Computer Simulations and Darwinism

_{Gil Dodgen

October 1, 2011

Intelligent Design

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Intelligent Design}

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Okay dudes, no more talk about my abandonment of atheism. Here’s some science and engineering talk.

I know something about computer simulations. In fact, I know a lot about them, and their limitations.

Search algorithms (and especially AI-related search algorithms) are a specialty of mine, as is combinatorial mathematics.

The branching factor (the average number of moves per side) in chess yields approximately 10^120 possible outcomes, but the number of legally achievable positions is approximately 10^80 — the estimated number of elementary particles (protons and neutrons) in the entire known universe. Compare this to the branching factor of nucleotide sequences in the DNA molecule. Do the math.

Finite element analysis (FEA) of nonlinear, transient, dynamic systems, with the use of the most sophisticated, powerful computer program ever devised for such purposes (LS-DYNA, originally conceived at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the mid-1970s for the development of variable-yield nuclear weapons) is another of my computer-simulation specialties.

Dyna has been used heavily in the automotive industry for simulating car crashes, so that cars can be designed to produce the least damage to occupants.

In these simulations everything is precisely known and empirically quantified (the material properties of the components — modulus of elasticity, mass density, shear modulus, precisely calibrated failure modes, etc.).

In addition, the explicit FEA time step (the minimal integration time step determined by the software based on the speed on sound in the smallest finite element and its mass density, which is required to avoid numerical instability) is critical. In my simulations the time step is approximately a ten-millionth of second, during which partial differential equations, based on the laws of physics (F=ma in particular) are solved to compute the physical distortion of the system and the propagation of the forces throughout the system in question.

One learns very quickly with FEA simulations that even with all of this knowledge and sophistication one must empirically justify the results of the simulation incrementally by comparing the results with the reality it attempts to simulate.

One false assumption about a material property or any of the other aspects of a simulation can completely invalidate it. Worse yet, it can produce results that seem reasonable, but are completely wrong.

So, the next time someone tries to convince you that a computer simulation has validated the creative power of the Darwinian mechanism of random errors filtered by natural selection in biology, you should tell them to go back to school and learn something about legitimate computer simulations, and how difficult it is to produce reliable results, even when the details are well known.

