Examining Mr. R. Carrier's use of Bayesianism. Part III

My apologies for having to display this theology!

This is Part III of my series where I'm looking at the following post by a Mr. Richard Carrier...

Why the Fine Tuning Argument Proves God Does Not Exist • Richard Carrier Blogs

See here for the other parts: Part I & Part II. In the last part of this series, we left Richard wanting to take cognizance of all the evidence relevant to the question of the origin of the creation's "fine-tuning" constants.....

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RICHARD: The real problem here is that this leaves out pertinent evidence. Because we are here testing two competing hypotheses to explain observations: either (A) chance accident produced that alignment of constants or (B) someone or something intelligently selected them.

MY COMMENT: As we saw in part II this statement of the problem isn't coherent; the big question about so-called fine-tuning isn't just confined to a few constants, but a highly improbable physical regime (calculated unconditionally) governed by unique organizing principles of which the so-called fine-tuning constants are just one aspect. Richard should be asking if these principles are a chance accident, and if so that takes us into the question of whether there is an infinite sea of randomness out there of which our highly organized universe is but a very, very tiny corner of chance occurrence. But as we saw in the last part there is no evidence for our observable cosmos being an unimaginably tiny part in a random superverse, what you might call the "Big R" hypothesis.

Anyway, here's Richard's conclusion to his question and it is clear that his theological assumptions as to how "gods" are supposed to work drive this conclusion (my emphases)....

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RICHARD: So when we bring all the pertinent evidence back in, the evidence indicates support not for Theory B (intelligent design), but for Theory A (chance accident). Fine Tuning is therefore evidence against intelligent design. It could never be evidence for it, because gods don’t need fundamental constants at all, much less all the weird ones we have. No intelligent agent needs quarks or electrons or electromagnetism or even gravity—things can just behave as commanded or designed: where things need to fall, they just fall; where stars need to shine, they just shine; where things need to stick together, they just stick together. One might respond that, still, it is possible an intelligent engineer would choose all these weird and unnecessary ways to create and sustain life. But that is fully accounted for here. What matters is not whether it’s possible. What matters is how probable it is. 

Because: If (a) we exist and (b) God did not design the universe, then (c) we should expect to observe several things, and lo and behold, those are exactly the things we observe; yet we do not expect to observe those things if God did design the universe. By definition that which is expected on x is probable on x; that which is unexpected on x is improbable on x. So if the evidence is probable if God does not exist and improbable if God exists, then that evidence argues against God, not for God.

Hence what matters is not what’s possible. What matters is its relative probability. In the case of Theory A, the probability of all these observations (the vast age, the vast size, the vast quantity of lifeless content, the vast lethality of the universe; and the bizarrely long, meandering, particular way life arose and developed into observers asking these questions) is essentially 100%. And you can’t get “more” than 100%. It’s as likely as likely can ever be. These observations are therefore maximally probable on Theory A. By contrast, none of these observations are at all expected on any plausible theory of intelligent design. Indeed, they are on Theory B predicted not to be observed.

MY COMMENT: In the above I have no issue with the core idea of conditional probabilities; namely that the probability of an outcome can be considerably enhanced if the conditions x or evidence x implies that it is a favored outcome.  Where the issue lies is with Richard's rather subjective assessment of what constitutes favourable evidence and/or conditions for his atheism. Take a look at the following......

In my short monograph on Forster's and Marston's (F&M) application of Bayes theorem to the question of God's existence I interpreted their use of probabilities in frequentist terms (itself a debatable maneuver) using this Venn diagram: 

Here the overwhelming number of cases favouring a habitable cosmos represented by "H" are found among the cases where there is an intelligent creator represented by the area "G".  If one is to accept this diagram (debatable!) it is then a trivial Bayesian calculation to show that given conditions/evidences "H" then it implies that the probability of God is almost unity. 

Now let's do the same for Richard's take on the situation. Interpreted in frequentist terms, he's saying this:

Richard's view is that our cosmos, with its huge volume of space-time sterile to life, can barely be claimed to be habitable and moreover to him the cosmos seems all very random; hence for Richard our cosmos lies somewhere in the region above labelled with "R".  According to Ricard, then, our cosmos is hardly the sort of affair that an intelligent and wise designer would create and therefore in his assessment region R has a very small overlap with region G. So, given this assumption of his, it then trivially follows that conditions/evidence labeled by "R" imply atheism with a probability of all but 100%. 

Clearly then F&M and Richard draw opposite conclusions from the evidence of the cosmos.  And it's not as if F&M, although Christians, are out and out antievolutionists after the manner of the right-wing North American Intelligent Design (NAID) community.  But let me say this: As we saw in Part II Richard seems to have underestimated the miracle of organization that is our observable cosmos and over emphasizes the role of randomness. I see the habitability of the cosmos, evolution or no evolution, as a very big deal indeed and not just a fluke of unadulterated randomness; I see Richard's vision of a bizarro "Big-R" superverse as not only hopelessly meaningless, but also lacking evidence. So, although I have to admit to feeling rather insecure about the use of Bayes to God, whether I was atheist or theist, I'm probably more on the side of F&M than I am that of Mr. Richard Carrier. 

