If you spend any time talking to ID folks, you know that they are very touchy about being called creationists. As they see it, the creationists have been so incompetent in making their case, and so extreme in their religious views, that they discredit the cause of anti-evolutionism every time they open their mouths.
For this reason, they are endlessly differentiating themselves from the creationists. The script is always the same: Whereas creationists discuss science through the lens of their religious beliefs, ID folks are just honestly trying to come to the conclusions best justified by the evidence. If those conclusions happen to have religious consequences then that is incidental.
A recent contribution to this genre comes from Christian apologist Jonathan McLatchie (Video here). He says,
Creationism, by contrast, is an attempt to interpret the world in view of a specific religious text, whether that be Genesis 1 or something like that. And, so, creationism is really concerned with ontology, what is the source of being, whereas intelligent design is the quest for detecting the products of intelligent causality in the world.
That's the party line, and it's a script the ID folks repeat endlessly. Any critic who rejects it is accused of lying about ID. They are shills for the Darwin lobby. They are mendaciously misrepresenting ID to smear it by association.
But the script is nonsense. It is McLatchie and his fellow travelers who are being dishonest about creationism, and not the critics who are being dishonest about ID.
McLatchie has described “Biblical creationism.” But the creationists are adamant, at least when speaking for public consumption, that this is only one side of the coin. There is also “scientific creationism,” which is a different thing entirely. Scientific creationism, in their telling, is just an honest attempt to do science, and to go where the evidence leads them. That the evidence just happens to be in accord with their understanding of Genesis 1 is neither here nor there. Precisely the claim McLatchie makes on behalf of ID.
Of course, you might retort that this is just a sham. You might point to the history of creationism, in which scientific creationism appeared suddenly after the courts found that it was unconstitutional to ban the teaching of theories in conflict with the Bible.
But this hardly distinguishes ID from creationism either. ID was created as a legal strategy in the wake of adverse court decisions in the eighties. They even wrote the famous Wedge Document, to spell out the way in which ID was just a political and legal strategy for reforming the culture. They took a famous creationist textbook and simply replaced occurrences of the word “creationism” with occurrences of the phrase “intelligent design.”
Maybe the difference lies in the arguments? The scientific assertions made by creationists are really so foolish that they are hard to take seriously at all. Perhaps this is the difference we seek. Surely the ID folks have provided novel and interesting arguments that have reshaped the discussion.
But no. There is nothing in the ID canon that was not anticipated by creationists. ID folks contributed some spit and polish, and they sling jargon with greater skill than their predecessors, but the ID canon is just a proper subset of what creationists offered. Irreducible complexity? Back-of-the-envelope probability calculations? Science is blinded by naturalistic philosophy? Nothing new here. It's all standard fare for the creationists. And now that the ID folks have happily embraced the thermodynamics argument, we cannot even credit them with avoiding the silliest arguments made by the creationists.
There is no important difference between ID and creationism. They are different dialects of the same language.
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And the sooner they see that you are right, the sooner they will join together to become even stronger. Fortunately there's not much likelihood in that.
Thre is an aspect of ID's symbiotic relationship with YEC: there is no known instance of any ID advocate of the Discovery Institute stripe directly criticizing any YEC doctrine, and even drawing on their resources at many times, at arms length. This coddling of the YEC gang has been the mode since at least 2000, as I've been tracking in TIP 1.7 at www.tortucan.wordpress.com
I think that there are two main differences between ID and YEC
First, the core group in ID is mainly Old Earth Creationists
Secondly, ID is intended to be a "big tent", uniting many anti-evolutionists and aiming to force political change through popular support. They can't openly reject YEC without the risk of losing many supporters.
Ironically, in some respects this makes YEC "Creation Science" more scientific than ID.
It's worth noting that, like much ordinary language, "creationism" is a pretty fuzzy term. There's no point in asking, "Is ID technically or strictly-speaking creationism?", because there is no strict meaning. Without a strict meaning, it becomes a matter of degree: how similar is ID to what was called "creationism" before ID came along? Does it have sufficient "family resemblance" to be called "creationism"? There's no determinate answer to these questions, but in my judgement calling ID "creationism" is within the realm of what's reasonable. However, I would acknowledge that doing so is a polemical move. After all, if we wanted a strictly neutral label, we could just call it ID. We want to draw attention to the similarities with (other) creationism, and the label IDC is a polemically useful way to do that.
Even IF there would be no significant distinction between creationism and intelligent design ( but there actually is, since indeed ID does only point out that the origin of natural phenoma is best explained through design, so what ? The relevant issue is, what best explains our origins. And that question is in my view far better explained through a intelligence creating the natural world, rather than unguided random forces producing the immense complexity we observe in nature.
Old wine, new bottle.
sean s.
@#5
And that tells us what your view is worth.
Yep, same old story! Jonathan McLatchie is just the latest guy brainlessly parrotting the pronouncements of the Discovery Institute "experts", mostly Stephen Meyer in this case. (And, actually, after decades of being mostly in the background, Meyer seems to have moved to being the leading light of the ID movement -- actually, almost the only active person left producing books).
Theism is decidedly behind both. One of the few people who isn't a theist backing ID, Steve Fuller, thinks creationism is a more inspirational narrative (postmodern all narratives are equal) - where the desire of becoming god-like motivated the west's progress. As with most creationist thought, this rests on an erroneous view of evolution where organisms are just passive victims of the environment. One never knows if they are misinformed because they are creationists or creationists because they are misinformed.
Michael Fugate@7:
Mr Grasso's evidence would be worth infinitely more... oh wait.
@#10
There was no evidence in #5 - only opinion.
Cough*cdesign proponentsists*cough.
It should also be pointed out that the video is one of a series on Christian apologetics. Why should that be a question in Christian apologetics? And I wonder how much of that series is devoted to showing that chemistry, physics, or any other scientific field is really science and not religion. Or is ID perhaps the only one covered?
