, may lay dormant for years until breathed into a victim’s lungs, whereupon it actively begins its successful albeit destructive (to its host) communication, which often leads to the death of its host; i.e., the bacterium’s “food source.”

Mycoplasmas — typified as an autonomous bacterial model parasite successfully communicating. Mycoplasmas are akin to bacteria except they lack an outer membrane and so often attach to other cells, whereby they may cause such events as, for instance, the disease pneumonia. In the Shannon model, mycoplasmas are considered “autonomous” in that the communications are often restricted to the mycoplasma itself; e.g., self-reproduction. But because they also act like a parasite, they might alter the host’s properties and thus result in malfunctions in the autonomous communication of the host by, for instance, interfering with the channel.

Mimivirus — typified as an autonomous virus model parasite successfully communicating. Mimiviruses are gigantic viruses. They are viruses because they are parasites to their host, relying on the host for protein engineering. But the mimiviruses (unlike regular viruses) apparently do not need to be a parasite, and thus they are “autonomous” with regard to the Shannon model. But like the mycoplasmas, the presence of mimiviruses can alter properties of the host and thereby result in malfunctions in the autonomous communications of the host by, for instance, interfering with the channel.

Viroids — typified as non-autonomous virus-like noise/mutation contributing to successful/failed communication. Viroids have no protein coat. They are single strands of RNA that lack the protein coat of regular viruses. They are noise in the channel under the Shannon model; i.e., messages only that are not communicated autonomously within the viroids themselves. They can also be seen as “broadcast” messages, because viroids may cause their own message (RNA) to be introduced into the host.

Viruses — typified as non-autonomous virus noise/mutation contributing to successful/failed communication. Viruses feed genetic data to the host. They are strands of DNA or RNA that have a protein coat. Viruses are parasites to the host, relying on the host for communication; e.g., reproduction. In the Shannon model, viruses are either noise or broadcasts that are not autonomous in the virus and appear as noise messages to the host. It is possible that, unlike the polio virus which is destructive, there may be some viruses (and viroids) whose messages cause a beneficial adaptation in the host.

Prions — typified as non-autonomous protein noise/mutation contributing to successful/failed communication (protein crystallization). Prions are protein molecules that have neither DNA nor RNA. Currently, prions are the suspected cause of bovine spongiform encephalopathy — Mad Cow Disease. In the Shannon model, prions would be incoherent in the channel because they have no discernable message; that is, neither DNA nor RNA. Thus the prion would lead to channel or decoding malfunctions.

So far there is no known origin for information (successful communication) in space/time. This should be visualized as activity represented by the arrows on the above illustration. Possible origins include a universal vacuum field, harmonics, geometry.

Shannon’s mathematical theory of communications applied to molecular biology shows genuine promise of having some significant implications for the theory of natural selection in explaining the rise of information (successful communication), autonomy, and semiosis (language, encoding/decoding). — S. Venable, J. Drew, “Shannon Information and Complex Systems Theory,” Don’t Let Science Get You Down, Timothy, Lulu Press, 2006, p. 207f.

It seems worthwhile to note here that, under Shannon’s model, the thermodynamic “tab” is paid when the “molecular machine” goes from the before state to the after state. At that moment, it dissipates heat into the surroundings. Level (v) meta-information successfully communicated to the organism provides it with strategies to counter and compensate for local thermodynamic effects. Ultimately, when the organism reaches a state in which it is no longer successfully communicating, the entropy tab must be paid by ordinary means. And so eventually, the living organism dies.

Putting Williams’ IC/AP Model into Context
So far, the autopoietic model — though it provides an excellent description of the information flows necessary to establish and maintain an organism in a “living state” — seems to be a bit of an abstraction. Indeed, in order to be fully understood, the model needs to be placed into the context in which it occurs — that is, in Nature.

