Vacuity
In the comments of several recent posts PvM has brought up the question of vacuity. The issues he raises are important ones. Is ID simply a theory which labels whatever is currently unexplained by evolution "unexplained by evolution"? Has it any substance? Can there ever be such a thing as a serious "intelligent design research program"?
To me ID is not just an eliminative game, a theory of "detecting design" in molecular machines by ruling out chance and necessity. It’s a far greater study of design– in engineered systems, in nature, in our universe. It’s a heuristic which can help us in future discoveries. And it’s a field in which very little research has been done, and so it’s wide open to advances from the next generation of researchers.
It was a milestone in scientific thinking when Newton showed that the laws of the heavens and the laws of the earth were the same; the forces we were accustomed to in our own limited experience were the same as those making the planets turn. ID makes an equally bold step in another direction, suggesting that hypothetical design in nature can be studied in the same way as the design we are familiar with in art, architecture and technology.
Think of it this way. One piece of the ID research program– intelligent design theory at it’s most basic– is the science of detecting design. We study things which we know are designed, those which we know weren’t, and we look for "hallmarks" of one versus the other– attempting to come to a rigorous way of differentiating the two. This can then be brought to bear on the thing we don’t know about, such as the machinery in living cells or life itself.
But that’s not all ID is; and the "design paradigm" has far wider reach. Suppose we come to the conclusion that certain aspects of the universe were designed, or suppose, for heuristical purposes, we decide to assume that. What then?
PvM makes the point that those who used the "design paradigm" in their scientific research most productively– Newton and Kepler, for instance– were working with much that is not available to us as scientists today. Kepler had no problem starting from the idea of a perfect God who wanted the best for his creatures. Such a notion has far more room for prediction then the puny "designed, all else unknown" we get from basic IDT today.
So are we stuck between a rock and a hard place? Must we choose between unwarranted assumptions on the nature of a designer, based perhaps on religious thought, or a theory that has so little predictive power it could almost just as well be ignored?
I don’t think so. In the basic, first step of ID we’ve stripped design down to it’s most basic components, searching for hallmarks of design that are independent of the nature or motivation of a designer. This is important for detecting design. But when we’re working forward in the rest of ID’s research program we have a universe full of other data open to us. We don’t need to bring in religious assumptions on the designer, giving up the chance of rigorous science; rather, we can use the basic knowledge of design from our detection program to build up a full-scale model of design. A model weighty enough that it can make predictions.
We’ve a long way to go, but I’m optimistic about the future. To me, ID is what happens when a student looks at that famous sentence of Dawkins’, "Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed." and says: Well, maybe it has only the appearance of design– but then again, maybe it is something more. Why decide a priori that your senses are decieving themselves? Let’s leave out the assumption for a moment, shall we, and see what we get then?
And there are enough students tired of the unjustified assumption that we ought to be able to make a difference.
Freewaru raises some interesting questions
While this may be true in theory, I have yet to see much of any application of the explanatory filter or CSI to known designed processes, let alone known not designed processes or totally unknown processes. My argument is simple and straightforward
ID is based on an eliminative approach
ID does not provide any explanations as to how, when, where, why, it lacks pathways, methods, motives, means and opportunities. In fact, I argue that the claim that ID studies known design and tries to extend its detection to unknown design is not only unsupported by any evidence known to me, and I may surely be proven wrong here, but also that such an extension will be ultimately flawed and useless because it is based on an eliminative approach.
In other words, when ID claims something designed, we have no way of determining if this really means designed by an intelligence or designed by a natural process which mimicks intelligence nor do we know how reliable the inference is as it is based on our ignorance.
Yes, let’s take the flagellum as an example and show us what then…
And that is a claim to which I strongly object. In fact, my argument is that without any such assumptions, ID will remain scientifically vacuous at it fails to present any relevant predictions beyond evolution cannot explain ‘X’.
Such speculations are quite nice but without any explanations as to how one can make such predictions, and without a reliable method to detect design, I argue that ID is doomed to remain scientifically vacuous.
Until we see some real empirical contributions from ID to our understanding, I see nothing in Freewaru’s posting that helps rebut the observation that ID is scientifically vacuous.
Science has the advantage that it has mechanisms and pathways and is exploring and finding new and additional mechanisms and pathways unbeknownst to us even a short while ago. Science is fruitful, predictive, and generating much additional knowledge as well as questions.
So before IDers get too far ahead of themselves, I would like to see them explain how they believe that the claim that
In the basic, first step of ID we’ve stripped design down to it’s most basic components, searching for hallmarks of design that are independent of the nature or motivation of a designer
either can be achieved and is scientifically productive. I have already pointed out to some of ID’s claims about the Cambrian or Junk DNA that neither ‘prediction’ has any relevance to a design inference UNLESS one adds additional assumptions about motives, means etc. At most these arguments are that science presently does not fully understand what happened. And yet, our knowledge about the Cambrian as well as likely explanations is growing immensely, leading such noted researchers as Valentine, often quoted in support of ID, as stating that the Cambrian explosion seems to be well within the darwinian paradigm
And yet we still see Valentine quote mined by creationists
See for instance
discussed at Icons of ID: Darwinian predictions and the Cambrian
Comment by PvM — June 11, 2006 @ 12:07 am
http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2004/12/icons_of_id_dar.html
Clarification: See for instance refers to the recent view of Valentine. Compare this with how the Discovery Institute, Intelligent Design proponents are presenting his older arguments to cast doubt on the Cambrian.
Comment by PvM — June 11, 2006 @ 12:09 am
And let me finally point out that science has not rejected any explanation a priori. In fact when/if ID can propose an alternative explanation which can be compared to other hypotheses, it can contribute to how science takes place. It’s just that science has been quite succesful in generating explanations based on regularity and chance. In fact regularity and chance processes have been quite helpful in detection of design in criminology, archaeology, cryptology etc. ID’s problem is that it has defined intelligent design to be that which remains after regularity and chance processes have been eliminated. This makes ID an inevitable gap theory and places ID outside the realm of nature.
The logical consequences follow:
1. ID is based on an elimination of the natural processes of chance and regularity
2. Science excludes ID a priori/ID replaces methodological naturalism
3. Science succesfully detects id in such areas as criminology, archaeology etc
ID is therefor different from id and by virtue of 1) is doomed to be limited to the supernatural. In other words, the only novelty ID introduces into science is the claim that a supernatural intervention can be detected reliably by elimination.
I hope this clarifies my position (albeit presented in a very simplified format)
Comment by PvM — June 11, 2006 @ 12:22 am
I don’t think so. In the basic, first step of ID we’ve stripped design down to it’s most basic components, searching for hallmarks of design that are independent of the nature or motivation of a designer.
Meaningless useless poppycock.
In three paragraphs no greater than 500 words each, please attempt to describe for me ONE “hallmark” of a “design that is independent of the nature or motivation of a designer.”
Just one. And if you use any “technical” terms (like “hallmark”) please define them.
That’s what scientists do.
Good luck.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 11, 2006 @ 3:03 am
Let’s leave out the assumption for a moment, shall we, and see what we get then?
Creationists have been leaving out that assumption pretty much forever. What have they contributed to our understanding of biology?
Here’s your answer: diddly squat.
At least, to the extent they have contributed anything, those contributions have nothing whatsoever do with “mysterious alien beings” who created all the life forms that ever lived on earth.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 11, 2006 @ 3:07 am
The question is not whether science does not presently understand what happens. The question is whether the design model is a better explanation for what is observed than the evolutionary model.
From a basic design inference one may not be able to predict such things as we do predict about the Cambrian explosion and ‘junk dna’. But from a model based on that basic design inference plus some of the data we have readily available about the nature of that (inferred)design, we definitely can.
And when you are working with a design hypothesis there are a number of “defaults” you can begin by testing– based on no more than a study of the common characteristics of (known) designed systems.
Comment by Freawaru — June 11, 2006 @ 3:26 am
Good science doesn’t reject any explanation a priori. Darwinian thought, though, appears to have an unfortunate tendency that way. Most treatments I’ve read begin by making the slightly problematic assumption that evolution did happen and is responsible for all life– i.e., if property x is a property of living systems, evolution is capable of forming and indeed did form property x. A useful assumption in making up just-so stories about how things came to be; slightly less useful for real scientific inquiry.
If we assume everything came about by chance and necessity,yes, ok. But since we are familiar with forces that appear to have a different quality, and are, perhaps not reducible to that core– human intelligence, for instance– such an assumption is based more on blind faith than anything else and appears to have left any commitment to empiricism far behind.
Comment by Freawaru — June 11, 2006 @ 3:48 am
Amy–
Sorry; I wouldn’t have classified “hallmark” as technical language. Consider it essentially as a distinguishing characteristic. Are there any other particular paragraphs in the above post that require translation?
Comment by Freawaru — June 11, 2006 @ 3:52 am
Freewaru: The question is not whether science does not presently understand what happens. The question is whether the design model is a better explanation for what is observed than the evolutionary model.
Indeed and since the design model is an eliminative model and does not make any predictions or provide any explanations, it cannot even compete here. In fact, as I have shown, it cannot even compete with the null hypothesis of ‘we don’t know’
Freewaru: From a basic design inference one may not be able to predict such things as we do predict about the Cambrian explosion and ‘junk dna’. But from a model based on that basic design inference plus some of the data we have readily available about the nature of that (inferred)design, we definitely can.
I’d call this wishful thinking. Note the lack of any support for this claim
Freewaru: And when you are working with a design hypothesis there are a number of “defaults” you can begin by testing– based on no more than a study of the common characteristics of (known) designed systems.
What known designed systems do we have that can be used for such comparison? Explain your answer. THe moment you start comparing to known designed systems, you are applying restrictions which have no logical basis in the design inference since it clearly states that it cannot and does not make assumptions about the designer.
On the other hand you can look at the data and infer how many designers may be involved. Pandasthumb has an excellent article which describes RBH’s multiple designers theory, which need not rely on any motivations, means etc. Perhaps IDers could start with this approach which at least provides some scientific tools to determine how many designers have been involved.
So far Freewaru’s response does nothing to address my claims other than by making some speculations as to what may be possible without laying out any foundation for the claims. I in fact argue that ID cannot provide such a foundation because 1) it is eliminative 2) it has claimed that it cannot address the designer(s) and thus is unable to limit the design in any meaningful manner.
Comment by PvM — June 11, 2006 @ 5:23 am
Freewaru: Good science doesn’t reject any explanation a priori. Darwinian thought, though, appears to have an unfortunate tendency that way.