Comments

Petrushka: I haven't had the patience to follow Chardin's at best turgid and at worst pompous writing, but I will take your word for what he says. Denton's writing, on the other hand, is lucid and accessible, and I highly recommend him to all. Your final statement is true, so far as it goes, but it is important to add that, while Denton does not see anything but natural causes operating in the world, he is very clear that, without the prior "setup" of nature, we wouldn't have the results that we do. Darwinism denies that there was any such "setup". For Denton, all the outcomes were, in broad terms at least, necessary; for Darwin, they were all contingent. Thus, anyone who accepts the naturalistic premise (and hence rules out supernatural intervention) has to decide between these two views by calculating how likely it is that a truly contingent process of the Darwinian kind would produce what we see. And I agree with the ID people that the probability is exceedingly low. Thus, even within a purely naturalistic way of viewing events, the "best explanation" is that nature was set up for us -- as Hoyle said long ago. T.Timaeus_{October 24, 2011
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GinoB:
The issue is the ID proponents’ claim that all extant biological life was intelligently designed.
Strawman. IDists claim that the ORIGIN of living organisms was designed and that extant organisms have evolved from that starting point(s).Joseph_{October 24, 2011
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William J Murray
Unless you are going to deny that humans intelligently design things, ID is not only a valid theory (as in: arson, murder, cryptography, forensics), it is an indisputable fact.
Sorry if I wasn't clear: The issue is not whether any object can be intelligently designed. The issue is the ID proponents' claim that all extant biological life was intelligently designed. That is the claim which currently is an unsupported hypothesis. It's not anywhere even close to being a scientific theory.GinoB_{October 24, 2011
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That’s the problem right there. ID proponents started with the religiously motivated conclusion that ID is the correct explanation, and have been working backwards, twisting and ignoring facts, trying to justify the conclusion. That’s not science.
Whether or not that is what ID proponents do, and whether or not that is their motivation, is entirely irrelevant to the fact that one cannot pursue investigation into the nature of any designer until one establishes that a designer likely had a hand in the cause in question. If we agree that some things require an intelligent designer as part of their necessary and sufficient explantion (computers, battleships), and we agree that some things require scientific investigation before one can tell if they require ID as part of the causal explanation (arson, murder, archaeology), then we agree that there must be some acceptable means by which to make such distinctions. Is anthropic intuition/recognition of design ("it looks like design to me") acceptable? From your discourse so far, I'd say "no" is the answer. What, then, do you propose one use in making the distinction between "natural causes" and "artificial causes" (ID)?
There is no such thing as ID theory. Right now there is only a completely unsupported ID hypothesis. Not to say the ID hypothesis can’t be researched, but to date no one has provided any sort of positive evidence that indicates ID to the exclusion of natural non-intelligent processes.
Unless you are going to deny that humans intelligently design things, ID is not only a valid theory (as in: arson, murder, cryptography, forensics), it is an indisputable fact. The only question about ID is whether a particular<cite? phenomena / artifact requires ID as part of its causal explanation or not.William J Murray_{October 24, 2011
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kelly holmes:
But you can’t actually tell me any specific empirical evidence that tells me a single thing about the designer, how the design was implemented, when it was implemented or anything at all.
Which proves ID is not a scientific dead-end as it is obvious there are questions to be answered by reaching a design inference. Ya see kelly, reality dictates that in the absence of direct observation or designer input, the only possible way to make any scientific determination about the designer(s) or specific process(es) used, is by studying the design in question. And THAT is what ID is about- the detection and study of the design. That said your position has had the man-power and the resources and hasn't produced anything. Perhaps you should focus on your position...Joseph_{October 24, 2011
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Can your position even muster a testable hypothesis? Could you produce it here?Joseph_{October 24, 2011
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GinoB:
ID proponents started with the religiously motivated conclusion that ID is the correct explanation, and have been working backwards, twisting and ignoring facts, trying to justify the conclusion.
That is just plain ole ignorant- 1) The design inference has nothing to do with religion and 2) the design inference is only achieved after your position has been considered and found incapable and some specification is met. Also IDists have provided plenty of positive evidence for the design inference. Strange that you cannot produce anything to falsify the design inference- for example by actually stepping up and producing positive evidence for your position.Joseph_{October 24, 2011
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William J Murray
Before any investigation into the nature of a putative designer can begin (by whatever investigatory methodology that might call for), one must first reach the conclusion that the best explanation for a phenomena is ID.
That's the problem right there. ID proponents started with the religiously motivated conclusion that ID is the correct explanation, and have been working backwards, twisting and ignoring facts, trying to justify the conclusion. That's not science.
What ID theory is about, is identifying (as best provisional explantion) cases of ID. From that point there may be many investigatory paths to pursue.
There is no such thing as ID theory. Right now there is only a completely unsupported ID hypothesis. Not to say the ID hypothesis can't be researched, but to date no one has provided any sort of positive evidence that indicates ID to the exclusion of natural non-intelligent processes.GinoB_{October 24, 2011
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In Denton, however, the whole evolutionary process is end-directed, and the production of man is the end. The universe is, as it were, an extended computer program for the production of man.
Teilhard de Chardin took that a step further in "The Phenomenon of Man." What Denton and Chardin have in common is the understanding that the history of life is the same whether viewed from the point of view of a theist or of a methodological materialist.Petrushka_{October 24, 2011
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Before any investigation into the nature of a putative designer can begin (by whatever investigatory methodology that might call for), one must first reach the conclusion that the best explanation for a phenomena is ID. What ID theory is about, is identifying (as best provisional explantion) cases of ID. From that point there may be many investigatory paths to pursue. Earlier, you issued this challenge:
So, tell me KF, what advantage does allowing the divine foot in the door bring? Give me a *single* example of that advancing the cause of human knowledge? Just a *single* example. Go on, dare you.
The examples are too numerous to mention, because virtually all modern science (up until relatively recently) was conducted from the premise of a "divine foot"; that the universe was lawfully and rationally ordered by god, and that humans had the bestowed and correlational capacity to investigate and comprehend this rationally ordered cosmos - something that materialist atheism doesn't have any grounds for as an a priori. The "divine foot" provides a reason for the ensuing categorical methodology, which was unavailabe in other kinds of cultures, which accounts for explosion of progress in science and technology under rational Christianity. Biological features were "backwards engineered" to understand the design theory and purpose of the phenomena, and still are today even if scientists attempt to avoid design language and inferences. The idea that something is designed provides an entirely different investigatory heuristic that the idea that things are just happening haphazardly, chaotically or by the intentions of billions of willful, invisible entities; even the concept of a "physical law" comes from the heuristic that a prescriptive, invisible, universal force operates "at a distance" and guides predictable behavior throught the cosmos. As another example, if we find an object on a planet we discover, how would one know if it was a natural object, or a designed one, without some sort of metric that made a scientific distinction? Would we appeal to instinct, anthropic recognition by comparison to our own artificial artifacts? Think of the different kinds of investigations that would ensue depending on the finding of "natural" or "artificial"; from the former, we spend decades attempting to explain the artifact in terms of natural causes,and from the latter we might attempt to understand the design theory, reverse engineer the object, and even attempt to find clues to the location or nature of those who created it. More broadly than that, the understanding that such an object is natural, compared to the understanding that it is a designed, artificial object, have radically different effects on our understanding of ourselves and aspects of our existence. If we find intelligent design to be necessary causal factors both for life and the structure of the cosmos, then that has a tremendous impact in and of itself on every aspect of human existence, including scientific investigation, even if we never find the identity of the designer.William J Murray_{October 24, 2011
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Onlookers (and KH): I have a moment to respond on points to several key remarks by KH in this thread, for record and reference. In steps on snippets -- please refer above for context: 1: KH, 24.1: if you want to redefine science to allow the divine foot in the door you are free to do so. All you have to do is give *a single example* of that explaining something that materialistic science cannot. Then scientists around the world, seeing the fruitfulness of your methodology will copy you and you’ll get the worldwide revolution that you want. This is, right from get-go, a strawman caricature of the real issue. As I have discussed and repeatedly linked here, science historically -- cf. Newton's discussion of scientific methods in Opticks Query 31 (and its explicitly Biblical context of design thought under the Creator of the cosmos!) -- is a progressive pursuit of the empirical observation anchored warranted credible truth of our world, based on making observations, inferring best -- and unfettered -- current explanations, deducing and testing further consequences and resulting in a progressive cycle of theories across time. But, in our time Lewontinian a priori materialism, usually disguised under the theme that "science can only explain by NATURAL[istic!] causes" has censored that search for the unfettered truth, leading to institutionalising materialism under the false colours of science. In addition, KH is insistently ignoring the premise that the issue of science is that it investigates on EMPIRICAL observations, on signs that point to patterns and causal factors. Ever since Plato, and beyond, it has been notorious that material/natural causal factors [chance and necessity] and intelligent/artificial factors exist and leave characteristic signs. So the rhetorical contrast natural vs supernatural is suppressing discussion of the real one to be examined: nature vs art, on empirical traces that point reliably to the presence of chance, necessity and intelligence. The proper approach, KH, is not to try to bar the door against a Divine Foot by imposing materialistic censorship on scientific findings, but to freely study signs that point to chance, necessity and art, aspect by aspect for an object, phenomenon, process etc. And this is routinely done in all sorts of scientific fields of endeavour, pure and applied. So, the problem is to remove a recently imposed censorship, not to set up and knock over strawmen the materialist censors in lab coats want us to focus on. And when it comes to explanations, observe the utter breakdown of materialistic attempts to explain the origin of life, and the strong signs that our material cosmos is the product of design. 2: It seems to me that when I ask “well, how does ID explain the origin of bodyplans” you say “It was designed, all the signs point to it”. So if you allow that divine foot in the door you can then add the detail “It was designed by god”. As has been repeatedly pointed out to you -- and plainly willfully ignored -- modern design theory, from its outset in Thaxton et al, TMLO, 1984, has explicitly accepted that we can detect on empirically reliable sign that cell based life as we observe it was ceredibly designed, but that does not by itself warrant the conclusion that the relevant designer[s] is/are within or beyond the cosmos. A molecular nanotech lab a few generations beyond Venter would be sufficient. That you and ilk have to keep trying to set up a godddit strawman is telling on the real agenda, the selfsame that insists on imposing a priori materialism and dressing it in a lab coat to demand our genuflection. 