Casey Luskin: ID as fruitful approach to science

_{Denyse O'Leary

May 13, 2022

Intelligent Design}

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In his Kitzmiller v. Dover testimony, biologist Kenneth Miller referred to intelligent design as a “science stopper.” Similarly, in his book Only a Theory, Miller stated, “The hypothesis of design is compatible with any conceivable data, makes no testable predictions, and suggests no new avenues for research. As such, it’s a literal dead end…”
Casey Luskin, “Science Stopper? Intelligent Design as a Fruitful Scientific Paradigm” at Evolution News (May 9, 2022)

Luskin offers a number of examples of areas where ID is a fruitful approach, including

Evolutionary computation: ID produces theoretical research into the information-generative powers of Darwinian searches, leading to the discovery that the search abilities of Darwinian processes are limited, which has practical implications for the viability of using genetic algorithms to solve problems.
Anatomy and physiology: ID predicts function for allegedly “vestigial” organs, structures, or systems whereas evolution has made many faulty predictions of nonfunction.
Bioinformatics: ID has helped scientists develop proper measures of biological information, leading to concepts like complex and specified information or functional sequence complexity. This allows us to better quantify complexity and understand what features are, or are not, within the reach of Darwinian evolution.
Casey Luskin, “Science Stopper? Intelligent Design as a Fruitful Scientific Paradigm” at Evolution News (May 9, 2022)

The trouble is, many people would just as soon that research into evolutionary computation anatomy and physiology, and bioinformatics, however fruitful, not be done if it undermines a comfortable Darwinism.

This is the 12th and final entry in Casey Luskin’s series, which is a modified excerpt from The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith: Exploring the Ultimate Questions About Life and the Cosmos (2021).

Incidentally, here are two hilarious vids about fake COVID news from Shanghai. Couldn’t think where to put it but wouldn’t want you to miss out.

Note: The content is available. The warning is part of the joke.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMJ8Sch0pXc

