A rough draft, outline composite answer to the UD essay challenge . . .
| September 25, 2013 | Posted by kairosfocus under Darwinism, Evolution, ID Foundations, Origin Of Life, UD's Pro-Darwinism essay Challenge |
It seems we can now put together at least a draft outline composite response to the UD pro-darwinism essay challenge of a year ago, based on Jerad’s remarks at 70 in the one-year anniversary thread, and a key concession by EL at 149 in the same.
In the interests of moving the discussion on the merits forward [I am open to improved drafts or a full form submission . . . ], first here is the Smithsonian chart of the Tree of Life, the context:
Now, PART I:
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EL, 149: >> “As yet we have no empirically supported naturalistic theory of abiogenesis.” >>
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For PART II, we will need to highlight that Jerad is responding to some earlier remarks in the thread:
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Jerad, 70: >> Jerad September 24, 2013 at 3:49 am
[KF:] Until you have a credible, observational evidence warranted account of how blind watchmaker chance and necessity accounts for FSCO/I, all you have is materialist just so stories that have determined the conclusion in the question begging ideological a prioris.
Given that we have a few thousands years of observing what morphological changes breeding programs can develop coupled with the fossil record and the morphologies it shows, what we know of the genome and the bio-geographic distribution of species AND not wanting to assume a ’cause’ we have no evidence to have existed at the times under consideration I’d say the evolutionary model is pretty good.
Science makes observations and tries to construct models that explain what is observed. When a better (or more refined/specific) model is proposed and verified (on existing and new data) then the paradigm changes.
As always, attacking evolutionary theory doesn’t give you ID. ID needs to develop its own explanatory model. niwrad has a thread which s/he has pointed out to me wherein s/he has a preliminary model. What do the rest of you think of it? I’ve only had a brief chance to consider it but I found some intriguing ideas there.
[KF:] As the main point in the OP highlights, there is but one empirically justified source of FSCO/I, design. That is, empirically and inductively, FSCO/I is known to be a reliable sign of design, as deer tracks are reliable signs of the passage of certain animals.
As usual, I beg to differ. At least as far as the diversification of life on earth is concerned given a as yet unknown original replicator.
[KF:] This also accords with the implications of functionality dependent on correct configuration and coupling of multiple, well matched parts. Namely, that most — vastly most — of the field of possibilities will be non-functional configs; yielding the islands of function in a much larger sea of non function effect. That means that once complexity is above 500 – 1,000 bits, solar system or observed cosmos resources cannot plausibly account for the observed outcome on blind chance and mechanical necessity due to overwhelming search and sampling challenges. The needle in the haystack problem, in short.
Again, evolutionary theory posits that the diversification of life as we know it arose from minor modifications of a first basic form. The minor modifications were also functional. Cumulative selection by environmental pressures (among other things) created new functional configurations. No need to search a vast configuration space for new forms. The ones that survived to reproduce were functional and derived from other functional forms. The modifications that were not functional did not survive. This happens with human pregnancies. It’s possible that up to a third of human pregnancies spontaneously abort because something is wrong.
In this way all the life forms that have ever existed on earth form a great web of functional forms. No islands. Holes in the web maybe, but no disconnected pieces. And no need to randomly search a vast configuration space for new functional configurations.
By the way, you make the assumption that the configuration space would have to be exhaustively searched. This, even under your assumption, is not the case. Once a functional configuration was found you’ve got your first basic replicator and the evolutionary process can begin.
Also, it is not known, nor does ID specify, what kind of functional configuration you’re saying needed to be found. As a result, there’s no way to test how many functional configurations there would be in the configuration space. Some details to bolster your model would be good.
And, once again, evolutionary theory does not yet know what the first basic replicator was. Neither does the ID community. How it came about is a separate issue. I will grant you that the first basic replicator could have been designed and then, if there was no further intervention, evolutionary processes can explain all that happened after that. But, so far, the ID community has got no proposed first replicator or its source. But, it has to be said, claiming the first basic replicator on Earth came from a designer does lead to the question of where the designer came from. Unless you’re inclined to stop asking questions.
[KF:] The red herring on demanding that we ignore what we know per empirical warrant to do something that in effect demands us to create a time capsule and travel back to remote times, is a fallacious distractor from what we do and can know. It also is inconsistent, as there is a double standard in inductive reasoning.
Not at all. Evolutionary theory invokes observable forces/causes that can be reasonably supposed to have been available in the given time frame. ID proposes an unspecified/undefined ‘designer’ for which there is no independent evidence. Also, evolutionary theory explains more of the evidence we have: why are some things the way they are? When did some transitions happen? How did they happen? Not specific to the molecular level (which is unknowable) but the model matches the data and can predict undiscovered forms.
