The Design Paradigm

IDesign @ UCI points us to a new journal from the IOP called "Bioinspiration & Biomimetics", which seems it will be well worth keeping an eye on.  From their front page:

Scientists and engineers are increasingly turning to nature for inspiration. The solutions arrived at by natural selection are often a good starting point in the search for answers to scientific and technical problems. Equally, designing and building bioinspired devices or systems can tell us more about the original animal or plant model.

Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, the essential new journal from IOP, will publish research involving the study and distillation of principles and functions found in biological systems that have been developed through evolution, and application of this knowledge to produce novel and exciting basic technologies and new approaches to solving scientific problems.

The requisite bow to Darwin doesn’t do much to spoil the fun of looking closer at these complex systems.  It all reminds me of last fall’s Cohen/Fuller debate at Warwick University, where Fuller went into ID’s value as a heuristic and reminded listeners that they didn’t need to believe there was a designer… just working with the idea of design in nature as a sort of model might be immensely productive.

In the first issue,  Yoseph Bar-Cohen gives a through introduction to biomimetics. Quoting:

The term biomimetics, which was coined by Otto H Schmitt (Schmitt 1969), represents the studies and imitation of nature’s methods, mechanisms and processes. Nature’s capabilities are far superior in many areas to human capabilities, and adapting many of its features and characteristics can significantly improve our technology (Bar-Cohen 2005, Vincent 2001).

Finish reading the entire article here. 

This morning there was a pretty decent article by Nadia Chernyak in the Cornell Sun about the new intelligent design class offered here this summer.

. . .MacNeill first came up with the theme for the seminar when brainstorming with Prof. Will Provine, ecology and evironmental biology, for topics for this summer’s seminar class. MacNeill says that the idea was inspired by the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, in which the Dover Area School District in Dover, Pa. was sued for requiring the teaching of intelligent design in high school science classes.

"Given the Dover case, [Provine and I] thought it’d be interesting to teach [this year’s seminar] on Intelligent Design," MacNeill said.

(more…)

We’ve started a website to catalog some of the false statements and propaganda techniques Randy Olson uses in his documentary, Flock of Dodos.

The whole website can be found here. We’ve included information on the argument from suboptimal design that Olson uses a lot.

In one of our more interesting pages we investigate Olson’s claims that Jonathan Wells lied. As we write:

In Randy Olson’s pseudo-documentary Flock of Dodos, Olson remarks that he has problems with some of John Calvert’s sources. To demonstrate, he asks Calvart about the faked drawings that Jonathan Wells says appears in several evolutionary textbooks. After a prolonged ransacking of Calvart’s library they finally do find Haeckel’s faked drawings — in an old 1914 book whose covers are falling off.

Okie dokie, so Wells is a liar. . . or maybe not. A couple of us had taken evolution classes where we had seen those fake drawings– was Cornell using 1915 textbooks or something more recent? We decided to check out a few biology textbooks to check who was twisting the truth.

Evolutionary Biology (3rd edition © 1998) Haeckel’s faked drawings are actually reproduced without any note to show they are fake (see below). Although there is some discussion in the text of problems with Haeckel’s biogenetic law, the drawing is presented as factually correct.

Read the rest here.

Over on Nobel Intent John Timmer  blogs the recent NYAS conference on "Teaching Evolution and the Nature of Science", and describes a talk given by Glenn Branch (of the NSCE). Branch had some funny comments on the oh so very insidious IDEA Clubs :)  But by far the most interesting part of his talk was focused on the place of apparently requisite self-censorship in biology departments. (Drumrolls please) Timmer concludes his description:

Branch’s final topic was how to handle a situation where a biology department winds up with a creationist as a graduate student. This was both of general interest, as creationists tend to use their degrees as rhetorical weapons, and of personal interest, as I was part of the Berkeley class that produced the noted Discovery Institute fellow Jon Wells. Unfortunately, his conclusion was that there are no easy answers. He did, however, note that graduate departments exist to serve the scientific community by providing qualified individuals to perform research and teaching services. There is no ethical requirement for graduate faculty to be complicit in the training of someone who is ultimately going to actively harm the field.

Our friends at Telic Thoughts ponder over the questions of which standard and criteria are used to define a creationist. Although their points are valid, what’s frightening is this discrimination against creationists, however defined. Whatever happened to our first amendment? Or, as in the Indian caste system, must we leave our "caste" at the doorstep of our laboratories and put the veil on again once we enter the security of our homes? Whatever happened to bringing different viewpoints to a field? Whatever happened to diversity of thought in science? Were religious scientists, philosophers, mathematicians  not scientists, philosophers, mathematicians simply because they were religious? Should they have been banned by the "foreguards of science"? Isn’t this blunt discrimination against religious people (creationists)? Mind you, I’m not of that faith either - but exactly what is the point of this ignorant statement? Correct me if I am wrong, but don’t universities abide by the Civil Rights Act? Where are the ACLU defenders - where are they now, are they standing by silently over this infrigment of our first amendment?

