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ID and Evolutionary Biology

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Recently, Larry Moran critiqued ID’s approach to evolutionary biology. Here I will explain how Larry Moran has misunderstood both ID and modern evolutionary theory.

In a recent blog post, Larry Moran criticized the ID movement (shocker, yes, I know). In his post, he claims that ID’ers must be lying about evolutionary theory. However, Larry Moran has both ID and evolution wrong.

Larry Moran is complaining about the fact that ID’ers lay their claim against Darwinian evolution. According to him, this makes us either really stupid or liars. According to Dr. Moran, we cannot attack modern evolutionary theory by calling it Darwinism.

Well, in a sense, he is right. But that’s only because ID is winning.

Here’s the deal. Intelligent Design is not inherently at odds with evolutionary biology. It is possible to formulate a theories of evolution that are perfectly compatible with the concept of design in the Universe and in biology. In fact, that’s what ID’ers have been attempting for some time. Dr. Moran just seems to be upset that the evidence and the practice of evolutionary biology is now pointing towards ID, and calling foul on that basis.

You see, ID is only inherently against purely materialistic views of evolution – those in which a mechanism serves as a design substitute. This is, specifically, why ID is against Darwinian Evolution, also known as the “Modern Synthesis”. The Darwinian theory is that the primary driver of adaptation and organismal complexity is a combination of happenstance mutations in DNA and natural selection weeding them out. This is at odds with ID because it substitutes a mechanical process for design.

What Dr. Moran tells us is that evolutionary biology has moved far away from Darwinian theory. How is that a poke in the eye for ID? Doesn’t it mean that the ID’ers were right all along, that everyone from Mivart (a 19th century ID proponent) to Behe (a 21st century ID proponent) were all correct that Darwinian evolution was not the way that organisms were built? I fail to see how the fact that evolutionary biology as a whole now agrees with the founders of the ID movement is somehow an argument against it.

Dr. Moran feels especially burdened by the fact that ID’ers don’t mention genetic drift or neutral theory more. However, here he makes his biggest mistake. Neither genetic drift nor neutral theory claim to be design replacements like Darwinian evolution does. Genetic drift does not even claim to design new mechanisms. As for neutral theory, many evolutionary biologists are on record stating that it is illogical to think that complex adaptive mechanisms can occur by happenstance. If the “neutral” part of neutral theory is the result of happenstance, then it isn’t the source of complex adaptations. If the “neutral” part of neutral theory is not the result of happenstance (i.e., a neutral fluctuation between multiple pre-existing complex adaptations), then it is not attempting to explain away design, but is instead including design.

It’s not that ID’ers don’t think that genetic drift doesn’t happen, or that neutral mutations aren’t important. Rather, these mechanisms presuppose rather than explain complex adaptations. They can accomplish simple adaptations, but not complex ones (for a method to distinguish complex vs. simple adaptations based on computability theory, see here). They use design, they do not create design.

In short, Dr. Moran makes the following mistakes:

  1. Dr. Moran fails to understand that ID is not inherently at war with every possible theory of evolution, or evolutionary biology as a whole. The fact that the ID movement doesn’t address your favorite part of evolution probably means that this part of evolutionary biology does not confuse mechanism and design.
  2. Dr. Moran fails to understand that the shift of evolutionary biology away from Darwinian mechanisms shows that ID and its proponents were correct. ID was the one to predict this move, while everyone else was hailing Darwinism as the highest point of evolutionary biology. Darwinism is no longer the pivotal feature of evolutionary biology, thus ID was correct.
  3. Dr. Moran fails to understand the different roles that different theories of evolution play, and why they are important. Genetic drift and neutral theory are not theories of the origin of complex adaptation, thus, they do not function as design substitutes like Darwinism does. They are theories of what happens to the organism after the design. These fail, too, when stretched beyond their bounds to become design substitutes, but that happens much more rarely. Many design opponents tend to agree with ID’ers assessments of this possibility.