Comments

Fred Hickson @45, 66,
I said I am unaware of a testable hypothesis relating to ID. Can you name one, then we can look at it?
Looks like you didn’t bother looking at the link I provided. Ok, how about this testable hypothesis: Junk DNA, now renamed to non-protein coding DNA is not useless “junk” as Susumu Ohno suggested, but actually has an undiscovered function. Or this one: So called “vestigial” organs are not useless vestiges of evolution, but rather appear to be designed to serve important biological functions. Incidentally, the thyroid was once considered a vestigial organ with no known purpose, but it’s now classified a ductless gland.
I’ve pointed out your statement Darwinism in particular, limits scientific inquiry to random chance is false and that evolution is a non-random process and it is as if I hadn’t commented.
Actually, with your own two fingers you typed that the “design” came from nature itself, thus indicating that, among other things, genetic drift is not random as is currently believed, but is subject to non-random drivers. I know that this is uncomfortable for you to accept, but that’s exactly the position of ID advocates by admitting that studying biological organisms have a type of guidance (and thus is better served by the presumption of design)! But now you’re trying to squirm out of it by being obnoxious and trying to take back what you tapped out by redefining random mutations as not being the source of random genetic drift. Don't believe me? Well, just read the definition of Genetic Drift here: https://www.genome.gov/genetics-glossary/Genetic-Drift Looks like you’ve been converted in spite of yourself. LOL -QQuerius_{May 15, 2022
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Silver Asiatic Niches are not active agents – they can’t and don’t design anything.
:) Of course , the active agent is the organism that try to increase its control over external events but darwinists need to swap the active function from organism to environment . Adaptation(fine-tuning) is searching for stability in a framework that have variable edges but a stable center that try to call all the shots . Stability lies in the system as a whole, not in the gene unit .The stretch of DNA that is “a gene” has meaning only within the system as a whole. In chess a piece has meaning only in the context of all the other pieces inside the system(chessboard+all the pieces as signs + "the function" of each piece as meaning + all the possible interactions between all the functions). A knight alone on the board /or on the carpet has no meaning by itself ,because the context (the system ) is everything . A sign/code is created to work only inside of a certain system. Outside that system the code/the gene/ the chess piece is losing its meaning/function.Lieutenant Commander Data_{May 15, 2022
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KF - Yes, "intelligently directed". So design is a product of intelligence. Darwin was opposing Paley's idea. Dawkins says there's the "appearance of design" but no evidence of design.Silver Asiatic_{May 15, 2022
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My apologies, but that is what he is doing.ET_{May 15, 2022
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FH at 60, It is time for you to explain the origin of life. How did dead/non-living chemicals give rise to the first living thing?relatd_{May 15, 2022
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The common thought is once the evolution engine is started, it will continue to produce living organisms but it has no goals or direction. That is the primary problem. But it cannot be assumed that the development of life works that way. For example, humans, we are told, had pre-human ancestors, such as Neanderthals. They weren't modern humans like us, right? There is evidence that Neanderthals and so-called modern humans interbred. https://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/ancient-dna-and-neanderthals/interbreedingrelatd_{May 15, 2022
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SA, design is aptly defined for ID purposes as intelligently directed configuration, or in one word used by Paley way back, contrivance. I of course would like to see serious addressing of his self replicating watch thought exercise in ch 2. KFkairosfocus_{May 15, 2022
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ET, language etc, remember the broken window theory. A crocodile death roll in the gutter does not help anyone. KFkairosfocus_{May 15, 2022
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Wikipedia: Design
A design is a plan or specification for the construction of an object or system or for the implementation of an activity or process, or the result of that plan or specification in the form of a prototype, product or process. The verb to design expresses the process of developing a design. The design usually has to satisfy certain goals and constraints; may take into account aesthetic, functional, economic, or socio-political considerations
Niches do not design things. Evolution acts without goal or purpose. To design is a verb that requires a subject capable of creating a plan that satisfies goals and which takes into account various factors. Niches are unintelligent. They are not agents that design anything. Niches have no plan or purpose or goals - they do not design anything, and cannot design.Silver Asiatic_{May 15, 2022
