Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

The Emerging Complexity of the Genome

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Recently, a friend who thinks about (and has published on) the nature of the eukaryotic genome, said to me, “Paul, no one really knows what the genome is any more.” He went on to explain that the picture most biologists carry around in their heads, of the relationship of genes to organismal form and function — indeed, the very concept of the “gene” itself — had been seriously challenged by discoveries in comparative genomics and molecular biology within the past few years. How all this will shake out eventually, he said, is anyone’s guess. But the theory of evolution, he concluded, cannot escape the coming turbulence.

For an overview of some of the discoveries my friend had in mind, see this article from today’s Boston Globe. [Registration may be required.]

And welcome to the Golden Age of Biology. Without question, it’s now the most exciting science going. Unfolding astonishing vistas of puzzling data, theory nowhere in sight, hard creative thinking required.

Comments
Religion Prof "I am persuaded that most Christians today are willing to accept scientific explanations of phenomena that were in the past attributed to God and otherwise inexplicable." I think it would be true of all Christians that they would attribute both all scientific and all miraculous phenomena directly or indirectly to God. For in Him all things hold together. There is a common line taken by TEs that Christian ID proponents argue the world is divided into things that God made, and things that made themselves. I do not think that is how we see it. I think we say that extra information, outside fundamental created laws, is necessary for the generation of some observable phenomena. We would also say that this information has not been demonstrated yet to be intrinsic to the cosmic matrix. If it is found in the cosmic matrix, it will simply confirm one model of ID, the fully enabled model. It does seem evident that many on the other side (TE) seem to believe that God must by definition be invisible to scientific observation. Should we be defining what God must and mustn't be? Should we not rather build up a picture by observation and interpretation of data? I think that the fingerprints of God are easily visible in the maths and physics / chemistry of the cosmos. There is not much room for doubt there. Either there are infinite universes or ours is designed. As for biology, there is either a way for unguided physical forces to generate life or there is not. So far there is no scientific theory for the origin of life. There is an open $US1million prize to be claimed if you have one. Dawkins believes and has stated repeatedly that life came from luck. ID argues that the evidence points to a designing intelligence. Assuming an origin for life (luck or ID) with DNA/RNA proteins in working order, we may then believe in the Dawkins extension of luck myth, to help us make sense of life or believe in a more grand, extension of ID myth. We then explore and interact with reality, and experience either the transformation of myth into a working hypothesis, or we find another myth and start again. Dawkins has cemented his myth. He is no longer asking questions. He only builds on what he knows to be true. Christians should always ask questions because we believe there is a real God behind the mist, who says He wants to be known. Thanks for your many thought provoking comments. The fact that you are still here means that you are respectful of a search for truth and that you are saying things that need to be said. This blog is generally not open to those who themselves are not open.idnet.com.au
September 28, 2007
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Peter - I thought John had written his book before January 200AD. :-) BobBob O'H
September 28, 2007
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ReligionProf:
The discussion here leaves me feeling that even Biblical studies, which is placed firmly in the humanities, can be more scientific than ID in this regard.
As a Biblical studies student I can say without reservation that the fantastic probabilities needed to believe in evolution are no where near the likelihoods used in Biblical studies. For example, the estimate of the date for the writing of the gospel of John is less than 1/200. On the other hand, the likelihood of a living cell forming from pre-biotic molecules is as near to zero as can be calculated. If ID should be placed in the humanities, then evolution must be placed in the department of fictional writing.Peter
September 28, 2007
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Thank you, Patrick, for the very interesting link about the eye. I am sure that a lot of darwinist papers can precisely explain how such complex integrations and functions have evolved... ReligionProf (again): "If I want to change a paradigm in my field, the way to do it is to do research, present papers at conferences, and publish articles and books, and attempt to persuade my colleagues and work together to explore the issue further" I have already commented (but you have not answered) about research and publications. Again, you seem to not understand that the issue, here, is not to do specific research in favour of ID (which could anyway be done, if and when the necessary resources will be made available by the prevailing lobby), but rather to correct the false interpretation of the existing data by the general scientific culture. A lot of data already show that ID is right and darwinism is wrong. The problem is not, as you suggest on your blog, that we IDist are imagining a conspiracy. The problem is that we have been trying, as you say, to "attempt to persuade my colleagues and work together to explore the issue further", and the reaction