Re - Van Sun article "Religion in Disguise"

The Vancouver Sun last year published a set of articles about ID, Creationism and science. After publication of "Religion in Disguise" comments were enabled and myself and many others commented (pro and con ID). Alas our comments have all been removed and only the article now remains. I have decided I might as well re-post my largest deleted comment here for the benefit of anyone interested. Unfortunately I do not have copies of any of the other (shorter) comments -- they are probably gone forever.

I would just like to say that I am indeed grateful to the Vancouver Sun for
publishing my last comment regarding my philosophy of the value(sacredness) of
humankind.

"Metamorphic Geologist" however, has asked regarding ID's "top
secret research program." I can only speak for myself and my own work. I am
studying a possible relationship between classical "information" and certain
fundamental laws of physics, specifically the second law of thermodynamics and
the second law of black hole dynamics. I am attempting to facilitate an
"info-dynamic" unification of these laws of physics leading ultimately to a
unification of Relativity and Quantum mechanics. This requires the study of all
related fields -- the information theories of Shannon and Kolmogorov
(Algorithmic Information Theory {AIT}), statistical mechanics and general
relativity and QM. In order to clarify these relationships I have proposed the
addition of a new element to both Shannon's and Kolmogorov's theories of
information -- a correlational improbability figure (or K-coupling in K-theory
{AIT}). This figure is intended to mathematically quantify the amount of order
in any given piece of information. If there is no *correlation* between the
email that you sent your friend and the email that your friend receives, then
the "information" that you sent him/her has been lost. It is this essential
"correlated-ness" that my figure is intended to quantify.

I also recently proposed the existence of two types of Kolmogorov complexity (informational and non-informational). Informational (i)K-complexity (such as is found in say, DNA coding) is always originated by intelligent design, whereas non-informational (m)K-complexity, being wholly parasitic upon the pre-existing complexity of its medium, does not represent "complexity origination" at all. Jeff Shallit of the University of Waterloo and a leading critic of ID recently made the following statement in response to Tom Bethell’s concerns about the origin of DNA *coding* (and subsequent *correlations*):

"Bethell shows a profound misunderstanding of information theory when he claims, 'Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA was asked how the all-important coding information found its way into the DNA in the first place. It's so complex that a reliance on random events will never get us there.' Bethell apparently doesn't understand that in the Kolmogorov theory of information, complexity is the same as randomness. It's easy to get complexity; all you need is a source of random events." -- Jeff Shallit from "Bethell the Buffoon" 09,2007

If you were to smash a window using "a source of random events" (using the proverbial "monkey with shotgun"?) you would produce a random (m)K-complex mess of broken glass, but this raw, molecular-positional-complexity is not structural complexity. "Information" such as DNA coding is a "built up" form of coordinated, correlated structural complexity. Random (uncoordinated, unspecified, and uncorrelated) events cannot produce this type of (informational/structural) K-complexity. Randomization in fact destroys this "built up" (i)K-complexity. The breaking of windows is not going to produce the *specified* structural/informational complexity of a "built up" glass house nor a house nor DNA. Jeff Shallit is here confusing non-informational (m)K-complexity with structural/informational (i)K-complexity. The path of a "random walk" through a pre-existing complex medium reveals only the *pre-existing* K-complexity of that medium.

"Randomness," is a uniform probability distribution over a set of possible outcomes. Being *uniform* it is subsequently non-complex -- by definition. If the jackpot of a slot machine appears too frequently or too infrequently relative to the other outcomes, then the probability distribution is non-uniform, non-random and therefore, "unfair."

I have also pointed out at ISCID that there exists a longstanding problem for the Second Law of Thermodynamics known as "Poincare Recurrence" (first pointed out by mathematician Henri Poincare in 1890). This problem can be resolved by reformulating the second law of thermodynamics as a law of information dynamics. This is because system *finiteness* is an imposition of a residual orderly constraint (information/correlation) upon the contents of any otherwise internally free system.