Re: "The relevant issue is, what best explains our origins. And that question is in my view far better explained through a intelligence creating the natural world, rather than unguided random forces producing the immense complexity we observe in nature."
A lot of people whom I know share that opinion, but in mine, it is just begging the question. What was the the origin of the intelligence which then created the natural world? Until you answer that, you have not answered the question of origins, just pushed it back a step, while at the same time adding to the overall complexity (by adding a being so complex its powers and decisions are incomprehensible).
Meanwhile, anyone who has programmed a random search or used a genetic algorithm to design a jet engine will begin to see the power of randomness (given enough iterations) to produce amazing results.
Question for those who see intelligence rather than randomness in our genetic design: why are our bones made out of calcium, a weak material which constantly produces fatigue cracks under stress and has to be constantly maintained by biological processes which require resources and energy? Why not titanium? Who among us has not broken a bone in their lifetime (not I)? With titanium bones none of those breaks would have happened. True, titanium ores are less common in the Earth's crust and more difficult to process chemically - but an intelligence which could set natural laws could have have arranged things differently.
Titanium was of course an unknown material, back when gods were being defined and carving their laws in stone, but the more we learn (largely from random experimentation, according to my experience as a design engineer), the less technologically capable those gods seem to be.
JimV wrote:
What was the the origin of the intelligence which then created the natural world?
your question does not need a answer through intelligent design, since the only affirmation ID makes is that intelligence explains best the interdependent , irreducible complex biological systems we observe in the natural world, and so the various informational codes in the cell, as for instance the DNA code, the second code for gene expression and regulation, the tubulin code, and the glycan code .
As for creationism based on the bible record, we believe that God is eternal, and it must be so on philosophical grounds as well.
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1877-easy-steps-to-refute-athe…
Nick Matzke wrote :
Stephen Meyer almost the only active person left producing books.
So what ? Does that make naturalism being more true ? LOL...... nice argument ad populum.
Creationism is easy to define. It consistst of three elements.
1. Rejection of Evolution Theory;
2. Some version of the God of the Gaps;
3. Some version of Paley's Watchmaker Analogy.
IDiots totally qualify.,
Great! I immediately can test my definition (I hadn't read our Brazilian friend yet when I posted my previous comment).
"rather than unguided random forces producing the immense complexity we observe in nature"
#1 check.
"far better explained through a intelligence creating the natural world"
#2 check.
"intelligence explains best ....."
No doubt if we ask how that explanation goes we will get #3.
@#14
Still no evidence. Sigh....
MNb
1.2.3. no.....
refuted thousand times....
High information content machine-like irreducibly complex and interdependent structures, of which photosynthesis, the eye, the human body, nitrogenase, the ribosome, the cell, rubisco, photosystem II, the oxygen evolving complex etc. are prime examples, are commonly found in nature.
Since Evolution is unable to provide a advantage of adaptation in each evolutionary step, and is unable to select it, 1) Darwinism’s prediction is falsified; 2) Design’s prediction is confirmed.
Premise One: Despite a thorough search, no material causes have been discovered that demonstrate the power to produce large amounts of specified information, irreducible and interdependent biological systems.
Premise Two: Intelligent causes have demonstrated the power to produce large amounts of specified information, irreducible and interdependent systems of all sorts.
Conclusion: Intelligent design constitutes the best, most causally adequate, explanation for the information and irreducible complexity in the cell, and interdependence of proteins, organelles, and bodyparts, and even of animals and plants, aka moths and flowers, for example.
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1983-is-irreducible-complexity…
The analogy to human design (which is all ID has) is a non-starter. We can distinguish a stone tool from a cobble or other non-designed rock because we know who makes/made stone tools, how they are/were made, when they are/were made, where they are/were made, and last, but very important, why they are/were made. I know none of these things for an intelligence supposedly making organisms or universes, OG do you?
1. Begging the question; this assumes what you're trying to prove.
2. False dichotomy; evidence showing evolution can't produce X is not evidence for ID producing X.
Michael Fugate
we know of intelligent minds that are able to produce coded information. We do not know of any natural, aka non-intelligent process producing coded specified, complex information. Therefore the genetic code and all other codes in the cell are best explained through the creative act of a very powerful creator.
Origin and evolution of the genetic code: the universal enigma
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293468/
In our opinion, despite extensive and, in many cases, elaborate attempts to model code optimization, ingenious theorizing along the lines of the coevolution theory, and considerable experimentation, very little definitive progress has been made.
Summarizing the state of the art in the study of the code evolution, we cannot escape considerable skepticism. It seems that the two-pronged fundamental question: “why is the genetic code the way it is and how did it come to be?”, that was asked over 50 years ago, at the dawn of molecular biology, might remain pertinent even in another 50 years. Our consolation is that we cannot think of a more fundamental problem in biology.
The genetic code is nearly optimal for allowing additional information within protein-coding sequences
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1832087/
Even if the genetic code could change over time to yield a set of rules that allowed for the best possible error-minimization capacity, is there enough time for this process to occur? Biophysicist Hubert Yockey addressed this question. He determined that natural selection would have to explore 1.40 x 10^70 different genetic codes to discover the universal genetic code found in nature. The maximum time available for it to originate was estimated at 6.3 x 10^15 seconds. Natural selection would have to evaluate roughly 10^55 codes per second to find the one that’s universal. Put simply, natural selection lacks the time necessary to find the universal genetic code.
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t2221-the-hardware-and-software…
@#21
Not an answer - unless you are saying the designer was human? Is that it? You can design a universe?
@14
Science is about evidence. ID is a presupposition. A presupposition that won't even allow itself be subjected to modus tollens.
One thing about assumptions though, if they are not subjected to modus tollens,
then they are immunized against falsification.
Not tied to any constraint, ie reality, they become essentially a thought game...one thought game is as good as another.
How to adjudicate? Modus tollens is gone. I guess one could point out inconsistences...but you have to care about non-contradiction.
