Good and bad reasons for rejecting ID

_{Salvador Cordova

June 24, 2013

Intelligent Design}

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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

Sal: Is a man-made design an example of intelligent design? Alan Fox: NO!!! Sal: Given what you said, is the Space Shuttle an example of intelligent design? How about GMOs? Alan Fox: Nothing is an example of intelligent design unless you want to tell me what “intelligent design” is other than the creationist ploy we both know it to be.
scordova_{June 26, 2013
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Compared to Alan Fox, the dsigners of the space shuttle were/ are super geniuses. However using Alan as a scale of measure is just wrong on all levels. :razz:Joe_{June 26, 2013
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This is the kind of absurd nonsense DDS offers, such as when people deny that a space shuttle was intelligently designed.
Well, I don't think I actually denied the space shuttle was designed. I merely queried how intelligent the designers were. What scale of measurement are we applying?Alan Fox_{June 26, 2013
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Elizabeth:
And you’d then test various Designer hypotheses.
i would think one would have to go to Mars to examine the thing up close and look for other relevant evidence. Airchair speculating should never be confused for science.
What we don’t know is how common disembodied designers are, and I don’t know any ID proponent (and certainly not Dembski) who seriously proposes an Embodied designer –
We don't know, Lizzie. All doors remain open.
if only because an Embodied designer would itself be a candidate for a Designed artefact.
That could be, but so what? One step at a time, Lizzie.
And my point is that positing a disembodied Mind as the origin of living things is that you are also positing that that Mind moved stuff around. In other words, that it exerts physical force.
And that is something we will have to figure out- the how, who and all those OTHER, SEPARATE questions come AFTER determining design.
Joe_{June 26, 2013
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Elizabeth:
But to do that, you have to be ruthless with arguments that turn out to be flawed. One of those is CSI.
In my honest opinion it is your view of CSI that is flawed. So yes, I have been ruthless in pointing this out.Joe_{June 26, 2013
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How did the program come to do this? Was this reward chosen randomly? Or was it artificially selected?
Good question. It was artificially selected, but I did not know the optimal answer (not being very Intelligent) before I selected it. In other words, it solved my problem, which was: what kind of sequences have the greatest product-of-runs-of-heads? 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. And it's easy to see why - as soon as you constrain an iterative process in some way, you will get a pattern that doesn't look like an unconstrained pattern! Of course it doesn't mean that the pattern is "designed" -it simply means that to get past the constraints you have to adapt or die. And as long as there is heritable variance in reproductive success and that variance includes variants that can do something to get round the constraints, you will see neat stuff evolve.
How many potential rewards exist for your fitness criterion? Of those potential rewards, how many will give you the same functional result? How many will give you any functional result?
All will give you functional results if by "functional" you mean what I mean, which is "properties that help the critter survive in that environment". As for number of rewards - most in silico evolutionary algorithms reward (or punish - both can happen - they can utilise a new resource, or fail to avoid a hazard) usually they are thin on the ground, but the more you provide - the higher-dimensioned the fitness landscape - the more possiblities for adaptation there are. And of course nature is far richer in resources and threats than anything we can provide in a computer.
Once the reward was selected, the result was inevitable, was in not? Could someone else not artificially select a reward where the result would be always and consistently not functional?
Certainly, the fitness was bound to improve. But I didn't always get the optimal sequence - sometimes it would get stuck on a "local maximum". As for "functional" - anything that confers fitness is functional, from the PoV of the virtual organism. Whether it does anything functional for the Designer is another question. This distinction is important, and too often elided.
Are you certain there was no CSI smuggled in through the fitness criterion?
No "CSI" but plenty of information, in the form of the environmental hazards and resources. That's where the information in the genome comes from. In this case, I put it there. In nature, nature "puts" it there :) But my strings started off with no significant Kolmogorov compressibility and ended up with lots. They all had lots of Shannon complexity. That Specified Information that they ended up with got into the sequences via the evolutionary algorithm. That evolutionary algorithm consisted simply of an environment that provided resources and hazards, plus a starting population of self-reproducing critters. And while you MIGHT need a Designer to make the self-reproducing critters, you DON'T need a Designer (pace Dembski) to get an environment full of resources and hazards. Or at any rate, if you do, you need it/her/him a lot earlier than the start of Life!Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
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Liz, speaking about a program designed to generate CSI:
It simply rewarded sequences where the product of the strings-of-heads was high.
