Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

But how could that create the very detailed information to generate almost any protein? A string of 200 amino acids (say) needs 600 nucleotide bases to encode it (plus stop codes etc).

Maybe that is saying that every living thing has a toehold in the non-physical realm - which I would probably agree with - but I think you are arguing the point that RM+NS can be replaced by something purely physical.

You have me right - about every living thing having leverage in the non-physical.  Every living thing is actively surrounded by two (or more) environments.  The informational environment can be measured scientifically, just as can the physical environment.

Is DNA modeled physically by chemistry?  Yes it is.  If you look at the chemistry alone - it is an interesting crystal.  However, DNA is not interesting and important because of how it looked to Rosalind Franklin, but because of its ability to handle information processes such as the function: copy.

In an exact opposite direction to "replaced by something purely physical", I am asking for answers to come from information science.  The question you ask is - how does the complexity enter the coding.  The obvious one-liner back is --- "one bit at a time".  But each bit has to be structurally related to the others and with the total environment.  The cohesiveness of the bits to preform a function drives the character of the information objects.

I want better answers as to how has mind and life found the levers of reality to be able to create working codes.  The assumption is that there are levers and so we discovering them.  We  with new frames of reference.  We know the math of levers and simple machines - objectively in recent centuries.  Billions of years ago, living creatures used logic gates to alter probabilities for life experiences, subjectively.  Today we are decoding how it works, objectively.

Seemingly, life uses mind from as soon as it was possible on earth.   Evidence shows that life is commanding and controlling its inner subjective environment with objective results.   "It from bit" means that the flow is info first and physicality follows. This flow is decoherence, where all probabilities are reduced to actual outcomes.

At the chemical start-up of biology real-world information objects, as chem formulations, had to be probable outcomes.  The activation of these probabilities comes from the presence of the functional informational objects.  I think that suggests mental work was done prior to materials suddenly working in concert - through mutual communication. 

The parable of the mountains and rivers tells us that our perspective is altered by our framing.  In the history of natural science, first there was a focus on mind.  The thinking skills of humans, to science then, clearly made our outcomes in both environments better.  Here in the analogy-- mind is the mountain we see looming over us.

Then science tried to get objective, and the mountain became obscured.  Dealing with the mountain's structure demanded intense focus.  The mountain is unseen while climbing it.  Then at the top, we see the mountain again, but with an elevated perspective.

Information science, as logic, communication theory, complexity theory, linguistics, semiotics and thermodynamics can help us track the evolution of information objects that lead to an understanding of how mind works.

You have me right - about every living thing having leverage in the non-physical.  Every living thing is actively surrounded by two (or more) environments.  The informational environment can be measured scientifically, just as can the physical environment.

When I say non-physical, I mean something like the place where souls go after death - I certainly don't mean an environment of information! I suppose I mean something 'Mysterian'. Remember that information does not itself think.

Is DNA modeled physically by chemistry?  Yes it is.  If you look at the chemistry alone - it is an interesting crystal.  However, DNA is not interesting and important because of how it looked to Rosalind Franklin, but because of its ability to handle information processes such as the function: copy.

Well DNA doesn't have a copy function, it is other enzymes that copy DNA.

In an exact opposite direction to "replaced by something purely physical", I am asking for answers to come from information science.  The question you ask is - how does the complexity enter the coding.  The obvious one-liner back is --- "one bit at a time".  But each bit has to be structurally related to the others and with the total environment.  The cohesiveness of the bits to preform a function drives the character of the information objects.

I want better answers as to how has mind and life found the levers of reality to be able to create working codes.  The assumption is that there are levers and so we discovering them.  We  with new frames of reference.  We know the math of levers and simple machines - objectively in recent centuries.  Billions of years ago, living creatures used logic gates to alter probabilities for life experiences, subjectively.  Today we are decoding how it works, objectively.

Seemingly, life uses mind from as soon as it was possible on earth.   Evidence shows that life is commanding and controlling its inner subjective environment with objective results.   "It from bit" means that the flow is info first and physicality follows. This flow is decoherence, where all probabilities are reduced to actual outcomes.

