The Massive Confusion On ID and Evolution

[Dan_Eastwood]

@Eddie

Dan_Eastwood:

A designer capable of creating very complex things must also be capable of very simple things.

Yes, I agree, but I don’t see how this comes into the discussion.
…
I don’t know what “this sort of design” is.

It matters for falsification. Even if some designs are natural, there is no way to prove they are not designed. Without limits on design and the designer, Design cannot be falsified.

@Eddie

So my examples are quite sound; or if they aren’t, no one here has come anywhere near to showing why they aren’t.

We had a LONG discussion on that last time, which you seem to have forgotten.

@Eddie

But that is exactly what Behe has attempted to provide. His claim is that even though organisms can reproduce themselves, and unlike artificial machines exhibit variation, selection, etc., there are limits to what variation and selection in organisms can accomplish if they are unaccompanied by any planning or design.

My complaint here, and I believe that of @T_aquaticus as well, is the vagueness of Behe’s claim. He never defines these limits or demonstrate where or why planning is necessary. If there is a plan, then he might predict where this plan will lead. It is this vagueness that allows Behe and others to equivocate about what design is, why-when-how and where it occurs. If ID is to be a science, then it should be able to address specific questions.

@Eddie

T. aquaticus thinks there are no limits at all, that variation, mutation, selection, etc.

I seriously doubt T.A. thinks there are no limits. We could ask him if he thinks bicycles can evolve, and I am highly confident he will answer “No.” On the other hand, if we observe a mushroom evolve into a wind-up toy, I think we would all be happy to admit design.
My examples here are intentionally silly, but they are very specific. ID need to make very specific claims to allow testing.

@Eddie

I’m not here to prove which position is the correct one. I’m merely trying to establish what Behe says. T. aquaticus is maintaining that Behe absolutely demands miraculous interventions. I’ve tried to show that Behe never explicitly does so, and that at best it might be an implication of his thought

Where does Behe rule out miraculous interventions? Given a designer whose nature seems seems to closely approximate an omnipotent God, it’s not hard to see Behe demanding the miraculous.

@Eddie

… even if Behe does believe that some mutations were miraculously guided (which he might well believe), his argument for design doesn’t rest on pinpointing particular mutations , but on the overall trajectory of an evolutionary path.

We can only observe that trajectory historically. Aside from the vagueness again, this seem like Behe is painting the bullseye around wherever evolution happened to end up.

@Eddie

If T. aquaticus is willing to specify a hypothetical but very precise set of mutations that could turn a bacterium without even a trace of a flagellum into a bacterium with a functioning flagellum (i.e., which nitrogenous bases would be added, subtracted, or substituted, by duplication, deletion, rotation or any other means), and in what chronological order the mutations would occur, I promise I will pass that detailed mutational account along to Behe

Why isn’t this Behe’s job? It’s Behe’s claim, after all.

@Eddie

Why is the onus on Darwin skeptics to prove non -evolvability?

Because that is the paradigm of science. The claim is certain things did not evolve. Where is the evidence for that claim?

Admittedly there are examples of things where we do not know the complete evolutionary history, but there many where we do. We infer evolution because we have a preponderance of data that is well described by the hypotheses of evolution.

@Eddie

My main criticism of Behe and some other ID proponents is that they put themselves under an unnecessary burden by trying to prove that antecedently improbable transformations are impossible . It’s very rarely possible to prove a negative in speculative arenas. They thus put too high a burden of proof on themselves.

I must disagree. Vague claims are hardly any strain at all. Finding evidence and demonstrating facts is damned hard work. It would help if there were more positive claims for design (I am aware of exactly one).

@Eddie

The onus should be on evolutionary biologists to provide detailed, stepwise pathways by which such a transformation could have occurred.

^^^ THIS! Right here!! The very proof you demand cannot falsify design. A Designer that can create complex things must also be capable of creating simple things, and could create along just such a simple stepwise pathway. This can never be falsified.

More generally, a designer without limits cannot be falsified.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Dan_Eastwood

It matters for falsification . Even if some designs are natural, there is no way to prove they are not designed. Without limits on design and the designer, Design cannot be falsified.

Eh, falsification is not really a valid objection.

[Timothy_Horton]

@Dan_Eastwood

My complaint here, and I believe that of @T_aquaticus as well, is the vagueness of Behe’s claim. He never defines these limits or demonstrate where or why planning is necessary. If there is a plan, then he might predict where this plan will lead. It is this vagueness that allows Behe and others to equivocate about what design is, why-when-how and where it occurs. If ID is to be a science, then it should be able to address specific questions.

This should be the First Law Of Intelligent Design: make your claims as vague and undefined as possible so they can’t be tested or falsified.