by the official academy has grown ever more intolerant and dogmatic as the ID arguments became more precise and scientific. That's a truth that you (or anybody else) have not to accept as "obvious", but which can be debated in the least details (and has been debated many times, here and elsewhere). But the results? Have you ever read Pharyngula? Have you ever read (and tried to understand) the gross objections to Behe's and Dembski's patient arguments, by most biologists? Have you ever read (and tried to understand) what you have been reading in your blog? This is not a conspiracy, it is only a feast of intolerance, superficiality and arrogance. And a desperate defense of what cannot be defended. So, before writing again on your blog of typewriters, of probabilities, of DNA bases and similar, or before hiding behind the obstentation of supposed demonstrations of the evolution of the eye which have never been given, I ask you: can you meet a serious discussion about probabilities, random searches, and the meaning of information in biological structures? Can you address in a credible way Dembski's extremely detailed arguments? Have you read Dembski's and Marks' papers (yes, exactly those censored on the Baylor site) demonstrating that evolutionary algorithms used in darwinian simulations are a fraud? Isn't that research? Isn't that discussion? And what has been the answer from the other side? Let's not speak of conspiracy. A conspiracy requires intelligence, organization, secrecy. Here we can only see a public display of brute force, of obstination in ignorance, and of self-evident arrogance.gpuccio
September 28, 2007
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ReligionProf, Interesting that what you picked up in my comment was the mention of YEC and you passed over my criticisms of Sean Carroll. That by itself is revealing when we are talking about support for Darwinian evolutionary theory. You wander off to a peripheral point. Please provide us with some concrete examples based on science that ID is wrong on as opposed to saying practicing scientists disagree with ID. What specifically do they disagree with? You already admitted that ID and YEC are different so criticism has to be based on what ID alone espouses and have no relation to YEC. You offered Sean Carroll and we are willing to discuss any claim he has made. Go to his two books and bring up his claims and we can have a discussion. Have any biologist of your choosing help you with the task. We welcome it. Why don't you? You can then be the judge whether we are more honest and knowledgeable or your experts are. Don't resort to arguments from authority. Would you have accepted arguments from authority about religion in the early 1500's. The arguments about publishing is nonsense. Follow what has just happened at Baylor to see if you think publishing is all that easy or if it isn't being actively inhibited. Do you believe ID has obstacles for publication that have nothing to do with the scientific merit? Or are we all just paranoid here?jerry
September 28, 2007
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Speaking of the eye: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v449/n7158/full/nature06105.html Discusses it in the context of digital sampling and the Nyquist limit, analog-to-digital conversion, millisecond precision, combinatorial code representation of 4-D signals, motion pictures, image processing, neuronal and genetic codes, etc.Patrick
September 28, 2007
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Jerry:
No it is about how DNA testing of criminals have shown that certain criminals were guilty or not guilty of certain crimes.
Equivocation*- If we can track people via DNA then if chimps and humans have similar DNA we can track both populations back to a common ancestor. Another bit of bait for the gullible... (*the theory of evolution relies heavily on equivocation, ie because we see slight variations the major transitions are also explained)Joseph
September 28, 2007
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ReligionProf, Did you know that all current eyes were present in the Cambrian Explosion, 520 million years ago and none present just a few short million years before. Also no new eyes have evolved since then. So eyes come out of nowhere and then go no further. Not a particularly Darwinian idea. The series of drawings by Nilsson and Pelger that is often used to justify a gradual evolving of the eye is based on a computer model and in no way mimics anything seen in the real world. Anyone with a good command of Adobe Illustrator could develop similar drawings and then claim it all could happen by small incremental changes. These are called "just so" stories and were a staple of Darwin himself to show how evolution could occur. The only problem with these stories is there never has been any empirical evidence that any occurred. So why the sudden appearance of different types of eyes so long ago and no new variations since. Who are the liars and the ignorant? We ask you to show us that ID supporters are either.jerry
September 28, 2007
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When I read the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for example, I do not get the impression from the many papers related to evolution that those working in that aspect of biology are either ignorant themselves or are promoting ignorance.
Do any of those papers deal with the evolution of the eye/ vision system? Or are they basically dealing with small scale changes, like the beak of the finch, antibiotic resistance, and othger variations that arise in a population?
Reading books by major biologists (for instance I’d highly recommend Sean Carroll’s recent books on evolutionary developmental biology, or evo-devo for short) one doesn’t get the impression that they are ignorant, but quite the opposite.