3: So, tell me KF, what advantage does allowing the divine foot in the door bring? Give me a *single* example of that advancing the cause of human knowledge? Just a *single* example. Go on, dare you. Strawman again. If you refuse to accept that the removal of a worldview level question-begging a priori imposition of materialism that censors science from freely pursuing the truth about our world in light of empirical evidence is not an improvement, there is little hope that we can help you. We can only expose and hold up the consequences as an illustration of why this a priori materialism is so destructive to the process of science. 4: 25: s the reason why you are so reluctant, going off into multiple diversions, to talk about the actual “design” in “Intelligent design” and how it was done? As you really think it was god but know that saying such makes a mockery of the idea that the designer is not the Christian God? Onlookers, of course, I have long since pointed to a whole theory of design and invention out there that KH and ilk studiously ignore. Namely, TRIZ. When it comes to the designer of life on earth, the direct evidence in the cell points to design, but not the identity of a designer. That is why a scientific investigation of that narrow problem will stop with that conclusion. Just as, an initial forensic study can conclude arson, without knowing the arsonist. The fixation on debating goddit on the part of KH and co is of course a wedge rhetorical issue, since there is in our day a large body of people who have been polarised against God. Appeal to prejudice is effective rhetoric but it is poor science and worse science education. What is being conveniently neglected is that there are two major origins foci for design theory, cell based life and the cosmos. When we raise our eyes to look at the latter, we see that there is strong reason to infer that our cosmos had a beginning, so is contingent and even through a multiverse requires a necessary being as root cause, per logic of cause. In addition, it turns out that the observed cosmos is at a credibly highly fine-tuned operating point that would become radically inhospitable to C-chemistry, aqueous medium cell based life with relatively minor fractional changes. That points to design of the cosmos by a powerful, intelligent, skilled necessary being, powerful enough and intelligent enough to be the architect and maker of the known cosmos. One that from the steps taken, would be intent on creating a cosmos habitable for cell based life. In that context, it is reasonable to infer that the best explanation for the design we see in the cell, directly or indirectly is the same, responsible for design of the cosmos. Beyond this, we have really crossed over the borders into a worldviews level discussion, one in which it is fair comment to say that Judaeo-Christian theism can hold its own. But that is not the focus for this blog. 5: Perhaps you could show me where in the work of sending Apollo to the moon [by Wernher von Braun] divine causes were referenced? If you can’t what possible relevance does his beliefs have? A capital example of setting up an out of context strawman to knock over, distracting attention from a serious ad hominem attack that creates a climate of contempt and bigotry. The context is that in the infamous 1997 NYRB article, Lewontin snidely dismisses fundamentalists by making reference to a woman who said that since she could not get even Dallas on her TV, she doubted that there was real TV broadcast of the moon landings. in reply, I pointed out how this is a misrepresentation: von Braun, the man who sent the rocket to the Moon, was a Christian and a Creationist; a direct proof that such are not all ignorant or stupid or insane etc. Instead of acknowledging the point and calling for fair-mindedness, KH tries to pivot the issue into a talking point on a priori materialism in science. That speaks volumes on his attitude and none of it good. I have already pointed out the pernicious effects of a priori materialism imposed on science so I need not go over that again. 6: and I don’t expect a short answer to this nor an answer actually relevant to the question asked but here goes anyway: What changes once “materalist science” allows “a divine foot in the door”? What will we investigate and say “oh, we can’t invesitgate that any more as that’s divine”? The issue is that science must not be censored, or it sacrifices its integrity. And, the second issue is that the proper contrast in empirically based investigations is natural vs artificial, instead of the rhetorically polarised and loaded natural vs supernatural. So, the question is scientific integrity, vs its sacrifice on the altar of materialism. 7: Is the designer not study-able because of sciences refusal to allow the divine into science? If so then you’ve obviously already decided the “designer” is in fact god. When it could well be aliens, remember? Pathetic. Again, and again, we see snide repetition of the same already adequately answered points. This utter unresponsiveness joined to scornful superciliousness is the mark of indoctrination speaking, not a serious discussion on the part of KH. Just to sum up one more time: the issue is that science must not censor its investigations on a priori materialism or any other censoring a priori. Instead it must be free to examine the empirical facts and seek explanations for the traces of the deep past in particular based on the reliable signs of natural and artificial causes, which are equally empirical. _____________ We could go on and on, but this is already repetitious, showing that the basic problem is already cogently addressed. KH needs to see the pernicious effects of imposing a priori materialism on scientific investigations, thus dressing the self-referentially incoherent, self refuting and necessarily false worldview of materialism in the holy lab coat and demanding genuflection. GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{October 24, 2011
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Elizabeth: Some footnotes to your "last word" above (on the previous page; there was no reply tab to nest this reply). 1. Yes, I know that in one part of your reply you appeared to grant my point that ID might be possible without tinkering, but in another part of your reply, you said in apparently unequivocal terms: "If ID is true, something tinkered." It was that I was objecting to. 2. Re Margulis, if we are trying to understand her thought, and not yours, the issue is not what you consider to be the essence of neo-Darwinian theory, but what Margulis considers to be the essence of it. She sets forth that essence and then repudiates it. There isn't any doubt on this point. Read the sources that I gave you. I don't think you should defend your statement any further until you have done so. In any case, it is not the label, but the substance of the thought that is important. I have read a number of posts now of yours on evolutionary theory. I have a pretty good idea of how you think evolution works. Margulis is saying that evolution does not work in the way that you think it does. She is saying that the causes that you think are sufficient to generate substantial evolutionary novelty are nowhere near sufficient to do so. Again, read the sources I pointed you to. 3. The history of teleological thought goes back to the ancient Greeks. I am well versed in this history, from ancient times to modern, and I have translated some of the key Greek passages on the subject. (This is one of my areas of academic expertise, as neurology is one of yours.) Teleology pertains to ends or purposes. A teleological evolutionary theory would be an evolutionary theory in which nature drives towards ends. "Ends" does not mean mere outcomes, however stable or functional; it contains within it the idea of, at a maximum, purpose or plan (as in Paley), and at a minimum, of a natural resting point where potentiality has reached its fitting actuality (as in Aristotle/Aquinas). There is thus inherent in teleology the notion the fixedness of a goal which processes eventually reach. That is not what Gaylord Simpson (who had certainly read Monod) means by the term "teleonomy" -- he does not believe there are purposes, plans or fixed goals directing the evolutionary process. I know because I have just finished reading his book. You accuse me of simply defining Darwinian as non-teleological. This is a false accusation. I am a well-trained scholar, and I don't argue by such means. I have read Darwin very closely. His theory is inherently anti-teleological, when the word "teleological" is being used properly, and not in the loose and sloppy way that you are employing it. This is an empirical result of my reading of Darwin, not some a priori definition I imposed on Darwin. I have also read enough of Gaylord Simpson, Dawkins and other Darwinians to know that their view of evolution is also non-teleological. Again, that does not come from any definition that I imposed on them; it comes from reading their works. I can't take the time here to go over all the literature in the history and philosophy of biology. If you aren't inclined to take my word for it that the overwhelming consensus of the historians and philosophers of biology is that Darwinian theory is non-teleological, you will have to do things the slow way and read the thousands of pages that I have read on this subject over my lifetime. In Denton, however, the whole evolutionary process is end-directed, and the production of man is the end. The universe is, as it were, an extended computer program for the production of man. The unfolding all takes place through natural causes, but the end is inevitable -- man or something very close to man. Denton's account is a teleological account, in the strict and proper sense of the word. It's not up to me to discuss or elaborate the meaning of the term "teleonomic." Whether or not Darwinian evolution is "teleonomic" is not an issue I raised. What I said was that Darwinian evolution was non-teleological, and that is correct. T.Timaeus_{October 23, 2011
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Thank, Timaeus. Just a few comments, not intended to be "the last word" but not expecting a response either! "That there is evolution, that there is differential reproduction, that there is selection — they accept. " And that is what I mean by "Darwinian". I agree that the "way of handling" these concepts has changed radically, but I do not see that the basic Darwinian (as I call it) principle, namely that self-replication with heritable variation in reproductive success is violated by anything proposed by Shapiro or Margulis, whatever terms they may use. I do not insist that ID must involve "tinkering" - in fact I specifically laid out testable ID models, tinkering and non-tinkering, and questioned why they are not tested. I still do not think you have adequately distinguished between the concept of teleonomy and "inbuilt teleology", or indeed explained what you mean by "inbuilt teleology". It seems to me that you are defining "Dawinian" evolution as "non teleological" and then therefore calling any evolutionary theory that seems "teleological" as "non-Darwinian". My view is that this is fallacious. The essence of Darwin's theory (or what I am referring to as the essence - he got much wrong in his "handling" of it) is, as I've said, that if an entity self-replicates with heritable variance in reproductive success to its environent , it will adapt to that environment. This is self-evidently true, and as true when the entity is a population as when it is a population of populations in an environment of environments. Moreover, this process has what I would call "inbuilt teleology" in that it leads to the evolution of "functions" that serve the intrinsic "purposes" of survival and fecundity. At the population level those "functions" may include mechanisms for optimising reproductive fidelity (including repair mechanism) and, indeed mechanisms like recombination that lead to optimal kinds of novel variants. Only if we refuse to grant this "inbuilt teleology" to Darwinian theory on some exogenous principle can we call this "non-Darwinian". And there are, in my view, no grounds to do so. That is why Monod uses the word "teleonomy". Unless you can clearly distinguish between "inbuilt teleology" and "teleonomy", and show that the evolution of life exhibits the former rather than the latter, I must beg to differ :) Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{October 23, 2011
