Let’s Put This One To Rest Please

_{Barry Arrington

October 3, 2013

Intelligent Design}

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Elizabeth Liddle from a prior post: “Darwinian hypotheses make testable predictions and ID hypotheses (so far) don’t.”

This statement is breathtakingly false. Let us take just one example. For years Darwinists touted “junk DNA” as not just any evidence but powerful, practically irrefutable evidence for the Darwinian hypothesis. ID proponents disagreed and argued that the evidence would ultimately demonstrate function.

Not only did both hypotheses make testable predictions, the Darwinist prediction turned out to be false and the ID prediction turned out to be confirmed.

EL, you are entitled to your own private opinion. You are not entitled to your own private facts. And when you make it up as you go like this, be sure you will be called out.

Comments

Judging from what we know about intelligent design as performed by humans, we can predict that living organisms can be classified within a non-nested hierarchy (genetic tree of life). The hierarchy will be mostly nested but will have many instances of lateral inheritance. An example of such lateral gene reuse can be seen the shared genetic code for echolocation used by bats and certain whale species. This prediction has already been confirmed. What makes this interesting is that Darwinists have for a long time insisted that the tree of life must be strictly nested on account of common descent. Now that their prediction has been squarely falsified, they have changed their tune by positing all sorts of cockamamie mechanisms to explain lateral gene transfers between distant species.Mapou_{October 3, 2013
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Mark, The alternative to matter being directed by some method is what? That baby birds miraculously appear in their nests looking just like their parents?Upright BiPed_{October 3, 2013
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#9 UB
It is an inherent prediction of design that DNA is a semiotic system
Why? Suppose the designer did not want to use semiotic systems? Or you making assumptions about his/her/its methods?Mark Frank_{October 3, 2013
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#10 Jerry You make a good point. Really it is almost impossible to make any predictions about what a designer might produce with making even more detailed assumptions about the nature of the designer.Mark Frank_{October 3, 2013
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Barry You know by now that Jonothan Wells is not a real scientist, How can he be if he believes in God.Andre_{October 3, 2013
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hi Kantian Naturalist first i mean "id predict that we will find systems that can't evolve step wise" this is because we know that even intellegent designer cant do this. "So is the claim that evolutionary theory didn’t predict irreducible complexity, or that it can’t explain it?"- those two.even darwin predicr that if we will find one of such system- the theory will falsified. another argument that id is a scientific is that it can be prooven. how? we know that a self replicat watch with dna need a designer because of its complexity. we know that nature is more complex then this kind of watch- then natur need a designer.mk_{October 3, 2013
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KN @ 5: “OK — which ID proponents said this?” Really? You’re going to lead with your chin? You’re going to lob a slow fat one right up the pipe? (OK, enough with the sports metaphors). Yes, ID proponents were right in their predictions and the Darwinists could not have been more wrong. Go here for the details: http://www.amazon.com/Myth-Junk-Jonathan-Wells-Ph-D/dp/1936599007Barry Arrington_{October 3, 2013
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Of course you might hold to a version of ID which assumes the designer is concerned to maximise the organisms fitness and is capable of doing it with great efficiency. In this case you could indeed predict no junk DNA.
This does not follow. It implies that you or someone else knows what is efficient or the intentions of the designer and how the designer implemented the design. Maybe most or all of the junk DNA is efficient while some of it may never have a function. In the United States, we would call it the bullpen which is ready to relieve the current pitcher whenever he gets in trouble. For example, if the designer implemented a system so that organisms could adapt and this process created new parts of the genome that were not being used either temporarily or ever, then that could be part of the efficiency. The extra DNA may be there in reserve for some future contingency but some may never be used but rarely is the entire bullpen ever used. In fact such a system exists and is used by those who espouse natural evolution as a means for organisms to change and adapt over time. It is called Darwinian evolution. It just may be that Darwinian processes are designed to help organisms adapt over time. But this adaptation is limited. The mistake made by those who espouse this process and was Darwin's big mistake was to assume that this process could explain everything. But it appears limited and maybe that is because of design. Otherwise some organisms would start to dominate the ecology and ruin it eventually. What is efficient for an organism over time may be a limiting of the organism's ability to change. That is exactly what we see. The world of success is based on both the concept of competition and cooperation. A business' success is based on competition but internally it is based very much on cooperation. Similar a successful ecology has both competition and cooperation.jerry_{October 3, 2013
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It is an inherent prediction of design that DNA is a semiotic system. In order to function, a semiotic system requires physicochemically arbitrary relationships to be instantiated within a physical system. It cannot function otherwise. The system requires these relationships as a means to translate information and produce material effects which are not locally derivable from physical law. Yet even today, materialist partisans in knee-jerk reaction to the concept vehemently insist that DNA is not semiotic but “just chemistry”. DNA is semiotic. Prediction fulfilled. Obfuscation follows.Upright BiPed_{October 3, 2013
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great. id predict that we will find systems that can evolve step wise. and we do find. for example: a minimal motion system need a minimum 2-3 parts for minimal function (we know this from the fact that even an intellegent human cant make a motions system base on 1 part) . so it cant explain by evolution theory, and the evolution not predict this.
