Jonathan Bartlett: Intelligent design is not what most people think it is

ChuckDarwin has become an ID proponent. Everything he says is consistent with ID. Welcome aboard Chuck. jerry

I'm not sure where your confusion lies. Gregory defines "directionality." It simply means towards fitness. I can't define it any better. Anderson is incorrect when he characterizes the environment as "just another random factor." The environment to which NS responds comprises a number of interactive variables which are highly predictable and highly stable for thousands, if not millions, of years. Take one easy example, dinosaurs. The clade Dinosauria existed from 245 MYA to 66 MYA until the Chicxulub impact. Dinosaurs existed in relative homeostasis for 180 million years. Their environment changed very little during that time. But for the Chicxulub impact, who knows how much longer they would have survived. The environmental conditions which elicit fitness are so stable they are labeled ecoregions or ecozones. e.g. equatorial zones, temperate zones, boreal zones, sub-artic and artic zones, etc. Biologists can predict with great accuracy what phenotypes NS will select based on a given zone. You wouldn't predict (or find) snow leopards in the Amazonian rain forest nor iguanas in Antartica, at least not for long. If the NS --environment relationship was completely random, as Anderson claims, no such predictions would be possible and it's doubtful that evolution would have resulted in the first instance. Finally, no one is saying that NS shows "foresight." Quite the opposite. As Gregory points out in the passage that you quote, NS works in the "here and now." But it certainly doesn't work randomly--phenotypical expression responds to the environment in a highly predictable fashion. chuckdarwin

Unlike intelligent design, evolution has a standard definition:

ID is not a science, it’s logic applied to a small set of findings by science. ID accepts 99.9999% of science’s conclusions. But not all because some are not proven and most likely due to agency not the forces of physics. ID is science +

Biological evolution is defined as change in the heritable characteristics of a population over succeeding generations. In more technical terms, evolution is defined as change in the gene pool of a population, measurable as changes in allele frequencies in a population. (https://bioprinciples.biosci.gatech.edu/)

this is 100% accepted by ID Nothing new. It’s the science of genetics which ID endorses.

Rule number one in science: Operationally define your terms. “Measurable ” is the key feature of this definition.

ID agrees completely. So what’s the issue. The usual nonsense from an anti ID commenter.

Intelligent design doesn’t even come close

yes it does. ID says certain findings have no natural explanation and are best explained by the agency of an intelligence. The modern world is full of such examples. Aside: ID completely accepts the concept of natural selection and several other of Darwin’s ideas. As I said above, ID endorses genetics as a valid science and genetics includes many of Darwin’s ideas. Genetics is not Evolution. Nothing that ChuckDarwin said is not accepted by ID. Sorry to inform him of that. He is misinformed.     Let’s Go Finches Much ado about nothing. All been discussed before. jerry

Origenes @29, From your description, it seems like the paper that Chuckdarwin has been brandishing is simply a case of the Texas sharpshooter fallacy:

The term “Texas sharpshooter” refers to a story in which a gunman, who lacks shooting skills, fires his gun at the side of a barn a number of times. He then paints a bullseye around the tightest cluster of bullet holes, making it appear as if he hit his target, and declares himself a sharpshooter.

https://fallacyinlogic.com/texas-sharpshooter-fallacy/ -Q Querius

CD @27 Let's have a quick look at your paper:

Which Traits Are the Most Fit? Directional natural selection can be understood as a process by which fitter traits (or genes) increase in proportion within populations over the course of many generations.

"Directional"? How so? It all depends on the environment during that period, right? Let’s look again at what Eric Anderson has to say about that:

Anderson: Here is part of what I think is going on. A Darwinist will look at a specific environment, in a given moment and say, just to give an example, “The environment has turned colder, so those organisms that can better survive in a colder environment will be more likely to survive. Ta da! The organisms are changing in a non-random manner. Therefore, natural selection provides direction to evolution.” But they fail to see that the environment is just another random factor. If we have random mutations, subjected to the random vagaries and hazards of the environment, that just means that we’ve got another layer of randomness, not that we’ve avoided it.

Even the guys who wrote the paper seem to have a subconscious understanding that it is all randomness:

It must be understood that the relative fitness of different traits depends on the current environment. Thus, traits that are fit now may become unfit later if the environment changes.

Yes, of course. So why the talk about natural selection not being random? What "directionality"?

