Information created accidentally, without design

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July 11, 2013

Darwinism, Design inference, News

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Darwinism
Design inference
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Absolutely no one did this stuff, according to sources, which just shows how silly the idea is that intelligence is needed to create information.

Darwinism can explain it all quite easily. Natural selection acted on random mutation causing certain trees to die. End of story.

Hat tip: The Intelligent Design Facebook group, and especially Timothy Kershner and Junior D. Eskelsen

Comments

Hi, jerry: Well, it's fairly easy to verify with a simple model. I just made one to check! But I don't see an easy way of posting my output. Anyway: With a small population of 50, and a neutral mutation rate of 2%, the gene pool diversity rapidly reduces (alleles drop out of the population faster than new alleles are generated) But with a population of 5000, and same neutral mutation rate, the gene pool diversity rapidly increases (drop out is low and many new alleles propagate through the population). This is with no selection at all (all variants have an equal chance of reproductive success).Elizabeth B Liddle_{July 14, 2013
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If it makes sense, check it out. If it doesn’t, tell me why.
Your use of the term. "drift", confused me. Which is why I immediately went to Wikipedia to verify that my understanding was not off. Every time I have seen it used it was to talk about fixing alleles. Of course the frequency of lots of things that are not being selected could vary over time. No one denies that. The chance of it becoming important is a possibility but it still is the same gene pool and the same species. No one denies that. The gene pool can get bigger especially in large gene pools but I am not sure how that promotes any significant changes. The chance that it completely changes the species to something very different is what is being debated. I have never seen an argument that supports that could happen by such changes in the gene pool. I do not think any serious evolutionary biologist believes that can happen which is why people are looking for other mechanisms. Either they invoke "Deep Time" which is a cop out or they don't think it is the process that leads to a major change. It sounds like you disagree but you have to understand I have never seen anyone present a good case for Darwinian processes or gradualism leading to anything but trivial changes. I use the word "trivial" not because it may not affect the survival of the species but that it won't ever lead to major changes in evolution.. Why don't you point us to someone who does make a good case for your beliefs. I have mentioned Dawkins, Coyne and Futuyma don't do it and they are supposedly experts. People at Cornell and Pigliucci say they do not know how it happens. You seem sure but our better judgment says it has never been shown. But we can always be surprised.jerry_{July 14, 2013
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Elizabeth:
It’s also why irreducible complexity is not necessarily the problem that Behe envisaged – because neutral or even deleterious alleles can still propagate through a population, thus multiply the opportunities for a second mutation that is advantageous but only when paired with the first.
Behe's IC refers to systems and subsystems consisting of multiple proteins. Hie "Edge..." refers to more than two new protein-to-protein binding sites (which are required for these multi-protein configs).Joe_{July 14, 2013
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jerry
For example, if a mutation changed an allele so that a different fur color in an animal was then expressed, that could be an increase in CSI from what was previously there. It is a small increase in information in the sense that the gene pool is now expanded.
I don't see how a different fur color or a smaller/bigger beak could represent a real increase in body organization. Evolutionists have to explain their microbe-to-man process, not only trivial examples of microevolution where there is zero increase in organization/CSI.niwrad_{July 14, 2013
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I don't think this is accurate
Seriously, the Darwinian mechanism – believe us – created not even a single bit of the whole biological CSI on Earth!
For example, if a mutation changed an allele so that a different fur color in an animal was then expressed, that could be an increase in CSI from what was previously there. It is a small increase in information in the sense that the gene pool is now expanded. The idea that a series of mutations could produce a new protein with useable folds is another story. That is probably way beyond the ability of Darwinian processes. This is a major point in Meyer's book, the inability of mutations to create new folds. However, this is only a starting point for creating new species unless you want something like a new beetle species. Also unknown at this time is if there can be mutations to the assembly instructions for the organism. We know so little about them other than they are not in the genome but apparently in the cytoplasm and cell wall of the zygote. And it is here that changes have to be made if a truly new species is to appear. Otherwise we just get a new variety of beetle or a bird with a different beak.jerry_{July 14, 2013
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jerry:
My understanding of drift was that it reduced the number of alleles in a population which would make the organism less able to adapt. The statement also seems contradictory. First, the gene pool is getting smaller through drift while in the next sentence there is reference to a rich variety of variants which seems to imply the opposite of drift. Doesn’t drift reduce the number of variants?