At the end of the day, if you read Dr. Moran’s article really closely, what is really true is that the ID’ers are actually using language quite correctly and legitimately, but it bothers Dr. Moran that they are not fitting into his stereotype of their behavior. ID is not attacking a straw man precisely because its arguments are aimed at Darwinian evolution, and not evolutionary theory as a whole. ID’ers opt for precision of language, specifying exactly what it is that is being disagreed with. The only way that ID-skeptics like Dr. Moran can criticize is by pretending that we mean something other than what we precisely specify.

This conversation reminds me a lot of the hype around evo-devo, which is a great ID theory. Basically, it says that Darwinism didn’t have to do very much, because all organisms are based on a deeper, adaptive design, and that the surface features don’t do much. It may or may not be true, but nonetheless it is an ID theory because it points out that evolution doesn’t do any real designing, it just takes the existing design and remodels it a little. I’m not saying that Sean Carroll knows that he is an ID’er, only that his theory is exactly the kind that Mivart and Behe’s works anticipated.

Comments
Joe, Where did you read this?rhampton7
March 20, 2015
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Artifacts cannot be produced by the forces of nature yet they are not supernatural. And those claims are made by IDists wrt ID. ID's entailments support those claims.Joe
March 20, 2015
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Silver Asiatic, First, if something can not be produced by the forces of nature, then it is by definition supernatural. Second, I'm curious where I could find these claims made by ID Theory: 1. intelligence is ultimately an immaterial (not necessarily supernatural) quality. It’s not reducible to physics. 2. If intelligence (even animal intelligence like your weaver birds) can be reduced to the physical, then ID is falsified. Frankly, I think if you try to track down the source(s) you will find that they were likely philosophical arguments proposed in conjunction with ID, but are not in any formal or necessary sense a part of the theory. Again, I'm happy to be proven wrong if you're willing to do the research.rhampton7
March 20, 2015
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Moran is confused. Natural selection is still the only mechanism posited to produce the appearance of design. Drift does nothing for evolution- meaning it is not a designer mimic. However natural selection has proven to be impotent with respect to being a designer mimic. Evolutionism doesn't have a mechanism capable of producing the diversity of life. And there still isn't any evolutionary theory...Joe
March 20, 2015
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If nearly neutral, then deleterious and beneficial mutations will fix at about the same rate.
That is the untestable claim anyway.Joe
March 20, 2015
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bFast: It is interesting as it suggests that most of the changes we see in the gene coding regions of organisms (such as man) can be attributed to this effect. That’s great, but it is still a subset study within the envelope of NV+NS. When taking a broad view, sure. The fundamental question is which of NV and NS are most important historically. bFast: Slightly deleterious mutations will still fix. Slightly beneficial mutations don’t fix at much higher rate than those with selective value of 0. If nearly neutral, then deleterious and beneficial mutations will fix at about the same rate. bFast: There is nothing in the modern scientific understanding of evolution that extends beyond NV+NS (factoring in systems developed via this means.) Well, there are mechanisms of speciation, sexual selection, contingency.Zachriel
March 20, 2015
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Zachriel, "It can be said, but neutral theory makes the specific claim that most molecular evolution is outside of selection, as opposed to adaptationism, which was prevalent previous to neutral theory." I ain't trying to suggest that neutral theory has nothing to say. Neutral theory: the study of what happens to mutations when the selective value is 0. It is interesting as it suggests that most of the changes we see in the gene coding regions of organisms (such as man) can be attributed to this effect. That's great, but it is still a subset study within the envelope of NV+NS. It does not step one inch out of those boundaries. Near neutral theory is the study of those mutations that have very little, but some, selective value (positive or negative). Near neutral theory generally states that nature is fairly slow to regard the selective value. Slightly deleterious mutations will still fix. Slightly beneficial mutations don't fix at much higher rate than those with selective value of 0. Still, near neutral theory is a subset study within the boundaries of NV+NS. My declaration therefore: There is nothing in the modern scientific understanding of evolution that extends beyond NV+NS (factoring in systems developed via this means.)bFast
March 20, 2015
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rhampton