How did the program come to do this? Was this reward chosen randomly? Or was it artificially selected? How many potential rewards exist for your fitness criterion? Of those potential rewards, how many will give you the same functional result? How many will give you any functional result? Once the reward was selected, the result was inevitable, was in not? Could someone else not artificially select a reward where the result would be always and consistently not functional? Are you certain there was no CSI smuggled in through the fitness criterion?Phinehas_{June 26, 2013
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Joe:
As I said she is proving that ID is not a scientific dead-end as it leads to new and unanswered questions that we will try to answer.
Right. But to do that, you have to be ruthless with arguments that turn out to be flawed. One of those is CSI. I'd also suggest rehabilitating the Reverend Bayes.Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
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William:
You can’t have it both ways. Either you can rightly conclude upon finding Stonehenge on Mars that it was designed, or you can only theorize it.
Let me rephrase: you'd justifiably hypothesise that it was designed. As I made clear in my post. And you'd then test various Designer hypotheses. You might end up rejecting your initial hypothesis. All conclusions in science are provisional.
This is the kind of absurd nonsense DDS offers, such as when people deny that a space shuttle was intelligently designed.
I think that was a joke. Plenty of human designs aren't very intelligently designed. Look at Microsoft Vista.
Design can be rightly concluded before any follow-up questions are asked. Dr. Liddle even admits this. Of course, we all know this is trivially true. Just as we all know it is trivially true that if someone flips 500 coins in a row we would know – not “suspect”, not “strongly suspect”, but know to a certainty that we know anything with certainty – that it was not a fair coin toss. We would suspect it at 10 coins, seriously suspect it at 20, and by the 50th coin toss we’d know something wonky was going on. We’d be certain well before 100, much less 500. Anyone that says differently is lying or deceiving themselves in service of their ideology.
Nobody has lied or deceived themselves, William, and no-one has even said that they wouldn't know there was "something wonky going on". Most of the argy bargy has been about why we would know. I think we'd know because we know that "something wonky" is much more common than "500 Heads". We also know that embodied designers are much more common than naturally formed henges, at least on earth (we don't know that for Mars). What we don't know is how common disembodied designers are, and I don't know any ID proponent (and certainly not Dembski) who seriously proposes an Embodied designer - if only because an Embodied designer would itself be a candidate for a Designed artefact. And my point is that positing a disembodied Mind as the origin of living things is that you are also positing that that Mind moved stuff around. In other words, that it exerts physical force. That's fine - but that's why we ask for something a little more than "oh, we aren't interested in the designer".Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
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Elizabeth:
First of all I’d declare that I was working on the assumption that the world was brought into existence by a Mind, making it clear that this in itself is not possible to determine, but is my working assumption.
Newton, Linneaus, Pasteur- that is what they did. IOW what Lizzie asks for has been done. However ID is about the detection and study of design in nature. What Lizzie wants is what comes AFTER. As I said she is proving that ID is not a scientific dead-end as it leads to new and unanswered questions that we will try to answer.Joe_{June 26, 2013
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If I were an ID fan, by which I mean, for the purposes of this post only, someone who believes that the world was created by a mind (by definition, pretty well, divine) who brought it about with the intention of creating intelligent life - a universe that could "know itself", but also that such a mind would want to be detectable in some physical way (as opposed to being inferred from the mere beauty and glory of existence), and which had therefore brought into being a world in which that mind was an active force, constantly monitoring the playing out of the natural forces it had invoked, to ensure that at necessary junctures, where things seemed finely poised, or unlikely to happen without a nudge, nudged ... If I were such an ID fan, but also a skeptic, a person who wanted some evidence that my belief was well-founded, I'd set up a research program something like this: First of all I'd declare that I was working on the assumption that the world was brought into existence by a Mind, making it clear that this in itself is not possible to determine, but is my working assumption. I'd then make it my primary research question to try to ascertain whether, and, if so how, that Mind (I will capitalise it, to distinguish it from mind-bearing organisms) actively intervened in the world. I'd consider the following explanatory frameworks: 1. That the interventions were rare and unpredictable from within the universe. Intelligent denizens of the universe (us) would therefore consider these interventions "miraculous" or "supernatural", and we'd observe a world that obeyed "regular" or "natural" laws most of the time, but that these laws were from time to time suspended, for reasons clear possibly only to the Mind itself. So we'd see answered prayers, rare visions, unexplainable inklings of knowledge we could not have acquired by normal means, and it would be perfectly reasonable to postulate that at key moments in the world's history, these miraculous interventions similarly stirred up the molecules of early earth and brought forth modern-type cells, then multicellular creatures, and perhaps humans possessed themselves of minds. 