Intelligent Design

[jtls1986]

Is anyone familiar with this concept...I was introduced to this recently and I find it to be quite convincing...

Considering that Darwin himself stated that his theory of evolution would completely break down ***IF*** a biological entity was capable of developing complex systems without taking slow steps of slowly evolving similar structures that would eventually lead to the complex systems...

After observing a bacterium, and focusing on a single structure, the flagellum...scientists revealed a very complex biological machine....involving structures similar to a human machine that would run wheels or something like that...

Anyway, the scientists declared that such a complex system could not have been capable of evolving from organisms that originated from a "proto-earth", since the proteins and enzymes must connect in a particular fashion...and cannot connect differently...if the enzymes connect incorrectly....the enzymes will fall apart...and the protein itself would not have been produced...

These enzymes have thousands...if not billions of information that tell the enzyme to connect to a specific enzyme....and after connecting...the enzymes will roll up in a certain fashion to finally produce the protein..

How could primitive cells that originated from amino acids suddenly form such a complex chain of information that would form enzymes...and finally proteins that would together....form a complex bacterial flagellum?

[Ian Parker]

I think that pitting oneself against God is indeed high presumption. Pitting oneself against a process in the wild No. One is essentially saying that something could come up with Intelligence without understanding basic theoretical principles.

Are you saying the Brain is quantum mechanical or that QM comes up in Evolution. The processes of genetic mutation are not QM. Anthing involving QM would very much demonstrate itself as ID.

There is one intreguing thought. Fermat. Did he have a QM brain? Consider the Shor algorithm.

Now x^2 - a^2 = X is the ELLIPTIC equation that describes fsactorization of products of large primes. This is put into modular form for the QM computer. Ask it to solve

x^n + y^n = z^n n>2 and you do not have a valid Hamiltonian. Hamiltonians in QM computers must be modular.

My SCIENTIFIC point is that if pitting yourself against God is high preumption, this would deter biologism in computational science.

[Jose]

1) Is there a state core syllabus in Ohio and if so what is it in detail?
2) Does everyone take the biology course in question or is it only given to students who elect to take it?
3) What are the requirements in terms of other courses to take evolutionary biology? Do you have to have any knowledge of a) Calculus? or b) Statistics? To me discussion is impossible without some background.
4) What precisely is the point of litigation? If the answers to question 3 are both negative how the hell can either Evolution or ID be taught in any meaningful way.

The Ohio science standards can be found here.

The minimum graduation requirements now include one course in biological science, one in physical science, and one additional science course. Math is simply "3 courses" which does not imply, to me, that calculus or statistics are explicitly required. Certainly, it would be unrealistic to require calculus.

As I see it, the point of litigation is to force non-science into the science classroom--specifically religion.

Evolution can be taught very meaningfully by providing the data. If genetics works the way it does, with mutation and meiotic recombination, then evolution must occur. Sure, you can call it "merely microevolution," but it is evolution. If we add to this the geological evidence and the information recorded in the fossil record, then students have the data they need. The question is simply how to interpret it. One obvious interpretation is that eovlution works, and the fossil history reveals the path that it took. Another interpretation is that god set it up to look like evolution works, but he was playing a trick on us.

We could teach ID pretty easily, too. It has 3 main components. One is that if we don't know all of the details of the evolution of a particular structure, then we can say "the heck with further investigation--I'm gonna conclude that god did it." By contrast, science would say "let's keep investigating," and see if we can figure it out more completely. Another component of ID is that complex structures fail if we take away one of their components, so we can prove that these complex structures did not evolve by having the exact genes that now exist pop out of nowhere to assemble the structure. Although ID states that it is impossible, it is actually pretty likely (and in many cases, demonstrated) that there must have been earlier, less-complex forms of these structures. Evolutionary processes simply modified them, so that they became more complex. The third principle is that information is pretty complicated, and we can determine the likelihood that evolution tried to create the information that now exists. Since the probability is really low, we can rule out the idea that the information was specified. That's a good thing, because the mechanism of evolution has no means of specifying a goal beforehand.

For both of these latter issues, there is another alternative, which the ID proponents consider to be the only possible one: that god did it. But, to treat this in the tradition of Good Science, we have to consider all of the alternative explanations, which the ID folks do not do. They jump directly to "god did it" without considering the alternative that their assumptions are wrong about how evolution works. Given how much information there is about evolution, it is inconceivable that these really-intelligent ID folks simply have no idea what evolution is. So, it seems pretty likely that they have chosen these erroneous assumptions on purpose, because (1) they can get away with it when trying to persuade people who don't know much about evolution, and (2) their arguments simply don't work when addressing the actual mechanism of evolution.

