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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts
Posted - 03/31/2011 :  22:10:39  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
This is an open challenge to Intelligent Design advocates, theorists, believers or what-have-you.

Inspired by 'PaV' at Uncommon Descent (hat tip to carlsonjok at AtBC), below you will find 12 bit-strings, all of the same length. The challenge is for you to determine, assuming you came across each bit-string "in the wild" (with no context, the information or lack thereof in each bit-string is independent of the media in which it is presented), whether each one is designed or not designed, and to explain why/how you came to the conclusions you have.

Non-ID-advocates may join in, too, of course. I ask that anyone (ID person or not) who makes a guess at any of the bit-strings do so within "spoiler" tags, like so: [spoiler]answer[/spoiler]. Please do not quote anyone else's "spoiler" tags. ("Meta" discussion that doesn't give any hints or answers need not be hidden by "spoiler" tags.) I will aggressively enforce these "spoiler" rules through editing of comments for at least a couple of months, or until I reveal the source for each bit-string myself.

Please be sure to specify which bit-string you're talking about, by letter.

Bit-String A:

100100111011101100100110010111001011100100010110
001000001101001110111011101001100101110110011011
001101001110011111001011101110111010001000001100
100110010111100111101001110011111011100100000110
100111100110100000110101011101011110011111010001
000001110100110100011001010100000100110011011111
100111110111111100110100000111010011010001100101
110111111011001101111110011111110010100000110111
111001100100000100101011011111101000110111001001
111110011010000010001111101111111001111100001100
101110110001000001110010110010111100111110100110
000111101001100101110010001000001101001110111001
000001110100110100011001010100000110100111001001
101001110111111011010100000110111111001100100000
110100111011101100110110111111100101101101110000
111101001101001110111111011100100000111010011010
001100101110111111100101111001010111001000000101
101010000010001001110010010111001000001010111110
100111011001101100110100111000011101101010000001
000101000010110100111011001101100010001001000001
000100110010111011011100010111001111010111101001


Bit-String B:

001110110101100000111111110011100010000001100011
100000100011101111111100010000001110001101010000
010011001100000000000000001100000110000000100000
110111000000001000000000110011100000011111100011
001100100011000111011101101111100000100011000100
000000000111000001111100001111000011000011101110
000011100011100010000000100011000011001110000000
010000100000001111100001100000000000001100000000
000000111110000010010010100000001111000100000000
010011100000000000000011001111000000100010000000
000011000000111110110011010000000000111100000000
011011100000111100100111000011100111101100000011
000011110011000000000011000000001101000010100010
111111110011111100010000000101100000000011111111
001110000010000100110011100000000011100000000000
000000100000011101100001100000111100100000100011
000000100000111010000000100001111110000011001100
010000111011001100100000001111111100000011000011
000100000010110100000011001100110001100111000111
000000100011100000000111001001100000000000011111
001000000010101100111100000000110101001111011111


Bit-String C:

111010011010010100000110100110001001101100100011
111001001101111110010111011111101111110111111010
001000100110110010010101101001110000111100110100
000010000011001011110010110101111001010100010111
010011011100100000111000001000001101111110010011
010001101101110100101000001101111110011111001011
001100010111011011111101001110011011001010100000
110111011001010100000111010011100111110100110111
111101000100000111001111001001101110111001111001
011101001110111001000001110010111010011001011101
001010000001000001100010110111011101000100000110
111111110010101100111010110010011100001110100101
000001101100110010111011001101000010000001000001
100111110110011010001101001010011111011101101111
111001011001010100000110110111101001101110110111
001000001110010101011111100111110011010000011011
011101010110100111001100100000110110011000011110
011010000011001001101001110010111011001100101111
010001000101101001010111011011011100100110100010
000100101101110111111001011101100110100111100111
110100110011111110011100111110011011011110100000


Bit-String D:

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000


Bit-String E:

