Video: Biologist Douglas Axe on challenges to Darwinian evolution

_{Denyse O'Leary

March 25, 2013

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billmaz:
The point is that they did mutate in a different pathway and that there are many different paths for evolution to take. ID doesn’t satisfactorily explain why there are so many paths that can lead to similar levels of adaptability. Evolution does.
I'm not sure I understand what is being claimed here. How does evolution explain many different pathways, and why do you think ID is not as satisfactory as an explanation? Keep in mind, ID doesn't deny evolution. Inference to a designer is only at the level of Darwinism's assertion of no designer. Apart from that, the two are not necessarily at odds.Phinehas_{March 31, 2013
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Eric Anderson (75), thank you for the link to your essay. It is impressive to see how you unscramble the confounded objections made by evolutionist with notable ease and clarity. I have one question. On page 5 you write:
(…) the real concern of evolutionary theory, which is explaining how the various competing species came on the scene in the first place. We seem to forget that explaining the origin of species was Darwin’s whole point in writing his opus. Evolutionists tend to miss the irony in the fact that Darwin had to assume the existence of the very thing he was trying to explain. This is an example of circular reasoning, not just in the particular formulation of the idea of natural selection, but at the highest level of the theory itself. But that is a topic for another time . . page 5, ‘Further Thoughts on Natural Selection’, Eric Anderson, May 26, 2004.
My question is of course, did you write an essay on this topic? And if so, where can I find it?Box_{March 30, 2013
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Eric @75, thanks for the essay, I look forward to reading it.Chance Ratcliff_{March 29, 2013
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Box @73, nicely put! :DChance Ratcliff_{March 29, 2013
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Incidentally, my 2004 essay is available here (I had completely forgotten about it until I saw Box's comment @73, which reminded me to search for the above quote @74): http://web.archive.org/web/20080723214029/http://www.evolutiondebate.info/ThoughtsonNS.pdf Pretty long, but worth the read (I think). :) It is a follow up to some critiques of my original essay, linked to above @51. After several years in the debate I might today describe a couple of things in slightly different terms, but I believe what I said back then still stands.Eric Anderson_{March 29, 2013
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Box @73: Your last phrase jumped out at me. Reminded me of something I wrote several years ago (in the context of an underlying genetic change being responsible for survival). Just for fun I thought I'd reproduce it here:
Yet if we can point to a particular genetic difference and say that the genetic difference will result in x percentage more likelihood of survival, then we can make a workable testable prediction based on genetics alone. We do not learn anything new by calling the result “natural selection,” when all we have done is attach a rhetorical label to the result of a process that occurred at the genetic level. Probably more problematic is that natural selection is so often described as some kind of force responsible for the change – forever “scrutinizing” and “selecting” – when it is logically limited to being a dishonest observer, waiting around for the creative change to take place and then surreptitiously taking credit for the creative work. (Eric Anderson, May 26, 2004)
Eric Anderson_{March 29, 2013
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Thank you Chance Ratcliff, So life, by random mutations, offers 'natural selection' an overly abundant variety of species. An unstoppable amount of viable organisms tumble over each other. Like a garden out of control that needs pruning. And just like an overbearing gardener NS wants to take full credit of what remains as if it was its own creation.Box_{March 29, 2013
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Box, see here for an example of the result of culling selection. The diagram depicts variety in the population before selection, and homogeneity afterwards.Chance Ratcliff_{March 29, 2013
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Box @70, I think that "ecological niches" is very much that type of miniaturization of macro environmental events. The language of niches suggests that the environment can pressure organisms toward higher levels of fitness, which appear to be very similar to higher levels of complexity. If there is a niche, it can be filled by a species. If there is a species, then there is a niche which it fills. Ecological niches suggest even more pressure factors, such as predators, food resources, and so on. Any factor external to the individual creature itself. From my perspective, selective pressures cull populations, reducing variety, so it's unclear to me how Darwinian evolution actually accounts for the variety - random mutations appear wholly inadequate unless, as Eric Anderson has pointed out elsewhere, the fitness landscape is essentially smooth, which would need to be demonstrated and not merely assumed. I think there are beneficial events which can be accounted for by simple mutations, but they likely fall within, or near to, Behe's edge of evolution.Chance Ratcliff_{March 29, 2013
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Chance Ratcliff (93), Suddenly it reminds me of the extrapolation of micro evolution to macro evolution. It seems that this time evolutionist suppose that (the alleged) guiding effects of macro-environmental events can be extrapolated to micro-environmental events. Am I right or am I right?Box_{March 29, 2013
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Box @65,
"One could argue that if a non-extreme environment allows for different life forms it follows that NS sets up a very broad bandwidth for life;"
Or I suppose the environment allows for that broad bandwidth; and indeed, inside of extreme ranges, life flourishes where it exists.
