November 29, 2005
Switzerland Rejects Science
Much attention has been bestowed upon the controversy here in the United States between the science of evolution and the false science of “intelligent design.” Many, especially in Europe, have viewed the debate as a sign of hostility towards science in the United States and even an evolving (pardon the pun) theocracy, with intelligent design little more than a ruse to reinstate creationism in the American education curriculum. These concerns, like most topics in the press, are exaggerated as previously discussed here.
But compare the evolution/intelligent design controversy with the lack of attention given to the hostility towards science exhibited in Europe. No better topic illustrates this more than the opposition to genetically modified (GM) foods. Just this week Swiss voters approved a five year ban on using GM technology in farming, an event which should expose European hostility towards the modern science of agriculture. Of course the MSM will not frame the vote as opposition to scientific advancement, instead it will either be presented as an environmentally conscious decision or enlightened rejection of harmful technology.
Switzerland is not alone in Europe in fearing GM crops. In general, their vote represents the mindset of most of the European population and government officials. Certain European countries are in favor of some form of GM technology, such as Spain and the UK, and the EU did recently lift a six year ban on the sale of GM crops. Despite all this, however, strong opposition and skepticism remain in Europe. Austria hopes to capitalize on this deep-seated hostility and the Swiss vote by making the use and sale of GM technology in the EU a central issue when they assume the EU Presidency next year. A return to the ban on GM technology is not unthinkable.
Environmental fear mongers have successfully convinced a substantial portion of the European population that GM products are dangerous and harmful both humans and the environment in general. There is little substantive science to back up this assertion, but it manages to strike a cord anyway. European politicians and the elites have signed up to this charge as well, but for vastly different reasons. One of the reasons is that the United States is by far the leader in GM technology development. Allowing the introduction of GM technology at this point would further widen the technology gap between the EU and the United States. But Europe’s primary opposition to the use of GM technology stems from economic protectionism and the continuation of social staticism. GM products have the potential to revolutionize agriculture by allowing developing countries to finally compete in the global agriculture marketplace. Additionally, GM crops offer the capability to producehighly enriched foods to compensate for overall poor diets. European elites understand the former point, and fear the consequences of competition upon their archaic and unnatural agrarian lifestyle. The later is an unfortunate, but necessary consequence to ensure a manufactured lifestyle remains enact.
This protectionist fear is nicely stated by Daniel Ammann of the coalition of GM crop opponents after the Swiss vote: “All the farmers’ organizations were behind this proposal which they see as a chance for Swiss agriculture.” Harm to the environment and possible, but generally unsubstantiated side effects from the GM crops upon humans are nothing more than a smokescreen by GM opponents to push what amounts to an anti-science, pro-stagnant agenda. Their true motivation is to protect the romanticized lifestyle of the European farmer, which ultimately results in the hindrance of scientific progress ensuring developing nations remain poor.
Posted by Jeff at November 29, 2005 12:04 PM | eMail this entry
Comments
The irony here is that GM technology is, by definition, intelligent design. Isn’t it?
Posted by: EDH at November 29, 2005 02:58 PM
GM food only APPEARS to be designed. As any fule kno, to infer the existence of a designer, for whatever reason, is obviously UN-scientific and can only be a CODE to mean Go- er, I mean, “he who must not be named.” Claiming that ANYTHING was designed is just religious claptrap and does not meet our groupthink standards which resulted in Japan’s SMON triumph and Piltdown Man.
Posted by: Grimmy at November 29, 2005 03:18 PM
Actually, it is possible that some visiting intelligence from long ago did do some GM in our evolutionary chain. Doesn’t mean that a god did it, unless you define visiting space travelers as gods.
Problem is that this information would not be useful. It would be an hypothesis, not a theory, as theories are useful for modeling, prediction and construction, and supported well enough with observation to be used as facts. It wouldn’t be a theory without supporting observations to elevate the hypothesis to theory level. The hypothesis wouldn’t be useful to science.
Posted by: Loren at November 29, 2005 03:45 PM
My understanding of the controversy over GM foods is that it is primarily based not in worries about their being “harmful to humans and to the environment” in themselves, rather that GM food corporations manipulate the seeds of their trademarked plants to be sterile, so traditional plants that are cross-pollenated become likewise sterile. This is problematic in that it both reduces genetic diversity (hence the likelihood of crop disease-resistance) and necessitates a permanent financial outlay for seed each year. Since farming tends to have a relatively small profit-margin in the first place, allowing GM plants to proliferate would be problematic especially for farmers who choose not to plant GM foods, but whose crops are rendered sterile by the fields of their neighbors. For these reasons, limiting the growth of GM plants is only sensible (if genetic engineers would let their plants enter the gene-pool on an equal basis to compete, they would not be such a problem). This response summarizes my recollections of a lecture given by Richard Hansis, PhD, a scientist at California State University.
Posted by: John Hering at November 29, 2005 03:46 PM
TO: Jeff
RE: Out of Curiosity
“Much attention has been bestowed upon the controversy here in the United States between the science of evolution and the false science of “intelligent design.”" — Jeff
Would care to prove it’s false?
I’ve been watching this bruhaha from the sidelines for quite some time and of all the people I’ve seen yelling “It’s FALSE!”, not one of them has proven it. I mean with factual information.
It’s all been so much he-said/she-said, but no supporting evidence.
I thought people were supposed to be above that sort of think these days. But, apparently, we’ve still got a long ways to go.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[A clash of doctrines is not a disaster, it's an opportunity.]
P.S. But that only applies if you have an open mind in the first place.
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 03:46 PM
TO: John Hering
RE: Interesting Report
“GM food corporations manipulate the seeds of their trademarked plants to be sterile, so traditional plants that are cross-pollenated become likewise sterile.” — John Hering
I had not heard that one, but I wouldn’t put it past some corporate cretins to do JUST THAT. Ultimately painting everyone into their particular corner and barring the door to Mother Nature.
Do you have a link to that, you could share with us?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 03:49 PM
I don’t see any politicization of science. Instead, I see plain old politics, reflecting both democratic risk aversion and protectionism, as you highlight.
Let me try to illustrate the difference. Some conservatives oppose stem cell research on moral grounds. That’s not politicizing science, that’s making a political judgment about the use of science. President Bush claimed he avoided the moral problems surrounding embryonic stem cell research by opening a certain number of stem cell lines up for research, when in fact the stem cell lines he opened were both ill-suited for most forms of research, and far fewer than the president claimed. He made false claims about the regulatory environment he was creating for scientists. That’s politicizing science.
Are European governments putting pressure on government funded scientists to avoid research into the benefits of GM food? If so, I haven’t heard about it.
Are European governments suppressing reports completed at their request? If so, I haven’t heard about it.
Are European governments creating ostensibly expert advisory boards stacked with opponents of GM foods to offer recommendations on food policy? If so, I haven’t heard about it.
Heck, that may all be happening. But in the endless search for equivalence — liberals are just as corrupt as conservatives, liberals hate science just as much as conservatives do, ad nauseum — you have to at least make a prima facie case. Which you didn’t.
Posted by: Dave M at November 29, 2005 03:54 PM
“GM food corporations manipulate the seeds of their trademarked plants to be sterile, so traditional plants that are cross-pollenated become likewise sterile.” — John Hering
If the plant is sterile, how is it cross-pollenated?
Opposition to biotechnology in food is fearmongering/fundraising for radical left-wing groups.
Posted by: Duane Simpson at November 29, 2005 03:58 PM
Mr. Pelto- the very basic feature of a scientific theory is that it can be tested in such a way that, well, it fails the test. If a theory can be proven wrong, well, it was a bad theory, but not necessarily bad science.
So, in answer to your innocently posed question regarding the falseness of Intelligent Design, you are absolutely correct. No one has been able to think up a test to prove or disprove Intelligent Design. Heck, if someone could prove the existence and interference of a “guiding intelligence,” I’d be first in line to get it’s phone number, to answer some other questions that have bugged me for a long time, like where all the missing socks go.
If it can’t be tested, it ain’t science. But don’t let that fact get in the way of your philosophy.
Posted by: Mitchell at November 29, 2005 03:59 PM
“Problem is that this information would not be useful. It would be an hypothesis, not a theory… It wouldn’t be a theory without supporting observations to elevate the hypothesis to theory level. The hypothesis wouldn’t be useful to science.”
But evolutionism is in precisely this position. It is “useless” to science (in the words of a distinguished ex-evolutionist) – not a single prediction or useful corollary has resulted, and in fact most of its predictions have been falsified by science, especially by recent discoveries in molecular biology – hilariously, the one area from which evolutionism had hoped to finally find vindication. And from a purely scientific standard, it has no evidence whatsoever – just contradictory facts vaguely shoehorned to fit the theory. From a religious (evolutionist) viewpoint, of course, this is perfectly acceptable and has been for many decades. For scientists who care about science, such as Michael Denton, Dean Kenyon, and other disillusioned ex-evolutionists who had the intellectual integrity to follow the facts wherever they lead, this was a indeed problem.
BTW, it’s interesting that you think “The hypothesis [of design] wouldn’t be useful to science.” I suppose the prospect of evidence pointing to intelligent extraterrestrial life does not fit your idea of “useful to science,” and to some extent might be semantically correct; but the poor researchers at SETI might not be so agreeable.
Posted by: Grimmy at November 29, 2005 04:09 PM
They have already DONE that. Monsanto was about to make a seed that would NOT regerminate after one use. The farmers could not use their own seed corn or whatever. They would have to rebuy the high dollar seed every year. Sort of the Software or Razor Blade model of upgrades. But I believe it got nixed due to bad PR and the government looking in.
And they have sued farmers in Canada for inadvertently allowing their GM plants from getting spread to other plots…agianst the Patents. They have to track and account for every ounce of seed.
Posted by: mrbill at November 29, 2005 04:11 PM
TO: Duane Simpson
RE: Cross-Pollination
“If the plant is sterile, how is it cross-pollenated?” — Duane Simpson
It’s done in a manner similar to the way we generate sterile male insects to ineffectually fertilize female insects of a particularly pestiforous nature. E.g., Med Fruit-Flys in California. The females mate with the sterilized males and fail to lay fertile eggs.
In this instance, if John Hering’s report is correct, I can see the way the corporations would be eliminating the natural competition; forcing regions to rely on THEIR product.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 04:13 PM
Mitchell: “No one has been able to think up a test to prove or disprove Intelligent Design.”
Likewise, noone has been able to present to me a convincing demonstration, proof or experiment to disprove the theory of macro-evolution or “common progenitor.” To propose and demonstrate that an individual species of a clearly distinct order and class can change over time as a result of genetic changes is well accepted, but how does a fish become an amphibian or reptile or bird or … I’m not hard bent for ID, but I don’t inherently see it as any less “provable” than the idea that all life on earth originated from a common progenitor.
Posted by: submandave at November 29, 2005 04:16 PM
“Mr. Pelto- the very basic feature of a scientific theory is that it can be tested in such a way that, well, it fails the test. If a theory can be proven wrong, well, it was a bad theory, but not necessarily bad science.”
Unfortunately, evolutionism does not meet this standard. And, as Michael Cremo’s “Forbidden Archeology” shows, it has actually HARMED science.
“No one has been able to think up a test to prove or disprove Intelligent Design.”
It’s interesting that most books or articles on ID do just that – suggest ways to disprove ID (or at least render it useless). For example, provide a scientifically rigorous account of the molecular evolution of certain complex system. Yet one often come across such strident claims as above. Is it just a refusal to read forbidden arguments, or selective amnesia?
“If it can’t be tested, it ain’t science. But don’t let that fact get in the way of your philosophy.”\
Unless it’s evolutionism, of course.
“Many evolutionists proffer mutations and antibiotic resistance in bacteria (operational science) as being some sort of prediction of evolution (origins science). In fact, genetics (operational science) was an embarrassment to evolution, which is probably the major reason that Mendel’s pioneering genetics research went unrecognized for so many years (Mendel’s discovery of discrete genes did not fit Darwin’s idea of continuous unlimited variation). When mutations were discovered, these were seen as a way of reconciling Darwinism with the observations of operational science—hence the neo-Darwinian synthesis of Mayr, Haldane, Fisher, etc.
So, Darwinism never predicted anything, it was modified to accommodate the observations. In fact, because Darwinism is so malleable as to accommodate almost any conceivable observation, science philosopher Karl Popper proclaimed that it was not falsifiable, and therefore not a proper scientific theory in that sense. ” (Don Batten, AIG)
Posted by: Grimmy at November 29, 2005 04:17 PM
Here’s one reference on the Monsanto sterile-seed patent:
http://www.biotech-monitor.nl/3503.htm
Posted by: Neal J. King at November 29, 2005 04:20 PM
TO: Mitchell
RE: The Proverbial Proof….