[KF:] That is, the inductive logic whereby in making a design inference we reconstruct or infer on best empirically grounded explanation of the credible cause of key features of a situation we did not directly see from its traces in the present and known characteristic empirically grounded causal processes that yield such results is a commonplace in science.
If you use special pleading (i.e. there was an intelligent designer around at the time with the necessary skills and equipment) without any independent evidence then your inference is less parsimonious. Aside from the fact that the ID community has yet to come up with a core hypothesis which can be tested against the evolutionary model of universal common descent with modification. As far as I know there is yet no consensus about when design was implemented for example. There’s lots of work to do!!
[KF:] That sort of double standard on warrant is a characteristic feature of an imposed ideological a priori. In this case, the known one of materialism.
It’s just a matter of what can be reasonably inferred from what we know of the situation. We don’t know there was a designer around at the time. And, again, even if that were granted as an acceptable axiom there is not explanatory ID model to work with.
[KF:] Such ideological a prioris compromise the key value and aim of science to be open to and seek an accurate report or account of the world.
Well, I would always want to find a model that fits that has the fewest assumptions. I don’t see what that has to do with materialism.
I’d consider what I wrote above to be a decent outline/draft of my response to your ‘darwinian essay challenge’. I feel that the basic argument is there.>>
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It has taken a year to get to this point, but it is a beginning.
Let us trust that we can now see a turn towards focussing on the merits. As promised, I will wait for five comments below before commenting, and will wait two full days before posting any headlined response. END
26 Responses to A rough draft, outline composite answer to the UD essay challenge . . .
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kf,
This is all nonsense, irrelevancies and story telling. Why did you publish it?
jerry
I agree that “this is all nonsense, irrelevancies and story telling” but I suppose kairosfocus somehow wanted to close the one-year challenge and reward the winner(s).
just helping out… 🙂
still helping… 🙂
finished.
Jerry, this is as much answer as I have been able to get after a year. It seems this is a measure of the actual substance, once the ideological controls are not on the table. Your more specific thoughts are welcome. Yours too, Niw, and those of anyone else. KF
PS: My response to the main argument in the original thread is here. The entire absence of a serious case on OOL puts design at the table from the root of life as the only empirically grounded explanation for the FSCO/I implied.
Gee, thanks.
With those kind of reactions is there any particular reason I should participate in this discussion?
Even after a year nobody took the stage?
Jerad et al:
I wish the tone above were less dismissively sharp, but I think the issue is that you do need to provide adequate warrant. I will follow this by reposting my own response at 85 in thread.
KF
F/N: My response from 85 in the previous thread:
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>> Jerad,
I observe your attempt at an outline response, which despite the
ducking of the bigger half-problem, OOL is to be respected as taking
the matter seriously. Indeed, if you can revise and address OOL, I am
quite willing to headline it as an attempted answer.
However, it has certain pivotal and telling gaps.
First, we see:
The fact remains, that the only actually observed source
of FSCO/I is indeed design. You have substituted an inadequately
grounded assertion as though it were a factual observation to the
contrary. Unfortunately, as Theobald indicates, this confusion of a
tower of inferences for indisputable facts we have observed is a
characteristic problem of evolutionary materialist thought.
You have not seen not even a remainder of that hypothetical
replicator and lush documentaries etc to the contrary, we do not have
observations of the incrementalist origin of body plans either.
I will respond in summary below, for more details (including on
cases I mention) I refer onwards as follows . . . not least because in
a comment there is a tight budget of links that can be given, I think
about seven:
I need to pause and speak to the “fact fact Fact” claim, noting
here from Wiki:
Immediately, we can spot a no true scotsman fallacy mixed into
what frankly has to be called a big lie brazen falsehood. The anonymous
authors of Wiki knew or should have known that the appeal to universal
consensus of credibly qualified scientists is false.
The first use in the clip simply describes observed minor
variations in life forms that are sometimes called micro-evolution,
which is indeed a non-controversial fact. It is then used as a basis
for a gross, observationally unwarranted extrapolation that is demanded
by a priori commitment to evolutionary materialism rather than based on
any actual facts of observation — which they have to concede when they
say: “even though this cannot be directly observed.”
If it is not a fact we have seen in a deep past we cannot
observe, it is a theoretical explanatory inference or rather a large
mound of same, period.