As we will see below Richard's argument is based on his a priori theological conceptions and what he thinks (wrongly as it turns out) the way engineers who create stuff should work (my emphases):

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RICHARD: Intelligent engineers aiming to create life don’t make the laboratory for it vastly larger and older and more deadly than is required for the project. Indeed, unless those engineers intend to convince that life that they don’t exist, they don’t set up its habitat to look exactly like a habitat no one set up. This is the least likely way they would make a universe. But set that point aside. The conclusion already sufficiently follows from the first point: there is no reason to expect God to have made the universe this way. It cannot be predicted that this is what a God would produce, or that it is what he would want to produce. Whereas it is exactly 100% predicted to be what we’d see if there was no God. So no matter what you try to propose, you can never get that probability to be 100% if there was a God. You can propose all sorts of excuses, all sorts of “maybes,” but you will never be able to prove those proposals to be 100% certain to be true. There will always be some significant probability that those “excuses” simply aren’t true, that God simply doesn’t have your imagined motives or limitations. And indeed, when there is no evidence for or against any one such motive or limitation, its probability simply is 50%. It’s as likely as not.

MY COMMENT: Well, OK I can accept that Richard should draw parallels between divine creation and what he thinks human engineers do in the act of creation. After all, human engineering is something we have experience of; where else do we get our evidence from? We can only use our experience, and any intuitions based on that experience to probe the question of a divine intelligent designer and creator.

But when Richard says above that the kind of universe we see is exactly 100% predicted to be what we’d see if there was no God. is that actually true? 

As I've already said in Part II the cosmos, whether current theories of evolution are correct or not, is a remarkable piece of work that is far, far from the "Big-R" that Richard gives every impression he thinks it is; it is in fact a highly organized system of surprising contingencies, organized contingencies of very low statistical weight and therefore of very low unconditional probability. So, unless we are rather taken with Richard's Bizarro Big-R superverse concept, the observable cosmos is a most singular and arresting piece of construction.  But just how was it created if it is not part of a Big-R superverse? Let's see....

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Some years ago I was reading a book by a rather foolish fundamentalist Biblical literalist and I read these lines: 

.. the Bible teaches that the stars were created in an instant of time at the verbal command of God (Psalm 33:9). It is an awesome thought that God needed only to speak a word and billions upon billions of stars instantly appeared." (p15)

"... God supernaturally and instantaneously created the stars on the fourth day of creation" (p24)

"When we read of God's supernatural and instantaneous method of creation we must stand in awe of Him." (p34)

"When we consider God speaking the vast Universe of stars into existence, we can do nothing but stand in awe of Him"

This Biblical literalist is quite sure he knows the vital property distinguishing "natural" processes from "supernatural" action - it is of course that creators create their creations instantaneously by means of the pronouncement of suitable magic words. In commenting on Proverbs 8:27-30 where we read about God invoking wisdom as the craftsman of creation he concludes "God did not use evolution because a craftsman carries out instantaneous and deliberate actions whereas evolution involves a long random process" (p31). However, there are two glaring errors here: 1) Craftsmen don't create instantaneously. 2) To call evolution "random" is a gross misrepresentation. This literalist is captive to a false dichotomy: Viz: He contrasts what he believes to be the very random processes of evolution with what he feels are the instantaneous and deliberate acts of the craftsman. The irony is that Richard's views in terms of the concepts he employs aren't a lot different: As we've seen he is impressed by the notion of a Big-R universe. Moreover, take a look at the following which I've already quoted from Richard in a previous section of this post....

No intelligent agent needs quarks or electrons or electromagnetism or even gravity—things can just behave as commanded or designed: where things need to fall, they just fall; where stars need to shine, they just shine; where things need to stick together, they just stick together.

That is, in the mindset of both our Biblical literalist and Richard Carrier divine creation should entail no underlying logic, no process and no history; things just happen just-like-that, abracadabra style. Basically, the caricature of divine creation conceived by both Richard and our Biblical literalist is that the act of creation is brute magic.  Richard and our literalist just can't conceive that God might use the resources of time and space (humanly speaking huge amounts of them) as a demonstration of the process and computational cost needed to create life. For them God is a magician who merely commands stuff into existence and Richard's theological notions in terms of concepts employed doesn't look to be a great advancement on the Biblical literalist.

We cannot but help notice that our Biblical literalist is as laughably wrong as anyone can be about the actions of a craftsman; those actions are certainly not instantaneous; if they were we might justifiably accuse the craftsmen of being magicians in league with Devil. In fact, in some ways the work of the craftsman resembles the inconceivably more sophisticated work in the womb; that is, a stage-by-stage process moving incrementally closer to an end product as time progresses. These stages proceed against a background of inherent dependencies, e.g. a craftsman can't make a silver candlestick until some silver has been smelted and an embryo can't develop without a union of the appropriate genetic components not to mention the underlying organic chemistry fundamental to all living things. Of course, it is easy to claim that an omniscient omnipotence could create in one grand slam instantaneous act a fully mature human, but the sequential dependencies I talk of here are conceptually fundamental. A silver candlestick depends on the existence of silver but silver is not obliged to exist in the form of a silver candlestick. Likewise, humans depend on a prerequisite organic chemistry which itself depends on more fundamental conditions such as the construction of atoms. There is a forced logical sequence here that we cannot escape from whether we believe in instantaneous creation or not. If God instantaneously created a mature object that would not detract from the fact that the object itself may have inherent sequences of logical dependencies.

Some concept of sequence, then, is built into things no matter how they are arrived at. But the sequencing we see in embryo growth and artifact construction is much stronger than this "dependency" sequencing. Both processes pass through a series of stages separated by increments. Each stage is usually a little closer to the final product; although this is not necessarily true in the case of the craftsmen art where sometimes a search for solutions means backtracking may occur. But the fundamental aspect of both is the incremental separation between stages. The end product is the result of an accumulation of these incremental changes. The common theme is that of a quasi-continuity of change; you pass from one state to another through a series of intermediate states, thereby forming an incremental sequence of change. I would not, however, want to use the generic term "gradualism" here because some processes like, say, an explosion, is both incremental and yet very rapid. The key notion is one of at least an approximate continuity of change in as much as successive stages are only separated by relatively small displacements.