I have read his latest two books. They are filled with wishful thinking and speculation based on an (untestable) assumption. Back to the eye/ vision system- I would say the data, evidence and/ or observation that the eye/ vision system evolved is the same now as it was back in Darwin's day- That is we observe organisms with differing levels of a vision system- from the light sensitive spot on some single-celled organisms to the human eye/ vision system- and say there is the evidence which shows they evolved- meaning the differing levels of systems are evidence for their evolution. Complete trash. But the gullible buy it so it is recycled...Joseph
September 28, 2007
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I don't think it is a card to play in the way you suggest. I simply provided some autobiographical background to my own perspective. But I would point out that the same perception you have of YEC, other scientists have of you and ID. This is one reason why the self-congratulatory use of "obvious" on this forum seems to me dishonest - I for one would not be comfortable claiming that some idiosyncratic result of my research in my own field should be obvious to everyone and that its failure to gain acceptance is because everyone else is stubborn, hard-hearted, dishonest, or misinformed. If I want to change a paradigm in my field, the way to do it is to do research, present papers at conferences, and publish articles and books, and attempt to persuade my colleagues and work together to explore the issue further. The discussion here leaves me feeling that even Biblical studies, which is placed firmly in the humanities, can be more scientific than ID in this regard.ReligionProf
September 28, 2007
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ReligionProf, I have read Sean Carroll's two books on evo devo and Darwin's ideas and I will repeat. There is nothing in them that supports Darwin's ideas that isn't trivial. Where is the meat? He provides none and he is a major spokesperson for evolution so what can we expect from your average biologist? The terms liars, ignorant have come up. Let me apply it to Sean Carroll. What is the title of the Introduction to Sean Carroll's book, "The Making of the Fittest?" This section of his book is titled "Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt" and it is about DNA testing. Is is about showing how species evolved over time. No it is about how DNA testing of criminals have shown that certain criminals were guilty or not guilty of certain crimes. Now I ask you why does that lead off his book on evolution and with the chapter title he gives it. Is that lying or ignorant? Why did he choose to do it? By the way I personally think YEC science is nonsense and have no time for it so that stereotype will not work with a lot of us here. Yes, there are a lot of YEC's involved in ID but there are many who are not and will constantly be a check of YEC claims. So don't assume that playing the YEC card is your way out of a rigorous understandig of evolutionary processes.jerry
September 28, 2007
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ReligionProf Presumably you are one of the few people on this forum who attributes intelligent design to aliens or time travellers? If you attribute it to a deity, wouldn’t that involve believing a miracle occurred? All I can do is take the evidence available and use it to bound a set of possibilities. As far as I can determine the creation of organic life takes sophisticated but wholly material expertise in biochemistry. This capability is not unlike present human expertise in biochemistry - just more of it. That establishes a lower capability bound so yes, an alien civilization on the order of human civilization is a distinct possibility. The upper bound is of course some entity which can create an entire universe and exists outside it. Science has no means and no clue where to start in characterizing anything that exists outside the observable universe so that seems to be a dead end - there's an impenetrable brick wall beyond which we can't see. It seems to me the entire universe was designed by something but it's not amenable to scientific investigation so I don't bother much with cosmological ID. The alternative to a designed universe is the so-called infinite multi-verse but that leads to so many absurdities like Boltzmann Brains that it just doesn't pass the giggle test. Time travel is not possible under our current understanding of the laws of nature so I don't include that as a possibility. The speed of light is another law of nature which places a bound on any possible designers - it or they must be physically located such that they can or could have had causal connection with the earth. I focus on biological ID because that IS amenable to further scientific investigation. I have high hopes that comparative genomics will provide enough data to make some reasonable inferences as to if, when, and where intelligent agency was involved in the evolution of organic life. My hunch is that we'll find life already had the complexity to produce the diversity we see today as far back in time as we can go. This is congruent with the hypothesis called "Directed Panspermia" which was perhaps most famously described by Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel in the 1970's. From Francis Crick Remembered
Crick and Orgel wrote in their book 'Life Itself,' "an honest man, armed with all the knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going."
In the intervening 30 years our available knowledge has increased and all it does is make the origin of life appear even more miraculous. Life is vastly more complex than Crick and Orgel knew about it back then. A reasonable definition of "miracle" is anything which is so improbable under our understanding of statistical mechanics that we shouldn't ever observe it in a finite universe. That said, intelligent agency routinely does things that are, while not violoating any laws of physics, virtually impossible via time and chance and the laws of nature acting alone. A space shuttle or a computer or a Shakespearian play coming into existence without intelligence agency is practically impossible in a finite universe yet when intelligence gets involved such things become commonplace and wholly unmiraculous. DaveScot
September 28, 2007
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ReligionProf: probably it's not worthwhile continuing to comment about what you write, considering also the general tone of what you go on writing on your blog. Anyway, just not to leave important things unsaid: 1) You say: "So am I correct in thinking that you believe most biologists to be ignorant, or liars, or both?" Again, it seems that your main argument is conformism. Why are you so sure that the majority of biologist should be right? Are you aware of what the majority of scientists believed at the times of Galileo, just to make an example? Or do you think that science, today, has become absolute knowledge, that it cannot be wrong? Have you ever been interested in the philosophy of science? Have you ever heard of people like Kuhn, Polanyi, Feyerabend? Maybe most biologists are not ignorant or liars. I think, anyway, that most biologists have never seriously addressed the problem of the real validity of the general theories they have been trained to accept, like darwinian evolution. In the history of science, the modeling of general theories is usually addressed by a few, not by the general category. In that sense, most biologists are not ignorant (of their personal field of