Should Intelligent Design be taught as science? Stephen Barr, professor of physics at the University of Delaware (and First Things contributor), debates that question with Michael Behe, a professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute.
You can listen to the audio or watch the video at the website of the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.
October 4th, 2010 | 9:49 am
The single most important thing which finally made me answer “No” to the title question is the lack of testable hypotheses.
Science produces testable predictions. Intelligent design doesn’t seem to do so.
October 4th, 2010 | 10:08 am
The single most important thing which finally made me answer “No” to the title question is the lack of testable hypotheses.
The proponents of ID argue that is it testable. The question, though, is whether scientists could get funding to do the experiments that would test the hypotheses proffered by ID.
October 4th, 2010 | 10:51 am
Joe, How on earth could you test that? I’m not being snarky, I’d really like to know. Most of the arguments I’ve read (e.g. no intermediate species, macro vs micro evolution, irreducable complexity) have pretty much been refuted. Are there othere hypotheses I’m not aware of? And what test could confirm or disconfirm them?
October 4th, 2010 | 11:14 am
How on earth could you test that? I’m not being snarky, I’d really like to know.
Here’s one example from Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards on how to test their design argument:
Most of the arguments I’ve read (e.g. no intermediate species, macro vs micro evolution, irreducable complexity) have pretty much been refuted.
Have they? To refute the ID argument would require that the theory be testable and/or falsifiable. But the critics of ID claim that is neither testable or falsifiable. How are scientists able to dismiss ID if it has never been tested?
I’m skeptical of some of the stronger claims made by ID advocates. But their critics are not on much stronger ground. Almost all their rebuttals take the form of:
1. We don’t know how to explain X.
2. Science will someday explain X.
3. Ergo, ID is unnecessary.
That “science of the gaps” explanation may indeed be true, but it is hardly proven.
Also, I would caution Christians to be careful not to dismiss ID too quickly. Most of the criticisms about ID apply equally to theistic evolutionism. ID at least tries to explain the process in purely natural terms. Theistic evolution requires natural processes to perform the work as far as it can and then God must miraculously intervene.
I’ve always found it odd when theistic evolutionists claim that ID is a “God of the gaps” theory when that is exactly what their theory entails. (Assuming, of course, that the theory is compatible with orthodox Christianity (e.g., a historical Adam)).
October 4th, 2010 | 11:30 am
Wow! I love this thread already. First we have Mr. Payne assuring us that ID is not science because it makes no testable predictions (in philosophy of science speak, it is not falsifiable). Then Fred piles on to assure us that not only is that true, but ID has in fact been falsified.
Fred and Mr. Payne may both be wrong; one may be wrong and the other right, but their mutually exclusive claims cannot both be true. So already the opponents of ID have already posted on this thread at least one claim that must, absolutely must as a matter of pure logic quite apart from the evidence, be false.
October 4th, 2010 | 11:35 am
Joe – Some ID proponents have made testable predictions for ID. They have not held up to examination. The clotting cascade or the bacterial flagellum, for example.
The problem for ID is that they are attempting to say that “no natural explanation can be found for [something]“. If a natural explanation is found, it falls apart. Consider this quote from a prominent physician, J. S. Haldane, close to a century ago, discussing the “mechanistic theory of heredity”:
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J. S. Haldane,Mechanism, Life, And Personality, 1913
Reading this passage, it’s striking how clearly he recognized the functional requirements that a mechanism for inheritance would have to meet. But he could imagine no physical arrangement that could satisfy those conditions, and concluded that therefore such a mechanism was impossible. Indeed, he insisted that a spiritual explanation was the only remaining option. Laborious work by Watson and Crick (and Wilkins and Franklin) has since discovered DNA, however, greatly illuminating that which was previously obscure.
What if Dr. Haldane had decided to “push the analysis further”? Might we have discovered the structure of DNA decades earlier?
October 4th, 2010 | 11:38 am
Fred, when you say (or at least imply) that ID has been refuted because Darwinists have provided detailed explanations for the evolution of biological mechanisms, perhaps you know more than Dr. Franklin Harold (an honest opponent of ID), who writes:
“We should reject, as a matter of principle, the substitution of intelligent design for the dialogue of chance and necessity (Behe 1996); but we must concede that there are presently no detailed Darwinian accounts of the evolution of any biochemical system, only a variety of wishful speculations.”
Franklin M. Harold, The Way of the Cell, Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 205
October 4th, 2010 | 11:44 am
October 4th, 2010 | 11:51 am
Ray Ingles The clotting cascade or the bacterial flagellum, for example.
Who has shown the ID claims about the bacterial flagellum to be disproven?
(And please don’t say Ken Miller. He doesn’t even seem to understand what irreducible complexity is much less how to refute it.)
October 4th, 2010 | 12:16 pm
For the many Thomist who frequent this blog, I invite you over to UD where our Dr. Vincent Torley has posted a devastating critique of the attempts to harmonize Darwinism and Thomism. http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/st-thomas-aquinas-and-his-fifteen-smoking-guns-a-five-part-reply-to-professor-tkacz/
October 4th, 2010 | 12:33 pm
This isn’t my field, but two points that once were used to ridicule ID, it turns out, do not appear to be true. First, that so-called “junk DNA” serves no purpose and that it is just flotsam and jetsam remaining from the evolutionary process. Actually, at least some of this DND (as I understand it) seems to be active in embryo development (as I recall off the top of my head).
Also, the appendix: It used to be charged that it is useless, a vestige of evolutionary change, demonstrating that ID can’t be true because what kind of designer would create an organ without uses that can kill you if it becomes infected and bursts. Now, it appears, it protects useful digestive bacteria.
Both changes in knowledge are consistent with ID, were once issues used to ridicule ID, but no longer can be so applied.
Perhaps a little humility is in order.
October 4th, 2010 | 12:37 pm
[...] Should Intelligent Design Be Taught as Science? [...]
October 4th, 2010 | 12:38 pm
If the universe itself is designed so that the processes of evolution operate as they do and produce, by the physical processes of which we are aware, a conscious being capable of contemplating itself, the universe, and the origins of both, would that require divine intervention in the physical processes of evolution?
October 4th, 2010 | 12:39 pm
A gem from Torley’s five-part series:
“I would like to conclude by suggesting that the real reason why some people (including many Christians) dislike ID is an aesthetic one.”
It is amazing to me how some of the ID folks seem like mirror-images of the snarky atheists who loathe them. For Torley, apparently, it can’t be that someone just as smart and just as conversant in the literature disagrees with him because of legitimate reasons. It must be the consequence of a sub-rational motive that is doing all the work.
Gimme a break.
October 4th, 2010 | 12:55 pm
The question isn’t whether ID is testable as science. (Maybe it’s not.) The real question is whether Darwinism is testable either, or is a real science. We’re talking about Darwinism here–the proposition that evolution can be exhaustively explained by strictly material causes–not about “evolution,” which almost everyone accepts.
Darwinism is no more testable than ID, which makes ID as good science as Darwinism. No one has ever “proven” Darwinism because you can’t get it into a test tube or otherwise isolate it. It’s a general theory imposed on the evidence by materialists. We all accept “evolution” but we disagree about how it occurred.
Almost all science accept the rationalist notion that any science (therefore also any biological science) must be strictly material like Newton’s physics. Wrong! There can be true sciences (e.g theology) that are not physical sciences. I believe that because it includes human beings biology is one of those not-strictly-physical sciences. But try to tell that to the philosophical materialists, or to Stephen Barr for that matter.