“…the very basic feature of a scientific theory is that it can be tested in such a way that, well, it fails the test. If a theory can be proven wrong, well, it was a bad theory, but not necessarily bad science.
So, in answer to your innocently posed question regarding the falseness of Intelligent Design, you are absolutely correct. No one has been able to think up a test to prove or disprove Intelligent Design. Heck, if someone could prove the existence and interference of a “guiding intelligence,” I’d be first in line to get it’s phone number, to answer some other questions that have bugged me for a long time, like where all the missing socks go.” — Mitchell
…is in the proverbial pudding.
And therein lies the devilish details.
All the people who are adamently opposed to even THINKING about ID are up in arms because they can’t think of a way to disprove the existance of the ‘inveterate Tinker’, whatever He/She/It might be. So their only recourse, due to their limited intellect, is to cry “FOUL!” And fight against it even being disucssed. As Jeff attempts here.
One would think that the REALLY smart people would learn to think ‘outside of the box”, but we don’t see that happening either.
I’m reminded of all the people who pooh-poohed Catastrophism as a theory for the demise of the dinosaurs. Even AFTER they found that crater off the Yucatan.
Then, along came Shoemaker-Levi 9 and most people came to realize, “Hey! Big things DO drop out of the sky and do bad things on planets.” But even now, there are still charter members of the latter-day Flat-Earth Society who deny that theory.
This is probably the same sort of situation. The ‘old guard’ will stomp on anything they despise, rather than look at it without jaundiced eyes.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 04:20 PM
P.S. In the case of trying to prove or disprove the existance of the ‘inveterate Tinker’, I’d recommend some bright guy take it from the ‘indirect approach’. Are there inferences that could prove or disprove such an Entity’s existance? If so, how do we identify and track/evaluate them.
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 04:22 PM
TO: Chuckle
RE: Intelligent Design as UnScience
The reason you’ve seen no one prove intelligent design to be “false” is because it is unfalsifiable. It can not be done. Which is why it’s not science. It hasn’t even reached the level of a hypothesis, as it’s non-testable.
The testable claims made by ID rest on attacks on genetic evolution. Those claims, including Behe’s assertion of irreducible complexity and Dembski’s information theory arguments, have been rejected (with some scorn) by most scientists who’ve examined them.
ID is “false science” not “false.”
Posted by: Dave M at November 29, 2005 04:24 PM
This is not a rejection of science but of a technology that is technically sound but not grounded in good science. For instance, there is grave doubt about the sterility of GMO’s and the danger of cross-pollination. Of course there is also the discussion about the interaction of these GMO’s with our bodies. There are a number of reputable scientists who claim that the safety of GMO’s has not been proven and these people have been thrust aside, mostly by corporations, in search of profit. Most of the gains from GMO’s are obtainable with better farming techniques that cause crops to be a bit less profitable, but profitable nonetheless. Ah, but are we talking about short sighted profit or long term profit?
This has nothing to do with “Intelligent Design”… But if we were to extend the argument to include that concept, I would point out this only shows what happens when human beings who are not omnicient and are mistake prone engage in this sort of work.
Posted by: David at November 29, 2005 04:24 PM
TO: Dave M
RE: The Politicizing of Science
“He made false claims about the regulatory environment he was creating for scientists. That’s politicizing science.” — Dave M
Well…if you look at it that way, we should have hired doctor Mengala to do modern medical research in our prison facilities.
At some point one needs to draw a line. Such lines are drawn on the basis of one’s morality. Whether we’re talking about running horrific experiments on the criminals to further the cause of science, or just sucking the brains out of babies….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Those who do not appreciate the relationship of morality and politics will never understand the one nor the other.]
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 04:26 PM
Grimmy, your ignorance is appaling.
Evolution has no useful application?
Tell that to pesticide-makers, who have to come up with new poisons to kill cockroaches that evolve defenses to the old ones. Or medicine researches who deal with other kinds of ‘bugs’.
Evolution happens in rapid fast-forward among bacteria and insects, and no one has yet developed a ‘faith-based’ pesticide.
Certainly, if you narrow the definition of evolution to ONLY trans-species evolution, there isn’t much practical applications, but even that argument fails – you don’t need a practical application for something to be useful to science. Do we need to build a power generator that runs off the light of distant stars before you’ll believe they exist? Of course not.
Posted by: Ryan Waxx at November 29, 2005 04:27 PM
TO: Dave M
RE: ID as Theory
“The reason you’ve seen no one prove intelligent design to be “false” is because it is unfalsifiable. It can not be done. Which is why it’s not science. It hasn’t even reached the level of a hypothesis, as it’s non-testable.” — Dave M
Really?
I’ve seen more proof of it being correct than I’ve seen anyone proving it isn’t. Even by efforts to attack the data used in the proof.
And, I do believe that a number of statisticans have come forward saying that the probability that we got here in the brief period of time the Universe has been around—to the best of our understanding—does not measure up to our understanding of probability theory.
Maybe we need a better theory to explain that. Or…maybe…there IS Something out there.
If the other side can come up with a better explanation of how we got here in so ‘short’ a time, I’d like to hear it. I really would.
In the meantime, just standing there and saying, “It’s wrong.” Doesn’t really cut it in my opinion. It’s almost like watching the Wars of the Reformation, all over again. But without the Spanish Inquisition…..yet….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 04:32 PM
“Evolution has no useful application? Tell that to pesticide-makers, who have to come up with new poisons to kill cockroaches that evolve defenses to the old ones. Or medicine researches who deal with other kinds of ‘bugs’.”
It’s true that my ignorance is appalling. But that doesn’t magically turn what you describe above into evolution. What you’re describing is microevolution – not, as is commonly assumed, the emergence of new mutant species which are resistant to toxins, etc., but one of two scenarios:
1. The success of existing strains over other strains
2. The flipping on or off of certain existing genetic information (as discussed by Lee Spetner. Oh, sorry, I forgot – he’s on the “forbidden” reading list).
The common meaning of evolution, however, is the origin of the diversity of species through common descent – macroevolution. In your example, and pretty much all examples offered, roaches stay roaches, never turning into something other.
Posted by: Grimmy at November 29, 2005 04:36 PM
TO: Chuckle
RE: Godwin
You seem to share our hosts’ inability to differentiate between politicizing science and objecting to a particular use of science.
You can call stem cell research Nazi-like baby killing all you like. That’s not politicizing science.
Claiming that you’re offering scientists what they need to do their research, when in fact you’re doing the opposite. That’s politicizing science.
Posted by: Dave M at November 29, 2005 04:37 PM
TO: Dave M
RE: Well
“You can call stem cell research Nazi-like baby killing all you like. That’s not politicizing science.” — Dave M
Then I’d suggest you lay off President Bush. Because he’s thinking it and, because he currently has the authority to do something about it, doing what he can about it too.
RE: Evading the Point
“Claiming that you’re offering scientists what they need to do their research, when in fact you’re doing the opposite. That’s politicizing science.” — Dave M
I’ve read about stem cell research. And what I’ve read indicates that you can do the same research with adult stem cells as you can with those you get from babies brains.
But, maybe you’ve seen something I haven’t. So, where is the evidence you have to offer to substantiate your claim?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 04:43 PM
> There are a number of reputable scientists who claim that the safety of GMO’s has not been proven…
No one ‘proved’ that TV’s were harmless before building them.
No one ‘proved’ that cross-breeding plants and animals (the old way of getting new breeds) was safe before trying it.
No one ‘proved’ that sending a man to the moon would be risk-free… rather the opposite!
The patent office does not require proof that an invention can cause no concievable harm before it is registered.
The standard you would select for GM foods is either totally irrational or has a political goal (but I repeat myself).
If people had applied those POLITICAL standards to other inventions, we’d still be huddling in caves wearing furs. Perhaps that’s where you belong, but leave the rest of us out of your fantasies.
Answer this: If it’s so advantageous to ‘prove’ a food or seed is safe before eating or planting it, then why isn’t it applied to ALL new breeds, regardless of weather it came from crossbreeding, irradiation, or your pet boogyman, GM?
Posted by: Ryan Waxx at November 29, 2005 04:44 PM
“In the case of trying to prove or disprove the existance of the ‘inveterate Tinker’, I’d recommend some bright guy take it from the ‘indirect approach’. Are there inferences that could prove or disprove such an Entity’s existance? If so, how do we identify and track/evaluate them.”
Proving a universal negative is logically impossible. (That’s why true philosophers can’t be true atheists.) However, what CAN be done is to make the designer’s existence intellectually unneccesary. Which was Darwin’s goal, being a Unitarian.
Having said that, several scientific discoveries have made that task pretty much impossible:
1. the complex molecular systems described by Behe, such as the blood clotting cascade
2. the Big Bang, an event that had to be precisely controlled to one part in a trillion trillion trillion trillion … etc. and which implies an origin outside of material space-time.
Anyway, back to evolution. To date, Popper’s criticism still holds – it’s a “theory” so malleable that no matter how many times it fails, it can change to accomodate almost any observation.
Let’s try an example. Do kids like veggies? Come up with an evolutionary explanation. Do kids hate veggies? Do the same. Wasn’t that hard, was it? And the beauty of it is, it doesn’t matter what was predicted (precious few predictions are made these days due to its dismal track record) as long as you control what the textbooks say … and not say …
Posted by: Grimmy at November 29, 2005 04:47 PM
The struggle against Monsanto’s plans to dominate world agriculture can’t be ignored as a major factor here. Euro-resistance to GM crops can’t fairly be assumed to imply that they’re Luddites. I recall Monsanto sounding quite pleased with themselves when they predicted that shipments of grains would have GM varieties inextricably mixed in, so that customers would be forced to accept GM crops whether or not they wanted them. Of course, the obvious happened – shipments which couldn’t be demonstrated or documented as GM-free were rejected wholesale. D’oh! I seem to recall Monsanto stock taking quite a pounding right after that.
You don’t have to be anti-scientific to be wary of Monsanto.
Posted by: big dirigible at November 29, 2005 04:51 PM
Okay, Mr. Pelto. Although you’ve “seen more proof of it being correct” than evolution, I missed where you
Proposed. A. Test. To. Either. Prove. Or. Disprove. Intelligent. Design.
I know that you and I are both skeptics, and we want to see the whole discussion, not just the conclusion.
I understand that you see Intelligent Design as real. I just want the specifics, rather than generalities. Not “more proof,” I’d like you to share the exact proof.
So lay out your test! I mean, here I am, politely asking you to discuss I.D. I invite you to discuss it. I’m not opposed to even THINKING about it, I want you to outline a test to validate I.D, and imporve on my, what was it, “limited intellect.”
Surely a highly intelligent person like yourself can do this little thing, can’t you?
Posted by: Mitchell at November 29, 2005 04:52 PM
“Proposed. A. Test. To. Either. Prove. Or. Disprove. Intelligent. Design.”
You would think that anyone who objects to ID would have read the book that put it on the map – “Darwin’s Black Box” – in which Behe clearly outlines ways to falsify ID. … sigh.
Posted by: Grimmy at November 29, 2005 04:56 PM
TO: Ryan Waxx
RE: Why….
“If it’s so advantageous to ‘prove’ a food or seed is safe before eating or planting it, then why isn’t it applied to ALL new breeds, regardless of weather it came from crossbreeding, irradiation, or your pet boogyman, GM?” — Ryan Waxx
…am I suddenly reminded of Jurassic Park?
Regards.
Chuck(le)
[Sure. Nobody said you couldn't do it. But was it smart to actually go ahead and do it? -- Dr. "Chaos Theory" Malcolm (paraphrased)]
P.S. Speaking of which, isn’t it interesting that they recently recreated the famous Swine Flu (1918) virus. So now, we’ve come up with a group of people who have proven we can recreate horrific diseases. And I’m remembering what I read in Rainbow Six…..
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 04:57 PM
“I’ve seen more proof of it being correct than I’ve seen anyone proving it isn’t.” –Chuckle
What proof is this? It’s the two attacks on evolution (irreducible complexity & information), combined with the classic creationist criticisms, no?
“In the meantime, just standing there and saying, ‘It’s wrong.’” – Chuckle.
This is borderline cute. You just quoted me saying that intelligent design was no falsifiable, now you claim I’m saying it’s wrong. It’s not wrong. It could be wrong, could be right. There could be an intelligent designer behind the natural processes that produced life.
If Intelligent Design were to move from a scattershot objection to evolution to a legitimate hypothesis, it would be disprovable. Say, the hypothesis that space aliens periodically visit earth and shoot mutating guns at organic matter, causing it to speciate. That would be tough to test, but we could at least look for evidence.
An amorphous, unspecified, potentially supernatural designer is not disprovable. Certainly not by “proving” the possibility of
Posted by: Dave M at November 29, 2005 04:58 PM
TO: Mitchell
RE: Hey!
