Aristotle’s Causes and Telic, Teleonomic, & Teleomatic Processes
The late philosopher, Willard Van Orman Quine, who was for many years probably America’s most distinguished philosopher …. told me about a year before his death that as far as he was concerned, Darwin’s greatest achievement was that he showed that Aristotle’s idea of teleology, the so-called fourth cause, does not exist.
(Ernst Mayr, interview with Edge.org, 10.31.01)
And then again… did he? There is an interesting discussion going on at Telic Thoughts and the Evolution List on telic, teleomatic and teleonomic processes. Mayr’s position is that the appearance of design in nature is fully explained by Darwinian processes, and he chooses to describe the apparent purposefulness of living things as teleonomic, defined as "[a] processes or behavior which owe its goaldirectedness to the operation of a program". This is as opposed to teleomatic or deterministic forces such as gravity.
The "purposefulness", then, of biological organisms is an emergent property produced by natural selection; the writing of programs based on bits of information supplied by the environment.
Mayr defines a program as "coded or prearranged information that controls a process (or behavoir) leading it toward process (or behavoir) leading it toward a goal." and states that it contains "not only the blueprint of the goal but also the instructions of how to use the information of the blueprint." It is material and exists prior to the initiation of the telenomic process.
But do those definitions even begin to solve the problem? Is it reasonable to conclude that the emergence of teleonomic processes is explicable simply by reference to evolutionary mechanisms? As Allen states
Clearly, if the overall theory of macroevolution is valid, then there must have been a transition from teleomatic causation to teleonomic causation in biological organisms.
He suggest this transition takes place during the origin of the genetic code; a likely choice, given that necessay origination of a program there. Certainly the simple molecules of a hypothetical prebiotic soup would have been only teleomatic, and yet the first functioning cell contained a complete program. Somehow in the interim we have managed to build not only the program itself, but also a machine with the capability of reading the program and turning it into action.
The only emperically known source of programs are already-teleonomic entities, and the only observed causes of machines capable of turning instructions into action are intelligent, purpose-driven creatures. In Cell Biology International Abel suggests that the origin of life is theoretically irreducible to chance and necessity, and Yockey has argued similarily in other papers. Is this indeed demonstrable, or will we always be able to insert our favorite cure-all– natural selection, fairies– into an ill-defined gap?
[All definitions from "The Idea of Teleology", Ernst Mayr, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 53, No. 1. (Jan. - Mar., 1992), pp. 117-135; avalable here if you are in the Cornell network]
A very good question. Several writers have suggested that this is why Darwin had it easy when he wrote the Origin; he started “in the middle,” without having to explain the origin of life (and the genetic code, etc.).
That said, I don’t agree that once the code existed that it is impossible to cause real changes in organisms without supernatural intervention (i.e. ID). On the contrary, once the code and the machinery of protein synthesis was in place (somewhere around 3.5 billion years ago), then all of the rest of the evolution of life requires nothing more than what Darwin originally proposed: variation, inheritance, fecundity, and differential reproductive success.
As I have said in other posts on other blogs, I’m not particularly sanguine about the prospects for fully explaining the origin of the genetic code, nor the machinery by which it produces organisms. It was a very long time ago, required an immensely long time to get going, and has been so modified since then that it may be impossible to recreate. Not that attempting to recreate it isn’t interesting and productive in an of itself. That’s how real science differs from most of ID: we try to figure it out, rather than start out (like Michael Behe did recently) saying that since it might be very difficult and might not work in the end, we shouldn’t waste our time trying…
Comment by Allen MacNeill — May 19, 2006 @ 3:18 pm
Far be it from me to disagree with either W. V. Quine or Ernst Mayr, but Darwin didn’t show that teleology doesn ‘t exist; he merely proposed a mechanism for evolution which doesn’t require it. The non-existence of purpose in nature wasn’t the point; the fact that the workings of nature can be explained without it is.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — May 19, 2006 @ 3:21 pm
P.S. Glad to have you back…
Comment by Allen MacNeill — May 19, 2006 @ 3:24 pm
According to the materialist, building products can assemble themselves into a structure which functions as a house, instead of intelligence being imposed on the building products. Like the e. coli flagella, molecules calculated the relative torque needed to propel the bacterium–based on viscosity, weight, and drag?
