Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 144

November 6, 2021

Jim Tour’s Wild West challenge: Go ahead. Make a cell

Dr Tour talks to @Christian Medical & Dental Associations® (CMDA) about the amazing discoveries happening in the lab and his critique of the current origin of life research.

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Published on November 06, 2021 19:43

At Mind Matters News: Astronomer says, ET is more likely to be AI than to be a life form

It’s a fine-tuning issue. Royal astronomer Lord Martin Rees explains that, apart from other issues, AI would last much longer in the hostile galactic environment:

Prominent British Royal Society astronomer Martin Rees thinks that thinking that ET will turn out to be AI:

“Human technological civilisation only dates back millennia (at most) – and it may be only one or two more centuries before humans, made up of organic materials such as carbon, are overtaken or transcended by inorganic intelligence, such as AI. Computer processing power is already increasing exponentially, meaning AI in the future may be able to use vastly more data than it does today. It seems to follow that it could then get exponentially smarter, surpassing human general intelligence.”

News, “Astronomer: ET is more likely to be AI than to be a life form” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: In that case, not to worry about them. If the extraterrestrials are AI, they may simply reiterate indefinitely the programs they were designed to execute long ago — we must hope, friendly ones.

Rees and colleagues assume that artificial intelligences can be creative thinkers. But the evidence so far is against that view. It’s not necessarily a matter of just ramping up the technology. By their very nature, computers compute but creative thinking is largely non-computational. We should keep that in mind when we encounter breathless media releases claiming to have overcome the problem. Also, the claim that artificial intelligence can simply evolve into artificial superintelligence stumbles on the No Free Lunch theorem…

You may also wish to read:

Does creativity just mean Bigger Data? Or something else? Michael Egnor and Robert J. Marks look at claims that artificial intelligence can somehow be taught to be creative. The problem with getting AI to understand causation, as opposed to correlation, has led to many spurious correlations in data driven papers.

and

3.How can we be sure we are not just an ET’s simulation? A number of books and films are based on the Planetarium hypothesis. Should we believe it? We make a faith-based decision that logic and evidence together are reasonable guides to what is true. Logical possibility alone does not make an idea true.

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Published on November 06, 2021 19:19

Researchers: “Positive interactions are common among culturable bacteria”

And here we thought nature was “red in tooth and claw”:

Abstract: Interspecies interactions shape the structure and function of microbial communities. In particular, positive, growth-promoting interactions can substantially affect the diversity and productivity of natural and engineered communities. However, the prevalence of positive interactions and the conditions in which they occur are not well understood. To address this knowledge gap, we used kChip, an ultrahigh-throughput coculture platform, to measure 180,408 interactions among 20 soil bacteria across 40 carbon environments. We find that positive interactions, often described to be rare, occur commonly and primarily as parasitisms between strains that differ in their carbon consumption profiles. Notably, nongrowing strains are almost always promoted by strongly growing strains (85%), suggesting a simple positive interaction–mediated approach for cultivation, microbiome engineering, and microbial consortium design.
Positive interactions are common among culturable bacteria Jared Kehe Https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1028-5981... Ortizanthony Kulesajeff Gore Https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4583-8555... C. Blainey Https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4889-8783 and Jonathan Friedman Https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8476-8030 Authors Info & Affiliations Science Advances • 5 Nov 2021 • Vol 7, Issue 45 • DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abi7159

A reader points out that horizontal gene transfer, foound everywhere among prokaryotes like bacteria, is an important source of adaptation. The bacteria can sample any number of genes and the more the merrier.

This sure isn’t the Darwinism we were taught in school. Like, why kill competitors when (if you are a bacterium) you can acquire their genes?

The paper is open access.

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Published on November 06, 2021 18:57

At Mind Matters News: The brain stem, not the prefrontal cortex, may be the seat of consciousness

In a recent discussion/debate with neurosurgeon Michael Egnor, neuropsychologist Mark Solms offers an unconventional but evidence-based view, favoring the brain stem:

In September, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor debated atheist broadcaster Matt Dillahunty at Theology Unleashed, on the existence of God. This time out (October 22, 2021), he is teamed with distinguished South African neuropsychologist Mark Solms, author of The Hidden Spring (2021) — who begins by declaring, in his opening statement, “the source of consciousness in the brain is in fact in the brain stem,” not the cerebral cortex, as almost universally assumed. He explains his reasoning with evidence.

Egnor doesn’t dispute that statement; in fact, in his own opening statement later, he reinforces it with observations from his own practice.

