Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 152

What happens when DNA snaps?

Cells have self-repairing suspension bridges:

Cells face that kind of challenge every day, but they are well equipped to handle it. When both DNA strands break (the “double-stranded break” crisis, or DSB), a cell can die. Molecular machines fly into action as the strands flail about, threatening genomic catastrophe. The repair crew has an additional problem: unlike the bridge cable, the DNA strand is made up of a sequence of code that needs to match what was there before the DSB. In a process called homologous recombination, the machinery searches for a template to rebuild the broken sequence. Researchers at Uppsala University know that this process is mostly “well described in the literature.”

“However, the description usually disregards the daunting task of finding the matching template among all the other genome sequences. The chromosome is a complex structure with several million base pairs of genetic code and it is quite clear that simple diffusion in 3D would not be sufficiently fast by a long shot. But then, how is it done? This has been the mystery of homologous recombination for 50 years. From previous studies, it is clear that the molecule RecA is involved and important in the search process, but, up until now, this has been the limit of our understanding of this process. [Emphasis added.]“

Even a simple bacterium knows a trick to make the search easier. It reduces the search from a 3D problem to a 2D problem. With that shortcut, the cell reduces the time to repair down to 15 minutes on average. The Uppsala group, using CRISPR and fluorescent tags, watched the RecA proteins in real time. They published their findings in Nature.

Evolution News, “Tricks of the Cell Trade” at Evolution News and Science Today (September 27, 2021)

After a while, you know it all didn’t “just happen” and the Voice of Science isn;t helping much by claiming that that must beso.

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Sabine Hossenfelder asks a curious question: Where did the Big Bang happen?

Wrong question, she says:

The universe started with a Big Bang and it’s expanded ever since. You probably know this. You probably also know that the universe doesn’t have a center. But where did the big bang happen, if not in the center of the universe? And if the universe expands, doesn’t that mean that matter on the average doesn’t move, contrary to what Einstein said, that absolute rest doesn’t exist? I get these questions a lot. And at the end of this video, you’ll know the answers…

There are two warnings I have to add when it comes to the “Big Bang”. First, I don’t know anybody who actually believes that this singularity is physically real. It probably just means that Einstein’s equations break down and must be replaced by something else. For this reason, physicists use the term “Big Bang” to refer to whatever it is that replaces the singularity to within a Planck time or so. A Planck time is about ten to the minus forty-four seconds.

Second, we don’t actually know that this extrapolation all the way back to the Big Bang is correct because we have no observations dating back to before roughly the creation of atomic nuclei. It could be that Einstein’s equations actually aren’t the right ones for the very early universe. So instead of a Big Bang it could also be that an earlier universe collapsed and then expanded again which is called a Big Bounce. Or there could have been an infinitely long time in which not much happened after which expansion suddenly began. That would also look much like a big bang. We just don’t know which one’s right. The “Big Bang” is just the simplest scenario you get when you naively extrapolate the equations back in time.

Sabine Hossenfelder, “Where did the Big Bang happen?” at BackRe(Action)

It would be interesting to know what other physicists think of her approach.

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

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At Mind Matters News: Why did Stephen Hawking give up on a Theory of Everything?

Daniel Díaz and Ola Hössjer continue their discussion of the fine tuning of the universal constants of nature with Robert J. Marks

In a continuing conversation with Swedish mathematician Ola Hössjer and Colombian biostatistician Daniel Díaz on the fine-tuning of the universe — and Earth — for life, Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks asks them about why a Theory of Everything eludes us and about the life-permitting interval — the narrow window for life that the constants of the universe permit.

News, “Why did Stephen Hawking give up on a Theory of Everything?” at Mind Matters News

Robert J. Marks: In fact, I think it was Stephen Hawking who gave up pursuing the Theory of Everything. He appealed to Gödel: No matter what you did, there would be stuff that was true in the universe that you still needed to prove …

Kurt Gödel

Note: Mathematical logician Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) is best known for eliminating the idea that there is a simple Answer to Everything: “In an exceptionally elegant essay, science writer Ashutosh Jogalekar (no stranger to controversy) talks about the huge difference Kurt Gödel (1906–1978) made by eliminating the idea that some single, simple explanation would put an end to all questioning about the nature of the universe in favor of some simple materialism.” – Mind Matters News

Robert J. Marks: So are there numerous constants that are finely tuned?