My notion of correlational improbability while being an extension of Shannon and Kolmogorov’s theories does not underminethese theories nor their past successes – just as my theory of spacetime erosion does not undermine Einstein’s theory of spacetime curvature. The idea is to provide reformulations and clarifications of existing theories that are more amenable to scientific progress and unification. Einstein’s concept of "curvature" is presently blocking a quantum description of relativity IMO. A solution here would have to unify, not only quantum mechanics and general relativity, but also thermodynamics and black hole dynamics (general relativity).

As an ID theorist I am addressing a number of such issues and
proposing a number of possible solutions to these problems. From my point of
view, my work is obviously work in science and not religion --- just as
thermodynamics is obviously science and not religion. However, the question has been raised and clarification is needed in order for the public to determine
whether or not my science really is just "religion in disguise." To this end, I
once again encourage the Vancouver Sun to question me further regarding my
science (and also my philosophy if you wish) – and to do so in a public forum
such as this. It is time for this matter to be settled once and for all.

Submitted to VANCOUVER SUN Wed November 12 2008

Bizarre.

In response to Mike Egnor Timothy Sandefur writes...

"... to teach the (non-existent) “weaknesses” of evolution in a government
classroom is almost always (a) contrary to the lesson plan—and therefore a
violation of a teacher’s employment contract—or (b) in reality an attempt to
teach creationism to school children as true."

Bizzare..

"The non-existent 'weaknesses' of [Darwinian] evolution"?!?

Darwin's "Origin of the Species" proposes to originate new species through the use of randomization (random variation, random mutations, random gene duplication, random genetic drift, etc) plus natural selective destruction that destroys (weeds out/filters out) the unfit. But both randomization (that throws functionally integrated biological systems off target) and "Natural Selection" (that destroys the unfit) are destruction functions.

One glaring weakness of Darwinism therefore is that it is utterly illogical to expect new biological construction(+) to be the result of these (and any) destruction(-) functions (I.E. agents of doom). It is utterly illogical to expect randomness (the logical opposite and utter absence of order) to produce new biological order. Filtered accidents are still accidents.

If Darwin's book had been called "The (microevolutionary) Filtration of the Species" at least it would have been logical. Darwin's theory was illogical "out of the box." An illogical formulation is a catastrophic weakness of any scientific theory. Einstein's general theory of relativity has its weaknesses (such as its failure to integrate well with Quantum mechanics) but at least it is logically sound!
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Academic freedom is for Everyone!

I like Michael Egnor,

"Censorship has no place in our society. The academic freedom of all people — even of people like Richard Dawkins who don't respect academic freedom for others — should be protected. I support academic freedom, and I oppose the Oklahoma resolution, just as I oppose Darwinist censorship of open discussion of evolution in public schools. Richard Dawkins should speak at the University of Oklahoma, and he should be treated with courtesy and respect. Ben Stein should have been allowed to give the commencement address at the University of Vermont, and he should have been treated with courtesy and respect. Teachers and administrators and students who have questions about Darwin’s theory should speak up in schools, and they should be treated with courtesy and respect. We should hear more from Dawkins and Darwinists, and we should hear more from those who disagree with them as well. These issues should be discussed freely and vigorously in the public forum, including public universities and public schools."

Right on! Academic freedom is not just for those we like, or those we agree with, or those who treat us with respect. Academic freedom is for all! If Dawkins was invited then let him speak, but be sure to let the leaders from the other side (of the issue) speak as well! Academic freedom is for everyone!
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The Golden Goo Awards?

For outstanding faith in the evolution of primordial goo we present this prestigious award.. Oops, I am sorry... that's "Golden Woo" not "Golden Goo" HA.

Mike Egnor's reply

The Jeff Shallit's "Information" (but really raw K-complexity) Quiz.

Jeff Shallit..

"Q1: Can information be created by gene duplication or polyploidy? More specifically, if x is a string of symbols, is it possible for xx to contain more information than x?"

No. While raw/naked K-complexity may indeed be increased, raw K-complexity is not information. The second x is just a repeat of the information in the first and it can therefore be compressed back into the first x. The first x, however, as an optimized information string, cannot be further compressed without information loss. --The fact that there are two x's (instead of one), is a system-level information(fact), not information contained in x.