"This position is not based on reality because the data show that every non-extreme environment allows for an abundant amount of different life forms."
Yes, given the presence of life in the first place. To me it seems like a fine tuning issue. Within suitable parameters we find abundant variety of life. So proper environmental factors are necessary but not sufficient. At certain fringes that variety is reduced dramatically. From what I can tell of NS, based on differential survival, it can only reduce variety in populations. Take drug-resistant bacteria. Prior to the abundance of drug-resistant strains, a given population likely consists of both resistant and non-resistant members. After the introduction of a given antibiotic, the non-resistant population is killed off, allowing the resistant ones to thrive and become dominant. In extreme cold, animals with thick coats will fare better than animals with thin coats. However the scenario again presupposes a population with varieties of coats, ranging from thin to thick.
"Can it be said that extreme-conditions-NS (ECNS) just narrows the variable bandwidth? An overwhelming flood rules out all creatures who are not aquatically equipped, but has nothing specific to say about those who are."
Yes, at the fringes the variety of species declines. Before a flood, there are aquatic and non-aquatic creatures. Afterward the aquatic ones should be expected to survive more readily. So far, none of this explains the robustness or variety of life, only the effects of reduction of that variety; species not equipped for an extreme environment of one sort or another are not likely to survive. So in these cases there is a result of differential survival that is measurable and not strictly random, but how this process is used to construct wholly new forms is still a matter of appealing to blind forces. There's nothing compelling for those who don't already believe it happens that way.Chance Ratcliff_{March 29, 2013
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Box @67: Thanks for your kind response. It is arguable whether extreme events even qualify as examples of natural selection. Indeed, I have heard some evolutionists draw a distinction between the one-off meteorite/flood type of abrupt extinction-capable events and the regular more subtle action of natural selection.* So, no, I would not take the view that rare, extreme events are good examples of natural selection. Further, the real key, as I mentioned, is that we don't need to invoke any concept of natural selection to explain an extreme event. An extreme event is, after all, perhaps the easiest instance in which we can actually put our finger on the underlying cause of the organisms' demise. And we can explain it perfectly well by referencing the actual physical causes -- be they a meteorite, a flood, or otherwise -- without ever even so much as mentioning the label "natural selection." So extreme events are just a subcategory (indeed, an easy subcategory) of the larger point I made in the essay: when we know the actual physical cause, invoking a concept of "natural selection" is superfluous. ----- * Though, amusingly, I have also heard more than once that extinction is an example of "evolution in action," which reflects quite muddied thinking.Eric Anderson_{March 29, 2013
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Eric Anderson (66), thank you, that was really very informative. I understand the problems with natural selction much better now. Perhaps 'extreme-condition-natural-selection' should have been mentioned in your essay. This is the one instance that fitness becomes tangible. When you state "Natural selection doesn’t do anything", it feels as if something is amiss. Maybe this motivated Chance Ratcliff to write about extreme environmental conditions in his insightful post 64.Box_{March 29, 2013
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Box @63: Good questions. Start by reading the link (including Provine's quote) @64. Also my short article Chance linked to @51. Here are some ways to start thinking about natural selection: First, there is no known physical force of natural selection. There are the following known forces (setting aside for the moment certain quantum theories, possible dark energy, etc.): gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. It is true that in certain situations we see these forces acting in specific ways and we can give those situations new labels -- for example, "chemistry." But such subsidiary situations are readily definable in terms of the fundamental forces. Natural selection is not at all definable in that way and is clearly not a "force" in the sense of physics and chemistry. (Unless of course evolutionists want to propose that natural selection is the long-sought-after hypothetical fifth force beyond the Standard