Without “information”, ID is fully exposed to the charge that recognition of design is utterly subjective.
If the evidence soundly supported ID, it would not require defending by means of these strained arguments.
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This again is like saying all the molecules in a tire aren’t need to make a functioning tire because we can knock one molecule out and the tire will still function. By inductive reasoning we might suppose we can knock out all the molecules!
We can have slight alterations, removal of a molecule here and there and selection will not react to it, exactly consistent with the problem of Slight Deleterious Mutations (SDMs). I gave an example with the D4Z4 repeat and muscular dystrophy were many normal humans have a margin of safely of about 89 repeats, but we cross that threshhold and muscular dystrophy results.
This is like saying the 400 major bit coin computer servers aren’t functional because we can dispense with 398 of them and still have a functioning bit coin system. That’s not how deeply redundant network architectures work!
Where have you argued this?
Almost every single scientist working in genetics knows that there is functional non-coding DNA. Do you really think molecular biologists are unaware of promoters? Do you think we forgot about classic systems like the lac operon that we learned about in our undergrad genetics class?
That’s pretty much what the bladderwort did. The bladderwort genome lacks all of the classic intergenic regions found in other genomes, and has a genome size of just 82 million bases with a gene content comparable to other complex eukaryotes. The bladderwort genome is 0.5% the size of the onion genome, and yet the plucky little bladderwort soldiers on.
Reality could care less what we will be persuaded by. Reality will continue being reality whether we believe it or not.
CSI is subjective anyway. This may seem like gibberish to most people and not contain any information:
Hhhhooo:smiling_face:
X2
But me and my sister came
Up with our own language. She knows exactly what that says. It’s information to her.
Information is pretty useless in detecting design
You haven’t shown the minimum number of bases that is needed for the distance between an enhancer and the gene it enhances. Using your argument, since we find air in a tire then all air in Earth’s atmosphere is needed for the functioning of a tire.
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Show us one scientist who didn’t know.
No, it’s quite relevant. People are trying to point out to you the effect of your posts: exposing your ignorance. You don’t seem to realize how little you know and how much that you think you know is wrong.
Nobody said that. Read again.
Doesn’t that mean that the genetic entropy theory is wrong, even if only 5% of the genome is functional? How much more wrong must it be if most or all of the genome is functional, as you claim?
The genome isn’t memory. And nobody is claiming that only 5% of the genome is functional.
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We define function as the ability to lose function. Let’s say there is an enhancer that is 1 million base pairs away from the promoter it binds to. If we slice out 900,000 base pairs and the enhancer still works, then that 900,000 base pairs lacked function.
Also, if a DNA sequence has function then it logically follows that changing the sequence can remove that function. Therefore, strong evidence for lack of function is finding regions where mutations accumulate at a rate consistent with neutral drift. If there was a function in that region which the organism needed then there would be negative selection against deleterious mutations in that stretch of DNA. About 90% of the human genome lacks a detectable signal for sequence conservation.
Hi,
Here are some essays. Hope you are well.
Conflicts and Fractures in the ID Community | The Skeptical Zone
I’ve committed the unpardonable sin several times of criticizing other ID proponents publicly, but when I think claims or methods need to be challenged, I feel obligated to speak out because I find myself contesting certain ways the ID argument is presented when I make presentations about ID and/or special creation.
The conflicts are over the relevance of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, Information Theory, Specified Complexity, Conservation of Information, Framing Probability Arguments, and whether ID is science.
Many ID proponents and creationists privately concede the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is not an argument against the evolution biological organization. If I asked sophomore chemistry, physics, and mechanical engineering students to use standard molar entropy tables, they can demonstrate a living human has MORE entropy than a frozen dead rat. Thus, it is silly to argue that somehow lowering entropy is a requirement for making complex biological systems. There are many cases the opposite is necessary! Nuff’ said…
…
Worse, consider the following simple example of design in the arrangement of dominoes standing up. If I asked why is this arrangement of dominoes likely designed based on ID information theory arguments, Specified Complexity, Conservation of Information, one will quickly realize all ID information theory arguments confuse the issue at best. Simpler arguments based on expectation and law-of-large-numberESQUE arguments will suffice.
