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Are challenges to Darwinian theory from those outside the discipline legitimate?

Gil Dodgen
July 30, 2006
Intelligent Design
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I would argue that, indeed, they are.

In a previous UD thread, Tom English made the following comment:

I have seen a number of brilliant and highly educated people do abysmally stupid things when they stepped outside their domains of expertise. Computer scientists make abysmal biologists. Journalists make abysmal biologists. Philosophers make abysmal biologists. Theologians make abysmal biologists. Mathematicians make abysmal biologists. Physicists make abysmal biologists.

I would argue the following: Darwinian theorists do foolish things when they step outside their domain of expertise. They are generally not competent mathematicians, computer scientists, chemists, philosophers, theologians, or physicists. Yet, they make sweeping claims of incontrovertible fact that impinge upon all these disciplines, and then expect immunity from challenges from those with expertise in those disciplines.

The essentials of Darwinian theory are actually quite trivial and easy to understand. But are they true, and do they hold up under scrutiny from those with expertise in the disciplines upon which the theory impinges?

Comments
Ofro, Yes. Yet how does the random event achieve the goal, namely, produce a sructure, which produces the effect of propulsion (e.g., rotary flag. motor). By Dawkin's it blind also. A bicycle is not transportation (subtle area in Aristotle's 4 causes) It produces transportaion when I use it. The wing of a plane or bird is not lift or flight. It produces flight. A statue. Which one of Aristotle's causes, is 'the' statue. Mechanistic explanations or causes(physical) produce, give rise to functions, intended objects of desire (thought). Build a bike THAT pruduces transportation. Doing X for the sake of attaining Y, the goal.idadvisors
July 31, 2006
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Re #3: “What are the ‘sweeping claims of incontrovertible fact’ that biologists use to impinge on chemistry, physics, mathematics, philosophy, theology, and computer science?” We are consistently reassured that Darwinian evolution is a fact. Random mutation and natural selection are declared to have been proven to account for biological complexity, innovation, information content and functional integration. This impinges upon chemistry and molecular biology. (Can it be verified that there really are specific mutations that can account for or engineer a particular biochemical system under investigation?) And it impinges upon mathematics. (What are the probabilities that these mutations, once demonstrated to exist, can actually arise, given the available probabilistic resources?) The computer program Avida was declared to have refuted Behe’s irreducible complexity challenge. Note that this was presented as a fact, and not a possible indication that RM+NS might account for IC. This obviously impinges upon the discipline of computer science. Is Avida a valid model of biological processes? Was information supplied by the programmers that would not be available in nature? There are countless claims in the Darwinian literature to the effect that “evolution” has proven that we are the product of an unguided, purposeless process that did not have us in mind, and that it is indifferent to our existence. (There are a number of variations on this theme.) Once again, this is frequently presented as fact, and not speculation or conjecture. This obviously impinges upon the disciplines of philosophy and theology. These are just a few brief examples. I’m sure we could compile a long list. That might make for an interesting exercise.GilDodgen
July 31, 2006
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BTW, Thanks. The 14th.idadvisors
July 31, 2006
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"one can imagine how long a monkey at a typewriter would take to type out by chance one English world twelve letters long." Right but Im trying to figure out how this applies to evolution, which isn't analogous to a monkey with a typewriter.Chris Hyland
July 31, 2006
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Correction to #32: "Bottom line: the reasons evolutionary biologists CAN'T do ......"PaV
July 31, 2006
