My ID Challenge

gbrooks9:
You both think God added something to the process of changing life forms.

Glipsnort said: I’m quite doubtful that I think that.

Ha! Well the laugh is on me then! You don’t think God had anything to do with the emergence of life? Then why are you at BioLogos? You don’t think God even added purpose?

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gbrooks9:
The only thing you two disagree on is epistemology … the epistemology of God:

Glipsnort said: I thought we were disagreeing about whether information processing in life was good evidence that life requires a creator.

Disagreeing about whether information processing in life was good evidence - - that is Epistemological question. You are disputing the issue of how we come to know things… a classic dispute on the source of knowledge.

As I said before, without a useable definition of “information”, your argument is quite literally meaningless. You might was well be offering premises about the source of flubber in a message.

Let me try once again: is “information” something you can quantify? Can we detect its presence? What is this discussion even about?

A word of advice: Inventing motives and assigning them to your opponents may make you feel good, but it doesn’t advance your argument. Work on making your argument less porous rather than on telling me why I think things. Frankly, you lack the standing to do the latter.

What’s the point of focusing on the source of something, if you won’t tell me what the something is supposed to be? Are you able to define “information” or not? [quote=“deliberateresult, post:1060, topic:4944”]
You contend that in both cases, the process is the same. It is not.
[/quote]
The generation of functional information from random mutations is indeed the same.[quote=“deliberateresult, post:1060, topic:4944”]
In the case of the immune system, the story is not the mutations, but the system, which is a coordinated response mechanism involving the deliberate, goal oriented, programmed activity of several sub-systems interacting with one another in a precise, coordinated effort to achieve a specific purpose. This is from immunologist dr. Donald Ewert:

“When the ‘natural’ mechanisms that generate antibody diversity are examined as an integrated system, it becomes apparent that, unlike Darwinian evolution, they are not ‘blind’ or ‘random,’ but rather are highly regulated both temporally and physically to achieve specific purposes while maintaining the integrity of the surrounding genome. If these processes tell us anything, it is that the immune system leaves very little to blind chance, but instead is designed to allow organisms to adapt to changing environmental conditions without altering the integrity of their genome.”
[/quote]
That might be the story you want to tell, but it doesn’t address the actual source of the information in my B cells, which continues to be the random mutation of my DNA. Nothing you’ve quoted deals with that fact.

This quotation seems to have nothing to do with determining the source of information coding for antibodies.

It leaves very little to chance. . . except the all-important generation of new information. Which is what we’re supposed to be discussing.

I agree that random mutations are used by the immune system to serve a specific function. That fact is entirely consistent with my previous statement. [quote=“deliberateresult, post:1060, topic:4944”]
If this is darwinian evolution in action, then I submit that we have empirical evidence that mutations bear evidence of intelligent design.
[/quote]
But you haven’t presented any empirical evidence that intelligent design was involved – just the assertion that it was.

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I didn’t say that. I said that I didn’t think “God added something to the process of changing life forms.” Your formulation suggests that there are processes that exist and operate independently of God, and that he sometimes interacts with them. That may be true, but I’m pretty sure I don’t think it is.

Nah. It’s a subject that could raise epistemological questions, sure, but the actual question we’re considering is whether a particular kind of information is always observed to have an intelligent source (when one can be identified). That’s seems like more of an empirical question to me, at least so far.

@glipsnort

Steve, I certainly didn’t intend to suggest that. My intention was to use a linguistic formulation general enough to accommodate both your views.

My own view is that there are no processes that operate independently of God. You say yourself you think there are any either. I’m pretty sure @deliberateresult doesn’t think so either.

So …like I said… you two are ‘worryin’ some pretty dry bones…

Steve

If we take the case (or analogy, as one prefers) of any human “meaningful information”, it is equally hard - I would say impossible - to define scientifically. And that is because such information is inherently about a message from a purposeful sender with a specific end in view. And that is a case of final causation, which is excluded from the scientific method in principle.

Yet there is absolutely no doubt about the existence of such human information, since it is what we handle every day. That being in no doubt, one could start by attempting a scientific definition of “meaningful information” - if that proves difficult, it suggests the problem is methodological, not evidential.

Yeah, my reply was a little curt. Sorry about that.