What you presented is a philosophical argument, not one of science. ID theory, if it is not being misused, can not tell us anything about the designers(s), including if their mind(s) were a purely material phenomena or not.
True - ID doesn't tell us about the designer(s) mind, but it does propose that the ultimate source of intelligence is not reductive to the material. So, the designer of the first cell, for example, could have been some kind of robot, thus material. But ID is looking at origins, so it's the ultimate source of intelligence that counts, and in that case, whatever programmed the robot is a non-material intelligence, necessarily (unless proven otherwise and thus ID is falsified on that point). ID does propose that intelligence is ultimately an immaterial (not necessarily supernatural) quality. It's not reducible to physics. That's how ID is falsifiable. If intelligence (even animal intelligence like your weaver birds) can be reduced to the physical, then ID is falsified. Since intelligence is an indicator of a non-deterministic activity (freedom to choose among options), then that is evidence that intelligence is not reducible to a physical (necessarily deterministic) cause.Silver Asiatic
March 20, 2015
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Harry, What you presented is a philosophical argument, not one of science. ID theory, if it is not being misused, can not tell us anything about the designers(s), including if their mind(s) were a purely material phenomena or not. If you think I'm wrong, perhaps you can point to the scientific paper that says otherwise.rhampton7
March 20, 2015
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rhampton7 @58
In contrast, the NM would claim that thoughts are the material state of the brain, and that they do have a prior cause, the prior state of the brain. The mind doesn't affect the brain, it is the brain.
It is only logical to conclude that the human intellect has a non-material component: 1) Intelligence is a reality. 2) The effects of intelligence are seen in phenomena the instantiation of which couldn't have happened without intelligent agency being a causal factor. For example, one wouldn't say, "The laws of physics applied to a given material environment will inevitably produce a laptop PC." Our universal and uniform experience is that technology is never instantiated mindlessly and accidentally. That is why most people, most of the time, can distinguish between intelligently designed artifacts and phenomena that were brought about by mindless natural forces. We weren't expecting the Mars rovers to find the landscape strewn with objects with the functional complexity of, say, television sets. 3) We now know that life is digital-information-based nanotechnology the functional complexity of which is light years beyond anything modern science knows how to build from scratch. 4) If it is absurd to say that "The laws of physics applied to a given material environment will inevitably produce a laptop PC," then it is even more absurd to assume that the laws of physics applied to a given material environment will inevitably produce, mindlessly and accidentally, nanotechnology that is light years beyond our own. 5) The nanotechnology of life came into being before anything resembling a physical brain existed. 6) Again, technology is never instantiated mindlessly and accidentally. 7) The intellect that was the necessary causal factor in the emergence of the nanotechnology of life couldn't have been integrated with a physical brain, or have consisted of only a physical brain. 8) Therefore an intellect must not consist of only a physical brain. I don't suppose that settles it for you. ;o)harry
March 20, 2015
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bFast: I find little, but a little, difference between NV and RM. It depends on what you encompass within "mutation". Endosymbiosis and horizontal gene transfer are not what is generally thought of as mutation. bFast: Acknowledging that non-genetic variation happens, I wonder if it plays a direct accounting role in the complexity of life. While there has always been an ongoing debate about the role of contingency in evolution, no one doubts its importance. It certainly made for a bad day for much of dinosauria. bFast: Could it be that nature has developed “strategic HGT”? If “strategic HGT” then ID is not necessarily correct, it could be that NV+NS has developed a strategy. That's surprisingly astute. Indeed, horizontal gene transfer is a strategy that is subject to evolution. Horizontal gene transfer is thought to be the primitive condition that was tamed to make way for conventional branching descent. bFast: That all said, you would agree that “neutral theory” is a subset of NV+NS, would you not? It can be said, but neutral theory makes the specific claim that most molecular evolution is outside of selection, as opposed to adaptationism, which was prevalent previous to neutral theory.Zachriel
March 19, 2015