Drift is simply the name given to the phenomenon by which near-neutral alleles can propagate through the population simply by luck - but they can also get bad luck and unpropagate back out again, unless they become fixed i.e. the only allele in the population. Essentially it's a random walk. If the population is small, the rate of loss may be greater than the rate of generation of new neutral variants, and so genetic diversity falls, and of course this is a major factor in accelerating extinction once populations fall below a critical level. However, if the population is large, and the rate of loss of alleles less than the rate of generation of near-neutral variants, then there is a constant "drip-feed" of neutral variation into the population, providing a diversified pool of alleles that may prove helpful if the population changes. For example it might provide a range of shades of fur, so that if the environment changes - perhaps a new predator arrives, and suddenly, instead of your shade of fur not mattering, being stone-coloured is suddenly very advantageous. This is important as it would mean that "micro-evolution" need not meet an edge by running out of alleles, if the population is large enough. It is also why I (personally) think it is mistake to think of new mutation that prove advantageous as normally proving advantageous on first appearance. I suspect this is fairly rare, though I don't know. I suspect that when a variant sequence becomes advantageous, it does so when there are already many copies of it around. It's also why irreducible complexity is not necessarily the problem that Behe envisaged - because neutral or even deleterious alleles can still propagate through a population, thus multiply the opportunities for a second mutation that is advantageous but only when paired with the first. And, as I tried to make clear to Timaeus: don't take my word on this. If it makes sense, check it out. If it doesn't, tell me why. But it's the way I see it, and it's certainly the way it works in the models I have experience of.Elizabeth B Liddle_{July 14, 2013
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Timaeus, You are seething with resentment. And that's just one example of many! You seem to be saying to yourself, "keiths and Lizzie shouldn't be so confident. It's wrong!", and then working yourself into a tizzy over it. Suppose you're right, and that our confidence is unwarranted. Why get so worked up about it? Why not just show that our confidence is unwarranted by exposing all of the silly errors you assume we are making? I think the problem is that you can't do so. You have this feeling that we're wrong, and that we're bluffing, because we're not evolutionary biologists or physicists or philosophers or specialists in whatever the topic of the moment happens to be. Yet you can't show that we're wrong, which frustrates you terribly. If you think we're overconfident, then show us that we're wrong. That will bring us down to earth. If you can't, then why get so worked up over it? How does this seething resentment help you?keiths_{July 14, 2013
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Hi Elizabeth, I don't find you irratating. I find that you lack the facts and evidence to support what you say. Not only that you refuse to understand the debate, for example you cannot grasp the "designed to evolve/ evolved by design" concept even though that is what EAs and GAs employ. That's not irratating, that's just plain ole ignorance which will continue to be corrected until you somehow find the ability to learn.Joe_{July 14, 2013
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Timaeus: Just come back from what was supposed to be a trip to a pub for supper, but they'd stopped serving food! I'm glad you liked my post at 41, but let me respond a little to your response to my 40 (not in a spirit of antagonism, however): I understand that you find me irritating, and I guess we will both just have to live with that. I find your "credentialism" a bit irritating too, it must be confessed, but I guess we can both live with that as well. But let me make something very clear about me: I do not expect people to believe me because of what the do, or do not, know about my "credentials". They are completely irrelevant to an internet argument. For authoritative information, the only proper resources are text book or a peer-reviewed papers, and even their our skepticism should be to the fore. When I make an argument, or say what I think is the case, or tell you I think you have made an error, I am not attempting to "school" you, nor belittle you. Indeed, I think that an objective observer could make the case that at least as much belittling has been going on in the other direction. But that's OK - my back is broad. And the reason my back is broad is that I myself have very little inherent respect for credentials - what I respect are clearly laid out arguments that are well supported by verifiable data. And I expect to be treated on that basis too. If you have a problem with an argument or evidence that I present - I fully expect you to tell me what is wrong with the argument or why the evidence is faulty. Indeed, I do you that respect. The very arrogance you think I display could (and should) be read quite differently: I expect you to treat my arguments solely on their merits, and rather than feel stung by any perceived implied tone of superiority, come right back at me with what you think is wrong, on the assumption that I would not have presented my argument nakedly as I did had I not done you the credit of assuming that any counter argument you had would be worth hearing. And if I find I agree, I will most readily concede. I may irritate people, but I think (though I may be flattering myself of course) that people who know me generally regard me as someone who will change their view, quite radically, if required, if persuaded of an alternative view, or by infirming evidence. I think that the view of Darwinian theory you laid out in that post was quite extensively mistaken. That doesn't mean I think I'm better than you. It just means I think you are wrong, for the reasons I gave. It's perfectly possible that I am. But rather than take umbrage at my tone, why not actually argue the points? BTW, My reference to chaos theory was not "technobabble" at all, nor did I attempt to imply any expertise in economics. But quite clearly (as I assumed you would agree) economic systems are profoundly non-linear, as are evolutionary systems, weather systems, and indeed brains (and by the way I am not a neurologist - I am not a clinician at all). This has important implications for predictability. Anyway, I'm glad at least you liked my second post. We should probably give each other a substantial breather at this point. And thanks (truly) for the conversation. Cheers LizzieElizabeth B Liddle_{July 14, 2013
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Elizabeth
Because I think that the Darwinian mechanism has far more power than it is generally credited with by IDers,…
I want to be generous with you, I concede that the Darwinian mechanism is one billion more powerful than thought by me. I think it has exactly zero creative power, then 1,000,000,000 x 0 = 0. :) "Far more power"? Seriously, the Darwinian mechanism - believe us - created not even a single bit of the whole biological CSI on Earth!niwrad_{July 14, 2013
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Maybe someone could explain the following quote because I have never seen it argued this way.
I’d say, is not genetics (although that is mechanistically huge) but the mathematics of drift. We can now see from models that even I can construct that drift allows neutral and even slightly deleterious variants to propagate through the population and thus, in a large enough population, offer a rich variety of potential, already numerous, variants, to prove advantageous when things change.
My understanding of drift was that it reduced the number of alleles in a population which would make the organism less able to adapt. The statement also seems contradictory. First, the gene pool is getting smaller through drift while in the next sentence there is reference to a rich variety of variants which seems to imply the opposite of drift. Doesn't drift reduce the number of variants? From Wikipedia:
Genetic drift may cause gene variants to disappear completely and thereby reduce genetic variation.
I am always looking for some clarification because the statement is contrary to what I understand.jerry_{July 14, 2013
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Elizabeth:
Because I think that the Darwinian mechanism has far more power than it is generally credited with by IDers,...