“Surely a highly intelligent person like yourself can do this little thing, can’t you?” — Mitchell
One thing at a time. Right now I’m working on the cure for the common cold.
Now, maybe if I cloned myself, a million times over, we could REALLY do something ‘constructive’.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 05:00 PM
First, the easy comment, sterile seeds: Living in an area with soybean farmers, they buy hybrid seeds each year to plant. The beans they grow are fertile, but they are NOT the same hybrid, with the same qualities of desease resistance, yield etc. of those they purchase. Therefore they buy new seeds each year. GM really doesn’t show a great departure from this practice. Examine Mendel’s discovery of inheritance your commenters discussed earlier for this.
Now on to ID:
Falsibility is not the only criteria for good science. Repeatability is another. If I drop a hollow and solid ball from the Tower of Piza and announce they fall at the same rate, another MORTAL HUMAN can reproduce my results by dropping hollow and filled cans from the Brooklin Bridge. Prediction is the other: If two blue eyed parents have 6 children, none of them will be brown eyed.
Modern Evolution stands on three aspects, genetic inheritance, genetic mutation and survival of the fittest. Yes, Origin of the Species is a bad title, as we have never seen a new species arrive due to any of the three aspects of evolution.
ID is a wonderful philosophy, and one that I personally subscribe to; however, I don’t consider it science. Yes, God took some chemicals, placed them over a substrate of clay crystals and ‘presto’ organic molecules were formed, that grew into life. But saying God did this, doesn’t mean I can reproduce his results. Nor can I make predictions based on ID either. Perhaps God didn’t want Humans to exist until tomatoes did, so He waited until then, and ‘presto’ he converted an ape into a human. Does this help me predict when God will convert humans into ‘superhumans’? Is it when super kiwi fruit exists or does He have to create something else new that doesn’t exist now?
Science is a collection of ideas and tools that one human can use to reproduce the results of another human AND build on the work of other humans in a consistient and logical pattern. ID is certainly logical, and may even be consistient; however, it is not something that humans can do for themselves. Is the cure for cancer the right prayer? If I die of cancer does it mean I didn’t pray properly? This way lies madness, not science.
I do believe that God created a rational, logical and consistient universe, through means that I may never understand. The role of science is to codify and extend our knowledge of God’s universe in how WE can use this knowledge and skills for ourselves. The role of science can also sometimes reveal the methodologies that God used in creating the universe and us; however, it is probably unlikely that we will ever be able to duplicate His efforts.
Posted by: Donald Campbell at November 29, 2005 05:17 PM
TO: Dave M
RE: What Proof?
“What proof is this?” — Dave M
You might want to bone up on your statistics before you go HERE!
This is just ONE aspect, but I think one of the more interesting ones, from a scientific perspective.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. But keep in mind….
…first the monkeys had to evolve sufficiently to invent typewriters.
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 05:18 PM
I don’t think most of you jokers could find your asses with both hands. Bunch of jokers!
Posted by: FEntris at November 29, 2005 05:21 PM
Thanks, Mr. Pelto. You confirmed exactly what I suspected. You can’t propose an experiment to confirm ID, and you know it, just like the rest of us.
Grimmy talked above about Evolution being stretched to fit new facts as they emerge. ID exists independent of facts, tests, hypotheses, or even specific details.
But it makes for an entertaining philosophy to talk about and pretend its real life science!
Kindest regards…..
Posted by: Mitchell at November 29, 2005 05:26 PM
If Evolution is not falsifiable then Intelligent Design is wrong, since Intelligent Design’s fundamental principal is that it falsifies Evolution and therefore proves that there must be something else responsible for certain features of living organisms.
Can we call that claim an “own goal”?
Even if we do show that evolution can not be responsible for some traits, I don’t see why it’s impossible to come up with an alternative scientific theory to fill those gaps.
Further, the claim that “nothing useful ever came out of the theory of evolution” is quite silly. For example, there have been several cases where evolution has predicted that there must be a species which existed as a bridge between two other species which was subsequently discovered as a fossil. Evolution has also helped us understand the relationship between various living creatures (for example, that birds evolved from lizards). I’m no biologist so I don’t know all the implications of these predictions but evolution provides us with many models for making predictions.
I predict as we continue to clear land and urbanize the environment, there will be evolutionary pressure for creatures to adapt to live in those environments. Species which are unable to adapt to the environmental change will die and slowly, the creatures which live around us will adapt to better survive alongside us.
I suspect we’re going to see some human evolution over the next few centuries too, as a result of all the genetic mixing which is happening now. Just because the predictions take a long time to bear fruit does not make them invalid.
here is a list of predictions made by evolution and whether they were validated.
Posted by: Nicholas at November 29, 2005 05:32 PM
First, nobody’s deliberately modified seed to be sterile, except in lab conditions. Yes, the technology was developed, but it’s in no existing commercial line, and could be easily outlawed in specific without banning GMOs generally. Might as well object to helium blimps because the Hindenburg burned.
Second, nobody’s suing farmers for random seed drift. Monsanto sued a guy who deliberately and with full knowledge that it was illegal sowed his entire field with patented seed that he didn’t pay for, with deliberate intention of exploiting its pateneted properties.. This was not discovered by snooping around, but because he went and bought huge quantities of Roundup from Monsanto.
Roundup kills normal plants, sparing only the pateneted-gene crops. If he had used the seed unknowngly, he wouldn’t have bought and used the Roundup. If he had used the seed as if it were normal seed, not exploiting its special features, he wouldn’t have been caught, because Monsanto wouldn’t have gotten suspicious orders for Roundup from him. He was only caught because he deliberately exploited a patented feature of the seed, without paying a dime to the patent-holder.
Third, the saftey fears are BS. The fact is, new crops are created all the time without anybody then testing them to see if the changes were safe. The methods by which these crops — which no one has objected to, which are legally labeled “organic”, and which have always been legal in the European Union — were created includes not merely crossbreeding, natural radiation and natural mutagenic chemicals, but also deliberate exposure to artificial radiation and articfical chemical mutagens.
Accordingly, the “saftey” claim with regard to GMOs is that we can trust crops created by random mutations induced by deliberate exposure toartificial radiation without saftey checks, but cannot trust crops created by carfully-planned specific genetic changes and subjected to multiple layers of EPA and FDA review.
Imagine what the equivalent would be for cars. “Sure, as long as you make random changes to your car with a hacksaw and pliers, we’ll assume it’s safe and you don’t have to be inspected. But if you go to a shop and have a new stereo put in, it doesn’t matter if it passes multiple saftey inspections, it’s too dangerous to let you go out on the road.” it’s utterly irrational.
Posted by: Warmongering Lunatic at November 29, 2005 05:33 PM
You know what I really find interesting about the whole controversy over teaching evolution in our schools? Not the fact that entire groups of people so willingly embrace stupidity and ignorance, and are so eager to foist it on others. Or the fact that, in a supposedly advanced nation that is falling way behind the rest of the developed world in science education, that we’re arguing about whether or not to teach one of the most fundamental scientific concepts.
No, it’s the irony that gets me. Look at what the concept of evolution is all about: survival of the fittest. There’s no compassion, no helping the weak and downtrodden, no room for liberal niceties there. When you think about it, it’s the coldest, harshest, most illiberal concept you can imagine. Yet it’s the liberals that are on the side of teaching it, and the conservatives, who by rights ought to eat it up with a spoon, that can’t abide it.
Just another bit of evidence that the notions of left and right no longer make any sense in today’s political landscape.
Posted by: andy at November 29, 2005 05:36 PM
Mr. Pelto tries a nice piece of legerdemaine with his reference to statistics. But it’s a red herring.
The monkeys-and-typewriter analogy assume a destined end, i.e. the specific text to be repeated. Evolution posits no end point, thus there is not a path of “correct” strokes that need be taken to reach a given end point.
Where we are now is the result of a vast array of random keystrokes. And the monkeys aren’t finished typing yet.
A word that might be usefully incorporated into the vocabulary is “contingency”.
Posted by: John Burgess at November 29, 2005 05:49 PM
Maybe reseaching ID would cause the evolutionists to discover that the world is not flat afterall?
Grimmy seems willing to set sail into discovering the unknown, I’d like a ride on that ship.
That said, I suppose the alternative to GM food products would be to return to the eco-imperialist tradition of slowing starving people to death so that a tree is saved.
Paraphasing Havel Vaclav, as scientific man began measuring itself as the meaning of all things in the world, modern science began developing symptoms of schizophrenia.
Posted by: susan at November 29, 2005 06:01 PM
Correction that’s ‘researching’
Posted by: susan at November 29, 2005 06:19 PM
TO: Mitchell
RE: Can’t???!?
” You can’t propose an experiment to confirm ID, and you know it, just like the rest of us.” — Mitchell
There’s a difference between beating my head against a monitor to solve a pressing issue and dancing like a performing bear to a whim of yours, buckie.
But, here’s a bone for you to gnaw on….in the meantime….
If there is a God. Would He not be involved in the creation of the Universe?
So, as I was suggesting earlier, if you can remember, I proposed the indirect approach.
What could possibly prove His existance? Perhaps prescient knowledge? In Christendom, we call it “prophecy”.
Think upon that….
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[The most simple-minded way of proving a systems effectiveness is the ability to win bets based on it.]
P.S. I think someone (above) was mentioning something about repeatability. This correlates with that.
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 06:20 PM
That’s Vaclav Havel.
I’m on a roll!
Posted by: susan at November 29, 2005 06:21 PM
TO: John Hering
RE: Found It
I found a reference to what you reported.
Makes sense to me for Switzerland to put a short moratorium on GMs in their country. I doubt if they’ll starve to death in the meantime.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 07:32 PM
TO: susan
RE: Be Afraid
“Maybe reseaching ID would cause the evolutionists to discover that the world is not flat afterall?” — susan
I’m afraid that that is what they are afraid of in the first place. They might learn something that would displace them from being the center of the Universe.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 07:35 PM
TO: John Burgess
RE: Got…
“…a nice piece of legerdemaine with his reference to statistics. But it’s a red herring.” — John Burgess
…some statistics to prove it wrong?
Or are you just doing what Jeff does in his first sentence; “It’s WRONG! I tellz ya! WRONG!”
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 07:37 PM
First off, anybody watch Crime shows? Law and Order/CSI is what is needed here.
Origin can never be proven. You cannot PROVE an event. You can only hope that it can be decided beyond a reasonable doubt. Even if the entire evolutionary theory was totally correct, it can never be proven that it happened a certain way, only that it COULD have happened that way.
(By the way, in a court of Law, eye-witness accounts are the most compelling, so I do tend to lean towards the one we have.)
Anyway, I think most people don’t actually understand either Evolution or ID. They are really both frameworks, not full theories. Evo assumes everything can be explained by chaos. ID assumes order. For example, lets say I hand you a odd shaped silicon rock and said “Hey look at this odd rock” or “Hey look at this alien radio I found in a spaceship”. Would you treat them differently based on the likelihood that one was built by intelligence?
Personally, I’d love to see what Science could do if it assumed that the universe was built intelligently, just waiting for us to “figure it out”. Don’t go changing your religion (unless you want), just assume that there is an intelligent answer to every problem.
Posted by: The Stranger at November 29, 2005 07:58 PM
Testing the liklihood of intelligent design is not something beyond the abilities of scientists. Essentially the proponents of intelligent design look at various factors which need to have happened in order for a specific organism to have developed and attempt to develop the odds of such things occurring by happenstance. The intelligent design proponents start with simple organisms, such as amoebas and estimate that the odds of the availability of the conditions required to be present to produce such an organism are incredible.To refute such mathematical arguments, scientists can utilize the same approach and arrive at their own mathematical odds. Then the groups can discuss the factors, the likelihoods of the conditions appearing, etc. and it eventually becomes a mathematical calculation of the odds. In these calculations, the age of the universe becomes part of the calculations. Something that almost never happens certainly can do so over billions of years
Posted by: John Haker at November 29, 2005 08:03 PM
Chuck, try this thought experiment:
You have a coin. You toss it ten times. Each time you wind up with heads. Pretty increadible, isn’t it? That’s a one in one-thousand twenty four shot!
Now, toss the coin again. This time you get, in the following order: heads, heads, tails, heads, tails, tails, tails, heads, tails, heads
Now, this is not quite as exciting as all heads, but what is interesting is that it is still a one in one thousand twenty four shot that you would come upon this combination. Flip the coin again, now you have a combination that only comes up once in two thousand forty eight times. Again and you’re up to once in four thousand ninty six. Flip the coin twenty times and you’re at one in one million forty eight thousand, five hundred seventy six. Forty times and you break one in a trillion. Let’s set up a machine to flip a whole bunch of coins in sequence and load it with a hundred dollars worth of pennies. You have now reached a probability that breaks the Windows Calculator. Surely there must be some intellegence behind the creation of that combination, for random chance couldn’t be responsible: it’s just so improbable!
