Darwin Unhinged: The Bugs in Evolution

Wondering if it is not somehow the same thing.  When we think of the religious view of a designer, our brains assume something like a person in the sky working literally with his hands.  Maybe it doesn't have to be that way.

Right, and I think that's important. If someone thinks that there's more to it than random, unguided mutation, it doesn't mean that they think that there is a personal, active, anthropomorphic god selectively picking which genes like "oh, this would be a good one, I'll do that!" It could be something more along the lines of an innate or built it tendency towards... something. Who knows. 

But the mockery of ID, justified in some cases, isn't really fair on numerous levels. ID comes with baggage, but as you attested to earlier, really anyone who believes in a creator god of literally any form, regardless of whether they're religious or not, necessarily believes that creation is "intelligently designed". That phrase needn't come with the baggage that ID does. It could mean literally that creation was designed by a creator. It doesn't need to purport how the creator went about doing it, or really the qualities of that creator, save for the fact that the create must necessarily have the power to create in some form.

When we think of the religious view of a designer, our brains assume something like a person in the sky working literally with his hands.  Maybe it doesn't have to be that way.

 I am trying to hold back from ragging on these ideas, but cannot help myself on this one.  Natural processes operate on two distinct levels, physical and informational.  There may be more levels than two.  Each of these levels has its own variables and measurables.  Transformational events do occur at the physical level - and in an equal fashion but by different means - on the informational level.

Darwin believed in mental evolution.  If mind, as information processing, is a major factor in evolution then researching the development of purposeful behavior is as important as researching bone structures of extinct species.  It is the neoDarwinists who took over the narrative as Darwin aged.  Until the advent of information theory the science behind bioinformatic evolution was not "real" in the debate.

Natural processes are generative of stable "lower entropy"* patterns.  This is well understood, even without the stored observations of millions of years of life in the "operating systems" of living things.  Compare with chaos theory, which is on firm ground.  If design exists in inanimate objects, how simple it is to embrace design from the information processing of living things.  Bacteria are more cunning than than they are given credit.

NeoDarwinian models of "lucky physical accidents" can be replaced by empirically measured gains in integrated information.

  Chaos theory is a mathematical theory that can be used to explain complex systems such as weather, astronomy, politics, and economics. Although many complex systems appear to behave in a random manner, chaos theory shows that, in reality, there is an underlying order that is difficult to see.

Please note that underlying order is measured in information theory, which includes thermodynamics, logic and the mathematical theory of communication, as well as newly developing tools. Forces and materials science properties do not have a logical component to address purposeful function.  Only by seeing the reality of information processes in all nature can we get a framework for bioevolution.

*(higher negentropy as structured information)

https://m.phys.org/news/2018-07-century-...ation.html
In 1924, Russian biochemist Alexander Oparin claimed that life on Earth developed through gradual chemical changes of organic molecules, in the "primordial soup" which likely existed on Earth four billion years ago. In his view, the complex combination of lifeless molecules, joining forces within small oily droplets, could assume life faculties—self-replication, selection and evolution. These ideas were received with considerable doubt, still pertaining today. Thirty years later, when DNA structure was deciphered, it was realized that this molecule is capable of self-replication, seemingly solving the enigma of life's origin without resort to Oparin's droplets. But critics argued that life requires not only replicators, but also enzyme catalysts to control­ metabolism. Another 30 years passed before the discovery that RNA, key component in information transfer from DNA to proteins, can also be an enzyme. This is how the concept of "RNA World" was born, whereby life began when the primordial soup gave birth to a ribozyme, which can both replicate and control metabolism. Despite this doubts lingered, because a replicating ribosome is a highly complex molecule, with negligible probability of spontaneous appearance in the soup. ...

More information: Systems Protobiology: Origin of Life in Lipid Catalytic Networks, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, rsif.royalsocietypublishing.or … .1098/rsif.2018.0159

From https://evolutionnews.org/2017/12/intell...f-science/:


Purpose, and abstractions held in thought are inherently aspects of consciousness.

