Intelligent Design

Given how routinely evolution fails to explain biology, it is remarkable that scientists still believe in the nineteenth century idea. One of the many problems areas is adaptation. Evolution holds that populations adapt to environmental pressures via the natural selection of blind variations. If more fur is needed, and some individuals accidentally are endowed with mutations that confer a thicker coat of fur, then those individuals will have greater survival and reproduction rates. The thicker fur mutation will then become common in the population. This is the evolutionary notion of change. It is not what we find in biology. Under the hood, biology reveals far more complex and intelligent mechanisms for change, collectively referred to as epigenetic inheritance. You can Read More ›

In another thread a fellow who goes by Legendary made some rather derisive comments about a suggestion I once made, concerning making computer programs that purport to model biological evolution more realistic. The suggestion was half serious and half tongue-in-cheek, since it would be impractical.

My argument was as follows: Computer programs that purport to model biological evolution invariably isolate the effects of “mutations” to only those aspects of the “organism” that have a chance of helping the organism approach the desired goal (EQU in the case of Avida, for example). But this ignores an extremely important aspect of modeling living systems.

Random mutations, if they are truly random, will affect, and potentially damage, any aspect of the organism, including its ability to survive and reproduce. The computer program, OS, and hardware represent the features of the simulation that keep the organism alive and allow it to reproduce, but this is artificially isolated from the effects of mutations.
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Access Research Network (ARN) is offering a special on The Phillip Johnson DVD Collection, 10 DVD lectures, interviews and debates produced by ARN over the years at 50% off for the collection: www.arn.org/arnproducts/videos/v070.htm

Here’s an interesting example of the way that any non-materialist draws fire from materialist atheists.

Baylor prof Frank Beckwith had a big tenure fight a while back, possibly connected with his view that it is not unconstitutional to teach that the universe is intelligently designed in an American school setting and also that there is something wrong with killing our kids and then wondering who is going to work to pay our pensions.

And – while Beckwith does not endorse the ID view, and has often attacked it and its proponents – he was recently savaged at considerable length by conspirazoon Barbara Forrest (author of The Trojan Horse).

David DeWolf*, a Catholic and one of the evil Discovery Institute types, who currently star as the villains in a local potboiler, offered me some thoughts on the difficulties that Catholics like Beckwith and he may face.

It took me a while to get to his comments, so I wrote back advising him that there is no shortage of dump bears from hell here either.

But here are his thoughts:

*In an earlier version of this story, John West was misidientified as my correspondent, when David DeWolf was meant. Apologies to both.

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Check out the following review of Enrique Joven’s THE BOOK OF GOD AND PHYSICS, in which Joven specifically targets Seattle’s Discovery Institute: …The Jesuits aren’t the villains in this clash between God and physics. Joven’s target is the real-life Discovery Institute, an American think-tank that promotes the theory of intelligent design… FOR THE FULL REVIEW, CLICK HERE

The word ‘compaction’ is one that in my mind conjures up images of vacations long-passed when I would cram as many clothes as I could into the smallest suitcases I could find. Such a task has become even more irksome in recent years with the hefty restrictions in place that limit the amount of luggage we can now take onto airplanes. But in at least one context- that of DNA biology- compaction refers to something much more exquisite and desirable. Read More ›

In 1964 when Yakir Aharonov, Peter Bergman, and Joel Lebowitz started to think seriously about the issue of the arrow of time in quantum mechanics [1]—whether time only flows from the past to the future or also from the future to the past—none of them could have possibly imagined that their esoteric quest would one day lead to one of the most powerful amplification methods in physics. But in the weird, unpredictable, yet wonderful way in which physics works, one is a direct, logical, consequence of the other. As reported in Physical Review Letters by P. Ben Dixon, David J. Starling, Andrew N. Jordan, and John C. Howell at the University of Rochester this amplification method makes it possible to measure angles of a few hundred femtoradians and displacements of 20 femtometers, about the size of an atomic nucleus [2].

[ … ]

