"intelligent design" or "natural selection"

[galtgulch]

Evidently scientists who doubt the theory of evolution as proposed by Darwin are being recruited using the following video.

http://www.illustramedia.com/umolpreview.htm

It is a beautiful video and the question is does all this occur by natural forces or does it require the divine intervention of a supernatural entity which is the belief of those who subscribe to the intelligent design perspective.

I put this in the Metaphysics section because the basic issue underlying the debate has everything to do with one's understanding of just what kind of universe we live in. Either it is one created by one or more supernatural beings and in which such divinities intervene for reasons of their own or not.

IF not then the Existence exists model is the rational alternative. This is the one for grown ups who have managed to give up any inclination to engage in wishful thinking.

Scientists with Ph.D.s and M.D. are joining the list of those who doubt the validity of Darwinian Evolution although they do not indicate just what their alternative is.

I imagine this issue has been discussed somewhere on the OL site but I am not aware of just where it is here. It is disturbing that scientists are being enlisted by the ID community. The truth of the matter is not going to be decided by a show of hands.

galt

Edited February 13, 2007 by galtgulch

[Charles R. Anderson]

Life forms are often intriguingly complex and they certainly function well. There is a sense in which life can reasonably be called intelligent design. This does not imply that there is an intelligent designer, presumably a god. It only implies that there is a process which seeks those chemical systems that replicate themselves proficiently. Many chemical and material systems use physics to form ordered systems. Fewer of these replicate themselves, but more and more the pathways that evolution has used to create more complex life forms are coming to be known. These pathways are sometimes random branches among choices, but not always.

The fact that we cannot yet reconstruct the complete pathway of any significantly complex life form's development, does not belie the fact that we have an understanding of various segments of those pathways. Meanwhile, we have no evidence of any actual intervention of a god in the process of life development.

It is clear that the most that those who claim an Intelligent Designer can accomplish is to create excuses for those who desperately want to believe in a god. It comes down to: Well you cannot prove that God did not play some role in the development of life. True enough. We cannot. So, what is God and what did God do to develop life? Well, we do not know who God is and we do not know what God did to develop life. Oh, and you find that satisfying? Why? Their answers to these questions are then very revealing, usually of fears and personal character weaknesses.

[Chris Grieb]

Michael Shermer of the Skeptic magazine debated an "intelligent design" person at Cato. All Cato programs are archived so you can look at. Shermer has written a book on "intelligent design". The New Individualist had an interview with Shermer about this important issue. The "intelligent design" crowd are another group of snake oil salesman posing as intellectuals.

[Victor Pross]

All the old arguments against “intelligent design” still stand. The design argument—no matter if updated and garbled in current pseudo-scientific garb—vitiates itself, by necessitating an infinite series of designers. This has always been the problem with the "design argument" and it is still the problem here. When the child who was told that “God made everything,” asked “Who made God?” there was asked a question adequate to silence every theist. Who created God? This question as never been answered—and it is not being answered here.

The fact that things exist as they now are proves simply….that things exist as they now are. The common-sense decision is simply to confine ourselves to the knowable universe that we have daily evidence of---and that any “designing God” is disproved by the very argument by which it is attempted to prove his existence. As one thinker has said: “Where knowledge ends God begins.”

Edited February 16, 2007 by Victor Pross

[galtgulch]

It is delightful to read all the above posts with which I most heartedly agree.

But nobody commented on the video which gives one an electron microscopic view of the goings on within the nucleus and the cytoplasm of a cell and in particular the mechanism by which a strand of messenger RNA is synthecized from an uncoiled strand of DNA and proceeds to leave the nucleus and travel out to the mitochondria where it orchestrates the synthesis of a protein.

It is rather marvelous that there are natural forces which enable this kind of process to go on and to keep us alive. It is all much more awe inspriring that it all occurs naturally than to suppose that an anthropomorphic genie pulls it off by guiding each step as if by magic.