work) or liars, they are just passive and conformist in relation to the general theories underlying their work. That's not such a strange thing to conceive, it happens in all fields of knowledge. The few biologists who are actively working at the modeling and at the defense of the general theory of evolution, the Dawkins and Millers and so on, are probably: a) ignorant of the true arguments of their counterpart, that is ID b) ideologically motivated, and unfairly partial to the established view, and therefore: c) in many cases, liars. I hope that's clear enough for you. 2) You say: "I do not find the appearance of irreducible complexity a persuasive basis, because it has proved an inaccurate guide in the past (see the eye, again)" Just to be clear, the eye "is" irreducibly complex, many times irreducibly complex, and no one has ever shown how it could evolve by darwinian pathways. You go on saying that it has been done, but that's a (maybe unconscious) lie. In his work about irreducible complexity, Behe has always made it clear that any attempt to prove that an irreducibly complex structure can really evolve by darwinian procedures must: a) give a credible step by step pathway which can explain how the structure was gradually built, at the biochemical level (not at the cartoon level of gross morphological homologies) b) explain how each step could be selected, against the huge improbabilities of pure random search. If you know of anyone who has only attempted to do something of that kind for the eye, please let us know. They have attempted to do that for the flagellum, recurring to forced homologies and to fairy tales of cooption. You see, those are lies, gross, political, conscious lies, for which there is no excuse. The problem is: a) Darwin had expressed some doubts about the possibility of explaining such a complex organ as the eye by step by step methods, and so it was necessary that somebody created a gross fairy tale about light sensitive spots evolving into eyes, just to ease the general conscience. b) Behe has shown that there are many, many irreducibly complex structures in biology, and has cited the bacterial flagellum as a good example (just one of the many). So, it was necessary that somebody tried to create a fairy tale explanation of how the flagellum could arise. So, in a sense, ID can be criticized: it seems to daily inspire, and is therefore indirectly responsible of, the worst darwinian lies.gpuccio
September 28, 2007
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When I read the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, for example, I do not get the impression from the many papers related to evolution that those working in that aspect of biology are either ignorant themselves or are promoting ignorance. I think one can only have this impression if one exclusively reads books promoting either intelligent design or young earth creationism. Reading books by major biologists (for instance I'd highly recommend Sean Carroll's recent books on evolutionary developmental biology, or evo-devo for short) one doesn't get the impression that they are ignorant, but quite the opposite. DaveScot: Presumably you are one of the few people on this forum who attributes intelligent design to aliens or time travellers? If you attribute it to a deity, wouldn't that involve believing a miracle occurred?ReligionProf
September 28, 2007
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ReligionProf, There have been several biologist who have posted here and not one has ever been able to provide any evidence of support for Darwin's ideas other than the trivial. We ask all the time they come but they never can answer. So are they liars or ignorant? Or something else. On your site you indicate there is a continuous stream of research supporting evolution. Maybe you should try to to present some of the conclusions of this research here and see if we are ignorant or liars or something else. My guess is that you will start to learn something and have your eyes opened. You are a professor at Butler, bring anyone from their biology department to assist you. It will be a positive exercise for everyone. My guess is that they will all have better things to do than to try and debate ID.jerry
September 28, 2007
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So am I correct in thinking that you believe most biologists to be ignorant, or liars, or both?
What biologists have stated that there is is data, evidence and/ or observations that demonstrate that the eye/ vision system has evolved? And what is that data, evidence and/ or observation? I have heard the claim (that the eye/ vision system has evolved) but that is about it. IOW no one has ever substantiated that claim. Most biologists are specialists who rely on other specialists for the data in which they are not a first-hand researcher. So ignorance is a definite possibility. Most of the theory of evolution and UCD is based on ignorance. That is just a fact.Joseph
September 28, 2007
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gpuccio #46 Bravo!mike1962
September 27, 2007
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ReligionProf So am I correct in thinking that you believe most biologists to be ignorant, or liars, or both? I believe they are clinging to the modern synthesis due to an unreasonable faith that time and chance works miracles. I'd just as soon not call people ignorant or liars just because I think their faith doesn't have a solid grounding in reality. I don't believe in miracles. I believe in the laws of physics and statistical probabilities. DaveScot
September 27, 2007
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So am I correct in thinking that you believe most biologists to be ignorant, or liars, or both?ReligionProf
September 27, 2007
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I don’t want to get into the name-calling implicit in suggesting that most evolutionary biologists and other educated people are ‘gullible’ - suggesting that there is an evil, worldwide conspiracy that I once thought was plausible, but now no longer do.
Name calling aside- there isn't any data, evidence or observations that demonstrate the eye/ vision system could evolve. Nevermind evolve via culled genetic accidents. Therefore anyone who says there is would be either ignorant or a liar.Joseph
September 27, 2007
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I don't want to get into the name-calling implicit in suggesting that most evolutionary biologists and other educated people are 'gullible' - suggesting that there is an evil, worldwide conspiracy that I once thought was plausible, but now no longer do. I've responded to Janice's allusion to 'millstones' on my blog - I think it is an important point, but I do not feel that it is appropriate to pursue that conversation further here. If she is so inclined she is welcome to go to http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2007/09/on-millstones-and-stumbling-blocks.html and say anything she wants to about my views and about me personally.ReligionProf
September 27, 2007
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My principle concern is when this is used as a justification for asserting knowledge (i.e. that something was produced through intelligent agency) where admitting ignorance (i.e. we don’t at present know how something came about) would seem more appropriate.
If we don't know then there is no reason to push the blind watchmaker and reject ID.
The idea that the eye could evolve was once thought ludicrous. Now it can be shown to be plausible.
