Michael J. Behe's Blog, page 212

Bill Dembski on how a new book expertly dissects doomsday scenarios

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The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do (Harvard University Press, 2021) is by AI researcher and tech entrepreneur Eric J. Larson. Dembski recalls earlier attempts to stem the tide of nonsense:

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Back in 1998, I moderated a discussion at which Ray Kurzweil gave listeners a preview of his then forthcoming book The Age of Spiritual Machines, (1999) in which he described how machines were poised to match and then exceed human cognition, a theme he doubled down on in subsequent books (such as The Singularity Is Near (2005) and How To Create a Mind (2012) How to Create A Mind). For Kurzweil, it is inevitable that machines will match and then exceed us: Moore’s Law, guarantees that machines will attain the needed computational power to simulate our brains, after which the challenge will be for us to keep pace with machines. Kurzweil’s respondents at the discussion were John Searle, Thomas Ray, and Michael Denton, and they were all to varying degrees critical of his strong AI view. Searle recycled his Chinese Room thought experiment to argue that computers don’t/can’t actually understand anything. Denton made an interesting argument about the complexity and richness of individual neurons and how inadequate is our understanding of them and how even more inadequate our ability is to realistically model them computationally. At the end of the discussion, however, Kurzweil’s overweening confidence in the glowing prospects for strong AI’s future were undiminished. And indeed, they remain undiminished to this day (I last saw Kurzweil at a Seattle tech conference in 2019 — age seemed to have mellowed his person but not his views).

William A. Dembski, “Unseating the Inevitability Narrative” at Amazon Customer Reviews

Were they too polite? Not thorough enough? Dembski sees Larson’s book as “far and away the best refutation” of the AI overlords stuff we hear. And he has followed the field for four decades:

In fact, I received an NSF graduate fellowship in the early 1980s to make a start at constructing an expert system for doing statistics… I witnessed in real time the shift from rule-based AI (common with expert systems) to the computational intelligence approach to AI (evolutionary computing, fuzzy sets, and neural nets) to what has now become big data and deep/machine learning. I saw the rule-based approach to AI peter out. I saw computational intelligence research, such as conducted by my colleague Robert J. Marks II, produce interesting solutions to well-defined problems, but without pretensions for creating artificial minds that would compete with human minds. And then I saw the machine learning approach take off, with its vast profits for big tech and the resulting hubris to think that technologies created to make money could also recreate the inventors of those technologies.

William A. Dembski, “Unseating the Inevitability Narrative” at Amazon Customer Reviews

More at Mind Matters News

You may also wish to read: Why Richard Dawkins thinks AI may replace us. He likes the idea because it is consistent with his naturalist philosophy. Dawkins does not advance an argument for why “anything that a human brain can do can be replicated in silicon,” apart from the fact that he is “committed to the view that there’s nothing in our brains that violates the laws of physics.”

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Measuring the Directedness of Mutations

So, we’ve been talking about directed mutations a bit the last few days, whether reactivating pseudogenes, or recognizing that cells can direct mutations to genes that need mutating. The point that I made to Bob was that there is a middle ground between “general mutation rate” and “mutations going to a specific base pair that needs changing”. There’s a HUGE middle ground that is decidedly non-Darwinian.

As far as I’m aware, I’m the only one who has attempted to come up with a measurement for this phenomena.

The paper, published a year and a half ago, is titled Measuring Active Information in Biological Systems. Essentially, this shows how we can use the Dembski/Marks “Active Information” metric, which Dembski/Marks/Ewert use to show (and measure) that someone has pre-encoded information in computer evolution simulations, to show (and measure) that there is pre-encoded information in *actual* evolution that directs mutations.

The nice thing about this is that it actually has a potential use in labs – if a mutation has significant active information, it means that there is probably a mechanism worth looking for. Finding mutational mechanisms is an expensive chore, so knowing *that* a mutational mechanism exists helps isolate cases where they are worth looking for.

If someone knows of another measurement of this phenomena in the literature, let me know! It’s possible mine is not the best measurement, but I wanted to at least get the conversation started on how to measure this effect, and thus the paper. Also, I think there is also design in non-selection-driven-mutations, but that is an entirely different topic for another time.

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Larry Moran to write new book: Claims genome is 90% junk

Readers will remember biochemist Larry Moran, now emeritus at the University of Toronto. He used to comment here a fair bit.

He is now publishing a book (probably 2022), called What’s in Your Genome: 90% of Your Genome Is Junk Some chapters include “The ENCODE Publicity Campaign” and “Zen and the Art of Coping with a Poorly-Designed Genome.”