In short the presentation of body plan level macro evo allegedly
driven by chance variations and differential reproductive success
leading to claimed descent with unlimited modification across a
branching tree pattern, as “fact”, is plainly loaded with precisely the
sort of confusion of towers of inference for actual observed objective
facts that can potentially close our minds to the truth. In addition,
it appeals to the naked authority of the particular school of thought
and philosophy that dominates a given day.
Indeed, by improperly using the term “universally,” the Wiki
article actually tries to disenfranchise qualified but dissenting
scientists.
Therefore, we must always be very careful indeed to distinguish
actual credible facts of direct observation from inferences built on
them, and we must always be open to the possibility that what we think
are facts — especially on matters that we cannot directly observe — may
just possibly embed an error or two.
A revealing illustration of this pattern is the reference you
made to the unknown replicator, as close as you get to OOL.
Was such seen? Nope, as you concede.
Was such seen as an integral code based algorithm using facility
integrated with a metabolic nanofactory in a gated encapsulated
enclosure? A fortiori, no.
The massive FSCO/I and IC of such an entity scream: design. That
is, we have excellent reason to infer design at the root of the tree of
life. Thereafter, for argument let us accept universal common descent
and lay aside for a moment the now notorious pattern of contradictory
molecular trees and mosaics such as the platypus (more consistent with
a code library in a design system than an incremental tree). Do we have
any good, observationally based ground to reject designed branching and
unfolding by things like frontloading and use of viri as vectors to
inject planned triggers for development?
Nope, only the a priori exclusion of design which is already the
only observationally backed, viable candidate sitting at the table at
the root of the whole tree. And therefore sitting at the table as of
right thereafter.
Do I need to explicitly cite the co-founder of evolutionary
theory as an advocate of intelligent direction of such?
Let me do so, as he was a foremost person in things like
bio-geography, from preface:
In short, not even universal common descent suffices to remove
the relevant issues from the table. To exclude design as the best
explanation of the manifest FSCO/I it is necessary to first empirically
overturn on ACTUAL OBSERVATIONS the pattern whereby we consistently see
FSCO/I produced by design.
This, you have simply not done.
This also both shows why OOL is pivotal — as the usual resort to
the magical powers of natural selection (chance variations and
differential reproductive success — contrary to your onward
suggestions, have never been observed to give rise to body plans) is
off the board. Your attempted dismissal of OOL is therefore decisive,
and not in your favour. By silence, it implies that you indeed have no
credible account by which FSCO/I can and does come about by blind
chance and mechanical necessity.
That glaringly highlights the gaps evolutionary materialism
advocates keep papering over.
Next you outline geographic and similar observations. The
documented variations are all well within body plan level and in no
wise suffice to erase the FSCO/I origination challenge.
This next step you made reveals the significance of the
explanatory failure of the view you advocate:
The problem is that it is known that 100 k – 1 M bits of info
makes about the right level for a “simple” — misnomer! — unicellular
life form, but from both calculation and observation of genomes of body
plans we see that new body plans, Phylum and Sub-Phylum level in
effect, will indeed require 10 – 100+ million new bits of info. The
idea that something of this complexity coupled to functional
specificity can be achieved one tiny functional step at a time,
selected for on population genetics, is in fact a major point of
explanatory gap for the theory. For instance to make a whale like creature out of a
cow like one, someone has estimated up to 50,000 stepwise changes, many
of them co-ordinated. Given reasonable pop sizes in light of ecological
niche, generation scales, and time to fix, we are not going to see
enough scope for such an incrementalist account to work. This is multiplied by the dynamics of building a body plan
through embryological development as the early stage mutations required
are making chance changes in a tightly coupled interdependent
functional system and have a known strong tendency of lethality
Similar, for making a man like creature out of a chimp like
creature.
This is further substantiated by the widespread and systematic
patten of missing links, from the Cambrian on. Indeed, Gould has long
since highlighted across his career how systematic are the gaps by
underscoring that sudden appearance, stasis and disappearance are the
dominant feature of the fossils, not the sort of incrementalist pattern
that Darwin hoped for. This after over 1/4 million fossil species and
millions of examples in museums, with billions of same in the ground.
The gradual, branching tree pattern has been imposed on the fossils,
not inferred from them.
This runs directly contrary to your bold assertion:
Just to cite Gould in his last work, The Structure of
Evolutionary Theory (2002):
Gould’s earlier comments are worth putting on record:
Yes, you have given the popular narrative that is eagerly
promoted. Unfortunately, it does not comport well with the on the
ground actually observed facts of the dominant pattern of life forms.
Next:
A strawman caricature, I am afraid.
