I don’t like the topic line in this thread, as it is too much to the man rather than the topic, but the key point you raised is worth a remark.

For, you have raised a very interesting issue, as usual. A real Feyerabendist after me own heart, you are, mensch! [I hope I got the various argots right . . .]

Now, Natural Selection. I think no-one can accuse Wiki of being pro-ID, so let us note, highlighting as appropriate:

the evolutionary process by which favorable traits that are heritable become more common in successive generations of a population of reproducing organisms, and unfavorable traits that are heritable become less common . . . acts on the phenotype, or the observable characteristics of an organism, such that individuals with favorable phenotypes are more likely to survive and reproduce than those with less favorable phenotypes. If these phenotypes have a genetic basis, then the genotype associated with the favorable phenotype will increase in frequency in the next generation. Over time, this process can result in adaptations that specialize organisms for particular ecological niches and may eventually result in the emergence of new species.

Let’s also pause to define “random”; or more specifically “random variable,” from Websters online: a variable that is itself a function of the result of a statistical experiment in which each outcome has a definite probability of occurrence Obviously, the italicised above falls well within this definition. In short, we are looking at a probabilistic population filter, by which certain phenotypes on average tend to outperform others reproductively, across time in given environments. [At the extreme discussed by McDonald, if a particular variety is unable to function, it is non-viable; i.e. at the extreme the probability falls to zero.]

In short, natural, environmentally-driven multi-generational probabilistic population filtering – commonly called natural selection – is in material part driven by chance forces, and is therefore at least in part a random effect. [NB: Websters online, chance . . . 4 a : the possibility of a particular outcome in an uncertain situation; also : the degree of likelihood of such an outcome “a small chance of success”].

Natural selection is thus plainly not deterministic, and it does not specify a necessary outcome, only that those organisms in an environment which happen to be well matched relative to competitors, will thrive and better reproduce themselves on average at the expense of the competitors if the environment is sufficiently crowded. The environment is, on evolutionary materialist assumptions, a matter of chance, and the genotype that gives rise to the relevant phenotypes, are also held to be matters of chance. [Each of these is a huge assumption, and subject to challenge as ID in part does.]

Of course natural regularities in the sense of deterministic cause-effect chains also act in these environments, and organisms, e.g the law of gravitation, those of energy conservation, and the like, but it seems to me that to call “natural selection” an example of such “necessity” is plainly a conceptual error. And, of course it therefore does not present an easy/plausible back-path up Mt Improbability . . .you have to get to the biofuncitonality of life first, then show that steps within reasonable probability reach are able to provide the increments in such information to create the new body plans. NDT’s big challenge is that it plainly has not done so.

But, until a new kid showed up on the block, it was top dog.

So, now, let us see which is the fittest in this intellectual climate . . .

GEM of TKI

PS: Rhetoric and propaganda can subvert and suppress the material force of facts and logic in the short term, but over the long haul, poorly founded rhetoric loses out to facts and logic, if necessary, the logic of events . . . just ask the ghosts from Germany, circa 1933 – 45.

Feel free to post on my blog:

http://intelligentreasoning.blogspot.com

I would love to read your definition of random…

Apologies for assuming you wouldn’t mind. The major relevance is that you stated the reasons for your dislike of ID on that page. But I have removed the offending link at your request.

Oh, and the moderation filter is automated (sometimes my own comments get caught). Clearing it out may take some time depending on how busy all the moderators are. A long delay isn’t necessarily a sign of being banned. Also, what posts didn’t make it through moderation?

“Jasper has a publicly available website so I don’t think he’d mind if it’s referenced so people can understand his point of view.”

Actually, Patrick, I DO mind. I was under the impression that anonymous posting was allowed here at UD. What exactly do my theological ramblings on my website have to do with this discussion anyway?

In truth, I had hoped to maintain anonymity on this weblog. That’s why I did not list my personal website in my profile when I signed up for an account. I chose anonymity as a preemptive measure. I was offering the contributors here a chance to avoid allowing any potential biases against my personal religious views to affect the way they responded to my arguments. Alas, I now realize that I should not have entered an identity-revealing email address in my personal profile.

If you look at this thread, you will note that none of my posts have been inappropriate or offensive–even the ones that did not make it through moderation. I have certainly been presenting an opposing viewpoint, but I have tried to argue in good faith and learn from others in the process.