In Flock of Dodos, filmmaker and marine ecologist Randy Olson asks the question, who are the real dodos in the evolution/intelligent design debate: 1) the intelligent design (ID) advocates who disbelieve a purely mechanistic Darwinian explanation for the origin and development of life, or 2) the legions of Darwinist academics who seem unable to connect with and convincingly explain their position to the majority of Americans who stubbornly cling to beliefs in origins that are not solely Darwinian. Flock of Dodos (FOD) is intentionally light-hearted, reflecting Olson’s desire to avoid yet another dreary documentary of droning talking heads, a format which quickly triggers the “Where’s the remote?” reflex in most viewers. Olson is a trained filmmaker, and his stated intent is to connect with his audience on an emotive level. In FOD he succeeds in this, using a combination of often self-deprecating humor, animation and a Charles Kurault-like “on the road” motif. 

However,  the film is not the impartial assessment of the ID debate as it is sometimes billed. Whether by simply reflecting the filmmaker’s own leanings (he was a tenured professor of evolutionary marine ecology at the University of New Hampshire before turning to filmmaking) or through an intentional desire to do so, the film conveys both explicit and subtle messages that seek to steer viewers at an emotive level against the ID position. I am no expert in ID, having only recently begun to read on the subject. But I have seen enough to conclude that, for whatever reason, FOD mischaracterizes or omits pertinent issues in the ID debate. Some were evident during the film and subsequent audience interaction with Olson; others become more apparent on reflection. In no particular order, I will list some of my concerns: 

Last February during Darwin weekend Randy Olson came to Cornell to show Flock of Dodos in one of the first screenings in the nation. In the documentary the narrator Olson interviews some of the participants in the evolution-intelligent design debate and tries to find out which side are the real dodos. Next week the movie is being screened in New York City as part of the Tribeca Film Festival. Our newest contributor, Sigemund, has also written a review on the film, which will be posted shortly.

Over on Panda’s Thumb PvM reaches some interesting conclusions from Prof. Psiaki’s guest post of 4/6. He seems particularly drawn to Psiaki’s final sentence:

The principle of irreducible complexity does not give one all of biology, but if true, it serves to divert the biologist from wasting time by trying to answer a question to which there is no scientific answer.

and the connection made in that post with Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.  Somehow this is taken to mean that ID theory is purely vacuous, a god-of-the-gaps argument, and a method for lazy scientists to avoid working on the problems they ought to be solving.

There are two important issues that seem to be misunderstood here.  The first is that the Uncertainty Principle, while negative, is not in any way, shape or form an argument from ignorance. When we say "we are never going to be able to determine, simultaneously, the exact position or momentum of a particle" we are not saying that science today is sadly limited, and we have some gaps in our understanding of how things move.  Rather we are saying there is a point where even the best research will get us nowhere; in Psiaki’s words: there are some questions to which there is is no scientific answer.

Moreover, like the principle of irreducible complexity in biology, the Uncertainty Principle may not give one all of physics, and yet is critical.  When quantum mechanics was still new and untried,  this annoyingly negative prediction made physicists like Einstein wish very much the theory wasn’t true. But that does not change the fact that today it is a robust and highly productive field.

In particular, all critics and debunkers of the probabity arguments used against naturalistic abiogenesis. . . I want your perspective on an argument I’m reading.

As a disclaimer, I do know the general course of the proposed chemical origins of life, and am cognizant of the research being done in that field, so please don’t repeat this particular ‘rebuttal’ :).

Lost the email announcing an IDEA event? Unsure where we’re going to meet? Tired of always having to plug in the information into your calendar?

We’ve made a public calendar for IDEA club events. This can be added to your GMail calendar (if you use GMail), or any other calendar program you use.

 Now there’s no excuse to miss a meeting.

We will make an attempt to get back to regualar IDEA’ish discussions here soon (it looks as if there has been too much in the way of "news" these days!), but Allen wrote a bit of commentary on the background to this summer’s class that seemed worth linking to.

And for those who have asked– yes, I expect both this blog and the Evolution List will be regularly updated this summer. 

We’ve  gotten a few concerned looks from friends in the wider ID community over our endorsement of Cornell’s new course on intelligent design, BioEE 467, given that the professor is an evolution proponent who has made slightly intemperate remarks on ID in the past.   As a clarification–yes, we know all that.  We also know that MacNeill works hard to ensure fairness, and we do not believe he will let his personal views stifle free thought and inquiry.

And yes, a class can be badly skewed, and yes, there are plenty of potential pitfalls.  But a bit of earnest debate never hurt anything, and I trust that, as people all intent on the same real goal– a "search for truth" so to speak, through science– we can hold each other accountable.   

