Sober Rebukes Evolution’s Religion (Sometimes)

_{Cornelius Hunter

June 26, 2009

Intelligent Design}

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The religion in evolution can be subtle and it can fool even sophisticated thinkers. Elliott Sober, for example, has recognized that religious premises are used by evolutionists. He says they don’t work because they rely on gratuitous assumptions. In his book Evidence and Evolution he writes the following:

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Comments

StephenB
Sometimes you get a slow fat one right over the middle of the plate
Do you believe in ghosts?Echidna.Levy_{June 26, 2009
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What is this better theory then? Don't forget, any replacement theory has to explain all the data that the theory it's replacing explains and data that the current theory cannot explain (or why replace it?)
A scientific theory is a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world, based on a body of facts that have been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment. Such fact-supported theories are not "guesses" but reliable accounts of the real world.
Has your new theory been repeatedly confirmed through observation and experiment then?Echidna.Levy_{June 26, 2009
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——Echidna.Levy ”Who would choose to use a broken theory when a better one was available? --Clive: They're called evolutionists. Sometimes you get a slow fat one right over the middle of the plate.StephenB_{June 26, 2009
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Echidna.Levy, ------"Who would choose to use a broken theory when a better one was available? The idea that best explains the data at hand is logically the more useful." They're called evolutionists.Clive Hayden_{June 26, 2009
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The irrationality and denialism of evolution is telling.
If we grant that as true for a moment for the sake of argument, is it not telling that this irrational theory has yet to be supplanted by another? It can only mean that the potential replacement theorys are even more irrational. Otherwise, logically, one would have replaced the other already. Who would choose to use a broken theory when a better one was available? The idea that best explains the data at hand is logically the more useful.Echidna.Levy_{June 26, 2009
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Folks: The responses by Mark Frank (5) and Hoki (6) are typical. These are not unusual responses (though I continue to marvel at them). This is where evolution turns irrational. Mark Frank:

"nature’s designs given separate ancestry is unlikely."
this is all irrelevant to the likelihood ratio
No, actually, "nature’s designs given separate ancestry is unlikely" is the denominator in the likelihood ratio. Furthermore, it is the crucial term that drives up the ratio when going from adaptive to non adaptive designs, as Sober points out. Far from being "irrelevant" as you say, it is crucial. Perhaps this is merely a mistake, but next we have ...
You have one sentence that hints at a very reasonable assumption that is required to compare likelihoods.
“And those designs given separate ancestry are unlikely because god would not have given us our “useless” tailbones.”
This of course is an assumption about the probability of useless tailbones given separate ancestory. It could be rephrased as the assumption that the different lines of separate ancestory have no built in tendency to bring about similar useless features. I don’t see there is anything particularly religious about this assumption.
This is irrational. I hear it repeatedly, and it reveals a deep denialism in evolutionary thought. Making a statement about divine intent is religious. Evolutionists make claims about "god" and divine intent, and then literally the next moment tell you it is not a religious claim. When evolution claims to be a fact, it is making a religious claim. When evolution goes into its denial, it is irrational. Hoki:

"But as with Gould’s argument about why the panda’s thumb proves evolution, they are religious."
I fail to see why this assumption is religious.
Again, this is irrational. When Gould says god would not create the panda thumb design, it is a religious claim. Do we really need to say this? How does one deal with irrationalism?

"And separate ancestry is unlikely because god would not have given us our 'useless' tailbones."
It is unlikely only in the sense that there is no possibility of measuring the probability that “the designer” wanted us to have “useless ” tailbones. This is not being religious.
This is fascinating. The irrationality and denialism of evolution is telling.Cornelius Hunter_{June 26, 2009
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Cornelius Hunter:
But as with Gould's argument about why the panda's thumb proves evolution, they are religious.
I fail to see why this assumption is religious. The assumption is reasonable because it can be tested independently of the conclusion being drawn. (We do observe the propagation of loss-of-funtion mutations, after all [fans of ID's genetic entropy should be familiar with this]).
And separate ancestry is unlikely because god would not have given us our "useless" tailbones.
It is unlikely only in the sense that there is no possibility of measuring the probability that "the designer" wanted us to have "useless " tailbones. This is not being religious. It's just realising the limits of bayesian probabilities.Hoki_{June 26, 2009
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Cornelius I am afraid you need to make further corrections to your blog. I wrote independent of any assumptions about how the hypotheses arose including religious assumptions this is true. So when you write: The reason those creationist concerns about insuperable boundaries do not hold is because common ancestry is likely. And common ancestry is likely because nature's designs given separate ancestry is unlikely. this is all irrelevant to the likelihood ratio which is independent of the prior probability of each hypothesis. You need to cut these sentences. You have one sentence that hints at a very reasonable assumption that is required to compare likelihoods. "And those designs given separate ancestry are unlikely because god would not have given us our "useless" tailbones." This of course is an assumption about the probability of useless tailbones given separate ancestory. It could be rephrased as the assumption that the different lines of separate ancestory have no built in tendency to bring about similar useless features. I don't see there is anything particularly religious about this assumption. It is just a rather reasonable assumption. It is always possible that actually separate ancestory did bring about similar useless features whether through divine intervention or natural causes that we do not understand. However, common ancestry is a much simpler explanation given all the other features that arrange life in a heirarchy. The only assumption that is relevant to the likelihood ratios is an assumptions aboutMark Frank_{June 26, 2009
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Cornelius, You have made several posts on this theme. Please consider adding a tag, so the reader can follow the thread through your blog.bevets_{June 26, 2009
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Mark Frank:
The likelihood ratio is the ratio of the probability of the data given the hypothesis i.e. the ratio of the probability of useless features given common ancestry to the probability of the useless features given separate ancestry.
Agreed. In the interest of brevity I gave a shorthand description, but you are absolutely correct, and in deference to your comment I have amended the blog.
... and is independent of any assumptions about how the hypotheses arose including religious assumptions.
No, it is not independent of religious assumptions. This is precisely the point. Darwin and later evolutionists rely on such religious assumptions to evaluate the probability of the data, given the separate ancestry hypothesis.Cornelius Hunter_{June 26, 2009
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You write of Sober: "He explains that for "useless" designs, the likelihood ratio (the ratio of the probability of common ancestry to the probability of separate ancestry) is large because the denominator (the probability of separate ancestry) is so small." I very much doubt that Elliot Sober, a leading philosopher of probability, would have written such rubbish. The likelihood ratio is the ratio of the probability of the data given the hypothesis i.e. the ratio of the probability of useless features given common ancestry to the probability of the useless features given separate ancestry. This is quite different from the probability of the hypothesis given the data which is what you wrote and is independent of any assumptions about how the hypotheses arose including religious assumptions.Mark Frank_{June 26, 2009
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Cornelius, This is another fascinating post. I totally missed this apparent oversight on Sober's part. I do have a couple of questions: 1) What do you think of this assertion: Darwin's principle is metaphysically neutral, but our ability to distinguish between adaptive and neutral/deleterious traits is not. 2) Suppose Darwin had been working in an environment in which there was no religion at all. Would Darwin's principle be valid in that setting, and could he therefore argue for common descent with no religious implications?herb_{June 26, 2009
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