Model. :) ) Second, all forces that we know of exert their influence at a defined level of strength and in a particular direction. Natural selection does no such thing. Natural selection is alleged to have led creatures to the ocean and away from the ocean; to get smaller and larger; to get taller and shorter; to get faster and slower; to have more offspring and have less offspring. Nearly every time we are told natural selection has acted in some instance, we can with very little effort think up a dozen counterexamples on the spot. Every time we examine the concept, we find that natural selection allegedly leads to result X; except when it doesn't. It is a strange "force" indeed that leads to and fro, backtracking and contradicting itself at regular turns. The only direction natural selection is alleged to have invariably led is toward survival of the "fittest," but that is simply circular because fitness is only known after the fact with respect to survival.* Third, I don't have an issue with the idea of applying a mere label "natural selection" to the results of certain processes. Labels can be convenient and can help us avoid having to explain long detailed information every time a concept is invoked. A problem arises, however, in practice. As already discussed, natural selection is applied as a label to all manner of results -- even directly contradictory results. This should be our first clue that the underlying substance of what the label is describing is poorly understood. In nearly all cases, natural selection just refers to the survival, without an understanding of the underlying causes and without conveying anything more than the fact that some creatures survived. This essentially amounts to a tautology.* (Note, for a discussion on tendency to survive or the stochastic viewpoint some evolutionists think can rescue natural selection from the tautology problem, see my essay referenced @51.) No, the real force in a survival event is not "natural selection," but some actual physical process: for example, a mutation in a nucleotide, that caused a protein to be malformed, which prevented the organism from metabolizing a particular food substance, which led to the organism's death. The cause of the demise was not some force of 'natural selection,' but the breakdown in the chain of cellular processes due to a nucleotide mutation. We can apply the label natural selection after the fact, but that just masks the real underlying cause. And when we also apply the same label to an entirely different underlying cause, we start to see that the label is just that: a label, and not any kind of actual force itself. Fourth, if we really understand what is going on in a particular situation, such as the underlying biochemistry or environmental/climate circumstances, we would not need to refer to natural selection at all. For example, if we take two populations of bacteria -- one aerobic and one anaerobic -- and place them in an anaerobic environment, the anaerobic bacteria will tend to survive over the aerobic ones. Natural selection in action! Yet we know exactly why it occurred. The outcome can be fully explained in terms of biochemistry, and we never have to even refer to the concept of "natural selection" to fully and completely and scientifically explain the phenomenon in question. Again, a strange "force" indeed that allegedly acts with amazing power, but in reality does not even need to be mentioned or invoked to fully explain the phenomenon in question. ----- Again, it is perfectly permissible to use labels in our regular language discourse, and we could use the words "natural selection" as a label. I don't necessarily oppose that. But it is critical to remember that it is just that -- a label. It is not a force. It is not an explanation of what actually occurred in the physical system. It is just a convenience label, a shortcut to refer to the results of processes that are themselves poorly understood. As a result, referring to natural selection as though it were a force, or the cause, or an explanation of something typically does not shed any light on the matter. Instead it obscures. ----- * Note: In my essay I talk about whether it is possible to define natural selection in a non-tautological way. I believe it is. But it is notoriously difficult to do, and if it can be done (by understanding and describing the actual underlying causes) then, ironically, it becomes superfluous (see my fourth point above).Eric Anderson_{March 29, 2013
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Chance Ratcliff (64): So while NS is essentially a term denoting ignorance of underlying causes, we can construct thought experiments which expose cases where the environment might have something specific to say, not so much about who survives, but about who doesn’t. This seems a lot like a necessity condition.
