Good and bad reasons for rejecting ID

_{Salvador Cordova

June 24, 2013

Intelligent Design}

Share: Facebook; Twitter; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

Although I accept ID, I actually think there are respectable reasons to reject or at least withhold judgment on ID in biology. I am writing this essay because I expect I’ll refer to it in the future since I will frequently grant that a critic of ID might be quite reasonable in not embracing ID.

Unlike some of my ID colleagues, I do not think rejection or non-acceptance of ID is an unrespectable position. It may not be obvious, but several revered “ID proponents” either currently or in the past said they are not convinced ID is true. Foremost would probably be David Berlinski. Next is Michael Denton, and next is Richard Sternberg. I do not know for a fact what they believe now, but statements they’ve made in the past have led me to conclude although they are obviously sympathetic to ID, they had not accepted it at the time of their writings. One might even put Robert Jastrow and Paul Davies in the list of “ID proponents” who actually reject ID.

GOOD REASONS TO REJECT ID
1. Absence of a Designer. I know I might get flak for this, but I think a good reason to reject ID is the absence of seeing the Intelligent Designer in operation today. With many scientific theories we can see the hypothesized mechanism in action, and this is quite reassuring to the hypothesis. For myself, I wrestle with the fact that even if ID is true, the mechanism might be forever inaccessible to us.

2. Lack of direct experiments. A designer may decide never to design again. That is consistent with how intelligent agents act. So even if the Designer is real, even if we’ve encountered Him once personally in our lives, the fact is we can’t construct experiments and demand He give us a demonstration.

3. Belief that some future mechanism might be discovered. This is always a possibility in principle.

BAD REASONS TO REJECT ID

1. Theology! There are some Christian theologians who believe in eternal life, the resurrection of the dead, the resurrection of Christ, but believe God wouldn’t design life based on whatever theological viewpoint they have such as their interpretations of the writings of Thomas Aquinas. I put this at the top of the list of bad reasons to reject ID.

2. “God wouldn’t do it that way”. This is also a theological argument, but is so prevalent its in a class of its own. How would any know God wouldn’t do it that way!

3. Bad design. See my take in The Shallowness of Bad Design Arguments.

4. Common Descent. Common descent is incompatible with Creationism but not ID.

5. Darwinian evolution. Darwinian evolution doesn’t solve the origin of life problem, and thus Dawkins over extends his claim that Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. Darwinian evolution also has been refuted theoretically and empirically, but not everyone has caught on.

6. ID was invented to get creationism into public schools and is part of a right wing conspiracy to create a theocracy, and ID proponents are scoundrels and liars. These claims are false, but even if true, they are completely irrelevant to the truth or falsehood of ID in biology. I posted on the irrelevance of ID proponents being scoundrels. See: Scoundrel? Scoundrel?…I like the sound of that.

7. ID demeans God by making God responsible for bad designs. Denyse O’Leary deals with this one here: Here’s one bad reason for opposing ID.

I invite UD commenters to offer their own list of good and bad reasons to reject ID. This list is certainly not exhaustive, or correct, just my opinions.

Comments

Telekinesis or psychokinesis.
That’s impressively vacuous.
LoL! YOU are vacuous, keiths.
No, Joe, you just said “hardware malfunction” as if that were an explanation.
It is an explanation. Jst because YOU are too stupid to grasp it doesn't mean anuything to me. I have decades of experience dealing with hardware malfunctions. I know they can and do cause issues which made it look like the design was bad. Not only that, keiths cannot support anything he has said about the soul. IOW he set up a starwman and has duly attacked it.Joe_{June 27, 2013
June
06
Jun
27
27
2013
05:25 AM
5
05
25
AM
PDT}

Hi RD:
Ok, so now we definitely agree that for all ID can tell us, the cause of biological complexity might be utterly different from the cause of complex human artifacts like automobiles and computers.
That remains a possibility but it still is design.
What we’ve just agreed to is that we might be talking about two utterly different sorts of things. Just because ID people use the same word for both things does not make the things the same thing, obviously. We can call a hot dog a “dog” but that doesn’t mean it’s the same thing as the four-legged variety.
Please tell me how design cannot be design.
My point is that the argument ID makes is specious, because it equivocates on the word “design”.
If you think so then please make your case if you can.
On one hand it refers to what human beings do when they plan and build some complex machinery, and on the other hand it refers to something that we both agree might be utterly different from that.
No, RD, I said it may be beyond our understanding and capabilities.
If something is beyond our comprehension, as you say the cause of life might be, then it is just that: beyond our comprehension.
So what? That does NOT mean we cannot determine that it was intentionally designed.
How do you know it’s intentional if you can’t even comprehend it, and it might be utterly different from what human beings do?
Because of our knowledge of cause and effect relationships. As Dr Behe said: "Our ability to be confident of the design of the cilium or intracellular transport rests on the same principles to be confident of the design of anything: the ordering of separate components to achieve an identifiable function that depends sharply on the components.”Joe_{June 27, 2013
June
06
Jun
27
27
2013
05:20 AM
5
05
20
AM
PDT}