From my perspective, it’s an empirical claim about something I study (genetics), a claim that has potentially sweeping theological and philosophical implications. So I’m inclined to discuss it. (And of course, there’s also the “Someone is wrong on the internet” thing.)

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I’m not looking for a rigorous scientific definition, just some indication of what Joe could mean by “information” that would make his claim about biological information (or his analogous claim about human messages) true. His original formulations of the claim mentioned information theory, a “significant amount” of information, and Crick-style information in DNA. All these suggest a pretty straightforward meaning: DNA sometimes encodes functional, prescriptive information (FPI) for making biologically useful proteins. That’s a fine meaning, even without a rigorous definition, and one I can easily work with. You can tell (with some fuzziness) whether that kind of information is present in DNA and you can quantify it in base pairs or in bits, and ask what the origin of a particular piece of information was. That seemed to be the kind of information his claim involved, and was the basis for my counterexample. For that kind of information, his claim is plainly false.

The analogy to human communication introduces a fuzzier semantic meaning for “information”, but it doesn’t help Joe’s case any. If the received message is “Meet me by the well” and the sent message was “Meet me by the wall”, then most of the information received (“Meet me by something that starts with a W”) came from the intelligent sender, while one piece of information (“by the well”) was generated by faulty transmission. But that latter is something Joe can’t allow, so he’s not using this meaning either. The bottom line is that I don’t think there is any meaning of “information” by which Joe’s original claim is true. That’s why I’m pushing.

Joe now seems, in fact, to be arguing something different from his original claim. Something about the existence of a message with FPI requiring an intelligent source, maybe, or the existence of a mechanism for carrying or generating FPI? In any case, my example was directed at his original claim.

Plainly, Joe cannot be relying on this kind of information for his argument because then he’d be assuming his conclusion.

(I will note that, even if “meaningful information” in human communication can’t be defined rigorously, quite a lot can be said about it. In fact, entire literatures treat it in one way or another. Cognitive science, linguistics, semiotics and philosophers from Wittgenstein to Searle to Gadamer all touch on it – not to mention the episode “Hush” from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I won’t pretend to have expertise in any of these except the last one.)

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Steve

I can see your point, now. But looking at things from the assumptions of a truly theistic evolution, rather than in terms of an ID “proof of design” approach, I see both the problem and a possible solution.

In human messages, the kind of noise Joe presents (“wall” beomes “well”) falls foul of whatever our description of intentional information is: true information is lost, though the Shannon information is unchanged. It also, in this case, has the disadvantage of becoming misleading - the receiver goes in vain to the well, whereas had it said “wdll” he’d have spotted the error.

Let’s propose (axiomatically) that in evolution God analogously “designs” the changes that will occur to produce, say, a new form. Or, to use the slightly confused EC phrase, “evolution is the means by which God creates…”. What then do we say about fortuitous changes causing disease - or even the impression that useful function has arisen by such randomerror?

Well, it seems to me that in the presence of omniscience and omnipotence the distinction between “message” and “noise” is less clear than in human communication. Thomas Aquinas had the useful concept that in a material world, “chance” errors will often occur - but he insisted that chance was nevertheless subsumed in God’s providence. We may not know how an arrow fired “at a venture” hits King Ahab (or more often, why it hits an innocent bystander!), but these events work towards God’s final ends, because that is what “providence” entails.

Such final causation is, of course, properly speaking outside the purview of science on methodolical naturalism (though an exception is made for clear function, which strictly speaking is teleological) - but we’re discussing “information from God here” so (whatever ID does or doesn’t say) it’s beyond science as she is spoke.

Nevertheless, the point is that one can no longer say that the “wall/well” error, in a providential theistic system, is mere “noise” as it is in a human message. That would be to place part of God’s world beyond hi providence. Whatever scientifically stochastic processes give rise to the copying error, it is as much subject to providential governance as the original message was.

That is admittedly not helpful in demonstrating design from efficient causation - scientifically one can only say there was a random change. It’s pretty hard to find a formal distinction between loss or damage to function, change of function, or near-neutral change. If design is demonstrated, it is by the global end result - that “all or most of the time” (to quote Aquinas) well-adapted organisms exist - and on the grand scale, an ordered cosmos.