Anyone else take the trouble to watch the video. Sure is "complicated" isn't it? Until the scientists are able to explain just what forces operate the mystics will feel free to hypothesize a supernatural entity to "explain" how it happens.

galt

Edited February 16, 2007 by galtgulch

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

galt,

I don't care for the ID explanation, but that video was dynamite in explaining how DNA is converted into protein for a layman. I intend to see it a few more times. Thank you for posting that.

I have a notion (I will not even call it an hypothesis) that there are principles specifically governing life and what I call mid-range forms and energies that stop being valid when their components are reduced to the subatomic level—and these principles are not derivable from the subatomic level. They are specific to mid-range. The DNA conversion mechanism is one such idea at a very small size level.

I would not say this process derives from a divine presence or even an "intelligent" presence, however. These things simply exist and we learn how they operate so we can mess around with them. I am certain that if there is a divine or intelligent superbeing behind all this, he will make himself known eventually. Until then, to be true to the minds we were born with, we cannot affirm as fact what we do not and cannot know.

To me, this is a win-win situation. If there is no divine or intelligent superbeing, we are correct. If one finally appears one day and says, "I created you," we will have honored Him by refusing to corrupt our minds (the ones He created) by accepting speculation as knowledge.

(EDIT - Our posts crossed.)

Michael

[Victor Pross]

With out going into the specifics of the video presentation, and to speak very generally, the argument from design came to be associated with the concept of teleology: the idea that the universe has been programmed to evolve towards some final goal. In its broadest from the teleological argument encompassed both the order of simplicity and the order of complexity. It is an old idea.*(1.1) It is being presented-yet again--in this video.

The teleological argument was so savagely attacked—in general principle—that it is treated today with circumspection by theologians. But in some circles, as we can see, there are modern proponents that spring up. For example: “The existence of order in the universe,” writes Swinburne, [a theological philosopher I read years ago] “increases significantly the probability that there is a God.”*(1.2) But Swinburne bases his argument on the order of simplicity rather than the order of complexity. The idea that complex natural structures provide evidence for a cosmological designer seems to have fallen into disrepute.*(1.3)

The main objection to the argument from design involving complexity is that many systems which display complex order and structure can, in fact, be explained as the end result of perfectly ordinary natural process. This does not, of course, prove that ALL ordered systems have arisen naturally, (as argued in the video) BUT it makes us cautious about the inferring the existence of a supernatural designer purely on the rather superficial grounds that something looks too complicated to have arisen by chance.*(1.4)

So, in the case of 'God', I stand with Pierre Laplace when he answered to Napoleon--who pressed Laplace for an answer about god having any explanatory power: "I had no need of this hypothesis," Laplace finally answered. Neither does anybody else.**(2)

-Victor

NOTE FROM ADMINISTRATOR:

For initial identification, please see here.

* Plagiarized from God and the New Physics by Paul Davies (all passages from p. 165). The original passages read as follows:

(1.1)

The argument from design came to be associated with the concept of teleology: the idea that the universe has been programmed to evolve towards some final goal. In its broadest form the teleological argument encompassed both the order of simplicity and the order of complexity. It is an old idea.

(1.2)

The teleological argument was so savagely attacked that it is treated today with circumspection by theologians. Nevertheless it does have some modern proponents. `The existence of order in the universe', writes Swinburne, `increases significantly the probability that there is a God.

(1.3)

But Swinburne bases his argument on the order of simplicity rather than the order of complexity. The idea that complex natural structures provide evidence for a cosmic designer seems to have fallen into disrepute.

(1.4) (See this excerpt online

here

.)

The main objection to the argument from design involving complexity is that many systems which display

complex order and structure can, in fact, be explained as the end result of perfectly ordinary natural

processes. This does not, of course, prove that all ordered systems have arisen naturally, but it makes us

cautious about inferring the existence of a designer purely on the rather superficial grounds that something

looks too complicated to have arisen by chance.

** Plagiarized from Atheism: The Case Against God by George H. Smith. The original passage reads as follows:

(2) (p. 262)

When the French astronomer was asked by Napoleon why he did not mention God in his writing, Laplace answered, "Sir, I have no need of that hypothesis." And neither does anybody else.

