Information theory is bad news for Darwin: Evolutionary informatics takes off
| June 30, 2017 | Posted by News under Evolution, Informatics |
The book Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics continues to make waves. The Lab writes to say:
A lot continues to happen surrounding the release of “Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics” by Robert J. Marks, William A. Dembski and Winston Ewert:
Here’s a quick summary of media.
– AI means the topic is Artificial Intelligence hype – EV deals with Darwinian Evolution
(AI) Janet Mefford Today – A.I. Hype & Limitations with guest Robert J. Marks (American Family Radio)
(AI) “Point of View” with Kerby Anderson. Robert J. Marks talks about AI hype
(AI) “The Remnant Road” Raging Against the Machines with guest Robert J. Marks
(AI) “Are Super Computers on the Verge of Becoming Our Overlords?’ Terry Lowry interviews Robert J. Marks
(AI) Bob’s interview on “The Going Home Show with Mark Cope” Newstalk 102.3 KXYL
(EV) Bob’s interview with Julian Charles’s on “The Mind Renewed” about “Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics”
(EV) Bob’s essay at EN “Top Ten Questions and Objections to Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics'”
(EV) Winston Ewert’s “ID the Future” podcast #1 on “Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics” titled “Author of New Book Tells Why Evolution Simulations … Don’t”
(EV) Winston’s “ID the Future” podcast #2 on “Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics” titled “Why Digital Cambrian Explosions Fizzle … Or Fake It” …
Granville’s EN “Intelligent Design Goes International — A Report from Istanbul”
(EV) Bob’s essay in CNS News “Sorry Darwin: New Video Game Proves Adaptation Is Ubiquitous – Not Evolution”
(EV) Bob’s editorial in the Dallas Morning News
(EV) Bob’s interview on the Bob Phillips Show in Austin.
20 Responses to Information theory is bad news for Darwin: Evolutionary informatics takes off
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Excellent post. Thank you.
TWSYF,
what post?
Denyse has yet again, given us nothing more than that a new book has been published.
A book BTW that will sit right up there with Jinathan Wells’s efforts.
Or more accurately, as Christopher Hitchens writes, “not be worth a footnote in the history of piffle.”
‘New Book?’ How about new research?
“Information theory is bad news for Darwin”?
Has there been anything that is not bad news for the Darwinian hogwash lately?
Every new biology-related research discovery makes their pathetically weak case embarrassingly much weaker.
It’s a shame that textbooks still refer to that nonsense as if it were serious.
rvb8 @2 – you ask “‘New Book?’ How about new research?”
Borrowing from Otangelo Grasso at a nearby post, he provides commentary of such research as follows:
______________
DNA and RNA error checking and repair, amazing evidence of design
During replication, nucleotides, which compose DNA, are copied. When E coli makes a copy of its DNA, it makes approximately one mistake for every billion new nucleotides. It can copy about 2000 letters per second, finishing the entire replication process in less than an hour. Compared to human engineering, this error rate is amazingly low. E coli makes so few errors because DNA is proofread in multiple ways. An enzyme, DNA polymerase, moves along the DNA strands to start copying the code from each strand of DNA. This process has an error rate of about one in 100,000: rather high. When an error occurs, though, DNA polymerase senses the irregularity as a distortion of the new DNA’s structure, and stops what it is doing. How a protein can sense this is not clear. Other molecules then come to fix the mistake, removing the mistaken nucleotide base and replacing it with the correct one. After correction, the polymerase proceeds. This correction mechanism increases the accuracy 100 to 1000 times.
A Second Round of Proofreading
There are still some errors, however, that escape the previous mechanism. For those, three other complex proteins go over the newly copied DNA sequence. The first protein, called MutS (for mutator), senses a distortion in the helix shape of the new DNA and binds to the region with the mistaken nucleotides. The second protein, MutL, senses that its brother S is attached and brings a third protein over and attaches the two. The third molecule actually cuts the mistake on both sides. The three proteins then tag the incorrect section with a methyl group. Meanwhile, another partial strand of DNA is being created for the region in question, and another set of proteins cut out the exact amount of DNA needed to fill the gap. With both the mistaken piece and newly minted correct piece present, yet another protein determines which is the correct one by way of the methyl tag. That is, the correct one does not have the methyl tag on it. This new, correct section is then brought over and added to the original DNA strand. This second proofreading is itself 99% efficient and increases the overall accuracy of replication by another 100 times.
________
Back to you rvb8 –
Comments on the above?
How is it that you don’t see the hand of design here?
Can you give us insight on how such a process of error detection and repair (Quality Control) might have developed over ‘deep time’? You pick the length.