Viewed from one angle, this story is all about fundamental philosophical ideas. Does the spin indeed have a value larger than 1/2 or is the result simply an error in the imprecise measuring device used? Does the spin indeed have both the x spin component and the z one well defined? And, above all, does time indeed flow in two directions in quantum mechanics? To be sure, the strange outcome of the measurement of Sπ/4 in this pre- and post-selected ensemble could indeed be obtained as an error in the measurement, an error in which the pointer of the measuring apparatus moved more than it should have. The explanation can be fully given by standard quantum mechanics, involving regular past-to-future-only flow of time. But the explanation is cumbersome and involves very intricate interference effects in the measuring device. Assuming that time flows in two directions tremendously simplifies the problem. As far as I can tell, Aharonov, Albert, and Vaidman hold the view that one should indeed accept this strange flow of time. I fully agree. Not everybody agrees though, and this is one of the most profound controversies in quantum mechanics.Viewed from one angle, this story is all about fundamental philosophical ideas. Does the spin indeed have a value larger than 1/2 or is the result simply an error in the imprecise measuring device used? Does the spin indeed have both the x spin component and the z one well defined? And, above all, does time indeed flow in two directions in quantum mechanics? To be sure, the strange outcome of the measurement of Sπ/4 in this pre- and post-selected ensemble could indeed be obtained as an error in the measurement, an error in which the pointer of the measuring apparatus moved more than it should have. The explanation can be fully given by standard quantum mechanics, involving regular past-to-future-only flow of time. But the explanation is cumbersome and involves very intricate interference effects in the measuring device. Assuming that time flows in two directions tremendously simplifies the problem. As far as I can tell, Aharonov, Albert, and Vaidman hold the view that one should indeed accept this strange flow of time. I fully agree. Not everybody agrees though, and this is one of the most profound controversies in quantum mechanics. 

Also, today at Colliding Universes, my blog on competing theories about our universe. (You can search it via the Search Blog box at the top left, beside the “B” logo.) : Read More ›

I happened to be rereading Jonathan Wells’s The Politically Incorrect Guide™ to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, and thought I’d share this summary re genetics and behaviour:

Except for some rare pathological conditions, it has been impossible to tie human behavior to specific genes. (The “gay gene” that was much hyped a few years ago turned out to be a mirage.) If human behavior cannot be reduced to genetics, then according to neo-Darwinism it cannot be biologically inherited; if it cannot be biologically inherited, then it cannot evolve in a Darwinian sense. Still another problem with sociobiology is that it has been invoked to explain just about every human behavior from selfishness to self-sacrifice, from promiscuity to celibacy.

A theory that explains something and its opposite equally well explains nothing. It’s no wonder that sociobiology and its latest manifestation, “evolutionary psychology” (called “evo-psycho” by some wags), are held in low regard even by some evolutionary biologists.

Stephen Jay Gould once called sociobiology a collection of “just-so stories” in which “virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance.” And in 2000 evolutionary biologist Jerry A. Coyne compared it to discredited Freudian psychology: “By judicious manipulation, every possible observation of human behavior could be (and was) fitted into the Freudian framework.*

Truth squad notes: I am myself one of the wags who calls it “evo psycho.”

Evo psycho first attracted my attention when I noticed that it always offered explanations in terms of current popular culture, which is entirely contrary to the way real science works.

When, a couple of weeks ago, I asked the scientists at the Solar Neutrino Observatory in Sudbury, Canada, how they did their work and what they discovered from it, popular culture played no role in the discussion. But if I asked an evolutionary psychologist about marriage in prehistoric times, he would tell me some popular culture lore dressed up in “let’s play cave people” animal skins.

Whereas the SNO scientists actually know something about solar neutrinos, the evolutionary psychologist really knows nothing whatever about how prehistoric humans managed their domestic relationships.

Yes, we know a bit about marriage in the ancient world because of recovered marriage contracts, et cetera, and we also know a bit about marriage among modern humans who use only ancient technologies because anthropologists have observed them. But the rest is pure speculation.

So what do we know? Our genes play a role in our lives, and so do our experiences and our culture.

What we can really know about ancient relationships?: While we are here anyway: If you happen to recall the story in the Book of Genesis in the Bible about how Sarah got her husband Abraham to have a son with the servant girl Hagar, you will be interested to know that Abraham and Sarah had grown up in the Babylonian culture – and that culture specifically allowed an infertile wife this option. Memory of the custom was preserved in that story through many later centuries when it apparently was not an option any longer. So sometimes we do know, more or less what happened.

But just as dressing in animal skins would not make us Cro-Magnons, telling stories based on “evolutionary psychology” does not give us any special insights.

More evo psycho stories: Read More ›

In our home we have six computers (distributed among me, my wife, and two daughters): two Macs, two Windows machines, and two Linux (Unix) machines. I’m the IT (Information Technology) or IS (Information Systems) guy in the household — whatever is is. A chronic problem rears its ugly head on a regular basis when I attempt to update any of our computer systems: Software programs are often interdependent. DLLs are dynamic link libraries of executable code which are accessed by multiple programs, in order to save memory and disk space. But this interdependence can cause big problems. If the DLL is updated but the accessing program is not, all hell will break loose and the program will either severely malfunction Read More ›

A friend draws my attention to an essay published in Nature (458, 30 (5 March 2009) | doi:10.1038/458030a) by a sociologist, who advises that we cannot live by skepticism alone.