The design inference is then the old argument that, as Asa Gray said, was settled long ago - it’s more rational to conclude that the order we see around us came from purposeful direction than that it came from undirected chaos. Just as that conclusion is not altered by the order being sometimes deformed, neither is it altered by the findings of modern cell biology or genetics.

What it does achieve, though, is to draw attention to the fact that “chance” is not an ultimate cause: it is the abstraction science has to use since its methodology excludes final and formal causation. But theologically (that is, embracing theistic evolution or Evolutionary Creation) “chance” is the signature of providentially controlled contingency, in copying errors as much as in the cast of the lot into the lap.

I am happy to clarify for you Christy. In advance, allow me to broaden your definition of ad-hominem to include any attack against the person rather than the point the person is making. Now let’s move forward with a few examples:

  1. Chris was kind enough to share his response to me when I originally brought up Spetner and his work, but he did not share the context. Here is the complete exchange:

Citing the work of Spetner, I was making the point that there is evidence that some mutations are non-random. I expected Chris to contend against this claim. Instead he opted to try to discredit both Spetner and me. This is textbook ad-hominem.

  1. Moving forward to the post in question, here is Chris’s opening volley: [quote=“Chris_Falter, post:1048, topic:4944”]
    Spetner claimed that Archaeopteryx is a forgery.
    [/quote]

I cannot possibly know everything Dr. Spetner has said, so I thought I should research this. Here is what I learned: A few decades ago, Dr. Spetner had reason to believe that a specific archaeopteryx fossil - the London fossil - was a fraud. He was not alone. Sir Fred Hoyle (and others) shared his doubts. Accordingly, the two of them cooperated on an investigation of the London fossil. Their findings were published. Of course, the London museum disputed the findings and a controversy ensued. The point is that here, as in the first example, Chris wants us to see a man so blindly driven by his ideological agenda that he is willing to sacrifice scientific integrity in the cause. Yet when we have a fuller understanding of what happened, we see that the truth points us in the exact opposite direction. Chris’s context free claim is clearly calculated to attack the credibility of Dr. Spetner. Hence, another textbook example of ad-hominem.

Dr. Spetner’s recent book, “The Evolution Revolution,” presents the case for his Non Random Evolutionary hypothesis (NREH), offering many empirical examples of mutations that give evidence of occurring in non-random fashion. It is this work, this hypothesis, and this book I have referred to in my exchange with Chris, and nothing else (from Spetner). Spetner has also authored an earlier book on a different subject, “Not By Chance.” Of all the charges Chris brings against Dr. Spetner, there is only one incidental reference to the NREH. Indeed, Chris gives us a copy and paste of a review of “Not By Chance.” This is a curious way to address my point on non random mutations and the source I cite - Spetner’s other book!

It is clear to me that Chris is primarily interested in discrediting Dr. Spetner and not at all concerned with my point that there is evidence that some mutations may not be random, or my larger point that there is good evidence that life requires a Creator. You and Chris may not see this as ad-hominem, but as for me, I don’t know what else to call it.

Hi Chris…

I hope that my reply to Christie above satisfies both of you. In the meantime, I think I spy the possibility for a substantive conversation here:[quote=“Chris_Falter, post:1029, topic:4944”]
Hi Joe,

I agree that fine tuning constitutes evidence(1) for a Creator. However, the fine turning argument is an exercise in philosophy, not science.
[/quote]

At its most fundamental level, science is a way of knowing.
Evidence points us in the direction of knowledge.
God tells us in His word that the natural world provides us with evidence of His handiwork.

Whether you insist on saying that the evidence can properly be called science is beside the point. That you agree that fine tuning constitutes evidence for a Creator is the point. So please suffer me a little longer here: why do you see fine tuning as evidence for a Creator?

The two things to remember about Ad Hominem:

1] “Ad hominem . . . is a logical fallacy in which an argument is rebutted by attacking the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or persons associated with the argument, rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.”

BUT …

[2] “Ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, for example, when it relates to the credibility of statements of fact or when used in certain kinds of moral and practical reasoning.”