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Elizabeth: Thank you for your latest reply. I won't tax you with another extremely long answer, and I won't reply to you point by point, but I want to make a few last points before I exit, and then you can have the last word if you wish. You wrote: "In other words there is nothing non-Darwinian about Shapiro or Margulis..." NOTHING non-Darwinian? This is false. There is much that is non-Darwinian in each of them. There is an extensive interview with Margulis in Chapter 18 of *The Altenberg 16*. She there offers a scathing criticism of the neo-Darwinian (Modern Synthesis) explanation of evolutionary novelty and of other positions that have been taken by Darwinians over the years. You can find similar views expressed in her interview in *Discover Magazine*: http://discover.coverleaf.com/discovermagazine/201104?pg=68#pg70 (Note in passing Margulis's statement that ID is correct in its criticism of neo-Darwinism. This is significant as she totally rejects ID conclusions. It indicates that in her view ID understands what neo-Darwinism is about.) I think that Lynn Margulis, who has been a major contributor to evolutionary theory, understands what terms like "Darwinian" and "neo-Darwinian" mean quite well. It is with full consciousness of what they mean that she criticizes them, and quite radically. Shapiro also clearly has some significant differences with neo-Darwinism, as is clear from his new book, as you will see if you read it. One doesn't speak of a "new paradigm" of evolution if one is merely putting finishing touches on neo-Darwinism. One doesn't speak of the "ad hoc assumption" of random mutation if one is deeply committed to the Modern Synthesis. And his book explores new possibilities of evolutionary mechanism that go in directions unimagined by the neo-Darwinians, and in key ways attacks the gene-centered model of evolution. To say that there is "nothing" non-Darwinian in Shapiro is to say something that is simply false. It is possible that you are using the terms "Darwinian" and "neo-Darwinian" differently from the way that I (and all ID supporters) use them. I take my usage from the leading figures -- Gaylord Simpson, Dawkins, Margulis, Shapiro, etc. And in that usage, Dawkins is a classic neo-Darwinian, and Margulis is implacably opposed to that classic neo-Darwinian view, and Shapiro wants to go well beyond it. If you want to use the term "Darwinian" more loosely, to mean something like "modern evolutionary theory" (and thus to include things like evo-devo, etc.), you can do as you please; but everything I have said is true within my usage of the term. Of course I am not arguing anything as stupid as that Margulis and Shapiro reject every single proposition accepted by Darwinian evolutionary theory. I am saying that they reject enough of it that their respective evolutionary theories can no longer be called Darwinian, without seriously misrepresenting their character. That there is evolution, that there is differential reproduction, that there is selection -- they accept. But the characteristic neo-Darwinian way of handling those facts to explain evolutionary novelty and evolutionary change -- the way of Mayr, Dobzhansky, etc., -- they see as seriously defective, to the point where it must be either mostly abandoned (Margulis), or significantly demoted in importance in relationship to other approaches (as in Shapiro). The main point where I would continue to correct you is your continued insistence that ID requires "tinkering". It does not. I'll tell you one more time: read Michael Denton, *Nature's Destiny*. He offers a version of intelligent design which requires no tinkering. And Behe wrote a glowing endorsement of the book. Behe has also denied that tinkering is required. He has said that "design" is required, but he has never argued that design requires tinkering. It *might* involve tinkering. It can *allow* for tinkering. It does not *require* tinkering. I do not know why you continue to repeat this point, when the ID people are telling you in their writings that you have misunderstood what they are claiming. But I don't have time to argue with you about it any further. You ask me for clarification about "inbuilt teleology." No, I do not mean teleonomy. I have just finished reading Gaylord Simpson's final book on evolution, and there he has a lengthy discussion of teleonomy, and it is not what I am talking about. Again, read Michael Denton. Another version of inbuilt teleology in evolution (though less deterministic than in Denton's scheme) can be found in Mike Gene's notion of an evolutionary "nudge." It is also possible that some of the theories of self-organization which are now floating around (e.g., in some of the Altenberg group) will eventually be formulated in teleological language. None of these views are Darwinian. Again, as someone who has read Darwin extremely closely, I repeat: Darwin is intensely and inherently anti-teleological in his outlook. Similarly, all the classic neo-Darwinists -- Mayr, Dobzhansky, and Gaylord Simpson, and later doctrinaire Darwinians such as Dawkins, and maverick Darwinians such as Gould, are all anti-teleological. The hostility between any Darwinian or quasi-Darwinian view of evolution and teleology is inescapable. ID is compatible with teleological evolution. It is not compatible with Darwinian evolution. (Or, put more carefully, ID is not compatible with Darwinian evolution as the main driver of macroevolutionary change; it can of course allow Darwinian mechanisms an ancillary role -- as does Behe.) T.Timaeus_{October 23, 2011
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Regarding your first point, you have to distinguish between ID as a coherent theoretical position and a whole host of things which ID enthusiasts might say about ID. If you want to see ID as a coherent theoretical position, I would recommend that you focus mainly on the writings of Behe, on Dembski’s No Free Lunch, on Dembski and Wells’s Design of Life, on Denton’s Nature’s Destiny, and on some of the articles on the Discovery web site where a short, pithy definition of ID is articulated. Remember that on an open-for-comments website such as UD, you get comments from scores of people, some of who know the ID literature extremely well, and others who know it less well, and you get comments from scores of people whose interest is more in religious apologetics than in theories of design detection. So in some of the comments here you are bound to get a blurring between design theory proper and religious applications of design theory, just as on some other websites you will get a blurring between arguments for evolution and anti-religious polemics allegedly based on evolution. You have to take the time to sort out the core assertions of ID from the peripheral material.
I understand this, Timaeus, but thank you for the reminder.
That said, there are many commenters here who understand the core assertions of ID very well, including Vincent Torley, Gil Dodgen, scordova, nullasalus, Cudworth, and StephenB, to name just a few. So if you follow the posts and comments of people such as that, along with the core readings suggested above, you and I should end up on the same page regarding what ID is.
OK.
It is possible to assert ID without raising battle-cries against atheism and without launching into Christian apologetics. Those of us who have studied the history of philosophy and the history of science in some depth know that the modern debate between ID and Darwinian theory has ancient pre-Christian parallels. We have in the debates between the Epicureans, on one hand, and the Platonists, Aristotelians, and Stoics, on the other hand, many passages which (adjusting for the archaic scientific vocabulary) look as if they could have been pulled out of ID-Darwinist debates. The Epicureans argued that it was perfectly plausible that complex order, including the order of living things, could have come about through the unguided interaction and combination of blind, non-foresighted particles, and the others argued that this was nonsense, that order on the highest level cannot come from disorder, that a designing mind must have been involved, etc. And none of the participants in these debates had read Genesis or were concerned to attack or defend the Bible. So if you want to understand the theoretical core of ID, think of those pre-Christian debates. What ID does is to update the anti-Epicurean side, and what The Modern Synthesis does is to update the Epicurean side. The Bible and Christian theology ought to be kept out of it, as far as the basic theoretical debate goes.
Yes indeed. I completely agree. I have actually never argued that ID is fallacious because it isn’t science, or because it is religion in disguise. I have, however, argued, and continue to argue, that it is bad science and arises from fallacious reasoning! In many cases it also attacks a straw man version of evolution. More formally: it misstates the null hypothesis.
And in ID at its theoretically most pure, this is exactly what we find: the Bible and Christian theology are kept out of it. You don’t find arguments from the Bible or theology in Behe’s books, for example, or in No Free Lunch by Dembski. And when Darwin is criticized by Behe or Denton, he is not criticized for being an atheist (which he probably wasn’t, anyway), or for being responsible for Hitler or eugenics or the moral depravity of modern America, etc.; he is criticized for proposing a flawed evolutionary mechanism. (Of course, by that mechanism they have in mind not simply Darwin’s ideas, but Darwin’s ideas as updated and polished by the Modern Synthesis.) So you have to keep your eye on the ball, and ignore the extraneous religious flak. If you want to disagree with Behe or Dembski about this or that biological claim, that’s fine. But don’t try to characterize ID as a doctrine of divine tinkering, when its core theoretical writings do not argue for or discuss divine tinkering.
But here is the problem as I see it, Timaeus, and why your admirable efforts to distinguish ID qua science and ID qua religious argument won’t do. What ID conspicuously lacks is a testable hypothesis. There is one (“frontloading”) but I don’t see much enthusiasm for testing it, which is odd, because it makes clear differential predictions from evolutionary theory, and a positive finding would require major adjustments to, if not abandonment of, evolutionary theory. But even then, ID would lack a mechanism by which any designer (even if we allow for the possibility of a disembodied mind) actually implemented his/her/its design. That’s where the “divine tinkering” part comes in. If ID is true, something tinkered. If you don’t want to call it “divine” fine, but if we postulate that it was not divine that raises two obvious follow up questions: where are the traces of the tinkering mechanisms, and what designed the tinkerer? Those questions vanish if the tinkerer is postulated to be non-divine, but in that case, where is the research? And if the tinkerer is postulated to be divine (as, in fact, Dembski postulates), then we are back to where we started.
Second, regarding your statement that you are entitled to express any theological opinion that you want, I agree. So if you object to “God as tinkerer” — though it is unclear to me why such a view would bother you, since, if I understand previous statements you have made elsewhere, you don’t believe in God in the first place — you can of course protest this notion.
Well, given a coherent theology, I might reconsider! But the theology I used to have was pretty coherent, I think. But I found a flaw.
But it is pointless to bring up the inadequacies of God as tinkerer as a criticism of ID when ID as such does not affirm God as tinkerer. Denton has explicitly denied that God tinkers, and Behe, when the question has been put to him directly, has denied that tinkering is a necessary implication of ID.
But if ID is to make progress at science, then tinkering and non-tinkering hypotheses should, and can, be tested. Behe is inconsistent on that as far as I can tell. He seems to accept common descent, but maintains that some variants needed designer help. So he seems to belong to the Tinkerer school. Meyer, I’m not sure, but he seems prepared to accept that Darwinian mechanisms work, as long as you have Darwinian-capable starting population (with which I would agree) but maintains that the simplest Darwinian-capable starting population must be as complex as a modern cell, and couldn’t have arisen by chance. I agree with the last part, but the first part of his argument is not clearly demonstrated to me, and progress in OOL research would suggest he is wrong. More to the point, it puts him in the: Designer as Seed Planter school. Again, unless we postulate a divine designer, that hypothesis leads directly to questions about both implementation of the Seeding process, and the designer of the designer.
If an individual ID proponent, speaking for himself as a religious believer, affirms that God is a tinkerer, then you can of course sensibly raise your objection then. But such an objection is irrelevant if you are pretending to characterize ID as a pure theoretical position.
Any “pure theoretical position” taken by a scientist remains completely speculative unless it makes testable predictions that are then tested and found to be supported. That’s been the big criticism launched at String Theory, for instance. Theoretical Science is sometimes useful, and Theoretical Physicists are awesome, but they aren’t ultimately any use to anyone unless you can derive a testable hypothesis from the theory. And that’s where ID sticks (well, there are some other stickinesses IMO, but I’ll leave those for now): if allows for a non-divine designer then testable hypotheses can be readily derived, but ID proponents refuse to produce them, claiming that ID is only about design detection, not about “the identity of the designer”; but the only reasonable justification for not going further is if you think your designer is undetectable i.e. divine
The correct formulation is in fact that ID does not exclude the possibility of divine tinkering, but does not require it. A designer could achieve his end either by constantly modifying a pre-existing design, but could also set things up so that the design would unfold by an automatic process. So the designer could be something like a tinkerer, but could also be something like a computer programmer. Denton’s designer is a sort of cosmic computer programmer, with the set of evolutionary outcomes being the output of the program.
OK, but in that case, why not test those alternate hypotheses? They make different predictions after all.
You wrote: “Yes, you do have “one possible interpretation of evolution from an ID perspective”. It’s the very one I suggested myself in my post you quoted. However, that interpretation does not emerge from, for example, Dembski’s argument, and does, interestingly, emerge from Darwin’s, who famously said: “‘There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.’ “The ID case, as I understand it, is that Darwinian evolutionary processes cannot account for the evolution of “endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful” from “so simple a beginning”. I think that case is fundamentally flawed.” There is confusion here. The form of evolution that I was indicating was Dentonian. You here identify what I was talking about with Darwin’s form of evolution. But the two are quite different, even though in both cases only natural causes are involved. The Dentonian form is driven by an inbuilt teleology, whereas the Darwinian form is resolutely anti-teleological, both in its original Darwinian form and in its later version in the Modern Synthesis. Keep in mind that ID in its pure form is not anti-evolutionary but only anti-Darwinian. The debate between ID and Darwinism is not over evolution but over teleology. (And yes, I know, there are many ID proponents who are not just anti-Darwin but also anti-evolution. But anti-evolutionism is merely compatible with ID, not essential to ID. Again, one must keep one’s eye on the pure theoretical position.)