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Zachriel (49), "bFast: There are no other mechanisms beside RM+NS in the materialistic evolutionary theories. Natural variation plus natural selection would be more encompassing. NV + NS" We went through this with Dr. MacNeil a few years ago. I find little, but a little, difference between NV and RM. Firstly variation vs. mutation -- certainly we need a broad view of mutation -- including even HGT, if HGT is random. But then comes the question of non-genetic variation such as environmental changes (asteroids to warming). Acknowledging that non-genetic variation happens, I wonder if it plays a direct accounting role in the complexity of life. It certainly twiddles a great deal with natural selection, but I think that it is only this twiddling with natural selection that affects the complexity of life. Then the question of random vs. natural. Some of my ID colleagues make a huge deal about detected non-randomness. For instance it appears that the nature of DNA's folding allows some portions to be more susceptible to mutation than others. This, however, may be "not random", but it lacks no ability to account for ID. Dr. MacNeil used the term "non-foresighted". I like his term for precision, but not for grammatical flow or acronym development. I think, however, as you read this, that you agree that the picture in my head is complex enough even if it isn't truly clarified in the expression RM+NS. An additional note is called for -- if NV+NS is capable of producing the complexity that is man, it surely is capable of developing other mechanisms. I consider HGT, for instance. It seems to be proving more and more ubiquitous. Could it be that nature has developed "strategic HGT"? If "strategic HGT" then ID is not necessarily correct, it could be that NV+NS has developed a strategy. (We see similar in our immune system -- that organisms have strategic tools for identifying defenses.) So any discussion of NV+NS being adequate to explain all of life's complexity must understand that NV+NS of necessity would build strategic tools along the way. Wow, that's a lot of words to say that I am convinced that I don't come to NV+NS with a simplistic mind. That all said, you would agree that "neutral theory" is a subset of NV+NS, would you not?bFast
March 18, 2015
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At present no one has any idea how our thoughts -- the decisions and choices that occur in our conscious minds -- affect our material brains, nerves, and muscles, going on to instantiate our will in the material world of objects. However, we know that is exactly what our thoughts do. We have no mechanistic explanation for the mystery of consciousness, nor what is called the "mind- body problem" -- the enigma of how thought affects the material state of our brains, bodies, and the world that we affect with them. Yet there is no doubt that we can -- as the result of events in our conscious minds called decisions or choices -- "will into existence" information-rich arrangements of matter or otherwise affect material states in the world.
Initially, Stephen Meyer. correctly asserts that the mind is presently an unknown. Implicit in that openness is the question of the mind as a natural (material) or supernatural phenomena. But then he immediately concludes that the mind is separate from the material brain - that it is not the result of material processes. Further, he claims that thought has no prior cause because it is willed into existence. What Meyer describes is a supernatural view of the mind, and he promotes it as the very foundation of ID theory. In contrast, the NM would claim that thoughts are the material state of the brain, and that they do have a prior cause, the prior state of the brain. The mind doesn't affect the brain, it is the brain. Both MN and ID theory are committed at the outset to particular views that exclude the other. Now Stephen Meyer can circumvent this needless controversy by simply stating that minds, thoughts, intelligence may indeed all be a purely material phenomena. That would not discount the validity of recognizing design. ID theory would still work as advertised. However, it would end any categorical rejection of materialism as false, or it's ability to generate information. To put it in real world terms: ID theory would rightly recognize the nests of the Weaver Bird as being intelligently designed, and rightly conclude the bird as an intelligent agent. However, it could not reject design originating from a purely 'mechanical' brain, absent any non-material (supernatural) input.rhampton7
March 18, 2015
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StephenB If minds are the result of purely material processes, then that means they are natural, that also means that material processes are intelligent and that breaks the basis for pitting intelligent causes as the antithesis of natural or material causes. In other words, only if intelligence is supernatural can you claim that intelligent design excludes materialism/material causation.rhampton7
March 18, 2015
