James Shapiro: Bill Dembski asks the question we’ve all been dreading …

_{Denyse O'Leary

January 12, 2012

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Is Shapiro really a design theorist but doesn’t want to admit it? (Evolution News & Views, January 12, 2012)

For proponents of intelligent design, James Shapiro’s constant dancing in the DMZ between Darwin and design can be frustrating. On the one hand, Shapiro is as dismissive of Darwinism as any ID proponent. On the other, he constantly gives public notice that he is not on the side of ID. And yet, methinks he protests too much.

Or not enough.

Shapiro is a molecular biologist on faculty at the University of Chicago. When it comes to ID, Shapiro admits that it has identified some legitimate problems, such as Michael Behe’s irreducibly complex biochemical systems (in this he is light years ahead of Richard Dawkins and Kenneth Miller, who deny that any problem exists). Shapiro admits that these are unresolved in Darwinian terms.

Some Darwinism sounds like such nonsense as to cast grave doubt on the intelligence of the persons who utter it.

Fast forward to two days ago, January 8, 2012. In the Huffington Post, Shapiro wrote an insightful article on the mechanisms involved in antibiotic resistance, rejecting the standard Darwinian picture of antibiotic resistance being conferred by the gradual accumulation of slight adaptive modifications. Appealing to lateral gene transfer as a way of bacteria quickly acquiring complex biological structures and functions, and then appealing to natural genetic engineering to adapt those structures to new circumstances of life, Shapiro offers a picture that seems utterly congenial to intelligent design.

And yet, intelligent design is anathema in the circles in which Shapiro moves, so he must utter the mandatory denunciations:

Well, every form of refuge has its price. Some would find that stuff humiliating.

Like, placating the Darwin tenure bore, the Darwin lobbyist, the government Darwin stiff, the reverend who found Jesus n’ Darwin …

There’s a great relief in telling them all to just go to blazes, but we can’t pretend that it translates into interest from TV hair models or Arianna Huffington – once they realize that you must know what you are talking about, and no compromise.

To get anywhere with these problems, you have to be more embedded in this planet than they are.