oops, submitted before I finished! Secondn to last paragraph should begin: "The real 'junk DNA' story isn't that..." And I also meant to thank you for a constructive conversation :) Cheers LizzieElizabeth B Liddle_{June 27, 2013
June
06
Jun
27
27
2013
02:03 AM
2
02
03
AM
PDT}

Agreed, Querius, but what makes you think that "we" "assumed it was non-functional, called it evolutionary junk, and moved on." Who is the "we" in that sentence? And what is the "it" that is supposed to be non-functional? Did anyone declare certain sequences "non-functional" and move on? Who? Where? I'm not trying to be contentious - I just think details matter. Just as I get stroppy with "evolutionists" who dismiss all those who propose some kind of Design model with the "creationist" brush, I also get stroppy with ID proponents who make sweeping statements about "the academy" or "evolutionists" all thinking something or doing something. I know of no scientist engaged in the field who EVER said: "this stuff is junk, I'll ignore it". We've known for decades (well before the "junk" term was flippantly coined) that non-coding DNA is functional. The question is: is there non-functional DNA? And the answer appears to be "yes, in large quantities". But this isn't because certain sequences were a priori "assumed" to be "junk". It's because there are good reasons to think that much of it is "junk", for example, the broken GULO gene in some primates, and the vast sequences that appear in some onions, but not on other almost identical onions, despite both appearing to be perfectly viable. The real "junk DNA" isn't that evolutionists think that lots of DNA is junk, therefore evolution, it's that the phylogenetics of DNA are strongly consistent with the evolutonary model, including the breakage of functional genes in certain lineages, and the insertion of viral DNA in certain lineages, and the fact that some sequences are highly conserved down lineages, and others are not. I'm absolutely sure that we will continue to find that functions for some DNA sequences for which we do not currently know the function. I'm sure most evolutionists are the same. But we do not assume that there will be functions for all sequences, because our model does not require that there should be. The fact that there appears to be some non-functional sequences is not even predicted by evolutionary theory - if the production of non-functional sequences was "expensive" metabolically, we'd expect them to be selected out (like eyes in cave fish). The fact that it seems that they are not is not evidence for evolution, but rather evidence that they are cheap to produce.Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 27, 2013
June
06
Jun
27
27
2013
02:02 AM
2
02
02
AM
PDT}

Elizabeth, I agree with your description of Occam's Razor. My point was precisely that many people involved in scientific fields misquote and misapply Occam's Razor, force-fitting simplistic explanations and assumptions as scientific dogma. Let's take "junk" DNA for example. In the absence of evidence for functionality, we assumed that it was non-functional, called it evolutionary junk, and moved on. There was no reason to investigate further. But this approach, as usual, was wrong. However, if instead we had assumed that DNA was intelligently designed, we'd not label most of it junk, but rather we'd have assumed that it has an unknown function and keep trying to reverse engineer it. As a result, scientific progress would have been accelerated in this area. Things almost always turn out to be more complicated as we delve in, not simpler. Thus, it would be more reasonable, not less, to anticipate this outcome!Querius_{June 27, 2013
June
06
Jun
27
27
2013
12:42 AM
12
12
42
AM
PDT}