@deliberateresult

I think the thing to pay attention to is the differences between [A] and [B]. I think there is evidence for the existence of God … but I don’t believe that evidence can be categorized as Scientific evidence. So, [A] is awfully important… touching on what can be properly called science or not.

While in [B] I can say that in my opinion, the existence of consciousness is a crucial evidence for a cosmic mind!

“Fine Tuning”, on the other hand … is simply acknowledging the circular nature of knowledge! If you had a recipe for humans that required at least 10.5% iron … and all of humanity had 10…6% iron… is that proof of anything? No.

It is simply proof that the threshold for iron in making humans really is about 10.5%!

No. Ad hominem is an attack on the individual’s character in order to discredit their argument. That is not what happened here. This is what happened. Chris said this.

Spetner is a Jewish physicist who believes that all of life stems from 365 different species that God created during the literal 6 days of Genesis 1.

That is a fact. That is not an attack on his character. Why is this fact relevant? Chris explained.

You expect me to take a citation to Spetner as evidence of your recent reading outside of YEC/ID authorship?

This is the point. He wanted you to show you had read outside of YEC/ID authorship, and you cited a YEC author. He then pointed out you had cited a YEC author in response to the request that you show recent reading outside YEC/ID authorship. There is nothing here which is ad hominem, he just caught you out citing a YEC when you were supposed to be showing evidence of recent reading outside YEC/ID.

Then you complain that Chris pointed out Spetner claimed that Archaeopteryx is a forgery.

No, it’s intended to reinforce his point that you cited someone who doesn’t even accept evolution, when you were asked to show evidence of recent reading outside YEC/ID.

What nonsense. When we have a fuller understanding of what happened, we see Chris was absolutely right; Spetner claimed that Archaeopteryx is a forgery. Simple. There is no ad hominem in this. There is no attack on Spetner’s character, and there is no attempt to claim that flaws in Spetner’s character invalidate his arguments.

It’s not curious given that Chris wanted you to demonstrate evidence of recent reading outside YEC/ID.

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Joe, in the scientific sense of “work,” Spetner hasn’t done any in biology to my knowledge.

It’s also not fallacious to discredit any claim of expertise.

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Hi brother Joe,

Hope you and yours are doing well today.

I was refuting the arguments advanced by you and Spetner. If you think that refuting arguments is the same thing as ad hominem, there is nothing I can do to help you. But maybe you would like another opportunity to answer this question that you decided to ignore in your most recent post:

Answering this question would help us understand how it is that you have arrived at your method of applying the definition of ad hominem. I look forward to your answer, Joe.

Moving on… since you do not seem to enjoy discussions about which sources one has read, I will refrain from any further discussion of that topic.

Moving on again…

Spetner made ad hominem attacks when he claimed that a large group of fellow scientists were committing not a mistake, but a fraud, when they assembled the Archaeopteryx fossil. If he had later repudiated the claims of fraud and apologized, or even backed off the accusation of fraud and said the British Museum had been merely mistaken, I would not have mentioned the incident. Unfortunately, Spetner has never backed off his spectacular claims of fraud, to my knowledge. If you can find any evidence to the contrary, Joe, by all means bring that evidence to our attention. It would reflect well on Spetner. I always rejoice in true reconciliation.

By the way, the fact that an astronomer–who went to his grave denying the overwhelming evidence for Big Bang cosmology, no less–supported Spetner’s accusations of paleontological fraud does not particularly help the case for Spetner. In my opinion.

Based on Spetner’s own essays and the ENV descriptions of his works, Spetner’s most recent book (hereafter, TER) is devoted to providing evidence in favor of the model he built in his earlier “Not By Chance.” (NBC) In TER he certainly didn’t repudiate anything he wrote in NBC. The two books work together. Thus refutations of NBC are quite pertinent to the validity of Spetner’s thought. You really ought to address those refutations point by point, Joe, if you think Spetner’s writings are worth defending.

In any case, since you want to discuss TER, let us go there. In his summary of TER, Spetner made several points in favor of what he had previously written in NBC. I will provide his points in italics and my responses in normal font:

Spetner: The probabilistic models in mainstream biology do not support evolution (“it has never been shown that the probabilities of the alleged evolutionary events, according to the theory, are anything but negligibly small”).