But we must take our faulting of both Richard and our Biblical literalist yet another stage further. As we know the process of designing is also a "search" process, an experimental trial and error endeavor that in some cases has definite goals in mind and in other cases involves chance discoveries that are perceived to have utility and only then are selected to become part of the technological tool kit. There is also the complex cognitive thought process occurring in the mind of the designer, which although not visible are all part of the experimentalism as ideas are mulled over in the mind and either rejected or selected for realized reification in material technology. 

All these factors combine to give us an exponentially branching network which constitutes a potentially huge search space making the space-time of the observable cosmos look like a very tiny place indeed. But the search space is considerably reduced if the creator is primed with an informational head start; that is, if the creator has useful a priori knowledge. The form of the equation which relates the information content of the configurations created as a function of starting information and the minimum possible number of computational search steps looks something like this: 

I = S + Log T

Equation 1

Where I is the information content of a configuration arrived at, S is the minimum length of the algorithm/knowledge needed to generate the configuration using a minimum number of linear execution steps of T. See here where I give more details on this relation.  (See also here).  This relation tells us that a creative agent/process can take a lot less time if that agent has a large amount of primal starter information S. But assuming a parallel processing paradigm then when S is lacking content information in I is generated only very slowly with Log of the number of execution steps T. 

It is a strong theological intuition that a proper concept of God entails an omniscient being and therefore One who has a full quota of S and hence has little need of the generation steps T. I guess that it is this intuition which influences our fundamentalist and Richard both of whom are quite sure that when it comes to creation brute omni-power means that God can just do stuff all but instantaneously and doesn't need any process with a history behind it; that is T ~ 0.  But of course, that's not true of human designers for which the cognitive process of design and creation entails thought, sequence, experiment, and the trial-and-error search for good information all of which is, above all, a process with a history. In that sense both Richard and our literalist fundie have got it so wrong about designers; designers search. test, reject & select, backtrack, correct, and develop; they don't just do stuff instantaneously but rather leave behind a history of research & development; history, and plenty of it, is implicit in all human artifacts. 

***

As we know our own universe displays a history; it is an object which has developed and didn't spring into existence "just like that". It is this history which biblical literalists are committed to denying with great scientific difficulty. Of course, Richard, like myself, believes in cosmic history, but he's trying to push past us the theological notion that theists should all be like Biblical literalists and postulate T ~ 0 where God stuff just falls into place at command; he is asking me to accept that creation should have little or no algorithmic logic and history behind it and he is also asking me to accept that a cosmos with logic and a long history is evidence that God doesn't exist. Moreover, as we've seen he gives the impression that he's positing a "Big R" superverse. But that, as we've also seen, has little or no evidence going for it and can be justifiably called a bizarro universe as it can be used to explain anything. And while on the subject of bizarro explanations: To me, the concept of the abracadabra God, a concept shared by Biblical literalists, also qualifies as a bizarro God because just about anything goes; see for example my "Beyond Our Ken" series. In fact, it may be that much of Richard's theological concepts stem from his experience with the North American Intelligent Design community and fundamentalist organisations like Answers in Genesis.

For myself the Big R supervesre is as unlikely as the abracadabra God. Neither notions have evidence in their favour; Big-R predicts instabilities in the organisation of the cosmos, instabilities we don't observe, and abracadabra predicts a universe without a logical history, a universe Beyond our Ken.

It is clear our universe has a history of development and this is particularly evident with life and geology, although may I say that I'm not committed to any particular engine/mechanism of evolution. However, I would tentatively submit the idea that the size of the creation is a divine revelation to humankind of the computational costs of a universe such as ours, a universe which is so obviously specialized for developing and supporting life. Another speculative notion which I would like to submit is that our universe may well use expanding parallelism and teleological constraints in order to generate life; this would get rid of the "slow" Log T term in equation 1 above, an equation which pertains to vanilla parallel processing. However, all that is very speculative, and the last thing I want to do is to be like Richard and our foolish literalist fundie who have made their minds up and think everyone else should follow suite, or else be called nasty names by them and their followers. 

Lastly let me comment on this quote from Richard: 

Intelligent engineers aiming to create life don’t make the laboratory for it vastly larger and older and more deadly than is required for the project...etc etc,

That may well be true. But the minimum space-time dimensions of a cognitive "laboratory" depend entirely on:

a) the initial knowledge of the engineers, that is the value of S, and 

b) the configurational complexity of the task in hand which dictates the minimum value of T given S. 

So, if the level of providence the Good Lord has provisioned our universe with measured in terms of its initial algorithmic complexity (S) and the time and space set aside for cosmic development (T), then the incredible sophistication and complexity of life very likely dictates the large space-time dimensions of our cosmos.  From where I stand the cosmos looks very much like an ingenious piece of computational engineering built around equation 1 above. It certainly isn't a tiny piece of an immense Big-R cosmos, or something created last Thursday with a built-in bogus maturity (The omphalos hypothesis).

In part IV I will continue to examine Mr. Richard Carrier's theological assumptions. 

Naive Intelligent Design: Part III

The NAID community hold an a-priori anti-evolutionary position. 
Their subliminally deist concept of "natural forces" connives with
this view.