A necessity condition indeed. One could argue that if a non-extreme environment allows for different life forms it follows that NS sets up a very broad bandwidth for life; a very coarse sieve if you will. Stating that NS is a sufficient cause implies stating that each organism is a product of a specific environment. This position is not based on reality because the data show that every non-extreme environment allows for an abundant amount of different life forms. So NS has nothing specific to say and is not a guide towards a direction.
Chance Ratcliff (64):Now with regard to survival versus death in extreme conditions (again if the earth were flooded, creatures equipped for aquatic environments would be more likely to survive) whether or not an organism survives has everything to do with the organism itself, and not necessarily the conditions.
Can it be said that extreme-conditions-NS (ECNS) just narrows the variable bandwidth? An overwhelming flood rules out all creatures who are not aquatically equipped, but has nothing specific to say about those who are. I don’t see how ECNS is guiding towards a direction. Alternating floods, earthquakes, droughts etc. kill off many but since there is no time for organisms to adapt ECNS is just a destructive force. After the drought life hasn’t been lifted on a higher plane of complexity, it is just very quiet in the slowly recovering desert.Box_{March 29, 2013
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Eric @62, it may well have been a comment of yours that I'm thinking of, I've been reading your comments with interest for some time. I did a little searching on the site, which is notoriously difficult for phrases which include "natural selection" but I did find a comment from 2011 which referenced a William Provine quote, apparently from 2001 which skewers common usage of the term; and Provine seems to suggest that it is "creationists" who have exposed the term as a facade. Regarding NS, I do think there is a necessity component, but not necessarily one which can be easily extricated from the deluge of chance events which also effect survival and reproduction outcomes. In the redacted comments I mentioned in my previous comment, I had made a point about differences between ontological and epistemological chance, which may or may not actually be distinct, that was beginning to sound very much like the angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin discussion that you eluded to in comment #60. There's also a distinction to be made between how the term "natural selection" is used, implying a force or mechanism, versus what actually comprises the result, which is environmental factors acting in concert with various biological traits. I suggest that both environmental factors and the traits that come up against them (think long versus short-haired creatures in cold environments) are not themselves strictly random, although their interplay may be, for all practical purposes. We can also imagine "corner cases" such as another ice age, where many species would die off, but those equipped for cold weather would more likely survive. Assuming we didn't freeze to death ourselves, we would be able to observe an outcome clearly illustrating differential survival and reproduction, and while this wouldn't make NS any more of a "force" it would highlight the interplay that environmental factors could possibly have with biological traits. So while NS is essentially a term denoting ignorance of underlying causes, we can construct thought experiments which expose cases where the environment might have something specific to say, not so much about who survives, but about who doesn't. This seems a lot like a necessity condition. Now with regard to survival versus death in extreme conditions (again if the earth were flooded, creatures equipped for aquatic environments would be more likely to survive) whether or not an organism survives has everything to do with the organism itself, and not necessarily the conditions. In other words, survival doesn't occur because conditions are favorable, it occurs because organisms are configured for life. I suppose it's a case of necessary and sufficient causes. Favorable environmental conditions are necessary but not sufficient for life, at least considering the ID viewpoint. The sufficient condition is an organism equipped for survival in a broad or narrow set of environmental conditions, and that seems much more specific than favorable environmental conditions themselves (if we take our privileged planet for granted). In summary, again taking the earth for granted, fecundity is a necessary condition of reproductive life. Natural selection, inverted from it's creator role, might be said to serve as a watchdog in part, preventing severe mutants from gaining a foothold in a population by killing them off; but again, this is dependent upon the organism's ability to survive and reproduce in the first place, and not a force or mechanism which does the "selecting." It might be said that what is termed "natural selection" does far more killing than creating. Apologies in advance for the hasty and verbose musings.Chance Ratcliff_{March 28, 2013
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Eric Anderson: Natural selection doesn’t do anything. Natural selection isn’t a force.