[Dan_Eastwood]

I’m not big on Popper either. We could make an equivalent claim by testing the hypothesis, “Is this single mutation random?” (versus designed).

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Dan_Eastwood

I’m not big on Popper either. We could make an equivalent claim by testing the hypothesis, “Is this single mutation random?” (versus designed).

I think the right way to understand this is different, and we’ve covered it elsewhere.

If there is two choices A and B, and either option is taken as defacto evidence of C. Than this makes arguments of A vs. B irrelevant to establishing C, and people advancing A over B (or visa versa) as evidence for C are making an absurd argument, independent of whether or not C is ultimately true or not.

[Dan_Eastwood]

I can see how that applies. I won’t start the rehash of that previous discussion.

[Mung]

@Dan_Eastwood

It matters for falsification . Even if some designs are natural, there is no way to prove they are not designed. Without limits on design and the designer, Design cannot be falsified.

Just so we’re clear in what follows I am not addressing whether falsification is or is not the correct approach.

You appear to think that the only way that design can be falsified is if we can somehow detect that something is “not designed.” But is that really the only way to “falsify” a hypothesis? What if there is a better hypothesis or one that is more parsimonious, or whatever.

Take the theory of common descent where there is obviously evidence in favor of that theory. So it’s not like some finding is likely to falsify it. Have evolutionary biologists been hard at work on a “not common descent” detector? Until we have a "not common descent’ detector should I argue that common descent is not falsifiable?

[nwrickert (Neil Rickert)]

@Eddie

The onus should not be on ID proponents to prove that the bacterial flagellum could not possibly have evolved by unguided processes; all they should have to show is that this seems wildly improbable.

But everything that happens is wildly improbable.

It is wildly improbable that a 27 year old from Alabama would violate laws, pay boatsmen to violate laws, and enter North Sentinel Island, and then be killed by arrows. Yet I see that in today’s news reports.

Evolution depends on wildly improbable things that happen and that work out well enough to be selected for.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Dan_Eastwood

I seriously doubt T.A. thinks there are no limits. We could ask him if he thinks bicycles can evolve, and I am highly confident he will answer “No.”

Yes, of course; but I doubt he thinks there are many limits on what self-reproducing organisms can generate, given enough time.

@Dan_Eastwood

Because that is the paradigm of science.

When did it become the paradigm of science that scientists had to prove that the proposal of another scientist could not possibly be the case? Why doesn’t the scientist who asserts something have to provide positive evidence for his assertion?

Let me give a specific example. Suppose that a scientist says that an anti-gravity substance is possible, and that one day men will be able to fly without machines. Does the scientist not have to provide evidence for the existence, or possible existence, of such a substance? Or can he just sit smugly, saying, “No can prove that an anti-gravity substance cannot exist, so I’m right”?

Darwinian evolution claimed that all or most of biological change, accounting for the existence of all species beyond the first progenitors, could be accounted for by variation plus natural selection. Surely you are not claiming that Darwinians needed to provide no evidence at all for the creative power of variation and selection? Surely you are not claiming that all Darwin needed to do was write one sentence stating his thesis, and then say, “This is established science, until someone proves that variation and selection could not possibly accomplish these things”?

So if someone says that a bacterial flagellum could have arisen without any planning, intent, guidance, intelligence, etc., why should Behe have to prove that this could not possibly be the case, in order to raise doubts about the claim? Why isn’t it enough for him to show that even on Darwinian premises (i.e., granting that mutation and selection exist, and that they can do some things), the generation of a flagellum without a plan in advance is wildly unlikely? Why should he have to prove impossibility?

If I tell you I was picked up on the highway last week by aliens in a flying saucer, do you have to prove beyond a doubt that aliens can’t exist, that there can’t be flying saucers, in order for you to reasonably doubt my claim? Why is the onus on you to disprove my story? Why isn’t the onus on me to provide evidence of said aliens?

I think Behe’s mistake is to try to prove absolute impossibility, which can almost never be done. I think he does enough if he shows that something is wildly improbable. If something is wildly improbable, we as human beings generally do not believe it – unless we have an ulterior, non-scientific motive for believing it. So if the Darwinian origin of a flagellum is wildly improbable, as he contends, then reasonable scientists will no longer believe the flagellum originated in that way – unless some non-rational factor (e.g., commitment to materialism) is driving them to accept the improbable, rather than the distasteful alternative (design).

[gbrooks9 (George)]

@Dan_Eastwood

My complaint here, and I believe that of @T_aquaticus as well, is the vagueness of Behe’s claim. He never defines these limits or demonstrate where or why planning is necessary.

@dan_eastwood and @T_aquaticus,

As far as the pool shot model is concerned, all is designed:

Planning/Teleology/Design is necessary for multiple reasons:

1] to “lock up” the fruition of an overall plan that otherwise would have an error bar unacceptably large (to God);

2] to “lock up” constituent sub-plans where sequence of each sub-unit is critical;

3] when the “normal” or “natural” probability of an evolutionary step is too low to have a reasonable expectation of it happening in a timely way without God’s coordination.