"Q2: Can information be created by point mutations? More specifically, if xay is a string of symbols, is it possible that xby contains significantly more information? Here a, b are distinct symbols, and x, y are strings."

No. While raw K-complexity may indeed be increased, random (unspecified) mutations can only destroy information. Point mutations are -- by definition -- uncorrelated and non-symbolic (at the level in question). The replacement of "a" (a correlated, coordinated specified symbol) with "b" (an uncorrelated, uncoordinated, unspecified{random} character) at very least, negates the information contained in "a" and may well damage the rest of the string -- a string that may well depend critically upon "a."

"Q3: Can information be created by deletion? More specifically, if xyz is a string of symbols, is it possible that xz contains signficantly more information?"

No. While raw K-compexity may again be increased. The loss of functioning symbol "y" constitutes a loss of information.

"Q4: Can information be created by random rearrangement? More specifically, if x is a string of symbols, is it possible that some permutation of x contains significantly more information?"

No. "Random rearrangement/purmutation" ALONE always replaces coordinated (non random) information with uncoordinated (random) events and information is almost always lost. While raw K-compexity may indeed be increased, this raw K-complexity is not information and is wholly parasitic upon the underlying system level of complexity.

"Q5. Can information be created by recombination? More specifically, let x and y be strings of the same length, and let s(x, y) be any single string obtained by "shuffling" x and y together. Here I do not mean what is sometimes called "perfect shuffle", but rather a possibly imperfect shuffle where x and y both appear left-to-right in s(x, y) , but not necessarily contiguously. For example, a perfect shuffle of 0000 and 1111 gives 01010101, and one possible non-perfect shuffle of 0000 and 1111 is 01101100. Can an imperfect shuffle of two strings have more information than the sum of the information in each string?"

No. This question is somewhat ambiguous however. Is that A: "an imperfect shuffle of two strings of information", or B: "an imperfect shuffle of two strings of meaningless binary digits?" In both cases however the answer is no. Unless the information (A:) is suitably protected, a sustained RANDOM shuffling will only decrease information. While raw K-complexity may once again be increased by this action, raw unspecified K-complexity is not specified/correlated and it is subsequently not information.

According to Shallit however..

"The answer to each question is 'yes.' In fact, for questions Q2-Q5, I can even prove that the given transformation can arbitrarily increase the amount of information in the string, in the sense that there exist strings for which the given transformation increases the complexity by an arbitrarily large multiplicative factor. I won't give the proofs here, because that's part of the challenge: ask your creationist to provide a proof for each of Q1-Q5. "

Yes to raw K-complexity increase but no to semantic information increase. Proofs of raw K-complexity increase are not proofs of informational K-complexity increase.

Jeff Shallit continues...

"Now I asserted that creationists usually cannot answer these
questions correctly, and here is some proof.

"Q1. In his book No Free Lunch, William Dembski claimed (p. 129) that "there is no more information in two copies of Shakespeare's Hamlet than in a single copy. This is of course patently obvious, and any formal account of information had better agree." Too bad for him that Kolmogorov complexity is a formal account of information
theory, and it does not agree. "

"Q2. Lee Spetner and the odious Ken Ham are fond of claiming that mutations cannot increase information. And this creationist web page flatly claims that "No mutation has yet been found that increased the genetic information." All of them are wrong in the Kolmogorov model of information."

"Q4. R. L. Wysong, in his book The Creation-Evolution Controversy, claimed (p. 109) that "random rearrangements in DNA would result in loss of DNA information". Wrong in the Kolmogorov model."

The Kolmogorov model is incomplete. The Shannon model is also incomplete. The Shannon model needs to be supplemented with a correlational improbability and the Kolmogorov model needs to be supplemented with irreducible correlational couplings. These additions are necessary to avoid the falsehood of... "Because both random strings and information strings are K-complex (true)...therefore, randomness= information (false)." The second part of this generic statement ("randomness = information") is false. When I produced this post I did not produce a random string of letters. Instead I produced information - a textual (B) correlation of what I have in my mind(A).

In order to complete Shannon and Komogorov's theories, the extended/projected nature of information must be mathematically formalized. I have proposed doing this by means of a correlational improbability figure in Shannon's theory and irreducible coupling for information in Kolmogorov's theory.

