At Some Point, the Obvious Becomes Transparently Obvious (or, Recognizing the Forrest, With all its Barbs, Through the Trees)

_{Gil Dodgen

June 5, 2011

Intelligent Design}

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At UD we have many brilliant ID apologists, and they continue to mount what I perceive as increasingly indefensible assaults on the creative powers of the Darwinian mechanism of random errors filtered by natural selection. In addition, they present overwhelming positive evidence that the only known source of functionally specified, highly integrated information-processing systems, with such sophisticated technology as error detection and repair, is intelligent design.

[Part 2 is here. ]

This should be obvious to any unbiased observer with a decent education in basic mathematics and expertise in any rigorous engineering discipline.

Here is my analysis: The Forrests of the world don’t want to admit that there is design in the universe and living systems — even when the evidence bludgeons them over the head from every corner of contemporary science, and when the trajectory of the evidence makes their thesis less and less believable every day.

Why would such a person hold on to a transparently obvious 19th-century pseudo-scientific fantasy, when all the evidence of modern science points in the opposite direction?

I can see the Forrest through the trees. Can you?

Comments

@Chris Hi Lizzie, In most cases, I’d be happy to summarise any book that I’ve read. But SITC is such an important, game-changing, bar-raising book in this debate and critics of ID cannot really be taken seriously until they both read and fully engage with the central arguments advanced by Meyer in it. OK. I have just ordered the book.
The remit of science is far too narrow to have any relevance in the Land of Hypotheticals. Beautiful hypotheses are regularly slain by ugly facts. We know we have certainly exhausted all known improbables (in terms of chance and/or necessity). Your appeal to unknown improbables has no basis in observational or experimental evidence and is therefore unscientific. Remember, there is no third way here.
No, indeed, and that is the difference between the Land of Make Believe and the Land of Hypothesis Testing, and is where science gets its rigor. A hypothesis is only as good as the data it fits, however glorious the hypothesis. But that shouldn't stop us deriving hypotheses from theories and testing them, and there are already a number of testable (and tested) hypotheses about the origins of the genetic code.
Your belief in the existence of “historical pre-cellular entities” is also unscientific in the absence of any observational or experimental evidence to support it. That you hold such a belief can only be because you are bringing non-scientific preconceptions and commitments to the table in the first place. It’d be interesting to know exactly what they are and why you hold them.
Well, I dispute your premise, for two reasons. The first is that I do not rule out alternatives just because none has been presented. That's why I mentioned the One Black Swan. Secondly, in this case, testable alternatives have been presented and have been subjected to testing. All scientific conclusions must be provisional, but it would be wrong to claim there is no alternative to ID as the origin of the genetic code, or that it cannot have had a physical/chemical origin. So there is no need to identify my "non-scientific commitments" because they are irrelevant :)
If the evidence for “Darwinian processes” was actually “compelling”, then there would be no debate. Those who claim that the evidence is compelling bear an uncanny resemblance to those who have made an a priori commitment to the explanatory power of “Darwinian processes”. There is nothing ‘reasoned’ about that particular conviction. Cheers, Chris
Well, that argument cuts both ways. Saying that an argument can't be compelling because otherwise there wouldn't be a debate would wipe out many past scientific arguments that are now accepted as standard! I'm not saying all are compelled by the arguments (clearly you, for example, are not) but there is no reason, I suggest, for either IDists to assume that those who disagree with them have simply failed to understand the argument, nor vice versa. Clearly we read the evidence and arguments differently. I'm interested in trying to find out exactly where those differences lie.
PS. Completely unrelated question that I’d like to ask you as someone who may have a professional interest: what do you make of the MMR vaccine controversy that was stirred up by Andrew Wakefield here in the UK? Specifically, is there any possibility that there is a link between an MMR vaccine and Autism Spectrum Disorders.