October 4th, 2010 | 1:44 pm
Fred If the universe itself is designed so that the processes of evolution operate as they do and produce, by the physical processes of which we are aware, a conscious being capable of contemplating itself, the universe, and the origins of both, would that require divine intervention in the physical processes of evolution?
This is a good question, but I think it highlights part of the problems we have coming to a shared understanding in this debate. The terms we use are rarely clarified in a way that prevents equivocation.
For example you use the phrase “require divine intervention in the physical processes.” Christians, of course, think that God is always active in the physical processes of creation (including evolution). The “God of the gaps” explanation is not consonant with a traditional Christian understanding of the process. (In fact, the term was coined by a Christian minister.)
However, many secular critics (and some Christians too) think that what is being proposed by ID is an Deist-style watchmaker god who sets the process in motion but then tinkers with it along the way. (Ironically, that is more in line with the view of theistic evolutionism.)
While some ID advocates may have take that position, the way I understand it (and the reason I’m sympathetic of to the general theory) is that ID simply posits that there are other physical processes besides, as you say,
those “which we are aware.”
I think the evidence is overwhelming that the current evolutionary understanding inadequate to explain abiogenesis and consciousness. Unfortunately, we are unlikely to make much progress in those areas until the philosophy of science advances beyond the rather limited explanatory model that is currently being presented.
October 4th, 2010 | 2:42 pm
Dr. Beckwith, two points. 1. Thank you for your visceral response to Dr. Torley’s article. Can we expect a substantive one?
2. With regard to “snarkiness” please remember the old aphorism about glass houses and stones.
October 4th, 2010 | 2:44 pm
No, this does not count as a test.
1) Minor quibble: you test hypotheses, not arguments. Arguments you either dispute the axioms or find holes in the logic in. As far as I know, ID has presented not a single hypothesis. This distinction is important as, unlike falsifying a hypothesis, demonstrating an argument for ID to be invalid does not falsify ID.
2) This purported ‘test’ (in common with many ID claims) is so ludicrously informal (e.g. “quite hostile to life”, “a superior platform”) as to be untestable in practice.
3) It requires advanced space travel, well beyond anything even conceived of outside science fiction, to attempt.
Likewise, the two examples that Dembski suggests:
1) His own Complex Specified Information is too informally defined to be testable — even as maths, let alone as it applied to biology. As David Wolpert suggested of Dembski’s work: “There simply is not enough that is firm in his text, not sufficient precision of formulation, to allow one to declare unambiguously ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ when reading through the argument. All one can do is squint, furrow one’s brows, and then shrug.”
2) Behe’s Irreducible Complexity: whenever anybody suggests an evolutionary explanation for how one of Behe’s examples of IC could evolve, Behe simply demands a greater level of detail of the explanation than the current data supports. Again, there is not a formal, testable, hypothesis, merely a loose argument, allowing an infinite regress of equivocating retreat over what constitutes a ‘good enough’ evolutionary explanation.
On the bacterial flagellum, I would suggest Ian Musgrave’s chapter on ‘The Evolution of the Bacterial Flagellum’ in Why Intelligent Design Fails as one example of a refutation.
October 4th, 2010 | 2:55 pm
Bob G:
I would suggest that you are proposing an unreasonably expansive, philosophical rather than scientific, strawman version of the Theory of Evolution (specifically, one that conflates this Theory with the principle of Methodological Naturalism). The contents of this Theory (e.g. Universal Common Descent, Natural Selection, Speciation, etc) have been rigorously tested and repeatedly confirmed.
October 4th, 2010 | 3:27 pm
Currently, there is “scientific” discussion involving the possibility of multiple universes, all having different physical properties and laws, yet there is absolutely no possible way (by scientific definition that information of any sort could pass between such speculative universes.
Please tell me. Where is the “testability” in this chain of scientific thought?
October 4th, 2010 | 3:42 pm
Hrafn Minor quibble: you test hypotheses, not arguments.
True, and there argument would have to be translated into an actual hypotheses. But I don’t see why that wouldn’t be possible.
It requires advanced space travel, well beyond anything even conceived of outside science fiction, to attempt.
Admittedly, the means of testing it might currently be impractical. But does that mean it must be excludes from the category of “scientific hypotheses?” If so, shouldn’t we be consistent and exclude other hypotheses that are currently untestable?
All one can do is squint, furrow one’s brows, and then shrug.”
Someone should complain to the peer review committee at Cambridge who approved his book.
Behe simply demands a greater level of detail of the explanation than the current data supports.
So if the current level of data is inadequate to falsify his claims, then how can we say that they have been sufficiently refuted?
On the bacterial flagellum, I would suggest Ian Musgrave’s chapter on ‘The Evolution of the Bacterial Flagellum’ in Why Intelligent Design Fails as one example of a refutation.
I’ll try to track that down. Hopefully, Musgrave does a better job than Miller, et al., have done. They seem to think it is sufficient to make an argument that is similar to:
The bacterial flagellum’s various parts could have other uses.
Ergo, the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex.
I’m not sure how Behe can keep from beating his head against the wall after dealing with so many critics who can’t even formulate a logically valid argument.
Hrafn specifically, one that conflates this Theory with the principle of Methodological Naturalism
I’m not sure I follow what you are saying. The current theory of evolution is inextricably intertwined with methodological naturalism. Indeed, much of the data could be interpreted in alternative ways if one did not assume methodological naturalism was the only way that science can proceed.
Also, I don’t think it is quite true to say that universal common descent or natural selection have been “rigorously tested.” They are primarily extrapolations from the data, rather than something that has been tested. I’m not saying that they are wrong. But I think that people make assumptions about how strong the evidence is based on hearsay rather than on an actual examination of the relevant data.
October 4th, 2010 | 4:27 pm
Wow. I just turned my back for a moment or two, and ……
I can’t respond to everything, but I do want to respond to one motif which seems to recur: that evolution “is not testable.” This just doesn’t seem true. For example, I could predict future allele distribution in a given population, given some knowledge of alleles and the population’s environment.
Given a bit of time, my prediction could be tested out. Why wouldn’t this count as a scientific hypothesis?
October 4th, 2010 | 4:37 pm
Dear Mr. Carter: You wrote, “Hopefully, Musgrave does a better job than Miller, et al., have done. They seem to think it is sufficient to make an argument that is similar to:
The bacterial flagellum’s various parts could have other uses.
Ergo, the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex.”
But I really don’t think that this is exactly what Ken Miller is saying. What he is saying is something more like this:
Michael Behe claims that the bacterial flagellum is irreducibly complex–that is, its parts would have no evolutionary advantage unless they appeared more or less simultaneously. The flagellum is irreducibly complex, then, because its various subsystems could not work as they do apart from each other–they are “irreducible.” They had to spring, so to speak, fully formed from the brow of Zeus.
But these subsystems actually could develop separately if they developed with other functions than their most recent function, within the “irreducible” system.
Therefore, Mr. Behe’s claim of irreducibility doesn’t hold up. Even subsystems within a system which requires each of them in order to fulfill its function–could have developed apart from that overall system.
None of this has to do specifically with whether or not natural mechanisms show evidence of teleological purpose–which I think is a great argument, much stronger for theological purposes than is the case for ID.
October 4th, 2010 | 4:46 pm
Craig Payne But these subsystems actually could develop separately if they developed with other functions than their most recent function, within the “irreducible” system. Therefore, Mr. Behe’s claim of irreducibility doesn’t hold up.