Posted by: JSchuler at November 29, 2005 08:14 PM
TO: JSchuler
RE: Mind Games
“You have now reached a probability that breaks the Windows Calculator. ” — JSchuler
Get a Mac, man.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[When Microsoft finally makes a product that doesn't suck, it'll be a vacuum cleaner.]
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 10:39 PM
JSchuler’s experiment is a common misunderstanding of probability, but it’s quite a common mistake among Darwinists. I wonder why. Perhaps it has to do with their inability to provide a way to falsify evolution, yet keep believing it’s “scientific”. (I have yet to see anyone respond to such a challenge. I can only hope the stunned silence usually means evolutionists beginning to dare question their faith.)
In a nutshell, the coin sequence is not specified. If you said IN ADVANCE that was the target sequence, that would be more impressive. That would be more analogous (somewhat) to the yet unsolved problem of obtaining 100 left-handed amino acids in the correct sequence. What Schuler has done instead is show that obtaining a complete mess is “probable” – whatever that means.
But I repeat my challenge. All evolutionists “know” that ID is unfalsifiable (because they haven’t dared read any ID authors, sadly). But what if evolutionism is also unfalsifiable, as Popper has found? Would you still be able to be an intellectually honest evolutionist? If so, why?
To those who continue to carp that ID is unfalsifiable, I suggest you break through the veil of religious evolutionism and free your mind. Wouldn’t you agree that actually *reading* about ID as described by IDers (not by the caricatures of pop science) should be a prerequisite to mocking it? Wouldn’t a true lover of science, a seeker of truth, do that? Even creationists have to do that all the time.
And you would discover, to your surprise, that its proponents indeed tell you how to falsify it. (Although I’m not sure that works …. hmmm. But at least they try, unlike evolutionists.)
Your fear of meeting new ideas and arguments is understandable. Even many conservatives are too afraid of going against the grain and being regarded as nutty to investigate ID, preferring to attack a fantasy version of it. (Like John Derbyshire, a math lover who seems oblivious to the daunting mathematical objections to chance formation of life. Fortunately, “Tour of the Calculus” Berlinski shows us there is hope.)
“It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in numbers, has been rather carefully thought out…The seemingly miraculous concurrence of these numerical values must remain the most compelling evidence for cosmic design” (Physicist Paul Davies (agnostic?)).
Chance? I don’t have enough faith.
Posted by: Grimmy at November 29, 2005 10:56 PM
TO: Mitchell
RE: Okay
I’ve had enough co(l)ding for one day. Back to you….
Is there a way to prove the efficacy of ID?
I’m sure there is. But you’ll have to be patient. Say a billion years. We can use Evolution as a control and intelligent design as the basis of the premise.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
P.S. There IS a quicker way….
…take an fully locked and loaded M1911A1. With the safety off, put the muzzle all the way into your mouth and squeeze—do not pull—the trigger.
Then you can ask the Big Man Himself.
But I personally counsel against that technique.
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 11:00 PM
TO: Grimmy
RE: Or Rather….
“But what if evolutionism is also unfalsifiable, as Popper has found? Would you still be able to be an intellectually honest evolutionist? If so, why?” — Grimmy
….’How’?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 29, 2005 11:01 PM
Why do you guys bother responding to Chuck(le) House? He’s here for the attention, not the debate. Someone’s Dad missed a lot of piano recitals.
Posted by: Infide at November 30, 2005 12:51 AM
Why do you guys bother responding to Chuck(le) House? He’s here for the attention, not the debate. Someone’s Dad missed a lot of piano recitals.
Posted by: Infide at November 30, 2005 12:52 AM
Hello. My article on The Mathematics of Monkeys and Shakespeare was hyperlinked earlier in this thread, so I thought I’d pop by and see what was going on.
My congratulations to Grimmy (above) for pointing out JSchuler’s error: this is indeed a common mistake. I’ve had cause to address this error before: see my article ”What a coincidence!” for an example.
John Burgess, at November 29, 2005 05:49 PM, claimed that the monkeys and Shakespeare thing was a distraction — a sleight of hand — because the argument assumes a “destined end”. Yes and no. The “destined end” in question is “a living organism”. You might protest that I’ve only allowed one possible ending, where there are many possible endings if our target is “a living organism”. A better analogy might have been “any valid sentence in English”, rather than one specific sentence.
The fact of the matter is that such a change in the rules of the game doesn’t impact the outcome greatly. What we have here is a situation where the chances of success are one to c^n against, where “n” is the length of the sentence, and “c” is some constant reflecting the other conditions. For any “c” significantly greater than one (such as two), problems of this sort become rapidly infeasible to solve (with increasing “n”) by chance methods.
The problem of producing a living organism — any living organism — from scratch without intelligent input is such a problem.
One other point: there’s a lot of suggestion that evolution is science, and ID or creationism are not. I think that these alternatives must stand or fall together as scientific studies. If evolution is “falsifiable” as a theory, then there is the possibility of evidence for some process other than evolution. What might this “not-evolution” process be? If evolution is the only scientific alternative, then it’s not science so much as a philosophical necessity.
Some would say that contrary evidence is possible, but we don’t find any. This is a bit of a stretch, in my opinion. It seems closer to the mark to me to say that we keep explaining things in evolutionary terms, rather than to say that we keep finding evidence for evolution and not its alternatives.
Posted by: TFBW at November 30, 2005 06:52 AM
TO: Infide
RE: Sorry To Disappoint You…
“He’s here for the attention, not the debate. Someone’s Dad missed a lot of piano recitals.” — Infide
…but I’m an ENTJ. I live for debate. Indeed, I judge debate as well. Got a high school tourney scheduled for this weekend.
Back on topic….
TO: Dave M
RE: As I Was Saying (Above)…
We don’t need to suck the brains out of babies to use stem cells….
The Nose Knows!
Enjoy,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at November 30, 2005 08:03 AM
Grimmy wrote:
‘Having said that, several scientific discoveries have made that task pretty much impossible:
1. the complex molecular systems described by Behe, such as the blood clotting cascade’
and
‘You would think that anyone who objects to ID would have read the book that put it on the map – “Darwin’s Black Box” – in which Behe clearly outlines ways to falsify ID. … sigh.’
I’ve read ‘Darwin’s Black Box’, plenty of Behe’s follow-on work, as well as quite a bit of Dembski’s work.
If only it were true that Behe both proposed and then actually accepted a meaningful method for falsifying ID.
There’s a wealth of information out there showing why Behe’s examples are not “irreducibly complex”, and Behe himself has even said that if the examples he provides are not, in fact, irreducibly complex, that ID is still not falsified… that instead, it simply means that he chose poor examples.
So we see the perpetual moving goalposts that exemplifies the classic god-of-the-gaps argument, which require us to believe that even if every example that is presented is wrong, that still doesn’t mean the underlying hypothesis is wrong… which is the essence of unfalsifiability.
The major problem with Behe’s proposed examples of ways to falsify ID are that he structures them only within the precise boundaries that he *imagines* must have been used to reach the end point… yet the actual trajectory through the problem space is not confined to the manner in which he theorizes.
His “proof” of the lack of evolvability of irreducibly complex systems hinges on his assuming that an organ or biochemical process must have evolved every step of the way AS IF IT WERE trying to meet the precise end goal… and since there are no functional and operational “selectable changes” in the interim that map to the end goal, it couldn’t have evolved.
Put more simply, Behe claims that for a bacterial flagellum to have evolved, every step along the path must have been targeted ONLY for the purpose of making a flagellum. As if evolution sat down, looked at a bacteria without flagella and said, “OK, it would really help if this had an outboard motor… I’m going to make successive small changes which will lead me specifically to this particular flagellar design.”
Yet evolution works nothing like that. Sure, that’s a reasonable way FOR A DESIGNER to produce something, but that doesn’t mean that there are no other ways to get to the end goal.
Evolution doesn’t start with a specific end goal in mind (like a flagellum) and then engineer a solution that meets that goal. It is essentially unplanned and undirected. Instead, we see that *any* change that meets *any* interim goal that gives the current organism a competitive advantage will tend to propagate more rapily in the gene pool than changes which don’t grant an advantage.
Evolution makes tweaks, it tinkers around, it makes errors, explores dead ends, duplicates work, reuses existing parts for different functions, and keeps repeating these types of changes…. over and over and over.
There might be 500 different incremental changes that an organism might have gone through between when its ancestor had no flagellum, and the current one did… and none of those changes were DESIGNED to produce the end result of a flagellum.
Instead, each change was probably one that either gave some advantage of some kind (but not necessarily targeted at locomotion), or one that was largely neutral (functionally neutral changes will tend to not be selected AGAINST, so unless a particular change is actively harmful, then neutral changes can and do propagate in the relative absence of other recent large-advantage changes).
Behe wants you to assume that if there were 500 steps, that every single step must have been targeted specifically at creating a flagellum, and that if it doesn’t, it couldn’t have evolved… and he’ll only accept “proof” of falsifiability if all 500 of the steps are shown to him along with proof that all 500 gave an incremental advantage specifically to the task of locomotion.
It doesn’t matter to a bacteria what criteria Behe sets… if there is any type of competitive reproductive advantage, it will tend to be selected for (this includes suvival and resource gathering). If there is a neutral change, it will tend to diffuse slowly though the population. If there is a dramatically negative change, it will tend to die out.
Behe is fixated on one specific design goal in each example he provides… the evolutionary process doesn’t work from the perspective of goals and target designs, so there’s little wonder that evolution couldn’t “do it” the way that Behe imagines… but that’s simply because Behe’s imagination for other solutions is too weak.
Evolution might have created a particular structure through an incredibly illogical, circuitous and meandering path, where the apparent “goals” that were being met along the way had little (if anything) to do with the eventual use of the final structure.
If you want to see a wonderfully cogent explanation on how “irreducible complexity” can indeed be evolved, check out the TalkDesign.org page called Irreducible Complexity Demystified.
It speaks specifically to the question of the evolution of the blood clotting system as well as the bacterial flagellum… both of which Behe contends CANNOT BE ARRIVED AT via any evolutionary path…
What he fails to tell you is that evolution can’t do so only if evolution is constrained to doing it the WAY that Behe wants evolution to do it.
And please be courteous enough to read and understand the linked FAQ before complaining about anyone else not reading what they are opposing…kthx.
Posted by: Barry Kearns at November 30, 2005 06:11 PM
Except it is not a mistake. So you have those ten thousand pennies lying around. Now, try to reproduce it. Not analogous? Of course it is. You come on the scene after the universe has been around for billions of years and find a bunch of amino acids strung together in a particular order and say “My God! What are the odds!” Do the same with the pennies.
Of course there are differences. After all, the amino acids do have a function that they have to fulfill, while the pennies don’t. Very well. Instead of pennies, let’s do ones and zeros, such as you find used by computers (that is, ons and offs). What we’ll do is generate random bits of code (which are our version of organic molecules), and assign them to perform a task (similar to having to respond to an environment). Now, we’ll keep generating those little bits of code and periodically alter the tasks. The pieces of codes that can meet these tasks are allowed to survive and mix with other surviving peices of code to produce new code.
Now, this experiment has actually been done. It’s resulted in code that can add, subtract, multiply, and round. Naturally, if you used a million monkies on a type writer and provided them only with ones and zeros on the keys, it would be highly unlikely that they would ever put down the values in the precise order for that to happen. But, the monkey theorem has a major flaw: the monkies always start from scratch. The theory of evolution doesn’t work that way. There is a mechanism for selection and transmission in evolution which the monkey theory lacks.
Posted by: JSchuler at November 30, 2005 08:40 PM
Barry, I’ve seen the arguments against Behe’s irreducible complexity, and I have yet to be impressed that these are scientific arguments, as opposed to speculative arguments. It’s relatively straightforward to show that any particular modification to a system breaks that system, but at least it’s empirical science. Responding to Behe by waving the magic wand of mutation and natural selection is far from empirical. Sure, this theory works if we can “climb mount improbable” (to use Dawkins’ analogy) via a route which involves a very large number of minor changes, each of which exhibits a sufficient advantage to become dominant, but is this actually possible? Does such a route of continuous micro-improvement actually exist? Is it an article of faith on the part of evolutionists that it does, or is there solid evidence for it?
It strikes me that evolutionists often underestimate the enormity of the problem here. This isn’t something that can be lightly dismissed with an ad hoc explanation or an “it might be possible, so we won’t worry about it”. The entire doctrine of common ancestry stands or falls on the question of whether we can get from base non-living chemicals to the higher animals via a nearly-continuous process of micro-improvement. Any single sufficiently large gap, be it at the biochemical level (a la Behe), or the macro level (traditional arguments as to the impossibility of evolving any all-or-nothing vital system, like sexual reproduction), is enough to kill the common ancestry doctrine stone dead.