Force is the only thing left. Take power...get Fundamentalists in office, then we'll vote Christian sharia law...yeah that's it.
Three rings to blind them and in the darkness bind them.
ID is such a thought game...not being science, it is ideology or what non-Marxists call theology...hmmm. Hell, what's wrong with a
good thought game. Nothing, just call it a thought game.
The problem with your thought world is that it is a muliverse populated by saints and sinners. No, no, I'm not talking about christianity. I am pointing out the
fact that if you hold assumptions unrefuteable in principle you can construct an infinite number of multiverses. The are free floating spheres bubbling out of quantum foam unbeholden to refutation.
As the song goes, 'reality is created by you, for you.'
Christian1: You know what, I believe that only one line can be drawn through a given point so that the line is parallel to a given line that does not contain the point.
Christian2: Well, who says, I believe that an infinite number of lines can be drawn through a given point so that the line is parallel to a given line that does not contain the point.
Christian1: I'm going to kill you if you don't think the world is flat.
rantings...signing off, Conundrum springs...toasty
Michael
again: ID does not define the designer.
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1147
One need not fully understand the origin or identity of the designer to determine that an object was designed. Thus, this question is essentially irrelevant to intelligent design theory, which merely seeks to detect if an object was designed. If SETI detects a signal from intelligent extra-terrestrial life, we need not know how that life form arose to determine that there was indeed an intelligent being that sent the signal. Intelligent design theory cannot address the identity or origin of the designer--it is a philosophical / religious question that lies outside the domain of scientific inquiry. Christianity postulates the religious answer to this question that the designer is God who by definition is eternally existent and has no origin. There is no logical philosophical impossibility with this being the case (akin to Aristotle's 'unmoved mover') as a religious answer to the origin of the designer.
As Dr Behe said:
Now, one can’t have it both ways. One can’t say both that ID is unfalsifiable (or untestable) and that there is evidence against it. Either it is unfalsifiable and floats serenely beyond experimental reproach, or it can be criticized on the basis of our observations and is therefore testable. The fact that critical reviewers advance scientific arguments against ID (whether successfully or not) shows that intelligent design is indeed falsifiable.
In fact, my argument for intelligent design is open to direct experimental rebuttal. Here is a thought experiment that makes the point clear. In Darwin’s Black Box (Behe 1996) I claimed that the bacterial flagellum was irreducibly complex and so required deliberate intelligent design. The flip side of this claim is that the flagellum can’t be produced by natural selection acting on random mutation, or any other unintelligent process. To falsify such a claim, a scientist could go into the laboratory, place a bacterial species lacking a flagellum under some selective pressure (for mobility, say), grow it for ten thousand generations, and see if a flagellum--or any equally complex system--was produced. If that happened, my claims would be neatly disproven.
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1659-confirmation-of-intellige…
You fail to distinguish between criticize-able and refutable. If I postulate that there exists a being named Vishnu, that is irrefutable but criticize-able.
@26 -
You're a smart kid. I'll give you that. What, are you working on a middle science project trying to get yourself into a top high school so you can get into a top Tier 1 Christian school that will reinforce your beliefs in ID?
Sorry...but gosh...I'm sure you're a noble prize winning ex-evolutionary biologist...rhetoric...ever hear of it...got milk kid.
SETI hypothesizes designers with specific traits. Things like "wish to communicate with us," "technological capability similar to ours," and so on. Their tests will only pick up signals from designers similar to the ones they hypothesize, because the nature of the designer is absolutely critical to understand what sort of designs they will choose to make. The same is true for anthropology and trying to distinguish artifacts from natural objects; anthropologists hypothesize about the designer's character(s), technological sophistication, motives, etc. in order to make those determinations.
The same would be true for any legitimate study of ID: you would tell us what sort of designer you were hypothesizing. What their technological capability was, what their motives were, and so on.
But, you won't do that, because design proponents = cdesign proponentists.
@#26 if what you say is true, then ID is not science.
Does intelligent design make predictions? Is it testable?
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1659-does-intelligent-design-m…
Predictions In Astronomy/Cosmology 1
ID predicts that the Universe had a beginning.
ID predicts an increase (and not a decrease), as science progresses, in the number of finely-tuned parameters pertinent to the laws and constants of physics.
Predictions in Biology
ID predicts the presence of specified complexity in living systems.
ID predicts that, as scientific research progresses, biological complexity will be seen to increase over time, and information will have a more and more central role in the governing of life’s operations.
ID predicts an increase in evidence for the non-adequacy of the DNA-centric view of living systems.
ID predicts that complex molecular convergence will happen routinely.
ID predicts the presence of irreducible complexity with respect to macromolecular systems and organelles.
ID predicts that the prevalence of functional protein folds with respect to combinatorial sequence space will be extremely small.
ID predicts that evolutionary pathways to new protein functions will require multiple co-ordinated non-adaptive mutations (more so than likely to be achieved by a random process).
ID predicts that DNA, which was once considered to be junk, will turn out to be functional after all.
ID predicts delicate optimisation and fine-tuning with respect to many features associated with biological systems.
ID predicts that organisms will exhibit in-built systems which promote evolvability (e.g. front loading).
Predictions in Paleontology
ID predicts the observed pattern of the fossil record whereby morphological disparity precedes diversity.
ID predicts saltational, or abrupt, appearance of new life forms without transitional precursors.
Have you ever defined any of those terms operationally so they can be tested? No of course not. The whole list is blather otherwise - delicate optimisation? extremely small? specified complexity? complex? information?, finely-turned? routinely?
Vague as hell. If I were to define them and showed they were crap, you would scream that I didn't define it correctly. But you will never even try to make those prediction testable.
Behe's test is not a test of ID - if true, it says only that it cannot evolve by known mechanisms not that an intelligence did it. You really do need to know who the designer (at least in species) is to find design - how else will you know what to look for; there could be other natural processes that are currently unknown. Why is an unknown intelligence more likely than an unknown natural process?
