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If a local process goes through a cycle, for each cycle, conditions return to the previous state. My understanding is that biological processes involve cycles. I am more concerned about your ability to apply the entropy law. You know perfectly well I am not making that claim here but you can't resist yet another attempt to discredit even while violating site rules with the logical fallacy of putting words in my mouth. Growth involves additional mass and higher net entropy, correct? Your claim was that grass growing is an example of a net reduction in entropy. I have questioned that statement and you have been unable to demonstrate how it is true. Deterministic processes do not change probability and do not change entropy. Deterministic processes have the ability to replace random data with regularly repeating data and is an example of what you asked. Entropy change is a function of the processes involved. You are changing my words again. Random processes import small amounts of information and only in proportion to the probabilistic resources available. For example a random function that imports on average 10^-30 bits of information per cycle with a cycle time of 15 years cannot be expected to form new function requiring 1000 bits of new information in any reasonable time. When one asks for new function, it is not unreasonable that the new function actually involve a functional system as opposed to breaking an existing functional system and then allowing body's trash compost system to dispose of the broken component. It is not functional and it is not new. It is a striking example of adaptation through component damage. I am not being arbitrary in insisting that a function be functional in the common sense of the word. It is a testament to the weakness of your argument that, despite the diversity observed in the biological world, involving countless trillions of exquisitely functional systems, your examples of evolutionary adaptation involve damage to one of these fabulously functional systems, to the point of death for those unlucky enough to inherit two broken genes, as a mechanism to stave off a scourge that evolutionary process are unable to defeat through development of new functional processes despite the long years this parasite has been ravaging the human population. I have repeatedly acknowledge the capability of evolutionary processes to allow for adaptation of existing suites of function by damage of redundant and semi-redundant functions in order to defeat biological and chemic threats. It is a fabulous example of adaptive advantage, but there is no evidence that this process is a step or two in a longer stepwise evolutionary pathway to novel form and function. Your example is yet another case of moving the goal post and answering a question different from what was asked of you. I don't see how this is a problem. Advocates of design predict that one day soon, human genetic engineers will design and construct novel life forms from scratch. If and when this prediction is confirmed, design will account for pre-existing function as well as novel form and function. Design advocates claim that life and biological processes were designed including any and all processes that allow for, enabled, or caused diversification. Design advocates say life appears designed because it was designed, and alien seeding of life on earth is but one mechanism by which it can be explained.

No change of answer is required. You seem to have missed the context and purpose for the answer I gave to Cap'n question. I seriously believe that you prefer to change the question to something you can answer and then answer it instead. It is clear that you are not able to provide serious answers to the questions posed, and it indicates that the points I make are valid. I suspect that even local entropy of living organisms increase over time. Thermodynamic cycles have no net entropy change when they go full circle. Living organisms operate on biological cycles that individually have no net entropy change for each cycle (not including inputs and outputs). Biological processes include irreversible inefficiencies and thus net entropy should increase. Wen inputs and outputs are included net entropy clearly increases. But this is a different question than considering the posited process of evolution. The issue with evolutionary processes is they are not cyclical processes that come full circle. The posit is that evolution drives fundamental, significant and permanent change. These posited processes of large change is the issue. Wholesale functional biological change requires new functional biological information. Where did the information order come from is the question. In a complete cycle, local entropy is unchanged. It would seem that growth would not involve a decrease in entropy, how could it, with mass increasing discrete probability states must increase, correct? Copies do not represent any net change in probabilities of discrete states. It would seem that information entropy is not decreased with offspring. I have repeatedly said that random processes import small quantities of information in proportion to the probabilistic resource employed. Building on the previous answer, this is an example of modified and degraded previous function due to substitution and replacement with a small amount of imported information by random mutation. The degraded function causes the protein structures to partially collapse into a glob of dysfunctional muck that has no function, thus functional information is degraded. The presence of malaria contributes to this collapse and the spleen destroys and removes these infected and broken dysfunctional blood cells. This is an excellent example of the adaptive limits of evolution. There is no evolutionary path forward, it's a dead end.