Daniel Díaz: That’s what we want to observe. So what follows is that we develop the theoretical way to measure those qualities for the cosmological and particle model.

What we expect is to find that some of them — maybe most of them — are going to be finely tuned. But again, if there is only one that is finely tuned, then that would be enough to say that the universe is finely tuned.

Note: At Forbes, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel has said that “It takes 26 fundamental constants to give us our universe, but they still don’t give everything” (August 22, 2015)

Robert J. Marks: But again, Stephen Hawking also said that nothing is ever proved in physics, you just accumulate evidence. So if you have one that is not finely tuned, that’s evidence. But if you have a bunch of them that are required to be finely tuned, that’s really evidence that something is going on. And as Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) said, somebody has been monkeying with the universe, so very interesting.

Ola, one of the terms that you use in your papers is LPI. What’s an LPI? What does it mean? And how do we measure it? …

Takehome: The probability, they calculate, that the fine tuning of our universe is simply random is down to 10 to the minus sixty — a very small number.

Here are the previous instalments:

The first episode:

Ours is a finely tuned — and No Free Lunch — universe. Mathematician Ola Hössjer and biostatistician Daniel Andrés Díaz-Pachón explain to Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks why nature works so seamlessly. A “life-permitting interval” makes it all possible — but is that really an accident?

and

Fine-tuning? How Bayesian statistics could help break a deadlock Bayesian statistics are used, for example, in spam filter technology, identifying probable spam by examining vast masses of previous messages. The frequentist approach assesses the probability of future events but the Bayesian approach assesses the probability of events that have already occurred.

The second episode:

Life is so wonderfully finely tuned that it’s frighteningA mathematician who uses statistical methods to model the fine tuning of molecular machines and systems in cells reflects…
Every single cell is like a city that cannot function without a complex network of services that must all work together to maintain life.

and

Can there be a general theory for fine-tuning? If you make a bowl of alphabet soup and the letters arrange themselves and say, good morning, that is specified. What are the probabilities? Ola Hössjer sees the beauty of mathematics in the fact that seemingly unrelated features in cosmology and biology can be modeled using similar concepts.

The first part of the third episode:

Was the universe created for life forms to live in? How would we know? We can begin by looking at the fundamental constants that underlie the universe. The constants of the universe — gravitational constant, entropy, and cosmological constant — must be finely tuned for life to exist.

You may also wish to read: No Free Lunches: Robert J. Marks: What the Big Bang teaches us about nothing. Bernoulli is right and Keynes is Wrong. Critics of Bernoulli don’t appreciate the definition of “knowing nothing.” The concept of “knowing nothing” can be tricky.

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Top world chemist, James Tour, to speak at COSM 2021

Tour builds molecules for a living, a position that causes him to stand in awe” of God: “Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith”:

It wasn’t always like this for Tour. We are told at the People Behind the Science podcast that, as a youth, Tour wanted to be a New York State Trooper (impressive uniform and all that?).

However, “He was dismayed to discover that this career was out of his reach because he was colorblind. Jim turned his attention next to study forensic science instead, but his father encouraged him to pursue a more general degree in chemistry. He took his father’s advice and ended up loving his first organic chemistry course in college enough to make organic chemistry his career.”

It almost reads like a joke: What could James Tour have become if only he had not been colorblind? – Answer: a New York State trooper. An honourable calling, to be sure, but not ultimately his vocation.

Part of his vocation turned out to be more like this: A 13-part series at YouTube on the origin of life:

A common misconception is that researchers need only discover the “secret ingredient” or “key process” and we will know how life originated. But life is very much more complicated, even in its simplest forms, than we often realize.

Second, the origin of life is a historical event from a very long time ago, not an often-repeated phenomenon that science can simply replicate in great numbers, like pregnancy in mice. Those facts, in themselves, limit how much we can discover, how easily. Tour has sometimes become impatient with colleagues who fail to grasp the distinctions — and is suitably penitent. A devoutly religious man, he says of his craft,

I build molecules for a living. I can’t begin to tell you how difficult that job is. I stand in awe of God because of what he has done through his creation. My faith has been increased through my research. Only a rookie who knows nothing about science would say science takes away from faith. If you really study science, it will bring you closer to God. ~ James Tour

That would be his response to the facile question, often put to researchers who believe in God, “How do you reconcile your faith with science?” His faith is his inspiration.