Michael Fugate wrote :
Why is an unknown intelligence more likely than an unknown natural process?
I'd say its rather like this : Why is a known intelligence more likely than an unknown natural process ?
there is no problem of leaving the realm of science, and try to figure out who that designer might be. That can happen through a cumulative process, which i describe here :
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1753-a-cumulative-case-for-the…
why do i agree that the natural process is unknown ? I say it because :
1. There is no viable hypothesis of abiogenesis, and
2. There is no publication in the scientific literature – in prestigious journals, specialty journals, or books – that describes how molecular evolution of any real, complex, biochemical system either did occur, or even might have occurred. There are assertions that such evolution occurred, but absolutely none is supported by pertinent experiments or calculations… despite comparing sequences and mathematical modelling, molecular evolution has never addressed the question of how complex structures came to be.
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t1826-how-does-evolution-suppos…
@26 cut the ad hominem, grasso deserves mature responses which fortunately most people are providing.
Oops I meant @28
ID predicts that the Universe had a beginning.
Since ID is 50-60 years younger than the big bang theory, this is a very conservative postdiction, not a prediction.
ID predicts an increase (and not a decrease), as science progresses, in the number of finely-tuned parameters pertinent to the laws and constants of physics.
Prediction refuted. 20th century science has tended to reduce the number of free parameters by unifying various individual theories. The number of free parameters has gone down with scientific advancement, not up. Electricity and Magnetism, as just one example.
ID predicts the presence of specified complexity in living systems.
"[specified complexity] has not been defined formally in any reputable peer-reviewed mathematical journal, nor (to the best of our knowledge) adopted by any researcher in information theory." Elseberry and Shallit.
ID predicts that, as scientific research progresses, biological complexity will be seen to increase over time, and information will have a more and more central role in the governing of life’s operations.
Evolution via RM+NS predicts that too. See Gould's Full House. Unlike ID, Gould uses evolutionary theory predict the distribution of simple vs. complex organisms, and guess what? The pattern in nature matches the distribution predicted by Gould. Tell me, what pattern of distribution of simple vs. complex organisms does ID predict?
ID predicts an increase in evidence for the non-adequacy of the DNA-centric view of living systems.
This is new to me; could you direct me to a cite? I've never heard that ID as a movement took a strong stance on epigenetics before this.
ID predicts that complex molecular convergence will happen routinely.
Then its wrong. We do see lots of cases of phenotypic convergence, but that's not the same; a wolf may look like a thylacine in terms of gross features, but genetically the thylacine is closer to a kangaroo. It certainly doesn't converge molecularly with the wolf.
ID predicts the presence of irreducible complexity with respect to macromolecular systems and organelles.
People pointed out to Behe back in the 1990s that his definition of irreducible complexity allows it to be produced by evolution. Behe agreed with his critics, and stated he would have to modify his definition. He has never done so. So as it stands now, the presences of any 'irreducibly complex' features, as defined by Behe, does not favor either ID or evolution because either can produce it.
ID predicts that the prevalence of functional protein folds with respect to combinatorial sequence space will be extremely small.
Another postdiction.
ID predicts that evolutionary pathways to new protein functions will require multiple co-ordinated non-adaptive mutations (more so than likely to be achieved by a random process).
Here you are right. That's what ID predicts. But we don't see it.
ID predicts that DNA, which was once considered to be junk, will turn out to be functional after all.
Hold on, you just claimed that ID says nothing about the designer. But this is a designer-claim, that the designer would not allow junk DNA in his creations. Is this really a claim of ID? Something you want to stand behind? So if we find sequences of DNA that are empirically demonstrated to be nonfunctional, that will refute ID?
ID predicts delicate optimisation and fine-tuning with respect to many features associated with biological systems.
Well then its often wrong. Our eyes, for example, are far from optimized. Not only do we have a blind spot, but they're built with mechanisms and structures better suited for seeing under water. They're a mishmash of air-viewing adaptations developed over a functional fish eye. Nor do they have the IR and UV range that they could have.
ID predicts that organisms will exhibit in-built systems which promote evolvability (e.g. front loading).
Again, this is a designer claim; you're saying the designer likes "evolvability" and so programmed it in. How do you know that? I thought you said ID didn't make such claims.
ID predicts the observed pattern of the fossil record whereby morphological disparity precedes diversity.
Never heard this one before but if I understand it correctly, this would be predicted by evolution too, through the concept niche-filling. Some critter evolves a new trait that allows it to take advantage of a new niche (morphological disparity), and so leaves loads of variated daughter-species that also compete for that niche (diversity).
ID predicts saltational, or abrupt, appearance of new life forms without transitional precursors.
This one's a double fail. Its another claim about the designer's nature that links it to the God of the bible (you are asserting the designer does not use successive design of slightly differentiated models - you can't assert that if you're going to claim ID says nothing about the nature of the designer). Its also empirically wrong - it plays upon the difference between the vernacular and paleontological usages of the word 'abrupt.' The Cambrian 'explosion' is a great example. It was abrupt in paleontological terms...because a wide diversity of organisms formed over a mere 30-50 million years. It was not at all 'abrupt' in the vernacular sense.
Next?
Thanks eric.
The more I think about these, the more they seem like something done on a napkin at a bar after several rounds. On the surface, they seem like something, but deep down they aren't. Nothing is defined, nothing is said about the who, what , why, how, or when. It is just some pattern they think is different than current evolutionary biology - none are specific to intelligence.
I think this is most telling - humans make things with all kinds of extraneous crap with no relationship to the actual function of the object. Without knowing the designer, we have no idea what to expect in its designs. Maybe it just likes the look of repeated ATs in the genome. Maybe it has an inordinate fondness for beetles. Maybe it started down one path and didn't want to start over from scratch.
Tell us who the designer is, then and only then do you have a prayer.
On Monday they don't know who the designer is or what its traits or goals may be, but come Sunday, they're stating the Nicene Creed.