What started as a single post has now become a four-part series with the fourth part to come. The two previous parts of this series can be found here:

Part 1: Quantum Non-Linearity: Casey Luskin Promotes a Flawed XOR Epistemic Filter (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)

Part2: Quantum Non-Linearity: Logging Some Notes on Naive Intelligent Design Theory (quantumnonlinearity.blogspot.com)

As we saw in Part I the North American ID community (NAID) have painted themselves into a corner that has committed them to defending a Dawkinesque philosophy of evolution: Namely, that evolution and intelligent creation are mutually incompatible. Evolution, they'll try to tell us, makes no claim to using intelligent design and creative input; therefore, to be an evolutionist in their view is an attempt to do away with the necessity of intelligent input. 

In the dualist paradigm of the NAID community there is a clear XOR choice between so called "natural forces" and the artificial forces of intelligence. This dichotomy does work if we are dealing with agencies, sentient or not, that work within the created or "natural" order: Viz: When we come across a material configuration of some sort, such as an object of archeological interest, a signal from Outerspace, or an Unidentified Ariel Phenomenon, it is a meaningful question to ask whether we looking at an outcome of the physical regime and generated "naturally" or whether it is the work of one of those natural intelligences that are actually an aspect of the physical regime: e.g.  humans, intelligent apes, elephants, birds, little gray men from Zeta Reticuli or even Greek sub-deities; these intelligences are "natural" in so far as they are cosmically in-house; that is, they are material objects. In this context the natural physical regime and natural intelligence are regarded as distinct causative agents and it makes sense to see a material configuration as the outcome of either purely natural forces or having input from natural intelligence. Here the NAID epistemic filter works after a fashion.

Given the foregoing scenario it is meaningful to declare that if a configuration is generated purely by the physical regime, this therefore excludes the involvement of natural intelligences.  Moreover, those unintelligent "natural forces" are seen as autonomous generators of configurations, albeit innovationally inferior to the creative potential of natural intelligent agents. If the physical regime is going to generate configurations more startling than say crystals, layers of rock, or random noise or rhythmic pulses from the stars, it is going to need at least a little help from those natural intelligences which reside within the natural order such as humans, apes or little grey men. In this context it makes sense to ask the question "Did natural forces do it, or was intelligence involved?". This dichotomy brings to the fore the current conundrum which surrounds the question of organic forms; they are clearly more sophisticated that anything human beings can construct and, apparently, far, far more sophisticated than anything we directly observe nature constructing. Therefore, according to Naive Intelligent Design life must be evidence of intelligent agency. But in drawing this conclusion the distinctiveness of the natural intelligence category is not given cognizance by C&S.

As we have seen and will continue to see in this post, the foregoing is the epistemic paradigm NAID culture has locked itself into, and ironically it is also the paradigm of those committed to exclusive secularism such as Richard Dawkins. In the Dawkinesque world it makes sense to put all one's philosophical eggs into the "naturalist" basket of evolution because it can then be declared that "The creation of life is a natural phenomenon that hasn't had intelligent help". And ironically this is also how the NAIDs think of evolution except that they believe that without "intelligent help" evolution is not up to the task of generating living configurations. Consequently, NAID philosophers are committed to minimizing the life generating powers of evolution whereas Dawkinesque philosophers are committed to maximizing the constructive efficacy of evolution.

But as it turns this polarized paradigm is shoddy theology and falls over badly in the context of Christain theism. 

***

In this post I will be critiquing the following post by Casey Luskin and Stephen Dilley:

Evolution Falsified? Rope Kojonen’s Achievement | Evolution News

As will become increasingly clear they are using a secularist paradigm that only makes sense in the context of natural intelligence. 

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CASEY & STEPHEN: If mainstream evolutionary theory can account for the eye of an eagle, does it make any sense to say that intelligent design is also needed?  

MY COMMENT:  Yes and no! "No" if you are thinking of natural intelligence and potentially "yes" if you are thinking of transcendent divine intelligence, as we will see....

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C&S: The heart of Kojonen’s book is an attempt to reinvigorate a biology-based design argument that is compatible with mainstream evolutionary theory. That is, he accepts evolutionary explanations of the rise of flora and fauna, yet he also argues that this same flora and fauna provides empirical evidence of intelligent design. At first blush, this sounds like a violation of Ockham’s razor. If natural selection and random mutation are up to the task, what ground is there to say that an intelligent agent is also needed?

MY COMMENT:  The reason why C&S think Kojonen has violated Ockham's razor is because they are unable to mentally free themselves from the ID vs Natural Forces dualism forced on them by their flawed epistemic filter. As a consequence, they have superimposed an either/or choice on the question of whether evolution is sourced in natural forces or intelligent agency. In their eyes, one must choose one or the other or else be accused of multiplying entities contrary to Occam's razor. The subtlety they haven't spotted is that their epistemic filter has encrypted into it the subliminal assumption that the kind of intelligence this filter deals with is always a natural intelligence. 

***

C&S (my emphases): Kojonen believes that his particular conception of design rises to the challenge. He argues that design helps evolution succeed. In this collaborative model, God directly designed the laws of nature, which in turn gave rise to special preconditions that enabled evolution to produce biological form and function. As we explain in our article:

In chapter four, Kojonen marshals various arguments to show that the preconditions of evolution must be designed if evolution is to be successful (as he believes it to be). The deck must be stacked in advance. In particular, fitness landscapes must be finely tuned ahead of time in order for evolutionary processes to successfully produce biological complexity and diversity. Kojonen believes that it is implausible to think that evolutionary processes can account for flora and fauna without these special preconditions. To make his case, Kojonen cites the work of Andreas Wagner, William Dembski, and others on protein evolution, evolutionary algorithms, structuralism, and the like. For Kojonen, these thinkers’ arguments powerfully show that evolutionary processes need prior “fine-tuning” of fitness landscapes (Kojonen 2021, pp. 97-143, esp. pp. 109-23). Thus, “evolution and design” is superior to “evolution alone.” 

