Competing Worldviews Only?

_{Barry Arrington

March 22, 2010

Intelligent Design}

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Evolutionary biologist Allen MacNeill, who appears frequently in the comments sections of our posts, makes the following comment to my previous post:

Teleology must exist in any functional relationship, including those in biology. The question is not “is there teleology in biology”; no less an authority on evolutionary biology than the late Ernst Mayr (not to mention Franciso Ayala) emphatically stated “yes”! The real question (and the real focus of the dispute between EBers and IDers) is the answer to the question, “where does the teleology manifest in biology come from”? EBers such as Ernst Mayr assert that it is an emergent property of natural selection, whereas IDers assert that it comes from an “intelligent designer”. It has never been clear to me how one would distinguish between these two assertions, at least insofar as they can be empirically tested. Rather, the choice of one or the other seems to me to be a choice between competing metaphysical world views, which are not empirically verifiable by definition.

Is Allen correct?

Comments

Perhaps it just needs to be pointed out that Allen gave his view what other people's views are in post 13.Upright BiPed_{March 23, 2010
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I'm sorry, I meant where Mr Allen is wrong, not Mr. Arrington, in post #11.William J. Murray_{March 23, 2010
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As for the evolutionary worldview being "unintelligible", that is indeed what it is if one assumes the Platonic/typological worldview. However, if one assumes the evolutionary/population worldview, the situation isn't quite the reverse. One can accept that design does indeed exist, but that it is neither universal nor necessary to get the universe we all perceive.Allen_MacNeill_{March 23, 2010
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In comment #12 vjtorley asked:
"What I would like to know is: if Allen MacNeill is an emergentist, then what kind is he – strong or weak? Does he believe in downward causation?"
No, I do not. If I understand what vjtorley is suggesting, then "downward causation" isn't really "emergent" at all. If "emergence" is "top down" (i.e. determinative) rather than "bottom up" (i.e. cumulative), then it isn't emergent, it's revelatory. That is, whenever something new seems to "emerge", it is really isn't. It's simply being revealed as having always existed. According to this viewpoint, nothing new has ever happened, nothing new has ever "emerged", and evolution is an illusion. Everything that exists now has always existed, if only in some "immanent" form. This is, of course, merely Platonic idealism restated in "modern" terms. According to this viewpoint, all of the species (indeed, all of the individuals, regardless of their characteristics) have always existed, at least in some inchoate, "immanent" form. Their "emergence" is simply their "immanent" form becoming manifest. This is essentially the viewpoint of Simon Conway Morris, who believes that there is essentially no historical contingency in macroevolution at all. No matter how far back in time one might "rewind the tape" (to borrow Stephen J. Gould's metaphor), the process of macroevolution will always and inevitably result in the production of humans (and tapeworms and pond scum and everything else in the biosphere today). Taken to its logical (and absurd) extreme, this viewpoint strongly implies that not only will humans arrive at the apex of four billion years of evolution, but I will necessarily have a pastrami on seedless rye with yellow mustard and iceberg lettuce for lunch...except that's what I had yesterday...hmm. This worldview is extraordinarily powerful and extraordinarily pervasive, especially in the West. It gives everyone who believes in it a deep sense of belonging, of connectedness, of inevitability. I have myself been seduced by it many times in my life, especially when things seem to be going badly. But it is clearly just what I said it was: it is a "worldview" (i.e. a coherent set of metaphysical assumptions), and is therefore not empirically verifiable. Rather, it is a set of axiomatic assumptions that presupposes certain ends, and so it shouldn't surprise anyone that those who accept its metaphysical assumptions find "design" and "purpose" everywhere in nature. Let me stress the word everywhere in that last sentence. According to the "top down" view of "emergence", everything, from quarks to galactic superclusters, is "designed", in the sense that all things are a product of pre-existing designs within which there is no limit to the degree to which events are pre-ordained. If the universe is indeed like this, there has never been, is not, and never will be anything "new". The entire universe and everything in it is closed, once and forever, and there will never be anything "new"; indeed, there can't be. This worldview is the one that forms the foundation of both Platonism and neo-Platonism (of which Christianity is only a relatively minor variant). It is what Ernst Mayr refers to as "typological thinking", and is diametrically opposed to what Mayr referred to as "population thinking". Here is how Mayr described it:
"The populationist stresses the uniqueness of everything in the organic world. What is true for the human species – that no two individuals are alike – is equally true for all species of animals and plants. Indeed, even the same individual changes continuously throughout his lifetime and when placed into different environments. All organisms and organic phenomena are composed of unique features and can be described only in statistical terms. Individuals, or any kind of organic entities, form populations of which we can determine the arithmetic mean and the statistics of variation. Averages are merely statistical abstractions, only the individuals of which the population is composed have reality. The ultimate conclusions of the population thinker and of the typologist are precisely the opposite. For the typologist, the type (eidos) is real and the variation is an illusion, while for the populationist the type (average) is an abstraction and only the variation is real. No two ways of looking at nature could be more different." [emphasis added; Mayr, E. (1959) "Darwin and the evolutionary theory in biology", in Meggers, B. J. (ed.), Evolution and Anthropology: A Centennial Appraisal, Washington, DC, The Anthropological Society of Washington, pg. 2]