Comment by platolives — May 19, 2006 @ 7:02 pm
There are data that indicate that the genetic code had a chemical (or steroechemical) basis - that in fact the amino acid-codon correspondence we see today isn’t entirely arbitrary. The review by Yarus, Caporaso, and Knight (Annu. Rev. Biochem. 2005. 74:179–98) provides a nice summary.
Comment by Art — May 20, 2006 @ 1:32 pm
Someone should point out that ID does NOT say that the design had to be of supernatural origin, as Macneill falsely claims above. He made the same bogus claim in comments at telicthoughts on their post about the ID course.
I see his class on ID surely won’t be fair at all, since he makes statements like these:
“That’s how real science differs from most of ID: we try to figure it out, rather than start out (like Michael Behe did recently) saying that since it might be very difficult and might not work in the end, we shouldn’t waste our time trying… ”
The professor knows quite well that’s not at all what Behe has done. Like I said in a thread at telicthoughts- there’s no way this guy can be trusted to fairly represent ID, considering in a single comment here, he put forth 3 bogus pieces of information. If only we could get some HONEST debate. Very rich coming from MacNeill who lashes out hatefully at Dembski calling him a liar every chance he gets. Pot, kettle…
Comment by Harold Jenkins — May 21, 2006 @ 12:28 am
Teleonomy: a euphemism for teleology that biologists who believe in teleology use when they want to run with the Herd to make sure they are percieved as “real scientists” and the like.
(Morphic Resonance & the Presence of the Pastby Rubert Sheldrake :86-87)
Why those who use euphemisms want to run with the Darwinian Herd is not apparent, given its weakminded reasoning: “That’s how real science differs from most of ID: we try to figure it out….”
No, the “wee, wee” of the Herd seems to occupy the majority of its time murmuring about what real science is rather than engaging issues based on facts, logic, evidence and the pursuit of the truth. The existence of the Darwinian Herd now probably has more to do with the professionalization of science around the time of the advent of Darwinism than “real science,” just as its demise will probably have more to do with the invention of information technologies than people who have professional identities linked to the Darwinian creation myth suddenly becoming willing to allow the application of facts, logic and evidence against it.
Comment by mynym — May 21, 2006 @ 5:05 pm
Like the e. coli flagella, molecules calculated the relative torque needed to propel the bacterium–based on viscosity, weight, and drag?
The way that those with the urge to merge talk today viscosity, weight and drag probably are not really based on invisible “natural laws” that “govern” nature because that would be like believing in a Flying Spaghetti Monster or somethin’.
It’s curious how those who believe in so many little mythological narratives of naturalism* equate such reasoning to the theory of gravity because if things were left up to them we’d still be back on things falling because it is in their nature to do so. Governed by an invisible force? That’s unnatural. But things falling by their nature is the “natural” answer, etc. For those trying to crawl back into the womb of Mother Nature all must remain in nature, naturally enough.
*E.g.
(The Ancestor’s Tale: A Pilgrimage
to the Dawn of Evolution
By Richard Dawkins :91)
The little mythological narratives of naturalism are usually quite a tale, except when those with the urge to merge find it more “stimulating” to say that their tale is evolving into a penis. Such storyteling can be multiplied by the thousands, apparently asking people to stop imagining little stories about the past is quite the “science stopper” as apparently it is the only way that those who include their own imaginations as evidence can do science. That’s the real science of their own imagination and natural too. It seems that those engaged in real science these days excrete such creation myths as naturally as their physical excrement and then gather in a Herd to pretend that it doesn’t stink.
Comment by mynym — May 21, 2006 @ 5:31 pm
Harold, you’re correct in that ID doesn’t posit a supernatural mechanism. But…
Do you have inside knowledge of this? Certainly we agree that the professor is wrong, but there are all sorts of reasons for people to be wrong. For instance, I believe MacNeill honestly believes that ID necessitates a supernatural designer. I also believe he is badly mistaken; but being mistaken is quite different than purposely misrepresenting someone else’s position.
In this situation the more productive course of action– rather than suggesting your opponent is a liar– might be to present a logical case for why they are wrong. If, after you’ve done that, they reject the only reasonable conclusion for invalid reasons, you will have demonstrated their inconsistency or illogicality much more effectively than if you begin by assuming it.
