Another Take on Behe & Class Discussion
First off, thanks to Elena for getting the ball rolling on class posts. I am another member of Allen’s class, and I too apologize for my ignorance of scientific theory. Nevertheless, I do have a few opinions to express on Behe’s “Black Box” and our class discussions.
Though I choose not to speculate on Behe’s possible motives (if there were any at all) for confusing the basic terminology of evolution/descent with modification/natural selection, I think it is important to note that after so much work was built on his own, which supposedly undermines evolution, he had a responsibility to define his views on the unanswered implications of his book, namely that his argument dispells “evolution”. Behe did not take the 10 year downtime between editions of Black Box to address what his book implied (that his theory overthrew evolution) whether he expressly stated it or not. Further, the fact that he wrote in the book that he believes the evidence supportes common descent is an even stronger reason for him to publically set the record straight on his views in the afterword of the new edition. Because he chose not to do so, it is difficult for me to believe he sincerely meant what he wrote on page 176.
In terms of the science behind Behe’s arguement (regarding which, as Darwin would put it, “my ignorance of the laws of biochemistry is profound”) the question to his underlying assumption is, I believe: are his examples really irreducibly complex? Well, it seems to me that depends on whether you consider any intermediate funtions of the proposed trait to be beneficial. Taking Behe’s popular example of the cilia: is it, with any aspect removed, still functional? As a whole cilia in the manner we know it now, no it is not. However, could these cilia have been functional in another way at an intermediate point in evolution? If so, then Behe’s concept of irreducible complexity doesn’t really challenge natural selection either. Though i recognize this logic is somewhat teleological, it is no more so than the concept of function/benefit in adaptations in general.
In a broader sense, I believe leaders of the ID movement (namely Behe and Dempski) are wrapped up in a similar problem to that which doomed some aspects of the modern synthesis: they focus to heavily on the micro-scale mathematical (and in Behe’s case biochemical) aspects of evolution, and in doing so tend to miss the forest for the trees. Often these minute changes do not even manifest at the level of phenotype upon which Darwin based his arguments for descent with modification and natural selection. In the same way that Fisher reduced natural selection to the level of alleles, Behe has reduced ID to the level of biochemical pathways. I believe these arguments tend to miss the significance of evolution on the level of phenotypes. Similarly, I believe Dawkin’s reductionist defense of evolution was equally as non-compelling. In my opinion, the most convincing argument for descent with modification and natural selection is still what I refer to as Darwin’s “look around you!” argument in the origin of species. Although this may not be based on hard math, I am not convinced that math and physics are the best means by which to judge biologoical processes. Though I realize this is a grossly over-generalized statement, please bare with me, as I am certainly not at the scientific level of those posting on this site. If someone with a greater degree of scientific understanding would like to explain why it is a good thing that biology be “more like physics/math” I would looking forward to reading it. Thank you.
Welcome, Josh, and thanks for entering the fray! When I’m not rushing to actually get to class, I will attempt to address your question vis-a-vis the relationship between mathematics and science. It’s a question I’ve thought about a lot since getting into this debate, and one that I believe gets at the heart of many of the misunderstandings between IDers and EBers. See you tonight!
Comment by Allen MacNeill — July 13, 2006 @ 4:42 pm
Welcome Josh,
I thought your reservations regarding Irreducibly Complex (IC) systems were quite reasonable, they’ve certainly been reservations I’ve pondered myself.
My view is Behe’s critique is a “challenge” (as the title of his book suggests), not an absolute refutation. That said, I do think the challenge is very formidable, almost enough to stand on its own, but not quite enough for my comfort level.
So how did I tie up what I saw were loose ends? What I did is say to myself, “let’s be generous, let’s assume IC systems can be evolved via natural selection, was there enough time, chance, and population resources to make this happen?” I concluded the answer was no. Cornell geneticist John Sanford in Genetic Entropy reflect my views quite well on this issue, and parallels how I came to my conclusions.
The most objective way one can actually measure natural selection’s involvement in evolution is through the science of population genetics. Population genetics can estimate if a population is producing enough offspring over time to fuel evolutionary change through natural selection. Sanford and other IDers have concluded that natural selection could not have possibly been the prime-mover of evolution. There simply were not enough population resrouce to mold the billions of nucleotides in something like a human being (this is somewhat intuitively obvious when one considers human populations would have been much much smaller, less than several million, for most of history).
Thus, for me, the issue of IC can become a moot point anyway. And that is personally how I came to terms with the possible loose ends. Still, I think Behe made a very powerful case on his own…
Finally, Behe’s arguments for ID in 1996 are not as in depth as the arguments for ID today, but I consider them a first step.
IMHO, Wigner, Barrow, Tipler, Belinfante, and Dembski provide a rigorous basis for ID from pure physics, math, and information science. (Barrow, by the way, is a world class physicist and received a 1.4 milliion prize for his work on physics and it’s connection to questions of religion. He wrote an ID-sympathetic work The Anthropic Cosmological Principal. Wigner was a Nobel laureate who made very important indirect contributions to ID, and had publicly expressed reservations over Darwinian evolution.)
There is a very strong trend within biology (completely independent of ID) toward math, physics, and engineering. It is called systems biology, and it could be very revolutionary. As you might suspect, this trend is driven partly by a profit oriented mentality for the booming bio-tech, medical, and pharmaceutical industry.
The engineering and teleological perspective permeates systems biology. Thus, there is a purely demographic consideration for biology becoming more ID friendly because engineers (relative to evolutionary biologists) tend to by that way by nature (after all, they are designers).
This doesn’t absolutely justify an engineering viewpoint of biology, but it seems to be a perspective good enough to be practical, and for most people, practical rather than ideological is good enough.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova, IDEA GMU — July 13, 2006 @ 6:41 pm
Salvador,
Given your comments and views (expressed here and elsewhere) on biochemical complexity and probabilistic criticisms of evolution, I’d like to invite you to read some of the science that I’ve considered in the Molecular Evolution section of my own blog.
There, you should have no problem finding helpful scientific studies on:
…”Modelling Evolution of Protein-DNA interactions” (using computational biology to explain the divergence of regulatory pathways and increases in complexity)
…Kinome Evolution (comparative genomics of a single superfamily of proteins)
…”Molecular Evolution in a Bottle” (merging population and molecular genetics in the decent with modification of a key bacterial protein)
…and…
…”Reducing Complexity” (a variation on genetic algorithms that demonstrates the acquisition of complexity and robustness, with only self-replication and a random source of variation as drivers to population change)
Each of these, and many other studies out there, strongly make the case for “RM+NS” as not only sufficient for evolution to take place, but facilitating modification and complexity.
Please, I invite anyone who thinks that Behe, Dembski, or others might “be on to something here” to explain away such studies…
Comment by Dan — July 13, 2006 @ 7:03 pm
Salvador wrote
Um, Sal? That stuff that you mention about enough time? All else equal, both the probability of fixation of a beneficial mutation and the time to fix a mutation varies with population size, with shorter time to fixation in smaller populations. The “intuitively obvious” conclusion you reach is precisely the opposite of what popgen teaches us.RBH
Comment by Richard B. Hoppe — July 13, 2006 @ 8:08 pm
RBH,
The problem however with smaller population sizes is the lower likelihood of selectively advantaged mutations popping up in the population. Lot’s of critters, the better likelihood of a new mutation appearing. Fewer critters, better likelihood of fixation (as you note). Therefore, the situation regarding population sizes being large or small, when all factors considered is :”darned if you do, darned if you don’t.”
Haldane suggested some optimization parameters for an ideal population size (I think something on the order of 10,000????), but it still resulted in a fixation rate of about 1 trait every 300 generations. This was fatal to scenarios of human evolution, and this problem has been dubbed, “Haldane’s dilemma”.
The point in citing 1,000,000 in an off-the-cuff manner was just to give a feel for the difficulty of the task of comming up with new mutations. Since Lenski estimates a truly beneficial popping up 1 out of every 1 million times, even assuming monstorous selective sweeps and population replenishments, natural selection is too inefficient. A million people would have to be dying off and reproducing every generation just to keep pace with the nucleotides from the split with our last ape-like ancestor.
Ok, there are a buzillion caveats and qualifiers and counter-caveats and counter-qualifiesr to all of what I said, and I can’t possibly fit them in the space of this thread, let alone post. So Perhaps I should simply refer everyone to Sanford’s book. He goes into the numbers in more brutal detail.
