Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Friday Musings — Irrational Hatred of ID and a Scientific Sea Change

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I think that one of the reasons for the irrational hatred of the ID movement is that in the last 50 years a scientific tide has reversed. The hard sciences (as opposed to Darwinian theory, evolutionary psychology and the like), which for centuries had demystified the world and made the transcendent seem increasingly irrelevant, suddenly started providing solid evidence that a materialistic worldview was untenable. The universe was fine-tuned for life, and living things were fundamentally based on highly sophisticated information and information-processing systems. The fact that those of us in the ID movement are promoting public awareness of this has enraged those with a philosophical commitment to materialism, those who counted on the hard sciences to provide ever-increasing support for their worldview.

What was thought to be their best ally is gradually becoming their worst foe, and this is a tough pill to swallow.

Comments
dopderbeck, Most of us here at UD subscribe to what gpuccio in comment 76 has said. The big distortion propogated by those outside, is that we don't.jerry
April 13, 2007
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Gpuccio and Great_Ape, It seems we three are all Polanyi-ites of a sort. Good!dopderbeck
April 13, 2007
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great_ape: "It is my belief that if we do not engage reality through a process that goes to great lengths to avoid self-deception then we will never progress to the point where we have that fundamentally different perspective you refer to." I absolutely agree with you! Obviously, as you know, in my opinion the darwinian framework is a big example of gross self-deception (not the only one), and we have to get rid of it to "doggedly and honestly apply the best techniques we know to arrive at the best model of the world that we can". But that's a detail on which we probably can't, at present, agree. However, your principle is perfectly right, and I endorse it with all my heart!gpuccio
April 10, 2007
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"I think that the new laws and principles we are going to discover will have fundamental consequences in our model not only of life and biology, but of all reality." --gpuccio Your big-picture take on reality and a possible as-yet undiscovered reality is not very much different from my own. I suspect there may come a day when we be forced to fundamentally reinterpret most of what we now think we know. That may very well extend to chemistry, biology, evolution, etc. However, until that day, all we can do is doggedly and honestly apply the best techniques we know to arrive at the best model of the world that we can. Then should that new perspective on reality one day arrive--I doubt it will be in my lifetime--we will understand *why* it was that we saw the world as we did currently. And how, perhaps, there was no other way to see it at the time. It is my belief that if we do not engage reality through a process that goes to great lengths to avoid self-deception then we will never progress to the point where we have that fundamentally different perspective you refer to.great_ape
April 10, 2007
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I regret that I've been swamped with work and have been unable to keep up with this thread. Aquiesce, Joseph, your statements contain so many empirical and philosophical points that I must take issue with that I don't even know where to begin to address them. I suspect you are both relying on some woefully mistaken sources as your main source of information. I am a practicing biologist who is fairly well-versed in philosophy, yet I frankly have no idea what you two are talking about much of the time. If this does not concern you, it should. For example, here is Aquiesce regarding viral insertions: "Is it realistic to believe as both lines diverged from a common ancestor, then travelled on their own path for millions of years, that these would remain?" It is realistic. We know rough mutation rates both from empirical studies on extant species' germlines in addition to molecular evolution studies. We know roughly how much DNA mutates in various taxa. Given these rates, the amount of time that something would require to mutate beyond recognition by sequence homology is rather large in mammals, somewhere on the order of 80-125 million years. To everyone else, I do suspect gradualism predominates, but I am not necessarily wedded to that stance. Certainly I believe in gradual changes in *nonfunctional* molecular regions; there is much empirical evidence towards that end. But as for what occurs at the time of speciations in functional DNA and in bone morphology, how fast it occurs, etc. I really don't know. That is why I refrain from writing any lengthy defense of gradualism. Right now, as a molecular biologist, I simply think gradualism is the more conservative stance. Yet I can certainly understand how folks like Gould, from a palentological perspective, might arrive at a different position. I can tell you that there are active research projects going on concerning how reproductive barriers form between populations; studies that directly address how rapidly biological speciation could conceivably occur. Once species are isolated reproductively they continue on their own, independent, evolutionary trajectories. Just how fast they can substantially change subsequently is another fascinating question for which I have no good answer. I will venture an educated guess, though...To quote from a former computer science professor of mine, the best answer will be "it depends."great_ape
April 10, 2007
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dopderbeck: You ask what I think, so I will, for once, speak freely. The following is not a scientific scenario which I can motivate in all the details, but is my personal view, for what it's worth. I think that the mystery of life and the mystery of consciousness and the mystery of evolution are related. I think that all these deep and unsolved aspects of reality will be doors to understand new, higher laws that at present we don't understand. I do think that our present understanding of the laws of nature is vastly incomplete. I think that the new laws and principles we are going to discover will have fundamental consequences in our model not only of life and biology, but of all reality. I think that the new laws we are going to discover will be different from those we already know, although they will not deny them. They will be different not only in details, but in principle. Indeed, they will probably bring new light even on classical problems of physics, like the meaning of quantum mechanics and so on. They will