Art– interesting paper! It seems, though, that potential findings in the chemistry of the code won’t be able to solve the central issues involved here, since in any program a certain degree of non-determinism is needed for information content.
Comment by Freawaru — May 21, 2006 @ 5:39 pm
Thanks for the defense, Freawaru. And as to the question of supernatural versus natural causes, if the source of “intelligent design” is not supernatural, then it is natural, yes? And if so, it must be woven into the structure of physical reality itself, in the same way that all other natural laws are. If this is the case, then “intelligent design theory” is positing something like Hans Dreisch’s “entelechy”:
Comment by Allen MacNeill — May 21, 2006 @ 9:29 pm
(Sorry, my post got truncated): According to Driesch, entelechy is…an ordering principle which does not add either energy or matter’ to what goes on. This principle might exist outside time and space; an idea which recurs in the work of…Sir Alister Hardy (who declared himself an orthodox Darwinian just as Driesch declared his viewpoint was compatible with ‘a mathematical and materialist approach to biology’) and with the work of Dr Rupert Sheldrake. Driesch also suggested that ‘the mind may carry out a morphogenetic action at a distance’. (see http://www.survivalafterdeath.org/researchers/driesch.htm )
Dreish’s ideas were very popular during the early 20th century, as they resonated with the philosophical speculations of Teilhard de Chardin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teilhard_de_Chardin) and Alfred North Whitehead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead). However, “neo-vitalism,” like its earlier namesake, stimulated no new scientific research nor suggested new emipirical hypotheses, and eventually was dropped as an historical curiosity…much like I suspect “intelligent design theory” will eventually be.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — May 21, 2006 @ 9:35 pm
Freawaru, I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you say “that potential findings in the chemistry of the code won’t be able to solve the central issues involved here, since in any program a certain degree of non-determinism is needed for information content”. As far as I can tell, a (here, the) central issue about the genetic code is that it is arbitrary – there is supposed to be no pre-determined or mechanistic link between a codon (or anticodon) and the amino acid it specifies. ID proponents hold up codes of human origins as examples of systems that are also arbitrary, and claim that this feature is diagnostic of design. They use this analogy to buttress the claim that the genetic code is a product of design. The review by Yarus and coworkers (and the studies before and since that buttress the connection between amino acid and codon) pretty much dashes this particular ID argument.
However, what you seem to be saying is that such systems (you call them programs, although the more common usage in the ID debate is that of a code) are actually not entirely arbitrary. IMO, this scuttles the use of this argument by ID proponents. (Think about it – if codes are not arbitrary, then it becomes impossible to distinguish design from absence of same. For this issue, at least.)
This matter is probably tangential to the main gist of the thread (although Allen’s statement cried out for correction), but I thought I’d toss out something else to puzzle over. Forget for the moment about Yarus et al. How would one test, experimentally, the hypothesis that the genetic code is arbitrary? (Dock yourself 10 points if you resort to “show that it cannot have evolved”.)
Comment by Art — May 21, 2006 @ 11:04 pm
How would one test, experimentally, the hypothesis that the genetic code is arbitrary? (Dock yourself 10 points if you resort to “show that it cannot have evolved”.)
You compare its pattern of information to that which is known to be “arbitrary” when intelligent agents code for function and adaptation. Already, when Darwinists try to engage in simulations they find that they cannot escape their own creative act of design. That is easy to observe unless you’re denying that we can arbitrarily choose to generate and program patterns of information into the formations of things. If you are making that denial then it seems we have little choice in the matter anyway and so it matters little.
All information relies on a sort of covenant between the sender and the receiver and an agreement that the information is there to be read, as the nature of information can always be denied even as people stare directly at information bearing structures.
To begin with, those who engage in Darwinian “imagining” would have to stop polluting language/information and work with actual concepts, so you’d have to define what you mean by code. Given that codes are typically arbitrary in their type anyway, once again it seems that those who believe in the Darwinian creation myth reject it with their own language. This happens so often that one critic noted:
(Darwinism: The Refutation of a MythReviewed by Gareth Neslson
Systematic Zoology, Vol. 37, No. 1 (Mar., 1988) :80)
As for the code, everyone already seems to be calling it arbitrary based on empirical evidence given the language that is chosen to describe what is being observed. Note that it could just as well be called the genetic sequence and people could move to begin to describe the genetic laws that govern it. Do physicists say that there is a “gravity code”? People are already describing what they are seeing empirically, yet you apparently think that there is some test by which a “code” can be proven to be more of what it already is. It’s quite simple, if it is not a code written with function and adaptation in mind then don’t call it one. Yet people do call it one because apparently that’s what they are observing it to be experimentally. The pollution of language by those trying to deny what is already being observed experimentally and empirically seems to be constant. How would one test, experimentally, the hypothesis that the genetic code is arbitrary? It would seem that you can simply observe what the genetic code is and then the words that describe it evolve, naturally. It is as Noam Chomsky has inferred, language itself proceeds by a sort of conceptual program. If it does not then we may as well stop talking and imagine little histories about our brain events instead.
