Doug Axe now replies to James Shapiro: Can we let the science decide?

_{Denyse O'Leary

January 18, 2012

Darwinism, Evolution, Intelligent Design}

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Readers will recall James Shapiro, author of Evolution: A View from the 21st Century. Bill Dembski asked him, based on his observations, Why aren’t you a design theorist?

Which, in the context, is somewhat like asking, “Well, if you agree with me about how badly things are run down at City Hall, will you join Citizens for Municipal Reform?”

Well, Shapiro replied, giving his objections, and now Biologic Institute’s Doug Axe has replied to Shapiro here:

I think we all agree that science should be the arbiter here. Naturalism and ID both make testable claims about how things happen in the real world, so it ought to be possible to evaluate these positions by evaluating their respective claims.

If crutches are devices for propping up lame positions, then I completely agree that they should go, but let’s be careful to call a crutch a crutch. As an ID proponent, I’ve put forward the scientific case for thinking that the thousands of distinct structures that enable protein molecules to perform their specific tasks inside cells cannot have arisen in a Darwinian way. Moreover, the facts of this problem seem to preclude any naturalistic solution, Darwinian or not.

Shapiro is looking for a no-Darwin but no-intelligence solution. Does it exist?

Also, Axe’s senior scientist Ann Gauger offer some thoughts on Dembski’s questions here.

0 to 60 quick, on Shapiro:

Antibiotic resistance: The non-Darwin truth

“Four kinds of rapid, multi-character evolutionary changes Darwin could not have imagined”

“Key non-Darwinian Evolutionary Scientists in the 20th Century”

