Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Michael Flannery: Astounding News Flash!—Perry Marshall Singlehandedly Breaks the Deadlock Between Darwin and Design (or maybe not)

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Science historian Michael Flannery kindly contributed this review:

When I started reading Perry Marshall’s book, Evolution 2.0: Breaking the Deadlock Between Darwin and Design, I must confess to some consternation almost from the beginning.

While Marshall was quick to point out the shortcomings of the neo-Darwinian approach of common descent by means of natural selection through the undirected processes of chance and necessity, he oddly went on to claim that

ID, while recognizing many truths about biology that old-school Darwinism denies, ultimately abdicates its responsibility by jumping directly to ‘God did it’. At least in its most simple forms, ID halts scientific inquiry by dismissing too easily the possibility that God may have used a process to develop life on earth. Further investigation becomes impossible if a miraculous event cannot be reproduced in the lab (xxii-xxiii).

Now I don’t know of any position by any major ID theorist that jumps to the “God did it” conclusion claimed by Marshall. Curiously, Marshall seems to admit this in a note at the bottom of the same page in the tiniest of fonts:

But it’s important to note that for many ID advocates, God has little to do with ID. There’s an important distinction between IDers who believe in episodes of divine intervention and IDers who, often apart from religion, observe that mindless, materialistic processes simply fail to explain or adequately describe many aspects of living things (see Discovery Institute at http://discovery.org/about, accessed January 13, 2015). . . . ID asserts that the same principles of design employed in architecture, computer science, and music are valid and necessary in science and biology. One need not care about theological questions to recognize that Darwinism fails to answer science questions as well. In the pages to come I’ll describe why, from an engineering and technology point of view, ID raises question we cannot afford to ignore—because they are not only scientifically sound but commercially valuable.

So, which is it? Is ID, as Marshall asserts in his main text, a misguided “God did it” science-stopper or is it what he claims in his tiny-fonted footnote? It seems to me that Marshall starts out from the beginning talking out of both sides of his mouth.

He seems to suggest that ID is too direct, too immediate an inference to a designer; that ID is necessary only insofar as it is mediated through processes. (Aren’t those the very “principles” [i.e. processes] of architecture, computer science, and music to which he alludes?) Given this, I fail to see where he is adding anything new. His so-called “third way” is really just another version of ID. In fact Stephen Meyer’s excellent definition of ID makes this whole book unnecessary. Meyer states quite clearly, “the theory of intelligent design holds that there are tell-tale features of living systems and the universe that are best explained by an intelligent cause—that is, by the conscious choice of a rational agent—rather than by an undirected process” (Signature in the Cell, 4). So the issue isn’t process vs. miracle, rather it is between directed and undirected process. I would direct attention to Meyer’s use of the word “tell-tale.”

There is no “jump” to “God did it” or even to the miraculous in this definition—Paley is not waving his magic wand here—the “tell-tale” signs are essentially forensic, precisely embedded in the codes, etc. that Marshall is talking about. But strangely one searches in vain for any mention of Meyer’s Signature book and perusal of the bibliography finds it conspicuously absent.

Michael Flannery
Michael Flannery

Nevertheless, there is much good in the book. Marshall makes much of the coding capacities of cells, which makes him predictably enamored of Lynn Margulis’s symbiogenesis. However, he departs from her larger Gaia hypothesis that sees these tiny marvels as simply wholly non-teleological, self-creating and self-sustaining properties of nature. (Good thing too, an interview with Margulis published in Discover [April 2011] just months before her death ventured toward the bizarre when she claimed “consciousness is a property of all living cells.”) Marshall really does believe that nature is teleological and that an outside code-giver can only explain the first biological cell, and it follows that his definition of Evolution 2.0 is “the cell’s capacity to adapt and to generate new features and new species by engineering its own genetics in real time” (145).