Yes (this is my answer as a statistical person, not a clinical person btw, which I'm not) there is, technically, a possibility. We are back to the One Black Swan problem in another guise! It is far more difficult to rule something out (there are no black swans; MMR does not cause autism) than rule it in. However, what we can say is that rigorous studies with large statistical power have failed to demonstrate a link. The best we can do with that kind of study is to say: if there is a link, the effect size is too small to be detected by a study with very large statistical power. We can also say that the effect size claimed by Andrew Wakefield has been falsified. That's a very careful statistical answer I know! But sometimes the best we can do is quantify the risk we are wrong, rather than quantify the probability that we are right. There appears to be only a very very small probability that the claim that MMR can cause autism is correct. Moreover, even if correct, the additional risk can be no more than tiny.Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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Meleagar: I don't regard "evolutionary" and "unintelligent" as synonyms, so your substitution doesn't work :) But I'm happy to explain why I think that darwinian processes resemble intelligent processes, and where I think the difference lies, if you are interested.Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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Dr Liddle: Please note: design is a routinely and directly observed cause of functionally specific, complex organisation and associated information, of codes, of algorithms, and assembly lines etc. So, it is immediately reasonable as a candidate explanation when we observe such things. (Which we do in the living cell.) Now, these features are highly contingent so of the three known broad causal factors, forces of mechanical necessity, chance circumstances, and choice or art or design, only the two capable of explaining contingency are relevant: choice or chance contingency. We have excellent reason to understand that codes, functionally specific and complex organisation etc sit on isolated islands in the sea of possible -- but overwhelmingly non-functional -- configurations. This can be seen for instance from the easily observed chaotic and even disruptive impact of modest injections of random changes to sequences of code symbols, or to the way functionally organised things are "wired" together. Or, just from how specific the requirements are for replacement parts for a car or a complicated machine. That means that beyond a reasonable threshold of complexity on explicit or implicit information [the latter being in effect the structured set of yes/no answers required to specify the functional cluster of configs], on needle in the haystack or infinite monkeys grounds, it is unreasonable to expect the scope of resources in our solar system or the observed cosmos, to get to such a special configuration. As has been repeatedly shown, that starts at 500 or 1,000 bits, or 125 bytes or 143 ASCII characters [20 typical English words] at the upper end. Which, for complex organised entities, is a trivial amount of information. In short, chance contingency is not a credible explanation of getting to shores of islands of function for the sort of complexity we see in living systems, whereby unicellular organisms will require 100 - 1,000 k or so of genetic information, and novel body plans will require 10 - 100+ million bits. (As was shown in previous threads when you challenged the idea of such a threshold.) We have a directly observed source of FSCO/I, vs a claimed source that is not analytically credible and has not been observed to act in the desired way. But what about Genetic Algorithms that show that chance and necessity acting together can cause hill climbing and improved function? Such GA's are optimisation algorithms, are intelligently designed, require a goal-seeking capacity based on a nice trend in a mapping form a "genome" string or the like to a so-called fitness function, and so operate WITHIN islands of function. To present them as an answer to the challenge of getting TO islands of function is to beg the decisive question. And indeed, it seems that the suggestion of in effect a continent of bio-functional forms traversible by a branching tree pattern of increasing complexity, seems to be a way to try to divert the force of this point. Unfortunately, as shown already, the branching tree pattern is a construct, not an observed reality, and one that is challenged by the only actual facts from the world of the deep past: fossils. For 150+ years now, on the conventional timeline, the testimony of the fossils is: sudden appearances at body plan level, stasis in body plans [with variations being on the basic plans at different levels], and then disappearance or continuity into the modern world. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{June 6, 2011
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Elizabeth Liddle said: "Exactly! I entirely agree! In fact it’s a point I keep reiterating! I think evolutionary processes resemble intentional intelligent processes very closely. Which is precisely why I don’t think we can rule out evolutionary processes just because something resembles the products of intelligent processes." Ms.Liddle, with all due respect, do you not even recognize you are again assuming your conclusion? When you say we "cannot rule out evolutionary processes" above, I presume you are saying "we cannot rule out unintelligent processes"; so you are in essence saying in the prior comment: "I think unintelligent processes resemble intentional intelligent processes very closely." Really? Care to explain that? Also, since you haven't vetted the evolutionary forces necessary to acquire macro-evolutionary targets AS unintelligent **in the first place**, how does your statement not simply **assume** that the necessary evolutionary forces and product are unintelligent? You must first vet some kind of evolutionary process and product **as** unintelligent (darwinistic) before you can make any claim about how such "evolutionary" (unintelligent) process or product **is similar to** the product of intelligent design. I'm still waiting for any paper or research where evolutionary processes have been vetted as chance* or natural*.Meleagar_{June 6, 2011
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Hi Lizzie, In most cases, I’d be happy to summarise any book that I’ve read. But SITC is such an important, game-changing, bar-raising book in this debate and critics of ID cannot really be taken seriously until they both read and fully engage with the central arguments advanced by Meyer in it. The remit of science is far too narrow to have any relevance in the Land of Hypotheticals. Beautiful hypotheses are regularly slain by ugly facts. We know we have certainly exhausted all known improbables (in terms of chance and/or necessity). Your appeal to unknown improbables has no basis in observational or experimental evidence and is therefore unscientific. Remember, there is no third way here. Your belief in the existence of “historical pre-cellular entities” is also unscientific in the absence of any observational or experimental evidence to support it. That you hold such a belief can only be because you are bringing non-scientific preconceptions and commitments to the table in the first place. It’d be interesting to know exactly what they are and why you hold them. If the evidence for “Darwinian processes” was actually “compelling”, then there would be no debate. Those who claim that the evidence is compelling bear an uncanny resemblance to those who have made an a priori commitment to the explanatory power of “Darwinian processes”. There is nothing ‘reasoned’ about that particular conviction. Cheers, Chris PS. Completely unrelated question that I’d like to ask you as someone who may have a professional interest: what do you make of the MMR vaccine controversy that was stirred up by Andrew Wakefield here in the UK? Specifically, is there any possibility that there is a link between an MMR vaccine and Autism Spectrum Disorders.Chris Doyle_{June 6, 2011
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As long as there is the bare chance that non-intelligence could have produced life or macro-evolutionary success, then there will be materialists that are satisfied with Darwinian "explanations", which are nothing more than narrative appeals to unlimited (non-quantified) chance. ID theorists don't claim that it is not possible that a collection of miracles of chance could produce life and macro-evolutionary success; they just rightfully point out that such appeals are not scientific theories.Meleagar_{June 6, 2011
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Also, “treelike” and “stepwise” do not even address my question; both intelligent and non-intelligent processes can operate in a “treelike” and “stepwise” manner; just because variations occur in a “treelike” and “stepwise” manner doesn’t necessarily indemnify the processes as non-intelligent.