It would be pretty easy to teach this in science classes, as a way of illustrating bad science. I would have thought that the ID folks would want to avoid being such an example. If they are successful in their litigation, however, then their errors will be exposed far and wide.

As for AI, it doesn't enter into it. AI simply reflects the ability of humans to build stuff. They haven't built a computer that is as efficient as a human brain? What a surprise. Let's give 'em a few milion more years, and maybe they'll have one by then.

[QED]

Are you saying the Brain is quantum mechanical or that QM comes up in Evolution. The processes of genetic mutation are not QM. Anthing involving QM would very much demonstrate itself as ID.

Strange question. How could quantum mechanics be excluded from any material structure? As for "anything involving QM" being a demonstration of ID, what would you claim justifies this proposition?

[Ian Parker]

There is a romantic legend that on the dayt he died Fermat said he hade a proof of the last theorem and that he would write it down in the morning. He was then dead. Andrew Wiles doubts whether he could have produced the proof at that time. If his brain was QM that puts a different complexion on it.

I do not buy the theory that AI is irrelevant. If we can't figure out a way to do it there must be some fundamental reason why not. After all an "algorithm working in the wild" must go through similar steps to what AI investigators do. In fact I think AI is the most relevant as it is the one area where actual experiment can, and have been done.

[QED]

Can I assume that QM has no bearing on ID then?

There is a romantic legend that on the dayt he died Fermat said he hade a proof of the last theorem and that he would write it down in the morning. He was then dead. Andrew Wiles doubts whether he could have produced the proof at that time. If his brain was QM that puts a different complexion on it.

Why in principle shouldn't the brain make use of QM effects? After all one could cite intuition as evidence of arriving at answers without formal reasoning.

I do not buy the theory that AI is irrelevant. If we can't figure out a way to do it there must be some fundamental reason why not.

Have you considered the most obvious reason? And if so how did you discount the notion that we might just be no match for the design power of evolution. After all, Genetic Programming can produce more efficient turbine blades, flight-control systems and timetables than can human designers... so we already know that evolution can be smarter than us.

After all an "algorithm working in the wild" must go through similar steps to what AI investigators do. In fact I think AI is the most relevant as it is the one area where actual experiment can, and have been done.

It would be extremely relevant if one day someone 'cracks it' and gets a system off the ground. But that's the only valid proof that can come without exhaustive testing. Surely you would be aware of this basic fact -- or am I missing something?

[Curious]

I do not buy the theory that AI is irrelevant. If we can't figure out a way to do it there must be some fundamental reason why not.

Have you considered the most obvious reason? And if so how did you discount the notion that we might just be no match for the design power of evolution. After all, Genetic Programming can produce more efficient turbine blades, flight-control systems and timetables than can human designers... so we already know that evolution can be smarter than us.

This is a good point. We could argue that a mouse is incapable of designing an algorithm that creates AI. This does not mean that it is not possible, only that the mouse is an inadequate inventor. Using the same argument it would be consistent to say that to the mouse, cheese cannot be created by biological processes as the mouse is unable to comprehend the processes involved. Therefore the cheese must have been supplied as is by God.

[steen]

It is a pity. From my perspective, if there was a responsible and respectful argument, I might be persuaded away from Abiogenesis which has no satisfactory explanation at the present time. I'm puzzled by the fact that life evidently arose just the once (as if highly improbable), very early on in the Earths history (as if highly probable).

I would suspect {This is outside the scope of evolution, and as such is pure speculation, tempered by my readings), that "life" (self-replicating ur-cells probably did arise several times. But when the first self-replicating ur-cell started to extract resources from other ur-cells instead, thus having access to all these resources rather than having to extract them from the surrounding sea water, it grew so rapidly that it cleaned out all other ur-cell types (As well as likely predating on its fellow predator cells). MY speculation is that this then became the first arm race, cells evolving and changing to be less digestable by other cells etc, and that from there is where evolution really started and took off. And at that point, of course, any new ur-cells arising would immediately be gobbled up. Just like today, any "life" arising would be chewed up right away by the numerous predatory cells in the environment.