I can’t wait to hear more about this strawman. In fact, as I have argued, and I am willing to support further, science does not reject ID apriori. In fact ID itself argues that science succesfully can detect design. So what’s the argument going to be?
Most treatments I’ve read begin by making the slightly problematic assumption that evolution did happen and is responsible for all life–
Also known as the fact of evolution, common descent etc. No mechanisms are provided, just based on observations. No attempts are made to reject a-priori intelligent design.
i.e., if property x is a property of living systems, evolution is capable of forming and indeed did form property x. A useful assumption in making up just-so stories about how things came to be; slightly less useful for real scientific inquiry.
On the contrary these if then else questions are extremely useful for scientific inquiry because science does not sit back and say see ‘we have proven it’. On the contrary science generates ‘just so stories’ which more commonly are known as hypotheses and perform the hard work to support or reject these hypotheses. Or accept that we just don’t know yet.
If we assume everything came about by chance and necessity,yes, ok. But since we are familiar with forces that appear to have a different quality, and are, perhaps not reducible to that core– human intelligence, for instance– such an assumption is based more on blind faith than anything else and appears to have left any commitment to empiricism far behind.
So many problems. 1) you assert that human intelligence is not reducible to chance and regularity and yet we see countless examples suggesting that indeed this is what intelligence is all about, predictability and variability. How else do you think Amazon makes predictions about your interests for instance?
2) The assumption is not that everything came about by regularity and chance but rather the observation is made that other processes remain undefined and unsupported.
ID cannot do better than ‘we don’t know, looks complex, has a function thus designed…
Now if you consider that science, then please let me know and we can discuss that aspect of ID but as far as I can tell ID has nothing relevant to offer scientifically. Beyond complaining, erroneously that science is somehow rejecting their arguments a priori. A patently erroneous claim
Comment by PvM — June 11, 2006 @ 5:30 am
Typical IDer dodge. We can detect “hallmarks” of design, but, when asked to define “hallmark” we just saw “well, it’s not technical term”.
But ummm you know “hallmarks” of design when you see them, right? You can’t define it, and the “hallmark” doesn’t tell us anything about the designer, but by golly, the world is littered with such hallmarks. Which, BTW, makes “hallmark” a very unfortunate choice of hand-waving words, since by definition a “hallmark” tells us exactly who the jeweler, clockmaker, etc is. That being the point of a hallmark in real life.
Comment by Anonymous — June 11, 2006 @ 1:24 pm
Freawaru — do you get it now?
Do you see why Anonymous has just made you look a bit daft and/or dishonest? The daftness comes in because on top of your condenscension, you just laid a smelly egg.
Let’s try again, shall we? You want to search for “distinguishing characteristics” of “design independent of the nature or motivation of the designer.”
So, in three paragraphs of not more than 500 words each, what are these “distinguishing characteristics that are independent of the nature or motivation of the designer”?
Let us know. After you tell us, I can send you some objects and you can tell us if they have the distinguishing features you will have previously defined for us.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 11, 2006 @ 3:49 pm
Most treatments I’ve read begin by making the slightly problematic assumption that evolution did happen and is responsible for all life
That’s not an assumption. It’s a conclusion based on mountains of evidence.
Remember?
That is why the vast overwhelming majority of educated genuine honest sincere scientists have as much doubt about “descent from a common ancestor” as they do about “erosion” (another process capable of shaping matter into forms over irreproducibly long periods of time).
So, uh, are all those scientists stupid? Or is it part of some big conspiracy? And an AIDS denier like Phil Johnson and a bigot like Howard Ahmonsen are supposed to be lead them out of the wilderness?
Is that the set-up?
If not, please explain how it is we’ve arrived at the alleged “mess” we’re in today, where the world’s scientists are deluded by a conservative think tank in Seattle has all the right answers.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 11, 2006 @ 3:56 pm
One piece of the ID research program– intelligent design theory at it’s most basic– is the science of detecting design. We study things which we know are designed, those which we know weren’t
…
…I don’t think so. In the basic, first step of ID we’ve stripped design down to it’s most basic components, searching for hallmarks of design that are independent of the nature or motivation of a designer. This is important for detecting design. But when we’re working forward in the rest of ID’s research program we have a universe full of other data open to us. We don’t need to bring in religious assumptions on the designer, giving up the chance of rigorous science; rather, we can use the basic knowledge of design from our detection program to build up a full-scale model of design. A model weighty enough that it can make predictions….
If, as you pretend, you don’t know anything about the nature, motivation or method of the alleged designer, how can you possibly conclude that something was not designed?
Comment by ivy privy — June 11, 2006 @ 5:51 pm
Amy– sorry for the condescension; I don’t really think I started it, but that isn’t an excuse.
Would you though maybe have a look over your posts as well, and see if you can guess why no self-respecting college student would think it worth their while to talk to you? I’m not getting paid to write answers :-).
As far as hallmark goes– I stand by my choice of words, with the “definition” I gave you. In current English usage one needn’t know the clockmaker. And to anonymous– no, we don’t claim to know “something is designed” when we see it; sometimes that might be possible, but for science we need a more rigorous method of distinguishing designed objects.
PvM–
What are we supposed to be arguing, and how can I make my position more clear? I already said:
I’m not in a battle against science; I think science is on my side.RBH’s MDT seems to me a bit farfetched, but I have no issues with the actual investigation. If you allow that, why are you unwilling to allow that the design hypothesis can be the basis for a robust model?
Well yes, it is an open question: is human intelligence somehow reducible to the laws of physics and chemistry? Can we account for it by chance and necessity? My own position would be that it isn’t; do you take the other view?
Comment by Freawaru — June 11, 2006 @ 6:26 pm
Freawaru said:
But, if recent discussions with Wiglaf are any indication, you don’t actually have any science on your side - just “inquiries” and “thought experiments.”
Nice going, Amy, PvM and Anon. - well said.
Comment by Dan — June 11, 2006 @ 9:21 pm
I’m anonymous, for some reason my browser blanked out my info without my noticing it. Sorry. I don’t mind making a fool of these guys under my own name.
I’m not in a battle against science; I think science is on my side.
Yeah, and Wiglaf thinks Dekker’s on his side even though Dekker explicitly said he’s unhappy that this site claims he’s an “ID supporter”.
Your statement’s as deluded and/or dishonest as Wiglaf’s statements regarding Dekker.
Glad to see y’all put this out in public for all to see, though. The more people are exposed to the dishonesty of proponents of ID, the better.
no, we don’t claim to know “something is designed” when we see it; sometimes that might be possible, but for science we need a more rigorous method of distinguishing designed objects.
Be sure to wake us up when you or someone else devises a rigorous method able to do so …
Comment by Don Baccus — June 11, 2006 @ 10:23 pm
I’m not in a battle against science; I think science is on my side.
So we agree then that science does not reject any explanation a-priori and that science rejects explanations a-posteriori when the explanations fail to be fertile? Because that is how science traditionally works. Although for some reason, ID proponents often make claims that science rejects ID a-priori. Could you please explain?
Empirical vacuity. And I am not unwilling to allow that a design hypothesis can lead to a robust model, I merely point out that I have not seen any such attempts that seem to lead to such a model.
I’d say that the empirical evidence that allows us to capture human behavior in laws and chance seem to suggest that an explanation which argues that there is a third explanans could benefit from some additional reasoning. In other words, I argue that Occam’s razor eliminates the idea that there should be a third factor. I argue based on empirical evidence that the actions of intelligent beings can be captured in laws of regularity and chance. Only the actions of supernatural beings cannot be captured in such laws.
Comment by PvM — June 11, 2006 @ 10:43 pm
And I thought that science already has a rigorous method for detecting design? So my questions are
1. Why is a more rigorous method needed?
2. Why do you believe ID provides such a method?
Comment by PvM — June 11, 2006 @ 10:45 pm
Indeed. And yet, IDers like yourselves cannot come up with a concrete and testable definition of “hallmarks” of design independent of the Designer, “specified” complexity, “irreducible” complexity, etc., etc.
As was said in the panel discussion for Cornelius Hunter’s visit this spring, ID offers nothing for scientific researchers to “sink their teeth into.” Or, as my PhD advisor often describes the practice of science, “It’s all in the methods,” meaning that whether it’s a grant proposal or a resulting manuscript, the most important thing is whether the experimental aims were well-conceived.
If you want any respect amongst science, you’ve got to back your assertions up with cold hard empirical data. That means forget your incredulous philosophical inquiries for the time being, get yourselves some grant proposals, carry them out, and publish them.
Then, if your data supports your predictions and your methods are sound, and only then, will you gain a measure of credibility.
You do want credibility, don’t you?
Comment by Dan — June 11, 2006 @ 10:48 pm
Speaking of this, I just finished writing on Laudan, the demarcation principle and the vacuity of intelligent design
Laudan, demarcation and the vacuity of Intelligent design
Comment by PvM — June 11, 2006 @ 11:27 pm
PvM–
I can’t speak for “ID proponents” in general, but my view: Good science doesn’t reject any explanation a-priori and its assumptions are public and (within bounds) worldview independent.
There are various schools of thought which follow what may be poor scientific methodology. For instance, the methodological naturalist does reject certain explanations a priori. Similairly, the adherents of a particular theory sometimes decide to axiomize some of its premises. This is often useful for “puzzle-solving” within the paradigm , but makes it impossible to evaluate other possibilities. In some case it may mean that explanations that are possibly better may be rejected a priori.
Does this distincition between “science” and “some scientists” make any sense? It has nothing to do with numbers, the “some” may be a majority or even, at any given point in time, all; but the distinction is about our scientific traditions and the ideals of the scientific method vs. us as people, who tend to be sloppy about the way we do our thinking.
Would you agree then that there is no such thing as free will?
How do you define supernatural? Simply that which cannot be determined by chance and regularity? For that matter, how are you defining regularity– my defintion of “necessity” would be something along the lines of “by deterministic laws”; is yours the same?
Comment by Freawaru — June 12, 2006 @ 10:04 pm
As another aside (regarding the aforementioned topic of a priori assumptions and science - wouldn’t the Wedge strategy be enough to demonstrate that the ID Movement was, indeed, acting on a priori assumptions?
Comment by Dan — June 12, 2006 @ 10:38 pm
And which would those be, pray tell? Please explain *why* you think they are rejected a priori.