2. That the interventions are constant - so constant that we normally perceive them only as "noise" in our measurements - a slight bias here and there to natural stochastic processes in which a slight shift of an ion here or an electron there can have vast effects (like the proverbial butterfly in Peking). If that were the case, we'd expect to see "miracles" extremely rarely, and always explainable away by these pesky "Materialists" as being "within the confidence limits" of natural processes. This would be much more difficult to test, but I'd keep working on it. 3. That there is a perfectly "natural" force in the world that we simply haven't detected yet (this is Thomas Nagel's idea) but which, just as gravitational forces tend to draw massive bodies together, pulls matter towards a state of consciousness. Thus any chemical reaction likely to make conscious beings more likely will itself be more likely than one that wouldn't. I don't know how I'd go about deriving testable hypotheses for all these, but I'd certainly actively attempt to do so. My default would be "mind brought into existence a self-sustaining universe the laws of which were carefully chosen to ensure that intelligent life was inevitable", against which I'd test these three "active" explanatory theories: Occasional; Nudge; and Teleological Force. I'd abandon Dembski's Design Inference, because I think it is fundamentally flawed. I'd give Behe's principle a go (it would be useful for Occasional and Nudge, in particular) and perhaps emprical experiments for Teleological Force. Not that you asked for my opinion :)Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
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This is the kind of absurd nonsense DDS offers, such as when people deny that a space shuttle was intelligently designed. Design can be rightly concluded before any follow-up questions are asked. Dr. Liddle even admits this. Of course, we all know this is trivially true. Just as we all know it is trivially true that if someone flips 500 coins in a row we would know - not "suspect", not "strongly suspect", but know to a certainty that we know anything with certainty - that it was not a fair coin toss. We would suspect it at 10 coins, seriously suspect it at 20, and by the 50th coin toss we'd know something wonky was going on. We'd be certain well before 100, much less 500. Anyone that says differently is lying or deceiving themselves in service of their ideology.William J Murray_{June 26, 2013
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So no, I don’t think they are separate questions at all. Of course they are separate questions. Even in your own post you admit they are:
If you found something like Stonehenge on Mars, you would, rightly, conclude Design. You would also, almost certainly, then ask: what kind of Designer did this? You might postulate many kinds of physical designer (beings like us, albeit possibly with deeply alien biology). But if for some reason you ruled that out, and someone suggested “a disembodied mind” – the question immediately arises: how does a disembodied mind move large blocks of stone?
When you find Stonehenge on Mars, you would rightly conclude "design". You would then ask questions about that. That makes them separate questions, no matter how intimately connected and no matter how quickly after the initial finding of design you ask those follow-up questions. But then when Stephen asks you:
Let’s cut to the chase. Do you acknowledge that it is (in principle, and setting aside calculations of CSI and the like for a moment) possible to determine that something was designed without first knowing how it was fabricated?
Look at your answer
No. I don’t think that’s how scientific enquiry works.
But you just said that if you found "Stonehenge on Mars" you would rightly conclude design, and then start asking some follow-up questions. You can't have it both ways. Either you can rightly conclude upon finding Stonehenge on Mars that it was designed, or you can only theorize it. You admit they are separate questions, and then try to backtrack and claim they are not; you then admit you can conclude design without the further questions on observation alone (Stonehenge on Mars), but then say later one cannot make such a conclusion until the follow-up questions are answered. DDS? Let's not kid ourselves; there are some things that we could find on alien planets where we would immediately know such things are intelligently designed. No follow-up questions necessary. Of course, there would be follow-up questions and research, but to claim that such a conclusion cannot be rightly reached without those follow-up questions is absurd.William J Murray_{June 26, 2013
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Elizabeth:
ID, essentially, posits that mind moves matter.
Essentially, no, ID does not posit mind moves matter. ID would be OK with that, but ID is silent on the designer. And that is because we know 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 and all relevant evidence. Most people with an average IQ can figure that out...Joe_{June 26, 2013
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Elizabeth:
Well, they aren’t separated Eric – if something exists AND it was designed, it must have been physically fabricated according to that design.
True and that proves that the design inference, ie Intelligent Design, is NOT a scientific dead-end. We will try to answer that question. However we do NOT have to know how soemthing was designed and manufactured before determining it was designed. Therefor it is a separate question regardless of what Lizzie thinks.
