Monday, January 31, 2011

All things are made of information

Materialists like to portray any kind of creation or design thinking as non-scientific, but thinking doesn't have to conform to rigid formulas of what science is, to discern the deeper realities of what we see in the world.

Quotes and comments;

1. 'Richard Feynman said that if we were able to pass on just one sentence of scientific knowledge to another civilization it should begin, 'All things are made of atoms...'' [1.]

- Advocates for scientism like to draw a distinct line (in the sand) between science and non-science. There is no such line however, and we can see the truth of this in the story of the atom. As far as we know, this story began 25000 years ago with the Greeks. They 'discovered' the story not by the 'scientific method' but by speculative analysis. What Feynman calls the most vital bit of scientific knowledge we have thus began as philosophy.

My point here is that while ID might not quality as science (in the pre-digital sense of the term) this does not disqualify it from being a meaningful, helpful or useful, in thinking about biological forms in a new and illuminating way. The ID theorists of today might (at some later point in time) be seen to be roughly in the position of Democritus and his students as regards the unfolding of a new way of looking at the world.

The code-like sophistication of DNA (etc.) demands a new way of looking at things.We can't know at this point what such a model will ultimately look like, but I think the ID theorists are on the right track. That they only see dimly may be true, But I think they're at least looking in the right direction.

2. 'All things are made of atoms...'

- It seems to me that the materialist has yet to learn a major lesson of atomic theory. i.e. The key to understanding X is not the stuff it is made of (atoms) but the arrangement of that stuff. The key point of ID theory is that the arrangement we see in living forms is not one that arises from purely physical laws. It's not a chemical arrangement; but one that is non-physical; one that can only have an intelligent source. We might say that the arrangement is not natural (i.e. does not stem from the realm of physics.) We all know that inert matter arranges itself (or gets arranged) in certain known ways - and not in other ways. e.g. sand never arranges itself into a computer chip; nor does iron arrange itself into a car.

Notes.
1. A portrait of the brain - Adam Zeman; p. 14.
2. For more about the idea of biological information I suggest the article; 'Scientific laws of information and their implications—part 1 - by Werner Gitt
'The grand theory of atheistic evolution posits that matter and energy alone have given rise to all things, including biological systems. To hold true, this theory must attribute the existence of all information ultimately to the interaction of matter and energy without reference to an intelligent or conscious source. All biological systems depend upon information storage, transfer and interpretation for their operation. Thus the primary phenomenon that the theory of evolution must account for is the origin of biological information. In this article it is argued that fundamental laws of information can be deduced from observations of the nature of information. These fundamental laws exclude the possibility that information, including biological information, can arise purely from matter and energy without reference to an intelligent agent. As such, these laws show that the grand theory of evolution cannot in principle account for the most fundamental biological phenomenon...'

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Biomimetics and Design

A few short comments on the topic of biomimetics and design.

Quotes and comments;

1. "Nature has one very big advantage over any human research team: plenty of time. Billions of years, in fact.'' [1.]

- There may be some truth to this if we restrict ourselves to dealing with an earth that has living organisms on it, but before this occurred it seems to me that time (if anything) would have been a disadvantage. i.e. wouldn't it have merely led to ever increasing disorder based on the effects of entropy? Doesn't 'nature' display the effects of entropy over time if there are no life forms to 'counter' this effect? Let's think of Mars. Let's assume there are no living organisms on (or in) the planet. Would anyone expect such forms to 'emerge' in the future? Hasn't the planet become more and more inhospitable over time?

2. “Nature ... often has to make do with whatever is readily available locally, and whatever structures have been created through the lengthy trial-and-error of evolution.”

- I'd note that this is not an observational statement. No one observed these structures (eg. diatoms) being produced by trial and error over aeons. (Isn't science supposed to be anchored in observation?)

3. "It all comes down to assembling complex structures from small, simple building blocks, Buehler explains.

- The person who rejects ID has to assume this 'assembly' of complex structure happens solely by chemical reaction. In my opinion most such assembly processes require a blueprint in the form of genetic code, and that this code needs an intelligent source.

4. “Buehler suggests that just as biology has done, humans could engineer materials with desired properties such as strength or flexibility by using abundant and cheap materials such as silica, which in bulk form is brittle and weak.”

