William Dembski spoke at the University of Chicago in August, and a video of the talk is available. I tried to watch it, I really did, but I ended up skipping through most of it (one of the advantages of seeing it on youtube!). Here’s my rather stream-of-consciousness monolog as I was flicking like a damselfly over the stagnant pond of his words:
“Get to the point, Bill. Skip. No biology. Skip. No biology yet. Skip. Wait, that model is anti-biology…evolution doesn’t work like that. Watches a short segment. Nope, nonsense. Skip. No biology, skip. Oh, “specified complexity”…does he define it? Listens intently for a bit. Nope. Skip. Dawkins’ weasel program? He still doesn’t understand it! No biology, no biology, no biology, I’m done.”
I know, that wasn’t very informative, but then, neither was the talk. There were a few shots of the audience, and they didn’t seem particularly enthralled, either.
Joe Felsenstein watched the whoooole thing, though, and has some very sharp observations on Dembski’s model.
The most damning thing about the Dembski model, other than the fact that the authors seem to know absolutely nothing about biology, is that they build their argument on a bizarre foundation in which nothing in the genome is interconnected, where changes in a sequence lack any possibility of generating a graded response, and in which every point mutation has as much likelihood of generating a phenotypic variant as a complete scrambling of the genome. That’s the tellingly abiological part of the story — as Felsenstein notes, fitness is a random function of the whole genome:
What if, instead of changing one base, we took the drastic step of mutating all of the bases in the genotype at the same time? If the Bernoulli Principle applied, we would get to a genotype whose fitness was also chosen at random. So in that case, on average, that would be no better and no worse than changing just one base. In other words, when fitnesses are randomly assigned to genotypes making a single typographical error is exactly as bad as changing every letter in the text .
Real biology doesn’t work anything like that. Making one mutation in one of my genes will on average make it worse, though sometimes not. If it produces a protein, a single amino acid change often leaves the protein still functioning. But making changes in every site of its DNA is the same as replacing every protein by a random string of amino acids. Which will be a complete disaster.
Similarly, in statements in English, one typographical error might change “to be or not to be that is the question” into “to be or not to de that is the question”. Changing all letters would give something like “bdglvwujzib lxmoxg rjdg a ohlowugrbl owj”. It should be obvious that the latter is far less functional. The comprehensibility of English sentences is more like the actual fitness of organisms, and not like the fitness of the organisms Dembski and Marks imagine.
So, basically, by building a model in which the accumulation of mutations to improve fitness is impossible, they proved that the accumulation of mutations to improve fitness is impossible. What a stunning accomplishment!
Before creationists leap in an argue that he’s not a biologist, he’s a mathematician, and he’s carrying out an analysis of the underlying mathematics of evolution, he’s not even competent at that. One point mentioned in the talk is Dawkins’ “Weasel” model of how selection can lead to refinement of a sequence. It’s a very simple, fundamentally inarguable demonstration of how selection can work, and yet, for years Dembski & Co. have gotten it completely wrong, been unable to puzzle out exactly how it works, and have distorted both its purpose and its algorithm. He’s still getting it wrong.
One should note in passing Dembski’s use of Richard Dawkins’s “Methinks It Is a Weasel” model. In his Chicago talk, Dembski portrays Dawkins as arguing that the Weasel model shows that natural selection can originate information, and portrays Dawkins as claiming that it is a realistic model of evolution. Dawkins was not arguing that it was a realistic model of evolution, or that this evolution originated new information. Dawkins’s model was a teaching example to show why creationist debaters who argue that natural selection is doing a “random” search are disingenuous. The Weasel search succeeds in about 1000 steps, while a truly random search would take astronomical numbers of steps. Dawkins’s model is an effective teaching device. It is routinely misrepresented in the creationist and ID literature as intended to be a realistic model of evolution, and intended to prove assertions about where the information in life originates. Unfortunately Dembski has followed this sad tradition.
You know, when you can’t puzzle out a simple BASIC program written by a biologist, I don’t think you have any credibility in your assertion that your vast logic and math skills have sussed out all of biology and evolution.
I´ve taught Python programming to Biology undergrads for the last four years. Writing an implementation of Dawkins´ Weasel program is one of the exercises I give to them and every single student I had so far managed to finish this exercise. Note that those are Biology students not computer scientists, yet they still all manage to do that and no one so far considered that to be a particularly hard exercise. But Dembski has professional computer scientists failing at such an utterly trivial exercise for years.
As usual, Demski claims that evolution cannot produce new “information” without defining what “information” is. Replace “information” with “corn chowder” and Demski’s claim is equally valid, except that many of us have a good idea of what corn chowder is.
More that Dumbasaski claims some unnamed(?) “computer scientists”…
That is, I suspect the above quote may be an example of believing a known liar. I am not aware of any actual, you know, evidence, Dumbasaski / Dumb shItes have a team(?) of competent experts. Whilst I concur there are some probably some “competent” experts who might misinterpret or otherwise misunderstand Dawkin’s demonstration, the unfortunately probable existence of such people does not mean they have any connection to Dumbasaski or the Dumb shItes, or agree with either.
In short: People at the Dumb shItes, and Dumbasaski, are known auto-liars. Treat everything they say with considerable suspicion. Demand evidence.
Oh he does have some actual computer scientists:
http://www.evoinfo.org/people/ – every single one of which should be able to write an implementation of the Weasel program in an hour at most (I could do it in roughly seven minutes). I don´t believe for a second that they are telling the truth (as in, are genuinely trying to understand the Weasel program and what it was intended to show), but I would actually prefer the alternative – because that would make Dembski´s crew the most hilariously incompetent computer scientists this world has ever seen.