Nevertheless, you still made an astute observation, and I credit you with catching me making a less-than-formal argument. I salute you, sir.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova, IDEA GMU — July 13, 2006 @ 8:38 pm
Thanks Josh for frank comments.
As an engineer with “some” math, I expect that Darwin’s theory will rapidly founder on the explosion in genomic and biochemical data. Behe’s Ch 7 “Road Kill” (especially p 141 and 160) summarizes the argument. If you can, highly recommend Sanford’s Genomic Entropy that Sal referred to. If evolutionists actually applied population dynamics to each Darwinian “small step,” they would soon find all their “models” rapidly disappearing beyond Dembski’s Universal Probability Bound and all realm of even the remotest possibility over the entire age of the universe. Physicists, mathematicians and engineers who have looked into the implications of the models Sandford sumamrizes conclude that most evolutionary models are alot of inconsequential handwaving (or “Just-so stories without substance. E.g., Sir Fred Hoyle (Mathematics of Evolution, 1999, ISBN 0-9669934-0-3) estimates the probability at about 10^-4000, compared to the Universal Probability Bound of about 10^-120. i.e. “Zip”, “nada,” forget it.
Comment by David L. Hagen — July 13, 2006 @ 11:17 pm
As we will see in the intro evolution course, the argument from “random mutation and natural selection” alone is essentially a straw-man argument. For reasons that I will get into in the course (and have outlined in detail in several posts at The Evolution List, mutations at virtually all levels aren’t really “random”, if by that term one means “totally unconstrained”. On the contrary, changes in both gene sequence and gene expression are highly dependent on position within the genome (i.e. relative to each other and to regulatory sites), to intracellular environment (i.e. chemical factors altering gene expression), and to external environment (which are ultimately transduced to the genome level via chemistry-based gene regulatory processes).
And, as even a cursory read through Mary Jane West-Eberhard’s (2003) book, Developmental Plasticity and Evolution, would indicate, there are a multitude of mechanisms by which phenotypes can change that are not subsumed under the “modern synthesis” definition of “random mutation.”
As to natural selection, it is clearly not the only mechanism by which the foregoing changes can be “preserved” and/or promoted within and between populations. Darwin himself also proposed sexual selection, and as recent research into the diversification of many animal species (e.g. the cichlids of Lake Victoria) has indicated, this mechanism can have startling consequences (and happen at truly amazing speeds). In addition, Sewell Wright’s mechanism of genetic drift (along with Mayr’s “founder effect” and genetic “bottlenecks”) can interact with both types of selection to produce patterns of change different from those one would predict on the basis of natural selection alone (and without the “cost of selection” problems outlined by Haldane).
In a nutshell, attacking current evolutionary theory on the basis of how closely it hews to the “modern synthesis” is to attack a theoretical framework that many current historians of evolutionary biology (Will Provine chief among them) have shown was superceded almost half a century ago.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — July 13, 2006 @ 11:41 pm
In comment #5, Davud Hagen wrote:
On the contrary, recent discoveries in genomics and bioinformatics have had just the opposite effect: they have provided empirical support for the “new synthesis” of traditional evolutionary biology and the dynamic field of evolutionary develoment. Indeed, the newest national center for such discoveries is right here at Cornell, where new and extremely exciting work based on comparisons between chimp and human genomes have resulted in major advances in our understanding of the divergence of these two species from their common evolutionary ancestor in the Pliocene. In addition, the new center for genomes at Cornell, currently under construction, will provide a launching pad, not for more theoretical speculation into ID unsupported by empirical evidence, but rather an avalanche of new empirical support for the developing “21st century synthesis” of evolutionary biology, evolutionary development, and genomics.
How can I state this so confidently? Because Cornell’s departments of ecology & evolutionary biology, genetics & development, and molecular biology are the premier departments of their kind in the world. I know many of them personally, and many of the rest by reputation. They are first rate empirical scientists and profound thinkers, virtually all of whom are willing and able to “push the envelope” of the new synthesis. It’s an exciting time to be an evolutionary biologist, and this is an extraordinarily exciting place to be one!
Comment by Allen MacNeill — July 13, 2006 @ 11:50 pm
RBH —
Just to point out, if you have a smaller population size, you have a smaller generative population for producing a given mutation. There is no reason to expect from a non-telic evolution that a smaller population would produce more beneficial mutations per capita. I don’t know quantitatively how much this would impact a given scenario, but it is certainly something to keep in mind.
Comment by Jonathan Bartlett — July 14, 2006 @ 12:01 am
Josh,
If you’re still reading, it might be helpful to get a survey of primary opinions of IDers.
1. A good fraction believe in universal common ancestry, but many (like me) don’t. Some are agnostic to the issue.
2. Even those who reject universal common ancestry (like me) are still very favorable to pre-programmed design as an explanation for some evolution. Thus one could make a statement that most IDers are not averse to some kinds of evolution, especially if it pre-programed (designed).
3. Natural selection as a prime-mover is largely rejected by IDers (and often with enormous emotion to boot)
4. Non-intelligent origin of life is largely rejected by IDers
5. Surprisingly, evo-devo has some interest from IDers because it supports the idea of pre-programmed evolution.
6. neutral evolution has a lot of support from IDers (that’s a gross simplification on my part however, so please be aware of this caveat)
It is on point #5 that the various sides might actually find some common ground and support each other.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova, IDEA GMU — July 14, 2006 @ 12:38 am
Salvador again makes many unsupported claims and given his unwillingness to support them (at least in the past), I am somewhat discouraged from asking him to follow the rules of engagement of this board.
Whatever Standford believes he has shown, reality quickly contradicts his claims. What good is an idea when it is at odds with the evidence.
Of course Stanford’s work seems to have little relevance to ID which relies on the absence of any pathways or explanations to infer something called ‘design’.
So back to Behe, his concept of IC was, contrary to what one would expect, an attempt to attack natural selection. Since Natural Selection however is hardly the sole mechanism of evolution and since plausible and credible pathways to IC have been proposed and identified, it seems that IC has to be rejected as a reliable indicator of ID. In fact, I’d argue that IC never could have been an argument in favor of ID since it is based on a false duality and an argument from analogy, which is, as Allen has shown, one of the weakest arguments.
What frustrates me is how ID proponents seem to be largely unfamiliar with scientific progress and evolutionary theory as it presently stands, and merely claim whenever science argues something new that this somehow is relevant to ID. But since ID cannot depend on science finding answers, since this would block the ID inference, it seems quite illogical for ID and ID proponents to make these claims.
While I understand that, lacking any scientific relevance, ID’s short term survival may depend on claiming scientific credibility via a few ‘peer reviewed’ papers of dubious quality and relevance, an embracing of new research as if it were ID relevant, and an overselling of the credentials of ID proponents, it seems clear to me that this may work for a short time, but that for a long term solution, this is likely to fail exactly because ID presents no hope of becoming scientifically relevant unless it abandons its eliminative approach and its appeal to analogy.
It’s time to do hard science, of course, the problem with ID is that hard science ends up blocking ID claims.
Ironic isn’t it?
Comment by PvM — July 14, 2006 @ 12:39 am
Salvador once again makes illogical claims when he states that ID places its hopes on science. If evo-devo and/or neutral evolution are relevant mechanisms then ID becomes superfluous as an ‘explanation’ since it adds nothing scientifically.
ID has a lot to fear from evo-devo or neutrality in evolution since these relatively new areas of evolutionary research show how evolution could have been quite succesful after all, and a significant role is given to variation and selection.
That ID is embracing science is a good first step but it should be clear that it cannot embrace science and claim science to be relevant to ID since ID is based on elimination of scientific pathways.
So far, IDers seem to have avoided dealing with this simple fact.
Perhaps Sal or Hannah can explain their thoughts as to why we should take Sal’s claims seriously? This would mean we have to reject the foundation of the intelligent design approaches.
Is that what Sal is proposing?
Comment by PvM — July 14, 2006 @ 12:43 am
Sal: I think it’s instructive that books in the popular press could be so persuasive to PhD’s accustomed to peer-reviewed literature.
I think Sal has hit the nail on the head. While there is plenty of peer reviewed research to show that ID is vacuous, ID proponents seem to limit themselves to popular science or more obscure books.
As an ex-yec’er I used to stick to obscure books as well, until I decided to look beyond the carefully selected books and ‘research’. What I found was earth shattering and even faith shattering. What I have considered to be solid science, after all was it not sold as such, was actually poor supported claims contradicted by countless scientific evidences.