Backpedalling aside, what is it that would allow a ‘justifiable’ design hypothesis?
Optimus, the only "backpedalling" going on is my attempt to be as clear as possible, having failed to be. Please do not insinuate anything more. What I'm trying to get at is that science consists of forming explanatory theories, deriving testable hypotheses, and coming to provisional conclusions. If you found Stonehenge II on Mars, you would be justified in theorizing that it had been designed and built by intelligent agents, for many reasons. But as human designers and builders seem extremely unlikely, you'd have to posit some other kind. So I guess I'm asking: at what point would you say: well there don't seem to be any embodied designers or builders so maybe it was a disembodied kind? And what would that imply for your theoretical framework? Would you not now reconsider: perhaps there is a geophysical explanation for this extraordinary object? Would you still consider that some mind-levitation force was more likely than something akin to the processes that created Bryce Canyon or the Giant's Causeway? That's why the fabrication part is so importatt. I know that there can be designs that are not fabricated (Michelangelo may have had far more designs in his head than were ever carved in marble). I know that things can be fabricated but not designed (pattern of marble chips on the floor of Michelangelo's workshop was fabricated by not designed) I assume that things can be neither fabricated nor designed (at least some materials from which sculptures are carved). But I know of no thing that can exist AND be designed AND not be fabricated. And yet that is what is proposed for Life in the ID model. I'm not saying it's impossible. But I do think that ID proponents need to recognise that the analogy from human designed has a huge hole in it: Humans do not merely dream up designs - they make those designs into designed objects. To do the first thing perhaps they only need immaterial minds (I would disagree, but I do understand the idea that minds can be separate from bodies), but material bodies - arms, hands, tools. And those things leave traces. Where are the traces of the fabrication process of biological organisms?Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 27, 2013
June
06
Jun
27
27
2013
12:34 AM
12
12
34
AM
PDT}

Hi Keiths I haven't been keeping up with this discussion and therefore walking into this a bit blindly (I will take time later to look through it however), but concerning your question about the soul I am very much of the opinion that we are made up of 3 things; body, mind and Spirit (soul). Why should the workings of our brains therefore have any bearing upon our souls?PeterJ_{June 27, 2013
June
06
Jun
27
27
2013
12:14 AM
12
12
14
AM
PDT}

Joe,
Well I have answered Elizabeth’s question...
Let's see about that. She wrote:
What I’m asking is how those non-materialists who think that mind is immaterial, with no associated body, think mind exerts force on matter.
You responded:
Telekinesis or psychokinesis.
That's impressively vacuous. It's almost as bad as Molière's med student, who when asked "Why does opium put people to sleep?" replied "Because of its dormitive power." Does "motive power" explain why cars move, Joe?
...AND explained how we reconcile the existence of the soul with the evidence from split-brain patients.
No, Joe, you just said "hardware malfunction" as if that were an explanation. It's not, and it doesn't reconcile the existence of the soul with the evidence from split-brain patients. Try again. Or better yet, don't. Let's see if someone else who believes in the soul wants to give it a shot.keiths_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
10:59 PM
10
10
59
PM
PDT}

Hi Joe,
RDF: What I believe you’ve said here is that the way human beings consciously plan and physically create things might be utterly different from how life originated – so different that we can’t even comprehend it. JOE: That is a possibility.
Ok, so now we definitely agree that for all ID can tell us, the cause of biological complexity might be utterly different from the cause of complex human artifacts like automobiles and computers.
Design is design.
What we've just agreed to is that we might be talking about two utterly different sorts of things. Just because ID people use the same word for both things does not make the things the same thing, obviously. We can call a hot dog a "dog" but that doesn't mean it's the same thing as the four-legged variety.
You started with the comment that design is design.
Uh, no - I said this: ID’s claim is that the same thing that accounts for computers and automobiles here on Earth is responsible for eyeballs and flagella in biological organisms, and that thing is called design. My point is that the argument ID makes is specious, because it equivocates on the word "design". On one hand it refers to what human beings do when they plan and build some complex machinery, and on the other hand it refers to something that we both agree might be utterly different from that.
A design process we may not (now) understand, but intentional design none the less.
If something is beyond our comprehension, as you say the cause of life might be, then it is just that: beyond our comprehension. You can't then start pontificating about what it is! What do you mean intentional? How do you know it's intentional if you can't even comprehend it, and it might be utterly different from what human beings do? Cheers, RDFishRDFish_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
09:27 PM
9
09
27
PM
PDT}

EL @ 113
If you found something like Stonehenge on Mars, you would, rightly, conclude Design.
EL @ 120
Let me rephrase: you’d justifiably hypothesise that it was designed.
Backpedalling aside, what is it that would allow a 'justifiable' design hypothesis?Optimus_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
07:37 PM
7
07
37
PM
PDT}

PaV, Nice to see you. Long time. Nice to see several other whom I have seen in a while paying us a visit. Salscordova_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
06:54 PM
6
06
54
PM
PDT}

PaV Were you ever able to find that paper that you mentioned in your comment that BA linked to earlier? You know the one about de novo genes in mitochondrial DNA?Optimus_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
06:48 PM
6
06
48
PM
PDT}