News, “Consciousness: Is it in the cerebral cortex — or the brain stem?” at Mind Matters News

… Mark Solms: I have been led to the view, over a few decades of working in this field, that we’ve made a big mistake in our conception of consciousness in neuroscience. The mistake has a very long history, which I won’t go into, but it boils down to the view that the seat of consciousness in the brain is the cerebral cortex. This is an absolutely universal view with a very few… few exceptions, myself included, obviously.[00:03:30]

It’s our evolutionary pride and joy. But … a lot of evidence, suggests that the source of consciousness in the brain is in fact in the brain stem, which is a much more ancient, much more primitive structure that we share, not only with all other primates and all other mammals, but in fact, with all vertebrates. The basic structure of the brain stem in you and me is the same as it is in fishes. If you’re going to look at it from the physical point of view, which part of the brain, is bound up with this mental property that we call consciousness? It is the reticular activating system, in particular, of the brain stem. It’s primitive core. I said, there’s tons of evidence, but let me just mention the most dramatic bit of evidence. [00:05:00]

A very old fashioned method in neuroscience is the lesion method. Lesion is just a fancy word for damage. So, if there’s damage to a part of the brain that performs a certain function, then that function should be lost. If you apply the lesion method to this question, you find that if you damage just a tiny area of the reticular core of the brain stem, roughly two cubic millimeters in extent, in other words, the size of a match head, then the lights go out. Consciousness is lost entirely. On the other hand, there are children who are born with absolutely no cerebral cortex, a condition called hydranencephaly, and these kids are conscious. They’re conscious in the sense that they wake up in the morning, and they go to sleep at night, but more interestingly, they are emotionally responsive to their environments. [00:06:00] … More.

Takehome: The evidence shows, says Mark Solms, author of The Hidden Spring, that the brain stem, not the cerebral cortex is the source of consciousness.

You may also wish to read: Your mind vs. your brain:
Ten things to know

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Published on November 06, 2021 17:10

November 5, 2021

Putting all those monkeys on a raft once again…

Because there must be some way they got to the New World:

Darwin knew that the fossil record did not support his theory of gradual increase in complexity through time but hoped that new fossil discoveries would fill in the narrative. 170 years of collecting has not helped. The Cambrian explosion is perhaps the best-known mismatch, but there are others. Adding to the difficulty, different dating methods often conflict with each other.

Monkeying with the Data

It would have been convenient for evolutionists if Africa and South America had split after monkeys had evolved, but they didn’t. This left them with klutzy explanations of how Old World monkeys evolved in Africa after the split, and then got to South America to become New World monkeys. The common story now is that they rafted over on vegetation across the Atlantic — a curious speculation, considering that sea captains these days never witness monkey families rafting out in the mid-Atlantic without fresh water or food.

In PNAS, Campbell et al. manage to pull widely different dates for two sites in eastern Peru closer together. They had to struggle, though, with disagreements between different dating methods for nearby sites. In any case, their work did not help get the monkeys across the ocean. Peru is very far inland from Brazil where a raft might have washed ashore, so time for migration must be factored in. Watching the evolutionists monkeying with the data and hiding their difficulties with euphemisms (“trans-Atlantic dispersal”) is entertaining if not pitiful.

Evolution News, “Fossil Follies from Around the Science Literature” at Evolution News and Science Today (November 3, 2021)

Reading this stuff helps us sympathize with King Kong. When he finally does get to New York…

Note: We got an Access Denied message when trying to scout out the Campbell et al. paper so it doesn’t sound like it’s open access.

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Published on November 05, 2021 19:57

At Mind Matters News: Does creativity just mean Bigger Data? Or something else?

This bears on the question of whether there is anything special about humans. Michael Egnor and Robert J. Marks look at claims that artificial intelligence can somehow be taught to be creative:

Michael Egnor: How does biological information differ from information in nonliving things?

Robert J. Marks: I don’t know if it does… I do believe after recent study that the mind is very different from the physical part of the brain. So there’s information that occurs external to the brain. In terms of just the physical, materialistic definition, most information can be used to measure what is in the biological entity.

We can talk about, however, creativity and where the idea of creativity comes from — the creation of information. And that is outside of naturalistic or information processes.

Michael Egnor: Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle, defined living things as things that strive for their own perfection. He felt that was what distinguished living things from nonliving things. A rock doesn’t everyday wake up in the morning and try to be a better rock. Whereas living things to a greater or lesser degrees of success, try to make themselves better at what they do. They eat, they rest, they interact with nature, they do things to make themselves even better examples of what they are.

It would seem to me that might relate to the difference between information in non-living and living things. Thhe information in living things is directed to ends. It’s directed to purposes that you don’t see in nonliving things in the same way.

Robert J. Marks: I would definitely agree with that it. It does turn out that, in order to do the improvement that you’re talking about, there needs to be a degree of creativity.

