iDesign @ UCI

Welcome Message To New Students

Interested in Origins?
Join the club.


Mission Statement

FAQ

Organization


MISSION STATEMENT:

iDesign Club at UCI seeks to foster scientific discussions regarding the origins of life and the universe. Theories such as Darwinian evolution, intelligent design, and creationism will be critically analyzed.


FAQ:

Q: WHAT IS THIS CLUB ABOUT?

Origins! We are interested in discussing alternative theories to the origins of biological structures. While the current mainstream theory in academia is Darwinian evolution, we would also like to discuss other viable ideas, such as intelligent design.

Q: WHO CAN BE A MEMBER OF THIS CLUB?

Anybody! Students of Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, Anthropology, and Philosophy may especially find this club intriguing. However, you do not need to have a science background to be an effective member of this club.

Q: WHEN AND WHERE ARE CLUB MEETINGS?

Please check blog entries for time and place.

Q: WHAT IS THE MEMBERSHIP FEE?

Nothing! There are no membership dues.

Q: IS THIS CLUB BIASED TOWARDS ONE SPECIFIC THEORY OF ORIGINS?

Perhaps. Ponder the name of this club. This club is ideologically the mirror of another club at UCI, the Students for Science and Skepticism. However, our main goal is to give a balanced view of the controversy regarding the origins of life so that students can come to an informed conclusion themselves.

Q: WHAT DOES THE LETTER "i" STAND FOR IN iDESIGN?

Good question -- the answer is intelligent.

Q: WHERE IS THE CLUB CONSTITUTION?

We adhere to the minimum constitution that was provided by the Dean of Students. In the future, we plan to draft a comprehensive constitution and bylaws.

Q: IS iDESIGN AFFILIATED WITH ANY ORGANIZATION?

No. However, we are friends with the IDEA Center


ORGANIZATION:

PRESIDENT:
Arthur
Information and Computer Science

VICE PRESIDENT:
Brian
Biology / English

DIRECTOR:
Andrew
English / Economics



Friday, February 16, 2007

ID & AIT

Sal Cordova recently speculated on the relationship between the concept of irreducibility as defined in mathematics and physics and Behe's irreducible complexity. Some link-following took me to a paper by Chaitlin describing the ramifications of algorithmic information theory (and its roots in the work of Godel and Turing) for mathematics, physics, and biology.

I'm not as certain as Sal that the work of Godel, Turing, and Chaitlin can be straightforwardly applied to support ID - or that the concept of irreducibility in AIT correlates well with Behes' Irreducible complexity[1].

However Chaitlin's paper certainly illustrates some trends in the sciences that are favorable to ID: the discovery that the world around us (not just in biology but also in physics) is fundamentally informational, and that it can be fruitful to think of biological and physical systems as computers which process that information. The fact that Chaitlin goes so far as to predict the convergence of theoretical physics and theoretical computer science shows just how deep the similarities go. These discoveries provide strong support, I think, that the workings of a mind are behind the phenomena studied by the sciences.


[1] There seem to be intriguing similarities to specified complexity, though. A system could be irreducibly complex without being algorithmically irreducible (that is, it might break if you remove any one piece, but not be the most efficient method for producing a given result). On the other hand, AIT irreducibility is strongly tied to minimum description length, which is an explicit part of specified complexity.

Update (2/19): I'm reading Dembski's paper Specification: The Pattern That Signifies Intelligence and just discovered that his formulation of specified complexity makes explicit use of the concept of minimum description length as described by Chaitlin (and others). So I'm a little late to the party. Shows how much I know :-)

Posted by Wedge at 10:13 PM | 1 Comments


iDESIGN BLOGROLL:

The Design Paradigm
Design Watch
Creation-Evolution Headlines
Telic Thoughts
Uncommon Descent
ID the Future
ID Plus
CreationEvolutionDesign
Evolution News
Dualistic Dissension
ID in the UK
ID Update
Intelligently Sequenced


PRO-DESIGN SITES:

Access Research Network
IDEA Center
UCSD IDEA Club
ISCID


PRO-EVOLUTION SITES:

Panda's Thumb
Talk Origins
Students for Science and Skepticism at UCI
NAS: Science and Creationism


PRO-CREATION SITES:

Answers in Genesis
Institute for Creation Research
A.E. Wilder Smith
Reasons to Believe
Baraminology News
CreationWiki


OTHER INTERESTING SITES:

American Scientific Affiliation
Richard Sternberg


ANTEATER LINKS:

University of California, Irvine
New University
Irvine Review
School of Biological Sciences
School of Medicine
School of Physical Sciences
Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Science
Henry Samueli School of Engineering
UCI Athletics
UCI Alumni Association


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