If there is no correlation between the email that you send your friend and the information he/she receives then the "extention"(from A to B) has failed and the information has been lost. "Information" thus depends critically upon correlational integrity (input to output mapping) . Randomness is not correlated/coordinated (by definition) and does not depend on correlational integrity. Randomness depends upon lack of correlation.

Information(A) is always information "about" something (B). Randomness is not information "about" anything. Graphically now, "in-FORM-ation" is K-complex on the "y" axis while being irreducibly K-simple (ordered/formed) on the "x" axis. A random string is just naked/raw K-complexity. The introduction of random events into the DNA information string is a loosing proposition.

As I see it..

In Q1 Jeff is trying to defend RANDOM gene duplications.
In Q2 Jeff is trying to defend RANDOM point mutations.
In Q3 Jeff is trying to defend RANDOM gene deletions.
In Q4 Jeff is trying to defend RANDOM gene shuffling/rearrangement.
In Q5 Jeff is trying to defend RANDOM gene shuffling/recombination.
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ID evolution at Scientific American

In the latest issue of Sci Am there is an article by Neil Shubin ("This Old Body") that uses an example of ID evolution -- as an example of Darwinian(?!) evolution. Both the old laboratory (less evolved) and the new lab (more evolved) are the product of intelligent design. This is known as "Berra's Blunder." In the case of Berra's example, both old corvettes (less evolved) and new corvettes (more evolved) are the product of intelligent design. This is all the more surprising given that the entire issue seems dedicated to attacking ID and glorifying Darwin. (See perhaps "Creationists' Latest Tricks.")

Fundamentalism - A Dangerous Delusion

"If there is a dangerous delusion in the world, it is not so much moderate religion, as Dawkins would have it, but fundamentalism in all its forms — ideological, scientific and religious — as the imposition of dogma that brooks neither doubt nor respect for disagreement." - John Cornwell

While religious fundamentalism is indeed dangerous, it is to a large extent uncloaked and restrained/defused in the western world. Materialist fundamentalism however is not yet uncloaked and finds enormous support in the global institutions of science and global secular media. Militant desecrationist (fundamentalist) atheists such as PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins are presently revered in the scientific world. My concern here is not about atheism (I have many friends and relatives who are atheists) but fundamentalism of all kinds. It is fundamentalism that "brooks neither doubt nor respect for disagreement" that is the real danger for modern civilization.
....

My "Correlational Improbability" proposal

"Correlational Improbability"- July 31/08 is my way of mathematically quantifying the second Dembskian notion of "an independently given, detachable pattern."

From ResearchID.org:Re - “Specified Complexity”:"The first component is the criterion of complexity or improbability. The second is the criterion of specificity, which is an independently given, detachable pattern."

The (often critiqued) second component "specificity" is mathematically quantifiable as a correlational improbability. Multiplying this improbability by the initial improbability (the first component) gives the pertinent “hyper-hyperfinite” or “trans-hyperfinite” internal information/improbability figure for any given complex functional, pseudo-platonic(maintained) system. Note that the first component of “improbability” is itself a hyperfinite number below the universal probability bound. See-- Specified_Complexity at ISCID.

Note added Sept 24/08: I have initiated a separate thread at ISCID in order to discuss this topic.

The God Crane

Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennet claim that “God” is a "skyhook" (not a "crane") and that "God" is subsequently unscientific. For someone like me however this argument has no force because "God" as I see it/him/her is indeed "a crane." The iterating God function evolves and becomes -- through each cycle -- more and more functionally complex. The process is called "telic recursion." God and the universe co-evolved from a simple initial state devoid of complexity. Awareness rides along and learns (increases in complexity) through every iteration/cycle. Ideas are projected outward to become "physical" and then success and/failure (of these projections) is assessed and learned from. With this new information (new functional complexity) in hand the cycle begins again.

Some Good News Re - PZ Myers and Orthodox Science?

In April of 2005 Universty of Minnesota biologist, PZ Myers pubished the following statement in response to a readers call to "tone down the (anti ID) rhetoric"..