I do understand that people like to limit their exposure to that with which they agree, however I have found that I learn more from those with whom I disagree. After all it forces me to look at and consider seriously, contradictory claims.
Remember Behe, who based on some obscure book, spent much time showing that IC can evolve after all, while really doing no research that had much of any relevance to intelligent design. Look at Meyer’s paper on the Cambrian which ignores much of the available research.
I also understand the distrust some Christians may have in peer reviewed literature which does not conform to theological principles and it took me personally some time to shake this distrust only to come to the conclusion that science should not be avoided but rather embraced. Presently I am an emotionally and intellectually fulfilled Christian who does not fear science and rather sees it as a way to understand God’s Creation.
Which is why, as a Christian, I have such problems with intelligent design which seems to propose a theologically risky philosophy while lacking as a science. In other words, it’s vacuous scientifically and risky theologically.
Now I understand Sal’s background in Young Earth Creationism, a background which I have found to require a rejection of much good science in favor of ones beliefs and I cannot fail my fellow ID Christians for wanting to see Christ in His Creation. As I have explained, I see such an effort to be counterproductive from both a scientific and theological perspective.
Point in case seems to have been our discussion on redundancy. As I showed, in nature, rather than see redundant systems we see ‘degenerate’ or ‘distributed redundant’ systems.
In other words, contrary to designed technology which is almost uniquely redundant via backup systems, biology is robust through a network of interactions which have been shown to arise trivially from evolutionary processes.
As such redundancy in nature is much better understood in terms of natural processes and thus any ID inference has been effectively blocked.
Yet, IDers still argue, without any evidence of logical analysis, that ID somehow still explains redundancy better even though it cannot even use analogy.
So what does ID have to support its claims? Nothing. Certainly, the foundation of ID, which is purely eliminative renders ID powerless to propose positive hypotheses which follow directly from the premises of ID. But in addition, the fact that natural processes can explain at least in principle the observations of degenerate systems or ‘distributed redundancy’ effectivel shows that science has much better explanations. The proof is purely in the pudding: Show us the ID hypothesis and explain to us why it is better than those provided by science?
Which of course does require one to be familiar with how science explains degeneracy in nature. Extensive literature exists on this topic and I intend to discuss this in more details. I hope that such an approach can help focus the discussions on a very relevant topic namely a direct comparison of an ID claim versus how science explains it.
So for starters: How does ID explain degeneracy in nature? Especially when degeneracy is seldomly found in technological (designed) systems.
Comment by PvM — July 14, 2006 @ 1:57 am
In comment #13, PvM wrote:
This was also Darwin’s technique. As he pointed out in the Origin and in his autobiography, he discounted comments, letters, and reviews that were favorable to his theories, and concentrated on those that were opposed to his theories, always updating his work to address such criticisms. This is why most of his published works grew larger with each edition, as he published more and more responses to his critics.
By contract, Michael Behe didn’t change as single word in Darwin’s Black Box from the first edition to the second, and in the afterword to the latter he basically reiterates his position. This, despite the fact that extensive critical reviews of his work have appeared around the world, providing him with ample opportunities to revise his conclusions (and to present new empirical research that supports his hypotheses).
What are we to conclude from these two examples? That EBers care a great deal about accuracy and count on their critics to improve it. By contrast, IDers can’t be bothered, since their positions aren’t really held for scientific reasons anyway.
P.S. This is also why I have always tried to maintain cordial and productive relationships with people who hold opinions in opposition to mine (like Hannah and the members of the Cornell IDEA Club, Salvador, MikeGene, and some other IDers). From the standpoint of sharpening my own arguments and responding to critics, they are my best friends, doing for me what I can’t do for myself: showing me the other side of the issue from the perspective of the other side, thereby allowing me to continue to learn and to refine my understanding. And so, to the “loyal opposition” I offer a heartfelt “thank you!”
Comment by Allen MacNeill — July 14, 2006 @ 10:25 am
Michael Behe has published– online and in print– many responses to his critics; and though he said he would not have changed much in his book if he wrote it again now, he also said he would add a great deal.
Moreover, you yourself agreed that the “extensive critical reviews” which appeared following his work brought up nothing new; it is all of the same caliber with the just-so stories he addresses in detail in the first edition of his book, and really not to the point at all.
I had read a great deal of his critics before I first read the book in full, and– as you usually do if you focus just on one side of the argument– had a rather warped idea of vigor of his arguments. It did seem to me he was onto something with irreducible complexity, but there were alot of critics, and I wished he would address them in detail. Then I actually read the book, and was surprised that he had addressed them all back in 1996. It seemed most of the critics hadn’t read more than a cliffnotes version of the book, and didn’t really understand that either. When they actually address his arguments there will be time enough to revise the book.
Are you making a categorical statement, and are you prepared to defend it?
Comment by Hannah — July 14, 2006 @ 11:04 am
In comment #14, I wrote:
and then I made the comments that I did. I believe, on the basis of the two examples cited (i.e. the six editions of Darwin’s Origin of Species and the two editions of Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box, widely touted as one of the founding documents of ID) that, indeed, EBers (as represented by Darwin) take a lot of time and trouble to address their critics and update their arguments, whereas IDers (as exemplified by Behe) do not.
It is illustrative of my point that the six editions of the Origin to which I refer were published between 1859 and 1872, a span of 13 years. Over that period of time, the book almost doubled in size, mostly as the result of inclusion of responses by Darwin to his critics.
By contrast, there have been 10 years between the first and second editions of Darwin’s Black box, and over that time Behe added or altered not one word of the main text, and in the Afterword to the second edition basically reiterated his original position without significant modification. This despite ten years of extraordinary productivity in the biological sciences in general, and evolutionary biology in particular. One searches in vain in DBB for any mention of evo-devo, new discoveries in the phylogeny of the mammalian blood clotting system, updates on our understanding of the phylogeny of the vertebrate immune system, etc. They aren’t in either the main text of the second edition of DBB nor in the Afterword.
Furthermore, in 1999 the Discovery Institute (in the “wedge” document) called for a vigorous program of empirical research into ID: at least 100 papers from field and laboratory researchers, presenting empirically testable hypotheses, followed by descriptions of such tests, results obtained, and analysis of the import of such results to the overall research program.
And how much of this has the ID movement accomplished? Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Not one single journal article in the peer-reviewed literature in which the results of an empirical test of an hypothesis derived from ID theory have been either validated or falsified.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — July 14, 2006 @ 12:13 pm
So, it’s a “limited” categorical statement, based on exemplary cases (rather than a numerical analysis). And, if I could edit my comment, I would insert the word “apparently” in front of the phrase “can’t be bothered” and phrase my explanation as to why as an hypothesis, rather than an assertion (it was late/early, I was tired, mea culpa).
Comment by Allen MacNeill — July 14, 2006 @ 12:15 pm
When they actually address his arguments there will be time enough to revise the book.
Of course that’s wishful thinking since critics have in fact addressed his arguments and shown then to be significantly wanting and Behe has done little to address the critics’ comments.
Perhaps Hannah can give us an example? Or perhaps she can address my observations that 1) IC is an argument against Darwinism and thus cannot be an argument for ID 2) natural pathways to IC systems exist and thus IC is not even a reliable indicator.
Is Behe’s book much ado about nothing?
Comment by PvM — July 14, 2006 @ 12:34 pm
And honestly, if it takes public shaming to get IDers to buckle down and get their hands dirty doing the difficult and generally unglamorous field and lab work (compared with doing high-profile debates and writing glitzy press releases) that is clearly necessary to test their hypotheses, then I’m ready to dish some of it out. Let’s see if they can take it…
Comment by Allen MacNeill — July 14, 2006 @ 12:34 pm
You are more than welcome, and I am sincerely grateful you have exerted every effort to remain cordial to “the opposition” under a flag of truce.
Although I can foresee that we probably will not come to agreement on many things, the one reason I have great respect for you, Allen, is you will at least have the students buy IDers books and read them. For what it’s worth, I would have no hesitation recommending IDers learn from you.
I want IDEA members schooled in evolutionary literature. I am proud of IDEA members who have as much a command evolutionary literature as any typical working scientist. As Allen Orr noted, even most scientists are not familiar with evolution:
Perhaps this is the one thing we can agree on, that it’s good for everyone to be exposed to ideas. That up and coming proponents of ID should get some schooling in evolutionary biology.