How was the 16 residue peptide formed? What similarity if any does this example of regularly repeating 8 and 16 residue units have to the assembly process of biologically active polymers? Natural processes seem to select patterns based on deterministic binding tendency of regular structures, only a limited number of regular structures will form based on specific sub components. Biologically active polymers have irregular sequences and form based on transcription from a blueprint contained on a high entropy carrier. The configurations are driven by formal information. Change the information and the configuration is changed. Any configuration will form. Any sequence will form based on the blueprint. However, very few of these sequences form biologically active proteins. I don't think it does. Deterministic processes don't increase information, they can't because no alternative configurations are possible and so no alternatives are eliminated. All investigations of chemic processes reveal nothing but the chemical laws we already know. the challenge to explain biological processes as an outgrowth of chemistry is equivalent to explaining the derivation of biological information. On this point, chemical discovery has been helpless. Until one can explain the source of this information order the progress seems to be superficial window dressing. Yes, nice.

I argue that no physical only processes can reduce net entropy when inputs and outputs are considered. I have been clear about this. You're changing the question, moving the goal post. The posited changes are tens, hundreds and even thousands of steps apart, and there are no signs that the intermediate steps even exist. This is like saying one can walk across the Pacific Ocean without falling in the water because after all Hawaii is a stepping stone along the way. The video explains almost nothing. It is but another false analogy. Only if the steps to the balcony actually exist. Your descriptions are of the ground and of the balcony but never the steps. But I keep asking for the steps. Where are the steps? Where is even one actual case of a four step evolutionary progression. I don't find anything new or revealing in the balance of your arguments.

It was not what was meant. It was a simple illustration and answer to the question asked of me. Nothing more. Your poor attempt to extend it, is a logical fallacy. I look forward to your formal proof. How is it that you are a better arbiter of what is new and what is an adaptation of an existing function than I? Improved and reduced function both involve adaptations of an existing function and involves modification of an existing plan. New form and function involves a new plan independent of any existing plan for existing function. This is so obvious I am surprised you seem to repeatedly deny it. Genetic Load is an objective concept that addresses this question. When inputs and outputs are considered entropy is increased. You are changing the question, moving the goal post. Can you show that the actual fitness landscape includes traversable pathways from one organism to another? If you can't you are speculating. For my part , the images served to illustrate the issue. It is not much of an accomplishment when you must move the goal post in order to make your demonstration work. You are so clever to drop consideration of inputs and outputs. Logical fallacies, I am told are a violation of site rules.

Reputation involves opinion. I said I found your post and analysis to be poor quality, that is not the same as incorrect. I'm done here. Use personal message if you want to speak about this more.

I found your representation of the topic and your analysis to be of poor quality. I was not rating the video.

Ok I don't think I have any major issue with this paragraph. I think you have answered your own question when you speak of policing natural resources, and by extension, a particular society's notion of property rights. Nationalism comes into play because there is a traditional practical limit on the resources and capability available to police large areas. A second explanation for nationalism is that societies only function to the extent that the individuals honor societal customs and norms. Large groups of immigrants generally do not integrate into society but instead establish sub-cultures. When the total size of sub-cultures approaches a critical limit, society as a whole tends to fail. Therefore successful cultures limit immigration to ensure that sub-cultures don't form. What was done is done. I don't think that is a particularly good model going forward.

The claim that evolution accounts for all observed diversity and proceeds by physical processes alone without ever having been provided any active guidance by any intelligent agent but instead generates information order is effectively a claim that evolutionary processes are not constrained by the laws of entropy. You have not factually established that this grand claim that known evolutionary processes account for all observed diversity. It is little more than a prior commitment you hold. I previously addressed this. Novel form and function requires new order. Please provide a specific known biological example of new function due to removal of non-functional noise in DNA sequences. Previously addressed. They do so by damaging or otherwise modify specific components that these antibiotics exploit. When the function is damaged the chemical is no longer effective since that avenue is no longer available. Addressed by reference to the fitness functions. What evidence do you have that the fitness function in play for random genetic error and selection is smooth and continuous?