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“I believe I can produce a working propellor by programming a cnc gantry mill with random, purposeless instructions.” I don't think this description of random, purposeless instructions in programming a cnc gantry mill is a fair representation of evolutionary processes. There is no model of evolution consists in which an assembly of random instructions of arbitray length is executed in a single step. A better description of the process is a sequence of cycles where an existing string of instructions is randomly modified in one more more places ("random mutations"), the program is executed and then followed by an evaluation of whether the instructions were useful ("natural selection"). There are plenty of genetic modeling algorithms/programs (not necessarily for making a propeller) that demonstrate that is it possible to achieve preset goals. Of course, this may not be a totally fair representation, either, since I have biased the system towards producing a propeller (or whatever I have selected for). If I assume strict randomness and have a broader selection criterion, such as "something that helps me propell the boat", there is also a chance that I end up with a gadget that will not look or function like a propeller.ofro
July 31, 2006
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BTW: as to what Denton said: pp.309-310: "Twelve letter words such as "construction" or "unreasonable" are so rare that they occur only once by chance in strings of letters 10^14 units long; as there are about 10^14 minutes in one thousand million (i.e., a billion) years one can imagine how long a monkey at a typewriter would take to type out by chance one English world twelve letters long."PaV
July 31, 2006
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The reason "non-biologists" are the ones criticizing Darwinism is because "Only Darwinists Need Apply" when it comes to graduate school and grants. The reason "non-biologists" criticize Darwinsim is that the so-called "answers" Darwinists give are, literally, unbelievable. One simple example: the Cambrian Explosion. If you read "The Origins" and then ask yourself the question: what is that last thing that Darwins expects to see as the fossil record is better and better searched? The answer is, "The Cambrian Explosion." It's obvious. And! Darwin says this would severely compromise his theory. Yet, the Darwinists march on and on. Bottom line: evolutionary biologists can do real science because they're blinded by Darwinian prejudice. And others have decided to help them out a little bit. What's wrong with that?PaV
July 31, 2006
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“I believe I can produce a working propellor by programming a cnc gantry mill with random, purposeless instructions.” Well if you have millions of mills etc etc, randomness is only a component of evolution.Chris Hyland
July 31, 2006
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Let's not forget that "instructors learn from their students essays to." (Leif Peterson@bmc.edu, my twin)idadvisors
July 31, 2006
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Zachriel, I stand corrected and recant. Proving that those who have only acheived the baccalaureate are referred to(laughing) by philosophers with PhD's as "philosophically-trained laymen." Its an excellent phrase. And the smart ones are referred to as the "headnodders" during difficult lectures.idadvisors
July 31, 2006
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Noone would hire me.idadvisors
July 31, 2006
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Chris, for the sake of argument I'll remove the machine operator from the proposition and claim "I believe I can produce a working propellor by programming a cnc gantry mill with random, purposeless instructions."idadvisors
July 31, 2006
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Tom English: Why are you so set on bringing a slew of other disciplines into biology? Commentary from other disciplins is neccassary as biology is ultimately dependent on the laws established from the more fundamental sciences, which provide the underpinnings for the development of organisms. Just as physics is advanced through discoveries in mathematics, chemistry through discoveries in physics so should biology be advanced through discoveries in the more fundamental sciences on which it depends. As far as commentary from the applied sciences, such as engineering and computer sciences, is appliccable or useful to biology that remains to be seen and likely will depend on the true origin of the universe. However, there are enough parallels between applied sciences and biology that I hardly think any possible contributions should be dimissed out of hand. Unless theories developed from applied sciences are tested and persued we will never have an honest answer to whether or not they can provide a fruitful line of inquirey- let them stand or fall on the strength of the evidence just like any other theories. I am 'on the fence' as far as ID is concerned and am willing to keep an open mind regarding alternate explanations for the development of organisms. I am putting together a lecture on ID- "just the facts m'am": Intelligent Design- What it is and What it isn't. Any help on ID basic principles, operational definitions, current research and arguments/counter arguments would be appreciated. Thanks.devilsadvocate
July 31, 2006
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No, science does not tell you what to believe. It tells you the beliefs of a community of authorities.