MY COMMENT:  As we will see in Part IV Kojonen isn't saying anything startingly new. Therefore, to say "Kojonen believes that his particular conception of design rises to the challenge" is grossly inappropriate. As we will see we cannot imagine evolution being anything other than how Kojonen describes it as a process that necessarily exploits a smooth well-tuned "fitness landscape".  It beats me why C&S are so startled by Kojonen's very unoriginal claim.

And yet it is clear from the above that C&S are actually attempting to frame their deliberations within the context of a transcendent divine intelligence as opposed to natural intelligence: Viz: "God directly designed the laws of nature". So, as we shall see in due course their epistemic paradigm crashes ignominiously because it is unable to handle transcendent intelligence: When it comes to a transcendent Christian deity it makes no sense to talk of a collaborative model. Once again, we see the NAIDs epistemic filter forcing on the debate a paradigm that is only meaningful when dealing with natural intelligences; given natural intelligences it is meaningful to say that these intelligences collaborate with nature when creating artifacts. 

Actually, in spite of my reservations I can agree with the general drift of the quote above. After all, as I have said in my previous post, if the probability of life forming in a very finite universe is to be significant it must be a conditional probability: Viz:

Conditional probability of life ~ significant = Prob(Organic configurations, right conditions)

That is, life has all but no chance of forming unconditionally given the nature of naked randomness: It can only form if the randomness is "dressed" with the right conditions, usually expressed as mathematical constraints (i.e. laws governing the physical regime) putting a tight envelop on the dance of randomness. Naturally, being a Christian theist there is only One Power I can think of capable of that. In fact, we hear about that Power in the quote above. Again: "God directly designed the laws of nature"! ...this suggests that C&S are in actual fact attempting to frame the question of evolution in the context of Christian theism but they fail to see that this throws a whole new complexion on intelligent design as we shall see. 

But although I largely agree with the above quote C&S betray at least two subtle flaws in their thinking....

ONE:  They refer to "pre-conditions" and "prior fine tuning, done ahead of time" and God "designed the laws of nature". The thinking expressed here about past-tense pre-preparation of the cosmos looks like subliminal deism; deism is also a feature of proto-secularism. In deism God sets up the necessary conditions in advance and then lets the cosmos dance its dance while He stands back. And yet the constraints of the physical regime (i.e. its laws) are a presence-tense-continuous influence on the ongoing patterns that the cosmos generates; those constraints are there as transcendent pattern controllers everywhere and everywhen, justified by no apparent logic which can wipe away the utter surprisal (i.e. the information content) of their contingency. Recycling old well-known phraseology, it might be said that natural law is daily and hourly scrutinizing & controlling events throughout the world. Let's also recall the sophistication of randomness itself; randomness is the absence of any succinct mathematical rule which might describe it or constrain it. In its ideal state randomness is incomputable. All this sounds suspiciously like the ongoing input of a very competent exocosmic agent, whether sentient or not.

I have to confess that when talking about the necessary conditions for a working model of evolution I might have once expressed myself by talking about preconditions and the physical regime being "front loaded" with information, but I now see this as a deistic error; those contingent constraints on the patterns of the physical regime are ever present and ever working; everywhere and everywhen. 

TWO:  NAID pundits use terms like "Thus, “evolution and design” is superior to “evolution alone.” without embarrassment because they conceive evolution to be distinct from intelligence agency. Well, as we have seen that's OK if we are dealing with humans, aliens or sub-deities like Greek gods. But if we are dealing with the immanent Judeo-Christain God the implicit categories here underlying NAID culture's natural forces vs intelligence paradigm fail: For if standard evolution has occurred (caution: I'm not committed to saying it has) it is necessarily the subject of both present-tense continuous mathematical constraints and the event surprisal of randomness; for a Christian theist such a process would clearly require the ongoing immanent input from the One and Only Transcendent Sovereign. In this conceptual context “evolution alone” is unthinkable.

Is it possible that C&S are simply repeating Kojonen's own deistical terms which then provides them with enough rope to hang Kojonen. I can't speak for Kojonen on this score as I haven't read his book. But I can criticize C&S for adopting a proto-secularist deistical philosophy for themselves as the basis for critiquing evolution; for as soon as you admit the existence of an imminent Judeo-Christian Deity, the possibility of the existence of the strict mathematical constraints supporting an efficacious evolution then looms on the horizon.

*** 

C&S: This is a keyway that “design” adds value to “evolution.” Yet is there empirical evidence that these fine-tuned preconditions and landscapes exist? If so, then there are good grounds for Kojonen’s particular conception of design. If not, then his view of design falls short. As we explain:

Kojonen situates design precisely in those fine-tuned preconditions which yield smooth fitness landscapes that allow evolution to succeed. His case for marrying design with evolution therefore depends on the existence of this fine-tuning. So, it is crucial to assess whether this fine-tuning is real. And this question can be assessed scientifically: are fitness landscapes smooth? Are there open pathways between functional proteins, for example? Or are there impassible barriers between such proteins?

Alas, this is where the dike breaks. As we show in our article — and in previous posts — there is no good evidence for fine-tuned preconditions and smooth fitness landscapes (as Kojonen envisions them). Indeed, there is extremely strong evidence against such things.