The same pollution of language happens with natural selection, as it could just as well be called a “natural happenstance” given that it is said to be blind. Instead selections, coding, etc., all these processes which are known empirically to take place by an act of intelligence as we already know it are being attributed to Nature, as we should assume that the inanimate supposedly “codes” and “selects” for Life if we can imagine a little historical narrative about it. Is that “real science” or biologists imagining things again?
Comment by mynym — May 22, 2006 @ 3:56 am
I have a hard time believing that the professor truly believes that Behe has said that there’s no way to figure it out, let’s not even try to figure it out, end of story. He’s claiming Behe is saying he won’t try to solve the puzzle, and basically that Behe is a lazy non-scientist (as ID isn’t science, so the professor says, and Behe is working on ID- he’s surely a crank, no?) .
Behe’s idea of IC isn’t the idea that- ‘oh, golly, let’s just stop science in this regard!’ Behe has never said we can’t figure it out, so let’s not try. That’s what I object to. I have a hard time believing that MacNeill hasn’t read Behe’s work! If he has, he KNOWS this isn’t the case, which makes him dishonest in this statement.
That statement is, in my view, also rather offensive to Behe. Behe works in the lab, as most any other scientist does. MacNeill has said some very harsh things of Dembski- he’s said that Dembski is a liar and worse. With this comment, he’s clearly trying to say something negative of Behe’s character. Who’s his next target? What other Darwin doubter will he lash at out?
What he seems to not understand is- what would he expect Behe to do with a system he finds IC? If it’s designed, and there are ND pathways to get to the system, then what experiment does he suggest he perform? It’s absurd- if something is designed by man, the only thing we could possibly do is try to reverse engineer it…but then what? If the system that is designed is IC, then you can’t break it down into its component parts in this manner.
I think anyone who has even done a cursory read of Behe’s work can clearly see that he’s not doing what MacNeill claims here- to me, that’s purposefully misrepresenting Behe’s position, and he’s just trying to score points by attacking him and his work. Not only that, but he’s basically calling Behe lazy! Behe has never stated that we can’t figure out, thus there’s no use in trying…he’s offered an ALTERNATIVE explanation. The good professor can wait a thousand years or however long and claim that we just have to WAIT longer for an answer (as long as the answer is neodarwinism!)…but here’s a crazy idea. Get ready, this will be a shocker, what if Behe is right? Gosh, never thought of that, did we? So, to attack Behe as lazy and giving up on explanation, let’s open our minds a bit and think MAYBE, just maybe Behe’s explanation is true. The system was designed, there are nio ND pathways to it, and that’s basically that. What’s left but to search for the designer? Behe, as a Christian, would say God, and MacNeill would just moan that God isn’t allowed in science. Behe really has no way to win with this attitude.
And the supernatural nonsense again. What IS supernatural anyway? Can we assume the laws of nature started with the big bang? If so, does that make the big bang supernatural?! Isn’t natural merely all the things in nature? What if EVERYTHING is inside of nature. What if the designer IS God…would he be natural or supernatural? Depending on how you define supernatural, you can label many things supernatural. Scientists posit multiverses that we can’t see- we can’t see them, does that make them supernatural? We’ve no problems with black holes, but we can’t see them directly and they might not even exist at the end of the day- we just see the surrounding area and assume this is a black hole. Maybe a black hole is supernatural. This is simply the professor’s way of belittling ID, which is why he falsely (and I can safely assume KNOWINGLY) claims ID posits a supernatural design aspect…and he refers to it in scare quotes. “Intelligent design theory.” Look- I can do it too- “Neo-Darwinism…” Ohhhhhh.