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Comments

Dr Liddle, I do not wish to enter the conversation between you and Timaeus, but only to offer a reminder.
...must have in order to produce Complex Specified Information are possessed by systems without minds.
You and I began a conversation many months ago over this very topic, in which you envisioned a untenable definition of the word "information". The result of that conversation was that you had to retract your claim that you could simulate the rise of "information" as it is properly defined. If you'll remember, information transfer creates observable physical entailments which must be satisfied in order for it to be actually confirmed to exist. Your own retraction, along an inability to produce evidence from any other researcher, suggests that evolutionary processes are not known to be capable of creating these physical requirements. Instead, evolution can only be shown to manipulate information that already exist. Consequently, (setting aside the issue of mind) your comment above must be qualified.Upright BiPed_{January 13, 2012
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This is really quite simple. If intelligence is an iterative process like evolution then take an intelligent act you’ve performed, like typing a post, and show how it even begins to relate to an incremental set of changes, random variation and selection, from any starting point.
That's exactly the kind of thing I do in my work (although generally not with anything as complex as typing a post). Interestingly, it turns out that the random component is extremely important for both learning and decision-making, because without a source of variance, behaviour becomes stereotypical, and uncreative. Which is not to say that the output (selected action) is arbitrary - but in order to sample a rich "solution space", a certain amount of randomness seems to be necessary. Which is just as well, as our perceptual systems are necessarily noisy!
We can add the word “darwinian” to anything, but any relationship between intelligent problem-solving and darwinian evolution is contrived at best. They are night and day. It’s as if credibility can be lent to darwinism by placing an observed process, however radically different, under its label.
No, not at all. Obvioiusly you can only usefully use the adjective "darwinian" if what you are describing involves heritable variance in reproductive (or, in this case replicative) success. Which is exactly how Hebbian learning works, as does, it seems, decision-making.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 13, 2012
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I see what you mean. But if we want to express a verb we must use a verb. Rather than using "intelligence" as a verb we might say that the parts of the system behave intelligently or act with intelligence. Then there's a verb. But to say that something is intelligent and to say that something acts intelligently are almost the same, are they not? The only exception I can think of is when something - a chess program, for example - acts intelligently, when it is actually unintelligent, acting out the instructions of its intelligent designer. So I'm not sure how expressing it as a verb changes anything. A thing is either intelligent or it is not. Deciding whether to label evolution as intelligent seems irrelevant. If darwinian evolution can start with a cell and billions of years later produce a frog, then it's a genius as far as I'm concerned. I guess it's more intelligent than I am. But there's no evidence that it can do that. Deciding whether the process, if it does what someone thinks it could do, would be intelligent seems irrelevant. Whether or not it can do it is relevant.ScottAndrews2_{January 13, 2012
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Elizabeth: I think that your distinction between choice and intention is of no value for our purposes here. I doubt very much that Dembski would think of Darwinian processes (random mutation plus natural selection), or even an expanded set of evolutionary processes, to include “drift” and “horizontal gene transfer” and a bunch of other things, as having any power of “choice.”
I'm sure he wouldn't. Nonetheless, he attempted a rigorous definition, and apparently forgot that "choose" and "select" are synonyms. He also specifically ruled out consideration of "intention". And that's my point: yes, things "look designed by intelligence", where "intelligence" is defined as Dembski defines it. That's because they are designed by intelligence as Demski defines it. Dembski is absolutely correct when he says that living things look as though they have been designed by something "with the power and capacity to choose [select] between options". That's exactly what evolutionary processes have the power to do. They don't have the power to look ahead, but you don't actually need that to design something that serves a function - you just need to incrementally adapt what you've already got.
I think that he would reserve the word “choice” for a decision made by an intelligent entity, i.e., one possessing a mind, and he doesn’t believe that “nature” possesses a mind, and I don’t think you believe that, either.
Yes, I'm sure when he wrote that definition he had in mind something with a mind. But he ommitted to notice that the properties he (correctly) specified that an "intelligent agent" must have in order to produce Complex Specified Information are possessed by systems without minds. And systems without minds - specifically evolutionary processes, are capable of choosing between options, and do. That's why we actually use them for designing things (GAs).
But even if Dembski would use the word “choice” as something that could be exercised by “nature” or by “evolutionary processes,” I certainly wouldn’t. For me, “choosing” involves a combination of intellect and volition which I would never impute to any set of evolutionary processes, any more than I would impute it to any set of chemical or geological or cosmic processes.