OL extends its deepest apologies to Paul Davies and George H. Smith.

Edited July 29, 2007 by Michael Stuart Kelly

[heusdens]

This is the "old" Creation vs. Evolution controversy and the only "new" element in it is that instead of calling it a creator, it is now more fashionable to call it "Intelligent Design".

In fact one should take in mind that there is realy not much to debate in reality, since whatever the "creationist" or "Intelligent Design" movement claim, they do not present us any facts, but just pose a metaphysical different position, without any scientific proof.

However they somehow manage to present their ideas in such a manner that it looks like we can talk about two competing ideas, which are both open to scientific inquiry and observation.

Since from the side of the Creationist/Intelligent Design movement there is in fact no theory (only the metaphysical assumption that there was some Creator/Designer, which is as we know, something impossible), there is in fact nothing to discuss in the first place. Not only because the idea of such a creator/designer is metaphysical impossible, and also because they don't even try to propose a plausible way of how that creator/designer might have operated.

They just only exclaim and portray things like: "See how immensely complex such a simple cell is with multiple interdependend functions which can not exist on their own, it must have been designed".

The error in their logic is that in order to explain complexity they base themselves on something even more complex (a creator/designer), but then at the same time forget to bring forward an explenation for that complexity, which, in their own line of thought, would have needed an even more complex creator/designer, and so on. So instead of reaching a goal (understanding and explaing compexity of life), we only get further and further away from it if we follow their line of reasoning. Which, for good reasons, no serious scientist involved in this field, will ever follow.

You can not explain complexity based on more complexity, to understand complexity you need to explain it in terms of less complex elements and components.

We CAN explain life in terms of less complex things. The human organism can be explained in terms of it's organs (brain, heart, lung, liver, bones, blood system, etc) and the organs can be explained at the basis of cells, and the cells in turn can be explained in terms of complex molecules and complex molecules can be explained on the basis of atoms and atoms can be explained at the basis of quantum mechanics.

A large part of how our body and mind works we can understand, since it has been thoroughly investigated in past centuries. So there is overwhelming evidence for explaining life at the basis of simpler components.

This is not to claim that there isn't anything left to investigate, since for sure some parts are not known extensively and in full (for example consciousness is only in part understood).

A partial understanding and partial proof, and based on a solid metaphysical assumption is however already much better then a position which has no proof at all.

In fact their only position is to point out the "gaps" in knowledge.

At this moment in time the question of how the first life form evolved (wether that was some single cell bacteria, a kind of virus or some other primitive life form) is not known. There are some scientific ideas, but not a solid theory, and for understandable reasons, the investigation of that question is quite difficult.

It might be we never be able to work out a full theory of how from known chemical interactions and processes that happened on early earth (the age of earth is assumed to be some 4.5 billion years; the first life forms we know of are some 3.1 billion years old) life emerged. It is not impossible that materials from outer space could also have played a (more or less) significant role, at least such can not be excluded by definition, at least we DO know that complex chemical molecules do exist in outer space (amino acids etc).

Other assumptions which are sometimes proposed, like the idea that life on earth was seeded here by an alien species, although such can not be disproved, are not very satisfactory, because they do not explain how life originally evolved, but postpone this issue futher back in time and which is not open to investigation.

Same is true for the idea of panspermia, which merely proclaims that life did not originate on earth and in fact propose that life has no origin, which is to say that it's origins are to be taken back to the Big Bang (or beyond that) and originated with matter itself (matter however neither has an origin, although it can be stated that atoms and subatomic particles came into being as a result of the Big bang from previous material forms).

The whole puzzle of the origin and explenation of life can be explained in two different ways:

- First we have already a good idea how an organism can be explained at the basis of less complex components, since we have quite a good idea and proof of how the metabolism and other life functions of living organisms works and have some idea how the brain functions.

- Second we have already for a large part of the material history an explenation how material complexity evolved from less complex material forms.

