My ID Challenge

You need to read the literature dealing with the maths and associated physics before you can make these (rash) comments. You comment appears to amount to humans contriving some type of maths that is peculiar to us. Maths is sometimes referred to as the “unreasonable” way to intelligently access and perhaps understand the Universe. If we take your view, maths is “a just so” thing we use to “wow” ourselves. NOT SO!

Discussions of faith or otherwise are deductions - the maths is a product of scientific theory and related activities.

@GJDS,

You are speaking pretty vaguely, making it pretty difficult to find any compelling evidence in your assertion.

Let’s talk about the tilt of Earth’s orbit. I have ready many articles commenting on how helpful it has been to sustain life and yet challenge life to hone skills of adaptation to slowly changing seasons.

All the planets that have orbits that destroy life are, by default and definition, rarely going to have life forms that marvel at their planet being created just right to provide for their continued existence.

It just isn’t surprising to me if a finely tuned Universe has finely tuned places and times where life exists to marvel at how finely tuned the Universe is.

No doubt the Universe could be even more finely tuned in this or that regard. And the life forms that are just outside the bounds of death and chaos will say: “isn’t that amazing … there must be a God”.

As I said before, I think there is good reason to be interested in such math . . . but it’s hardly proof. It’s self-fulfilling.

Details and the basics of the topic can be found in expert papers - if you wish to discuss anything in that paper I will be happy to indulge you.

A good start for detailed discussions from well qualified mathematician and theoretical physicist is - The Fine-Tuning of the Universe for Intelligent Life, by Luke A. Barnes. He discusses alternate outlooks and shows why the alternate outlook use faulty maths.

What is faulty about the conclusion:

“We wouldn’t expect any self-reflective living things to exist in Universes that weren’t fine-tuned, or in the parts of a fine-tuned universe that are still, otherwise, hostile to life.”

@GJDS This is not fancy math. This is basic logic.

Universes that don’t have the right ratio of matter vs. anti-matter … destroy vast sections of the universe, right?

Solar systems that don’t have a planet like Jupiter to catch all the asteroids and comets have inner planets that are so bombarded they can’t sustain life, right?

Planets that are otherwise in the Goldlock Zone, but can’t support life for this or that reason … obviously won’t have inhabitants fixated on how perfect the Universe can be. Right?

I try my best to be charitable George, but these type of statements make that task very difficult. Once you tell me what fancy maths offend you, then I will continue - otherwise have a good day.

@GJDS

I know you find this hard to believe… but all your posts sound like are invitations for a wild goose chase. And in the old days I was eager to oblige. I would go to the local university… and pay to have an article or book forwarded to the institution … and after 30 minutes of review, I would discover that the article had ZERO to do with the topic being considered. I don’t go on wild goose chases any more.

You haven’t provided a single example of what you mean when you say I don’t grasp the
difficulties of the maths.

Yeah… I suppose I don’t. But if a planet’s orbit tilt is not in the Goldilocks Zone, how is there
supposed to be anyone alive to puzzle how there could be a God if his/her planet is NOT in
the Goldilocks Zone?

When I refute someone, I provide information… examples… analysis.

When you and others refute me … you tell me to read a bunch of books and remark on how stupid I am.

Sweet.

Nothing is faulty about it. That’s probably why you got an insult in reply.

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To better understand why this is not correct, let’s allow a larger context. Suppose that this is an instruction from Hamlet to Ophelia in Act 1. The typo occurred when miss Random was transcribing Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” for your daughter’s high school play. So who is the author of the play? Is it miss Random or is it William Shakespeare? [quote=“glipsnort, post:1021, topic:4944”]
Note also that in your case, the introduced information isn’t functional, while in the real case it is
[/quote]

Actually, it is: “Meet me by the wall” is a perfectly logical, coherent sentence; one which could conceivably prove functional. [quote=“glipsnort, post:1021, topic:4944”]
If your concept of functional, prescriptive information means anything at all, then my memory B cells contain functional, prescriptive information that arose from a well-understood biochemical process with no detectable intelligent agent present
[/quote]

Ahh, but the intelligent agent is indeed discernable! As you concede multiple times in your reply to me, your “DNA has prescriptive information for carrying out a specific function”. Now, recall the exact wording of my claim:

“every single time we trace functional prescriptive information to its source, that source is always an intelligent agent, and never natural processes,”