Each living entity as described by the model is a part and participant in a far greater “whole.” Niels Bohr put it this way: “A scientific analysis of parts cannot disclose the actual character of a living organism because that organism exists only in relation to the whole of biological life.” Including the species-specific meta-information unique to any particular species, which also controls and dictates how the entire biological system works as a “whole”; i.e., at the global level. And arguably, not only in relation to the entirety of biological life, but to the physical forces of nature, to inorganic entities, and to other biological beings, including the “enigmas” described above, which appear to be a sort of “quasi-life.” For even though they may be autonomous communicators, some of these “quasi-life” examples suggest an organic state that is somehow not “sufficiently informed” to stand on its own; i.e., they exemplify a state that needs to latch onto a fully-functioning biological entity in order to complete their own “program” for life — the very definition of a parasite.

The single most telling point that Williams’ model makes is that information is vital to the living state; that it flows “downward” from the “top” of his model — Level (v), meta-information — and not from the “bottom” of the model flowing “upwards” by the incremental means characterizing Levels (i) and (ii) — not to mention orthodox Darwinist expectation. On this model, Levels (i) and (ii) “do not know how to fit themselves” into the “biological picture.” For that, they need the information available at Levels (iii) to (v).

Many questions relevant to our exploration of the fundaments of biology have not been touched on in this article — e.g., what is the meaning of “emergence?” What is the manner in which “complexification” takes place in nature? What do we mean by “open” and “closed” systems? What do we mean by “self-ordered” or “self-organizing” systems in nature? (And what does the prefix “self” mean with respect to such questions?)

But since we’re out of time, we won’t be dealing with such problems here and now, though I hope we may return to them later. Instead, I’ll leave you, dear reader, with yet another depiction of Figure 1, this time elaborated to show the total context in which the irreducibly complex, autopoietic model is embedded:

Note the model now sits, not only with respect to its natural environment, but also with respect to the quantum domain of pure potentiality, and also with respect to a (proposed) extra-mundane source of biological information.

I think for the biological sciences to actually progress, a model such as Williams’ IC/AP model is worthy of serious consideration. Remember, Darwin’s theory is wholly classical, meaning dimensionally limited to 3-space, to local, mechanical, largely force-field-driven material causation. Relativity and quantum theory have both moved well beyond those precincts. It’s time for the Darwinian theory of evolution to “catch up” with the current state of scientific knowledge — and especially with the implications of information science.

©2009 Jean F. Drew

[Alamo-Girl]

In short, I see no creationist theory that explains the range of phenomena accounted for by mainstream science.

Case in point, you value the evidence differently.

Neither side is objective. Indeed, no observer "in" space/time can perceive objectively "all that there is" all at once.

[js1138]

You did the same.

Fair enough, but personal feelings and perceptions are not available for examination and discussion among groups of people.

Civilization is the result of commonly agreed upon perceptions. Science and technology are built on carefully constructed and tested conjectures, hypotheses and theories, ideas that pass the same test regardless of race, religion, nationality or politics. Those using the same methodology get the same results.

[Alamo-Girl]

I just read Szostak's bio at HHMI and was not impressed enough to want to go further. It said:

Today, Szostak's main focus is the construction of a simple, artificial cell that can grow and divide as well as evolve in a Darwinian sense to adapt to its changing environment. To do this, he is attempting to make and then combine two self-replicating systems: a nucleic acid (such as RNA or DNA) that can transmit genetic information and a simple membrane-bound vesicle that keeps the nucleic acid chains from drifting apart. A major challenge is coordinating the growth and division of the membrane-bound vesicle with the replication of its contents. Szostak has found that the nucleic acids themselves can drive the growth of the fatty acid membrane; as they replicate, the internal osmotic pressure increases, swelling the vesicle and stretching the membrane so that it absorbs fatty acids from other vesicles that are under less internal pressure. Cells with faster nucleic acid replication should therefore grow faster than cells with slower nucleic acid replication. In this way, simple physical principles coordinate the replication of the nucleic acid genome and the replication of the rest of the cell structure, leading to the emergence of natural selection and Darwinian evolution based on competition between cells.

This is merely an extension of Wimmer's experiment. According to this bio, he, like Wimmer, is starting with the message and presupposing autonomy, semiosis, awareness and information [Shannon.]

Again, my question goes to the rise of autonomy, semiosis, information [Shannon, successful communication] and awareness. Not taking it as a "given."