Well maybe there are perhaps other areas we can agree on, namely some forms of evolution which might be of interest to both sides. Darwin wrote in Chapter 14, “the progenitor of innumerable extinct and living descendants, was created.” Many IDers could live with that or some variant of thereof (such as the assumption that there were various kinds of “first creatures” rather than only one). Evolutionary theory defined in that way would actually be exciting to IDers.
Evolution defined as pre-programmed from the progenitor(s) is acceptable and even of immense interest to IDers. If Darwin could accept special creation of the progenitor, I see no reason it should be problematic for IDers participating in evolutionary biology to accept special creation of the progenitor(s). I would hope, that even though you may consider the idea of a intelligence superfluous to empirical research, that you might find something of scientific value in the quest for artifacts in the cells of creature which could recapitulate phylogeny in the lab! An IDer would be thrilled to be involved in such a glorious (and hopefully profitable) quest, and I would hope you as well.
Ok, so now here is where we disagree. IDers will not presume this regress to more pre-programming to continue forever. At some point it must terminate at a designed artifact or an intelligent designer. OOL and natural selection appear to IDers like the concept of perpetual motion. And what is frustrating to us is that demands to create a lab experiment to illustrate the impossibility of perpetual motion simply can’t be done. It would be like asking us to create an experiment proving square circles don’t exist! And then because we do no such experiments we are viewed as not being empiricists. Our viewpoint on such issues, was beautifully captured in a peer-reviewed paper by a non-IDer, which I mention here: Perfect architectures which scream design. I can appreciate then the anger of the EBers toward the IDers that no empirical product is delivered, but I hope it is evident the IDers have equal disdain for demands for empirical dis-proofs of square circles.
So I suppose I’m trying to inform you up front what you will never see from IDers and what you may possibly see from IDers. Rather than leaving us an irreconcilable impasse about whether there was an intelligence at the root of existence, I simply extend an olive branch, namely the search for recapitulating some amounts of phylogeny in the lab. It’s a heretical evolutionary idea, and I would suppose such heresy might actually pique your interest.
At least in that regard we can find something of mutual interest to both of us, and which will move the research into evolution forward.
Salvador
PS
I’ll be leaving for the weekend shortly, I regret I can only participate sporadically if at all over the next few days.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova, IDEA GMU — July 14, 2006 @ 1:03 pm
PvM
I can appreciate that dissilusionment with authority figures can cause severe emotional trauma. However please do not “throw the baby out the the bathwater.” The foundational issue is that a priori excluding any intelligent cause results in force fitting data into non-intelligent models, whether or not there is any intelligent cause.
Behe proposes Irreducible Complexity with an intelligent cause as better fitting data than Darwin’s model or Neo-Darwinian Random Mutation & Natural Selection with a non-intelligent cause. Please return to the thread focusing on Behe’s IC.
Allan, Sugest addressing Behe’s detailed responses to critics. See:
A Response to Critics of Darwin’s Black Box
In Defense of the Irreducibility of the Blood Clotting Cascade:
Response to Russell Doolittle, Ken Miller and Keith Robison
The Lamest Attempt Yet to Answer the Challenge Irreducible Complexity Poses for Darwinian Evolution
PvM Rather than hijack this list, if you wish to explore degeneracy and redundancy, please post your definitions and questions elsewhere. [E.g., Sheehan Physical Chemistry, 2nd ed, McGraw Hill (2003), and Yockey (2005, p15) give conflicting definitions.]
Comment by David L. Hagen — July 14, 2006 @ 1:04 pm
LOL! Could you give an example of a scientific study that demonstrates “force fitting data into non-intelligent models”???
…perhaps showing how any study of mutations or genetics that forces their data into a model, and assumes a priori that a Designer specified the observed results to occur, is “force fitting” their data…
… or, heck, any study from any field of biology (evo-devo, paleontology, comparative anatomy) that “force fits” their data…
Comment by Dan — July 14, 2006 @ 1:19 pm
Again, you agreed less than twenty-four hours ago that Darwin’s Black Box has nothing to do with the major part of evolutionary theory. You have to realize that goes both ways. It doesn’t affect most of current evolutionary research, but also most of current evolutionary research does not address his thesis and therefore is utterly irrelevant in considering appropriate revisions of his work. He most definitely never addresses phylogeny; except to say that there is a good deal of sound research done in that field.
The evolution of biochemical pathways, which is the point he does address, has made minimalistic progress in the last ten years. He discusses this “progress” in his afterward, and you claimed yesterday you had no quarrel with our extremely poor opinion of it.
It really would help if you had a logical basis for your “public shaming”. After all your talk about the necessity for sound bases to arguments and the weakness even of strong forms of the argument from analogy, choosing a property (the number of changes between two editions of a popular book) that is both non-causal and has not been shown to be directly related to the issue under consideration (scientific integrity and care for accuracy), and then acting as if two examples (chosen by convenience) will demonstrate your point only makes it appear you have a deep-running double standard.
My “confidence level” in intelligent design has been based more on the complete illogicity, irrationality and utter vacuity of most of the criticisms of ID that I hear than from any sort of reliance on Behe or Dembski’s work. In a way, I rely on you people to help me see the flaws in intelligent design theory– and I agree with Allen that critics can be your best friends. But if the critics do such a poor job coming up with any argument of interest, you begin to wonder if the theory being attacked is stronger than you thought.
Back when I was a sophomore I remember Michael Behe coming to Cornell, by invitation of the Biology Department and ACH. He gave a careful and fully scientific presentation, followed by an extensive Q&A or “public discussion” in which large contingent of the Cornell biology department participated. I hadn’t studied much about ID yet then, and knew nothing about the debate. What I remember most from that evening is that he gave a reasoned, scientific presentation and an even-toned response to all his critics, and they –many of whom had lost their cool before the evening was half over– had primarily arguments from emotion. Maybe only arguments from emotion; as far as a remember, no sound logical or scientific critique was presented that night.
You’ve had ten years. Is that all you can come up with?
[for those not from Cornell; I’m not shouting, or mad. Just earnest :)]
I do agree that we should do more empirical research, write more papers and publish more books. Every aspect of ID should be thoroughly tested. Labwork is slow, though, and doesn’t usually like to be hurried…
Comment by Hannah — July 14, 2006 @ 1:28 pm
…and along the lines of thanking one’s critics, I should say that I’m very grateful for the time that many people here at Cornell– especially Allen, Tim, and Dan– have spent debating these issues with me, letting me know when I said something particularly stupid, and “setting me straight” on a thousand different issues. Much of what I know in this debate I learned from you. Thank you, and thanks for the patience you’ve shown even when I made you absolutely certain you hated me.
Comment by Hannah — July 14, 2006 @ 1:37 pm
Hi, Hannah:
I’m just not particularly sanguine on the assumption that this will actually happen, give the history of such research efforts since 1996.I concede that my blanket characterization of ID on the basis of a comparison of single cases (OoS vs. DBB) was perhaps a bit over-extended (and, indeed, was essentially an argument by analogy…or, rather, comparison, which is basically the same thing). And I appreciate your concession that
BTW, I didn’t attend Behe’s presentation to the biology department, only his presentation in Will Provine’s evolution class. But I stand by a question that I have implicitly asked several times: why, when he was given a golden opportunity to update the arguments and evidence for his ideas in the second (i.e. “anniversary”) edition of DBB, did he not change a single word in the text, and start off the Afterword with “…there is very little of the origina text that I would change if I wrote it today.” (pg. 255). Really? Why not address the critics, the way Darwin did? Wouldn’t this new edition be the ideal venue? And if not, why not?
Comment by Allen MacNeill — July 14, 2006 @ 1:45 pm
Hannah,
You’re absolutely welcome - and likewise, I appreciate your near-infinite patience when discussions get heated that I’ve said rash things out of frustration.
Comment by Dan — July 14, 2006 @ 1:50 pm
Hannah:
On the contrary, I both admire and appreciate you very much, not the least because of your passionate search for clarity on these issues and your defense of logical argument as the means for accomplishing it. As I have said many times, I have far greater respect for an opponent of my views who defends them with logic and with vigor, than for a supporter of my views who sits idly by and does nothing at all.