Have you read Stephen L. Talbot? He's a third way evolutionist with a lot of interesting material on the Web. Just thought I'd mention him in case you hadn't heard of him. He acknowledges that there is Intelligence in biological systems, but as yet I haven't been able to divine what he thinks it is or where it comes from. At any rate, I think he's well worth a read. He says here:

There may indeed be a “wide debate”, but there is little excuse for its largely unquestioned assumption that the mind, or intelligence, is created by the brain. When we consider the fact that undeniable and (for us) still barely penetrable intelligence is already at work in the zygote, evidencing itself in the very processes through which the future brain will be formed and begin to function, it begins to look rather quixotic to ask how the brain produces intelligence, without first inquiring about the intelligence that produces the brain.

My apologies.  I had made the assumption that you were agnostic.  Looks like an interesting site you have but I haven't had time to have a proper look yet.

It isn't my site -- it's Bernardo Kastrup's. He sometime publishes articles written by his readers, and the one on that page entitled Musings on Idealism, Advaita and Christianity is mine.

Have you read Stephen L. Talbot? He's a third way evolutionist with a lot of interesting material on the Web. Just thought I'd mention him in case you hadn't heard of him. He acknowledges that there is Intelligence in biological systems, but as yet I haven't been able to divine what he thinks it is or where it comes from. At any rate, I think he's well worth a read. He says here:

There may indeed be a “wide debate”, but there is little excuse for its largely unquestioned assumption that the mind, or intelligence, is created by the brain. When we consider the fact that undeniable and (for us) still barely penetrable intelligence is already at work in the zygote, evidencing itself in the very processes through which the future brain will be formed and begin to function, it begins to look rather quixotic to ask how the brain produces intelligence, without first inquiring about the intelligence that produces the brain.

From the third way website:

 When molecular biologists formulate their fundamental questions (how are DNA breaks repaired? how does the cell divide? how are RNAs localized in the cell? how are protein amounts regulated?) they seem to believe that the organism is actually capable of solving such problems.  That is, they believe it engages in the pursuit of ends, organizing its activity according to the idea or logic of the tasks at hand. But they commonly try to answer these questions merely by tracing and adding together local causes — showing how one thing controls another, how this makes that happen. Such making, however, never reaches to the biologically and contextually expressed intentional activity that informed the original questions. Causes by themselves do not pursue tasks. The always lawful molecular proceedings in the organism are vital to analyze, but to offer these proceedings as  explanations of a living performance is misguided. If the organism is able to coordinate physical causes for the satisfaction of its own needs and aims, then it governs those causes at least as much as it is governed by them.

How should we understand this governing? We need a reconciliation of the causal and intentional ways of thinking — a reconciliation that does justice to them both without a dualistic cleaving of the world. - Stephen L Talbott

That is exactly what I'm talking about.  It's pretty straightforward. Mental intentions are real and active elements in the behavioral goals of living things.  They change the logical circumstances between organism and environment.

 I am trying to hold back from ragging on these ideas, but cannot help myself on this one.  Natural processes operate on two distinct levels, physical and informational.  There may be more levels than two.  Each of these levels has its own variables and measurables.  Transformational events do occur at the physical level - and in an equal fashion but by different means - on the informational level.

Darwin believed in mental evolution.  If mind, as information processing, is a major factor in evolution then researching the development of purposeful behavior is as important as researching bone structures of extinct species.  It is the neoDarwinists who took over the narrative as Darwin aged.  Until the advent of information theory the science behind bioinformatic evolution was not "real" in the debate.

Natural processes are generative of stable "lower entropy"* patterns.  This is well understood, even without the stored observations of millions of years of life in the "operating systems" of living things.  Compare with chaos theory, which is on firm ground.  If design exists in inanimate objects, how simple it is to embrace design from the information processing of living things.  Bacteria are more cunning than than they are given credit.