Comment by Don Baccus — June 12, 2006 @ 11:01 pm
PvM has been doing an admirable job of explaining the basic assumptions by which most scientists (and especially most biologists) carry out their work. In particular, his distinction between a priori assumptions versus a posteriori conclusions seems to me right on the mark, and so I have little or nothing to add.
However, a comment (a question, actually) by Freawaru did catch my eye:
“Would you agree then that there is no such thing as free will?”
And given that I am about to teach the “Seminar in History of Biology” course for the Cornell Summer Session, I am bound to answer: no.
The reason I bring up the summer course is that for over a decade Will Provine has focussed that course on precisely that question, and has forcefully argued in the negative. I must admit that when I first started participating in his course, I disagreed with him, but over the years his arguments (and those of the authors he has used as references) have convinced me that the very idea of human free will is an oxymoron. The problem as I see it is not with the term “will,” if by this we mean that internal neurophysiological state which causes us to behave in the ways that we do (including, of course, having the thoughts that we do). No, the problem is with the word “free.” Free from what? Free from coersion, perhaps, but free from natural/physical causation? Absurd. As Will always points out in his evolution course (and in the summer seminar course when he teaches it), either our actions are caused by the biochemical processes that occur in our nervous systems (in which case they cannot possibly be “free”), or they are “caused” by magic (i.e. “spooky action at a distance” as Einstein called it), which any good physicist should affirm as being completely impossible.
The paradox of course is that even most scientists “feel” like they have free will, and consequently affirm that it exists. However, the “feeling” of free will, as Daniel Wegner has pointed out (see http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=8770&ttype=2), is just that: a “feeling.” As I have argued elsewhere, this feeling (or rather the neurophysiology that underlies it) is probably itself an evolutionary adaptation, in that it allows us to use our own behavior (or rather our perceptions of our own behavior) as guidelines for the formulation of a “theory of mind” which we can then use to interpret and guide our actions.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 13, 2006 @ 2:36 am
If “chance” = “indeterminism” and “necessity” = “deterministic laws,” what else could there possibly be? What is left after one has cited indeterminism and determinism? Democritus of Abdera (almost 2,500 years ago) said “All things are the fruit of chance and necessity.” What else is there? Indeed, what else could there be?
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 13, 2006 @ 2:40 am
I’ve been roundly scolded for letting the level of discussion get this low. So…
Per consensus, and because remonstrations seem singularly ineffective, we’re making a small change in blog policy. While all points of view are welcome, comments determined to be degeneratively off-topic or in violation of our “rules of engagement” will be moved to our “geswæpabinn” — think Memory Hole if you’re familiar with Telic Thoughts; a place for things that are just “out of place” elsewhere. While this shouldn’t make much difference to most people, it should help us stay more focused.
If you feel your comment was moved unjustly, please do appeal. But just so you have some idea of what we’re talking about, some examples:
In violation of our “rules of engagement”:
*William is a liar!
*All evolutionists are members of a great left-wing conspiracy to turn us into athiests.
*I’ve been as patient as I am able but you are so pathetically ridiculous I’m about to give up. I haven’t heard such poor logic since my last visit to the state asylum.
Some things which would be offtopic on this thread:
*Wiglaf
*Freawaru
*Amy Lester
*IDEA Club
And ontopic:
*vacuity (or not) of intelligent design)
…and anything else that bears some sort of logical connection to that topic.
Thanks to everyone who is still working to have civil, productive discussions! It is greatly appreciated.
Comment by Freawaru — June 13, 2006 @ 2:40 am
Indeed, that is what science is all about. Of course, science is not really independent of the underlying ‘worldview’ as you call it but science, properly applied can deal with different worldviews.
Could you give some explanations as to 1) what explanations do naturalists rejects 2) do they reject such explanations a priori? And are we now not confusing naturalism with methodological naturalism? What about pragmatic naturalists?
Yes, that may be true but without further specifics, your claim has no relevance.
Would you agree then that there is no such thing as free will?
Nope. What makes you think that?
How do you define supernatural? Simply that which cannot be determined by chance and regularity? For that matter, how are you defining regularity– my defintion of “necessity” would be something along the lines of “by deterministic laws”; is yours the same?
Good questions. I define regularity the way Dembski uses the term, hoping to use terms which are at least somewhat familiar to IDers. Supernatural is that which requires explanations which do not include natural law and chance.
I argue, that intelligent design can be inferred quite reliably using methodological naturalism and that the supernatural is an ‘explanation’ which as applied by ID makes ID mostly scientifically irrelevant.
Could you answer my questions?
And I thought that science already has a rigorous method for detecting design? So my questions are
1. Why is a more rigorous method needed?
2. Why do you believe ID provides such a method?
Comment by PvM — June 13, 2006 @ 2:45 am
On the contrary, a metaphysical naturalist (i.e. a natural scientist) doesn’t “reject certain explanations a priori.” Rather, she follows Ockham’s razor, Bacon, Newton, and all the rest and formulates her explanations in such a way as to refer to the simplest, most easily empirically verifiable cause(s). It seems to me that this is the crux of the ID versus science debate: that ID wants to include explanations that scientists feel are unnecessary (not untrue, just not necessary). Behe and Dembski (following Johnson’s lead) have tried to show otherwise, without success. Furthermore, most people who have followed Behe, Dembski, and Johnson’s careers have become convinced that their pursuit of the ID agenda is not motivated primarily by a desire to improve scientific reasoning and research, but rather by an explicitly stated political/religious point of view that will not, indeed cannot ever compromise on any of their fundamental positions, regardless of whether there is empirical support for them (and indeed, even if there is abundant empirical evidence against them).
While I will agree that some scientists also sometimes take such positions (i.e. motivated by politcal considerations and unmoved by contrary evidence), they do so in contravention to the spirit of science, rather than in its support. If there were unambiguous empirical evidence in favor of the ID position, not only myself but many other (perhaps most) scientists would adopt that position. That hasn’t happened, and until it does we shall continue to demand such evidence before we will change our minds.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 13, 2006 @ 2:50 am
Which method are you thinking of? For (1) My suggestion of “more rigorous” was relative to Don Baccus’ “I know it when I see it.” rather than to any particular scientific method.
For (2), since (theoretically) CSI is not produced by chance and deterministic laws, and if (empirically) it is found to be present in (known) designed objects but not any which are not-designed, it appears it would have potential to be a useful indicator.
But that being said, I do think design detection in ID could probably be made more rigorous and easier to use in practice. New researchers always welcome! :)
Comment by Freawaru — June 13, 2006 @ 3:04 am
That is a claim to which I take great exception. CSI can in fact be produced by chance and regularity, even Dembski seems to be moving towards, the displacement argument more than the conservation of information argument. And CSI has not been shown empirically to be present in designed objects.
With such flawed foundations, it seems unwise for IDers to make such claims. In fact, I blame the ID proponents like Dembski et al for confusing matters significantly.
Allen:
Well said.
Comment by PvM — June 13, 2006 @ 3:30 am
In rereading my earlier post on the subject of “free will” it occurs to me that I may have given the impression that I believe that free will exists. On the contrary, I believe that it does not, and that the sensation we have of having “free will” is itself probably a product of an evolutionary adaptation that facilitates the formulation of a “theory of mind” with which we can interpret and guide our own actions and beliefs.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 13, 2006 @ 3:44 am
Seems we are drifting off topic again.
Does man have free will? Talk about a vacuous exercise! Wake me up when that conversation has a point besides increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the room.
Way up above someone named Freawaru (whose motivations and integrity are beyond reproach as a matter of decree) wrote the following:
ID makes an equally bold step in another direction, suggesting that hypothetical design in nature can be studied in the same way as the design we are familiar with in art, architecture and technology.
So here’s my hypothesis: the magnificent colors on the walls of the Grand Canyon were designed by mysterious alien beings (they are as beautiful as the paintings of Sam Francis, an artist who is familiar to thousands of humans around the world).
Now, Freawaru, please tell us: what does an ID researcher do next? What’s the next step? How do we evaluate the merits of this hypothesis scientifically? What experiment does an “ID researcher” do to provide evidence that this “intelligent design” hypothesis should be favored over the alternatives?
Comment by Amy Lester — June 13, 2006 @ 5:19 am
Don’t forget, Freawaru: you can’t make any assumptions about these mysterious alien beings or their intention(s).
Good luck.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 13, 2006 @ 5:22 am
Interesting suggestion Allen. I would like to hear more about your position here. Free will an evolutionary illusion. We do have the freedom of choice but our choices are not unlimited as they are guided to a large extent by the circumstances and abilities we posess. We can take or avoid a particular action but they are based on our evaluation of past behaviors?
Amy raises some very relevant questions. What’s next for an ID researcher? And I hope Freewaru will avoid quoting Dembski’s wishful list as I would like at least some rational explanation as to how these steps can be achieved. After all remember in ID design is inferred based on ignorance, not based upon any assumptions about design. Which I argue makes ID not only very unreliable but also vacuous in content.
Comment by PvM — June 13, 2006 @ 5:25 am
Allen
the sensation we have of having “free will” is itself probably a product of an evolutionary adaptation that facilitates the formulation of a “theory of mind” with which we can interpret and guide our own actions and beliefs.
Have you heard the term “idling Darwinism” before?
The above statement is a classic example of it.
Abstract philosophy is an evolutionary adaptation?
Riiiiigght.
I think it’s just a side effect of having too much to think. Call it “the curse of the big brain.” There are other side effects, too. Can you think of any likely possibilities?
And remember this: I’m just as correct on this subject as anyone will ever be. Isn’t that interesting? Such is the nature of “philosophy.” :)
Comment by Amy Lester — June 13, 2006 @ 5:29 am
Freawaru,
Regarding design detection, there is something very interesting. We knew that Heiroglyphics were designed long before we knew the meaning of design, that is we knew there was a language there even before we understood what it said!
William Dembski points out that his design detection methods are for detecting the existence of design (detection of a syntax) but not the detection of the semantics (meaning).
In case you missed this posting on Wiglaf’s thread, I point out the utility of the design perspective:
http://designparadigm.blogsome.com/2006/05/24/critics-and-analyses-of-id/#comment-545
If Dembski is right that the EF is hinting there are large amounts of syntax constructs in biology, decoding the meaning (semantics) has great implications for biology, medicine, and engineering. Decoding Junk DNA could be a goldmine for biotech firms. If you go the talk origins website, one of the supposed proofs for naturalistic evolution is the supposed large amounts of junk DNA. If we discover that junk DNA is poly-constrained (Sanford) and poly-functional and optimized to help human reverse engineer it (Dembski), this will be a triumph for ID and science.