Are you now acknowledging that the answer to the question, "what evidence exists to confirm that mutation and selection can break free of the barriers imposed by physical laws including entropy and the barriers imposed by information theory that constrains physical only processes from access to active information?" is that here is no evidence? Is this why you prefer to move the goal post? The reason why this is a shift of topic is because the historical evidence tells us what we already know, namely that life is diverse, but it does not tell us anything about the processes by which that diversity occurred. Fossil, and DNA evidence simply inform us that life forms are different in some ways and similar in others. Bacteria evolution experiments demonstrate the ability to adapt, damage and destroy existing function to defeat changing environmental threats (antibiotic and pesticide resistance are examples as is sickle cell trait) . They also demonstrate limited adaptations of existing functions to leverage a niche in environmental conditions (nylase and other single and double step enzyme and enzyme expression modifications are examples), but there are no indications of the posited stepwise evolutionary pathways greater than 3 steps that would eventually lead to novel functional prescriptive information gains required for new form and function. Even random processes of mutations bring a source of information to alter the information content of DNA. While energy may well be the medium which transmits or imports information, as discussed, entropy considerations render random processes incapable on their own of increasing the order of a macro system over a long progression of discrete steps. Natural selection is posited to provide a mechanism to discern and differentiate between noise that degrades order, and stepwise alterations that could increase order. Within the range of discrete differences that represent functional alternative configurations, as defined by the applicable fitness function, in the vicinity of a pre-existing functional configuration, experimentation confirms that genetic error and selection can account for limited adaptation of existing function. However, in order to derive new form and function, significant cumulative change and new functional information is required. For this, the fitness function must contain continuous, smooth pathways from one functional system to another whereby the pathway is not breached by fitness gaps wider than the step distance, otherwise the pathway is cut off. Here is an example of a landscape that includes smooth passable pathways: Here is one that does not: Molecular biology experimentation, as described above, tends to indicate that the fitness landscape mutation and selection are operating on is more similar to the one with impassable pathways. In either of these situations, a successful search requires information about search space so as to match the steps and process with the landscape. Natural selection and mutation seems to be designed (and likely contains active information) to find localized shifting maxima's in response to changing environmental conditions, but does not appear to be designed to migrate from one local maxima to another for situations where stepwise pathways between local maxima are breached. You will have explained nothing new by setting up some uninteresting experiment whereby information is transmitted by energy and imported into DNA. The current context of this thread is the nature of the information available to natural selection and random gene mutation to navigate the fitness landscape and thereby increase the quantity and order of the functional prescriptive information contained in DNA by physical processes alone without violating entropy laws.

Perhaps you are being misled yourself then. So you agree that the current temperature relative to temperatures in the 1600-1800's is not and issue since historically the temperatures have been much higher in the not too distance past, certainly since humans have been on earth. If it can be shown that even the rate of rise is not significant, then do you agree we are back to the null hypothesis that natural factors alter global temperatures over time? The long term average temperature is estimated at 17 and the estimated typical variance is 7 degrees C. By that standard, our current temperature is now below the average at about 14 degrees C. This wiki graphic is a good example of how one can "trick" the data to make a trend seem more significant by making apples to oranges comparisons. The long term proxies graphed are tree ring proxies, selected because on the whole (averaged over the globe) they tend to de-emphasize the medieval warming and little ice age particularly with respect to any rapid changes. Then when the tree data fails to track the current instrument temperature, the black line substituted to carry on the trend, the tree data is not displayed so as to not tip off the viewer that the data series are apples and oranges. If we are interested in comparing the rate of change in temperature for the current trend to historical rates of change, let's be sure we are comparing the same data type. Here is a consistent ice core proxy that also includes the present time up to 1999. Note that temperature rates of change have been comparable over many thousands of years. The current temperature rise does not stand out, though CO2 concentration does. Here is the corresponding article. Indeed. Can you identify the underling trend when one does not use data that is Cherry picked for that reason?