MY COMMENT:  At last C&S are actually making some good coherent sense here and I might (or might not!) agree with them (apart from quibbling their use of the term preconditions). As I said in Part I and many times before, standard evolution depends on the existence of what I call the spongeam, a structure of thin fibrils in configuration space which join the complex ordered configurations of survivable organic structures into a connected set thus facilitating the transport of probability via the diffusion equation through to those complex ordered configurations we call life. But along with NAID culture I would want to raise a plausible question as to whether such "smooth landscapes" actually exist in configuration space given the known cosmic physical regime. But on this question there is one big difference between myself and NAID culture: NAID culture has burnt its boats, and its mutual back-slapping groupthink has lead it to assert with confidence "There is extremely strong evidence against such things." Well, true there may be evidence against such things but is it extremely strong? I'm not so sure; for am I to believe that all those scientists (and that includes Christian scientists) who claim there is empirical evidence for evolution are in a conspiracy to ignore what NAID culture claims is strong evidence for the absence of those "smooth landscapes"?  The question sounds moot & debatable to me.

So, in conclusion... From my point of view, I can allow that NAID culture does have a prima facia case here, but as I'm not a biologist and don't have sufficient grasp on the empirical data I therefore have to admit I can't speak intelligently on this question. However, I must stress I have no commitment to the groupthink of either side. 

Be that as it may C&S have at least admitted that a physical regime fine-tuned enough for the spongeam to be an ongoing controlling envelope is a sign of intelligent agency, presumably a transcendent intelligent creator: Viz:

"Yet is there empirical evidence that these fine-tuned preconditions and landscapes exist?If so, then there are good grounds for Kojonen’s particular conception of design."

Whether or not this is the case swings on whether or not the spongeam exists; perhaps it doesn't! In which case organic forms are irreducibly complex with their working components isolated on islands of functionality. As I've said before, discovering whether or not organic structures are irreducibly complex may be a computationally irreducible question; that is, we may be looking at a computation that has no short cut analytical answer and can only be answered by an actual "long hand" evolutionary experiment.  

But in spite of the absence of easy analytical answers about whether evolution is feasible, it is an axiomatic part of NAID groupthink to assert the irreducible complexity of organic structures; it has therefore become a culturally irreversible choice for them.  Consequently, in the face of a seemingly irresolvable and acrimonious empirical debate with the evolutionary establishment about irreducible complexity, NAID culture is casting around for stronger logical grounds for eliminating evolution from the debate. Cue, their precarious crypto-deistic epistemology.......

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C&S:Kojonen’s model may have devastating implications for mainstream evolutionary theory. Recall that the heart of his proposal is that evolution needs design (in the form of fine-tuned preconditions). Evolution on its own is insufficient to produce flora and fauna. But if we are correct that Kojonen’s conception and justification of design are flawed, then it follows — by his own lights — that evolution is impotent to explain biological complexity. Kojonen’s own account of the efficacy of evolution depends upon the success of his case for design. But if the latter stumbles, then so does the former. In a startling way, Kojonen has set the table for the rejection of evolution. If he has failed to make his case for design, then he has left readers with strong reasons to abandon mainstream evolutionary theory. The full implications of this striking result warrant further exploration.

Kojonen’s model provides yet another significant reason to reject evolutionary theory. Of course, the general falsity of evolution is not the focus of the argument in our paper per se; it is nonetheless a direct implication of the failure of Kojonen’s model. Readers who take his case seriously will realize that he has given a beautiful account of how to falsify evolutionary theory. Kojonen mounts a sophisticated argument — based on evolutionary algorithms, convergence, structuralism, and the like — that evolution is impotent on its own to explain biological complexity. It requires design. If he is correct, then evolution cannot succeed without design. And if we are correct, there is no such design. The inescapable conclusion is that evolution does not succeed.

MY COMMENT:  The hidden logic underlying the above argument is based on NAID's flawed epistemic filter which forces a choice between intelligent design and natural forces (See my initial preamble above and Part I).  In the NAID paradigm intelligent agency and natural forces are two mutually excluding categories and one must choose one or the other, just as one must choose between, for example, aliens or a natural radio emission when doing SETI. 

It is the NAID category system which enables one to conceive that there is such an object as "Evolution on its own"; that is, as a process unaided by (natural) intelligent interference. So, in the NAID universe of conceptions Kojonen is mixing the two categories of intelligent agency and natural forces in order to give evolution a little help from intelligence to bump it off the bottom of otherwise natural inefficacy.  C&S are trying to get past us the incoherent notion that Kojonen's thesis is tantamount to admitting that "Evolution on its own is insufficient" as a life creator and therefore the alternative is that it is an admixture of intelligence and natural forces.  But according to C&S this dual explanation of evolution violates Occam's razor. 

Moreover, C&S see this as a backdoor clincher in favor of their thesis: Kojonen in admitting evolution's need for intelligent help has, according to C&S, admitted its inefficacy in creating sophisticated configurations such as organic structures without that help.  Therefore, if evolution shows no evidence of those design nudges which might be the work of a sub-deity or alien intelligence then Kojonen is effectively telling us that evolution ("alone") doesn't work. In fact, as C&S are fast to point out Dawkinesque secularists "reject design precisely because they think evolutionary processes are fully sufficient"

Let me repeat all that in slightly different words: According to C&S (and also Dawkinesque thinking) evolution is supposed to work without design; that is, without the input of the ad hoc tinkering by some sub-deity or super-alien giving it a nudge or two to get it moving in the right direction. So, if you believe that evolution needs the designs of fine-tuning to work, this is tantamount to admitting that without a lot of intelligent tinkering evolution as a natural process doesn't work.