Here is a case in point where the design paradigm could be absolutely superior to Darwinian evolution. I point out that one could listen to a modem signal and conclude it is noise. Such would be the case to the uninitiated. However if one uses Explantory Filter methodology, and concludes a syntax is present and that the signal is designed, even though we don’t yet comprehend the full meaning of the design, we are then motivated to explore it further. There are non-random signals in biology that are suggestive of syntax, but we do not know yet what the meaning is. How exciting!
I suggest biotech firms would be better off investigating design rather than writing off features of biology as junk or vestigial artifacts. They’ll make more money with that outlook….
I should also point out John Sanford (Cornell Professor) outlines ideas which are in principle testable regarding the trajectory and information dynamics in biological genomes, namely, specified complexity is being deteriorated at a much higher rate than people acknowlege in text books. These are straightforward deductions from information theory and population genetics. This has significant medical and environmental implications. It is highly relevant to real life if Sanford is right.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 13, 2006 @ 6:07 am
Salvador avoids dealing with the questions and rather makes unsupported assertions about Junk DNA without explaining how ID can make any statements about junk DNA in any logical manner. I predict that Sal will refrain from any attempt to lay such a foundation for ID to become scientifically relevant.
I am aware that Dembski makes a lot of claims, my problem is that many of his claims are poorly supported by logic or empirical evidence and in many cases contradicted.
Perhaps Sal can explain his thought process in a more thorough manner allowing us to determine if there is indeed a scientific value to ID beyond some vacuous claims.
For instance, why would ID predict that the genome deteriorates other than if one were to accept the creationist argument about the fall, sin and the deterioration of the genome? What principles can Sal propose that link ID, which is based on ignorance to these ‘predictions’?
While it is undoubtably that ID can generate ‘predictions’ they seem to be unrelated to the basic premises of ID. Which is why ID remains scientifically vacuous
Comment by PvM — June 13, 2006 @ 6:22 am
Salvador
We knew that Heiroglyphics were designed long before we knew the meaning of design, that is we knew there was a language there even before we understood what it said!
Huh. And how confident were we that humans made the heiroglyphics, Sal?
I’m thinking we were 99.999% confident of that. But perhaps there were some renegade archeologists and linguistic experts who felt otherwise. Funny — I don’t remember learning the names of those “mysterious alien beings made hieroglypics” geniuses who brought so much to the table back when we were trying to decipher heiroglyphics.
William Dembski points out that his design detection methods are for detecting the existence of design (detection of a syntax) but not the detection of the semantics (meaning).
What’s this? An appeal to authority? Please. Freawaru doesn’t care what Dembski says.
There’s much more that’s misleading in your comment, Sal, but I suspect that’s an intentional effort on your part to create a distraction.
Why not answer the questions I posed?
Let’s talk about the magnificent colors on the side of the Grand Canyon and the possibility that mysterious alien beings designed them. That’s an “intelligent design” hypothesis.
Everybody already knows that human beings (physical objects that exist in “reality,” the last time I checked) created heiroglyphics and modems. Like, duh. If intelligent design does nothing but confirm that human beings created heiroglypics and modems, then it is more vacuous than I thought.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 13, 2006 @ 6:43 am
PvM,
If specified complexity will on average not be increased by any other agency except intelligence, then natural selection in the real world (as opposed to the make believe world of Avida and Weasal which you are so fond of) will be insufficient to curtail the decline of the genome. If that hypothesis gets wider empirical validation, the Darwinian paradigm is doomed. That is a straightforward consequence of the ID position. OOL has already been effectively refuted theoretically and empirically. Some die-hard apparently haven’t caught on, however….but what we’re seeing in the lab is consistent with ID….
Regarding the EF and supposed “junk” in biology, I point out, even without deliberate intention, IBM has concluded a non-random pattern in junk DNA. Their discovery is inconsistent with talk origins claims that junk DNA is proof of Darwinian evolution. See:
http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archives/1084
Thankfully people were willing to keep searching for possible design rather than throwing their hands up and saying it’s leftover junk from an evolutionary process.
I’ll let the biotech firms over the next several decades vote with their money. (They certainly didn’t vote with their money at the Darwin display in the museum of natural history:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/22/corporate_sponsors_darwin/ )
What is amusing is that biology is being forced to adopt teleological language in order to explain it.
See:
http://telicthoughts.com/?p=176
You see PvM the language which most naturally describes biology is not natural selection,but design.
There are many designed features in biology that make no sense in terms of natural selection but make complete sense in terms of design. There are many artifact in human affairs that have zero utility, yet they have the hallmarks of design. The same is true of many biological designs, they have the hallmarks of design, but have little survival advantage.
I’m not here to help you determine if ID is not vacuous. You’ve already made up your mind. You hold to naturalistic evolution in the face of many contrary evidences. You would at least be better advised to take an agnostic position on the issue rather than confidently asserting naturalistic evolution as fact and as the way God created the world.
I’m happy to say that ID is a reasonable speculation and invite others to explore it. You on the other hand seem determined to uphold naturlistic evolution as fact. A position that is indefensible.
My posting is for those who are undecided and for those wishing to find ideas that support the design paradigm. Though I personally believe in design, officially, I simply offer it as a reasonable hypothesis. I do however, insist that naturalistic evolution has not earned it’s place as a scientific theory (as compared to electrodynamics or quantum mechanics). It asserts thing which have insufficient theoretical and/or empirical backing….
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 13, 2006 @ 7:08 am
There are non-random signals in biology that are suggestive of syntax, but we do not know yet what the meaning is.
Ah, now I see. All those beetle species. It’s a message from the mysterious alien beings: they LIKE beetles more than flies.
Wow. I just thought a lot of research possibilities.
Seriously, though: the Grand Canyon. The colors. Let’s get back to those questions I asked.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 13, 2006 @ 7:11 am
And all this was determined using methods much UNlike the explanatory filter proposed by Dembski. So why are you raising this non sequitur?
Hieroglyphs were found on known designed systems such as pots and temples. Hardly an earth-shattering design inference. That hieroglyphs mapped to a language was also determined by the Greeks, again not based on ignorance. While breaking the code required the Rosetta stone, it was hardly a surprise that the hieroglyphs had been ‘designed’. So let’s not use such simplistic examples when it comes to ID”s claimed approaches to detecting design which are distinctly different from how science detects design.
Comment by PvM — June 13, 2006 @ 8:12 am
PvM wrote:
“We do have the freedom of choice but our choices are not unlimited as they are guided to a large extent by the circumstances and abilities we posess. We can take or avoid a particular action but they are based on our evaluation of past behaviors?”
As Will Provine has pointed out, given that all of our thoughts and actions are the product of our neurophysiology, then whatever determines the state of our neurophysiology also determines all of our thoughts and actions. In other words, everything we think and do is the the result of two causal influences: our genetic/biological heritage and our past experiences.
Consider, for example, the movie “Groundhog Day.” A central logical flaw of that movie was the idea that the Bill Murray character could remember past iterations of Groundhog Day, and therefore modify his behavior accordingly. In reality, if one were to wake up again on the very same day, one would do over again exactly what one had done on the past iteration of that day.
It is very important in this context to emphasize that the lack of free will that results from our being determined by our biological and experiential past does not in any way mean that we cannot make choices or decisions. Clearly, we all make choices and decisions all the time. This does not in any way alter the fact that those choices and decisions are ultimately completely determined by the physical state of our nervous systems at the time those choices and decisions were made. To believe otherwise is to believe that there is something outside of physical reality to which we nevertheless have immediate and direct access, and which can alter our internal neurophysiological state in such a way as to alter our behaviors and thoughts. Personally, I don’t see any candidates for such an “extra-physical” influence (not one that could possibly be investigated or verified to exist…or not).
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 13, 2006 @ 1:18 pm
Amy:
Rather than being a pointless exercise in “philosophizing,” asserting that there is no such thing as “free will” is just the opposite: by doing so, I hope to avoid pointless speculation about something that cannot possibly be shown to exist, and to stick to the subject at hand: those things that we can count, measure, perceive (or infer), and therefore agree on. Nature, in a word (rather than “the supernatural,” all speculation about which is IMHO utterly pointless and counterproductive).
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 13, 2006 @ 1:21 pm
Reasonable specultion or not, it’s nice to see Sal admit it’s not science …
Naturalistic evolution is an observed fact. Apparently observations which conflict with Sal’s religous beliefs are indefensible…
Comment by Don Baccus — June 13, 2006 @ 1:40 pm
Salvador wrote:
“There are many designed features in biology that make no sense in terms of natural selection but make complete sense in terms of design.”
This statement demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of both the concept of “design” and of “natural selection,” a misunderstanding which lies at the heart of the evolution/design debate. What is “design” anyway? Note that I’m not asking the question that Dr. Dembski thought he was answering, i.e. how can we tell if something has been designed. Before one can even ask that question (much less attempt to answer it), one must first agree on what “design” is.
This is not a trivial problem. Michael Ruse, in Darwin and Design: Does Evolution Have a Purpose?, asserts that one of the most important contributions of Darwin’s theory was that it put “design” back into nature (from which it had been removed by the “Newtonians”). To Ruse, “design” is essentially equivalent to “adaptation,” in that adaptations “solve” problems of biological function.
But the problem here is one that Lewontin and Gould addressed almost 30 years ago in their landmark paper “The Spandrels of San Marco and the Panglossian Paradigm” (available online at http://ethomas.web.wesleyan.edu/wescourses/2004s/ees227/01/spandrels.html ). Lewontin and Gould pointed out two things: (1) not all of the characteristics of living organisms are adaptations (i.e. some of them are the result of pure “chance,” not necessity), and (2) even the characteristics that are clearly adaptive don’t have to have arisen because they are adaptive, nor will they continue to exist for the same reason. They coined the term “exaptation” to refer to characteristics of organisms that are not necessarily adaptive, but which nonetheless are biologically significant.
I would go much further than Lewontin and Gould: just as Darwin suggested (but did not come right out and say) that there are no such things as “species” (see my blog on this subject at http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2006/03/origin-of-specious.html ), I believe that in nature there are no such things as “adaptations.” That is, although there are characteristics of organisms that are correlated with relatively high reproductive success (and would therefore be considered by most evolutionary biologists to qualify as “adaptations”), it becomes problematic to decide exactly which of those characteristics are the “real” adaptations and which are merely “accidental.” Indeed, if one is serious about the variation/inheritance/fecundity/differential reproductive success model of evolution (i.e. the genuine article, not the RM+NS straw-man attacked by most IDers), then all of the characteristics of living organisms are “accidental” insofar as their origin cannot be shown to have been “intended” or “pre-destined” ahead of time.