Why do you think that? Lenski's 50,000+ generations tells us the the IDists are right and the evolutioners are wrong.Joe_{July 14, 2013
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Elizabeth: I find your comments in 41 reasonable. Many of your suggested starting points sound useful, and I think many IDers would agree with you about them. I of course don't agree with all the side-comments about thermodynamics and theology that you make, but I won't take them up. Your post 41 was much better than your post 40! Dialogical, and relaxed/speculative, for a change, instead of didactic (bordering on pedantic). :-)Timaeus_{July 14, 2013
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CLAVDIVS @ 28 If you agree that ID establishes that functionally complex specified things like cells do not, and cannot, make themselves by accident then ID has established something of paramount importance, something that consigns neo-Darwinism to the scrap-heap. And all without knowing a single thing about who or what designed the cell.Chris Doyle_{July 14, 2013
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Elizabeth (re 40): It's a pretty large statement to say that I misunderstand "evolutionary theory." Evolutionary theory covers a lot of ground, from pre-Darwinian writings to very modern ones. I certainly have not read as much detailed population-genetics mathematical theory as you have read; but I have read a large amount of evolutionary theory, including extensive amounts of Darwin, Gaylord Simpson, Bergson, and others, and of course many secondary accounts written by competent scientists and historians of science. I would certainly deny that "evolutionary theory" is simply equatable with what *you* call "evolutionary theory"; that would be like saying that "Christianity" is equivalent to "post-Enlightenment Protestantism." Your "explanation" of natural selection is not necessary. I understood every word you say above about natural selection when I was about 20 years old. I disagree with your *application* of what you say. You are not seeing my point, because my point is not the point *you* (interrupting my conversation with someone else) think I should be making. The fact is that you apparently have not considered the ease with with selectionist explanations can be made, how easy it is to concoct "just so" selectionist stories which "explain" nothing because they can in fact explain everything. And giving me a textbook explanation of natural selection (as if I need it, when I could have written the same thing myself, without your help and without looking it up) doesn't impress me much. It's your overall intellectual *judgment* I'm disputing, not your memorized schematizations of how natural selection or population genetics work. And indeed, this is not an uncommon experience for me, when I clash with scientists. I find their knowledge often impressive, but their judgment questionable, on any question that is not *entirely* technical. And the conversation I'm having with Claudius goes beyond the merely technical into meta-questions about epistemology of science. I don't think I need your help in that area, as such remarks as I've heard you make in the philosophy of science area don't impress me as profound or learned, in comparison with authors I've read who really know the territory. Also, by the way, don't assume that you are laying out the only responsible account of these matters even on narrowly technical grounds. You describe Darwin's conception as that of a "tree" and then you go on to say that this is confirmed by the data. I have been assured by many scientists with more specialization in evolutionary theory than you that the "tree" notion is wrong and that a "bush" or "network" or the like would be much more in conformity with the data. So you don't speak for evolutionary biology, and I wish you would stop writing with a declaratory tone which suggests that you think you do. Is this a longstanding dialogical habit of yours, this assertiveness? Are you like this in personal conversation, or is this only an internet writing habit? If you're like this in personal conversation, I'm glad there is an ocean between us! I'd be tempted to throttle you! :-) Always remember, Elizabeth: I don't regard you as my *teacher* when it comes to evolutionary biology. Maybe regarding the math of population genetics -- if I ever wanted to do such calculations, I would accept you as my teacher. But for the rest, to me you are just a psychologist/neurologist with a hobbyist's interest in evolutionary theory, a bright gal with an internet connection and a library (the same resources as I have), who is largely an autodidact when it comes to evolutionary theory -- you're in the same position as I am. (And if you disagree, disagreement's free, but I take no notice of it.) Yeah, yeah, I know that scientists often use "prediction" in the sense that you describe, and I don't deny it. But I'm talking about "prediction" in the more normal sense, and it's a fact that some sciences are as useless as boobs on a bull when it comes to prediction in the normal sense, whereas others are very strong on it. I have much, much more respect for the latter sciences, and always will. As for your techno-babble about economics and chaotic systems (I suppose you are now an expert on economics, too, as well as thermodynamics, evolutionary theory, music, etc.), it is irrelevant to my main point, which is, that, as far as "prediction" in the normal sense goes, economics is midway between the experimental sciences and evolutionary theory. Evolutionary theory scores zero; economics, moderately low but still vastly better than evolutionary theory; physics and chemistry, quite high. These are the facts. They may not be facts that interest you, but they interest me. This is one of your worst posts, Elizabeth. You interrupt a conversation; you try to take control of the conversation by arguing that the whole frame of reference, terminology, etc. is all wrong; and you aren't really *listening* to the conversation, or putting yourself in the place of the parties, trying to find out what question *they* are concerned with. And that is actually quite typical of your internet attitude. Dialogue in the sense of "tuning in" to another person's set of priorities, concerns, etc., is not your strong point (maybe it is in your personal life, but not in your internet life). You always want to take charge, set the agenda, decide which questions, which approaches, which vocabulary are the right ones, and then be the teacher who straightens out the people who don't see as clearly as you. As a psychologist, perhaps you know of various terms to describe people who regularly display this controlling behavior. I won't venture to apply any of them to you, as I'd be accused of misusing them. But it seems to me that one or more of them might well fit your politely bullying manner. Best wishes. :-)Timaeus_{July 14, 2013
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Elizabeth:
First of all, what Darwin’s idea (of descent with modification plus natural selection)...
Descent with modification via natural selection- Darwin's book- "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection".
...explains is simply why populations adapt to their environments (because traits that confer greater probability of reproductive success in the current environment will tend to become more prevalent).
And we know "current environments" change. Not only that but there are more than one trait that can confer an advantage.
So unless the environment is extremely simple, or we do a controlled experiment with very few environmental variables, the theory makes no specific predictions – it merely predicts that the population, if it does not go exinct, will evolve adaptations.
Again, if a population waits for an accidental change to provide some advantage, it's too late. Also what Lizzie says is vague. Organisms with "built-in responses to environmental cues" will evolve adaptations.
Darwin’s theory also predicts a tree structure in longitudinally heritable data...
No, it does not. For one it says nothing about origins and there could have been many. And that means many trees would be possible. Also Darwin didn't explain reproductive isolation- meaning as far as he knew there could be many branch crossings.
Natural selection is neither a category nor vague. It’s a metaphor for a process that is very precisely defined: the process by which heritable traits that confer greater probability of reproductive success will become more prevalent in the population.
According to Mayr, natural selection eliminates the weak and deficient. Also the variation HAS TO BE happenstance. That is natural selection is differential reproduction DUE heritable RANDOM (as in chance) variation. And nothing in that definition says natural seelction is a designer mimic.
The classic example is Tiktaalik, but more literally, any evolutionary hypothesis must make testable predictions, and those predictions must be tested on new (i.e. future) data.
