Unguided Evolution – Can it be falsified?

_{January 19, 2006

Evolution, Intelligent Design, Science}

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Steve Reuland over on Panda’s Thumb is babbling about whether some ID strawman du jour can be falsified. Let’s examine the real issue.

First of all, we’ll use this definition of evolution given to the Kansas Board of Education in a letter from 38 (count ’em) Nobel laureates better known as the Weisel 38.

Ã¢â‚¬Å“Logically derived from confirmable evidence, evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.Ã¢â‚¬Â

an unguided, unplanned process

As all of us who don’t cling to strawman versions of ID know, the only bone we have to pick with that definition is the unguided, unplanned part. We are of the position that evolution, in part or in whole, was a guided or planned process.

So how does one go about falsifying unguided evolution? By demonstrating that the process was guided, of course.

ID is the means by which this theory of unguided evolution can be falsified. If ID cannot be falsified and is itself just religion disguised as science, where does that leave unguided evolution? Why it leaves unguided evolution as unfalsifiable pseudo-science.

Sorry Steve Reuland, but you don’t get to have your cake and eat it to. Either ID is science or unguided evolution is pseudo-science. Takes yo pick and let me know when you have a final answer.

Comments

"What we have to look for in evolution is an endogenous mechanism that can goal seek by many different ways over millions of years and finally produce the final product which is a rational creature capable of proving that is exactly what the mechanism must have been. IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m still waiting for evidence of a younger mammalian species than Homo sapien. It is all over folks. From here on it is all downhill. Trust me, but of course you wonÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t." Prof. Davidson, you hit the nail directly on the head. Well put!Bombadill_{January 20, 2006
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Jack, you wrote: "The ID movement mistakenly claims that the inability of science to see and acknowledge divine guidance is equivalent to claiming that such guidance is not there. That is a mistake both about the nature of science and about the nature of God as many conceive him. " It's not the ID movement that makes this claim, it is prominent supporters of evolution. See the quote from the Wiesel 38 that starts this thread. If evolution really says nothing about guidance, why do famous scientists keep saying it does? Richard Dawkins is an Oxford professor whose entire career is dedicated to setting people straight about the true nature of evolution. This is what he has to say in an interview at Salon.com: "There is just no evidence for the existence of God. Evolution by natural selection is a process that works up from simple beginnings, and simple beginnings are easy to explain. The engineer or any other living thing is difficult to explain -- but it is explicable by evolution by natural selection. So the relevance of evolutionary biology to atheism is that evolutionary biology gives us the only known mechanism whereby the illusion of design, or apparent design, could ever come into the universe anywhere." Dawkins is the "Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science" at Oxford. He's the guy claiming that evolution is unguided, not the ID movement. ID simply takes evolution as its public defenders define it. Cheers, Dave T.taciturnus_{January 20, 2006
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The ID Minority on the Kansas science standards writing committee inserted this sentence into the standards: Ã¢â‚¬Å“Biological evolution postulates an unpredictable and unguided natural process that has no discernable direction or goal.Ã¢â‚¬Â This seems to be exactly what the 38 Nobel laureates told Kansas evolution was....that being, "evolution is understood to be the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.Ã¢â‚¬Â Good thing you were able to distinguish what "sense" they meant it in and knew that when they said the exact same thing, they were not really agreeing, but rather disagreeing, with the Nobel laureates.Nate_{January 20, 2006
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blah blah blah Jack - since I'm banned on Panda's Thumb from commenting I see no reason why I should allow authors from Panda's Thumb to comment here. Please make your responses elsewhere. -dsJack Krebs_{January 20, 2006
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ID can be falsified by demonstrating that life can arise from non-living matter via unintelligent, blind/ undirected (non-goal oriented) processes. Doing that would fulfill Dr. Behe's criteria as life is the ultimate in IC and biological ID falls. As far as I can tell there are only three options as to our existence: 1) Unintelligent, blind/ undirected (non-goal oriented) processes 2) Intelligent, directed (goal oriented) processes 3) A combination of 1 & 2 So how would we falsify the premise that (for example) cetaceans "evolved" from land animals via option #1? How can we test the premise? Perhaps someone can point out how it was determined that the observed design is illusory (as opposed to real)? Then we can compare that to how IDists say intentional design is determined and see which side has the muster...Joseph_{January 20, 2006