Here is the real crux of the disagreement, as PvM has pointed out: what qualifies as an “adaptation” in biology can only be determined retrospectively, insofar as it has the practical result of causing increased relative survival and reproduction. No characteristics of living organisms can be shown to have come into being because they would eventually have that result; indeed, I would assert that to even make this claim is non-sensical in the extreme. What characteristics of living organisms currently alive will eventually result in their assendance or demise? We have absolutely no way of knowing, nor even of imagining a way of knowing. At some point in the future, we can look back and say “son-of-a-gun, those funny looking scales are correlated with increased survival and reproduction because they allow the animals that have them to fly, and therefore escape predators and capture prey more effectively,” but until this actually happens (and absolutely nothing in nature guarantees that it will), we can’t make any statements about the “value” of any of the characteristics of organisms now living.
This, rather than the rather vapid speculations Salvador cited for the future of genetic engineering, is the real value of genetic engineering to evolutionary biology (and vise versa). We now have the ability to selectively delete individual characteristics from many different organisms. This makes possible something that natural selection does not: the precise determination of the selective “value” of particular characteristics. This has already been done, and the surprising outcome has been that even some gene sequences that were thought to have been very important in selection (due to having been “conserved” over deep evolutionary time) are apparently insiginificant or even useless. We know this because knocking them out of the genome has no discernible effect on the survival or reproduction of the “knock-out” progeny. If one is the kind of “pan-adaptationist” that Lewontin and Gould criticized, this outcome should come as a severe shock, as it should to every IDer. But, if one is a true “Darwinian” (i.e. a devotee to that tradition which questions absolutely all assumptions, including the very existence of “adaptations” and “species”), it should come as no surprise at all.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 13, 2006 @ 1:56 pm
Just one more comment in the context of this discussion:
Many of the arguments made by Salvadore and other IDers are essentially “arguments by analogy.” Such arguments are almost entirely empty and pointless, as there is absolutely no way to verify nor falsify analogies. Indeed, all analogies are necessarily false to some degree, else they would qualify as identities, rather than analogies, according to the basic principles of Aristotelian logic.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 13, 2006 @ 2:06 pm
No one seems to have addressed this directly, so I’ll bother myself to repeat it, with the key word accentuated:
If, as you pretend, you don’t know anything about the nature, motivation or method of the alleged designer, how can you possibly conclude that something was not designed?
This seems important to me, as detecting design is logically equivalent to differentiating between design and not design.
Comment by ivy privy — June 14, 2006 @ 12:13 am
Sal shows some all to usual misunderstandings of evolutionary theory when he discusses for instance junk DNA. I have found in the past that Sal is reluctant to listen to a voice of reason so I will not attempt to explain why he is once again wrong. As Allen points out Sal mostly relies on the argument from analogy which has its usual limitations.
Sufficient to point out that Sal has failed to address my questions and points. Once again
Comment by PvM — June 14, 2006 @ 4:05 am
Freawaru,
I am preparing a post to further explore these issue at Uncommon Descent in a day or two particularly regarding the Explanatory Filter’s ability to detect linguistic structures in biology. In the meantime, if there is something the critics have said that you’d like me to respond to, please say so. I’m here to offer the most persuasive arguments for ID before you and the rest of the IDEA club at Cornell.
If there is any part of my argument you wish me to clarify or explore further, or there is a point the critics have made which you feel I should address, please bring it to my attention. (Please forgive my occasional lack of clarity as these post are composed in the wee hours of the night. )
My post at UD will elaborate further on the Explanatory Filter’s ability to detect design in ways which the Darwinian paradigm (everything defined in terms of fitness) will fail. There are many designs which will elude natural selection and cannot really be defined in terms of fitness.
As I pointed out, IBM was able to detect potential specified complex structures in the genome. If the selective effect of deleting these regions is so small, it would be easy to overlook the design which is otherwise evident. There are many highly important designs which elude the power of natural selection, and therefore one has to question how those design could arrive in the first place! Furthermore, these are exactly the kinds of design with an ID tool like the Explanatory Filter (EF) can detect since the design may have little effect on the immediate fitness of the organism, but the EF will readily see.
The ID viewpoint will have the advantage in the development of medical sciences over naturalistic evolution. For example, the negative effect of removing the appendix is apparent only in certain contexts. In many context it has neutral effect. The function of the appendix is not borne out by natural selection unless certain conditions are met.
An example of designs which elude natural selection are listed below. If more such designs exist in nature, particularly those which can be identified with linguistic tools, the EF and the design paradigm will be shown to be far more valuable to biological research than the Darwinian viewpoint (which frames the majority of issues in terms of immediate fitness rather than pre-meditated design).
Many structures in biology make sense in terms of a pre-meditated design rather than immediate biological fitness. Thus not only is ID not vacuous, it is far more valuable to understanding biology than naturalistic evolution because ID can identify functional systems which elude the reach of natural selection. Here are examples of designs which make sense in an ID perspective, but pose serious problems for Darwinian evolution (by Michael Denton):
It is exactly these kinds of designs which the ID paradigm has a better chance of detecting since these are exactly the kinds of designs that elude natural selection but which the EF might possibly detect (as IBM has aptly demonstrated!). ID is then shown to be a superior framework for casting biological understanding. The future dominance of systems biology over evolutionary biology should only solidify that conviction.
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 14, 2006 @ 8:22 am
Amy–
Not quite sure why you think your question so interesting. What is the basis for your design inference?
Comment by Freawaru — June 14, 2006 @ 11:39 am
Allen,
I can understand your concern here, but I’m afraid if one attempts to make this case, one will easily destroy conceptions in naturalistic evolution as well! For example how is it that we call an eye in one creature an eye in another? If eyes evolved 40 times indendently we have 40 architectures that are so strongly analogous we call them by the same name, an “eye”! But labelling these 40 architectures with the same name leads to the very thing you are concerned about, arguing with analogies. If we classify 40 different architectures the same thing (such as an eye), then we are saying natural selection arrived at the same analogous structure. But if we ditch analogous language, we have no basis for saying these 40 different architectures are “eyes”, and yet biology is so amenable to us making these analogies we don’t even give it a second thought to call something and eye, or call a whale or bat’s ability to use sound for visualization, SONAR! In fact, so pervasive is the phenomenon of analogies in biology which are not attributable to common descent (such as various eyes) we use word such as “convergence” and “homoplasy” to describe the phenomenon.
Applying such labels as “arm”, “leg”, “eye” are already using mentalist teleological, analogical conceptions to biology. Wwhen we use the words “code”, “decode”, “translate”, “error”, “life”, and “non life”, etc. we are using analogical language. When we say something is alive versus dead we are subtly invoking analogical and informational conceptions. It is so natural for us to use these ideas, we don’t even give it a second thought!
Analogical language is what information science is about. A shakespearean poem can be analogously represented by pixels on a screen, fluctuations on a telephone wire, indentations on a phonograph, ink on paper, bits on a CD. Poems or any information constructs are non-material entities conveyed via analogous physical artifacts.
You are not made of the same molecules you were made of 20 years ago, yet what has persisted is not the materials which make up your body but the analogy of information. The molecules which compose your body today are an analogy to the molecules which composed your body 20 years ago. The proteins in your body are analogous to the DNA which you inherited. Analogical preceptions are so pervasive we don’t even give it a second thought!
Transmission and processing of information works in the modern world because of our ability to use analogies and PERCEIVE analogies. For example, when we say the correspondence of DNA to amino acids, we empirically detected an analogy processing (information processing) system, the DNA codons are analogous to amino acids. We were able to take a human conception and specificaiton (the idea of coding and decoding and translating and copying) and project the analogy onto biotic reality.
IDers posit the reason certain physical artifacts (such as heiroglyphics and living organisms) are so amenable to having certain human specifications projected onto them (conceptions often described with teleological language) is because they are designed. What has happening in biology is we are already using the analogical language of information science.
The design inference postulates that certain analogies cannot be fitted onto physical artifacts unless the physical artifact is designed. This process of fitting analogies (projecting specifications) onto physical artifacts is called detecting CSI (Complex Specified Information). If we can detect large amounts of CSI in an undesigned object, then the design inference will have been scientifically falsfied. For example, if the OOL problem is solved, IDers will by and large have one of their major ideas scientifically falsified.
Salvador
PS
(My sincere thank you for your civil treatment of my comrades at cornell and your willingness to discuss these issues.)
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 14, 2006 @ 2:10 pm
Freawaru,
Here is the first installment at Uncommon Descent on the topic of ID’s non-vacuity. I hope to write more on it, but this first post will hopefully put some perspective on the issue.
Airplane magnetos, contingency designs, and reasons ID will prevail
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 14, 2006 @ 3:57 pm
Sal makes yet another argument by analogy over at UD, and we’re supposed to be impressed?
Comment by Don Baccus — June 14, 2006 @ 4:08 pm
I mean … the notion that DNA is analogous to an internal combustion engine is hilarious!
And the logic of Sal’s post is interesting, too … “scientists err, other scientists correct the error, therefore ID is a superious paradigm to mainstream biology. Why? Because after the fact, Sal says ’see, if they were open to design, they would’ve figured this out faster’ which is nothing but a handwave”.
Comment by Don Baccus — June 14, 2006 @ 4:13 pm
Why would anyone imagine that being able to map structures to a formal grammar says anything about design?
Comment by Don Baccus — June 14, 2006 @ 4:16 pm
Once again, I gotta agree with Don here. If ID were really non-vacuous, Sal would be talking about experimental and testable data, not coming up with nonsense comparisons between engineering and biology.
Seriously, Sal, get real.
Comment by Dan — June 14, 2006 @ 4:22 pm
Sal - also, rather than bluffing with conclusions like:
… maybe you should actually use your Explanatory Filter to identify some such design - so far it’s a rhetorical device that hasn’t accomplished anything.
Comment by Dan — June 14, 2006 @ 4:27 pm
IBM (unwittingly) did a very good job of that. Apparently you didn’t appreciate the significance of the articles I linked to.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 14, 2006 @ 4:58 pm
Nope - they don’t clarify the definition of what is specified in Specified Complexity, nor do they explain why such genomic features are Intelligently Designed (as opposed to Selected by natural processes).