Exactly! I entirely agree! In fact it's a point I keep reiterating! I think evolutionary processes resemble intentional intelligent processes very closely. Which is precisely why I don't think we can rule out evolutionary processes just because something resembles the products of intelligent processes. However, I do think that strictly Darwinian processes have the boundaries that I mentioned, so anything that departs from those boundaries requires some additional explanation. And we already know that other factors are important.Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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@NZer:
Lizzie wrote: “What he seemed to be saying was that the genetic code couldn’t have emerged from purely physical/chemical processes.” I understand you are a biologist, so could you give an example from your training, reading, or experience of where the genetic code has emerged by purely physical/chemical processes? I’m looking for evidence, not speculation. Do you have such evidence? An example? Thanks.
I'm a neuroscientist rather than a biologist btw. As a matter of logic, I would point out that the opposite of: "the genetic code couldn’t have emerged from purely physical/chemical processes" isn't that it did but that it could. I am not claiming that it did, but that it could have. In other words, to make, as apparently (though clearly I need to read the book in full) the claim that the code could NOT have yadda yadda, is a negative claim, and negative claims are notoriously difficult to substantiate in science (it's the One Black Swan problem). And I think this is a fundamental problem for ID, actually, at least as I have seen it formulated. Simply saying that "this couldn't have happened without an ID" can be easily falsified by any plausible theory that says it could, whether or not that theory is actually correct. In order to test ID, it needs to make a specific positive differential prediction (which is tricky, but probably not impossible). There are a number of studies and ongoing investigation into the precursors of the genetic code, those of Michael Yarus et al being among the most widely cited. You may call this kind of work "speculation" but I would say it is only "speculative" in the sense that all science can and must be speculative - theories give rise to hypotheses which generate testable predictions. Simply stopping, and saying: well, this looks impossible by any other means, so we must infer ID isn't rigorous science. (On the other hand saying: this looks like ID, in which case what we ought to see is.... would be.)Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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Elizabeth you stated: 'I am stating that it is an adequate explanatory theory, and yet the evidence states; The Capabilities of Chaos and Complexity - David L. Abel - 2009 Excerpt: "A monstrous ravine runs through presumed objective reality. It is the great divide between physicality and formalism. On the one side of this Grand Canyon lies everything that can be explained by the chance and necessity of physicodynamics. On the other side lies those phenomena than can only be explained by formal choice contingency and decision theory—the ability to choose with intent what aspects of ontological being will be preferred, pursued, selected, rearranged, integrated, organized, preserved, and used. Physical dynamics includes spontaneous non linear phenomena, but not our formal applied-science called “non linear dynamics”(i.e. language,information). http://www.mdpi.com/1422-0067/10/1/247/pdf “The difference between a mixture of simple chemicals and a bacterium, is much more profound than the gulf between a bacterium and an elephant.” (Dr. Robert Shapiro, Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, NYU) But more importantly to us personally, than the obvious fact that material processes will never bridge the 'monstrous ravine' between information and material processes, is the fact that there is a 'universe wide' spiritual chasm that man is utterly unable to bridge by his own 'good works'. That chasm is the separation of man from God. Flyleaf - Chasm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-BvOuE7wfwbornagain77_{June 6, 2011
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kairosfocus, Liddle uses "treelike" and "stepwise", IMO, as a means of avoiding specificity and inviting biased imagination to fill in the gaps. IOW, whatever Darwinists "cannot imagine" to have been generated in a tree like, stepwise manner is the only thing that will be counted as evidence against Darwinism, but we have seen how elastic those concepts can be. Also, "treelike" and "stepwise" do not even address my question; both intelligent and non-intelligent processes can operate in a "treelike" and "stepwise" manner; just because variations occur in a "treelike" and "stepwise" manner doesn't necessarily indemnify the processes as non-intelligent. I'm still waiting for the research that has vetted such processes as chance* and natural*.Meleagar_{June 6, 2011
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F/N: A key observation can be had from Dr Liddle's:
I would say that the “limits” of evolutionary processes are that they are: 1)Tree-like 2)Stepwise. And in both these features they differ from human intentional design processes (we can transfer solutions to different lineages, and we can bypass tedious intermediate steps).