In the comments, he tells us, “ I have a section in the last chapter titled “No comfort for intelligent design creationists” where I explain why they are wrong about junk DNA. I’m pretty sure that will silence any criticism. :-)”

Well, it’s sure not us here at UD he has to argue with really. We have 214 stories in the “junk DNA” category and most of them are about the uses found for DNA that was formerly thought to be junk.

If he wants to pick a fight with ENCODE, grab a seat.

Note: Today, he offered an explanation of his overall intentions.

See also: We are encouraged to celebrate ENCODE III and the demise of junk DNA.

and

Did beliefs about junk DNA hinder the Human Genome Project?

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“Follow the science” is becoming a jibe in the age of COVID panic

We’d feared this and warned about it. Telling people to “follow the science” when it isn’t making any sense is just asking for pushback:

Mainstream news outlets have gone after COVID-19 conspiracy theorists with a passion. But when it comes to equally important science topics, they have no problem ignoring evidence and promoting conspiratorial nonsense. This blatant hypocrisy causes confusion and fuels the public’s skepticism of science more broadly…

It’s not surprising that journalists make mistakes when covering complex science topics. Given the many pressures they face, simple oversights were forgivable. But the media regularly complain about the so-called “infodemic” plaguing the internet in our post-COVID era. They criticize social media companies for promoting anti-vaccine content and psychoanalyze people prone to accepting coronavirus conspiracies. Rather shamelessly, the Washington Post has also offered tips to stop yourself from spreading “misinformation.” And the Guardian has even recommended “10 ideas to rebuild our broken internet.” Let’s add an eleventh: take your own advice and stop running sloppy stories because they attract eyeballs.

Cameron English, “Cameron English” at American Council on Science and Health

Great links there, illustrating English’s points.

Consider the science in yer trusty news hack’s environment:

In Ontario, the schools were shut but in BC they were open. In Ontario the churches were open but the schools were shut. In both provinces, the bars were open. In Quebec, there was a curfew, seriously enforced with many arrests.

From all this, the trusty Follower of Science can glean: All variants of coronavirus are teetotallers so they never go to bars. The Ontario version is Woke so it has joined the war on literacy and numeracy. The BC virus is cool with literacy and numeracy but hates religion. The Quebec virus has tiny viral wristwatches that tell it the time so it can attack people at night.

Pretty dense information packing for a virus featuring 900 bytes.

But Following the Science gives us the Strength we need to Go On Believing and stifle doubt. Doubt is the Enemy of Science. Right?

Eventually, science becomes indistinguishable from elite-approved superstition.

See also: What your news feed will look like if Big Tech runs it. Reading Elkus’s essay, one wants to ask, “Who is the collective ‘we’ who are supposed to be out of control?” The pundits demanding crackdowns on social media seldom accuse themselves of bad social behavior; those who dispute their views are always the guilty ones.

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Scott Turner, author of Purpose & Desire, has a new video series on evolution

Readers may remember J. Scott Turner, author of Purpose and Desire: What Makes Something “Alive” and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It. He was taking a risk even putting things that way (we thought he’d been Canceled a while back) but now he has a new video series out:

He has developed an evolutionary framework distinct from both neo-Darwinism and canonical intelligent design theory. It is founded on the concepts of homeostasis and “cognition.”

Brian Miller, “Scott Turner: New Video Series on His Model for Evolution” at Evolution News and Science Today

Here’s the series:

Videos 1-2: Philosophical FoundationsVideos 3-5: VitalismVideos 6-7: Classical DarwinismVideos 8-9: Crisis of Classical DarwinismVideos 10-12: Neo-Darwinism and Its FailingsVideos 13-16: Adaptation and the Extended OrganismVideos 17-19: An Expanded Understanding of HeredityVideos 20-25: A New Evolutionary Framework Based on Purpose and Desire  

Turner’s claim to fame, in a world saner than Darwinism allows, would be his seminal work on termites. But for now:

As Turner explains in his introductory video, his innovative approach to evolution was motivated by his research on the physiology of adaptation, particularly the social physiology of termite colonies. Physiology refers to how living organisms function, and adaptation refers to “how living things fit well into the environments in which they live.” He came to recognize that the study of evolution has become a subject completely separate from physiology, which has resulting in its incoherence. Turner states,

“…they cannot be separated. No credible theory of evolution can divorce how life evolves from how life works. Pursuing this question has led me into some heterodox thoughts about evolution. When I started my career, I was a pretty staunch Darwinist. Now thirty years later, I no longer am. I’ve concluded that the Darwinian idea simply doesn’t add up.”