EA @ 110 Excellent comment! The persistent demand raised by ID objectors that ID must address the nature of the designer is obviously fallacious. It's easy to postulate any number of scenarios where anyone would unhesitatingly infer design even though no conclusive evidence about the nature of the designer exists. My own homespun example is the Antiques Roadshow. There are often artifacts that appear in the program for which information about the nature of the designer is simply not forthcoming. Yet the assertion that said artifacts could not legitimately be ascribed to intelligent agency is plainly absurd. Anyone who claims that lack of biographical information about an inferred designer invalidates the design inference is suffering from an abject lack of reasonableness.Optimus_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
06:46 PM
6
06
46
PM
PDT}

Lartanner @ 52
The theory gives no rigor or specificity to the concept of design. What actions, behaviors, or features fall under the term? How does design differ from pseudo-design? How does ID theory deal with challenges? For instance, if design means something like selecting and arranging materials, then where to these materials come from? Did the designer create these materials? If so, how? When? By what mechanism? The concept of design itself should make the top point of discussion on Uncommon Descent and in ID literature. Although I only casually follow the ID movement, I cannot see that the foundational term gets nearly the attention it should, and this makes a fatal problem for the theory.
This seems like a concocted complaint. The meaning of ‘design’ as used by ID proponents is obvious from its usage - namely, the “purposeful arrangement of parts” (to quote Behe). Design (including its physical realization) involves knowledge, foresight, choice, and ability to manipulate matter in ways that are probabilistically beyond the reach of chance and necessity. Specificity and rigor are, of course, important in ensuring clarity in discussion, but ‘design’ is not some esoteric concept that people are incapable of comprehending. It’s really pretty simple. Even a grade-school child can grasp the concept of what it means to design something and how design differs from ‘accident’. Even if we run with the rough definition you present, asking where, when, and how the arranged materials came from is patently unreasonable. Would you ask an archaeologist to speculate about where, when, or how a proposed designer acquired his/her materials in order to justify that some artifact was actually designed? Those questions, interesting though they may be, are logically downstream from the conclusion that said artifact was the product of intelligent causation. Not having answered them in no way damages the validity of the design inference. Further, even the briefest reflection shows us that not all (or even most) historical circumstances are recoverable by inferential reasoning. Life is not like a Sherlock Holmes novel wherein a brilliant sleuth can make shockingly detailed inferences with only the scantest data. For example, is there some scientific procedure that will allow us to determine what a person ate for dinner exactly a year ago? At this point there is not. That knowledge is lost to history. In my opinion, it is a great strength of ID that it refuses to get bogged down in hopeless speculation that goes beyond what the data actually reveal.
The theory falls short on defining the concept of an intelligent designer. I understand why ID theorists and proponents resist identifying the designer as a specific being. Yet even without identifying the designer, the theory can and must provide details about what the designer actually did, when, and in what manner. This content makes the central core of the theory, if it hopes to serve as theory. ID addresses primarily the origin of life on Earth: it argues that an intelligent designer created the materials and conditions (at least) for life on Earth to develop into what we see today. The problem here emerges from the creative act. The intelligent designer, as intelligent, must act intentionally and with understanding. Without intentionality and understanding, the descriptor “intelligent” cannot apply. Yet, this means that ID theory must address the designer’s intentions and understanding. But ID theory makes no such direct address, for reasons touched upon in item #3, below.
This was addressed above, but it’s worth pointing out that the identity, motives, etc. of the designer are excellent examples of historical realities that probably cannot be recovered inferentially. Another example shows the reasonableness of the preceding statement: Imagine a stone arrowhead (that it is such is not in doubt). What inferences can be drawn from the arrowhead? Maybe its size provides a clue as to what sort of game it was intended for. Perhaps we can make a conjecture about whether or not it was actually used. But can we determine, without any supplementary source of information, what individual made it, what his/her mental state was, how the designer acquired the materials, or the precise process used to make the arrowhead? All we can offer are speculations, some perhaps closer to the truth than others. But this still doesn’t invalidate the fundamental conclusion that it was designed, made by an intelligent agent.
Religious motivations govern the theory. Now, I do not mean to say that “ID is creationism in a cheap tuxedo” or some glib phrase. Surely, however, ID proponents view the theory’s compatibility with broad theism as essential. Equally important, ID proponents despise the monistic, naturalistic view under which much mainstream science operates — and has operated productively at that. Despite the protests of ID proponents, ID ultimately boils down to an embarrassed creationism, a creationism that wishes not present itself as such. This intrinsic duplicity makes ID persistently, pervasively suspect.
It is likely true that many (if not most) ID proponents have metaphysical commitments that align with the implications of ID. However, the metaphysical positions of ID proponents are irrelevant to the empirical data and the logic that undergirds ID. It also bears pointing out that this objection generally reflects one of the few remaining socially accepted forms of prejudice. Many persons either explicitly or implicitly adopt the view that a person with “traditional” religious sensibilities is intellectually inferior or even dishonest (as compared to a non-religious person). Hence, any time such a person proposes a scientific idea that accords with his or her metaphysical commitments, it can be simply written off as an attempt to legitimize said metaphysical commitment. That this is a form of prejudice is clear from the simple fact that this degree of scrutiny only goes in one direction. It is always directed at ID proponents. Does anyone doubt that Richard Dawkins, Jerry Coyne, PZ Meyers, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Eugenie Scott value the materialistic account of origins because it suits their worldview? Many of them have made it quite clear that Darwinism (and its subsidiaries) fits quite nicely with their metaphysical presuppositions. Has anyone stood up to criticize this? Do news organizations interviewing Richard Dawkins ask him tough questions about how his metaphysics interface with his science? This motive-mongering is only leveled at ID proponents, and it is a shameful manifestation of socially-sanctioned prejudice.
Assuming I represent the argument correctly, as I have tried, the non-sequitur from creating FSCO to creating life seems obvious.
That’s not a non-sequitur. If we find that living systems have characteristics that reliably point to intelligent causation, then we are justified in inferring that they were designed. The inference is based not on analogy between man-made objects and biological systems but, rather, on the observation of identical qualities shared between the two. ID simply says that functional information is functional information regardless of where it’s found, and the same goes for FSCO. If one leaves aside preconceptions about “natural” vs. “artificial", the inference to design is obvious.
I cannot fathom why some ID proponent doesn’t make a simple table listing the relative FSCO of (1) a line of text, (2) a face on Mount Rushmore, (3) the Mona Lisa, (4) a reproduction of the Mona Lisa, (5) a frog, (6) a DNA segment, and so forth. Wouldn’t such a table be the most handy, compelling, and convincing demonstration that ID theory can work? How can ID proponents talk about FSCO and its creation/destruction without pointing to a document or reference where FSCO calculations abound for designed and not-designed things?
Personally, I don't think that dFSCI (digital functionally-specified complex information) or FSCO (functionally-specified complex organization) are catch-all metrics that we can successfully apply to anything. Again, in my opinion, dFSCI should be used only in appraising digital character strings; trying to use it to assign a numerical value to something like a painting seems fraught with difficulty. I realize that others will disagree, but that is the nature of science - there's disagreement and lots of discussion that will hopefully lead to some resolution. On the other hand, I consider the descriptor FSCO to be primarily qualitative. It describes any system whose functionality is sharply dependent on the careful spatial and temporal arrangement of its components. In my opinion, qualitative descriptors have immense value even if they resist computation.Optimus_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
06:28 PM
6
06
28
PM
PDT}