Here are some other COSM 2021 speakers you will want to pencil in. Book now for the best available rate:

Peter Thiel speaking in person at COSM, Seattle, November 10. As a world class venture capitalist, he is known for bluntness about what works and what doesn’t. COSM 2021 focuses on the converging technologies, remaking our world. Thiel asks, is new tech soaring or slumping?

Jules Urbach, founder of OTOY, to speak at COSM 2021. Tech philosopher George Gilder has called him “ingenious” and ”the most inventive software engineer” he has ever met. “Every single person should have agency to create,” says Urbach, “and…if we do our jobs right, everyone with an idea is going to be able to render things.”

“Listen to the technology; find out what it’s telling you…” That’s the motto of CalTech’s Carver Mead, who will speak at COSM 2021. Integrated circuit design pioneer Carver Mead is also deeply interested in physics problems, in seeing “quite visibly what matter is down at its heart.”

and

Babak Parviz, inventor of Google Glass, returns to COSM 2021. Parviz will be addressing the question, “Is It the End for Silicon Valley?” Parviz has an impressive history that spans engineering and health care issues, but he is perhaps most famous for his leadership in developing Google Glass.

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Eric Holloway: Move Over Turing and Lovelace – We Need a Terminator Test

The Turing test, and the Lovelace test, are attempts to determine if computers can show human-like intelligence. Holloway asks, what happens if researchers succeed in creating lifelike machines? in the sense of “wanting” things?

More research should be spent on a Terminator test to mitigate the threat of an unfriendly, all-powerful artificial intelligence…

In the movie Terminator, the humans use dogs to detect the terminators, but eventually the robots figure out how to use organic skin to fool the dogs. We can imagine this occurring with any sort of external test of the terminator’s appearance. So, to make a test that does not give us false positives, we need to look internally to the fundamental limits of computers, and there are a lot of them.

An idealized computer is a Turing machine. Turing machines have logical limits and performance limits. The most well-known limits are the halting problem and NP completeness. The halting problem is completely unsolvable by computers, and NP completeness means many important problems become unsolvable way before they become useful. Furthermore, there are many different problems that humans solve routinely that fall into these categories. So, if we want a good place to look for Terminator tests, this is where we should look.

Yet, despite the threat of AI wiping out humanity, and the fecundity of possible applications, there is zero research into Terminator tests. So, move over Turing and Lovelace tests. These will do nothing to save us. I challenge you, technically astute reader, to prevent the extinction of the human race and develop a Terminator test.

Eric Holloway, “Move Over Turing and Lovelace – We Need a Terminator Test” at Mind Matters News

Takehome: Holloway: If we create an all-powerful artificial intelligence, we cannot assume it will be friendly. Thus, we need a Terminator test.

You may also like to read:

We Need a Better Test for True AI Intelligence. The difficulty is that intelligence, like randomness, is mathematically undefinable. The operation of human intelligence must be non-physical because it transcends Turing machines, which in turn transcend every physical mechanism. (Eric Holloway)

“Friendly” Artificial Intelligence Would Kill Us. Is that a shocking idea? Let’s follow the logic. We don’t want to invent a stupid god who accidentally turns the universe into grey glue or paperclips, but any god we create in our image will be just as incompetent and evil as we are. (Eric Holloway)

AI Is Not Nearly Smart Enough to Morph Into the Terminator. Computer engineering prof Robert J. Marks offers some illustrations in an ITIF think tank interview. AI cannot, for example, handle ambiguities like flubbed headlines that can be read two different ways, Dr. Marks said.

A Scientific Test for True Intelligence. A scientific test should identify precisely what humans can do that computers cannot, avoiding subjective opinion. The “broken checkerboard” is not the ultimate scientific test for intelligence that we need, but it is a truly scientific test. (Eric Holloway)

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William Lane Craig vs. Lewis Wolpert: Is God a delusion?