I should have explained what I meant in my earlier comment but . . . well, I’m lazy. ; )
The gist of the ID claim about IC is that a system is irreducibly complex if all its parts are indispensable to preserving the system’s basic function. Instead of showing how the bacterial flagellum doesn’t meet that standard, Miller invokes a red herring by saying that subsytems can have other functions. Since they can have other function, they must be able to be taken out of the system and therefore it can’t be irreducibly complex.
But taking away the parts of the flagellum certainly destroys the ability of the system to act as a rotary propulsion machine. So it is still irreducibly complex whether the parts can be used for other purposes or not.
As Behe says:
October 4th, 2010 | 5:04 pm
JOE-
You said
“Also, I would caution Christians to be careful not to dismiss ID too quickly. Most of the criticisms about ID apply equally to theistic evolutionism. ID at least tries to explain the process in purely natural terms. Theistic evolution requires natural processes to perform the work as far as it can and then God must miraculously intervene.
I’ve always found it odd when theistic evolutionists claim that ID is a “God of the gaps” theory when that is exactly what their theory entails. (Assuming, of course, that the theory is compatible with orthodox Christianity (e.g., a historical Adam)).”
Joe, are you aware that this mischaracterizes many TE/ECs?
Are you also aware– the phenomenon you just described, while it may indicate a terminal intransigence on the part of TE/ECs, it may also indicate a failure to communicate between TE/ECs and IDers?
Have you considered that possibility, and if yes, what do you intend to do about it? Would you like to further the problem, as you have just done, or be more constructive?
This is bible stuff here, “arguing about words” which can easily destroy the hearers. So please don’t say TE/EC demands a “God of the Gaps” when in fact TE/EC says God is in control of it all from start to finish.
October 4th, 2010 | 5:07 pm
Dear Mr. Carter: I still don’t think Mr. Behe’s remarks are directly on target. Let us grant (I will do so freely) that the flagellum would not function as it does now if bits and pieces were taken out of it. In that sense, it is definitely complex, maybe even irreducibly so.
But the point is that the flagellum system didn’t have to arise precisely as it is–that is, the “bits and pieces” of it could have arisen with different functions entirely. What they are doing now within the “complex” system may have little to do with what they did when they first developed.
However–before we start fussing in earnest–I am not a scientist and cannot speak on this matter with any more precision than I have. Anybody else out there who knows more than I do, can jump in.
October 4th, 2010 | 5:34 pm
Mairnéalach Joe, are you aware that this mischaracterizes many TE/ECs?
No, I wasn’t aware that I have mischaracterized the views of TEs. If I did, then I apologize. But I don’t think I have.
Here’s why:
The current theory of evolution is wholly incompatible with an historical Adam. For most TE advocates this isn’t a problem: they just dismiss the concept of a historical Adam.
Of course, orthodox Christians cannot—or at least should not—do that. So the alternatives seem to be left with two options:
(1) Believe that evolution carried the process along but that God subverted the normal means and resorted to a special process of creation in order to develop a singular, historical being that was made in His own image. This is essentially what people call a “god of the gaps” action.
(2) Believe that the current scientific understanding of evolution is flawed and that is cannot account for how this singular, historical being that was made in God’s image came about.
Now it is quite possible that the TEs are able to choose a third option that does not put them at odd wit the claims of either evolutionary biologists or of Jesus. If there is, then I will certainly retract my previous claim.
Craig But the point is that the flagellum system didn’t have to arise precisely as it is–that is, the “bits and pieces” of it could have arisen with different functions entirely. What they are doing now within the “complex” system may have little to do with what they did when they first developed.
There are two different ways (as I understand it) that Darwinian pathways can emerge:
—A direct Darwinian pathway in which a system evolves by improving a given function, and
—An indirect Darwinian pathway in which a system evolves by modifying a function.
Behe’s claim is that neither of these pathways can create an irreducibly complex system. This why Miller, et al., have a hard time grasping the concept of irreducibly complex. By simply admitting that such a system is possible, they are admitting that ID is plausible.
So the only route they can take is to claim—in the absence of any supporting evidence—that the pathway must be indirect.
As Bill Dembski notes, this has less to do with science than it does with evolutionary philosophy, specifically evolutionary logic:
October 4th, 2010 | 5:41 pm
“However, taking away the parts of the flagellum certainly destroys the ability of the system to act as a rotary propulsion machine, as I have argued. Thus, contra Miller, the flagellum is indeed irreducibly complex.”
Behe misquotes Miller and Joe Carter doesnt understand the argument.
Behe claims “taking away parts of the flagellum destroys the system to act as a rotary.”
The question is, “What parts?” Not all flagella are the same. When Miller offers examples of flagella that have fewer parts than the example offered by Behe but still function as rotary devices, Behe simply says “Those aren’t the parts I meant.”
When complete papers showing plausible evolutionary pathways are availabe, they go unnoitced. I’d like to hear Joe Carter succinctly analyze this paper:
http://www.talkdesign.org/faqs/flagellum.html
I suspect that he and most other people here can’t even understand it. That’s why Joe can’t understand Miller either–Miller does know this stuff but frankly it’s too complicated for those, like Joe, who don’t have a degree or very strong interest in biology.
There’s nothing wrong with ignorance. We all can’t be experts on everything. I don’t know how to build suspension bridges. But I think I’ll leave the bridge building to a registered professional engineer and not an armchair critic.
Show me you understand the mathematics, show me you understand the terminology and then I’ll give your opinion some modest respect. But I haven’t seen that here.
Mainstream science finds Behe wanting. Mainstream science also finds Jenny McCarthy’s autism vaccination theoriers equally wanting. Absent a worldwide conspiracy, Behe nor McCarthy have, so far, failed to demonstrate any scientific validity to ID or vaccination/autism connections.
October 4th, 2010 | 5:43 pm
“Theistic evolution requires natural processes to perform the work as far as it can and then God must miraculously intervene.”
No. No. No.
Theistic evolution accepts solid science. There is no requirement to invoke supernatural intervention in the course of evolution. That’s all TE is, nothing more.
October 4th, 2010 | 5:50 pm
“Intelligent Design” – as practiced by it’s leading advocates, is not compatible with a God that uses purely naturalistic means to create (evolve) life:
Q: Is it necessary to conclude that the designer is God?
Behe: “Necessary” is a strong word. It is not “necessary” in a compulsory sense. The scientific study of nature in the past century and especially the last few decades, however, points strongly to the conclusion that there exists an intelligent being who set up our universe for life: its physical laws, many of its properties and details, as well as many necessary details reaching deeply into life. In the teeth of that evidence a person such as Richard Dawkins is still free to think it was all one huge cosmic accident. Most people will decide God — or some remarkable being — is the most likely explanation…
The most essential prediction of Darwinism is that, given an astronomical number of chances, unintelligent processes can make seemingly-designed systems, ones of the complexity of those found in the cell. ID specifically denies this, predicting that in the absence of intelligent input no such systems would develop.
http://www.discovery.org/a/4097
In Behe’s view, nature itself must be devoid of God because of chance and “unintelligent” processes — in direct opposition of a Thomist view wherein God actively enables and sustains everything, including chance and “unintelligent” processes.
October 4th, 2010 | 5:50 pm
Joe McFaul When complete papers showing plausible evolutionary pathways are availabe, they go unnoitced. I’d like to hear Joe Carter succinctly analyze this paper:
Thanks for pointing out that paper. Has the process been tested in the lab? It seems if they are able to formulate a step-by-step pathway then they could be able to coax it (with a little intelligently designed actions) into creating a new flagellum. Surely they’ve done that, right? After all, the Darwinian process is testable and replicable, right?