The same is true (IMO) of many academic theologians. On Monday ('on the job') they defend an incomprehensible Ground of Being entity, then on Sunday they say the Nicene Creed.
Even if they claim it is a god, they might as well say they don't know. Who knows a god's mind?
Mr. Grasso, I would like to refer you to this link, by a scientist who is a Christian (since I know many religious fundamentalists are prejudiced against atheists), which has answers based on reliable scientific data and peer-reviewed analysis to all the common creationist/ID arguments such as those you have cited. I think you should want to read those responses, against the danger of bearing false-witness by repeating arguments which have been refuted long ago. (How long can easily-refutable misinformation be passed on before it rises to the level of lies?) The link:
http://www.sciencemeetsreligion.org/evolution/
(Or course talkorigins and other scientific sites present even more detailed information.)
I am not a scientist, but spent 35 years designing turbines as a mechanical engineer. From what I have read of ID, its proponents understand neither "design" nor "intelligence". As I have argued here and elsewhere, both processes bear a marked similarity to biological evolution. New designs and new ideas do not poof into existence by magic but by incremental development over time, using trial and error - as you have no doubt observed of cars and phones and many other things over your lifetime.
Saying "god did it" is not a good, philosophical explanation for this universe (in the absence of reliable evidence), as I explained above, it just begs the question. Similarly, saying "intelligent design" did it, without any understanding of their mechanisms either, also begs the question. Only when ID can answer "how" will it have any claim to rational science. I can explain how intelligence and design can work in terms of the evolutionary algorithm, with numerous examples from my own experience and history, giving me a consistent model of reality (starting with given natural laws). What is the ID model, and what is the evidence for its mechanisms? Shouldn't that be the first thing that "ID science" does research on? (Or else change its name to something such as "Magic"?)
JimV
i suggest you do not parrot hearsay from others.
Matzke should take his time and debunk all examples of irreducible complexity i present at my virtual library.
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t2166-a-list-of-irreducible-com…
a good start would be debunking my claim that the DNA double helix is IC:
DNA is irreducible complex 2
Individual bases : take away the sugar in the DNA backbone = no function
Take away the phosphate in the backbone = no function
Take away the nucleic acid bases = no function
Evolution is not a driving force at this stage, since replication of the cell depends on DNA.
So the individual DNA molecules are irreducible complex
DNA in general ( the double helix )
Unless the two types, purines, and pyrimidines are present, and so the individual four bases = no function, and no hability of information storage
The enzymes and proteins for assembly and synthesis of the DNA structure must also be present, otherwise, no DNA double helix......
Self-organizing biochemical cycles
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC18793/
How were ribonucleotides first formed on the primitive earth? This is a very difficult problem. Stanley Miller's synthesis of the amino acids by sparking a reducing atmosphere (2) was the paradigm for prebiotic synthesis for many years, so at first, it was natural to suppose that similar methods would meet with equal success in the nucleotide field. However, nucleotides are intrinsically more complicated than amino acids, and it is by no means obvious that they can be obtained in a few simple steps under prebiotic conditions. A remarkable synthesis of adenine (3) and more or less plausible syntheses of the pyrimidine nucleoside bases (4) have been reported, but the synthesis of ribose and the regiospecific combination of the bases, ribose, and phosphate to give β-nucleotides remain problematical.
Surely you're aware of the fact that RNA functions just fine without thymine and without a double helix structure at all?
More importantly, this is just the standard false dichotomy that IDers inherited from their creationist forebears. For 30+ years they've been making the mistake of claiming arguments against evolutionary mechanisms must be support for creation/design. Here is Judge Overton, in 1982, talking about the exact same sort of argument Mr. Grasso makes above:
Replace "creation science" with "ID" and its the exact same argument.
eric wrote:
Surely you’re aware of the fact that RNA functions just fine without thymine and without a double helix structure at all?
so what ? i mentioned is DNA, nor RNA. RNA is not stable as DNA is, which is optimized to store information required for the cell's use.
It is amazing how uniformly similar arguments from the scientifically ignorant creationists (sorry, ID proponents) are when you look at what they are really saying:
"I don't think evolution can work, and life seems complicated to me, so my god made everything."
The concept of irreducible complexity was first posed and answered (in general terms) by Darwin (evolution of the eye). The key points as I see them are:
1. Many biological processes which have been claimed to be IR have been found not to be, e.g., the blood-clotting system, and the Kreb's cycle.
2. It is possible for IR systems to evolve. A circular stone arch is IR - remove any stone from the circle and it collapses. It can be built using a scaffold and once built, the scaffold is redundant and can be removed. Scientific examples:
http://phys.org/news/2006-04-evolution-irreducible-complexity.html
And from Wikipedia:
"A computer model of the co-evolution of proteins binding to DNA in the peer-reviewed journal Nucleic Acids Research consisted of several parts (DNA binders and DNA binding sites) which contribute to the basic function; removal of either one leads immediately to the death of the organism. This model fits the definition of irreducible complexity exactly, yet it evolves.[88](The program can be run from Ev program.) In addition, research published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature has shown that computer simulations of evolution demonstrate that it is possible for complex features to evolve naturally.[89]"
3. 3.5 to 4 billion years of continuous evolution by septillions of replicators has produced more organisms and biological processes than science will ever be able to trace to their origins. There will always be unanswered questions. However, we have plenty of evidence that evolution occurs, both in the lab and in the field. ID has no contradictory evidence, no experiments in which new features poof into existence, only speculation.
4. The evolutionary process is smarter than humans (all of us, scientists and IDers alike). It took human beings roughly 100,000 years of technological development to invent the first synthetic fiber, nylon. It took bacteria less than 40 years to invent a way to digest it.
I am not a scientist, so I had to read Ken Miller's excellent book and do some online searching for concrete examples. However, I am not parroting them - they make sense to me, and almost every day I see something new which I can explain using the evolutionary paradigm. The ID paradigm seems to me to be "find something which science has yet to understand and claim it as evidence against science, while ignoring all the things which science explains". This does not seem logically sound to me - more like parroting.