HT and thanks to Otangelo Grasso
rvb8 @2: Have you put on the glasses yet?
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=glasses+for+color+blind&&view=detail&mid=CB3E63CFB5DE5D9F4944CB3E63CFB5DE5D9F4944&FORM=VRDGAR
DonJohnsonDD682 @5:
Thanks for posting OG’s interesting information @4.
Now, regarding your sharp questions @4 & @5 you should not expect the politely dissenting interlocutor to answer them seriously, because the problem is not lack of eyeglasses but lack of will and there’s nothing we can do about that. There’s no natural remedy for such a malady.
Don’t hold your breath while waiting for serious answers to your questions. It may never happen. That’s the sad reality.
Dioniso — thanks. After suffering several years of commenting at NCSE presenting similar evidences there, the unknown hope I came away with is that “lurkers” may have been receptive to evidence presented. The NCSE faithful, as has rvb8 here, have for the most part, refused to put on the glasses and remain “color blind.”
DonJohnsonDD682,
Agree. Thanks.
KF convinced me to keep in mind the lurkers, onlookers, anonymous readers.
I’m completely confused. How is biological informatics the death blow to Darwinism?
The appearance of design is adaptations that are the result of the creation of knowledge by nature. Knowledge plays a causal role in being retained when embedded in a storage medium. This isn’t new. Karl Popper developed an epistemology that included a theory of knowledge without knowing subjects decades ago.
Sure, if you think that knowledge only comes from authoritative sources, you might conclude it’s a problem for neo-darwinsism, but that’s not exactly part of intelligent design. Not to mention that it’s bad philosophy.
So, apparently, it’s only bad news for Darwinism if you hold an impoverished epistemological view about knowledge and philosophy.
Yes, It’s possible that designers can design things. With that out of the way, the question is: under what conditions is it possible and wny?
Any takers?
Note: saying designers can design things because they are designers or have the “property of design” is a tautology.
Still any takers?
So?
That’s what News articles are for.
The Design of Everyday Things
Design Thinking: Understanding How Designers Think and Work
critical rationalist @9:
“The appearance of design?”
When the phrase “The actuality of design” is used is when you see researchers start developing new engineering fields such as Biomemetics and inventing such things as Velcro and those new magical glasses that allow color blind people to see color for the first time.
By the way rvb8 — Have you put on the glasses yet?
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=glasses+for+color+blind&&view=detail&mid=CB3E63CFB5DE5D9F4944CB3E63CFB5DE5D9F4944&FORM=VRDGAR
@Mung
Summarize it for us, Mung. What’s the 50,000 foot overview?
Why don’t you tell us what is necessary for that to take place.
@UB
Why don’t you tell us what information is in exact physical terms? That is, what theory of information you are referring to when you say “information”?
Wouldn’t a definition of what information is physicaly be rather important factor in determining what would be necessary to embed it in a storage medium?
I’ve asked several times, and even suggested a theory that is linked to on your website (which apparently has nothing to do with it.)
Why is this?
Could it be that you are implicitly presenting biosemiosis itself as a physical theory of information? You just haven’t come out and explicitly said it?
If not then, what theory are you referring to? Again if you are going to ask what is necessary to embed something physically, that implies the properties of that something must be retained in the process, which includes copying, readability, interoperability, etc. and it should take into account information in both classical and quantum physics, correct?
Are you suggesting biosemiosis should be considered such a theory of information, and criticized as such?
Note: when I say “a physical theory of information”, I’m referring to something like this.
The abstract:
Has anyone ever asked you a question and you actually responded to the direct content of the question?
You state that knowledge is information embedded in a medium that plays a causal role in it preservation. I asked you what is physically required for information to become embedded in a medium and play a causal role in its preservation. That was your statement. Can you not speak about it?
@UB
Has anyone ever responded to a question you’ve asked by asking you to clarify a term that is relevant to that question, and had you actually follow though? Is this not something you can speak of?
Or are you asking me for a theory of information, as well as how it plays a causal role in being retained? I’ve already provided one in the link above. Do you have any criticism of it? Do you have any specific questions? Do you expect me to re-write the entire paper here in a comment box?
If we do not agree on what information is in a physical sense, then exactly how do you expect us to make progress?
Ill try again:
You stated that knowledge is information embedded in a medium that plays a causal role in its preservation. I’m asking you what is physically required for information to become embedded in a medium and play a causal role in its preservation.
Please don’t ask me to clarify what you meant by the words you used to make your statement.
If you cannot answer the question, then just say “I do not know”.