Even humans would be unwilling to “just wait” for a rare natural occurrence if the human can specifically invoke the occurrence at little or no disadvantage to one’s self!

[Dan_Eastwood]

@Mung

You appear to think that the only way that design can be falsified is if we can somehow detect that something is “not designed.” But is that really the only way to “falsify” a hypothesis? What if there is a better hypothesis or one that is more parsimonious, or whatever.

I have encountered ID advocates* making this claim, with wording very similar to Eddie’s about how design could be falsified (ie: by discovery of a detailed stepwise pathway):

The onus should be on evolutionary biologists to provide detailed, stepwise pathways by which such a transformation could have occurred.

* in particular, one with initials DJ, whom you may have encountered at UD.

My point is that design can either be falsified or even hypothesized in this way (it’s not testable).

I remain open to the possibility of a more detailed hypothesis that could make some sort of single mutations testable for design, but I have no idea what that might be. I’m pretty sure no one on the ID side knows what this might be either.

@Mung

Have evolutionary biologists been hard at work on a “not common descent” detector?

Bats are not descended from bugs. I think we might be able to state a more formal way to detect lack of common descent if we put our heads to it.

In another recent comment, somewhere, I gave you three forms of evidence for ID. Two of those should also help identify a lack of common descent. In phylogenetic testing there should be a degree of common descent. Bats and Bugs are widely separated by common descent; bats and mice are much closer.

IOW: I think we already have our "not common descent’ detector. If not, then I have misunderstood what you are asking.

[gbrooks9 (George)]

@Dan_Eastwood

whatever.

I have encountered ID advocates* making this claim, with wording very similar to Eddie’s about how design could be falsified (ie: by discovery of a detailed stepwise pathway )

@Dan_Eastwood

Didnt you and a few others reach a mutually satisfying conclusion, that integrates the impossible nature of both sides of the question?:

1] Evolutionists and ID advocates need to mutually acknowledge that ID folks are not able to make God’s work an Independent Variable ; and

2] Evolutionists and ID advocates need to mutually acknowledge that there is no practical way to exhaust all the possible ways to prove that natural processes cannot achieve the evolutionary step in question.

This is a complete impasse that cannot be resolved through disputation!

[Mung]

@Dan_Eastwood

IOW: I think we already have our "not common descent’ detector . If not, then I have misunderstood what you are asking.

Bats and bugs share a common ancestor. Are you saying we have managed to detect that they do not share a common ancestor?

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@nwrickert

But everything that happens is wildly improbable.

It is wildly improbable that a 27 year old from Alabama would violate laws, pay boatsmen to violate laws, and enter North Sentinel Island, and then be killed by arrows. Yet I see that in today’s news reports.

This shows a common confusion. ID folks have already dealt with objection at great length. It is not just improbability but also specification that are involved in design inferences. Dembski and others have covered this in their writings.

@nwrickert

Evolution depends on wildly improbable things that happen and that work out well enough to be selected for.

Unless you can show the “islands of selective advantage” that the organism could use to traverse the Pacific Ocean of evolutionary space from “not even an inkling of a flagellum” to “perfectly working flagellum,” you have to suppose that the “wildly improbable” changes happened simultaneously – which even Darwin rejected, as tantamount to a miracle.

[Mung]

@Eddie, Dawkins believes in the power of cumulative selection, I believe in the power of cumulative improbability.

[Patrick]

@Mung

Dawkins believes in the power of cumulative selection, I believe in the power of cumulative improbability.

How do you know what Dawkins “believes” in?

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

Thanks, Bill. I am always glad to here what physicians have to say, since they deal with the human body up close and personal, as opposed to blackboard theorists who deal with abstract mathematical models. I will listen when I get a chance. If I have any useful thoughts after hearing it, I’ll reply here.

[Eddie (Edward Robinson)]

@Mung

@Eddie, Dawkins believes in the power of cumulative selection, I believe in the power of cumulative improbability.

Hi, Mung. You may have to expand on this terse reference. I’m having trouble connecting it with the previous discussion that spawned it. Probably I’m just having a momentary fit of stupidity, but if you care to expand it a bit, I’ll come back to it.

[Mung]

@Patrick

How do you know what Dawkins “believes” in?

I am an accomplished and credentialed mind reader!

I made an inference about what Dawkins believes based upon his writings. Maybe you can convince him to come here and clear the matter up.

[Patrick]

@Mung

I made an inference about what Dawkins believes based upon his writings. Maybe you can convince him to come here and clear the matter up.

Sure at $15,000 per appearance.