LoL! With Tiktaalik the fossils show fish->tetrapods-> fish-a-pods. And it says nothing about a mechanism. And as far as phylogenetics is concerned, the similarities observed could very well be due to a common design.Joe_{July 14, 2013
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Timaeus:
Can we agree that it looks at the moment as if the universe is of finite age? And that it seems that the same is true of the earth? And that therefore, we cannot avoid explaining the existence of life on earth by postulating an everlasting universe in which life was always there, but must come to grips with the question of when and how life originated on the earth?
Yes. Most emphatically.
Can we further agree that there must have been a chronologically first life-form on the earth? (Even if life had several separate origins on the earth, there would have been one that was first.)
Yes.
Now, let’s talk about this hypothetical first life-form on the earth, whatever it was. I’ll let you define that hypothetical form in any way you want: give it a cell wall or not, give it DNA, or just RNA, or some unknown self-reproducing basis of your choosing. Give it organelles of your choosing. All I ask is that it be a coherent entity, with parts and systems that interact in such a way as to enable it to thrive and reproduce, and thus potentially to become the ancestor of a whole range of later and more complex living forms. Now, I want to ask the question: Did this first living entity arise (probably through a series of steps, rather than all at once) purely out of chance and natural laws, or did its arrival involve some intelligence (expressed in planning, manipulation, or both)? That is the historical way of putting the question. An alternate way of putting it, with a different and more intellectually ambitious causal slant, would be: *Could* this first living entity have arisen purely out of chance and natural laws, or would it have *necessarily* involved some intelligence? I am not at this point asking, as you might wish later to ask, if this question is *testable* by the techniques of current science; I am asking if this question is *intelligible*. Is it a question about facts which can *in principle* be answered one way or the other (even if in practice it is very hard or impossible to answer)? That is, it is a meaningful, logical, sensible proposition to answer: “No, this entity did not require anything other than chance and natural laws to come into being” or alternately to answer, “Yes, this entity required something other than chance and natural laws to come into being?”
Yes, I think it is an intelligible question, and indeed, one worth asking.
If you answer that these are not even *intelligible* questions and answers, then discussion is at an end; we can’t get further. But if you agree that they are intelligible questions and answers, then you presumably do not object when people raise or suggest them. So your objection — if you have an objection — to a “design hypothesis” regarding the origin of life would be — what? That no such hypothesis should be allowed? That such a hypothesis should be allowed, but only in philosophy, not in natural science? Or that such a hypothesis is allowable even in natural science, but that it has to be formulated in certain ways different from the way ID people would formulate it?
Closest to that last thing – but let me rephrase: that such a hypothesis is allowable even in natural science, but that it has to be formulated in certain ways different from the way ID people so far have formulated it.
I want to stick to the origin of life example, because then we don’t have to get involved in many tangled discussions about evolutionary mechanisms, where we have already established that we have momentarily irreconcilable disagreements. I want to talk about the origin of the basic biological structures without which no evolutionary change would be possible.
Good idea. I think ID is on much firmer ground with OOL. Though it may still become swampy.
So, if you were to address the question whether the first life was/wasn’t or had to be/didn’t have to be designed, how would you go about addressing it? What preliminary premises would you want to get both ID and anti-ID folks to agree on, in order to get a profitable discussion going about how we might decide between one answer or the other?
Because I think that the Darwinian mechanism has far more power than it is generally credited with by IDers, the first think I’d probably want to do is to focus on just how simple the simplest possible Darwinian-capable self-replicator had to be (with the additional constraint that it also had to be capable of evolving as far as the basic modern cell, i.e. with DNA-RNA-protein pathways). So that’s a discussion worth having, but of course that’s exactly what OOL researchers are already focussing on. So the interesting question I think, for those who want to figure out whether some kind of ID mechanism is a better candidate for the simplest possible self-replicator is: if an actual intelligent agent was involved, how might the design be physically implemented? If discussion had got as far as an agreement that life was probably self-designing, as it were, from Darwin capability onwards (which is a big if, of course), then we’d be talking about how those first molecules got assembled, and the competing hypotheses might be: chemical reactions in, say, a soup of organic molecules possibly within some kind of convection gyre; some kind of hitherto unknown force that pulled the relevant molecules together. Nagel, for example, suggests that there may be an inherent property of nature that makes assemblies that have the potential to become conscious more probable than assemblies that don’t – a kind of teleological “gravity” if you like that supplies an additional attractive force between molecules that have the potential to result in consciousness. So that’s one approach (dunno how you’d actually do it though – I’m just putting stuff out there). Another approach, although it’s scientifically unsatisfying, is to say: this looks impossible; it must be something beyond the realm of science. In essence, that’s the current ID position (although I’m sure IDers will come down on me like a ton of bricks for saying so), and while I don’t think it’s necessarily unreasonable, it doesn’t actually take us very far, and is always prone to literal falsification if someone figures out that it isn’t impossible. Thus, my view is that ID really does need a positive hypothesis. Nagel’s might be one (although I have other reasons for thinking not). Other possible approaches might be exploration of the “front-loading hypothesis” – that might make real differential predictions i.e. predict patterns in DNA that would not be predicted by Darwinian evolution, for instance, stretches of highly conserved DNA that nonetheless appears to have no phenotypic function, and can be readily activated by a minor mutation. I think that is what motivates ID interest in the “junk DNA” story, although I think that a huge amount of junk is written about junk DNA. Yet another approach would be to say: OK, if we assume that life was designed, what does that tell us about the designer’s methods and purposes? Because I think it could tell us quite a lot. Then, knowing that, it might be possible to predict future directions, for example, for a population threatened with extinction. I’m not being very creative here, because, as you say, I’m quite strongly biased against the project, not out of dislike of the implications (well, perhaps a little – I certainly don’t like the theology!), but because I think that in order to work, it does require that an immaterial something did physical Work on physical Matter, but left no trace in terms of a system with commensurately reduced entropy. That essentially means something outside our understanding of how designers work (human designers do not violate the 2nd Law, and while I don’t wish to get into another argument about this, I do think it’s what makes that whole 2nd Law thing very important), and means that the ID designer hypothesis is NOT simply an extrapolation from human design, as many claim (“design is the only known cause of CSI”), but invokes something very different – something that transcends one of the most powerful properties we think the universe has. That’s fine – so must the universe’s cause itself, but it would be going further than that – it would be saying: whatever supra-universal cause caused the universe is also operant within it, while simultaneously transcending the properties of that universe. And my own view is that at this point the thesis really does verge on the untestable, because how could we make any predictive hypothesis about a force that does not behave according to the predictive laws we have? But what I am really pleased about, regarding this conversation, is that we seem to have got to a place where we can actually discuss the nuts-and-bolts of the ID project, and what the various ID options might be, and which ones are testable, potentially. I’m sure there are much more interesting ideas that could be discussed that could be raised here, but if I were the DI, and wanting to fund such investigation, these are the kind of questions I’d be wanting people to ask. I’d also want to see much more rigor regarding comparison between different ID hypotheses and positions. YEC positions are vastly different from OEC, for instance, and anti Darwinian positions vastly different from OOL positions, and fine-tuning positions vastly different from OOL positions. OK, Must. Drag. Myself. Away. From. Computer…. Thanks again!Elizabeth B Liddle_{July 14, 2013
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Ah. Timaeus. I can address this, in some detail. Please do not, however, interpret my words as being de haut en bas but an attempt to explain how I understand evolutionary theory, and why, in my view, you have misunderstood it, which I think you have, although, of course, I could be wrong!
