Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Don’t use the D word. It’s being eliminated.

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‘It’s a beautiful thing, the destruction of words. Or course the great wastage is in the verbs and adjectives, but there are hundreds of nouns that can be got rid of as well…Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.’

— Syme, the Newspeak editor, in George Orwell’s 1984

Biologists should no longer use the word “design,” urges evolutionary biologist Walter Bock of Columbia University, in a newly-published article, as this word and its related concepts bring with them “connotations that are undesirable or unwanted” (p. 8). Biologists should “drop all usages of design from evolutionary biology” (p. 9) and find some other term to express — well, that idea, for which we will no longer be using that word.

Bock contends that the original error of usage stems from Charles Darwin, who should not have expressed that idea “in the form he used” (p. 9):

In spite of the nice contrast between ‘accident versus design’, the term design carries with it too many undesirable connotations, such as the existence of a creator, and should not be used in evolutionary theory. Design could be replaced with non-accidental or non-stochastic, but these substitute terms are awkward and not really informative. Darwin developed his theory of organic evolution in part as an explanation of the appearance and perfection of adaptations to counter the idea of design as advocated by Paley and accepted then by almost everyone in the western world, including biologists… Unfortunately in this respect there is no solution to the paradox posed by Darwin which should not have been expressed in the form he used; his query was expressed in a letter to a colleague and not in a manuscript intended for publication. Actually the living world as we see it is the result of chance because all of the attributes of these organisms evolved and the process of evolution is stochastic.

Darwin set up an illegitimate contrast, because that idea actually refers to nothing, and thus cannot be expressed in ordinary language. The word ‘chance’ has no proper antonym.

As Syme puts it,

‘After all, what justification is there for a word which is simply the opposite of some other words? A word contains its opposite in itself.’