At the chemical start-up of biology real-world information objects, as chem formulations, had to be probable outcomes.  The activation of these probabilities comes from the presence of the functional informational objects.  I think that suggests mental work was done prior to materials suddenly working in concert - through mutual communication. 

The parable of the mountains and rivers tells us that our perspective is altered by our framing.  In the history of natural science, first there was a focus on mind.  The thinking skills of humans, to science then, clearly made our outcomes in both environments better.  Here in the analogy-- mind is the mountain we see looming over us.

Then science tried to get objective, and the mountain became obscured.  Dealing with the mountain's structure demanded intense focus.  The mountain is unseen while climbing it.  Then at the top, we see the mountain again, but with an elevated perspective.

Information science, as logic, communication theory, complexity theory, linguistics, semiotics and thermodynamics can help us track the evolution of information objects that lead to an understanding of how mind works.

Sorry, I don't know if you are an active researcher (I'm not, but I am very interested in this puzzle), or have picked this up from somewhere, but to me it is waffle. I mean biological theory depended for so long on the supposed power of RM+NS, a very specific idea. We both agree that this can't work enough to power the development of living things. Thus we need some kind of explicit alternative - which can do what RM+NS promised to do, but can't deliver.

The ID crowd have a specific alternative, and as I have pointed out, it doesn't have to refer to Yaweh, the god of the bible, but any intelligent entity that could exist before life existed that could direct the evolutionary process.

Sorry, I don't know if you are an active researcher (I'm not, but I am very interested in this puzzle), or have picked this up from somewhere, but to me it is waffle. I mean biological theory depended for so long on the supposed power of RM+NS, a very specific idea. We both agree that this can't work enough to power the development of living things. Thus we need some kind of explicit alternative - which can do what RM+NS promised to do, but can't deliver.

I am not an active researcher and am now retired from my career.  However, I have been following the demise of RM+NS for twenty years.  My interest in information science came from knowing I was ignorant of it and that was embarrassing professionally.  I have been reading about the historical development of communication theory and how circuitry can mimic logic for more than 3 decades.  I have no expertise, but like any fan, I kinda know the players and the stats.

My interest in the subject of bio-information in evolution came from trying to support Edward (Ted) Steele, who go fired from Uni, after publishing a anti-neoDarwinian book called Lamarck's Signature 1999.  Ted, after suffering turmoil professionally, landed on his feet and continued his research.  I learned about Corrado Spadafora's from Ted's writing about supporting research.  Spadafora and others were leading investigators in reverse transcription and SMGT.  More data proving that genes do not run all the show.

We are talking twenty years ago!!!  The subject was settled back then, in terms of chemical evidence.  There is just a faint echo from the "dawkins narrative", waiting to be replaced with something that is more corresponding to evidence.  There are professionals fleshing it out. 

 Here is a recent comment about Edward Steele, after a few praising his courage to publish, like me.  I couldn't nail down the issues as well as this unhappy fellow, while having the exact opposite opinion.  Except for the admission that Ted was and is technically correct.  Tell me this critic of Ted, below, isn't clinging to his faith and avoiding the hard science.

 His research in no way validates lamarckism in its original formulation, so what's with the title. As for the weismann barrier, it was a dubious concept, like the sound barrier, so it is not at all surprising that it didn't hold up in the end. One can also read about the dutch hunger winter, Leningrad and the starvation effect on progeny. These limited adaptations of body's energy economy and immunity to relatively rapid changes in the environment, make perfect sense and in no way serve as a challenge to Darwin's theory of evolution. Epigenetics simply challenge and modify one of the many additions made to it since its original formulation. The conflict and controversy over this were entirely needless and made everyone involved look bad, especially mr Steele himself, who comes of as a glutton for punishment, a rabble-rouser and a blowhard. He throws himself in hot water with the banner of lamarckism, that isn't really worth fighting for. Very unprofessional, even if technically correct in the end and in a narrow sense.

https://www.amazon.com/Lamarcks-Signatur...0738201715

I have had the pleasure of working with a couple of folks with advanced degrees and research experience.  My experiences, in terms of professionalism, being technically correct was everything to them!  (maybe too much so, for a mortal like me)

"Very unprofessional, even if technically correct in the end"     WTF????  