Eric, can you elaborate on this? How does e.g. a climate change doesn't do anything? I would like to understand this. I am asking in complete sincerity, and look forward to your response if you have time.Box_{March 28, 2013
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Thanks, Chance @61. Just curious, who was it here at UD who made that observation a few years ago? I'm sure other have thought of it too, but I've found that most folks, including many evolution skeptics, are pretty hesitant to talk about the particulars of natural selection, including the weaknesses and largely tautological nature. So just a little vanity to know if it might have been a comment of mine. :) I look forward to your further thoughts on the topic.Eric Anderson_{March 28, 2013
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Eric, thanks for the reply @60. I largely agree that NS is an observation and not a force; or rather a label for an outcome. I first saw that point made here a few years ago, and have since made it myself, iirc. I also agree that necessity is unable to account for CSI, and that this is perhaps describable as a logical constraint, that necessity and contingency cannot both occupy the same resultant sequences at their respective maximum effects. I also agree that there is a logical disconnect between environmental constraints influencing "natural selection" and the engineered outcome of motor proteins and the like. I may have even said as much in the past, but I don't remember where. I may try to unpack my thoughts on NS and post more later. I made an initial attempt which I'm now scrapping, so several paragraphs of disjointed thoughts have been deleted from this post. :)Chance Ratcliff_{March 28, 2013
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Chance Ratcliff @51:
Eric, supposed we defined natural selection as the tendency for organisms to die in unsuitable environments, such as too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, food scarcity, etc.. It seems possible to introduce a necessity mechanism this way, albeit a sketchy one, into the chance equation. I’ve always understood NS to be such a necessity mechanism. Not that I think it’s sufficient for hill climbing (adding grand complexity), but at least its not strictly random with respect to its result.
I'm not sure it matters whether we apply the label "natural selection" to the surviving organisms or the dying ones. At the end of the day it is just an applied label. Natural selection doesn't do anything. Natural selection isn't a force. So the only forces available are the fundamental forces that are always available: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong and weak nuclear forces (in biochemistry we could add chemical bonding, but that is really a subset of electromagnetism). We've already shown on the EA Nails It thread and elsewhere, to the satisfaction I would think of most objective observers, that necessity cannot produce complex specified information, such as that found in the nucleotides of DNA. Thus the materialist is left with chance. Now it is true we could have an interesting angels-on-the-head-of-a-pin discussion about what "chance" means, but a typical dictionary definition will suffice for most purposes: "the absence of any cause of events that can be predicted, understood, or controlled." Again, we can quibble over and perhaps refine this definition, but it is suitable for our present discourse. Evolutionists, following Darwin's example, like to personify natural selection as some kind of force. They try to argue that evolution isn't based on chance, because if evolution is essentially driven by chance it makes it seem (appropriately so) an absurd proposition. So they try mightily to argue that their creation story isn't just based on chance and that natural selection somehow removes the "chance" aspect, because it provides some guidance, some direction, some necessary pathway for evolution to follow. But it doesn't. It is just a label applied after-the-fact to the results of all the chance processes. It is true that at population levels we can run some stochastic calculations to see how a particular mutation might fix in a population, but the mutation happening is chance, whether it in fact gets fixed in our specific instance is chance (subject to the probabilities), and how that mutation will interact downstream with a myriad of other unknowns in the organism and the environment is essentially a question of chance. A chance mutation in a chance-constructed information-bearing molecule times a chance population times a chance environment is just more chance, not less of it. So unless someone can come up with a rational explanation for how the fundamental forces of nature inevitably drive evolution to some particular goal (which won't happen, due to the principles we've already discussed elsewhere regarding necessity), at the end of the day we are left with chance. Once again, when we peel away the fancy language and the rhetoric we find that the only substance remaining in the materialist creation story is that Great Evolutionary Explanation: Stuff Happens.Eric Anderson_{March 28, 2013
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billmaz
Science has rules, which include a hypothesis that can explain all available evidence, predictions which arise from such a hypothesis and proposed experiments to test those predictions which can be repeated by others
Please tell me - does the field of archaeology use scientific methods? For that matter does the field of taxonomy use scientific methods? I really suggest you either read for the first time, or re-read if you already have, Meyer' book "Signature in the Cell". Maybe you will begin to understand how inconsistently you use the term "science" to conveniently deny what is the best conclusion given the evidence. You are the one who does not consistently follow the rules.JDH_{March 27, 2013
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Lizzie:
What we do know is that the Darwinian algorithm (self-replication with heritable variance in reproductive success) can account for “complex specified information”
Umm, that is just equivocating, Liz. Baraminology, front-loaded evolution and Intelligent Design Evolution have that. And self-replication requires CSI. Can't seem to get around that- starting with the very thing you need to explain in the first place. And AVIDA refutes your claim. It demonstrates that given realisti parameters the darwinian mechanism doesn't create CSI, far from it.