I don’t get why anyone thinks this is a fair debate. A bunch of students against a guy who already says ID is nonsense, he claims falsely that it needs a supernatural designer, he says that Behe is basically saying ‘no work to do here, end of story, when anyone can see that isn’t true…there’s no way the students can take the professor on…especially if, in his class, as I assume he will, he totally misrepresents ID as he does constantly on the net!
Finally, I think it’s fair to say Macneill’s mind is made up, and I’ve no security he will teach ID fairly. Look at his own comments here. Macneill is the typical arrogant Darwinist- ID’ers don’t do real science…Behe doesn’t do real science, because he supports ID and ID isn’t real science. This attitude will get NOTHING accomplished, besides indoctrination. When someone arrogantly attacks all ID supporters as basically enemies of science, you really have no choice but to call him on it. I also cannot understand how he will teach this class if his attitude is- “hey, students…ID isn’t science at all (he said that above in his comment), it’s nonsense, and these following proponents are liars, and I’m going to claim they want to stop science…but still, let’s discuss the issue!” To top it off, his extreme arrogance isn’t going to win him any friends in the classroom or outside the classroom.
Comment by HaroldJenkins — May 22, 2006 @ 8:11 am
Hey Art,
I informally claim the name “Art” on this blog :) Just kidding, we could resort to last names.
–Art
Comment by Art — May 22, 2006 @ 5:34 pm
Oops. Sorry ’bout that, Art. I’ll adopt the moniler Art G (and remind the now-confused readers of this thread that the remarks regarding the arbitrariness of the genetic code herein are written by me).
Art G
Comment by Art G — May 22, 2006 @ 6:22 pm
Those would seem to be the two possibilities, if natural/supernatural is a valid dichotomy for potential causes. There are various possible scenarios for “natural” intelligent design; Hoyle’s theory of an intelligent universe is probably one of them.
But ID doesn’t claim either that intelligence in question is not supernatural or that it is, in some way, reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry. We don’t believe we have enough empirical information to posit either way on that question.*
Some have suggested that intelligent/non-intelligent is a far more useful dichotomy in analyzing causes. Perhaps this is something like Mayr’s teleonomic/teleomatic differentiation.
For after all, in the history of science “supernatural” seems to have been more of a slur cast upon whichever theory is unpopular at a time and pretty much devoid of any real meaning. What method would you have of distinguishing natural and supernatural causes in empirical science?
*[although, if you want to define natural causes as those which have empirically observable effects, then by definition the “designer” of ID theory is natural, whatever other properties it may have.]
Comment by Freawaru — May 23, 2006 @ 8:37 pm
Art G–
I don’t think I’ve heard this particular argument from the ID side; unless perhaps I’m not understanding you. Why should a completely arbitrary code support ID more than otherwise? Or are you arguing that the patterns in genetic codes are not conditionally independent and thus probably the result of deterministic natural laws?
Comment by Freawaru — May 23, 2006 @ 8:46 pm
Hi Freawaru,
You said:
“I don’t think I’ve heard this particular argument from the ID side; unless perhaps I’m not understanding you. Why should a completely arbitrary code support ID more than otherwise?”
My argument:
“ID proponents hold up codes of human origins as examples of systems that are also arbitrary, and claim that this feature is diagnostic of design. They use this analogy to buttress the claim that the genetic code is a product of design.”
Here is a sampling of excerpts that contain the idea:
From http://www.arn.org/docs/meyer/sm_dnaotherdesigns.htm:
“To see the distinction between order and information, compare the sequence “ABABABABAB ABAB” to the sequence “Time and tide wait for no man.” The first sequence is repetitive and ordered, but not complex or informative. Systems that are characterized by both specificity and complexity (what information theorists call “specified complexity”) have “information content.” Since such systems have the qualitative feature of aperiodicity or complexity, they are qualitatively distinguishable from systems characterized by simple periodic order. Thus, attempts to explain the origin of order have no relevance to discussions of the origin of information content. Significantly, the nucleotide sequences in the coding regions of DNA have, by all accounts, a high information content–that is, they are both highly specified and complex, just like meaningful English sentences or functional lines of code in computer software.