Well, the foregoing is the logic of NAive Intelligent Design. As I have already said this logic is bad theology in that it actually employs in a form of crypto-deism. This follows because one is being asked by NAID thinkers to conceive a category of so-called natural forces that are able to operate autonomously as configuration generators, if only with the potential to generate relatively elementary configurations. In the NAID paradigm these "natural forces" are deemed "blind and unintelligent".  But this NAID category only makes coherent sense if it is being contrasted against natural intelligent designers who work within the confines of the created order and are part of it, such as humans, apes, aliens and classical sub-deities - it doesn't work in the context of the transcendent, immanent God of Christianity who creates not just at the beginning of time, but whose creative power is an ongoing present-tense-continuous power controlling and creating the patterns of cosmic behaviour. 

 Assuming that C&S are rightly representing Kojonen's views, then according to C&S Kojonen is telling us that evolution needs to be supplemented with the kind of fine-tuning that entails smooth "fitness landscapes" in configuration space.  But as we shall see such fine-tuning isn't a mere supplement but is in fact part and parcel with the very description of evolution and cannot be divorced from it. Least of all does Kojonen's work count as a new radical and startling departure as C&S seem to (wrongly) think it is. Kojonen's contribution is something we already know to be a minimum requirement of a working evolutionary model, in fact part of its very definition. 

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C&S: We bring our long series to a close on a note of current relevance to the ID community. As members of this community know, some thinkers actively call for advocates of ID to accept only versions of design that are compatible with mainstream evolutionary theory. They believe that ID will only stand a chance of success if it accepts conventional thinking. Naturally, advocates of this view may be tempted to see Kojonen’s model as an ally in their quest.

MY COMMENT:  I'd accept the underlying point here: It is not a good strategy to bully the NAID community into accepting mainstream evolutionary theory. To do so has only had the effect of pushing the NAID community into the embrace of the far-right evangelicals & Trumpites. As I have said in Part 1 of this series the existence of the spongeam (i.e. "reducible complexity") can be challenged and the NAID community do have a reasonable and even plausible case here. In fact it is a good thing to have such anti-evolution critics on the sidelines challenging the evolutionary establishment to come up with solutions to those apparent gaps in what they think to be smooth evolutionary change. And yet C&S tell us above that the general falsity of evolution is not the focus of the argument in our paper per se. That is, in this instance C&S are not focusing on this constructive challenge to evolution. Instead, they have foolishly followed an epistemic willow-the-wisp which uses the bad theology of their "natural forces vs sub-deity" paradigm.  

May I repeat: Personally, I have no vested interest staked in either the truth or falsity of standard evolution: I'm not a biologist and so I don't have at my fingertips the empirical evidence to decide on a question about the reality or otherwise of what may in fact be a computationally irreducible process. What I do know is that the NAID epistemic paradigm is flawed through and through and they should scrap it and spend more time backing their argument for their empirical theory of irreducible complexity.

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C&S: But the reality is quite different. Kojonen’s argument is that mainstream evolution on its own is insufficient to explain biological complexity. Hence, he argues that designed laws and preconditions are needed. His claim about the impotence of evolutionary theory is hardly the received view among evolutionary biologists. [That is, Dawkinite thinkers and not Biologos!] (At least, this is true in their public-facing statements; in private, one sometimes hears great cause for concern.) Indeed, many evolutionary biologists say they reject design precisely because they think evolutionary processes are fully sufficient. [Again, Dawkinite thinkers and not Biologos!] Why else would they accept the theory? So, even when Kojonen’s model is taken on its own terms, it runs against the grain of mainstream evolutionary thought. Thinkers who petition the ID movement to accept evolutionary theory and who see Kojonen’s model as an aid to their cause have not understood the actual contours of the debate. Kojonen’s model is no ally of accommodationist versions of intelligent design.

Moreover, if our criticisms of Kojonen’s model are correct, then he has, in effect, falsified mainstream evolutionary theory. Far from bringing people into the evolutionary fold, Kojonen has done science (and ID) a great service by showing them why they should pursue a richer, more thoughtful path.

MY COMMENT: The deistical idea that there is such a thing as "Evolution on its own" is a notion one hears from Dawkinesque thinkers who want to become intellectually satisfied atheists. One also hears it from NAIDs (and Kojonen?) who think the notion is coherent enough for them to attempt to prove "mainstream evolution on its own is insufficient to explain biological complexity". And when we read above that "many evolutionary biologists say they reject design precisely because they think evolutionary processes are fully sufficient" that only makes sense in the context of "Dawkinesque" deism, a philosophy which is also subliminally shared by NAID crypto-deism: Viz: that "natural processes" have an autonomy as a causal agent and stand in distinction from intelligent agency.  But to make this distinction both NAID pundits and Dawkinesque atheists are subliminally contrasting natural processes with natural cosmic in-house intelligent agents like aliens or human. Such natural intelligent agents are distinct from "natural forces" and provide an alternative explanation when those natural forces seem unable to account for a material configuration.  But all that goes out of the window if we admit Christianity's transcendent & immanent theism. 

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As we will see in Part IV Kojonen is actually saying nothing really original or new, for by the very definition of a working model of standard evolution it must exploit an a-priori spongeam (what some call a smooth "fitness landscape"). Consequently, conventional evolution, as properly understood, can never be anything other than a highly sophisticated information rich process, the depository of huge contingent dependencies.  What Kojonen is saying isn't in error except that according to C&S's account of his argument (and, true, they may be misrepresenting him) for some reason Kojonen appears to have divorced evolution from its own definition and even goes as far as making a "claim about the impotence of evolutionary theory". Therefore, according to C&S Kojonen has actually, "in effect, falsified mainstream evolutionary theory". On the contrary Kojonen has simply stated the conditions that we know must hold if evolution is to be a working model.