This is one of the things that we argue a lot about in artificial intelligence. Will artificial intelligence ever be creative? And I maintain that artificial intelligence will never be creative, it will never understand. And currently it has no common sense…

Michael Egnor: Sure. I mean, I’ve always thought of artificial intelligence as just a representation of human intelligence. And that, in the sense the term artificial intelligence is an oxymoron. If it’s artificial, it’s not intelligence. And it’s so intelligence must be human. And all the intelligence that’s in computers and computer programs and machines, is all human intelligence that is represented in those devices.

News, “Does creativity just mean Bigger Data? Or something else?” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: The problem with getting AI to understand causation, as opposed to mere correlation, has led to many spurious correlations in data driven papers.

Here’s the previous episode in the series:

How information becomes everything, including life. Without the information that holds us together, we would just be dust floating around the room. As computer engineer Robert J. Marks explains, our DNA is fundamentally digital, not analog, in how it keeps us being what we are.

You may also wish to read: How information realism subverts materialism Within informational realism, what defines things is their capacity for communicating or exchanging information with other things.

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Published on November 05, 2021 19:39

At CNN: The Problem with the Big Bang Theory

No, not the TV sitcom. The cosmology theory cosmologists love to hate. The story is really about the fact that inflation theory — way Cooler than the Big Bang — was not especially confirmed:

Astronomers used a telescope facility called BICEP-3 (short for Background Imaging of Cosmic Extragalactic Polarization) to study the CMB and its polarization. The telescope’s South Pole location, with its altitude of nearly two miles above sea level and incredibly dry air, is an ideal place to conduct this kind of research. BICEP-3 scientists combined their data with measurements at other facilities and found no indication of B-modes originating from the CMB. If B-modes are present in the CMB, they are very small. So, does that mean that the theory of inflation must be thrown out? No, although the data has disproved some of the simpler theories of inflation, it isn’t sensitive enough to rule out the more complex versions. Still, the failure to observe CMB B-modes is unsettling, causing some scientists to go back to the drawing board.

There are those who are discomfited when a scientific measurement draws into question a theory that is popular among researchers, but they shouldn’t be. The self-correcting nature of science is actually its strongest asset.

Don Lincoln, “The problem with the Big Bang theory” at CNN (November 4, 2021)

Note: “While those people who crave certainty in their life might be unhappy because of the new measurement, it’s important to remember that there are no sacred cows in science, and scientists are always checking and rechecking even their favorite universal models.” – Don Lincoln

Try doubting that humans are responsible for global warming and watch the herd of sacred cows stampede…

Okay, here’s the sitcom:

You may also wish to read: The Big Bang: Put simply,the facts are wrong.

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Published on November 05, 2021 19:20

From Salvo 58: Whatever happened to the Dawkins’s Weasel program that could randomly produce meaningful sentences, using natural selection?

Jonathan Witt remembers Richard Dawkins‘s Weasel program, intended to show that meaningful information could arise randomly:

A good place to begin is with a famous evolution simulation by atheist evolutionist Richard Dawkins. It’s sufficiently famous that it has its own Wikipedia entry and nickname: “the weasel program.” The simulation gradually evolves a string of gibberish letters into a line from Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet: “Methinks it is like a weasel.”

Dawkins apparently was inspired to use a line of Shakespeare in the program by the oft-repeated notion that if a bunch of monkeys randomly banged away on typewriters, eventually one of them would reproduce a Shakespearian sonnet. Mathematicians have worked out just how long this would take, and as it turns out, the entire universe would burn out long before any of these industrious primates chanced upon a Shakespearian sonnet. Even getting a complete quatrain out of one of them, even with a typo or three allowed, would be far, far beyond the reach of chance over the course of millions of billions of years.

To Dawkins’s credit, he understands that the monkeys would fail. He explains that he uses his computer simulation not to argue for the power of brute chance, as in the typing-monkeys illustration, but for the power of chance-plus-Darwinian-natural-selection.

However, even as an illustration of chance-plus-natural-selection, Dawkins’s weasel program founders…

Some 30-plus years on, we’re still waiting. More sophisticated evolution simulations have been rolled out to much fanfare, but as computer scientist Winston Ewert, philosopher and mathematician William Dembski, and others have shown, Avida and similarly ballyhooed simulations all possess one or more of three deal-killing flaws:

Jonathan Witt, “The Weasel Program: What Hath Darwin to Do with Shakespeare, Richard Dawkins?” at Salvo (58)

Wethinks it was just a gimmick that Dawkins knew would be highly popular even if it didn’t work. The Darwinians’ version of the perpetual motion machine.

Hat tip: Philip Cunningham

Real weasel:

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Published on November 05, 2021 19:02

At Mind Matters News: Can AI help us talk to whales? Maybe. But then what?

