Evolution Engineered

In the comments section of the previous post, a link was provided that led to the following definition of reverse engineering:

In a landmark paper on the topic, M.G. Rekoff defines reverse engineering as “the process of developing a set of specifications for a complex hardware system by an orderly examination of specimens of that system.” He describes such a process as being conducted by someone other than the developer, “without the benefit of any of the original drawings … for the purpose of making a clone of the original hardware system.”
Reverse Engineering and Design Recovery: A Taxonomy- E.J. Chikofsky and J.H. Cross II

The first sentence is a fairly straight forward definition of reverse engineering that very few would have issues with. It is the second sentence, when examined in parts, that I find interesting.

1a. “He describes [reverse engineering] as being conducted by someone other than the developer [or designer]“  While this may seem obvious, it is an important aspect that is missed or overlooked when using the reverse engineering argument in ID. Alone, this would make for many long (and perhaps boring) philosophical discussions and discourses.

1b. “…’without the benefit of any of the original drawings …’ “ Again, this seems obvious, but it is even more important than point 1a. It is an extremely difficult task to reverse engineer a structure/process without the original plans, without the original design notes, and without making off-the-cuff remarks about the designer. Reverse engineering often deals with incomplete information and that, in of itself, should temper any claims/findings from the process.

2. “… for the purpose of making a clone of the original hardware system.” The two-part question I pose to both critic and defender of ID is this: should someone reverse engineer and then subsequently and successfully re-engineer a single-celled organism, a) would that be considered science (either the reverse engineering or the re-engineering processes or both combined), and b) would that constitue evidence (no matter how comprehensive/complete it may be) of a designer for the cell that was re-engineered?

The asylum is now open.

Note: the Rekoff quote was referenced from “On Reverse Engineering”, IEEE Trans. Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, March-April 1985, pp. 244-252

Even though I’m one of those guys that never sees a movie on the first (or second, or third) week it’s release, I admit this is taking the cake.

After watching Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, the documentary(?) starring Ben Stein, here are my comments:

1. Remember Spider-Man 3 or Pirates of the Carribean: At World’s End? I loved the first two movies of each franchise, but felt that the writers/directors/producers/whoever tried cramming in too much story and thus left behind a bloated and less satisfying movie experience. I felt the same about Expelled (except it ain’t a sequel, let alone a sequel to a sequel – threequel???). In my view, there were at least 4 plot lines: the (alleged) persecution of ID advocates in the ivory tower, examining the holes in evolutionary theory, the atheists (again, I’ll expand on this later), and the link between Darwinism and the Holocaust/Eugenics. Each one could constitute a documentary on its own, but crammed together in less than 90 minutes doesn’t do justice to each topic. Pass the Ovol, please!

2. Richard Von Steinberg and Guillermo Gonzalez were the best candidates for “ID persecution”. IMHO, the others (Crocker, Egnor, Marks) were quite weak. I firmly believe that no one has the right to not be offended. Some thick skin is in order. (see here for examples of true persecution). Also, lip service was given to the “persecuted” who did not want to be identified. This topic needed to be expanded on to be properly explored. Bottom line, Expelled failed to prove their case of wide-spread persecution.

3. One of the funniest parts of the film was Ben Stein “lost” in Seattle trying to find the offices (or is that walk-in closet) of the Discovery Institute. It was a brilliant move to counteract the critics’ claims that the DI is (to paraphrase) massive, privately funded, religious front for theocracy.

4. Putting aside “transparency issues”, Dickie Dawkins looked pathetic*, Eugenie Scott radiated pseudo self-importance**, and P.Z. had the manner of a cold dictator***. The only atheist I came away impressed with was the fiery cowboy, Will Provine. If you’re gonna slam them “creationists” into the ground, that’s what I expect to see and hear, not the duality that is P.Z.*** Regarding Michael Ruse, I would like to see the entire interview so I can try to understand why he was so exasperated. I mean, he HAD to have provided more than just crystals. He HAD to go into SOME detail, didn’t he? If not, well, the footage speaks for itself.

5. Eugenics is a topic that needs to be treated with extreme caution. Expelled did the subject a great disservice by merely scratching the surface.

Overall, not bad. Better than other so-called documentaries I’ve seen (Bowling for Columbine, The Corporation), but not by much. (Sorry, I don’t have a cool scoring systemlike some bloggers do).

*Quoting Alvin Plantinga: “You might say that some of [Dawkins's] forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside), many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class.” (and it shows in his interviews).

**I came away with the feeling that Eugenie considers herself important but that the more militant atheists (Dawkins, P.Z.) would consider her a “useful idiot”. This is what I mean by pseudo self-importance.

***In his review, Dr. Heddle has a great description of P.Z. (third paragraph of “The Atheists” section).

I find there to be quite the contrast between the P.Z. of the interview (and real life, so I’m told) and the P.Z. of Pharyngula, so much so I figure one of them has to be fake (or a muppet). It’s this duality that I consider disingenuous.