not be strictly deterministic, and will represent a new interface which will give a new picture of the relationship between consciousness and matter, mind and body, purpose and chance, life and non life. They will deliver us from all reductionist, pseudo-naturalist, determinist thought which has plagued our culture for more than one century, building completely false scenarios of reality, like evolution and artificial intelligence. They will give new meaning to the concept of God in relation to the world, at least from a human and scientific point of view, without subtracting anything to our traditional conceptions of His transcendence, or to our personal faiths. They will give us deep intellectual satisfaction, together with wonder and hope. And, thanks God, an ever new sense of mystery, because I think that it is true that reality has potentially infinite layers of complexity, and that our reason cannot possibly exhaust them. They will give new perspective to the theory of information, of meaning, of design, and will confirm the fundamental intuitions of people like Dembski and Behe. They will rely much more on biophysics and information theory, which will integrate ever more the classical approach of biochemistry and traditional genetics. And yes, they will "reveal ever more fundamental layers of simplicity and elegance undergirding the universe".gpuccio
April 10, 2007
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gpuccio: So, are these mysteries? You bet they are… Instead of letting people know that we have understood everything, we scientists should well admit our ignorance, and try to retrieve the sense of wonder that we lost a long time ago. Awesome! True! Amen! Spoken like a Polanyi-devotee? (I love Polanyi) But I'm curious -- do you think this mystery in itself gives rise to a design inference, sort of like irreducible complexity? Or does that sense of wonder arise primarily from something inherent in natural processes that science is only beginning to understand -- similar to the wonder produced every time our knowledge of physics is pushed deeper, revealing ever more fundamental layers of simplicity and elegance undergirding the universe?dopderbeck
April 10, 2007
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gpuccio - thanks for taking the time to respond. Much appreciated.Barrett1
April 10, 2007
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Barrett1: As I said im my previous post, the development of a highly complex multicellular being (humans, for instance) from the single celled zygote is one of the least understood mysteries of biology. I am afraid many people think that, because we have developed technologies like cloning animals, that means we understand the process. That's not the case. In cloning experiments, we just fertilize an egg with the nucleus of a somatic cell, but that's just what we do. It's interesting, it is somewhat amazing that it works, but we understand nothing more of what is happening. There are a lot of problems in understanding development, and they are strictly connected, in my opinion, to the deepest problems of the meaning of cellular life and, therefore, to that of evolution. Th gretaest problem as I said, is understanding the relationship between genome and transcriptome (and, obviously, proteome). We have in nature the rather amazing fact that, in multicellular organisms, all cells share the same genome, and yet all of them are different. Differences between cells are of various kinds: a) differences along the axis staminality -differentiation. We have different stages of staminality. Simplifying, we have the zygote, which is not only totipotent, but can generate a whole living organism. Then we have embrional stem cells (those you find in the morula, and which are at the center of moral debates today). These are totipotent (they can differentiate towards any kind of tissue) but cannot give birth to a whole organism. And then descending down on the ladder of staminality, we have fetal stem cells, cord blood stem cells, adult stem cells. And then we have differentiated cells, along different lines and tissues, and at different stages of differentiation. The problem is, all of these cells have the same genome. Out of the 20,000 genes which constitue human genome (protein coding, I mean), a specific subset id transcribed at each different occasion. It is as though you have 20,000 different words, or building blocks, and you have to choose every time a different subset of them (maybe one or two hundred) to realize adifferent discourse or model. And we are speaking of thousands, maybe millions, of different transcriptomes. This is a mystery in an adult being, but it is a cosmic mystery in the embryo. After all, the embryo starts as a single cell. Up to the morula state, we still have 20-30 cells which appear to be exactly the same. And there is more. Not only those first cells have to give birth to an immense progeny of different cells, each with its appropriate transcriptome and proteome, but they have also to arrange those myryad of differentiated cells in the precise pattern, in space and time, which gives birth to what we call the "form" of the body. And they have to connect everything with a myryad of regulatory functional networks: neurologic, immunologic, cytokines, etc. Just think: the central nervous system is made of approximately 10^11 neurons, each of them cennected by multiple connections, some of them at a really big distance for a cell (from a motor neuron in the cortex to its corresponding motor neuron in the spine, and then to the muscular fiber peripherically, we are in the order of magnitude of one meter). And the mystery is: what guides this extremely complex set of events? Where is the code, the procedures, the map for all that? We have no idea. We know those little 20,000 genes, many of them identical to those in the mouse or in some fish or plant. And we know there is another 99% of genome which is surprisingly "stupid" in its appearance: introns whose only purpose seems to be fragmenting proteic genes, non functional pseudogenes, repetitive sequences devoid of any known meaning, gtransposons which look more like parasites then like information, and so on. It's a wild world, the non coding genome. An yet, there, in the jungle of the ex junk DNA, there must be something important. Perhaps not the whole answer, but something important. And that's not all. Cloning has proved that we can reproduce a zygote (although not a perfect one) using the nucleus of a somatic cell plus an ovum (denucleated). Well, that's really amazing! After all, we all have billions of somatic cell, of all kinds, and none of them seems able to operate miracles like becoming a zygote. And yet, each of them has all the necessary information, in its DNA. So, where is the miracle, in the cloning process? We don't know, but I think we are well authorized to look with great interest at the ovum... But the ovum is cytoplasm, not nucleus. Is it possible that, in that tiny fragment of cytoplasm, no DNA, no apparent genetic information, there may be the key to unravel the whole complexity of a human being from the DNA of a somatic cell, usually relatively inert and static? It seems so... And remember, just after a few replications, at the morula state, this capacity of generating a complete organism is already lost. So, are these mysteries? You bet they are... Instead of letting people know that we have understood everything, we scientists should well admit our ignorance, and try to retrieve the sense of wonder that we lost a long time ago.gpuccio