In the real world, if we succeed in communicating with whales, it will be much like communicating successfully with dogs, cats, and horses. None of them are furry people:

A recent article in the Smithsonian Magazine holds out the hope that AI can help us learn to talk with whales: …

These campaigns, while interesting in themselves, often aim — essentially — at trying to show that animals think like people:

News, “Can AI help us talk to whales? Maybe. But then what?” at Mind Matters News

But do animals have language at all? The question has been controversial among scientists for a long time. For many, language is one of the last bastions of human exclusivity.

Christoph Dresser, Hakai, “Could We Chat With Whales?” at Smithsonian Magazine (October 28, 2021)

It would be surprising if it were really true that whether animals have language “has been controversial among scientists for a long time.” But it isn’t. Everyone, including researchers, knows that animals communicate with each other. What they don’t have is the capacity for abstraction.

Believers in human non-exclusivity do not appear to be especially picky about what counts as evidence for various life forms having languages that are like human languages. For example, here’s a research finding that is supposed to be evidence:

For a long time, scientists were convinced that animal communication lacked any sentence structure. But in 2016, Japanese researchers published a study in Nature Communications on the vocalizations of great tits. In certain situations, the birds combine two different calls to warn each other when a predator approaches. They also reacted when the researchers played this sequence to them. However, when the call order was reversed, the birds reacted far less. “That’s grammar,” says Brensing.

Christoph Dresser, Hakai, “Could We Chat With Whales?” at Smithsonian Magazine (October 28, 2021)

No. It isn’t grammar. The birds just didn’t understand the wrong-sequence call. By the way, how did we get so fast from whales to birds? Is that for lack of evidence among whales and any related species?

In the real world, if we succeed in communicating with whales, it will be much like communicating successfully with dogs, cats, and horses. None of them are furry people. Whales are not blubbery people either. They won’t bring us closer to understanding what sets humans apart than dogs will.

Takehome: Questions: If no realistic evidence of human-like intelligence is found among whales , may we conclude anything? Also, can we stop the cruelty?

You may also wish to read: But, in the end, did the chimpanzee really talk? A recent article in the Smithsonian Magazine sheds light on the motivations behind the need to see bonobos as something like an oppressed people, rather than apes in need of protection.

and

Dolphinese: The idea that animals think as we do dies hard. But first it can lead us down strange paths.

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Published on November 05, 2021 18:41

Researchers: “The human genome is less ‘normal’ than we thought.”

It’s a story we mayn’t have heard, which includes microchromosomes:

Scientists have discovered that tiny ‘microchromosomes’ in birds and reptiles are the same as the tiny chromosomes in a spineless fish-like ancestor that lived 684 million years ago.

When these little microchromosomes were first seen under the microscope, scientists thought they were just specks of dust scattered among the larger bird chromosomes, but they are actually proper chromosomes with many genes on them.

They prove to be the building blocks of all animal genomes, but underwent a ‘dizzying rearrangement’ in mammals, including humans.

A team led by Professor Jenny Graves at La Trobe University and Associate Professor Paul Waters from UNSW’s School of Biotechnology and Biomolecular Sciences have published the findings in PNAS.

The team made the discovery by lining up the DNA sequence of microchromosomes from many different species.

“Not only are they the same in each species, but they crowd together in the centre of the nucleus where they physically interact with each other, suggesting functional coherence,” Dr Waters says.

“This strange behaviour is not true of the large chromosomes in our genomes.”…

“Astonishingly, the microchromosomes were the same across all bird and reptile species.”

“Even more astonishingly, they were the same as the tiny chromosomes of Amphioxus – a little fish-like animal with no backbone that last shared a common ancestor with vertebrates 684 million years ago.”

UNSW/LA TROBE MEDIA, “The dust specks which are actually the building blocks of our genome” at University of New South Wales (18 October 2021)

Maybe they are the Manufacturer’s basic program…

The findings highlight the need to rethink how we view the human genome.

“Rather than being ‘normal’, chromosomes of humans and other mammals were puffed up with lots of ‘junk DNA’ and scrambled in many different ways,” Prof Graves says.

UNSW/LA TROBE MEDIA, “The dust specks which are actually the building blocks of our genome” at University of New South Wales (18 October 2021)

Or retooled for more complex developments?

Stay tuned. Less and less that we hear from genome mapping is making sense in terms of sturdy traditional materialism.

You may also wish to read: At Mind Matters News: University of Chicago biochemist: All living cells are cognitive Future debates over origins of intelligence, consciousness, etc., may mainly feature panpsychists vs. theists rather than materialists vs. theists.

and

Neuroscientist: Even viruses are intelligent in some sense, Antonio Damasio says, in the excerpt from his new book, that — based on the evidence — we cannot deny viruses “some fraction” of intelligence. Researchers who study viruses, including the one that causes COVID, note similarities between viral strategies and those of insects and animals.

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Published on November 05, 2021 05:47

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