The same can be said of Darwinian-style theorizing. It has been used to explain, for example, both why evolution favors selfishness and why it favors altruism, why it favors competitiveness and why it favor cooperativeness. It can explain why some species stay the same way for hundreds of millions of years and why others are rapidly transformed — but of course it can do this only in retrospect, never on a predictive basis (which is about as scientifically useful as economic models that can explain depressions only after they have occurred, and never articulate their causes in such a way that they can be avoided or at least mitigated).
First of all, what Darwin’s idea (of descent with modification plus natural selection) explains is simply why populations adapt to their environments (because traits that confer greater probability of reproductive success in the current environment will tend to become more prevalent). So unless the environment is extremely simple, or we do a controlled experiment with very few environmental variables, the theory makes no specific predictions – it merely predicts that the population, if it does not go exinct, will evolve adaptations. It does not tell us what those adaptations will even be. If the thing that enables the population to survive a changed environment is “selfishness” and if “selfishness” is on the menu of the gene pool, then that will evolve; if “altruism” is on the menu, and that is advantageous, then that will evolve. The key thing about the evolutionary mechanism is that it is powerfully non-linear, because it involves feedback loops, and therefore chaotic, in the technical sense, and therefore as unpredictable in specifics as weather, even though, like climate, it is broadly predictable in general. The same problem besets economics, because again, economic behaviour is a chaotic system. The theory can explain why it is a chaotic system (because of feed-back loops) and why it can produce striking effects, but not precisely what, or when. Darwin’s theory also predicts a tree structure in longitudinally heritable data, which is supported by our data, although again, it cannot tell us what branches will appear when, where, or when extinction events will occur – although it can tell us to expect rapid radiation following big extinction events, and periods of rapid adaptation followed by longer periods of homeostasis as the population optimizes. This can be demonstrated mathematically. Again, this is exactly what the data suggest. This is quite different from the case for Design. Design doesn’t tell what to expect at all. It is actually predicated on the lack of predictive power – the principle is: nobody could have predicted this (aka “this is improbable”) from data, therefore it must be designed. Darwinian theory as very little forecasting power, although, like weather forecasters, we can predict a few things on a short time-scale – spots on guppies, beaks on finches. But it does have huge power to predict patterns and what it predicts is very much what we observe.
And “natural selection” is such a vague category — on what basis does nature “select”? Strength? Speed? Ferocity? Attractiveness to mates? (What if the most attractive mates turn out to be the most useless providers of food? Or tend to eat more of their own infant offspring than less attractive mates? What cost/benefit analysis must we then perform to predict what natural selection will choose?) And does natural selection operate on individuals or communities (the case of beehives with different organizations, etc.)? Because there are so many factors that might determine what is “selected,” the Darwinian theorist has almost infinite play in concocting his after-the-fact explanatory narratives for why some species died out and others thrived..
I think this is quite wrong. Natural selection is neither a category nor vague. It’s a metaphor for a process that is very precisely defined: the process by which heritable traits that confer greater probability of reproductive success will become more prevalent in the population. It does not tell us what will confer reproductive success, because that is constantly changing, as the environment itself changes. Indeed it is a huge strength of the theory (one greatly underestimated by, for example, Axe, Gauger and Dembski) that because, potentially, so many slight variants can offer some slight advantage in some slight way that the fitness landscape is so high-dimensioned and thus so traversable. A longer leg, a shorter beak, a lighter feather, a sharper eye, all can confer reproductive advantage. Not only that, but the one big advance since Darwin’s day, I’d say, is not genetics (although that is mechanistically huge) but the mathematics of drift. We can now see from models that even I can construct that drift allows neutral and even slightly deleterious variants to propagate through the population and thus, in a large enough population, offer a rich variety of potential, already numerous, variants, to prove advantageous when things change. And you raise a good question when you ask about units of selection above the phenotype. I agree entirely that this is important (and was what I found myself musing on, aged 12, in that biology class, while my bench mate was etherizing the earthworm) – clearly natural selection can operate at any level at which an entity renews and maintains itself – whether at the level of the cell, the colony, the population, or even a population of populations. And so, we’d expect (if we’d been smart enough earlier, but we know are, thanks to people like Shapiro) that evolutionary processes are themselves evolvable – populations of individuals whose offspring neither resemble them too closely nor too remotely will tend to adapt more readily than those where the offspring are too identical or too unlike. So “smoothness” of the landscape is itself a selected trait, at the level of the population. Similarly, populations in which genes are laterally, as well as vertically, mixed, so that populations remain robust in the face of changing environments, ditto populations in which there is a certain amount of “slack” between phenotypic traits and heritability. Evolutionary theory is extremely rich, but the riches are not “ad hoc patches” as some IDists seem to think – they are rather a reflection of just how powerful, and how deeply applicable, Darwin’s basic theory is.