They supply information for the design as well. "we mapped the structure of the antenna into a 14-element byte encoded representation scheme. Each element contained two floating point values, a length and a spacing value. Each floating point value was encoded as three bytes, yielding a resolution of (1/2)^24 for each value. The first pair of values encoded the reflector unit, the second pair of values encoded the driven element, and the remaining 12 pairs encoded the directors. Wire radius values were constrained to 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 mm. Mutation was applied to individual bytes, and one point crossover was used." What you said was this: "Furthermore, I will note yet again that the NFL restrictions do not apply here." At the time you and I were both discussing the evolutionary algorithms referenced in Marks and Dembski's papers so I hope you can see why we might have a different understanding. Dembski and Marks' primary point is that evolutionary algorithms are poor simulations or analogs for the natural process of evolution. If you are correct that NFL does not apply to natural evolution but also agree that NFL does apply to evolutionary algorithms then it would seem that Dembski and Marks' claim is supported either way.

I requested a formal mathematical proof that NFL theorem does not and cannot apply to the case described by Dembski and Marks. Their peer reviewed and published article seems to indicate that it does apply. You have once again provided the same informal response of which I previously objected. The use of evolutionary programming techniques to automate the design of antennas has recently garnered much attention. Considerable research has been focused on determining whether evolutionary techniques can be used to automatically design and optimize antennas so that they outperform those designed by expert antenna designers, and even whether evolutionary techniques can be used to design antennas in cases where humans are simply unable to. They make it clear that humans are the primary cause of these antenna. My statement regarding references was not to a specific conclusion. It was to the general arguments as a whole regarding the inability of genetic algorithms based solely on physical systems with no design or designer involved to self generate prescriptive information. This was the general argument being made in this portion of the thread. I provided this list of supportive references. This physically impossible is still impossible no matter how may random attempts are made to overcome it. Bacteria is far, far, far, far more than a bag of chemicals.

Equal or less information and information order if there is not an external source. Random mutations may import information in proportion to the resources brought to bear, so small changes in total information quantity is accounted by these random processes. However random processes degrade order, so these processes cannot account for net increased order. Natural selection can select discrete events that substantively alter existing function in a way that offers net reproductive advantage in the current environment but observed evidence indicates that new form and function require large numbers of coordinated, coherent, integrated changes and one does not observe pathways of selectable discrete events leading to these combinations. There is not even one example of a 4 or greater step selectable evolutionary pathway. Clearly diversity occurred, so there must be other process involved, ones that do allow for import of new functional information, ones that are capable of deriving coherent integrated systems. One example of a sudden jump is the novel gene T-urf13 plus associated expression and regulatory controls, and assembly components that derive and construct a specific protein that joins with several copies of itself to form a transmembrane channel in the inner membrane of mitochonria in several varieties of corn. This protein seems to have shown up suddenly very recently over a period less than 40 years and includes far too many discrete differences to be accounted for by the traditional known evolutionary processes. We don't observe, in real time, novel form and function that would confirm increases in functional information quantity and order so past instances of diversification must have occurred through a process other than those posited by evolutionary theory. No this is an observed fact. Wherever functional prescriptive information is found, and the source can be objectively traced back, the source is a mind that used stored information as an input to the information in question. Biological systems contain information, but we don't currently and objectively, deductively know of any physical only biological process capable generating novel functional information. No, sorry, you have not, at least not without involving teleological design. Your examples move the goal post. Ok, but this example requires an isolated source of low entropy to begin with, otherwise one can dump all the disorder one wants and all you are left with is a small total quantity of disorder. Random processes import small quantities of information commensurate with the resources. Increase information of a sub-system? perhaps. Formally create it from non-information? I doubt it. Perhaps you can show that it is unambiguously true that a physical only random process can and does generate novel formal information. I would be interested in an actual case. The variations are no more ordered and more often less ordered and less functional than the source sets. Most selectable adaptations involve damage to functional components and loss of order. New order is still a requirement for new form and function.

I think we are more aligned than you indicate. After considering these other effects and addressing the possibility of negative feedbacks the net effect of CO2 could very well be near zero or even negative. while I agree the direct effects must be there the net effects may well not. Since my analysis is of the net effects, I see us as aligned. Well treating the factors as additive and thus independent when they are likely not independent seems like a bit of an issue, but I am just now forming my thoughts on your other post and may comment later, otherwise I generally agree with your argument but your argument does not result in a conclusion that net CO2 effect must necessarily be significant and positive. I suspect you would agree. Completely agree, we are almost certainly aligned and the issue may well that I did not articulate my points with enough clarity.