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Comments

Provine says Darwinism = atheism Is the same as? I would disagree. Scientists said darwinism = eugenics A kind of 'natural' eugenics, then maybe. Artificial selection is eugenics, which was Darwin's jumping-off point. Guided human eugenics is a different kettle of ethical fish. It acts against the natural variation in the population more quickly than it can be replaced, and so seems like a crap road for a geneticist to wish to go down. No accounting for people, though. It does contain the ridiculous presumption from people like Fisher that the world only needs a load more specky intellectuals like them! Provine said there isn’t any free will I wonder what made him say that? :0)Chas D_{January 20, 2012
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Your remarks about Margulis and Shapiro don’t tell me anything I didn’t already know.
Good, I'm glad we agree then.
The problem here is your restricted use of the term “Darwinian.” Yes, the description you are giving is an important part of “Darwinian” thought.
Yes, it is.
But it is incomplete, and that is where we are having so much problem with vocabulary. I could say that “London” is Picadilly Circus and Buckingham Palace and the Tower Bridge, on the ground that they are central spots and symbols of the city, but that leaves out Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square and Soho. You are speaking as if your definition is the only important part of Darwinian thought, and as if everything else can be scrapped, and the word “Darwinian” still used. Well, this is a matter of convention, but for many analysts of evolutionary theory, gradualism is a crucially important part of Darwinian theory (both Charles- and neo-). But gradualism was severely criticized by Gould, and also in a different way by Margulis, and of course by the ID people. Another important aspect of Darwinism was Darwin’s resolute anti-teleology — which carried over into neo-Darwinism. Now if you read Denton’s second book, you will see that Denton questions both the gradualism [in a certain way] and the anti-teleology; Denton clearly sees these things as very important to Darwinian thinking. And you will also see from his two books that he is very well versed in the history of evolutionary thinking, so it would be unwise to simply dismiss his vocabulary because you would like to use the word differently.
If, by "Darwinian" you mean "what Darwin thought" then, sure, it's incomplete. But in my experience, it's that key insight that is generally regarded as the essence of Darwinian theory. So in future I will make that clear whenever I use the word. Another shorthand is "RM+NS" but I don't think that works as well, because Darwin didn't propose "RM" he just proposed heritable variance. At one stage he didn't even regard it as random. So I think my shorthand is better.
As for your final statement, I’m sure I could find you ten young earth creationists with life science Ph.D.s who agree that gene expression is vital to brain function. That has nothing in itself to do with Darwinian theory or evolutionary theory at all.
Yes, it has a huge amout to do with evolutionary theory, whether or not your 10 YECs have a view. Genes are the unit of inheritance, and gene expression is about how the genetic inheritance affects the phenotype, the unit of selection. That's why evolutionary theory is relevant to my field.
Of course, you can gratuitously add that the current gene expression system arose as a result of this or that evolutionary mechanism if you wish. Whatever makes you happy. And whether brains evolved or not, they work the way they work. If a mechanic is fixing my car, he doesn’t need to know that this particular Ford engine has an engineering lineage going back to the Model T; all he needs to know is how the parts work together.
And finding out how the parts work together, in the absence of a user manual, often involves figuring out how those parts got there, and what earlier variants did in earlier models.
If I ever need brain surgery, all I care about is that the surgeon knows how all the parts of my brain and body work together; I couldn’t care less if he has never read a single article about the evolution of Neanderthal or Australopithecine brains. In fact, if I thought he spent more than a small fraction of his time reading things like that, I would be worried that he was too speculative, and not empirical enough, and would look for a different surgeon, one who preferred to devour articles on surgical techniques and post-operative medications and the functions (year 2012 AD, not year 200,000 BC) of the various regions of the brain.
That's probably true of brain surgery. I'm not a brain surgeon (you will be relieve to know).
In any case, I wasn’t denying that you might have found some use for this or that idea from evolutionary biology in your own work; I was denying that you would be recognized by evolutionary biologists as a peer in that field. Yet you write with a tone of authority, as if you are lecturing us all on evolutionary theory.
Well, that's unfortunate, and largely imaginary I suggest. I do not appeal to authority or put myself out as anybody special. I'm not. You are reading "tone" where it isn't there. As I've said to you before, the great thing about the internet is that your arguments have to make sense. You can't appeal to your own authority because nobody knows for sure who you are. You don't know for sure who I am. I might be my cat.
But why should we accept you as an an expert on contemporary evolutionary theory, when you have no academic achievements in that field?
You shouldn't.
Especially when we see how carelessly you have misinterpreted ID notions;
Well, I don't think I have. But of course you are free to disagree. And make your rebuttal.
what guarantee do we have that your reading of evolutionary biologists is not equally careless?
None. But that doesn't mean I am not entitled to say what I think they are saying.
Maybe you should get an endorsement from Simon Conway Morris or someone on that level, e.g.: “Elizabeth is the greatest popular expositor of evolutionary theory currently living, and you can trust everything that she says.”
