Michael Behe's "Billiard Shot" model

[Rumraket (Mikkel R.)]

@stcordova

We have plenty of facts and distributions from physics and chemistry. At the very least abiogenesis would have operate at the tails and outliers of known distributions.

Distributions of what? What are you talking about?

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

For all the discussion about the poolshot, in 2017 Behe backed away from it…

[gbrooks9 (GeorgeB)]

@Roy

This not only eliminates free-will (and hence removes any justification theists might have for complaining about non-theists), it also plays havoc with the idea of hell, since anyone committing sins sufficient to damn them is doing so because God designed the universe so that they would.

@Roy

No. There is a way of conceiving of “front-loading” that does not eliminate free-will.

[gbrooks9 (GeorgeB)]

@swamidass

… about the poolshot, in 2017 Behe backed away from it…

@swamidass

Is there a link to this “backing away”?

[John_Harshman]

@gbrooks9

There is a way of conceiving of “front-loading” that does not eliminate free-will.

Do go on.

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@gbrooks9

@Roy

This not only eliminates free-will (and hence removes any justification theists might have for complaining about non-theists), it also plays havoc with the idea of hell, since anyone committing sins sufficient to damn them is doing so because God designed the universe so that they would.

@Roy

No. There is a way of conceiving of “front-loading” that does not eliminate free-will.

Which is?

[Jordan (Jordan Mantha)]

@Mercer

If selection had to wait for new mutations, evolution can’t possibly produce what we see around us.

This is why bottlenecks cause extinctions.

This is why a population of inbred lab mice, with zero existing variation, could never survive in the wild. There’s no way that new mutations alone could save them, which is intuitively obvious.

Maybe @Jordan could comment more on how he viewed evolution. For me, the mantis example was remarkable in that I saw nothing about it that should have required any new mutations from a more conventional mantis ancestor. All the parts are already there, just shaped and pigmented differently.

First of all, sorry it took me so long to reply. I’ve been very busy lately and I wanted to read the entire thread (I generally avoid the specifically ID topics on people I don’t know a whole lot about). I read Darwin’s Black Box when it first came out but nothing from Behe since.

Second, this is an excellent thread y’all! There has been very few off-topic/inappropriate comments. Both “sides” were able to dialogue and in some sense “suspend belief” to look at each other’s side. Well done! I learned a lot reading through all 207 posts.

Finally, to @Mercer’s point, I was struck by how much of these discussions focus on mutations and particular “mutational steps” and how the larger source of existing variation seems to not be a topic of much discussion. So in a “billiard shot” model, I would say generating an exact set of mutations to give a specific genome is a bit like getting the pool balls into the exact sequence of pockets. What would be the billiard model equivalent to recombination? Would biassing recombination in some way be meaningful? Is the “pool shot” a system of natural laws that lead to a general outcome (intelligent life) or the entire set of causal linkages that provide every specifically desired outcome?

[gbrooks9 (GeorgeB)]

@Roy

Which is?

@Roy,

Well, firstly, if you do not worry about non-humans having Free Will, it isn’t even an issue until the rise of the humans made in God’s image.

Secondly, the next decision is whether God intentionally puts in extra time finding the least difficult option for accomplishing his goals:

[2] Some writers imagine the Free Will of humans as not constraining God’s ability to plan/design if God intentionally selects scenarios vetted for accommodating even the least convenient of Free Will decisions. This can be compared to a Golfer who has complete mastery of his golf clubs and golf ball, who knows that if he puts the ball down six inches to the right of the 4 leaf-clover, there will be no way to hole the next shot (“you just can’t get there from here”). So, the golfer intentionally puts the ball down a few more feet away from the hole, because He knows that there is a path in the green that will take the ball to the hole. To get to the hole, he has to vet another 1,238,323,932 possible shots before he decides which is the best option.

[3] This is in contrast to the view that God uses the occasional supernatural tweak to make up for human choices that are inconvenient to God’s plan.

[Rich_Hampton]

I’ll never get over how many people think randomness is God’s kryptonite.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@John_Harshman

The deist god makes the universe but has no particular concern with the details of how it all comes out, whether humans or frogs or Volvox exist on a particular planet in a particular location.

That’s not a necessary consequence of the deist idea of God – a deist could picture God as creating exactly the universe we have now. The key thing that distinguishes deism from theism is not a difference in exactness about what is created and when, but a difference in how God relates to his creatures. Deists have mostly believed that God does not interact with his creation after he makes it. He doesn’t reveal himself in some particular religion or holy book, doesn’t perform miracles, doesn’t establish personal relationships with people, etc. However, I know what you’re driving at here, even if I wouldn’t call it “deist,” so we can set that aside.