I am sorry OG, if you can't explain your answers in the comments, why bother? Why is the "designer" your god? If you know who the "designer" is, why can't you tell me what it did, when it did it, how it did it, and why it did it?
For instance, why would your god make all of the genome functional? Why would it make the all the body plans first and then diversify within each plan?
JimV wrote:
1. Many biological processes which have been claimed to be IR have been found not to be, e.g., the blood-clotting system, and the Kreb’s cycle.
That does not mean there aren't any at all. How about you address just ONE of the 17 i describe in my link above ?
It is possible for IR systems to evolve.
IC systems cannot evolve BY DEFINITION.
Michael Behe's "Evolutionary" Definition — "An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway." (A Response to Critics of Darwin's Black Box, 2002)
An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced gradually by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, since any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by definition nonfunctional. Since natural selection requires a function to select, an irreducibly complex biological system, if there is such a thing, would have to arise as an integrated unit for natural selection to have anything to act on. It is almost universally conceded that such a sudden event would be irreconcilable with the gradualism Darwin envisioned."In the quote above, Behe notes that there is a fundamental quality of any irreducibly complex system in that, "any precursor to an irreducibly complex system that is missing a part is by definition nonfunctional.” Behe elaborates upon this definition saying"An irreducibly complex evolutionary pathway is one that contains one or more unselected steps (that is, one or more necessary-but-unselected mutations). The degree of irreducible complexity is the number of unselected steps in the pathway."
JimV wrote:
A circular stone arch is IR – remove any stone from the circle and it collapses.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/04/complexity_by_s071281.html
This is all very revealing. In the geological context, we know very well how, as a starting point, "cliffs or piles of stone" form. It's readily comprehensible how, worn by water or weather, an arch may appear. In the biological context, we do not know how the starting point -- functioning "genes, cells, tissues or organs" -- got there.
3.5 to 4 billion years of continuous evolution by septillions of replicators has produced more organisms and biological processes than science will ever be able to trace to their origins.
This is a frequently raised, but unsophisticated argument for Darwinian evolution and the origin of life. You can't just vaguely appeal to vast and unending amounts of time (and other probabilistic resources) and assume that Darwinian evolution or whatever mechanisms you propose for the origin of life, can produce anything "no matter how complex." Rather, you have to demonstrate that sufficient probabilistic resources or evolutionary mechanisms indeed exist to produce the feature.
What is education" when it produces individuals who swear that evolution is true or that those who oppose it don't understand the process.
The so called evolutionary argument is more a matter of assaulting the intelligence of those who oppose it with a range assertions that proponents of evolution really have no answer, how these mechanisms really work. To argue that forever is long enough for the complexity of life to reveal itself is an untenable argument. The numbers are off any scale we can relate to as possible to explain what we see of life. Notwithstanding, you have beings in here who go as far to say it's all accounted for already, as if they know something nobody else does.
The ID paradigm seems to me to be “find something which science has yet to understand and claim it as evidence against science, while ignoring all the things which science explains”.
Id is not a argument of ignorance.
Darwins doubt, pg.268
What natural selection lacks, intelligent design—purposive, goal-directed selection—provides. Rational agents can arrange both matter and symbols with distant goals in mind. In using language, the human mind routinely "finds" or generates highly improbable linguistic sequences to convey an intended or preconceived idea. In the process of thought, functional objectives precede and constrain the selection of words, sounds, and symbols to generate functional (and meaningful) sequences from a vast ensemble of meaningless alternative possible combinations of sound or symbol. Similarly, the construction of complex technological objects and products, such as bridges, circuit boards, engines, and software, results from the application of goal-directed constraints. Indeed, in all functionally integrated complex systems where the cause is known by experience or observation, designing engineers or other intelligent agents applied constraints on the possible arrangements of matter to limit possibilities in order to produce improbable forms, sequences, or structures.
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t2099-irreducible-complexity-is…
Michael
if you can’t explain your answers in the comments, why bother? Why is the “designer” your god? If you know who the “designer” is, why can’t you tell me what it did, when it did it, how it did it, and why it did it?
I can give you answers, but they are not based on the realm of science, but philosophy and theology.
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/f10-does-god-exist-origin-of-go…
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/f14-philosophy-and-god
OG,
Not only is Behe’s concept of “Irreducibly Complexity” fundamentally flawed, but its exact characteristics were described by HJ Muller in two papers published in 1918 and 1939, although he gave the process a different name - "Interlocking Complexity". Not only did Muller describe this concept, he actually highlighted it, not as a problem for the theory of evolution by natural selection, but as a prediction of Darwin’s original theory – one which has been more than adequately borne out by subsequently uncovered evidence. You may also recall that Darwin himself anticipated much the same potential criticism, as he elucidated in his much quoted, and even more misquoted (out of context, by creationists) statement regarding the evolution of the eye. This is most eloquently highlighted on the Talk Origins archive, from which I reproduce the paragraph below:-
"... thus a complicated machine was gradually built up whose effective working was dependent upon the interlocking action of very numerous different elementary parts or factors, and many of the characters and factors which, when new, were originally merely an asset finally became necessary because other necessary characters and factors had subsequently become changed so as to be dependent on the former. It must result, in consequence, that a dropping out of, or even a slight change in any one of these parts is very likely to disturb fatally the whole machinery; for this reason we should expect very many, if not most, mutations to result in lethal factors ..."
Muller 1918 pp. 463-464. (emphasis in the original)
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/ICsilly.html
So you see, simply accepting whatever Behe may choose to define as “Irreducibly Complex” will not serve to demonstrate that such a system can’t evolve, and if you elect to include in that definition the words “can’t evolve”, then the circularity of your position is apparent. Behe’s “unevolvable system” can’t just be wished into existence by making up a definition. You must provide actual evidence for the existence of any such system, otherwise the rest of us are perfectly entitled to assume the default position – namely that the existence of any such system need not be considered. The onus is on you to find such a system, or else shut up. Alternatively, accept the concept of ID, or “Interlocking Complexity” as Muller’s prior claim on the concept would state it, and realise that this phenomenon, however useful or otherwise it may be, is just a predictable consequence of a reasonably well understood process – namely, evolution by natural selection.