Only the gullible believe that.
How do we know at what point we are dealing with something inexplicable in naturalistic terms, as opposed to merely as yet unexplained?
We make the best inference given the data, evidence and observations. And yes, as with all inferences, future knowledge can either confirm or refute it.
I do not find the appearance of irreducible complexity a persuasive basis, because it has proved an inaccurate guide in the past (see the eye, again) and does not appear to me to be as readily quantifiable as Dembski’s work maintains.
But you are mistaken about the eye/ vision system.
My own view is that once one is dealing with intervention by a personal agent (whether human or supernatural), one is not doing science in the traditional sense.
Umm archaeology is all about intervention. Is archeaology not science in the traditional sense? What is the option- that is in the absence of ID or special creation? It is nothing more than the science-stopping sheer dumb luck. Is that how your "God" does things?Joseph
September 27, 2007
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cont. (technical difficulties) P is less than 0.1 gets no one interested. It means there's a 10% chance that the result is due to chance. P is less than 0.05 is getting sort of interesting but P is less than 0.001 is very interesting indeed. Such a result is always considered highly significant. If you'd read and understood anything much of Dr Dembski's work on detecting intelligent design you would realise that he is talking about probabilities that are so very, very, very, very much smaller than 1 in 1,000 that there is, indeed, justification for asserting knowledge. Appealing to ignorance in those circumstances is not appropriate in the slightest. To do so would be next door to either crazy or stupid. As for the idea being shown to be plausible that the eye could evolve, do let us all know who has accomplished this amazing feat. Better still, please give us a link to a page in which this person has argued his or her case. I do hope there's more to the argument than the same old talk of light sensitive cells and dermal cupping.Janice
September 27, 2007
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Someone accuses someone else of "engaging in insulting rhetoric" and then goes on to say about that someone else,
You sound very much like me in my teenage years - certain you are right, with no room for anyone, even God, to get through to you and teach you something.
Looks like the pot calling the kettle black to me. You know what, ReligionProf? I sincerely do wish you well. Too bad that you, a religious scholar and a professed Christian of the Baptist persuasion, can't do the same for me. But leaving all that aside, you wrote:
My principle concern is when [the intelligent design inference] is used as a justification for asserting knowledge (i.e. that something was produced through intelligent agency) where admitting ignorance (i.e. we don’t at present know how something came about) would seem more appropriate. The idea that the eye could evolve was once thought ludicrous. Now it can be shown to be plausible.
You know all that stuff you read in the papers about how scientists have shown, say, that drinking coffee causes pancreatic cancer? These researchers come to their conclusions probabilistically. That is, they look for statistically significant results. P Janice
September 27, 2007
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ReligionProf: As you have expressed a few more specific argomentations, I feel obliged to answer them. 1) YEC, ID and science. I have never been a YEC, and though I respect them (after all, Salvador Cordova is one of them) I don't think there is anything scientific in what they believe. The problem is that, in science, you cannot make the assumption that your personal, philosophical or religious, view of reality must necesserily be proven, or that it has to guide all your scientific reasoning. That's exactly the difference with ID. I believe in God, and I have never needed ID for that. I need ID to respect myself as a scientist and as a rational person. I have bever understood how the darwinian evolution theory could work, and ID has made me understand fully that it cannot, and I mean cannot, work. The work of Dembski has given me the formalism and rational analysis to support what was for me intuitionally evident. The work of Behe has provided other fundamental insights, of a different kind. Both approaches, the mathemathical and the biological, are complemetary and strongly support one another. 2) From the standpoint of the philosophy of science, ID is much more natural and scientific than darwinian evolution. There is a huge mistake in most discussion about that, about the word "naturalism". Naturalism, be it philosophical or methodological, is never a scientific approach, it is always ideological. Any "naturalism", indeed, presumes to know exactly what nature is. That is a big mistake, both philosophically and scientifically. "Nature" may be many different things, but it is not a scientific concept. In reality, naturalists consider as "nature" everythinh consistent with their view of reality. Let me make an example. At present, a physicist would probably consider "nature" anything he can explain with what is known to him, that is the 3-4 fundamental forces and the current models for big bang etc. Anything unexplainable that way would be rejected or considered just something which will be explained in the future, but always according to what is known now. Only a minority of scientists usually accept the prospect that their understanding of reality could be easily and completely changed, that a scientific revolution could happen any moment. That's a very important point. ID is not about proving God. It is about proving that our present understanding of a reality that we observe daily, that is biological beings, is indeed beyod all present mechanical explanations. That means that not only God could well be a fundamental part of nature, but also that all our understanding of nature could be revolutioned. I have said many times on this blog that, in my opinion, ID is a door open towards many fundamental problems in our present scientific understanding of reality. ID brings strongly into discussion the "problems" (you may call them Mysteries, if you prefer) of consciousness, of life, of intelligence, of the relationship between spirit and matter, of the mystery of matter itself, of the nature of freedom and creativity, of the meaning of meaning. All these themes are indeed elated, and all of them are related to the problem of life. It is not by chance that Denyse O' Leary, one of the main supporters of ID, has