Why should I? I'm not instructing you to accept my word. I'm simply expressing my view on the internet. I'm as fallible as anyone else. But obviously don't think I'm wrong at the time I write, otherwise I wouldn't write it! And I'm more than willing to concede (as I've indicated before) when I am persuaded that I am in error.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 20, 2012
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Elizabeth, I see that you have a clueless evotard cheering section over on atbc. Unfortunately for them you cannot support your assertions so they have to make stuff up to try to "attack" me.Joe_{January 20, 2012
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Elizabeth (5.1.1.2.2): Your remarks about Margulis and Shapiro don't tell me anything I didn't already know. The problem here is your restricted use of the term "Darwinian." Yes, the description you are giving is an important part of "Darwinian" thought. But it is incomplete, and that is where we are having so much problem with vocabulary. I could say that "London" is Picadilly Circus and Buckingham Palace and the Tower Bridge, on the ground that they are central spots and symbols of the city, but that leaves out Hyde Park and Trafalgar Square and Soho. You are speaking as if your definition is the only important part of Darwinian thought, and as if everything else can be scrapped, and the word "Darwinian" still used. Well, this is a matter of convention, but for many analysts of evolutionary theory, gradualism is a crucially important part of Darwinian theory (both Charles- and neo-). But gradualism was severely criticized by Gould, and also in a different way by Margulis, and of course by the ID people. Another important aspect of Darwinism was Darwin's resolute anti-teleology -- which carried over into neo-Darwinism. Now if you read Denton's second book, you will see that Denton questions both the gradualism [in a certain way] and the anti-teleology; Denton clearly sees these things as very important to Darwinian thinking. And you will also see from his two books that he is very well versed in the history of evolutionary thinking, so it would be unwise to simply dismiss his vocabulary because you would like to use the word differently. As for your final statement, I'm sure I could find you ten young earth creationists with life science Ph.D.s who agree that gene expression is vital to brain function. That has nothing in itself to do with Darwinian theory or evolutionary theory at all. Of course, you can gratuitously add that the current gene expression system arose as a result of this or that evolutionary mechanism if you wish. Whatever makes you happy. And whether brains evolved or not, they work the way they work. If a mechanic is fixing my car, he doesn't need to know that this particular Ford engine has an engineering lineage going back to the Model T; all he needs to know is how the parts work together. If I ever need brain surgery, all I care about is that the surgeon knows how all the parts of my brain and body work together; I couldn't care less if he has never read a single article about the evolution of Neanderthal or Australopithecine brains. In fact, if I thought he spent more than a small fraction of his time reading things like that, I would be worried that he was too speculative, and not empirical enough, and would look for a different surgeon, one who preferred to devour articles on surgical techniques and post-operative medications and the functions (year 2012 AD, not year 200,000 BC) of the various regions of the brain. In any case, I wasn't denying that you might have found some use for this or that idea from evolutionary biology in your own work; I was denying that you would be recognized by evolutionary biologists as a peer in that field. Yet you write with a tone of authority, as if you are lecturing us all on evolutionary theory. But why should we accept you as an an expert on contemporary evolutionary theory, when you have no academic achievements in that field? Especially when we see how carelessly you have misinterpreted ID notions; what guarantee do we have that your reading of evolutionary biologists is not equally careless? Maybe you should get an endorsement from Simon Conway Morris or someone on that level, e.g.: "Elizabeth is the greatest popular expositor of evolutionary theory currently living, and you can trust everything that she says." T.Timaeus_{January 20, 2012
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Right- no more assertions, just tell us how to test it! Your silence betrays you, Elizabeth. Strange that you think it somehow saves you.Joe_{January 20, 2012
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Timeaus Here is why I think "immanent design" is compatible with Darwinism. I assume the point about immanent design is that the design happens up front - in Denton's case at the Big Bang - and no afterwards. How are we to distinguish immanent design from continuing interventions by a designer? Take any variation in the genome from one generation to the next but before selection has acted on it. There are two options: 1) It is clearly and implausibly oriented to provide some benefit for the organism. 2) It isn't. It appears unguided. Option 2 is the essence of Darwinism. Variation either provides no benefit or if it does provide a benefit then this variation can plausibly be accounted for by natural processes (the leap might a point mutation, or Margulis endosymbiosis, or Shapiro's internal mechanisms - Darwin would not have known the difference). But in the case of 1 how do we tell the difference between immanent and continuing intervention? Without knowing the actual intervention mechanism the two are indistinguishable.markf_{January 20, 2012
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Well, there's not much point in trading assertions, Joe. Obviously I think you are wrong, and you think I am, so we'll just have to leave it there.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 20, 2012