Let us start from the Big Bang (we need to start somewhere, but as a reminder, this is not the "begin" of matter itself, since before that was - as most cosmologists agree on - the epoch of cosmic inflation, in which matter existed in the form of one or more scalar fields).

From the Big Bang (in which matter was existent in a totally different form, in which even the distinction between matter and vacuum is absent) we know how subatomic particles and later atoms formed, mainly Hydrogen and some Helium and Lithium, and later on how due to gravitation these material assembled into early galaxies (quasars) and super heavy stars, we know how stars and galaxies evolve and form the explenation for all the chemical elements up to and above iron, we have some ideas how material ejected into space by supernovae explosions form the elements for star and planetary systems, and we have some idea how earth formed how the crust formed and which chemical interactions could take place, up to at least the basic ingredients of life (amino acids, and so forth).

Between this and the first life form, there still is a gap and there is as of yet not a very elaborated theory that can explain how the formation of the first living cell and DNA happened, but after the first DNA based life form formed, the theory of evolution explains how all other life forms evolved from that based on (beneficial) mutations and selection, and how eventually complex living organism and at last homo sapiens sapiens has evolved.

If we picture this material evolution on a grand scale we already see how complexity of matter on all levels built up from less complex material forms, and from that we might interpolate that between the step of complex chemical molecules and the first life forms, the same building up of complexity occured.

Not that we know HOW it exactly happened, but the least to say is that this - in the context of the whole material history - seems to be probably the case, as this would fit into the general line of development of more complex material structures.

[heusdens]

An often heard argument to reason against how life could have evolved from non living matter is that it is way too improbable. At least their argument is not that life is impossible.

The point is however that even in a lottery with a very improbable change of winning the lottery, there is a winner.

Second, how do they calculate the measure of improbability? For instance, if inflationary cosmology is true, there is not one single universe (in the observable universe there are already billions of galaxies and each with billions of stars, and theoretically the whole universe is incredibly much larger, what we see is just some tiny dot), but in fact infinitely many of them. All that is needed then for the occurence of life is a change for the right conditions for life to occur not equal to zero.

That is what we DO know. Life has a probability which is certainy bigger as zero. Life is therefore inevitable.

Edited February 28, 2007 by heusdens

[Dragonfly]

There is a lot wrong with the probability argument. The fact that a certain event has a very low probability in itself doesn't tell us anything. I'll illustrate that with an example. Take a simple bridge deal: if it isn't a prepared deck and the cards are shuffled well, the probability of that particular bridge deal coming up is 1 in 53644737765488792839237440000. Wow! Did a miracle happen? No, of course not, any particular bridge deal would have the same low probability of being realized, so in spite of the fact that the probability of this particular event occurring was extremely low, it was realized. But suppose now that it turned out that each player was dealt a complete suit, for example player A has all spades, B all clubs, etc. Then we certainly would be surprised and think that something very extraordinary had happened! Nevertheless, the probability of that very special distribution is exactly the same as that of any other deal (about 2*10^27 if we ignore permutations over the 4 players). Yet the inescapable conclusion is that this "separated colors" deal isn't the result of a honest shuffle, but must be due to a prepared deck or some tampering with the cards. How is that possible if the probability of that specific distribution is exactly the same as that of any other deal? The point is that this specific deal has a special meaning to all of us who know a bit about playing cards and certainly to all bridge players. The conclusion we automatically draw is that the probability that someone rigged the cards is overwhelming, even if we would estimate that probability a priori at one in a trillion, then still that would be many trillions of times more likely than the probability that the deal was the result of pure chance. The lesson we can draw from this example is that we can't draw any conclusions from absolute probabilities, we have to compare probabilities.

Another example: suppose we have a machine that is supposed to generate random strings of 0's and 1's. The machine might for example generate the following sequence: 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 ... it surely looks random. But suppose the machine generates this sequence: 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1... In this case we would have grave doubts about the randomness of the generator, in fact we would be sure that it does not generate a random sequence. Yet the probability of the first sequence is exactly the same as that of the second one (about 1 in a hunderd billion). Again there is no contradiction: we estimate the probability of some malfunctioning of the machine much higher than the probability of a genuine random sequence, even if that probability is quite low in itself, after all we all know from experience how machines and computers may screw up.