And I'm sure Dembski would agree with you. But you'd both be wrong. And where Dembski was absolutely correct was in noting that the key property necessary to produce CSI is the ability to "choose [select] between options". That's where the information comes from. But it doesn't have to be intentional choice [selection]. The reason natural selection (which could just as well have been called "natural choice" works is because it is a choosing system. Except that instead of the choosing being done by humans (as in the case of artificial selection) the choosing is done, in effect, by the environment - instead of long dogs being chosen because they can go down tunnels, long ferrets are "chosen" because longer ferrets go better down tunnels, and thus catch more mice, live longer, and produce more offspring. Doesn't matter whether the chooser is a human or the environment itself - what matters is that a choice is made. If you have a choosing system, you will get CSI. That's why living things exhibit it. He was right.
“Evolutionary processes form an intelligent system” may seem clear to you, but it won’t be to a large number of people. How can a system be “intelligent”? A system can be intelligently designed, but a system, not having a mind, can’t possess an intelligence, and therefore cannot be intelligent, as the word is normally used.
A system can be a mind. That's exactly, IMO, what minds are, in my view. Organisms with brains are systems, and those systems form a mind. The mind is not a thing added to the system - a mind is the name we give to an intelligent system - at least to the particularly intelligent system we call human beings.
I would say the same about your phrase “learning systems.” To say that nature or evolutionary processes (or whatever is supposed to be the subject of “learning” in your view) can “learn” may seem to you to make a rough sense — learning by trial and error, I suppose, is what you have in mind for Darwinian processes, with natural selection pruning out the errors — but “learning” is normally associated with an agent who is doing the learning,
Yes indeed. And in this case, the "agent" is the population. Populations "learn" what works. The reason I insist on this model is that, interestingly, learning models (Hebbian learning, Pavlovian learning, Skinnerian learning) can be modeled mathematically as Darwinian algorithms. Now, we wouldn't, I agree, normally say that a population "learns" to survive in a changing environment, but what it does is so closely analogous to what humans do when they learn that you can use the same algorithm to model it. So at some essential level, whatever word we use, there is a profound similarity.
and the agent is normally conceived of as a subject, an “I,” a mind. I don’t think you believe that nature or evolutionary processes have any “I” or self or mind that is capable of the subjective experience of learning as we normally understand the term.
No, I don't. That's because I think, as I said, that it actually doesn't make a lot of sense to talk about "intelligence" without considering intention even though Dembski (wrongly) ruled it out of consideration, regarding it as not a proper suject for scientific enquiry. It most certainly is. I certainly do not claim that evolution is an intentional system, but I do not think it has to be to produce CSI (and nor, apparently, did Dembski, he just seemed to think that if it was intelligent, as he defined it, it would, necessarily have to be intentional). And I think it is only when we bring in an intentional process, i.e. a forward modelling process, in a system, that we can even start to think of agency at all, but once we do, then by the same token, we can also think of ourselves as agents - to have a coherent referent for the word "I". I do not think evolutionary processes have an "I".
In short, I think you are using terms like “intelligence” and “choice” and “learning” ambiguously. The ambiguity could be deliberate, or it could be accidental.
It is neither. I'm pointing out that the word, as defined literally by Dembski, both makes his point AND shows how evolutionary processes can produce what looks like the products of intelligence as normally defined. With the exception of the ability to intend, and thus without foresight. Which is, literally, for once, the exception that "proves the rule" because organisms, though finely designed, show obvious signs of being designed without foresight, exactly as you would expect. That's why the phenotypic hierarchies are so rigorously nested, whereas the phenotypic hierarchies of the products of intentional design (ours) show frequent violations.
If accidental, I assume that you simply do not see how your language could confuse people. If deliberate, I assume you have some reason for wanting to blur the distinction between the action of unguided natural processes and the sort of thing ID people talk about when they talk about intelligence, intention, choice, etc. But I can’t imagine what that reason would be.
Nor can I. That's because there isn't one, because it isn't what I am doing. What I'm doing (or attempting to do) is to demonstrate that the commonality between human intelligence and evolutionary process is something that not only is like intelligence itself, except for the forward modelling (intentional) component, but is actually the aspect of intelligence singled out by Dembski as the relevant property of "intelligence" for the purposes of considering the origins of CSI.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 13, 2012
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This is really quite simple. If intelligence is an iterative process like evolution then take an intelligent act you've performed, like typing a post, and show how it even begins to relate to an incremental set of changes, random variation and selection, from any starting point. We can add the word "darwinian" to anything, but any relationship between intelligent problem-solving and darwinian evolution is contrived at best. They are night and day. It's as if credibility can be lent to darwinism by placing an observed process, however radically different, under its label.ScottAndrews2_{January 13, 2012
