How would you calculate the probabilities of guided evolution?
Suppose we’re dealing with the evolution of increased antibiotic resistance in some experiment. What do we gain by positing there’s an invisible guiding force at work? How does that change the probabilities?
It’s not that it isn’t allowed, it’s that the assumption of an invisible guider seems unnecessary. Like in weather. Do we need to posit the small invisible angels making water molecules jitter? How does the probabilities change if we add a guider to the picture?
Tell me, I’d love to know. And you absolutely are allowed to state your models with guiding designers in them and improve any science you want. Why stop at evolution?
Is there a better theory of thermodynamics with a secret guiding force that better explains the transfer of heat enery through some medium, whether solid, gas, liquid or whatever, than one where the molecules just randomly jitter around and bounce into each other and transfer their kinetic energy around?
In the absence of evidence of guidance then obviously the default should be that there is no guidance. Undetectable guidance is indistinguishable from a lack of guidance - and for pragmatic purposes no different. This is not dogma - it is simple parsimony
The problem with “guidance” is that it is in itself too vague to be useful. Are, for instance, mass extinctions a crude form of guidance or disasters that interfere with accomplishing the objective of the supposed guidance? Either view is possible. Developing specific ideas about guidance that lead to predictive hypotheses that are then confirmed would be a good start.
Attempts at probabilistic arguments are not a good idea since useful probabilities cannot be practically calculated. The probability-based arguments that have been produced are merely deceptive (intentionally or not) apologetics.
It’s not a question of “no gods allowed” being an assumption. Rather, it’s simply a matter of fact that observations in biology can be fully accounted for by natural ( i.e. unguided) processes, so there is no evidence to support guidance by an intelligent agent. ID proponents claim to be have found such evidence, but they are wrong and/or lying.
Look at it this way: Suppose you evaluated the results of a million throws of a pair of dice, and found the outcome was exactly what would be predicted by chance. Is there a reason you would conclude that some supernatural being was guiding which numbers came up?
With respect to the model of the weather with little angels pushing on the water molecules, as opposed to the warmth radiating off the sun, no I don’t think we can tell the difference.
When it comes to human designed objects they typically have hallmarks of manufacturing on them. They have tool marks, mold lines, have shapes, sizes, weights that facilitate ease of use, grabbing and holding in human hands, facilitate transportation, packaging etc. They’re also typically made of some alloy, ceramics, plastic, or wood. It’s usually polished or painted. And so on and so forth.
In the vast majority of cases we don’t even need probabilities at all. We can just see by it’s shape and the material of which it is constructed that it was something that was desgined and manufactured by some method that required tool use.
It has been explored at great length Or maybe it would be better to say this is the key failing of Intelligent Design; there is no hypothesis for design or a Designer which would allow any distinction between evolution and design. I think it was Dembski who famously said, “ID is not that kind of science.”
Two possible exceptions:
Winton Ewert Dependency Graph hypothesis, which even the ID proponents aren’t too excited about.
Several examples in mainstream science demonstrating how phylogenetic data can be used to test Common Descent versus specific design alternatives. These examples are (Theobald 2003?) and White (2012) if memory serves. In both cases the Common Descent hypothesis is a clear winner against separate origins hypotheses. The main point of both publications is not to test Common Descent, but to demonstrate how Design hypotheses can be tested using mainstream methods. Other Design hypotheses should also be testable, but to date no one in ID has taken up these methods.
This sort of probability approach can be used to show that humans are/were very likely the authors of the posts in this thread. The critical point is that we already know that humans exist - we infer that humans wrote these posts very easily, but we are not inferring the existence of humans because that is a starting assumption.
The same of not true of an Intelligent Designer that is not previously known to exist. We have nothing to show A Priori that a Designer exists in the way we know humans exist. If we look at probabilities in the same way as posts in this thread to infer Design, that is also a (tacit) starting assumption.
I should note that if we were to simply pose a hypothesis for the existence of God, this would be a non-starter. If we are agreed that God is supernatural, then is simply should not be possible to have scientific proof of God, because that’s just not how science works. This is not a point of disagreement anywhere.
I think Douglas Axe did a pretty good job calculating the probability of a single protein forming naturally and concluded that the proportion of sequences capable of forming a stable, functional β-lactamase fold is roughly 1 in 10⁷⁷. That seems pretty unlikely.