True, science does tell us what to believe only the Darwinian scientists dictate what we need to believe. Some people still don’t get it, ID is not against science contrary to Darwinian propaganda; ID is just against the Darwinian dogma. Who gets membership into this community of authorities? That would be those who accept the fact of Darwinian evolution of course, silly. So if you are Galileo and you suggest that the earth circles the sun, but the “community of authorities” said no you are ignorant Galileo, the sun revolves around the earth. We all know that a minority voice can’t be right. We need to humbly accept the proclamation of the “community of authorities”.teleologist
July 31, 2006
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"Scott’s blog answer’s your question why randomness is relevent to Darwinian evolutionary theory" I didn't mean randomness, I meant that particular Denton calculation. "The claim that biology is a field all to itself, in which only biologists can produce good work in that field is outrageous." People trained in other disciplines can produce good work in the field of biology, but they are generally people who work in the field of biology. "Similarly, a shipyard cnc machinist will never mill out a functional propellor by entering random instructions into the control unit." That's a straw man argument.Chris Hyland
July 31, 2006
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It’s interesting that Strangelove said: "I’m sorry. What are the ‘sweeping claims of incontrovertible fact’ that biologists use...?," when the original comment was that "_Darwinian_ theorists... make sweeping claims." Having said that, a good example that answers the question is the “Darwinism Today” series. Titles include: “The truth about Cinderella: A Darwinian view of Parental Love;” “Divided labors: An Evolutionary view of women at work;” “Mind the gap: Hierarchies, Health and Human Evolution;” and of course there’s “Warrior Lovers: Erotic Fiction, Evolution and Female Sexuality.” Darwin apparently has a lot to say about parenting, gender politics, and global demographics & economics. Were I that motivated, I could have dug up many more titles covering many more subjects. What’s interesting is that when social scientists like the “Darwinism Today” folks make truth claims based on extensions of Darwin’s idea and still remain in the camp of philosophical naturalism, the evolutionary biologists--while they may disagree with it--typically don't say that they're not _qualified_ to speak to the subject. It’s only when such non-expert/non-biologist/non-scientists actually have something critical to say that the Priesthood responds with the now-standard talking point: "Those people don’t know enough..." "He's a ‘third-rate biologist'..." "He’s just a creationist in a cheap suit..." and other such ad-hominem blather. In the end, the issue has nothing to do with expertise; it has everything to do with whether one buys the Darwinist worldview. -sbSteveB
July 31, 2006
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bfast, the current theory is a "fact" because Eldridge says if life evolved then we should see classification. So, the prediction(test???????) is to go out and see if this consequence exists. There is classification--but its not a mechanism.idadvisors
July 31, 2006
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Let's face it biologists make abismal biologists. I'm not just wildly knocking the science. I'm only expressing the reality of where this science is. It is in its infancy. Biologists may have been carefully studying biology for centuries, but what they don't know is astounding: - Biologists don't know what the basic function of over half of the "essential" genes in the simplest form of life do. - Biologists know little about what precambrian life was like. - Biologists can't show a clear and established pattern of development for any complex system. - Biologists don't know how a cell decides which segments of DNA to implement. - Biologists have been dismissing the majority of DNA as "junk", only now beginning to find that they were in error. - Biologists have made recent and startling discoveries such as discovering that the eukaryota did not descend from the archaea. Ouch! The bottom line is that, though biologists have learned much about biology, they still haven't mastered the basics. How they can be certain that the current theory is "fact" is beyond me.bFast
July 31, 2006
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Complex structures(e.g., DNA molecule)idadvisors
July 31, 2006
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Chris, Scott's blog answer's your question why randomness is relevent to Darwinian evolutionary theory--"The problem is that said mechanism cannot account for specified information and machinery we observe at the cellular level." DDenton also says one will never construct an aerodynamically-feasable structure by using random components. Similarly, a shipyard cnc machinist will never mill out a functional propellor by entering random instructions into the control unit. Complex functioning structure contain information content--purposeful, specified instructions. Or as Leslie Orgel says "the information content of a structure is the minimum numbers of instructions needed to specify the structure." This proposition has helped me immensely in understanding "types of structures" 1) random, like a book filled with a meaningless series(random) of letters, 2)ordered, a book filled with a repeating series such as "I like apples. I like apples....(highly specified yet LOW in information content-the instructions are few-Thaxton) and 3) complex, a novel where every letter is specified--highly specified and high level of information content)idadvisors
July 31, 2006
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Tom wrote: I cannot help but think that you, standing on the outside of biology, have decided that biologists are not doing their work right, and that people from other disciplines can do biology better.
