Olofsson: Probability, Chance, Evolution and Intelligent Design

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

http://www.talkreason.org/articles/chanceprob.cfm

An interesting blast from the past, written in 2008.

[T_aquaticus]

The author echoes one of my own thoughts on the subject:

In the above sense, Behe’s claim is vacuously true. On the other hand, Behe has now painted himself into a corner, where he cannot obtain any empirical evidence for design because, as soon as a mutation has been observed, its existence is attributable to Darwinian evolution by population number arguments alone. Does there exist any population of any species where some individuals carry a useful mutation and others do not, such that this mutation can be explained by Darwinian evolution? Behe has already told us that one such example is chloroquine resistance in malaria. Does there a exist any population of any species where some individuals carry a useful mutation and others do not, such that this mutation cannot be explained by Darwinian evolution? No. If one of n individuals experiences a mutation, the estimated mutation probability is 1/ n . regardless of how small this number is, the mutation is easily attributed to chance because there are n individuals to try. Any argument for design based on estimated mutation probabilities must therefore be purely speculative.

When the dust settles, Behe still can’t point to a specific mutation and demonstrate that it was put there by intelligent design. Could Behe compare the chimp and human genomes and tell us which mutations were the product of known natural processes and which were put there by intelligent design? No.

[Dan_Eastwood]

If one of n individuals experiences a mutation, the estimated mutation probability is 1/n . regardless of how small this number is, the mutation is easily attributed to chance because there are n individuals to try.

The probability approaches 1-1/e \approx 0.63 as n gets large.

That might be more clearly stated: If the probability of a the mutation is **1/**n, and there are n individuals in the population (or n opportunities for this mutation to occur), the probability of the mutation occurring at least once is about 0.63.

[gbrooks9 (George)]

@T_aquaticus

When the dust settles, Behe still can’t point to a specific mutation and demonstrate that it was put there by intelligent design. Could Behe compare the chimp and human genomes and tell us which mutations were the product of known natural processes and which were put there by intelligent design? No.

@T_aquaticus

bingo… Bingo… BINGO!

[gbrooks9 (George)]

@T_aquaticus

When the dust settles, Behe still can’t point to a specific mutation and demonstrate that it was put there by intelligent design. Could Behe compare the chimp and human genomes and tell us which mutations were the product of known natural processes and which were put there by intelligent design? No.

@swamidass

Ill send you money for a steak dinner (you + spouse) if you can get Behe’s response to this “assertion by a 3rd party”!!!

@T_aquaticus

If you can convince Joshua to accomplish this, you get a steak dinner too!

[Joe_Felsenstein]

Olofsson criticizes Dembski’s use of a rejection region as not being based on having an alternative hypothesis. The examples Dembski gave in No Free Lunch in 2002 all used a scale of fitness, or components of fitness, with the implicit purpose of showing that we couldn’t get to those high levels of fitness with normal evolutionary processes. At least, not with any reasonable probability. I think that this was a reasonable strategy, but only if you have some mathematical proof that ordinary evolutionary processes such as natural selection could not get there. Dembski claimed to have a proof, which he sketched out, his Law of Conservation of Complex Specified Information. In my 2007 article in Reports of the National Center for Science Education I argued that the LCCSI could not be applied in the right way to enable it to do the job, because it required that the specification be changed each generation. (See also my 2012 post at The Skeptical Zone where I show a simple population genetics example that should be impossible if Dembski’s claim was correct).