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FH, We both know that that FSCO/I beyond 500 - 1000 bits is a reliable sign of intelligently directed configuration is a perfectly empirically testable claim, and one that the monkeys test looks at. It is of course directly relevant to the root of the tree of life icon and to the formation of branches. We further both know this is a bridge to linked statistical thermodynamics (which comes up in the article) and that OoL has to appeal to physics and chemistry so it is the clearest case. Credibly, language using algorithmic design informed by deep knowledge of polymers at the root . . . something those investigating nanotech recognise . . . and so design at the root so pervasive design is a serious view. Further, we both know that in former years many proposals as to how such chance and necessity design could arise were put up but have uniformly failed, including evolutionary computing. We both further know that origin of main body plans is similarly unexplained. This reduces the evolutionary hypothesis for macro evolution to gross extrapolation beyond reasonable search resources, no answer to systematic gaps between body plans and so forth. The evolutionary frame is institutionalised but does not have competent causal mechanisms to drive it. Accounting for OoL is the most obvious case but accounting for body plans is just as bad. KFkairosfocus_{May 15, 2022
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Fred Hickson:
The niche environment designs populations of organisms, which is a type of guidance, individual organisms have purpose.
Why is peer review absent of such a thing, Fred? Why are biology and evolution textbooks devoid of the idea, Fred? You don't get to make shit up and try to pawn it off as science. And all you do is make shit up and try to pawn it off as science.ET_{May 15, 2022
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Mutations are random. The environment is random. Materialism is a blind, mindless, purposeless cause - without goal or direction. It cannot design - it's the antithesis of design. "To design" something requires an active agent. Niches are not active agents - they can't and don't design anything.Silver Asiatic_{May 15, 2022
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One testable hypothesis for Intelligent Design: ' 1) High information content (or specified complexity) and irreducible complexity constitute strong indicators or hallmarks of (past) intelligent design. 2) Biological systems have a high information content (or specified complexity) and utilize subsystems that manifest irreducible complexity. 3) Naturalistic mechanisms or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of information (specified complexity) or irreducible complexity. 4) Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanations for the origin of information and irreducible complexity in biological systems. Let Fred flail away...ET_{May 15, 2022
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Fred Hickson:
So, even the Catholic church has to beat up strawman rather than admit evolution does have a guiding factor: the niche environment.
So, even Fred has to spew nonsense rather than admit there isn't any evidence the niche environment guides. You are beyond pathetic, Fred.ET_{May 15, 2022
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Fred Hickson, clueless dolt:
The theory of evolution attempts to explain the diversity of life on Earth, not its origin.
There isn't any scientific theory of evolution and how life originated dictates how it subsequently evolved. You are obviously just a willfully ignorant trollET_{May 15, 2022
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Earth to Fred Hickson- The non-random element is TRIVIAL in that not all variants have the same probability of being eliminated. Why doesn't THAT sink in, Fred? Why do you think that your willful ignorance is an argument, Fred?ET_{May 15, 2022
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A blind, mindless, unintelligent source produces nihilistic results. Purpose, meaning, direction, design, goals, guidance – none of that can exist.
The niche environment designs populations of organisms, which is a type of guidance, individual organisms have purpose. These things exist.Fred Hickson_{May 15, 2022
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KF Monkeys on typewriters! It's never going to sink in, is it? No matter how many times I point out there is a non-random element to evolution, everyone here will continue to blather on about blind chance.Fred Hickson_{May 15, 2022
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KF You ommitted to mention a scientific, testable ID hypothesis. Or do you agree with Paul Nelson that such a thing does not yet exist.Fred Hickson_{May 15, 2022
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Querius
So, from my perspective, ID isn’t Science Plus, but rather deterministic materialism is deliberately Science Minus.
Agreed - and that's a great way to phrase it. A blind, mindless, unintelligent source produces nihilistic results. Purpose, meaning, direction, design, goals, guidance - none of that can exist.Silver Asiatic_{May 15, 2022
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FH, I tire of your repetition of long since corrected misrepresentations. First, the UD Correctives have clearly stated falsifiability criteria, and secondly any number of people in recent weeks while you were present. In case you missed it, ID is a case of abductive reasoning (as is common in science) and in particular inference to best, tested explanation, on reliable sign. As a result, if anyone reliably provides an actual case where functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information [FSCO/I] beyond 500 - 1,000 bits is observed to come about by Monod's blind chance and/or mechanical necessity, then the key sign would collapse. However, this is rather like saying, if someone comes up with a perpetuum mobile, thermodynamics would collapse. Thus, we have a falsifiability criterion, one that is open to testing every day. KF PS, as has been pointed out several times in your presence, Wikipedia inadvertently testifies to such tests (never mind its slanderous hit piece on ID), in its infinite monkeys theorem article. Let me clip a key test, one readily done on computers. And yes, we don't even need to do elaborate exercises on E coli etc, a simple valid computer exercise is more than good enough (Weasel is not valid):