Conversely, traits that have now become fit may have been present long before the current environment arose, without having conferred any advantage under previous conditions.

Well, yes, "could be." Chance and randomness.

Finally, it must be noted that fitness refers to reproductive success relative to alternatives here and now ...

Well, let’s get real, that cannot be a really big factor, otherwise, there would only be bacteria.

—natural selection cannot increase the proportion of traits solely because they may someday become advantageous. Careful reflection on how natural selection actually works should make it clear why this is so.

No careful reflection is required. It is a blind random process without foresight. Origenes

Chuckdarwin @23,

One of the problems with this blog, as I pointed out in my very first comment @4, is IDers’ consistent failure to define terms. Use of the term “Darwinism” is problematic.

As I’ve mentioned to you before, to understand the profound difference between Darwinism and modern evolutionary processes, go and buy this book: https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-2-0-Breaking-Deadlock-Between/dp/1944648755/ In it, you’ll find that random mutation is by far the weakest evolutionary mechanism out of the six listed. According to his book, Evolution 2.0, Perry Marshall claims there are five, maybe six ways that a genome can change. The weakest one is random mutation. 1. Transposition 2. Horizontal gene transfer 3. Epigenetics 4. Symbiogenesis 5. Genome duplication 6. Random mutation (maybe, rarely) As I’ve also mentioned before:

In 2014, eight scientists took up this challenge, publishing an article (https://www.nature.com/articles/514161a) in the leading journal Nature that asked “Does evolutionary theory need a rethink?” Their answer was: “Yes, urgently.” Each of the authors came from cutting-edge scientific subfields, from the study of the way organisms alter their environment in order to reduce the normal pressure of natural selection – think of beavers building dams – to new research showing that chemical modifications added to DNA during our lifetimes can be passed on to our offspring. The authors called for a new understanding of evolution that could make room for such discoveries. The name they gave this new framework was rather bland – the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis (EES) – but their proposals were, to many fellow scientists, incendiary.

And as I also brought to your attention . . .

525-million-year-old fossil defies textbook explanation for brain evolution https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/11/221125132137.htm or this one, published DEC 2: Active DNA demethylation of developmental cis-regulatory regions predates vertebrate origins This work demonstrates that active 5mC removal from regulatory regions is a common feature of deuterostome embryogenesis suggestive of an unexpected deep conservation of a major gene-regulatory module. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abn2258

As to your other objections from the pathetic Darwin fundamentalist rationalizations, let me again state that Darwinism can explain ANYTHING but has successfully predicted NOTHING. It seems like there’s not a week that goes by without some new discovery that asserts will rewrite what’s commonly accepted as fact in academia. Of course, it’s never allowed to do so by the high priests of Darwin. As such, Darwinism simply reduced to the level of a fundamentalist religion with a foundation in racism and European colonialism. Have you ever read Darwin’s The Descent of Man? I suppose not, but you can start reading it here for free: https://archive.org/details/descentman00darwgoog/page/n4/mode/2up I hope you become disgusted with it. -Q Querius

Origenes/26 Maybe Mr. Anderson (who I understand is a lawyer) should read the link I provided......... chuckdarwin

CD @25 According to the definition you referred to, natural selection is a non-random process. Eric Anderson, in a discussion with you, argues eloquently that this is not true: Eric Anderson [quoted from an earlier discussion with CD]