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lastyearon (4.2.3.2.4): I never said anything that was the slightest bit "reductionist." Either you are misunderstanding what I am saying, or you're misusing the term "reductionism." (And in a worse way than Elizabeth is misusing "intelligent." At least one can imagine her usage as a logical extension of normal usage, even if the result is ambiguous and therefore to be avoided. But your usage of "reductionist" to characterize my remarks is out in left field.) On another point, take a look at your third paragraph. How did you get from my understanding of "choice" as involving "intellect and volition" to "intelligence is supernatural"? Wouldn't you say that you've missed one or two steps in your exposition? Your fourth paragraph confuses "mind" with "brain." Have a look at the writings of neurologist Mario Beauregard and pediatric brain surgeon Michael Egnor. My definition of "learning" does not proceed from "lack of imagination" on my part, but out of respect for the everyday usage of words, which is generally sane and should be maintained unless there is strong reason to depart from it. I'm an Aristotelian in that respect. (I already granted the crude analogy between learning and the evolutionary process that Elizabeth was indicating, so there is no failure of imagination on my point; it's just that the analogy misleads more than it helps -- at least in the current discussion -- as you can see, by the fact that so many are challenging Elizabeth's expressions.) "Reductionist vitalist framework?" Yet another misuse of terms! Vitalism is inherently opposed to reductionism. Sheesh! I don't think even Wikipedia (the lazy man's source used by most Darwinists, so they won't have to read proper scholarly books on philosophy, theology and history) would make a blunder like that. Where are you getting your philosophical terminology from? T.Timaeus_{January 13, 2012
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But Jerry Coyne says James Shapiro is “heterodox”, so clearly one of them doesn’t understand evolution either.
Clearly, Shapiro is heterodox. So what? Science is not a religion. Disagreement is a tradition within science.
He’s under no obligation to address this personally, but it causes severe problems for materialist, ateleological, views on both OOL and evolution.
I suspect Shapiro would deny that is view is ateleological. He seems to see purpose at work. But it is an entirely natural purpose within biological systems.Neil Rickert_{January 13, 2012
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Timaeus, Your reductionism is interfering with your ability to understand her argument, and it's leading you to circular reasoning.
I think that [Dembski] would reserve the word “choice” for a decision made by an intelligent entity, i.e., one possessing a mind,
But to a materialist, a mind is a bunch of stuff doing complicated things, and it's much more than the sum of its parts. And our biological system is in some ways equivalent.
For me, “choosing” involves a combination of intellect and volition which I would never impute to any set of evolutionary processes, any more than I would impute it to any set of chemical or geological or cosmic processes.
So intelligence is supernatural in your opinion? Then in that case evolution is clearly not intelligent.
A system can be intelligently designed, but a system, not having a mind, can’t possess an intelligence,
Again, what if the system is a mind? If you shrunk yourself down to the size of a cell and traveled through a living brain, you would be just as incredulous that the stuff around you was intelligent.
but “learning” is normally associated with an agent who is doing the learning, and the agent is normally conceived of as a subject, an “I,” a mind.
This is just a lack of imagination on your part.
In short, I think you are using terms like “intelligence” and “choice” and “learning” ambiguously.
No. You are just not understanding the argument because your stuck in a reductionist vitalist framework.lastyearon_{January 13, 2012
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What about that evolution must explore countless random possibilities before happening upon a beneficial one?
Evolution always starts with a working solution. the population wouldn't exist if it weren't reasonably well adapted to current conditions. The exploration of new solutions always hovers around a working solution. Thinking about problems also hovers around current working solutions. (Why else would people need to be told to "think outside the box? Trying ideas that are not conventional is counterintuitive and often costly in terms of time.)Petrushka_{January 13, 2012
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Is that really the big difference? What about that evolution must explore countless random possibilities before happening upon a beneficial one?
It's the really important difference - because we can simulate, we can look ahead, and re-input what we see into the decision making process. This is the core of intentional behaviour.
If I’m locked out of my house, I might simulate in my mind throwing a rock through the window, knocking the door down, looking for an open window, and waiting five minutes for my wife to come home.
Exactly.
If this process were anything that could be called darwinian I might also try running in circles pretending to be injured, standing on my head, poking my finger in my eye, and I might quite likely put my head through the window or kill myself before happening upon an effective solution.
Yes indeed. However, you are confusing levels of analysis. The analog of you in evolution isn't a single organism, but an entire population of organisms, just as your brain is an almost infinitely vaster population of possible connectivity patterns. In a population of organisms, many variants are incompatible with life, so they die out quickly, just as firing patterns that receive re-entrant input from your forward model that says "that won't work" or "that might hurt" also fail to thrive. But in both cases, as Petrushka says, variants that appear will be closely related to previous variants. So a population of small, furry, seed eaters isn't going to "try" being a large scaley seed eater, because that's a huge distance from where it's already at. Evolution "tries" neighbourhood solutions, as it were, just as you do.
Evolution doesn’t narrow down to two or three choices. It has to try everything. </blockquote. No. It doesn't. The system is very conservative. Most offspring are very similar to their parents. In fact another consequence of our simulation ability is that we can try out weird combinations of things, and occasionally one works out. Evolution can't. It just sniffs around for what already works, and "tries" slight variants of it, keeping when they improve matters, and rejecting them when they don't.