Brian Miller, “Scott Turner: New Video Series on His Model for Evolution” at Evolution News and Science Today

Watch and like the series and send good wishes here.

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Was the pupil of the eye designed?

A friend sent this in:

Macro Pupil Constricting in Slow Motion (1,000 fps) – The Slow Mo Guys

British people are not known for great eye contact, but Gav steps up his game by looking deeply into Dan’s eyes… From about 2 millimeters away to find out how quickly a pupil constricts.

See also: Philip Cunningham: The human eye, like the human brain, is a wonder

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Is a new “muon” finding evidence for a fifth force of nature? Rob Sheldon weighs in

The conventional four forces of nature are gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. The current buzz revolves around the muon, similar to the electron but 200 times heavier:

Now, physicists say they have found possible signs of a fifth fundamental force of nature.…

The findings come from research carried out at a laboratory near Chicago…

The Muon g-2 experiment involves sending the particles around a 14-metre ring and then applying a magnetic field. Under the current laws of physics, encoded in the Standard Model, this should make the muons wobble at a certain rate.

Instead, the scientists found that muons wobbled at a faster rate than expected. This might be caused by a force of nature that’s completely new to science.

No one yet knows what this potential new force does, other than influence muon particles.

Pallab Ghosh, “Muons: ‘Strong’ evidence found for a new force of nature” at BBC News

There are people in the world who would stop short of speculating about a fifth force of nature in a situation that could easily be explained by a less spectacular facts. So, of course, we asked our obliging physics color commentator Rob Sheldon, what do you think?, and he wrote back:

I hate to disappoint you, but most of my gut reaction is negative. Full Disclosure: I am not a particle physicist. There were two tracks in graduate school, simply because there was too much material to cover. So budding particle physicists took the “relativistic QM track” and budding laser jocks took the “solid state” or “many bodied QM” track. I had spent the previous summer between college and grad school at IBM’s Thomas J Watson research center testing sub-micron linewidth bipolar transistors, and was sure that the future was in computers and lasers. As it turned out, that summer the “Standard Model” of particle physics was completed and has not been modified since, whereas Moore’s law has progressed for 40 years and transistor line widths are now down to 0.005 micron and getting close to the fundamental limit. So I don’t think I was wrong in choosing a career in solid state physics.

In fact, this 40-year stasis in particle physics has meant that two generations of graduate students have never had a successful breakthrough experiment, or confirmed a new theory. The field, as Sabine Hossenfelder reminds everyone, is littered with wrong papers. For example, the theory of “supersymmetry” known as SUSY which was taught as fact to two generations of students has now been abandoned by experimentalists. Combined with the cancellation of the Texas supercollider, the end-of-life of the Tevatron, the last upgrade of LHC, and the fact there haven’t been any new hires in a decade or so, and the future of a particle physicist’s career is grim indeed.

With that as a background, every experiment that deviates from the Standard Model is seized upon like a lifesaver beside the Titanic. The amount of expectation concentrated in a 4-sigma deviation of the muon magnetic moment is breath-taking. Even the detail of the sealed envelope reveals the level of deferred hope within the community. Every ounce of my scientific empathy is drawn to their difficult plight.

But still there are grounds for skepticism. Again, Sabine points out that 40 years of success of the Standard Model makes it unlikely to be overturned easily. Further, the 4-sigma result is not really 1:40,000 (which it would be if it were gaussian distributed), but more like a 1:10 once “fat tails” of non-gaussian distributions are taken into account. That was last week’s blog from an astronomer explaining the 5-sigma rule. But the deviation is not between two experiments, but between experiment and theory. And calculating the muon magnetic moment in the theory is not trivial, but an exercise in super-computer bragging rights because it involves “lattice-QCD” calculations, and in fact, this experimental result has spurred one of the theory groups to publish:

“The new calculations required hundreds of millions of CPU hours at multiple supercomputer centers in Europe and bring theory back in line with measurement. However, the story is not over yet. New, more precise experimental measurements of the muon’s magnetic moment are expected soon.
`If our calculations are correct and the new measurements do not change the story, it appears that we don’t need any new physics to explain the muon’s magnetic moment—it follows the rules of the standard model,’ said Fodor.”

So there you have it, the US experimentalists claim to overturn the Standard Model, the European theorists say it is all under control.

