Bird Brains, GN&C, and ID
| March 2, 2008 | Posted by GilDodgen under Biology, Darwinism, Intelligent Design |
For many years I was an avid hang glider pilot, and one of my specialties in aerospace R&D is Guidance, Navigation and Control software development for precision-guided airdrop systems.
During many of my hang glider flights I had the opportunity to observe, from an unusual perspective, hawks in their native environment — the air. Flying wingtip to wingtip at the same airspeed, one gets a profound appreciation for these amazing creatures and their GN&C.
On a number of my hang glider flights, hawks came up close. They always seemed to be curious about me, flying my lumbering 32-foot-wingspan Dacron and aluminum aircraft. Up this close, I could observe the subtle adjustments they made in their primary feathers to compensate for the turbulence in the air, and they would glance furtively at me.
And they like to show off! I’ve seen this many times. On one occasion a redtail hawk who was flying with me folded his wings, went into a high-speed dive, performed several really amazing aerobatic maneuvers, and then pulled up and flew side by side with me again, moving his head and looking over at me as if to ask, “Can you do that?”
It is fascinating to watch birds land, especially in swaying tree branches in a gusty wind. Their GN&C is completely amazing.
Did all of this aerodynamic and control-system technology — which much integrate the visual system, tactile system, neurological system, muscular system, etcetera and etcetera — come about by random variation and natural selection? Please give me a break. I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I’m not that dull.
The real question is, What in biological systems can be explained by RV&NS? The obvious answer is, not very much at all.
35 Responses to Bird Brains, GN&C, and ID
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Timothy,
I agree with many of your characterizations in (29). I also agree with jerry’s answer in (30). There is a point that I would like to try to clarify, and another that I would like to amplify.
It is not enough to propose that there might be some way to climb mount improbable for a particular structure, unless one wishes to step out of the realm of science and into that of faith. If one is to keep a naturalistic approach scientific, then one must with some regularity be able to point to at least one specific pathway up mount improbable for each structure considered in time. If one finds a rare exception, one might be inclined to believe that the concept of irreducible complexity had simply been misapplied on rare occasions. But if dependably, 20 years after a structure had been proposed as an example of irreducible complexity, a step-by-step Darwinian process was found that accounted for the structure, one would be left with the reasonable assurance that within 20 years, all such structures could be accounted for by co-option, and the IC argument would lose its power.
This is not exactly a Popperian approach. But I have always been uncomfortable with Popper as the best exponent of how science works. My opinion is closer to that of Imre Lakatos.
The important point is, however, that the argument will not be settled by appeals to models of how nature should work. That is Aristotelianism (or at least scholasticism) at its best. The argument will be settled, as well as science can settle it, by looking at actual data.
That is why it is important whether the flagellum is easily explained (or explained with some difficulty) by Darwinian processes. That is why it is important that almost all of the proteins of the bacterial flagellum do not have sequence homologies with other bacterial proteins, and the one that does only has a 30% homology. That is why it is important that knockout experiments so far have uniformly resulted in permanent cessation of function. Matzke’s proposed pathway should be tested. Start with the TTSS. See if the next step really does enhance survival because of some effect on adhesion, or stalk production, or whatever other mechanism is being proposed.
There is one more point that should be covered. When such experimental challenges are made, a common reply is to say that the probabilities of forming the structure are too low for it to happen reliably in the laboratory, but not so low for it to preclude it happening in our universe. If this argument were only about one structure, I could agree. But the problem with that reasoning is that it will work only if one does not invoke it repeatedly. One can fairly easily get 10^12 organisms in a given experiment. Let’s suppose that the real (as opposed to calculated) probability of getting a flagellum from scratch is 10^-15. Then the probability of a thousand experiments getting a flagellum is 1-1/e, or about 66%. Perhaps we were just unlucky (although in that case, why didn’t we get at least some evidence that some organisms were halfway up the mountain?).
But if we have 10 such structures, then we have exceeded Dembski’s universal probability bound. In fact, 4 such structures exceed Dawkins’ universal probability bound of 10^-50, which I regard as more realistic. So somewhere, experimental results had better be forthcoming, or we are looking at a just-so story with faith demands vastly surpassing those of religion.
And while we are at it, lets not forget the problem of OOL. Here, there are no handholds in the cliff wall until we get to a self-replicating form using fairly simple precursors, which appears to be life itself.
Thanks Paul and Jerry for the comments. Obviously there is some unfinished business here, especially to do with cooption. I’m currently looking at the 2LoT papers, which I hope to comment on.
Timothy V Reeves,
It may be best to continue this discussion when you have read more or want us to read some of your literature about this. This thread is getting buried down the list.
I have often referred to co-option as a back pockets argument mainly because of the closeness of the back pockets to a particular part of the anatomy. When the going gets tough and the data and logic do not support your point of view, pick out one of the convenient back pocket arguments such as co-option, convergence, emergence or just resort to the good old stand by, “it evolved.” Discredit probabilities because the phenomena happened so probability arguments have no relevance.
The entire evolutionary biology argument is one of begging the question, essentially assuming your assumptions are true without any proof and then using these unproven assumptions as evidence for the debate.
I don’t know if you are following the discussions on the thread about the Altenberg 16. It is now quite long and mainly being driven by an evolutionary biologist named Allen MacNeill who admits that Darwin’s ideas are not supported by the evidence. (This does not mean that everything is disproved, just some major parts of the modern synthesis) Allen MacNeill is not an ID fan but there are friendly discussions going on that are a little theoretical in places so may not be the easiest to follow.
Thanks Jerry, I’ll have a look at that Altenberg 16 thread.
In the meantime if you are finding that the ‘rube’ insults start to grate here are some verses!!
Have mercy on us O Lord, have mercy on us for we have endured much contempt. We have endured much ridicule from the proud, much contempt from the arrogant
Ps 123 (NIV) !!!!!
Timothy V Reeves,
I am a major proponent of keeping religious discussions off this blog especially quotes from the bible. But I do like the one you found very much.
I might put it on my car as a bumper sticker.