Mayr's version of "emergence" is "bottom up". That is, new things are genuinely new; they are the result of a combination of random variation and deterministic processes, which together produce genuinely new (and therefore unrepeatable) phenomena. This viewpoint underlies Stephen J. Gould's assertion that if the "tape" of macroevolution were "rewound" to the early Cambrian, what would then transpire would be fundamentally different than what happened last time. This second viewpoint forms the metaphysical foundations of all of the biological sciences, and is the real reason why evolutionary biologists and intelligent design supporters cannot really understand each other, at any level. It is the viewpoint taken by Karl Popper in all of his historical and philosophical analyses, especially The Open Society and Its Enemies, in which the first volume is an extended attack against Plato and Platonism. And it is the basis for all of the natural and social sciences, from physics to sociology. Even physicists have come to accept that "universal" processes have irreducibly contingent components, and as such are just as "non-typological" as biological (and especially evolutionary) processes. But we think typologically; indeed, I would argue that our evolutionary heritage strongly predisposes us to do so. We infer agency in all things, even when such agency is entirely illusory (as in the seemingly purposeful "behavior" of falling rocks, which fall "in order to reach the ground"...at least until one learns differently). This is why it is so difficult to understand how evolution by natural selection works, and why when one finally comes to understand it (and its implications), one feels as if the foundations of reality itself have slipped. So, which worldview is "correct"? Instead of answering this question (which may be unanswerable, at least on the basis of empirical evidence), I would rather restate what is clearly the case: the "bottom up" view of emergence (and the "population thinking" of evolutionary biologists such as Ernst Mayr) is the foundation of all of the modern natural sciences. No amount of wishful thinking can change this, nor can all of the efforts of "historical revisionists". Yes, Newton himself may have been a "typological thinker" (although I think this is a debatable point), but no one would argue that Stephen Weinberg is. As to my assertion that biology is teleological, let me make myself as clear as possible. Living organisms are indeed teleological. Every living organism develops according to a pre-existing plan (call it a "design" if it makes you feel better, or a "program" if you like), which is encoded into its genome. As the organism develops, the plan in its genome reacts to changes in the environment in such a way as to make the survival and reproduction of the organism as likely as possible. This process – which I have referred to as homeotelic, by analogy with homeostatic – is the basis for all living systems. But, having said all of that, one may then ask "Is the process by which the plans come into existence itself teleological?" To this question, evolutionary biologists (including Ernst Mayr) have answered "not necessarily". And I really mean both of those words: "not" (i.e. negation) and "necessarily" (i.e. of necessity, as in "predetermined"). The mechanisms by which evolution operates (and which have been abundantly verified by a century and a half of empirical research) do not require a pre-existing plan. As the term "bottom up" strongly implies, the mechanisms of evolution are cumulative and contingent, and therefore the outcome of the operation of those mechanisms is not "closed" (in the sense of pre-ordained).Allen_MacNeill_{March 23, 2010
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My recent comments on Allen MacNeill's thoughtful post can be found here: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/the-medium-is-not-the-message/#comment-350377 An old post of mine on the topic of emergence can be found here: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/emergence-redux/ What I would like to know is: if Allen MacNeill is an emergentist, then what kind is he - strong or weak? Does he believe in downward causation? PaV's question, "Whence life?" is a good focus for future discussion. The more we learn about life, the more we realize exactly how many conditions in the cosmos and on the primordial Earth had to be "just right," in order for life to emerge. Skeptics are fond of criticizing ID for its reticence about the Designer. However, we do at least know what a designer is: we've all met lots of them. ID's explanation of the origin of life on Earth is an intelligible one, even if some people find it uncongenial. But the strong sense I am getting these days is that the naturalistic explanation of life's origin is utterly unintelligible.vjtorley_{March 23, 2010
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Where Mr. Arrington is wrong is that in many cases we can distinguish between some speculated, invisible "emergent process" and an intelligent agent; humans (visible, known intelligent agents) direct biological processes towards deliberate ends all the time, and have for thousands of years. So, we empirically know that intelligent designers exist that can teleologically direct biology towards such ends and have the capacity to generate virtually unlimited meaningful information; darwinists speculate that some invivisble "emergent" force does the same thing. Abduction based on empirical facts tells us that if we admit that there is "meaningful, teleological information" in biology, the better scientific theory, at least for now, is that ID is responsible for that teleological, meaningful information. It's not a metaphysical problem at all.William J. Murray_{March 23, 2010
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Here's part of Allen's statement:
The real question (and the real focus of the dispute between EBers and IDers) is the answer to the question, “where does the teleology manifest in biology come from”? EBers such as Ernst Mayr assert that it is an emergent property of natural selection, whereas IDers assert that it comes from an “intelligent designer”.
It seems to me that if we are sincerely trying to determine whether design or natural forces are responsible for the "teleology manifest in biology", then the question of the origins of life would be what is determinative (after all, NS can do nothing whatsoever until life itself emerges). So, the question of "teleology" reduces itself down to: whence life. But, of course, even Darwin didn't dare suppose something came from nothing---at least in his OoS. Given what we now know---the latest figure per Cornelius Hunter's latest post---that nearly 4,000 proteins are needed for life to emerge, then how does this fantastic level of information self-assemble? A scientist, being a scientist, would have to look for some outside causation---Fred Hoyle, a committed atheist---believed in panspermia. So, what is this outside causation? In the spirit of Thomas' 'proofs', we call this outside caustion "God". Now maybe Allen would say that theology has taken over at this point; nevertheless, it is science that leads us to this conclusion. And, at the very least, science should itself conclude that life is inexplicable. But I must say, I haven't heard anything like that lately. Have you?PaV_{March 23, 2010
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hrun: I meant the way it is being used here, of course, not in general.
Yes, of course you did. Just like Upright Biped made a sweeping statement without any support in a different thread (where he relied on his own peculiar defninition of 'information'). But hey, at least in this caes you admitted it. It would be nice, though, if you would refrain from making such statements in the first place, or if you would specify what you are talking about. Too much to ask?hrun0815_{March 23, 2010
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Darwinists have always said that the design in biology is only "apparent", not "real". If MacNeill (and Mayr) had said "apparent teleology", there would be nothing new or interesting about these statements, and perhaps they just forgot to add "apparent" or assumed everyone understood that is what they meant. But if they are saying there really is teleology in biology, then they are claiming that there is real design, without a designer (after all, "teleology" means purposeful doesn't it!). Then this seems to be a simple misunderstanding of the word "design".Granville Sewell_{March 23, 2010
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hrun: I meant the way it is being used here, of course, not in general.Granville Sewell_{March 23, 2010
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Basically “emergence” is just a transparent semantical trick to acknowledge design without acknowledging a designer.
Ah. Another assertion that is not supported by facts. And, in this case, it is just blatantly false. Yet, I would guess, that I am the only one to call you on it. Can you tell me the 'design' in the emergent property of, let's say, a sufficiently large number of particles that gives rise to temperature? If your statement is more than a false assertion, then take all those instances where physicists talk about emergence and prove that they are actually acknowledging design. I bet a nickel that you can't.hrun0815_{March 23, 2010
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Ooops, Aristotelian-Thomistic or Aristotelean-Thomistic. Pick your pick.NT_{March 23, 2010
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Orrrr, teleology is ultimately reducible to the Arisotelian-Thomistic conception of a first cause, unmoved mover, supreme intellect and a necessary being that is ultimately good. Oh wait... that is classical theism and metaphysics, not science. Who cares though, scientism is outdated.NT_{March 23, 2010
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By the way, I noticed the following Wikipedia quote in Niwrad's post of Oct 26, 2009, referred to in my previous comment:
Systems with emergent properties or emergent structures may appear to defy entropic principles and the SLoT, because they form and increase order despite the lack of command and central control. This is possible because open systems can extract information and order out of the environment.
This sounds almost like what I've been saying about the SLoT, that "order can increase in an open system not because the laws of probability are suspended when the door is open, but simply because order may walk in through the door," see my video. Granville Sewell_{March 23, 2010
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I remember one recent commenter at UD said something like "emergence is not an answer to the question of where did design in biology come from, it is a restatement of the question." When I did a search on "emergence" at UD to try to find this quote (which I have probably not reproduced very accurately) I found Niwrad's great post of 26 October, 2009. Unfortunately I don't know how to link to that, maybe another commenter can provide the link. Basically "emergence" is just a transparent semantical trick to acknowledge design without acknowledging a designer.Granville Sewell_{March 23, 2010
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Not only did Allen take the refreshingly frank position that teleology exist in biology (and allowed that its source is legitimately debatable) but then posits that strings of DNA sequences (which are indeed transcribed into biological products) are examples of meaningful information, and he goes further to add that meaningful information requires perception in order to exists in the first place.
“…the answer to the question, “where does the teleology manifest in biology come from”? EBers such as Ernst Mayr assert that it is an emergent property of natural selection, whereas IDers assert that it comes from an “intelligent designer”. It has never been clear to me how one would distinguish between these two assertions, at least insofar as they can be empirically tested.”