Ask yourself, if one can’t even apply Specified Complexity, Conservation of Information Arguments, to trivial designs like dominoes, how can these arguments be persuasive to much more involved designs like that in the Origin of Life, Zinc Fingers and Nuclear Localizations Signals in Eukaryotes? Eeesh! More mathematical theatrics does not make an argument better. Substance rather than theatrics is better.
The way to frame probability arguments so as to avoid the claims of after-the-fact-Texas sharpshooter fallacies needs to be addressed more. It can be done, but not enough has been done on this…
ID proponents do not serve their cause well, imho, by saying, “ID is science.” It ends up being a red herring, and opponents of ID would love ID proponents to make this claim because ID proponents will be taken to task for saying it. I get a lot of hatred from ID types for saying things like ID falsifiable, not science, not positive, not directly testable. But if I, as a card carrying creationist and card carrying Discovery Institute donor can see the problems of saying “ID is science,” how much more anyone else, especially those on the fence.
The best pro-ID talk I’ve ever heard was by someone who doesn’t even identify as an ID proponent, James Tour. His infamous talk at a Discovery Institute-sponsored event is the model that ID proponents should follow. [See the ironically titled article James Tour: Liar for Jesus]. The other model of arguing for ID AND special creation was by John Sanford at his infamous talk at the NIH. [see Famous Geneticist Tells NIH that Humans Are Going Extinct].
and
AND
Though I’ve continued to endear myself to the YEC community, I’ve certainly made myself odious in certain ID circles. I’ve often been the lone ID proponent to vociferously protest cumbersome, ill-conceived, ill-advised, confusing and downright wrong claims by some ID proponents. Some of the stuff said by ID proponents is of such poor quality they are practically gifts to Charles Darwin. I teach ID to university science students in extra curricular classes, and some of the stuff floating around in ID internet circles I’d never touch because it would cause my students to impale themselves intellectually.
I have yet another opportunity to make myself yet more odious to the ID community by suggesting information theory should be dropped or at least de-emphasized as a means of making the design argument, especially the use of CSI to implement the Explanator Filter (EF). I claim the EF is adequately and more effectively implemented with CSI-free methods for most biological designs that are debated currently.
Thank ya
This is incorrect, as I’ve shown in a previous post.
The virus may avoid GE in its natural reservoirs by being in a latent state.
Sanford recognizes that the reduction of mortality with time may be due to other factors than GE, including herd immunity and advances in medecine. However, he noted that the decline in mortality follows a remarkably smooth curve that neither herd immunity nor medical progresses can really explain.
Now, it is important to note that the correlation between the decline of H1N1 related mortality and the linear increase in the virus mutations is not the only evidence Sanford offers for the genetic attenuation of H1N1. In fact, he lists 3 of them, including the erosion of the H1N1 codon specificity, hardly a signature of adaptative changes.
How does that work?
You can’t just make stuff up. Explain what you mean by this and how it works please. Hopefully you have some references?
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So his explanation is wrong. He is left with a observation that clearly refutes his hypothesis, and for which he has no explanation other than that his hypothesis is wrong.
Why does he not, then, just admit that his hypothesis is wrong?
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… Sal is once again exposed as either ignorant or lying.
About one third of mutations in coding DNA do not change the coded-for amino-acid, so Sal is already 30% out, without needing to look at anything more complicated than the genetic code.
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What is the latent state for an RNA virus that does not incorporate itself into the host genome?
Unless Sanford is a world expert in immunology, virology, and epidemiology, his opinion carries very little weight.
How are the less fit viruses doing better than the more fit viruses?
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I don’t see what you mean. Which observation refutes Sanford’s hypothesis ?
The observation life has been here on the planet evolving for over 3.5 billion years and hasn’t died out from GE.
I’d say that kills Sanford’s silly claim deader that the fossil record. 
What do you say?
Let’s be focused here. I was asking which observation according to @Faizal_Ali refutes Sanford’s claim that the observed decline in H1N1 mortality rate is best explained by GE.
What do you mean?