The debate in this portion of the thread is wether or not mutation and selection is an adequate evolutionary algorithm for the purpose of driving all observed biological diversity. I argue it is not and have provided many lines of evidence to support this argument. I have stipulated that it does produce limited adaptation of existing function to allow for some flexibility in fluctuating environments, but what evidence exists to confirm that mutation and selection can break free of the barriers imposed by physical laws including entropy and the barriers imposed by information theory that constrains physical only processes from access to active information? Mutation and selection can work with existing information and even reconfigure it to produce variations of existing function so long as information order is not permitted to degrade by any significant amount. New functional information and new order is required for new form and function. What is the source of new functional information in evolutionary processes? Indeed you have if you can't see it in the descriptions I have provided. If you will review my posts and let me know what it is that you can't see regarding the necessity of new functional information and new order to produce the new form and function posited by evolutionary theory when it is described as accounting for all observed diversity and that diversity is described as a progression from a single living organism branching out to the ones observed today. To accept your argument one must argue that the first life form contained as much or more functional information and order as that represented by all life forms that have ever existed. Is this your claim?

yes I do and yes I am. Discriminating (setting some apart from others, and treating them differently) can be and is and should be legal in some circumstances so I did not mean to imply I don't approve of it or that I think it should be made illegal discrimination. Thank you for allowing me to improve on my explanation. Again sorry for giving the wrong impression. I do not have the idea that all that are here should be equal. I don't have a good argument for why the rules should be bent or changed. I attempted to indicate that I think the problem lies with the parent country.

No. These observations and the apparent constraints imposed by physical laws apply to both. They apply to changes in ordered systems generally and across the board. Abiogenesis and evolution (as an explanation for all observed biological change and diversity) both posit large changes in molecular and information order. Molecular order is a physical configuration in spacial dimensions involving both spacial and bonding affinity. Functional information is a formal configuration whereby the formal information is stored as discrete sequences of characters by molecular patterns independent of the physical chemical constraints of traditional chemic processes by virtue of the high entropy chemic backbone carrier. this stored information is retrieved, transcribed and processed to manage and control biological processes.

It is misleading to describe the recent 20 years as if it stands out as a climate record. Relative to the previous few hundred years it is high, but relative to the history of the earth it is not unusual. Historical temperature proxies indicate that the climate has been up to 8 degrees centigrade warmer than today and about 4 degrees cooler during the period mammals are known to have existed on this earth. Natural causes have the ability to warm the earth dramatically more than the trend over the past 200 years. This is the null hypothesis. How can it be obvious that something other than the null hypothesis is occurring? How has the null hypothesis been ruled out?

Yes, it is right but the context is a little off. Try to remember that although the value of the partial pressure will give you the final pressure of the container when all other kinds of molecules are removed, this is not the actual meaning of partial pressure. Partial pressure is a proxy measurement of mole fraction and/or volume fraction in a gas mixture. The reason that partial pressure equals final pressure when all other gasses are removed is because at that point volume and mole fraction equal 1 so Ptotal = pO2. Keep this always in mind ---> Partial pressure is most often not intended to measure a pressure or give you the physical property of the pressure that a gas exerts on the walls of a container. It is an indirect measure of the mole fraction of a substance in a mixture of gas in a actualized or real situation. One special case of partial pressure is the (partial) pressure exerted by the vapor of a pure substance at a particular temperature in equilibrium with its liquid. Since it is pure, again the partial pressure equals the total pressure so you can empirically determine the partial pressure of a substance. This definition is useful to provide a basis for the indirect measure of mole fractions when gasses are mixed. The relationship between mole fractions and pressure at a particular temperature is an artifact of the Ideal gas law which is an artifact of mass and energy balance considerations, an outgrowth of the first law of thermodynamics and enthalpy. Total energy in a system is the energy it takes to create the substance which is the internal energy and is a direct function of its temperature plus the energy it takes to displace the environment to make room for the substance, which is pressure times volume, P*V. So if the molecules don't interact (and change internal energy in these interactions), then P*V is proportional to the quantity of the substance (n in moles) times its temperature. PV=nRT. Liquids and solids interact heavily so PV=nRT does not work for liquids and solids at all, but it does work for gasses pretty well. Ok I hope this diversion helps. Don't confuse this liquid equilibrium situation with the general cases where you don't have liquid substances, but instead are just given partial pressures (really what you are given is mole fractions). Because most often the mole fractions are the items of interest in dealing with gas mixtures. Yes the partial pressure of Oxygen does increase because the partial pressure is a measure of mole fraction and in the case you describe, a dynamic state of heavy breathing, is not in equilibrium with the blood (a source of CO2) or the atmosphere (a source of O2) so when CO2 is reduced, and total pressure in the lung stays the same or nearly the same, then the mole (and volume) fractions of the other substances must go up and thus the partial pressures of the other substances (including Oxygen) will go up. Edit to add clarity: The situation with the lung is different from the previous situation because the container is not closed so that when CO2 is reduced, additional molecules of the other substances come into the lung to replace the reduced CO2, maintaining the total pressure at near atmospheric pressure.