One problem, I think, is that most IDists aren’t really clear, even to themselves, it seems, what they mean by “chance”.
Happenstance- accidental- not planned.
Yes, the Darwinian algorithm accounts for the spontaneous generation of information, but by that use of the word “chance”, Axe is simply wrong.
No, it starts with it. And you have a funny definition of "algorithm".
Evolutionary theory only explains how complex life forms will emerge from simple self-replicators.
No, it doesn't. For one there doesn't seem to be such a theory and for another if simple self-replicators remained, yet they were changed, then evolution would have still occurred.
It doesn’t explain how self-replicators emerged from non-self-replicators
How they emeged directly impacts how they evolved. Designed to start = designed to evolve and evolved by design. Do you think that Stonehenge was designed and the way it aligns with the sun is just a chance thing? And one more time- the EVIDENCE refutes you. The self-sustained relication of RNAs didn't produce any complexity (Joyce/ Lincoln). AVIDA under realistic parameters doesn't produce any complexity. Ya see Lizzie, it's much easier to be inanimate, to be simple. Nature tends towards thatJoe_{March 27, 2013
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billmaz you claim:
Science has rules, which include a hypothesis that can explain all available evidence, predictions which arise from such a hypothesis and proposed experiments to test those predictions which can be repeated by others. To date ID does not meet those criteria,
Yet ID was/is formulated using the very same criteria that Darwin used to formulate his theory of Natural Selection. Thus either ID is science or Darwinism is not! (actually, ID is science regardless of the fact that Darwinism, since it has no rigid mathematical basis, IS NOT science!)
Stephen Meyer - The Scientific Basis Of Intelligent Design - video https://vimeo.com/32148403
as to testable predictions for ID:
A Positive, Testable Case for Intelligent Design – Casey Luskin – March 2011 – several examples of cited research http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/03/a_closer_look_at_one_scientist045311.html A Response to Questions from a Biology Teacher: How Do We Test Intelligent Design? - March 2010 Excerpt: Regarding testability, ID (Intelligent Design) makes the following testable predictions: (1) Natural structures will be found that contain many parts arranged in intricate patterns that perform a specific function (e.g. complex and specified information). (2) Forms containing large amounts of novel information will appear in the fossil record suddenly and without similar precursors. (3) Convergence will occur routinely. That is, genes and other functional parts will be re-used in different and unrelated organisms. (4) Much so-called “junk DNA” will turn out to perform valuable functions. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/03/a_response_to_questions_from_a.html On the Origin of Protein Folds - Jonathan M. - September 8, 2012 Excerpt: A common objection to the theory of intelligent design is that it makes no testable predictions, and thus there is no basis for calling it science at all. While recognizing that testability may not be a sufficient or necessary resolution of the "Demarcation Problem," my article, which I invite you to download, will consider one prediction made by ID and discuss how this prediction has been confirmed. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/09/on_the_origin_o_1064081.html
As well, in contrast to there being no identifiable falsification criteria for neo-Darwinism (at least no identifiable falsification criteria that neo-Darwinists will accept), ID, on the other hand, does provide a fairly rigid framework for falsification:
Dembski’s original value for the universal probability bound is 1 in 10^150, 10^80, the number of elementary particles in the observable universe. 10^45, the maximum rate per second at which transitions in physical states can occur. 10^25, a billion times longer than the typical estimated age of the universe in seconds. Thus, 10^150 = 10^80 × 10^45 × 10^25. Hence, this value corresponds to an upper limit on the number of physical events that could possibly have occurred since the big bang. How many bits would that be: Pu = 10-150, so, -log2 Pu = 498.29 bits Call it 500 bits (The 500 bits is further specified as a specific type of information. It is specified as Complex Specified Information by Dembski or as Functional Information by Abel to separate it from merely Ordered Sequence Complexity or Random Sequence Complexity; See Three subsets of sequence complexity)