April 10, 2007
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dopderbeck: thank you for your intervention. I think we have explained our mutual differences (and similarities) satisfactorily. It has been a pleasure...gpuccio
April 10, 2007
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gpuccio — Could you elaborate a bit more on fetal development? Perhaps summarize where you think naturalism fails in explaining such a majestic process? I'm interested in this.Barrett1
April 10, 2007
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gpuccio -- thanks for those thoughts -- again, I think we agree on more than we disagree on. Let me address this concerning secondary causes: But do you believe the same of man’s consciousness, free will, morality? Do you believe the same of beauty and purpose, of meaning and understanding? No, I do not. Secondary causes refer to the ordinary operation of the laws of nature. Human intentionality is not a secondary cause, as I view it. In theological terms, human beings have free will because they are made in the image of God. In biological terms, I suppose I might lean towards a nonreductive physicalist position -- but whether human consciousness emerges from phyical structure or is part of a separate entirely non-material component of personhood (the "soul"), I think strong agent reductionism is incoherent and weak agent reductionism is irrational (BTW, an excellent book by Angus Menuge, an ID guy, called "Agents Under Fire," has influenced my thinking substantially about this). I should note, that there are some TE's who seem to want to accept sociobiology whole cloth as well. However, many don't -- as Francis Collins' recent book makes clear. You said: My religious ideas can inspire me, give me good ideas about science, everything you want, but at the scientific level I have to find scientific motivation. You are right, this is our most basic disagreement. I don't think it's possible or wise to have such a "split personality" so to speak. Religious epistemology is holistic, I think, or it is not an epistemology at all -- it becomes, as it has for so many people in the world today, merely a source of emotional comfort, rather than the fountain of Truth. You further said: You have to motivate how chance and necessity can build CSI or IC. You may think that darwinist have done that for you, but believe, that is not true. No, I do not think I have to explain things through "chance and necessity," and I do not think any explanation of evolution based on "chance and necessity" understood metaphysically has any chance of succeeding. To the extent I accept evolution (and let me clarify again for the record that I don't consider myself a fully-fledged "typical" TE) it is only theistic evolution. I reject as a foundational matter that there is any such thing as chance and necessity in a metaphysical sense. What appears to human eyes to be "chance and necesity" is the working out of God's providential purposes through secondary causes. Moreover, nothing in creation is "necessary" in a metaphysical sense; rather, all of creation is "contingent" on God's will. In this vein, I personally find some "soft" ID arguments -- the anthropic principle, convergent evolution -- very convincing and supportive of a theistic worldview. On fetal development -- thank you for educating me a bit here. I evidently overstated my case. However, it seems to me that the basic point still remains: we can observe a fetus develop, and there is no apparent direct influence by a designer / God. If there is such influence, it is "hidden" from our sight. Thus, the natural theology of Psalm 139 isn't based on direct empirical observations of God's activity in literally "forming" the fetus.dopderbeck
April 10, 2007
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Acquiesce: I agree that there is no functional continuum. This is one of the strongest arguments against darwinian evolution! What I meant is that the designer could add gradually what is necessary for the new function, and fix it in the genome, before the function appears. That would not necessarily be a disadvantage. I agree that the hypothesis is a little bit awkward, but it has to be discarded on an empirical basis, not a logical one. I am in no way trying to "provide stepping stones for gradualists to change sides". I am only trying to be fair to all possible hypotheses, provided that we really don't have any clue of how design was practically implemented in new species. But again, I prefer a discontinuous model. Even in that model, however, the implementation of a new species needs not be instantaneous. It could take some time. We simply don't know. You may prefer to believe in an instantaneous model (sudden creation from "nothing"), and I have nothing against that. But it is not the only possibility, and it has its cons too (more explicit violation of ordinary laws). The point is: we know living beings were designed (ID proves that), but we really don't know how and when they were designed. Maybe the accumulation of new knowledge will allow us to answer even that question.gpuccio
April 10, 2007
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dopderbeck: thank you for you reflections (#55). I think I understand your position better now, and that is always a good result. However, I still think I disagree with you in a few important points. For further clarity, I'll try to sum them up: 1)You speak, repeatedly, of "ultimate causes". I speak, in the ID context, of "causes". They need not be ultimate. That's what makes the discussion scientific. Ultimate causes are, as you rightly suggest, the object of philosophy, religion, faith. Simple causes are the object of science. I understand that you maintain that the designer inferred by ID is probably God. I can agree on that. But that does not mean that ID infers God. ID infers a designer from an observed design. If we accept the hypothesis that God interacts with the world, and even if it is true that we cannot infer or observe the true nature of God (scientifically, I mean), if an interaction takes place, then our "side" of the interaction should be observable. Indeed, it must be observable. And to observe it, and analyze it, is the duty of science. 