Alvin Plantinga: Design is apparent in the world, but that’s not an argument

I can do that, too. Arranging a molecular code to symbolically represent a series of proteins that fold to produce functional components that form greater functional entities is just too complicated too occur all by itself. (Have people become ashamed of that argument? It’s quite valid and rational.) In particular if it’s too difficult to achieve with intelligence then it can’t happen without it.

That's simply not true. there are whole classes of commercial problems being solved by GAs because that is the most efficient way to solve them. There are companies using GAs to plan delivery routes because evolution is the most efficient way to find the shortest connecting route for a large number of stops. That just one of several dozen kinds of industrial problems where algorithms using random variation and incremental improvement have proved the most efficient way of solving problems. Anyone remember Paley? ID predates "Darwinism" by at least 60 years, and actually by much more than that. And there is far more than academic prestige at stake in solving the protein coding conundrum. There is the pharmaceutical industry that spends billions of dollars a year trying to solve the problem. Supercomputers spend their time trying to solve it. There's an entire network called folding@home devoted to solving it. Evolution is not unintelligent. It is simply a way of traversing a particular kind of landscape where solutions can be connected by ridges of nearly equivalent utility. Now I could be wrong. It is always possible that lurking around the corner is some Einstein who will find a generic way of predicting utility from coding sequences. That would be exciting. I'm betting it won't happen, but I could be wrong. I could be wrong about the landscape. It's always possible that there is a true island of functionality out there that cannot be reached by any known process of incremental change. That is why work similar to that of Lenski and Thornton is important. They have put this to actual test, looking for bridges in specific cases.. Petrushka

Sorry, couldn't resist. he he. Mytheos

But designing coding sequences would require some predictable relationship between code and utility.

It's interesting, though, that you would compare this to the weather. First because the relationship between code an utility in this context is on par with the rotation of the earth in predictability, surpassing it because it occurs predictably, I don't know, a trillion times a day. All life depends on it. And second because we do predict the weather to a degree previously considered impossible. Again, your argument boils down to an assertion that exploiting the clockwork consistency of folding proteins to create function is just too hard. I can do that, too. Arranging a molecular code to symbolically represent a series of proteins that fold to produce functional components that form greater functional entities is just too complicated too occur all by itself. (Have people become ashamed of that argument? It's quite valid and rational.) In particular if it's too difficult to achieve with intelligence then it can't happen without it. ID is new. You've got a hundred-year head start, the cornerstone of biology without which not even aspirin makes sense, etc., etc. So why don't you produce your account first? ScottAndrews2

I am saying protein coding is inherently unpredictable. It’s as as unpredictable as next year’s weather, and for possibly the same reason. Small changes have big consequences. You are free to prove me wrong simply by demonstrating that the utility of a coding or regulatory sequence can be predicted. It would only take one good case.

Or I can prove you wrong by observing that protein folds are evidently far more predictable than next year's weather. No one knows how many hurricanes there will be next year or when the blizzard will hit, but I can tell you that at least 99.9% of all mice will be born with four legs and two eyes because they are entirely composed of predictably folding proteins. How can something be so consistent that all life depends on its consistency and also be unpredictable? How can you compare it to the weather? There's a 40% chance of rain and a 70% chance your child won't be a freakish monster. So now the unknown is unknowable because the consistent is unpredictable. Am I missing anything else?

ScottAndrews2

Cute, but you are entirely wrong about being able to read the code for meaning or utility. Even if it is just barely possible to determine a protein fold, you are light years from determining utility. Petrushka

One of those objects has an immaterial relationship with specific resulting effects within that system.

Relationships can be deterministic and still be unpredictable. But designing coding sequences would require some predictable relationship between code and utility. Which you don't have. Petrushka

But it can’t be designed because… drumroll… we don’t understand the code.

That's not at all what I am saying. I am saying protein coding is inherently unpredictable. It's as as unpredictable as next year's weather, and for possibly the same reason. Small changes have big consequences. You are free to prove me wrong simply by demonstrating that the utility of a coding or regulatory sequence can be predicted. It would only take one good case. Petrushka

The genome is a code and has always been considered a code. Being digital or discrete it solves a compelling argument raised against ID, random occurrences. What it doesn’t do is enable Darwinism, because like any other known language, human or computer, you can read it for meaning. You can predict the effects of a code change and you can predict the utility of a code sequence. Darwinism proponents might be taken seriously if they had a theory of Darwinism that could demonstrate the feasibility of Darwinism. Mytheos

I think the point Plantinga is driving at here - and I have to get his book to be sure - is that 'we just know' is not meant to be persuasive. He's specifically saying an argument is not necessary to believe that the universe is designed. It can be a rock-bottom, basic belief. Which would also distinguish it from fideism as far as I understand the term. Since fideism is often treated as an unjustified belief that flies against reason, while Plantinga is defending what he sees as a belief that is not only not opposed to reason, but is entirely reasonable itself. nullasalus

Petrushka, there are observed physical entailments which are required in order for a semiotic state to exist; they are required for there to be any transfer of recorded (encoded) information at all. Among other things, those requirements include two coordinated physical objects (arrangements of matter) operating within a system. Those two objects demonstrate (are observed to contain) immaterial qualities which are not connected to their materiality (their physical make-up). One of those objects has an immaterial relationship with specific resulting effects within that system. The other physically establishes the immaterial relationship between these two discrete things. Both of these immaterial requirements are observed to exist in any information transfer, including that within the genome. Do you understand what an immaterial relationship is? Do you understand that the onset of these coordinated formalities (rules) is what makes life (and evolution) possible in the first place? Yet instead, you want to simply take these observed phenomena for granted, and in place of proper empirical recognition, you want to boldly assert the indefensibly anthropocentric idea that because you can't predict why proteins fold and behave they way they do, then such knowledge simply cannot be known. Your objection is stunning for no other reason than you taking it so seriously. Upright BiPed

What it doesn’t do is enable design, because unlike any other known language, human or computer, you cannot read it for meaning. You cannot predict the effects of a code change and you cannot predict the utility of a code sequence.