In short, we expect on such assumptions a [nearly] smoothly continuous gradation of life forms, from the original unicellular forms to the diversity we see. The only problem? What we ACTUALLY see is a discrete top-down, jump-wise pattern, with reuse of common themes in mosaic life forms (the platypus being the most obvious). As Meyer summarised in the PBSW article (that passed peer review by "renowned" scientists and then was made the subject of ideological, thought police tactics with Ms Forrest's NCSE in the lead): ________________ >> The Cambrian explosion represents a remarkable jump in the specified complexity or "complex specified information" (CSI) of the biological world. For over three billions years, the biological realm included little more than bacteria and algae (Brocks et al. 1999). Then, beginning about 570-565 million years ago (mya), the first complex multicellular organisms appeared in the rock strata, including sponges, cnidarians, and the peculiar Ediacaran biota (Grotzinger et al. 1995). Forty million years later, the Cambrian explosion occurred (Bowring et al. 1993) . . . One way to estimate the amount of new CSI that appeared with the Cambrian animals is to count the number of new cell types that emerged with them (Valentine 1995:91-93) . . . the more complex animals that appeared in the Cambrian (e.g., arthropods) would have required fifty or more cell types . . . New cell types require many new and specialized proteins. New proteins, in turn, require new genetic information. Thus an increase in the number of cell types implies (at a minimum) a considerable increase in the amount of specified genetic information. Molecular biologists have recently estimated that a minimally complex single-celled organism would require between 318 and 562 kilobase pairs of DNA to produce the proteins necessary to maintain life (Koonin 2000). More complex single cells might require upward of a million base pairs. Yet to build the proteins necessary to sustain a complex arthropod such as a trilobite would require orders of magnitude more coding instructions. The genome size of a modern arthropod, the fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster, is approximately 180 million base pairs (Gerhart & Kirschner 1997:121, Adams et al. 2000). Transitions from a single cell to colonies of cells to complex animals represent significant (and, in principle, measurable) increases in CSI . . . . In order to explain the origin of the Cambrian animals, one must account not only for new proteins and cell types, but also for the origin of new body plans . . . Mutations in genes that are expressed late in the development of an organism will not affect the body plan. Mutations expressed early in development, however, could conceivably produce significant morphological change (Arthur 1997:21) . . . [but] processes of development are tightly integrated spatially and temporally such that changes early in development will require a host of other coordinated changes in separate but functionally interrelated developmental processes downstream. For this reason, mutations will be much more likely to be deadly if they disrupt a functionally deeply-embedded structure such as a spinal column than if they affect more isolated anatomical features such as fingers (Kauffman 1995:200) . . . McDonald notes that genes that are observed to vary within natural populations do not lead to major adaptive changes, while genes that could cause major changes--the very stuff of macroevolution--apparently do not vary. In other words, mutations of the kind that macroevolution doesn't need (namely, viable genetic mutations in DNA expressed late in development) do occur, but those that it does need (namely, beneficial body plan mutations expressed early in development) apparently don't occur.6 >> ________________ In fact, Darwin knew about the suddenness of the Cambrian fossil life revolution, but thought that since the fossil record was not fully explored, the gaps would vanish as further explorations exposed the world of the past by its traces in the present. But, after 150 years and billions in cumulative research efforts, millions of collected fossils (and billions of observed ones) with over 1/4 million fossil species, we have an almost unmanageably rich fossil record that makes the same story, not only about the Cambrian but in general. That is why Gould was moved to remark, quoting Darwin: "The absence of fossil evidence for intermediary stages between major transitions in organic design, indeed our inability, even in our imagination, to construct functional intermediates in many cases, has been a persistent and nagging problem for gradualistic accounts of evolution." [[Stephen Jay Gould (Professor of Geology and Paleontology, Harvard University), 'Is a new and general theory of evolution emerging?' Paleobiology, vol.6(1), January 1980,p. 127.] "All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between the major groups are characteristically abrupt." [[Stephen Jay Gould 'The return of hopeful monsters'. Natural History, vol. LXXXVI(6), June-July 1977, p. 24.] "The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology. The evolutionary trees that adorn our textbooks have data only at the tips and nodes of their branches; the rest is inference, however reasonable, not the evidence of fossils. Yet Darwin was so wedded to gradualism that he wagered his entire theory on a denial of this literal record:
The geological record is extremely imperfect and this fact will to a large extent explain why we do not find intermediate varieties, connecting together all the extinct and existing forms of life by the finest graduated steps [[ . . . . ] He who rejects these views on the nature of the geological record will rightly reject my whole theory.[[Cf. Origin, Ch 10, "Summary of the preceding and present Chapters," also see similar remarks in Chs 6 and 9.]
