In thinking about the whole issue about the fallacy of composition, it seems to me the issue reduces to problems of emergence. There are cases where compositional reasoning is sound, and others where it isn’t.
For example: If this structure is made of only red lego blocks, then the entire structure is red. You could declare that to commit the fallacy, but the statement is true. The whole structure is red and that is because each of it’s constituent lego blocks is red. When the lego blocks are combined, they don’t change color. Some times there really are no “new” or emergent properties not seen in the individual parts, and the attributes of the individual components really can be validly extrapolated to the whole.
In other cases we know that new properties emerge that invalidate the extrapolation. For example, if the individual pieces of a large molecule are each electrically charged, then the large molecule as a whole is electrically charged. But this is can some times be false, and the large molecule can be electrically neutral, because the positive and negative charges balance out.
So, do you agree with me that the issue you have in mind with the flagellum reduces to problems of emergence? It seems to me that for the inference (that if natural selection can explain each step in the flagellum’s evolution, it can explain all of the flagellum’s evolution) to fail to a composition fallacy, the entire flagellum would have to exhibit novel emergent properties of some sort that makes natural selection unable to act on it at some point. Your thoughts?
Universal common descent is the working inference for evolutionary theory. Is this inference what you are trying to challenge?
The paper you cited from UCSD is using evidence to help support the inference.
The inference exists partly because of methodological naturalism. Have you looked into this?
Hi Bill,
At the moment I’m just looking at a fallacy of reasoning that underlies evolutionary explanations for functionally complex systems. For me the question of common descent is not whether it’s a reality, but how far it goes. My cousins and I share a common ancestor, for sure, but I can’t say the same for baboons and me with quite the same level of confidence, less still for grasshoppers or jellyfish.
In the opening chapter of a forthcoming book, I say this about whether methodological naturalism should be a requirement for science: “That question has been debated at exhausting length by scientists and philosophers for decades, and I won’t delve into it here.”
I also won’t delve into it here.
But I’m glad you asked, because it gives me an opportunity to explain a few things about my beliefs and purposes here before going much further:
Though a creationist, I don’t believe that creationism (when defined simply as a belief that God created the universe and life within it) is a scientific theory in any meaningful sense, or that it requires the support of scientific theories to be rational.
I have no interest in “injecting” creationism (or ID, teleology, etc.) into science classrooms; I’m naïve enough to think that in the long run science can be self-correcting if scientists are left to their work. I do have interest, though, in seriously questioning and criticizing scientific theories that are offered up as
facts that only an ignorant rube would seriously question or criticize.
I am trying to answer as many people here as possible, not so much in a valiant attempt to defend my argument against all comers, but out of respect. I appreciate people answering me when they could easily just ignore me instead, so I do my best to reciprocate.
On that score, let me add that while I do think evolutionary theory is largely false, I have considerable respect for evolutionary scientists (even Dawkins and others who think people like me are “ignorant, stupid or insane”). After all, history is replete with brilliant, hard-working, well-meaning scientists whose theories turned out to be wrong. That being the case, maybe it wouldn’t be such a terrible shock to find out one day that birds never actually evolved from reptiles, say, or that lots of organisms do not in fact share a common ancestor.
All I can say is that you are busily constructing a logical “argument” that has no connection to evolutionary theory or, for that matter, to any other aspect of biology. It is possible that you found an errant sentence in a magazine (there is no peer-reviewed journal called “Microbe” but the remodeled newsletter of the ASM once went by that name) that, upon a likely overfreighted reading, contains an inconsequential fallacy.
By citing a magazine from 2007 as your source for a claim about what evolutionary theory “postulates” about “the development of the various components that constitute a functionally complex system,” you have told us here on this forum that you know very little about evolution and have read next to nothing about it. This is not meant as an insult, but the consequence is that you are not prepared to discuss evolution, much less any errors or even fallacies made by scientists who study it and write about it. My personal view is that you have committed scholarly malpractice, and if you were a friend or loved one I would invite you for coffee to explain just how seriously wrong your writing is. I don’t just mean incorrect. I mean wrong.
Glad to, but first please accept my apology for leaving the conversation after this. I would be willing to return if I saw informed commentary (by you) about evolution, but having read your most recent responses I think that is currently not possible.
I will refer you elsewhere to basic summaries of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. (WikipediaInvestopedia) To see how this kind of error can affect a person considering evolution (or any other kind of history, it seems), start with the image at the center of the sharpshooter story/joke: you come across a large barn and see several painted targets on the wall of the barn, each with a single arrow embedded in the bullseye. My suggestion is that you stop here and think… why might this metaphor be relevant to thought about evolution? I’ll wait.