a parallel blog against the so called "naturalistic" explanation of consciousness in neurosciences: the theory of strong Artificial Intelligence, indeed, is the perfect companion of darwinian evolution in the squalid defeat of rationality in the last 50 years of human thought. As a person interested to the complex interreletions between science, philosophy and religion, you should perhaps understand that what is at stake here is much more than a simple "role" of one kind or another for a Creator. Here we are discussing a whole conception of reality. So called atheistic materialists, like Dawkins and co., are supporting a vision of reality which has the merit of being consistent, and none other. For the rest, it is irrational, simplistic, disappointing, completely detached from any perception of reality, and if people could understand it really, they would run away orrified. Such an ideology denies (and I mean denies) the existence of consiousness, of free will, of purpose, of meaning, and tolerates the concept of life only if defined in terms of its support to the darwinian theory. It is inhuman, it is ugly, it is boring. There is nothing in it. But, at least, it is consistent. More or less. But theistic evolutionists, people like Ken Miller and, perhaps, you, those are really a mystery to me. What do they mean? What is their view of life? Do you realli think that your hands typing can be explained in two different ways, one purely mechanical and purposeless, rigidly defined by physical laws, and the other spiritual, pertaining to intentions and consciousness and perceptions and meaning? Do you really believe that? Do you really believe (like Dawkins) that the display of intelligence, beauty, function, meaning, creativity, originality, love for diversity, and so on, which we daily observe in the living world is the result of blind, mechanical forces, and yet (unlike Dawkins), that those mechanical forces were designed by an intelligent God so that all those things could be obtained by themselves? Do you believe that consciousness is abyproduct of the physial activity of the brain, and yet that we have something called soul in some unknown part of all that? Naturalism is not science. It is a poor caricature of science. It is the arrogant assumption, always so frquent among conformist people of all times, that we understand all, at least in principle, and that we only need to "develop" and apply what we already know. It reduces science to a dull application of known rules, to a boring lab activity. The great advancements of science in the first half of the twentieth century were not due to costly experimentation, although experiments certainly have their role. Einstein, Plank, Bohr, Schroedinger, Dirac and others have developed a view of reality which was not only new, but totally unpredictable. Today, with the unknown entities of dark matter and dark energy to rule the field of our view of the universe, physics is facing a new, fundamental challenge. Shall we find our Einsteins and Bohrs? And biology? Biology is at present the worst of sciences, in the sense that it has the sad primate of witnessing perhaps the biggest advancements in the collection of astounding data, practically daily, and of defending at the same time the oldest, the most stupid, and the most irrational of scientific ideologies: darwinian evolution and strict materialism-determinism. No, ID is not about proving God. God has no need of being proved that way, there are other and better ways for that. Id is about us, human beings searching a scientific comprehension that, although it may be essentialy limited, deserves better treatment and more sincere pursuit.gpuccio
September 26, 2007
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Religious prof, I am going to suggest you do two things to increase the qualiry of your dialogue. I know I am being presumptious and even a bit didactic, but here goes: 1) Read "The Design Inference," by William Dembski from cover to cover. It is only fair that you come to this conversation with a working understanding of the concepts involved. Surely, you can afford such an investment in time and effort. The reason I recommend this book in particular is because it not only deals with ID science, it also provides important information about the intersection between science and philosophy/theology, subject matter I believe you would find interesting. If you are sincere, you will charter this territory. 2) Be wary of those who do not understand or will misrepresent the issues involved. I have visited the link you refer to several times, and I assure you that it is not a reliable source of edification on the subject of ID. It's OK to get both sides, but do get both sides.StephenB
September 26, 2007
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Perhaps some background information would be appropriate. I'm a Christian (a Baptist, to be more specific, although I've spent time in other church contexts as well) and I used to be a young-earth creationist. It was the presentation of the evidence by mainstream biologists and other relevant scientists that persuaded me that the books I had been reading by young-earth creationists had been misconstruing the evidence. Although I am ready to acknowledge differences between the YEC and ID positions, there is at least one similarity that I think comes across in what you wrote. Both have to maintain that there is a conspiracy by "Darwinists" to prevent those who are doing good honest science from having their results published in peer reviewed journals. I do not find that argument persuasive. On the one hand, I am not a scientist, and that can be held against me. On the other hand, the proponents of intelligent design are certainly not unwilling to appeal to the general public to take a stand on these matters, and so I think it would be hypocritical to do what Janice did and reject my views simply because they are those of a non-specialist, and yet expect there to be intelligent, well-informed discussion and adoption of the ID viewpoint among non-scientists. My viewpoint, at the end of the day, is this. In the past, an appeal was made to things in the observable world that appeared to be designed, as proof of a designer. Appeals were made to the inexplicable as pointers to God as explanation. These sorts of arguments led, as scientific knowledge advanced, and God was not needed as a 'hypothesis' (to make an allusion to Laplace) in scientific explanations, to the perception that science was disproving God. I am persuaded that most Christians today are willing to accept scientific explanations of phenomena that were in the past attributed to God and otherwise inexplicable. I thus do not see why the current frontiers of our knowledge should continue to be proclaimed as the gaps into which God may be reinserted as an explanation. My own view is that God is not a competing explanation but a complementary one, just as the movements of my hands as I type this can be adequately described in terms of electrical impulses and muscle contractions, with an explanation in terms of my will and my desire to communicate being a different level of explanation, rather than an alternative one.ReligionProf
