Creationists: Explain your understanding of microevolution and macroevolution

[Guy Threepwood]

The evolutionary mechanism has been observed in action up to and including the level of speciation. It is consistent with such of the fossil record as we have discovered and can be mathematically modeled successfully. That's certainly enough to be going on with, especially as there is no competing explanation for the diversity of life anywhere near as plausible. That's one of the serious problems with ID--it has no proposed mechanism, just God must have done it somehow. But at the same time IDists seem to take the position that a natural explanation for a phenomenon rules out divine causality. The metaphysics of such a view are hopeless, which is why many Christian denominations have rejected ID.

'an intelligent agent must have done it somehow' can be a baffling and profound conclusion yes, and again applies in archeology and forensic science also-

there have been many archaeological finds that confounded scientists as to how people were able to create them with the technology they had- yet they knew that they must have - because the presence of specifying information so powerfully denotes intelligence. (hence 'WOW' written next to a few anomalous amplitudes from interstellar space)

Yes the implications of such finds might be profound, but we should not let that subjective instinct cloud the objective observation of the evidence

 

[Speedwell]

'an intelligent agent must have done it somehow' can be a baffling and profound conclusion yes, and again applies in archeology and forensic science also-

there have been many archaeological finds that confounded scientists as to how people were able to create them with the technology they had- yet they knew that they must have - because the presence of specifying information so powerfully denotes intelligence. (hence 'WOW' written next to a few anomalous amplitudes from interstellar space)

Yes the implications of such finds might be profound, but we should not let that subjective instinct cloud the objective observation of the evidence

But you are pushing ID as the one and only "mechanism" without evidence. At some point you are going to have to come up with an explanation of how it works.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

But you are pushing ID as the one and only "mechanism" without evidence. At some point you are going to have to come up with an explanation of how it works.

Again you don't need to know how a car works or how Stonehenge was built, to know they were, beyond reasonable doubt, created intelligently. Because they present such a wealth of specifying information which natural forces are incapable of producing to our knowledge.

And to bat that ball back, how's the search for naturalistic abiogenesis going? any luck there yet? how about just bringing a cat back to life that just died?

Andre Linde- principle in modern inflationary theory considers it feasible that we may one day be able to fully reverse engineer our own universe to create a new one- and that this could be a possible explanation for ours existing

Just one possible form of intelligent cosmogony

 

[Speedwell]

Again you don't need to know how a car works or how Stonehenge was built, to know they were, beyond reasonable doubt, created intelligently. Because they present such a wealth of specifying information which natural forces are incapable of producing to our knowledge.

And to bat that ball back, how's the search for naturalistic abiogenesis going?

Just fine, thanks. Of course, I don't follow the research all that closely. I assume that some naturalistic theory of abiogenesis will eventually be arrived at, because that's the way the universe seems to work but I'm a Traditional Christians so a naturalistic abiogenesis poses no theological problems and I am content to wait and see what science comes up with.

how about just bringing a cat back to life that just died?

What does a dead cat have to do with anything?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Just fine, thanks. Of course, I don't follow the research all that closely. I assume that some naturalistic theory of abiogenesis will eventually be arrived at, because that's the way the universe seems to work but I'm a Traditional Christians so a naturalistic abiogenesis poses no theological problems and I am content to wait and see what science comes up with.

As before, I'm happy with it also- it's just not looking promising to me- as everything else the naturalistic explanation has to rely on an unfeasible amount of luck- or being provided a great amount of information to direct it- which I would say, post classical physics- seems to be the way the universe works.

which leads to the next Q. where did the info come from? where can it come from?

What does a dead cat have to do with anything?

That even when provided with all the necessary ingredients in perfect arrangement, a cat that has just died cannot be brought to life with all our knowledge. having life spontaneously materialize from random chemicals lying around for no particular reason is a far greater challenge

 

[Speedwell]

As before, I'm happy with it also- it's just not looking promising to me- as everything else the naturalistic explanation has to rely on an unfeasible amount of luck- or being provided a great amount of information to direct it- which I would say, post classical physics- seems to be the way the universe works.

That's just the argument from incredulity again.

which leads to the next Q. where did the info come from? where can it come from?

"Information" is not a substance, it is a characterization, a description. 'Information' is a way of characterizing patterns of objects, in a way analogous to using "number" to characterize multiplicity.

That even when provided with all the necessary ingredients in perfect arrangement, a cat that has just died cannot be brought to life with all our knowledge. having life spontaneously materialize from random chemicals lying around for no particular reason is a far greater challenge

If you are so convinced that a naturalistic abiogenesis could not have occurred, why do you feel the need to mischaracterize it so grotesquely?