Darwin's argument still persists as the favored escape of most paleontologists from the embarrassment of a record that seems to show so little of evolution. In exposing its cultural and methodological roots, I wish in no way to impugn the potential validity of gradualism (for all general views have similar roots). I wish only to point out that it was never "seen" in the rocks. Paleontologists have paid an exorbitant price for Darwin's argument. We fancy ourselves as the only true students of life's history, yet to preserve our favored account of evolution by natural selection we view our data as so bad that we never see the very process we profess to study." [[Stephen Jay Gould 'Evolution's erratic pace'. Natural History, vol. LXXXVI95), May 1977, p.14.] [[HT: Answers.com] In fact, the case is worse. Perhaps 1/2 or more of the living forms are found in the fossil record, suggesting that the sample is now wide enough to capture a representative cross section. Similarly, we know that the relevant beds were able to capture soft bodied organisms and even tiny organisms, as we have recovered fossils of such forms, indeed even ephemera like footprints and raindrops are preserved. The fossil record, to high confidence, is overwhelmingly one of top-down body plan first variation, suddenness of appearance, stasis, and disappearance or continuation into the modern world. A pattern that -- despite the pattern presented by headlines -- far better fits design by the criteria cited above than incremental, branching development. And,a s would be expected from the search space challenge that has been underscored here at UD in recent weeks. Loennig summarises that point aptly in his 2004 peer-reviewed paper, "Dynamic genomes, morphological stasis, and the origin of irreducible complexity":
examples like the horseshoe crab are by no means rare exceptions from the rule of gradually evolving life forms . . . In fact, we are literally surrounded by 'living fossils' in the present world of organisms when applying the term more inclusively as "an existing species whose similarity to ancient ancestral species indicates that very few morphological changes have occurred over a long period of geological time" [85] . . . . Now, since all these "old features", morphologically as well as molecularly, are still with us, the basic genetical questions should be addressed in the face of all the dynamic features of ever reshuffling and rearranging, shifting genomes, (a) why are these characters stable at all and (b) how is it possible to derive stable features from any given plant or animal species by mutations in their genomes? . . . . A first hint for answering the questions . . . is perhaps also provided by Charles Darwin himself when he suggested the following sufficiency test for his theory [16]: "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down." . . . Biochemist Michael J. Behe [5] has refined Darwin's statement by introducing and defining his concept of "irreducibly complex systems", specifying: "By irreducibly complex I mean a single system composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, wherein the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning" . . . [for example] (1) the cilium, (2) the bacterial flagellum with filament, hook and motor embedded in the membranes and cell wall and (3) the biochemistry of blood clotting in humans . . . . One point is clear: granted that there are indeed many systems and/or correlated subsystems in biology, which have to be classified as irreducibly complex and that such systems are essentially involved in the formation of morphological characters of organisms, this would explain both, the regular abrupt appearance of new forms in the fossil record as well as their constancy over enormous periods of time. For, if "several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function" are necessary for biochemical and/or anatomical systems to exist as functioning systems at all (because "the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning") such systems have to (1) originate in a non-gradual manner and (2) must remain constant as long as they are reproduced and exist. And this could mean no less than the enormous time periods mentioned for all the living fossils hinted at above. Moreover, an additional phenomenon would also be explained: (3) the equally abrupt disappearance of so many life forms in earth history . . . The reason why irreducibly complex systems would also behave in accord with point (3) is also nearly self-evident: if environmental conditions deteriorate so much for certain life forms (defined and specified by systems and/or subsystems of irreducible complexity), so that their very existence be in question, they could only adapt by integrating further correspondingly specified and useful parts into their overall organization, which prima facie could be an improbable process -- or perish . . . . According to Behe and several other authors [5-7, 21-23, 53-60, 68, 86] the only adequate hypothesis so far known for the origin of irreducibly complex systems is intelligent design (ID) . . . in connection with Dembski's criterion of specified complexity . . . . "For something to exhibit specified complexity therefore means that it matches a conditionally independent pattern (i.e., specification) of low specificational complexity, but where the event corresponding to that pattern has a probability less than the universal probability bound and therefore high probabilistic complexity" [23]. For instance, regarding the origin of the bacterial flagellum, Dembski calculated a probability of 10^-234[22].
