Jerry Pournelle offers not a defense of Intelligent Design, but a response to some of its harsher critics:

1. while many "Intelligent Design Theorists" are in fact fundamentalist creationists, not all of them are, and some like the late Sir Fred Hoyle are not creationists at all.

2. The panspermia hypothesis, which asserts that life originated on a planet other than Earth and was brought here by either natural or intelligently directed actions, is hardly ludicrous, has at least some unexplained evidence in its favor, and holding it as an hypothesis is hardly evidence of buffoonery. The late Robert Bussard was well known to believe in panspermia. Several of my science fiction novels make use of this hypothesis, and I have yet to see any definitive refutation.

3. Many of those in Dawkins' camp use proof by assertion: they simply say that there are no features that demonstrate "irreducible complexity" and those that seem to are illusions; and while they have not shown the steps that would lead from easily explained conditions to the complex feature, they have great confidence that they will find them, and anyone who doesn't believe that is an idiot.

4. In my judgment, reason and science are not in conflict to those willing to spend the time and effort in genuine study of the apparent irreconcilable differences. I note that I share that view with His Holiness Benedict XVI, who has asserted this all his life, most notably in his Regensburg Speech (Full Text), which is well worth your attention. Do note that the truth or falsity of this point is not definitive regarding my critique of Dawkins. It does, I presume, qualify me as a buffoon in Professor Dawkins' estimation.

I personally think it extremely unlikely that the "irreducible complexity" critique of evolution will pan out, at least in terms of proving that God exists. But it is interesting that (according to Pournelle) current computer models of evolution can't make some of these leaps -- simple light receptor to fully functioning eye -- without a little tinkering in the background. At the very least, the ID critique may prove useful in helping us to improve our computer models of evolution.

Continue reading "Seeking the Designer" »

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Here's an attention-getter:

Ancient Scorpion Was Bigger Than Car

Nov. 21, 2007 -- This was a bug you couldn't swat and definitely couldn't step on. British scientists have stumbled across a fossilized claw, part of an ancient sea scorpion, that is of such large proportion it would make the entire creature the biggest bug ever.

How big? Bigger than you, and at 8 feet long as big as some Smart cars.

The discovery in 390-million-year-old rocks suggests that spiders, insects, crabs and similar creatures were far larger in the past than previously thought, said Simon Braddy, a University of Bristol paleontologist and one of the study's three authors.

The story goes on to talk about how these scorpions lived in a world that was also home to mega-millipedes and giant dragonflies. Not that we would really want them around, but one has to wonder what fate befell the big bugs. What's the difference between the world that we live in and the world they called home?

Well, not to put too fine a point on it: we're the difference. Not just human beings. Lions, tigers, bears, oh my. Also sharks. And crocodiles. And while they were here, dinosaurs. As fierce as the prehistoric giant bugs were (and as scary as we would find them if we encountered one today) they ultimately couldn't compete with vertebrates.

So bugs stuck around, and stayed competitive by being small.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 01:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Human beings are unusual creatures in many ways -- one distinction that often gets overlooked is that we are land-dwelling mammal that isn't furry. How did this come about? Scientific American says there are three possible explanations:

1. We used to be semi-aquatic. This theory imagines our human ancestors foraging for food in shallow water. I thought only nut-cases believed this, but apparently it has been put forth as a serious hypothesis. The idea is that we lost our fur the way dolphins and seals did. There's not much evidence backing this up, however.

2. Hairless bodies are a heat adaptation. After moving out of the cool shady trees to the hot savannas, our ancestors quickly lost the fur as a means of adapting to the extreme heat. This would have been a drawback at night, however. Also, you have to wonder why we don't see other examples of land-based mammals ever making a similar adaptation?

3. We lost the fur in order to get rid of the accompanying parasites. This one makes sense. Imagine living naked in a world with no showers and the possibility of being infested by tics, chiggers, lice -- not just in a few areas of your body, but all over. I would definitely do anything I could to evolve away from that.

The other possibility, listed as likely contributing factor, but not a major cause, of human hairlessness is sexual selection. Since we don't have examples of other species losing fur to avoid parasites or keep cool -- keeping in mind that human beings can build fires and make blankets, cold-weather options not available to other creatures who might have gone in a non-fur direction -- I tend to think that sexual selection may have been a pretty significant factor. Early human populations may have decided that lighter coats of fur were more attractive and desirable.

And come to think of it, isn't that still pretty much the case today? Sure, there are people out there with naturally hairy chests and backs, but an outright preference for such bodies (on either aesthetic or sexual terms) would be -- I think -- in just about any corner of the world, more in the nature of an exception than the norm. Our hairless bodies might well be our oldest cultural artifact!