Yeah. I never trust anyone who claims to have logic-ed up something out of the sheer brainpowers of their intellect unless it’s incredibly basic. The world is difficult to understand at the best of times, and you need A: Training and B: Lots of good information from people who did hard work.
@4 – Whoa, went to that site and started clicking around on the bios. Methinks some of those guys haven’t written anything since the punchcard days. Though, to be fair, my mother started programming on punchcards and is still on top of the latest tech.
I have no idea what the list at http://www.evoinfo.org/people/ is of. Well, people, obviously, including Dumbasaski, all(?) of whom are claimed on that mysterious list to be involved with computers (presumably in the area of programming). But the range of claimed programming expertise — web design, music, and so on… — whilst good, mostly lacks the sort of analytical skills I, at least, would expect in someone trying to understand an algorithm.
Of course, some of the claimed credentials of the listed individuals can be verified. Verifying the claimed expertise is harder, albeit not-impossible. What could be exceptionally difficult is determining what, if anything, they have done with, to, or about Dawkin’s “Weasel” demonstration. Or maybe, for that matter, what relationship they have to the Dumb shItes or Dumbasaski (other than being on the same mysterious list as the latter).
My point basically stands: People seem to be believing a known auto-liar’s claims.
Dembski is lying. I can’t believe that a guy so fractally wrong about statistics could possibly complete a PhD in mathematics with a thesis in probability at the University of Chicago. He must know that he’s full of shit.
To be fair, Dembski and Marks aren’t saying that fitnesses really are associated randomly with genotypes. Dembski did, in effect, say that in his 2001 No Free Lunch argument. But this time they are saying that if you have a smoother fitness surface, so that evolution is able to go uphill on it and the species becomes more adapted, then some Designer must have chosen that fitness surface out of all possible fitness surfaces, as it’s so nonrandom.
As I explain in the Panda’s Thumb post linked to above by PZ, ordinary physics rules out the random fitness surfaces, so that smoothness may not reflect Design but just be “because physics”.
If Dembski and Marks wanted to argue that a Designer is needed to choose the laws of physics, they have then backed away from Intelligent Design arguments, which typically involve Design Interventions well after the origin of the universe.
The Weasel program has a solution built-in because it’s quicker (from a simulation standpoint) to say “this is the optimal way to survive in our hypothetical environment” than it is to simulate the entire environment.
Someone in the comments on Panda’s Thumb wrote a slightly more complex version of Weasel with poker hands. It’s interesting because the solution is not built-in – while a royal flush is the optimal result, it’s not necessarily the final one. Indeed, the tendency is for four-of-a-kinds to dominate because they evolve more easily in steps, while flushes and straights have little in the way of competitive ancestors. They must appear early, before the three-of-a-kinds start spreading, or they will be choked out.
William Dembski spoke at the University of Chicago in August…
U Chi’s standards for speakers have gone way downhill.
John D. Rockefeller wept!
Funny thing. University Of Chicago was a major power in the early days of collage football. (The Chicago Bears took the “C” and the moniker “Monsters Of The Midway” {Midway being a place on the campus, not the airport that was renamed for the Battle Of Midway.} from the Maroons.) Football was dropped after the 1939 season because of the fear that the program would take away from the academics.
Decades later, one department within U Of C decides it is a good idea to show it’s contempt for academics by bringing Dembski. There is a reason why he teaches at a religious school.
I’m sure he has some Disco ‘Tute staff green-screened in front of a chalkboard with serious-looking mathematical diagrams that reference nothing.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2012/12/21/she-must-be-a-scientist-she-works-in-front-of-a-green-screen/
@truthhurts
You want a match to burn all that straw you’re drowning in?
How many times do we see a similar pattern in nature? The less-than-perfect but workable solution (ie the 4-of-a-kind) is what predominates. The optimized but harder to evolve solution (ie the Royal and straight flushes) are far less common.
Intelligent design would give us more royal flushes.
PZ, I am saving this post after reading comment no.14…I want to know how you respond to that, if at all…
Janine @ 12,
They’ve still never lost to Notre Dame.
Dropping football (and, not coincidentally, most of the frats) was definitely a good thing. But also around the same time the University managed to close all but one of the bars/clubs on 55th St. and effectively isolate Hyde Park from the surrounding (mostly black working class) neighborhoods.
(The Midway was the center of the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1892, though it was built before then. As for Maroon football, the most lasting legacies are the Heisman Trophy, modeled after the first winner Jay Berwanger, and a classic sketch by The Second City.)
Yawn, standard MRA script # 10, with absolutely no originality. Nothing to see here. Drive by scripted idiocy.
Most refutations of ID take ID far to seriously, since ID just says “This looks designed to me” the proper refutation is “Nah, it doesn’t.”
Re Truthhurts @ #14
You are a second tier professor at a glorified community college ranked #396 in the nation.
Gee, what’s the ranking of the “university” at which Dumbski teaches?
Poor widdle MRA must have lost his way, and stumbled onto a creationism post….
At this point I think calling him DUMBSKI is no longer an ad hominem, right? Considering all the evidence…
tierra @ 23
I don’t think calling him that was ever ad hominem since that fallacy describes using the attack to attempt to discredit what the person is saying, right?
It seems around here you just discredit what he is saying properly, then call him dumb also.
Or maybe I’m mistaken…
It’s not even an insult anymore, really.
Well, except maybe it’s insulting to people who are merely dumb, but not also encumbered with theology and delusion of religion.
While on the theme of random insult I must get round to measuring Dembski’s head to neck to torso size ratios sometime. He really does look like the archetypal pinhead.