Now these examples concern still quite small systems, 52 playing cards and 37 bits. With larger systems, for example a few thousands of molecules each consisting of tens or hundreds of atoms, the probability of any particular combination becomes almost infinitesimally small. But a vanishingly small probability in itself doesn't tell us anything, so you should never let you impress by a creationist's argument that some particular combination of molecules is extremely improbable. That is not the point, it is the functionality of that particular combination that makes it special in our eyes. The ID argument is in a sense analogous to the argument of the bridge player and that of the owner of the random generator: our experience is that non-organic things that can behave in a for us recognizable purposeful way are always made by intelligent designers (humans), and that therefore the probability that the purposeful behavior of living things is explained by some intelligent designer (which is of course a thin disguise of "God") is much higher than the probability of it arising as the result of pure random events. In fact this is the old Payley watch argument in a new, fancy language. In particular Dembski is erecting thick smoke screens of mathematical language which may impress the layman, but which are in fact quite fallacious. He does recognize the difference between the pure probability of a system and the meaning of that system, although he uses a different, but related concept, that of complexity: he distinguishes the mathematically defined (Kolomogorov) complexity from what he calls specified complexity. The problem is that there is no objective criterion for this specified complexity, it is a purely subjective notion. That doesn't stop him from switching at a certain moment from Kolmogorov complexity to specified complexity as if these are the same things, invalidating his whole argument.

The answer is of course the same as the answer to Pailey's argument: special functionality or purposefulness is the result of random mutations and natural selection (this watchmaker is blind). It is this automatic selection that introduces functionality, as those systems who accidentally have a somewhat better chance to produce offspring are more likely to pass their genes to a next generation, so that the walk of the successive generations through the configuration space of all possible living (and not so living) systems is not a random walk, although it is based on small random steps. Only those steps that increase functionality (or at least do not decrease functionality) will continue, while the other steps will end in a cul-de-sac. The probability of making any step is rather high; the probability of making a step that will make things better or at least not worse may be much smaller, but is still large enough if the population is large enough to occur regularly. The end result is not the miraculous assembly of many parts at once (which is usually assumed in the probability argument), but the gradual evolution in time in which no single step is miraculous.

[heusdens]

Dragon fly

Excellent post! Excellent ellaboration on this probability issue!

The only thing creationists are good in is presenting straw men arguments for the scientific uneducated.

They have a whole bunch of such pseudo scientific arguments that supposedly "proofs" creation. Of course they proof nothing, just their ignorance on real science. In fact their only reason they use scientific sounding arguments is to discredit and ridicule science.

But here is different approach to rebute those creationists arguments about "design" or "creation".

Ask them first what kind of real proof or example they have of what they term as "creation".

They will for instance say that a "car" definately is a proof of creation. It is of course a human invention, but this does not matter. Now the idea of creation is that such inventions or design took place in a limited amount of time and was done by a single person or small group of people.

Yet, no human inventions are such radical break throughs as they suppose it was. Often inventions are just re-inventions or improvements on things already in existence, or combinations of things already in existence.

When you lay out the real history of the invention/design of a car, we do not have a radical new concept designed in a small amount of time, but instead see a very long history of small steps eventually leading up to the car as we are now used to. In fact if you take it down to where the car came from, you need to point out that the car was a combination of the charot and the engine, each with a long seperate history.

The charot point back to thousands of years of history, which started with the wheel, and the wheel probably was a concept taken from nature (rolling stones or trunks of trees to move heavy objects), and the engine goes back to an even longer history from the benzine motor to the steam engine (which was first invented by the greek as a toy) which directly relates to the invention of fire, which came from nature.