CD @ 45 & 47: Thanks. As to this “interaction between species and their niche environment is the non-random element…” Where is the non-randomness? The environment can, and does, change. Other organisms come and go, climate fluctuates, food sources rise and fall, and on and on. We can’t simply proclaim, as a matter of fiat, that an “interaction” means non-random or, as Davies does, that “selection is far from random.” Based on what? The only causal mechanism evolution can point to is the environment, which is claimed to exert “pressure” to shape and mold the organism. But the environment is itself an essentially random situation. “I think we are mixing categories. Evolution is a huge umbrella, and we are talking about a very specific part of the process.” Are there other non-random causes in evolutionary theory? So far, we don’t seem to be getting any traction from natural selection (which was supposed to be the great saving principle to help avoid randomness). Here is part of what I think is going on. A Darwinist will look at a specific environment, in a given moment and say, just to give an example, “The environment has turned colder, so those organisms that can better survive in a colder environment will be more likely to survive. Ta da! The organisms are changing in a non-random manner. Therefore, natural selection provides direction to evolution.” But they fail to see that the environment is just another random factor. If we have random mutations, subjected to the random vagaries and hazards of the environment, that just means that we’ve got another layer of randomness, not that we’ve avoided it. If we are looking narrowly at only the immediate shift and not the broader picture, we fail to see that it is randomness all the way down. Of course any particular change must go in a particular direction, otherwise it wouldn’t be a change! That isn’t the issue. The question is whether the changes are leading somewhere–in some identifiable direction toward increased functional capabilities, as Darwin and Dawkins claimed. —– “Change in phenotype to adapt to a given ecological niche is one of Darwin’s greatest observations. The concept has become so commonplace that we forget how significant this observation was.” Let’s not overstate Darwin’s role here. People have observed for millennia that organisms are well adapted to their environments and that organisms can change in small adaptive ways. Some posited that this was due to their ability to adapt within their created kind. So let’s not overstate Darwin’s contribution in making this observation. Darwin didn’t write a book called, “How Organisms Vary Slightly, but Don’t Really Fundamentally Change.” No, Darwin was trying to piece together a larger creative narrative from these modest observations. Darwin’s claim, Darwin’s contribution, if you will, was that he thought he perceived in the mundane observation of small-scale changes some grander story. He claimed that these small-scale changes people had been observing were really a process of the organism turning into a completely different kind of organism. That was Darwin’s contribution to the discussion. And that claim, unfortunately, has never been observed or demonstrated. —– “… “negative selection” …is completely contingent on the environment available to the population. So, within the larger process of “evolution,” randomness is still a huge part of the game.” Agreed. Now what I’m trying to pin down is how this “huge part” of randomness suddenly becomes non-random (as Dawkins, Davies, and others have claimed), just because we slap the label “natural selection” on it. So far, I haven’t seen anything at all convincing from anybody on that front. Look, it’s OK if it is all randomness. Then evolution can just come clean that it is relying on sheer dumb luck (which, ultimately, it has to do anyway) for all the creative capabilities. The smoke and mirrors is brought in with the idea of natural selection. The idea of natural selection performs two rhetorical functions: (i) it provides a false impression of some creative capacity (anthropomorphizing the environment as a creative agent), and (ii) it effectively distracts people from looking at the underlying causes for the change in the first place. Pronounce that some observed change in the organism occurred because of “natural selection,” and people tend to just nod and pat each other on the back and think they’ve provided some answer to the actual cause of the change. (BTW, it isn’t just me, as a critic of evolutionary theory, who has noticed these things. A number of evolutionists have had very frank things to say about the shortcomings of natural selection and even questioning whether it has substantive explanatory value.)

Origenes

https://evolution-outreach.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1007/s12052-009-0128-1 chuckdarwin

CD @23

But, as I said, the larger point is that Sweitzer’s research does not falsify natural selection. (...) Do anything to avoid dealing with natural selection.

What, in your opinion, is a good definition of "natural selection"? Origenes

Querius/20 "And there are so many cases where Darwinism has been falsified..." One of the problems with this blog, as I pointed out in my very first comment @4, is IDers' consistent failure to define terms. Use of the term "Darwinism" is problematic. If by the term "Darwinism" you mean natural selection, then none of the examples you provide falsifies "Darwinism." Let's look at two of the examples you provided. I have been loosely following Mary Sweitzer's T. Rex find in Montana because it is somewhat in my backyard. The find is consistent with the range within which dinosaurs lived (68 MYA), the sole issues being (1) if the soft tissue found is in fact dinosaur tissue (it is) and (2) how it was preserved. Sweitzer provided an answer in a paper published by the Proceedings of the Royal Society: Biology ten years ago--an answer that has contributed immensely to the nascent field of paleoproteomics. You can find a simplified description of her research at https://www.livescience.com/41537-t-rex-soft-tissue.html You claim that:

The skeletal remains of extinct animals called dinosaurs supposedly lived roughly 65-250 million years ago were ALL supposedly petrified artifacts without any possibility for organic matter to survive. This was PREDICTED by Darwinism.