Since you are obviously aware of his work, perhaps you can tell me whether he addresses those specific points on the order of the mathematicians and physicists who have. (e.g. Pattee, Rocha, Yockey)

[js1138]

Neither side is objective. Indeed, no observer "in" space/time can perceive objectively "all that there is" all at once.

Nevertheless, science finds useful generalizations that can be tested and applied by anyone. That is why science doesn't attempt to deal with absolute truth or supernatural events and causes. It's a self-imposed limitation.

That does not mean that science cannot find reliable information about past history and current phenomena. If you choose to live within you own self-contained shell and not participate in the adventure of science, that is your own self-imposed limitation. You and your friend have wisely placed your discussion in the religion forum. However, if you venture out of your self-imposed world and make declarations about what is or is not valid in the domain of science, you need to prepare yourself for criticism. I assure you that not many would be as polite as I attempt to be.

[Alamo-Girl]

And if an investigator could recreate a phenomenon under laboratory conditions - or observe it consistently - it would neither be called a miracle nor supernatural.

Those who have experienced such miracles - e.g. Christians like me - do not question whether they are real. But of course we cannot convince someone who has not yet experienced it.

The objective of the thread was to reveal our worldviews - "where we were coming from" - up front. There is little point in berating someone for not seeing or appreciating something he cannot see or appreciate as you do.

[js1138]

I don’t really know how to phrase this any simpler. If mathematical models do not conform to physical reality, the models are defective.

Szostak is working with physical reality. If he can demonstrate self-replication and evolution arising from chemistry, it is the mathematical models that need revising, not reality.

One could hearken back to discussions of whether human powered flight is possible. There’s theory and math, and there’s experimentation.

There’s scarcely anything happening in recent work on evolution that wasn’t declared impossible based on theories of irreducible complexity, or some form of vitalism.

I find it interesting that Yockey and Dembski have undergone late life conversions on the subject of evolutionary algorithms and information. There’s even a hate Yockey site devoted to pillorying Yockey for turning against ID. Dembski hasn’t turned against ID, but he has realized that selection is a source of active information.

[Alamo-Girl]

LOLOL! betty boop and I both are very much appreciative of science and math.

But it is also true that we see the domain of science (that which is governed by physical laws, physical causation and physical constants) as a reduction of "all that there is." It is also true that we cannot make a metaphysical naturalist (atheist) see what we see.

Methodological naturalism is a self-imposed boundary of science, in particular biology. I do not believe that imposition was either necessary or prudent. All of science should be more like physics in my view - only declaring postulates appropriate to the theory at hand.

Boundaries do not apply to the Creator.

[CottShop]

[[But at any rate, given the molecular evidence of ERVs and such, if it is demonstrated that speciation is possible, than the other lines of evidence for common descent become overwhelming.]]

Niether speciation nor ERV’s are evidence for common descent- Speciation is nothign more than a species reamining the same species- Despite hte fact that htey can not breed with other guls, ring species such as these are still gulls- lizards that are seperated and microevolve the innability to breed with other lizards on different islands does not mean they are no logner lizards themselves. To state speciation is evidence for macroevolution is akin to stating that because I saw someone leap a log, that this means they must have been able to fly in the past. There is nothign in common design that prevents speciation- there remains the fact that those speciated examples remain within their own kind.

Macroevolution, a much much different process than adaptive microevolution requires a far different process than simple loss of informaiton that speciated examples genetic structures underwent.

Decreases in informaiton, rearrangements of informaiton, etc all fall aquarely into Microevolutionary changes. Loss of informaiton is NOT evidence for Macroevolution. No matter how many losses of informasiton you throw at a species, it will never result in net-gain of non species specific informaiton NEEDED for macroevolution

Pointing to loss of informaiton as some supposedc evidence that macoreovlution happened ignores the fact that loss does not lead to gain, and ignores the fact that in order for macroevolution to happen- leterally trillions of very significant gains in informaiton needed to occure for macroevolution to happen. When I examine Macroevolution looking for evidence of these trillions of gains of non species specific informaiton, I come up empty- All I get are single scant few examples of microevolutionary evidence that is assumed to be the basics of macroevolution, but when examined, are nothign but genetic variation within kinds.