I think the word you need to consider here is “source.” Your memory B cells do indeed perform a biological function; a function that was programmed into them from the beginning (more on this in a moment), bearing witness to an intelligent agent at its source. To the point currently under consideration, a copying error to original text cannot possibly occur absent the existence of the original text. Therefore, the original text is the source and the copying error is simply that: a copying error. Can a copying error result in a different coherent message? Sometimes. And I grant that this truth opens up an entirely different discussion when it comes to biological systems (which I will be happy to have). However, it remains true that the original message is the source.[quote=“glipsnort, post:1021, topic:4944”]
Are you seriously saying that information doesn’t count as information if it arises as a modification of previous information? If so, then all human language also doesn’t count as information, since we generate language by modifying the language we learned as kids. What doea “information” mean, if that’s the case?
[/quote]

I’m afraid this is nothing more than a red herring. First, it is silly to say that all original information generated by humans is nothing more than the alteration of existing information. Nor do I claim that a modified message is not information. I do claim that a modified message is not the original source of the information. Trace a modified message to its original source - the original message - and you will discover an intelligent agent behind it, regardless of how it was modified. That is what I am saying.[quote=“glipsnort, post:1021, topic:4944”]
Further, that would also mean that any amount of evolution (say, fish to humans) could occur without the creation of any new information or the involvement of an intelligent agent – because everything in our DNA is just a modification of earlier DNA. Is that the tack you want to take?
[/quote]

Clearly not! I hope that you and I can both agree that for a fish to evolve into a human, a tremendous amount of novel information would be required. Should we believe, as we are taught in school, that the mutation/ selection mechanism alone can account for such evolution? That is a conversation worth having and one I frankly relish, but it is a different conversation than this one.[quote=“glipsnort, post:1021, topic:4944”]
Let’s see if I have this right. I started life with N bits of functional information in my germline DNA that coded for antibodies
[/quote]

functional information which, as I understand it, is capable of identifying some ten billion different pathogens, to include many the system has yet to encounter.[quote=“glipsnort, post:1021, topic:4944”]
After 50+ years of life and numerous encounters with pathogens, I have a much larger amount of functional information in my DNA, coding for pathogen-specific antibodies.
[/quote]

Due to the incredibly coordinated response system that includes both your innate immune system and your adaptive immune system; a dynamic system designed to facilitate detection and destruction of foreign pathogens; a system designed to grow in both recognition and response; a system which relies on the execution of well coordinated, precise protocols, all of which are designed to protect you. The “information” that built your immune system, allowing it to be both dynamic and deadly effective was already in place, designed to recognize and respond to a host of foreign invaders. Indeed, as you say, you started life with this information.[quote=“glipsnort, post:1021, topic:4944”]
At present, there is zero evidence that organisms are programmed to produce specific beneficial mutations, and abundant evidence that they produce random mutations.
[/quote]

Nobody denies the reality of random mutations. But are all mutations “random”? The folks over at http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/ would take issue with this claim. So would Lee Spetner, who has authored two books defending his “Non-Random Evolutionary Hypothesis.” Our brother Chris Falter rejects dr. Spetner out of hand on the basis of nothing more than his literal reading of Genesis, but neither he, nor you, nor anyone can deny that both of Spetner’s books are chock full of empirical examples in support of his hypothesis.[quote=“glipsnort, post:1021, topic:4944”]
Random mutations are perfectly adequate to explain the origin of the functional information in question her
[/quote]

Nope. Random mutations are adequate to explain the mutation of original functional information. The question of whether any series of random mutations alone is capable of accounting for the origin of novel body plans remains a fascinating and open question. But the question of the origin of mutated genetic information is clearly settled. The origin is the original message. Or said yet another way, the mutated information is the mutated information and the original information is the original information.

Finally, I want to point out that in this exchange, you and I have both taken genetic information as axiomatic. Of course to talk about functional genetic information at all is to implicitly consent to the existence of a genetic information system, and when we talk about the source, this is where the rubber really meets the road. What cause is adequate to account for the existence of genetic information in the first place? Surely an appeal to an exhaustive regress of mutations will still bring us to the genetic information system itself. As we have seen, the mutation is not the source. As we have seen, the source is always intelligent agency.

The reality that a genetic information system lies at the base of all life, then, constitutes strong evidence that life requires a Creator.

Well Howdy Chris! As usuual, you seem far more invested in discrediting me personally and my sources generally (a monster I simply refuse to feed) than addressing the issues I raise. In your zeal for the former, you have completely missed the point of contention between Steve and I. In the eternal hope that you and I can some day have an actual conversation, I refer you to my reply to him above.

But that anthropic principle reply, with reference to such planets, does nothing whatsoever to explain how intelligent life comes to exist in the world in the Goldilocks Zone - it only explains their surprise at being there.