It can do this through his “Swiss Army knife” analogy whereby Evolution 2.0 functions through the “five blades” of epigenetics, transposition, horizontal gene transfer, hybridization, and symbiogenesis. Marshall points out that Evolution 2.0 is fast, organized, adaptive, and functions through natural genetic engineering. However, lest he fall prey to simply accepting Margulis’s strange “cells are intelligent” argument, Marshall passionately defends a theistic (indeed Christian) solution to the question of an ultimate Code-Giver, the inventor and patent- holder of his “Swiss Army knife.” Marshall also ably defends Mike Behe’s irreducible complexity argument against all challenges, pointing out that “none of the papers that challenge the irreducible complexity argument about the flagellum solve the problem within the gradual-mutation framework [italics in the original]” (172). Furthermore, Marshall’s understanding of the relationship of science/faith question is cogently addressed in his chapter 28, “On the Shoulders of Giants: When Men of Science Were Also Men of Faith.”

Marshall is certain of his thesis, so certain in fact that he’s is offering a $10 million-dollar prize to anyone or group who can demonstrate a naturally occurring code—i.e, $100,000 for anyone that discovers “a purely chemical process that produces codes” (201) and $9.9 million if it is patentable. His appendix 4 outlines eleven specific and clearly defined criteria that must be met to claim this prize. Of course, given everything else in Marshall’s book, his money should be safe. He is putting his readers on a fool’s errand. While the prize makes for an interesting media stunt, it shows the author’s sense of marketing and attention-getting maneuvers to gain visibility for his ideas. Frankly, I like this gutsy approach despite its rather P. T. Barnum flavor.

However, on the whole I find this book an effort at co-option. Marshall is simply taking ID concepts and ideas and re-packaging them as Evolution 2.0. Perhaps that’s to get folks to understand and accept ID, or (less generously) perhaps it might just be to sell books. I’m not suggesting Marshall is being disingenuous (I’m sure he’s committed to every word of his book), but frankly most of the salient ideas in it have already been long and well expressed by ID proponents, and efforts to belittle the ID brand are misguided and self-serving. Marshall’s truly original contribution is that he claims his book is “breaking the deadlock between Darwin and design” by creating a so-called “third way.” But, in fact, his “third way” adds nothing new to any of the basic ID arguments offered by its modern-day proponents.

So, in the end, I can only offer a final assessment reminiscent of a devastating 18th-century critique attributed to Samuel Johnson: Mr. Marshall, your book “is both good and original but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.” My advice to Marshall is simple: stop co-opting the ideas to which you subscribe and start cooperating with your manifest allies. More is to be gained by working in concert than in conflict.

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Note: Perry Marshall  (left) vs. P.Z.Myers (radio)

Perry Marshall is an online marketing strategist with a background in computer engineering. His new book ‘Evolution 2.0: Breaking the deadlock between Darwin and Design’ claims to show a ‘third way’ which proves evolutionary changes are neither random not accidental but are targeted, adaptive and aware.PZ Myers is well known as an evolutionary biologist and strident atheist blogger. He believes Marshall’s book is flawed. They debate the mechanics of the cell, how information arises and whether…