Of course, you really give the game away in your final response to Michael, in which you openly admit your reliance on faith:-
“I can give you answers, but they are not based on the realm of science, but philosophy and theology”.
That just about says it all. Why enter a blog which is based “in the realm of science” when all you really want to do in the end is to appeal to theology and philosophy, having spent several previous posts and a good few inches of laptop screen space in pretending that your position is a scientific one?
Oh goody. Another obsessive creationist has discovered the blog and thinks it exists so that he may have a platform to write endless diatribes parroting asinine, long-refuted talking points.
Otangelo, you're welcome to comment here but keep it under control. Comment two or three times in a thread and then get on with your life. It's OK to let the other guys have the last word.
Everyone else, you're also allowed to let things drop. I get a little tired of seeing every comment thread hijacked into a tedious argument between a small number of people.
Jason wrote :
I get a little tired of seeing every comment thread hijacked into a tedious argument between a small number of people.
in other words. Naturalism is a fact. Lets not question it. LOL...
don't worry. This is my last post here. Upon your comment, i don't even know what the goal of your blog is......
#21 "We do not know of any natural, aka non-intelligent process producing coded specified, complex information. "
Sure we do. There's DNA, for example.
(My last comment.) In response to: 'An irreducibly complex system cannot be produced gradually by slight, successive modifications of a precursor system, since any precursor to an irreducibly complex system is by definition nonfunctional."
That's a new definition. The one Behe started with was that a system is IR if removing any part of it makes it nonfunctional. The new definition attempts to get around the scaffolding issue but has this problem: no such system can be proven to exist in nature. As I mentioned, candidate systems have been shown to be wrong before, so ID thinking is not infallible on this issue. If real scientists cannot hope to trace every evolutionary step over the last several billions years, neither can IDer's conclusively demonstrate that no scaffolded pathway to a supposed IR system exists. Meanwhile, we have many, many examples of things did did evolve, in nature and in the lab. We know that DNA mutates, and that mutations can be good as well as bad (e.g., the mutation among cattle-herding people to prevent lactose intolerance). Evolution happens, at least in many documented cases, the evidence is undeniable (if examined). ID is reduced to saying, "Well, I don't understand how it worked in such-and-such a case." This does not constitute a proof, otherwise I could claim a Nobel prize for disproving General Relativity (whose tensor equations I do not understand).
As for, " Indeed, in all functionally integrated complex systems where the cause is known by experience or observation, designing engineers or other intelligent agents applied constraints on the possible arrangements of matter to limit possibilities in order to produce improbable forms, sequences, or structures.", I refer you to Gall's Law:
"A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working simple system." – John Gall
In my opinion based on 35 years of design work, the second statement (Gall's Law) speaks with the voice of experience and historical research; the first (ID) does not. (One wonders how many complex systems the author of the first statement successfully designed.)
Bye!
@18: Excellent job missing my point, dear Otangelo Grasso. I formulated three characteristics of creationism. And you confirm them:
#1 You reject Evolution Theory again with " Darwinism’s prediction is falsified."
#2 You advocate the God of the Gaps with "no material causes have been discovered". Note that "God" here is nothing but s synonym for "Intelligent Agent", "Designer" or whatever fancy terminology you are fond of.
#3 And lo and behold, here we have a version of Paley's False Watchmaker Analogy: "Intelligent causes have demonstrated the power to produce large amounts of specified information." And in @25 you pull off another version with "If SETI detects a signal from intelligent extra-terrestrial life, we need not know how ...."
Thanks for demonstrating personally how well my inductive definition of creationism works. You are a full blown creationist.
Well there is infinite more evidence for naturalism than supernaturalism....
In a mother’s womb were two babies. One asked the other: “Do you believe in life after delivery?” The other replied, “Why, of course. There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”
“Nonsense” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What kind of life would that be?”
The second said, “I don’t know, but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths. Maybe we will have other senses that we can’t understand now.”
The first replied, “That is absurd. Walking is impossible. And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! The umbilical cord supplies nutrition and everything we need. But the umbilical cord is so short. Life after delivery is to be logically excluded.”
The second insisted, “Well I think there is something and maybe it’s different than it is here. Maybe we won’t need this physical cord anymore.”
The first replied, “Nonsense. And moreover if there is life, then why has no one has ever come back from there? Delivery is the end of life, and in the after-delivery there is nothing but darkness and silence and oblivion. It takes us nowhere.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the second, “but certainly we will meet Mother and she will take care of us.”
The first replied “Mother? You actually believe in Mother? That’s laughable. If Mother exists then where is She now?”
The second said, “She is all around us. We are surrounded by her. We are of Her. It is in Her that we live. Without Her this world would not and could not exist.”
Said the first: “Well I don’t see Her, so it is only logical that She doesn’t exist.”
To which the second replied, “Sometimes, when you’re in silence and you focus and you really listen, you can perceive Her presence, and you can hear Her loving voice, calling down from above.”
~ Útmutató a Léleknek
#59: yet another fine example of how you can "prove" anything with a well chosen metaphor.
I hope you got a good grade in your Creative Fiction course.
sean s.
Well, sean, the greatest who's ever walked among us fed His disciples parables and metaphors to make complex concepts digestible to less enlightened, less evolved minds. These teachings fed God to a hungry world, so feast and don't be ashamed if the aforementioned metaphor made you think. It's good for you.
Right, because they listen with their ears and pick up acoustic waves traveling through fluid that come from mom. These babies have discovered an empirical methodology, accessible to all babies regardless of their belief, that they can use to test their hypothesis. They can even move around in order to use parallax to test the directionality of the signal. Good for them! Soon they'll be using this same methodology and relying on empiricism to test and reject all sorts of other hypotheses.