Now we see the importance of the critique of Spetner’s mathematical models in NBC! Spetner’s claim, and his model, do not take into account these factors:

  • the role of neutral changes,
  • the combinatorial possibilities of population genetics (his model assumes linear changes across a single line of parentage)
  • the actual mechanisms of enzymes binding to substrates.
  • the complexity and extremely high dimensionality of the maxima within an ever-evolving ecosystem.

Spetner: Epigenetic mechanisms demonstrate that non-random responses to environmental factors can be transgenerational.

These are adaptive responses, not a form of evolution. The epigenetic mechanisms are supported by the genome, just as the genome supports hormonal responses to environmental factors.

Spetner: “There is no example of a random mutation that adds heritable information to the genome”

Spetner goes on to a discussion of pupfish and antibiotic resistance among bacteria, but he fails to mention many well-known examples, such as the appearance of nylonase by a point-shift mutation. He was also seemingly unaware of the appearance of the “antifreeze” mechanism in Notothenioids, described by Levin here:

Perhaps an example of how new information emerges in genomes by evolutionary processes would help you to understand. There is a collection of about 100 fish species, called Notothenioids, that live in the frigid waters of the Antarctic. Other fish can’t live there because their blood would freeze. These fish can live in this environment because they produce an anti-freeze protein. Where did the gene for this protein, this new information, come from? It evolved from a duplicate of a completely different gene that encodes a digestive enzyme called trypsinogen. In fact, it arose from within the non-coding region of the trypsinogen gene by mutational expansion of a short region of DNA. How do we know this? The antifreeze gene still contains remnants of the original gene. I have linked to a paper that describes this addition of information to the genome. Please read this and give it some thought. I am happy to provide more detail if anything is unclear. The “accidental nature” of the mutational changes should be evident, as should the selective advantage to a fish that can express this novel function.
http://www.pnas.org/content/94/8/3485.ful

I don’t expect Spetner to have a voluminous knowledge of the biological literature, given that he is a physicist. But I would expect him to avoid making unjustified claims about a literature in which he is not fully conversant.

Spetner: “the trees derived from morphology and from molecular sequences fail to agree as one would expect if common descent were true.”

Biologists are aware of factors that can lead to disagreements between morphology and molecular sequences, such as the incomplete fossil record and the confounding influence of convergent and parallel evolution. Thus Spetner’s attempt to refute the overall congruence of the morphological and molecular trees by anecdotes falls short.

“the concept of convergence was invented to explain away many discrepancies in the phylogenetic trees”

Actually, the concept of convergence was first articulated by British biologist Richard Owen (1804 - 1892). Again, I don’t expect Spetner to be an expert in biology. I just expect him to refrain from making unsupported claims about a literature that he hasn’t read in depth.

Let us move on from Spetner.

I will state for the record that I agree on theological grounds with non-random evolution. I am neither a philosopher nor a biologist, so I am unable to provide details about how God providentially interacted with life on earth over the past billions of years. I simply believe it as a matter of faith,

I would also point out that the theory of evolution itself does not depict evolution as random. Natural selection, a decidedly non-random factor at any particular place and time, is very important to the theory.

The only thoroughgoing refutation of fine tuning of which I am aware is the multi-verse hypothesis. However, the multi-verse hypothesis to date seems to be largely an exercise of faith, since the ability to test empirical observations is so elusive. If we reach the point where the MV hypothesis can make empirically verified predictions, I would abandon fine tuning as evidence for a Creator. I would nevertheless believe in a Creator–to be more precise, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob–based on historical evidence and personal experience.

Have a great day, Joe!

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Prof. Spetner is quite the loose cannon! Sometimes rabbinical flights of fancy can really soar !

"Spetner was inspired by the rabbi David Luria (1798 - 1855), who calculated that, according to Talmudic sources, there was 365 originally created species of beasts and 365 of birds.
“Spetner developed what he called his “nonrandom evolutionary hypothesis”, which proposed rapid microevolution (which he attributed to a “built-in ability” in animals and plants to “respond adaptively to environmental stimuli”), but rejected macroevolution.”

Spetner has been described as a Jewish Creationist. In 1980, at a conference for Jewish scientists, Spetner claimed that Archaeopteryx was a fraud. Spetner continued his attack on the modern evolutionary synthesis in his book Not by chance! Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution.