011000101101110110111101100001101001001001010101
010110000011010001000001001001011101110101011111
001110010100111001111001110101110100101010111101
110110011011111101010011011011010100001110101110
011011110111011101101110011010101100101001001011
010110000101011000111100011101100110011101111101
000111111010011100101011011010011111000100100001
001100011101010010101100110100110100100100100010
111111101011110011100010100100010111100001111011
111001101000100111001010011110010011011001111110
111010000100001010001001110010011110101011110100
101011000101100011111000101111100111110000110010
110111011101001000110111001000001001101101000101
101101010110011100100111010010010010011101101001
010000101101011101111111011110101001000100111010
000110110100011101001000010000011110010100101101
101110111100010100110011010000001010100111000011
101101001100010001111001101110111100011110001110
111001110011111101110010000110110010010011001111
001101100000111111101000100010100011001100100010
010010011001001010010111111111000111111001001010


Bit-String F:

111111111111111111111110011111111111111000000000
111111111111111111111110011111111111111111000000
000000000001110000000000011100000000000111110000
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000111000
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000011100
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000011100
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000001110
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000001110
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000000111
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000000111
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000000111
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000000111
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000000111
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000001110
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000001110
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000011100
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000011100
000000000001110000000000011100000000000000111000
000000000001110000000000011100000000000111110000
111111111111111111111110011111111111111111000000
111111111111111111111110011111111111111000000000


Bit-String G:

000000000000000010000000000000010010001000100010
110001110001100000000000000000100001000100100111
110000000000000000010110100111001101010101000000
001000100100111110000000000000000010111001110001
110101101111000101001100100111000010100001101011
010010011010001110000000001001100010000000001100
000000000101000111011010100011000000011010010110
000011000010110000001010111000101111010100000101
000010101001100010001100010000001101000000010100
110110111100010101101000000110001010000111100101
100000001010101000010111000100100111110011101000
011000100010001011001000011001000001100001110110
010010010011000011001011001001110001110100000010
000101000001100001001000111000101000010001010100
010110100010110010101000011000101010000011010100
000110100011101000101000000101001100001110100011
110000000000000100001100111101100101110100111000
100100011101010100111011100000010101000110010000
010100000000000101000111000001000000011101010011
001100100111001101000001010001011100110011010010
101010001000100010000001110001111100000100001110


Bit-String H:

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111
111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111


Bit-String I:

111110111100101011000000001111001101010000000100
111110000000000001100100111000000001110001000000
111000111001100011001100110000001011010000001000
110000110000001111111100000001001100110111000010
001100110000011111100001000000010111000001000000
110001000001001111000001100001101110000001000000
000000000001110000000001110011001000010000011100
111111110000000001101000000010001111110011111111
010001010000101100000000110000000000110011110000
110000001101111001110000111001001111000001110110
000000001111000000000010110011011111000000110000
000000010001000000111100110000000000000001110010
000000001000111100000001010010010000011111000000
000000001100000000000001100001111100000001000010
000000011100110000110001000000010001110001110000
011101110000110000111100001111100000111000000000
001000110001000001111101101110111000110001001100
110001111110000001110011000000000100000000111011
000001000000011000001100000000000000001100110010
000010101100011100000010001111111101110001000001
110001100000010001110011111111000001101011011100


Bit-String J:

011101110101100010110011101101100011110110001111
010011110010001100100111100011101010101111001110
111001110011001011010011110000101000110000110101
001000110000010110101010100010011110010100100000
101011111110101010100000001110111011000100110000
100011111011010110000101010001001110000111000000
111001101010010110011000000111100101001000011001
100010101100101011100011111001100011110101100110
011100110110100111101000001001011111110000100010
000100001101101110001011110001111100011010011011
111000110000110111001000101000000111101100011101
100101101000010100111101000100101010100001100100
011101010101110111100001110101110010000100000111
101111011101000001001110010101000100010011101000
001101100101111100111001000000010000001100011001
101111101001110011011010010011100010101111100010
001111000110011010000110100000101001001011010010
111101111110111111110111110011010000111000111000
010101110111000001111010000111011010110010010011
011100100100101110010000110010111100000000011111
111001000110111011100011011010111100111101100011


Bit-String K:

010000000110100100111101001011010000010000100011
010001101100110001010011001011000000000001101000
110001000011100001100111000100100000111000010000
110110000110010010101010110001110100010001100000
110100000011101000010001001110000000001101011000
110100000000000000010001000000000000100000000000
000000000000000011101010010010101000010000110011
001111000000100000000000011000100001000100001100
000010100011011000001100000110100001000110000000
100101011110111000001110000011001100000110000011
000000000011101101100000101011000000010000000010
010100001001000011100100001000000110010000010100
001000100100010100000000101010100011000001000100
010000110000100010011000000000001010100001000010
011001000100000000000000000000100100100101100000
100000001000100110111110000110000110001001110001
000000001100010010001000001010000010011000110010
100111000000000010110100101110010110100000010011
000100100110110011000000000101000000000010010001
010100110000100000000101000011001001000000100001
011010010000010000011110000100000110000001100101


Bit-String L:

100101111010111100111010001110110111010011001000
100000100100010001101100110111001011010000101000
100000010101101110000111001011001101100110111001
011111010100000100111010010011100100010000010101
101000000100111010100111101001111111011101001100
010110010111000001001110111111011100101100101111
000011101101101001111111011011001101110111001011
000001001100111111011000001010110111111011100101
100100111001011000001010100110001011001011100000
100111011100101100000100010011101001100101111000
011001011111001111010011010011100000100011011101
001100001111100111111101111100010000010110011111
100100111011000101111110110101001000001001100111
111011000001010011111110011111101100110111111011
101001100010110010111000001011001111111011111001
111110110011001000001010100110001011001011100000
100010111110011110101110101011000001011001111001
011000001001110111110011100101111001111010011001
001100000100010111011101110100111110011100101100
110110011011101001100101110111011100101100000100
011010001001110100111010011001001101110111001001
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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Machi4velli
SFN Regular

USA
854 Posts
Posted - 04/09/2011 :  11:17:38   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Machi4velli a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Simply thinking about how to go about this destroys the idea that you can differentiate between natural or designed with no context of the meaning of "in the wild."

All we have left is to kill the presumption that we have such context in the natural world...
"Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people."
-Giordano Bruno

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, but the illusion of knowledge."
-Stephen Hawking

"Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable"
-Albert Camus
Edited by - Machi4velli on 04/09/2011 11:18:48
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts
Posted - 04/09/2011 :  12:55:12   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Machi4velli

Simply thinking about how to go about this destroys the idea that you can differentiate between natural or designed with no context of the meaning of "in the wild."
Right. What a bunch of bits mean is entirely dependent upon some context or other (and in fact, the same bit-string can have different meanings in different contexts). But meaning is what IDists mean by "information," and without the context (the "background"), they can't measure it or detect it or even differentiate it from "law" or "chance" as the so-called "Explanatory Filter" (EF) attempts to do. And, of course, their particular choice of background (god) is exactly what they don't want to discuss at all.
All we have left is to kill the presumption that we have such context in the natural world...
It's been pointed out for decades already that if god designed everything, then it's a mistake to say that Paley's watch was designed, while the heath on which it was found was not.
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular

Norway
1273 Posts
Posted - 04/09/2011 :  23:20:21   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send On fire for Christ a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I don't see the relevance of this challenge.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  01:36:26   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by On fire for Christ

I don't see the relevance of this challenge.
IDists claim that ID is about detecting design, using information theory.
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular

Norway
1273 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  02:09:15   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send On fire for Christ a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I see, well F looks designed.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  04:00:45   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by On fire for Christ

I see, well F looks designed.
That's what that most ID arguments boil down to, "it looks designed, therefore it was designed." Yet they claim it's a science. Dembski famously said that "intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory," but "it looks designed" isn't any part of information theory.