On the basis of what evidence are evolutionists so convinced that “mount improbable” offers a gentle, easily-climbed slope all the way to the summit? To me it seems that the argument goes like this: “we know there must be such a path, because we know that evolution is true, and here we are.” This is a great argument for the existence of the path if one has an a priori belief in Darwinian common ancestry, but it’s just begging the question so far as an evolutionary sceptic is concerned. The sceptic requires evidence for the path itself before accepting the common ancestry story.
Posted by: TFBW at November 30, 2005 08:57 PM
JSchuler,
You say, “this experiment has actually been done. It’s resulted in code that can add, subtract, multiply, and round.” Cite references please. My expertise is computer science, and I’d be happy to critique this experiment, given more information. I’m confident enough in my theoretical grounds that I don’t expect it to be much of a challenge.
You also say, “the monkey theorem has a major flaw: the monkies always start from scratch.” It’s true that the monkeys start from scratch each time, but this is not a flaw. Compare this with Dawkins’ example in “Climbing Mount Improbable” of producing the phrase “methinks it is like a weasel” (also from Hamlet). In his simulation, individual letters are locked into place as they happen to be typed correctly. This meets your criterion of a system that does not start from scratch on each iteration. Using this approach, you can produce the entire works of Shakespeare in a relatively short time-frame.
If evolution were anything like this, we’d reproduce macro-evolution experimentally in the lab, and there would be no argument as to whether the process was possible. As it stands, we can’t produce that kind of evolution, ostensibly because the process takes too long. Why does it take so long? Because it’s so improbable. But under Dawkins’ model it’s not improbable; under my model it is. But under my model we’re dealing with an exponential problem space: the difference between something that can be solved trivially and something that can’t be solved with all the time and matter in the universe is very small. So, under my model, if it takes too long to reproduce experimentally, it’s likely that it takes too long to happen naturally, given the time and space available in the universe.
To put it another way, if Dawkins’ mathematical model is the more accurate, we need to explain why we can’t reproduce macro-evolution experimentally, especially in those organisms with very fast generation cycles like bacteria. On the other hand, if my model is correct, we need to demonstrate that every significant step of evolution happens in that very narrow band of change-sizes that render the process unlikely to be reproduced experimentally, but likely to happen naturally in a much larger time-frame.
Posted by: TFBW at November 30, 2005 09:54 PM
TO: Barry Kearns
RE: Evolution At Work
“Evolution might have created a particular structure through an incredibly illogical, circuitous and meandering path, where the apparent “goals” that were being met along the way had little (if anything) to do with the eventual use of the final structure.” — Barry Kearns
The question remains, How long would it take Evolution to get us where we are today.
And, as I stated earlier, and TBFW has been kind enough to join us here to address it from his perspective, the numbers don’t work very well for Evolution working only by chance or mis-chance.
Certainly our understanding is imperfect. The questions keep popping up, here and there, as to where are we mistaken. But the key indicator—the math—remains.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
[Life is a bowl of s--- and calculus is the spoon.]
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at December 1, 2005 08:02 AM
TO: JSchuler
RE: Monkey Business
“Naturally, if you used a million monkies on a type writer and provided them only with ones and zeros on the keys, it would be highly unlikely that they would ever put down the values in the precise order for that to happen.” — JSchuler
You can go ahead and get out of machine language. Use a regular typewriter.
And it still won’t get you a Shakespearean sonnet in the time we’ve had.
“But, the monkey theorem has a major flaw: the monkies always start from scratch.” — JSchuler
That’s exactly where Evolution had to start from too, ne c’est pas?
“The theory of evolution doesn’t work that way. There is a mechanism for selection and transmission in evolution which the monkey theory lacks.” — JSchuler
Could it possibly be that Natural Selection was part of the original ‘Plan’?
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at December 1, 2005 08:08 AM
TFBW wrote (quotes in italics):
Barry, I’ve seen the arguments against Behe’s irreducible complexity, and I have yet to be impressed that these are scientific arguments, as opposed to speculative arguments.
Out of curiosity, how would you determine the difference between a “scientific” argument and a “speculative” argument?
Keep in mind that the thrust of Behe’s argument is that it is not possible to evolve irreducibly complex structures (structures that require all components to continue functioning). To counter a claim of impossibility, one must simply show that it is possible, and offering a speculative answer to such a question seems the only realistic response, as we don’t have the technology to go back in time and document each and every biochemical interaction or mutation that had ever occurred in the history of the world.
Behe has offered examples of several biological structures and functions, and said “these couldn’t have evolved”. Others have shown that, even if we accept that these are “irreducibly complex” in their current forms, there is still a way for these to have evolved… we simply need to accept that the functions that were selected for might have been different than the final “purpose” for which the organism uses that system.
Behe claims that for any complex biochemical function, that the selection process ALL ALONG THE WAY must be targeted only at that particular end goal… that only the “final function” is allowed to be selected for via evolutionary pressure.
This is, however, an irrational requirement, as the evolutionary process doesn’t start with a target design in mind and then only ever make changes that incrementally improve the current implementation to successively better versions of that particular structure. Instead, any change that improves (or at least doesn’t substantially degrade) any function at all can be selected at any time…. evolution doesn’t have to follow Behe’s top-down design paradigm, and in fact it clearly doesn’t.
Evolution doesn’t know in advance what it’s going to make, it doesn’t plan, and it doesn’t design. Through genetic shuffling, mutation, gene duplication and transcription inaccuracies, it instead makes modifications from time to time which cause a variability in reproductive fitness (be it survival, resource gathering, attractiveness, what have you).
So the task of working backwards from an end state and expecting that scientists are going to be able to show you exactly each and every step of a meandering set of shufflings that went from point A to point Z is a bit unrealistic (to say the least)… yet failing to produce such an after-the-fact account says nothing at all about whether it might have actually happened.
It’s relatively straightforward to show that any particular modification to a system breaks that system, but at least it’s empirical science.
Hardly. This the the trap that Behe sets, because he is incredibly fuzzy and imprecise when it comes to defining what a “system” is, what a “function” is, or even what the correct delineation for “parts” are.
He works backwards from the “purpose” that he sees in a structure, then breaks the structure down in engineering style to a set of “parts” based only on his own arbitrary criteria, and then declares that if one of the parts is missing, the “system” doesn’t work… and therefore, that the precursor system could never have been selected for via evolutionary pressure.
Yet there have been plenty of examples shown where removing a part still leaves a system that is functional for a different purpose… yet Behe wants to ignore that. Evolution doesn’t care what Behe thinks the “purpose” of a system is supposed to be at any given time… instead, it simply selects preferentially for changes that provide any competitive advantage as a side-effect of variable survivability and breeding success.
Behe breaks a flagellum down into only three arbitrarily defined “parts”, declares that all three parts are necessary for the “function” he defines (locomotion), and then declares that the parts couldn’t have evolved because they would have done a poor job of locomotion until all three were assembled into their eventual form.
But he neglects to point out that versions of those same individual parts could have been selected for different advantages than locomotion, and then retasked and refined for the entirely different purpose of locomotion. Behe wants you to fixate on the “purpose” that he sees, and ignore that incremental evolutionary changes don’t have to have the same purpose or grant the same type of advantage that he sees in a given end result.
Behe’s entire response to this sort of “indirect evolution” as he describes it is that it is unlikely or improbable. He doesn’t show how or why, makes no meaningful calculations to establish this assertion… he simply declares it unlikely, and moves on, hoping that no one notices. Unfortunately for him, more than a few people donotice.
Responding to Behe by waving the magic wand of mutation and natural selection is far from empirical. Sure, this theory works if we can “climb mount improbable” (to use Dawkins’ analogy) via a route which involves a very large number of minor changes, each of which exhibits a sufficient advantage to become dominant, but is this actually possible?
This begs the question of whether you understand the potential for propagation of largely neutral changes like gene duplication. There is no requirement that every single change must produce enough of an advantage to ensure that it becomes “dominant”. Neutral changes will propagate through the population at a slower diffusion-like speed, and larger advantages will propagate faster.
The only “requirement” is that a change not cause enough harm that it supplies too much negative selection pressure, or that a neutral change doesn’t occur too temporally close to a different high-advantage change in the population (where positive selection pressure can crowd out the neutral change before it can diffuse enough to be in place before the high-advantage change).
Does such a route of continuous micro-improvement actually exist? Is it an article of faith on the part of evolutionists that it does, or is there solid evidence for it?
Again, you’re requiring to see every step of million-stone path, and a proof that stone #378,421 isn’t missing. Instead, what we see is a plethora of examples of what anti-evolutionists usually accept and categorize dismissively as “micro-evolution”, which shows that the mechanism of retasking, variation and mutation can cause significant changes. What we don’t see is any evidence that there is a barrier to the accumulated scope of these changes, short of the incredulity of critics. Why, then, should we assume that there is no possible path?
It strikes me that evolutionists often underestimate the enormity of the problem here. This isn’t something that can be lightly dismissed with an ad hoc explanation or an “it might be possible, so we won’t worry about it”.
I’d say that anti-evolutionists often grossly underestimate the parallel-processing capability of the Earth over the timespans that we are talking about. If you accept that micro-evolution provides a “ratcheting” mechanism to allow prior progress to generally not be lost, then it’s rather unremarkable that if you allow enough time for several BILLION small improvements, then what you’ll get out of the far side is going to be remarkably more complex and powerful than what you went in with… even if you can’t predict in advance exactly what that result will be, nor necessarily look back and retroactively provide the step-by-step accounting of the generational voyage for some organism.
The entire doctrine of common ancestry stands or falls on the question of whether we can get from base non-living chemicals to the higher animals via a nearly-continuous process of micro-improvement.
Err… in a word, no. It doesn’t. You’ve conflated the abiogenesis problem with the common ancestor problem, when the second doesn’t require the first.
Common ancestry and evolutionary theory could be entirely accurate even if the prototypical common ancestor didn’t originate on planet Earth (the panspermia theory).
Any single sufficiently large gap, be it at the biochemical level (a la Behe), or the macro level (traditional arguments as to the impossibility of evolving any all-or-nothing vital system, like sexual reproduction), is enough to kill the common ancestry doctrine stone dead.
Again, the truth of a proposition doesn’t depend on whether you understand all of the intermediate steps. It’s either possible, or it’s not. It either happened, or it didn’t. Neither of those truth propositions hinge on whether you understand how to walk the path to get there. You also neglect to take into account that systems which are “all-or-nothing vital” for an organism today might not have been “all-or-nothing vital” to a different organism under potentially different circumstances.
You can arrive at systems that are currently all-or-nothing by actually LOSING parts that, when in place, might have made those systems part of an optional improvement.
A fish that develops primitive lungs has additional options to exploit land-based niches, but the lungs are still optional. If it moves onto land, and descendants lose their gills, then the lungs are no longer optional for those descendants. But that didn’t mean that lungs were never optional.
On the basis of what evidence are evolutionists so convinced that “mount improbable” offers a gentle, easily-climbed slope all the way to the summit?
I don’t entirely accept the premise that the problem space has as few dimensions as the hill-climbing analogy would seem to imply, nor do I expect that every change must be a “gentle” or small step. Changes in gene expression can cause fairly radical re-deployments of existing structures, and changes that occur in unexpressed genes can accumulate and then all appear at once when expression is changed (there’s no positive pressure for selection of unexpressed changes, but there’s also no negative pressure, so they tend to propagate slowly as a currently-neutral change).
To me it seems that the argument goes like this: “we know there must be such a path, because we know that evolution is true, and here we are.”
Well, personally, I make no such argument. Instead, I see a vastly multi-dimensional problem space which can be grossly labeled s “competitive improvements”, and I see claims from skeptics that this space is topologically discontiguous… that there are forever-uncrossable gulfs. Yet I see no evidence which tells me why this should be so, nor do I see any rigorous proof as to why we can’t get from point A to point Q.
In general, as the dimensionality of a space increases, the difficulty of guaranteeing and proving a complete topological separation of two different points in the space rises dramatically… there are often simply too many different ways to “get there”.
Now, anti-evolutionists often try to twist this to their advantage by claiming that if you can’t show the exact trajectory through such a massive combinatorial space, then they won’t believe it, or that any one path is therefore so “improbable” that it is functionally equivalent to impossible.
Yet there’s nothing intuitive or reasonable about such a requirement… it would be like claiming that no one could cross the Pacific Ocean if they can’t prove that there was a contiguous set of water molecules that touched the boat’s hull at all times (and demand to know exact which molecules those were, too, and then demand to know the probability that those particular molecules would have been positioned there for the ship to exploit… and claim that the calculated probability is so high against that it is unbelievable).