“Spetner is a critic of the role of mutations in the modern evolutionary synthesis. Spetner claims mutations lead to a loss of genetic information and that there is no scientific evidence to support common descent.”

“We see then that the mutation reduces the specificity of the ribosome protein and that means a loss of genetic information. … Rather than saying the bacterium gained resistance to the antibiotic, it is more correct to say that is lost sensitivity to it. … All point mutations that have been studied on the molecular level turn out to reduce the genetic information and not increase it.”
— Lee Spetner, Not by Chance, Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution
[END OF QUOTE]

I remind you once again of the springboard for this entire tangent. This is you quoting me:

You told Jon you could easily work with this definition:[quote=“glipsnort, post:1069, topic:4944”]
DNA sometimes encodes functional, prescriptive information (FPI) for making biologically useful proteins.
[/quote]

To this I add that FPI requires the arbitrary (arbitrary in that they could have been otherwise) conventions of code, syntax, and semantics, and that FPI instructs.

Until now, I have been attempting to reason with you within the terms of your example of FPI coming from a non-intelligent source. FPI does not and cannot arise de novo. Occasionally a copying error can occur that can still provide a coherent message, but that can only happen because the conventions of code, syntax and semantics which are already in place, allow the possibility.

The source of any FPI is the information system itself.
When we trace FPI to its source, that source is always an intelligent agent, and never natural processes.[quote=“glipsnort, post:1064, topic:4944”]
A word of advice: Inventing motives and assigning them to your opponents may make you feel good, but it doesn’t advance your argument.
[/quote]

Forgive me for attributing this motive to you. It is true however that mutation/selection is the mechanism for the TOE. It appears to me that you are arguing for the TOE. Perhaps I erred in attributing this motive to you, but the motive is certainly not an invention of mine and I would be delighted to learn that you are not arguing for the TOE[quote=“glipsnort, post:1064, topic:4944”]
You contend that in both cases, the process is the same. It is not.

The generation of functional information from random mutations is indeed the same.
[/quote]

No its not, and you admit as much when you say, "[quote=“glipsnort, post:1064, topic:4944”]
I agree that random mutations are used by the immune system to serve a specific function.
[/quote]

From the beginning, my assertion has been supported by the observation that life requires FPI and technologically advanced engineered systems (such as the immune system), and that FPI and technologically advanced engineered systems are very reliable signatures of the activity of intelligent agency. Empirical observations of what intelligent agents are and are not capable of, and ontological truths about natural processes are what make these reliable signatures of intelligent agency. As far as I am aware, the claims of abiogenesis constitute far weaker assertions.

You have offered the mutations of the adaptive immune system against my claim, but those mutations simply are not available without the context of FPI and the adaptive immune system. You claim that the mutations constitute novel genetic information, but you really need to understand that they do not constitute the source of the FPI.

Hi Joe,

Hope you and yours are doing well. My wife and I just returned to coastal South Carolina to an intact house with electricity. Very, very grateful! The best part was the traveling companion we brought with us, an elderly widow (neighbor) who is spiritually seeking. I invite those of you who practice prayer to lift her up before the Lord.

The reason you are having a discussion with our friend and brother Steve (@glipsnort) is that he has asserted that the immune system uses a random generation + selection process to produce FPI. The long discussion about Shakespeare hasn’t really addressed his assertion. Speaking just for myself, I still find his argument convincing.

I would even extend Steve’s line of thinking. The immune system has a design specified by information in the DNA, but it uses an evolutionary algorithm. Analogously, all of creation itself has a design (equations and constants of physics, chemistry, etc.) specified by the mind of our Creator, but it uses an evolutionary algorithm to produce the life we observe…and enjoy.

Blessings,

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Great. We’re in agreement: the source of the FPI in my B cells is the biochemical information-generating system of my immune system.

And in the next sentence you contradict yourself. My immune system is not intelligent – but you just said it was the source of the FPI, as indeed it is.

Of course I’m arguing for the TOE – I’m a biologist, after all. Arguing for a position is not a motive. I objected to you inventing a motive for why I am arguing for the TOE.

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2 posts were split to a new topic: There is no scientific theory of evolution