Computers vs. Darwinism? A computer teacher comments
| December 12, 2008 | Posted by O'Leary under Irreducible Complexity |
Recently, I have been reading Angus Menuge on the failure of Darwinism – from a computer teacher’s perspective. Menuge is a Professor of philosophy and computer science at Concordia University in Wisconsin. The following excerpt from his book, Agents under Fire is the clearest explanation I have read so far of why the Darwinist argument that intricate machines inside the cell can be built up without any intelligence underlying the universe are unbelievable:
A Diagnosis of the Failure of Darwinism
Repeatedly, we have seen that even if gene duplication can make all the parts of an irreducibly complex system simultaneously available, Darwinism cannot provide credible solutions to the problems of coordinating these parts and ensuring their interface compatibility.
From my perspective as a teacher of computer programming, this limitation of Darwinism as a problem-solving strategy is surprising. First, consider the analogous problem of coordinating a program’s instructions. As programs become more complex, it becomes virtually impossible to get them to work if they are written from the bottom-up, one instruction at a time.With so many details, it is highly likely that some critical task is specified incompletely or in the wrong order. To avoid such errors, programmers find it essential to use top-down design. Top-down design is a problem-solving strategy that begins with an abstract specification of the program task and then breaks it down into several main sub-problems, each of which is refined further into its subproblems. This strategy is epitomized by such things as recipes, where the task is broken down into ingredients and utensils (initialization), and the mixing and cooking of the ingredients (processing), and a specification of what to do when the dish is ready (finalization). The same approach is clear in the instructions to build “partially assembled” furniture, such as a bookcase.First, the assembly of the bookcase is reduced to its major tasks, constructing the frame, back, and shelves. Then each of these tasks is specified in detail. At every level, the order of the tasks is important; for example, the back and the shelves cannot be installed until the frame is complete. A quality top-down design is sensitive to the proper placement of tasks, ensuring that given task is not omitted, redundantly repeated, or performed out of sequence. In this way, top-down design facilitates the proper coordination of problem-solving modules.Unfortunately, natural selection cannot implement top-down design. Natural selection is a bottom-up atomistic process. Tasks must be solved gradually, independent from one another. There is no awareness of the future function of the assembled system to coordinate these tasks. If even intelligent agents (experienced programmers) require top-down design to solve complex problems, it is tendentious to suppose that unintelligent selection can solve problems at least as complex without the aid of top-down design.In fact, even with top-down design, programmers find that it is necessary top do two levels of testing to produce a functional program. One level, unit testing, tests the function of a module in isolation from the whole program. The other level, integration testing, ensures that when all the modules are assembled, they interact in such a way as to solve the overall problem .Both kinds of testing are needed: it is a fallacy of composition to argue that since all the part of a system work, the assembled system will also work.Compare the following examples.Each football player is fit; therefore the team will play effectively.Each brick is sound; therefore, the resulting wall will be strong.The conclusions do not follow because it matters how bricks and players are coordinated, and it matters whether they are compatible. Say that each player is fit but that the offense tries to score only when it has lost possession: the team will be hopelessly uncoordinated. And if each player has a different play for the same circumstance, the team will suffer from incompatible elements.Likewise, if bricks are sound but are piled at random or are incompatible in size and shape, it will be impossible to build an effective wall.Unfortunately, Darwinism commits precisely this fallacy of composition in the case of irreducibly complex systems. It has to suppose that the independent unit testing of atomic components (which natural selection provides) is a plausible way of coordinating and attuning those components for their combined role. But it is not. The majority of subsets drawn from the power sets of sound football players and bricks will be completely dysfunctional when combined as teams or walls.Note 65: From another perspective, Darwinism is also guilty of the reverse fallacy, the fallacy of division. It argues that because a given “irreducibly complex” system has a function, it therefore must be composed of subsystems with the same or a different function. But by itself the flagellum’s motor neither supports locomotion or any other function.(pp. 120-21, Agents under Fire) You won’t read that in your government-funded textbook, so save this link.
More on Angus Menuge (fingered as part of this evil conspiracy):New Scientist conspiracy files: A philosophy prof responds
Dorian Gray, I hope you believe in miracles, because …
New Scientist: More from the “just connect the dots and … ” files
Scare their pants off before they even start reading – the art of the panic headline
Also at the Post-Darwinist
Remember one gene codes for one protein? You ARE your genes? And all that? (Good. Now exercise your brain by forgetting it.)
Science and popular culture: You as a billboard for current science ideas
Fairness? What’s fairness?
Stuff that should be a joke, but Brit toffs are fronting it, so …
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35 Responses to Computers vs. Darwinism? A computer teacher comments
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mynym
Do you claim that engineers tend to be IDists and creationists? If so, can you back that up?
Menuge obviously has this figured out. Darwinists have been looking at life wrong for decades. The Top-down view of biology would force science to re-evaluate everything. Look at the so-called fossil record. This record of (assumed) change was based on the idea that over time, organisms, by chance, changed their parts out randomly, only then to be selected if they were deemed fit. This mindless process must have taken thousands or millions of years to transform animals into different kinds of animals. Thus, the millions and millions of years have been artificially inserted into the evolution of animals because Darwinian evolution (bottom-up evolution) REQUIRES it. But now, top-down evolution (self-organized intelligent responses to environmental changes) completely eliminates the need for time. The door then opens wide for YEC. In short, what has been interpreted for decades as “evolution,” — that is, evidence for common descent — in the field and fossil record may be nothing of the sort, but instead just small, top-down adjustments which require virtually no time and have nothing to do with the construction of any organism.
This leaves two giant holes: 1) the whole of the origin of the genetic code and 2) the whole of the origin of humans and animals as wholes.
p.s. oops….two of the “wholes” in my last paragraph should have been “holes.”
No edit feature here?
Do you claim that engineers tend to be IDists and creationists? If so, can you back that up?
I could point out that even Darwinists have noticed: “…the Salem Hypothesis states that creationists with formal educations are more likely to be engineers than they are to be other kinds of scientists. This hypothesis is supported primarily by anecdotal evidence: a good number of creationists who post to talk.origins claim to be engineers, and creationist organizations seem to be disproportionately populated by engineers. Why engineers would be more prone to creationism than other scientists is a good question.”
But is it so hard to figure out why that would be so given that they work with design problems in the real world every day instead of engaging in natural theology of a sort based on prissy or feminized Christianity?
E.g.: “Why would God make a panda’s thumb like this? It is settled then, Nature selected it and designed all the millions of organisms that exist.”
Hmmm, ribczynski didn’t reply to comments based on pointing out the elementary distinction between imagining things and empirical evidence and the reason is obvious, what can generally be observed empirically is typically a form of irreducible complexity where if a part is taken away then a lack of function results. For sociological, psychological, political, theological or some other reason many scientists do not treat what is generally observed as the evidence that it is. They generally neglect empirical observation and instead focus on proposing “feasible evolutionary” routes in line with Darwinian reasoning: “If an organism could be found which I could not imagine coming about in a gradual sequence of events then my theory would absolutely break down.” For some reason those who are the first to blindly assert: “There is no evidence for ID.” also seem to be those most willing to cite their own imaginations as the equivalent of empirical evidence. If Darwinists can supposedly classify the arguments of ID as arguments from ignorance then it is time that someone classify their argument as the “argument from imaginary evidence.”
Irreducible complexity isn’t really an “argument” similar to Darwinian reasoning, it’s generally an empirical observation which can be observed in the form and function of organisms. The capacity of Darwinists to imagine things doesn’t change empirical facts or explain the history of all biological specification, form and species.