@John_Harshman

I think Eddie may be suggesting a situation somewhere in the middle, a creator who is concerned with setting up some features of the current universe but is unconcerned with all the precise details.

Yes, and I think that is a better characterization of what Denton advocated in 1998 than a billiard shot. And even Behe, when he uses the billiard shot image, is, I suspect, using it loosely, to suggest a rough trajectory of macroevolutionary history rather than the idea that the ruby-throated hummingbird was fated to appear in a certain country in a certain year. We know that Behe regards Darwinian processes as real (though he asserts limits to their power), and it would not fit in with that acknowledgment for him see the evolutionary process as rigidly determined down to the last detail.

@John_Harshman

And of course we would need to know just what range of outcomes the fuzzy billiard shooter is supposed to have planned for.

That is something that Denton discusses in the book. Certainly the outcomes have to include unicellularity, then multicellularity, then vertebrates, and eventually mammals, and primate-like mammals, and then something “very much like” man. There has to be an ecology in which both plants and animals interact, so there has to be photosynthesis. Certain geological features have to be in place or life on earth is not possible. Etc. But does the blue jay necessarily have to be blue rather than green? Probably not.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Roy

Front-loading to the extent being hinted at here has a major theological issue: it implies that God designed the initial state of the universe to unfold the way he wanted it to. This not only eliminates free-will

It doesn’t eliminate free will, because it’s concerned about the stages of evolution between the Big Bang and Man. None of the beings prior to man have free will, according to standard Christian theology. Once free will enters the picture with man, the universe enters a new phase – a phase about which the front-loading idea has nothing at all to say.

I think you are confusing the front-loading idea with the “hard predestinarian” position of Calvin and some other theologians. Those theologians speak about the entire history of the universe, including the history of man. Front-loading speculations don’t go that far.

And in fact, hard predestinarian positions within Christian theology have been criticized, along the very lines you supply – and those criticisms were around within Christian theology long before anyone ever talked about front-loading, or even about evolution. The theological issues don’t have any particular connection with front-loading.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Rich_Hampton

I’ll never get over how many people think randomness is God’s kryptonite.

It all depends on how the “randomness” is conceived. Some aspects of “randomness” pose no problem for traditional belief. But when one starts talking about events happening in the universe that are literally out of God’s control – and saying, “Well, he doesn’t control them, but he foresees them,” doesn’t solve the problem – one should think twice.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Art

The unfolding of the universe, of life, of intelligence, etc. follow the same trajectory, leave the same evidence, in either scenario.

That depends on what mechanisms of evolution are supposed to be operating. People who think of evolution as governed by a design typically imagine teleological factors driving the evolutionary process, factors which most current evolutionary biologists would probably regard as non-existent. Thus, if you add up selection and mutation and drift and horizontal gene transfer and whatever else is typically allowed as a cause of evolution, the “front-loaders” think there are some other things that tilt or bias the outcomes. And if you think there is a hitherto undisclosed cause operating, then you are going to make different predictions about what would happen.

I’m not saying any of these people are satisfactorily clear about how the front-loading would work. I think they are far from clear. But I don’t rule out the idea in the abstract. I’d just like to see it fleshed out in detail.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Jordan

Finally, to @Mercer’s point, I was struck by how much of these discussions focus on mutations and particular “mutational steps” and how the larger source of existing variation seems to not be a topic of much discussion. So in a “billiard shot” model, I would say generating an exact set of mutations to give a specific genome is a bit like getting the pool balls into the exact sequence of pockets. What would be the billiard model equivalent to recombination?

The generation of specific haplotypes without recombination. I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen the term “haplotypes” in any ID polemics, though.

@Jordan

Would biassing recombination in some way be meaningful?

Just as meaningful as biasing mutation!

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Eddie

Certainly the outcomes have to include unicellularity, then multicellularity, then vertebrates, and eventually mammals, and primate-like mammals, and then something “very much like” man.

Ah, the creationist misrepresentation of evolution as a linear ladder, not a tree.

I don’t think Denton would go there again, do you? That’s what was so bad about his first book.

@Eddie

Thus, if you add up selection and mutation and drift and horizontal gene transfer and whatever else is typically allowed as a cause of evolution, the “front-loaders” think there are some other things that tilt or bias the outcomes.

Do any of them ever mention recombination, as one of your not-to-be-mentioned “whatevers,” or are they as fixated on mutation as you are?

@Eddie

And if you think there is a hitherto undisclosed cause operating, then you are going to make different predictions about what would happen.