Yet the information contained in an English sentence or computer software does not derive from the chemistry of the ink or the physics of magnetism, but from a source extrinsic to physics and chemistry altogether. Indeed, in both cases, the message transcends the properties of the medium. The information in DNA also transcends the properties of its material medium. Because chemical bonds do not determine the arrangement of nucleotide bases, the nucleotides can assume a vast array of possible sequences and thereby express many different biochemical messages.
If the properties of matter (i.e., the medium) do not suffice to explain the origin of information, what does? Our experience with information-intensive systems (especially codes and languages) indicates that such systems always come from an intelligent source–i.e., from mental or personal agents, not chance or material necessity.”
From http://www.gnmagazine.org/issues/gn58/tinycode.htm:
“If the information in the book was spoken aloud, written in chalk or electronically reproduced in a computer, the information does not suffer qualitatively from the means of transporting it. “In fact the content of the message,” says professor Phillip Johnson, “is independent of the physical makeup of the medium” (Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, 1997, p. 71).
The same principle is found in the genetic code. The DNA molecule carries the genetic language, but the language itself is independent of its carrier. The same genetic information can be written in a book, stored in a compact disk or sent over the Internet, and yet the quality or content of the message has not changed by changing the means of conveying it.”
Finally (this is but a sampling – the theme can be found in the various ID-inspired lesson plans that have been the subject of much debate), from http://www.nyackcollege.edu/bible/Chan_Intelligent_Design_as_Apologetic_Argument.doc :
“What, then, is the origin of this genetic information encoded in DNA? Is there any chance that it arose gradually over time? Did laws of attraction between the C, T, G and A bases help bring about their present arrangement? ID theorists Stephen Meyer and Walter Bradley have shown that there is as little reason to believe the nucleotides have self-organizing properties as there is to believe the letters on this page were drawn together by the chemistry of the ink.37 Unlike the hardware components of the bacterial flagellum, the software in DNA is essentially a language.38 As in the case of English letters and words, the sequence of nucleotide bases is a closed system of symbols, whose meaning is confined to the internal coding system. In the English language, the combination of the letters CAT represents an animal with four legs that catches mice. In DNA, the nucleotide combination CAT represents the amino acid Histidine. There is no intrinsic linkage of CAT to either the four-legged animal or to Histidine; they are merely system-specific symbols.
Where does this leave us as far as origins are concerned? Our uniform experience seems to suggest that internal coding systems are producible only by intelligence. “
I think the theme I allude to comes thru loud and clear in these items.
Finally (for now), you asked:
“Or are you arguing that the patterns in genetic codes are not conditionally independent and thus probably the result of deterministic natural laws?”
That’s what the data tell us.
Comment by Art G — May 23, 2006 @ 11:28 pm
Freawaru wrote:
“Hoyle’s theory of an intelligent universe is probably one of them.”
Again, this sentence carries with it the implication that the “intelligence” that ID theory purports to identify is woven into the natural laws of the universe itself. If that is the case, then ID would also qualify as “natural” in the same way as all other processes that follow “natural laws.”
However, there is no branch of natural science (including biology) in which more than a tiny minority of regular practictioners believe that there is incontrovertable, empirical evidence supporting the contention that “natural laws” include some kind of “intelligent agency.” Furthermore, as I have pointed out in an earlier post, it is not at all clear that even if such an “intelligent agency” (call it “entelechy” as Max Dreisch did) did exist that its actions would produce any difference as far as natural processes are concerned. Indeed, if such an “intelligent agency” does exist, its activities are so subtle that they cannot be distinguished from “non-intelligent” causative forces, at least at the level of empirical analysis (including statistical analysis). As many have pointed out, if the situation were otherwise (i.e. if the action of such an “intelligent agency” were unambiguously identifiable using standard experimental design and statistical analysis, the first person to publish the results of such an unambiguous identification would instantly become more famous than Newton, Darwin, and Einstein among the scientific community and the general public. So far, it hasn’t happened, although nothing says it’s impossible (improbability is something else again).
Comment by Allen MacNeill — May 24, 2006 @ 2:13 pm
Allen–I definitely haven’t been arguing that there is a consensus supporting ID (of any sort), so I’m quite willing to give you that.
I also agree that intelligent agency that is not emperically determinable is of no interest to science. Our claim, of course, is that it is unambiguously identifiable; and most of the ID project is devoted to making that rigorous.
Art G– I’ll follow your links.