keiths, denial is not a river in Egypt! :) notes: Scientific Evidence That Mind Effects Matter - Random Number Generators - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4198007 Here are some of the papers to go with the preceding video; Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research - Scientific Study of Consciousness-Related Physical Phenomena - publications http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/publications.html Correlations of Random Binary Sequences with Pre-Stated Operator Intention: A Review of a 12-Year Program - 1997 http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/pdfs/1997-correlations-random-binary-sequences-12-year-review.pdf The Global Consciousness Project - Meaningful Correlations in Random Data http://teilhard.global-mind.org/ I once asked a evolutionist, after showing him the preceding experiments, "Since you ultimately believe that the 'god of random chance' produced everything we see around us, what in the world is my mind doing pushing your god around?"bornagain77_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
06:27 PM
6
06
27
PM
PDT}

Well I have answered Elizabeth's question AND explained how we reconcile the existence of the soul with the evidence from split-brain patients. Why does keiths prattle on so when he is easily refuted?Joe_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
06:26 PM
6
06
26
PM
PDT}

Hello Dr. Liddle.. I am not sure you really addressed my claims. I am no scientists, but where is your analysis of events in a temporal light? How much time would it take given your CSI experiment for someone to win?ForJah_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
06:13 PM
6
06
13
PM
PDT}

What I’m asking is how those non-materialists who think that mind is immaterial, with no associated body, think mind exerts force on matter.
And when they've answered that question they can visit this thread and explain how they reconcile the existence of the soul with the evidence from split-brain patients. I'm a bit suprised, given how important the soul is to many folks here at UD, that no one is able to defend the concept. Why do all of you believe in it if you can't justify your belief?keiths_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
06:11 PM
6
06
11
PM
PDT}