Eddie! That was almost scientific. But if you’re an ID creationist, you are not going to articulate any actual hypotheses that make actual predictions, so I’m not sure what your point is here.

The existence of recombination does, however, lead to different predictions than a relentless focus on mutation. You should learn about it some time!

@Eddie

I’d just like to see it fleshed out in detail.

But only with rhetoric, not evidence, right? It’s all about the pomo textual analysis.

[T_aquaticus]

@Eddie

And if you think there is a hitherto undisclosed cause operating, then you are going to make different predictions about what would happen.

You would think, but we never really see those predictions. That’s the problem.

If this were a matter of theology and personal belief, then fine. I’m not arguing about that. However, once someone claims that we can detect front loading through scientific means, then my ears perk up. I want to see the science. If someone claims they have scientific support, then they had better have the science to back it up. I think this is where Behe starts getting into deep waters where he can no longer swim. His theology has outpaced his science.

[Mercer (John Mercer)]

@Rich_Hampton

I’ll never get over how many people think randomness is God’s kryptonite.

And no one slings it around like Behe:
Q. Now, you on Monday showed the court, or maybe it was Tuesday you showed the court that you had done a literature search of articles on the immune system looking for the words “random mutation,” correct?
A. Yes.
Q. But you didn’t search for transpositions, is that correct?
A. That’s correct.
Q. And that word appears in a number of the titles here?
A. It does, but the critical difference is the word random. There’s lots of mutations, and it’s entirely possible that intelligent design or some process of the development of life can occur by changes in DNA, but the critical factor is are such changes random, are they not random, so just there are also many occurrences of the word mutation, but it was not just mutation that is the critical element of Darwinian theory. It is random mutation.

How could the critical element of Darwinian theory be mutation or even random mutation, when Darwin had neither knowledge nor any conception of mutation?

[John_Harshman]

@Eddie

Certainly the outcomes have to include unicellularity, then multicellularity, then vertebrates, and eventually mammals, and primate-like mammals, and then something “very much like” man.

Why?

@Eddie

We know that Behe regards Darwinian processes as real (though he asserts limits to their power), and it would not fit in with that acknowledgment for him see the evolutionary process as rigidly determined down to the last detail.

More than that, it would not fit in with his ideas of what evolutionary processes can achieve to let “something very much like man” appear through those processes. That would certainly be beyond “the edge of evolution” and would certainly not qualify as “devolving”.

@Eddie

Certain geological features have to be in place or life on earth is not possible.

Whatever are you talking about?

What you have described is not very far from a highly resolved billiard shot. You’re saying the universe has to be imparted at the outset with a destiny that results in this very planet, a natural origin of life, and a lineage in that life extending from the first ancestor to hominids. Quite a lot of English to put into the Big Bang cue ball.

@Eddie

if you add up selection and mutation and drift and horizontal gene transfer and whatever else is typically allowed as a cause of evolution, the “front-loaders” think there are some other things that tilt or bias the outcomes

Do any of them suggest what any of those other things might be? Do any of them suggest any evidence for such other things?

[gbrooks9 (GeorgeB)]

@Mercer

How could the critical element of Darwinian theory be mutation or even random mutation, when Darwin had neither knowledge nor any conception of mutation?

@Mercer,

Prof. Behe is trying to thread the needle… as a Professor of Science, he has to recognize TRANSPOSITION.

But he wants to argue that God makes transpositions NON-RANDOM… according to divine design.

But @swamidass, you need to ask him how he can allow God to ignore all the unimportant transpositions!

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@John_Harshman

Why?

I’m not going to summarize every line of argument in Denton’s book for you. I gave you a summary answer to your question. If you want to know all Denton’s reasons, you will have to read his book.

@John_Harshman

Whatever are you talking about?

The geological features he discusses at length in ND, and in one of his later books, published by Discovery, The Wonder of Water, I believe.

@John_Harshman

in this very planet, a natural origin of life, and a lineage in that life extending from the first ancestor to hominids. Quite a lot of English to put into the Big Bang cue ball.

Yes, except that he envisions these conditions existing on more than one planet in the universe, so there could be many planets where intelligent, manlike creatures have arisen. But they would have similar (not identical, but close) geologies, atmospheres, etc. So it’s not as if the whole process is aimed at our earth alone; man might be just one of several variations on a pattern of development found throughout the universe.

@John_Harshman

Do any of them suggest what any of those other things might be?

Denton has some suggestions in ND, but I haven’t read it for a few years and wouldn’t try to paraphrase from memory. But they were not rigorously worked out. They were just rough drafts of ideas which would need to be put into more rigorous form to be be tested.