Mathematical models often do not model reality, sometimes due to simplifications, other times because the model is incomplete or flat out wrong. Just because one can devise an incomplete mathematical model that indicates a finite probability for a specific random event does not mean that it is a correct model that can be actualized. It may be a poor approximation of reality that works for most situations but fails to model reality in the extreme. How would you show that your probability model is real in these extreme cases? In the case of modeling probability of finding all the gas molecules on one side of a container and none on the other by Brownian motion alone, a model based purely on entropy and thus the probability of all discrete energy states would imply a very small probability. A model that considers physical configurations and so also includes the spacial and volume considerations including all kinetic and potential energy transfers would almost certainly eliminate the possibility of this occurrence. When one drops the size and molecule density to the nano scale, then physical constraints are removed and the FT theorem does apply. Thus, although statistical models output very small but finite probabilities, it is not clear that these statistical models accurately model reality. The one in this case cannot because it is necessarily incomplete. One reason why FT does not apply to macro systems is because it does not include spacial considerations / physical constraints that do not apply at the nano scale where FT does apply. It is incomplete. Cap'n Refmmat moved the goal post by referring to a situation that does not apply to the situation nor to the context of the thread. For a single discrete event perhaps, just as FT applies to discrete events in a macro system. But evolution depends on a continuous chain of these discrete events and the entire sequence is posited to include untold numbers of ineffective discrete events occurring during the process. It is wishful thinking to treat evolutionary steps as isolated discrete events as opposed to the combinatorial events that bimolecular research confirms are required for novel form and function.

In your example, the society enforces and perpetuates poverty by through class discrimination. The barriers in your example are put there by the society as a whole. This is often but not always the case. Lack of resources like building materials are almost never the issue, the barriers are more often deeper seated. In the US, lack of a social security card is indication of lack of citizenship or work permit and is another form of discriminating between those with privileges and those without, but the more fundamental issue is low productivity and low opportunity in the parent country.

Adding to timo's ideal gas law explanation, since P=nRT/V, if you have n moles of oxygen and m moles of CO2 the ratio of partial pressures would be the ratio of molecules or the ratio of the total volume each gas occupies. So partial pressures are a convenient way of describing molecular concentration or alternatively the volume fraction of the gas phase. You are correct that if you remove the CO2, the net pressure in the container would drop to equal what was the partial pressure of the Oxygen in the mixture. Returning to my previous description, if the partial pressure of Oxygen is Po, CO2 is Pc, and the total is Pt then the volume fraction of O is Po/Pt. when Po = Pt, as it would be if you removed the CO2, the volume fraction is 1 and you confirm the container is 100% Oxygen.

poverty is the result of low productivity. The solution is to remove the barriers and allow impoverished people to be productive.

The second law is a law of physical chemistry and it applies to Edtharan's example. There is a law against the occurrence Edtharan described since his configuration as described applied at a macro level over an extended series of discrete events. Relocating all the gas molecules to one side of the box Edtharan describes would require many billions of discrete macro events, not the situation described by FT. This thread is about processes that are posited to have been made up of long series of discrete macro events thought to have occurred over an extended period of time. This is the context. To change the context to a handful of discrete nano events is the logical fallacy of moving the goal post. Your argument depends on this logical fallacy