… just go ahead and see if you can publish such hand-waiving arguments in a respected peer-review journal.
Comment by Dan — June 14, 2006 @ 5:07 pm
Actually, this gets at a point that IDers seem to perpetually miss:
In terms of appearances, there is very little difference between blind selection and purposeful design. How can you tell the difference? By looking at the overall pattern is currently the only tool for looking at the overall history of life on Earth.
And again, how can you tell the difference between a series of intermediate designs (like developments in computer engineering since the 1940’s) and a series of intermediate form changes that occur naturally? You can’t, not without some supporting evidence of the causal agent.
IDers frequently refer to Mt. Rushmore or Stonehenge as comparisons, but these examples are incongruent: we have info on the causal agents for those (humans), but no evidence on the causal agent for the “designer” (other than faith).
So the entire ID argument (the EF in particular) is built around a faith-based perception.
Comment by Dan — June 14, 2006 @ 5:14 pm
The pattern discovery methodology they use is not claimed, by them, to be Dembski’s “explanatory filter”, Sal. What are you smoking?
And the discovery of patterns in no way implies design. Apply pattern discovery tools to images of snowflakes and in time your algorithm will spit out “snowflakes are six-sided”. Where’s the design implication in this, hmmm, Sal?
Comment by Don Baccus — June 14, 2006 @ 5:18 pm
Freawaru wrote
ID makes an equally bold step in another direction, suggesting that hypothetical design in nature can be studied in the same way as the design we are familiar with in art, architecture and technology.
Then I presented my hypothesis about the Grand Canyon:
So here’s my hypothesis: the magnificent colors on the walls of the Grand Canyon were designed by mysterious alien beings (they are as beautiful as the paintings of Sam Francis, an artist who is familiar to thousands of humans around the world). Now, Freawaru, please tell us: what does an ID researcher do next? What’s the next step?
Next, Freawaru asks me this stunning question:
What is the basis for your design inference?
First, Freawaru, for the purpose of my hypothetical, it does not matter what the “basis” is. Just like “ID researchers” say that naturally occurring protein X is “designed” without articulating a *scientific* basis for doing so, so too have many humans throughout history claimed the Grand Canyon is designed by one or more Gods. My hypothesis is that it was designed by mysterious alien beings (this is an ID hypothesis). Now: your task, as one who claims to understand what “ID research” is, is to tell me what an “ID researcher” does next that is likely to be more fruitful than what a scientist would do.
If you are unwilling to answer this question, then perhaps you’d like to explain to me how the “explanatory filter” (a term which has been debunked and which Dembski himself no longer promotes) can be used to show that the colorful walls of the Grand Canyon were likely NOT designed by “mysterious alien beings.” As you surely are aware, that conclusion would come as a surprise to a great many people who are sure that the Canyon was designed by the Christian God.
But I digress (slightly).
Comment by Amy Lester — June 14, 2006 @ 11:02 pm
Sal:
Note that
1. Sal failed to explain how junk DNA is relevant to the explanatory filter
2. Sal failed to explain how IBM’s approach is similar to the explanatory filter
3. Sal has failed to show that science or talkorigins predicted all junk DNA to be without function
In other words, Sal’s claims are vacuous. Sal makes a lot of claims but fails to support them with much of any logic, empirical data, calculations etc. I do not blame him though, such is the nature of intelligent design.
In other words, ID is falsified whenever we resolve an area of ignorance. CSI is indeed an argument from ignorance and thus the claim that something contains CSI is as much a problem for ID as it is for science, But science works on proposals to resolve the problems, ID has no foundation allowing itself to be scientifically relevant.
So many claims but as usual such little supporting data, logic.
And information science is NOT about analogies, but I understand Sal’s confusion. Some ID’ers have also confused Demski’s musings are information science…
Comment by PvM — June 15, 2006 @ 4:02 am
Salvadore:
I think you missed my point about argument by analogy. What you described was not argument, but rather description. And yes, of course, we use analogies all the time when we describe things. However, using analogy in the process of describing something is not the same thing at all as verifying or falsifying a premise on the basis of analogy.
There are essentially four ways in which people make logical arguments: transduction (argument by analogy), induction (arguing from particular cases to a generalization), deduction (arguing from a generalization to a particular case), and abduction (arguing that a particular case is valid because it is subsumed under another generalization). Of these four, the weakest by far is transduction, as it depends entirely on the validity of the analogies employed, which cannot be verified or falsified within the argument itself. Rather, analogies can only be assigned degrees of confidence on the basis of their constituents, which are also ultimately related to them via analogy.
To all readers of this comment: I would be happy to present a more formal analysis of the relationship between analogy, identity, and validity if any of you are interested. I’ve been working on it for several years, and would be curious to see what your reactions might be.
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 15, 2006 @ 4:10 am
I’d love to hear more about this Allen.
Comment by PvM — June 15, 2006 @ 4:35 am
Allen–
Very much so… shall I begin another thread for discussion of it?
Comment by Freawaru — June 15, 2006 @ 4:48 am
That’s it? Why not walk us through the steps. How does Dembski define the Explanatory Filter mathematically and then show us how EF is not vacuous.
Or are we just to believe these just-so-stories as if they are in any way relevant to ID?
Indeed, using knockout experiments can be tricky since degeneracy is a common outcome of evolutionary processes which involve duplication and preferential attachment (scale free networks). Sal seems to confuse the existence of backup in a plane with the very different process of degeneracy. Redundancy versus degeneracy… Once again the analogy shows its limited ability to explain.
When will Sal learn that these just so stories have no relevance in establishing the reliability of the explanatory filter nor the scientific relevance of ID?
I’d suggest that Sal provides a more robust explanation why we should accept his story as relevant to ID.
Let me in the mean time assert that science has uncovered how degeneracy may arise under natural processes and these are likely processes that we know take place in the genome?
Speaking of airplanes. On Brainstorms the following was posted
And of course the seminal paper “Measures of degeneracy and redundancy in biological networks”, Tononi, Sporns and Edelman in Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. Vol. 96, pp. 3257–3262, March 1999
One final paper “Degeneracy and complexity in biological systems” by Edelman and Gally in PNAS November 20, 2001 vol. 98 no. 24 13763–13768
How does the differences between redundancy (an engineering concept) and degeneracy help us determine the nature of ‘design’ in biological systems?
Redundancy and degeneracy: Evolution and design
So how does ID explains the origin of the redundancy or better stated degeneracy in the genome?
Poof?
Comment by PvM — June 15, 2006 @ 4:49 am
It appears I had, and I somewhat realized it after I posted.
I do thank you for the large amounts of time you devoted to this dialogue, and I look forward to hearing your insights regarding analogy, identity, and validity.
Salvador
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 15, 2006 @ 2:37 pm
Freawaru wrote:
To all readers of this comment: I would be happy to present a more formal analysis of the relationship between analogy, identity, and validity if any of you are interested.
Very much so… shall I begin another thread for discussion of it?
That would be fine. The topic could be “Identity, analogy, and validity”
Comment by Allen MacNeill — June 15, 2006 @ 2:46 pm
PvM–
Do you have a response to this?
Comment by Freawaru — June 16, 2006 @ 12:02 am
I know my bit, don’t worry about that :). We’re pretending I’m an ID researcher, and you have written me with a question, or rather, what you consider a wonderful and critical new research opportunity– you know, of the annoying sort professors get in stacks all the time, and generally ignore. But every once in a while they decide to follow up something, which for the purpose of the hypothetical, is what I’ll do here. So, again, my first question to you, without which I’m not interested in going further… “What is the basis for your design inference?”
Comment by Freawaru — June 16, 2006 @ 12:36 am
So, again, my first question to you, without which I’m not interested in going further… “What is the basis for your design inference?”
Freawaru, to best of my knowledge, you are not a professor answering “a stack of annoying questions.” Rather, you are a proponent of intelligent design and my question to you is a direct and obvious one based on your previous statements, such as:
ID makes an equally bold step in another direction, suggesting that hypothetical design in nature can be studied in the same way as the design we are familiar with in art, architecture and technology.
Please do not pretend that I am ignorant of the claims made by Dembski and Behe and the other ID luminaries. I am intimately familiar with them and I have watched closely as the reputations of these individuals continues to sink the mud.
Look at your above statement in italics. Feel free to retract it at any time and, if you wish to live by your own rules, apologize for making it to the extent it is false (that’s what I do when I’m in a face to face conversation with someone and my claims are exposed as false).
Just as human beings like you and Salvador Cordova and others can claim to look at, e.g., a bacterial flagellum and say, “That enzyme was obviously designed,” so too have millions of human beings looked at the walls of the Grand Canyon and said, “Thank you Lord for your fantastic work.”
You spoke of “hypothetical design” which could be studied the same way as “design we are familiar with in art.”
I’ve given you a “hypothetical design” by “mysterious alien beings.” Now, I would like to hear how an “ID researcher” goes about doing his or her thing and I would like hear why that researchers methodology is expected to yield more fruitful results than a scientists methodology.
I am getting the strong impression, Freawaru, that you are simply incapable of explaining to me (or anyone) how a person can scientifically distinguish “design by mysterious alien beings” from “non-design”. Am I correct? I would like to hear you explain it in your own words because you have made it perfectly clear that you believe this can be done (in spite of thousands of words of direct and withering criticism from some well-informed commenters here).
And please do not refer me to some writing by Dembski or Behe because their contributions to this problem have been proven to be useless, i.e., nobody uses any of their alleged “methods” to detect “design by mysterious alien beings,” including either of them.
I hope this comment is “civil” enough to merit a direct and honest response from you.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 16, 2006 @ 2:41 am
As should be perfectly obvious to anyone who knows this blog… I am quite simply an undergraduate student in the sciences with an interest in intelligent design theory and evolution, and don’t pretend to have any special knowledge in any field at all. I’m also honestly not exactly sure why you think it worth while to stop by here and “educate us” at all– if I felt about someone’s website the way you appear to feel about this blog, I would find somewhere else to spend my time.
But at any rate, you did, and you asked me to, in a hypothetical situation, “tell me what an “ID researcher” does next …” faced with your personal hypothesis, that the color scheme on the grand canyon were designed by mysterious alien beings. And yes, I did make up the rest of the imaginary situation– add the word annoying, for instance– but the problem is the one you asked me to answer. So, for the third time: if you give that question to an ID researcher, his answer– supposing he didn’t throw your proposal on the stack of similarly vacuous ones, and forget about it– would be to put to you the simple question: “What is the basis for your design inference”? If you don’t have one you shouldn’t have come; even a hypothesis must have some sort of basis. And the next step in ID research would be evaluating that basis.