Comment by Freawaru — May 24, 2006 @ 7:00 pm
Freawaru,
Hi. One I think the link died for “other papers”. I hope you get to reference Albert Voie’s paper too!
See:
Biological function and the genetic code are interdependent
You hit the nail on the head:
Absolutely right. An furthermore, not just the program, but also the machine on which the program runs, namely, a Turing Machine, must be made of materials that allow for indeterminism. A “probable Turing Machine” is an oxymoron. The OOL disproven via “proof by contradiction” not “argument from ignorance”.
As I like to point out, the information content of a Shakespearean poem is independent of the chemistry of the ink and paper conveying the poem. In similar manner, Turing Machines (whether they appear on Intel micro-processors made of silicon or cells made of DNA and amino acids) have an independence from the chemistry on which the Turing Machine is implemented. The chemistry must allow a VERY large degree of indeterminism for the Turing Machine to exist, and therefore, because of that fact, chemistry can not also be the cause of the Turing Machine!!!! Abel’s paper mentions that chance and necessity do not explain Turing Machines.
The question then arises, whether natural selection acting on a replicator can make a Turing Machine. The Displacement Theorem cast serious doubt on that. A computer factory is more complicated (more improbable) than a computer itself. The same would hold true for natural selection making a Turing Machine, it is more likely raw chance will succeed than natural selection, but that’s not saying much!
In general, salient teleological features of material objects have an independence from the material substrate on which they reside. In general then, materialistic explanations are catergorically inappropriate to explain non-material features (such as telelogical features). What is useful however, in the case of OOL and Turing machines, is that the improbability of the Turing Machine and the amount of non-material information content is mathematically measurable and thus subject to scientific inquiry.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — May 25, 2006 @ 2:42 pm
Excellent observation. Which is why evolution and religion need not be at odds after all.
Indeed, the work by various research on the genetic code has shown that there is a combination of ‘regularity’, ‘chance’ and ’selection’ which played their roles in the origin and evolution of the code. People such as Freeland, Knight, Landweber.
That by itself is a logically speaking very poor response. If the argument is that natural processes such as regularity and chance cannot explain something and experiments show that this is wrong, then suggesting that the experimenter is somehow the causal factor misses the point. All that is needed is variation and selection which can be shown to be sufficient for the evolution of information (real information) in the genome.
You also seem to conflate the concept of information as used by Dembski, and as used by science when it comes to the genome (Shannon) and semantic information. All that is requireed for information is for the data to be non-uniformly distributed. The genetic code and its evolution has been quite extensively studied and contrary to ID, it has presented us with some excellent knowledge as to what may have happened (remember, science is tentative). Your objections to code, and natural selection seem to be mostly semantic and philosophical not scientific. For instance one can define quite rigorously natural selection and study it in nature. So how do scientists explain the evolution of the genetic code? While certainly many parts are lacking in supporting evidence, it’s remarkable that science is slowly teasing apart a likely scenario. Just check out the work by Knight, Landweber or Freelkand who have tested experimentally the various hypotheses. Just because we may not be able to understand how science may test for such hypotheses does not make science unable to do so.
Art raises some good questions as to ID arguments when it comes to for instance the genetic code. I do not believe that there is a foundation to be found in ID’s foundational claims for the origin of the genetic code. On the one hand, the argument is that since ACTG have no chemical affinity that there are not regular forces guiding the genetic code (and wrongly so but that’s another topic), thus rejecting natural processes. Assume that this argument were correct, why should this give any credibility to design? Why would design use ACTG? Such a claim seems arbitrary and in fact unanswerable by ID’s own claims that design says nothing about the designer and thus lacking means, motives and opportunity, and not to mention ‘hard evidence’ ID remains unable to formulate predictions or hypotheses relevant to its own foundational claims.
How is ID unambiguously identifiable and are you suggesting that rigor is so far lacking in ID’s claims? I would agree, starting with the flawed eliminative approach combined with false positives, making the ID inference useless.
I agree that there are cases where design is detectable, science does it all the time but such inferences are not based on ID’s methods but rather on extending our knowledge of regularity and chance processes to establish means, motives and opportunities.