Sure, we don’t have to know exactly how it was done, but we must postulate that the designers were able to do it.
How do we know people were able to build Stonehenge? Stonehenge- and because we know that mother nature is incapable of such a thing. Cause and effect relationships, Lizzie. 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 and all relevant evidence. That is how it is done in archaeology and forensic science. And if SETI ever receives something that is how they will do it too. Only people who do not understand science or basic investigation techniques try to make ID operate differently than established research venues.Joe_{June 26, 2013
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Eric:
Well, that is pretty silly then. Quick — without looking it up on Wikipedia or anything — please tell me the details of the fabrication process for a solid state hard drive. What’s that you say, you can’t? You don’t know the fabrication process? You can’t tell me what the first step is, what the second step is, what the fabricator does and looks for in the process? Yet you know it is designed. Hmmm . . . I don’t know why it is so hard for people to understand that the following two are separate — logically separate — questions: 1. Is x designed? 2. How was x fabricated?
Well, they aren't separated Eric - if something exists AND it was designed, it must have been physically fabricated according to that design. I mean you can design something without actually fabricate it (I design things in my head all the time, but don't actually make them) but if you are starting with the evidence of the artefact itself, then if it was designed, it must have been fabricated. So it is perfectly sensible to ask HOW it was fabricated - and, indeed, it's exactly the methodology normally used in design detection, for example by archaeologists and forensic scientists. So no, I don't think they are separate questions at all.
Do we know for sure whether the stones of Stonehenge were put in place with earthen ramps or with a system of ropes and pulleys? No. And it has absolutely zero bearing on our ability to determine that Stonehenge was designed.
It has a huge bearing, Eric. Sure, we don't have to know exactly how it was done, but we must postulate that the designers were able to do it. If the postulated designers were ghosts, for example, how on earth would they have been able to physically move the stones? And to take a more realistic example, where there really is doubt - the way you determine whether a chipped pebble is an arrowhead, or just a chipped pebble, is to examine it for how it was done. Or whether a lethal wound was inflicted by a murderer, or the dead person himself by accident. And in this case, when the postulated designer is not in evidence, and we are to consider the possibility that it might be a disembodied mind, it is absolutely critical to consider how that mind would move matter around - because that's something we can potentially actually test.
Is it interesting to know how something was fabricated? Sure. Is it interesting to know why something was fabricated? Sure. Is it interesting to know when something was fabricated? Sure. Is it interesting to know by whom something was fabricated? Sure. And all of those interesting questions are separate from the initial question of whether something was designed.
They may be separate queries, but they are intimately related, and directly pertain to the weight you put on your conclusion. If you found something like Stonehenge on Mars, you would, rightly, conclude Design. You would also, almost certainly, then ask: what kind of Designer did this? You might postulate many kinds of physical designer (beings like us, albeit possibly with deeply alien biology). But if for some reason you ruled that out, and someone suggested "a disembodied mind" - the question immediately arises: how does a disembodied mind move large blocks of stone? At which point, skeptics may say: I think we'd better revisit that alien hypothesis. Wouldn't you?
Let’s cut to the chase. Do you acknowledge that it is (in principle, and setting aside calculations of CSI and the like for a moment) possible to determine that something was designed without first knowing how it was fabricated?