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Timaeus, please stop with the snidey remarks about my education. When I don't know what someone means, I ask. Works have many definitions, and what I am asking for is not some canonical dictionary definition (which are not canonical anyway - they describe usage, they don't prescribe it) but the sense in which YOU are using the word in THIS post.
Your statement indicated that you did not realize this. It indicated that you thought ID accepted only the externalist notion.
Yes. Because Darwinian evolution is an "internalist" notion, and IDists reject it. I'd like to see an ID paper that accepts the possibility of Darwinian evolution, or other "internalist" system as compatible with an Intelligent God. It seems to me, as I said, that this is precisely the position of theistic evolutionists, is it not? And I myself have been proposing "inbuilt intelligence" for years. I think that's exactly what Darwinian evolution is.
You don’t need to tell us what the theistic evolutionists, hold, Elizabeth; we all know their positions, in excruciating detail and far better than you do.
Oh yeah? And how do you know that you know their position "in excruciating detail" or "far better than [I] do"? hmmm? After all I was one myself for half a century. Indeed, almost every theist I ever met or read in that time was a "theistic evolutionist". And one thing I did find out is that it is a highly heterogeneous field. And I may well confused what ID is about. But that is at least in part (and I would suggest almost wholly) because ID is also a thoroughly heterogeneous and often intra-contradictory set of positions. And no, I don't think I will tell you what I've read, right now. You tell me what you think I have wrong, and I will give you a citation for where I got it from.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 20, 2012
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No, it isn't testable. If it was then I wouold still be an evolutionist and you would be telling us how to test it. Genetic algorithms don't have anything to do with biological reality. As for testable hypotheses, well you can't produce any of those either. So it isn't that I refuse to accpet anything. It is that it is untestable. And nothing you can say, beyond telling us how to test it, will change that.Joe_{January 20, 2012
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Elizabeth: I didn't think "immanent" should be all that difficult a word for someone with your level of education. But what I meant was that the living organism contains the ability to remodel itself into new organisms, so that new organisms don't have to be created from scratch by some outside intelligence. ID is compatible with either option -- some outside intelligence literally manipulating matter to get new organs, systems, or creatures, or organisms evolving without new intelligent input from outside, because they have a sort of built-in program for self-development. Your statement indicated that you did not realize this. It indicated that you thought ID accepted only the externalist notion. I'm not asking you to agree with ID, Elizabeth, but I am asking you not to say incorrect things about it, and not to keep fighting when you are corrected by those who have been involved in ID longer than you have and know all the nuances of the various ID authors more intimately than you do. Many of us here at UD have read Michael Denton's second book, and recognize in his thought a sort of "inbuilt intelligence" model, as opposed to, say, a view of direct creation, like of Paley, where the intelligence is clearly external, or an evolutionary model in which God or some other intelligence is always pushing and steering the process along, and therefore again inputting external intelligence. Shapiro's seems to be another "inbuilt intelligence" model, though it appears to differ in detail from Denton's. Classic neo-Darwinian theory, of course, involves no "intelligence" or "design" in the normal sense of those words at all; the whole point of it was to show that blind natural forces and contingent events could in the long run produce new arrangements that looked as if they were designed by an intelligence (but weren't). You don't need to tell us what the theistic evolutionists, hold, Elizabeth; we all know their positions, in excruciating detail and far better than you do. But in fact, to say that the universe was brought into being capable of producing life covers many more options than the Darwinian. Michael Denton (whose second book I'm convinced from your various remarks that you have not read) also has the universe capable of producing life, but not in a Darwinian or neo-Darwinian way. Shapiro's scheme, insofar as he has developed it, is not primarily Darwinian or neo-Darwinian, either. You say you've read a few papers by Dembski. Why don't you read *No Free Lunch*? Have you read both of Behe's books? Have you read Meyer's book? Which books of Wells have you read? How about The Design of Life by Dembski and Wells? And I'm not convinced you've read what you've read very thoroughly, because you keep misrepresenting or confusing what ID is about. As for your earlier comment, it's perfectly acceptable for mathematicians and philosophers to criticize biologists when biologists make statements that fall partly into the territory of the mathematicians or philosophers, as has often been the case in evolutionary theorizing. It would be foolish, however, for a specialist in linear algebra to tell a specialist in probability theory that he had misunderstood Bayes's Theorem. My point was that Shapiro doesn't need your constructions of what does and does not count as "Darwinian" or "neo-Darwinian," any more than the probability theorist needs the linear algebraist's opinion about Bayes's theorem. And if I have to choose whose vocabulary to use, Shapiro's or yours, I'll take his. T.Timaeus_{January 20, 2012
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Joe, it's perfectly testable. That you refuse to accept this really isn't my problem. And if you want to know the mathematics of evolution, read any paper on any evolutionary model, including genetic algorithms. And no, none of that will tell you how, or even whether, the bacterial flagellum evolved, and we will probably never know, exactly. All we ever have in science is testable hypotheses, and those tests can only ever support a hypothesis, not prove it. It's models, all the way down.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 20, 2012