And this is then just a very brief and conceptual description of the innumerous facts that involve the "creation" of a car, and to sum up the whole development process of a car from all parts and materials and concepts that are used to built a car, would be some significant amount of data, probably as large as an encyclopedia.

So, even the design of a car does not look at all like some instantanious form of creation of something totally new, but instead can be better described as a process of development, stepwise refinement, combination of things already in existence, etc.

Such well documented facts can at least proof them that they in fact misuse and misapply the concept of creation, and that even the history of human made tools and instruments, is not exactly what they suppose it is.

Edited March 1, 2007 by heusdens

[heusdens]

Debunking the argument from "irreducable complexity" (bacteria flagellum)

And here's another video explaining the same stuff

And a video (3d simulation) which shows how the bacteria flagellum looks like

Another video/simulation that shows how the flagellum works and looks like

Edited March 1, 2007 by heusdens

[BaalChatzaf]

Evidently scientists who doubt the theory of evolution as proposed by Darwin are being recruited using the following video.

http://www.illustramedia.com/umolpreview.htm

It is a beautiful video and the question is does all this occur by natural forces or does it require the divine intervention of a supernatural entity which is the belief of those who subscribe to the intelligent design perspective.

I put this in the Metaphysics section because the basic issue underlying the debate has everything to do with one's understanding of just what kind of universe we live in. Either it is one created by one or more supernatural beings and in which such divinities intervene for reasons of their own or not.

IF not then the Existence exists model is the rational alternative. This is the one for grown ups who have managed to give up any inclination to engage in wishful thinking.

Scientists with Ph.D.s and M.D. are joining the list of those who doubt the validity of Darwinian Evolution although they do not indicate just what their alternative is.

I imagine this issue has been discussed somewhere on the OL site but I am not aware of just where it is here. It is disturbing that scientists are being enlisted by the ID community. The truth of the matter is not going to be decided by a show of hands.

galt

Darwin's theory as presented in -Origin of Species- has undergone many modifications. For starters, Darwin did not have a well grounded theory to account for the inheritance of characteristics. He did not have an underlying genetic theory (that was developed by others) to account for variations. What he did get right was that natural selection culls those bundles of characteristics leading to organisms that cannot survive in the (current) world. Darwin's Rock Bottom assumption was that all development of living things from the beginning to now, however modified in their descent is caused by -natural processes-. In short, No Miracles.

Now matter how his theory has been modified (for example Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium) the underlying natural processes have not been denied nor has that assumption been refuted by experiment. Kenneth Miller in his book -Finding Darwin's God- point by point demolishes Behe's arguments for Intelligent Design.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What he did get right was that natural selection culls those bundles of characteristics leading to organisms that cannot survive in the (current) world. Darwin's Rock Bottom assumption was that all development of living things from the beginning to now, however modified in their descent is caused by -natural processes-. In short, No Miracles.

Now matter how his theory has been modified (for example Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium) the underlying natural processes have not been denied nor has that assumption been refuted by experiment.

Bob,

I like that summary, albeit I will have to look up "Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium" to see what it is (here is the Wikipedia article that I only skimmed with glazed eyes: Punctuated equilibrium). At my distance of layperson, this is how I have always understood Darwin.

Michael

[Dragonfly]

I like that summary, albeit I will have to look up "Gould's Punctuated Equilibrium" to see what it is (here is the Wikipedia article that I only skimmed with glazed eyes: Punctuated equilibrium). At my distance of layperson, this is how I have always understood Darwin.

Punctuated equilibrium is not the revolutionary innovation in evolution theory that Gould claims. See Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea for an excellent analysis of Gould's claims (really Michael, you should read that chapter if you want to understand what it means, it is very clearly explained). From the Wikipedia article you mention:

In his book, Darwin's Dangerous Idea (pages 282-299), Daniel Dennett is highly critical of Gould's presentation of punctuated equilibrium. Dennett argues that Gould alternated between revolutionary and conservative claims about punctuated equilibrium. Each time Gould made a revolutionary claim, it was criticized, and Gould retreated to a traditional neo-Darwinian position. Dennett gives the following quote from Richard Dawkins:

"What needs to be said now, loud and clear, is the truth: that the theory of punctuated equilibrium lies firmly within the neo-Darwinian synthesis. It always did. It will take time to undo the damage wrought by the overblown rhetoric, but it will be undone." (Dawkins 1986)

[Fran]

I found the following article by Richard Dawkins (his book, the Blind Watchmaker, also addresses this subject) and Jerry Coyne to be very useful.