Macroevolution requires- absolutely requires a gain of very signficant non species pecific information in order to bring abotu al lthe changes between species that we’re told occured, and yet there are no valid examples of any of hte trillions of changes that are claimed to have occured? All we can point to are species havign hteir existing genetic info turned on to ingest nylonase under stressful conditions the way bacteria are supposed to, designed to react? All we can point to is genetic loss in ring species? All we can point to are scant few examples of genetic rearrangements that fall squarely within species specific parameters? All we can point to are ERV’s which prefer certain insertion points in similar species?

The ‘evidence is overwhelming for common descent’? Looks pretty thin and based on faith, assumptions, and an a priori dedication to naturalism despite compelling evidnece to the contrary if you ask me

As mentioned before, ERV’s do indeed show insertion bias/preferrences, and as such it is NOT surprising, nor does it undercut common design, that similar speices share similar insertion points ESPECIALLY in light of hte fact that there are millions of viruses assaulting similar genetic makeups constantly and in large groups over many many generations.

your link to common descent has htis to say:

“Our findings are consistent with a model of recombination-driven biased gene conversion. This leads to the provocative hypothesis that many of the genetic changes leading to human-specific characters may have been prompted by fixation of deleterious mutations.

What the authors report is a non-random shifting within genes, and the introduction of “deleterious” mutations.”

Swell- they’ve discovered inteligently designed, forward looking, anticipating metainfo that deals with problems in species specific ways, in ways that conform to predesigned genetic info that anticipates, designs for, and prepares for problems that can be dealt with by directing and orchestrating changes in such a way as to help preserve species fitness as best as possible “Directed change” Must be hte authors think Nature is omnisciently able to predict future problems and create info that is pre-prepared for such problems?. Yawn

[Alamo-Girl]

If he can demonstrate self-replication and evolution arising from chemistry, it is the mathematical models that need revising, not reality.

It is not arising from chemistry if he starts with the message and presupposes autonomy, information {Shannon) and semiosis.

[js1138]

The objective of the thread was to reveal our worldviews

I could have sworn there was some discussion in the lead article as to whether abiogenesis is possible.

I do not consider that ta worldview question. It is something to be explored and settled by experimentation.

[CottShop]

[[Szostak is working with physical reality. If he can demonstrate self-replication and evolution arising from chemistry, it is the mathematical models that need revising, not reality.]]

Can he do it without any intelligent intervention? Or will it take designer designed complexity in order to achieve htis?

IF it takes designer designed complexity and manipulation and protection- then this would in NO way invalidate mathematical probability statistics that measure naturalism NOT intelligently designed manipulations JS

[[There’s scarcely anything happening in recent work on evolution that wasn’t declared impossible based on theories of irreducible complexity, or some form of vitalism.]]

Really? And these are purely natural experiments without any intellgient intervention whatsoever huh? Swell- Let’s wait and see then- My prediction IF these tests and examinations are purely natural? IC is still a reality! IF however there needs to be ANY itnelligent intervention whatsoever then all it’s goign to prove is what again? Yup- An intelligent designer is needed- period.

[CottShop]

[[It is not arising from chemistry if he starts with the message and presupposes autonomy, information {Shannon) and semiosis]]

Precisely, but I bet it will be trumpteted in National Geographic, Nature science journals, and various scientific papers and in news papers all across the globe that the scientists evolved reproduciton and have ‘closed the gap’ to how life arose from chemicals.

[Alamo-Girl]

I was speaking of this thread not this one.

I'm leaving for the afternoon but I look forward to reading your further insights on this thread, as always.

[metmom]

That is why science doesn't attempt to deal with absolute truth or supernatural events and causes. It's a self-imposed limitation.

That does not mean that science cannot find reliable information about past history and current phenomena.

As long as you're dealing with material, physical aspects of history inasmuch as it is subject to analysis by the scientific method, that is a possibility, BUT all it can do is indicate what appears to have happened. Any other investigation of historical evidence qualifies more as forensic investigation and analysis.

If you choose to live within you own self-contained shell and not participate in the adventure of science, that is your own self-imposed limitation.