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How can something that is untestable be relevant to any field? Mathematics of evolution? Please show us this math and how it pertains to say the evolution of the bacterial flagellum via darwinian mechanisms. Brains evolved? Yeah from the originally designed brains. And all "evolution" means in this context is "change".Joe_{January 20, 2012
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Well, if it was even earlier than 1959, that makes my point even more emphatically. It is out of date.
You are the only one who finds the term “neo-Darwinism” unclear, Elizabeth. All the other players in the game — all the real evolutionary biologists, as opposed to neurologists playing at being evolutionary biologists — know that it refers to the synthesis achieved by Mayr, Dobzhansky, Gaylord Simpson, Julian Huxley and their friends, and that it focused on random mutation plus natural selection.
Self-evidently it is unclear, Timaeus, because you yourself conflated my word "Darwinian system" with your/Shapiro's word "neo-Darwinian system" in your very post! That is why I made the distinction. Darwin did not even propose a mechanism for variance-generation. At one point he went for Lamarck's view. And saying "Darwinian" not "neo-Darwinian" when I mean "Darwinian" not "neo-Darwinian" should confuse no-one. And yet, weirdly, it confused you. But let me be absolutely clear: by Darwinian, as I have said, many times, so often that I should really store a keyboard shortcut for the phrase, the principle that when self-replicators replicate with heritable variance in reproductive success in a given environment, the population will adapt to that environment. That was Darwin's great insight, it remains at the core of evolutionary theory, and is not denied or rejected by either Margulis or Shapiro. What Margulis challenged was the neo-Darwinist understanding of variance creation. What Shapiro challenges is the idea that variance creation is "random" (whatever that means, and I think to some extent Shapiro, and Margulis for that matter, is attacking a straw man). Margulis put forward the role of symbiosis as a generator of variance, and Shapiro talks about the evolution of evolvability. But that evolution of evolvability he attributes to the basic Darwinian algorithm, except applied at between-population level, rather than within-population level.
But of course, the view among the leading evolutionary theorists of today is getting farther and farther away from anything that can reasonably be called “Darwinian.”
I disagree, although I do agree that we have moved vastly further than the state of knowledge that Darwin possessed, obviously. He didn't even know about genetics. And our undertanding of the concept of "species" has changed fairly radically. But his simple principle remains the foundation of evolutionary theory in a very profound sense. At any rate, if you disagree, please explain why. Oh, and Timaeus, evolutionary theory is highly relevant to my own field, for many reasons: because the mathematics of evolution is also the mathematics of cognition; because brains evolved; and because genes expression is vital to brain function. Also others, but those will do for starters.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 20, 2012
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Provine says Darwinism = atheism Scientists said darwinism = eugenics Provine said there isn't any free willJoe_{January 20, 2012
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Just a few points, I think worth making: Darwinism =/= atheism Darwinism =/= eugenics atheism =/= no free will atheism =/= amorality methodological naturalism =/= censorship of science methodological naturalism =/= no free will methodological naturalism =/= atheismElizabeth Liddle_{January 20, 2012
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Elizabeth: You're wrong about the history of evolutionary theory -- again. The Modern Synthesis is generally considered to have been worked out between about 1937 and 1947; the term The Modern Synthesis was actually in the title of a book in the mid-1940s. No significant ID proponent would ever make the equation between "neo-Darwinism" and "everything Darwinist biologists believe today." That would indicate a massive vocabulary confusion. An ID proponent would use "Darwinist" for the original views of Darwin, or as a short form for "neo-Darwinist" where the context made the meaning clear, but would not muddle things by putting "neo-Darwinism" and "Darwinist" in a construction such as you have created. You are the only one who finds the term "neo-Darwinism" unclear, Elizabeth. All the other players in the game -- all the real evolutionary biologists, as opposed to neurologists playing at being evolutionary biologists -- know that it refers to the synthesis achieved by Mayr, Dobzhansky, Gaylord Simpson, Julian Huxley and their friends, and that it focused on random mutation plus natural selection. The ID people -- at least, the more disciplined ID people -- use the term in the same way. So do Shapiro and Margulis, when they criticize it. The fact that you don't easily recognize the term, and find it confusing and misleading, suggests to me that you jumped into this subject (evolution/ID) fairly recently and are still trying get your head oriented to the history of the subject. And that's fine, but at least you could take instruction from those who are more historically informed than you are, instead of trying to act like the expert on the relevant vocabulary. There may not be many "pure" neo-Darwinians left, but there are plenty of biologists left whose overall orientation to evolution is *primarily* neo-Darwinian. Ken Miller, Eugenie Scott, Richard Dawkins, the folks over at Biologos, etc. I would bet that if you surveyed most American high school biology textbooks the presentation of evolution there is also primarily neo-Darwinian. It is that orientation which ID people have been most extensively criticizing. Your last sentence continues to infect others with the confusion in your own vocabulary. You said "how Darwinian evolution works"; you should have said simply "how evolution works". Otherwise, the context of your statement implies that the neo-Darwinian view of evolution is now outdated, but today we have a truer Darwinian view. But of course, the view among the leading evolutionary theorists of today is getting farther and farther away from anything that can reasonably be called "Darwinian." And that's a good thing, because both the Darwinian and neo-Darwinian models were extremely implausible. (Margulis's view was not much better; there is more hope for the ideas of Shapiro and Newman and others.) T.Timaeus_{January 20, 2012