So, there are two things you need to explain about the pattern on the wall:
How did the arrows get there? This is the obvious question that we all want to ask.
How did the paint get there? This is the question that few will ask, especially at first.
You can’t answer question 1 without first answering question 2. You should think about why that is.
In the context of considering evolution (or any other aspect of the natural world, actually), the paint represents a target. A goal. I told you that the sharpshooter fallacy/error is understandable because I think our minds automatically see a target/goal when we see a pattern of any kind. Yes, some people (likely including you) believe that all things have a “purpose” and that the world is driven by a “mind” with “goals,” but that is not my point. Even atheist degenerates like me are prone to this innate tendency to see targets and goals whenever I see patterns or regularities.
The way to avoid the sharpshooter error is not to dismiss agency or even to doubt the gods, but simply to admit that the paint is always added by us. Until we show that the arrow had to hit the target, and that particular target besides, we have no reason to assume (or even suspect) that the arrows could NOT have been arranged in many, perhaps zillions, of other ways.
To be specific to the overused and long-dead argument based on the flagellum, the sharpshooter fallacy is embedded deeply in the whole thing. The arrow is one particular structure (a specific form of the flagellum, selected from a set of hundreds or thousands of templates) and the target is created in the human imagination. That’s the sharpshooter error in living color.
I hope you will attempt to learn about the science you seek to critique. Others can help you here on the forum.
That’s a bad analogy. Miller (and Darwin) were referring to a connected pathway, a temporal sequence of steps, not a set of discrete parts. That makes your bookshelf analogy inapplicable. If you want to argue that the sequential pathway idea is invalid, you will need a quite different argument.
I’m a little disappointed, John. You asked for clarification, so I spelled out the argument for you, and then threw in the bookshelf analogy as a bonus for good measure. In return you ignored the argument and then missed the point of the analogy completely.
The point of the analogy (meant to reiterate the point of the argument) was simply that one cannot validly infer a property of the whole from a property of the parts as a matter of logic. That applies to any parts-to-whole relation. I could have replied instead, “It’s no more valid than saying that since every soldier in the army can fit in this foxhole, the entire army can fit in this foxhole” – and the analogy would have still been both valid and relevant to the point I was making.
When Miller says, “If each of the intermediate stages can be favored by natural selection, then so can the whole pathway,” he clearly commits a fallacy of composition. As Miller’s own wording makes clear, intermediate stages of a pathway are parts of a whole, just as components of a flagellum are parts of a whole. And we can see why it’s a problem in the case of the flagellum. The very reason researchers have appealed to natural selection evolving the components of the flagellum for functions other than motility is that basically everyone agrees the flagellum cannot serve its recognized function unless the required components are already structurally developed and placed in a highly specified arrangement. So natural selection did not in fact “favor the whole pathway” in terms of motility. But that means it could only have favored the whole pathway in terms of various functions “unrelated to an organelle of motility,” as Wong has it – which means in turn that the eventual structural arrangement of the components into a functional flagellum was a happy coincidence resulting from the intermediate (incomplete) stages.
Now I only keep making this argument because to date I haven’t seen it effectively refuted. I’m not married to it. Let me add also that none of this is meant to be a knock on Ken Miller or Tim Wong, or any other evolutionary scientist. Highly educated, highly intelligent people commit fallacies all the time.
I notice that various people have quite different notions of what your argument is. I think that’s a problem for you, and you need a great increase in clarity.
That’s not really a surprise. It’s not a typical argument, so it may be that people tend to confuse it with a more familiar or in some ways similar argument (like Behe’s), or simply don’t take the time to try to understand it. Now I’ve been told for years that the reason I reject evolution is that I don’t understand it. In principle at least, it may be that some people reject my argument for the same reason.
But… I’m sure there are better ways to communicate my thoughts.
Rumraket, at a glance I think you’re basically right about emergence and about possible valid inferences from parts to whole, which is why the fallacy of composition is an informal fallacy. The form of the argument does not guarantee that the inference will hold, but neither does it guarantee that it will not hold.
Or something like that. Lol. Again I am answering you late in the evening and need to get to bed. I will do my best to give your post the kind of reply it deserves sometime tomorrow.
I don’t think he does, though. What he says is true. If each step on the pathway has a fitness benefit, then the whole pathway will be traversable by natural selection. Imagine if you’re walking on a trail and I tell you, “Every step on the path takes you further up, so the whole path is going up.” That’s clearly true. It’s not always a fallacy of composition to say that the whole shares some characteristic with its parts.