As my fencing master, Adam Adrian Crown, has said, a true fencer (from the word for “defense”, of course) is “gracious and dignified in defeat, magnanimous and humble in victory.” What we seek is to “…improve our society by promoting the “All for one and one for all” spirit…that emphasizes respect, cooperation, honesty, fairness and personal responsibility.”
Comment by Allen MacNeill — July 14, 2006 @ 1:52 pm
Allen re My #6 and your #7, #8
In Road Kill, Ch 7, Behe addresses the complexity of ATP synthesis and the challenge of population modeling. Biotic energy like ATP is critical for biotic life. Where are the detailed models showing that it can be realistically formed within the Universal Probabilty Bound of 1 in 10^120?
In Ch 3, Behe addresses the flagilum. Since then,
N. J. Matzke (2003) Evolution in (Brownian) space: a model for the origin of the bacterial flagellum proposes detailed evolutionary scenarios for the flagelum. However, On Evolutionary Explanations observes:
Do you know of any population modeling for each step showing that the combined sequence from beginning to end is less than the Universal Probability Bound? (I.e., including all relevant population models such as Sanford (2005) reviews).
If not, that might be a suitable challenge for your premier institution and funding. You are welcome to use all naturalistic models and forces. Once that is satisfactorly demonstrated, realistically quantifying abiogenesis of the first self replicating cell including photosynthesis within the UPB might be a suitable subsequent challenge. However, till then, in light of Hoyle (1999) Mathematics of Evolution, and Sanford (2005) Genomic Entropy etc., I remain skeptical. (And yes I will explore predictive theories for ID outside of my larger responsibilities.)
Comment by David L. Hagen — July 14, 2006 @ 2:05 pm
Jonathan Bartlett remarked
Sure it is. But in the absence of reliable and carefully justified quantitative data on just how much “time, chance, and population resources” is necessary to get to some unspecified end point from an unspecified starting point, appeals to intuition are merely appeals to ignorance.RBH
Comment by Richard B. Hoppe — July 14, 2006 @ 2:17 pm
David (comment 28),
If I may jump in yet again…
It sounds like you expect someone to respond with a detailed accounting of every step for a series of molecular events in the evolution of some feature. Sorry, but I know I don’t have an example where we know everything behind a feature’s evolution, and I admit, I haven’t read Sanford’s nor Hoyle’s books.
Nonetheless, there are many such studies that use population modeling, and feasibility of navigating the fitness landscapes in divergent, (Evolutionary Potential of a Duplicated Repressor-Operator Pair: Simulating Pathways Using Mutation Data) and directional (In vivo molecular evolution reveals biophysical origins of organismal fitness) Selection processes.
Other studies have shown such phenomena in computer modeling studies (The evolutionary origin of complex features), in human genetics studies (Natural selection on protein-coding genes in the human genome), and in transcriptional regulation(Evolutionary Dynamics of Prokaryotic Transcriptional Regulatory Networks).
And that’s just the few studies I’ve come across and bookmarked (at Spurl.net) in the last few months - it’s far from an exhaustive list - so I’m rather sure that your skepticism is based solely on taking Sanford and Hoyle’s claims (whatever they are) very unskeptically, and a weak understanding of the literature in biochemistry and cell biology. Perhaps those fields can be faulted for not having explained this topic to the public better, but the molecular basis for evolution is a relatively new avenue for biology…
Comment by Dan — July 14, 2006 @ 2:40 pm
More thoughts on probability and fitness landscapes regarding the molecular basis of evolution:
Mark from Good Math, Bad Math just got done commenting on one of the articles I just linked to (comment 30) and blogged on, and a commenter (Bob Hawkins) had a very relevant and insightful observation:
Indeed - the genome is clearly an extremely robust and plastic repository of hereditary information, and is adept at both being able to retain/conserve necessary data/sequences and change in n- directions.
Comment by Dan — July 14, 2006 @ 3:16 pm
Hannah wrote:
Could you please provide a list of some of these criticisms of ID you say are so lame?Comment by alienward — July 14, 2006 @ 5:12 pm
Indeed, that would be interesting to see. In particular, Hannah, please explain why asking for empirical and parsimonious evidence for ID (which ID is currently lacking) is lame…
Comment by Dan — July 14, 2006 @ 5:28 pm
Dembski, addressing the Matzke paper linked above.
Comment by todd — July 14, 2006 @ 6:19 pm
From todd’s quote of Dembsky:
In essence evolutionary theory is untestable as well. How do we test that blind chemical reactions are actually building successively more complex bio-machines over very long periods of time? We can’t. We can only guess. How some chemicals self organized into replicating bio-machines which then ever after converted other chemcials into more and more complex nano-bio-technology and bio-machines is on the face of it an indredibley unlikely story to believe in. Yet that story is preferred as the rational story in today’s academic environment.
We can look at a plant in our yard and wonder how that plant came into existence. We can learn that it came from a seed. We then wonder where the seed came from. We learn if comes from the plant. We then wonder where the original seed and plant comes from. We are then told that the plant and seed evolved over time from a single celled life form. We then wonder how a single cell life form or multiple cell life form can make a seed. A seed contains the design schematics for every part of the plant. We are told that plants and seeds evolved over a very long period of time. We wonder if time has some special ability to make seeds. We are told that nature is able to build seeds and plants by time and mutation and natural selection. How does a thing which is not a seed mutate into a seed? A seed is a schematic for the design of every part of a plant. The mutation of the thing that was not a seed into a seed would seem to violate the precondition of evolutionary theory prime directive # 1 i.e unguidedness. Before the seed exists what would be necessary to exist in order for the seed to be the next step in an evolutionary mutative process? How does something go from being not-a-seed to a seed without the purpose of building a plant?
Comment by Neo Avatar — July 14, 2006 @ 8:10 pm
Hannah writes,
My “confidence level” in intelligent design has been based more on the complete illogicity, irrationality and utter vacuity of most of the criticisms of ID that I hear than from any sort of reliance on Behe or Dembski’s work. In a way, I rely on you people to help me see the flaws in intelligent design theory– and I agree with Allen that critics can be your best friends. But if the critics do such a poor job coming up with any argument of interest, you begin to wonder if the theory being attacked is stronger than you thought.
Well, if you actually want to be taken seriously when you say things like this, you have to deal with the serious critiques. For example:
Bottaro, Andrea, Inlay, Matt A., and Matzke, Nicholas J. (2006). “Immunology in the spotlight at the Dover ‘Intelligent Design’ trial.” Nature Immunology. 7(5), 433-435. May 2005. (Subscription no longer required: DOI | Journal | Google Scholar | PubMed | Supplementary Material | Annotated Immune System Evolution Bibliography | Longer, Unannotated Immune System Evolution Bibliography)
Matt Young and Taner Edis, eds. (2004, 2006). Why Intelligent Design Fails: A Scientific Critique of the New Creationism. Rutgers University Press. Book website, Table of Contents, Preface, etc.
Speaking of being serious, isn’t it a little odd that the discussion on this course blog isn’t focused on whether or not Behe’s irreducible complexity argument makes any sense? Isn’t that the key issue? Or do we just take what one biochemist says about evolution on faith?
Comment by nmatzke — July 14, 2006 @ 10:24 pm
Darn links are putting me in the spam buffer again…how’s a guy supposed to cite his sources ’round these parts?
Comment by nmatzke — July 14, 2006 @ 10:25 pm
Hannah,
I too agree with the sentiment “is that all you can come with” but maybe for slightly different reasons. I have no interest in defending ID as a separate scientific discipline but it certainly uses scientific tools to make its conclusions and I haven’t found anything here or anywhere else that undermines many of those conclusions. Most of the discussion I find irrelevant to the basic issues. The most specious is whether ID is a science of not.
As I have said earlier, ID or the techniques that it uses, is mainly applied to OOL issues and also to what some have called “novo-evolution” or the origin of new or complex biological structures or body parts and systems, many of which arrived very rapidly on the scene during the Cambrian Explosion. Essentially ID deals with low probability events and as the probability of the biological event gets higher, people in ID seem willing to support a naturalistic explanation if there is evidence for it. For example, I do not think many ID proponents would object too strongly to much of the speciation mechanisms that lead to species diversity presented in a typical text book on evolutionary biology. It is not something they really care about in terms of the ID vs. NDE debate. What they care about is the low probability events.