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No DrREC, People get to say God is the designer. ID does not say that but people can. They come to that conclusion via other-than-science, even Behe said that. ID isn't Creation- people who understand ID and Creation know there are huge differences- only the willfully ignorant conflate the two- that is the hillarious part. Intelligent Design Creationism only exists in the minds of the willfully ignorant- and here you are...Joe_{January 20, 2012
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Well, that’s a good start.
Errr ... not really. To dispense with it as an explanatory framework because of a set of pet problems such as avian lungs, flagella, whales, the genetic code, the mammalian jawbone, cytochrome b, the sea squirt, mostly pursued with variable degrees of ignorance of actual biology? ... no, not good enough. Biology is huge, and it confirms common descent from tangled root to branch tip. Population principles and their consequences have also been deeply investigated. I don't accept evolution because people tell me to, but because I can see the merit in the explanatory framework and the data. This, or that, detail may be lacking a current explanation. I have not read every single paper published. But I have read a lot. I am not aware of one that casts serious doubt on it (of course, this is because there is a conspiracy to suppress them!). So if you see my averred skepticism as a 'foot-in-the-door' for discard of the paradigm... nope. Give me a better one first.Chas D_{January 20, 2012
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Here’s my questions to atheists: 1. At what point would you accept that the universe or nature had a supernatural first cause, or would you always just hope/believe that one day, perhaps long after you’re gone, an answer will be found that supports a materialistic explanation? Isn’t that FAITH?? For example, let’s say GOD created the universe, how would you ever realize THAT if you continue to reject that possibility from the start? You say the supernatural is not science, but you accept other things that cannot be verified by our scientific methods, such as the belief that all life is the sole product of darwinian evolution. Even uber-darwinist Jerry Coyne admitted: In science’s pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom, far closer to phrenology than to physics. For evolutionary biology is a historical science, laden with history’s inevitable imponderables. We evolutionary biologists cannot generate a Cretaceous Park to observe exactly what killed the dinosaurs; and, unlike “harder” scientists, we usually cannot resolve issues with a simple experiment, such as adding tube A to tube B and noting the color of the mixture. Of Vice and Men The New Republic April 3 2000 p.27
I do not think that the answer to whether God exists can be found through science - empirical evidence. I think there are logical reasons for rejecting the idea of God, but not empirical ones. Or rather, I think some ideas about God can be rejected empirically (a God who made the earth in 6 days, about 6,000 years ago, for instance), but the notion that something brought the world intentionally into existence seems to be not one that can, in principle, be answered empirically.
Yet darwinian evolution is beyond reproach. Why? How is your faith in it, different from my faith in a creator? (Aside from the fact logical deduction of the evidence points to a creator)
It isn't beyond reproach. It's simply a well-supported (by evidence) scientific theory. It's far from complete, and may be wrong in important respects. Certainly Darwin himself was wrong on several counts.
2. Why is ANY possibility allowed, EXCEPT God? Extraterrestrials, a multiverse, etc are both allowed to be promoted as ‘science’ yet there’s no evidence for either. There’s also no evidence our ‘scientific’ methods would be able to determine an extraterrestrial or a multiverse, yet both are put forward as possibilities…but not GOD. Why?
All possiblities are "allowed" but only some are amenable to investigation. Depending on your definition of God (or your concept anyway), God is probably not amenable to scientific i.e. empirical investigation (from my own theological stance, a God that was amenable to empirical investigation wouldn't be what I would call God - merely a previously unknown denizen of the world). The others are.
Thank you
You are welcome :) Good questions.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 20, 2012
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I am a skeptic in all things – including science. I don’t accept anything just because people tell me to, including evolution.
Well, that's a good start.Eugene S_{January 20, 2012
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Like mathematicians and philsophers claiming such about biologists, for example? ;) Timaeus, please re-read what you wrote, carefully. Both Shapiro and Margulis rejected what they called the "neo-Darwinian synthesis". Neither rejected Darwinism, and, indeed, Margulis called herself a Darwinist, explicitly (don't know about Shapiro). But whatever Shapiro calls himself, his position is not non-Darwinian. What it is not is "neo-Darwinian". tbh, I don't think there's a "neo-Darwinian" biologist left. It was a "synthesis" announced in 1959. A huge amount has been learned since then - not least being the whole domain of "evo-devo". But also, symbiosis, and population-level selection, which Margulis and Shapiro, respectively, have championed. I think it is really important that this word "neo-Darwinism" is either defined precisely each time it is used, or dropped. The idea that it always means "everything Darwinist biologists believe today" is simply wrong. In Shapiro and Margulis' cases, it means a very specific, and outdated, view of how Darwinian evolution works.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 20, 2012