Instead, a reasonable scientist looks at the characteristics and properties of water, looks at a wide variety of circumstances where water is naturally contiguous, and then operates from the assumption that other bodies of water will tend to operate in the same way.
They don’t assume that, beyond a certain size, you’ll never be able to have a path to the other side. Such an assumption would require evidence that there is a maximum size that contiguous sets of water can have, and that topological fragmentation is guaranteed beyond that size.
I see evolution in much the same light… everywhere I look, I see evidence for incremental changes that have accumulated over time (micro-evolution), and I see genetic evidence of divergence of some aspects (and commonality of others) that varies as I would expect if there is a branching tree structure of common ancestry.
So barring evidence that there is a maximum number of improvements that can be put together as genetic changes take place, I make no assumption that there cannot be a path between two points which appear widely-separated.
I’m open to the possibility that “you can’t get there from here”, but I see no reason to assume that unless someone can show me evidence of the barrier that stops it from happening.
Since there is no specified “goal state” that evolution had, there’s a staggeringly large number of potential paths that it could have taken over this much time (the time between when inheritable differences in performance first appeared on Earth, and now). And I see evidence for a massive number of different sets of optimizations in the living creatures that I see around me… which implies to me that there are many different results that arose from many different paths.
All of that serves as reasons for me to be less likely to believe “you can’t get there from here”, not more likely…
This is a great argument for the existence of the path if one has an a priori belief in Darwinian common ancestry, but it’s just begging the question so far as an evolutionary sceptic is concerned. The sceptic requires evidence for the path itself before accepting the common ancestry story.
Yet you’re starting from the end result of a given organism, and trying to look backwards as if this particular implementation was the GOAL all along… when instead, it’s a side-effect.
If you accumulate enough incremental changes, it’s unsurprising that the end result bears little resemblance to the starting point. You’re trying to say that since the distance is so great, you don’t believe that it’s even possible to get from one to the other. But where is the evidence for the specific insurmountable barrier between them?
Unless there is a barrier, greater distance implies more potential paths to get to a given point, not fewer. There are more paths from New York to Los Angeles (even if we require that every leg of the journey takes us closer to our specified destination… which evolution doesn’t require) than there are between my house and someone five blocks away (with the same criteria).
Now, if I claimed to have walked from Los Angeles to Honolulu, you’d be skeptical, because you can show the barrier that prevents me from walking to Honolulu (the island nature combined with my inability to breathe water).
There’s a barrier there. That makes it reasonable to assume that I couldn’t have done it, until I explain how I crossed that barrier.
If I claim to have walked from New York to Los Angeles, however, the distance alone isn’t a good reason to assume I couldn’t have done it, nor to claim that thereason that you’re skeptical is that I can’t give you an exact accounting of every step of my journey… and that until I do, you see no reason to assume that there actually is a path from New York to Los Angeles.
Posted by: Barry Kearns at December 1, 2005 02:48 PM
TFBW wrote:
If evolution were anything like this, we’d reproduce macro-evolution experimentally in the lab, and there would be no argument as to whether the process was possible. As it stands, we can’t produce that kind of evolution, ostensibly because the process takes too long. Why does it take so long? Because it’s so improbable. But under Dawkins’ model it’s not improbable; under my model it is. But under my model we’re dealing with an exponential problem space: the difference between something that can be solved trivially and something that can’t be solved with all the time and matter in the universe is very small. So, under my model, if it takes too long to reproduce experimentally, it’s likely that it takes too long to happen naturally, given the time and space available in the universe.
To understand the logical flaw in this type of argument, it might be useful to study some of the research that’s been done in the field of Genetic Programming. In GP, computer programs are evolved from (initially) random collections of operators, and the evolved results are often able to solve some significant problems (in some cases, coming up with solutions better than anything known prior to mankind).
One of the key insights of such research is the sensitivity of population size, not just the total number of generations multiplied by the population size.
In other words, there are problems that are easily solved by a population of 100,000 which evolve for 50 generations, that have almost no possibility of being found if you tried to evolve a population of 50 for 100,000 generations. It’s not a simple combinatorial process.
There is an implicit parallelism that is amplified by having larger populations… there is, for example, a tolerance for multiple partial solutions to arise and not be swamped by local improvements before they can be explored.
Given this, it would be unsurprising that a laboratory experiment (with many orders of magnitude smaller population to work with than the Earth) might be unable to put together enough of a set of changes in the limited duration of the experiment for it to satisfy you that it was “macro-evolution”, which is an incredibly poorly-defined concept to begin with.
Posted by: Barry Kearns at December 1, 2005 04:28 PM
Barry Kearns wrote (quotes in italics):
Out of curiosity, how would you determine the difference between a “scientific” argument and a “speculative” argument?
An argument is scientific, generally speaking, when the person presenting the argument determines that the argument can be resolved with reference to specific real-world conditions. These conditions must be at least theoretically observable. This is not a hard and fast distinction: there are cases that are hard to classify.
Of course, some arguments classify themselves quite readily. Where I complain that macro-evolution hasn’t been reproduced in the lab (and “macro-evolution” is no more ill-defined a term than “kingdom” or “phylum”), you defend the process as not experimentally reproducible. That pretty much precludes the possibility of it being scientific.
I wish you’d been a little more charitable in your reading of my comments. It would have saved me a number of nitpicky corrections, like the following.
There is no requirement that every single change must produce enough of an advantage to ensure that it becomes “dominant”. Neutral changes will propagate through the population at a slower diffusion-like speed, and larger advantages will propagate faster.
Fine, I agree that changes don’t have to become dominant. It just makes the processless probable if the useful genetic material isn’t dominant. Neutrality means that natural selection plays a lesser role and randomness has to take up the slack. I don’t consider this even slightly damaging to my case, and if you think otherwise, then I’m quite happy to show you why, mathematically speaking.
Err… in a word, no. It doesn’t. You’ve conflated the abiogenesis problem with the common ancestor problem, when the second doesn’t require the first.
Fine, adjust my comment as follows, alterations in bold. “The doctrines of abiogenesis and common ancestry stand or fall on the question of whether we can get from base non-living chemicals to the higher animals via a nearly-continuous process of micro-improvement.” Granted that the two form a continuum, and you don’t have to accept them both, but “modern science” insists on both. Panspermia is as disreputable as creationism, although if you want to defend it, I’ll take that into account.
Yet you’re starting from the end result of a given organism, and trying to look backwards as if this particular implementation was the GOAL all along… when instead, it’s a side-effect.
No, I’m just sceptical that there exists a path between the points. My argument does not require the concept of a “goal” at all, merely an “ancestor” and a “descendant”, or terms to that effect. In a model where all paths have equal probability (as per my Monkey thought-experiments), the most direct route is the most probable. Proving that path infeasible is sufficient to prove the journey infeasible. Of course, what you are doing is saying that the direct route is highly improbable, but there might be a round-about route which is more probable. Ten out of ten for imagination, but do you have any evidence to back up such an ad hoc move, or are you just moving the target to save your theory? In the case of Behe and the flagellum, for instance, can you demonstrate that there’s a more probable path than the direct route, or are you just willing to assume that the possibilities are so broad that there must be an easier path among them somewhere?
But enough of the nitpickety boring stuff.
Rather than attempt to go over your response with a fine-tooth comb and argue about the minutiae, I’d like to draw a bigger picture here. The debate between irreducible complexity and continuous microimprovement (or substitute some other term for your own position if you don’t like that one) is as follows. The Irreducibles imagine the multi-dimensional space of biological things to have practically uncrossable rifts, especially at structural boundaries like the introduction of DNA, sexual reproduction, a cardiovascular system, lungs, and so on. The Microimprovers imagine that no such boundaries exist which would prevent all life having a common ancestor.
In order to raise this argument above a test of personal credulity, what empirical evidence can we bring to bear on the subject? The existence of diverse forms of life is not discriminating evidence, since all parties accept the existence of said life, differing only on how related that life is. Behe’s examples of how to break a system have been dismissed as unimportant by the Microimprovers. The Irreducibles reject “evidence for incremental changes that have accumulated”, since their argument is not that changes can’t accumulate, but that there are reasonable limits as to how far such changes can accumulate, as evinced by experience from selective breeding, and so on. Microimprovers recognise the same limits, but imagine these boundaries are irrelevant in the face of sufficient time.
To put it another way, Microimprovers imagine that all life exists “on the same landmass”, so to speak, and viable paths exist between them all. Irreducibles imagine that various forms of life exist “on distinct planets”, so to speak, and that no viable natural path exists between them. These are the two competing models. For the Irreducibles, it is a flight of fantasy to say that a fish might acquire lungs in such a way that they are not a disadvantage during the developmental process: it would be like the probability of getting a rock from Earth to Mars by randomly kicking it. The Microimprovers have roughly the same model of randomly kicking a rock, but for them the process is confined to a single continent, and thus credible given certain qualifications such as sufficient time.
My question is this: what experimental evidence can we bring to bear on the topography of the biological realm? Is it more like a single landmass, or distinct planets? Behe is asking the right sort of questions, or at least showing that there is a question to be asked. If you aren’t happy with his experimental approach to the problem, you might try suggesting an alternative.
Posted by: TFBW at December 2, 2005 01:18 AM
TO: Berry Kearns
RE: Wowzers!
Wish I had the time to write that kind of tome.
RE: Science vs. Speculation
“Out of curiosity, how would you determine the difference between a “scientific” argument and a “speculative” argument?” — Berry Kearns
I had no idea there was a difference. Or is science supposed to be all so much ‘navel gazing’?
And all this time, I thought it was supposed to be about learning thinks we didn’t know.
Regards.
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at December 2, 2005 12:47 PM
P.S. If you didn’t catch the inference, I’m suggesting that you’re not really interested in seeking out new knowledge. You seem to be only interested in defending the ‘old school’, i.e., evolutionary theory.
Where I come from, we call that being ‘stuck in a rut’.
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at December 2, 2005 12:49 PM
P.P.S. Hmmmm…..
….looks like TFBW has detected that in your tome, himself.
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at December 2, 2005 12:50 PM
TO: Barry Kearns
RE: Apologies
I apologize for misspelling your given name, above.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at December 2, 2005 03:31 PM
(in an effort to keep the total size from growing explosively, I’ll try to address only certain points. I do so not to avoid a particular point, but in the interests of space alone. Please don’t assume that I have no useful answer for anything that I didn’t address)
TFBW wrote:
Of course, some arguments classify themselves quite readily. Where I complain that macro-evolution hasn’t been reproduced in the lab (and “macro-evolution” is no more ill-defined a term than “kingdom” or “phylum”), you defend the process as not experimentally reproducible. That pretty much precludes the possibility of it being scientific.
By that logic, nothing regarding stellar lifecycles (for example) could ever be scientific either, because you can’t reproduce that in the lab either.
There’s nothing unscientific about acknowledging that there are certain conditions that cannot be effectively reproduced in the laboratory environment. If a test is demanded that is functionally impossible to perform due to such constraints, that doesn’t make dismissal of such a demand “speculative” either. It’s simply acknowledging that there may be impracticalities in the test as designed.
As to being ill-defined, can you provide an example of kingdom or phylum criteria in use today which don’t have objective criteria for determining membership? If “macro-evolution” is as well-defined, can you give me the precise criteria that would constitute evidence that macro-evolution had occurred in the lab?
“The doctrines of abiogenesis and common ancestry stand or fall on the question of whether we can get from base non-living chemicals to the higher animals via a nearly-continuous process of micro-improvement.” Granted that the two form a continuum, and you don’t have to accept them both, but “modern science” insists on both.
However, “modern science” doesn’t insist that both problems must be solved using precisely the same mechanism, yet I have seen numerous cases where anti-evolutionists try to use combinatorial and probability estimates for the abiogenesis question as if they were evidence against the evolutionary process of natural selection, when the problems are not the same, nor do I know of any scientist that claims that prebiotic materials “evolved” using the same mechanisms of relative fitness and competitive selection pressure.
Since these people make such fallacious arguments via the mechanism of conflating dissimilar problems (and acting as if they are the same), and your statement also conflated the exact same two dissimilar problems, please forgive me if that evidence led me to erroneously conclude that you were in the former category.
In a model where all paths have equal probability (as per my Monkey thought-experiments), the most direct route is the most probable. Proving that path infeasible is sufficient to prove the journey infeasible. Of course, what you are doing is saying that the direct route is highly improbable, but there might be a round-about route which is more probable.
I think you’ll need to define your terms a little more closely if I’m going to be able to respond fully to this. In this case, I’m not sure what you consider “direct paths” to be, nor do I see any obvious reason to assume that all paths should have an equal probability of occurring.