Comments
I missed the release of this book, but apparently the author drained the paradigm of rapid speciation. https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j23_1/j23_1_99-106.pdf https://creation.com/images/pdfs/tj/j23_1/j23_1_107-114.pdfPeer
October 24, 2017
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I myself am really confused by Perry Marshall's message. He acts as though anyone that accepts ID will be uninterested in seeking further information about how life and (micro)evolution work---presumably because that was his own response if/when he counted himself in the ID camp---a generalization that I find ludicrous. The ID inference for him seems to be true in only an "ultimate" sense that is purely metaphysical, ruling out any evidence for something being transcendentally involved and therefore restricting any Higher Intelligence to a front-loading act or to be working invisibly and immeasurably. In that way he seems to be drinking from the Biologos cooler in believing that if we can just restrict the Big Tent of ID into the small space of methodological deism that we'll have that coveted legitimacy in the eyes of the academic elite and such luminaries as P.Z. Myers. Perhaps I have him wrong, but it sounds like a lot of double-talk. Just because academia joins you in looking down your nose at ID, doesn't mean they're your friends, doesn't mean you're not next on their list. That said, while I disagree with Perry---not sure how much, since he seems a bit hard to pin down---I certainly think he should have a booth at the academic marketplace and I wish he felt the same way about ID. He's getting people thinking about these concepts and that's good. Some preach anti-Darwin out of contention, and I nonetheless give thanks that it is preached.tertiumquid
April 6, 2017
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Furthermore, micro adaptation or micro evolution depends not on mutaton and natural selection, but is a DESIGNED process, as Shapiro states : Non random mutations : How life changes itself: the Read-Write (RW) genome 2 3 http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1476-non-random-mutations-how-life-changes-itself-the-read-write-rw-genome And all available scientific evidence also indicates that evolution is an engineered process. In engineering and computer science, evolution never happens by accident. It’s always the result of a deliberate act. A program that can self-evolve is always considered an engineering marvel. 6 The genome has traditionally been treated as a Read-Only Memory (ROM) subject to change by copying errors and accidents. 7 I propose that we need to change that perspective and understand the genome as an intricately formatted Read-Write (RW) data storage system constantly subject to cellular modifications and inscriptions. Cells operate under changing conditions and are continually modifying themselves by genome inscriptions. These inscriptions occur over three distinct time-scales (cell reproduction, multicellular development and evolutionary change) and involve a variety of different processes at each time scale (forming nucleoprotein complexes, epigenetic formatting and changes in DNA sequence structure). Research dating back to the 1930s has shown that genetic change is the result of cell-mediated processes, not simply accidents or damage to the DNA. This cell-active view of genome change applies to all scales of DNA sequence variation, from point mutations to large-scale genome rearrangements and whole genome duplications (WGDs). This conceptual change to active cell inscriptions controlling RW genome functions has profound implications for all areas of the life sciences. Ever since the formulation of the neo-Darwinist Modern Synthesis evolutionary theoryin the 1930s and 1940s, it has been an article of faith that hereditary variation results from stochastic copying errors and unavoidable damage to the genome In the past 60 years, since the structure of DNA was elucidated, molecular biologists have studied the basic mechanisms of long-term genome change. They have discovered a wide array of proofreading and damage repair biochemical systems that remove copying errors and correct DNA damage. At the same time, they have revealed an amazing and wholly unanticipated array of cellular and molecular systems that operate to generate genome variability, both temporary and structural. As we begin the second decade of the 21st century, accumulating empirical evidence has thus shifted the perspective on genome variation to that of an active inscription process changing the information passed on to future generations.Otangelo Grasso
January 11, 2017