That’s a much bigger difference. That’s one reason why intelligence is not the same as evolution. It’s almost as if we’re looking for reasons to use the word “Darwinian” where they have no application.
No, actually. The reason "neural Darwinism" is used is because it's such a close fit to what actually happens in brains - what gives them their plasticity. "What fires together, wires together" is a closely related algorithm to "what breeds successfully will be replicated more often". Firing patterns that lead to good results will tend to be replicated. Ones that don't will go to what is actually called "extinction". It's the basis of Hebbian learning, and learning is a key component of intelligence. The really clever part, though, as I said, is the forward modelling. Evolution can't do that, so it's not as intelligent as we are. As is apparent from its relative lack of flexibility, and complete lack of "lateral thinking".
Elizabeth Liddle_{January 13, 2012
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Elizabeth: I think that your distinction between choice and intention is of no value for our purposes here. I doubt very much that Dembski would think of Darwinian processes (random mutation plus natural selection), or even an expanded set of evolutionary processes, to include "drift" and "horizontal gene transfer" and a bunch of other things, as having any power of "choice." I think that he would reserve the word "choice" for a decision made by an intelligent entity, i.e., one possessing a mind, and he doesn't believe that "nature" possesses a mind, and I don't think you believe that, either. But even if Dembski would use the word "choice" as something that could be exercised by "nature" or by "evolutionary processes," I certainly wouldn't. For me, "choosing" involves a combination of intellect and volition which I would never impute to any set of evolutionary processes, any more than I would impute it to any set of chemical or geological or cosmic processes. "Evolutionary processes form an intelligent system" may seem clear to you, but it won't be to a large number of people. How can a system be "intelligent"? A system can be intelligently designed, but a system, not having a mind, can't possess an intelligence, and therefore cannot be intelligent, as the word is normally used. I would say the same about your phrase "learning systems." To say that nature or evolutionary processes (or whatever is supposed to be the subject of "learning" in your view) can "learn" may seem to you to make a rough sense -- learning by trial and error, I suppose, is what you have in mind for Darwinian processes, with natural selection pruning out the errors -- but "learning" is normally associated with an agent who is doing the learning, and the agent is normally conceived of as a subject, an "I," a mind. I don't think you believe that nature or evolutionary processes have any "I" or self or mind that is capable of the subjective experience of learning as we normally understand the term. In short, I think you are using terms like "intelligence" and "choice" and "learning" ambiguously. The ambiguity could be deliberate, or it could be accidental. If accidental, I assume that you simply do not see how your language could confuse people. If deliberate, I assume you have some reason for wanting to blur the distinction between the action of unguided natural processes and the sort of thing ID people talk about when they talk about intelligence, intention, choice, etc. But I can't imagine what that reason would be. T.Timaeus_{January 13, 2012
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Variation doesn't start at ground zero. It starts with what has been working. Solving any problem begins with what you already know. People locked out of their house will differ in the range and quality of their solutions due to their past experience.Petrushka_{January 13, 2012
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First of all, I apologize, Scott. It was not you, but Timaeus that made those remarks I was referring to. So this is to Timaeus (and you, since you responded)... No I mean a verb. Intelligence is the result of interaction of parts in a system (neurons in a brain, or organisms in an environment). When Elizabeth says "evolutionary processes form an intelligent system." She is saying that the actionof the parts in the system is the intelligence. When Timaeus said this..
But if you mean what is normally meant when we say that something displays “intelligence,” then to say that evolutionary processes form an intelligent system is to say that there is intelligence behind the evolutionary process. It is to imply that the evolutionary process is in some sense designed.
I think he is not grasping that.lastyearon_{January 13, 2012
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Biological evolotion is about the creation and spread of alleles, but evolution in the broader sense is about feedback steered change. The fact that you find my post bizarre just means you are unfamiliar with learning theory. I accept the possibly that my terminology might be flawed, but the concept is mainstream.Petrushka_{January 13, 2012
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he big difference between the two is that human brains can simulate before they act – in other words they can choose between two options on the basis of the likely consequence of each.
Is that really the big difference? What about that evolution must explore countless random possibilities before happening upon a beneficial one? If I'm locked out of my house, I might simulate in my mind throwing a rock through the window, knocking the door down, looking for an open window, and waiting five minutes for my wife to come home. If this process were anything that could be called darwinian I might also try running in circles pretending to be injured, standing on my head, poking my finger in my eye, and I might quite likely put my head through the window or kill myself before happening upon an effective solution. Evolution doesn't narrow down to two or three choices. It has to try everything. That's a much bigger difference. That's one reason why intelligence is not the same as evolution. It's almost as if we're looking for reasons to use the word "Darwinian" where they have no application.ScottAndrews2_{January 13, 2012