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

If you find the blogosphere's obsession with politics to be as pointless as I do, don't miss Michael Anissimov's new entry at Accelerating Future: Why Utilitarians Should Focus on Technology. Michael writes:

Our minds are programmed to overfocus on politics, and underfocus on technology. The reason why is that our ancestors evolved in an environment where the political scene was constantly changing while technology stayed roughly static. Today, both areas change rapidly, but technology has a greater impact.

So those of us who blog about technology are doing the public a service by trying to get them to focus on the greater-impact area.

I caught a little of the Dennis Prager show while out driving yesterday; the guest was the author of an exhaustive historical account of the JFK assassination intended to provide a thorough debunking of all the conspiracy theories associated with that event. In one segment, Prager talked a little about why conspiracy theories are so attractive. Among the reasons he cited were their tendency to reinforce our prejudices as well as to provide a more emotionally satisfying explanation for events than the mundane facts.

Closely related to that second reason, I think people get caught up in conspiracy theories as a form of entertainment. And although I believe there is a difference in degree (and probably in kind), politics also provides a good deal of entertainment value. I mean, there can't be any doubt that TV shows like Hardball are primarily intended as entertainment. Rush Limbaugh and Bill Mahr make the point even more explicit.

I think a lot of people who read and write political blogs aren't all that different from Star Trek fans. They've found something that's really interesting and fun for them, and they go with it. The big difference, of course, is that political junkies know that they are dealing with matters that impact the real world, and believe that they're having some influence on real-world outcomes. (Most Star Trek fans aren't interested in that, although many will tell you how Trek is a force for good which has changed the world, etc.)

Most people who read and write about technology are more like Star trek fans than they are political junkies. They follow their subject primarily because it's entertaining and fun, without much consideration as to the greater societal impact. (Although some do think about this quite a bit.) But technology has a much greater impact than Star Trek, and -- as Michael demonstrates by naming two fairly obscure inventors who have had a tremendous impact on the world -- a much greater impact than politics, too.

For those of us who get bored with politics pretty easily, and who are inclined to try to steer the conversation in the direction of technology, this is pretty encouraging.

UPDATE:

Actually, as I read back over it, I would slightly disagree with Michael when he says that today both areas change rapidly. I think there's a lot of activity in the political sphere, but not nearly as much change as all the activity suggests. Political change (when it occurs) is reactive to what's happening in society, whereas technological change is one of the drivers of what's happening in society.

UPDATE 2 (from Stephen):

To some extent, this might be a matter of personal taste. What's tiresome to us might be very interesting to others. A good political rant from somebody who cares about the subject (and so has kept up), and who argues with intelligence is usually a fun and/or enlightening read.

And politics is important. The ideas by which we govern ourselves and conduct ourselves socially are a big part of who we are.

That said, I can't think of anything that will have a more profound impact in the coming years than accelerating technological development. So nothing is more important politically. The weird thing - and Michael was pointing this out - is how few in our political and academic classes (including our bloggers) get this.

Among political bloggers a big shining exception is Glenn Reynolds.

Already I think Glenn has benefitted from this. Those who don't understand the implications of accelerating development often find themselves themselves looking shortsighted by comparison to those who do.

Regardless of the subject-matter their blog covers - be it politics, religion, or pet cats - techno-saavy bloggers have an advantage over those who don't understand the implications of accelerating development. They're just less tiresome.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I will be attending this conference Monday and Tuesday of next week:

For two days in May, three hundred librarians will meet with visionaries from the disciplines of anthropology, architecture, public policy and science to discuss the future of libraries. By looking outside of the library, we seek to explore unique ideas that will make the difference. Imagine merging information, inspiration and imagination to transform the way we look at our future. And then working together to build a solid foundation that will serve as a concrete plan with which to move forward.

The theme of the conference is an evocative one: Imagination to Transformation. Or if I may paraphrase: "live to see it."

Speakers at the conference include Ray Kurzweil, Mary Catherine Bateson, Bob Treadway, and others. Should be a fascinating couple of days.

Part of the program will also involve an exercise derived from our Seven Questions About the Future. Remember those? We had a lot of great responses back in the day.