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Perry Marshall was a pioneer in educating people about DNA and information. His website Cosmicfingerprints was where i first learned about this fundamental issue and one of the pillars of intelligent design. Stephen C. Meyers book , Signature in the Cell, came afterwards. So i regard Perry amongst Werner Gitt , Stephen C.Meyer et al as one of the pioneers of the ID movement, and he deserves credit for it. As about Evolution 2.0, it has some interesting things like information entropy. And so other issues like communication of bacterias etc. As for his 5 mechanisms of evolution that lead to macro evolution , body form and cell differentiation, histology and development, i think the arguments and explanations are too superficial and not enough indept researched. Irreducible complexity is a barrier of evolution to many molecular mechanisms and biosynthetic pathways, and epigenetics involves far more than just gene regulatory networks. That is not well exposed in Perry's book. In that regard, Stephen's Darwins doubt is a far better educational book about the real mechanisms of biodiversity. I have made a little list, which is certainly incomplete, but shows the real mechanisms of complex life forms, and the mechanisms that are involved : Where Do Complex Organisms Come From? http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t2316-where-do-complex-organisms-come-from Meyer, Darwins doubt, page 212: According to neo-Darwinism, new information, form, and structure arise from natural selection acting on random mutations arising at a very low level within the biological hierarchy—within the genetic text. Yet both body-plan formation during embryological development and major morphological innovation during the history of life depend upon a specificity of arrangement at a much higher level of the organizational hierarchy, a level that DNA alone does not determine. If DNA isn’t wholly responsible for the way an embryo develops— for body-plan morphogenesis—then DNA sequences can mutate indefinitely and still not produce a new body plan, regardless of the amount of time and the number of mutational trials available to the evolutionary process. Genetic mutations are simply the wrong tool for the job at hand. Even in a best-case scenario—one that ignores the immense improbability of generating new genes by mutation and selection—mutations in DNA sequence would merely produce new genetic information. But building a new body plan requires more than just genetic information. It requires both genetic and epigenetic information—information by definition that is not stored in DNA and thus cannot be generated by mutations to the DNA. It follows that the mechanism of natural selection acting on random mutations in DNA cannot by itself generate novel body plans, such as those that first arose in the Cambrian explosion. Cell and body shape, and organism development depends on following : Membrane targets and patterns Cytoskeletal arrays Centrosomes Ion channels, and Sugar molecules on the exterior of cells (the sugar code) Gene regulatory networks Various codes and the encoded epigenetic information is required: The Genetic Code The Splicing Codes The Metabolic Code The Signal Transduction Codes The Signal Integration Codes The Histone Code The Tubulin Code The Sugar Code The Glycomic Code " Junk DNA " MicroRNAs--"Once Dismissed as Junk"--Confirmed To Have Important Gene Regulatory Function In 2008 Scientific American noted that microRNAs were "once dismissed as junk" and said the following: Tiny snippets of the genome known as microRNA were long thought to be genomic refuse because they were transcribed from so-called "junk DNA," sections of the genome that do not carry information for making proteins responsible for various cellular functions. Evidence has been building since 1993, however, that microRNA is anything but genetic bric-a-brac. Quite the contrary, scientists say that it actually plays a crucial role in switching protein-coding genes on or off and regulating the amount of protein those genes produce. Transposons and Retrotransposons striking evidence has accumulated indicating that some proviral sequences and HERV proteins might even serve the needs of the host and are therefore under positive selection. The remarkable progress in the analysis of host genomes has brought to light the significant impact of HERVs and other retroelements on genetic variation, genome evolution, and gene regulation.Otangelo Grasso
January 11, 2017
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I saw this book at Barnes & Noble. It was in Christianity. I went back today. It was not there but they said it would be shelved under Christianity. When I saw it it was very close to Darwin's Doubt. I don't think that's where either book belongs but that's where they were.hnorman5
January 17, 2016
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Science is not just about facts. Science is about "How?" How do things come into existence in a cause and effect world? What is the mechanism of causation for the effects of genetics, genomics, and epigenomics? - David L. AbelMung
January 16, 2016
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Can you point me to any ID literature that says design is the endpoint? He probably can't. But that's not his argument anyways. Can you point me to any ID literature that goes beyond making an inference to design to speak of what must have actually taken place?Mung
January 16, 2016
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There's an interesting new article up at ENV about an enzyme that must be designed. An "Exquisitely Designed" Enzyme that Maintains DNA Building BlocksMung
January 16, 2016