I suspect that he and most other people here can’t even understand it. That’s why Joe can’t understand Miller either–Miller does know this stuff but frankly it’s too complicated for those, like Joe, who don’t have a degree or very strong interest in biology.
I suspect the reason that most people—like Joe M. can’t understand it is because frankly it’s too complicated for those, like Joe M., who don’t have a degree or very strong interest in philosophy.
They seem to think that something that arguments that are logically invalid must suddenly command our respect because they are made by biologists (or at least people with an interest in biology).
October 4th, 2010 | 6:01 pm
Joe McFaul Theistic evolution accepts solid science. There is no requirement to invoke supernatural intervention in the course of evolution. That’s all TE is, nothing more.
Okay, Joe. Please explain to us how TE accounts for a historical Adam in a way that is consonant with
R. Hampton In Behe’s view, nature itself must be devoid of God because of chance and “unintelligent” processes — in direct opposition of a Thomist view wherein God actively enables and sustains everything, including chance and “unintelligent” processes
Did you read the portion you quoted:
Behe is making a Thomist claim. He is saying that the evidence for a creator is deeply embedded into the natural structure of the physical laws.
October 4th, 2010 | 6:20 pm
Joe McFaul: “There is no requirement to invoke supernatural intervention in the course of evolution. That’s all TE is, nothing more.”
If that’s what Theistic Evolutionists’ (TE) believe, then there really isn’t a difference between theistic evolution and atheistic evolution.
Your statement further confirms the belief that theistic evolutionists are simply “useful idiots” for atheism.
October 4th, 2010 | 6:46 pm
Joe,
In Darwin’s Black Box, Behe stated that…
“just like the human body or a simple cell cannot arise out of naturalistic small unguided evolutionary incremental steps. Chance knows no purpose.”
…repeating a commonly held – and incorrect – belief of ID proponents that chance is unguided and therefore purposeless. Thus they conclude that “neo-Darwinianism” is not caused, controlled nor sustained by God. In their view, the element of chance removes God from Evolution.
Furthermore, in an interview he was asked, “How does the book evolve from the failure of randomness to the conclusion of intelligent design?” to which he replied…
“Aren’t there possible unintelligent evolutionary explanations other than Darwinism? The new genetic results on humans and our parasites tell against not only Darwin’s theory, but against any unintelligent process. In their reciprocal evolutionary struggle, human and parasitic genomes could have been altered in nature by whatever unintelligent mechanism had the ability to help. Yet virtually nothing did. Because the categories of ‘intelligent’ and ‘unintelligent’ processes are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, ruling out unintelligent processes necessarily implicates intelligence.”
…clearly Behe has an anti-Thomist view that intelligent and unintelligent causation are mutually exclusive. Ironically, Behe sides with atheists in making such claims.
October 4th, 2010 | 7:20 pm
R. Hampton …repeating a commonly held – and incorrect – belief of ID proponents that chance is unguided and therefore purposeless.
Actually, I think he is just refuting a claim commonly held by scientists. The common way that the term “chance” is used in science is to refer to a non-teleological process.
…clearly Behe has an anti-Thomist view that intelligent and unintelligent causation are mutually exclusive.
I don’t think that’s what he’s saying at all. For example, what if I said my computer was created by intelligent causation and couldn’t have been caused by an unintelligent cause. If I understand correctly, within a Thomist view, my computer would be as much a part of creation as bacteria. Could it therefore be claimed that my belief that my computer could only result from an intelligent cause by an anti-Thomist view?
October 4th, 2010 | 8:03 pm
Joe,
You can’t square that with Behe’s own words;
“just like the human body or a simple cell cannot arise out of naturalistic small unguided evolutionary incremental steps. Chance knows no purpose.”
Behe clearly posits Chance & Purpose as polar opposites, and clearly this view goes against Thomas Aquinas and his thoughts on Providence:
“…In this world some things seem to happen by luck or chance. Now it happens sometimes that something is lucky or chance-like as compared to inferior causes, which, if compared to some higher cause, is directly intended. For instance, if two servants are sent by their master to the same place; the meeting of the two servants in regard to themselves is by chance; but as compared to the master, who had ordered it, it is directly intended.
“So there were some who refused to refer to a higher cause such events which by luck or chance take place here below. These denied the existence of fate and Providence, as Augustine relates of Tully (De Civ. Dei v. 9). And this is contrary to what we have said above about Providence…”
“We must therefore say that what happens here by accident, both in natural things and in human affairs, is reduced to a preordaining cause, which is Divine Providence.”
Chance is both real and pre-ordained. One does not rule out the other. So the driving force behind evolution – chance – does not preclude a divinely planned and completely natural (“non-interventionist”) creation.
October 4th, 2010 | 8:09 pm
Maybe some terminology is getting muddied. I for one surely would like to leave Thomas out of this. At any rate, Thomas’s account of formal causation (which requires intelligence) is definitely not the same thing as what the ID proponents claim.
Thomas makes no claims to anything like “irreducible complexity.” He simply argues that anything, even something like an acorn, which seems to aim toward an end result is revealing teleology or a sort of formal causation, which in turn reveals intelligence behind it. (In the case of the acorn, since the acorn and oak tree are not intelligent, we can capitalize the Intelligence behind them, and also behind the rest of nature.)
Mr. Carter’s computer reveals intelligence behind it not because it’s complex, but because it evinces purpose.
This is the argument I had mentioned earlier which I think has a lot of good in it. Nothing to do with irreducible complexity.
October 4th, 2010 | 8:50 pm
Joe Carter:
True, and there argument would have to be translated into an actual hypotheses. But I don’t see why that wouldn’t be possible.
I don’t know for certain that it is impossible to do so (though I rather suspect that it might be). but regardless, it has not happened to date, and the onus is on ID advocates to do so, if they want to present their claims as science.
But does that mean it must be excludes from the category of “scientific hypotheses?”
Given that it is also so vague and informal as to be untestable in practice, even were advanced space travel ‘currently practical’ (as I pointed out, but you failed to address), yes, it should be “excluded”.
Someone should complain to the peer review committee at Cambridge who approved his book.
What “peer review committee”? What evidence do you have that it (a) even existed, (b) was qualified to assess Dembski’s work or (c) subjected it to any detailed scrutiny? (i) Books generally are not subjected to rigorous peer review. (ii) ID advocates are notorious for exaggerating peer review (Behe once claimed as a ‘peer reviewer’ for Darwin’s Black Box somebody who later stated that they hadn’t even read the book, merely discussed the idea of it with Behe’s publisher).
So if the current level of data is inadequate to falsify his claims, then how can we say that they have been sufficiently refuted?
No. Actually Irreducible Complexity makes the claim that certain systems cannot have come into existence through evolutionary mechanisms. This means that all that is needed to counter to one of Behe’s examples need do is demonstrate than it could happen via evolutionary mechanisms, not specify by exactly what evolutionary mechanisms it did occur. This means that the current level of detail is actually in excess of that needed. However, it appears that however large the stack of research (and Behe was presented at Dover with a very large stack of research on the evolution of the immune system — research he made no attempt at familiarising himself with before declaring it insufficient), it seems likely that it will be insufficient to convince Behe.
Finally, I would point out that the argument of Irreducible Complexity is unfalsifiable, as even though evolutionary explanations have been found for each of Behe’s examples, and even if he accepted these explanations, he can always come up with more, as yet un-countered, examples.
Hopefully, Musgrave does a better job than Miller, et al., have done. They seem to think it is sufficient to make an argument that is similar to:
The bacterial flagellum’s various parts could have other uses.
Ergo, the bacterial flagellum is not irreducibly complex.