But as I pointed out yesterday, this Standard Model thing is like bioethics, only important when we need to justify some action on our part. For example, the lifetime of the neutron is uncertain in the 3rd decimal place, an error far larger than the muon magnetic moment problem. Not only are the Standard Model theories not agreeing with experiment, but the two sets of neutron lifetime experiments don’t agree with each other. Neutrons are a part of every piece of matter in your body, room and world, whereas muons only flicker into existence in the upper atmosphere as cosmic rays collide with the atmosphere, and then vanish by the time they reach the ground. The discrepancy with neutrons is far more materially significant than muons, yet the Standard Model stands like a granite promontory in the raging sea of neutron data. What made anyone think that the splash of a muon magnetic moment was going to topple it?

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

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Darwinism as useless padding for news media prose

Our favorite photographer and philosopher Laszlo Bencze points to a (paywalled) review at Wall Street Journalby Emily Bobrow of the book, Mom’s Genes by Abigail Tucker, from which he picks out many phrases which are the classic Darwinian contribution to information on many topics — ballast, basically. For example:

Mammals, however, evolved to gestate embryos internally, which nicely shields youngsters from predators but also has “left females holding the diaper bag.”

…humans, unlike most other mammals, have evolved to be alloparental

Human fathers, who are among the 5% of mammal species in which dads chip in some care, are hardly immune to this evolutionary hack.

Bencze points out:

In the first quote “evolved to” can be excised with no change in meaning.

In the second quote “have evolved to be” can be replaced with “are”.

In the third quote, the “evolutionary hack” is this phrase from the previous paragraph: “the task of safely raising the next generation.” That is certainly an odd way of referring to parenting but, by alluding to evolution, the tone of the review rises to a more exalted scientific level thus confirming that reviewer Emily is no mere mommy but sort of a scientist herself.

And of course it’s getting the tone right that matters most and there’s no better way to achieve that than by sprinkling evolution words liberally in the mix like raisins in a cookie.

From a language perspective, those are not raisins in a cookie though. They are sand in the gears.

Only ridicule will drive that sort of thing from public life. We need to write a sitcom in 13 episodes…

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Has New Scientist returned abjectly to Darwin’s fold?

Seems they’ve put out a new book in the “Essential Guide” series, the Essential Guide to Evolution:

How do species arise and change? What part do genes and DNA play? Where is evolution heading?

Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection is arguably the most important scientific idea ever – radical in its simplicity, yet infinitely complex in its implications for life and its workings. Understand its full richness in this sixth New Scientist Essential Guide, with themes including …

The thing is, last year (was it only last year?), New Scientist published a thirteen-part serious that would make you think they’d sworn off all that Darwin stuff. Maybe readers missed it too much. Or they need to reassure readers that nothing has changed… Or they just couldn’t live without the old Brit toff? Huh? You tell us …

Anyway, here are some links to our notes on last year’s series:

(Reformed) New Scientist 13: We can stop evolution New Scientist: “Today, evolution remains one of the most powerful ideas in science but, as with all good ideas, it is evolving ” Sure, but if evolution is evolving, Darwinism is dead. Which is fine with us. It’s a big world out there. Making everything sound like Darwin said it is not the way to explore that world.

(Reformed) New Scientist 12: Evolution favors some outcomes, not others. So “Each lake contains many different species that show striking similarities in the variety of body shapes to species in the other lake, despite being more closely related to those living in their own lake” but “These body shapes adapt species to particular niches or diets, so must have evolved by natural selection.” But wait! The traditional argument for natural selection acting on random mutations (Darwinism) was that the species WOULD BE similar to more closely related species. If they’re not, …

(Reformed) New Scientist 11: On life forms evolving without changing genes. This just in: The Selfish Gene has left the building in tears. They shouldn’t even have been discussing this.

(Reformed) New Scientist 10: They take horizontal gene transfer seriously now. At New Scientist: “‘Yeast and bacteria have fundamentally different ways of turning DNA into protein, and this seemed like a really, really strange phenomenon,’ he says.” They ain’t seen nothing yet. If you subtract the “random mutation” from “natural selection,” what’s left of Darwinism? By the time the Raging Woke hammer down Darwin’s statue, chances are the New Scientist crowd will have forgotten who the old Brit toff even was. Shrug.

(Reformed) New Scientist 9: Survival of the Luckiest At New Scientist: “But evolution can also occur through a non-adaptive process called genetic drift, whereby a gene may become dominant in a population purely by chance… ‘Genetic drift can definitely be a significant driver of evolution,’ says Miles.”