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Karl Popper just confused things with all this falsifiable nonsense. Hypotheses are either verifiable or not. I regard Intelligent Design as verified simply because there is no other coneiveable alternative. The elimination of alternatives is a perfectly sound means of scientific inquiry. It has been employed in every aspect of scientific discovery and led to the downfall of the Ether, the Phlogiston and very soon Chance, the cornerstone and the Achilles heel of Darwinian mysticism. "Everything has been determined... by forces over which we have no control." Albert EinsteinJohn Davison_{January 20, 2006
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What we have to look for in evolution is an endogenous mechanism that can goal seek by many different ways over millions of years and finally produce the final product which is a rational creature capable of proving that is exactly what the mechanism must have been. I'm still waiting for evidence of a younger mammalian species than Homo sapien. It is all over folks. From here on it is all downhill. Trust me, but of course you won't.John Davison_{January 20, 2006
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Before I go to bed, just to follow up on the commutativeness of falsifiability. Going back to gravity, let's say you have a hypothesis that states 'gravity does not always cause objects to be attracted to one another with a force proportional to their masses and the distance between them'. Now, if you have an example of that happening (e.g. gravity causing objects to repel), you will have falsified a basic law of gravity. However, the hypothesis itself is unfalsifiable (since humans are not omniscient), and so it is not scientific until you make a prediction of what will happen under what circumstances. While no one is arguing that the laws of gravity need to be amended, the logic here is the same.Hamilton_{January 20, 2006
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Thanks for the link, crandaddy. Reading this kind of paper justifies the hours (upon exponential hours) that I sometimes feel I've wasted on these topics.Charlie_{January 19, 2006
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DaveScot: "Unguided evolution is either falsifiable or it is not science." This is a false dichotomy. This statement defines science as something that is falsifiable and gives no other parameters--in fact, it allows none. This describes facts, not a process. I am 5'8" is falsifiable; it is not science. I like chocolate is falsifiable; it is not science. What makes my body crave chocolate, or how did I become 5'8" can be scientific questions, but then we have to look into hypotheses, etc.... "Guided evolution must be verifiable, at least in principle, to falsify unguided evolution. ThereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s just no way around this." I suppose this is true, if an example of guided evolution were to be found, unguided evolution (by definition) would be falsified. However, this does not imply, or define, ID as science. Hamilton brings up the point that guided evolution is not falsifiable...so, yes, we are back to square one...with the burden of positive proof in the ID's court...still waiting. Hypotheses in science must be falsifiable at least in principle. This is not a false dichotomy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability One might argue that Karl Popper was wrong but in this case the Darwinian evolutionists have used the argument that if ID is not falsifiable it isn't science. Falsifiability is a sword that cuts both ways. If ID must be falsifiable to be science then unguided evolution must also be falsifiable. You can't have your cake and eat it too. But I repeat myself... -ds blipey_{January 19, 2006
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"If ID isnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t science then unguided evolution is unfalsifiable pseudoscience." I think I see where we diverge. You are right in that a demonstration of guidance (of ID) would falsify unguided evolution. In that sense, you could say that such a demonstration is scientific in nature. However, it does not logically follow that guided evolution is a scientific hypothesis. In mathematical terms, falsifiability (pardon the term) is not a commutative property. In order for ID to be a scientific hypothesis, something must be able to falsify it, and there is nothing that can do it. "So what would Sir Occam choose given all this?" This is a very persuasive common sense argument. However, it is not a scientific argument - science does not deal with what 'feels' right, but with observation and assumptions. Evolution is observed (more indirectly than other things - but you aren't arguing that evolution doesn't take place, so no need to diverge in that direction), so we'll take that for granted at this point. Guidance is an added variable to this. A lack of guidance is a lack of this additional variable.Hamilton_{January 19, 2006
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Guided is, of course, the default. Everyone sees the design, Darwin, Dawkins, Crick... They all understand that it is there, but explain that we can and must convince ourselves that it is an illusion.Charlie_{January 19, 2006