Elizabeth:
What I’m asking is how those non-materialists who think that mind is immaterial, with no associated body, think mind exerts force on matter.
Telekinesis or psychokinesis. And guess what? I didn't just invent those words.Joe_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
05:57 PM
5
05
57
PM
PDT}

Hey RD:
ID’s claim is that the same thing that accounts for computers and automobiles here on Earth is responsible for eyeballs and flagella in biological organisms, and that thing is called design.
That is the thing.
What I believe you’ve said here is that the way human beings consciously plan and physically create things might be utterly different from how life originated – so different that we can’t even comprehend it.
That is a possibility. Again I refer you to my Amazon tribe analogy: Say an Amazon tribe exists that has never seen us nor our technology. While out hunting they come across some of our technology- say a downed airplane. They wouldn't have any idea what it was or how it came to be but it is a safe bet they would know it wasn't from mother nature.
It implies that, contra ID, the explanation for CSI in biological systems is likely to be utterly different from the explanation for CSI in human artifacts.
Design is design. You started with the comment that design is design. A design process we may not (now) understand, but intentional design none the less. Heck scientists of 200 years ago couldn't comprehend what we are capable of today. It would seem magical even though it is easily explainable. So if that thing is called design, then it isn't all that utterly different, just beyond our current understanding and capabilities. But it is still design. Thank you. Skål, JoeJoe_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
05:53 PM
5
05
53
PM
PDT}

Hey Liz:
Phin: Always? What if the fitness function is one of the following? - The 253rd coin is heads - The coins designated by three RNG rolls are all tails - The first tails is immediately followed by a heads - The entire sequence contains either five heads or five tails in a row - There are at least five heads in coins 100-110
Liz: As long as there is competition between virtual critters for getting closest to the target, then they will all evolve.
Given that "evolve" could mean just about anything in this context, OK??? I'm not sure what that has to do with your claim that:
Always, the result has a pattern that is hugely different to that expected under the null hypothesis of random draw.
Aren't some of the above examples of fitness functions for which your claim is likely not true?
However, algorithms in which the fitness function IS the target (like WEASEL) are boring.
I agree! As a designer, I really dislike boring things. For instance, I find random collisions between particles a bit boring. I feel similarly about life without any real meaning or purpose beyond propagating my genes. I find the idea of divorcing or cheating on my infertile wife and abandoning my adopted son for the sake of gene propagation especially boring, and downright repulsive.
Much more interesting are fitness functions that require a solution to a problem, which may have many solutions, not known in advance.
I agree again! But I don't really see nature taking on the role of evaluating solutions for fitness based on how interesting or intriguing the solution is, do you? I mean, gene propagation doesn't really care about how boring or interesting it is for me to remain married to my wife, does it?
There may be many that lead to sequences that are not unlikely under the null of random draw, but they will not be random nonetheless, because random refers to a process, not a pattern.
Yes, but your claim above was about the pattern being hugely different to that expected. Clearly, lots of fitness functions can lead to patterns that cannot be discerned as being different to a purely random draw.
On the other hand, that is not the only test – if the sequence that evolved is specified in the fitness function then whatever that pattern is, it will be “specified”.
Sure. And it is that kind of circular thinking that prompts IDists to point out that an independent specification is a more reliable indicator of design. In any case, surely you can see that any specified pattern in the fitness function that is then used as a specification for the sequence itself cashes out to CSI that has been smuggled in quite directly and blatantly via the fitness function, can you not?Phinehas_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
05:19 PM
5
05
19
PM
PDT}

Hi Joe,
You’re welcome but I don’t see how that follows.
Here's the thing. ID's claim is that the same thing that accounts for computers and automobiles here on Earth is responsible for eyeballs and flagella in biological organisms, and that thing is called design. What I believe you've said here is that the way human beings consciously plan and physically create things might be utterly different from how life originated - so different that we can't even comprehend it. I agree completely about that. It implies that, contra ID, the explanation for CSI in biological systems is likely to be utterly different from the explanation for CSI in human artifacts. Cheers, RDFishRDFish_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
04:21 PM
4
04
21
PM
PDT}

We only know how we and other animals design. So we go with that. And that is another reason why we do not have to know how it was designed- most likely it was by means that are out of our conceptual capacity.
AHA! I knew we would eventually agree about something! Well said, Joe!
I have been saying that for a long time.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why it is specious to relate the hypothetical cause of CSI in biology to human beings’ cogntive skills! Thank you very much!
You're welcome but I don't see how that follows.Joe_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
03:46 PM
3
03
46
PM
PDT}