Comments
Allen, I'm sorry your family is sick. That's always a bummer especially when kids are involved. I don't know how the ID guys discuss your statement about harmful viruses but from the Christian perspective they came about because sin came into the world and caused creation to decay. I know that isn't scientific and I don't claim that it is. However, it does fit what we see pretty well. I'm also not an ID guy so please don't put my statements on them. Again, I am sorry you guys are sick and pray you get better soon.ellijacket
February 21, 2009
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69 Peter 02/20/2009 9:59 pm I quoted the inestimable tomb of science and you supply a vague recollection. i think I will stick with my original opinion until i see evidence to the contrary. Peter, below is Darwin by Darwin: C. Darwin's letter to J. D. Hooker. Down [March 29, 1863]. ... Many thanks for Athenæum, received this morning, and to be returned to-morrow morning. Who would have ever thought of the old stupid Athenæum taking to Oken-like transcendental philosophy written in Owenian style!... [page] 18 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=side&itemID=F1452.3&pageseq=30 ...But I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation, by which I really meant "appeared" by some wholly unknown process. QED: Darwin confesses to Hooker his pragmatic doublespeak in this letter.Enezio E. De Almeida Filho
February 21, 2009
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Enezio E. De Almeida Filho [63]
if memory serves me well, in a letter to Joseph Hooker (correct me if I am wrong) he gave his pragmatic reasons for using these words, but deplored having used the Pentateuchal language. This sounds like doublespeak to me.
I quoted the inestimable tomb of science and you supply a vague recollection. i think I will stick with my original opinion until i see evidence to the contrary.Peter
February 20, 2009
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Sorry, can't post now. Everyone in my family (including me) is suffering from a rampant norovirus epidemic (translation: blowing it out both ends). Be careful sending your toddler to daycare. I want to have a long talk with the "intelligent designer" of this particular "agent"...Allen_MacNeill
February 20, 2009
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Timaeaus @66. Thanks for another well-thought-out post. You have done a superb job of clarifying terms and asking the vital few questions that matter most.StephenB
February 20, 2009
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To Allan MacNeill (27): 1. By Darwinist and neo-Darwinist I mean those evolutionary theorists who hold to the views of Darwin or of the neo-Darwinian school (broadly defined to include internal critics like Gould). Classic neo-Darwinists are Mayr, Gaylord Simpson, Sagan, Dennett, Dawkins, Coyne, Gross, Orr, etc. Virtually all evolutionary biologists for the last 70 or 80 years have been some variety of neo-Darwinist, and, following Darwin, have denied any teleology to the evolutionary process. In theory, one could be an evolutionary biologist and not be a neo-Darwinist. One could be a Lamarckian, for example. Or a Bergsonian. Or a follower of Michael Denton. Or a follower of Richard Sternberg. But no such evolutionary biologist would be hired in any mainstream university today. You say that you don’t dogmatically maintain that evolution is not teleological. Well, by that you either mean that you accept teleological evolution as an interesting intellectual possibility belonging to the sphere of philosophy and theology, but not relevant to science, or you mean that you accept teleological evolution as a genuinely possible “best explanation” for the design in nature that you’ve spoken of, and as a hypothesis capable of generating useful new research. In the latter case you would be open to hiring Richard Sternberg or Michael Denton or Michael Behe or someone like them in your own biology department, and you would support, or at least not automatically oppose, doctoral research work in your department that was to be conducted within a teleological paradigm. If this is the case, I applaud you, but I bet that you are the only life sciences faculty member at Cornell with this healthy attitude. 2. I don’t assume that the evolution of biological information is teleological. I don’t assume anything. I look for the best explanation of the data, no holds barred. If the best explanation of a rock that looks like an arrowhead is that it was carved by a Stone Age warrior, that’s fine with me. If the best explanation of its triangular shape is a series of accidental encounters with running water, that’s fine with me too. And if the best explanation of the giraffe is that it evolved by a series of random mutations, selected for environmentally, from something like an okapi, that’s fine with me. But if the best explanation is that the giraffe’s neck requires some special engineering that random mutations and selection can’t account for, that’s fine with me, too. The difference between myself and a neo-Darwinist is that the neo-Darwinist rules out the latter explanation a priori. 3. Referring to naturalistic explanations for gravity and so on, you ask: “Why should biological processes be any different?” In your examples, you are confusing the everyday operations of nature with the question of the *origin* of those everyday operations. No ID proponent has said that biological processes happen due to angels or ghosts or leprechauns. All ID proponents accept that there are lawlike patterns in living things, as there are in inanimate matter. But just as physics cannot explain the *origin* of gravity, but can only explain how it works in terms of impersonal mathematical generalizations, it may well be that biology will one day be able to explicate every detail of genetics and development in terms of natural regularities, but never be able to explain, e.g., the origin of life, or the origin of the Cambrian explosion. It may be that intelligence was somehow input into living nature in ways that we cannot discover. In short, the search for origins may sometimes lay upon science obligations that it is unable to fulfill with its current bag of mechanistic intellectual tools. Notice that I have used the subjunctive. I have said that origins may not be explicable by normal scientific procedures. I have not said that they are not explicable. I have an open mind on the subject. Darwinists do not. They are certain that origins are just as explicable as the everyday operations of nature. I think that certainty is dogmatic and metaphysical, not scientific. 4. I don’t like the word “purpose”. “Purpose” is not a clear enough term for scientific work. “Purpose” can mean something like “the meaning of life” as in: “Why are we here?” Or it can pertain to some particular moral problem, as in: “Why would a loving God create rabies?” ID does not claim to detect “purpose” in that sense. ID is completely agnostic about the existence of any “purpose” in the universe, or any “purpose” for the existence of any particular creature in it – including man. ID is concerned only with detecting design. ID wants to know whether rabies is designed, not why God (or the devil, or whoever) designed it. ID wants to know whether the Cambrian explosion could have occurred without the input of intelligence (either on-site or remotely, through front-loading). ID does not even try to address the question why God (or aliens from Aldebaran, if you think they are the designers) would have wanted to produce a Cambrian explosion. ID is methodologically incapable of answering questions of purpose, motive, meaning, etc. It can only describe biological arrangements and assess the probability (from 0 to 1) that those arrangements are designed. At least, that is what it aspires to be able to assess. 