Which is it? Is it science that has the self-imposed limitations or *the other side*?

Science is a subset of reality. How can all of reality be a subset of the study of the physical, material realm?

[CottShop]

[[That is why science doesn’t attempt to deal with absolute truth or supernatural events and causes.]]

They don’t? Macroevolutionists are cosntantly appealing to biolgically impossible events that must have occured trillions of times- I’d call that a pretty supernatural event. As well, the fact that these supposed critical significant changes beat out all natural odds somehow trillions upon thrillions of times, and evaded natural laws indicates the beleif i nthe process is an appeal to hte supernatural.

At least for now, Macroevolution most certainly is an appeal to hte supernatural, and in order to chip away the supernatural, they must show conditions which were severely different i nthe past, consitent for billions of years, didn’t vary, etc, and they must chip away at hte established evidnece that species no logner diverge from their own kinds, and they must chip away at the evidnece which shows an explosion of fully formed, fully functional creatures, on and on it goes- in short, they must chip away at natural laws and constants, in order to show conditions and events which now violate several key scientific and natural laws, was somehow different in the past- Until then, and only until they can do so, they are appealing to a process which was supernatural to the best of our knowledge based o nthe evidence we’ve gathered so far.

Scientists in the lab manipulating genetic information are performing supernatural events by causing genes to violate natural laws and conditions. They are supernaturally causing genes to perform duties they could NOT do naturally and without intellgient intervention

[CottShop]

[[ If you choose to live within you own self-contained shell and not participate in the adventure of science, that is your own self-imposed limitation.]]

There’s no need to get personal with snide snobbish remarks simply because someone doesn’t beleive the way you do. BB and Alamo and others ARE participating in scientific investigations by examining the very premiss of htis thread’s articles reasonably. IF you know of a manner in which information can arise to the level of metainfo in a purely naturalistic manner, then present it here for discussion- otherwise, simply dismissing this discussion by insinuating it isn’t a participation in scientific thought is simply an avoidance tactic meant to demean and belittle those bringing evidences to the table for discussions. These aren’t opinions JS- they are scientific principles hwich are being discussed, and we CAN come to reasonable conclusions abotu hte quesitons beign asked based on the evidences of chemistry and biology being presented. Just because they don’t include naturalistic conclusions, doesn’t mean they are ‘anti-science’ ‘psuedo-science’ or any other label yuou might think of. If you don’t wish to particpate, that’s fine- but leave hte petty snide comments out.

[allmendream]

Way to make it personal without actually providing any examples.

You are once again out of your element GGG and the things you say have no basis in reality.

On thread after thread I have found you dead to rights misrepresenting the truth and making statements so out of the scope of reality that in truth one can only conclude that you are willfully deceptive or just plain ignorant or a rather unpleasant combination of both.

Still think that humans and chimps being closer in their DNA than either is to a gorilla is a “logical impossibility”?

Still maintain that they “only” find anti-HIV antibodies in AIDS patients and “zero zip nada” of anything else?

Still maintain that antibody shuffling of gene elements in the variable region is dependent upon antigen presentation?

You were wrong on all points, and because you refuse to learn, you remain wrong.

I am on vacation for awhile so while I know you like to post “where have they gone?” posts, don't expect any reply until next Tuesday at the soonest.

[doc30]

It doesn't. The article makes a point of showing that the second law applies throughout the life of the organism.

I think this is from the section in your article:

And yet we know that every cell is subject to the second law — simply by needing to fuel itself, it subjects itself to the effects of entropy, otherwise known as heat death. And although it can and does stave off such effects for a while, doing so requires the cell or species constantly to deal with maintaining distance from entropy in all its living functional components, organized globally. Entropy plays a big part in all life — from cells to completed species.

How does a living thing stave off the effects of entropy? What does it do?

[hosepipe]

[ I admit that the simplest explanation for everything is goddidit. ]

Even dumber people than you need to make sense of "things"..
Not everybody is as smart as you are..
/great un-washed proletariat

[hosepipe]

[ Speciation is the issue, not self-replication. And not what could have happened, but what actually did happen. ]

Bingo... you get a cookie..