So is the claim that evolutionary theory didn't predict irreducible complexity, or that it can't explain it? I don't see how design theory could have predicted irreducible complexity, since the observation of irreducible complexity is what motivates the abductive leap to design in the first place. That is, the design hypothesis, as I understand it, goes as follows:
It is surprising that we observe irreducible complexity in biochemical systems. But, if biochemical systems were brought into existence through the actions of an intelligent designer, then the irreducible complexity of those systems would be a matter of course.
But if that's the right way of framing the design hypothesis, then the sheer fact of irreducible complexity in biochemical systems cannot be appealed to as confirming the design hypothesis (without falling into circular reasoning). Then the question becomes, which theory explains irreducible complexity better -- and to determine that, one would have to generate different predictions from the two theories, and then test those different predictions to see which ones are confirmed by available evidence. Alternatively, perhaps, one could argue that if there were no intelligent designer, then the irreducible complexity of biochemical systems cannot be explained at all. And that seems to be how most ID proponents want to argue. But I really don't see how we could know this.Kantian Naturalist_{October 3, 2013
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Kantian Naturalist daid; "Well, if ID is going to fare any better, one will have to show that ID isn’t doing the same thing." great. id predict that we will find systems that can evolve step wise. and we do find. for example: a minimal motion system need a minimum 2-3 parts for minimal function (we know this from the fact that even an intellegent human cant make a motions system base on 1 part) . so it cant explain by evolution theory, and the evolution not predict this.mk_{October 3, 2013
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There is a difference between what ID followers predict and what ID theory predicts. ID followers may make predictions that are not related to ID or that they wrongly believe follows from ID. So what predictions can be correctly deduced from ID theory? This is somewhat complicated by the fact that there are different interpretations of ID around. But, as I understand it, most ID theorists would say that it makes no assumptions about the motives or powers of the designer. So there is no reason to assume the designer is particularly efficient or indeed that he/she/it might not rather enjoy adding DNA which does nothing. So you cannot correctly predict that there will be no junk DNA. Of course you might hold to a version of ID which assumes the designer is concerned to maximise the organisms fitness and is capable of doing it with great efficiency. In this case you could indeed predict no junk DNA. This means that every apparent inefficiency in the construction of an organism is an argument against ID. Of course apparent inefficiencies may turn out not to be inefficiencies in the long run. Are you willing to abandon ID if it turns out that some DNA is truly junk i.e. it can be removed from the organism and it has no effect on its fitness? As an aside one of the biggest pieces of evidence for large amounts of non-coding DNA having a function is that it is conserved over large amounts of time. This of course assumes a Darwinian model of evolution. Without it the evidence that significant amounts of non-coding DNA has a function is very weak.Mark Frank_{October 3, 2013
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Barry, in the OP you said, "ID proponents disagreed and argued that the evidence would ultimately demonstrate function." OK -- which ID proponents said this? What functions? What evidence did they find, and how did they look for it? ID proponents frequently complain that Darwinism doesn't yield any predictions, but only offers post hoc explanations of what's been discovered. Well, if ID is going to fare any better, one will have to show that ID isn't doing the same thing. I mean, one can't just go around, taking the discoveries of other scientists and saying, "oh, that's exactly what we've been predicting all along!" (Especially since that's what ID proponents seem to accuse Darwinists of doing.) One has to offer up predictions and then see if they are correct or not. So, did design theorists contribute to the study of non-coding DNA, or not? If so, how?Kantian Naturalist_{October 3, 2013
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This statement is breathtakingly false. Let us take just one example. For years Darwinists touted “junk DNA” as not just any evidence but powerful, practically irrefutable evidence for the Darwinian hypothesis. ID proponents disagreed and argued that the evidence would ultimately demonstrate function. Not only did both hypotheses make testable predictions, the Darwinist prediction turned out to be false and the ID prediction turned out to be confirmed.
As you know, many biologists disagree with the ENCODE team's definition of 'function'. At the very least, it seems prudent to wait and see how the scientific consensus ends up seeing the issue.Jerad_{October 3, 2013
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"our friends at Wikipedia" Indeed they are KN. Indeed they are. "I’m particularly interested in reading about which design theorists made specific contributions to the study of noncoding DNA." Trying to change the subject? I don't blame you.Barry Arrington_{October 3, 2013
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From our friends at Wikipedia:
"Junk DNA" is a term that was introduced in 1972 by Susumu Ohno,[25] who noted that the mutational load from deleterious mutations placed an upper limit on the number of functional loci that could be expected given a typical mutation rate. Ohno predicted that mammal genomes could not have more than 30,000 loci under selection before the "cost" from the mutational load would cause an inescapable decline in fitness, and eventually extinction. This prediction remains robust, with the human genome containing approximately 20,000 genes. Another source for Ohno's theory was the observation that even closely related species can have widely (orders-of-magnitude) different genome sizes, which had been dubbed the C value paradox in 1971. (emphasis added)
For those who, like me, enjoy reading about science but cannot take it raw, this old Scientific American article, "What is junk DNA, and what is it worth?" looks interesting and readable. I'm particularly interested in reading about which design theorists made specific contributions to the study of noncoding DNA.Kantian Naturalist_{October 3, 2013
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Darwinian response:
"But, but, but, the falsification of junk DNA just gave us more insight into how Darwinism actually works!"
Trouble is for Darwinists is that it gives far more insight into how Darwinism actually works than atheists realize! :)bornagain77_{October 3, 2013
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