No. I don't think that's how scientific enquiry works. I think it is possible to theorise that something was designed without knowing how it was fabricated, and that indeed might be the most fruitful looking theory. But to get any further, you'd devise testable hypotheses arising from that theory. And the very first approach, I'd say, is: how was it done? For instance if I was serious about ID research I'd want to set up differential hypotheses, such as: Did the Designer seed the earth with pre-formed cells capable of reproduction with heritable variance in reproductive success? How might the first cell have been assembled? Did the Designer Mind interact with the molecules in a "warm little pond" and cause them to coalesce in the desired configuration, then leave them to evolve? If so, did the Designer Mind subsequently step in on occasions to ensure that certain sequences appeared at crucial steps? Or is the Designer Mind constantly present in all cells, supplementing the forces of chemistry with nudges in the desired direction? I'm not trying to lampoon here, I'm just trying to show that IF we are really saying that a Designer Mind (or some other intrinsic teleological principle of the universe as suggested by Nagel) actively moves things around so that molecules are governed not merely by the chemistry and physics that we know about, but also by other forces that mean that a chemical bond that that would otherwise have broken doesn't, and one that would not otherwise have formed does? Perhaps. But that is what is being proposed - and if it happens, it can be looked for, because it would mean that the fundamental forces of the universe - gravity, strong force, weak force, electromagnetic force - are regularly supplemented by some other hitherto unobserved force, possibly unique to living things ("life force"?) 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. If the former is true, then there is no problem in explaining the physical world in terms of a Designer Mind, at least in principle. But to be persuaded that it is true, I'd want some substantial evidence! Because if matter emerges from mind, then there can be no mind until matter has arranged itself to form mind-possessing entities like ourselves. And for that, of course, YOU want substantial evidence! And I don't have conclusive evidence, and never will. But I do have postulated mechanisms that have evidential support. I'd like to see at least a hypothesis for how a Designer Mind would interact with matter to make it behave differently to the way undirected matter behaves. That's not a problem when we postulated biological designers, because they have muscles and tools. We know how designed things are actualised in matter, when the designer is a biological organism. But have no evidence that a mind can actualise a design in matter if that mind-owner has no muscles or tools. Or do we? BA at least recognises the problem, although I don't find his evidence very convincing! But do let me say how much I appreciate this conversation! Thanks LizzieElizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
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Design is a mechanism. Just look up the definitions of both words. Also directed mutation is a specific design mechanism. A targeted search is another design mechanism, as is Dr Spetner's "built-in responses to environmental cues". And again for the learning impaired- ie all anti-ID types: 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 and all relevant evidence. IOW only losers think we have to know what the exact process used was before we can determine design. And we have a testable explanation. And if you don't like the design inference all you have to do is step up and demonstrate that blind and undirected processes can account for it. But forst you need a testable hypothesis, which is something you still do not have.Joe_{June 26, 2013
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Calvdivs: Yes, yes, the fabrication is interesting, as a second-order question. Do you acknowledge, however, that whether something was designed is a separate question from how it was fabricated?Eric Anderson_{June 26, 2013
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Elizabeth:
Elizabeth: It’s not the “mechanism” of the design process people are asking for, it’s the “mechanism” of the fabrication process.
Well, that is pretty silly then. Quick -- without looking it up on Wikipedia or anything -- please tell me the details of the fabrication process for a solid state hard drive. What's that you say, you can't? You don't know the fabrication process? You can't tell me what the first step is, what the second step is, what the fabricator does and looks for in the process? Yet you know it is designed. Hmmm . . . I don't know why it is so hard for people to understand that the following two are separate -- logically separate -- questions: 1. Is x designed? 2. How was x fabricated? Do we know for sure whether the stones of Stonehenge were put in place with earthen ramps or with a system of ropes and pulleys? No. And it has absolutely zero bearing on our ability to determine that Stonehenge was designed. Is it interesting to know how something was fabricated? Sure. Is it interesting to know why something was fabricated? Sure. Is it interesting to know when something was fabricated? Sure. Is it interesting to know by whom something was fabricated? Sure. And all of those interesting questions are separate from the initial question of whether something was designed. ----- Let's cut to the chase. Do you acknowledge that it is (in principle, and setting aside calculations of CSI and the like for a moment) possible to determine that something was designed without first knowing how it was fabricated?Eric Anderson_{June 26, 2013
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That’s fine, and arguable and maybe even correct. But without a testable explanation, ID remains in the realm of metaphysics, philosophy or religion, not science.
ID may not be science, but that does not mean automatically it is religion. If I have a coin in a box and shake it, look at it at 11:27 AM on 6/26/13 and determine it is heads. You have no way of scientifically verifying the claim via a process of repeated experiments 10 years from now. You'll just have to take my word for it. The fact that a true claim about the history of the physical universe is not accessible to science does not make the claim automatically a religious claim. It might be true in the physical sense. Notions of good and evil etc. are definitely in the realm of philosophy, claims about physical universe are not necessarily religious just because they are inaccessible to science.scordova_{June 26, 2013
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My # 1 reason to to reject ID in biology i.e. as science:
Elizabeth: It’s not the “mechanism” of the design process people are asking for, it’s the “mechanism” of the fabrication process.
This. Without a mechanism, there's no actual explanation that we can test, so its not science.
UD FAQ: The theory of intelligent design (ID) holds that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause...