Sal points to the displacement theorem, whatever that may be, but until this theorem can be shown to be relevant to evolution, such claims are meaningless. Dembski’s ‘conservation of information’ arguments, his displacement claims only serve to strengthen the conclusions that ID is about the supernatural. As far as a turing machine, your claims lack in rigor. In fact, as has been pointed out to you before, Turing machines are quite simple, at least conceptually. In fact, as Edis has argued, regularity and chance may indeed form a completeness solution, resolving that Godel paradox, used by some to argue against evolution. Biological function and genetic code are correlated yes. So what?
Comment by PvM — May 27, 2006 @ 2:01 am
Isn’t that the only hope for ID? That our knowledge will leave us gaps for it to hide in? ID does not give us any tools to determine if a gap is intrinsic or caused by incomplete knowledge. In other words, ID cannot even compete with ‘we don’t know’, let alone natural selection which is a clearly defined mechanism and which has been shown to match what is needed for complex specified information to arise.
The use of terms like code, program etc all may give the impression that there is some intelligence required. Take the concept of control science such as feedback loop, integral feedback loop, all suggest the need for some ‘controller’. So let’s go back into time where the heart was seen as a pump, does this mean that the heart requires a designer beyond the natural processes of chance and regularity found in evolutionary science? Or more recent, the bacterial flagellum, which is compared to an ‘engine’, does this make the flagellum ‘designed’? What if science, as it has done, provides plausible pathways for its origin and evolution? So far ID proponents have been quick to reject such scenarios as ‘just-so-stories’… If ID proponents object to ‘just so stories’ I am sure they reject ID’s ‘just not-so stories’?
The origin and evolution of the genetic code is a very interesting area and much has been learned.
So where did the switch from “teleomatic causation to teleonomic causation in biological organisms” take place?
Tests of a stereochemical genetic code, Rob Knight, Laura Landweber and Michael Yarus Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology
University of Colorado
Researchers have found a strong affinity between the triplets that code for a particular amino-acid and the amino-acid itself. This suggests that originally the protein sequences may have been templated directly from the bases and that the tRNA transcription processes evolved later.
This was originally shown for arginine and more recently for additional aminoacids
Comment by PvM — May 27, 2006 @ 4:38 pm
A common mistake made by Dembski et al seems to be the realization that evolution of a particular system is not a closed system, in other words, neither Godel nor Hilbert, nor Turing Machines seem to present a problem here. Lets assume that at a particular instance, the genome describing the system consists of a set of fixed axioms, the system surely is limited in what it can do, which is another way of describing that evolution is not omnipotent. In other words, the genome posesses just enough information to describe/generate the system in question. Now, under the mechanisms of variation and selection, part of the existing genome, or a recently duplicated part of the genome, acquires information from the environment. In other words, the genome adds another axiom to its repertoire and with the extended set of axioms, it manages to increase its information and complexity of the system.
The displacement theorem basically says that such displacement as found in evolution is as possible as having an intelligent inject such information. In fact, Darwin showed how natural selection and artificial selection are very similar in that extent. So, either the displacement theorem is a fundamental problem for evolution AND intelligent design or it isn’t. At least at the system level. So perhaps one may extend the concept to the universe, total information in the universe cannot increase because of the displacement theorem. But like the 2nd law of thermodynamics, there is no restricting on local increases in complexity/information or in case of the 2nd law decrease in entropy. So once, again, there is no problem for evolutionary theory although one may ask from where did the original information, low entropy in the universe arise, and that my friends is a boundary condition on the Big Bang, and as far as I am aware the solution is shrouded behind the Planck time constant.
In other words, the displacement theorem says nothing about evolution that it does not say about natural intelligent designers. If the argument is that the displacement theorem prohibits ‘X’ from arising via evolution then the same argument applies to intelligent designers who are similarly prohibited.
Of course this does not mean that intelligent designers are limited by the axiom set applicable to the system ‘X’, it merely means that if they find a ’solution’ they are importing information from elsewhere, just like evolutionary processes. So for the displacement theorem to have any relevance one has to show that no known and unknown processes can generate system ‘X’ and we are back to the set theoretic complement of chance and regularity with all its known problems and limitations. Let me add one more. Godel’s incompleteness theorem seems to be far more a problem for ID which has to eliminate all known and unknown set of axioms. Per Godel, we will never know if such a set is complete, hence ID becomes unprovable per Godel and since per Godel we cannot eliminate false positives, the explanatory filter becomes useless (in Dembski’s own words)
Comment by PvM — May 28, 2006 @ 7:09 pm