However, those who support a non NDE answer to most of these low probability events see no evidence from those who adhere to NDE other than rhetoric (especially technical jargon), wishful speculation or some trivially related findings. It is common to see in evolutionary biology articles the words “it evolved” and it is then left to the reader to infer that some how this happened or must have happened through an NDE process at some time in the distant past. It is also common to find a long list of qualifiers in these articles such as “might, may, plausible, suggest, speculation, seems, puzzle, caveat, missing, difficult, is understood to be, is considered, etc.” when referring to these past evolutionary events. These explanations often have a name, “Just so Stories.” It seems evolutionary biology is one science where one’s imagination counts as evidence.
Behe lays out several complex processes which seem to defy a stepwise gradual approach for evolution. I have not seen any reasonable answers which doesn’t invoke some magical terms like “co-option and preadaptation” or give some irrelevant criticism to undermine his credibility.
Let me take the one that many evolutionary biologist seem to think has been solved, the evolution of the eye. From what I understand, most if not all of the eyes first appeared during the Cambrian Explosion. I use this term because James Valentine uses this term and it refers to a relatively short geological period of time, 515 to 530 million years ago. There were several different types of eyes and some are somewhat similar but others are quite different and there have been improvements since the Cambrian Explosion but essentially no new types of eyes. Valentine also denies that a NDE process can explain the Cambrian Explosion though I haven’t seen him say anything specific about the eye.
After reading Behe’s description of how the eye works, I am just amazed that anyone can think that these various eyes just evolved over this short of time by a chance process. The proteins involved are very complex and this very tightly controlled finely tuned process just screams design. Even if these complex proteins could somehow have evolved separately, it just begs the question of how they were then assembled in such a “remarkable” way. So it is not only the component parts that defy imagination on how they originated but it is the assembly instructions for it all that is really remarkable. Saying that each species had the Pax6 gene just begs the question of where did this very complex DNA sequence come from and why. And what else is needed besides this gene.
The answer is obviously “it evolved.” Yeah, and how did the assembly instructions evolve?
I have found no answer the NDE people give that convincingly answers the questions of novo-evolution and they have no clue about OOL. The answers make great speculation so yes, is that all they have?
Comment by J. Cosgrove — July 14, 2006 @ 11:20 pm
The argument at the beginning of this thread ( inference from the number of revisions in two popular books) makes a lovely exhibit A. The “ID’s aim is to turn America into a theocracy” and “ID is wrong because Behe/Johnson/Dembski (insert name of choice here) is an awful person” follow close behind that, and for a fourth exhibit consider “ID is a science-stopper!”. Add to that the various demarcation arguments based on methodological naturalism, and then some of Miller’s co-optive mechanisms.
Those are just a (very) few of the most egregiously illogical examples.
You’ll notice the importance of more of it is the only point I conceded above (though I do hold ID currently has a fully empirical basis).
That was the focus of our Thursday night discussion, which I haven’t had time to write about here. But you ought to know that your paper was not forgotten.
Comment by Hannah — July 15, 2006 @ 6:57 am
Comment by Mark Frank — July 15, 2006 @ 9:10 am
Re 40 above. I am sorry - the posting did not reflect the preview! I mean’t to make this comment about the quote in 40.
This neatly encapsulates some of the things I find most disturbing about the design inference.
1) Talking about the probability of a past event as though it were a given objective property of the event independent of the observer. What was the probability of Hurricane Katrina flooding New Orleans? It all depends when you made the assessment, what you knew when you made the assessment, and what exactly counts as the event. Does it mean the hurricane expert in 2004 estimating the probability of some hurricane leading to flooding in New Orleans in 2005? Or the met office forecaster 24 hours before it happened? Or someone standing on the levee two minutes beforehand?
2) Using the ambiguity in 1 so that when presented with a neo-darwinian model at one level of detail explaining that it does not allow you to calculate the “true” probability and demanding yet more detail until the modeller is unable to provide it (such a point must always come).
3) Then deducing that the ND model is wildly improbable and therefore the explanation must be design. This is the big leap ….
Take an analogy. Suppose I doubt current physics as an adequate explanation of for the creation and appearance of comets. What an improbable coincidence that they should avoid the orbits of other major stellar bodies and that they should appear at such meaningful periods (Halley’s comet should appear with just the frequency of a normal human lifetime). I propose that in fact a designer created them and put them in their orbits. Rubbish say the astronomers - nothing could be more established than modern physics. Aha - I say - you only have the vaguest idea of how comets are created or how they got into their orbits. Give me the detail and then we can assess the probability of your explanation. All you can give me is “just-so-stories” about how comets were created.
Comment by Mark Frank — July 15, 2006 @ 9:13 am
Hannah (comment39):
I don’t object to opposing arguments for “A”; perhaps “B” is a slight exaggeration (the Discovery Institute, at least, IS interested in a resurgence of religion); “C” - no, we’re not saying their wrong because they’re “awful,” we’re saying they’re awful because they’re so wrong and don’t care that they’re wrong: their agenda supercedes their interest in intellectual honesty; and on “D,” if the Design Inference were not a “science-stopper,” shouldn’t it be easy to study this inference, make further hypotheses, and actually conduct science?
Instead, IDers have failed utterly at coming up with a conceivable way to confirm their Design Inference and distinguish it from evolutionary theory. Whine about demarcation you want when your views are labeled “science-stopper” or “unfalsifiable,” but until you actually “get on your hands” and look for any empirical evidence to support your claims, your objections will remain hollow.
Comment by Dan — July 15, 2006 @ 11:40 am
J Cosgrove said: “Essentially ID deals with low probability events and as the probability of the biological event gets higher, people in ID seem willing to support a naturalistic explanation if there is evidence for it.”
Doesn’t it seem unusual that ID looks better the less you know and then weakens in the face of observable natual evidence. You have to remember, much of what we now consider basic fact used to be considered almost unknowable. What makes you think this chain of natural explaations will now somehow fail, when it has proved so successful over time?
You thinking seems totally illogical to me.
Comment by Mike Hannigan — July 15, 2006 @ 12:08 pm
Hannah wrote:
Do you really consider those quotes to be criticisms of ID? The only thing in that whole paragraph that actually is a criticism is the last three words “Miller’s co-optive mechanisms”. What about that is based on “complete illogicity, irrationality and utter vacuity”?Comment by alienward — July 15, 2006 @ 12:51 pm
Let me illustrate why I think this demand has some flaws. There is no lab work or experiment which will disprove the existence of square circles. It would be unfair to expect it. There is a parallel consideration at play here regarding “lab work” to disprove RMNS or Blind Watchmakers are the prime-movers of complex features in evolution!
Consider we now have computer viruses that self-mutate as a defense mechanism to improve its chances survival by eluding detection. It resorts to using random mutation as a survival strategy. Would one argue the fact random mutation exists in a computer virus is proof there is no need for its design or that it proves such things can emerge from much much simpler pre-cursors through blind watchmaker processes? It is a non-sequitur (conclusions irrelevant or don’t follow from the premises). But then to demand “empirical proof” of this non-sequitur is an even worse non-sequitur, and therefore illogical demand. The same issue of demanding “lab work” to disprove Blind Watchmaker evolution applies here.
What has happened with evolutionary biology is that they don’t realize that major descriptions of their process could be inherently self-contradictory. It is becoming blatantly apparent in Origin of Life as I pointed out Stochastic Process, Deterministic Processes, Square Circles.
We are getting close to the point of seeing it with respect to organic evolution (evolution after the progenitor(s), after the first life or lives ).
The presumption of non design is infecting the mechanistic description of evolution. It should be readily apparent if large scale marcoevolutions are happening it was more likely through pre-programming. That pre-programming may be discoverable, and if EBers would be a little more welcoming to IDers by inviting them to participate in the search of pre-programming the evo departments around the nation would possibly be growing by leaps and bounds. It would be a project of mutual interest to EBers, IDers, and even (gasp) flood-believing YECers like myself.
If one thinks intelligence is superfluous to the issue of pre-programmed evolution, fine. We can describe the process purely mechanistically just as we can describe the evolution of self-mutating computer viruses mechanistically without reference to the original intelligence which created it. I don’t have as much problem with that.
Salvador
PS
I thought the articles at your website were fine, though I disagree at some points. I’m sorry my postings will be sporadic this weekend.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova, IDEA GMU — July 15, 2006 @ 12:56 pm
As I think I made pretty clear above, they aren’t examples of the best logical reasoning I’ve seen from your side, but a small sampling of the oft-repeated worst. To avoid making it unnecessarily personal I chose to avoid most examples from this website; but each of the others were given by otherwise rational people (all of them people affiliated with our biology department) as good and sufficient reasons for why ID theory should be rejected.