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DaveScot, I see now your argument of guided vs. non-guided and will give you the point on false dichotomy, sort of. I agree with Hamilton's point of guided and not guided being unequal propositions--the crow example is very nice. Which brings me to the main thing that troubles me about ID in science curricula. You state that no one is trying to insert faeries into the theory of gravity--obviously true. However, since the main argument of this thread seems to equate the possibilities of gravity faeries and evolutionary green men, why should we insert evolutionary green men into the curricula? Wouldn't positive proof of either thing be necessary before teaching it to 9th graders? And, I'm assuming the following was a joke? "Sure, I suppose one could say that we really canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t prove gravity and inertia causes the earth to revolve about the sun rather than legions of invisible pixies pushing things about but in reality no one is asking to insert that into textbooks. We can cross that bridge when we come to it." Though, once again, I think the evidence for either is the same, so why not insert those pixies? I think Occam's Razor was applied correctly the first time. This idea applies to the state of being of the universe, not to the number of words used to describe it or to our own presuppositions about a situation. By saying that you see something and presume something about it inserts bias into the equation. What is simply imagined by us is not necessarily the simplest thing that could have happened. 1)blipey_{January 19, 2006
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Hamilton "It is possible to prove something is guided by showing to a clear instance when it was guided." Cool. That is what ID is all about. Showing a clear instance that something was guided. This is the falsification that unguided evolution needs to be real science. We're back to square one. If ID isn't science then unguided evolution is unfalsifiable pseudoscience. Unguided evolution is either falsifiable or it is not science. Guided evolution must be verifiable, at least in principle, to falsify unguided evolution. There's just no way around this.DaveScot_{January 19, 2006
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Hamilton Good point about Occam's Razor but I think you misapply it. Which is simpler: 1) you see something that looks like a design and presume it's a design 2) you see something that looks like a design and spend 150 years arguing that it really isn't a design and say if you don't have a PhD in evolutinary biology you can't possibly understand all the overwhelming evidence that proves it isn't a design. So what would Sir Occam choose given all this? I'm pretty sure he'd pick what's behind door number 1. Show the good sir a modern genetic engineering lab to prove that intelligent designers able to muck around with DNA for directed purposes are a proven quantity in nature and he's SURE to pick door #1. And quite frankly I feel only someone with a most unscientific agenda would pick any other door.DaveScot_{January 19, 2006
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"Guided or unguided? Seems exhaustive and mutually exclusive to me." I agree, more or less. But while they are mutually exclusive, they are not indistinguishable. It is possible to prove something is guided by showing to a clear instance when it was guided. However, it is not possible to prove something is unguided because the amount of guidance can always be claimed to be less than what is observable with current technology. It's sort of like the statements "All crows are black" and "Not all crows are black". It takes one white crow to disprove the first, but there is no way to disprove the second, since one can always claim that there are still more undiscovered crows somewhere.Hamilton_{January 19, 2006
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Hmm. I would think that unguided is the default state. Continuing with my comparison - you would not want textbooks to include a disclaimer saying that gravity may or may not be unguided. It could be that at the core of gravity is divine will, for example. In fact, that's a good hypothesis, since we don't know what makes gravity go. That could be reason to include the possible guidance of gravity in experiments. It's no reason to include that point in textbooks until such time as there is evidence for it. Guided and unguided are not equal states. One is the default 'null' hypothesis, the other is an active hypothesis that needs to be supported by evidence, beyond 'there is no evidence against it'. "Not possible even in principle to examine ancient DNA since it doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t fossilize although IÃ¢â‚¬â„¢m unsure of how that would help even if we could." We can examine the expression of that genetic code in the fossil record. If we see that attributes arise which are clearly contrary to unguided natural selection, that would go some way toward casting doubt on the 'unguided' aspect of it.Hamilton_{January 19, 2006
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Crandaddy I almost said legions of invisible little green men. Then I thought how could something be both invisible AND green? Pixies of unspecified color took over from there.DaveScot_{January 19, 2006
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"Sure, I suppose one could say that we really canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t prove gravity and inertia causes the earth to revolve about the sun rather than legions of invisible pixies pushing things about but in reality no one is asking to insert that into textbooks." LOL! You have a way with words, Dave!crandaddy_{January 19, 2006
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Guided or unguided? Seems exhaustive and mutually exclusive to me.anteater_{January 19, 2006