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HeKS: Vis your actual post: Generally speaking, given your elaborate setup, it would be awfully dim of your subject to reject artificial selection out of hand, given the many obviously contrived elements. That said, the question can be scientifically adjudicated to the extent that each hypothesis gives rise to competing and exclusive entailments. What observations would natural selection entail that artificial selection does not (or the reverse)? Off the top of my head, the hypothesis that natural selection drove the emergence of thick coats would entail a history of environmental events that select for thicker wool (presumably, an historically colder climate). The absence of evidence such selective pressures would tend to support the notion that other factors (including artificial selection) were involved. Artificial selection would entail persons capable of breeding and selecting the animals for thicker coats. The absence of historical evidence of persons capable of animal husbandry would likely disconfirm the hypothesis of artificial selection. However, the high level of contrivance in your scenario strongly suggests that unobserved actors are afoot, so as above, there would be no reason to reject that scenario out of hand. And again off the top of my head, artificial selection would also likely entail a faster and more directional tempo of change than would result from natural selective pressures (e.g. climate) would likely entail. Mostly, your scenario seems contrived to make the question undecidable.Reciprocating Bill
March 18, 2015
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Zach:
Natural variation plus natural selection would be more encompassing. NV + NS
What's the difference between natural variation and random variation? Does natural variation rule out the possibility of the variation having been designed? If so, on what basis does it do so?Phinehas
March 18, 2015
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Oops. My apologies.Reciprocating Bill
March 18, 2015
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Bill, I just clicked over to the comment you linked. The names 'HeKS' and 'RD Miksa' (i.e. the person who wrote that post) seem like they should be easy enough for you to tell apart. I wasn't involved in that thread at all, much less in the writing of that comment (which I also didn't bother to read, so I don't know whether or not I would agree with it).HeKS
March 18, 2015
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StephenB, If you don’t mind, I’d like to suggest an adjustment in terminology for the sake of clarity. When describing the categorization of design as a cause, the distinction to be made is not between natural and supernatural or natural and ‘non-natural’, but between natural and artificial, representing precisely the same distinction that exists between Natural Selection and Artificial Selection. As types of causes, natural causes and artificial causes are qualitatively distinct, and this is so even if one decides to assume that the intelligence that allows for artificial causation came about entirely through natural causation (i.e. unguided evolution).
HeKS, you make an interesting proposition. I certainly agree that natural causes and artificial causes are qualitatively distinct, though I think that both words, "artificial" and "non-natural" indicate that difference. On the one hand, I like the consistency of the common suffix (i.e. natural, non-natural, supernatural). Non-natural is a convenient middle ground between natural and supernatural that also allows for an overlap between non-natural and supernatural. I think it is important to hint at and even express that overlap since many anti-ID partisans claim that a unknown supernatural cause cannot possibly be compared to a human cause on the grounds that we have never observed the former in action. We are, after all, arguing that the arrangement or re-arrangement of matter can come from any intelligent source, in or out of this world. So, I don't think we can totally avoid using the term supernatural on occasion since our adversaries habitually attribute that quality to our arguments On the other hand, I agree that the word "artificial" is more precise and it also has the benefit of telling us what the cause is (artificial) rather than what it is not (not-natural). So, I could enthusiastically sign on to it if you can explain why we should grant, even arguendo, that unguided evolution can produce any kind of intelligence at all. If we do go with the term "artificial cause," I propose an amendment to your amendment. I submit that the best reason for using that definition is not because it marks the difference between artificial selection and natural selection (since there are other kinds of natural causes attributed to Darwinism), but rather because it dramatizes the difference between "art" and "nature." Intelligent design, after all, is really about art (and the artist) and you bring that out very nicely.StephenB
March 18, 2015
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HeKS
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
You don't recognize your own words? It was just a few days ago. I'm talking about the slab of text you dropped here: https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/68127/#comment-553947 I responded. I'd like to hear yours to my response. Given that context, are you really asserting that false beliefs have an equal or greater probably of being survival enhancing as/than (I can't decide) true beliefs?Reciprocating Bill