So, the common perception promoted by the tree of life icon of evolution and by many a headline on found missing links, is misleading. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{June 6, 2011
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Hi Chris!
Hi Lizzie, I’m not Stephen, I’m Chris.
I'm so sorry!
Stephen Meyer has made his own case and it, though it goes far beyond “the genetic code couldn’t have emerged from purely physical/chemical processes” that is nonetheless exactly what he demonstrates in SITC. You’d have to read it all to appreciate how this has been substantiated. Although it goes beyond “an argument from lack of evidence/alternative model” (again, you need to actually read the book before dismissing it! :-) ) it is nonetheless sufficient to highlight this fact. “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” And there really are only two explanations: accident or design.
I'm actually not dismissing the book. That's why I asked you to summarise it. I'll try to get hold of another copy. Although I don't actually think Sherlock Holmes was correct! His adage only makes sense if you know you have exhausted all the improbables. In science we don't know that, which is why we keep looking, rather than infer a particular improbable.
Please can you provide observational or experimental evidence for the existence of “cells which are postulated to be the ancestors of both modern bacteria and multicellular organisms”. If not, you must agree we are entitled to conclude that such ancestors exist solely in a Land of Make Believe (I love that song!)
No, I don't think so, although I would happily agree that we are in the Land of Hypotheticals. But hypotheses are what science works with. As we speak, testable hypotheses are being devised, and new questions articulated. Clearly we are unlikely to find actual traces of historical pre-cellular entities (although I guess it's possible once we know more precisely what we are looking for). Instead the approach has to be to test possible mechanisms in the lab, and then look for evidence that those lab conditions might have pertained on early earth.
I do not doubt that opponents of ID sincerely want to “know how stuff happened”. The problem is, they bring non-scientific bias and commitments to the table. Mainly, these involve: 1. A commitment to atheism (and materialism) 2. A commitment to evolution (specifically, neo-darwinism)
I absolutely disagree with the first (with the caveat that I still don't exactly know what "materialism" is). As regards the second, I would agree that most biologists and other life scientists regard the evidence for Darwinian processes as compelling, but already other processes and factors have been identified (I'm not sure what "neo-Darwinism" is supposed to encompass). But being persuaded by prior evidence is not the same as a "commitment" to an explanation regardless of possible counter-evidence.
These two both serve to cloud judgement in the face of contrary scientific facts and certainly create the appearance of obtuseness.
Well, while I would never claim that all scientists have totally unclouded judgement, I think you are inferring clouds where there is in fact, reasoned conviction that the "contrary facts" are not, in fact "contrary facts". Obviousness isn't always obvious :)
I’m not trying to bait you, Lizzie. I was merely expressing surprise that the smiley worked: I didn’t expect it to! :-O
Ah! Anyway, I don't mind being baited, but here's a :) backatcha! Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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This is what I find amazing about pro-Darwinists: they identify their evolutionary processes as chance* and natural*, which by definition exclude intelligent design; then claim that there is no metric by which ID could be identified. If there is no ID metric X that would validate the presence of ID (as best explanation), there cannot be a non-ID, chance* & natural* metric either (not-X), since it would be the same metric. Therefore, by the Darwinists own mouth, they cannot have vetted any evolutionary process as being chance* or natural*, but then claim that they are satisfied that chance* and natural* explanations are sufficient. That simply isn't possible in logical terms; it can only be an a priori ideological bias at work.Meleagar_{June 6, 2011
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Elizabeth: In other words, you cannot direct me to where such limitations have been formally provided by pro-Darwinists, and you cannot provide any answer to the challenge of where evolutionary processes have been scientifically vetted as natural* or chance*. You are doing nothing but assuming your conclusion that such processes, however you narrate them as "stepwise" or "treelike". You are stating that Darwinism is "an adequate explanation" without even providing a rigorous explanation of the power (and limits of that power) of chance* and natural* processes claimed to be "an adequate explanation". How can you claim those processes are adequate, if you cannot even direct me to where they have been vetted as adequate via a rigorous falsification metric? If there is no rigorous means to examine the computational and engineering limitations of the natural* and chance* processes claimed to be sufficient for producing macro-evolutionary successes (such as winged flight and stereoscopic, color vision), then how can one possibly be satisfied that such processes are "an adequate explanation"?Meleagar_{June 6, 2011
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Thanks, Kairosfocus, I will. No, I'm not a mathematician, unfortunately, though I do use a lot of math in my work. I'm a cognitive neuroscientist - I do neuroimaging and some cognitive modelling - I'm particularly interested in learning, and its application to mental disorders.Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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Dr Liddle: Perhaps, you may wish to address the onward remarks, here; which speak to many of your key concerns, noting as well the linked videos below. GEM of TKI PS: Am I correct to understand that you are a Mathematician, primarily?kairosfocus_{June 6, 2011