5. As for your last question, exactly the same question can be addressed to Darwinists. What experiment could unambiguously eliminate the Darwinian hypothesis (macroevolution caused by mutations plus natural selection etc.)? If one hypothetical evolutionary pathway from land mammals to whales is falsified, the Darwinists just come up with another one. And they hang on to that one until fossil evidence or genetic evidence or radioactive dating evidence or whatnot makes that one impossible. Then they come up with another one. A while ago it was a hippo-like animal that was the supposed ancestor of the whale; now it’s a wolf-like one. Five years from now it may be a rodent-like one. Never do Darwinists entertain for a moment the possibility that whales *could not* have evolved by entirely naturalistic means from land mammals. For to entertain that possibility would mean to entertain the possibility that whales may have been specially engineered, and that conclusion, even if it is derived entirely from biological data and not at all from any religious teaching, the Darwinists will simply not allow. Or am I wrong? Can you give me an example of a “killer observation” or “killer experiment” that would falsify Darwinism completely? And please don’t use “the Cambrian rabbit ploy”. That tired old Cambrian rabbit, whose ears are getting sore from being pulled out of the hat so many times by Darwinists, would indeed falsify common descent. But many ID proponents accept common descent, e.g., Behe, Denton, and they do not expect to find a Cambrian rabbit. Common descent is not the point in debate between ID proper and Darwinism. The issue is, within the working assumption of common descent, what would falsify the Darwinian hypothesis once and for all? What would force a Darwinian to admit that evolution could not have been entirely unguided? I have asked this question over and over again, and never have I spoken to or read a Darwinist who has an answer for it. And being somewhat of a Popperian in philosophy of science (unfashionable, I know, but I was never much for fashion), I would argue that any hypothesis for which this question cannot be answered is not really a scientific hypothesis, but a vague, airy speculation. So, is Darwinian evolution a falsifiable hypothesis, or not? If so, how could it be falsified? If not, why should it be regarded as science? T.Timaeus
February 20, 2009
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----Jerry: "One of my main points in this discussion is that Darwinian principles work but to a limited degree. And I can find good reasons for why it should both work and why it should be limited. The evidence supports both these contentions" Right. When I refer to "Darwinism," I mean Darwin's "general theory, or any of is latter formulations.StephenB
February 20, 2009
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StephenB, Whatever was set up was limited. That is what the evidence says. One of my main points in this discussion is that Darwinian principles work but to a limited degree. And I can find good reasons for why it should both work and why it should be limited. The evidence supports both these contentions. By denying this limited scope for Darwinian principles, we end up looking like anti science luddites. By affirming this limited scope for Darwinian principles we look sharper than our opponents who then have no science on which to fall back on. They must fall back on ideology.jerry
February 20, 2009
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59 Peter I have read and I still read The Origin of Species. Darwin inserted those words on the 2nd edition. Right now I am away from my research files on Darwin, but if memory serves me well, in a letter to Joseph Hooker (correct me if I am wrong) he gave his pragmatic reasons for using these words, but deplored having used the Pentateuchal language. This sounds like doublespeak to me.Enezio E. De Almeida Filho
February 20, 2009
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----Jerry: "I have no idea what was done, when it was done or how it was done and it could have been done several times. I have always maintained what was done is a mystery. And all this is speculation because like the Darwinists there is not enough evidence to say exactly what happened." My only problem is with those who, on the one hand, posit Darwnism, which forbids a "set up," while telling me that Darwinism could have been "set up." It reminds me of the old Dragnet series where a recently apprehended miscreant was rounded up by Joe Friday. Offended by the rigorous interrogation to which he had been subjected, he cried out, "You're crazy." Friday responded, "one thing sure, somebody is."StephenB
February 20, 2009
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Hi Allen, Sorry for being delayed in replying; my office internet is currently down, and won't be repaired by Comcast until Sunday midday (sigh). I'm sending this from the public library. I recall our Cornell conversation vividly, and agree with you that "design" can have multiple referents, one of which is "purposefully intended" (which is why I found Bock's recommendation so wrong-headed; evolutionary biologists often use "design" without assuming intelligent causation). The empirical question then becomes whether objects evincing design can be explained by non-intelligent causes, which is of course where we differ. I'd say more but the public library is not conducive to patient philosophical reflection. ;-)Paul Nelson
February 20, 2009
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Enezio E. De Almeida Filho [25]
Someone should tell Peter that Darwin died as an agnostic.
It is a pity that no one actually reads The Origin of the Species, because they would know that Darwin said: “Therefore, I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed by the Creator.” Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, 391 That doesn’t sound like an atheist to me.Peter
February 20, 2009
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Unfortunately, biped, it formatted rather than showing me how to format.QuadFather
February 20, 2009
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okay....so much for underlineUpright BiPed
February 20, 2009
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BOLD italic underline (remove the spaces)Upright BiPed
February 20, 2009
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Can anyone tell me how to format my posts (bold, italic, underline)? Sorry that this is off-topic, but I can't find the answer anywhere.QuadFather
February 20, 2009