No, it is not at all clear. In your bookcase “analogy” the actual assembly of the bookcase is not included, But the assembly would be a stage in making the bookcase. If every stage of making the bookcase - from making the parts from raw materials all the way to final assembly - occurred in China then we would be correct in saying that the bookcase was made in China. It is not at all clear that Miller’s point is substantially different from that in any relevant way…
To be more specific your claim has now advanced to the assertion that even explaining the system would be inadequate. Why would that be the case?
It was a happy coincidence that a structure that evolved for injecting proteins into cells[1] also provided a sufficient amount of mobility to enable it to then evolve in that direction instead.
Just like it was a happy coincidence that feathers which originally evolved for insulation also helped with flight; that limbs which evolved for swimming also provided weight-bearing for moving on land and then offensive/defensive capabilities; that saliva which evolved for digestion also acted as a mild poison; that lungs which evolved for obtaining oxygen also provided flotation; that hands that evolved for climbing trees also enabled manipulation of tools; that tails which evolved as propulsion and steering worked as balance aids and also enabled communication; that eyes that evolved for vision also acted as condensers; and many many others.
That something was coincidental is not an argument against it.
I’m assuming here that the flagellum did evolve from the type-3 secretory system, not the other way around; I know there is some uncertainty regarding exactly what evolved and when. ↩︎
As a matter of deductive logic, that is. But science is not a deductive process. Rather, it operates thru induction and abduction.
IOW, what you are arguing against is not really just evolutionary theory. Rather, you are arguing against the entire scientific method. You just don’t seem to realize this.
I will be blunt. You do not seem to have any formal training in any scientific discipline, nor in philosophy. If you do, this is not apparent. Not only have you failed to demonstrate an adequate understanding of fundamental details of evolutionary theory. You do not appear to understand the basics of the scientific method itself. You just seem to have gleaned some fancy-sounding philosophical terms from the internet and, emboldened by the examples of dishonest pseudoscientists such as those with the Discovery Institute, figured this is adequate to join their crusade against the theory of evolution.
My advice is to accept you are grossly underqualified to be writing a book about evolution, and devote the time you would otherwise be wasting on this endeavour to better understanding science. Take it for what it’s worth.
Sorry for the miscommunication, but the main difficulty here is that you have failed to make your argument relevant to evolution. Your analogy points out a trivial truth, but nothing connects it to biology. The same is true for your new analogy about soldiers and foxholes.
But he doesn’t. Here’s a better analogy: if each mile of a river bed has a downhill gradient, water will flow all the way from the mountains to the sea. Is that a fallacy of composition?
No, not everyone agrees with that notion. In fact the protein content of bacterial flagella varies considerably among species. And in the scenario you describe, natural selection doesn’t in fact favor the whole pathway. That’s a quite different scenario, and it’s a strawman. The fact is that this fallacy of composition is not in any way relevant to biology, and you have failed to show that it is.
It’s possible, but I suspect not. I think your argument is just unclear and, I further suspect, incoherent. Even your argument about the flagellum isn’t actually about the fallacy of composition. That would require a claim that, since the individual proteins are capable of motility, the flagellum is capable of motility. But nobody makes such an argument.
Further, you should listen to the people who tell you that you don’t understand evolution, but I suspect that’s not why you reject it. Many people who accept evolution don’t understand it either. Your rejection is most likely religious in nature: your view of your religion requires creationism, i.e. the separate creation of “kinds”. Is that correct? I’d be curious regarding what sort of creationist you are. Do you accept that the world is very old? That life has existed for billions of years? That new species have come into existence all through those billions of years? Why do you reject the possibility that you are related to a monkey?
First, hypotheses and theories are not mere rhetoric, nor are they mere post hoc explanations, nor do scientists judge them on their rhetorical strength. Clearly that’s all you have, so you are misrepresenting the scientific method itself to make the comparison to your rhetoric look more reasonable. Is this a conscious or unconscious process?
I ask because you have already been clearly corrected on this point on at least one other forum.
Straw man. As a biologist, I’m convinced by evidence, not rhetoric.
Don, have you ever even read a single paper from the primary evolutionary biology literature (hint: citing Dawkins and a magazine is a very strong indication that you haven’t bothered)? If not, isn’t all of your rhetorical attack premature?
Well, I have looked elsewhere, and that ignores the substantive responses to your straw-man filled, evidence-free argument >4 years ago, primarily to your misrepresentation of science as mere explanation. Was that omission deliberate?
And pointing out that evolution is a fact, as a phenomenon, and that evolutionary theory pertains to the mechanisms underlying it, is merely pointing out your failure to use terms clearly.
Even more basically, only people commit fallacies. Theories are not mere rhetoric, no matter how many times you try to misrepresent them as such.
