Keith

This branch of mathematics is also called "communication theory".

Keith

Keith

Don't we need living things FIRST in order to get them to evolve? Since my point is that the existence of living things is miraculous regardless whether TOE is correct, I think the subject of abiogenesis should take center stage. Where did the first living thing come from? Why did it happen? Does it still happen?

Keith

Principia

Yes. And I am familiar with communication theory. Are you, Keith? There is nothing in communication theory that talks about "specified complexity." You are mistaken.

Dr Rick

Unless you know God's plans and purposes, you can't know that God is a good designer.

Unless you know my plans and purposes, you can't know that I'm a good designer.

Unless you know a specific thing, you can't know that specific thing.

You can't know what you don't know.

You don't know.

I don't know.

You believe and claim you know; I don't.

Rick

Doubting Didymus

How poetic, Doctor! Try reading it out loud, everyone. Doesn't that feel good?

Principia

To confirm my suspicions that indeed, the term "specified complexity" shows up nowhere in the scientific literature about information theory, I went ahead and did a database search on a popular research database (ISI Knowledge), using the following keywords:

• "communication theory" and "specified complexity" -- No articles found,
• "information theory" and "specified complexity" -- No articles found,
• "specified complexity" -- two articles, one of which was a 2002 Nature review by B Charlesworth bashing Dembski, a well known pseudoscientist, whose theory has been completely rejected by mainstream scientists; the other was a 1981 article talking about design of Pugachev filters,
• "information theory" and "intelligent design" -- No articles found,
• "communication theory" and "intelligent design" -- No articles found

Happy Wonderer

I think you may have been fooled by the term "information complexity." When we measure the complexity of an algorithm we are talking about the depth of a specific property. For instance, the order of how many steps it takes to compute the result given a particular "size" of input. We can compare how many steps it takes two algorithms to sort N objects; one may be N**2 while a better one may be NlogN. More generally, certain problems have a "class" of hardness; a certain problem can be shown to be as hard as any other problem that can be solved in nondeterministic polynomial time.

We just use the vague term "complexity" because being computer and math people we aren't literate enough to come up with anything better -- and the english majors refuse to talk to us.

We can talk about the information content of a string, and whether a string of all ones has more or less information than a string of semi random numbers. We can even talk about Turing machines and context free grammers, since I like talking about those. We really should talk about fractals, since I think they would shake some fundamental assumptions that you are making about how complexity arises. However, I think any audience we still have would quickly lose interest.

However, I have difficulty seeing how you propose to measure the information content in a hammer, salt crystal, or a peptide chain. Remember, we want a measure that we can at some pont draw a line and say "aha, this is complex enough that it couldn't have arisen from natural law." Graphically, a hammer is the easiest to represent (deleted lame graphic) so does that mean that a hammer has less information contentent? But wait a minute, we know that a hammer is a designed object! What else? There are a lot of electrons in specific configurations in a hammer, but there are a lot more in a mountain top. The hammer is more uniform than a pile of dirt, but less uniform than a block of ice. It has a complex shape, but so does a wind- and water-swept rock.

So what do you think? Can complex objects can arise without a purpose? (I have a hard time understanding how processes can arise without objects.) If they can't, then do you think that table salt is a complex object? If they can, then where is the limit? Why can't a complex self-replicating molucule come about on some planet somewhere in roughly twenty billion years, given that there are billions of galaxies ? DNA doesn't replicate by any special laws of physics, it is a consequence of well-known chemical and physical laws that can be seen operating on non-living objects.