In my opinion, Del Ratzsch is the most honest critic of ID there is out there. However, he does share my frustrations with ID critics. He writes about it in an excellent article titled “How Not To Critique Intelligent Design Theory”. To save time and energy in futures debates, I think I’ll just refer to this article.

Happy reading!

Tom Gilson from Thinking Christian has recently written a review on “Seeking God in Science: An Atheist Defends Intelligent Design”by Bradley Monton. While it served its purpose and piqued my interest for reading this book in the future, it was this paragraph that caught my attention:

More than once in my blogging I have offered ID antagonists a bit of tongue-in-cheek “strategy advice.” I tell them, “I’m going against my own best interests with this, but if you want to attack intelligent design, you really ought to quit aiming at the wrong targets. You attack it as creationism, but it isn’t that. You attack it as being an anti-science campaign, but it isn’t that, either. You attack it as a theocratic political ploy, and that’s not what it is, either. Here’s my advice: If you want to defeat ID for what it really is, maybe you should to attack it for what it really is: a scientific and philosophical approach to exploring origins.”

I’ve said it many times at EE that ID is (currently) lacking in scientific results – a point both supporters (i.e. Del Ratzsch) and critics (i.e. David Heddle) make; it is a valid argument.

However, that does not automatically wipe out ID’s legitimacy as “a scientific and philosophical approach to exploring origins”. On this blog and elsewhere, all arguments to prove this either fall short or hit the wrong target.

I have to admit, I’m becoming a fan of Richard Sternberg, or at least his style of writing after reading his latest contribution to ENV.

(originally posted 23-July-2008)

(originally posted 10-May-2008)

Ever get that feeling we skipped a step somewhere?

An engineering design drawing, or blueprint, contains information; a lot of information. Wouldn’t it make sense that if design in nature existed, that these natural objects/events would contain a substantial amount of information? What if we could objectively measure this information? IMO, this is the step that ID and the ID Movement (IDM) appear to have skipped*.

Information theory** (IT) has the potential to be such an attempt to objectively quantify (or measure) information. IT is a relatively young discipline – approximately 60 years old – and has been applied to various fields of study (communcation, plagiarism detection, neurobiology, thermal physics, etc.). I am not an an expert in IT, but based on my limited understanding of it (IT contains advanced statistics beyond my ability), using a standard measurement unit of information – such as “bits” – one should be able to quantify the amount of information in every object and/or event in the natural world and universe (to the best of my knowledge, this has not been done).

Once information has been quantified, the work of recognising design in natural objects and events can be performed more efficiently and effectively. In Part 3, I will propose a basic framework for recognising design (heavy emphasis on basic).

* In fairness, Dembski does cover IT in The Design Revolution, but does not attempt to use it to objectively quantify information.

** I am aware of the potential pitfalls of using wikipedia as an unbiased resource, but based on what I know, there is no controversy regarding the definition and study of IT, and thus, the linked wikipedia article(s) should be reliable.

UPDATE: Click here for the wikipedia article on self-information, a method of “measuring” information. I think I may have to tease out the measuring of information a bit more before writing about the proposed design framework.

(originally posted 07-May-2008)

I have been reading up on Intelligent Design for about 4 years. I was drawn to it both as an engineer and as a Christian. The controversy is immense (in the U.S. mainly, not Canada). It seems to boil down to whether design is real in nature and the universe and if so, how can we objectively recognise if something is designed.

To the best of my knowledge, there are currently two attempts at quantifying design in nature: the Explanitory Filter (EF) as proposed by Dr. William Dembski, and the Design Matrix (DM) as proposed by Mike Gene. I will attempt to summarise the EF since I am more familiar with it than DM (I really need to order a copy of The Design Matrix).

There are three filters in EF: 1. contingency/necessity (natural law), 2. complexity, and 3. specification. An event is observed and it’s probability of occuring by chance and/or necessity is calculated. How far the event passes down the EF depends on how low the probability is. If the event can be explained by natural law, then it remains stuck in filter #1 and is attributed to necessity (high probability). If the event’s probability is less than a value Dembski calls the “universal probability bound” (UPB = 1 in 10^150, very small!!!), then it remains stuck in filter #2 and is attributed to chance (read The Design Revolution to see how Dembski calculated UPB).
The third filter is the most controversial. If the event “matches a conditionally independent pattern”, then in passes through the 3rd filter and is called “specified complexity” (another word for design); if the event does not match a conditionally independent pattern, then it is stuck and it attributed to chance.

There is a problem with this last step: how objective is this “conditionally independent pattern”? For a good critique of the EF, read Nature, Design, and Science: The Status of Design in Natural Science by Del Ratzsch (another book I need to order!). From what I know about the DM, there are also some subjective criteria used to determine the possibility of design.

So where does this leave us? I think we have a good intuition of what a design looks like, but how can we objectively quantify it? It appears that we’re not there, yet.

As part of the moving process and learning more about EE’s new home, I am posting two essays I had featured at the old home.

The Scientific Status of Intelligent Design – Thomas Fowler @ Catholic Culture (HT: Bradford @ TT)

How Not To Critique Intelligent Design – Del Ratzsch @ Ars Disputandi

Happy Reading!