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@andre, I quote from http://www.evolutionnews.org/2015/11/from_biochemist100701.html: "Perhaps the major animal phyla evolved from earlier species. Plenty of ID advocates accept that. And we all accept evolution in the sense of change over time. What we dispute is the mechanism responsible for change over time." ID's problem: That troublesome word PERHAPS. ID is equally receptive to, and representative of, the guy who thinks the major animal phyla DIDN'T evolve from earlier species, as the guy who accepts evolution. DIDN'T evolve = "poof." Smoking gun. And you just shot yourself in the foot, because ID as it currently handles this discussion is at best agnostic to common descent and at best agnostic to methodological naturalism. (And then, only on a good day.) So from the standpoint of silencing the objection that ID = "goddidit" they just pointed a shotgun at their foot and blasted off four toes. Making themselves wide open to the derision of Larry Moran. (See http://cosmicfingerprints.com/larry-moran/) And yes, by the way, in the practical WORK of science it is turtles all the way down. There's always another subatomic particle, there's always another layer of order in the cell or genome, always another mystery. Always another job to do. The scientist's job is never done. That doesn't negate the ultimate need for an ultimate explanation. Nor does it negate the need to see the genome as orderly not disorderly. But it neatly solves the main objection and serves the interest - and the PROFESSION of science. Until ID people recognize this, you guys are lost in Afghanistan and you're never getting out.perrymarshall
January 16, 2016
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Perry Marshall
But the difference in my approach is that “design” is never an endpoint.
Can you point me to any ID literature that says design is the endpoint?Andre
January 14, 2016
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It is turtles all the way down for Perry MarshallAndre
January 14, 2016
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Hi Perry, With ID design is not the endpoint. The detection of design is just one level. Next we study it so that it can be understood. We want to understand it so that we can properly maintain it, sustain it, repair it and replicate it.Virgil Cain
January 14, 2016
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Those who read my book will know that it's inevitably by design. Ultimate levels of order in the universe. But the difference in my approach is that "design" is never an endpoint. It is only a reason to dig deeper. I don't believe the scientific rabbit hole ever ends. A subtle but VERY important distinction.perrymarshall
January 14, 2016
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Perry Marshall Thank you for your reply, a question again;
There is a third possibility, which is that cells are ontologically capable of directing their own evolution.
Is this by chance or design?Andre
January 13, 2016
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Michael's response is too good to leave buried at #36. I posted a response here: http://cosmicfingerprints.com/michael-flannery-intelligent-design/perrymarshall
January 13, 2016
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To say ID is a science stopper, even when it better fits what we observe, is a pathetic bit of handwaving. Because ID fits observations better, it is closer to the truth of what happened and what is. Truth is never a science stopper. Continuing with an obviously incompetent theoretical framework is. Every step we take towards truth is helpful. An ID scientist never has to be surprised that the appendix isn't really vestigial, or that most of our DNA actually has a purpose. Had we known there are no vestigial organs sooner, research into organs labeled as such would have occurred productively and sooner. There wouldn't be so many missing tonsils and other mislabeled organs. More effort would have been made discovering how to save them. Which is the "science-stopper" in that context? There is a different, more earnest, mindset when an object is considered a vital and advanced piece of technology whose function isn't readily apparent, than when it's considered junk. Purposeless. An outdated holdover, and nothing to waste time on.bb
January 13, 2016
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Isn't the point here that some people now sense a coming thing and want the ID theorists' territory? So they now claim the ID theorists don't really own it or aren't treating it right ... They may think their PR is better. If so, well and good. But there's this: If Darwin's trolls and tenured asshats come to think such people matter, they'll soon find out how little PR counts for. We'll see. Note: News is poster, not author, of this piece.News
January 13, 2016
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We are giving Perry Marshall's book too much publicity here. Let's follow his steps by linking about his book using the donotlink services: http://www.donotlink.com/dnl/faqEnezio E. De Almeida Filho
January 13, 2016