I looked it up whilst doing research for a psychology assignment of all things.

He quotes J B S Haldane, who pointed out that just one anomaly in the fossil record, such as finding a rabbit fossil in the pre-Cambrian era, would disprove the theory of evolution. However, none have been found.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/sto...1559743,00.html

Edited April 15, 2007 by Fran

[Dragonfly]

Evolution as a fact (the gradual development of species in the course of millions of years) is so well-established that anyone who denies it belongs to the same category as the defenders of a flat earth and similar crackpots. Even the modern variant of the creationists, the ID-ers accept evolution as a fact. What they are disputing is the theory of the mechanism of evolution, as they can't accept the idea that God had nothing to do with it, so they try to smuggle him into the theory with quasi-scientific arguments. Now the theory of evolution is also one of the best established scientific theories; we may still quibble about the details, but the basic mechanism of random variation combined with natural selection is beyond any doubt. The ID-ers are more insiduous than the laughable young-earth creationists however, as they can bamboozle the unwary layman with a cloud of mathematical reasoning (especially Dembski). This has been refuted many times, but it isn't always easy and often impossible for the layman to understand the technical refutations. But in contrast to the climate theories this is not a question that hasn't been settled, the verdict is clear: the ID theory is not a scientific theory, it's creationism in disguise (the ID-ers hypocritically keep "God" out of their theories to make them more palatable, but there isn't any doubt that when they write about an "intelligent designer" they really mean the God of the bible).

[Mikee]

Fran,

Thanks for this interesting article. I especially liked the "Arguments Worth Having" list.

I also like this part about god: "...even more in need of an explanation than the object he is alleged to have created."

I always (from about the age of nine) thought the idea of "GOD" was cheat, an attempt to bypass explanation rather than to provide one.

[Robert Campbell]

Dragonfly,

I agree that punctuated equilibrium theory is not really a significant deviation from the neo-Darwinian synthesis.

An objection I made to Dennett's book on another thread was that the amount of space he was giving to refuting Gould and Lewontin was more of a sign of ego involvement than anything else. But of course it takes two to put on an ego duel. Dennett seems to have persuaded himself that all of the effort was necessary on account of the exaggerated claims that Gould often made.

What Dennett doesn't seem to have a clue about is the actual source of resistance to good evolutionary thinking among linguists, psychologists, and the like. He imagines that they have been dazzled by Stephen Jay Gould, when in fact the source of their confusions is not their conception of biological evolution, but rather their conception of knowledge. He should have been pointing the finger at those who imagine that knowledge is qualitatively different from everything else in the universe, "therefore" it could not have emerged from anything else. But this would entail pointing the finger at Noam Chomsky and his allies, not at Stephen Jay Gould.

I'll try to pick this up later on the other thread...

Meanwhile, if biological evolution is a fact--and I agree with you that it is--what do you make of Ayn Rand's insistence that evolution is only a hypothesis and her corollary exclusion of evolutionary considerations from her epistemology?

Robert Campbell

[Dragonfly]

Meanwhile, if biological evolution is a fact--and I agree with you that it is--what do you make of Ayn Rand's insistence that evolution is only a hypothesis and her corollary exclusion of evolutionary considerations from her epistemology?

See my post here. It seems she had no high regard for biology in general, perhaps while it might have - to her - disturbing implications. It's perhaps no coincidence that Floyd Ferris was a biologist.

[Brant Gaede]

I saw a very interesting program on, I think, the Science channel last night. It seems Darwin in his lifetime had a major critic in the physicist Kelvin, apparently the greatest physicist of his time, that he could not answer--that is, the sun could not have existed long enough--more than a few million years--for evolution to take place. Why only a few million years? Because no known substance could burn long enough.