But it occurs to me that you may be laboring under the cruel misapprehension that a naturalistic theory of abiogenesis would deny God's authorship of it.

 

[pitabread]

an archeologist might observe specifying information in many forms

We've been through this before. This isn't how that works.

From what I recall last time, it was a just a bunch of equivocation over terms like "information". So we can skip over this because it's just going through the motions.

I suggest referring to our previous discussions on this because there isn't any point in going through all the same stuff again and arriving at exactly the same spot. Especially since it appears none of your arguments have changed.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

We've been through this before. This isn't how that works.

From what I recall last time, it was a just a bunch of equivocation over terms like "information". So we can skip over this because it's just going through the motions.

I suggest referring to our previous discussions on this because there isn't any point in going through all the same stuff again and arriving at exactly the same spot. Especially since it appears none of your arguments have changed.

I don't think archeologists have changed their view either!

Because it's utterly unambiguous, the Rosetta stone can be identified as having intelligent cause because it contains written information, not just a slab of rock-

To clarify, this was never about assuming intelligence because information is merely a familiar product of human intelligence, (though that can be conclusive in certain circumstances) but those inherent properties of functional information which denote a capacity for anticipation, the decisive phenomena that distinguishes between natural /reactive phenomena and intelligent /proactive ones.

The stone was carved in anticipation of it being read, without this anticipation it would not, could not exist.

Similarly DNA presents the same fingerprints of a capacity for anticipation as does computer software-
Yes it is strikingly/ hair raisingly familiar to software coders in strategy and architecture but that's really not the decisive point

 

[pitabread]

<snip>

We've been through this already*. It all boils down to equivocation and/or false equivalence.

When you come up with something new, let me know.


* Previous discussions on this stuff was hashed out in these threads:

Why I do not accept evolution part one
2 proofs that nature was designed

For reference, one of my final posts in that first thread:

In the end, it comes down to an argument from incredulity based on a bunch of equivocation and no understanding of any of the biochemistry involved.

Just another dead end. Oh well.

 

[Speedwell]

I don't think archeologists have changed their view either!

Because it's utterly unambiguous, the Rosetta stone can be identified as having intelligent cause because it contains written information, not just a slab of rock-

To clarify, this was never about assuming intelligence because information is merely a familiar product of human intelligence, (though that can be conclusive in certain circumstances) but those inherent properties of functional information which denote a capacity for anticipation, the decisive phenomena that distinguishes between natural /reactive phenomena and intelligent /proactive ones.

There is no "anticipation" in evolution. All that the biology has to do is produce a randomly-distributed range of variants to the environment for selection.

Similarly DNA presents the same fingerprints of a capacity for anticipation as does computer software-

Can you describe this capacity for anticipation?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

There is no "anticipation" in evolution. All that the biology has to do is produce a randomly-distributed range of variants to the environment for selection.

As long as you supply your own anticipation it works- e.g. you select all the slight genetic advantages that you anticipate will pay off eventually. Nature cannot do this.

Can you describe this capacity for anticipation?

it simply means that as intelligent beings we can act according to anticipated future events, rather than simply being forced to react to past ones.

This is the phenomena that is evident in specifying information, information which specifies something beyond itself (e.g. a page turning novel) tells us it was not written by the blindfolded chimp.

I'm acting in anticipation that you will soon see the light & renounce Darwinism as hocus pocus!

 

[Speedwell]

As long as you supply your own anticipation it works- e.g. you select all the slight genetic advantages that you anticipate will pay off eventually. Nature cannot do this.

"Nature" doesn't have to as that is not how evolution works. There is no "anticipation" of that kind in evolution, either natural or divine. Evolution doesn't need it.

it simply means that as intelligent beings we can act according to anticipated future events, rather than simply being forced to react to past ones.

This is the phenomena that is evident in specifying information, information which specifies something beyond itself (e.g. a page turning novel) tells us it was not written by the blindfolded chimp.

I'm acting in anticipation that you will soon see the light & renounce Darwinism as hocus pocus!

I certainly renounce the "Darwinism" that you are presenting to us here.

 

[pitabread]

As long as you supply your own anticipation it works- e.g. you select all the slight genetic advantages that you anticipate will pay off eventually. Nature cannot do this.

Nature doesn't need to do that.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

'an intelligent agent must have done it somehow' can be a baffling and profound conclusion yes, and again applies in archeology and forensic science also-

there have been many archaeological finds that confounded scientists as to how people were able to create them with the technology they had- yet they knew that they must have - because the presence of specifying information so powerfully denotes intelligence. (hence 'WOW' written next to a few anomalous amplitudes from interstellar space)

Yes the implications of such finds might be profound, but we should not let that subjective instinct cloud the objective observation of the evidence

You're ignoring the context - archaeological finds are consistent with what we know humans can do. A few hundred thousand years between the level expected and the level discovered simply shows the paucity of available finds we have to judge by. When you get back to the earliest proposed examples of human-made information, such as a few scratches on a bone or a rock, it's debatable whether they were intentional or not.