(Reformed) New Scientist 8: Evolution can happen very quickly. Does anyone remember Darwin’s claim: “It may be said that natural selection is daily and hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, every variation, even the slightest; rejecting that which is bad, preserving and adding up all that is good; silently and insensibly working, wherever and whenever opportunity offers, at the improvement of each organic being in relation to its organic and inorganic conditions of life.” Yes, that “daily, hourly” thing seems quaint to us too. It probably even seems quaint over at New Scientist, given the stuff they’re saying now.

(Reformed) New Scientist 7: Niche construction can shape evolution. To say that “Traditionally, biologists thought of niche construction purely as a consequence of natural selection. However, that argument doesnʼt always work” is to say that neoDarwinism is not THE theory of evolution. Just in: Richard Dawkins has left the building. And New Scientist has become a more interesting publication.

(Reformed) New Scientist 6: Lamarck is out of the doghouse! At New Scientist: “Today, there is evidence of Lamarckian evolution – of a sort… ‘It reorients how we think about the adaptive process,’ he says.”

(Reformed) New Scientist 5: Species don’t really EXIST? Then what was On the Origin of Species about? Never mind.

(Reformed) New Scientist 4: There is more to inheritance than just genes. At New Scientist: “Subsequent studies in plants and animals suggest that epigenetic inheritance is more common than anyone had expected. Whatʼs more, compared with genetic inheritance, it has some big advantages. Environments can change rapidly and dramatically, but genetic mutations are random, so often require generations to take hold.” Just think, within a few years, genetics might start to make some sense. You’ve got to hand it to the New Scientist gang; when they rethink, they really do.

(Reformed) New Scientist 3: The selfish gene is no longer cool. At New Scientist: “Some researchers think the solution lies in an idea called cultural group selection. Forget shared genes, they argue: selection can favour cooperative groups if the people within them share enough culture. ” Darwin has left the building and returned to his estate.

(Reformed) New Scientist 2: Evolution shows intelligence. At New Scientist: “‘Maybe, evolution is less about out competing others and more to do with co-creating knowledge,’ says Watson.” That really is a radical idea. Radical yes, but it really is a good idea. We find it hard to improve on. The only thing we can think of is, keep the “intelligent” part in your description of nature and add “design.”

(Reformed) New Scientist 1 on the genome: Not destiny. Sure but then what about the famous twin studies that were supposed to prove so much about human nature? No? Then it’s probably best for the New Scientists to just get out of the “gene for that” hell while they can.

and

At New Scientist: We must rethink the (Darwinian) theory of nature. If by “our greatest theory of nature,” the writers mean textbook Darwinism, well the new concepts they list are destroying it. What becomes of “natural selection acting on random mutation” if a variety of means of evolution are “natural,” mutations are not necessarily random, genes aren’t selfish and don’t come only from parents, and the fittest don’t necessarily survive? Just for a start…

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What Most People Don’t Know About Mutations

One thing that I’ve found interesting is how ignorant many people – even many biologists! – are about the mutational processes in the cell. The idea that mutations come from copying “errors” is so embedded in our collective consciousness, that it is hard to get people to even fathom alternatives.

Thinking of mutation as a biological process – one under the organization/direction of the cell – leads to a lot of interesting biology. There are indeed copying errors, but my guess is that by the end of the century we will find that the ones that are actually errors are by far the least numerous. This is like the discovery of microbes. We first found them *because* they caused disease. Therefore, our first reaction was that microbes *are* diseased. But later we find out that >99% of them are actually good for us and the environment, and there are just a handful that are problematic.

Normally, DNA is copied by DNA Polymerase III. Yes, there are more than one DNA polymerase gene! Why, you ask? That’s because DNA Polymerase III is a “high-fidelity” polymerase, basically making exact copies. But, if the cell detects that it *needs* mutations, it switches to a SEPARATE GENE, whose function is to copy DNA *while inserting* mutations!

So, in E. coli, the “SOS response” system is well-studied. In this system, when E. coli is stressed (lack of food, etc.), it tries to alter its own physiology by inducing mutations. It switches from the high-fidelity DNA Polymerase III to one of the other polymerases (II, IV, or V), which induce various mutations. It also makes lots of copies of its metabolism genes using these polymerases, since these are the genes most likely to confer benefit from mutating if the organism is starving.

Then, when a mutation is found that relieves the stress, it turns off the mutation-inducing polymerase, and goes back to DNA Polymerase III to get high-fidelity copies of the new gene.

So, as you can see, the Darwinian view of “random mutations” is simply false. The organism has SEPARATE genes for creating mutations, and invokes them when it has need of mutations, and focuses mutations on the genes that are likely to yield benefits.

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