If we’re using Behe’s concept of “direct evolution” where he requires that all components and subsystems of any given example must all appear simultaneously in at least a largely-functional form (since he believes there is otherwise no “selectable function”), then I think there are many things that need to go into any potential probability calculation… and such a calculation is far from straightforward. The most obvious confounding factor in trying to make a straight probability calculation is that there are a variety of different types of operators that can be applied in order to move from one genetic code to another… and these operators do not have equal probability of occurring, nor are the probabilities of propagation and subsequent additional change straightforward either.
Descendant organisms can end up with different genetic codes than either of their parents through the extremely common occurence of reproduction and the resulting genetic crossovers that occur, but crossover is not the only potential operator. The probability of getting a new code via reproduction is not the same as the probability of a somatic point mutation in an existing organism, nor via something like a transcription error, nor is it the same as the probability of a change in gene expression, nor is it the same as the probability of a gene duplicating. Transmission of each of these changes to offspring uses the mechanism of reproduction, but these forms of changes don’t rely solely on the genetic crossover operation to cause them to occur in the first place.
In order to chain together a series of changes, you also need to know the all of therelative competitive advantages between any given organism and what it was competing against, and the exact circumstances that the ancestor organism was encountering to have any hope of coming close to determining whether it survives and reproduces, and the same for all offspring, just to have a shot at calculating the probability of penetration of that change prior to the next change occurring.
In fact, given all of that, I’d consider it nothing short of a miracle that there were any two paths through that space had equal probability of occurring, let alone thatevery path had equal probability.
I therefore don’t accept the premise I see you offering, namely, that you can compare probabilities of a “direct” path with that of a “roundabout” path and haveanything whatsoever meaningful to say about the relative probabilities that they actually had occurred. The circumstances involved would seem vastly too chaotic to meaningfully apply comparative probabilistic calculations of this type.
Even if we somehow overcame all such hurdles, what is your criteria for determining that a path is “infeasible”… and if the highest-probability path is infeasible, why does that guarantee that all other lower-probability paths are also infeasible?
In order to raise this argument above a test of personal credulity, what empirical evidence can we bring to bear on the subject? The existence of diverse forms of life is not discriminating evidence, since all parties accept the existence of said life, differing only on how related that life is. Behe’s examples of how to break a system have been dismissed as unimportant by the Microimprovers.
I think it would be more accurate to say that Behe’s examples of how to “break a system” don’t indicate (to Microimprovers) what he thinks they indicate… namely, that he’s already been shown numerous explanations as to how an “irreducibly complex” system can be put together using a different approach than the one he demands (evolution only by aggregation, never deletion, and evolution only selecting for a final function, never different intermediate functions).
Or put another way, Behe’s arguments are generally rejected because he imagines that there are constraints in place which don’t actually exist. More than a few people have pointed out that it’s a likely case of Behe simply “failing to do his homework” before constructing his argument, and then studiously ignoring the contradictory evidence that is presented, when he originally claimed it couldn’t have existed to begin with.
The Irreducibles reject “evidence for incremental changes that have accumulated”, since their argument is not that changes can’t accumulate, but that there are reasonable limits as to how far such changes can accumulate, as evinced by experience from selective breeding, and so on.
This is where the variety of genetic operators that I mentioned above is involved… selective breeding experiments, for example, generally only apply a single genetic operator to the experiment, that of genetic crossover due to reproduction. There is, however, a problem with that when you’re trying to create significant new features. Genetic crossover can only, in general, substitute substrings of already existing genetic patterns in combination between the parents.
Since it’s not really feasible to force changes like gene duplication, changes in gene expression, specific transcription errors or point mutations into the mix (simply choosing breeding pairs does nothing to cause this, for example), it’s not terribly remarkable that selective breeding experiments would tend not to show major and gross morphological changes, for example. But crossover via breeding isn’t the only genetic operator that evolution exploits.
Microimprovers recognise the same limits, but imagine these boundaries are irrelevant in the face of sufficient time.
Microimprovers tend to recognize that there are more “tools in the toolbox” than just one, and are therefore generally unimpressed when someone tries to demonstrate the “limits” that are in place on the entire system based on limited-scope experiments where you only utilize one tool…
My question is this: what experimental evidence can we bring to bear on the topography of the biological realm? Is it more like a single landmass, or distinct planets?
Well, since we can reliably show (via cloning, for example) that the expression of an organism is a direct function of its genetic code, this reduces to a question of the topography of genomes. If we can show a set of operators that change one genetic code into another, it’s then a question of showing whether any set of transformations using the operators available are sufficient to transform one code into another.
To show that there is a total multidimensional discontinuity between any two such codes, you would need to show that it is impossible to apply any combination of operations to the first genetic code, and end up at the second one.
I contend that it is not possible to guarantee no such mapping, and in fact, given the range of operators available and the limited “alphabet” of DNA, I don’t think it would be difficult to show that there is at least one “path” between any two genetic codes. Point mutations and gene duplication should be more than sufficient to demonstrate at least one path, however unlikely (especially if starting from a given simpler example, and working forwards to each of two different results, as common ancestry would imply).
Which is not to say that the given demonstration would be the actual trajectory that had been used, nor that there would be any reasonable probability that the demonstration in question would happen… but it would, at least, demonstrate the continuity of the problem space.
None of this speaks to viability or competitive advantage, of course, but it at least provides an underpinning for the base assumption of continuity, but when combined with changes in gene expression and crossover operations, it’s not hard to show at least theoretical insulation against small intermediate negative changes being unable to propagate. If a gene duplicates, for instance, then one of the copies can take significant intermediate “functional damage” without impeding the organism’s ability to function using the other copy… and if several intermediate non-functional changes in the extra gene all add up to something that does give a benefit, then there is a new competitive advantage to cause more rapid penetration of the new implementation.
If the set of existing DNA strings on this planet are part of “the same landmass”, we would expect to see significant coding similarities between a wide variety of organisms, including many with rather striking morphological differences. We would further expect, if common ancestry was correct, and speciation via divergence was also correct, that more “recent” branchings of the phylogenic tree would tend to share a larger proportion of their genetic history than branches that occurred earlier (two organisms being more “closely related” to a same common ancestor).
In general, we would expect to be able to roughly organize whatever we see as far as descendants and ancestors into a branching tree structure based on genetic similarity, as opposed to having a large number of organisms with genetic codes that bear no resemblance to anything else.
And indeed, we see the former. This is, of course, not proof that common ancestry and divergence are what actually happened, but they are data which strongly support the hypothesis, and are predictions of the hypothesis. This would also predict that we would not expect to see organisms popping up today which had wildly divergent genetic coding from existing organisms… and locating examples of such organisms would serve as significant challenges to the “common ancestry” explanation for the emergence of that organism.
Do we see such organisms being found, with strong evidence of little (if any) common genetic code between other organisms?
Behe is asking the right sort of questions, or at least showing that there is a question to be asked. If you aren’t happy with his experimental approach to the problem, you might try suggesting an alternative.
Behe has an experimental approach to IC and ID? Really? I’ve looked in vain for even a single falsifiable experiment that Behe has proposed, let alone a collection of them that (taken together) could be considered an experimental “approach”.
But please, feel free to provide the list of experiments that Behe has proposed which constitute his “approach”. I’d love to see them. One of the primary complaintsagainst Behe is that he fails to do precisely this, so evidence of his proposed experiments would go a long way towards addressing this.
Oh, and these experiments that Behe proposes that make up his approach… they are scientific and not speculative, right?
Posted by: Barry Kearns at December 2, 2005 03:36 PM
Chuck Pelto wrote:
If you didn’t catch the inference, I’m suggesting that you’re not really interested in seeking out new knowledge. You seem to be only interested in defending the ‘old school’, i.e., evolutionary theory.
In general, we look for new models and theories when they can tell us something that we can’t explain already… in other words, new theories take over in place of old ones when they provide utility of some form… when they explain things that the previous model couldn’t explain, and that simultaneously make new predictions that we can test.
I’ve definitely been interested in new knowledge, which is why I’ve done work in the field of Genetic Programming for the last ten years or so. Work in that field has illuminated concepts which can, in turn, be used to explain other aspects of biological evolution.
But I see no need to overturn the existing evolutionary theory, since it has proven its utility by serving as a template for building processes allowing me to evolve computer programs out of the ‘digital goo’ in real time.
To overturn evolution, I’d need to see a replacement that accounts for all of the previous observations, explains other data that evolution couldn’t account for, and gives me a system which I can use to make more powerful predictions and engineer more powerful solutions than the existing paradigm.
I see nothing like that in IC or ID. It makes no useful predictions for me, nor does it provide me with any new utility at all.
To the contrary, it asks me to abandon as truth all of the previous evidence I have seen, in favor of a “because G*d said so” non-explanation. That is the heart of anti-science.
What benefit could possibly arise from abandoning science wholesale in favor of non-science, and why in the world would I want to consider that “seeking out new knowledge”?
“G*d did it all” is not new knowledge, it is very, very old “knowledge”, available long before the scientific revolution… so again, tell me, which of those two approaches more aptly constitute being “stuck in a rut”?
How much more ‘old school’ can you possibly get than to employ the same philosophy as used by primitives, explaining every natural process as caused by the anger or pleasure of their personal g*ds?
Posted by: Barry Kearns at December 2, 2005 03:59 PM
TO: Barry Kearns
RE: Old School Science
“How much more ‘old school’ can you possibly get than to employ the same philosophy as used by primitives, explaining every natural process as caused by the anger or pleasure of their personal g*ds?” — Barry Kearns
Okay. Based on THAT statement I undestand you to accept the creation, as described in Genesis, as actual science.
Is this correct?
Please answer either “Yes” or “No”. No other answer will be accepted.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at December 2, 2005 09:02 PM
No.
How is it that you manage, Chuck, to consistently read exactly the OPPOSITE of the direct implications of what I write?
I can’t help but think at this point that it’s deliberate.
I do believe that speculation and science can (and often do) go hand in hand… I wasn’t the one trying to contrast them as if they were exclusive… that was TFBW.
Likewise, your reference to ‘old school’ defensiveness seemed incredibly ironic to me, since the “intelligent design” explanation of “God did it” is similar in philosophy to ancient cultures who believed things like thunder were the anger of the gods. Hence, “intelligent design” seems to me like the exact opposite of seeking new knowledge in a scientific way… instead, it seems aligned with stepping backwards thousands of years.
Which is why I asked how much more ‘old school’ could YOU get, not how much more ‘old school’ could I get.
Or put in terms you might relate better to, refer to Matthew 7:5 and apply it to the circumstance of your calling someone else out as being too ‘old school’ or ‘stuck in a rut’, when you appear to be afflicted by those conditions far more greatly yourself.
Posted by: Barry Kearns at December 3, 2005 12:27 PM
Barry,
By that logic, nothing regarding stellar lifecycles (for example) could ever be scientific either, because you can’t reproduce that in the lab either.
Stellar life-cycles are indeed limited as a scientific investigation for this very reason. Sometimes people assume that “science is science”: I’ve seen exasperated evolutionists complaining that creationists should accept evolution if they accept electricity, or gravity, or genetics, or pretty much anything remotely technological. A popular theme (or should I say “meme”?) on Slashdot is “these creationists should go without modern medicine,” as though modern science were a single atomic item one can accept or reject as a whole only.
The fact is that not all areas of scientific investigation have as much direct evidence, reproducibility, and mathematical precision as gravity or electricity. Stellar life-cycles and planetary formation are examples. About the best you can do with stars is point out ones you think are young and ones you think are old, with reasons grounded in better-verified theories of physics, and go from there. It can be worse: planetary formation theories have no such data at all!
As to being ill-defined, can you provide an example of kingdom or phylum criteria in use today which don’t have objective criteria for determining membership? If “macro-evolution” is as well-defined, can you give me the precise criteria that would constitute evidence that macro-evolution had occurred in the lab?
I expected you to see where I was going with that train of thought, but it seems you haven’t. If ancestor A and descendant D are in different phyla, then macro-evolution has occurred. There are other conditions under which macro-evolution can be said to have occurred, less drastic than this, but it is a basic tenet of modern Darwinism that the various phyla stem from a common ancestor. That’s why I say, “macro-evolution is no more ill-defined than kingdom or phylum.”
Next up you go into a lengthy explanation of why my calculations in probability are irrelevant, or at least hopelessly inaccurate. There is much talk of evolutionary mechanisms, and how those mechanisms make probability calculations too complex to compute. Ultimately, what you seem to be saying is that there’s no practical way to demonstrate evolution false using probability. I think this should cause you concern, since you obviously think that “falsifiability” is an important property for a scientific theory to have.
Even if we somehow overcame all such hurdles, what is your criteria for determining that a path is “infeasible”… and if the highest-probability path is infeasible, why does that guarantee that all other lower-probability paths are also infeasible?