Note this definition doesn't propose an actual explanation. It's just an assertion that an explanation involving intelligence exists. That's fine, and arguable and maybe even correct. But without a testable explanation, ID remains in the realm of metaphysics, philosophy or religion, not science.CLAVDIVS_{June 26, 2013
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Andre:
Elizabeth Loss of function mutations cause speciation not gain Here is an example of such a study http://www.jstor.org/discover/.....2372102391
That's not what this study is saying. It doesn't even mention loss-of-function mutations. It is talking about "deleterious mutations" and epistasis. Epistasis refers to the interaction between alleles. Let's take two "deleterious mutations". We'll call them A and B.Neither causes loss of function, but both are slightly less good than the parental sequence, and slightly reduce the organisms chances of reproduction. However, if there is "synergistic epistasis", inheriting both A and B will be more than twice as bad as inheriting only A. On the other hand if there is "antagonistic epistasis", inheriting both A and B will be better than inheriting one alone, and may even be advantageous. What the author is saying is that once two populations have started to diverge (for example, gulls on the east don't breed with gulls on the west, simply because they are too far apart) so that there is non-homogeneity in the prevalence of both A and B, both synergistic and antagonistic epistasis between A and B might contribute to non-hybridisation, and therefore further decrease the capacity for two incipient species of gull to interbreed. For example, with antagonistic epistasis, if there are lots of A+Bs in the west, western gulls will be fine, because most will have both. And if As and Bs are both quite rare in the east, Eastern gulls will be fine, because most won't have either deleterious mutation. But when western and easter gulls mate, the offspring are highly likely only to have either A or B, in which case they will be less fit. In other words hybrids will tend to be less fit than "pure breds" and further genetic separation between the two will result. If the epistasis is synergistic, then there's a slighlty different scenario. If A quite prevalent in the West, and B in the east, western and eastern gulls will mostly be fine, because having either A or B isn't a very big deal. However, if a western gull mates with an eastern gull, the hybrid again will tend to be unfit, because having both A and B is far worse than having either alone. And so, again, interbreeding between the species will be suppressed. One of the first signs of speciation is when members of two recently separated populations tend to produce hybrids that are less fit than "pure" bred offspring. On the other hand, with very small populations, hybridisation can restore vigor (by increasing genetic diversity).Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
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Eric:
Elizabeth @67: I’m willing to entertain the idea that this is just a semantic misunderstanding, but the question I was responding to is the demand that design proponents outline a “mechanism” for how, say, first life was designed. There are certain design processes that designers sometimes follow and we could speculate on these processes, but that isn’t germane to the design inference itself. (We can know the pyramids in Egypt were designed even if scholars continue to debate how it was done. The two questions are separate.) We know how design works as a general process: a designer sees a problem or has an idea, the designer studies the relevant physical parameters and concepts, the designer then creates a proposed solution. The design may be right the first time, it may require some reworking and refining, and so on. This is a design process. Those who demand a “mechanism” of design aren’t talking about this. They are demanding some kind of mechanistic explanation. That simply isn’t relevant. If I demand that you tell me the “mechanism” that caused the iPhone to have a 4? screen, that is an irrational demand. The reason it has a 4? screen is that the designers decided that was the size of screen they wanted to use. Period. We can speculate on why that might have been by considering the overall product, its intended function, battery life, production costs, and on and on. But the ultimate reason it has a 4? screen is because the designer wanted it that way. There isn’t a “mechanism” that explains it. And the fact that there isn’t a mechanism does not invalidate the ability to infer that it was designed. It may frustrate the individual who wants to see a physical mechanism as the ultimate cause of everything, but that is a limitation of that individual’s view of reality, not a problem of the design inference itself.
No, I don't think so, Eric, though I take your point. It's not the "mechanism" of the design process people are asking for, it's the "mechanism" of the fabrication process. We are not asking for the "mechanism" by which the iPod came to have a 4" screen. We are asking for the "mechanism" by which the designer, having decided on a 4" screen, caused matter (atoms, molecules) to move around in such a manner as to come together as a 4" screen. Can I ask you a question: When you see time-lapse movies of, say, cells dividing and growing, creating new cells, do you attribute that growth and movement to physical and chemical forces, or do you think there is some other force (perhaps a Life Force?) pushing them around? In other words, what is the energy source that moves the molecules into position, and thus governs their direction? If you think it is a Life Force, I respect your view, but disagree with it - but suggest that searching for, and characterising, such a force would be a useful direction for ID research. If you think it is not - it is the workings out of perfectly well-described biochemistry that have a predictable (or fairly predictable) cascade, given the original cell, but that the ancestral cell contained a DNA variant that enables it to make some new protein, what pushed the ancestral nucleotides into position? What mechanism?
