On Intelligent Design

Among the reactions to my recent paper "The World as Evolving Information", a note on it was posted on the Uncommon Descent blog, which promotes Intelligent Design (ID). Supporters of ID believe that the materialistic worldview has "corrupted" the sciences, and saw my paper as an alternative to their cause.

However, as any scientist, I am a strong opponent of ID, since it is not a scientific theory. I have never seen any evidence for it (no, handwaving does not count as evidence), whereas there is plenty of evidence for natural selection.

Moreover, my paper tries to extend the Darwinian concepts of natural selection and random variation to a broader domain.

Thus, if you see any interpretation of my paper in an ID context, it does not represent my ideas. Nazis made an interpretation of Darwin that I am sure he would have disapproved...

Note also that my ideas are not incompatible with religions. I am an atheist, but I respect other people's beliefs. My opposition to ID is due to its failed scientific pretensions.

Comments

Unknown said…
Carlos,

The dishonesty of the Paleyists continues apace. I posted an update at Clever Beyond Measure.
BTW, I'm glad to hear that your PhD defense went well.
11:00 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Past, Present and Future of Cybernetics and Systems Research

Summary of "The Past, Present and Future of Cybernetics and Systems Research" Symposium M at  European Meetings on Cybernetics and Systems Research (EMCSR), Vienna, Austria, April 12, 2012. Organizer: Carlos Gershenson This guided reflection on the challenges and opportunities of cybernetics and systems research (CSR) included initial interventions by panelists Peter Erdi, Helena Knyazeva, Stefan Thurner, Peter Csermely, and Alexander Lazlo. Afterwards, the floor was opened to interventions from the general public and further interventions by panelists. Commentaries were made from a broad variety of perspectives, but several general ideas can be distilled from the discussion. CSR have strongly influenced all scientific disciplines. As an example, the term "system" is used commonly in daily language. One of the breakthroughs of CSR lies in the search of commonalities across disciplines. Even when this was achieved to a certain degree, there is still a lack of
Read more

flocking memes...

Some ideas just came up, after a talk I had with Klaas , who is making a PhD on memetics... In cultural transmission of fads and so on, I've heard that there are models in which the majority imitates an elite, and the elite tries to go away from the crowd, and that gives you the dynamics... The idea is that maybe another way of looking at this phenomenon is to take the analogy of flocking: birds try to keep together (safety, direction, whatever reason), but also keep average distance to their neighbours (not to crash). If we take this mechanism into the memetic space, people will imitate many aspects surrounding them, just because of mirron neurons and the evolutionary advantage of imitation. But the separation is also important, for people assert their individuality with it... This could be seen as taking the inverse of a meme... starting to sounds like dialectics... (who would have thought that Hegel and starlings had lots in common...) Of course in the social context there are m
Read more

PhD thesis: "final" version online

After making several minor corrections, I have a "final" version of my thesis, which you can download here . I should defend it privately on April 20th, and if everything goes well, the public defense would be on May 2nd. Everybody's welcome! Design and Control of Self-organizing Systems PhD Dissertation presented by Carlos Gershenson Promoters: Prof. Dr. Bart D’Hooghe and Prof. Dr. Francis Heylighen Advisors: Prof. Dr. Bruce Edmonds Prof. Dr. Bernard Manderick Prof. Dr. Peter McBurney Prof. Dr. Ann Nowé Abstract Complex systems are usually difficult to design and control. There are several particular methods for coping with complexity, but there is no general approach to build complex systems. In this thesis I propose a methodology to aid engineers in the design and control of complex systems. This is based on the description of systems as self-organizing . Starting from the agent metaphor, the methodology proposes a conceptual framework and a se
Read more