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Collin [32], I think the critical distinction between the workings of, say, DNA and intelligence is that DNA operates in the present while intelligence can operate in anticipation of the future. To say it another way: DNA operates in response to direct stimuli in the present, while intelligence operates in response to the future. Otherwise, I could consider those 3D soldiers that I chase around on my computer screen to be intelligent, rather than mere sprites responding directly to user input ... and I should start being nicer to them ... Your post did a good job of illustrating the difference between a blueprint and the designer. Hopefully, I have been able to help articulate [i]why[/i] this difference appears obvious.QuadFather
February 20, 2009
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Collin [30], I hope that somebody takes you up on your challenge. It would be extremely interesting to see the responses.QuadFather
February 20, 2009
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ellijacket, I wonder if we could flesh out the definition for "information", as well. information: symbols that represent physical states. information processing: converting symbols into physical states, and/or converting physical states into symbols. What do you think?QuadFather
February 20, 2009
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Allen [8], I defy you to define "supernatural" in a way that is not identical to "natural" or "intelligent". You wanna talk about "vague" and "operationally useless" terms, "supernatural" is IT.QuadFather
February 20, 2009
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"Set up?" That is another word for designed. I have no idea what was done, when it was done or how it was done and it could have been done several times. I have always maintained what was done is a mystery. And all this is speculation because like the Darwinists there is not enough evidence to say exactly what happened.jerry
February 20, 2009
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Information is the issue. Is there any example of information being created without intelligence? If not, why do people hold on to the idea that it can be done?ellijacket
February 20, 2009
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Allen, While gravity may do what it does it does not create information. None of the other forces you mentioned..."such as gravity, the eruption of volcanoes, the collapse of red giant stars, or the formation of chemical bonds" create information. I think that's the issue at hand.ellijacket
February 20, 2009
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Allen, I will go to the library today, get Mayr's book "What Evolution is" and provide the exact quote. BTW the book came AFTER the paper. IOW it supersedes the paper. You then ask:
So, gravity is not “blind”, nor is it random. Is it therefore “intelligently designed?”
Gravity and all the laws that govern nature are some of the best evidences for ID. What is the non-ID explanation for them? Well Hawking says "They just are (the way they are"- "A Briefer History of Time"Joseph
February 20, 2009
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Allen_MacNeill I think the design perspective you propose restricts the understanding of life. ( Mayr argued (and I agree) that the genome of an organism constitutes a plan or program for the assembly and operation of that organism. As such, every living organism carries a design for its assembly and operation in its genome. Furthermore, Mayr argued (and I again agree) that the programs in the genomes of all living organisms are themselves designed via various evolutionary mechanisms: natural selection, sexual selection, genetic drift, founder effects, genetic bottlenecks, and so forth.) Which may exhibit intelligence once Creatures become Intelligent. What prevents intelligence from influencing, breeding, drifting, effecting, overcoming by Design? It's not logical, to exclude intelligence from one's thinking about evolution's cause. For a billion years or more, quadrillions of cells directed by unknown biological forces transformed the Earth into a habitat for multi celled beings. Complex life exploded from this Creature's work at such a pace evolutionary branches have yet to be discovered. From the standpoint of the Fossil Record, life just appeared. With that many cells interacting, each able to process and store information the formation of a mind within the group is all but guaranteed. The slightest tendency towards intelligence would give the cells possessing it tremendous evolutionary advantage. Once a mind takes control of matter, natural process are no longer sufficient to explain it's behavior. John Hjrh
February 20, 2009
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OFF-TOPIC: Lamarckism on the rise?!?! http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22061/ http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/abstract/29/5/1496sxussd13
February 20, 2009
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----Jerry: "One could argue that once these are set up, natural selection would eventually lead to a desired result." Set up?StephenB
February 19, 2009
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StephenB, The essence of the debate is the source of variation. In other words the initial conditions are the variations within the different gene pools. One could argue that once these are set up, natural selection would eventually lead to a desired result. That is to say initial conditions (various gene pools of the ecology) and boundary conditions (various environments and genomic processes) could lead to a pre-determined end. So what appears to be natural processes could be teological and if it ran again the same or very similar end result would appear. The design was the initial conditions and the boundary conditions. We have had this same discussion before and it is one of the reasons I do not share the sentiment that the process is random or doesn't know where it is going. Not every part of the system is random but some may be.jerry
February 19, 2009
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Let us hope they don't get their hands on Charles Babbage The Ninth Bridgewater Thesis.alints
February 19, 2009
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Allen, Your summaries are completely consistent with ID. There is nothing in your statements that ID would object to. Simply put ID believes that the source of variation is the Achilles Heel of the evolutionary synthesis or whatever it is called today. It is not natural selection or other genetic processes. It is as simple as that. There may be some objections as to the speed that some changes could ever work its way through a population once they were introduced. But the essence of the objection has always been to the source of variation. ID believes that some of the complexity is beyond the capabilities of any natural means but not beyond the capability of an intelligent agent as you call it. So you appear to sum up our position very well. I personally believe the whole process of adaptation and change that is summarized by much of the evolutionary synthesis is actually excellent design as it allows a wide variety of life to flourish in varying environments. I just do not accept the whole of the synthesis, not because I have any religious or ideological objections, but because the evidence does not support it. In other words, once the variation appears, the rest can play out due to natural processes.jerry
February 19, 2009
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