I saw a good show on PBS last night about an a villa excavated some time ago in Herculaneum (Pompeii's upscale neighbor) where a library of more than 1800 ancient manuscripts was found, each one rolled up tight and toasted by Vesuvius. The efforts of scholars over the past couple hundred years to unroll (much less to read) these ancient books have been nothing short of heroic. There was initially hope that a lost tragedy of Sophocles or dialog of Plato might be found among these books; so far no such luck. But as modern chemistry makes it easier to unroll them, and new imaging technology makes it easier (and in many cases, possible) to read some part of them, we are learning quite a bit about the school of Epicurean philosophy to which they apparently belonged.

One of the papyri from Herculaneum

When picturing the library of the future, it's hard not imagine some kind of Google interface connecting everything ever published to everything else ever published via logical, cognitive, and semantic linking schemes that we can hardly imagine now. But I think the tireless efforts to decipher these burnt manuscripts give us another hint as to the role that libraries will continue to play. Libraries aren't just collections of books -- they are a link with the past. When ancient books such as these are found, it's as though some piece of the past that was lost has been restored to us.

This is also why the destruction of a great library -- such as occurred in Alexandria at some point 1500-1800 years ago -- represents such a tremendous loss. It's as though some part of the past has been blotted out.

Libraries are the original databases and the original time machines. It will be very interesting spending a couple of days getting a handle on where libraries are going -- and how in the future they will be even more effective at showing us where we've been.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 05:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is pretty interesting:

Pre-life molecules present in comets from PhysOrg.com

Evidence of atomic nitrogen in interstellar gas clouds suggests that pre-life molecules may be present in comets, a discovery that gives a clue about the early conditions that gave rise to life, according to researchers from the University of Michigan and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Scientific American did a related piece a while back, although apparently what's being suggested here isn't panspermia per se, but rather just the notion that deep space might have a role to play in developing what's needed for life on Earth.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In his update to my Meet the Designer entry, Stephen provides links to two pieces currently running on TCS that have some interesting things to say about the Intelligent Design debate. I have some thoughts on both of these pieces. Let's begin with...

An Open e-mail to Sallie Baliunas

Hi Sallie --

Very much enjoyed your piece on Tech Central Station re: Intelligent Design. Regarding this provocative passage:

There is one logical exception to this. It would be a hypothetical, advanced alien who designed life on earth and left it here to incubate, perhaps meddling with it now and then, with methods not yet known to the human state of scientific knowledge. That alien intelligence would hold an incredible technological control over matter, far beyond sci-fi imaginings like the Technomages in the television novel Babylon 5 . However, the hypothetical, intelligent alien would be a material creature and would work in advanced ways with matter and energy; ergo such scientific concepts would ultimately be knowable. We close this unlikely option for lack of any scientific evidence.

As you may know, there are (serious) variations on this idea that have more to do with the origin of the universe than they do with the origin of life on Earth, offered up by scientists who have no interest in religion. The amazing set of "coincidences" that account for the existence of our universe in just the right configuration to allow for the time spans, the chemistry, and physics to support life are handled tautologically via the weak anthropic principle -- the universe had to be this way or we wouldn't be here to discuss it, end of disucssion -- but some theorists don't see this as a particularly satisfying answer to the puzzle. Another possible answer is that our universe is the end product of a process -- either a completely naturalistic one in which our universe evolved from previous, less life-friendly universes, or an "artificial" process in which highly involved intelligences from a previous version of the universe planned and designed this universe to support life.

Obviously, such views are seen as highly speculative by the scientific community and are subject to appropriate criticism. But the fact that teaching ID in biology classrooms has become a contentious political issue, and that many of those promoting ID really are creationists in disguise, does not mean that all ID thinking is religious in nature.

A good summary of this argument can be found here. I've recently done some writing on this subject myself on my blog, where I also intend to publish this message.

Cheers,

Phil Bowermaster

I'll provide updates if I get any kind of response. Next let's take a look at...

Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win

Doug Kern writes an accessible and thought-provoking essay on why ID is destined to win out as the origin of life theory taught in schools. It's a fun read, and contains one passage that I thought was especially insightful:

Vitriol, condescension, and endless accusations of bad faith all characterize far too much of the standard pro-Darwinian response to criticism. A reasonable observer might note that many ID advocates appear exceptionally well-educated, reasonable, and articulate; they might also note that ID advocates have pointed out many problems with the Darwinist catechism that even pro-Darwin scientists have been known to concede, when they think the Jesus-kissing crowd isn't listening. And yet, even in the face of a sober, thoughtful ID position, the pro-Darwin crowd insists on the same phooey-to-the-boobgeois shtick that was tiresome in Mencken's day.

Nicely put. I think the Darwinian argument would be much better made without the sneer. But then, I'm old fashioned. I think arguments in general should be heavy on substance and light on sneering at the other side.