March 18, 2015
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Bill, I have no idea what you're talking about. HeKSHeKS
March 18, 2015
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bFast: Is it not true that “near neutral theory” states that variation that is slightly beneficial or deleterious are treated just as if they were not beneficial or deleterious at all — that drift (the meandering of chance) drives their chance of fixation much more than their effect (beneficial or deleterious?) That's right. The theory is that most mutations are effectively neutral. That doesn't mean all mutations are effectively neutral, and natural selection remains as a fundamental mechanism of adaptation. Population size is also a consideration. Drift is more important in small populations, which leads to the founder effect where an isolated population might diverge rapidly from the parent population. bFast: There are no other mechanisms beside RM+NS in the materialistic evolutionary theories. Natural variation plus natural selection would be more encompassing. NV + NSZachriel
March 18, 2015
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HeKS:
I’d like to propose a somewhat humorous little thought experiment for the anti-ID commenters (though the pro-ID commenters are welcome to weigh in).
Before we answer, is this your last post in this thread? Because In the lab we also find a massive slab of text (one paragraph alone more than 1,300 words). It begins,
This is my last post in this thread, but it is in response to RB’s (and others) implied claim that it would be preposterous to believe that false beliefs could be as survival enhancing as true ones…
There is also a reply below that slab:
I did not state (or imply) “that it would be preposterous to believe that false beliefs could be as survival enhancing as true ones.” In fact, in my example above I allow that there may be 50 survival enhancing false beliefs for every survival enhancing true belief. I did state that for your reasoning to work, you have to postulate that that an equal or greater percentage of false beliefs are survival enhancing than the percentage of true beliefs that are survival enhancing. Which is preposterous.
The only further reply is “baaaaaa.” Which is sheep for, "Are you really asserting that false beliefs have an equal or greater probably of being survival enhancing as true beliefs?"Reciprocating Bill
March 18, 2015
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HeKS Interesting but we all know that Darwin fashioned Natural selection around the facts of artificial selection. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2708932?sid=21105686561781&uid=4&uid=2 There is no such thing as natural selection, all living things have a broad range of responses to their environments, whenever selection pressures are out of the organisms boundary they die, in addition whenever the pressures ease those same organisms always revert back to their original form and function. We are seeing this happening right now with the revered Galapagos finches!Andre
March 18, 2015
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I'd like to propose a somewhat humorous little thought experiment for the anti-ID commenters (though the pro-ID commenters are welcome to weigh in). Suppose it is sometime in the future. One night you go to bed and the next thing you know you awake in a field surrounded by grassy hills. Around you on the hills is a population of sheep and these sheep are rather more woolly than you would typically expect. Your view of the surrounding areas is obstructed by the hills and near to the tops of the hills there extends a barrier of some kind that prevents you from being able to see what's beyond the hills even if you were to climb them. Now, in the middle of the field is a state-of-the-art laboratory with any and all equipment you could ask for, and when you enter it you find there are DNA samples taken from the current population of the sheep on the hills. In addition to this, however, is a database of DNA samples taken from the last 100 generations of this population, along with photographs of the sheep in each generation and a record of the thickness of the wool coat of each sheep in each generation. Finally, you notice that there is text on the wall. The text says:
"If you want to get out alive, answer this question: Is the current woolliness of the sheep the result of Natural Selection or Artificial Selection?
You know that both Natural Selection and Artificial Selection exist as forms of causation, but you don't know if anyone lives in the area or if the sheep come from a nearby barn, and the only clues you have to help you answer the question on the wall are the currently existing population of sheep and the historical record of samples and photos of the sheep over the past 100 generations. How would you go about trying to answer the question? What would you look for? Do you think it is possible to answer the question? If you think it's not possible and yet you know that artificial selection happens as a form of causation, do you find it problematic that scientific investigation would be incapable of ever properly pointing to Artificial Selection even when it is the correct answer? And would it be more wise in this case to insist that Artificial Selection never happens and never has happened or that an inability to detect and recognize the markers of artificial selection is a blind-spot and weakness in our scientific enterprise that should be addressed? I'm interested in your answers to this, though in the interest of full disclosure I'll mention that it's 3:45 am and I nodded off twice while writing this, so I'm too tired to analyze the scenario and see if there are any significant issues with it, so you can feel free to contribute on that front too.HeKS