What I have pointed out — by argument anchored in the logic and
experience of complex functional systems — is that we are dealing with
multiple part, complex systems dependent on proper organisation to
work. That is, per Wicken’s “wiring diagram” parts have to be arranged
in a specific nodes and connections pattern, with matching and
coupling, as is often illustrated by the exploded view. This implies a
structured set of yes/no decisions to get parts, matching, placement
and configuration right. If you have ever had to dis assemble and clean
a fishing reel or a gun or the like, you will instantly understand the
point. That set of Y/N q’s specifies information implicit in functional
organisation, and is closely related to the way an autocad drawing is
coded and stored in a file.
Now, let us start with our warm little pond or the like with
various salts and so forth. Your silence on OOL apart from a one liner
shows that the magnitude of the challenge to get a gated, encapsulated
metabolic entity working off key-lock fitting folded polymer molecules
and coupled to a code based self replicating facility has overwhelmed
the ability to provide a remotely plausible and observationally
warranted solution. At low end, this is for 100 kbits of genomic info.
To get from that to the dozens of body plans, you nee4d to
g4enerate 10 – 100+ mn bits more, dozens of times over.For the
Cambrian, maybe in 10 MY but 3.5 Bn years would not make a difference
tot he scope of the challenge.
What you are trying to suggest is that this can be eliminated by
an assumed branching tree pattern of incremental fixed changes, i.e. a
few bits at a time. Sounds great until you inject two problems: utter
want of observational basis of such a complex emergence, and the
challenge of writing such a code transformation functional all the way,
and getting it fixed in population of reasonable size and lifespan. The
evidence points to 2 – 7 bases as a step limit for practical purposes.
If you go for duplication and variation by drift then reentry to
function, you are looking at searching huge spaces by chance.
In short, isolated islands of function are real [just ask
embryos with lethal early muts about that] and the challenge of
bridging hem is real, very real.
It cannot be waved away by Dawkin’s metaphorical easy back way
up Mt Improbable.
Similarly, if these incremental forms were there, they would
utterly dominate the history of life. So, why are they systematically,
overwhelmingly missing to the point where Gould and colleagues went out
to construct an alter5native evo theory to account for their absence,
over the course of decades?
There are enough fossils that we should see a very different
picture from what we see if the claims were so.
Nope.
The OOBP issue is not going to go away with a one liner. Once
design is sitting at the table as a viable explanation for FSCO/I it is
there all the way.
Once, you do not have DIRECT OBSERVATION of blind chance and
m4echanical ne4cessity generating FSCO/I.
Which you do not.
Why do you insist, after ever so many corrections, on a strawman
caricature of design theory and what it posits and argues on what
evidence? (Just as a test, try to cite a statement by any prominent
design theorist that argues in the way you do. You will find none such.
You have been taken in by a caricature presented by unscrupulous
objectors. I suggest you go up to the OP and simply read the summary of
what ID actually argues there, which you and other objectors have
ignored. ID is not a mirror image to the a priori materialism of
Lewontin, Sagan, US NAS, US NSTA et al.)
Let’s go back to Newton’s Rules of inductive, scientific
reasoning which he used to introduce the Universal Law of Gravitation
(in Principia):
Similarly, in Opticks, Query 31, Newton said: “although the
arguing from Experiments and Observations by Induction be no
Demonstration of general Conclusions; yet it is the best way of arguing
which the Nature of Things admits of, and may be looked upon as so much
the stronger, by how much the Induction is more general. And if no
Exception occur from Phaenomena, the Conclusion may be pronounced
generally. But if at any time afterwards any Exception shall occur from
Experiments, it may then begin to be pronounced with such Exceptions as
occur.”
In this spirit, the design inference simply observes that there
is an observable fact, FSCO/I . . . under whatever label and in
whatever form. It is, on billions of cases reliably the product of
design, there being no actually observed exceptions caused by blind
chance and/or mechanical necessity. In addition, there is good
analytical reason to see that such alternative causes are not credibly
capable of creating FSCO/I. The attempted claim that macroevolution is
a fact in counterexample is instead a fallacy driven by an ideological
a priori. Exactly the kind of speculative hypothesis that Newton so
often challenged as not being reasonable as an answer to an inductively
grounded point.
As a result of such, we are entitled to see that FSCO/I is a
reliable sign of design as cause. And since designs reflect planning,
purpose etc, such are habitually and appropriately associated with
designers. Those committed to a materialist a priori may not be
inclined to respect an inductive inference in this context, but that
says more about the strength of the ideological a priori than about the
strength of the induction.
This then shows how the following builds on a poor foundation:
You are again knocking over a strawman of your own manufacture.
The suggestion that the design inference is untestable is a
second strawman caricature in the teeth of abundant correction to the
contrary.