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I’ve read your reply, Perry, and I would only add four things: 1) You seem to presume a lot about what “practicing scientists” hear and what the “average guy” believes about ID. While I can’t speculate on what other people may or may not believe about ID, I would say that if you’re correct it is only because William J. Murray (#31) is absolutely correct, “The general misapprehension of what ID is, is due largely to a concerted effort of misinformation by those that oppose ID.” In essence you create a straw version of a “God-did-it” “science-stopping” ID and then tell everyone, based upon this false version, what they believe about it. What I find most curious is that through most of the book, you actually argue essentially for ID. Your real argument seems to be not against ID per se, but against its present marketing. If that is, in fact, the case I think there would have been a far better, less divisive way of presenting your ideas. (I also think Andre #30 asks a couple of good questions.) 2) I didn’t “skip” chapter 17. Perry, I didn’t say you ignored Stephen Meyer’s books, I said you ignored one particular book, his Signature in the Cell. You want to define Evolution 2.0 by the remarkable capacities of the cell. Fine. Then you need to more thoroughly engage with this book. It is not mentioned or cited in Evolution 2.0. 3) You think there is a 10% chance that someone will discover a “purely chemical process that produces codes.” Then I can only say that at best your book has a 10% chance of being utterly wrong. If this can be proven I don’t see how teleology and meaningful design hold up. And as for cells being “conscious,” I don’t know how we swim in these epistemologically deep waters. It seems to me you could easily get caught up in the whirlpools of Haeckel’s “cell-soul” monism and other philosophical dead-ends. You say “life can be free to develop its own purpose.” Perhaps, but this just sounds to me like a reprise of old Biologos theology. I invite readers to peruse the excellent three-part series by Thomas Cudworth on "Theology at Biologos" from several years ago. 4) Given the importance you place in your book on concepts like science, miracle and consciousness, some analysis of these complex terms should have been given before going further. For example, in what sense is consciousness bound up with intentionality and how is it distinguished from mere sentience? What exactly do you mean by miracle? What is its relationship to other phenomena? Here is not the place to go into these questions, but your book should have. Nevertheless, I will challenge your view of science. You seem to suggest that science is just a sort of one-dimensional bench or field activity defined by the degree to which it is replicable. In fact, you say that on page 178, “Real science is based on inference from repeatable experiments. Anything less is abdication.” I invite you to read Carol Cleland’s article, “Methodological and Epistemic Differences between Historical Science and Experimental Science,” Philosophy of Science v. 69, no. 3 (Sept. 2002): 447-451. You seem rather dismissive of historical science (p. 129), but as Cleland points out both are quite valid and useful in their own right, they’re just very different. Without going into the concept of what a miracle is, I’ll only relate back to your own concept of science. If the hallmark of science is repeatability, why wouldn’t miracles themselves be repeatable? I invite you to read Andrew Rein on “Repeatable Miracles?,” Analysis v.46, no. 2 (Mar. 1986): 109-112. Reins points out, “In the senses of ‘repeatable’ . . . a repeatable miracle could (logically) occur. If, however, we mean by a repeated event that its recurrences are governed by a regularity enshrined in a natural law then there can be no repeatable miracles. But this claim is trivial. For if the occurrence of an event is governed by the regularity enshrined in some natural law, then that occurrence cannot be in violation of the laws of nature (assuming, of course, these laws to be consistent) and hence cannot be a miracle.” In short, and you can read Rein’s complete argument for yourself, miracles can be repeatable. Having said all this, there a danger of highlighting our differences too much. Fact of the matter is, there is much to applaud in this book. I do, as you do Perry, invite readers to get the book and read it for themselves. In the end, despite my issues with it, it is a book worth having.Flannery
January 12, 2016
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bill cole- Or if they figure out the design of the bad bacteria they will be better able to kill it and all of its variants. Or, even better, turn it into helpful bacteria.Virgil Cain
January 12, 2016
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Virgil Cain I agree. Is it possible through repeat experiments they can isolate a non random cause of improving resistance to the antibiotic.bill cole
January 12, 2016
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Now what? Figure out the design so that it can be properly maintained, sustained, repaired and replicated.Virgil Cain
January 12, 2016
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Let's say that AXE and Gauger show that protein folds could not have evolved via mutation/selection [neo-darwinian mechanisms] and infer that intelligent design is a better explanation. Let's say that Meyer shows that the Cambrian animals could not have evolved via mutation/selection [neo-darwinian mechanisms] and infers that intelligent design is a better explanation. Now what? Is it the hope of the intelligent design community that scientists who reject ID will take up the search for what [non-Darwinian] processes actually happened that can explain new protein folds or new Cambrian body plans? Should they start looking for the designers? Good luck with that plan. I support the DI. I think they are doing a good job of getting the word out to the public, helping support authors and actual research. The work though is not done at "therefore design." It's going to take more than that.Mung
January 12, 2016