However, being old fashioned, I really can't buy into the thrust of Kern's argument. It's that opening paragraph. He loses me at hello:

It doesn't matter if you like it or not. It doesn't matter if you think it's true or not. Intelligent Design theory is destined to supplant Darwinism as the primary scientific explanation for the origin of human life. ID will be taught in public schools as a matter of course.

Maybe it will, maybe it won't. But it most certainly matters whether you think it's true or not, because it matters whether it is true or not. If ID is wrong and it "wins," that's, um...what's the word I'm looking for?

Bad.

Likewise, if it has some merit -- or some variations of it do -- and it's fully excluded both from the schools and from serious public discourse, that's bad, too. I think the whole "win-lose" paradigm has really got to go.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 01:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

In the latest newsletter of the Accelerating Studies Foundation, John Smart offers up not so much a defense of Intelligent Design as a critique of the reductionist approach that many strict evolutionists take to the argument. Smart writes:

While a significant fraction of ID is unfortunately driven by religious rather than scientific motives, painting all of these meta-Darwinian models as creationist just isn't credible. ID contains a wide spectrum of perspectives, and the best of these elegantly expose the limitations of conventional Darwinism as a theory of all macroscopic biological change. The better theories can't be mislabeled as arguments for an intelligent designer, but instead provide powerful evidence for developmental processes of change where evolution provides only the dominant mechanism, while the "genes" (starting conditions) of our universe, and the environment in which it is embedded, including its unique physical laws, also determine long range outcomes...

In the simplest and most biological of these cosmological models, our universe’s genes self-organized, through many successive cycles in the multiverse, to produce the life-friendly and intelligence-friendly universe we live in today. This theory of intelligent self-organized design proposes that, analogous to living ecosystems, our universe's "genes, organisms, and environment" encode deep developmental intelligence on a macroscopic scale, while they use primarily evolutionary and chaotic mechanisms to unfold that intelligence on the scale that we normally observe it. Evo-devo, whether applied to biology or the universe, makes clear the shortcomings of evolution-only models of change and does so without the need to posit any self-aware, embodied designer that is distinct from the universe itself. Truth is often stranger than we imagine."

Meanwhile, blogger Micah Glasser of the new and very interesting Event Horizon directs us towards this paper by William Dembski which offers up an argument for Intelligent Design based on information theory. Dembski describes something called "complex specified information" which he asserts can only be the result of intelligence. The arguments he offers that this must be the case strike me as being pretty weak (or maybe I'm not following them); to me it seems that Dembski presents nothing more than a rehash of the watchmaker analogy dressed up in information theory language.

But setting that objection aside, Dembski's complex specified information might provide an interesting synthesis of information theory and the theory that Smart outlines above. From an evo-devo standpoint we could assert that complex specified information at one level must (may?) be a reflection of complex specified information at a higher level. So the CSI* inherent in biology is accounted for not by an intelligent creator but rather by the CSI found in the developmental pattern encoded at the level of the universe.

This leaves only one question: where is the developmental pattern that the universe is following encoded? Obviously, that CSI is encoded somewhere in Smart's "multiverse," which would then also be following a developmental pattern encoded at an even higher level.

So this obviously raises a problem. It may be turtles all the way down, but it looks like it's CSI all the way up: an infinite progression of levels for the encoding of information. Failing that, at some point we will have to come face to face either with an intelligent designer requiring no pre-encoded developmental pattern (let's call him "God" for short) or a developmental pattern which exists independently of any higher encoding level or that is somehow taking it's cues from one of the lower levels.

Like the man said, truth is often stranger than we imagine. If the pattern of encoding that allows everything to exist somehow turns back on itself, that could potentially mean that even we -- or our descendants -- are the ultimate source of encoding the universe/multiverse/CSI-all-the-way-up-structure-of-reality.

To paraphrase Pogo: perhaps we have met the intelligent designer, and it is us.

* Sorry, I had to give in and start using Dembski's abbreviation; if anybody from CBS is reading this, I have an idea for you -- CSI: Cosmology. Maybe you could get, say, Jimmy Smits in a Carl Sagan kind of a role.

UPDATE FROM STEPHEN:

Tech Central Station has two new articles on ID this week:

• Descent of Man in Dover

  Sallie Baliunas argues that either ID proponents are talking about space aliens (and there's no evidence that aliens planted life on Earth) or, more likely, they are talking about a Supernatural Designer. If so, that by definition is beyond the bounds of science and has no place in the science classroom.