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Muy interesante . . .kairosfocus_{January 13, 2012
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LYO,
I believe Scott’s accusation that you are misleading comes from his inability to conceive of intelligence as a verb, instead of a noun.
If that's to make any sense at all, I think you mean adjective, as in "intelligent" which is comparable to the verb and adverb "acts intelligently." Assuming that's the verb you mean, then you're really referring to the adjective, in which case intelligent is an adjective, so no, I'm not unable to conceive of it as such. (Pop quiz - is there a verb in this list: intelligent, intelligence.) That being said, what is the difference between that which is intelligent, that which possesses intelligence, and that which acts intelligently? There is a difference, but the verb is the worst choice to make your case because it is either synonymous with the other two (why bother making the distinction?) or it suggests something caused to act with intelligence by something which actually is intelligent/has intelligence. If you're going to waste time splitting hairs and telling me what I think, at least have a point and do so accurately.ScottAndrews2_{January 13, 2012
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I think most of the arguments on this blog are about reductionism. Most IDers don't grasp the idea that complex things are not just the sum of their parts. Hence, here, evolution, which is "just" differential reproduction and genetic variation, can only simulate intelligence. It cannot actually be intelligent, because we know its parts.lastyearon_{January 13, 2012
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I believe Scott's accusation that you are misleading comes from his inability to conceive of intelligence as a verb, instead of a noun. So when you say evolution is intelligent, he automatically processes it as "evolution was designed by an intelligent entity".lastyearon_{January 13, 2012
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Petrushka, That has got to be one of the most bizarre, out-there things I have ever heard. But it at least it can be tested. Unlike events in the distant past the evolution of which cannot be traced, your previous post originated with you. You are intimately familiar with the process with which it was formulated. You could explain to us what it began with and the process by which it evolved into its most recent form. But seriously, this is what happens when we forget that evolution is about incremental genetic changes and specific selections and spin narratives about how a light sensitive patch formed in an indentation. People start imagining that anything can be an increment for evolution to select. A thought is an increment. A partial solution is an increment. Any two states in which a thing exists as it changes are increments. But that's not how it works. An increment, as it applies to evolution, is a very specific term, not a plastic one. If intelligence is a form of evolution then what exactly are the increments? You cannot call intelligence "evolution" without determining that. Such a statement shows a fundamental misconception, not of intelligence, but of evolution. Even though the mechanics of evolution are individual genetic variation and selection, evolutionary transitions are inevitably painted in the broad strokes of phenotypic change. No wonder it seems so simple that its principles can be broadly and vaguely applied to anything.ScottAndrews2_{January 13, 2012
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In addition, if agency were part of standard evolutionary theory, Irreducible Complexity should be embraced, as it should be taken as at least initial evidence that a feature evolved via agency rather than by mechanism.johnnyb_{January 13, 2012
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Elizabeth: “Evolutionary processes form an intelligent system.” “So you are saying that only designed systems can be intelligent? That intelligence must be designed by intelligence? “I disagree” Elizabeth, if all you mean is that evolutionary processes, though themselves completely lacking in intelligence (e.g., mutations are aimless, natural selection is not the selection of a mind), can simulate the results of intelligence, then, if we assume for the sake of argument that evolutionary processes have such powers, your usage of “intelligence” is, well, intelligible.
Well, that is certainly true, but I was taking it a little further than that. If, for example, we use Dembski's definition of intelligence, namely "the power and facility to choose between options, then evolutionary processes do not merely mimic intelligent systems, they are an intelligent system. If, however, we include "intention" in the definition (which Dembski explicitly excludes) then, no, evolutionary processes do not fall within the definition. Nonetheless, evolutionary processes have a great deal in common with intelligent processes, to the extent that "neural Darwinism" is one description of the way cognition works in human brains. Both are learning systems. The big difference between the two is that human brains can simulate before they act - in other words they can choose between two options on the basis of the likely consequence of each. Evolutionary processes are, in contrast "blind" - they do not simulate, then choose.
But if you mean what is normally meant when we say that something displays “intelligence,” then to say that evolutionary processes form an intelligent system is to say that there is intelligence behind the evolutionary process.
No, I'm not saying there is an intelligence "behind" it - I'm saying it forms an intelligent system.
It is to imply that the evolutionary process is in some sense designed. I do not think that you believe that the evolutionary process is in any sense designed. Thus, your words would not convey your true meaning. The question, then, is why you would use words that might mislead us as to your meaning.
Are you suggesting that I tried to deliberately mislead you? Why on earth would anyone want to do that? I am trying to be clear. I hope I have made myself clearer. The last thing I want to do is leave people in doubt as to my meaning. I find the suggestion bizarre.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 13, 2012