More for your reading amusement than anything else (not to get accurate information), where we’re being talked about:

Telic Thoughts (good comment thread)

Darwinian Fundamentalism

Uncommon Descent (well…..)

WorldNetDaily

Syracuse Post Standard

Associated Press

And Allen MacNeill on his own blog, in an endeavor to stifle the media misinformation frenzy.
 

by H. Kern Reeve

A response to Mark Psiaki’s follow-up, posted here 

Cornell’s Evolution department has a promising new course being offered this summer, entititled "Evolution and Design: Is there Purpose in Nature?". For more details go to the EvolutionList, or for our "official position" on it, see our press release below.

Cornelius Hunter gives his perspective of his visit to Cornell over at ID the Future:

Last night I visited Cornell University to give a presentation on evolutionary thought, and participate in a panel discussion on evolution and intelligent design with life science professors Richard Harrison and Kern Reeve. Like giving a theoretical lecture followed by an experimental demonstration, this two-event format allowed me both (i) to explain the non scientific philosophical background of evolution and (ii) to show a live demonstration of evolutionary thinking to prove my point.

(more at ID The Future…) 

Jamie Bridgham, Sean Carroll and Joe Thornton of the University of Oregon decided it was high time someone discovered a Darwinian mechanim producing irreducible complexity, and so they set to work on the problem.  From Thornton’s website:

Molecular evolution of hormones and their receptors
How did hormones and their diverse functions in humans and other animals evolve? We study the evolution of vertebrate steroid hormones — such as estrogen, testosterone, and the stress hormone cortisol — and the receptor proteins that mediate these hormones’ effects on the body’s cells. Our goal is to reveal the specific molecular events by which hormones and receptors diversified and evolved their specific partnerships. By combining techniques from statistical phylogenetics, molecular endocrinology, ancestral gene resurrection, and experimental evolution, we are characterizing receptor biodiversity across the animal kingdom, reconstructing the evolution of the family at the genetic level, and testing hypotheses about the functions of ancient genes. Our goal is to illustrate how a complex, tightly integrated molecular system — one which appears to be "irreducibly complex" - evolved by Darwinian processes hundreds of millions of years ago.

 Higly interesting work, and their results were published in Science this week– along with a considerable amount of fanfare.  The University of Oregon put out a press release:

Evolution of Irreducible Complexity explained

And the New York Times picked up the story.  It was going wonderfully, but there was one slight catch.

Note to potential researchers:  if you want to falisify irreducible complexity, it helps to work with an irreducibly complex system.

Behe responded to the article, labeling it as "the lamest attempt yet to answer the challenge irreducible complexity poses for Darwinian evolution".  According to him…

 The bottom line of the study is this: the authors started with a protein which already had the ability to strongly interact with three kinds of steroid hormones (aldosterone, cortisol, and “DOC” [11-deoxycorticosterone]). After introducing several simple mutations the protein interacted much more weakly with all of those steroids. In other words, a pre-existing ability was decreased.

…

The authors (including Christoph Adami in his commentary) are conveniently defining “irreducible complexity” way, way down. I certainly would not classify their system as IC.

…

In conclusion, the results (and even the imagined-but-problematic scenario) are well within what an ID proponent already would think Darwinian processes could do, so they won’t affect our evaluation of the science. But it’s nice to know that Science magazine is thinking about us!

The fellows of the DI Center for Science and Culture have a more thorough analysis of "what went wrong" in Bridgham et al’s study here.  

Perhaps the paper deserves a bit more careful analysis.

In the latest curious development,  Joe Thornton seems to have decided he never meant to test irreducible complexity after all.  Compare the cached and current versions of his webpage here and here.  The quote above is from the original version.    

 by Mark L. Psiaki

I have the following critiques of points made last night (April 5, 2006) at the Panel Discussion on Intelligent Design and Evolution in which Prof. Cornelius Hunter of Biola University represented intelligent design and Profs. Richard Harrison, chair of the Ecology & Evolutionary Biology Department at Cornell, and Kern Reeve, professor in the Cornell department of Neurobiology & Behavior, represented evolution.  I don’t think that Prof Hunter made adequate replies to some of the problems with points made by Profs. Harrison Reeve. The important additional responses, as I see them, are as follows

The IDEA Club press release on next week’s events:

Spider draglines appear to be a good candidate for reverse-engineering.  According to an article published last week in Nature:

The ductility and strength of spider draglines means that they outperform the best synthetic, but surprisingly little is known about the torsional properties of this remarkable filament. Unlike a mountain climber swinging from a rope, a spider suspended from its silk thread hardly ever twists. Here we show that a spider dragline has a torsional shape ‘memory’ in that it can reversibly and totally recover its initial form without any external stimulus; its observed relaxation dynamics indicate that these biological molecules have successively different torsional constants.

The article is a pretty non-technical and a fun read.