• Why Intelligent Design Is Going to Win

  Douglas Kern reminds us that those who reproduce (fertile Red Staters) also get to say what ideas are passed on to the next generation. And if a spoon fulla' ID helps the Darwin go down, who's hurt?

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My two older boys found this moth this morning on our back porch. Those guys were freaking out. "Mom, Dad, a giant moth is on the back porch."

"Is it a Luna Moth?" I asked - my oldest caught a Luna last summer.

"No sir. Hurry! It's huge!"

Well, it IS big. It's called a Polyphemus Moth. It is said to grow up to a 5 1/2 inch wingspan. This one has a span close to that. Below is another picture with my 8-year-old's hands in the shot.

"Check out those eyes on its wings, Dad!"

"Yeah, it looks like an owl doesn't it? A bird comes swooping down thinking its going to get a juicy meal, the moth flaps its wings down and the bird see's its worst nightmare - an owl face."

"Cool!" He loved that.

This is a great example of intelligence in nature. Of course the moth is not aware that it looks like an owl, and it doesn't try to look like an owl. But the more it looks like an owl, the better its chances of survival. If a moth is born that looks slightly more like an owl than its siblings, it will be slightly more likely to survive to reproduce. This is intelligence built into the system.

While an owl's face serves this moth very well, there's a crab that adopted a human face - specifically the face of a Samurai warrior.

On April 24, 1185 there was a decisive naval battle between two groups of Samurai - the Heike and the Genji. The Heike were outnumbered and lost badly. The Heike who survived the battle committed suicide by jumping into the sea.

Upon receiving news of this defeat, the seven-year-old Heike emperor was taken by his caretaker Lady Nii to the ocean where, after prayers to the East and West, they also hurled themselves into the sea with the words, "In the depths of the ocean is our capitol."

Fisherman who descended from that royal court came to believe that the Heike warriors still roamed the ocean floor guarding their youthful emperor. When these fisherman caught crabs that resembled a face, it was thrown back into the ocean to commemorate the events of that disastrous battle.

The more the crabs resembled a Heike warrior's face, the better their chances of survival.

As the generations passed, of crabs and fishermen alike, the crabs with patterns that most resembled a samurai face survived preferentially until eventually there was produced not just a human face, not just a Japanese face, but the visage of a fierce and scowling samurai.

Cool!

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

GeekPress reports that early risers are mutants.

Actually, the early riser angle is Paul's spin on the story, but what we're dealing with, here, is somewhat different:

[Susan]Middlebrook suffers from what is known as familial advanced sleep phase syndrome, or FASPS. Her body's clock is out of sync with the sleep-wake rhythm most of the world lives by. She goes to bed each night between 5:30 and 7:30 p.m. and wakes in the wee hours of the morning.

About three-tenths of a percent of the world's population lives like this, including two of Middlebrook's sisters, her daughter, and her mother. "Their whole clock is shifted," said Ying-Hui Fu, a neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco

Three out of a thousand people isn't many. But that number may be deceptively low. Maybe most of the people with this mutation have found a way to take advantage of it -- working second shift or graveyard -- and thus don't realize that they have a "problem" at all. There would definitely have been an evolutionary advantage for early human populations to have some members who naturally stay awake while others sleep. You need guards posted against predators or enemey tribes, anyway. How much better if those selected for that duty are not inclined to doze off when nobody's looking?

So are these mutants the vestige of a more primitive time, or the vanguard of a coming era in which the clock matters less and less? Surely there are more people who "stay up all night" today than at any previous point in human history. There is a whole world of employment and business opportunities for those who operate on a different clock.

Still, for those who persist in seeing this mutation as some kind of condition needing to be treated...what do you suppose would happen if Susan Middlebrook were to move 4-5 time zones to the east? She could avoid jetlag altogether, and she would find herself in a place completely in sync with her pattern. Problem solved.

But how long would it last?

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When exactly did the Third Age of Middle Earth end?

SCIENTISTS who announced yesterday they had discovered a new human species suspect the "hobbits" could have lived as recently as 500 years ago.

Experts from two NSW universities told how finding the dwarf-like skeleton in a remote cave on the Indonesian island of Flores was just the tip of the iceberg.

They hope to continue digging in other parts of the island -- and prove some of the species survived until the 1500s, when Dutch explorers settled in the area.

If the theory is proved correct, it would mean the 1m-tall hobbit -- scientifically known as homo floresiensis -- interacted with modern-day man, until it eventually died out.

"Could they have persisted somewhere else on the island? Yes, they could have done," Professor Bert Roberts of Wollongong University asked.

Any chance that somewhere in the 10,000 islands one or two of these creatures might still survive?

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)