Tuesday, March 29, 2016

Hacking Lawrence Krauss' Playlist

Over at Darwin's God, Cornelius Hunter (*) takes on Krauss' contention that having the sun available is explanation enough for the creation of proteins. I agree with one of the commenters there: Krauss is becoming increasingly unstable, in the form of radical irrational positions. It started to be obvious with the publication of his book, "A Universe From Nothing", which book demonstrated nothing of the sort. Krauss has had to defend his book from both ends of the intellectual spectrum. Yet he was selected by Dawkins to go on a two man speaking and discussion tour, where the increasing irrationality of both individuals became obvious to both Atheists and Theists.

*Ph.D. in Biophysics and Computational Biology, U of IL.

ADDENDUM:
There is more on Krauss' statements here:
Lawrence Krauss’ Monumental Blunder(s)
Comparing a protein to a snowflake is stupid, even in Junior High School. A snowflake is algorithmic information driven, with simple physics law as the driver. The snowflake is actually a LOSS of information in the sense that water vapor information is random and highly complex. The snowflake is simple information, locked in by ordered physical relationships.

A protein is actually the opposite of both ordered, algorithmic information and random complex information, because it is very specifically complex in its structure atomically in a non-algorithmic and non-random fashion. And its utility to life depends upon its foldability, which is an added constraint and thus additional specific information.

If Krauss actually knew anything at all about the subject of cellular microbiology, even at the beginner level, then he would have known that.

Further he would know that Shannon Complexity does not apply except in defining information retention integrity, especially in transmission.
"If that was not enough, Krauss followed this with the equally absurd claim that the Sun’s energy fuels protein evolution. “Fortunately we have the Sun,” concluded the religiously-driven atheist."

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good post. Here is a good quote from a book that the last commenter (Did I do that?) shared at the bottom:

"We shall unleash the nihilist and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, ... [and bring] the destruction of [bible-believing] Christianity and atheism. Both conquered and exterminated at the same time." (Forth Reich of the Rich, pp 71, 72).

I also like that comment about the Shannon complexity, which reminds me of our buddy, Im Skeptical. He is in a duel right now with Joe Hinman and Don McIntosh on the CADRE preaching his naturalism:

Christian CADRE: Why I am Not a Metaphysical Naturalist

Robert Coble said...

"A Universe From Nothing" is appropriately named. The Just So stories that can be manufactured out of nothing are simply amazing. Perhaps that's one of the reasons they are so attractive to worshippers of The Void.