NeoDarwinian models of "lucky physical accidents" can be replaced by empirically measured gains in integrated information.


Please note that underlying order is measured in information theory, which includes thermodynamics, logic and the mathematical theory of communication, as well as newly developing tools. Forces and materials science properties do not have a logical component to address purposeful function.  Only by seeing the reality of information processes in all nature can we get a framework for bioevolution.

*(higher negentropy as structured information)

I believe you've misunderstand Darwin's idea of mental development.

Although psychology was one of the fields for which Darwin's theory had revolutionary implications, it was largely left to others—notably Darwin's cousin Francis Galton—to expand them publicly. However, toward the end of his career, Darwin published three books in which he explored how human mental qualities could be understood as the result of evolution. In The Descent of Man (1871), he supported the controversial position that human beings are descended from animal ancestors. In line with this idea, he argued that the mental activities of humans and animals are fundamentally similar. He identified the presence in animals of "human" qualities such as courage and devotion, and "human" emotions, including pride, jealousy, and shame. After examining these and other common mental functions, such as memory, attention, and dreaming, Darwin concluded that the mental difference between humans and the higher animals is one of degree rather than kind.

Read more: Charles Robert Darwin - Emotional Development, Human, and Theory - JRank Articles http://psychology.jrank.org/pages/162/Ch...z5MIeNEANp 

A new summary and simplification of Ewert's paper has come out, which I think is by far the best so far, titled "BIO-Complexity Presents Better Model than Common Ancestry for Explaining Pattern of Nature". 

The conclusions deserve to be fully quoted:

"The dependency graph model makes several predictions that are in direct opposition to the common ancestry model: 

 - Biological data should fit a dependency graph better than a tree. 
 - Data produced by a process dominated by common descent or branching should fit a tree better than a dependency graph. 
 - Inferred graphs for biological data should contain many more non-taxonomic modules with many more genes than dependency graphs inferred from data known to have been produced by common descent. 
 - Software should fit a dependency graph better than a tree, but a tree better than a null model. A null model corresponds to no pattern existing for the reuse of gene families across species.

Ewert’s analysis validated all of these predictions with high statistical confidence for all databases. Therefore, this initial study suggests that the dependency graph model greatly surpasses the common ancestry model for understanding the pattern of nature. 

As a consequence, all purported evolutionary trees and sequences become highly suspect, including such icons as the whale and human series. For they are based on similarities of traits between species, and similarities are an unreliable indicator of common ancestry as implied by the trees’ typically low adjusted consistency indices. Instead, similarities appear to be the result of a designer reusing design modules in different species to meet common goals. 

Ewert’s article represents only the first step in evaluating and developing his framework. Still, the significance of this research cannot be overstated. The dependency graph model explains why subsets of the biological data crudely fit a tree pattern and why so much of the data is incongruent. It also makes clear predictions on the results of future studies on the distribution across species of both physical traits and similarities in molecular data. Finally, it should lead to a robust and innovative research program based on the intelligent design framework."

Read the full summary and then come to your own conclusions. Perhaps the most "scientific" approach is to humbly follow the data wherever it leads regardless of preconceptions.

A new summary and simplification of Ewert's paper has come out, which I think is by far the best so far, titled "BIO-Complexity Presents Better Model than Common Ancestry for Explaining Pattern of Nature". 

The conclusions deserve to be fully quoted:


Read the full summary and then come to your own conclusions. Perhaps the most "scientific" approach is to humbly follow the data wherever it leads regardless of preconceptions.

The only conclusions that matter are Ewert's. Nb you don't see the subtext. It leads to God.

It isn't my site -- it's Bernardo Kastrup's. He sometime publishes articles written by his readers, and the one on that page entitled Musings on Idealism, Advaita and Christianity is mine.

I'll get it right one day...honestly I will!