Comment by Hannah — July 15, 2006 @ 1:16 pm
Salvador,
We’re not asking you to disprove square circles. We’re asking for a test that ID as a theory explains, but evolution does not. This is what we’re talking about with regards to ID’s utter vacuity - ID has no research program, either in the field or in the lab; ID has no research funding; no data, nothing. Only “thought experiments,” speculation, and the Wedge agenda.
Yes, disproving evolution would help your case, but that would not “prove” ID - to use a little bit of simple logic: disproving theory “A” does not prove theory “B.”
But of course your “square circles” issue is appropriate if we’re going to talk about Evolution instead of ID: indeed, just as we’ve never seen square circles, we’ve yet to see the rabbit fossil in the Burgess Shale, or anything else that would falsify evolution.
If your problem is with the prerequisite for empirical evidence, then too bad - that’s the prerequisite for science itself. Sure, you can admit that ID is nonscientific, thereby bypassing the need for hard data, but no, most IDers insist that ID is science. The point: pick one - call ID science and get some incontrovertable evidence, or stop trying to pretend that you’re pet theory is science.
With regards to stochastic and deterministic processes - what processes are you referring to, specifically? (Please dispense with the hand-waiving)
Example?
More and more, as I read books like Endless Forms Most Beautiful and others, we’re seeing that the only differences between “macro” and “micro” evolution are the timeframes and the manner in which change is occurring. For instance, between evo-devo and the paleontology, the “walls” between vertebrate groups (fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals) are dissolving. Not to mention the walls between the bilateral animal phyla.
So, where is the presumption of non-design infecting biology in anything but a very positive way?
Sounds reasonable - and yet, we can trace the origin of these computer viruses to it’s “original intelligence” - where is even a hint of this supposed “original intelligence” for life?
Comment by Dan — July 15, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
Hannah,
So, would it be fair to say that you’re selecting a few arguments against ID that you find “weak,” and standing by your ID opinions in the face of “good” arguments? (or even ignoring them?)
Of course as I said, I disagree with your views of these “weak” arguments to some degree, but why do you get to pick and choose what criticisms of ID to “debunk”? Why not be intellectually honest and admit that ID is scientifically vacuous, like MikeGene has done? That, at least, would earn a greater measure of respect from the science community.
Comment by Dan — July 15, 2006 @ 1:31 pm
To follow up on that last thought, where I said:
I don’t want to make it sound like ID-related concepts, and theism in general, aren’t useful views. The point is that they’re nonscientific. However, a very reasonable claim can be made that nonscientific views are being devalued in this era where reductionist science has been so overwhelmingly successful. Science is extremely valuable, true, but there are other valuable ways of lookiing at our world and our society, that I don’t want to debase.
But let’s call these different views what they are, shall we? Scientific, on the one hand, which helps us understand our reality; and cultural, which help us give meaning to this understanding.
Sorry, I know, I’m digressing here, towards my view of the root of the problem of ID, which is so eloquently formulated as the Wedge document. Bottom line is that a theistic worldview has its use for society, but not for science.
Comment by Dan — July 15, 2006 @ 1:41 pm
No; Alienward asked for examples of criticisms I found particularly lame; I complied. It wasn’t really necessary, though, since we have examples on this thread as well.
No; although I’ll readily acknowlege that there are better arguments than those; I have yet to find any that are at all convincing in a logical way. I know you think I ought to have found some of them convincing–even as you think some of these are logical– but whenever you’ve asked I’ve given you extensive deconstructions as to why I reject particular arguments. Since your response is often not more than “your standards are too high” I’m not quite sure what more you can expect of me.
Be fair, Dan. We’ve spent a great deal of time over the past six months arguing. When have I ever shied away from criticisms I didn’t like?Comment by Hannah — July 15, 2006 @ 1:57 pm
The laws of physics, give a hint. I pointed it out in Stealth ID Classic: The Cosmological Anthropic Principle.
If you wish not to even consider ID until you see such a Designer in person, I respect that. But for the record, I don’t disparage any one for hoping or wanting an Ultimate Designer to be as real to the human experience as the air we breathe. There are many time I wish that were true myself.
Whether ID qualifies as empirical science in your eyes is a side issue to me personally, but applying the same standards to evolutionary theory that you wish to impose on ID might disqualify evolutionary theory as well from being empirical.
Paul McHugh, Johns Hopkins Professor of Medicine quotes Ernst Mayr:
If evolutionary biology is empirical science, then by the same standard ID could be consider empirical science.
Of interest to me is removing the impression in scientific classrooms that purely blind purposeless forces account for the evolution of life from chemical precursors. Assertions that there is no need for design from molecules to man is premature at best, and possibly wrong at worst. Even Darwin began with an assumption of a specially created progenitor.
One can describe the mechanistic details of some of the evolution, but care should be taken to point out that it doesn’t warrant rejecting design inferences somewhere in the pipeline.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova, IDEA GMU — July 15, 2006 @ 2:06 pm
Hannah,
Did you not say:
??? This, to me, clearly implies the use of such logic as “well, some criticisms of ID don’t hold water with me, so I must be on to something.”
Yes, however, you’re right in that you don’t shy away from criticism - sorry about that - but you do obstinentely stand in the face of requests for a way to test ID; empirical data; or anything that would make ID non-vacuous. And all through that, not a single example of real research, real data, or anything that we can call science to discuss on your end.
And yet, you still claim that ID is science, that ID passes the “demarcation” test, etc. - all completely untenable claims. Why?
Comment by Dan — July 15, 2006 @ 2:13 pm
Salvador,
Ah, yes, the Anthropic Principle. You do realize that the AP is a personification of nature - an a priori descriptive construct that we have superimposed upon nature - don’t you?
Nor do I - but that is a nonscientific value judgement, not an observation-laden fact.
LOL - You keep thinking that if you like. Perhaps more misguided is:
It’s abundantly clear that you’re not familiar with the scientific literature. Again, please, address any specific study that I’ve sited here or on my blog, and offer an example of how said empirical data is in any way better explained by ID than evolution.
Thats true - but the burden of proof is on the positive data - in the absense of evidence for intelligently designed features, despite searching for purposefully-directed processes for so long, one must begin to start working with the conclusion that such processes are non-existent. Especially when the research programs that rely on evolution as an underlying assumption (all of the medical R&D fields and more) have been so tremendously successful.
Comment by Dan — July 15, 2006 @ 2:27 pm
Everyone is stuck in the rut of speculation on the subject of evolution. We often fail to notice the resemblance of Darwin’s ‘natural _selection_’, as a term, to the language of design. It’s another ’something designed it all’ phraseology. It’s a sign noone really knows what they are talking about.
For some hard data on history and evolution consider my http://history-and-evolution.com and/or the issues of the Axial Age.
Darwinists haven’t the foggiest notion of what real evolution is like, reducing everything to microevolution.
Comment by John Landon — July 15, 2006 @ 2:52 pm
Hannah wrote:
Wow, the biology department at Cornell only makes criticisms of ID based on whines like “IDists are theocrats and they’re all bad people.” Does this have anything to do with why you didn’t answer my second question? You won’t answer “What about that [Miller’s co-optive mechanisms] is based on “complete illogicity, irrationality and utter vacuity”?” because he’s with Brown?Comment by alienward — July 15, 2006 @ 3:55 pm
You’re invited to refute the Barrow’s interpretation of the Schrodinger equation on that weblog rather than give glib straw man dismissals. You asked for a hint of an intelligence, I’d say Barrow gave more than a hint.
First of all saying “said empirical data” is not quite accurate. It mis-characterizes what was actually there because what was actually there is loaded with inferences that are circularly justified (like phylogenies). You are aware that convergence, HGT, and especially common design are challenges to phylogenies. You’re “empirical explanation” then is loaded with assumption and inference. I have no problem with inferences or working assumptions, but if one can claim that framework as empirical one can claim ID as empirical.
So I would recommend you qualify your description of that section of your weblog as being “empirical” in light of the fact it has presumptuous inferences mixed with it.
ID explains evolutionary scenarios better than blind watchmaker processes in the sense it can characterize what are dead ends or invalid characterizations of ancestral precursors related to their descendants.