I’m not sure how Behe can keep from beating his head against the wall after dealing with so many critics who can’t even formulate a logically valid argument.
1) This is a disingenuous caricature of the evolutionary explanation of the flagellum.
2) Exaptation is a widely documented and studied phenomenon within the field of evolutionary biology. The personal ignorance and incredulity of that research, by two individuals (yourself and Behe) who lack any background in evolutionary biology, is not a valid argument against it.
3) In reference to your earlier point, you do not need to “understand what irreducible complexity is” in order to articulate an evolutionary explanation of how one of Behe’s examples could occur.
4) I have seen no evidence (merely a number of partisan and inexpert claims) that Miller’s explanation does not meet this very low standard.
5) Given that Behe has had claims debunked by mere grad students, and couldn’t make a “logically valid argument” to save himself (hence, when it is put to the test in court cross-examination, it goes down in flames and gets quoted by the judge as reasons for ruling for the opposition), I think he has reasons for “beating his head against the wall” that are closer to home.
I’m not sure I follow what you are saying.
I am stating that the Theory of Evolution is not, and never has been “the proposition that evolution can be exhaustively explained by strictly material causes”.
The current theory of evolution is inextricably intertwined with methodological naturalism.
Only to the extent that all modern science “is inextricably intertwined with methodological naturalism.” This does not mean that in order to confirm any given scientific explanation of any phenomenon you first need to prove that it “can be exhaustively explained by strictly material causes”, as Bob G was implying. That quite simply is not how science works. It works piecemeal, explaining what it can, as it can, and using these explanations to bootstrap further discoveries.
Whether such exhaustive strictly material explanations exist in all cases, and whether they need to in order for Methodological Naturalism to be a useful pragmatic axiom for science, is an issue for the field of the Philosophy of Science, not Evolutionary Biology.
Also, I don’t think it is quite true to say that universal common descent or natural selection have been “rigorously tested.” They are primarily extrapolations from the data, rather than something that has been tested.
And I don’t think you have the slightest, remotest clue what you are talking about. What primary evolutionary biological literature have you read on the testing of these hypotheses and mechanisms? What scientific review articles? Post-grad textbooks? Undergrad? Or is this claim made solely on the basis of your presuppositions and ID-Creationist propaganda.
One example of a test of common descent is based upon the fact that humans have one fewer chromosome than other great apes. The evolutionary hypothesis would be that, as they share a recent common ancestor (or ancestral population to be strictly correct), there would be clear evidence that either the human gene fused, or the other apes’ gene split. The fused gene (human chromosome 2) was discovered in 2005, and presents clear evidence of telomere-telomere fusion. There are thousands more such hypotheses that have tested evolution.
October 4th, 2010 | 9:00 pm
Wesley J. Smith:
This isn’t my field, but two points that once were used to ridicule ID, it turns out, do not appear to be true. First, that so-called “junk DNA” serves no purpose and that it is just flotsam and jetsam remaining from the evolutionary process. Actually, at least some of this DND (as I understand it) seems to be active in embryo development (as I recall off the top of my head).
Also, the appendix: It used to be charged that it is useless, a vestige of evolutionary change, demonstrating that ID can’t be true because what kind of designer would create an organ without uses that can kill you if it becomes infected and bursts. Now, it appears, it protects useful digestive bacteria.
Please cite examples of where these “points” were used to “ridicule ID”. As far as I know, this “ridicule” is an invention of ID propaganda. Further, I would suggest that neither the original scientific hypothesis, nor current discoveries, on Junk DNA were/are as extreme (or as divergent from each other) as the ID propaganda often suggests.
October 4th, 2010 | 9:16 pm
Joe Carter:
Instead of showing how the bacterial flagellum doesn’t meet that standard, Miller invokes a red herring by saying that subsytems can have other functions. Since they can have other function, they must be able to be taken out of the system and therefore it can’t be irreducibly complex.
Exaptation is not a “red herring”, it is a well-documented and well-studied phenomenon in evolutionary biology.
It is particularly relevant in this case as a number of prokaryotes have motility systems that differ from the “rotary propulsion machine” (e.g. some use a swimming or gliding motion). These motility mechanisms do however have a secretory element in common, implying that it is the secretory aspect that is ancestoral, and that the varied motility mechanisms are exaptations of that system. (See Musgrave chapter for more details on this.)
October 4th, 2010 | 9:43 pm
To Hrafn, RHampton and Craig’s points, I would only add that irreducible complexity also appears to have serious problems from a purely mathematical standpoint, as Mark Chu-Carroll pointed out in this post, and his comments.
http://scientopia.org/blogs/goodmath/2006/06/13/the-problem-with-irreducibly-complexity-revised-post-from-blogger/
Hrafn, I forgot about Behe’s claim that his book had been “peer-reviewed”. Ed Humes covered that part of his cross examination during the Dover Trial in his book, Monkey Girl. It’s pretty funny.
October 4th, 2010 | 9:55 pm
Joe Carter:
Also, I would caution Christians to be careful not to dismiss ID too quickly. Most of the criticisms about ID apply equally to theistic evolutionism. ID at least tries to explain the process in purely natural terms. Theistic evolution requires natural processes to perform the work as far as it can and then God must miraculously intervene.
I do not think that this accurately contrasts TE vs ID.
TE does not suggest that “…and then God must miraculously intervene” but rather that he oversees/manages events in a subtle way that need not be (and to date hasn’t been) detectable by science. One possible way that this could occur is by arranging so that the evolutionary ‘tape of life’ (in Gould’s famous metaphor) produces humans rather than some other, equally likely, outcome that might have occured (and could occur, Gould speculates, if it were possible to ‘rerun the tape’). Really, there is no reason to disfavour postulating God’s plan acting through the contingency of Evolution than through the contingency of casinos (do you really think God has blackballed himself from such establishments?) or the contingencies of car accidents or improbable near-misses.
ID on the other hand requires the scientifically-detectable (but somehow always completely unspecified) intervention of a Designer, pervasively equated with God. To claim that such a specifics-free and implicitly supernatural assertion “tries to explain the process in purely natural terms” is simply disingenuous.
October 4th, 2010 | 10:22 pm
John Farrell:
Yes, it’s simply the most ludicrously egregious example of a bad lot.A further three (of the five) of the purported ‘peer reviewers’ (who actually read the book) considered his conclusions to have merit.
Joe Carter:
On the topic of the peer review of Dembski’s book, I have come across some evidence that a review of some sort occurred, but it seems to have been a philosophical review, rather than having any mathematical, information theoretical or biological expertise. This is in fact entirely consistent with Wolpert’s assessment of Dembski’s work:
Admitedly, this criticism is directed against Dembski’s No Free Lunch, but there is strong indication that Wolpert’s criticism applies equally against Dembski’s The Design Inference (likewise a philosophical monograph on a “topic[] that [has] not (yet) been subjected to a broad yet rigorous mathematical formalization”, that has resulted in arguments that are widely regarded as “fatally informal and imprecise”, necessitating Dembski’s reformulation of its arguments in a series of books leading up to the directly-criticised No Free Lunch).
October 4th, 2010 | 10:24 pm
(The above “A further three (of the five) of the purported ‘peer reviewers’ (who actually read the book) considered his conclusions to have merit.” should read “A further three (of the five) of the purported ‘peer reviewers’ (who actually read the book) didn’t consider his conclusions to have merit.”)