As we shall also see, if one is so minded, even the existence of a conveniently smooth fitness landscape facilitating evolution isn't necessarily enough to trigger an "it must be intelligent design" response. But the Christian who isn't befuddled by Naive ID's bad theology will find standard evolution to be such an astonishingly sophisticated process (i.e. of huge surprisal value) that it provides plenty of grist to the mill for the design hunter.  

Logging Some Notes on Naive Intelligent Design Theory. Part II

The logic of NAive ID's epistemology: "I can't see any intelligent agency here: Therefore, I conclude that cars are created by
natural processes.". It's ironic that the NAive IDists and Dawkinites would agree on this point!
(Picture from: Photo & Art Print robot assembly line in car factory (ukposters.co.uk))

This current post picks up on some matters arising from my last post on Casey Luskin's take on Intelligent Design and Evolution. 

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ONE) Here we go again:  The group think momentum of NAive ID continues in this post on Evolution News:

Can Evolution and Design Work in Harmony? | Evolution News

Namely....

But if the design can be explained through natural processes, there is little need to invoke intelligent design. After all, the whole point of mainstream evolutionary theory is to render any need for design superfluous.

Dr. Dilley also explains why Kojonen’s model contradicts our natural intuition to detect design. If we look at a hummingbird under Kojonen’s proposal, we are still required to see unguided natural processes at work, the appearance of design without actual intelligent design. Yet we are also supposed to acknowledge that an intelligent designer front-loaded the evolutionary process with the creative power it needs to produce the hummingbird. So is it intelligently designed, or isn’t it? The theist on the street is left scratching his or her head.

Yes, the so-called theist-on-the-street is left scratching their heads and these theists are none other than the North American Intelligent Design community. It ought to be quite clear to any sufficiently educated theist that a physical regime capable of generating life could only come out of the workings of an all but omniscient mind. The NAIDs are educated but they have painted themselves into a group-think corner which commits their sub-culture to an erroneous XOR epistemic filter, imposing a straight ID vs Natural forces binary choice on the subject. Along with Dawkinesque atheists they have wrongly equated evolution with a form of deism; it is a very short step from deism to the complete elimination of deity.

See also the following: The error of the title speaks for itself. It is clear that the NAIDs who write this sort of stuff have absolutely no inkling that they are merely scratching the surface of the subject:

The Incompatibility of Evolution and Design | Evolution News

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TWO) Rate of creation of information.  The following pertains to mathematical work I have done and continue to do...

An error propagated in both NAID culture and among Christian Young Earthists is that God's physical regime can't generate information. This is untrue.....

Firstly, let's start with this simple equation:

Unconditional probability of life = Prob (Organic configuration)

The highly organized yet highly complex configurations of life are such a small statistical class in the immense sea of randomness that the probability of organized complexity arising by naked chance can be neglected even given the immense number of trials supplied by a universe billions of years old and billions of light years across. The dimensions of space-time, even if measured in billions, doesn't even scratch the surface of unconditional probabilities so deeply negatively logarithmic that one has to get past billions of zero digits to the right of the decimal point before one hits non-zero digits. Hence, the probability of life being generated can only be significant if the right pre-conditions exist. That is:

Conditional probability of life ~ significant = Prob(Organic configuration, right conditions)

What we are asking for here is that given the right generating conditions life could be generated in a reasonable number of trials because each trial has an enhanced probability of generating life by virtue of the physical regime embodied in those right conditions. 

These trials have the effect of generating negative Shannon Information. The reason for this negativity is that if life should form as a result of the conditions which enhance its probability, then it has passed from a platonic possibility into the created world; life is then a known fact and the information is now reified and exists in the real world. 

As I have shown elsewhere this shift in the information from the platonic world of possibility to the real world occurs at a no greater rate than is implied by:

I = S + log(T)

Where I is the information content of a configuration, S is the minimum length of the algorithm needed to generate the configuration with a minimum number of execution steps of T.

I give a derivation of this mathematical form in two papers that can accessed from here and here. I have subsequently been working on a more sophisticated version of this expression and will publish this work in due course. 

The thing to note is that information can in principle be created by a physical regime: But if that physical regime is a parallel processor, this information is only created very slowly with the logarithm of time T.  Hence, the contention one hears from fundamentalists and NAIDs that physical processes can't create information is false, mislead as they are by the slow logarithmic production of information in parallel processing mode. It becomes manifestly false if parallel processing is superseded by the exponentials of expanding parallelism; cue quantum theory....

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THREE):  The second law of thermodynamics and the diffusion equation. Assuming that configuration space has at least some regions in it crossed by the thin fibrils of the spongeam then as the diffusion in configuration space expands there is a chance that this expansion reaches the life creating regions in that space. Thus, although in these regions of configuration space organization is increasing this may well be offset by regions in configuration space, unconstrained by the spongeam where disorder is most definitely increasing thus more than cancelling the increase in order elsewhere; this looks to be the status quo in our cosmos where overall entropy is always increasing. Thus, it doesn't follow that the emergence of life necessarily violates the second law of thermodynamics.  One Biblical literalist looks to have twigged this fact. 

The diffusion equation below opens up the possibility of many scenarios where local order increases but overall order decreases......

See here for more on this equation. The spongeam can be patched in across configuration space with the factor V. This factor is a function of the coordinates in configuration space. 

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The above thoughts, which I don't push with any political gusto or over-motivated group-commitment, will naturally set me at odds with NAID culture which identifies too strongly with unwoke group think. I advance these concepts as an area of personal exploration uncommitted as I am to either the tribes of the woke or unwoke.