Scientists have been too dogmatic about scientific truth and sociologists have fostered too much scepticism – social scientists must now elect to put science back at the core of society, says Harry Collins.

Harry Collins is director of the Centre for the Study of Knowledge Expertise Science at Cardiff University, UK. He is currently working on a book about tacit and explicit knowledge.

As another friend points out, this guy’s views are chilling:

One can justify anything with scepticism. Recently a philosopher acting as an expert witness in a court case in the United States claimed that the scientific method, being so ill-defined, could support creationism. Worse, scientific and technological ideas are nowadays being said to be merely a matter of lifestyle, supporting the idea that wise folk may be justified in choosing technical solutions according to their preferences — an idea horribly reminiscent of ‘the common sense of the people’ favoured in 1930s Germany. Some social scientists defend parents’ right to reject vaccines and other unnatural treatments because a lack of danger cannot be absolutely demonstrated. At the beginning of the century, President Thabo Mbeki’s policies denied anti-retroviral drugs to HIV-positive pregnant mothers in South Africa. Some saw this as a justified blow against Western imperialism, given that the safety and efficacy of the treatment cannot be proven beyond doubt.

Well now, some responses: Read More ›

Centuries from now, here is how a history book is likely to describe the theory of evolution: As with many new paradigms, evolutionary thought developed over a lengthy period. Within the period known as Modern Science, which had its beginnings in the middle of the second millennium, evolutionary thought began to emerge in the mid seventeenth century. At that time theologians and philosophers from various traditions strenuously argued that the world must have arisen via strictly naturalistic processes. These schools of thought contributed to what became known as The Enlightenment period in the eighteenth century which marked a major turning point in Western intellectual thought. In The Enlightenment period theological and metaphysical positions became codified in Western thought. These positions Read More ›

Recently, I was in my dentist’s office. He has been my dentist for about 35 years, and was my children’s dentist until they grew up and moved away. He is the best dentist anyone could hope for. He delivered me from much suffering, while pulling very few teeth. (He hates  making people “edentulous,” because he knows how much they will suffer when they are old and their jaws have decayed, through lack of teeth to hold them in place.) While I was waiting in his office recently, I chanced to see, framed on his wall, a modern version of the Oath of Hippocrates. I have sought a number of times since then the exact wording of the modern version on Read More ›

Is there a religious influence and authoritarian tradition in science? Evolutionist PZ Myers rejects any such notion. Though Myers relies on the usual theological truth claims that are fundamental to evolution, he is sure that science is free of all such nonsense. When he is not busy shutting down scientific inquiry with religious dictates, he reassures his readers that science is a process that empowers questioning and change. Certainly that is what science should be, but it is precisely the opposite in the hands of evolutionists such as Myers. They believe evolution is a fact, based on religious dogma that goes back centuries. Far from the empowering the asking of questions when the evidence contradicts their theory, they protect evolution Read More ›

My friend Forrest Mims, one of the 50 best brains in science, according to Discover Magazine, writes to say,

Your post on “DNA analysis means death of taxonomy (determining what a “species” is)?”

This is a significant post that should be of interest to the ID community.

I have considerable experience with this, having studied for 7 years variants of the baldcypress found along Texas Hill Country streams and rivers. Let us go so far as to assume that all baldcypress are the same species: Taxodium distichum, including T. mucronatum, the national tree of Mexico. This leaves the problem of assigning scientific names to the variants of the species, including those I study that have a very different appearance from the common baldcypress. Even the annual growth rings and distribution of tannin in the rings is obviously different.

In a future book I’ll discuss some of my extensive correspondence with the new/old generations of botanists about my findings. The old generation is confident of the findings, but the young generation refuses to look at the actual specimens and wants only to see its DNA.

My main web site has a photo of the common baldcypress and the variants I study. Go here and scroll to end of page. The photo is low res on my site, but anyone can see the obvious difference that the molecular biologist I dealt with refused to acknowledge.

Speaking for myself, I have long been confused by the concept of “species” because it seems to be used in different ways. Read More ›

We routinely hear that the biological evidence proves evolution, beyond any shadow of a doubt. Recently PZ Myers made this claim for the fossil evidence and Sean Carroll for the molecular evidence. These evidences are often debated and discussed, but what is often missed is that this evolutionary reasoning is illogical to begin with. Philosophical failure is not a good starting point for discussion. Any debate needs to start with a clear understanding of the evidence and what it means. Unfortunately, such a starting point is difficult to come by. In fact, three different fallacies are routinely at work in the evolution genre. Here are quotes from Myers and Carroll, and an explanation of the fallacies. Read more here.