One computer program run by Dan Oliver of Scottsdale, Arizona, according to an article in The New Yorker, came up with a result on 4 August 2004: After the group had worked for 42,162,500,000 billion billion monkey-years, one of the "monkeys" typed, "VALENTINE. Cease toIdor:eFLP0FRjWK78aXzVOwm)-‘;8.t" The first 19 letters of this sequence can be found in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona". Other teams have reproduced 18 characters from "Timon of Athens", 17 from "Troilus and Cressida", and 16 from "Richard II".[27] A website entitled The Monkey Shakespeare Simulator, launched on 1 July 2003, contained a Java applet that simulated a large population of monkeys typing randomly, with the stated intention of seeing how long it takes the virtual monkeys to produce a complete Shakespearean play from beginning to end. For example, it produced this partial line from Henry IV, Part 2, reporting that it took "2,737,850 million billion billion billion monkey-years" to reach 24 matching characters: RUMOUR. Open your ears; 9r"5j5&?OWTY Z0d
This indicates that config spaces 10^100 shy of the 3.27*10^150 possibilities at the lower end of the FSCO/I threshold can be successfully searched by blind chance and/or mechanical necessity. But that is 10^100 short of a needed zone. Of course a typical protein is about 200 - 300 AAs and the config space implied runs at 4.32 bits/aa in the chain. The lower end is already 864 bits. A config space doubles per additional bit, and we are looking at 1.23*10^260 possibilities. PPS, OoL is of course the root of the tree of life icon. And we all did biology, we know textbooks still and for many decades have presented OoL scenarios to address that root. Too often they make them seem far simpler and more plausible than is warranted. Where, the same search challenge for OoL is compounded to reach the islands of complex coherent function required for main body plans. That's why we can point to the coded alphanumeric text and algorithms involved and highlight that these are reliable signs of design. Dismissive talking points notwithstanding.kairosfocus_{May 15, 2022
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And can nobody (apart from Paul Nelson) offer up a scientific, testable "ID" hypothesis or admit one doesn't yet exist. It would be the honest thing to do.Fred Hickson_{May 15, 2022
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The Catholic Church has the reality of God and the work of divine providence. Did life appear from lifeless chemicals? And once the first living thing appeared, what did it eat? How did it stay alive?
The theory of evolution attempts to explain the diversity of life on Earth, not its origin. There seems a wilful determination here to attack straw rather than reality.Fred Hickson_{May 15, 2022
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FH at 57, The Catholic Church has the reality of God and the work of divine providence. Did life appear from lifeless chemicals? And once the first living thing appeared, what did it eat? How did it stay alive?relatd_{May 15, 2022
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all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence
That's a nice phrase by St. Thomas: "as they participate in existence". That's ontological realism. Our existence is from the source of all being - so we participate in that. We "received existence" from the source.Silver Asiatic_{May 15, 2022
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In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science.
So, even the Catholic church has to beat up strawman rather than admit evolution does have a guiding factor: the niche environment.Fred Hickson_{May 15, 2022
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Relatd I fully agree - and I do accept.Silver Asiatic_{May 15, 2022
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Ken Miller: “[E]volution works without either plan or purpose — Evolution is random and undirected." Vatican document: "An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist ...Silver Asiatic_{May 15, 2022
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I think this does not require a "movement" just an acceptance of knowledge given to us by the Church. The document titled Communion and Stewardship goes on to say: From part 69. 'But it is important to note that, according to the Catholic understanding of divine causality, true contingency in the created order is not incompatible with a purposeful divine providence. Divine causality and created causality radically differ in kind and not only in degree. Thus, even the outcome of a truly contingent natural process can nonetheless fall within God’s providential plan for creation. According to St. Thomas Aquinas: “The effect of divine providence is not only that things should happen somehow, but that they should happen either by necessity or by contingency. Therefore, whatsoever divine providence ordains to happen infallibly and of necessity happens infallibly and of necessity; and that happens from contingency, which the divine providence conceives to happen from contingency” (Summa theologiae, I, 22,4 ad 1). In the Catholic perspective, neo-Darwinians who adduce random genetic variation and natural selection as evidence that the process of evolution is absolutely unguided are straying beyond what can be demonstrated by science. Divine causality can be active in a process that is both contingent and guided. Any evolutionary mechanism that is contingent can only be contingent because God made it so. An unguided evolutionary process – one that falls outside the bounds of divine providence – simply cannot exist because “the causality of God, Who is the first agent, extends to all being, not only as to constituent principles of species, but also as to the individualizing principles....It necessarily follows that all things, inasmuch as they participate in existence, must likewise be subject to divine providence” (Summa theologiae I, 22, 2).'relatd_{May 15, 2022
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Relatd Chuckdarwin at 35, So, it is very clear that in 1950, no decision had yet been made.
Then CD have no clue about subject and he just spread whatever Atheist Church told him to spread? This is a shock for me because we never heard in all human history about a lying atheist, they never do that.Lieutenant Commander Data_{May 15, 2022
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