2) You seem to believe that everything in the universe can be explained deterministically, provided we accept that God has put into motion the original laws, and that everything else can be considered an effect of "secondary causes". But do you believe the same of man's consciousness, free will, morality? Do you believe the same of beauty and purpose, of meaning and understanding? are all these things the effect of "secondary causes", and did God only provide an engineering "consulence" in the beginning, defining the formulas of gravitation, electromagnetism, strong force, and letting these forces take care of everything else? Do you really believe that? I definitely don't. 3) But even if you believe that, at the scientific level you have to motivate your belief, or just keep quiet. This is, I think, the main difference between us. I have my philosophical and religious beliefs, but I am convinced that, if we are speaking scientifically, I have to speak to others as if "I were an atheist" (in a good sense, as one who has no prejudice in scientific discussion. My religious ideas can inspire me, give me good ideas about science, everything you want, but at the scientific level I have to find scientific motivation. That is in no way "caving in to the positivist epistemology of materialistic science". This is, on the contrary, epistemological order, intellectual honesty. It is respect for all those who may not share our religious concepts, and who still deserve to discuss with us about our scientific ideas. So, I ask you: do you scientifically believe in determinism according to known natural law as the cause of biological complexity? Maybe you believe that for theological reasons, although God only knows what they could be, but I am not interested in that. If you believe in that "natural" mechanism, you have to motivate your belief. Technically, you are not different from proper darwinists, although you believe in God at the start. Technically, you are believing something impossible. You have to motivate why you don't accept the scientific arguments of Dembski and Behe. You have to motivate how chance and necessity can build CSI or IC. You may think that darwinist have done that for you, but believe, that is not true. 4) Let's go to our discussion about fetal development. You say: "Are you suggesting that, since we don’t know how the same genome “can express itself in myriads of different transcriptomes,” we should therefore infer that God / a designer does this directly? I don’t think you are. I think you would agree that the most reasonable assumption is that there are explanations for this sort of present lacuna about a detail of fetal development at the level of seconary or “ordinary” causes, without invoking direct action by God / a designer — though maybe I’m wrong about this?" You wrote, in your previous post: "“today we can explain the process of human birth from conception through every stage of fetal maturation entirely in terms of seconary causes”. I simply remarked that it is not true. I am right on that, and nobody can deny it. But now you add: "I think you would agree that the most reasonable assumption is that there are explanations for this sort of present lacuna about a detail of fetal development at the level of seconary or “ordinary” causes". No, I don't agree. You are making two assumptions which can be described only as two acts of blind faith: a) That our present understanding of the laws of nature is complete, in other words that what you call "ordinary causes" corresponds to deterministic laws we already know. b) That no "out of ordinary" process takes place in fetal development. I accept none of these two assumptions. I do believe that we don't understand nature, or understand it only partially, and never that gap was more evident than in our understanding of life. Our "laws of nature" don't explain life. They don't explain consciousness. They don't explain purpose, meaning, design, intelligence. Probably, they don't explain a lot of other things, but these are certainly the most prominent. In other words, we are ignorant. All our knowledge can't explain how a bacterium may exist, and I am not speaking only of how it was designed originally (which is the ID problem properly), but also how it can exist and live now. Living things are totally unlikely, and present knowledge can't explain them out. Fetal development is no exception. The reasearchers in Evo-devo are perfectly right in believing that understanding development can certainly help to understand evolution. I do agree. Only, I am not sure that the understanding they are looking for, and some day will certainly attain, will be exactly what they are expecting. It will, anyway, be precious and very, very interesting. My point is that, until we really understand something, the only honest position is to admit it is a mystery. Life is a mystery. Consciousness is a mystery. We have to look further, think further. In the meantime, we have gross cultural lies (darwinism, the theory of artificial intelligence) whose only purpose is to make the layman believe that science has understood what it has not even begun to understand, and to give scientists a pleasurable sense of omniscience. And, on the contrary, we have little oasis of rational thought, like ID, where intelligent people try humbly to find reasonable answers to some fundamental questions. To conclude, nobody has to believe in ID. But nobody has the right of dismissing it in principle, for "religious" reasons, be it a darwinism (ID is not science and similar racist arguments) or a religious man (“Design” is, and should be, an inherently theological concept...). If anybody wants to falsify ID, he has to do that at the right level, in the right context: very simply, demonstrating that what ID says is false.gpuccio
April 10, 2007
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I was only trying to show that the hypothesis of design is compatible with gradualism.
Manmade systems such as a watch cannot be led up to gradually through functional intermediates because of the necessity of perfect coadaptation of all its components as a precondition to function, this holds even if intelligence is guiding the process. In short, there's no functional continuum; just adding intelligence doesn't change that fact. Unless what you're saying is that god(s) or whatever helped the organism survive during these useless, selectively disadvantaged stages? Maybe I am totally wrong but it appears that many in the ID community are trying to provide stepping stones for gradualists to change sides. However, birds with only barbs for feathers will not fly!!Acquiesce
April 10, 2007