September 26, 2007
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ReligionProf: Janice was probably a bit ruder than me, and in a spirit of friendly communication I regret that, although I can certainly agree with most things she says. As you have answered her and not me, maybe her strategy was better than mine. Anyway, back to your new post. Some comments: 1) I don't see why you go on referring to the wedge document to judge the ID scientific movement. I have no interest in the wedge document, which was in no way a scientific act. Similarly, I have no interest in darwinist foolish political ramblings. I am only interested in scientific discussion, and so should you, at least as far as we are discussing ideas, and not politics. Politics, even scientific politics, has its role, and I would not run away from a bit of fight for the things I believe, but science and the search for truth are another thing. 2) About hypothesis testing. Here is one of the most confounding and misled arguments in the darwinist field. First of all, it is obvious that most research is made today from a darwinist point of view, because all resources are owned by the darwinist lobby. Second, darwinism and ID are really alternative hypotheses about the origin and evolution of life, and therefore, as I have said many times, any research in the field is a research about both darwinism and ID. Facts are owned by nobody. As far as a researcher honestly gathers pertinent facts, for me he is testing ID as much as he is testing darwinism. The interpretation of the facts, obviously, is another matter, and there anyone can see how the darwinist interpretation of new facts is always forced, partial, often completely inconsistent. The mapping of the human genome, the low number of genes, the 98,5% of non coding DNA, the similiratities between genomes of very distant species, are only a few of a huge amount of facts which have no explanation in the traditional, darwinian scenario. What is happening is in reality what Thomas Kuhn calls a scientific revolution: the darwinist paradigm, totally inadequate to explain reality as we know it today, is being defended against all reason, after having been falsified many times. With time (not too much, I hope), it will crash under the weight of its own lies. 3) About redefining science. I think you, and not Janice, should read the ID sources (not the wedge document) trying to understand what they say. Neither Dembski nor Behe, who are certainly the most important ID thinkers, have ever tried to redefine science. The ID arguments are completely within the boundaries of science. The opposite is true. Darwinists, in a desperate attempt not to discuss ID on a peer level, have often adopted philosophical, non scientific arguments (see the "who designed the designer" and similar crap), and have totally redefined science in the sense of materialistic, reductionist philosophy, which has nothing really scientific in it (if we consider science as a search for an objective truth), and is rather a squalid antireligious religion, rationally poor and cognitively depressing. 4) About conformism (your conformism): you say: "I am simply repeating the views of mainstream scientists". That's true. You are simply repeating things which are wrong, although believed by many people, without even understanding what they mean. At least, you should try to express some personal argument, although wrong. 5) Oops! I am wrong. You have definitely expressed some personal arguments, in the article you linked in your first post. At least, I hope it is only your personal argument, because at least you are, it seems, a religion prof, and you may be excused for understanding nothing of mathematics and probability. But you are not excused when you try to judge, on such a shallow basis, people like Dembski or Behe, who, believe me, "do" understand what they say. Your treatment of the monkey problem is, at best, ridiculous. You should ask yourself what information is, what an informational search is, the meaning of statistics and probabilities. How can you think that there is any difference if one randomly types on a keyboard or, say, randomly moves blocks of something with letters on them, or if the alphabet is made of four or twenty letters? Just make correct calculations of the probabilities, and believe me, there is no difference if you are using a binary code, or a decimal code, or any letter code. Numbers are numbers, and mathematics is, thanks God, a universal language. 6) You say: "Personally, I opt for the view of the mainstream of scientists who are persuaded that neither religious nor materialistic worldviews are required results of using the scientific method to investigate the natural world." What do you mean? What are you saying? I, and like me any serious ID believer, am totally convinced that "neither religious nor materialistic worldviews are required results of using the scientific method to investigate the natural world". Why are you saying that this is "the view of the mainstream of scientists"? This is only the correct view of any scientist. This is the correct view of ID. This should be the correct view of darwinian scientists, if they were not too ocuupied in trying to defend themselves from ID by recurring to materialistic ideology. For the last time, I repeat: ID has nothing to do with religion or phylosophy. It is science. You can agree or not agree with its arguments, but you have to do that on a scientific level. Darwinists don't do that. I have not found a serious scientific objection to ID in years, in the darwinian field. Only arrogant intolerance, and a strict adherence to concepts of science so deformed as to not allow discussion of ID. Religion, religion religion of the worst kind. Pure intolerance and fear. And conformism, everywhere, the depressing conviction that "I must be right because a lot of important people think like me". 7) Anyway, if I am wrong, and if you "do" have personal and credible arguments against ID, please let me know. I am here to answer, and I love a good discussion.gpuccio
September 26, 2007