Before he died, Kelvin learned about radiation in a 1904 lecture by a brilliant physicist from New Zealand.

--Brant

[John Dailey]

~ Funny thing is, even Einstein believed in a 'Logos' as some kind of 'blind watchmaker' for the cosmos. He seems to have been a bit exceptional even in his 'reasons' for accepting the 'Watchmaker Argument.' Regardless that he sometimes referred to 'The Old Man', methinks he never bought into Abraham's 'god' (ie: a 'goal-directed' person-type of caretaker/parental-monitor); he saw merely a 'force' of some kind that, in effect, 'determined' (in some...subtle...way), just exactly how, in a Laplacian way, the whole cosmos, well, 'worked.' Yet, it was not the complicatedness of biology that he seemed ever concerned with; it was with the intelligence-appearance of the 'patterns' (as he saw things) in the non-biological, most-basic aspects of the cosmos he was attracted to finding out about.

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

[John Dailey]

~ Interesting that this whole thread dedicated to 'Intelligent Design' ends up focusing on Darwin and interpretations of his 'basics' vs the latest refinements in DNA analysis and theoretical finessing of his ideas. All 'biology.' That just may be the 'limitation' box that I-D has put itself in. When's the last 'creationist' argument did anyone hear regarding the cosmos itself, that is, the non-biology 'part'?

~ Einstein was concerned with non-biology, and all I-D'rs (and their disagreers) focus on biology, yet the whole I-D idea (pardon the pun?) applies to both areas.

~ The 'cause/Origin' of 'Patterns' (entity-similarities and/or causal/developmental-changes OF given entities) seems to sum up the whole subject, be the perspective deistic or naturalistic.

~ COSMIC QUILTING OF THE UNIVERSE, anyone? (or, should I ask: THREAD-UNRAVELING?)

LLAP

J:D

Edited April 17, 2007 by John Dailey

[nealelehman]

galt,

I don't care for the ID explanation, but that video was dynamite in explaining how DNA is converted into protein for a layman. I intend to see it a few more times. Thank you for posting that.

I have a notion (I will not even call it an hypothesis) that there are principles specifically governing life and what I call mid-range forms and energies that stop being valid when their components are reduced to the subatomic level—and these principles are not derivable from the subatomic level. They are specific to mid-range. The DNA conversion mechanism is one such idea at a very small size level.

I would not say this process derives from a divine presence or even an "intelligent" presence, however. These things simply exist and we learn how they operate so we can mess around with them. I am certain that if there is a divine or intelligent superbeing behind all this, he will make himself known eventually. Until then, to be true to the minds we were born with, we cannot affirm as fact what we do not and cannot know.

To me, this is a win-win situation. If there is no divine or intelligent superbeing, we are correct. If one finally appears one day and says, "I created you," we will have honored Him by refusing to corrupt our minds (the ones He created) by accepting speculation as knowledge.

(EDIT - Our posts crossed.)

Michael

Hi Michael

About your idea of "principles that govern life". I suspect that this is a wrong notion going back to ancient Metaphysics: that the Universe and everything in it, including the so-called Laws of Science, are ruled,governed by Laws or Principles which are somehow separate, prior or superior to natural processes. A simpler perspective is that all such Laws and Principles are the concepts formed by the minds of men as they grasp the processes and formulate explicit Definitions or Descriptions. This perspective seems to be in accordance with Rand's Epistemology with all of man's concepts based on direct perceptions of reality processes. All we need to do is change the name of the highest-level scientific concept from Law to Description. What do you think? Neale

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Neale,

I wrote the post below about another post you made, but it works here, too.

Michael

Neale,

Welcome to OL!

I admire anyone who tries to use the quote function at the start. Now to get the details right, I suggest looking at the following tutorial (it takes about 5 minutes): Quote Feature.

I will try to fix your post so you can look at the difference.

Michael