And he never has to do what physicists, chemists, and engineers have to do: use his scientific model to predict what will happen in the future, and admit that his model has been falsified or at least seriously weakened by repeated false prognostications. The retrospectivity of the whole enterprise makes it much less scientific, as the world normally understands scientific, than other scientific activity
Again, I think this is mistaken. Biologists predict the future all the time – not necessarily future events, but future data. The classic example is Tiktaalik, but more literally, any evolutionary hypothesis must make testable predictions, and those predictions must be tested on new (i.e. future) data. This could be new organisms in a lab like Lenski’s, or it could be predicted patterns in existing data that have not hitherto been tested for. Phylogenetics is heavily predictive, and involves falsification of null hypotheses, just as research in physics, chemistry and engineering does. It is simply not true that evolutionary theory, or other so called “historical” sciences (not that evolution is entirely historical – it’s happening all around us as we type, and can be observed in real time) are fundamentally different from the “experimental” sciences. Much science is correlational rather than experimental, but evolutionary biology includes both techniques, and both involving fitting models to existing data that then predicts new data. OK, those sweet peas are getting desperate, must go! Cheers LizzieElizabeth B Liddle_{July 14, 2013
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Meyer has a couple chapters in his book on whether ID is science or not. In one place he makes an argument similar to one I have made here several times, namely ID subsumes Darwinism, Neo Darwinism, the Modern Synthesis and what is today called the Extended Synthesis. All these modifications of Darwinism can definitely explain some minor but important stuff but they are very limited. ID uses the same data and same procedures as so called traditional science but sometimes makes a different conclusion based on the data. In other words everything is identical to traditional science except ID can expand the potential conclusions from the results of the study. A typical science study is Background, Methods, Results and Conclusions. ID just expands the potential range of conclusions. It is not looking for a designer behind every tree but in some instances, nearly all origin events, ID is the only conclusion that can explain the data. If there was a naturalistic explanation for these events, ID would disappear very quickly. The interesting thing is that these are the same objections that were raised here 4-7 years ago and answered. But like a Whack a Mole, they keep appearing.jerry_{July 14, 2013
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Claudius asked: "So do you acknowledge that the ID concept of an unlimited designer cannot be scientifically tested?" I know of no ID concept of an unlimited designer. I know of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim conceptions of an unlimited designer. But ID is not any of those religions. ID is about designers, period. No specification of "unlimited" is essential to the theory of design detection. The idea is that we can detect design, not whether or not the designer is unlimited. So the stones of the Pyramids could have been arranged by an unlimited designer (God) or by limited designers (ancient Egyptians). We can tell they are arranged by design; but nothing in the *design* (i.e., the mathematical arrangement) tells us whether the designer was a mortal or a God. We might be able to tell whether the *assembly* was by mortals rather than a perfectionist God -- from slight flaws of measurement, stonecutting, etc. But the design -- we can't tell which mind it came from. All we can tell is that the Pyramids weren't made by centuries of winds blowing sand that just happened to harden into blocks in those positions. We can tell that a mind was involved. Now let me ask you a question in turn, since you did not comment on my discussion of Darwinian explanation: Do you acknowledge that Darwinian explanation (in terms of natural selection, as described) is too fluid, too flexible, too adjustable to whatever happens, to be truly rigorous, fully testable scientific explanation?Timaeus_{July 14, 2013
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Elizabeth: I understand everything you have said in 30, I think, but you are not getting at what I want to get at. Let us try to make things a bit simpler. Can we agree that it looks at the moment as if the universe is of finite age? And that it seems that the same is true of the earth? And that therefore, we cannot avoid explaining the existence of life on earth by postulating an everlasting universe in which life was always there, but must come to grips with the question of when and how life originated on the earth? Can we further agree that there must have been a chronologically first life-form on the earth? (Even if life had several separate origins on the earth, there would have been one that was first.) Now, let's talk about this hypothetical first life-form on the earth, whatever it was. I'll let you define that hypothetical form in any way you want: give it a cell wall or not, give it DNA, or just RNA, or some unknown self-reproducing basis of your choosing. Give it organelles of your choosing. All I ask is that it be a coherent entity, with parts and systems that interact in such a way as to enable it to thrive and reproduce, and thus potentially to become the ancestor of a whole range of later and more complex living forms. Now, I want to ask the question: Did this first living entity arise (probably through a series of steps, rather than all at once) purely out of chance and natural laws, or did its arrival involve some intelligence (expressed in planning, manipulation, or both)? That is the historical way of putting the question. An alternate way of putting it, with a different and more intellectually ambitious causal slant, would be: *Could* this first living entity have arisen purely out of chance and natural laws, or would it have *necessarily* involved some intelligence? I am not at this point asking, as you might wish later to ask, if this question is *testable* by the techniques of current science; I am asking if this question is *intelligible*. Is it a question about facts which can *in principle* be answered one way or the other (even if in practice it is very hard or impossible to answer)? That is, it is a meaningful, logical, sensible proposition to answer: "No, this entity did not require anything other than chance and natural laws to come into being" or alternately to answer, "Yes, this entity required something other than chance and natural laws to come into being?" If you answer that these are not even *intelligible* questions and answers, then discussion is at an end; we can't get further. But if you agree that they are intelligible questions and answers, then you presumably do not object when people raise or suggest them. So your objection -- if you have an objection -- to a "design hypothesis" regarding the origin of life would be -- what? That no such hypothesis should be allowed? That such a hypothesis should be allowed, but only in philosophy, not in natural science? Or that such a hypothesis is allowable even in natural science, but that it has to be formulated in certain ways different from the way ID people would formulate it? I want to stick to the origin of life example, because then we don't have to get involved in many tangled discussions about evolutionary mechanisms, where we have already established that we have momentarily irreconcilable disagreements. I want to talk about the origin of the basic biological structures without which no evolutionary change would be possible. So, if you were to address the question whether the first life was/wasn't or had to be/didn't have to be designed, how would you go about addressing it? What preliminary premises would you want to get both ID and anti-ID folks to agree on, in order to get a profitable discussion going about how we might decide between one answer or the other?Timaeus_{July 14, 2013
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Mark Frank:
But it does require some kind of hypothesis (however vague) about the designer and/or design mechanism so that it can be assessed.