Professor Craig debated Professor Wolpert at Central Hall, Westminster, Feb. 28, 2007, with John Humphrys in the chair. Professor Wolpert is Professor of Biology as Applied to Medicine at University College, London and is well known for his atheistic beliefs.

Craig is the author of many books, most recently In Quest of the Historical Adam.

Lewis Wolpert (1929–2021) was “one of the giants of twentieth-century developmental biology. His name is most often associated with the “French flag model” and with his pronouncement that “It is not birth, marriage, or death but gastrulation which is truly the most important time in your life,” but he has made contributions to solving many key problems.”

Here are Wolpert’s views on religion, which he offered in greater depth in Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast (1977).

Hat tip: Ken Francis, co-author with Theodore Dalrymple of The Terror of Existence: From Ecclesiastes to Theatre of the Absurd

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At Mind Matters News: Was the universe created for life forms to live in? How would we know?

We can begin by looking at the fundamental constants that underlie the universe:

Daniel Díaz: The gravitational constant is just a number that is attached to Newton’s gravitational law, more formally developed after Einstein’s general theory of relativity. There is a constant attached to the gravitational law. And in that gravitational law, that constant is producing some effect. Were the constant too small, then stars could not be formed.

News, “Was the universe created for life forms to live in? How would we know?” at Mind Matters News

Note: The gravitational constant: “the proportionality constant used in Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, and is commonly denoted by G” – Universe Today

This constant of the attraction between any two objects is expressed as an equation:

G = 6.673×10-11Nm2kg-2

Proposed by Isaac Newton in 1687, it was first measured by Henry Cavendish in 1798.

“Assuming you know both your mass and your weight, and you know the radius of the earth. Plug those into the equation above and solve for the other mass. Voila! Wonder of wonders, you’ve just obtained the mass of the Earth.” – John Carl Villanueva, Universe Today

Daniel Díaz: And as it happens, it is in the stars that carbon is also formed. So if stars are not formed, carbon does not come into existence. And if carbon does not come into existence, we living beings, based on carbon in order to exist, could have not existed.

Takehome: The constants of the universe — gravitational constant, entropy, and cosmological constant — must be finely tuned for life to exist.

Here are the previous instalments:

The first episode:

Ours is a finely tuned — and No Free Lunch — universe. Mathematician Ola Hössjer and biostatistician Daniel Andrés Díaz-Pachón explain to Walter Bradley Center director Robert J. Marks why nature works so seamlessly. A “life-permitting interval” makes it all possible — but is that really an accident?

and

Fine-tuning? How Bayesian statistics could help break a deadlock Bayesian statistics are used, for example, in spam filter technology, identifying probable spam by examining vast masses of previous messages. The frequentist approach assesses the probability of future events but the Bayesian approach assesses the probability of events that have already occurred.

The second episode:

Life is so wonderfully finely tuned that it’s frighteningA mathematician who uses statistical methods to model the fine tuning of molecular machines and systems in cells reflects…
Every single cell is like a city that cannot function without a complex network of services that must all work together to maintain life.

Can there be a general theory for fine-tuning? If you make a bowl of alphabet soup and the letters arrange themselves and say, good morning, that is specified. What are the probabilities? Ola Hössjer sees the beauty of mathematics in the fact that seemingly unrelated features in cosmology and biology can be modeled using similar concepts.

You may also wish to read: No Free Lunches: Robert J. Marks: What the Big Bang teaches us about nothing. Bernoulli is right and Keynes is Wrong. Critics of Bernoulli don’t appreciate the definition of “knowing nothing.” The concept of “knowing nothing” can be tricky.

Copyright © 2021 Uncommon Descent . This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement UNLESS EXPLICIT PERMISSION OTHERWISE HAS BEEN GIVEN. Please contact legal@uncommondescent.com so we can take legal action immediately.
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Sean McDowell interviews William Lane Craig: Is Adam historical?

Were Adam and Eve historical? Is belief in an original couple compatible with science? In this interview, I talk with philosopher William Lane Craig about his latest book, “In Quest of the Historical Adam.” 59:38 min

Sean McDowell’s interview with William Lane Craig is in connection with Craig’s new book, In Quest of the Historical Adam.