Please explain exactly what you mean by “driven by an inbuilt teleology”. Because “inbuilt teleology” sounds remarkably like Monod’s “teleonomy” which is of course what Darwinian evolution is all about.
So yes, ID proponents do deny the capacity of Darwinian processes to accomplish the results claimed for them; but this is not an inherently anti-evolutionary position, since non-ID evolutionary biologists like Margulis and Shapiro also deny the same thing. That’s all I have to say about the mischaracterization of ID. I now turn to your response to my final point, about the nature of modern science.
I think there is a straw man lurking here. Margulis and Shapiro have serious and valid criticism of the application of Darwin’s theory solely to the level of the organism. What they do is apply it also to the level of the population. Rightly so, in my view, and this expands the original Darwinian notion to a nested Darwinian system where “replication with heritable variance in reproductive success in a given environment” at the organism level is mirrored at the population level by “persistence with heritable variance in successful adaptation to new environments”, so that it is not merely organism-survival-enhancing functions that are “selected” but also population-survival-enhancing functions. In other words there is nothing non-Darwinian about Shapiro or Margulis, but both do have highly pertinent challenges to traditional applications of it. Which are, at least at a theoretical level, largely accepted as valid.
You wrote: “Science is all about finding regularities in the universe, not about accounting for every single individual phenomenon. We know why meteor craters form. We cannot trace the trajectory of a single meteor.” Two points. First, your first sentence is true of experimental or “operational” science; it is not true for historical sciences such as cosmology, geology and evolutionary biology. The latter necessarily affirm the occurrence of particular contingent events, and cannot dispense with detailed accounts of how those events might have happened. Second, even in the case of experimental or operational sciences, while it is not necessary to trace particular causal paths in all cases, it certainly is necessary to do so in some cases. For example, when scientists concern themselves with predicting whether a certain rogue asteroid is going to hit the earth X years from now, and contemplate how a nuclear device might be sent up to intercept it, they must indeed be able to trace the trajectory of the of the rogue asteroid, and they can in principle do this using their knowledge of celestial mechanics. (For that matter, the same knowledge enables them to land craft safely on Mars within a few dozen feet of the projected target.)
Yes indeed, though I think it is misleading to draw too sharp a line between “historical” and “operational” science. All science is operational, and we can even make testable hypotheses about historical events (just as we can use operational forensic science techniques to establish what happened at a murder scene). But there is certainly a difference between research that, for example, establishes an exact lineage for human beings (almost certainly impossible - to use Dennett’s phrase, some things are “historically inert” – have lost all traces of their provenance), and research that establishes a likely trajectory for that lineage, passing near-but-not direct fossil/genetic ancestors on the way.
On your last point, I did not say that science excludes God. I said that the methodology of modern science excludes the consideration of supernatural interventions, so that, if supernatural interventions have in fact occurred, science could never know it. This is a built-in and inescapable blindness of the way science is done today. But in no way does this exclude God, because God might have chosen to work wholly through natural causes.
Yes indeed. I do not think that scientific methods can exclude God any more than they can demonstrate God. I do not think that atheism is, or can be, the inescapable conclusion of science.
Again, refer to the discussion of “tinkering” above. For God to guarantee a result under Darwinian evolution, he would have to tinker; but for God to guarantee a result under Dentonian evolution, he would not have to tinker. Modern science does not exclude a God who operates in the way that Denton suggests; it does exclude a tinkering God. And that exclusion cannot be justified by anything that modern science has “proved”. It is rather a postulate that modern scientists work from because they find it heuristically useful. And I don’t criticize that procedure, as long as modern scientists aren’t under the illusion that they have “proved” that the natural causal nexus is unbreakable. They have not proved and cannot prove such a thing. Philosophers and historians of science (who have often thought more deeply and reflectively about the nature of science than working scientists) have long been aware of this.
I think we agree fairly well on this.
I carry no brief for miraculous interventions in the evolutionary process, but biologists cannot show that such things could not have happened. What they can do is provide plausible wholly naturalistic scenarios, full hypothetical evolutionary pathways for the origin of major organs or bodily systems. The more such pathways they can describe, the stronger the case that supernatural intervention would not be necessary, and therefore would be an uneconomical hypothesis. Unfortunately for Darwinism, the fact is that there does not exist in the scientific literature even a single full (or anywhere *near* full) hypothetical evolutionary pathway such as I have called for.
Not “full” but pretty clearly indicated, just as a jigsaw puzzle with lots of pieces missing can still indicate very substantially what the picture is.
Thus, we have no demonstration that Darwinian processes, so pretty on paper when they are allowed to remain at high levels of generality such as “drift”, “mutation,” and “selection,” can actually do the job that they are required to do, which is not just to confer antibiotic resistance on a microbe, but to build a radically new body plan or system.
I often see this claimed, but I do not think it is supported. For a start, nobody claims that a single genetic change resulted in a “radical new body plan”. For a second, we know a lot about the evolution of genes that are implicated in developmental biology. The whole field of “evo devo” is burgeoning and is constantly delivering new insights. In my own field, we are starting to identify genes and alleles that govern such developmental processes as cortical folding. I simply do not accept the charge that there is something qualitatively different about the evolution of “body plans” that demands a different process from the evolution of, say antibiotic resistance, or a deeper beak.
ID people continue to remain skeptical that Darwinian processes can do that job. But skepticism about the biology of Mayr and Dobzhansky does not entail outright rejection of evolution itself. It means that it is unlikely that evolution could be driven wholly or even primarily by Darwinian processes. And on this point, ID people have been theoretically ahead of their Darwinian opponents, as the recent high-level criticisms of neo-Darwinism coming from the Altenberg group, from Shapiro and others shows.
Well, not exactly! People have been talking about the evolution of evolvability for years! Goodness, I remember putting my hand up in a high school biology class in the sixties and asking “could mutation rates have evolved?” And the biology teacher thought it perfectly possible. We both agreed that natural selection was just as logical at the level of the population as at the level of the organism. Anyway, nice to talk to you! Sorry I was so late with my response. Have a little more time this weekend for substantial replies to substantial posts! It seems we agree on quite a lot. But there is still plenty to argue about! Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{October 22, 2011
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PPS: Onlookers, you may find the ongoing discussion from here on helpful also.kairosfocus_{October 17, 2011
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Please, read the Weak Argument Correctives.kairosfocus_{October 17, 2011
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PS: Alinsky's distract, poison and dominate polarisation technique.kairosfocus_{October 17, 2011
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Onlookers: You will see above, that I gave KH an opportunity to examine what he did, and to reflect and correct himself. Sadly, he took opportunity of that invitation to redouble his rhetoric. It is thus now blatant that KH is not interested in reasonable discussion of issues on the merits, but in namecalling and the polarising trifecta rhetorical stratagem favoured by disciples of Saul Alinsky and his followers. THIS is what we are dealing with. In due course, I will take some time to take up what in the above is worth responding to -- by way of exposing and correcting [yes, gross and polarising error needs to be corrected] what is now blatantly materialist or materialism-influenced bigotry, talking points and prejudice sadly reminiscent of recent hate sites that have sprung up around UD. But, I suggest that in the meanwhile you will find my main responses anticipated in:
1: the UD Weak Argument Correctives that he simply will not read and reflect on soberly, 2: the ongoing UD series on ID foundations, and 3: the IOSE survey course
. . . which KH would be well advised to calm down and also read, ponder and heed. G'day, GEM of TKIkairosfocus_{October 17, 2011
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In what sense is the claim that the universe is not capable of forming a purpose "Scientism in action"? What evidence is there that it is? We do not otherwise attribute things without brains the capacity to devise a purpose - why should we attribute such a capacity to "the world"?Elizabeth Liddle_{October 17, 2011
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Elizabeth, Thank you for taking time to review my short essay from several years ago and providing your feedback. We may be talking past each other a bit with terminology, so I will endeavor to do a better job on that front. Let me point out, however, why I think your defense of Avida as a refutation of irreducible complexity is misplaced and why the main points of my original critique stand.
And thank you for taking the time to respond to my critique! This is the kind of civilised exchange of views that makes the internet worthwhile IMO. And I agree that terminology issues are important, and often crucial. So let me respond.
Programmed for Success I have argued that Avida was “programmed so that a slight, successive cumulative pathway” to the ultimate function existed. You have responded that all the changes were incremental (whether rewarded or not) “so there is no bias there.” The question is not one of bias toward functional states (which is a separate point I’ll discuss below). The question is whether a cumulative pathway exists. A large part of Behe’s point is that a cumulative pathway to a complex integrated system, such as a cilium, the bacterial flagellum, or the vertebrate eye, may not exist. Despite your protestations to the contrary, Avida does have a cumulative pathway built into the system, which may or may not reflect the real world.
Well, let’s be really clear on this. We both agree that in a Darwinian process, all changes are incremental. However, there are two aspects to this: one is whether genetic changes are all slight; the other is whether any viable changes to the phenotype that result from a genomic change will tend to be slight. These are not quite the same thing, as I’m sure you will agree. To take the question of genetic changes first. Even a slight genetic change may render the phenotype completely non-viable. For example if a gene vital to basic function is destroyed by a single insertion that shifts the reading from so that the resulting protein is nonsense, the resulting phenotype will not survive to maturity. So a slight genetic change can result in a radical phenotypic change. Moreover, radical phenotypic changes are far more likely to be disastrous than beneficial (I hope this is self-evident – if not, I will expand in a later post!) Therefore for mutations with any chance of propagating, whether by drift or because they confer some slightly reproductive advantage, the associated phenotypic changes will tend to be slight. However, some genetic changes can be huge, yet confer no, or little, phenotypic change at all. Wholesale duplication of long stretches of DNA can have no phenotypic effect whatsoever, yet are perfectly possible. So I think we can agree that Darwinian evolutionary processes must proceed by slightly phenotypic changes, though not necessarily the result of slight genotypic changes. And slight phenotypic changes that are also viable (are consistent with a successfully reproducing organism) will therefore tend to be near neutral (not disastrous, and rarely hugely beneficial). Therefore we would not expect to see, if the current evolutionary model is true, huge phenotypic changes that are beneficial in effect. We may see a huge increase in fitness resulting from a single beneficial change, but that is, I hope we agree, not the same thing. Now, Behe’s IC argument, is as you say, “that a cumulative pathway to a complex integrated system, such as a cilium, the bacterial flagellum, or the vertebrate eye, may not exist”. So what does he mean by “cumulative”? Does he mean, as I am pretty sure he means (because it makes sense!) that there is no series of incremental beneficial phenotypic changes that could have been precursors to the flagellum, or does he mean that there