Jesus of Nazareth clearly knew the limits of any parable or metaphor. You clearly do not. Your muddled story made me think; but what I thought could not be considered charitable. It's folks like you who are a stumbling block to folks like me.
sean s.
McD, is your story meant to show ID and YEC are the same? Just Christian apologetics?
I didn't write the metaphor, sean, nor did Jesus speak it - but the message is effective. We know which baby we each represent and that hindsight eventually becomes 20/20. The skeptical baby is, of course, in for a surprise.
"Jesus of Nazareth clearly knew the limits of any parable or metaphor. You clearly do not. Your muddled story made me think; but what I thought could not be considered charitable. It’s folks like you who are a stumbling block to folks like me."
I know the limits of a parable as well - realizing that Léleknek's story is not video footage of God, heaven or hell, but merely a device used to stimulate thought about such things. I can't prove these realities anymore than the believing baby could prove that there was a world outside the womb, but we know that it's hope was not disappointed.
How am I a stumbling block to you?
Eric,
"Right, because they listen with their ears and pick up acoustic waves traveling through fluid that come from mom. These babies have discovered an empirical methodology, accessible to all babies regardless of their belief, that they can use to test their hypothesis. They can even move around in order to use parallax to test the directionality of the signal. Good for them! Soon they’ll be using this same methodology and relying on empiricism to test and reject all sorts of other hypotheses."
Is there more, or is this it for our existence? Are we alone or are we being Parented - and will we meet our Source? It's not complicated, Eric, but a simple story designed to make you consider the very real possibility that you're ignorant.
Michael,
"McD, is your story meant to show ID and YEC are the same? Just Christian apologetics?"
Is that code for: "stay on topic or GET OFF OUR BLOG"? I just dropped by to show some love, then I was on my way. I know there's been a shortage of believers here lately due to a few getting banned and Otangelo Grasso taking the hint. Since my post was a little off topic, I know I'm in danger as well, but who cares? I doubt God would feel welcomed to comment here either.
The parable seems to me a good example of the simplistic, wishful, and somewhat arrogant thinking which has produced so many cults and religions. When I was a baby there were giant, incomprehensible beings that guarded me and provided sustenance and comfort; therefore now that I'm grown up, and my parents no longer can provide all of my needs, there must be something else in the universe that loves me and watches over me - QED.
Evolution provides a much more detailed and understandable explanation for our place in the universe, and is consistent with all (reliable) observations, such as parental instincts and the wish to be special and loved. Whereas many of the things we see and experience are not easily explained by benevolent guardians. (E.g., my fundamentalist relatives starting praying for the recovery of a friend with cancer a few months ago. A few weeks later she was dead.) The sort of wishful thinking that cults and religions use to tempt followers are not consistent with the way most people think in everyday life. If you are going to take a long car trip, most people would check maps, check their tires, brakes, and oil, and so on, rather than counting on a giant, benevolent, invisible guardian.
This giant invisible guardian who can supposed hear all of our thoughts (of 7 billion of us) at all times, as well as monitoring everything else that is going on in over 100 billion galaxies, with no mechanism known to science which is capable of doing so (reading thoughts) - why would such an incomprehensibly powerful intellect see any difference between humans and ants?
From these and hundreds of other issues, those of us who have spent years of our lives giving considerable thought to the issue see such parables as simplistic and naive, and sometimes get annoyed by having to explain their shortcomings over and over. (Evolution explains this also - we are all human, theists and atheists, and share the flaws of our evolutionary development.)
A god who could comment here or anywhere and prove its existence and explain all the religious inconsistencies we see would be very welcome. But that's not what we ever get) in public, with cameras rolling).
McD, did you notice the title of the post before you commented? Grasso tried to claim ID was a viable alternative to evolution, but, even though he claims the designer is a god, he knew absolutely nothing about said god - couldn't tell us single thing that the god did, how, when, or why it did it. Can you do better?
Oh I got your story but it doesn't appear you did. The one baby hears momma with its senses. And when one asks the other how they can be sure, they first refers back to their perceptions. This is a very fine way to proceed and I have no problem with baby 1 refuting "momma doesn't exist" by appealing to sensory perceptions. But it doesn't provide any argument for the existence of God.
And of course others have pointed out that ID isn't supposed to be about God at all. IDers on their face deny that they are necessarily talking about God. We all (well, most of us) understand this to be a convenient legal fiction, so I guess a thank you is in order from us to you for admitting that a fiction is all that it is, and this is really about God.
Ronald McDonald asks, "How am I a stumbling block to you?"
If you are so foolish as to think your baby-metaphor is effective, then you are another person who blandly spouts nonsense in the name of your deity. There are so many flaws in your story, the idea that it should be taken seriously is bizarre.
If your deity is real, why does he rely on such folly? Is your deity incapable of making sense? Or sending a spokesperson who makes sense? It seems not, and that is part (only part) of why I no longer believe in deities. I have no credible evidence that any exist.
Just Once, I'd like to meet a Believer who did not spout mere platitudes or sheer nonsense.
sean s.
edit:
... Is your deity incapable of making sense? Or sending a spokesperson who makes sense? It seems he is * incapable *, ...
sean s.
Donald,
Of course there is a possibility that gods exist - I don't think anyone is denying that. There is also a possibility that they don't.
Jim Holt's book which I mentioned on another post is an interesting place to start. He talks to scientists, philosophers and theologians asking why there is something rather than nothing. Nothing is the simplest state, but that obviously doesn't hold. Holt makes a strong case that the Leibnizian "this is the best of all possible worlds" conjecture is improbable and that a mediocre universe makes more sense. What does that say about God?
However a person views this world, it is certainly not the best of all possible worlds.
sean s.
Two goldfish are swimming in their fish bowl, when one turns to the other and asks "Do you think there is a god?"
The second replies "Of course there's a god--somebody changes the water every couple of days."