Paul Davies: new comments on Information and life (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, March 19, 2020, 18:51 (1492 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: […] the discussion concerns your attempt to make information use information (though for some reason you have denied this). We had operational information using passive information, and now you lump them together as “biological information”! ID-ers use the complexity of biological processes as proof of a designer. The passive information is used by intelligence (you say automatic through instructions, Shapiro says autonomous through cellular intelligence), and nobody knows the source of the intelligence that uses the information, but it might be God. (dhw’s bold) Why must we have information that uses information and now we have information as proof of a designer?(David’s bold)

DAVID: The entry from the 'skeptic of Darwin' shows his thoughts about information.

dhw: He does not even mention it!

It is all implied in his article. He has read ID works and they all discuss information, both active and passive: "Wanting to know more, I used a sabbatical break from teaching to immerse myself in the literature of evolutionary theory. Beginning, of course, with Darwin’s Origin of Species, I read through many of the seminal books and monographs documenting the history of evolutionary theory, only to come to the unexpected conclusion that no one knows, one hundred and sixty years after Darwin, how the evolutionary process actually works.
That organisms evolved over enormous spans of time I have little doubt. But the Darwinian mechanism driving this evolution — natural selection acting on randomly produced variation in populations of organisms — I no longer accept. I do not think the evolutionary process can be understood without appeal to some kind of intelligent agency. My Darwinian skepticism is now detailed in my book" (my bold)

DAVID: ID folks believe there is more than one type of information in the cell and it empowers the cell to take form and also function automatically . Its existence requires a mind as the source. I'm surprised at your final bolded statement by me. That has been the point all along. The source of the information must be mental. Remember? Chance or design is all there is to choose between.

dhw: You resolutely avoid the subject of my complaint, which is not the argument for design but the confusing use of the term “information”. You denied that you had information using information, but you had “operational” and “instructional” information using “passive” information, and now you have “biological” information as proof of God’s existence. I don’t know why you think this clarifies your arguments. Please reread my own bold above. Why on earth do you have to call intelligence “operational information”? Why on earth do you have call the complexities of design “biological information”? Of course it’s the “in” word, and it causes such absurd headings as “Information as the source of life”. Remember that one?

You protest overly. Both kinds of information have to be there for life to function. Who cares about the other attempted definitions to try and enter your mind about information's existence. His reading about information from the ID folks gives this comment: " Any understanding of evolution that even entertains the notion of directedness or intelligence begins to look more like religion than science, and so these ideas are rejected in the interest of maintaining Darwinian orthodoxy. But defending biology’s status as a naturalistic science is irrelevant to the question of the origin of species. And there is increasingly good evidence to question the idea of a purely undirected evolution."

And: " From the Nobel Prize winning geneticist Barbara McClintock in the 1950s to the work of biologist James Shapiro recently retired from the University of Chicago, evidence is mounting that cells possess some level of cognitive ability allowing them to monitor their environments, detect potential danger, and alter their genomes in intentional ways to respond to environmental challenge. It is not clear how they do this, but it does speak to the possibility of some sort of mind at work in the evolutionary process. If this proves to be true, Darwinian evolution will quickly go the way of the dinosaur. "

Unless you know the ID literature you can assume all you want about what he does not precisely mention. They are quoting him and loving it, So do I. Being 'confused' about information doesn't get rid of it. iMnd has to create it