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At the end of Marshall's response, he asks:
Dear reader, what do YOU think? In your experience, in your conversations with friends, is ID a program of repeatable evolution experiments? Or is ID a search for divine intervention in the universe? Or both?
The general misapprehension of what ID is, is due largely to a concerted effort of misinformation by those that oppose ID. ID is an theoretical framework that fosters certain avenues of research, such as Axe & Gauger's experiments concerning the probability of the chance generation of useful proteins. If you're a committed naturalist, there's probably not even any conceptual reason to do such work because there is no question that chance processes generated proteins. Indeed, similar such research undertaken by ID antagonists to counter Axe & Gauger's claims wouldn't even exist without the ID challenge. Hawking has even offered an entire book to respond to the fine-tuning argument for ID. There has been quite a bit of research undertaken to counter various ID claims and arguments. Would such research have been done without the ID challenge? Would naturalists have even thought of irreducible complexity and the challenge it brings to the assumed, non-design explanatory paradigm? Would there even be a debate now about the origin of biological information? The naturalist paradigm simply assumes things that shouldn't be assumed. The ID theoretical framework is a necessary counterbalance - otherwise, some questions simply don't get asked and some problems go unnoticed.William J Murray
January 12, 2016
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Perry Marshal. Thank you for responding to Michael Flannery, I would like to ask you two questions if I may.
Similarly, evolution can mean “chancedidit”… or… scientists can conduct repeatable experiments and re-construct the chemical, genetic and information pathways that transform one species to another.
1.) How does one model chance and unguided processes? How is it scientifically possible to repeat a luck event?
The Evolution News and Views page frequently conflates evolution with atheism. The casual visitor would naturally conclude the Institute is anti-evolution.
Why this blatantly dishonest remark? The debate as you know is not about evolution it is about guided vs. unguided evolution.Andre
January 12, 2016
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There has been ongoing scientific research into the consciousness/matter interface for quite a long time now. Some aspects of it are more widely accepted, such as research into the nature of quantum physics and mindfulness experiments on things like overall physical and mental health and genetic expression. Other research, however, may be more uncomfortable for many ID supporters. There is quite a bit of evidence, for example, of anomalous consciousness-related effects on random number generators based on decades of research. I don't see, however, how ID researchers can experimentally investigate the idea of a mind-matter interface (sans resorting to actual physical body and equipment) without some sort of research into quantum-consciousness/psi effects. If you think mainstream ridicule of ID is bad now, bringing the boat into those waters would generate a storm of epic proportions - and not just from atheistic materialists, but possibly even from many ID supporters. However, if we agree in principle that consciousness is primary, then it probably follows that consciousness may indeed directly affect matter, and such interaction should be subject to some kind of scientific verification. I just wonder if that's research many IDists would be willing to pursue.William J Murray
January 12, 2016
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Mapou: Good points! ID is a paradigm of investigation, as very well stated by WJM at #17. A paradigm raises questions. If the paradigm is correct for its context, the questions will be good, and in time they will yield good answers. If the paradigm is wrong for its context, the questions will be bad, and the answers even worse. Although science is a subjective product of our consciousness, it certainly deals with reality. That's an important point, which is often overlooked. Whatever we may think or like, reality is reality. How things really are. Therefore, our paradigms about reality can be more or less correct, and more or less wrong. Biological objects certainly came into existence in some way. We can certainly say that they were designed or they were not designed. Those two statements are logical opposites. So, if reality is that they were not designed, then ID is a wrong paradigm. But if, on the contrary, reality is that they were indeed designed, then only the ID paradigm will give the right questions and the right answers. There is no a priori science stopper: a wrong paradigm is an inconvenience for science, while a good paradigm can certainly promote scientific thought.gpuccio
January 12, 2016
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TJguy and Mung. thanks for the help and i will see if that does it.Robert Byers
January 11, 2016
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WJM @17: +1mike1962
January 11, 2016
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Thank you for the review, Michael. My response is at http://cosmicfingerprints.com/id-blind-spot/perrymarshall
January 11, 2016
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