Hi Joe,
RDF: In the context of ID, it can’t mean this, because human beings can’t have designed the first life in the universe. JOE: We don’t know.
Obviously it would be a logical impossibility to say that before any living thing existed anywhere, some living thing designed the first living thing. If you'd like to postulate that other universes exist, that's fine - perhaps there are an infinite number of universes, which of course would invalidate all of the fine-tuning arguments and make everything sufficiently probable :-) In any event, like I said, if you're going to hypothesize that a living organism designed life on Earth, it would be simpler to assume that we are this being's descendents rather than the product of its bioengineering.
Strange because we infer design because of our uniform and repeated experience. THAT is what Meyer says.
In our experience, we infer that human beings design things. (Some might wish to add other animals, or even computer systems, to that list). However, in our uniform and repeated experience, there is no such thing as something that can design and build anything without itself being a highly complex physical entity.
We only know how we and other animals design. So we go with that. And that is another reason why we do not have to know how it was designed- most likely it was by means that are out of our conceptual capacity.
AHA! I knew we would eventually agree about something! Well said, Joe! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why it is specious to relate the hypothetical cause of CSI in biology to human beings' cogntive skills! Thank you very much! Cheers, RDFishRDFish_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
03:36 PM
3
03
36
PM
PDT}

Gregory:
I’m curious, Elizabeth, what you think of the ‘extended mind thesis’ (EMT) by Clark and Chalmers (among others).
It seems reasonable.
Their thesis seems to affirm that “mind *can* move matter.” Could you speak about that here or link me to where you’ve written about it on TSZ (or elsewhere)? Thanks.
Well mind can move matter perfectly well if mind is the property of a physical organism with arms and legs and tools! What I'm asking is how those non-materialists who think that mind is immaterial, with no associated body, think mind exerts force on matter.Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
03:30 PM
3
03
30
PM
PDT}

Always? What if the fitness function is one of the following? - The 253rd coin is heads - The coins designated by three RNG rolls are all tails - The first tails is immediately followed by a heads - The entire sequence contains either five heads or five tails in a row - There are at least five heads in coins 100-110
As long as there is competition between virtual critters for getting closest to the target, then they will all evolve. However, algorithms in which the fitness function IS the target (like WEASEL) are boring. Much more interesting are fitness functions that require a solution to a problem, which may have many solutions, not known in advance.
Surely there are nearly an infinite number of similarly arbitrary methods for determining the “fitness” of 500 coin tosses, are there not? Are you sure that more than a small fraction of these will lead to patterns of coins that are significantly different to a random draw?
Well, you have to be careful here. There may be many that lead to sequences that are not unlikely under the null of random draw, but they will not be random nonetheless, because random refers to a process, not a pattern. But it's possible that some of these patterns would not be rejected under the null of the binomial theorem. On the other hand, that is not the only test - if the sequence that evolved is specified in the fitness function then whatever that pattern is, it will be "specified". It's even possible to produce patterns that reliably fulfill criteria for "randomness" - but they aren't random, because random processes sometimes generate sequencers that don't fulfill criteria for "randomness"! But what I will say, is that it is perfectly possible for evolutionary algorithms to solve problems that the designer of the algorithm didn't have a solution for. So the solution is not "programmed in". The algorithm finds it. And it does not find it because it is "trying" to solve our problem; it finds it because it is "trying" to survive and breed, and we have nefariously set up the environment so that solution to its problem is also a solution to ours. In nature, the last thing doesn't matter. All that is needed is an environment that poses hazards and provides resources. And we consider that it looks "designed" if it is cleverly adapted to survive in that environment. And that works.Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
03:24 PM
3
03
24
PM
PDT}

When we use the term “design” in normal discourse, it refers to human beings thinking up plans and then using those plans and producing an artifact.
I disagree.
In the context of ID, it can’t mean this, because human beings can’t have designed the first life in the universe.
We don't know.
So ID says that some other type of intelligent agent was responsible – one that is unknown to our (as Stephen Meyer likes to say) uniform and repeated experience.
Strange because we infer design because of our uniform and repeated experience. THAT is what Meyer says.
Now, our experience invariably confirms that intelligent agency requires complex mechanisms chock-full of CSI in order to behave intelligently, but nothing that was full of CSI itself could logically be responsible for the first CSI.
We are only asking about the first CSI in this universe. Not the first CSI. We cannot study the designer (yet), so that is out of bounds. ID is not about the designer. But anyway, RD, we go with what we know. And what we know says that humans design complex machinery. And just because humans were not around that doesn't mean mother nature miraculously gets the power to do so. We only know how we and other animals design. So we go with that. And that is another reason why we do not have to know how it was designed- most likely it was by means that are out of our conceptual capacity.Joe_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
02:57 PM
2
02
57
PM
PDT}