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Returning to the genetic markers. Imagine a table, and in the middle a perfectly stacked deck of cards ace to kings (call this the common deck). Either side of the table sits 'Chimp' and 'Champ' both with identical copies of the common deck. Both Chimp and Champ represent lineages to disparate organisms which share genetic markers. To represent evolution in time both Chimp and Champ are asked to shuffle their cards for a few second - after this they lay their cards down and examine the similarities. It would be expected that both would have small sequences identical to each others and also to the common deck. It might also be probable that one has a sequence, lets say of ace to king in diamonds remain. But both having this same sequence remain would be improbable. Both are then asked to shuffle their cards again, this time for a longer period, to represent the millions of years of variation. The more shuffling the more the original (common deck) pattern diminishes and the more disparate our players cards become from each others until the differences plateau. What peculiar rules of probability would have these sequences remain over the course of millions of years?! Furthermore, unlike my analogy, we are unable to cross reference two disparate types with their common ancestor because, by another peculiar rule of probability, these ancestors seem to vanish. Therefore, we simple do not know if the common ancestor contained the markers in the first place!Acquiesce
April 10, 2007
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Acquiesce: "This is totally in the realms of speculation and not to mention indistinguishable from orthodox darwinism." I agree that it is in the realm of speculation, like almost everuthing else on these specific subjects. To make things clesr, at present I don't favour very much the hypothesis of "intelligent gradualism", and I prefer the discontinuous hypothesis. I was only trying to show that the hypothesis of design is compatible with gradualism. I was not necessarily sponsoring the solution, only saying that it is a possibility. After all, it is possible that "birds were at one point ‘flying around’ with just the barbs". It is just what most scientists believe now. I agree that the fossil record does not encourage gradualism, enyway. On that you are perfectly right. But for me, the real point where darwinism completely fails, and can be ruled out even on purely logical grounds (and, obviously, also on empirical grounds), is, as I have repeated many times, the problem of causes. Complex biological information cannot come out of chance and necessity. It needs a designer. Period. This is by far our strongest argument, and to this we should stick. Common descent and time modality are separate issues, and imo less important. I don't agree, however, that modification by design, even in a gradual modality, would be "indistinguishable from orthodox darwinism." First of all, gradual modification by design is possible, while orthodox darwinism is practically impossible. That is the core of the problem: the impossibility to get that kind of result by chance and necessity. I am sure that that issue, which in my opinion is already evident with our present knowledge, will soon be extremely evident to anybody, as our understanding of information, meaning, consciousness and similar concepts refines. Besides, I am sure that a further understanding of biological events at the subcellular level will give us empirical evidence of how and when design has been imparted to living beings. I have faith in scientific knowledge, and that the accumulation of new facts will allow us to distinguish between what is possible and what is not, and, further on, between what is probably true and what is not.gpuccio
April 10, 2007
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BTW I am not a christian and ID does not require a belief in “God”.
I also am not a christian (or any religion for that matter). My gripe with common descent is purely on empirical grounds.Acquiesce
April 10, 2007
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Joseph said: Guided, pre-planned, pre-programmed, gradualism could very well be a design (ID) mechanism. dopderbeck: Joseph, if this is really your position, I would classify it as a type of theistic evolution. Is it my position that Guided, pre-planned, pre-programmed, gradualism could very well be a design (ID) mechanism? Yes Could very well be. BTW I am not a christian and ID does not require a belief in "God". ---------------------------------- DaveScot: Common descent is beyond theory. It’s a law. Then it the first law that no one knows about. We should call it "the magical mystery law".Joseph
April 10, 2007
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gpuccio [53]
The important concept is that the designer actively imparts information, for instance selecting each time a mutation which is compatible with his design, even if it is not useful at the moment.
This is totally in the realms of speculation and not to mention indistinguishable from orthodox darwinism. Are you saying that god(s) stores this information until workable (in which case it's hardly gradualism), or that birds were at one point 'flying around' with just the barbs? then god(s) chose the barbules, then the hooks, ridges, controlling muscles, then the instincts etc? DaveScot [57]
There have been billions of direct observations of life coming from life and none of life coming from non-life. Common descent is overwhelmingly supported by observation.
Biogenesis has never been shown to produce organisms outside their type, the fossil record shows only discontinuities, natural selection takes evolution in the wrong direction and we are unaware of any random mutations producing new specified information. I apologize if your comment was made in jest but common descent is certainly not supported by observation. It has not been observed, we have not found a sequence of intergrading forms (either living or fossilized) leading unambiguously from one type to another, nor have we been able to reconstruct the intergrading forms hypothetically by providing an entirely plausible genealogy including all the intermediate forms and a thoroughly convincing explanation of how each stage of the transformation came about. Only the typological perception of nature accurately accomodates the evidence we have.Acquiesce
April 10, 2007
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Hi Dave Scott: Thanks for the notes on filtering. Perhaps, a policy page somewheres? I have said enough on my main point here, in support of G-A as a positive contributor. I note on Common Descent:
There have been billions of direct observations of life coming from life and none of life coming from non-life. Common descent is overwhelmingly supported by observation . . . . The only known source of living things is another living thing and there are so many confirmations of it it’s called the law of biogenesis. Common descent is beyond theory. It’s a law.