October 4th, 2010 | 10:57 pm
Behe clearly posits Chance & Purpose as polar opposites, and clearly this view goes against Thomas Aquinas and his thoughts on Providence:
I think the disagreement you have with Behe is semantic. The vast majority of scientists do not use the “chance” in the way you are using it. To them chance and purpose are either opposite or at least uncorrelated. For instance, if you ran an evolutionary scenario on an organism a few hundred thousand times, the outcomes would likely almost always come out differently. If there is a purpose, though, then the outcomes should come out the same everytime.
Behe is disagreeing with the naturalist conception of chance (which they consider non-teleological) while you are criticizing him for using it is in a way that he never intended.
Craig Mr. Carter’s computer reveals intelligence behind it not because it’s complex, but because it evinces purpose.
But the computer would still be just as complex even if the purpose were unknown. You could have a technician who is unfamiliar with computers put it together. That would require intelligence but not purpose.
By the way, I think a lot of people seem to misunderstand what the basic point of the ID argument entails. The naturalists say that we are aware of all the processes involved in the evolution of organisms. ID simply says that the processes we are aware of are inadequate to fully explain certain features that appear to require a particular type of intelligence. That does not contradict Thomism.
but regardless, it has not happened to date, and the onus is on ID advocates to do so, if they want to present their claims as science.
So are you saying that the only type of science that is legitimate is that which can produce hypotheses that are currently testable? Seems like that would leave out a lot.
Given that it is also so vague and informal as to be untestable in practice, even were advanced space travel ‘currently practical’ (as I pointed out, but you failed to address), yes, it should be “excluded”.
So I take it you also want to exclude string theory, right?
What “peer review committee”? What evidence do you have that it (a) even existed, (b) was qualified to assess Dembski’s work or (c) subjected it to any detailed scrutiny? (i) Books generally are not subjected to rigorous peer review. (ii) ID advocates are notorious for exaggerating peer review
Let’s start with your latest assertion. ID advocates may indeed be guilty of exaggerating peer review. However, they are not alone. Almost no peer review is done in which the evidence is examined sufficiently to determine whether an experiment is legitimate, much less successful. So I don’t put a lot of stock in the process.
But as Dembski has explained, his book had to pass peer-review with three anonymous referees before Brian Skyrms, who heads the academic review board for this Cambridge series, would recommend it for publication to the Cambridge University Press. Once it was received there, it had to be reviewed by the academic review board.
This means that all that is needed to counter to one of Behe’s examples need do is demonstrate than it could happen via evolutionary mechanisms, not specify by exactly what evolutionary mechanisms it did occur.
That’s not how science works. You can’t posit some scenario that has no evidence to support it and call it a refutation. But why not just run an experiment? Just start with prokaryotic cell that does not have a flagellum, run it through the proposed pathway and see what happens.
Finally, I would point out that the argument of Irreducible Complexity is unfalsifiable, as even though evolutionary explanations have been found for each of Behe’s examples, and even if he accepted these explanations, he can always come up with more, as yet un-countered, examples.
Again, the scientists who are making this claim don’t appear to understand how logic works. Merely presenting a hypothetical defeater is not sufficient to claim a refutation of an argument.
Exaptation is a widely documented and studied phenomenon within the field of evolutionary biology.
Expatation is a post hoc explanation for how a feature could possibly shift function. You can’t beg the question by assuming a priori that expatation has occurred in order to draw the conclusion you want. Again, a little logic would go a long way.
In reference to your earlier point, you do not need to “understand what irreducible complexity is” in order to articulate an evolutionary explanation of how one of Behe’s examples could occur.
And again . . . the point is not about the pathway, but the irreducible complexity of the system. (You’re going to have me joining Behe in beating my head against the wall.)
And I don’t think you have the slightest, remotest clue what you are talking about.
Why don’t you show us the data that convinced you. Not the hearsay of a third-party, but the actual evidence that common descent was ““rigorously tested.” Please provide that for us.
One example of a test of common descent is based upon the fact that humans have one fewer chromosome than other great apes.
So since 13 of 22 dolphin chromosomes are exactly the same as human chromosomes, does that mean we descended from them or did they descend from us? This is obviously clear evidence that either the human gene fused, or the other dolphin’s gene split, right?
Further, I would suggest that neither the original scientific hypothesis, nor current discoveries, on Junk DNA were/are as extreme (or as divergent from each other) as the ID propaganda often suggests.
So you seem to buy into P.Z. Meyers claim that so-called “junk DNA” really is junk DNA. Not that it really matters. If junk DNA exists, it’s evidence of evolutionary selection. If junk DNA turns out to have a purpose, it’s evidence of evolutionary selection. Anything that appears to contradict Darwinism is quickly refurbished in order that it may be used to support Darwinism. The theory really is unfalsifiable.
I would only add that irreducible complexity also appears to have serious problems from a purely mathematical standpoint,
Chu-Carroll argument seems to be:
If irreducibly complex is the same as minimality, then you cannot in general show that there is no smaller/simpler system that performs the same task as S.
Irreducibly complex is the same as minimality
Therefore, you cannot in general show that there is no smaller/simpler system that performs the same task as S.
The problem, as many of his commenters point out, is that IC is not the same as minimality.
Chu-Carroll doesn’t seem to even understand Behe’s claim (even those who dislike ID seem to agree on that point). Instead, he wants to redefine it in a way that ensures the conclusion of his argument is false.
October 4th, 2010 | 11:01 pm
Now that we’re 40+ comments into this thread, it dawned on me that I derailed my own post.
I was hoping to start a discussion about the actual debate between Behe and Barr.
How about we table the off-topic discussion for awhile until I can get your thoughts on the content of the original post. Sound like a deal? (Maybe I’ll even add an open thread where we can hash out the current discussion.)
Thanks,
-Joe
October 5th, 2010 | 1:17 am
Joe Carter:
Is there a transcript available? The debate appears to be 70min long, and I don’t have much interest in spending that long listening to a biochemist and a physicist debate a topic that should be discussed in the first instance by science education specialists, in the second by philosophers of science (‘Is ID Science?’), in the third by constitutional lawyers (‘Is it Constitutional to Teach ID?’) and in the fourth by information theorists (‘Is Specified Complexity Science?’) and evolutionary biologists (‘Is Irreducible Complexity Science?’). And while it might be interesting to hear an evolutionary biologist debate Behe on the final parenthetical topic, such debates are really creatures of rhetoric rather than evidence (which is one reason why creationists love them and scientists hate them), so unlikely to produce anything substantive.
What are the chances that the open thread will eventuate before we’ve forgotten what we were arguing about (your last post on the off-topic contains a number of claims I vehemently dispute)?
October 5th, 2010 | 8:44 am
Joe,
Is the debate transcribed anywhere?
October 5th, 2010 | 4:33 pm
Mr. Hrafn, You say the debate between me and Behe is “a topic that should be discussed in the first instance by science education specialists, in the second by philosophers of science (‘Is ID Science?’), in the third by constitutional lawyers (‘Is it Constitutional to Teach ID?’) and in the fourth by information theorists (‘Is Specified Complexity Science?’) and evolutionary biologists (‘Is Irreducible Complexity Science?’)
Let’s take these one at a time: (a) “Science education specialists”: Both Mike Behe and I ARE science education specialists. We are professors, which means that much of our time is spent educating people in science.
(b) “Philosophers of science”: So scientists are incompetent to decide what is and is not within the purview of their scientific discipline? I don’t think that philosophers of science themselves would say that. And it overlooks that scientists every day do and must make such decisions, when they decide what should be included in textbooks and science classrooms, and degree requirements, and qualifications for academic positions, etc. The very question Mike Behe and I debated was what should be taught in classrooms and textbooks. are you not aware, sir, that it is scientists and not philosophers who decide in real life what is taught in science classrooms and textbooks (though politicians also have their say — despite the fact they are also not philosophers)?