This short sentence, “The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog” is calculated by Winston Ewert, in this following video at the 10 minute mark, to contain 1000 bits of algorithmic specified complexity, and thus to exceed the Universal Probability Bound (UPB) of 500 bits set by Dr. Dembski
Proposed Information Metric: Conditional Kolmogorov Complexity – Winston Ewert – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm3mm3ofAYU Michael Behe on Falsifying Intelligent Design – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8jXXJN4o_A Stephen Meyer – Functional Proteins And Information For Body Plans – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4050681 Three subsets of sequence complexity and their relevance to biopolymeric information – Abel, Trevors Excerpt: Shannon information theory measures the relative degrees of RSC and OSC. Shannon information theory cannot measure FSC. FSC is invariably associated with all forms of complex biofunction, including biochemical pathways, cycles, positive and negative feedback regulation, and homeostatic metabolism. The algorithmic programming of FSC, not merely its aperiodicity, accounts for biological organization. No empirical evidence exists of either RSC of OSC ever having produced a single instance of sophisticated biological organization. Organization invariably manifests FSC rather than successive random events (RSC) or low-informational self-ordering phenomena (OSC).,,, Testable hypotheses about FSC What testable empirical hypotheses can we make about FSC that might allow us to identify when FSC exists? In any of the following null hypotheses [137], demonstrating a single exception would allow falsification. We invite assistance in the falsification of any of the following null hypotheses: Null hypothesis #1 Stochastic ensembles of physical units cannot program algorithmic/cybernetic function. Null hypothesis #2 Dynamically-ordered sequences of individual physical units (physicality patterned by natural law causation) cannot program algorithmic/cybernetic function. Null hypothesis #3 Statistically weighted means (e.g., increased availability of certain units in the polymerization environment) giving rise to patterned (compressible) sequences of units cannot program algorithmic/cybernetic function. Null hypothesis #4 Computationally successful configurable switches cannot be set by chance, necessity, or any combination of the two, even over large periods of time. We repeat that a single incident of nontrivial algorithmic programming success achieved without selection for fitness at the decision-node programming level would falsify any of these null hypotheses. This renders each of these hypotheses scientifically testable. We offer the prediction that none of these four hypotheses will be falsified. http://www.tbiomed.com/content/2/1/29
bornagain77_{March 27, 2013
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billmaz- What predictions are borne from unguided evolution? What is a testable hypothesis? I ask because IDists have provided both predictions and testable hypotheses. And all our critics can do is say it isn't good enough all the while never providing anything that we can compare with. The point is billmaz, that evolutionism doesn't follow those rules of science. And you're going to prove it. Thank you.Joe_{March 27, 2013
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Science has rules, which include a hypothesis that can explain all available evidence, predictions which arise from such a hypothesis and proposed experiments to test those predictions which can be repeated by others. To date ID does not meet those criteria, that's why it is still not considered part of science. Consciousness as a force, however, IS considered to be part of science because it has been proven experimentally to be part of quantum mechanics. If you want to equate "consciousness" with God, that's fine with me. In order to prove ID, you still have to prove by the above scientific criteria how consciousness "guides" the development of species. Stating the inadequacies of evolutionary theory is not enough to prove anything, simply to get people thinking, which is fine. ID may eventually turn out to be true on some cosmic scale, but at this point it is still too early in its development, it is incomplete, inadequate and unscientific. Unless, of course, you don't want to follow the rules of science, in which case deus ex machina is perfectly fine, though bad drama.billmaz_{March 27, 2013
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billmaz @34,
"Evolution is simply the only scientific hypothesis available, lifepsy. I can’t wait for the day when a better scientific hypothesis comes about. God, being unprovable, simply can’t be the default."