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Timaeus: Not sure what you mean by "immanent design". Is that different from "intrinsic"? But if ID's thesis is not "external design" by which I mean design by some agent other than the system itself, then what's wrong with Darwinian theory? That's exactly what Darwin's theory is: that populations of self-replicators that replicate with heritable variance in reproductive success within the current enviroment form an intrinsic design system. But I will await your definition of "immanent". However, if all an IDist is alleging is that "ID" means that the universe capable of producing life was brought into being by a creator God, then it doesn't conflict with Darwinian theory at all. In fact, that would be the position of most "theistic evolutionists", so derided so regularly on this (ID) blog, and certainly not the view of those (Dembski, Meyer, Behe, Wells) who argue that Darwinian theory (essentially, intrinsic design) cannot account for what we observe. I do wish you'd drop these snide speculations about my reading, btw. I have read many papers by Dembski, and also critiques of them. I haven't "dipped" into them. I've read them, really very thoroughly.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 20, 2012
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It DOES require faith Chas, because you’re talking about a historical science, not an empirical one.
The processes of evolution can be empirically verified right now. They boil down to birth and death in a finite world. They lead to emergent consequences, deeply investigated, and these are, quite reasonably, inferred to have operated whenever birth-and-death-in-a-finite-world has occurred. It requires no faith in something else. In the specific historic matter of how life got to its present state, we are not privileged to evaluate any proposition directly. But speaking strictly for myself, I do not perceive this as a matter of faith. Faith requires the introduction of additional causes, not empirically observable. The observation of designing entities in the present is not equivalent to the observation of processes emergent upon birth and death in a finite world.
Darwinism is a worldview, a religion if you will, not a scientific theory.
Well, I will just have to disagree. This 'religion' thing is pushed to death, and if it helps you to rationalise why people may think differently on the data, please yourself. But it requires no belief in an external entity, higher intelligence, moral code, ritual, static text by revelation or any of the trappings one would conventionally ascribe to a religion. All we are left is the vague metaphorical usage of "something pursued with enthusiasm". Whatever!
Now, if you wish to believe in it, that’s your right. I firmly believe God gave us free will (contrary to atheists’ claims that we have no free will) and that you have the right to believe as you choose. The problem is, you are not promoting a scientific theory, but rather your materialistic faith.
Yes, the familiar phase 2 of the argument. I'm afraid not. The theory is deeply embedded within biology, but it requires nothing more, as I say, than birth and death in a finite world. I can operate that process in a lab, or a mathematical model, or a computer, or investigate it in the wild, and see what consequences it has. They are evolutionary consequences. We can extrapolate out: IF the simple process I outlined is at the back of it, what would we expect to see in the world? The marks of heredity. If birth and death are all there was, we would expect to see organisms related at the fundamental, genetic level. And we do. This COULD have been falsified. We could have found anything. But we didn't; we found common descent. Now I know you may rail against common descent, but the evidence is overwhelming. I am not trying to persuade you of that fact, but to say that I am persuaded of it. So, when you talk of 'choice', and 'free will' one only has a choice to believe in something if all options are equally consistent. I have no choice, with the mountain of confirmatory evidence I have from studying biology, but to conclude that the data points nowhere but common descent.
As I asked before, at what point would you ever concede there MUST be a supernatural first cause for nature/the natural? If you say never, then you are ignoring the known scientific principles we have, in exchange for faith that one day, all the mysteries will be explained by purely naturalistic means.
No, because "never" could also apply to a natural first cause. We may never know how it all started. I only concede the supernatural when I get some direct evidence that there is such a thing.
Tell that to seti and the other ‘scientific’ journals that allow e’t's to be postulated, but not GOD. ;-)
Postulating ET's and ascribing in them the powers to cross vast distances of interstellar space, armed with the tools of biological design, and some means of suspending known physics while they create their creations, are two completely different things. I can actually buy the supernatural more readily than I can buy hyper-intelligent aliens as a cause. Trekkies need to get some sense of scale!
But to get back to the point, what you’re doing is saying GOD wouldn’t do this or that, ergo God can’t exist.
No, I'm saying I have no idea if God even exists. I'm not arguing him out of the picture; that would be absurd. To talk about limitations would require me to accept the basic fact of his existence, and I am afraid, in all conscience, I do not have any reason to do so. People tell me he exists - but then people tell me a lot of things!