You repeat this at least once a day. Of all the arguments I've ever heard against the design of genetic information, this is perhaps the worst. You acknowledge that it's a code representing the components and assembly of highly functional entities. But it can't be designed because... drumroll... we don't understand the code. We don't know how to use it. It's just too darned hard. And if we don't understand it, right now, at this moment, it follows that it's impossible. You're scraping the bottom of the barrel. I don't want to distract from that jaw-dropping anti-science argument, but I must also point out that this artificial skepticism is then tossed aside when you attribute the ability to design all of these innovations to a purposeless process without a single example of how it traverses these "landscapes," and with abundant evidence suggesting it can't. "Landscape" is such an awful term. It deliberately plants a mental image of, well, a landscape. Flat, grassy, easily to traverse. It's another way of begging the question. If it's a landscape, of course you can traverse it. A more accurate picture would be a giant solar system. There's plenty of room to move around on your own planet, but good luck walking on foot to the next one. ScottAndrews2

What's it a rebuttal to? The genome is a code and has always been considered a code. Being digital or discrete it solves the most compelling argument ever raised against Darwin, Jenkin's catastrophe. What it doesn't do is enable design, because unlike any other known language, human or computer, you cannot read it for meaning. You cannot predict the effects of a code change and you cannot predict the utility of a code sequence. ID proponents might be taken seriously if they had a theory of design and could demonstrate the feasibility of design. Petrushka

That was a fantastic rebuttal to Larry. And now I better understand your comment. Thanks Mytheos

It was certainly not intended to be so. cheers... Upright BiPed

So all you have to do to demonstrate that design without evolution is possible is to demonstrate that there is a predictable correspondence between sequences and utility. Something I'm sure a lot of large industries would like to know about. Petrushka

That sounds almost esoteric. Mytheos

Quite correct, but the distinction between the pattern of bones on the ground and the sequence of codons in DNA is that the codons are an arrangement of matter in order to represent an effect within a system. The bones on the ground are merely bones on the ground. The protocol that establishes the immaterial relationship between codon and AA does not come from us. It is instantiated in a molecule that never interacts with either the codon or the AA. An immaterial formality is therefore realized (and observed to exist) within the system - just like in any other form of information transfer. We watch it happen. Upright BiPed

Hi Upright BiPed Thanks for that. Are you pointing out that the patterns of bones in the ground must be entirely interpreted on the part of the interpreter; where as the patterns of information in the genome actually specify something other than just a genome. Like the design and instruction for the building of a human being. In which case the genome itself is not open to arbitrary interpretation like bones in the ground are? If so, cool. Mytheos

I think when you see the genome operating in a way more sophisticated than our best programmable logic computers and attempts a A.I. With inputs and varieties of automated responses according to environment. You have to ask yourself. "Have I ever seen nature do anything that could contribute to such a thing as this?" The answer must be "No". We only ever see nature destroying this stuff. Mytheos

Hello APM,

...with an intellectual disagreement.

What passes for "intellectual" seems to vary rather widely, but whatever we choose to call it, the response should actually address the evidence presented in the argument. It quite entertaining when an opponent has the intellectual sovereignty to argue with the evidence itself. It breaks up the monotony. - - - - - - Hello Mytheos

Common ancestry is apparent in the world, but that’s not an argument

Common information is apparent in the world, and that information is semiotic. And the observations behind that argument stand unrefuted. The information system in the genome is semiotic just like any other information transfer system. It demonstrates the same physical and dynamic properties as any other form of information transfer ever observed, whether that information transfer is human bound, or bound to other living things, or to non-living machinery. Upright BiPed

I've often wondered about the best way to articulate how we recognize design over chance associations. If you saw a gear in the dirt connected to a shaft, you wouldn't really consider it to be just a natural formation of the metal in the ground. It doesn't mean that would be supernatural, just nearly impossible. Why do some people see motors inside our bodies and think they were at one time a chance association of particles? The most simplistic assumption would be that since gears are a type of machine designed by people, that a person designed the gears we see in our bodies. But that would mean that there had to be a person that always existed. John D

Common ancestry is apparent in the world, but that’s not an argument. Mytheos

While I admire much of Plantinga's work, I think he flirts with the edge of fideism. Isn't it odd that, on the one hand, he dismisses all of the detailed and thoughtful arguments for design as worthless, and then on the other hand, he feels confident that the simple declaration "we just know" is going to be persuasive. I think Plantinga too readily dismisses arguments just because it is possible for an opponent to counter that argument with an intellectual disagreement. APM