So, I’m not arguing that nature cannot, within physical law, produce very very complex interactions, I’m just asking about specific constructs which, under normal circumstances, would be expected to have been created by someone; The bacterial flagellum, for instance, works like a tiny outboard motor: its basal body serves as the engine and drive shaft, the hook acts as a universal joint, and the filament functions as the propeller, all powered by a proton-driven rotary motor anchored in the cell’s membrane. This isn’t something one would expect to see as a product of wind and water, can we agree on that?
Can you give me an example of a pattern which nature cannot replicate? I think we all have seen the picture of Jesus in a piece of toast, or faces in clouds, pareidolia. All patterns are assessed for their likelihood of origination; chance v design, its the stuff of conspiracy theory, and we all do it, particularly when evidence is less than enough.
So, is it “undetectable”? The statues on Easter island have no known creator, we can guess, but we simply don’t know who or what created them. By your theory, we should default to “there was no guidance” involved in their formation?
If no “useful probabilities cannot be calculated” why should the default be blind luck? Moreover, does your principle apply to all historical anomalies, like the Pyramids or the megalithic structures at Machu Picchu, countless markings on cave walls, pointed stones that look like arrow heads, clearly to the uninitiated , and why is the default “no guidance”?
It seems to me, and generally to most folks, some constructs for whom their origination is unknown defy “no guidance” theories, right?
I’ve researched and actually talked to Dr Tour and it seems pretty convincing he’s debunked abiogenesis as a theory, and if intelligence was needed for the first cell, it seems the default expectation should be; if intelligence at any point, then intelligence at every point, unless proven otherwise? Where is Dr Tour wrong? He did build a protein car and stuff.
Yeah, but what if you tossed those million throws and it came up 6’s every time? Would you think someone rigged them? I would.
Is it your theory that all anomalous constructions must either be a product of human intelligence or unguided Nature? That is, the only intelligence in this universe must be Human? If not human designed, then the default must be unguided nature?
The point being, Intelligence is a source of some productions, we both agree on that I think. Wrt biology though, some things: the first cell, evolving informational systems (so far as we know, they never evolve, they degenerate into non-functional states), random mutation which does not destroy the system long before it enhances it, seems to defy naturalistic explanations.
“It has been explored at great length Or maybe it would be better to say this is the key failing of Intelligent Design; there is no hypothesis for design or a Designer which would allow any distinction between evolution and design.”
I’m not a scientist, which is clearly obvious to everyone here, my perspective here is a meta observation; I don’t need to distinguish between design and evolution to have the expectation that what I’m looking definitely appears to be a product of intelligence; The DNA system itself — digital information written on molecular media, complete with self-correcting code, redundancy, and the ability to reproduce trillions of copies of copies without catastrophic loss — seems to be evidence enough. It functions like engineered code, it repairs itself like engineered systems, and it maintains fidelity across unimaginable scales of replication.
To claim such a system arose without intelligence, and without evidence doesn’t seem like a scientific explanation, more like an article of faith in randomness. The default expectation should be Intelligence, particularly given we have evidence intelligence can replicate; though to a lessor degree such a system and no evidence blind nature can. As such, those who believe that a code can write, error-check, and perpetuate itself without an intelligent coder, it seems to me they shoulder the burden of proof.
The dichotomy would appear to be between the existence of evidence of guidance (ID), and a lack of such evidence.
The “lack of such evidence” viewpoint comes in two forms. Theistic Evolution (and similar viewpoints) holds that the guidance is sufficiently subtle that it cannot be distinguished from randomness. Atheistic evolution holds that the ‘guide’ simply does not exist.
Reframed, you distinguish between them by whether that evidence exists.
Might I suggest Young, M., and Edis, T. (eds). 2006. Why intelligent design fails: A scientific critique of the new creationism. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ.
Several of the chapters discuss the various probability arguments in detail, notably Demski’s and Behe’s.
Or maybe it would be better to say this is the key failing of Intelligent Design; there is no hypothesis for design or a Designer which would allow any distinction between evolution and design. I think it was Dembski who famously said, “ID is not that kind of science.”
, and why is the default “no guidance”?