Except that evolutionary theory has progressed since Darwin. This is yet another tell that you have never bothered to read any primary literature in evolutionary biology. Here’s a hint:
Are you familiar with that decades-old “much of evolution” to which @Faizal_Ali referred?
That’s another tell that you have scrupulously avoided the primary literature in evolutionary biology. Pseudoscientists often cite researchers’ locations. I’m a UCSD alumnus, BTW.
I completely disagree. For that omission alone, it’s a ridiculous paper. See @Faizal_Ali quoted above for the reason why.
Come on! That’s an ASM newsletter. Why are you presenting it as something much more than that?
Perhaps, but why? Biological systems self-assemble. Do industrial engineers design self-assembling machines?
I don’t see that you want to know, because the multiple failures have been explained to you in detail. You’ve just ignored those explanations.
At the center of your argument are gross misrepresentations of both evolutionary theory and the scientific method itself. Both of these are tropes of creationist rhetoric. Why pretend otherwise?
I have four questions to help you gauge the intellectual depth of your approach:
Do you know the simple, all-encompassing popgen definition of the phenomenon of evolution? It explains a lot.
Are biologists portraying evolution as something that happens to single organisms?
Are IDcreationists?
How many different flagella (nonhomologous) are there in biology? I ask this because you use a singular article preceding the noun.
That’s seems silly, given that you have plenty of biologists participating here. Why not ask what participants here say instead of quote-mining a magazine?
It’s certainly useful as a starting point, but would you describe it as primary literature?
Why do you call it “Dawkins’ theory”? Was he the first to advance it? If so, where and when did he do so?
Hi Don
Everything you said I think is reasonable. Something you maybe missing in your argument is that the components of complex systems like the flagellar motor are assumed to have evolved. This comes back to the inference of universal common descent. At this point there are no solid models that support new genes/proteins evolving especially ones with unique sequences.
It strikes me that many proponents of ID commit a fallacy that at least resembles the fallacy of division, which is a close relative of the fallacy of composition. They do so when they erroneously argue that a beneficial structure like the flagellum cannot evolve unless each step of its evolution is also beneficial.
That could mean you have found a new idea that no one else has previously considered. It could also mean that no one else thinks it is worth considering.
I think I didn’t explain when I meant very well. By “not exactly new” I mean there are already some Creationists who find fault with the overall theory of evolution while accepting some of it’s parts. They may not use the term fallacy of construction for evolution, but the meaning of their criticism is much the same; they do not believe the evidence supports the claim.
Reading above I understand your intent better now. I’m not sure you need “Fallacy of Construction” when you could just say that TOE (Theory of Evolution) is incomplete. You would find far fewer objections to that claim.
A few things …
I think you missed something important. It’s not enough just to call for better science, someone has to actually do the work and produce results. There needs to be a new theory (or modification of the old) that does everything the old theory can do, and more. Science is an ongoing process where older theory is constantly tested, revised and refined. That’s how “better” science is done.
There is no formal proof of correctness in biology as there is in mathematics. You aren’t going to find hard logical inferences from parts to a whole in any topic as broad as evolution, because it isn’t a single simple proposition.
Finally …
There are many arguments against evolution that boil down to arguments from incredulity. If someone doesn’t accept a point of evidence supporting evolution, it could be because it contradicts their prior belief, or they do not understand the evidence, or they do not follow the logic, or perhaps they do not find that evidence sufficiently convincing to overcome prior belief. To make a case for a fallacy of construction, you will need to avoid making any arguments from incredulity, and I think that would be very difficult. It would seem to require an expert level understanding of the evidence just to get started.
I don’t mean that critically - I mean you have set yourself a really hard task.
@Don_Mc
I should add - I think most here will agree there is a rhetorical problem with how science is explained to the public. I think you raise an interesting point, and represent a point of view that a lot of people seem to hold about evolution.
Thank you for that, I think I understand you better now.
No, it is not at all clear. In your bookcase “analogy” the actual assembly of the bookcase is not included, But the assembly would be a stage in making the bookcase. If every stage of making the bookcase - from making the parts from raw materials all the way to final assembly - occurred in China then we would be correct in saying that the bookcase was made in China. It is not at all clear that Miller’s point is substantially different from that in any relevant way…
That’s an interesting point, and a good one. In light of that, I would say Miller’s reply might be valid as a response to Behe’s claim that stepwise flagellum evolution is more or less impossible (and which, in fairness, may have been his only purpose in saying it), but still not valid as an explanation for the evolution of a functionally complex system. In other words, even if we knew the parts of the bookcase were made in China that would not justify an inference that it was also assembled there, especially if we had documented lots of furniture parts fabrication going on in China but no instances of manufacturing or assembly.