Again, by failing to explain exactly what you mean by "Darwinism," or provide a citation to this "prediction," it's impossible to confirm this prediction. But, as I said, the larger point is that Sweitzer's research does not falsify natural selection. The same is true for the protein study to which you link. It simply identifies a role for micro-proteins in muscle function which appears to be a new discovery. However, it does not challenge natural selection in any way. Finally, by continued use of the term "Darwinism," you obfuscate and/ignore the advances made in evolutionary biology for 70+ years. As I have pointed out a number of times before, biologists have known for decades that there are additional mechanisms involved in evolution such as genetic drift, gene flow, non-random mating, horizonal gene transfer, etc. And, who knows, maybe even epigenetics will pan out over time. In any event, your comment epitomizes the observation in my original post @4 that ID cannot even define itself, let alone stand as a scientific theory. Every time someone on this blog challenges ID, the ID crowd closes ranks and goes into what I call the "rag on Darwin and Darwinism" mode. Accuse Darwin of being a racist, or worse yet, an atheist. Do anything to avoid dealing with natural selection. I believe I saw a post a few days back from PM1 telling you guys to elevate and clean up your game. The best advice I've seen on this blog since I can't remember when.... chuckdarwin

Sandy @21,

Those 99% that said we will be under water since 1960?

Yabbut that doesn't count because at that time, it MIGHTA turned out that way after all! In fact, this exact prediction MUSTA turned out to be right on the money in at least one of the universes in the MULTIVERSE. Same goes for Darwinism. Besides, 99% of scientists aren't making any such predictions. They're too busy with other research. But isn't there a Tweet that shows a really old guy on campus wearing a jacket over a T-shirt that has "99%" printed on it? I bet it was that guy's prediction. ;-) -Q Querius

99% of the scientists in the world live…..

Those 99% that said we will be under water since 1960? https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-of-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions/ Sandy

Chuckdarwin @4 etc.

It’s been 25+ years since the Discovery Institute started the “Center for Science and Culture” and IDers are still trying to define and/or describe “Intelligent Design.” Agency, awareness, functional purpose, blah, blah blah. It’s truly unbelievable that anyone takes ID seriously……

Unsupported assertions. How's this in response: It’s been 160+ years since the Darwin proposed his theory and Darwinists are still trying to find legitimate examples that don't fall apart on further investigation.” Random mutations, natural selection, and the god's-of the gaps arguments of MUSTA, MIGHTA, and EMERGED blah blah blah. It’s truly unbelievable that anyone still takes a failed, racist theory that justified European colonialism seriously. And there are so many cases where Darwinism has been falsified: – The presumption of over 100 supposedly useless “vestigial” organs such as the thyroid (an other ductless glands): useless vestiges of random, undirected evolution. – The presumption that 98.8% of our genome is “junk DNA,” now called “non-coding DNA,” as additional examples of vestiges of random, undirected evolution by Susumu Ohno, the originator of the term. And discovered in 2019: “Small proteins also promise to revise the current understanding of the genome. Many appear to be encoded in stretches of DNA—and RNA—that were not thought to help build proteins of any sort.” https://www.science.org/content/article/new-universe-miniproteins-upending-cell-biology-and-genetics – The skeletal remains of extinct animals called dinosaurs supposedly lived roughly 65-250 million years ago were ALL supposedly petrified artifacts without any possibility for organic matter to survive. This was PREDICTED by Darwinism. It’s also failed, but Darwinists are grimly hanging on to the unscientific possibility that 100+ million years of background radiation miraculously allowed organic bone, stretchy connective tissue, and even red blood cells to survive (in Chile, a recent find of Ichthyosaurus remains included preserved soft tissue in strata dated to 130-140 million years ago). What an embarrassment to science! -Q Querius

Count on BA77 to come up with yet one more inapposite study….. chuckdarwin

"99% of the scientists" Like I said... Andrew asauber

ChuckyD claims, "it appears to be the same one in which 99% of the scientists in the world live" Unsurprisingly, it is another false claim.

Misconceptions of science and religion found in new study - David Ruth – February 16, 2014 Excerpt: The public’s view that science and religion can’t work in collaboration is a misconception that stunts progress, according to a new survey of more than 10,000 Americans, scientists and evangelical Protestants. The study by Rice University also found that scientists and the general public are surprisingly similar in their religious practices.,, The study also found that 18 percent of scientists attended weekly religious services, compared with 20 percent of the general U.S. population; 15 percent consider themselves very religious (versus 19 percent of the general U.S. population); 13.5 percent read religious texts weekly (compared with 17 percent of the U.S. population); and 19 percent pray several times a day (versus 26 percent of the U.S. population). ,,, Other key findings:,,, ,,,Nearly 36 percent of scientists have no doubt about God’s existence. https://news2.rice.edu/2014/02/16/misconceptions-of-science-and-religion-found-in-new-study/

bornagain77

CD at 15, Unguided Evolution is fiction. I think I'll start a bus campaign in London with this message. It'll run about 3 weeks. :) relatd