For example, in information science an Mp3 file is limited in what it can really decompress into. A 1 meg Mp3 might be able to decompress to a 10 meg WAV file, but the actual information content in the 10 meg WAV file is really only 1 meg (as defined by the Mp3 file).
In like manner the descendants of a progenitor can be no more information rich than the ancestor. It may have more base pairs (analogous to WAV files having more bytes than the ancestor Mp3 which generated it), but it really is not more information rich (information here being CSI, not just Shannon information).
Because of information conservation principles, blind watchmaker processes will be guaranteed to be characterizing the information evolution improperly. That will thus make the characterization of the ancestor progenitors incorrect, and that why the ID perspective of information conservation is a superior framework to characterizing :
1. the ancestral progenitor
2. the limits of change and evolution for the descendants of the progenitor
For example in one article you point to:
that only explains one part, it does not characterize the context where the network topology originated in the first place.
Let me suggest something from information principles: the origin of the topology isn’t rooted in a process describable only by low information content deterministic or stochastic laws with general boundary conditions. The source of the topology is either a more information rich pre-cursor artifact or an intelligent designer.
Finally, the researchers pointed out for evolution in the lab to progress it must be under certain constraints. It is reasonable to see, comparable levels of constraints must be present for evolution to move forward in the natural world if such constraints are necessary in the lab. In fact, they give an idea of how tightly those constraints must be, because they describe their lab simulation of such necessary constraints as having to be “engineered”:
Well, perhaps out of courtesy to this weblog, further discussion of specifics should be discussed at your weblog, and not here.
I felt however, that Dan’s question was of interest to some readers, and thus I answered to a small extent here.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova, IDEA GMU — July 15, 2006 @ 4:04 pm
Alright, I give up. I’ve been trying pretty hard to avoid making inferences to a total lack of reading comprehension, but it is becoming increasingly difficult. Will you please reread my comments and see if you can figure out what I am and am not saying? If you repost an honest question I’ll do what I can to answer it.
Comment by Hannah — July 15, 2006 @ 4:07 pm
Well, until you grapple seriously with stuff like this, and the scientific literature that it is based on, then you won’t understand the real reasons so many scientists are skeptical of ID, and you will never have any chance of making a convincing case for ID.
So if you actually want to attempt to make ID rigorous, rather than having ID just be a mutant wing of apologetics that it currently is, your path is clear. Until you do it you’re not really even serious.
Comment by Nick (Matzke) — July 15, 2006 @ 4:18 pm
I’ll readily agree that– in a logical sense– just because the only arguments put forward to support an idea are unsound doesn’t mean the idea itself is untrue; and even if the only arguments given against another idea are faulty doesn’t mean that idea is true. And I know I’m supposed to be critical of ID on my own; without your help in coming up with sound arguments, so I try to be. But one’s confidence level in something does increase– involuntarily or not– if there are as many critics as ID has and none of them gives any particularly interesting arguments.
Another concession: I’m sure there are lots of arguments far better than the ones I’ve read; I’m an undergrad and don’t pretend to have made any sort of comphrehensive survey of the literature. That’s another reason why it’s a bad idea to write appeals to emotion or obviously faulty arguments– they get to be so many that they obscure the real arguments, and make it impossible to find them.
Is this a rhetorical question? I’m perfectly ready to defend them, as you know; your position is the one that seems to me untenable. Should we go over either of those issues again?
I’m feeling guilty about taking over Josh’s thread, though, so if you do want to discuss it, perhaps we can do so elsewhere?
Comment by Hannah — July 15, 2006 @ 4:40 pm
Salvador,
For one, I imagine that commenting at the UD would be futile - I ventured over there several times over the past year, only to have my (very reasonable, IMO) comments deleted, and regardless, I have a very low opinion of the normal UD crew, to be bluntly honest.
However, looking at the original post itself that you link to, I’m not a mathematician, nor a physicist, but the following claim seems to be the central theme:
That has to be the most ridiculous example of dubious physics I’ve heard of in a long, long time. I don’t even know where to begin to address that, and I find it alarming that any serious physicists or mathematicians are seriously making prognosticating that such an entity is “inevitable,” or even possible.
Sorry Sal, but you can rant all you want about your lunacy, but I’m going to start ignoring you now, before I lose my patience and start making rash conclusions of my own.
Comment by Dan — July 15, 2006 @ 4:41 pm
What?! Demanding that a theory have empirical data, and/or be capable of actually accomplishing something outside of “thought experiments,” to be considered science is an untenable demand???
Wow… as with Salvador, I simply don’t know where to begin picking my jaw up off the floor. Do you really think that ID’s hand-waivy concepts (IC, CSI, the EF) qualify as science in the absense of hard experimental data??? Have you no understanding of what constitutes science???
Sure, I’d be happy to take it to the TDP, or Migrations, or elsewhere - since we’re talking about the evidence for ID, which is more your area than mine, you’d like to start it off at TDP?
Comment by Dan — July 15, 2006 @ 4:54 pm
Hannah wrote:
Ok, I’ll repost my honest question – for the third time. What about “Miller’s co-optive mechanisms” is based on “complete illogicity, irrationality and utter vacuity”?Comment by alienward — July 15, 2006 @ 9:13 pm
Sal confuses convergence again and its impact on phylogenies
You are aware that convergence, HGT, and especially common design are challenges to phylogenies.
Common design is a challenge to nothing as there is not even such a thing, at least not in the realm of science. HGT and convergence are not challenges to phylogenies as much as complications in restoring the correct phylogenies. Of course, convergences can be quite well dealt with by adding additional information
So far Sal has, not surprisingly, failed to explain the vaste amounts of consistent and coherent data for common descent.
Only by picking some careful quotes and a less than stellar understanding of scientific concepts does Sal attempt to instill doubt where no doubt exists.
If Sal were to familiarize himself with evolutionary theory, phylogenetic reconstruction and the vaste amounts of supporting evidence for common descent then we could perhaps discuss his objections in a more fruitful manner. Until then it seems that they are mostly arguments from ignorance or at least unfamiliarity.
Now as an Ex Young Earth Creationist, I do understand Sal’s position. Anything even remotely problematic for a particular position is blown out of proportions while the consistent data are being ignored.
Such is the power of faith. Having heard of W Dean’s latest book on authoritarianism, I am starting to understand how the ‘fear of losing one’s religion’ can easily lead one to accept authoritarian positions, leading to an unwillingness to consider contrarian data. I have found Dean’s analysis particular insightful and see some applicability to creationism where fear of atheism is created through a conflation of naturalism and methodological naturalism (See Johnson and Lamoureux’s devastating analysis of Johnson’s position). This fear can lead some to search for authoritarians who are willing to present a safe heaven.
I see ID to a large extent fitting the bill quite accurately, providing creationism with a thin veil of scientific relevance.
Comment by PvM — July 15, 2006 @ 10:16 pm
I’m afraid Miller’s objections don’t even rise to the level “complete illogicity, irrationality and utter vacuity” but descend to outright misrepresentation, and misrepresentation under oath in a landmark trial, Kitzmiller v Dover
See: Ken Miller’s Strawman
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova, IDEA GMU — July 16, 2006 @ 1:15 pm
Alienward:
I should have been more courteous to you upthread. Sorry about that.
Those I’ve seen appear to be untestable, purely speculative, and with little connection to the real world– the sort of thing that would look halfway reasonable only if you really desperately want to be convinced. That’s aside from the fact that he has a tendency to misrepresent and to attack straw man arguments.
The qualifier “some” in my first statement is because I haven’t evaluated all of Miller’s co-optive mechanisms; the ones I haven’t read might be better. Someone recommended his analysis of blood clotting IC, and I’m planning to get to that sometime this weekend.
Let’s make this the end of this tangent. Future comments on this thread should have some connection to the questions Josh brings up in his orginal post.
Comment by Hannah — July 16, 2006 @ 1:34 pm
Dan seems to suggest evolutionary theory is as empirical as the field of chemistry (which is, by the way, one of Hannah’s majors). But this is not the case, thus he should be reluctant to call ID hand-wavy lest he reject the field he promotes:
Dan should then perhaps reconsider how “empirical” the field he is defending really is.
As I pointed out with the example of a self-mutating computer virus, one can empirically demonstrate it’s evolution in the lab, but it’s fullest context is better understood from an ID perspective.
One is far less inclined to make unwarranted assertions that it self-organized, and from an ID perspective, one is in a better position to justify the architecture of the ancestral versions of the virus in rela