In the case of CFT, likewise it may explain the wonder at fine tuning, but nothing whatever about how it came to exist. The anthropic argument only holds if there is reason to think that many other universes exist of all specifications, of which this one is just an example. Currently there is no scientific support for such a thing, which of course is a very different case from that of habitable planets.

Anyway, before you guys wax too lyrical about CFT being a poorly conceived ID error, bear in mind that BioLogos officially considers it a valid pointer to the existence of God here.

@Jon_Garvey

And I too see it as a valid pointer to god … as a point of (and supporter of) my faith. But the phrase “a fine tuned Universe” is not a proof of anything - - since only those that emerge in a fine-tuned Universe are able to marvel at it’s fine-tuned-ness.

The emergence of life from dead matter is another topic… and should not be used to divert the discussion away from the separate issue of a Cosmos that appears to be fine-tuned. [But BioLogos would agree that God is involved in leading natural events to jump this amazing juncture in Earth’s history.]

I find the existence of Consciousness mmmmuch more compelling than a Universe that appears fine-tuned.

Spetner claimed that Archaeopteryx is a forgery.

And then there’s this:

  1. Spetner’s metrics depend on a binding mechanism that does not occur in nature…
  1. Spetner’s metrics require that substances bind to enzymes in an all or nothing fashion, whereas real substrates do not bind in this way.
    … Spetner himself is inconsistent in his application of his metrics. In his Xylitol example he does not actually use the measure he develops, and in the streptomycin example he swaps to a different metric, when his original metric would show increased information.
    … his “directed evolution” model is based on a misunderstanding of one form of random mutation.

Also: His model’s espousal of local maxima is complete hooey. His model eliminates neutral changes from consideration, in contradiction to biologists’ experimental evidence. His model assume linear changes across a single line parentage rather than across populations.

I could go on, but I’ve gotta run.

I know you will probably continue to wax eloquently about how Spetner has provided evidence of the highest caliber, Joe. But maybe, just maybe, you will understand now why I base my faith on the Apostles’ testimony and on my personal encounter with Christ, rather than on an ID advocate’s assessment of what constitutes evidence of the highest caliber.

Have a blessed day, Joe.

EDIT: For the readers who don’t wish to search through 1000 posts extending over several months, here is the full statement I made about Spetner in June:

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

The astute reader will note that I did not assess the merit of Spetner’s writings on the basis of his hermeneutical approach. The context was that my friend Joe had cited his reading of Spetner as evidence of his broad reading in the scientific literature. I was disagreeing with the notion that reading Spetner is a form of reading the scientific literature, as the term is commonly understood.

Have a blessed day, dear readers.

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Irrelevant question. The question wasn’t, “Who created the immune system?” The question was, “Where did the information to make antibodies come from”. In you analogy, the question is, "Where did this piece of information in that text of Hamlet come from? And the answer, of course, is that it came from Miss Random. Shakespeare certainly didn’t create it.[quote=“deliberateresult, post:1043, topic:4944”]
Ahh, but the intelligent agent is indeed discernable! As you concede multiple times in your reply to me, your “DNA has prescriptive information for carrying out a specific function”. Now, recall the exact wording of my claim:

“every single time we trace functional prescriptive information to its source, that source is always an intelligent agent, and never natural processes,”

I think the word you need to consider here is “source.” Your memory B cells do indeed perform a biological function; a function that was programmed into them from the beginning (more on this in a moment), bearing witness to an intelligent agent at its source. To the point currently under consideration, a copying error to original text cannot possibly occur absent the existence of the original text. Therefore, the original text is the source and the copying error is simply that: a copying error. Can a copying error result in a different coherent message? Sometimes. And I grant that this truth opens up an entirely different discussion when it comes to biological systems (which I will be happy to have). However, it remains true that the original message is the source.
[/quote]
As far as I can tell from you entire response, the word “information” in your statements has no meaning at all. It doesn’t mean semantic information – meaning of the message – because the meaning of the final message was not present initially. It’s not the string of symbols being output, as it would be in information theory, because they weren’t present initially either. Perhaps you can define what you’re talking about in some way, because at present I see no way of having a rational discussion about an undefined term.

Well, I would say that there’s a great deal of novel information in human DNA, but I’d also say that my B cells contain lots of novel information. Once again, I have no idea what you mean by “information”. I cannot think of any definition by which human DNA has novel information while B cells don’t. In both cases, there’s a DNA sequence that is replicated with random modifications, yielding a new sequence. In both cases the initial sequence is functional, and so is the final sequence.

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@Eddie

10 years, 20 years, whatever … I don’t think it’s going to happen.

I was in the University lecture room when Dr. Noam Chomsky suggested that because of the inherent limitations of any biological thing, it should come as no surprise that the human brain may not be capable of understanding how the human brain works.