Atheists NEED darwinism, which is why they fight so hard to prevent it form being criticized, and having dissenting opinions heard.
So, I tell you I don't, but you know better. Fair enough. As I say, it is one way for you to rationalise why people think differently from you. I was an atheist before I knew anything of biology. I didn't seize upon it to confirm my godless ways; I studied it, found it fascinating, and know why biologists are so robust in their defence of it. God (if he exists) has presented this vast mountain of evidence before me, and I am supposed to pretend I cannot see what I can see, just to get on the right side of him? I am a skeptic in all things - including science. I don't accept anything just because people tell me to, including evolution.Chas D_{January 20, 2012
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markf: Huh? I have no idea how you could have drawn that conclusion from anything that I wrote. I said that ID is compatible with immanent design. Darwinism is the denial of all design (all real design, I mean, as opposed to simulated design). Are you possibly confusing "Darwinism" (a mechanism explaining evolution) with evolution itself (a process of change in species)? Of course ID is compatible with "evolution." Again, the most obvious example is Denton. ID's beef is against the Darwinian mechanism, not against evolution. Many ID proponents endorse evolution -- Behe, O'Leary, Sternberg, StephenB -- they just think the Darwinian explanation of evolution is hopelessly inadequate. (As do some prominent non-ID scientists, including Margulis and Shapiro.) T.Timaeus_{January 20, 2012
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Blue-Savannah You raise a good point. If we only accept methodological naturalism how are we ever going to know about a supernatural being or event? My personal answer is that it has to be by direct experience - revelation or whatever. It cannot be through science for reasons that Lizzie has explained. A good scientist, when he or she cannot find a natural explanation of anything, says "I don't know why - but let's keep on trying to find out".markf_{January 20, 2012
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'Darwinism' is an ideology. Is there really any honest dispute about this? What kind of PoS is on tap here?Gregory_{January 20, 2012
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Timaeus Seems like according to your account ID is compatible with Darwinism. Is that true?markf_{January 20, 2012
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Elizabeth, you wrote: "It’s an extension of the Darwinian system, not an alternative to it." Let's see now. James Shapiro is a full-time evolutionary biologist. He publishes in that field, and, I presume, keeps up with the technical literature in that field, goes to conferences in that field, discusses the broader implications of his work with colleagues in that field, etc. His own description of his work is as a challenge to major elements of the classical neo-Darwinian system (Modern Synthesis). Elizabeth is a neuroscientist. She publishes in that field, and presumably, requires many hours per month to keep up with the technical literature in that field, go to conferences in that field, etc. This leaves her with little time to read the technical literature that James Shapiro reads, little time to write the articles that James Shapiro writes, and little time to go to the conferences on evolutionary biology that James Shapiro attends. So, we have a claim that a neuroscientist who reads about evolutionary biology on the side understands the implications of an evolutionary biologist's work better than he himself does? He erroneously supposes himself to be challenging the neo-Darwinian synthesis, but she correctly discerns that he is merely extending it? Is it usual practice for a scientist in field A to claim to have understood the meaning of the work of a scientist in field B better than the scientist in field B understands it himself? Just asking. T.Timaeus_{January 19, 2012
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I think there’s an ixnay on admitting the Godnay is the Designernay herenay…. Hilariously to those of us amused each time someone tries to argue ID isn’t a flimsy creationist front, against historical, current funding and logical considerations. Your politicians even call it “intelligent design creationism” You would have an argument IF I were an I.D proponent, but I'm not that vague. I'm a Young earth CREATIONIST, and have disagreed with some of the articles I've seen on here. If I.D and creationism were the same, why would there be disagreements??? The great thing is, unlike darwinists, creationists and I.D proponents allow other opinions to be heard.Blue_Savannah_{January 19, 2012
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Elizabeth, you wrote: "But his research completely undermines ID’s central thesis! It suggests that the design processes that give rise to functional organisms are intrinsic, not the result of external design and implementation." Who told you that "ID's central thesis" is about *external* design and implementation? Or did you just infer it, based on your dipping into bits of ID writing and lots of critical writing against ID? Bill Dembski has spoken on more than one occasion of two possibilities: immanent design processes and extrinsic ones. He has said he personally finds the extrinsic one more probable, but has made a point of including the immanent one under the ID concept. Also, in Michael Denton, the only "external" imposition is at the time of the Big Bang; after that, evolution takes place entirely in accord with the immanent potentiality of nature. Michael Behe has acknowledged that such a possibility falls under the rubric of ID as well. I am *not* arguing that Shapiro counts as an ID theorist. I am merely point out a misconception that you are promoting about ID. I think you had better check out what ID people say about themselves before deciding what "ID's central thesis" is. It *isn't* "biological design is externally imposed." T.Timaeus_{January 19, 2012
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