Well… thanks for trying.
Comment by Freawaru — June 16, 2006 @ 3:22 am
I’m also honestly not exactly sure why you think it worth while to stop by here and “educate us” at all
Do you want me to explain my reasons to you? I’m happy to. But it seems off the topic which is: discussing the claims you made in the original post way way up above. Surely you aren’ t going to claim now that discussing those claims and evaluating them using the only tools we have here (i.e., words) is not permitted.
If you don’t have one you shouldn’t have come; even a hypothesis must have some sort of basis.
What do you mean by “some sort of basis”? Are the millions of people who have looked at the Grand Canyon and said, “Thank you God for your masterpiece,” deluded? They have “some sort of basis” for their hypothesis, do they not?
Yes or no?
Or did you not really mean to say “some sort of basis”? If you did not really mean to say “some sort of basis” then please tell me what you really meant to say, Freawaru.
Also, you clearly implied that my previous post was not “civil.” Why did yoo do that, Freawaru?
Comment by Amy Lester — June 16, 2006 @ 5:11 pm
So Freewary, do you have any comments on the substantial aspects of my posting on Laudan? Or do you agree with Laudan’s conclusion that a-posteriori ID is bad science or as Nichols states it ’scientifically vacuous’ and ‘without content’?
Comment by PvM — June 16, 2006 @ 6:57 pm
Freewaru:
Freewaru references a posting by Beckwith which addresses an incidental issue as to whether or not Leiter was aware of who made the actual quote. While interesting to determine if Leiter was confused or Beckwith misunderstood, the issue is irrelevant to my observation that Laudan’s work has been co-opted by ID proponents such as Meyer and in Leiter’s case the book reviewer who made claims about Laudan and presented to argue against demarcation when in fact Laudan is quite clear that a-posteriori ID makes for bad science.
Leiter himself also responded on the thread
Leiter:
So Freewary, do you have any comments on the substantial aspects of my posting on Laudan? Or do you agree with Laudan’s conclusion that a-posteriori ID is bad science or as Nichols states it ’scientifically vacuous’ and ‘without content’?
Comment by PvM — June 16, 2006 @ 7:01 pm
We really need preview…
Comment by PvM — June 16, 2006 @ 7:01 pm
I meant to say “some sort of basis”. I still mean it :)
Perhaps yes, perhaps no; they aren’t here to be questioned. You are, and we are looking at your hypothesis. Again, what is the basis for your design inference?
Comment by Freawaru — June 16, 2006 @ 9:35 pm
Comment by Don Baccus — June 16, 2006 @ 9:41 pm
I haven’t read Laudan, and I didn’t get a clear enough picture of his views from your posts to be able to make any sort of evaluation of his position. I’ve already given my own view on the non-vacuity of ID.
Comment by Freawaru — June 16, 2006 @ 10:42 pm
I wrote
What do you mean by “some sort of basis”? Are the millions of people who have looked at the Grand Canyon and said, “Thank you God for your masterpiece,” deluded? They have “some sort of basis” for their hypothesis, do they not?
Yes or no?
and Freawaru replied
Perhaps yes, perhaps no.
Freawaru also has refused (at least for the moment) to explain what he means by “some sort of a basis.” Fair enough. I might do the same if I were in Freawaru’s shoes.
So … Freawaru, I’m going to politely ask you to clarify your statement: are you saying that you believe that every one of the human beings who have attributed the Grand Canyon’s beauty to the Christian God are doing so without “any sort of a basis”?
Yes or no, please. To the extent that some humans are attributing the Grand Canyon’s beauty to their deity, what do you suppose their basis is for doing so? I’d like to hear your answer to the question.
The “sort of basis” proposed by Don seems a reasonable basis as well, for the purposes of my hypothetical. You may proceed with the follow up questions using Don’s basis if you will.
Of course, another “sort of basis” goes like this: “The walls of the Grand Canyon make me to feel a sense of awe and wonder, just as the most beautiful paintings make me feel a sense of awe and wonder. Those beautiful paintings were designed by intelligent beings, therefore the Grand Canyon might have been designed by intelligent beings.”
So what research does the “design paradigm” inspired researcher do next, Freawaru, to evaluate the merits of the hypothesis? And how does that research differ and improve upon the sort of research that a scientist would carry out to discover the origin of the Grand Canyon’s magnificent colored walls?
Again: these are obvious questions that arise from the claims in your original post. If there is a problem with your claims that you had previously not noticed, feel free to say so. There’s nothing “bad” about admitting error (if an error was made).
Finally, I do not think it is useful to modify hypothetical questions with ad hoc caveats like “a real-life professor would set the question aside” in order to avoid answering the question. Let’s assume that the professor has been contacted by a reporter from an important magazine and he really does need to answer the question, whether he respects the “basis” of the hypothesis or not. A scientist practicing the scientific method might need to know the basis of a hypothesis in order to begin researching a question relating to “mysterious alien beings” but you haven’t explained why an “ID researcher” would need to know such things.
Oh, you also didn’t answer my question about why you implied that my previous post was not civil. Maybe you missed that question or you intentionally ignored it. Either way, I am curious to hear your answer.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 16, 2006 @ 11:06 pm
Yes, I am still awaiting some scientific contributions of ID that show that ID is not scientifically vacuous. So far, the claims seem to have been that Junk DNA (Sal) shows talkorigins and evolution to be problematic (of course it doesn’t but that’s likely caused by a common confusion as to the term Junk DNA), the Cambrian explosion (again I am not sure what the argument is). In neither case is a non-begging-the-question explanation given as to how ID addresses these topics. Why would ID predict Junk DNA and/or the absence of Junk DNA? Why would ID predict an abrupt Cambrian? Does ID predict that the Cambrian finds its precursors in the pre-Cambrian? Etc etc
You really should read Laudan as he rejects the demarcation principle and is thus often quoted by ID creationists, yet Laudan is also clear that he also believes in good and bad science, determine aposteriori. Intelligent Design falls clearly in the latter category.
So why did you provide a reference to Beckwith’s posting ? Did you think, as did Dembski, that there was some relevance to the issue?
Comment by PvM — June 17, 2006 @ 4:07 am
Back to the vacuity of ID. ID proponents have argued that Junk DNA is something not-explained, unexplainable etc by evolutionary theory and argue further that ID presents a much better approach to Junk DNA.
First of all, let me point out that ID presents NO arguments why Junk DNA should for instance be functional that follow directly from the basic premise of ID namely that design is the set theoretic complement of chance and regularity. Based on that foundation, ID is an argument from ignorance which means that any assumption needs to follow from side hypotheses. So when ID claims that Junk DNA should have function, they are implicitly applying the creationist foundation argument that God would not create junk. Note that there is no good reason to argue that regular intelligence does not create junk. We all know how humans create junk all the time, even while designing so the existence or absence of junk cannot really be predicted from our understanding of human intelligence. The same applies to the Cambrian explosion where the side hypotheses all point towards a religious assumption.
Without such side hypotheses ID is vacuous and since ID is clear that it refuses to deal with concepts of means, motives, opportunities etc, which would create side hypotheses, ID is doomed to remain vacuous scientifically.
Now back to Junk DNA, a recent study removed close to 15% of the genome of a bacterium and the bacterium performed as well or better, as far as the researchers could tell at least, as their parent strain. How does ID explain this in a non-begging-the-question manner?
Emergent Properties of Reduced-Genome Escherichia coli Science 19 May 2006: Vol. 312. no. 5776, pp. 1044 - 1046
When pressed for details ID is doomed to respond as did Dembski when asked for details…
Not in the business of telling mechanistic stories… What stories does ID tell then?
Poof???
Comment by PvM — June 17, 2006 @ 7:25 pm
Amy–
Thank you! It wasn’t such a hard question to answer, was it?
For the second question: it doesn’t differ from the “sort of research a scientist would carry out”, as in my classification system the set of intelligent design researchers is a subset of the set of all scientists.
For the first– as I’ve said before, the next step is to evaluate your basis. You’ve chosen one in which the “research” needed to evaluate it is relatively straightforward. Ofcourse there is no basis for it in a deductive logic framework; and if you frame it as a liklihood/inductive argument, it doesn’t look much better. You are suggesting that “ability to inspire awe and wonder” is a reliable marker of designed systems; this can be tested, and I think the answer is no.
So there is the response from your hypothetical researcher :).
Intentionally ignored, for the purpose of staying on topic. As E. Roosevelt wrote: ‘Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people’. Let’s avoid discussing people.
Comment by Freawaru — June 20, 2006 @ 12:33 am
You are suggesting that “ability to inspire awe and wonder” is a reliable marker of designed systems; this can be tested, and I think the answer is no.
That’s nice. You can think whatever you want about the “reliability” of the human beings who are moved to tears when they view the colored walls of the Grand Canyon. But you haven’t evaluated the hypothesis, Freawaru: mysterious alien beings designed the walls of the Grand Canyon. Whether my “basis” is “unreliable” does not determine that my proposed explanation is, in fact, incorrect. Put another way, one does not need to be a scientist or use “reliable” methods to be capable of proposing a hypothesis that is, in fact, correct. I am certain that you agree because this is basic, incontrovertible stuff.
This is why I indicated above that your demand that I provide you with my “basis” is irrelevant to the questions I was asking. As for those questions, you have provided a strange answer which appears to contradict your earlier statements respecting the benefits of assuming the existence of mysterious alien beings which “design” things.
For the second question: [the research that an intelligent design researcher would carry out] doesn’t differ from the “sort of research a scientist would carry out”, as in my classification system the set of intelligent design researchers is a subset of the set of all scientists.
Come again? Are you saying that a “scientist” who seriously contemplates the possibility that mysterious alien beings might have designed the Grand Canyon would carry out the same research that a typical scientist who was studying the origin of the Grand Canyon would carry out? If so, then what are the implied benefits of “the design paradigm”? How does the “design paradigm” improve the ability of scientists to arrive closer to the truth about such matters as the origin of the Grand Canyon?
As E. Roosevelt wrote: ‘Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people’. Let’s avoid discussing people.
Prediction: I will be reminding you of this quote within one month.
Intentionally ignored, for the purpose of staying on topic.
Really? I think that I must accept your answer (I don’t have much choice with your fingers wrapped around my throat, do I?).
