^TagMarcello Barbieri

Close-up image of a human cell nucleus with chromatin strands, cytology Generative AI

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 18, 2023

Categorized
Biology, Information Theory

Tagged
Darwinism and information, Description and information, Life as chemistry only, Marcello Barbieri, Meaning and information, Physicalism and information}

Can Information Be Separated From Intelligence? Part 3

_{Theoretical biologist Barbieri’s practical dilemma is that a popular, dominant idea like “life is just chemistry” need not be proved, only insisted on} _{Denyse O'Leary

August 18, 2023

6

Biology, Information Theory}

We’ve been following the efforts of University of Ferrara theoretical biologist Marcello Barbieri to make sense of the enormous amount of information in life forms. His 2016 paper proposes to do it in a thoroughly physicalist science environment where life is just chemistry that once happened to swish together in an unusual way. As we have seen in Part 1 and Part 2, the project is not going well. Meaning Cannot Exist in an Intellectually Null Universe The idea that information is a mere linguistic metaphor that does not really belong in science is popular in biology today. It supports conventional biologists’ greatest intellectual commitment: That Darwinian evolution, by natural selection acting on random mutation, creates the entire complex, specified Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 12, 2023

Categorized
Biology, Chemistry, Information Theory, Philosophy

Tagged
Ernst Mayr (1904–2005), Hubert Yockey (1916–2016), Information in life forms, Intelligent design theorists and OOL, Life as chemistry only, Life as information plus chemistry, Marcello Barbieri, Origin of life (Barbieri's hypothesis), Origin of life hypotheses}

Can Information Be Separated From Intelligence? Part 2

_{Theoretical biologist Marcello Barbieri envisions life’s origin in terms that only make sense if we assume life is the work of an intelligent agent} _{Denyse O'Leary

August 12, 2023

6

Biology, Chemistry, Information Theory, Philosophy}

Earlier this week, we looked at a most interesting paper, by University of Ferrara theoretical biologist Marcello Barbieri. He was discussing the discomfort biologists feel with the vast amount of information in life forms, which — in the view of many — “does not really belong in science.” The divide, he says, is between biologists who insist that life is chemistry only and those who, like him, see it as chemistry plus information. The problem is obvious: Information is by its nature immaterial. It is measured in bits, not kilograms or joules. It is understood in terms that invoke mathematics and probability more than chemistry and physics. A physicalist biologist ignores or discounts the role of information. Barbieri wants to Read More ›

Blue Human DNA Strand Surrounded by DNA Structure. Generative AI

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary
Date
August 9, 2023

Categorized
Biology, Chemistry, Information Theory, Philosophy

Tagged
Darwinian evolution theory, Günter Wächtershäuser, Life as chemistry only, Life as chemistry plus information, Marcello Barbieri, Natural selection, Origin of life}

Can Information Be Separated From Intelligence? Part 1

_{Theoretical biologist Marcello Barbieri finds that many biologists see information in life forms — biological information — as something that “does not really belong to science.”} _{Denyse O'Leary

August 9, 2023

6

Biology, Chemistry, Information Theory, Philosophy}

In 2016, University of Ferrara theoretical biologist Marcello Barbieri wrote a rather interesting open access paper on a key philosophical conflict in biology: Is life only chemistry or is it chemistry plus information? In it, he says that many biologists see information in life forms — biological information — as something that “does not really belong to science.” How did they get there from here? Author of Code Biology: A New Science of Life (Springer, 2015), Barbieri offers a history, a critique, and a proposed solution. In this three-part series, I will look at all three elements. First, the history. Molecular biology understands genes as transferring linear sequences of information to proteins that carry out instructions. That’s information as it Read More ›