Saturday, April 20, 2013

On complexity

From "A Different Universe" by Robert B. Laughlin.

QUOTE
… Seeing structures like these for the first time causes even a hard boiled reductionist to pause and wonder whether they might be caused by some agency other than elementary quantum mechanic It is one thing to explain ordered crystals of atoms with simple microcroscopic rules, but quite another to do so with complex lifelike structures and shapes, especially when one cannot deduce from first principles that these shapes should emerge. But this common and perfectly reasonable viewpoint is exactly backward. In a world with huge numbers of parts the unusual thing is not complexity but its absence. Simplicity in physics is an emergent phenomenon, not a mathematically self-evident state from which any deviation is a worrisome anomaly.

It is somewhat easier to explain and defend this assertion if you substitute the word random for complex. Thus you roll a die and the number three comes up at random. This statement means that YOl did not know ahead of time which face would come up, that it is something unpredictable, and that the degree of unpredictability is measured by the number of possible outcomes, in this case six. Then is nothing random about the number three itself once it has been selected. It makes no sense for any particular die face to be "random.' Similarly, it makes no sense for an isolated shape to be “complex” Only the selection of one shape out of many, a physical process, can be complex. When we say a shape is complex we really mean that the physical process by which it forrned is unstable and with a slight nudge could have generated one of many different shapes. Similarly, we say a shape is simple if it is guaranteed to be forrned by a physical process the same way every time, even when nudged fairly violently.

Once you understand that simplicity in nature is the exception. rather than the rule, it becomes easy to imagine that lifelike patterns might emerge if the microscopic circumstances were suitable. It is not possible to prove that they emerge, but it is possible to prove that their emergence is reasonable and does not violate common sense. |

One does so by means of complexity theory, a branch of mathemathics borne in the 1970s that subsumes the topics of chaos, fractals, and cellular automata. The strategy of complexity theory is to so simplify and abstract the equations of motion of matter that they can be solved reliably by computer. This abstraction, however, is a pact with devil, since the resulting equations so grotesquely distort things that you no longer have a faithful representation of nature. The value of complexity theory is thus limited to showing that emergence of complex patterns is reasonable. It cannot supply predictive models of any natural phenomenon, and it is certainly not a fundamentally new way of thinking. |

A simple example of such a model is the mountain range fractal. A computerized map grid is refined again and again, each time assigning a fictitious height to the new grid point that is the average of eights of the adjacent old ones plus a random increment that becomes smaller and smaller as the refinement proceeds. The heights generated simulate the appearance of real mountain ranges so effectively that they are often used in movies to generate backdrops, …
UNQUOTE


Thursday, April 18, 2013

Life Before The Dinosaurs

Formidable! Only nine years old? A new problem with making links in this system. I'll have to look into it later. Life before the Dinosaurs http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Sandwalk!

Have I recommended Sandwalk before? Maybe, I'm not sure. Anyway, you gotta read Sandwalk. It is an impressive site. Larry Moran is doing a great job there.



I throw in a link to Carnival of Evolution
here, even though you'll also find it at Sandwalk. 

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Dembski and his "Catalog of Fundamental Facts". Blah.

If you still think William Dembski and his religious Intelligent Design attack on science and culture has any merit, take a look at



Fundamental Facts? Facts are a threat to IDiots, they abhor facts. They don't want facts, they are not researching facts, and Dembski's tricks with math to prove that evolution is impossible have been pulled apart, he ain't no "Isaac Newton of information technology", that's for sure.

Make sure you read all the comments, there are some very capable people speaking their mind on ID.

Eight Challenges for Intelligent Design Advocates

At National Center for Science Education, we find the Eight Challenges for Intelligent Design Advocates.

Needless to say, no signs of any attempt at response have seen the light of day in the eight years since the challenge was published.  It is like it never happened, the haven't read it, it doesn exixt. That's right, in danger, close your eyes and the danger disappears!

Most likely, never will. ID is empty, always was, ever will be. Any average intellignet person really should have no problem with seeing that - all it takes is to read anything written by William Dembski. He's got a most fitting name, our Dumbski.

BTW, I think all references to "Biola University" should be replaced with  its proper name, "Bible Institute of Los Angeles."


Sunday, April 7, 2013

Time for ID-creationists to celebrate Paul Nelson Day!



At Pandas Thumb, PZ Myers remind us it is time to celebrate, Happy Paul Nelson Day!  again.

Paul Nelson is the creator, yes, creator! of the term ontogenetic depth but has never shown that is anything but just another ID/creationsist ploy.
 
Like CSI, ontogenetic depth cannot be measured or calculated.
 
ID creationism gets pretty boring when you have been studying it for ten - twenty years. Just think of the enormous strides both evolutionary research, and that other, unrelated subejct, research on possible mechanisms and routes from the barren, primordial Earth to the first cellular life, archea, bacteria.  From there, the highway to multicellular life just a few billion years in the future.
 
Darwin would have loved to learn how much time really was available.



Thursday, April 4, 2013

Skeptic ink

Here is a fine blog, and  the interesting case of a typical, prominent(!) Intelligent Design supporter (JoeG) betting $10.000 that he understands nested hierarchies better than this professional biologist:

QUOTE
I on the other hand studied Molecular Biology and Bioinformatics and study phylogenetic trees (which requires an understanding of nested hierarchies) regularly at work since roughly five years (if I count the time since I started working mostly independently) and my work has been published in peer-reviewed journals.
UNQUOTE

BTW JoeG seems to be one of the top contributors to Dembski's blog, "Uncommon Design".

But go to Skeptic inc

Read and enjoy!