Recall that I also asked:
are you saying that you believe that every one of the human beings who have attributed the Grand Canyon’s beauty to the Christian God are doing so without “any sort of a basis”? Yes or no.
You chose not to answer this question directly but implicilty your answer was “no” because you rejected my very real “basis” as not being the “sort of basis” you, as a scientist, respect. That’s an interesting answer to my question.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 20, 2006 @ 2:28 am
All manner of things might be; but if you haven’t any warrant to believe them they really don’t matter. It is common practice– at least where I’m from– in evaluating hypotheses to first evaluate their bases. If– as in your case– the basis is sadly lacking, it is not worth spending more time with the hypothesis
I said nothing about the scientist who “who seriously contemplates the possibility that mysterious alien beings might have designed the Grand Canyon”. That was your fiction; I simply said that the set of intelligent design researchers was a subset of the set of scientists.
I haven’t studied an application of the design paradigm to the origin of the Grand Canyon; it never struck me as the most interesting of problems. If you’re really interested in the benefits of the paradigm, though, you might begin by reading any of the writings of a number of the old scientists who used some version of the design paradigm in their work, and see what role it played in their reasoning.
You are more than welcome to. That’s the way we do things here: while no-one is terribly good at staying on-topic and every so often we all make mistakes, no-one is above the law and we work to keep each other accountable.
Comment by Freawaru — June 20, 2006 @ 12:53 pm
Can’t argue with this, given that the set of intelligent design researchers is the empty set.
Comment by Don Baccus — June 20, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
More precisely, the set of intelligent design researchers doing science is the empty set. Wiglaf spent an entire thread trying to disabuse us of the notion that the term “intelligent design researcher” implies they’re doing science.
Maybe the two of you should meet some time and try to get on the same page? It’s hard to debate you folks when one IDEA blogger says IDers do science, and another just as confidently says they don’t.
But inspired awe and wonder is essentially the IC argument. The bacterial flagellum inspires such awe and wonder in Behe’s mind that he states unequivocably that it was designed, not evolved. He’s done no research to back up his claim. He argues from personal incredulity. “Whoa, that’s one complex little bit of a critter”.
Comment by Don Baccus — June 20, 2006 @ 1:28 pm
I thought the controversy over Cees Dekker was whether or not he was an ID researcher, not whether he did science? As far as whether or not he is a scientist– well, I think he’s got pretty good credentials in that regard.
Comment by Freawaru — June 20, 2006 @ 4:37 pm
You two really do need to get on the same page …
Wiglaf was mumbling about ID researchers in general. When pressed for an example, he came up with Dekker’s name. When it was pointed out that Dekker’s scientific work has nothing to do with ID - and when Dekker himself confirmed it - Wiglaf dissembled by saying “when I talk about ID research, I’m not talking about scientific research, but philosophical”. BTW Dekker resents being labelled an “ID supporter” here on your website.
No one says there aren’t scientists interested in ID. For that matter, many working biologists are theistic evolutionists, i.e. they believe in God the creator but believe that God created the rules and the universe has stumbled on its own afterwards.
Roy Spencer, a well-known climatolgist (with sinking credibility the last five years, but that’s beside the point), is a YEC. However, he’s not doing scientific researcher in to ID or creationism. His research is in climatology.
If a scientist who believes in ID is not doing scientific research into ID, well, then, he or she is not. Pretty simple, I’d say.
Comment by Don Baccus — June 20, 2006 @ 6:04 pm
Don writes
But inspired awe and wonder is essentially the IC argument. The bacterial flagellum inspires such awe and wonder in Behe’s mind that he states unequivocably that it was designed, not evolved. He’s done no research to back up his claim. He argues from personal incredulity. “Whoa, that’s one complex little bit of a critter”.
Indeed. Moreover, the basis for Behe’s hypothesis is that he knows the identify of the designer: it’s his deity. Behe admitted this at trial.
But you keep dodging questions Freawaru.
I haven’t studied an application of the design paradigm to the origin of the Grand Canyon; it never struck me as the most interesting of problems.
Geologists would disagree. So would the millions of folks who believe that the Christian deity designed the Canyon for the purpose of inspiring them with awe — the same reason that an intelligent designer like Michaelangelo designed the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or an intelligent designer like Sam Francis designed his beautiful abstract masterpieces. Remember, Freawaru, it was YOU who claimed that “hypothetical design in nature can be studied in the same way as the design we are familiar with in art, architecture and technology.” I’m asking you to explain what the heck you mean and you respond by stonewalling and invoking strange concepts like “some sort of basis” to evade answering.
What is going on? You sounded confident way upthread but you seem to be hedging your bets severely.
The Grand Canyon is in “nature.” We can’t replicate the Grand Canyon in a laboratory because it’s too big and too old. There is no canyon as magnificent on the face of the earth. Surely it could have been designed by mysterious alien beings and regardless of whether you find the problem “interesting” or not, the fact is that the hypothesis is precisely as “interesting” as the hypothesis that mysterious alien beings designed the bacterial flagella (which is the claim of your heroes, Behe and Dembski et al.).
My question is: how does an “intelligent design researcher” (you seem to believe that such people exist) use the idea that mysterious alien beings are out there designing “things” to conduct research aimed at uncovering the scientific truth about the Grand Canyon’s origin?
Above you claimed this could be done. Now we’re asking you: show us.
It is common practice– at least where I’m from– in evaluating hypotheses to first evaluate their bases. If– as in your case– the basis is sadly lacking, it is not worth spending more time with the hypothesis
The great irony, Freawaru, is this is precisely how nearly every sincere scientist on the planet feels about “hypotheses” that invoke “mysterious alien beings” with unprecedented powers to explain why E.coli serine protease has its present day amino acid sequence. You know what I’m talking about right? This is the claim of “intelligent designer” promoters like Michael Behe and their followers (i.e., you).
Now, if you want to retract your claim about the applicability of the “design paradigm” to science generally and claim that it is “relevant” only to the “study” of living organisms, be my guest.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 20, 2006 @ 6:11 pm
Yet just a couple of posts ago, you said …
In other words, in your classification system the set of ID researchers who aren’t doing science is a subset of the set of all scientists?
Mighty strange, if you ask me. Must’ve been some advances in set theory that I’m not aware of.
Comment by Don Baccus — June 20, 2006 @ 6:56 pm
Freawaru
All manner of things might be; but if you haven’t any warrant to believe them they really don’t matter.
Here you go again: what do you mean by “any warrant”? That sounds vaguly like “some sort of basis.”
The millions of humans who praise their deity for creating the Grand Canyon surely must have “a warrant” or “some sort of basis for doing so. You admitted as much when you attempted to narrow the definition of “some sort of basis” above to exclude any “sort of basis” which does not “reliably” detect human-designed objects.
You are aware, of course, that innumerable Christians have claimed vociferously for thousands of years that this same deity who designed and created the earth and moon also designed and created all the forms of life that ever lived on earth, and they pointed to the inspiring beauty (not the vile scents, ugly warts, or disgusting lifestyles) of living things to “justify” or “base” their claims. Are you claiming now that such “bases” are too “unreliable” and these claims are frivolous and should be ignored by scientists? It sure would seem that way, Freawaru.
Feel free to appeal to “authorities” like Behe and Dembski and Nelso et al. and their “arguments” about “complexity” if you like. Unfortunately, these “authorities” are nearly universally ridiculed for their inability to articulate their theories in a useful comprehensible way. That is why we are turning to YOU, Freawaru. You seem to understand what the vast majority of the world’s experts on the subjects of biology and geology can not seem to grasp. And I am literally begging you to explain to me in plain English what an “intelligent design researcher” does and why any scientist should care (except to the extent that the reputations of all scientists are diminished by when pseudoscience is foisted on an ignorant public).
By the way, this additional comment does not obviate the points I made in my previous comment, which deserve to be addressed as well.
Comment by Amy Lester — June 20, 2006 @ 7:34 pm
PvM asked:
It explains it by saying the Darwinist perception of what is functionally better could be very ill-conceived. If the supposed junk DNA is a contingency design, the knockout experiment you describe not only is wrong, it is a hindrance to further scientific investigation of function simply because one found out that it “improved” some efficiency in other dimensions.
One could envision ripping out 4 of the 5 navigation computers and 2 of the IMS systems, and dozens of other backup systems in a space shuttle and demonstrating improved speed and performace and energy efficiency and conclude there was no design in those parts, and in fact bad design. Heck you could rip away the heat shield and as long as it didn’t re-enter, one would thing, “wow this thing can fly better!”.
I give an anecdote to the overreaching conclusions of knockout experiments, one that was particularly embarassing to the evolutionary community at:
Airplane Magnetos
Finally, if large sections of “junk DNA” have function, and further, if the removal of functional systems improves reproductive advantage, this would be another disproof (among many) of Darwin’s ideas.
Yes, there could be functionally useful systems that give short term, and even long term reproductive disadvantage. In fact, the question of advanced multicellular, sexually reproducing taxa with high complexity having evolved is a serious problem for Darwinism (and the problems just keep piling up), since bacterial organisms have a subtantial reproductive advantage. Here we have advanced functionality at variance with the supposed selective advantage of simpler life forms.
Salvador
Comment by Salvador T. Cordova — June 24, 2006 @ 8:36 am
In other words, ID has nothing to offer other than an attack on evolution.
In this case yet another strawman attack.
Comment by Don Baccus — June 24, 2006 @ 1:20 pm
It was only embarassing to the evolutionary community when people spewed their beer over their dinners in uncontrollable laughter when they read it.
Comment by Don Baccus — June 24, 2006 @ 1:23 pm
How? Evolutionary theory doesn’t predict optimality. How does “disproving” a strawman disprove evolution?
Comment by Don Baccus — June 24, 2006 @ 1:25 pm
And what’s really whackadoodle about Sal’s magneto anectdote is that it simply underscores the limitation of human design. If we were good at it, no redundancy would be necessary …
Comment by Don Baccus — June 24, 2006 @ 1:31 pm
When asked how ID explains it Sal shows an excellent example as to why ID fails to be scientifically relevant
If the supposed junk DNA is a contingency design, the knockout experiment you describe not only is wrong, it is a hindrance to further scientific investigation of function simply because one found out that it “improved” some efficiency in other dimensions.
So in other words, ID does not really explains much of anything here.
Sal continues to show us why the use of analogies is such a weak form of argumentation
Comment by PvM — July 3, 2006 @ 9:57 pm