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At Mind Matters News: Atheist spokesman Matt Dillahunty refuses to debate Michael Egnor again

From neurosurgeon Michael Egnor: Although Dillahunty has said that he finds debates “incredibly valuable,” he is — despite much urging — making an exception in this case. Why?:

In my presentation of the classical arguments for God’s existence, I presented about a paragraph on each argument but didn’t go into meticulous detail with any of them.

I did this deliberately. I had watched Dillahunty debate this question previously. I’ve had plenty of experience with New Atheists and it was clear to me that Dillahunty, like every New Atheist I’ve encountered, had no genuine understanding of the arguments for God’s existence. Of course, for meaningful debate, both debaters must understand the arguments and I thought a good place to start would be to see if Dillahunty did indeed understand any of the arguments that he claimed to reject. He admitted that he didn’t. His ignorance of the arguments for God’s existence became even more clear as the debate went on.

I was amazed (but not really surprised) that Dillahunty would devote his life and his career to debunk arguments that he didn’t understand, and that he knew he didn’t understand.

Dillahunty has summed up his debating philosophy elsewhere as “Take the opponent seriously: The audience has to sense that I can perfectly understand their views, and have rejected them.”

The irony is remarkable.

Michael Egnor, “Atheist spokesman Matt Dillahunty refuses to debate me again” at Mind Matters News

Takehome, from Egnor: For millennia, theists have thought meticulously about God’s existence. New Atheists merely deny any need to make a case. That’s partly why I dumped atheism.

You may also wish to read:

Editor’s note: In the current debate which is already taped, it’s Mike Egnor’s turn to rebut Dillahunty… so stay tuned for Egnor’s rebuttal: No, the burden of proof is on all of us…

The debate to date:

Debate: Former atheist neurosurgeon vs. former Christian activist. At Theology Unleashed, each gets a chance to state his case and interrogate the other. In a lively debate at Theology Unleashed, neurosurgeon Michael Egnor and broadcaster Matt Dillahunty clash over the existence of God.A neurosurgeon’s ten proofs for the existence of God. First, how did a medic, formerly an atheist, who cuts open people’s brains for a living, come to be sure there is irrefutable proof for God? In a lively debate at Theology Unleashed, Michael Egnor and Matt Dillahunty clash over “Does God exist?” Egnor starts off.Atheist Dillahunty spots fallacies in Christian Egnor’s views. “My position is that it’s unacceptable to believe something if the available evidence does not support it.” Dillahunty: We can’t conclusively disprove an unfalsifiable proposition. And that is what most “God” definitions, at least as far as I can tell, are.

You may also wish to read: COVID-19: Atheism went viral as well. Atheists are uniquely unsuited to accuse others of devaluing human life. Professor Steven Pinker’s quickly deleted tweet provides a window into anti-religious hate. In health and medicine, he is entirely mistaken. (Michael Egnor)

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Cosmologist George Ellis on the philosophical problems of cosmology — and a note from Rob Sheldon

Ellis is co-author of ‘The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time’ with Stephen Hawking. In this long-form essay, he concludes with four possibilities concerning the nature of reality, including

4. Things are meant to be that way. In some sense, meaning and purposes underlie the universe.

This can neither be proved nor disproved, as pointed out long ago by David Hume. But this is as coherent a possibility as any other, particularly if one takes into account the mental possibility spaces that relate to purpose and meaning. Humans have demonstrably contemplated purpose and meaning and ethics for millennia and their existence is data on how things are. The existence of these possibility spaces is part of the deep structure of the cosmos, in the way that I have proposed above. In that sense, meaning is built into the foundations of existence.

George Ellis, “The philosophical problems of cosmology” at IAI News (September 22, 2021)

Theoretical physicist Rob Sheldon comments,

George Ellis, a grandfather in cosmology and one of the few that thinks about cosmology philosophically, has a very nice review. Here’s a quote that makes him nearly a compatriot:

“It is a simple observational fact that the world is teeming with purpose: biological [8], economic, political, social [9], scientific. You can, if you wish, not take this into account in formulating your worldview. But if you do take it into account, it raises key issues: why and how does all this purpose exist? At a deep level, it exists because physical, biological, and mental possibility spaces allow it to exist. “

Rob Sheldon is also the author of Genesis: The Long Ascent and The Long Ascent, Volume II .

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