Sure, we think things have causes – but you do too. What is the difference between a cause that moves something because it is a particle and a cause that moves something because it is mind?
Oh, stop being silly.
I'm not being silly, Eric - certainly not intentionally, and not, I believe, unintentionally.
A particle only does what it does because it is headed that direction and is obligated to interact in a certain way when it hits the next object. In the truly materialist worldview (and I have not argued that you hold to this view), the particle is doing what it does because it, in turn, was set on its trajectory by some other interaction of matter and energy, on and on back to the Big Bang or the Multiverse or whatever purely materialistic “cause” the materialist posits. A mind can choose to interact or not, depending on goals and foresight and planning and purpose and an end in sight.
And my question is: how? How does a mind cause a particle to move? In your view? For example, do you think that human minds cause particles to move?
Let’s not get into semantic distractions in the current discussion about what a mind is, whether there is free will, and so on.
Well, one man's semantic distraction is another woman's key question! If minds can move things, the world is one way; if minds are the result of things moving, the world is another way. So establishing the direction of causality here seems absolutely germane!
The question here is whether design must result from some physical mechanism. Obviously it need not. That is the whole point of design — the ability to select a contingent and, through choice and purposeful action, instantiate something that would not have otherwise come about. If we want to debate whether designers exist or whether everything we think of as mind, choice, free will, etc., is all an illusion, that is a separate topic.
I suggest that the fact that you think it is a "separate topic" is the very reason we disagree - indeed, the fundamental difference between so-called "materialists" and non-materialists. You (well I, I guess) could make a case, I suggest, that "materialists" are those who think that mind emerges from mindless matter/energy/time/space, while non-materialists think that mind must precede matter/energy/time/space, and creates it (in the case of the creator-mind) and moves it around. How would you test it? In other words, how would you set about finding out whether our neurons fire because we think, or we think because our neurons fire? In any case, I think it's much more pertinent to the ID question than bacterial flagella!Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
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Elizabeth:
These are valid criticsms of a non-Design account of life, although not of Darwin’s theory, because his theory was explicitly not intended to explain how the prerequisites for Darwinian evolution came into existence, and of course cannot. How life arose is dorectly linked to how it evolved. That you refuse to grasp that simple fact exposes your agenda. The ONLY way to say darwinian evolution rules is to demonstrate that blind and undirected chemical processes produced living organisms from inanimate matter. If you cannot do that then you have nothing to say about evolution.
Joe_{June 26, 2013
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Elizabeth:
Well, the argument (as I recall – and I did not have an unbanned account here at the time) seems to hang on how you define CSI. And as no two ID proponents seem to be able to agree on how you define CSI, then I’m not surprised that it’s not going to convince anyway.
You did not generate CSI in any way, shape or form.
But in that experiment (and no, it’s not the only one – I could refer you to Lenski’s AVIDA as a better example)
AVIDA has already been exposed as a fraud.
I started with a string of random virtual coin-tosses, and evolved a string of coin tosses that were highly specified by Dembski’s compressibility criteria (and definitely one for which Design would be inferred were a human to toss them), simply by “RM + NS”. Moreover, the fitness criterion did not specify a compressible sequence (so the “solution” was not “smuggled in” via the fitness function). It simply rewarded sequences where the product of the strings-of-heads was high.
1- You don't understand natural selection- there isn't any reward 2- Coin toss results do NOT reproduce 3- Reproduction is the very thing that youy need to explain
The only sense in which it did not have CSI by Dembski’s definition is that Dembski rules it out BECAUSE it is highly probable under the Darwinian hypothesis!
That is totally wrong. As I said you don't even understand the concept.
But more interestingly, it demonstrates what must be the case – that the Darwinian mechanism can add information (where information is a low probability sequence in a Shannon complex string, Dembski’s definition).
What information did it add? What new functionality was gained? Or are you also ignorant of "information"? Dembski would tell you that you did not create CSI.Joe_{June 26, 2013
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Art Hunt:
Joe, no matter how many times you make the claim, plant breeders in the 1940?s and 1950?s did not design, sculpt, assemble or in any way, shape, or form create Turf13.
I never made that claim.
This protein (that forms a multi-subunit gated ion channel) arose (from scratch, with no protein forebears) by random, undirected processes that occur all of the time in nature.
That is just a bald assertion, Art. Again I ask how you determined how gene duplications and recombinations are random, undirected processes? If you cannot answer then you have no clue.