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Gil: It does seem that an ideology of evolutionary materialism has held science in increasing thralldom for generations, but that that thralldom -- despite much distractive, distorting and denigratory rhetoric as a main line of defense, is slowly being broken because of the implications of the sophisticated information systems in the heart of cell based life. In particular, and as Meyer has often pointed out, the way origins science can claim to be more than a glorified just so story set up to fit whatever fashionable mythology of origins holds in a given day, is that it is based on provisional, critically open minded inference to best explanation on directly known effective causal mechanisms. For info systems, the answer to that challenge is increasingly obvious. GEM of TKI PS: Pardon, but I suggest irresistible:
irresistible [??r??z?st?b?l] adj 1. not able to be resisted or refused; overpowering an irresistible impulse 2. very fascinating or alluring an irresistible woman irresistibility , irresistibleness n irresistibly adv Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003
kairosfocus_{June 6, 2011
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Pah, it didn't work!Chris Doyle_{June 6, 2011
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Hi Lizzie, I’m not Stephen, I’m Chris. Stephen Meyer has made his own case and it, though it goes far beyond “the genetic code couldn’t have emerged from purely physical/chemical processes” that is nonetheless exactly what he demonstrates in SITC. You’d have to read it all to appreciate how this has been substantiated. Although it goes beyond “an argument from lack of evidence/alternative model” (again, you need to actually read the book before dismissing it! :-)) it is nonetheless sufficient to highlight this fact. “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” And there really are only two explanations: accident or design. Please can you provide observational or experimental evidence for the existence of “cells which are postulated to be the ancestors of both modern bacteria and multicellular organisms”. If not, you must agree we are entitled to conclude that such ancestors exist solely in a Land of Make Believe (I love that song!) I do not doubt that opponents of ID sincerely want to “know how stuff happened”. The problem is, they bring non-scientific bias and commitments to the table. Mainly, these involve: 1. A commitment to atheism (and materialism) 2. A commitment to evolution (specifically, neo-darwinism) These two both serve to cloud judgement in the face of contrary scientific facts and certainly create the appearance of obtuseness. I’m not trying to bait you, Lizzie. I was merely expressing surprise that the smiley worked: I didn’t expect it to! :-OChris Doyle_{June 6, 2011
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Lizzie wrote: "What he seemed to be saying was that the genetic code couldn’t have emerged from purely physical/chemical processes." I understand you are a biologist, so could you give an example from your training, reading, or experience of where the genetic code has emerged by purely physical/chemical processes? I'm looking for evidence, not speculation. Do you have such evidence? An example? Thanks.NZer_{June 6, 2011
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Meleager @ 10 (sorry to take your posts out of order) I am not stating evolutionary processes "as fact" (although I think the theory is very well supported). I am stating that it is an adequate explanatory theory, and we therefore do not need to postulate additional "intentional" processes to account for the data. We could look for evidence of them, though, and increasingly we will find them as genetically engineered organisms work their way into the ecosystem.Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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Meleager @ #11: Well, I would say that the "limits of evolution" are not longitudinal, but rather "lateral". Evolutionary processes cannot (easily) apply (please regard the teleological language as metaphorical!) a "solution" from one lineage to another. So we see bird lungs in one lineage and mammalian lungs in another. We see, in other words, "nested hierarchies" of characters. The other limit is in the size of step. The more complex a feature (in terms of its genetic specification) the less likely it is to have resulted from a single simultaneous set of fortuitous mutations. But there is no limit (or no logical limit) to the number of steps. Therefore I would say that the "limits" of evolutionary processes are that they are: 1)Tree-like 2)Stepwise. And in both these features they differ from human intentional design processes (we can transfer solutions to different lineages, and we can bypass tedious intermediate steps).Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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No, Stephen, I read more than the "contents pages". What he seemed to be saying was that the genetic code couldn't have emerged from purely physical/chemical processes. That seemed unsubstantiated to me, and, in any case, an argument from lack of evidence/alternative model rather than a positive argument. And, indeed, there is evidence supporting at least one alternative model. Yes, of course there is a "difference between a cell and the origins of life" (a category difference indeed!). A bacterium is indeed a cell - a unicellular organism. That doesn't mean that all cells are bacteria, of course, nor does it mean that the cells which are postulated to be the ancestors of both modern bacteria and multicellular organisms were much like modern bacteria. Nor does it mean that that cell did not have even simpler precursors - precursors