If you define a scientific hypothesis as one that can posit only chance and necessity as allowable causes for observed effects then, ironically, you've disallowed an entire category of causal phenomena, namely agency, while selecting chance and necessity, not "god", as the default explanation.Chance Ratcliff_{March 27, 2013
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'Evolution is simply the only scientific hypothesis available, lifepsy. I can’t wait for the day when a better scientific hypothesis comes about.' But, Bill, no hypothesis of evolution can substitute for a creator. Some agency created everything we see out of nothing. And it sounds like the agency behind the Big Bang. Surely, you can see the sense of G K Chesterton's remark: "It is absurd for the Evolutionist to complain that it is unthinkable for an admittedly unthinkable God to make everything out of nothing, and then pretend that it is more thinkable that nothing should turn itself into anything."Axel_{March 27, 2013
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Since the speed of light is absolute, its proper reference frame must be transcendental. In fact, isn't non-locality, by definition, transcendental, Philip?Axel_{March 27, 2013
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Eric, supposed we defined natural selection as the tendency for organisms to die in unsuitable environments, such as too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, food scarcity, etc.. It seems possible to introduce a necessity mechanism this way, albeit a sketchy one, into the chance equation. I've always understood NS to be such a necessity mechanism. Not that I think it's sufficient for hill climbing (adding grand complexity), but at least its not strictly random with respect to its result. Of course, the problem with any definition of natural selection is, at least in part, this: whether an organism lives or dies has utterly more to do with the organism itself than its environment. In other words the ability for an organism to survive and reproduce has far more to do with the organism than with the environment. BTW I read your article, A Good Tautology is Hard to Avoid, and enjoyed it. You appear to make a somewhat similar point to my second paragraph above:
"To be sure, natural selection’s inability to violate well-established natural laws is a welcome admission, but Wilkins implies that this is a property of natural selection itself. This is like saying that archeology rules out violations of physics. No it doesn’t; physics does. Natural selection cannot set the parameters of genetics or molecular biology or physics; it can only be bound by them. Ultimately, Wilkins’ statement is probably an example of attributing much more explanatory power to natural selection than it really has."
It doesn't seem that natural selection can be defined in such a way that it's not reliant on how an organism is internally configured to survive and reproduce, which makes the "natural" part of NS appear suspicious.Chance Ratcliff_{March 27, 2013
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Lizzie @48 via Joe:
Seriously, Douglas, you are surely not so ignorant of evolutionary theory that you think that Darwin “employed” (proposed?) a “a chance process”?
Of course he did. That's all you've got. Oh, he dressed it up with fancy language that often tricks people who aren't able to see beneath the rhetoric, but it is still chance. We already know that self-organization theories cannot account for the complex specified information found in biology. So chance is all you've got left. What's funny is that so many evolutionists think that Darwin's 'mechanism' is actually some kind of mechanism. It isn't. It is just chance over time. They view natural selection as some nearly-magical force that leads evolution forward from one burst of creativity to the next. But natural selection isn't a force at all -- it is just a label applied to the result of what are essentially chance processes. We start out with some kind of chance change -- say a mutation in a nucleotide. Then we add in a whole bunch more chance: whether the organism gets enough food, whether there are lots of other organisms competing in the same niche, whether the predators happened along that day or not, whether a flood came or a hurricane blew or a tornado whipped by, whether the climate abruptly changed, whether an asteroid hit the earth and killed creatures off, and on and on. Multiply all this chance over and over again for millennia. That is the essence of evolutionary theory. It is all chance. And for the committed materialist, we can expand that to include the universe, the origin of life, and everything. All of reality is just a long series of accidental particle collisions. That is the essence of the materialist worldview.Eric Anderson_{March 27, 2013
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