is no series, beneficial or otherwise, that could have been precursors to the flagellum, as perhaps you think? I suggest that the latter interpretation makes no sense. In no text of Behe that I have read does he argue that the proteins that make up the bacterial flagellum, could not have been made unless all the other proteins were also made, i.e. that a bacterium in which the gene for one of those proteins did not exist could not have manufactured the remaining proteins. It doesn’t make an biochemical sense. What he argues, explicitly, that if you disable any one of the genes that produce the flagellum, not only will the flagellum not work (hence it is “irreducibly complex” – you take away any one component and it ceases to work) but that no precursor state (some of the proteins made but not all), or, at least not enough precursor states, would have conferred any reproductive benefit, and therefore would not have propagated through the gene pool, or hung around there intact, until the remainder of the genes were in place. So I submit that Behe is not not arguing that IC structures are those for which no incremental phenotypic pathway exists (clearly any multipart structure can have independently manufactured parts), but that there is no phenotypic pathway in which each step confers increased reproductive success, whether by a minimally effective prototype of the “final” function (final as in the one we are interested in) or by serving some other useful purpose, as Matzke proposes. And in AVIDA we see that IC functions (e.g. EQU), while they are achieved, as they must, by way of incremental phenotypic changes (slight changes to the phenotype), they do not need to be changes that result in increased fitness, and can even include steps that result in reduced fitness. The changes certainly accumulate (overall – some steps may involve necessary deletions), but they do not have to accumulate by way of beneficial effects. Drift, in other words, is a potent factor in propagating neutral and even slightly deleterious changes, thus increasing the number of opportunities in which a necessary beneficial addition can convert the ashes of disaster to the roses of success (as the lovely Chitty Chitty Bang Bang song goes). This means that Nick Matzke’s proposal for a pathway consisting of beneficial steps, though intriguing, and possibly correct, is not actually necessary. We do not need to find a series of beneficial precursor steps to explain an IC structure. AVIDA shows us that many precursor steps can be neutral and even deleterious, and “IC” structures still evolve. In other words, you cannot identify any structure as IC. Thus AVIDA falsifies Behe’s entire argument.
The word “programmed” does not necessarily mean that the virtual organisms were caused to go from x to y at a particular point in time with a specific command line (although that would be one way of programming). “Programming” can also mean setting up conditions within the virtual world (in other words, within the program), whether those conditions attain inevitably or stochastically, for the population to get there. Why you don’t acknowledge that this pathway is included in Avida is strange, as the authors themselves acknowledge it: “Some readers might suggest that we ‘stacked the deck’ by studying the evolution of a complex feature that could be built on simpler functions that were also useful.” If the word “programmed” is problematic, then we can think of “established parameters” or some other term you find more appropriate. The bottom line is that the cumulative pathway is there; it exists within the virtual Avida world.
Yes, the authors set the thing up so that some complex functions could be built on simpler functions. Obviously. As they say in the sentence immediately after the one you quoted: “However, that is precisely what evolutionary theory requires, and indeed, our experiments showed that the complex feature never evolved when simpler functions were not rewarded. If no intermediate steps were beneficial, clearly the thing would not evolve. But nobody claims it would! What Behe claimed was that unless all the intermediate steps are beneficial, a feature is “IC” and therefore cannot evolve by Darwinian means. He then brought in the concept of “degrees” of IC (how many non-beneficial steps there could be on the pathway to a function and the thing still evolve), but as far as I know then backtracked on that. Last time I heard him he was back to his “mousetrap” version – if the removal of any part disables the function, the function is IC and can’t evolve. And not only were there many many non-beneficial necessary steps to evolve EQU, some of those were actually deleterious. So the thing was way more IC than Behe’s loosest definition. And yet it evolved.
So the authors are clearly aware that the program contains a cumulative pathway to the complex feature that can be built on simpler useful functions. Why would they be concerned that some readers would believe the deck was stacked? Because whether or not such cumulative pathways to complex systems exist in the real world is precisely the point in question. What is the authors’ response? “However, that is precisely what evolutionary theory requires . . .” We know what evolutionary theory requires. That is not at issue. What is at issue is whether the conditions evolutionary theory requires in fact attain in the real world. Using the authors’ logic, I can prove anything. This is very significant. I can come up with any theory, based on whatever wild or illogical parameters I want, and then write a program that “proves” my theory. All I have to do is include the parameters that my “theory requires.” Again, on such logic, nothing is out of bounds; I can prove literally anything.
My impression is that you are confused. Lenski et al tested a hypothesis, which was: given a rugged fitness landscape in which functions can only be reached by means of many neutral and even deleterious steps, can those functions evolve? And the answer is yes. They did not test the hypothesis: “given a landscape of features completely unconnected by any beneficial steps, can those features evolve?” because we know the answer to that is no. In fact, the No Free Lunch theorems tell us that – with no connections between functions, a random search will be as good as an evolutionary algorithm. Sure, if you want to falsify a Darwinian explanation for a complex feature by claiming there are NO beneficial intermediate steps, then fine. Go and find a complex feature for which there are NO beneficial intermediate steps. But not even Behe claimed that, even for his flagship flagellum. What he claimed was that when several non-beneficial mutations have to be in place before a fitness increase is gained, then the thing is IC and won’t evolve. Lenski et al showed that it can.
Whether or not evolutionary theory (in the sense of the Darwinian mechanisms we are discussing) is true is precisely the point at issue. We cannot write a program that includes – as the authors acknowledge – the parameters that are needed for the theory to be true, and then turn around later and pretend that the program has demonstrated the truth of the theory. It is entirely circular. It may be true that there is a cumulative pathway to complex features in the real world, but Avida cannot demonstrate it.
You seem to have the impression that the model was designed as a model of some biological system and so that if things could involve in the model, they could evolve in that biological system. This is not the case. The thing is not a model of a biological system. It’s a model of Darwinian processes. It makes no claim to be a model of any actual biological system. Nothing in the results of the experiment allow us to conclude that any given biological system could have evolved. Moreoever, it was not set up as a test of the hypothesis that complex functions could evolve in a landscape so rugged that no function had any beneficial intermediate step. Darwinian evolution simply does not work in that kind of landscape, as I said. And, indeed, they actually demonstrated this, but we knew that anyway. Darwin’s theory only works in a fitness landscape where there are some connections between functions, i.e. beneficial intermediaries. What it tested was the hypothesis that complex functions can evolve in a landscape rugged enough that the functions fulfil Behe’s criteria for being “IC”. And it turns out they can. As I keep saying! There is nothing circular about this at all. In fact you can use AVIDA to construct fitness landscapes of all kinds of degrees of ruggedness, and of course, the more rugged they are, the less likely the complex functions are to evolve. The interesting finding was that an IC landscape was traversable, contra Behe.
In fairness, let us pause at this point and consider the other side of the coin. As I said in my essay, “if a program were written that had no possible cumulative pathway, then the writers of that program could be fairly accused of assuming up front that the complex feature was irreducibly complex [note here that I am talking about IC in the sense of “per se irreducible complexity,” as mentioned in my paper]. Thus, evolutionary algorithms seem to be between a rock and a hard spot: assume a cumulative pathway and then you are unable to challenge irreducible complexity; assume there is no cumulative pathway and then you are unable to support irreducible complexity. And herein lies the crux of the matter. Evolutionary algorithms that assume a cumulative or non-cumulative pathway at the outset simply cannot, by definition, demonstrate whether the complex system is irreducibly complex. Such algorithms define themselves into irrelevance.”
You have made the mistake of categorising what is a continuum. In so doing you have committed the Fallacy of the Excluded Middle. A fitness landscape in which there is no pathway to any function that goes via a beneficial intermediary is a maximally rugged landscape. We know that Darwinian evolution will perform no better than random search in such a landscape. A fitness landscape, on the other hand, in which every function can be reached by a series of beneficial steps is so easily traversed that even a purely hill-climbing algorithm will do it, because to get to the functions, the population will never have to go downhill. Behe made the mistake of declaring IC any feature that could not be reached by a purely hill-climbing algorithm, and concluding that Darwinian evolution couldn’t reach it. What the Lenski paper shows is that a landscape can be considerably more rugged than the kind of tiered landscape in which every step to everywhere is beneficial (such as Weasel, in fact), and, in fact, include necessary treks over wide plateaus and even descents down deep ravines, and yet the functions still evolve. This is because Darwinian algorithms, unlike hill-climbing algorithms, can traverse rugged fitness landscapes, because they can take necessary neutral and deleterious steps as well as beneficial ones.
As a separate question, I posed to you the above hypothetical and asked whether such a program with no Darwinian pathway would invalidate the Darwinian hypothesis. You responded: “Well, no. All you would be able to conclude is that, given the parameters of your model, the thing is very unlikely to evolve. That conclusion is only as good as your model. The better (more realistic) your model, the more confident you might be that the thing in question really was unevolvable, but we can never rule out a missing parameter.” I am wholeheartedly in agreement that any “conclusion is only as good as your model.” What we need to refute Behe’s claim – the only thing that is adequate – is a faithful representation of what actually exists in the real world. And on that score, Avida leaves much to be desired.
No. All we need to refute Behe’s claim is evidence that Darwinian processes are capable of traversing rugged landscapes. He says, in effect, that they can’t, and that certain features, e.g. the bacterial flagellum sits on a peak in such a landscape. And so the rebuttal to the IC argument against a Darwinian explanation of the flagellum was couched (by Matzke) in terms of demonstrating that the landcape wasn’t really rugged. And Matzke may be correct. However, what Lenski showed is that even if Matzke is wrong, and even if Behe is right that the flagellum sits on a peak in a rugged landscape, we cannot conclude that it is unreachable by Darwinian means, because we now know that Darwinian means can reach such peaks.
Steps and Stumbling I argue that “relatively few changes are required to get from the initial organism to the complex feature.” You responded that: “Yes, it’s a model, written to establish a principle, that IC functions can evolve. Pathways to EQU ranged from 51 to 721 steps, over many thousand generations, although in principle (if intelligently directed!) it could have been done in 16 mutations. That should be indication in itself that no direction was provided.” Well, Avida may establish a principle. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear that the principle has any relevance to biotic reality. In addition, you seem to think that the “stumbling” is evidence that no direction was provided.
Well, if all you mean by “direction” is that the landscape wasn’t maximally rugged, then I guess it was “directed” but no more so than anyone is proposing for biological landscapes. And if you use the word “directed” in that sense, then the landscape in the natural world also “directs” evolution. I don’t mind whether you use the word or not, but if you use it for the virtual landscape you have to use it for real landscape because the kind of “direction” each provides is the same. But sure, the task now for those who would like to attempt to falsify the Darwinian explanation (always a worthwhile project) is to demonstrate that the actual biological landscape is too rugged for Darwinian processes to navigate. But the task is now harder, because we now know that considerable ruggedness poses no bar. Also proving a negative is always difficult.