that we might hesitate to call "alive". Re: Behe - actually some of my reasons are scientific, some simply mathematical. My more general point is that I think it is quite wrong to assume that those us who do not embrace ID are motivated by anything other than a desire to know how stuff happened (the motivation of all science, pretty well). Nor that we are all obtuse. Oh, and what worked? I took the bait? I do tend to :) Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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I would also like to challenge EL or any other darwinism advocate to the following: If Behe didn't accurately define the limits of darwinian processes in the Edge of Evolution, please tell us, or direct us to, where the limits of Darwinian evolution have been explained in any scientific sense. If Darwinism, the core of modern evolutionary theory, is essentially that mutation and selection undirected by intelligence can produce macro-evolutionary successes such as winged flight and stereoscopic color vision, and Darwinism is to be taken as a scientific theory, then surely there has been much written about the limitations of those processes offered as a means of falsifying the claims of Darwinism and defining its capabilities and parameters.Meleagar_{June 6, 2011
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Elizabeth Liddle states: "Evolutionary processes have a lot in common with intelligent processes, the difference being that evolutionary processes are not intentional." Please direct me to where the evolutionary processes have ever been vetted as chance (meaning unguided by intelligence) and natural (meaning unguided by intelligence). In fact, they have not (so one asks, why the qualifiers?). No mutation or selection activity has ever been vetted (that I'm aware of) in any formal sense as being what their characteristic qualifiers have claimed as scientific fact: random* and natural*. Furthermore, unless there is a "directed vs chance*" and "artificial vs natural*" metric that can determine whether or not the aggregate product of chance & nature can produce what darwinism is claimed to have produced (a metric which mainstream evolutionary theorists deny exists), then there is simply no means by which to claim that such processes are chance* or natural*, let alone be satisfied that chance* and natural* processes can produce what they are claimed to have produced. Nor is there any way to claim (other than bald assertion) that such processes are "not intentional". IOW, your claim that evolutionary (which I take you to mean darwinian) processes are not intentional can only be a baseless assumption on your part, which you are here stating as fact.Meleagar_{June 6, 2011
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Oh, it worked! :-)Chris Doyle_{June 6, 2011
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Hi Elizabeth, Which part did you read: the contents pages!? (insert 'happy, smiling face' here ;-)) Seriously, you need to read all of it in order to better understand where many ID proponents are coming from these days. Incidentally, there is a difference between a cell and the origins of life. A bacterium is a cell: and its existence demands an explanation based solely on Darwinian evolutionary processes. On the other hand, eukaryotic cells also demand such an explanation, starting with amoebas, for example, then working all the way up to human cells. I’d be surprised if you disagree with Behe for purely scientific reasons. Which I think is the point of this particular piece.Chris Doyle_{June 6, 2011
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Can you summarise what Stephen Meyer considers the signature of intentional design? I have read part of the book, but not all of it (it was a loan). I don't agree that we must eliminate Darwinian evolutionary processes on "purely scientific grounds" (your "furthermore" seems a little odd - presumably Meyer's grounds are also "purely scientific"? :)) with regard to the origin of the cell. Darwin specifically excluded the origins of life from his theory - his theory is on the origin of species not the origin of life. As for the Edge of Evolution - I have read it, and I would disagree that Behe has demonstrated a "definite 'Edge'".Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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Good Morning Elizabeth, Have you read "Signature in the Cell" by Stephen Meyer. That work provides you with all the demonstrations you claim have not been made. Furthermore, surely we must eliminate Darwinian evolutionary processes on purely scientific grounds? After all, there is no observational or experimental evidence to show that the cell appeared as a result of them. Indeed, there is no scientific evidence that Darwinian evolutionary processes can do anything without pre-existing biological systems. Even then, there is a definite "Edge" to evolution (read Michael Behe's "Edge of Evolution" for more on that) that allows us to dismiss Darwinian evolutionary processes as trivial, at best.Chris Doyle_{June 6, 2011
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Well, my position is that IDists have failed to demonstrate that what they consider the signature of intentional design is not also the signature of Darwinian evolutionary processes. Clearly, simply noting that things that we know are intentionally designed resemble things for which we don't know the provenance isn't enough to allow us to infer that the latter were intentionally designed. That would be the equivalent of concluding that because these mammals are cats, all mammals are cats. Evolutionary processes have a lot in common with intelligent processes, the difference being that evolutionary processes are not intentional. To determine whether living things were intentionally designed, we have to detect the signature of intention, not the signature of intelligence. IMO :)Elizabeth Liddle_{June 6, 2011
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