I’m sorry. I was taking moment of reflection to determine in which of the myriad “fantasy worlds” out there I live. I think Asauber being a little harsh. After all it appears to be the same one in which 99% of the scientists in the world live….. chuckdarwin

CD at 12, Who deftly dodges whatever he'd rather not respond to... You just lost -1 playing point. relatd

"Sorry, gentlemen, I don’t do “Bored of the Rings…..” CD, Why not? You're already living in a fantasy world. ZING ;) Andrew asauber

Sorry, gentlemen, I don't do "Bored of the Rings....." chuckdarwin

"Oh, I forgot about the never to be crossed – fictional – dividing line between Origin of Life and so-called Evolution." Related, OOL is the Oliphaunt in the room people like CD are scared of. But look at Evolution! they wail and point at bone fragments and incorrect artist renderings. Andrew asauber

CD at 9, Oh, I forgot about the never to be crossed - fictional - dividing line between Origin of Life and so-called Evolution. Face it. No first organism, no evolution. relatd

Relatd You must have slept through genetics class, assuming you took it. Or even freshman biology: (https://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/cells-can-replicate-their-dna-precisely-6524830/) And as a point of clarification (for the umpteenth time), do you see any reference to “origin of life” anywhere in the definition of evolution that I provided? chuckdarwin

CD at 7, You've got nothing. At this moment, scientists are working on smaller and smaller components for computer chips and looking for alternatives to current types of memory storage. IBM is selling quantum computers. Eventually, it is hoped, devices will be designed at atomic scale. I watched a video showing a projection of an atomic scale computer. The prototype device, which does not yet exist, was a cube measuring six inches on a side. A screen on top would lift up. Origin of Life researchers claim they can reduce a living cell to its chemical components - non-living chemicals. So far, they have been unable to create a cell from these inorganic chemicals. They cannot produce a so-called minimal cell without borrowing components from actual living cells. Should atomic scale assembly equipment become available, engineers could scan a cell, program in the information to a device called an assembler, and a cell should be the end result. Duplicating a machine with a machine. However, this would be 100% Intelligent Design. There is no evidence that nature, on its own, can do something like this, just an ardent wish. relatd

Relatd Unlike intelligent design, evolution has a standard definition:

Biological evolution is defined as change in the heritable characteristics of a population over succeeding generations. In more technical terms, evolution is defined as change in the gene pool of a population, measurable as changes in allele frequencies in a population. (https://bioprinciples.biosci.gatech.edu/)

Rule number one in science: Operationally define your terms. "Measurable " is the key feature of this definition. Intelligent design doesn't even come close....... chuckdarwin

CD at 4, It's truly unbelievable that some people take Evolution seriously. relatd

Semi OT

(The Practice of) Science (itself) as “Evidence for a Creator”? Meyer, Lennox, and Behe Discuss February 7, 2023 https://evolutionnews.org/2023/02/science-as-evidence-for-a-creator-meyer-lennox-and-behe-discuss/

bornagain77

It's been 25+ years since the Discovery Institute started the "Center for Science and Culture" and IDers are still trying to define and/or describe "Intelligent Design." Agency, awareness, functional purpose, blah, blah blah. It's truly unbelievable that anyone takes ID seriously...... chuckdarwin

Awareness is the exclusive sign of ID. If an atheist is aware that is a sign of theism . ;) Sandy

Yes, agency is crucial, and it is reasonable to examine the question of signs of cause by intelligently directed configuration. The needless but oh so convenient confusion is an intentional result of a dirty agit prop and lawfare campaign tracing to known sources. It is an example of . . . detection of design on reliable signs. kairosfocus

My understanding of ID is as follows:

All that ID claims is that living things appear intelligently designed, so that organelles, biochemical cycles, and genetic mechanisms that are poorly understood should be studied as if they were intelligently designed rather than ignored as useless vestiges of undirected evolution. In contrast, Darwinism presumes that any poorly understood biological feature or structure is junk, thus once again proving evolution. This is an ideological, not a scientific position.

I something is "designed," then every feature had, has, or could have a functional purpose under greatly varying environmental conditions. -Q Querius