"Very unprofessional, even if technically correct in the end"     WTF????  

Maybe it was more important to the commenter to be emotionally correct?

Maybe they think they have 6 Sigma emotions?

Maybe it was more important to the commenter to be emotionally correct?

Maybe they think they have 6 Sigma emotions?

I am not an active researcher and am now retired from my career.  However, I have been following the demise of RM+NS for twenty years.  My interest in information science came from knowing I was ignorant of it and that was embarrassing professionally.  I have been reading about the historical development of communication theory and how circuitry can mimic logic for more than 3 decades.  I have no expertise, but like any fan, I kinda know the players and the stats.

My interest in the subject of bio-information in evolution came from trying to support Edward (Ted) Steele, who go fired from Uni, after publishing a anti-neoDarwinian book called Lamarck's Signature 1999.  Ted, after suffering turmoil professionally, landed on his feet and continued his research.  I learned about Corrado Spadafora's from Ted's writing about supporting research.  Spadafora and others were leading investigators in reverse transcription and SMGT.  More data proving that genes do not run all the show.

We are talking twenty years ago!!!  The subject was settled back then, in terms of chemical evidence.  There is just a faint echo from the "dawkins narrative", waiting to be replaced with something that is more corresponding to evidence.  There are professionals fleshing it out. 

 Here is a recent comment about Edward Steele, after a few praising his courage to publish, like me.  I couldn't nail down the issues as well as this unhappy fellow, while having the exact opposite opinion.  Except for the admission that Ted was and is technically correct.  Tell me this critic of Ted, below, isn't clinging to his faith and avoiding the hard science.


https://www.amazon.com/Lamarcks-Signatur...0738201715

I have had the pleasure of working with a couple of folks with advanced degrees and research experience.  My experiences, in terms of professionalism, being technically correct was everything to them!  (maybe too much so, for a mortal like me)

Stephen,

We clearly have a lot in common. We both realise that RM+NS is dead (as do the ID crowd).

We also both agree that it is intolerable when people get forced out of their research posts for telling the truth - or simply disagreeing with the 'official' view.

Clearly ID crowd and the Third Way people agree about all of that, but then diverge about where to go next.

If you look at the link that Kamarling put up over 140 pages ago (!!), you will see that those two groups could almost resolve their differences and cooperate.

If the ID crowd admitted that their evidence for intelligent design of life - through overwhelming - does not specify the nature of that intelligence. It certainly doesn't have to be Yaweh, and there might be multiple intelligent entities at work. The fact that there are evolutionary arms races in nature might suggest the latter, I think.

I definitely do not think that the people who recognise that RM+NS is dead, should hide their lack of a theory with mere verbiage - such as talk of "information objects".

Near the end of this discussion:
http://cosmicfingerprints.com/stephen-meyer-debate/

It would seem that Perry Marshall accepts that single-celled organisms must be consciously manipulating their DNA. I can't see how any single-celled organism can be conscious unless it is accessing something in the 'Mysterian (non-physical) domain, so perhaps their two approaches really could converge.

I definitely do not think that the people who recognize that RM+NS is dead, should hide their lack of a theory with mere verbiage - such as talk of "information objects".

Near the end of this discussion:
http://cosmicfingerprints.com/stephen-meyer-debate/

It would seem that Perry Marshall accepts that single-celled organisms must be consciously manipulating their DNA. I can't see how any single-celled organism can be conscious unless it is accessing something in the 'Mysterian (non-physical) domain, so perhaps their two approaches really could converge.

Thanks for the link.  The comments didn't seem to be focused on a topic.  Here comes some response to it in a moment.  

But first, while my prose is poor and my short comments are scattershot, I am coming from a well developed position of Informational Realism.  It was first presented by K. Sayre 45 years ago.  It is not a Mysterianism position.  I have read some Colin McGinn and appreciate the viewpoint.  It is not about the supernatural.  Only being a fan, my own understanding is quite naïve, and asserts that information objects are open to science investigation.  These objects have causal consequence and these can be mapped by logic. 