As far as IC or not, I’ll believe Behe, who states, in no uncertain terms in Darwin’s Black Box, that gated ion channels are IC.
LoL! Again Art that is because they contain COMPONENTS, whereas TURF-13 is only ONE component. IOW you need to demonstrate random, undirected processes produced the membrane and all other components involved.
And Jed Macosko, who told a discussion at ISCID that single polypeptide chains are IC.
They could be. However you STILL have NOT demonstrated random, undirected processes produced TURF-13. You just assume it. Also natural selection did NOT have anything to do with it. And THAT is Behe's claim. So you lose, again.
BA77, Jonathan M’s “review” of my essays really says nothing. He seems to think that, because someone did not have a tiny video camera inside the very cell in which Turf13 arose, then we don’t know how things happened. But we plainly do. The process involved well-understood biochemical reactions, no miracles required.
What a joke. We understand what is going on inside of computers but that does NOT mean that it is all random, undirected processes. Also no miracles are required in order for a computer to run properly. IOW Art is still as clueless as ever. And apparent;y proud of it. So here we have Art Hunt, still full of it and proud of it.Joe_{June 26, 2013
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Elizabeth Loss of function mutations cause speciation not gain Here is an example of such a study http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3449162?uid=2129&uid=2&uid=70&uid=4&sid=21102372102391Andre_{June 26, 2013
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F/N (as kairosfocus would say!)
I don’t follow are we saying Darwin never suggest OOL?
He did suggest that natural abiogenesis might have occurred. In fact he regretted implying that some kind of biblical "creation" must have produced the first ancestral life forms. He did not rule out a non-Design OoL (hence his "warm little pond") speculation. But it was emphatically not part of his theory. (apologies for messed up formatting above: the first lines are of course Andre's). Context for last quotation above
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. It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter.
In other words, he was open to a non-Design (whole natural) account of OoL but did not think we were anywhere near having one.Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
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Elizabeth I don’t follow are we saying Darwin never suggest OOL? What about his warm little pond? Is that a creationist/ID myth? Darwin wrote in a letter, this:
It is often said that all the conditions for the first production of a living organism are now present, which could ever have been present.— But if (& oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia & phosphoric salts,—light, heat, electricity &c present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter wd be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed.
The letter was part of correspondence concerning the question as to how life got started in the first place, which of course Darwin's theory did not, and could not, attempt to explain. But in this case he was addressing the the issue of how simple the simplest self-replicator had to be to be Darwinian-capable, and suggests: simpler than any extant organism. In other words, his "warm little pond" was merely a hypothetical, proposed off the cuff in a letter about something different and more interesting. But note the bolded, and also another comment by Darwin in the same correspondence:
It is mere rubbish, thinking at present of the origin of life; one might as well think of the origin of matter.
What he did write, famously, at the end of Origin, was:
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.
In other words, his theory specifically did NOT embrace OoL ("life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one") but what happened next.Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
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Andre: I don't think "successive macroevolution" is true. I think "macroevolution" is simply the term we give to studies of evolution above the species level. I'd say all evolution is "micro", with the possible exception of a few larger-then-normal chances, see Margulis' symbiosis theory for the origin of eukaryotic organelles, which is now widely accepted as plausible. I'd say that "speciation" is the process by which one population divides into two separately, micro-evolving populations, giving rise, eventually, to two non-interbreeding populations which continue to evolve by adaptation and drift in different directions. In contrast, longitudinal evolution is when a single population continues to drift and adapt without speciating, and later generations may differ markedly from earlier, even though no speciation has taken place. So to say "one species gave rise to another" is not really accurate. We can say that one lineage gave rise to two, resulting in two different species; or we can say that one lineage split off from another, and adapted to a different environment, such that after a while, the original lineage remains similar to the ancestral population, while the split-off lineage looks very different. But both are equally "evolved" from the shared parent population. As for "loss of information" and "new information" - I'd want to see very precise definitions of information as intended in that claim before I'd buy it. Certainly sometimes some functions are lost over time, but some functions are also gained. Sometimes a function is lost as the "price" of another. But not always. If we look at phylogenetic trees (which you may not believe, but that's the argument you need to address), we see both loss and gain of functions down lineages. But to turn that into an argument about "information" gain or loss, you'd need to be very precises about how you are defining "information". But thanks for responding. Communication is good :)Elizabeth B Liddle_{June 26, 2013
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