But nevertheless, they can give us information about the humans involved, as can the middens and other site finds, hearths, animal bones, plant seeds, etc. It's all information - to someone who can interpret it.

Fundamentally, information is just the particular way the parts of something are arranged, and the information capacity of something is the number of ways its parts can be arranged. Whether you can make use of that information depends on your understanding of the item in question and its interactions with its environment.

If you think that there's something called 'specified information', I'd be grateful if you could provide a coherent definition for it and a method for distinguishing it from information in general.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

As long as you supply your own anticipation it works- e.g. you select all the slight genetic advantages that you anticipate will pay off eventually. Nature cannot do this.

Nature produces generations of differing individuals, and their relative reproductive success does the selection. It's a very simple, although wasteful, process.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

You're ignoring the context - archaeological finds are consistent with what we know humans can do. A few hundred thousand years between the level expected and the level discovered simply shows the paucity of available finds we have to judge by. When you get back to the earliest proposed examples of human-made information, such as a few scratches on a bone or a rock, it's debatable whether they were intentional or not.

But nevertheless, they can give us information about the humans involved, as can the middens and other site finds, hearths, animal bones, plant seeds, etc. It's all information - to someone who can interpret it.

Fundamentally, information is just the particular way the parts of something are arranged, and the information capacity of something is the number of ways its parts can be arranged. Whether you can make use of that information depends on your understanding of the item in question and its interactions with its environment.

If you think that there's something called 'specified information', I'd be grateful if you could provide a coherent definition for it and a method for distinguishing it from information in general.

I'm calling it specifying, it specifies something beyond itself, to distinguish the signal from the noise.

The pattern in a pile of 100 bricks dumped from a loader, contains a lot more information than a 10 x 10 stacked pattern

But the latter displays more specifying information, i.e. a wall
you can also call it functional or determining information- but beyond semantics, the distinction is clear- signal v noise

and of course it does not just apply to humans, an explorer in New Guinea coming across neatly arranged colorful nests rather than scattered twigs, or someone at SETI scribbling 'WOW' in the margin next to some anomalous amplitudes v radio static- is not considering human intelligence at work- but they are recognizing the fingerprints of intelligent information

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

I'm calling it specifying, it specifies something beyond itself, to distinguish the signal from the noise.

The pattern in a pile of 100 bricks dumped from a loader, contains a lot more information than a 10 x 10 stacked pattern

But the latter displays more specifying information, i.e. a wall
you can also call it functional or determining information- but beyond semantics, the distinction is clear- signal v noise

and of course it does not just apply to humans, an explorer in New Guinea coming across neatly arranged colorful nests rather than scattered twigs, or someone at SETI scribbling 'WOW' in the margin next to some anomalous amplitudes v radio static- is not considering human intelligence at work- but they are recognizing the fingerprints of intelligent information

OK, so how do you determine that some particular arrangement or pattern is specifying information, i.e. intelligent information?

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Nature produces generations of differing individuals, and their relative reproductive success does the selection. It's a very simple, although wasteful, process.

I'd agree, though the vast majority of mutations are neutral/deleterious - the vast majority of advantages are slight

a slightly advantageous difference has an extremely tenuous link with having more offspring.

If a mountain Gorilla has an average of 3 offspring in her life, how large an advantage must she have, in order to cause her to be more likely to have 4? that's a whopping advantage, not the sort of thing gained through slight natural variations commonly observed

 

[Guy Threepwood]

OK, so how do you determine that some particular arrangement or pattern is specifying information, i.e. intelligent information?

simply by recognizing that it specifies something beyond itself- i.e. beyond what inherently constitutes it's medium

signal v noise:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
v
sadfj sdaf; jioasdf;osidjf;sdavnsifudvnadovij;

in genetics we discovered specifying information by changing genetic code and noting corresponding changes in morphology- that DNA actually contains specifying/ functional/ determining information

 

[Speedwell]

simply by recognizing that it specifies something beyond itself- i.e. beyond what inherently constitutes it's medium

signal v noise:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
v
sadfj sdaf; jioasdf;osidjf;sdavnsifudvnadovij;

in genetics we discovered specifying information by changing genetic code and noting corresponding changes in morphology- that DNA actually contains specifying/ functional/ determining information

Then so must any chemical reaction.