Of course, you may have your tongue firmly in cheek here, but for the sake of the uninitiated or ignoramuses like me, a few dumb Q's: 1] Common Descent, last time I checked, refers to claimed descent with modification capable of creating the body plan innovations seen in the fossil record and in the living world, going back a claimed 3.5 - 3.8 or so BY. Do the observations in question include that range of years, or just inferences to the projected past based on 150 - 250 years of actual observation and record? 2] Has a clear case of descent with modification sufficient to create a novel body plan actually been DIRECTLY observed rather than inferred and/or reconstructed? [We do directly observe gravity at work, and Kepler's empirical laws came before Newton's theory in explanation. NLG then had the anomalies of perturbations etc, and the precession of Mercury's orbit. The former it solved, the latter, Einsteinian approaches have solved . . .] 3] Has a mechanism credibly capable of creating more than say 500 - 1,000 bits worth of biofunctional information out of random forces been identified to drive the modification part? Or, to produce systems that have at least several interacting parts the absence of any of which will severely degrade or destroy functionality? Has such been directly observed in details, and independently confirmed in action? Published where? 4] Similarly, to generate the initial life system? 5] Wasn't spontaneous generation of life from non-living matter regarded as a well established "unquestionable fact" for many centuries, based on duly performed scientific observations within the capabilities of the techniques, instruments and observers at the time? 6] Are we sure we are not similarly misled today? Why or why not? 7] How should such experiences and history guide us in how we present our findings in education and to the public today? GEM of TKIkairosfocus
April 9, 2007
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Acquiesce There have been billions of direct observations of life coming from life and none of life coming from non-life. Common descent is overwhelmingly supported by observation. The law of gravity is similar. Billions of observations, perfect record of prediction, and while it's true that an apple might fall up from the tree into the sky it isn't bloody likely based on past observations and neither is it likely that a new living thing will appear from a non-living thing. The only known source of living things is another living thing and there are so many confirmations of it it's called the law of biogenesis. Common descent is beyond theory. It's a law.DaveScot
April 9, 2007
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Joseph said: Guided, pre-planned, pre-programmed, gradualism could very well be a design (ID) mechanism. Joseph, if this is really your position, I would classify it as a type of theistic evolution. The theistic evolution folks I've met who hold to generally orthodox theology essentially hold the position you state here -- assuming "guided, pre-planned, pre-programmed" can simply means "in accordance with God's inscrutable sovereign will."dopderbeck
April 9, 2007
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gpuccio: we agree on more than we disagree on. Thank you for making the clarifications you did, which for the most part I agree with. I think, however, that there are many here who don't agree because they reject common descent a priori on religious (young earth creationist) grounds. Note that I am not saying all ID folks are YECs, but the discussion, in my experience, continually gets muddled by objections to common descent on that basis (which I sense is where some of the objections to common descent are coming from here). You said: believe me, it is not true, in any way, that “today we can explain the process of human birth from conception through every stage of fetal maturation entirely in terms of seconary causes”. I don’t understand where you got that strange idea. I got that strange idea from the fact that I have three children. I know exactly how and when they were conceived down to pretty much the day of conception; in the case of my first child, I can even remember what I had for dinner that night. I observed the process of my wife carrying them, and I was there when they were born. I saw the "Miracle of Birth" on PBS; I saw my children in the womb on ultrasound. As far as I can tell, there was no direct intervention by a designer / God. Are you suggesting that, since we don't know how the same genome "can express itself in myriads of different transcriptomes," we should therefore infer that God / a designer does this directly? I don't think you are. I think you would agree that the most reasonable assumption is that there are explanations for this sort of present lacuna about a detail of fetal development at the level of seconary or "ordinary" causes, without invoking direct action by God / a designer -- though maybe I'm wrong about this? But the discussion about cause is supreme.In that discussion, there is really no game: ID wins without even having to fight. I don't see how you can make a statement like this. The question of causes ultimately is a metaphysical question. I have never seen any argument by Behe, Dembski, or any other ID theorist I've read settle the question of ultimate causation on empirical grounds. I have seen them raise interesting questions about the sorts of causes proferred by Darwinism, and I have seen them suggest that design can be inferred largely by what is essentially the classical theological concept of the analogia entis; but that is quite different than demonstrating design affirmatively on empirical grounds. first, you again are making a point from theology, and again I will not follow you on that plane, at least not in this context (a scientific blog, about ID, which is a purely scientific theory). And for the reason that ultimate causes are never a "purely scientific" question, I think you are dead wrong about this. The question of ultimate causes is a metaphysical question. The inference of design by analogy to human design is essentially a restatement of the classical theological concept of the analogia entis. By eliding from that classical theological concept a thick conception of the designer as God, the strong ID program, IMHO, ultimately weakens the case for design and creates needless arguments about basic concepts such as common descent. "Design" is, and should be, an inherently theological concept, and we who are Christians should assert design on those grounds rather than caving in to the positivist epistemology of materialistic science. Moreover, I do not believe there is any adequate concept of "design" apart from the distinctives of the Christian God. Anything less is an unhealthy compromise.dopderbeck
April 9, 2007
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Acquiesce: If ID is compatible with gradualism then so much for the main ID argument against naturalistic origins namely irreducible complexity - gradualism and irreducibility are at direct contradiction with each other. Only blind, purposeless gradualism and IC contradict each other. Or at least appear to, as in goes against everything we understand and have experience with. Guided, pre-planned, pre-programmed, gradualism could very well be a design (ID) mechanism.Joseph
April 9, 2007
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Acquiesce: I am not going into a detailed discussion about the plausibility of common or uncommon descent because, for me, it is not a fundamental issue, and indeed I have not definite, final reason to get to an irrevocable decision for myself on that issue. Indeed, that's why I added "probably" in my statement. My real concern was to separate discussion about common descent from discussion about causal explanations. I think that ID is compatible with both common and non common descent. It is true, however, that darwinism is compatible only with common descent, at least partial. Instead, I don't understand your objection about gradualism. Why do you say that ID or IC are not compatible with gradualism? I specified in my post that I meant "directed", designed gradualism, that is a scenario where the designer implements his design step by step, possibly using as mucj as possible apparently natural means, like intelligent (guided) mutations or intelligent (guided) selection. That's very different from the gradualism of darwinism, where random mutation and "natural" (that is unguided) selection are supposed to be the cause of information. So, that scenario is perfectly compatible with both ID and IC: the designer, knowing the design he wants to implement, is not obliged to implement it all at once. If he has a lot of time available, he can well decide to implement it "a bit at a time", in long times. As the designer has to intereact with the material world to implement his design, he can well act by modifying slowly an existing implementation (a species) to transform it into another. The important concept is that the designer actively imparts information, for instance selecting each time a mutation which is compatible with his design, even if it is not useful at the moment. Such a process is very similar to writing a code, step by step, and it can perfectly explain irreducible complexity, because the complexity is imparted by the designer, gradually, and it needs not have any function until it is "ready". The designer knows in advance the final goal, and so the information is imparted "from outside", and Dembski's law is not violated. Finally, I apologize that I included punctuated equilibrium into darwinism: that's only because I was using the word "darwinism", in that context, to define, for the sake of brevity, all "naturalistic" explanations of biological complexity relying only on natural laws and a mixture of chance and necessity, and in that sense puctuated equilibrium is certainly part of the group. I agree qith you that classical darwinism is gradualistic, but I think we should find some term to indicate all theories which deny design, just as we use ID for all theories which imply it.gpuccio
April 9, 2007
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gpuccio [51]
Common descent is probably the best explanation, at present, for point 1 [homologies in the code], and many of us here (but not all) accept it, at least as a tentative hypothesis.