No, it doesn't. What are those hypotheses wrt Stonehenge? Please do tell- and tell us how they helped make a design inference. IOW show us that we could not determine design without them. Good luck with thatJoe_{July 14, 2013
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CLAVDIVS:
So do you acknowledge that the ID concept of an unlimited designer cannot be scientifically tested? It can be tested- however ID does not have that concept. I told you how to test it- Newton told you how to test it. Don't blame us for your willful ignorance.
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Elizabeth:
But the more important point is that “is it designed”? isn’t a readily testable hypothesis.
No, it's a question, duh. However your position doesn't have any testable hypothesies, Lizzie. "Did it evolve via accumulations of genetic accidents?" isn't testable.
And we can only test hypotheses that make testable predictions, ...
Try leading by example, Lizzie. We all know that you cannot, but at least try. The point being is your position doesn't make any predictions based on its proposed mechanisms.
Notoriously, it is the default in the Explanatory Filter – the think you conclude when you have rejected all others.
LoL! Lizzie doesn't know what "default" means! No one takes you seriously seeing taht you make such simple errors, Lizzie. For one it cannot be the default if alternatives were/ are actively considered- and that is what the EF mandates-> active consideration of alternatives. Then there is the FACT that the EF mandates that not only do those alternatives have to be eliminated but ALSO there has to be some specification present.
I can think of lots of ways of testing specific design hypotheses, but they all involve a hypothesis involving a postulated designer.
That is proof that you don't know what you are talking about. I can test specific design hypotheses without knowing the designer.
And IDists insist that this is irrelevant – that “Design detection” should only involve the observed pattern, not any hypothesis about the designer.
That's what reality dictates, Lizzie. We do not have to know anything about the designer(s) before inferring design.
And, specifically, we cannot distinguish between teleonomy and teleology in a system that is self-reproducing, or which has feedback-loops that maintain some kind of homeostasis.
Your position can't explain self-reproduction, so stuff it already.
Teleonomy can sometimes be ruled out, as in the case of non-living artefacts, but there is no obvious reason to rule it out in the case of living things, because we already have an non-design candidate optimizing process that can operate in self-perpetuating systems.
That's your opinion and that is all it is. Your opinion lacks evidentiary support.
So if we want to find out whether or not living things were designed or not, we need to dig deeper, and look at specific hypotheses regarding not only the postulated designer’s design processes (which we can do)...
LoL! No, Lizzie, first we determine design is present and THEN we may be able to figure out the "how" by studying the design and all relevant evidence. As I said you ain't an investigator- you are totally clueless.
If the postulated designer is a physical being (a genetic engineer for instance) that is easy enough.
And yet we still don't know how they built Stonehenge! And living organisms are much more complex than Stonehenge. IOW once again you prove that you are ignorant.Joe_{July 14, 2013
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Timaeus @ 31 So do you acknowledge that the ID concept of an unlimited designer cannot be scientifically tested?CLAVDIVS_{July 14, 2013
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CLAVDIVS:
“Infer design” is not a testable explanation.
No, it's an inference reached after the investigation is conducted.
It is simply an assertion that there is some sort of explanation, which is not defined enough for testing, that involves an intelligent agent.
That is how archaeology and forensics do it, CLAVDIVS.
The sorts of explanation that can be scientifically tested involve a general rule, and a logical argument showing how phenomena follow from that rule e.g. Jupiter’s orbit follows from Newton’s law of gravitation.
Let's see- evolutionism cannot be scientifically trested. Universal common descent cannot be scientifically tested. OTOH all design inferences can be scientifically tested. Archaeologists do it as do forensic scientists. You just don't know what you are talking about, and it shows. But please, do tell us how to test the premise that accumulations of genetic accidents can produce, say, a bacterial flagellum...Joe_{July 14, 2013
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Claudius (29): The same can be said of Darwinian-style theorizing. It has been used to explain, for example, both why evolution favors selfishness and why it favors altruism, why it favors competitiveness and why it favor cooperativeness. It can explain why some species stay the same way for hundreds of millions of years and why others are rapidly transformed -- but of course it can do this only in retrospect, never on a predictive basis (which is about as scientifically useful as economic models that can explain depressions only after they have occurred, and never articulate their causes in such a way that they can be avoided or at least mitigated). And "natural selection" is such a vague category -- on what basis does nature "select"? Strength? Speed? Ferocity? Attractiveness to mates? (What if the most attractive mates turn out to be the most useless providers of food? Or tend to eat more of their own infant offspring than less attractive mates? What cost/benefit analysis must we then perform to predict what natural selection will choose?) And does natural selection operate on individuals or communities (the case of beehives with different organizations, etc.)? Because there are so many factors that might determine what is "selected," the Darwinian theorist has almost infinite play in concocting his after-the-fact explanatory narratives for why some species died out and others thrived. And he never has to do what physicists, chemists, and engineers have to do: use his scientific model to predict what will happen in the future, and admit that his model has been falsified or at least seriously weakened by repeated false prognostications. The retrospectivity of the whole enterprise makes it much less scientific, as the world normally understands scientific, than other scientific activity.Timaeus_{July 14, 2013
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Timaeus
Elizabeth wrote: “Just because our methods don’t detect design where you detect it, KF, doesn’t mean we don’t have methods that detect design.” This comment springs from either insincerity or self-delusion.
Well, no, but I do accept your emendation.
“Our methods” — as Elizabeth means the phrase — can of course detect design if the object is a radio or a coded message or a pyramid in the sands of Egypt. The Darwinists will gladly grant that we can know for a fact that all these things were designed, and not merely the product of chance and natural laws.
Yes, indeed.