“I say it is time for scientists to break out the brass knuckles and steel toed boots and hammer (PZ's emphasis, not mine) on the lunatics and idiots.”

PZ's anti-ID statement used to be found HERE but it is now missing. I take this as a good sign. The reason that this troubled me is that in the following year 2006 Nature Magazine (possibly the worlds #1 science magazine) voted PZ's blog "Pharyngula" (where the comment appeared) the number one science blog in the entire world! This convinced me that violence and/or threats of violence are OK with the scientific community just as long they are directed at people like me (I.E. people who doubt Darwinian macro-evolution and propose intelligent design instead). This chain of events came as quite a shock to me. I expected much better from orthodox science. Hopefully we are now seeing orthodox science backing down from such threats.

My Hockey Anthem "Electric Ice."

What I am dealing with (in music composition and production) is the translation of musical information (in my mind) into a finished musical form (above). To this end I have developed personal musical systems that are both energy efficient and info-efficient.

Listen at the CBC "Anthem Challenge" web site.

Note Added: Sept 15/08 My anthem was the CBC's "featured anthem" over this last weekend. Thanks for listening everyone!

The CBC "Anthem Challenge" Homepage

Three Explanatory Slides and "The Randomness Channel"

When you are passionate about ID science and are subsequently expelled/driven from orthodox science, you can wind up camping in the woods (as I did). Unable to afford cable TV, you get whatever TV channels you can pick up. Sometimes it is only "The Randomness Channel" IE., "snow" or "no signal." Luckily "randomness" is at the core of a very famous theory of science -- Darwinian Evolution. After spending many years in the woods watching the "Randomness Channel" I was able to develop a much better understanding of randomness and its (cough) "creative potential."




Of course famous Darwinists like Richard Dawkins would protest saying that while randomness is indeed random, Darwin's "natural selection" -- that selectively weeds out the unfit -- is not random at all! Luckily, I was able to purchase some rose colored glasses for 50 cents -- thereby weeding out the "un-fit" -- the "un-red" -- and thus "improving" my TV viewing experience with Darwinian non-randomness.

Then one day, while clicking randomly though various randomness channels I suddenly recieved a COMUNICATION from a strange ALIEN world called "Canada"(!?!). This was not randomness!(slide #1) Nor was this selectively filtered randomness!(slide #2) This surely was an intelligently designed SIGNAL! To this day, no-one in orthodox science believes me. They consider selectively filtered random variations (random mutation random genetic drift, random gene duplication, random environmental hits {randomizations} etc..) to be a perfectly sufficient explanation for such patterns! While Darwin's filtered randomness (slides #1 and #2) can explain some superficial things (like shifts in moth colouration or shifts in finch beak sizes -- all in pre-existing organisms {pre-existing signals}) it cannot explain the appearance de novo of specified complexity from star base Canada!!

Toward a Free and Democratic Post-Darwinian Enlightenment

I have been invited to speak at The Mackie House in Vernon, BC Canada on May 13th at 7:00 PM. The title of my talk is "Toward a Free and Democratic Post-Darwinian Enlightenment." Seating is limited, so reservations are required.

Expelled -- The Movie April 18th

Expelled the movie is coming out in USA April 18th. I hope everyone enjoys it.

The “Spaghetti Man” (formerly “Straw Man”) Fallacy of Logical Argumentation

Spaghetti Design (SD) versus Intelligent Design (ID)

There is no evidence whatsoever of Spaghetti ever designing anything (nor is there any evidence of spaghetti having any ability to take flight).

On the other hand..

There exists a massive body of evidence of intelligence designing things. (This very document you are now reading was designed {written/composed} by an intelligence {myself}. It was not written by spaghetti {flying or otherwise).

The purpose of "The Flying Spaghetti Monster" (http://www.venganza.org/) crusade is to ridicule ID science (for which there is a massive body of evidence) by pretending it to be equivalent to SD (for which there is no evidence of any kind). By failing to address actual ID arguments and by offering only a disanalogous "straw man/spaghetti man" argument, the proponents of FSM are committing a fallacy of logical argumentation – The classic Spaghetti Man Fallacy.