March 18, 2015
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StephenB, If you don't mind, I'd like to suggest an adjustment in terminology for the sake of clarity. When describing the categorization of design as a cause, the distinction to be made is not between natural and supernatural or natural and 'non-natural', but between natural and artificial, representing precisely the same distinction that exists between Natural Selection and Artificial Selection. As types of causes, natural causes and artificial causes are qualitatively distinct, and this is so even if one decides to assume that the intelligence that allows for artificial causation came about entirely through natural causation (i.e. unguided evolution).HeKS
March 17, 2015
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goodusername - I think one of the issues is the difference between "what is occurring regularly" and "what is causing complex adaptations to appear". That is, one can think that genetic drift is the thing that occurs most frequently, but still keep neo-Darwinism around as the thing that causes complex adaptations to appear. A skeptic of neo-Darwinism, on the other hand, may include neo-Darwinism in the list of things that happen, but reject its role in complex adaptations. And, as I've pointed out, neutral theory and genetic drift actually supply less of a cause for complex adaptation than neo-Darwinism. I think that this is the heart of what the dissent from Darwinism is about - can Darwinism really accomplish the feats set out for it? I think the data (as opposed to the suppositions) is that clearly it can't. Most of the evidence put in favor of Darwinism has assumed (rather than demonstrated) that the mutations in question are non-teleological. Often times it is found, much later, that the cell had mechanisms in place which biased that mutation in that circumstance. You might want to check out an old post of mine responding to Merlin on whether or not adaptive mutations are the result of chance. Out of curiosity, what do you consider to be a good case for the ability of RM+NS to produce a complex adaptation?johnnyb
March 17, 2015
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goodusername, "I doubt Moran would say that other mechanisms “greatly overshadow” RM+NS, but other mechanisms are certainly important." There are no other mechanisms beside RM+NS in the materialistic evolutionary theories. Certainly genetic drift, neutral evolution, endosymbiosis, horizontal gene transer, and what is commonly taught about epigenentics do not extend beyond the bounds of RM+NS.bFast
March 17, 2015
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johnnyb,
Do you not think that the fact that neo-Darwinism is waning is an important fact that the public should be aware of?
It's been years since I've looked at textbooks as well, but I recall them talking about genetic drift, neutral evolution, endosymbiosis, some spoke a bit about epigenentics and I'm sure that's expanded upon now. It's pretty common knowledge (as least among those that take any time to learn about evolution) that most change in DNA over time is not via natural selection. Most scientists also believe that neutral evolution and drift play roles in the development of complex structures (although what roles exactly, and to what degree, etc, are all controversial). It's not anti-Darwinism or "dissent" from Darwinism to find other mechanisms by which evolution occurs. It doesn't mean that Darwinism or neo-Darwinism is wrong, and I don't think that it means that neo-Darwinism is waning. Even Darwin believed that there were many mechanisms at play other than natural selection - was he a "dissenter"? Darwin wasn't retracting his theory of natural selection when he came up with sexual selection.
Moran himself should sign the list if he truly thinks that the other mechanisms of evolution greatly overshadow RM+NS.
I doubt Moran would say that other mechanisms "greatly overshadow" RM+NS, but other mechanisms are certainly important. In a different context or setting even Dawkins might sign such a petition. The reasons for not signing it would probably be because of the conflation of "skeptical" with "dissent" and the knowledge of how the petition is being used - the implication that Darwinism is wrong just because other mechanisms are also at play in evolution.goodusername
March 17, 2015
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thebraindidit Remove the brain and 'x' fails to happen. Therefore, the brain is the cause of 'x'.Mung
March 17, 2015
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