Regarding evolutionary biology, apparently even the evolutionary biologists sense they are perceived that way: In sceinces pecking order, evolutionary biology lurks somewhere near the bottom. I personally think the other disciplines within biology are in pretty good shape, especially the one farthest away from evolutionary biology. Even A.S Wilkins indirectly commented that evolutionary biologists were considered "marginal" within biology. (see: Wilkins responds to Witt, Salvadorscordova
July 31, 2006
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The question I would have is, what make biology so special. There are plenty of mathematicians who step into the world of Computer Science. Computer scientists who can work as fair mathematcians. Philosophers who produce decent work in Theology and Theologians who produce decent work in philosophy. I find that almost every field has some type of relation with other fields. Now such men who work in fields outside of their training may make mistakes, but I find they are rarely idiotic in those fields. I'm sure that there are those who are trained in other disciplines who make large mistakes out of their own domain of study, but it doesn't always make it the case. The claim that biology is a field all to itself, in which only biologists can produce good work in that field is outrageous. If there was no overlapping in fields, there would be no biochemistry or bioengineering. On a side note, I would find it more interesting that biology would be a special field. All sciences were developped out of the field of "philosophy". (I use the term in the sense of the Greek philosophy like Aristotle's.) The sheer fact that sciences have a common ancestor would mean that somehow they relate.FuzzyHead
July 31, 2006
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I really think Darwinists need to take a few courses in logic and the philosophy of science. An engineering course wouldn't hurt either. Maybe then, we'll see those silly arguments like "underproductive organs" disappear.Ryan
July 31, 2006
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"I stand by the prediction that the more we delve into the code and machinery at the cellular level, the more irrelevant Darwinian explanations will become and the more engineering and programming applications will become relevant. We are already seeing this." Your talking like the two are mutually exclusive. The reason more engineers and computer scientists are working in biology is becuase many features of biological systems lend themselves to analysis by modified versions of similar applications that are used to analyses manmade systems, hence the fields of systems biology and bioinformatics. However the differences are just as important as the similarities, and these engineers and computer scientists have done as much as anyone else over the past few years to show how these differences are due to the systems having evolved. "where Denton shows a random series of letters 10 to the 70th long is needed in order to get, by random chance, a 12 letter word like “reasonable” or “construction”" I haven't read the book, so I would appriciate someone explaining to me why this is relevent to evolution.Chris Hyland
July 31, 2006
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idadvisors: "Denton shows a random series of letters 10 to the 70th long is needed in order to get, by random chance, a 12 letter word like “reasonable” or 'construction')" As there are only 26^12 ~ 10^17 possible combinations of twelve letters, every possible sequence of twelve letters would be repeated many times in a random sequence of length 10^70. Perhaps, you meant 10^17. But even this is incorrect when constructed as an evolutionary algorithm. A population of a few hundred words (by a process of letter-substitution and recombination, with non-words being ruthlessly deselected from the population) will quickly evolve to length-twelve. Certainly in far less than 10^17 mutations, much closer to 10^6 total mutations throughout the population. That would be billions of times faster than predicted. Word Mutagenation http://www.zachriel.com/mutagenation/Zachriel
July 31, 2006
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Similarly, I'd venture to say philosophers and linguists experience a stronger "warm and fuzzy" feeling than Darwinists when reading Denton's chapter on chance in "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis." (where Denton shows a random series of letters 10 to the 70th long is needed in order to get, by random chance, a 12 letter word like "reasonable" or "construction")idadvisors
July 31, 2006
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Chris: By \"Darwinist\" I mean someone who believes that blind, non-teleological mechanisms are responsible for all biological systems. The problem is that said mechanisms cannot account for the specified information and machinery we observe at the cellular level. Which is why you have more and more people coming forward, Like Minnich and Behe and many others, who recognize this and aren\'t afraid to say it. I stand by the prediction that the more we delve into the code and machinery at the cellular level, the more irrelevant Darwinian explanations will become and the more engineering and programming applications will become relevant. We are already seeing this.Scott
July 31, 2006
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Darwinists might not understand P.B. Medawar's statements in "The Limits of science" 1)"Why do so many scientists like to think, as Darwin certainly did, that that they proceed by induction." or "an inductive generalization cannot contain more information than the sum of its known instances." yet philosophers always will.idadvisors
July 31, 2006
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As someone who often works with "hard scientists" studying cellular machinery, this idea that it is undermining evolution seems very bizzarre. Systems biology has been around for a long time and they are as "Darwinist" as everyone else.Chris Hyland
July 31, 2006
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