“If the DNA sequence ACA is located in the template strand of an actively transcribed DNA sequence…and furthermore its complementary RNA analog is located in an mRNA …then that the DNA sequence does indeed contain “meaningful” information”

“So, Shannon information, Kolomogorov information, and Orgel information need not be perceived to exist, but meaningful information does.”
I found the general admission that a teleological/non-agent explanation for the origin of biological information which he correctly states cannot be “empirically tested” to be relevant to the debate (as well as to the name-calling, political maneuvering, and certainly to the legal claims). If I remember correctly, this would make such an explanation non-scientific, or even worse, tossed into the pseudo-science category. I disagree with him when he states that opposed to the teleological/non-agent explanation, ID posits a “non-natural” explanation in its place. I question what exactly is non-natural about what can be observed in nature by all investigators. I also question what is inherently non-natural in the thesis that an agent is required to explain those observations. In place of having discipline on what can and cannot be inferred from the evidence, science has so far been willing to gut parsimony and resort to a material property which admittedly cannot be demonstrated for anyone at all to see. What ID must do is continue to maintain the scientific discipline demanded by the evidence, and should actively seek ways in which to strengthen that discipline. However, in the end, what this reduces to is nothing less than a non-testable emergent-property explanation, versus an observable evidence explanation. The artificial synthesis of every single molecule within biological systems will not reduce the issue one bit. The fact that virtually the entire apparatus of science is set up as though these questions have already been answered is a disgrace to science. And to the academy as well.Upright BiPed_{March 23, 2010
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