Again, this is pure speculation

[Jose]

I do not buy the theory that AI is irrelevant. If we can't figure out a way to do it there must be some fundamental reason why not. After all an "algorithm working in the wild" must go through similar steps to what AI investigators do. In fact I think AI is the most relevant as it is the one area where actual experiment can, and have been done.

I think Curious has given us the best answer to this. It's possible that we're just not smart enough. Maybe the next dominant species will have to do it. In the meantime, comparing AI and evolution is entirely theoretical.

And, I might note, ID is also entirely theoretical--though, in this case, the data argue against it.

I would suspect...

You are in good company with such suspicions. I've heard this type of scenario in a number of discussions. As luck would have it, the ur-cells that were the best predators happened to use nucleic acids as their genetic material, lipid membranes to separate inside and outside, and nucleotides (e.g. ATP) as an energy transfer system. Maybe some of these adaptations came along later, but at some point, this sort of cell became dominant, and remained so.

There are, according to my geology colleagues, deposits here and there, in older rocks than those that contain identifiable microfossils, that indicate "other kinds" of ur-life (?) that did things differently. Apparently, this type of rock/mineral/chemical isn't known to form spontaneously, which implies some kind of "pre-life" or early life doing the chemistry. From this, I imagine that there were probably quite a number of "experiments" in self-organizing chemistry in the earliest days of life. But, as you say, once there were predators, they got 'em all, so no such things remain.

It seems like this is a common theme in evolutionary history. If some type of organism is in a particular niche, it is unlikely to be displaced by some other type of organism that isn't very efficient in that niche. If there are effective predators, then they are likely to eat things that aren't very good at what they do. My favorite example is the dinosaurs out-competing (and eating) the early mammals. The mammalian radiation couldn't occur until the Chixulub meteor impact. With the dinosaurs out of the way, it was possible for the shrew-like early mammals to develop into not-very-good herbivores and not-very-good carnivores. In time, as they competed with each other, they got better. But as long as those dinos were there, the mammals couldn't do much more than slink around and hide.

[Ian Parker]

Are you saying the Brain is quantum mechanical or that QM comes up in Evolution. The processes of genetic mutation are not QM. Anthing involving QM would very much demonstrate itself as ID.

Strange question. How could quantum mechanics be excluded from any material structure? As for "anything involving QM" being a demonstration of ID, what would you claim justifies this proposition?

The QM computer is a very specialized machine for specialized jobs. The number of energy levels increases sharply with the number number of Cubits. Basically in the Sher algorithm low prime moduli 2,3,5,7,11,13,17,23,29,31 are the only ones possible. The Sher algorithm does not find large prime factors directly for this reason.

There is no deep seated reason in physics why the brain cannot be QM. I have never however heard of intuition being directly lined to QM states. It does very little to advance our understanding of the origin of intelligence. Indeed possibly even the reverse as it confines brain action to modular functions of low order. My allusion to Fermat served 2 purposes, one of which was an allusion to aromatic theorem proving. A system is modular and has Takyama Chimera in the forefront of its mind. Could it take the final step of developing the concept and proving FELT? Mathematicians have fought shy of theorem proving by computer, basically because the complexity of the program is greater than that of the proof. In fact as I have explained the idea of concept development is at the core

[Ian Parker]

No one doubts the GAs will traverse a differentiable manifold. Turbine blades, airplane wings are all examples of differentiable manifolds. The fossil record (at any rate for the last 600 million years) is a differentiable manifold too. GAs will traverse differentiable manifolds although there are ways (like steepest descent) which will speed them up. What we do is store values and solve a matrix equation for each iteration. This speeds the process up immeasurably. In the case of turbine blades the aerodynamic calcuations are quite complex and it is advisable to squeeze as much as we can out of the points calculated. Still a GA will find the answer (eventually)

Similarly a flight control system is basically an input/output system. I personally would design using Neural Networks (least square fitting) rather than GAs that is probably just my choice. A FCS is basically a Transfer Function.

You are all talking as if AI researchers were unaware of GAs. They simply do not produce AI. They do other things. The necessary and sufficient condition is to build a more complex structure. A wing or blade simply has a different shape, it is not more complex. You need INTELLIGENCE to think of the GA in the first place and to design an engine round it. Nobody I have ever talked to feels that a GA is capable of producing AI on its own. Anyway the CYC type route is better as that (in effect) could use GAs to develop concepts. We are no better off with an attempt to use a GA to produce a boot.