“. . . the fact that it took them from between 51 and 721 mutations on the path to EQU, even though 16 mutations would have done it, is pretty good evidence of their “stumbling”. The[y] were helped on the way by only 8 rewarded steps, which tended to occur earlier than EQU, not surprisingly, given that they were simpler. Remember that the vast majority of mutations were either neutral or deleterious. Not surprising that they stumbled a bit.” Rather than being a vindication of the Darwinian mechanism, the real lesson from all this stumbling is that even with an easy function and a relatively short pathway to get there, the Darwinian mechanism is quite poor. The skeptic might therefore be forgiven for asking whether the stumbling might not in fact overwhelm the available resources, when translated to the real world, with functions much more difficult to achieve and pathways that may or may not exist.
Possibly. That’s why Lenski of course also conducts experiments with e-coli bacteria, and why so much lab and field work goes on with real organisms. But don’t underestimate (or misconstrue!) what the AVIDA study actually showed!
Function and Integration Another key problem with treating Avida as a refutation of Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity is that the Avida functions are too easy to attain. Behe highlights complex, integrated biological systems, like the bacterial flagellum, the cilium, the vertebrate eye. Each of these systems requires numerous proteins acting in concert, and that is ignoring the construction process itself, which is an astounding coordinated orchestra of chemical processes.
The AVIDA functions also involved multiple components acting together. That was the whole point – that’s what made them IC, because many of those components had to be acquired without conferring any benefit alone, and indeed, causing some reduction in fitness, in some cases. However, if you are now claiming that the ribosome system is IC, well, that’s another issue. Again, being IC, we now know, is not a bar to Darwinian evolution, but being very very very very ID, i.e. on a peak on a very rugged landscape, might be a problem. I don’t know much about theories of ribosome evolution (we are getting into OOL territory here), but I believe there are some. Certainly AVIDA won’t tell you just how rugged is too rugged for Darwinian evolution, nor of course how rugged any given real-world landscape is. But let’s stay on topic here. AVIDA didn’t solve every problem for evolutionary biology. But it did refute Behe’s principle. If Behe still wants to claim the flagellum is unevolvable he now has to take into account just how rugged a landscape can be and yet allow Darwinian mechanisms to reach the peaks. His old criteria (certainly the mousetrap) won’t work any more.
The Avida authors indicate that: “A single mutation distinguished the pivotal genotype from its parent in 19 populations, whereas four involved double mutations. The pivotal mutations included point mutations, insertions, a small duplication and even deletions.” Further, as you note, and as the authors describe: “The phylogenetic depth at which EQU first appeared ranged from 51 to 721 steps. In principle, 16 mutations, coupled with three instructions already present in the ancestor, could have produced an EQU-performing organism. The actual paths were much longer and highly variable, indicating the circuitousness and unpredictability of evolution leading to this complex feature.” Might the skeptic be permitted to ask whether this “complex feature” is even of the same order of magnitude as what we find in the real world?
By all means. But, as I said above, it is Behe’s principle that is falsified, not the principle that some things in biology are unevolvable. After all, in some AVIDA landscape, EQU was unevolvable. There are almost certainly some features that Darwinian mechanisms could never find (wheels in multi-cellular organisms for instance, would be my bet). And, lo and behold, they aren’t found!
How many “point mutations, insertions, small duplications and deletions” would be required to produce the systems Behe points to, which contain anywhere from dozens to hundreds of proteins acting in concert? Even assuming relatively simple proteins, we are talking about a minimum of hundreds, and likely many thousands, of “point mutations, insertions, small duplications and deletions”. Yet the ultimate Avida function, EQU, can be built with 16 mutations.
I don’t know, but Matzke has had a go at estimating them. Actually, I don’t think it was all that many from features that we know exist and which serve a beneficial function.
Avida thus ignores one of the key difficulties facing any Darwinian scenario: the difficulty of obtaining function.
No, it doesn’t! It modelled that. It had a genome that resulted in phenotypes and the phenotypes performed a function. It most certainly was not “ignored”.
By making the process orders of magnitude easier than in the real world, Avida unfortunately fails to replicate one of the key questions dogging Darwinian theory: whether chance processes would be able to stumble upon intermediate functions (or constituent parts of larger machines) in the first place.
But you are moving the goalposts here, Eric. I don’t know, and AVIDA doesn’t tell us, just how many neutral or deleterious necessary steps can intervene between one beneficial function and another and the second still evolve. What it does tell us is that, contra Behe, many can. Now what you need to do is to go out to the real world and try to count them (not an easy task, as there are many many potential pathways to any given function, as AVIDA shows, and, of course, many many ways of achieving that function, as, again, AVIDA showed, and we see in nature. But you will have to count higher than Behe did, because Behe put the number far too low.
Yet there remains an equally problematic issue: that of integration. Another key question is whether constituent parts, once they exist, can be successfully integrated into the whole. Avida completely assumes away this issue, effectively granting the organisms successful integration as soon as they come up with a successful operation. Think of it this way. Bacterium A somehow gets a new DNA sequence that codes for a functional protein (let’s assume, just so it is more believable to everyone, that this gene came from horizontal gene transfer from another bacterium, rather than arising through point mutations, replication errors or the like). Let’s further assume that the cellular machinery recognizes this gene as a legitimate gene (which is not as straight forward and certain as we have perhaps been inclined to believe in the past), translates the code and expresses the protein. Great, our cell has a new protein floating around. Now what?
Biochemistry.
In the real world it is not at all clear that the protein would perform a useful function in Bacterium A. Even if the protein has the raw capability to perform a function, it is not at all clear that the protein would be recognized by other cellular machinery, properly transported to the necessary location, and successfully integrated into a cellular machine. We simply don’t know whether this would happen in particular cases. It might be just as likely that the protein would languish, be broken down, or even gum up an existing process.
You’ve forgotten that severely deleterious mutations don’t even make it to replication. You’ve also forgotten that we are assuming that the thing is sitting on a viable spot of the landscape to begin with. And you’ve also forgotten, it seems, that in AVIDA, really quite deleterious (gum up the works deleterious) changes still propagated, providing opportunities for an ungumming change to come along and make it work. You are trying to add things that are already there, Eric! This is modelled. And if you want a real life example, read Matzke, noting that he may not even have had to try as hard as he did.
For example, if a cell somehow got a new gene to produce a dynein protein, on what basis would that protein help lead to a nascent cilium? Most proteins are significantly more complex than the intermediate operation instructions in Avida, and many additional proteins are needed, as well as a whole suite of integration and regulatory structures, in order to integrate the new protein into a working molecular machine. But in the Avida world, things are much simpler – conveniently so. Once an organism stumbles upon an intermediate operation, the integration takes place without any of the complexity or uncertainty extant in biotic reality.
Well, if you want to discuss real biology, let’s discuss Matzke’s paper. He’s around, so I’ll hand over to him. But right now we are discussing Lenski’s AVIDA paper and whether it refutes Behe’s principle, and it does. Now let’s see what the implications are for real-world biological systems.
Rewards Along the Way I mentioned that “A large part of evolutionary critics’ argument from irreducible complexity is that there is unlikely to be a functional advantage for intermediate steps.” You have pointed out that: “. . . if you follow their case study, you will read, explicitly, that a great many non-functional intermediate steps were taken along the path, including some very deleterious ones. So not only is it not true that “the Avida authors simply assume it away” but the[y] deliberately make sure that the pathways to the rewarded functions require unrewarded steps.” Further: “The authors did not set out to demonstrate [a sequence of advantageous mutations that lead to a function], which would indeed have been circular – to set up a functional feature that could be easily reached via a series of advantageous steps (like Weasel, in fact) and then claim that it proved that all functional feature could be reached by a series of advantageous steps (which Dawkins did not, of course, claim about Weasel). They set out to demonstrate that even if a functional feature could only be reached via necessary neutral and disadvantageous steps, it could still evolve.” This is an interesting point and one worth exploring. I acknowledge that my choice of wording in referencing a “beneficial continuum” was poor. Yes, there were neutral and unrewarded steps along the way to EQU. So I should not have used the word “continuum,” as that might give the impression of an unbroken chain of always positive mutations, which, as you note, would be logically problematic.
Cool. Thanks.
However, regardless of whether the chain occasionally broke (to maintain the metaphor) or the organisms were able to get back on track after veering off the trail (to mix metaphors), there was, nevertheless, a cumulative pathway, which was rewarded at regular intervals. Indeed, the authors note that: “. . . 50 populations evolved in an environment where only EQU was rewarded, and no simpler function yielded energy. We expected that EQU would evolve much less often because selection would not preserve the simpler functions that provide foundations to build more complex features.” How much less often? “Indeed, none of these populations evolved EQU . . .” despite the fact that “these populations tested more genotypes, on average, than did those in the reward-all environment . . .” I don’t dispute, and I am confident Behe does not dispute, that if relatively simple mutations in a pre-existing organism can generate a meaningful survival advantage at key intervals along the path to a later function, that such might be within the reach of Darwinian mechanisms (depending upon population size, frequency of mutations, etc.). Behe’s point is that if intermediate steps do not confer a meaningful survival advantage, then such systems are not likely to evolve via Darwinian processes. That is precisely what these last 50 populations demonstrated.
I’m sorry Eric, but this is not correct. Behe most certainly does claim that non-beneficial necessary intermediate steps will prevent Darwinian processes from finding the function. As I said, at one point he did start talking about “degrees of IC”, but he seems to have gone back on that. And in any case, the EQU function was reached via many many degrees of IC, including quite severely deleterious steps. Behe certainly did not say: as long as there are some intermediate steps, Darwinian evolution can reach a function, but can’t if there are none. We know it can’t if there are none, and nowhere that I know of has Behe claimed that for any specific function there are no intermediate beneficial steps, as well as many necessary non-beneficial steps. Perhaps you are missing out on the word “necessary”. It’s important. Weasel evolves easily, because while any given “organism” may undergo many neutral mutations before hitting a winner, none of them are necessary in order to reach the winner. On the contrary, with EQU, neutral and deleterious steps were actually necessary - had to accumulate – before EQU could be reached. This is precisely the kind of pathway Behe said was impossible for Darwinian processes to traverse, and AVIDA shows emphatically that he was incorrect.
Again, the question is not so much whether every single possible step is handsomely rewarded (as in Weasel), or whether there are occasional neutral mutations or even side-steps and/or restarts (as in Avida). Rather, the question is whether there is a rich enough reward path from A to Z. The Avida paper demonstrates that without such a path, even a relatively basic “complex” function, like EQU, is not likely to evolve. In contrast, with enough rewards along the way, a cumulative pathway becomes possible. And that is precisely the question, isn’t it? In the real world of complex, functionally-specified, information-rich, integrated biological systems, does such an intermediate reward system actually exist? Avida, whatever its other merits, unfortunately cannot answer that question.