But there is not a living, breathing soul on her side who has ever proposed a method for determining whether or not *a living system* or *a living organism* is designed. Or is even interested in investigating that question. And it is design *in living systems* that the debate is about, not design in computers or Stonehenge.
This is not strictly true, although you will not like my counter examples: there has been some really interesting research into whether certain plants, famously, maize and bananas, but also other species, were “designed” deliberately by our ancestors in order to produce more edible populations. In other words domestication by human beings can be detected retrospectively in a kind of biological application of archaeology. And of course, now that we deliberately design genomes by inserting sequences from a distantly related organism into a genome , in future, those will be detectable in the genetic phylogenetic signal, just as other horizontal transfer mechanisms are now. But the more important point is that “is it designed”? isn’t a readily testable hypothesis. In fact “Design” isn’t a hypothesis at all – it’s at best a very vague theory. And we can only test hypotheses that make testable predictions, and we can derive these from some theory that has some explanatory power. In other words for a design hypothesis to be testable, it has to be motivated by a proper theory, and “Design” just isn’t one. Notoriously, it is the default in the Explanatory Filter – the think you conclude when you have rejected all others. I can think of lots of ways of testing specific design hypotheses, but they all involve a hypothesis involving a postulated designer. And IDists insist that this is irrelevant – that “Design detection” should only involve the observed pattern, not any hypothesis about the designer. This is ludicrous, frankly. As I keep saying, the “probability” of a pattern is meaningless, absent some hypothesis regarding its generative process. Without such a hypothesis we cannot detect design. And, specifically, we cannot distinguish between teleonomy and teleology in a system that is self-reproducing, or which has feedback-loops that maintain some kind of homeostasis.
The *working expectation* of everyone on her side, including Elizabeth herself (if she is entirely frank) is that *all* cases of apparent design will, in the long run, turn to be just that — cases of *apparent* design only. So why would her side ever try to develop methods of design detection for *natural* objects and systems? (Why would you develop possible designs for a perpetual motion machine, if your working expectation was that one could never be made?)
I do get somewhat irritated when people assume me to take stances I do not have. It is perfectly true that I do not see any overpowering need at present to postulate an alternative to non-design processes to account for life, but it’s perfectly possible that that will change, in the light of new data. However, the data that are advanced as evidence that we should be seeking a design-based causal account, are not, in my view, persuasive, at least so far. But far more importantly, we would waste a heck of a lot of time and resources if we pursued any theory at all on the principle that we have not ruled it out. If a theory is to be pursuable it needs to have some explanatory power, from which hypotheses can be derived. “Design” is not such a theory.
Maybe Elizabeth will show us some of the methods of design detection that the Darwinian side has devised? And let us know who devised them? Mayr, perhaps? Or Crick? Or Monod? Or Coyne? Or Moran? It would all be news to us.
I would say that the methods in use detect can tell us that something was optimised for a purpose – serves some function, in other words. I think this is a useful insight that the ID community has highlighted, and I have always acknowledged it. However, I do not think the method necessarily distinguishes between teleology and teleonomy. Teleonomy can sometimes be ruled out, as in the case of non-living artefacts, but there is no obvious reason to rule it out in the case of living things, because we already have an non-design candidate optimizing process that can operate in self-perpetuating systems. So if we want to find out whether or not living things were designed or not, we need to dig deeper, and look at specific hypotheses regarding not only the postulated designer’s design processes (which we can do) but also the designer’s fabrication processes. If the postulated designer is a physical being (a genetic engineer for instance) that is easy enough. If the postulated designer is an immaterial mind, the problem is far greater, because we’d have to look for evidence that Work had been done, or was being done, on a system in order to produce the designed configuration. And that lands us back in trouble with the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.Elizabeth B Liddle_{July 14, 2013
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TJ @ 23
Okay I see where you are coming from. A physical theory like relativity can be formulated mathematically, gravity can be expressed mathematically and we can calculate an orbit with those types of things. A designer doesn’t count because he doesn’t fit into that type of box. Is this a correct interpretation of what you are saying? I’m going to assume it is and continue feel free to correct me though.
What I am saying is that the designer proposed by ID (as per the FAQ on this site) does not have any limitations, and therefore must be all-powerful and can achieve anything possible. Such a designer is not just "unpredictable"; rather, it is maximally unpredictable because it explains any phenomenon or measurement whatsoever.
However, anthropology is a science. They infer intelligence when they see things like writing on cave walls. ID isn’t rooted in physics. But it does make inferences just like an anthropologist might.
No, ID does not make inferences like anthropologists because anthropologists place limits on the intelligent agent they propose to explain phenomena: they have particular requirements, they only exist at particular times and places, they have particular abilities, tools and technologies that strictly limit their ability to manipulate their environment etc.
A designer might be able to explain anything, but nobody is saying that a designer should be invoked “ALL THE TIME” instead we are saying that maybe sometimes in certain specific cases (where we see FSI) design should be considered. Which to me seems more moderate. “Sometimes design” rather than “never design”.
It doesn't matter who is saying what. What matters is that logically the concept of the designer itself, as you acknowledge, is capable of explaining anything, and thus it cannot be scientifically tested. It may be a true concept, but it's not very useful and not scientific.CLAVDIVS_{July 14, 2013
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Chris Doyle @ 25
Basically, you’re not really interested in design. You’re only interested in the designer, because if that designer is God, then you can start moaning endlessly about religion… rather than focusing on the science of Intelligent Design. If you ever had to do that, you’d have to kiss good-bye the one thing that you’ve put your faith in (a very silly thing to put your faith in): Chance.
What I have been pointing out on this thread, is that if ID does not place any limitations on the proposed intelligent designer, then it logically follows that the proposed designer has no limits on its power i.e. can achieve anything possible. That this happens to coincide with some concepts of deity is neither here nor there. However, it matters because it means that ID, in its current form, cannot be scientifically tested, because something that has no limits can be used to explain *anything at all*. It cannot tell us why things are like X, and not like Y, because it equally explains both X and Y. In short, it's neither scientific nor particularly useful.CLAVDIVS_{July 14, 2013
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