Excellent point!
All it does is yell back, “come in here and MAKE me!”
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Indeed. As you know, there are just 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary numbers and those who don’t.
The failure is all yours since you can’t actually calculate any FI using the definitions Szostak et al developed. Instead you use FI as a synonym for complexity and use the same long refuted ID-Creationist argument “this is REALLY complex, so it must have been DESIGNED”. You just changed it to “this is REALLY high in FI, so it must have been DESIGNED”.
It was pretty funny your Shakespeare example changes the FI value drastically depending on the language chosen. That’s what they call an own goal. 
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And there are also just two kinds of people in the world: those who can reason from incomplete data.
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As it is Shakespeare, shouldn’t it be something more like “hoist with his own petard”?
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And it bears mentioning that the FI content of “hoist with his own petard” is higher than that of “own goal.” Comparing the actual information communicated, however, rather than the FI of a series of symbols, may yield a different (and, apparently, not-calculable) result.
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He’s an actor who usually enjoys Shakespearean theatre performance and generally avoids the popular limelight—but the recent reboot of Star Trek has led to Patrick Stewart being hoisted with his own Picard.
(That’s a little freebie for @Dan_Eastwood and @Michael_Callen.)
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I have to agree with the ID guys on the, “is it or is it not a motor?” question. There are any number of papers that describe the structure as an actual motor and not metaphorically. For example;
Motor rotation is known to occur via an interaction between one or more membrane-embedded torque-generating stator units and spoke-like proteins along the periphery of the rotor ring.
This interaction is powered by the ion-motive force arising from the transit of ions (protons, in the case of the commonly studied Escherichia coli motor) across the cellular membrane. The rotary bacterial flagellar motor (BFM) is remarkable in its ability to efficiently convert the free energy stored in this transmembrane electrochemical gradient into mechanical work: while man-made engines lose significant amounts of energy to heating, the BFM operates at close to 100% efficiency. Rotating at approximately 300 Hz (or 18000 rpm; compare to the upper limit of a typical car engine’s rotational speed of 6000 rpm), the E. coli motor can output a power of approximately
pN nm s
[1] and propel the bacteria at a speed up to 100
m s
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23746149.2017.1289120
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But that’s not the issue. (Perhaps I failed to make that clear—although I sincerely tried by means of strategic application of italics.) The question is not whether the flagellum is really a motor but a designed motor.
So calling a flagellum a motor does nothing to build a case for ID, even if it resonates on an intuitive level with many audiences.
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I side with the BFM having evolved as well, still it’s fair to call it a motor.
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What AllenWitmerMiller just said. I do not recall saying it was “not” a motor, but I do recall saying that it was not like any manufactured motor. The fact that the word “motor” encompasses two things does not mean that those things both originate from intelligent manfacture.
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Agreed. As long as we don’t automatically assume that every motor must be a designed motor.
And to clarify my own position for new readers, I have no problems with the idea that God designed evolutionary processes in order to produce biological motors. I just don’t consider their existence to be compelling scientific evidence for design. The fact that within recent centuries humans have designed and built motors doesn’t tell us whether or not biological motors are designed. Apples and oranges.
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It is also fair to call a hurricane an engine.
We have examples of engines spontaneously and naturally forming, so that pretty much ends the ID argument for flagella.
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What we are missing for an alternative to a motor being designed is an alternative mechanistic explanation for its origin. Especially a motor that is generated from 100k lines of code (nucleotides).
The “alternative mechanistic explanation for its origin” has been explained on this and other PS threads many times.
I guess I don’t understand what is “especially” about it.
But I will certainly agree that nucleotides are responsible for biological motors. I just don’t see a problem there. Everywhere we look we see nature building complicated structures in complicated ways.
Now, if the argument is that biological motors lead to powerful philosophical conclusions, I will agree. That certainly applies to me.
What created the order to build this motor? You say you see nature building complexity but what is the cause of this observed complexity? The strength of the ID argument is that minds uniquely create this level of functional linear sequences. We see the cell copy sequences from other sequences but generating 100K of organized nucleotides to reliably build a motor is not trivial.
I don’t see any reasonable answer other than a plan that includes intimate understand of biological physics, chemistry driven by functional information.
You are describing a philosophical position which is in many ways similar to mine. I can’t call it science until it can be established in a compelling way through the scientific method.
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We already have a perfectly fine mechanistic explanation Bill, one that doesn’t involve disembodied minds and magic POOFs to operate. You’ve had it explained to your countless times over the years. It’s called evolutionary theory. You really need to learn about it some day.
No one here said it’s not a motor. It’s just not a purposely created intelligently designed motor.
Birds and F-16s both have wings but the F-16 wing isn’t evidence bird wings were designed.