I just don't accept that common descent is probably the best explanation for homologies - far from it, we are talking about multiple lineages and millions of years of variations. Moreover, there are similarities (i.e,. echo location) in a wide variety of organisms which cannot owe their origin to a common ancestor.
Essentially, if we accept common descent, we can think of two different modalities of its occurrence in time: gradual (continuous) or intermittent (discontinuous). Both darwinism and ID are compatible with both modalities.
If ID is compatible with gradualism then so much for the main ID argument against naturalistic origins namely irreducible complexity - gradualism and irreducibility are at direct contradiction with each other. Punctuated equilibrium is not darwinism, and darwinism is not discontinuous.Acquiesce
April 9, 2007
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dopderbeck: I still feel that there is some confusion in our mutual terminology, and therefore in our discussion. I wiil try to make some very short points, and if you want we can discuss them further if we at least agree on the definitions: 1) Homologies in the code: the notion that there are similar, repeated features in the code of different species. 2) Common descent: the notion that there is a continuity in the species (all or part of them), in the sense that one is derived "physically" from another. Common descent is probably the best explanation, at present, for point 1, and many of us here (but not all) accept it, at least as a tentative hypothesis. 3) Mechanisms of derivation: Even accepting common descent, one has to postulate a reason for it, in other words a causal mechanism. Darwinists postulate various mixings of chance and necessity, the most classical of them being pure RM + NS. ID postulates one or more designer(s). Accepting common descent tells nothing about the cause of it. Discussion about the cause is much more important then discussion about common descent. You seem, instead, to unify the two problems, and that is not correct. 4) Time modality of derivation: Essentially, if we accept common descent, we can think of two different modalities of its occurrence in time: gradual (continuous) or intermittent (discontinuous). Both darwinism and ID are compatible with both modalities. In darwinism, the classical vue is gradualism (Dawkins and most others), but punctuated equilibrium is a good example of a discontinuous model (although God only knows how you can justify it!). In ID, you may think of a gradual, continuous intervention of the designer in time, for instance through intelligent, guided mutation, or through intelligent, guided selection, or both. But you may also conceive that the designer has been acting at special times, either by special acts of "creation" (which would not allow common descent), or by special acts of modification (which is compatible with common descent). So, again, arguing for gradualism or non gradualism has nothing to do with the problem of cause. Again, the problem of cause remains the most important. The rest are details. Given, for clarity, these definitions, I will add a few reflections on some of the things you say: a) You say: "Notice the language here: each person is “created,” “knit together,” “fearfully and wonderfully made” — in other words, designed carefully by God — and this fact is a cause for wonder at God’s works. And yet, today we can explain the process of human birth from conception through every stage of fetal maturation entirely in terms of seconary causes. There are no “gaps” in our “scientific” knowledge of human conception of birth; no need to suggest there is something God had to do directly through primary causation." Two objections here: first, you again are making a point from theology, and again I will not follow you on that plane, at least not in this context (a scientific blog, about ID, which is a purely scientific theory). I think that we have to be very firm on these point. The second objection, instead, is purely scientific: what you say is not true. I am sure you say iy in perfet good faith, but still it is not true. I don't know if you have a professional education in biology and/or medicine, but believe me, it is not true, in any way, that "today we can explain the process of human birth from conception through every stage of fetal maturation entirely in terms of seconary causes". I don't understand where you got that strange idea. The opposite is true: today we can explain practically nothing of the process of human birth from conception through every stage of fetal maturation. That is, indeed, one of the greatest mysteries in science. The discussion could be long, and if you want we can have it in detail (that is my field, after all), but just to set the scenario, the greatest unanswered question in medicine today is probably wy and how the same genome, identical in all cells (made exception for the immulogical system), can express itself in myriads of different transcriptomes, each perfectly appropriated for the kind of cell, for its state of differentiation, for its functional moment, and so on. We have no reasonable idea of how that can happen. We have no idea of what makes a stem cell a stem cell, or a differentiated cell a differentiated cell. We have no idea of how ordered, sequential differentiation takes place, how it is controlled, how it conforms to a macroscopic multicellular plan involving billions and billions of different cells. If scientific ideology has given you the notion that we know that, well, I am sorry, but you have been cheated. So, it is a complete mystery. And you cannot use a complete mystery to argue anything. b) You say: "This seems to me to be part of the heart of the matter: a confusion of the general idea of common descent with the philosophy of materialism. Removing the materialism filter doesn’t excuse anyone from ignoring the evidence for common descent. The evidence remains; it remains compelling; and there remains no strong alternative explanation, except for a vague “God / the designer did it” — which really is a God of the gaps explanation. I have no problem with offering that explanation if it’s offered on the grounds of revelation (though I think it would remain a wrong understanding of revelation). I have a problem with the notion, however, that this is the sort of explanation that is separable from theological presuppositions. It just isn’t." Many objections here. First of all, you are again speaking of