On to our next great Dawkinian challenge;

Orbiting Teapot Design (OTD) versus Intelligent Design (ID)… No evidence of teapots designing anything …Spaghetti Man Fallacy of logical argumentation.

And another…

Pink Unicorn Design (PUD) versus Intelligent Design (ID)… No evidence of pink unicorns designing anything… No evidence of pink unicorns period. Spaghetti Man Fallacy of logical argumentation.

And another…

Roman Mythological Character Design RMCD (Zeus Design {ZD}) versus Intelligent Design (ID). No evidence of Zeus designing anything…No evidence of Zeus. Spaghetti Man Fallacy of logical argumentation…

Funny New Dawkins Rap Video

HA!

It's the New Year and time to Re-start Science

In the book "The End of Science" chapter #8 "End of Chaoplexity" John Horgan writes..

"Definitions of complexity typically draw upon thermodynamics, information theory and computer science and involve concepts such as entropy, randomness and information -- which themselves have proved to be notoriously slippery terms."

Note that for John Horgan -- the science writer -- and apparently all others that he knows in science, there exists a scientific problem of complexity being "notoriously slippery."

"..all definitions of complexity have drawbacks. For example algorithmic information theory (Chaitin et al) holds that the complexity of a system can be represented by the shortest computer program describing it. But according to this criterion, a text created by a team of typing monkeys is more complex because it is more random and therefore less compressible -- than Finnegans Wake"

The solution of course is very simple. The "typing monkeys" are merely an anthropomorphisation of "randomness." "Randomness" is merely a uniform probability distribution over a set of possible outcomes. That is to say, if the probability of your slot machine's jackpot configuration (say, three lemons) is greater (or less) than the other configurations(say, two cherries and a banana) then its internal probability is distributed non-uniformly -- it is skewed/biased and it is subsequently non-random.

Horgan's "text" being "created by a team of typing monkeys" is but uniformly distributed, unspecified gibberish wherein the complexity here is an attribute of the complex (alphabet) system -- not an attribute of randomness! Randomness is by definition uniform and subsequently non-complex. "Finnegans Wake" on the other hand is specified, non-random and does not conform to a uniform distribution of letters.

Even if one were to remove all the redundancy from "Finnegans Wake," reducing it to a K-complex skeleton code, it still would not be the least bit random because any such "Finnegans Wake" is utterly specific and randomness is devoid of specifications. Any such Finnegans Wake code, non-randomly specifies Finnegans Wake -- IE it is a specific, non-random list of the specifications/instructions needed to produce the specific Finnegan's Wake text.

While the letter "A" is indeed specific, randomness is not. While letter and number systems are themselves complex and specified -- randomness is not.

Randomness is the absence of order, the absence of complexity, the absence of specifications and the absence of information. When expressed in a complex system, randomness appears as uniformly distributed noise or "gibberish." John Horgan bemoans the "end of science" -- not because science is ending and no more answers are possible -- but because he is talking to the wrong scientists -- scientists who worship randomness. For those who don't worship randomness, "complexity" is not the least bit "slippery."
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Note added Jan 3/08. I thoroughly enjoyed reading "The End of Science." John Horgan is a very entertaining writer and I found the subjects he addresed therein to be extremely interesting. -WB

The Design of Life

The Design of life is causing quite stir over at amazon.com. Check it out.. We have just ordered our copy..

Note added Jan.3/08 Whoah! The Design of life on amazon.com appears now to be the victim of numerous drive-by one-star postings and numerous attendant "helpful" Darwinian button pushers!

A Brookfield ID-Darwinian Diagram

In this schematic diagram "structure" and the "information" that codes for it, are represented as vertical (Z-axis) amplitude. Positive Z-axis motion (upward) requires intelligent design. Both "natural selection and "random mutation" being context insensitive are subsequently incapable of producing new structure/information.

The Design Matrix Appears

"The Design Matrix" is a book by independent ID researcher "Mike Gene." We don't know who he is but he is certainly a person of interest in the ID debate. His new book can also be ordered through Amazon.com.


Nov 24 -- We've ordered our copy. Have you ordered yours?