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"We would have to consider shifts in non-neutral code." Not possible even in principle to examine ancient DNA since it doesn't fossilize although I'm unsure of how that would help even if we could. We don't even know if Cambrian animals used DNA. It's totally an argument from ignorance - if they didn't use DNA what DID they use? No answer? Must've been DNA then. Sometimes arguments from ignorance are compelling and I'll concede that Cambrian animals did indeed use DNA. "True. But you could say the same about any natural process" Reductio ad absurdum? Sure, I suppose one could say that we really can't prove gravity and inertia causes the earth to revolve about the sun rather than legions of invisible pixies pushing things about but in reality no one is asking to insert that into textbooks. We can cross that bridge when we come to it. Let's get back to evolution now. I'm not sure I agree with your premise (again) regardless. No one is making the claim that gravity is a random process. Gravity is predictable to many decimal points of precision. That's not random. Poor analogy. Can you find a better one? DaveScot_{January 19, 2006
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Welcome back Blipey! I made no false dichotomy. It's not ID or evolution. It's unguided evolution, guided evolution, or a combination thereof. It's only 100% unguided evolution as claimed by the Wiesel 38 that I have a problem with. Evolution happened. The question is how. We need to edit textbooks if they contain falsehoods! If there is no way to distinguish between guided and unguided evolution and a textbook says that evolution is an unguided process then they are describing a lie. I don't like teaching lies. Maybe you do? DaveScot_{January 19, 2006
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Here's a piece from the archives of ISCID that's relevant to the discussion: http://www.iscid.org/papers/Wolf_AnalogicalKnowledge_092303.pdfcrandaddy_{January 19, 2006
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"If thatÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s true then itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s already falsified by genetic drift which can cause transition without selection pressure." You're right, that was something I had not considered. We would have to consider shifts in non-neutral code. "We can immediately correct all the textbooks and standards to say that evolution may have been guided by an intelligence or it may not have been and thereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s no way to tell." True. But you could say the same about any natural process - it's a philosophical matter, not a scientific one. Gravity could be guided or unguided - there's no way to tell. Same with every other phenomenon of every branch of science. Standards and textbooks follow Occam's razor and focus on the subject matter, not on such impossible to know context.Hamilton_{January 19, 2006
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DaveScot said: "We can immediately correct all the textbooks and standards to say that evolution may have been guided by an intelligence or it may not have been and thereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s no way to tell." What's the point of that? How does any statement which may or may not be true, with no way of distinguishing between these extremes, advance our understanding of either the process or the results of anything at all? We shouldn't ammend the textbooks in this way because there is no need to do so.blipey_{January 19, 2006
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"You can falsify unguided evolution by demonstrating a transition which had no external cause" If that's true then it's already falsified by genetic drift which can cause transition without selection pressure. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_drift#Drift_versus_selection "No matter what the record, guided evolution can look exactly like unguided evolution" You're now saying that guided cannot be distinguished from unguided evolution. This makes the claim of the Wiesel 38 fallacious as they explicitely claim evolution is understood to be an unguided process. That's okay too. We can immediately correct all the textbooks and standards to say that evolution may have been guided by an intelligence or it may not have been and there's no way to tell. Random mutation goes out the window because we don't know if the mutations were random or guided. I'm okay with that if you are.DaveScot_{January 19, 2006
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Dave, you're setting up your own strawman--the same false dichotomy that ID proponents always use. There are only 2 possible truths about the universe: Evolution or ID. This is obviously false. Evolution can be falsified by any number of things...I suppose even by showing that ID is true.... However, TofE can certainly be falsified by any number of other things: fossil record, IC (if this concept can be hammered into anything that actually makes sense) may do it, showing that mutation and adaptation do not occur, proof that the Earth is 6,000 years old, all those kinds of things. ID cannot be falsified by any scientific means: hard to falsify a constantly moving and unknowable target. This is not an either / or scenario, no matter how much you would like it to be.blipey_{January 19, 2006
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Hmm. I'm having trouble following that logic... maybe I'm not understanding. You can falsify unguided evolution by demonstrating a transition which had no external cause to occur, such as, for instance, species A transitions to species B (in the fossil record, presumably) without selection pressure. It's unlikely, but it's possible, and would falsify unguided evolution. How does that affect whether or not guided evolution is falsifiable? No matter what the record, guided evolution can look exactly like unguided evolution, because the level of guidance is unknown, and can be infinitely close to zero as needed.Hamilton_{January 19, 2006
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