I say it again: were it shown that FSCO/I was in fact per
observation credibly, reliably produced by blind chance and/or
mechanical necessity — as has been repeatedly tried and as just as
repeatedly has failed — then the ID hyp in the domain of the world of
life would collapse.
The design inference is testable and per Newton has stood the
test on billions of test cases. It is on canons of inductive reasoning,
and billions of actual cases, that we can be confident that FSCO/I in
its various guises is a reliable sign of design.
The repeatedly corrected strawman caricature of ID appears again.
It is clear that until there is a willingness on the part of
objectors to accurately represent ID, it will be impossible to have a
positive discussion.
And so we see:
Let us refresh our memory yet again, on the pivotal Lewontinian
admission of an ideological a priori assumption, which may be found
with four other examples including from the US NAS and NSTA, here on:
This is a blatant statement of the ideological captivity of
science to materialism and undermines its objectivity and credibility
as long as it is in that thralldom.
Philip Johnson’s rebuke to Lewontin, Nov that year was richly
deserved:
KF >>
_________
I think some serious discussion is indicated.
KF
Pardon formatting.
You can “invoke” whatever you want, but if the evidence does not lead to those “invocations” as the most likely candidates based on empirical evidence, you may as well be invoking fairies.
With ID, the designer is inferred, because that’s where the evidence leads. That’s the whole point of ID.
It seems that Jared does now know what an inference is. And why some inferences are better than others.
edit: does now know = does not know
Jerad
It was not my intention to be impolite in regard to you personally. Evolutionism is a totally indefensible error. Evolutionists themselves are the first victims of the brainwashing of a perverted system. As such, they have all my human solidarity. But I think that my first intellectual duty, to try to help them, is calling a spade a spade, without ambiguity.
‘ . . a totally indefensible error.’ And I’m a victim of brainwashing. And you’re trying to help ‘us’ by telling us we’ve swallowed a pack of lies.
So, I’m not bright enough to figure out that I’ve bought into some elaborate hoax? But no offence intended.
I don’t mind you disagreeing with things I say or uphold. That’s your right. But I’d rather not be categorise as a brainwashed victim if it’s all the same to you.
I understand your argument but not only do I disagree with its conclusion but I also think it involves special pleading.
I would appreciate you spelling my name correctly.
I’m listening.
Sorry
Jerad,
Ok, if I offended you, I apologize.
But one should never be ashamed to be a brainwashed victim, or even to be called such. Myself many years ago was a brainwashed victim of materialism/atheism/scientism/evolutionism… Perhaps in a form even more serious than you. I am not ashamed to tell it. I know well the many-years battle I had to do before I finally put those things in the dustbin, definitely. I remember well how uncomfortable was my situation at that time. I would not come back to that point not even if menaced with a revolver at my head.
I hope now we can do a reset, can we?
Fair enough.
Sigh.
I’m not brainwashed. I’m not uncomfortable. My head is clear and my decisions are my own.
If you stop labelling me, perhaps. But how can I hope to have an actual conversation with you if, in the back of your head, you keep thinking: he doesn’t know what he’s saying. He’s been brainwashed. He’s a victim. I’m helping him by pointing out the error of his beliefs. I can’t concede to his ideas because then I’m just feeding the false.
What hope is there to have a conversation if you’re already sure what I’m saying is wrong?
Onlookers, ask yourselves why it is there has been such a reluctance to try to make a case that accounts for the full darwinist tree of life from the roots to the twigs. KF
Jerad, if you are right and have the observational warrant, the objections will fall of their own weight. The issue is not disagreement but warrant. KF
Because there isn’t a darwinist explanation from non-life to the root, KF.
Nobody claims there is.
If you wait about 20 years or so, there might be.
Elizabeth Liddle:
I thought you had been arguing that it was theoretically impossible.
From my point of view, niwrad seems as set in his(?) ways as I must seem to him. He’s convinced I”m wrong; that seems to be his assumption.
But, I agree that it’s typical in such discussions that the first assumption tends to be: what’s wrong with you? Why don’t you see it the same way I do.
This does get back to the reason I started participating in UD in the first place: I wanted to understand the people with whom I disagreed and the way they saw the data. And, as I’ve said before, my own views have been challenged. Some might not believe that but I hope, in this one small sense, I’m granted the assumption of being truthful.
Good catch, Mung.
Correction:
Because there isn’t a Darwinian explanation from non-life to the root, KF. Nobody claims there is, because there can’t be.
If you wait about 20 years or so, there might be a non-Darwinian explanation.
Jerry @ 1
Indeed