(c) “Constitutional lawyers”: But we were not debating what it was legal to teach, only what it was proper to teach given the boundaries between disciples. On this, lawyers have no expertise, obviously.
(d) “Information theorists”: Oh, so one must be a philosopher to decide if “ID is science” according to you, but an information theorist (despite NOT being a philosopher) may decide if the ideas of ID are science? You flatly contradict yourself.
(e) “evolutionary biologist”: The same contradiction as in (d) exists here.
OK, so you are 0 for 5, Mr. Hrafn.
October 5th, 2010 | 5:15 pm
“If that’s what Theistic Evolutionists’ (TE) believe, then there really isn’t a difference between theistic evolution and atheistic evolution.”
No, there isn’–just as there isn’t a difference between theistic astronomy and atheistic astronomy or theistic geometry or atheistic geometry. If you choose to fight the culture war in science class you will lose.
“Okay, Joe. Please explain to us how TE accounts for a historical Adam in a way that is consonant with (……)”
I understand that’s unfinished. Let me make a suggestion for the finish– “consonant with the Nicence Creed?” The Creed is silent on Adam or even original sin. All it says is that Jesus “for us men and our salvation came down from Heaven…” I’ll suggest the Nicene Creed is scant support for a religious requirement of a historical Adam and any other support lacks authority. In short, historical Adam is not an essential for the Christian faith any more than YEC is. How about the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which equivocates: “The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.” “Primeval event” covers a lot of ground that encompasses a need for salvation without the singular existence of some guy named “Adam” which happens to be generic, and probably used that way as the Greeks used “Nemo” in the Odyssey.
“I suspect the reason that most people—like Joe M. can’t understand it is because frankly it’s too complicated for those, like Joe M., who don’t have a degree or very strong interest in philosophy.”
The ad hominem was lost in the spittle, but I think you were accusing me of not comprehending the finer points of ID because it’s “philosophy” not “science.”
The original question was “should ID be taught in Science class?” If it’s not science, but something else, the answer is “No.” I think it’s pseudoscience, and a creationism sham–that is an orthodox position in Christianity, science and philosophy.
If you think ID is philosophy, then we both agree it should not be taught for different reasons–it’s not science and doesn’t belong in a science class. Teach it in philosophy class if you want and if you can find someone who thinks it has merit.
October 6th, 2010 | 3:28 am
Professor Barr:
Let’s take these one at a time: (a) “Science education specialists”: Both Mike Behe and I ARE science education specialists. We are professors, which means that much of our time is spent educating people in science.
I apologise for misspeaking, I should have said ‘science education researchers’ or ‘specialists in studying what constitutes good science education’. I would however suggest that such a specialisation would be more directly relevant to the theoretical question at hand than a science education practitioner. It would appear that the plaintiffs in Kitzmiller v. Dover agreed with me, in choosing Brian Alters to address the topic in that trial.
[I would claim 0.8 of a mark for this -- right sentiment, but imperfectly expressed.]
So scientists are incompetent to decide what is and is not within the purview of their scientific discipline?
1) ID would not appear to be “within the purview of [any single] scientific discipline”.
2) Given his testimony on the subject in K. v. D., I would most definitely suggest that Behe is “incompetent to decide” what is and isn’t science.
3) The ‘demarcation problem’ of how to tell if something is or isn’t science is generally considered to be part of Philosophy of Science, and whilst I would generally expect scientists to intuitively recognise what is or isn’t science ‘when they see it’, I would have a considerably lower expectation of their ability to explain why something is or isn’t science in a debate format.
[I would claim a full mark for this]
“Constitutional lawyers”: But we were not debating what it was legal to teach, only what it was proper to teach given the boundaries between disciples. On this, lawyers have no expertise, obviously.
If ‘doing X’ may be illegal, then I would suggest that the issue of whether it is legal or not to ‘do X’ is generally relevant to the question of ‘Should we do X?’. That you failed to address this topic in the debate is not evidence that it is not relevant.
[I would claim a full mark for this]
“Information theorists”: Oh, so one must be a philosopher to decide if “ID is science” according to you, but an information theorist (despite NOT being a philosopher) may decide if the ideas of ID are science? You flatly contradict yourself.
No, I’m afraid I don’t contradict myself. The general question of whether ID is science and ‘what constitutes science?’ lies in the field of Philosophy of Science, as (i) it is a philosophical rather than a scientific question, and (ii) (as I pointed out in [1] above) it lies within no single scientific discipline.
Discussing whether individual arguments of ID are science could be considered either the province of specialists in the fields impinged (evolutionary biology or information theory), or philosophers of the more generalised fields encompassing them (philosophers of biology and philosophers of mathematics). Given that I expected (rightly or wrongly) the former to be easier to find than the latter, I plumped for the former.
[I would claim a 0.5 marks each for this -- as I failed to give the philosophers of biology and philosophers of mathematics alternative]
And you forgot to grade my statement:
…such debates are really creatures of rhetoric rather than evidence (which is one reason why creationists love them and scientists hate them), so unlikely to produce anything substantive.
[So I will claim a full mark for it.]
Let’s see, that comes to 4.8/6 — I think that may be a passing grade.
October 6th, 2010 | 3:41 am
Joe Carter:
(Seeing Joe M. is being permitted to carry on with non-debate-related discussion, and no open thread has been opened for the topic, I thought I’d post this response now & here.)
So are you saying that the only type of science that is legitimate is that which can produce hypotheses that are currently testable? Seems like that would leave out a lot.
1) Yes. You were the one claiming it is “possible” to turn ID’s arguments into hypotheses, so what’s the problem?
2) What legitimate science is ‘left out’?
So I take it you also want to exclude string theory, right?
String Theory is a grey area. It has not, as yet demonstrated testable hypotheses (though is not “vague and informal” like ID), so its acceptance is provisional in the expectation that hypotheses are being worked on and should be demonstrated before that acceptance is unconditional. And String Theory, unlike ID, is not attempting to overturn existing, tested science on the basis of its speculation.
Let’s start with your latest assertion. ID advocates may indeed be guilty of exaggerating peer review. However, they are not alone.
Tu quoque argument. Invalid.
Almost no peer review is done in which the evidence is examined sufficiently to determine whether an experiment is legitimate, much less successful.
What experiment? Dembski conducts no experiments.
So I don’t put a lot of stock in the process.
This claim is contradicted by your statement “Someone should complain to the peer review committee at Cambridge who approved his book” — which seems to indicate that you place higher “stock” in the peer review process than in Wolpert’s expert criticism.
But as Dembski has explained, his book had to pass peer-review with three anonymous referees before Brian Skyrms, who heads the academic review board for this Cambridge series, would recommend it for publication to the Cambridge University Press. Once it was received there, it had to be reviewed by the academic review board.
And who, if any, of these were experts in mathematics, information theory or evolutionary biology? Skyms isn’t. Inexpert peer review is not legitimate peer review.
That’s not how science works.
But then the consensus opinion of the scientific community is that IC isn’t science. For one thing, science does not make bald, sweeping “It can’t happen …” statements based simply on personal ignorance/incredulity, leaving yourself open to a rebuttal that only need demonstrate that the thing can happen, not that it did.
You can’t posit some scenario that has no evidence to support it and call it a refutation.
Yes I most certainly can. Behe did not even attempt to present an argument that IC examples did not evolve by evolutionary mechanisms, only that it cannot. Therefore I only need to refute “cannot” (with a theoretical “can”) not “did not” (with an empircal “did”).