Elizabeth wrote:
"That’s why I say the critical question is: can mind move matter, or does mind emerge from moving matter? ID, essentially, posits that mind moves matter. “Materialists”, essentially, posit that mind emerges from matter."
I'm curious, Elizabeth, what you think of the 'extended mind thesis' (EMT) by Clark and Chalmers (among others). Their thesis seems to affirm that "mind *can* move matter." Could you speak about that here or link me to where you've written about it on TSZ (or elsewhere)? Thanks.
"Now, here is the kicker: Even if someday somebody came up with some reason to think that might be possible, why should we think that the way this “agent” proceeded to create CSI-filled biological systems has any similarity at all to the way we humans using our brains design and build things?" - RDFish
It's called 'univocal predication,' i.e. created in the imago Dei, human beings therefore 'create/design' like their/our Creator. That's for ID-theists (which constitute 98%+ of IDists) a worldview presupposition of why they embrace IDism.
"ID ought not claim that humans’ ability to design and build things has any known relation to the hypothetical brain-less Designer’s ability to design and build things."
Speaking strictly natural-physical scientificity, no. But if one involves philosophy and theology/worldview in addition to natural-physical science, then a provocative conversation ensues. Iow, it's the purposefully uncapitalised/Capitalised designer/Designer (or substitute more pregnant and provocative terms) distinction. Would you welcome a science, philosophy, theology/worldview conversation about the origins of life, RDFish or do you think OoL is a 'strictly scientific' question/problem/theme/etc.?Gregory_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
02:57 PM
2
02
57
PM
PDT}

Hey Liz:
But I’ve done ones with randomly selected fitness functions too. Always, the result has a pattern that is hugely different to that expected under the null hypothesis of random draw.
Always? What if the fitness function is one of the following? - The 253rd coin is heads - The coins designated by three RNG rolls are all tails - The first tails is immediately followed by a heads - The entire sequence contains either five heads or five tails in a row - There are at least five heads in coins 100-110 Surely there are nearly an infinite number of similarly arbitrary methods for determining the "fitness" of 500 coin tosses, are there not? Are you sure that more than a small fraction of these will lead to patterns of coins that are significantly different to a random draw?Phinehas_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
02:55 PM
2
02
55
PM
PDT}

In a Nutshell: When we use the term "design" in normal discourse, it refers to human beings thinking up plans and then using those plans and producing an artifact. In the context of ID, it can't mean this, because human beings can't have designed the first life in the universe. So ID says that some other type of intelligent agent was responsible - one that is unknown to our (as Stephen Meyer likes to say) uniform and repeated experience. Now, our experience invariably confirms that intelligent agency requires complex mechanisms chock-full of CSI in order to behave intelligently, but nothing that was full of CSI itself could logically be responsible for the first CSI. (If the Designer was a complex, embodied organism, we should conclude that we are its descendents rather than the product of its bioengineering efforts!) So ID leaves the realm of our uniform and repeated experience entirely (contra Meyer) and hypothesizes that there must have been something that can design and build things the way human beings do, but somehow do it without the sort of incredibly complex brains and bodies that human beings use to do their designing and building. Well, you can hypothesize whatever you'd like, but as far as anybody knows, no such thing is possible. There is a mountain of evidence that what we call "intelligence" is critically dependent upon highly complex machinery that processes large amounts of information in highly complex ways (and this is true whether or not materialism is true). ID waves all of this aside and blithely asserts that some sort of "agent" could design and build things without the benefit of complex machinery such as a human brain and body. Now, here is the kicker: Even if someday somebody came up with some reason to think that might be possible, why should we think that the way this "agent" proceeded to create CSI-filled biological systems has any similarity at all to the way we humans using our brains design and build things?. If this hypothetical brain-less Designer existed and designed life, then we could not say that anything except the outcome (a complex design) was the same. And for that reason, ID ought not claim that humans' ability to design and build things has any known relation to the hypothetical brain-less Designer's ability to design and build things. Cheers, RDFishRDFish_{June 26, 2013
June
06
Jun
26
26
2013
02:42 PM
2
02
42
PM
PDT}

Prev 1 2 3 4 … 7 Next

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply