Information, Evolution, and Intelligent Design
Information, Evolution, and Intelligent Design
H/T Mani Saint-Victor
Looking for sparks? This lecture will fire off a few neurons.
#intelligentdesign
H/T Mani Saint-Victor
Looking for sparks? This lecture will fire off a few neurons.
#intelligentdesign
Excellent lecture!!! Definitely worth watching multiple times as it is just packed with hints of so many worthy lines of contemplation.
ReplyDeleteIt would be amusing to know how many people saw "Intelligent Design" in the title an discovered it did not mean anything even close to what they expected.
Great lecture - have spent the last hour watching it.
ReplyDeleteThank you Zara Altair
John Moore So many threads I'm thinking multiples of multiples. :)
ReplyDeleteVivekananda Baindoor Rao Glad you dove in. A great thought starter.
ReplyDeleteI love this lecture. "Free floating rationality" made my heart smile.
ReplyDeleteThen today my imagination fell into the world of morphic resonance: http://www.sheldrake.org/research/morphic-resonance
Manuel Saint-Victor , great lecture and some interesting ways to frame cultural evolution.
ReplyDelete"...morphic resonance..."
I found this a bit disconnecting.. and troubling...
"...a process whereby self-organising systems inherit a memory from previous similar systems..."
What memory, where is this memory... because later it says..
"...biological inheritance need not all be coded in the genes, or in epigenetic modifications of the genes; much of it depends on morphic resonance from previous members of the species..."
and...
'.... each individual inherits a collective memory from past members of the species, and also contributes to the collective memory, affecting other members of the species in the future..."
When I see stuff like this my skin crawls.. it starts sounding like hocs pocs.., psycho magic..? No genes, no epigenics, some "collective memory"... Seriously??
See:
http://skepdic.com/morphicres.html
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ruperts-resonance/
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/scientific-heretic-rupert-sheldrake-on-morphic-fields-psychic-dogs-and-other-mysteries/
That seems to be the response across my trusted brains, John Moore.
ReplyDeleteManuel Saint-Victor 😉 .. no surprise there... at least I would hope so.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I do understand the temptation to go "off the reservation" of the more formal and restrict protocols of science.
And I suspect that many a trusted scientist has secret ideas of how and where things might connect behind the curtain of what we "know".
The temptation is significant, I get that.
But... what makes science so powerful (and successful) IS those very restrictive protocols of testing, validation and reproducibility. Along with how each and every "scientific theory" has to connect with ALL of science.. (i.e. can not posit something that is contradicted or unsupported by other branches of science)
Now, that does not make him "wrong" in some future absolute sense, but what it makes him, right now, is irrelevant. This is an important distinction, IMO. It does not connect: what can you "do" with it and how can it be used?
I guess if he were a theoretical physicist (moving in the world of quantum mechanics and GUTs) we might expect it to be out on some bleeding edge (with only the math to hold one to some semblance of reality), but a theoretical biologist..? Hmm.. that is an interesting concept and, at the moment, can not think of how that might be useful for biology in general.
Bottom line: Science is practical and ultimately "functional" otherwise it is just fantasy, a "just so" story..
Arrrggg... sorry this hits my hot button... I'll shut up...😣
No. Don't. This is just what I wanted to hear.
ReplyDeleteI like to keep my science grounded yet don't want to be overly close-minded. I wanted to make sure I wasn't rejecting the ideas due to my limited understanding.
Manuel Saint-Victor Ok, ok... you ask for it...😱
ReplyDelete"..closed minded..." Oh, do I just love that phrase... What does it really mean and in what context...
i.e.....
If I jump off a cliff, am I closed minded to suggest that I will splatter on the rocks below when it is suggested by others that I might or should be able to fly..??
You can see where I'm going with this.. At what point is one "closed minded"? What does that really mean? Denial of reality, or denial of some "theory", or expecting that theory or idea to adhere to some framework or protocol, that allows for validation or expecting that idea or theory to somehow integrate with all other things we know?
"..having a mind firmly unreceptive to new ideas or arguments.."
The problem here is what those "new ideas or arguments" are grounded in, what is the context, framework, protocols that are the basis for those "new ideas or arguments".. and under what pretext is one "unreceptive".
In my view the term "closed minded" has become so abused, vague and contextual that it has lost all useful meaning. (and so has "open minded" for that matter..).
I guess I'm "closed minded" on this issue..😝
That fits my position a lot of the time.
ReplyDeleteI come across many ideas and most I don't see a good reason, from where I am experience-wise, to elaborate on the models.
That being said, I have way too many colleagues perfectly happy not exploring any frameworks or models not already evaluated by "the authorities". I like to imagine fun scenarios as long as doing so does something helpful to my existing models.
I mean that in an enjoyable sci-fi, "what if" manner vs that feeling of having poured a bunch of noise into my mind.
I'm not sure I made my thoughts much clearer just now. I think I am saying I agree the terms have been abused.
Manuel Saint-Victor ..love good sci-fi.. There still a lot of wonder and "what if" in the world that still can be explored from the basis of what is probable vs what is possible.
ReplyDeleteThat is another line of thought I like to explore, the probable vs the possible. Along the lines of: "..anything might be possible but what we see in the world is what is most probable...". This might also be where that "closed vs open" minded dichotomy can track.. Understanding the difference between possible and probable is so important.
Scientific American had a whole issue in Sept on Einstein.. some great articles on the interactions of those great minds during that time over just a that dichotomy of the probable vs the possible.
You can't just tickle my fancy about a good series and then walk away, John Moore!
ReplyDeleteIs it available online?
Manuel Saint-Victor Yep... you can purchase the individual issues..
ReplyDeletehttp://www.scientificamerican.com/magazine/sa/2015/09-01/
I'll leave it to you to resist subscribing.. There is a lot of fancies that can be tickled.😉
Thanks, John Moore!
ReplyDelete