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RI've been following this for some Time, and I think it is clear that intelligence is a special case of evolutionj. Thinking is composed of conjecture and feedback. When we are solving a problem we imagine various solutions and their likely consequences. We are not born with the ability to solve complex problems. We acquire thinking tools through observing others, through training. And through experience. Major breakthroughs are always incremental. Even Einstein borrowed mathematical equations from earlier thinkers.Petrushka_{January 13, 2012
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There are many of us that consider human intelligence supernatural, at least in the meaning that it is not materialistic. In fact, that is the entire basis of the design inference. The reason we have the ability to recognize design in nature is because we have in ourselves an example of it occurring. If at least a similar type of cause did not occur in us, we would not be able to make the inference.johnnyb_{January 13, 2012
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Why should they embrace standard evolutionary theory? Standard evolutionary theory says that the information originated from random mutations. If, instead, the information originated from the intentionality of the organism, that's a completely different beast. That's where metrics such as Dembski/Marks' "Active Information" comes in - it allows you to see how much the organism is contributing to its own evolution. It is in fact the "standard evolutionary theory" which is rejecting the notion that beings can act as agents. That's why PNAS can have a paper which simply asserts "you have as much free will as a bowl of sugar", and the only ones to complain is us. It is precisely materialism that we are objecting to. We disagree with standard evolutionary theory because it is founded on materialism which rejects the notion of agency altogether. When standard evolutionary theory incorporates agency as an official cause, then ID will have officially won.johnnyb_{January 13, 2012
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Elizabeth: "Evolutionary processes form an intelligent system." "So you are saying that only designed systems can be intelligent? That intelligence must be designed by intelligence? "I disagree" Elizabeth, if all you mean is that evolutionary processes, though themselves completely lacking in intelligence (e.g., mutations are aimless, natural selection is not the selection of a mind), can simulate the results of intelligence, then, if we assume for the sake of argument that evolutionary processes have such powers, your usage of "intelligence" is, well, intelligible. But if you mean what is normally meant when we say that something displays "intelligence," then to say that evolutionary processes form an intelligent system is to say that there is intelligence behind the evolutionary process. It is to imply that the evolutionary process is in some sense designed. I do not think that you believe that the evolutionary process is in any sense designed. Thus, your words would not convey your true meaning. The question, then, is why you would use words that might mislead us as to your meaning. T.Timaeus_{January 13, 2012
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Petrushka, Neither bona fide control (driving search for solutions towards increasing utility), nor formalism, nor prescriptive information, nor self-organisation per se is capable of arising spontaneously. This observation is well warranted empirically by the sheer absense of evidence of the contrary. The only empirically warranted causation of all the above is choice contingency, and warranted massively. Apart from life, all these are present only in functionally complex artefacts. Until it is demonstrated that the above can arise spontaneously, it is absolutely scientific to argue by induction that life is an artefact. Matter is incapable of organising itself spontaneously. What can spontaneously emerge is mere low-informational redundant regularity (sand dunes, fractals, standing waves, autocatalytic cycles) that are constraints rather than controls. And this does not lend any grounds to mental constracts similar to Kauffman's "crystallisation of life". Even less so does evolvability. Neither Kauffman's edge of chaos nor Prigogine's dissipative structures nor Eigen's hypercycles are adequate to explain how spontaneous emergence of control is possible. In practice, only those systems that have been programmed to evolve, do so. To assert spontaneous evolability of function is self-contradictory. This is why, in particular, that the so called genetic algorithms are conceptually oxymoronic if you assume unguided evolution.Eugene S_{January 13, 2012
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Evolvability is under investigation by mainstream biology. It isn’t ID. It’s no more mysterious than any other biological mechanism. It isn’t a special case.
Interesting how the comments always straddle the fence between 'it's the known explanation' and 'it's under investigation.' That's obviously not a logical contradiction. But it always conveys the idea that the certainty is there and the basis for that certainty is always coming soon. 'No more mysterious than any other biological mechanism' leaves a whole lot of room for mystery. It doesn't matter whether you're a darwinist or not, how geckos got wall-climbing feet and how birds got avian lungs are both total mysteries.ScottAndrews2_{January 13, 2012
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Evolvability is under investigation by mainstream biology. It isn't ID. It's no more mysterious than any other biological mechanism. It isn't a special case. And regardless of how you try to stretch Shapiro's words, he States explicitely that neither the immune system nor mutation anticipates specific need. Perhaps it would be useful to step back and consider that prior to medicine, lots of people died of infectious disease, and that when multicelled populations are confronted with the need for a specific adaption, the most likely outcome is extinction.Petrushka_{January 13, 2012
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Sure, but your meaning is true too :) Will catch up with your other post now! Thanks for the link.Elizabeth Liddle_{January 13, 2012
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