But why not just run an experiment? Just start with prokaryotic cell that does not have a flagellum, run it through the proposed pathway and see what happens.
Sure. You do have a grant sufficient to cover turning a continent or two into labs for a few hundred thousand years, don’t you? Expecting to duplicate, in a single lab, in a short amount of time, things that occurred in the field with the whole Earth and deep time, is just silly. That I can’t turn wolves into chihuahuas with only a week and a handful of wolves does not mean that artificial selection is bunk.
Again, the scientists who are making this claim don’t appear to understand how logic works. Merely presenting a hypothetical defeater is not sufficient to claim a refutation of an argument.
I am the one making this argument, and I understand how logic work very well thank you.
My argument about IC being unfalsifiable is not about “a hypothetical defeater” (which I have already pointed out above is sufficient to defeat a “cannot” claim). It was that, as IC argument is based entirely on ad hoc purported examples, disproving the examples cannot falsify the central argument, as further ad hoc purported examples can always be proposed.
Expatation is a post hoc explanation for how a feature could possibly shift function.
What primary evolutionary biological literature have you read on exaptations on which to base this assessment? What scientific review articles? Post-grad textbooks? Undergrad? Or is this claim made solely on the basis of your presuppositions and ID-Creationist propaganda?
More argumentation from personal ignorance/incredulity.
So since 13 of 22 dolphin chromosomes are exactly the same as human chromosomes, does that mean we descended from them or did they descend from us?
No, but that you ask the question means that you know no more about evolutionary biology than the average ignorant creationist. Universal common descent does not mean that we descended from them, or that they descended from us, but that we share a common ancestor.
So you seem to buy into P.Z. Meyers claim that so-called “junk DNA” really is junk DNA.
I would assume that, as an evolutionary biologist, he has at least some idea as to what he’s talking about on the topic — which probably aren’t the words you appear to be putting into his mouth. Given that you have demonstrated a high level of cluelessness on evolutionary biology, I would therefore trust his opinion above yours.
But in any case, and unfortunately for you, it would appear to be the scientific community generally, not just PZ, that sees no significant U-turn on the junk-DNA question.
If junk DNA exists, it’s evidence of evolutionary selection. If junk DNA turns out to have a purpose, it’s evidence of evolutionary selection.
No.
1) Evolutionary biology is open to the existence of Junk DNA (but does not, as far as I know, require its existence).
2) It does however require that at least some DNA is not junk (otherwise there’d be nothing for natural selection to act upon).
3) If junk DNA does exist, then evolutionary biology (and specifically the mechanism of genetic drift) makes a number of predictions as to what patterns it will follow (predictions that can, and have, been tested).
Anything that appears to contradict Darwinism is quickly refurbished in order that it may be used to support Darwinism. The theory really is unfalsifiable.
An unfounded statement based upon anti-science sentiment rather than any actual evidence. Not exactly conducive of civil conversation.
October 6th, 2010 | 4:00 am
Further elaborating on the You can’t posit some scenario that has no evidence to support it and call it a refutation issue:
Let’s take a hypothetical example:
[Defence lawyer:] My client does not have a car, did not have sufficient money for a taxi and has a limp so cannot walk swiftly, so he could not have crossed town in the time he had available in order to have committed the crime.
[Prosecutor on rebuttal:] The defendant did however have sufficient money for the bus, and these bus timetables demonstrate that he could have taken the bus in time to have committed the crime.
Note that the prosecutor did not have to show that the defendant did take the bus in order to rebut the defence’s (“could not”) contention, only that he “could”.
A “hypothetical” possibility is sufficient to rebut a claim that something is impossible.
October 6th, 2010 | 4:23 am
To the above list of specific ID arguments, I probably should have suggested that it would also be interesting to hear a theoretical physicist or cosmologist (such as Prof Barr), or a philosopher of physics, debate Guillermo Gonzalez or Jay Richards on whether the Fine Tuning argument is science.
October 6th, 2010 | 4:43 am
Has anyone else noticed that most of the biological matter on this thread is bile?
October 6th, 2010 | 1:51 pm
It seems to me that ID could be tested and falsified by simply observing the materialist presumption upon which evolution rests. In other words, matter acting upon matter producing the codefied information (knowledge) we see in the dna of every life form. Prove this and you ID fails the test.
The reality is the world operates on a knowledge basis. We understand nature to any degree because nature is communicable. In fact, our understanding and perceptions of those things which exist are the measure of human knowledge.
Knowledge is absolutely necessary for intelligent beings to create anything of form and function. To imagine that knowledge exists and that nature operates according to knowledge without an intelligent being to effect it is absurd.
October 6th, 2010 | 10:18 pm
HG:
It seems to me that ID could be tested and falsified by simply observing the materialist presumption upon which evolution rests.
1) How does one ‘observe’ a “presumption”?
2) If you mean ‘observe evidence that a materialist explanation is sufficient for all phenomena’ then this task is infinite, as the phenomena to be explained is infinite (or as close to infinite as makes no practical difference).
In other words, matter acting upon matter producing the codefied information (knowledge) we see in the dna of every life form.
1) I would dispute that this is equivalent to your first statement. This would appear to only disprove ID’s information arguments (e.g. those made by Dembski and Meyer), not its Irreducible Complexity or Fine Tuning arguments.
2) You have not defined what you mean by ‘codified information’. Assuming that you mean Dembski’s ‘Complex Specified Information’, then (i) it has not been defined with sufficient formality for it to be calculable or shown as meaningful & (ii) no serious attempt has been made to implement this concept for real-world biological examples.
3) Various attempts have been made to demonstrate ‘codified’/CS information arising from “matter acting upon matter”, but due to the lack of a clear, formal definition, this inevitably leads to IDists claiming that the information so arising is not ‘really real’ CSI.
4) Given (i) the inability of Dembski to come up with a formal definition of CSI (a concept that he himself appears to have abandoned, in favour of ‘active information’), in spite of repeated attempts (the latest attempt being the one that evoked Wolpert’s “written in jello” comments), (ii) scientists’ relative disinterest in spending time engaging a concept lacking both a formal definition, and any real evidence of meaningfulness, & (iii) the ambiguity of the whole thing, it is highly unlikely that this will lead to any resolution.
Prove this and you ID fails the test.
No, (even assuming that this test were possible) only CSI fails, Irreducible Complexity or Fine Tuning are unaffected.
We understand nature to any degree because nature is communicable.
But the “information” that it is ‘communicating’ is seldom (and most would argue never) of intelligent origin — weather measurements that enable us to model weather, genetic mutations, changes/differences in gene predominance across time and subpopulations, changes/differences in the ability of subpopulations to inter-breed (‘gene flow’), etc.
To imagine that … nature operates according to knowledge without an intelligent being to effect it is absurd.
To imagine that anybody outside the ID community agrees that sentient “knowledge” (as opposed to scattered, non-sentient, and ever-changing “information”) exists in nature is absurd.
October 6th, 2010 | 10:58 pm
Given the above back-and-forth on the topic, I would like to suggest the following requirements for a valid test sufficient to be able to falsify ID:
1) That the concept/phenomenon being tested MUST entail the falsehood of ID if disproven. I.e. if ID is true then the c/p must be true as well, so that if the c/p is falsified then so is ID.
2) That the c/p being tested is rigorously defined.
3) That the definition of the test be objective, not subjective (the need for objectivity is also why we need a rigorous definition).
4) That the test not involve anything infinite or near-infinite.
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