common descent, but after it is evident that you are referring to the design inference. Again, you can't do that. They are two separate things. So, let's leave alone common descent. Let's say we accept it, in the sense I have given. Let's discuss, instead, the design inference. Here what you say is completely wrong, or at least it is different from what we argue in ID. Obviously, you are perfectly free not to believe what we say in ID, but you have not even tried to argue something about that. Let's be clear about that. Let's pretend I am an atheist and I believe in ID. I am not an atheist, but I have no problem to discuss and defend ID "as though" I were an atheist. I have no need of the idea of God (other than as a possible rational hypothesis)to demonstrate the ID points. And certainly I have no need of any scripture. Again, ID is a purely rational and scientific point of view. Indeed, it is much more rational and scientific than darwinism (OK, I know, that's not very difficult to attain...). Darwinism does not explain anything about observed facts. ID can very well explain them all. You may dissent on that, but what I mean is that this is the point we should discuss. Not common descent. Not gradualism. Common descent and gradualism are important only as far as they can be used in a specific context about cause. But the discussion about cause is supreme.In that discussion, there is really no game: ID wins without even having to fight. You don't believe that? You have not. It is not a scriptural revelation. Just come here, read this blog, read the many discussions about the main points (CSI, IC, abiogenesis, speciation, the fossil record, and so on), read the works of Dembski, Behe and others, read, if you care, the arguments of the "enemy" (on PT, pharyngula, or wherever you want: but beware, it will not be easy to find an argument, provided it exists, in the ocean of intolerance and personal attacks), and, above all, think for yourself. And if you want to discuss, we are here for that reason. We love discussion. You are welcome!gpuccio
April 9, 2007
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dopderbeck: I’m not following you here. Differences in genes don’t produce differences in physiology and anatomy? Of course they do, depending of course on which genes are involved. Umm ants in the same colony have the same DNA yet can vary in physiology and anatomy. Bees in a hive- same DNA varying physiologies and anatomies. Dr Denton, through years of genetic research tells us that although genes may inflence every aspect of development but they do not determine it. Dr Sermonti, a geneticist, tells us:
The scientist enjoys a privilege denied the theologian. To any question, even one central to his theories, he may reply “I’m sorry but I do not know.” This is the only honest answer to the question posed by the title of this chapter. We are fully aware of what makes a flower red rather than white, what it is that prevents a dwarf from growing taller, or what goes wrong in a paraplegic or a thalassemic. But the mystery of species eludes us, and we have made no progress beyond what we already have long known, namely, that a kitty is born because its mother was a she-cat that mated with a tom, and that a fly emerges as a fly larva from a fly egg.
IOW an organism is NOT the sum of its genome. Caterpillars and theor butterfly counterparts have the SAME DNA. Now if genetics could tell us what genetic differences can account for upright, bipedal walking, then Common Descent would be on to something. dopderbeck: Joseph, I read that link on “wobbling stability,” and I honestly just don’t get it. Of course you don't. Population variation oscillates. That is it. No net Common Descent. That is what we observe in the lab and in the wild- wobbling stability. Those extremeophiles living near the deep sea vents- extreme and specialized. Senetenced to live out their lives in that little penetentiary of a niche. They are at the end of the dead-end road. Nothing more will come of them. And even a fish without eyes is still a fish. And if you are going to rely on Common Descent via the lose of functioning organs for your argument then you have already lost. Genetic markers over millions of are nonsense because of the observed chromosomal recombinations that occur during meiosis. IOW for some DNA sequence to stay not only ontact enough to be recognizeable, it also has to stay in pretty much the same position on the same chromosome, just goes beyond any credible explanation.Joseph
April 9, 2007
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dopderbeck, Your discourse is getting very familiar. For example when asked to provide evidence for gradualism you replied "Well, this is where the conversation just goes round and round. Great Ape pointed to a whole bunch of evidence concerning genetic markers and y’all just seem to ignore it or to brush it off with references to the designer / God “re-using” genetic material." We are not brushing off anything but asking for evidence. Great_ape said nothing about gradualism and was only commenting on common descent. Great_ape believes in gradualism but has never presented anything which supports it other than his faith that it happened. Maybe he will disagree with that assessment but he has been quite open about the lack of information available to support it. Several times the question has been asked and no reply forthcoming namely, what is there in common descent that points to gradualism. So do not mention genetic markers unless somehow you can show how it demonstrates gradualism. It is being used to demonstrate common descent which is a different issue. It does not demonstrate the mechanism for common descent. I do not think anyone here denies that parts of the genome can deteriorate over time in a gradual fashion but that in no way points to the generation of new biological capability in a gradual fashion. They are completely unrelated phenomena. Occasionally someone will bring up God's hand in this but you seem fixated on religion and mentioning God while most of us here in the discussion of this particular topic seem fixated on scientific explanations. I get the feeling that you think we are a bunch of rubes who cannot understand the obvious. Well try fleshing out the obvious for us. Our experience is that no one has ever been able to do it. We have seen this attitude many, many times before. Nearly all end up the same way.jerry
April 9, 2007
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