HW

Lobstrosity

Yes Keith, but the point is that the origin of that initial life is irrelevant to the debate over EVOLUTION. Evolution is theorized to occur given any life form that reproduces by imperfectly replicating its genetic material. Since this initial condition is satisfied by the simple fact that such life exists NOW, we are free to debate evolution with out any reference to abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is its own issue entirely, and clearly it is a very important one. We should certainly probe abiogenesis without making any unfounded assumptions about it, but that doesn't mean we put all other aspects of science on hold while we explore it. That's like saying it's pointless to study physics because we can't explain why the Big Bang happened. What if someone like you mandated that no one should bother working out a theory of electrodynamics because we don't yet understand the origins of the universe? If scientists took this path, you wouldn't have that nifty little computer you're currently using to browse these fora. You wouldn't even have light bulbs! Physics takes the observed state of the universe as input and works from there to derive how components of that state interact. Evolution takes the observed state of life as input and predicts how that state will change over time. The observed state of life includes observations made of living organisms in the present coupled with reasonable interpretations of evidence pertaining to organisms that lived in the past.

In short, there's no valid reason for scientists to all focus solely on one specific subject. Science should be simultaneously following all promising avenues of development, following where the evidence points. This means that some people will be researching abiogensis while others are looking into evolution. The two theories will not overlap, however once a good theory of abiogenesis is developed, it can be plugged as input into the theory of evolution to make predictions about what one might reasonably observe as a function of one specific starting point.

Doubting Didymus

Look, the fact is that you don't even accept the theory of evolution as it is. Personally, I care much more about the preservation of science than about arguing over god. Many theistc evolutionists believe that abiogenesis was part of gods plan and that his creation was fulfilled through evolutionary processes. That view is at least compatible with the scientific evidence. If you don't mind awfully much, I'd like to focus on discussing the theory of and evidence for evolution post abiogenesis first. To this end, I am prepared to grant you your premise that god must have created the abiogenesis replicator. That was almost certainly a string of RNA. Now I know, and you know that you DON'T accept the theory of evolution from there on, so, let us discuss!

now then, you grant my first and second points, which was unexpected. I thought you would grant up to three. By a 'permanent change in the population' I'm talking about mutation fixation. This is observable in the lab. There is a well known experiment for the aquisition of novel antibacterial resistance genes in bacterial populations: you take a single bacterium and grow a colony in a petri dish, then you take a single bacterium out of that population and apply antibacterial to it. Usually they all die. That means you have a sample of bacteria that is NOT resistant to antibiotics. How do you know? because you took it from a population that succumbed entirely to the antibacterial. Using this bacterium to found a new colony, you can repeat the process again and again. Eventually, the antibacterial DOESN"T kill all of the bacterial colonies like it usually does, but a few individuals survive. They found new colonies that are now entirely immune to the antibacterial. How did this happen? A novel gene has randomly appeared in the population, and selection has seen to it that it becomes fixed. This is a permanent change in the population (that is, it is a new feature that is going to be continually passed on until something replaces it, and it will not evaporate with the next few generations or anything).

Please grant me point 3 at this time, or at least supply me with some other rationale.

Next, you deny that this process is capable of increasing complexity. I did ask you to give some reason why evolution would be restricted in this way. I repeat that request now.

Number five is speciation, a well known, documented, and observable process. I am surprised you didn't grant me this one as well, but no matter.

Here are some observed cases where one interbreeding population has become two populations that can not interbreed.

Here is a second page of them.

Again, you are forced to concede my point or provide some rationale. Remember, at this point we're just talking about one species of fly dividing into two, very similar species of fly. It's not all that drastic just yet.

I'll leave six and seven for later. How are we doing at this stage, now that we're actually into the evidence?

Lobstrosity

And as Dr. Rick pointed out, unless you know God's plans and purposes (which of course no one does), you can't know that God is a good designer. You clearly look around and see things that you think are well designed, right? You see evidence of intelligence in the design, which necessarily implies that when you use your intelligence to assess the designs, you think they're pretty good. As you point out, however, you're in no position to assess design quality (i.e. design intelligence). Therefore, why is there any assumption that what you see requires intelligence. Maybe it's simply "design." Evolution results in design through its algorithmic, emergent nature. Crystals demonstrate design and complexity, but they are the product of no intelligence. Why can't we be the equivalent of "life crystals," growing via a process that obeys set, non-intelligent laws yet still adds complexity at each step. Your own arguments rule out any notion that we can actually see God's intelligent hand in nature.