I sincerely want to believe that you at least have the integrity to allow my final post through moderation. I guess I’ll have to wait and find out.

They truly espouse the magic of small probabilitiies like it solves every problem. Yet the immediately chastize us for believing in inteligent causes. You wonder what psychologiical dispostion leads one to this mind set. That to me is the amazing part of the debate. Why do such well educated people become so close-minded?

However if the physical laws themselves, plus the constants that are independent of those laws, did NOT come about via design- intent & purpose- wouldn’t they too be attributable to chance and chance alone?

Miller just refuses to understand specification.

How would Kenny feel if he was playing cards with a dealer who could call each hand before they were dealt?

I believe you have started a discussion about one of the most confused parts of the neo-darwinian paradigm, that is the real meaning of natural selection. I have often thught about it, and I am convinced that we need to deepen our understanding of the subtle difficulties hidden behind that concept. Unfortunately, the current use of words in darwinian paradigm does not help to clarify the basic issues. So I will try to offer some hints, just as a starting point, and also to try to answer some of your reflections.

First of all, I think we should always remember that, in the ID paradigm, effects can be determined by three different kinds of causes: chance, necessity and design. That is a great improvement in respect to the darwinian paradigm, which only takes into account chance and necessity. But sometimes, in our discussions, we tend to forget necessity, as though the choice were only between chance (that is random causes) and design. That is certainly a mistake, and can bring only confusion.
One reflection about the third cause: design. Th inclusion of design is strictly pragmatic, and not philosophical. We include design because designed things exist. We observe them daily. Now, in a sense a designed thing is the product of necessity, but design is superimposed to necessity to create a special information pattern, which would never have been created by necessity alone.
In the same way, random causes are not in opposition to necessity, but they create a specific pattern of information which is typical of random events, and obeys probabilistic laws. On the contrary, pure necessity and design do not obey probabilistic laws.
The word “random” is another source of confusion, and not without cause. Indeed, randomness and probability are much more difficult concepts than we usually assume. Just to stay simple and intuitive, we can say that random events are those determined by many independent causes and with a great number of variables, whose interaction is too complex to be expressed in terms of necessity (at least by us). In those cases, and only in those cases, probability theory applies.
So, we believe that the result of tossing a coin is determined by necessity (physical laws), but we cannot foresee that result in terms of necessity (too many independent variables). Still we see that, if the coin is “fair”, a probability of 0,5 applies to each of the two possible outcomes.
That said, let’s go back to NS. I think that, when we IDist say that NS is really random, what we mean is: all the forces, laws, principles, mechanisms, or anything else, implied in the phenomenon called NS are either understandable in terms of necessity or of probability. In other words, they are either necessary (probability = 1, that is the result of a precise law) or random (probability between 0 and 1, to be calculated according to the existing theories of probability). In the RM + NS scenario, there is no room for the third solution, that is design.
That’s why, when we observe in nature specific outcomes ehich have the same characteristics of designed machines, we have the right to ask: please show us either:
a) The laws which, in terms of necessity, can and must produce that outcome according to physics; or:
b) How that outcome can come out by chance (that is, in a reasonable probabilistic scenario)

Or, if you want, a mix of the two.

That’s exactly what RM + NS wants to be: a mix of the two. RM is certainly the random part, and msut obey the probabilistic laws. But what is NS? That’s the difficult point. Indeed, NS is not, as I have said in other threads, a selection at all. The use of the word “selection” is one of the most confounding in all the darwinist scenario. What is called NS is simply the “necessity” part of the equation. Better would be to call it “natural necessity”. In other words, once random causes determine a variation, darwinists assume that some kind of detectable necessity laws can give account of what happens next.
And what are those laws? According to darwinism, the main law is the reproductive advantage. But that is a very generic concept. Let’s try to understand it better.
First of all, the necessity implied by the “reproductive advantage” is not simply derived from the general laws of physics. It is, at best, a kind of necessity deriving from the operating laws of already existing living structures.
In other words, NS should work in two ways:

a) If a variation causes a loss of a fundamental function in the structure, the structure dies. Notice that this kind of necessity applies only to living things.

b) If a variation causes an improvement of a fundamental function in the structure, the structure is cloned more than other similar ones, in other words, it “expands”.