IR (informational realism) is argued by Oxford based Floridi, who I have quoted before about information objects.  There have been collections of papers published in book form debating Floridi's outlook.  There has even been a quantum version by Bynum.

  In The Philosophy of Information (2011 book), Luciano Floridi presents an ontological theory of Being qua Being, which he calls "Informational Structural Realism", a theory which applies, he says, to every possible world. He identifies primordial information ("dedomena") as the foundation of any structure in any possible world. The present essay examines Floridi's defense of that theory, as well as his refutation of "Digital Ontology" (which some people might confuse with his own). Then, using Floridi's ontology as a starting point, the present essay adds quantum features to dedomena, yielding an ontological theory for our own universe, Quantum Informational Structural Realism, which provides a metaphysical interpretation of key quantum phenomena, and diminishes the "weirdness" or "spookiness" of quantum mechanics. Key Words: digital ontology, dedomena, structural realism, quantum information, primordial qubit

https://arxiv.org/abs/1303.6007

I appreciate this strategic position, in terms of a marketing narrative.  From Marshall, in the article you linked.   

But the point is, if you understand that evolution NEVER happens by accident, that Neo-Darwinism is well on its way to the slag heap, then an evolutionary biology that is compatible with methodological naturalism speaks to an even more powerful God, than a God who has to keep showing up and creating new things. Which is a much higher view of God than most IDers or creationists have ever stopped to consider.

I would point to Stuart Kauffmann who has articulated this PoV, with reference to "the sacred" and not so much God.  His publication of "At Home in the Universe" was  more than 25 years ago.  This is no endorsement of his overall point of view, but his analysis of science ideas is significant.

It's interesting that nbtruthman suddenly stopped posting in this thread as soon as David001 joined in and that both David's opinions and his posting style seem very similar to me.

Just sayin'  

Stephen,

I think we both agree that RM+NS is not a viable explanation of life on earth.

I think we also agree that nobody (such as your colleague) should be fired for publishing a book that casts doubt on an existing theory. I'm glad he got his job back. His case seems to have been particularly unfair, because Lamark provided data about instances where organisms passed on information relating to their particular environment. This has lead to an accepted modern theory of Epigenetics - so why would anyone be thrown out for writing about that?

However, what I think that illustrates, is the huge struggle inside academia not to say clearly that Darwin's theory is toast, except perhaps for applying minor tweaks to an organism. It can't explain how any organism came into being. To be honest, I think Perry Marshal and others in the Third Way movement know they can't simply admit the obvious, and have to erect a cloud of obfuscations to hide what it is they are saying.

Floridi's paper certainly helps to create obfuscation - here is the abstract:

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...014.940140

I can understand why they can't write clearly, but I hope we can do so here, because most of us (such as myself) don't use our real names, and may already be retired. However, you helpfully summarised all this thus:

But the point is, if you understand that evolution NEVER happens by accident, that Neo-Darwinism is well on its way to the slag heap, then an evolutionary biology that is compatible with methodological naturalism speaks to an even more powerful God, than a God who has to keep showing up and creating new things. Which is a much higher view of God than most IDers or creationists have ever stopped to consider.

This seems to imply that the whole of evolution is encoded in physics - which I find to be an extraordinarily extreme assumption - far more extreme than assuming that designer(s) tinker with life now and again to keep it going. For example in Behe's book, "Darwin Devolved", he shows how there are a large class of mutations that he calls 'poison pill mutations' which destroy or damage a particular gene in a way that happens to be helpful in particular circumstances. Since these build up over time, they clearly do damage, and some entity seems to be required to correct the damage.

That is just maintenance before we even get to evolving anything new.

Since these poison pill mutations happen because of particular circumstances - for example, the sickle cell mutation is an example of this phenomenon, it is very hard indeed to see how these could be avoided.

I feel sorry to see all this because to me, the ID people haven't (necessarily) discovered God at the heart of life, but they have essentially proved that some sort of conscious entity(s) designed us (along with all life).