Evaluating the 2026 Bio-Complexity papers

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It’s been a while since I looked at Bio-Complexity, and I see that they now have 3 articles up in the 2026 volume.

So here is my evaluation of them on the usual scoring system.

  1. RNA Sequence-to-Structure Mapping has Limited Evolutionary Benefit (Ewert, Axe).

The principle of conservation of information states that search algorithms …

The actual principle of conservation of information is about the deterministic nature of the physical universe, and has nothing to do with what Ewert refers to, which is something invented by Dembski and ignored outside ID.

Score 0.5.

(The rest of the abstract suggests that Ewert knows very little about either protein structure or natural selection).

  1. Framing Dembski and Ewert’s Specification Model for Design Detection within Montañez’s Canonical Specified Complexity Formalism (Miller)

William Dembski and Winston Ewert developed a formulation of specified complexity grounded in the minimal description length of a pattern or outcome. Their approach can be framed within George Montañez’s framework of canonical specified complexity (CSC), which illuminates the underlying logic of their model and of design detection more broadly. This integration also highlights the general applicability of specified complexity as a tool for design detection. Dembski and Ewert’s methodology for hypothesis testing is applied to bacterial chemotaxis to illustrate its use in a biological context.

A central focus of the intelligent design research program has been developing methods to detect in patterns and artifacts evidence of intelligent agency. A primary researcher in this investigation is mathematician and philosopher William Dembski, who devised the first generalized methodology for detecting design, which he detailed in The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance through Small Probabilities [1]. He argued that highly improbable patterns that can be referenced by a specification display specified complexity. An example of specified complexity is the carvings on Mount Rushmore, which are highly improbable (i.e., complex) and are specified to match the faces of four presidents. The presence of high levels of specified complexity indicates that an intelligent agent almost certainly generated the pattern. Dembski later collaborated with computer scientists Robert Marks and Winston Ewert to refine the concept of specification [2,3] and to apply the design-detection schema to biology [4]. In 2023, Dembski and Ewert published a second edition of The Design Inference, in which they generalize and quantify specifications based on the description length of a pattern or outcome [5]. This enhancement addressed the challenge of whether the concept of specification can be rigorously and generally defined and applied [6]. The expanded framework uses
the smallest description length to set an upper bound on the
probability that the pattern resulted from natural processes and chance. For example, under their minimal-description-length specified complexity (MDL-SC) formalism, the specification of Mount Rushmore could be “four presidents’ faces,” a three-word English-language description.

No, it couldn’t. That’s not a specification of Mount Rushmore. There’s no way you could construct something resembling Mount Rushmore from just that brief description. It says nothing about which presidents, in what order, how big, where, etc. It could refer to Italian coins or paintings in an organisation’s lobby.

Score: 14. This is extremely high, but only because the abstract and the first two paragraphs are mostly background that says little.

  1. Computational and Neuroscientific Objections to Integrated Information Theory (Egnor, Marks)

Integrated information theory (IIT) equates consciousness to integrated information, a concept that quantifies the interconnectedness of a system’s physical causal properties.

This is wildly outside my expertise, so I hesitate to comment, but the abstract goes on:

…There are also neuroscientific challenges to IIT. The theory relies on the assumption that all mental states supervene on brain states, implying that consciousness arises solely from physical processes in the brain. We propose that many studies in classical neuroscience point to the immateriality of the intellect and will, challenging the IIT of consciousness.

It’s not really a paper about IIT at all, except for the part that says IIT values are incalculable, but argues mainly that IIT fails because it doesn’t include the idea of an immaterial soul. It’s akin to saying that you can’t measure the top speed of a car if it’s jacked up aboard a jet plane.

Score: 7 or 1, depending on the accuracy of the description of IIT.

But the real problem with these three papers is that they are all so dependent on prior ID ideas that they have feet of slip, and no-one not submerged in ID would even bother with them.

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Please point us to it!

I’ll be curious to see if the Ewert and Axe post cites the actual literature accurately and honestly. The stuff that Axe coauthored with Ann Gauger (posted more than 10 years ago) did not.

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Thanks for taking that hit for the team. :cowboy_hat_face:
Frankly, I doubt even those submerge in ID will do more than skim them. It’s not like most of them understand the math of the stuff already out there.

There is a reason no one uses Minimum Message Length (MML) for statistical inference; it’s awful compared to standard statistical methods. We covered this a couple of years back in discussion of Assembly Theory.

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It’s very simple - number of lines or sentences before a definite fallacy, error or lie.

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Egnor Marks seriously compare MRI and electrical localization studies of the brain to phrenology. That is like dismissing chemistry as alchemy and astronomy as astrology. Regardless of the intended degree of identification or comparison, phrenology is irrelevant to the topic.

From the Bio-Complexity paper:

It may be argued that the analogy between neuroscientific
inferences based on phrenology and neuroscientific inferences
based on fMRI imaging is weak and unfair, but the analogy
between phrenology and fMRI-based neuroscience, whether
weak or strong, is the topic of a major discussion in the scien-
tific literature and in the lay press. The attribution of mental
states to measurable physical states of the brain (i.e., to skull
shape, which is to some degree determined by the shape of the
brain, and to patterns of cerebral blood flow, which is to some
degree determined by local neuronal activity is a fundamental
feature of both phrenology and fMRI-based neuroscience, and
both face analogous and substantial interpretative challenges.

EDIT to correct typo and include quote, in response to @sfmatheson comments.

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This sentence needs some correction, I think, unless you really mean phenology. Did Egnor and Marks publish together on this topic, or separately? Either way, links or refs would be nice.

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Yeesh.

But if ID is science, astrology is science! Behe said so.

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As we all know, the problem with phrenology was never that it it told a bold just-so-story that consistently failed to make better predictions of experimental outcomes than chance would. No, it was rather the underlying supposition that physical phenomena are physical and would presumably submit to physical investigations, that was ultimately at fault. The belief that throwing one’s hands up in the air and declaring things magic was not a productive way to do science, that is the fundamental flaw with phrenology.
:person_facepalming:

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Yes, when we discussed whether “outboard motor” is, as IDers claim, a specification of the bacterial flagellum - and I learnt a bit of Portuguese and that microscopes were invented before steam engines (both of which I’d since forgotten :confused:)

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Just to add: yes, Dembski and Ewert, in the second edition of The Design Inference have explained their measure of Specified Complexity at great length. However they entirely left out two points: why a good adaptation is required to have a short description, and why natural selection could not achieve that. Oops! Hopefully they’ll explain those in their 3rd edition.

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I can’t wait! My appetite for the writings of these intellectual titans is vast.

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From the abstract of the Ewert and Axe post:

“The unanswered challenge that the conservation of information poses for unguided evolution remains unanswered.”

:laughing::laughing::laughing:

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Now, that’s some excellent abstract writing. And it’s true that questions which are unanswered remain unanswered, while questions that are not unanswered often have answers. Frankly, it’s a bit uncanny how well those properties correspond to one another. Another argument for design!

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