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I have no problem with the possibility of an 'intelligent design' inference in principle. My principle concern is when this is used as a justification for asserting knowledge (i.e. that something was produced through intelligent agency) where admitting ignorance (i.e. we don't at present know how something came about) would seem more appropriate. The idea that the eye could evolve was once thought ludicrous. Now it can be shown to be plausible. How do we know at what point we are dealing with something inexplicable in naturalistic terms, as opposed to merely as yet unexplained? I do not find the appearance of irreducible complexity a persuasive basis, because it has proved an inaccurate guide in the past (see the eye, again) and does not appear to me to be as readily quantifiable as Dembski's work maintains. To make a comparison, at what point does one give up investigating a criminal case and say that it not only has not been solved but CANNOT be solved in principle? My own view is that once one is dealing with intervention by a personal agent (whether human or supernatural), one is not doing science in the traditional sense. To use an example, if a scientist is running an experiment, and a rival sneaks into his lab late at night and tampers with the apparatus, this would invalidate the experiment's aims, which is to study what happens in the absence of such interventions. Of course, this also leads nicely to the question of how we detect intervention by a personal agent. One possibility would be to compare this individual's results with others conducted independently. The fact that his results were so different would probably lead him, quite logically, to suspect personal interventions. If we find other planets at a comparable distance from their suns and with similar starting points, and they all fail to produce life through natural processes, that might be more suggestive of something other than natural processes having caused life on earth. But at present, we can only say 'One out of one people surveyed said...', which is not an adequate basis for assessing the probability or otherwise of life emerging through natural processes. I am not sure why I am more comfortable than some other Christians seem to be with natural explanations for things. Perhaps it is because it seems that if one finds natural explanations threatening, then the fact that our individual form is shaped by DNA instructions rather than inexplicably by God's hand, that whirlwinds and lightning can be explained in meteorological terms - in short, all of science should be threatening to a religious viewpoint that seeks to hold on to a prescientific view of the world. For me, science has shown its ability to explain the world adequately, and I concur with most Christians that speaking about God is another way of looking at the same events, and not a competing explanation.ReligionProf
September 26, 2007
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If the definition of science doesn't allow for the possibility of the actions of intelligent agency in the universe then the definition needs to change. Intelligent agency is a proven quantity. It's proven that intelligent agency can do all sorts of things from building spacecraft to manipulating the DNA sequences in living things. There is no rational basis for thinking that human agency is the sole instance of intelligent agency at work in the universe. If materialist philosphy refuses to admit any other intelligence then it's a philosophy in denial of the plain evidence before it. Statistical mechanics tells us what to expect from undirected laws of physics operating on matter/energy. Statistical mechanics is rational and reliable about explaining and predicting what we observe. However, when we observe something that appears to defy the predictions of statistical mechanics then we're either missing something in our calculation or an intelligent agency has intervened to cause organization that shouldn't otherwise exist. A space shuttle can, in principle, assemble from the undirected interaction of matter and energy. However, statistical mechanics informs us that the probability of a space shuttle assembling without guidance is so improbable in a finite universe the size and age of ours that we can confidently predict we'll never observe one. Yet there's a whole fleet of them. The actions of intelligent agency explain how things almost impossible become quite possible. Statistical mechanics is a reliable positive indicator of intelligent agency. It doesn't work in the negative - it can't rule out the actions of intelligent agency but rather it makes it unneccessary. This is the real basis (or should be) of rational materialist science. It attempts to explain what we observe without resort to the actions of intelligent agency. It's quite reasonable to resist any inference of intelligent agency by all rational and evidentiary means because, after all, it remains a fact that there is just one observed instance of intelligent agency and its actions are bounded in time and space. If evidence of intelligent agency acting outside the scope of human agency is presented I have no problem with taking extraordinary pains to find an explanation that doesn't involve agency. I'll resist such an explanation as long as reason allows but no longer. I won't take the unreasonable position that there is no possibility of non-human intelligent agency. However, there must come a point when it becomes reasonable to make an intelligent design inference. At some point all other explanations for observed organization become inadequate. I think we've reached that point in trying to explain the organization of organic life without resort to intelligent agency. The final nail in the unintelligent coffin for me was the observation of random mutation & natural selection working over billions of trillions of generations in p.falciparum and generating nothing in the way of non-trivial organization. This was a fair trial for RM+NS and it failed to produce what neo-darwinian theory predicted it would produce. It obeyed the predictions of statistical mechanics as ID proponents held. Unless there's some other unknown unintelligent mechanism that IS adequate the only reasonable explanation still on the table is intelligent design. It's time to admit it as the best explanation. That's not to say it's the only possible explanation but it deserves top billing at this point in time. Anything less than top billing is understandable given the inertia of the RM+NS theory but active suppression of the intelligent design explanation is driven by irrational desire and/or hidden agendas rather than honest and open scientific inquiry and education.DaveScot
September 26, 2007
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