It is important to understand that these two points have not the same importance and credibility. Point a) is important and credible. Point b), on the contrary, is fundamental (for the theory of unguided evolution) but much less credible.

Let’s take the example of the flagellum, to understand how all that applies. The argument of Behe and Dembski is very simple. The flagellum is a very efficient machine. In that sense, it is absolutely specified (if not else, by its function). It is extremely complex (a lot of different proteins, each of which well above the UPB of 1 to 10^150). In other words, such a structure can never be generated by chance (it could, philosophically, because the chance is not 0, but believe me, it can’t in the real world). That’s the part of the argument which excludes pure chance.
But, if we exclude design (as darwinists do) the only option remaining is necessity. Well, that’s really an option. The flagellum can certainly be built by necessity, operating on the random noise of RM. It is possible. But please, somebody show how that necessity works. Necessity is not something we can vaguely imagine. Necessity requires models, numbers, laws.
So, let’s try to apply our points a) and b) of “natural necessity” to the flagellum. That means that each protein must have been “necessarily selected” from random variations. And here is the abyss of the theory. Each single variation must be selectable.
And selectable for what? For the flagellum function? Obviously not. Here is where the IR concept come to the scene (always thanks to Behe). In other words, the rule applies here: “no flagellum, no party”.
Ah, but we have cooption. That’s really funny. To avoid the improbabilities inherent in the IC scenario, darwinists (indeed a creative bunch of guys) have had a brilliant idea; after all, each component of the flagellum can be selected for other, independent functions. Is that a joke? An extremely specific, efficient, incredible machine, which has no equals in our macroscopic world, a masterpiece of nano-technology, can be deconstructed as the sum of individual parts which have, eack of them, completely different purposes, and which, by mere luck, converge towards the right specificity, the risght assembly, the right cooperation. Funny indeed! Only, it is not a joke. People really believe that! Ken Miller goes around the world preaching that.
Well, we have bypassed the statistical impossibilities of pure chance, and gor enmeshed in logical and statistical impossibilities of even greater momentum. Could someone explain why, say, twenty different, specific proteins, each evolved for a specific, different function, happen to be exactly, at the same time, the “pieces” just needed for an extremely sophisticated engine, of whose possible existence obviously nobody in the universe, not physical laws, not nature, not natural selection, not the poor random mutation, not the environment or the landscape, could have the faintest idea? Very likely, indeed!
But let’s pretend that we consider cooption. What is the evidence for it? Nothing! Just vague omologies between classes of proteins. Indeed, we must understand that there may be many reasons why different proteins can show some omologies. One of these is similar function. If a protein is a transmembrane protein, it can share some motifs with other transmembrane proteins. What we need here is not just a generic search for omologies (probably motivated by the dire necessity to answer something to Behe), but a specific model of how a protein already exixting, say a membtane pump, has changed to become part of the engine. It’s not the omologies we are interested in, but the differences. How did those differences come out? What was the function selected for each reasonably probable variation?
That, really, is an abyss for darwinists. We have no model in the whole world of how a new, original protein, with a new, original function, can ne derived from an existing protein, with a completely different function. by means of simple single step molecular variations (yes, molecular variations, not vague morphologic resemblances), each of which selectable because of an important phenotipic reproductive advantage. That’s impossible, even outside the IC model. Such a model does not exist, and there is no logical necessity that it should exist. Functions are not a continuos space, where each function can be reached by small variations with constant increase in function. Functions are context-specific. An enzyme which catalyzes an important reaction is completely inactive in any other. Its specificity is the basis of its importance. We don’t pass from and ordering algorithm to an algorythm which solves differential equations by successive one bit modifications, each bringing new functions. We have to know, in advance, how the new algorithm must work. In other words, we need design.
So, macroevolution of CSI is a myth. Cooption to bypass IC is a myth of a myth. And Ken Miller’s argument of the “unlikely cards” is the parody of a lie.

I take random to mean: determined by accident rather than design. In some cases the following is relevant: lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern.

Variation, in the evolutionary sense lacks a definite plan or purpose.

Wikipedia states the following:

A random process is a repeating process whose outcomes follow no describable deterministic pattern, but follow a probability distribution.

And THAT also fits what I stated.

But anyways- it is always a good thing when the opposing view has been chopped up so badly all that all the opposition has left is unsupported accusations and semantic quibbling.

BTW are you (Jasper) any relation to an imp named Zachriel?