- Biology isn't a person, and hasn't engineered anything. (One reason I reject materialism is that even atheists find it almost impossible to even describe what they see without resorting to reification and anthropomorphism.) So if 'biology' didn't engineer the diatom (etc.) who or what did? The e. can't expect to escape this dilemna by resorting to sloppy language and personalization.

Summary;
I guess we have to say that if our brightest engineers can't yet duplicate 'nature' then the source of the life forms on this planet is more intelligent and wise than all of them combined. (It's my hunch that this source is personal, and not impersonal.)

Notes;
1. Biomimetics: Does It Flatter Darwin? Creation/Evolution news 10/24/2010
MIT news; ''Nature has one very big advantage over any human research team: plenty of time. Billions of years, in fact. And over all that time, it has produced some truly amazing materials – using weak building blocks that human engineers have not yet figured out how to use for high-tech applications, and with many properties that humans have yet to find ways to duplicate."

Friday, January 28, 2011

Getting smarter and smarter every day

Just time today, for one quick question.

Quotes and comments;

1. We're told that 'hominids' got smarter and smarter over time. Did this really happen? Did this miracle (of mutation) happen to other animals living at the same time? Did monkeys get smarter and smarter? Did squirrels? Did birds?

I see no evidence this happened, so then the evolutionist must explain why this only happened in the human tribe.

Notes;
1. The evolutionary claim above isn't based on observation, but only trying to fit the 'Hobbit feet' of data into the shoe box of theory.
- I agree with those who claim the small brained fossil finds that are claimed to be in the human line aren't human at all, but belong to the line of apes.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Accidental Genesis

I've just finished watching the Origins of Life video lecture series by Robert Hazen. I offer a few comments in summary.

Quotes and comments;

1. Hazen quotes Leslie Orgel as saying "anyone who thinks they have the answer to this question is deluded... but anyone who thinks it is unsolvable [e.g. creationists] is also deluded."

- Really Leslie? How do you know this? I don't see any way you can know this. All he's saying is that materialism Has to be true. How does he know this? Well, apparently it's his intuitive feeling about the matter... but that isn't certain knowledge. When we get down to it, the m. feels there is no god, and the theist feels there is a god. Neither view qualifies as scientific knowledge. We can't tell the universe what it must or must not be like :=)

2. He insists that the chemical steps leading to life's origin are knowable... and that one day we'll know them.

- Really? How does he know this? I see no possible way we can know what happened 4 billion years ago... it's simply impossible. Any idea put forward can't be an empirical observation. No one was there. All you can ever have are theories.

3. As an old fashioned materialist he tells us life is basically chemical in nature. In my view this is an outmoded concept.

- I view 'life' as being basically informational in nature. In my view life on earth began with a plan in the mind of an an intelligent being.

4. He tells us there Must have been an unbroken chain leading from the first life form to the modern cell. The 'law of continuity demands it. (Must is one of his favorite words by the way.)

- So what is this 'law' of continuity?
Definition; (Math. & Physics) 'The principle that nothing passes from one state to another without passing through all the intermediate states.;

-I see nothing in the laws of physics that predicts biology or life; so I don't see how this 'law' applies. The idea life must have arisen by unaided chemical action is more a matter of human psychology than it is a matter of physics.

5. He expects 'life's has arisen billions of times in the universe.
- How's that for faith :=]

Summary;
His speaking style is annoying. He rarely looks into the camera, but off to the side where he's reading his cue cards. He does a competent job of outlining the materialist view of origins... but does a poor job of mentioning any critiques of this model.
His view is that materialism is so obviously true we don't need to talk about objections to it. In his view, science equals materialism.
He's far too confident in his statements; statements which aren't empirical, and are wildly speculative. To speak of certainty in this subject is empty bravado. Scientists can't tell us what happened 4 billion years ago anymore than they can build a time machine. There don't appear to be many limits to what scientists and engineers can do, but there still are limits... and it's scientism to deny this.
He talks a lot (in the latter lectures) about information, but he never tells us what he means by information.

Notes;
1. #24. Three scenarios for the origin of life [Teaching Company]
- Hazen has got the cheek to title his book on the subject Genesis.
- He never tells us what the benefit of OOL study is. i.e. what's it for? I don't see any point to it at all.