Well, no, this is goal-post moving. Behe asked no such question. Yet again I must repeat: no-one disputes that Darwinian algorithms can traverse a maximally rugged landscape. This, incidentally, is why people have greeted Joseph’s claim to use GA’s in encryption problems with such scepticism. Encrypted codes are deliberately placed in maximally rugged landscapes precisely so that GA’s won’t find them any more easily that time-consuming random search. That’s why safes are hard to crack. Remember that to get to EQU, the virtual organisms not only had to evolve some of the other functions, but they also had to accrue necessary variations that conferred no function, and some that conferred a fitness decrement. Yet they got there.
Conclusion Avida is an interesting program that may have some utility in thinking through processes of mutation and selection. But it is clearly not (and I don’t believe the programmers have represented that it is) a faithful reproduction of any specific system in the real world, and its applicability to the real world is therefore suspect.
Agreed.
In any event, whatever the authors’ or anyone else’s pretentions, Avida certainly has not refuted Behe’s contention that some sophisticated biological systems – requiring as they do, a suite of complex parts, coordinated construction, and precise integration – lie beyond the reach of Darwinian mechanisms.
Not agreed! AVIDA has refuted Behe’s entire concept that Irreducibly Complex features (which he defines with admirable clarity) cannot evolve by Darwinian means (or are vanishingly unlikely to). Whether it remains true that some real-life biological functions are unevolvable is irrelevant. The answer obviously, in principle, is yes, because we know some hypothetical features are unevolvable by Darwinian means. But Behe claimed that we could detect them by noting whether they were IC (would function if any part were removed). He was wrong. AVIDA falsified this claim. That means that any ID claim based on the observation that a feature is IC is not justified. You have to do more than show that the feature is IC. You have to show that it is on a peak in so rugged a landscape that it is unreachable by Darwinian means. No method that I know of exists to demonstrate this. Anyway, thank you again for your generously lengthy response to my critique, and nice to talk to you :) Cheers LizzieElizabeth Liddle_{October 16, 2011
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Elizabeth, Your post 23.2.2.2.12 is a wonderful example of reductionism. Scientism in action. "I don’t think the world has a purpose". I did not expect any other answer. Thanks anyway. You can already predict my answer, I believe. No I don't think you evaded. Though I can see a deficiency of goal setting without God, but I think, yes, people are capable of setting goals for themselves. But I agree with Chris, because these goals (without God) are too shallow for humans.Eugene S_{October 16, 2011
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Quote 1: There is no “materialistic ideology” in science. Quote 2: Actually science is a pretty good philosophical foundation for life. To me, Quote 2 is a refutation of the statement in Quote 1. If science is understood as Quote 2, it ceases to be such and becomes an ideology. Science per se can never serve a philosophical foundation for one’s life. The role of science per se is different, quite technical and limited. And indication of this is believers and atheists doing science. Therefore science (the scientific method) alone cannot be a philosophical foundation of anyone’s life. E=mc^2 is neutral to the basic philosophical questions of purpose.
No, Quote 2 is not a refutation of Quote 1,but I could have expressed them it more clearly. I should have said that scientific principles are a pretty good philosophical foundation for life. For the reasons I gave. That does not contradict Quote 1. Scientific principles are not an ideology.
Could I ask you, Elizabeth, why do you love your close ones? What causes you to love them? Electric signals in your brain and chemistry in your body? Or maybe something else more profound that lies deeper than science can ever get to and beyond any scientific definition?
The reason I, Elizabeth, love my close ones is that the are gorgeous :) But if what you are asking is what the mechanisms are by which the biological organism we denote "Elizabeth" loves her close ones, and how she came to exist in the first place, then we might well start talking about electrical signals, and neurons, and hormones, and evolution, and chemistry, and brain networks etc. But that would be a very different question, asked from a very different stance. The intentional agent I denote by the word "I" and "me", and you denote by the word "Elizabeth" loves her loved ones because she thinks they are gorgeous. Even though they probably aren't.
What is in your opinion the purpose of the existence of the world and, there is any in your view, how does it follow from the scientific method? What is the purpose of your life or mine? Can there be an answer to this out of the scientific method? Or are we asking too much of a screw driver?
In my opinion the question "what is the purpose of the existence of the world?" is a koan. I don't think the world has a purpose, because I don't think the world, as a system, is system capable of forming a purpose. I think the ability to form a purpose is a property of things with brains, and the world isn't a brain, although it contains brains. Nor do I think that the world was created with a purpose, because that would imply a creator capable of forming a purpose, and, as a said, I think that is a property of things with brains, in other words, a property of material entities, and clearly a material entity can't be the creator of all material entities. So no, I don't think the world has a purpose, nor do I think the world was created by something for a purpose, because I don't think either the world, or its creator, whatever that was, if anything, is capable of forming a purpose. And yes, I derive that conclusion by application of the scientific method, specifically in neuroscience, which is my field, and to what are called "executive functions" - why and how we form goals, aka purposes, and manage to pursue them. However, I think people are capable of forming a purpose, and have a great many. That is always my answer to Chris Doyle, who seems to think that without God there is no purpose to life. I'm sure you will think I have evaded your question, and in a sense I have. But I have done so because from where I'm standing, the question doesn't actually make sense. My concept of a "purpose" is a goal, set by something with a brain, that governs decision-making and action. Of an entity without that goal-setting apparatus, asking about a purpose, to me, is like asking what sound is made by a one-handed clap :)Elizabeth Liddle_{October 16, 2011
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KF
Creationism is faith-based; Intelligent Design is empirically-based.
But you can't actually tell me any specific empirical evidence that tells me a single thing about the designer, how the design was implemented, when it was implemented or anything at all. You can't even tell me if you think the designer intervened once, many times, trillions of times or not at all....kellyhomes_{October 16, 2011
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KF,
And for inference to a definitively non materialistic cause, I suggest you examine — say, starting here and footnoted linked discussions from there — the evidence pointing even through the multiverse speculations to the intelligent design of a fine tuned observed cosmos set to an operating point that facilitates C-chemistry cell based life. (In short the material universe is credibly contingent and so is not its own causal explanation. It points beyond itself to an ontologically necessary being as root cause. And such a being has no beginning and is causeless.)
So, let me get this straight. Both the above and this:
I am on repeated record that the design inference is incapable of identifying the nature of the designer of life as within or beyond the cosmos,
Can be true in your mind at the same time? So on the one hand we have a cosmos (Universe) that is fine tuned for carbon based life by an "ontologically necessary being" and on the other hand you *don't know* who or what the designer is? So, life is designed, the cosmos is designed and tuned for life but you are on the record as saying that the design inference cannot identify the designer? Can you hear a crowing in the distance? How many times have you heard it? Once? Twice? Thrice? Presumably a designer cannot be inside the thing it designed and if the cosmos was designed the designer must stand outside the cosmos. And that is what I believe you mean by "God". Yet you insist the "designer" cannot be identified. If ID does not want to be called creationism then it's people like you that cause it to be so called. After all, you are also on the record that measurements of the age of the earth are totally unreliable (were you there?) which is standard creationist fare. Creationist!kellyhomes_{October 16, 2011
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KF, If ID is not creationism in a tuxedo then can you tell me what makes ID different from creationism, apart from the fact that in creationism the designer == god and in ID the designer == ? Other then that, what's the difference?kellyhomes_{October 16, 2011
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KF,
Recall, my remarks about Venter and nanotech labs, in a current thread where you have been corrected?)
Let me as you a question. In your entire adult life have you ever you yourself been "corrected"? E.G have you taken one position then revised it in the face of new evidence? For example?kellyhomes_{October 16, 2011
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KF, What utter rot.
The contrast to such is INTELLIGENT cause [i/e. art].
So to you the opposite of "material" is "intelligence"? No, in fact it's not.
The process you used to post just now would be an example.
Really? So life was designed by somebody sitting at a computer typing in a forum? It was, in fact, not. Sure, we can say that intelligence was involved in the evolution of life. The intelligence of evolution. It has the ability to remember what worked, try new things, discard failures and so on. By any reasonable definition evolution is intelligent. The challenge for you is to show that life has intelligent input other then evolution. So, KF, if life was designed by INTELLIGENT case then please explain why so many women die in childbirth. Does not seen very intelligent to me. Or was that because of the fall?
I am on repeated record that the design inference is incapable of identifying the nature of the designer of life as within or beyond the cosmos,
So why the insistence on allowing a divine foot in the door?
Indeed, sadly, in some cases, we are looking at ideologically motivated willful and continued misrepresentations in the teeth of duties of care to fairness and accuracy.
I could not have said it better myself. That describes you *exactly*.
You are taking talking points of objectors who habitually misrepresent as though they were well established fact.
Again, that's you. You make claims regarding "islands of functionality" despite not having *any* idea what-so-ever of the structure of the relevant landscapes. You simple do a toy trivial calculation of all possible combination's, pick one and say "see, that would be vastly improbable to pick from that vast range of possibility" and think you've proven your case. I'll say to you what I said to PaV. Publish your claims where they can be examined by experts and then we'll see who is habitually misrepresenting their unproven claims as though they were well established fact. KF, give me a *single* example of something we see in life that is better explained by Intelligent Design then by Darwinism. A *single* thing. Bet ya can't!kellyhomes_{October 16, 2011
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You have publicly claimed that I have deeply misunderstood Lewontin and the elites who generally agree with him. That is a very serious thing to say and in my view — with reasons given in summary above, it is in gross error. Kindly substantiate that claim, if you can.
I have substantiated as well as I can, kf. It is, of course, my opinion only, and you are welcome to disagree. I do not think that Lewontin, or anyone else, is advocating censorship in science. I think the point is methodological That's why I asked you to give me an example of how you would test a non-materialist hypothesis experimentally. Simply repeating that equation, which tells us no more than that if an event is extremely unlikely it is extremely unlikely, does not tell me how to test a non-material hypothesis. I also tried to explain, as clearly as I could, why science has to be predicated on the assumption that nature is regular, otherwise hypothesis testing, as far as I can see, becomes impossible.Elizabeth Liddle_{October 16, 2011
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Quote 1: There is no “materialistic ideology” in science. Quote 2: Actually science is a pretty good philosophical foundation for life. To me, Quote 2 is a refutation of the statement in Quote 1. If science is understood as Quote 2, it ceases to be such and becomes an ideology. Science per se can never serve a philosophical foundation for one's life. The role of science per se is different, quite technical and limited. And indication of this is believers and atheists doing science. Therefore science (the scientific method) alone cannot be a philosophical foundation of anyone's life. E=mc^2 is neutral to the basic philosophical questions of purpose. Could I ask you, Elizabeth, why do you love your close ones? What causes you to love them? Electric signals in your brain and chemistry in your body? Or maybe something else more profound that lies deeper than science can ever get to and beyond any scientific definition? What is in your opinion the purpose of the existence of the world and, there is any in your view, how does it follow from the scientific method? What is the purpose of your life or mine? Can there be an answer to this out of the scientific method? Or are we asking too much of a screw driver?Eugene S_{October 16, 2011
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