Here's a question for you: does Bit-String D not look designed?
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular

Norway
1273 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  04:05:20   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send On fire for Christ a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I'm not sure because I don't know if in "the wild" these bits are equally likely to be a 1 or a 0.
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Ebone4rock
SFN Regular

USA
894 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  07:55:11   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send Ebone4rock a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I must be extremely uneducated because I have just read the OP like 5 times and I have no clue what Dave is trying to do.
What is this like sudoku or something?
Haole with heart, thats all I'll ever be. I'm not a part of the North Shore society. Stuck on the shoulder, that's where you'll find me. Digging for scraps with the kooks in line. -Offspring
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  08:37:23   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by On fire for Christ

I'm not sure because I don't know if in "the wild" these bits are equally likely to be a 1 or a 0.
Let's say, for this discussion, that there's only a 1-in-10,000 chance for a bit from the source of Bit-String D to be a 1 (making Bit-String D about nine times more likely than a string from the same source with a single 1 in it, all other things being equal). Can it be distinguished from a string designed to have no 1s in it, or from a "lawful" zero-information source like a digital representation of an electrical ground?

That's what Dembski's Explanatory Filter was all about: once you've eliminated all "chance" and "lawful" sources of information, you get to "infer" design. Is it possible to do so when the results of all three might look identical?
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  08:40:31   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by Ebone4rock

I must be extremely uneducated because I have just read the OP like 5 times and I have no clue what Dave is trying to do.
It's a challenge to Intelligent Design (ID) advocates: can they, using ID principles, determine whether each of the 12 Bit-Strings were "designed" or "not designed," and to show their work.
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular

Norway
1273 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  08:49:31   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send On fire for Christ a Private Message  Reply with Quote
I 'm not an expert in statistics but I think I'm right in saying that all these permutations are possible for any probability of a 0 or a 1 above 0. Therefore each of them is possible by random chance. I don't know if that would shake the foundations of any ID beliefs out there though. My understanding was that their argument hinged on irreducible complexity and finding systems which could categorically not happen by chance
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  09:40:27   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by On fire for Christ

I 'm not an expert in statistics but I think I'm right in saying that all these permutations are possible for any probability of a 0 or a 1 above 0. Therefore each of them is possible by random chance. I don't know if that would shake the foundations of any ID beliefs out there though. My understanding was that their argument hinged on irreducible complexity and finding systems which could categorically not happen by chance
Irreducible complexity (IC) was a sham to begin with, and never had anything to do with information theory. Every purported example of IC only ever needed a plausible naturalistic pathway to demonstrate its non-IC-ness, and they've all had such pathways described. Perhaps most devestating to the IC hypothesis was Michael Behe's performance as a witness in Kitzmiller v. Dover, in which he was presented with stacks and stacks of articles and books on the evolution of the mammalian immune system, work which he had claimed under oath did not exist because the mammalian immune system is IC.

But back to the bit-strings. Dembski has declared that there is a "Universal Probability Bound," beyond which we can say that the entire universe hasn't had enough time or opportunities to create something by "random chance." The UPB, according to Dembski, is 10-150. In other words, if something has a probability of less than one chance in 10150, then it's impossible for it to have come about by chance.

I have not-so-cleverly made each Bit-String, above, 1,008 bits long. If one assumes that 0s and 1s are equally likely, then the odds of each Bit-String coming about purely by chance is 1 in 21008, or less than 10-303, which is waaay below the UPB. So according to a plain reading of Dembski, none of the Bit-Strings could have come about by chance (and in fact, no bit-string longer than 499 bits could be due to chance).
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular

Norway
1273 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  09:48:16   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send On fire for Christ a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Surely anything with a probability of more than 0 has a chance of happening.
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Dave W.
Info Junkie

USA
26022 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  10:04:41   [Permalink]  Show Profile  Visit Dave W.'s Homepage Send Dave W. a Private Message  Reply with Quote
Originally posted by On fire for Christ

Surely anything with a probability of more than 0 has a chance of happening.
The reasoning behind the UPB.
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too.
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On fire for Christ
SFN Regular

Norway
1273 Posts
Posted - 04/10/2011 :  10:18:12   [Permalink]  Show Profile Send On fire for Christ a Private Message  Reply with Quote
So if I generate a bit string 500 bits long. The result, whatever it may be, cannot exist?
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