I found that logic quite compelling!

In any case, even if such a materialistic discovery is made regarding consciousness, this is hardly likely to change the overall ranking of what is miraculous and amazing in the world. I don’t see how a finely tuned Universe will ever outrank Consciousness!
universe

Really?

Four days later…

My brother Joe,

At the time of your first comment–the one I initially addressed–you were phrasing your argument in a way so orthogonal to the way the immune system works that it seemed like you would genuinely benefit from some background reading.

I am glad that you are now expressing your argument with the appropriate terminology.

I refer you to Steve’s reply above. And with that I bid you good day and God’s blessings.

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Hello Joe.

I want to take after your example and get back to everyone who responded to me. :slight_smile: (I have one or 2 additional more recent responses that I’ll be trying to get to today as well).

Well, I didn’t always believe that. I thought being a bible-believing Christian REQUIRED me to believe that God, “created” life (which to me was a simple single-cell organism).

Then I attended a forum at the end of an apologetics conference that discussed 4 common Christian views of creation. There was a person representing YEC, “ID” (though the person representing it didn’t like it being called that), evolution with a few, “interventions” from God and evolution with no interventions from God - which was represented by Dennis Lamoureux, whom I had not heard of. I was impressed that he was an evangelical Christian who knew his bible and had the guts to believe and promote his views. I was almost swayed to lean his way but in the end I still felt more comfortable in the 3rd category (evolution with interventions).

I then did a little research on the origins of life. It seemed that people, including some ECs, were looking more at self-replicating RNA molecules as being the earliest forms. At first I was revulsed - “how can you call that life!”. Also, at that time my theology on Genesis 1 was evolving. I called myself a, “progressive creationist”, meaning that the days of G1 were not to be taken literally and God, “created” (through evolution) different things on different days (epochs). Then it dawned on me: modern scientific findings are so far removed from a natural reading of G1 that I decided to take science out of it altogether. I consequently felt more comfortable with life evolving since what G1 is teaching has nothing to do with, “science” in the first place. In the end there were 2 ideas that persuaded me to conclude that life probably evolved. One is that God’s creation evolving us from a one-celled organism is a much larger accomplishment than a few self-replicating molecules becoming encircled by a cell wall. Two, EVERYTHING evolves. Biological life, cosmological life and spiritual life all evolve. Relationships evolve, careers, etc. Everything in God’s creation evolves through the natural forces of physics, emotions, etc. That the case, then why couldn’t life itself evolve? That’s a fairly brief version on how I came to my viewpoints on the origins of life.

Joe, why are you switching to a (very bad) analogy instead of addressing the actual evidence?

The information was not programmed into the B cells. The memory B cells are those after clonal selection and proliferation, BTW, not before. Steve, you, and I will all make antibodies to the same antigen, but the sequences of their variable sequences will be different–that’s an important refutation of the claim that they were programmed.

The variation is the source of the information in this case.[quote=“deliberateresult, post:1043, topic:4944”]
Due to the incredibly coordinated response system that includes both your innate immune system and your adaptive immune system; a dynamic system designed to facilitate detection and destruction of foreign pathogens; a system designed to grow in both recognition and response; a system which relies on the execution of well coordinated, precise protocols, all of which are designed to protect you.[/quote]
These are all assertions, Joe. You said that you were about the evidence, remember?

[quote]The “information” that built your immune system, allowing it to be both dynamic and deadly effective was already in place, designed to recognize and respond to a host of foreign invaders. Indeed, as you say, you started life with this information.
[/quote]No, what Steve said, and more importantly what the evidence says, is that none of us started life with the information to make specific antibodies. It arises by genetic variation that is random with respect to fitness, which is why we have a system in place to kill off cells that make self-reactive antibodies.

Was the Intelligent Designer just being ironic when He designed your adaptive immune system to function using Darwinian mechanisms?

[quote=“deliberateresult, post:1043, topic:4944”]
…But are all mutations “random”? The folks over at http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/ would take issue with this claim.
[/quote]That’s relabeling and opinion, not evidence.

There’s evidence for increasing mutation rates under stress, but that’s paleo-Darwinian.

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Hi Joe,

I see intelligence in life with a, “small” i, meaning I see too much organized complexity to believe that life could have gotten here without an intelligent creator. That is completely consistent with God initiating the universe with the intent of it evolving life.

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Hi Joe,

I don’t I follow you here. If, “established”=“proven”, then to say that something has established the existence of God means that it has proven the existence of God, no?

Of course I believe that the fine-tunedness of the universe constitutes strong evidence for a creator. But that is different from saying that a creator has been, “proven”. That’s my only point.

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