I’d have thought that was obvious: if a probability P is so low that it can not reasonably be expected to happen given the time and resources available in the universe, then anything with a lower probability suffers the same fate. See, for example, my article More Monkey Business, with particular reference to the “A Universe of Monkeys” example.
Or put another way, Behe’s arguments are generally rejected because he imagines that there are constraints in place which don’t actually exist.
I think it would be more accurate to say that he imagines that there are constraints in place where others imagine there are not. What evidence is there to determine whose imagination is more in tune with reality?
To show that there is a total multidimensional discontinuity between any two such codes, you would need to show that it is impossible to apply any combination of operations to the first genetic code, and end up at the second one. I contend that it is not possible to guarantee no such mapping…
I agree that it is not possible to guarantee no such mapping, but I note that this eliminates a potential point of falsification.
I don’t think it would be difficult to show that there is at least one “path” between any two genetic codes.
That would be an interesting and relevant experimental result. If it were possible to cross a significant boundary by credibly small changes to a genome, while maintaining the viability of the organism, that would be compelling evidence for the possibility of evolution. Is there any such experimental evidence? I feel sure I would have heard about it by now if there were.
If the set of existing DNA strings on this planet are part of “the same landmass”, we would expect to see significant coding similarities between a wide variety of organisms, including many with rather striking morphological differences.
Indeed, we would expect a branching tree structure of genetic similarity which reflects the ancestry of the organism. We might also expect to see significant coding similarities between organisms in the case that they were all designed by the same designer. That would be re-using design patterns. The similarities would not necessarily form a branching tree structure, however. ReMine uses this idea as a point of evidential differentiation in his book, “The Biotic Message”.
Lastly you criticise Behe for not offering falsifiable theories in relation to ID. I think I can concede that point, more or less, although you may want to consider ReMine’s Biotic Message Theory, since he directly aimed for falsifiability in that theory.
To summarise, I’m still looking for evidence that might support evolution over its alternatives — whatever they are. Probability seems to be off-limits as a point of attack on evolution, which is a shame, because it does have a random or probabilistic element. If the probabilistic elements are inscrutable, as you claim, then there’s no possibility of either scientific support or counter-evidence there. Then there’s the matter of genetic similarity. This isn’t a point of differentiation with regards to Intelligent Design, for example, because we can also expect design re-use in that case. Lastly, if certain kinds of macro-evolution could be reproduced experimentally (even with intelligent input), that would lend evolution credibility, but no such experiments have been forthcoming at this time.
Posted by: TFBW at December 3, 2005 01:21 PM
TFBW wrote:
I’ve seen exasperated evolutionists complaining that creationists should accept evolution if they accept electricity, or gravity, or genetics, or pretty much anything remotely technological. A popular theme (or should I say “meme”?) on Slashdot is “these creationists should go without modern medicine,” as though modern science were a single atomic item one can accept or reject as a whole only.
I certainly agree that there are those who go to far in an acceptance of whatever the currently prevailing paradigm is, and in conflating multiple different areas of science as if they all had equal levels of evidentiary support. They do the scientific process a disservice when they act as if a set of paradigms is irrevocably “proven”… that isn’t science, that’s more along the lines of religious dogma.
I’m not one of those folks. I allow for the distinct possibility of every current scientific model being replaced by something else… I have no sacred cows in that respect. Sadly, there are many in the scientific community who will not even brook discussion of the possibility that their paradigm might be wrong. I don’t consider them true scientists, in my own personal estimation.
But surely we shouldn’t judge all members of a group by the behavior of only the most extreme members, correct? Or should all religious groups be condemned for the actions and speech of the most extreme religious zealots? I’d certainly hope not…
Ultimately, what you seem to be saying is that there’s no practical way to demonstrate evolution false using probability. I think this should cause you concern, since you obviously think that “falsifiability” is an important property for a scientific theory to have.
While I agree that falsifiability is a vital attribute of a scientific hypothesis, I don’t subscribe to the notion that “more” is inherently “better” in that regard. I don’t think a hypothesis with three means of falsification is somehow “less scientific” than one with four methods.
For that reason, I don’t really see a problem with not using probability estimates as a means of falsification… especially when the calculations involved would likely be hopelessly intractible if we are trying to have anything like an accurate and meaningful result.
There are, however, other means of falsification for the theory of common descent than probability estimates… I pointed out earlier that finding an organism that shared little (if any) common genetic code with any ancestors would represent a monumental challenge to the prevailing theory.
It wouldn’t even have to be a huge percentage of difference before you’d see serious questioning of whether the found organism was part of the common descent tree… consider one or several of the ubiquitous proteins, like cytochrome C.
There are apparently a huge number of different ways to code for this vital protein, yet we see pretty tight constraints on the variations that are present in life today. In fact, comparisons of the slight variations in cytochrome C can be used as a good benchmark for how “closely related” two organisms are. Humans and chimps have identical codings, several other primates are off by only one amino acid out of 105. Mice differ by about nine non-redundant changes, whales differ from humans by about 10, and bullfrogs by about 15 or so.
Yet the search space is huge for valid codings for this protein. There’s no real constraint on a Designer to have to re-use highly similar codings, since there are trillions of other codings that are also valid. There’s something like 1E33 different ways of coding for the 78 identical codons that mice and humans share in cytochrome C, and odds of something like 7E-34 that they would have at least 78 identical codons out of 105 when compared to humans. (See the NCBI GenBank for the human and mouse codons for somatic cytochrome c, and articles here andhere.
if a probability P is so low that it can not reasonably be expected to happen given the time and resources available in the universe, then anything with a lower probability suffers the same fate. See, for example, my article More Monkey Business, with particular reference to the “A Universe of Monkeys” example.
I’ve read both “monkey” articles, and the proposed thought experiment differs substantially from evolution (as noted before by others) in that there is no mechanism for retention of partial progress. This is a standard “tornado in a junkyard” calculation, and no scientist I know of believes that evolution operates through that kind of “all at once” random search.
Instead, biological evolution allows for incremental progress to be carried forward via heredity of genes, but vastly more important, allows for consolidation of multiple different incremental improvements via the genetic crossover operation. This is often vastly underestimated in power, and is a large part of the reason (IMO) that evolution of large-population groups is able to
overcome what appear to be significant probabilistic barriers.
Dawkins had a toy experiment known as “Weasel” where he tries to “evolve” another Shakespearean phrase. I’m critical of that demonstration, if only because many of his operating parameters are weighted grossly in favor of making rapid progress… for instance, his degree of genetic penetration is 1, and the entire population is always replaced by the most fit individual. Those changes allow him to get rapid results with a minimal “population”, but it’s still a bad demonstration of how I’ve seen evolutionary processes work in my own experiments in Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming.
It might be a rather interesting experiment to set up a genetic algorithm with a large population base, and fairly conservative parameters instead of jury-rigging it to give fast results, and then show that it can, indeed, evolve a solution in a reasonable timeframe. It would also be useful to show that there’s no requirement that the most fit individual always succeeds in breeding, either. Genealogical tagging of the population could even show how reproduction via crossover brings together partial solutions to form vastly more rapid improvements than mutation alone could hope to.
I doubt it would make a difference to the anti-evolutionists, though, and those that consider the evidence for evolution to be strong wouldn’t see much benefit either. I may put one together anyway just for a lark.
I think it would be more accurate to say that he imagines that there are constraints in place where others imagine there are not. What evidence is there to determine whose imagination is more in tune with reality?
It’s not a question of imagination… loss of genes and loss of features is an observedproperty both in bacteria and in at least one beetle. Behe’s irreducible complexity argument doesn’t permit deletion, it only permits aggregation. If he allowed that that ancestor organism had additional features and then lost one to get to the current state, his entire argument collapses. That’s a clear case where an irreducibly complex organism or feature was produced by evolution… which he claimed couldn’t happen. It just wasn’t evolution by aggregation in that case.
If it were possible to cross a significant boundary by credibly small changes to a genome, while maintaining the viability of the organism, that would be compelling evidence for the possibility of evolution. Is there any such experimental evidence? I feel sure I would have heard about it by now if there were.
We’re only just now on the edge of the technology to be able to reliably do such an experiment… but I’m curious as to who you think would invest the time, money and effort to attempt to conduct something like that. Most mainstream science would see little need, and the creationist/ID/IC movement would seem to be loathe to fund something that could definitively destroy their own agenda… so who would fund and drive such an ambitious project, and actually be focused on producing the stated goal (as opposed to being incentivized to fail)?
Indeed, we would expect a branching tree structure of genetic similarity which reflects the ancestry of the organism. We might also expect to see significant coding similarities between organisms in the case that they were all designed by the same designer. That would be re-using design patterns.
You see, this is the reason that science rejects the “God Hypothesis”… if there are no constraints on the results that can be produced, how is it possible to ever show that the proposed explanation didn’t happen?
If every result that looks natural is explained as “God just chose to do it that way”, there’s no way to differentiate against the God Hypothesis… it can never fail. That’s why it’s rejected as unscientific.
This is fundamentally different from evolution and common descent, however. You definitely can posit findings that would contradict evolution and/or common descent. For a good overview that includes a wide variety of common descent predictions and the falsifiability of those predictions, see ’29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent’ at Talk.Origins.
Lastly, if certain kinds of macro-evolution could be reproduced experimentally (even with intelligent input), that would lend evolution credibility, but no such experiments have been forthcoming at this time.
As genetic science advances, it may well be possible to provide something like that, when we get to the point where we can manipulate an entire genome via computer model and determine the effects without having to actually express the DNA in living form and breed it. Such an experiment would likely be many orders of magnitude less expensive and time-consuming to perform, and you might then see precisely the answer you seek.
However, I predict that if that would come to pass, that it would have no meaningful effect on most of the IC/ID movement, as they would be predisposed to find somereason to dismiss it, no matter how tenuous or grasping. But that’s just my opinion, of course.
Posted by: Barry Kearns at December 5, 2005 04:44 PM
TO: Barry Kearns
RE:
“How is it that you manage, Chuck, to consistently read exactly the OPPOSITE of the direct implications of what I write?
I can’t help but think at this point that it’s deliberate.” — Barry Kearns
Sometimes, just to sound out the field properly.
RE: Speculation and Science
“I do believe that speculation and science can (and often do) go hand in hand… I wasn’t the one trying to contrast them as if they were exclusive… that was TFBW.” — Barry Kearns
Good on you.
However, you also said this….
“An argument is scientific, generally speaking, when the person presenting the argument determines that the argument can be resolved with reference to specific real-world conditions. These conditions must be at least theoretically observable. This is not a hard and fast distinction: there are cases that are hard to classify.” — Barry Kearns
And here you seem to be limiting the field of discussion. Or do you think God or the ‘inveterate Tinkerer’ is ‘real-world’?
If you do, then there is room for discussion. If you do not, then you are arbitrarily limiting the discussion to YOUR parameters.
Regards,
Chuck(le)
Posted by: Chuck Pelto at December 5, 2005 04:55 PM
Chuck,
Please go review the earlier posts. You’ve misattributed the quote that begins “An argument is scientific” to me, when it is TFBW that posted that original observation.
The post in question ends as follows:
Posted by: TFBW at December 2, 2005 01:18 AM
In it, TFBW specifically notes that his quotes of my earlier observations are in italics. He quotes one line of my writing, and then ends the italics.
His response to that sentence is not italicized, and is his observation.
This does, however, serve to explain a large source of your confusing my positions with his.
As his observation is not mine, I won’t invest time trying to defend it. If you have issue with the content of that observation, your issue is with TFBW, not with me.
Hope this helps.
(as an aside, personally, to the question “do you think God or the ‘inveterate Tinkerer’ is ‘real-world’”, I would respond as Laplace allegedly did to Napoleon… “I have no need for such a hypothesis.”)
Posted by: Barry Kearns at December 5, 2005 07:46 PM
Chuck,
You’ve misattributed a quotation. I was the one who gave the description of a scientific argument above. So far as I can tell, Barry uses some variety of “falsifiability” as his criterion for science.
And since you’re challenging my views, not Barry’s, I’ll answer.
It’s not a question of whether God is “real-world”, but whether there are specific observable conditions which allow us to distinguish between God existing or not. If there are no such conditions, then the question of God’s existence can’t be discussed scientifically: neither theism nor atheism can back up their beliefs in a way which lends one weight over the other. Contrast this with the difference between Newton and Aristotle: each had a mathematical model of physics with different observable implications, so experimentation could in principle (and does in practice) lend one weight over the other.
This view of science is not currently popular — some kind of “falsificationism with epicycles” (if I may put it like that) currently holds that title — but having studied the philosophy of science, it’s the one with which I’m most satisfied. You might care to read my article ”Don’t Shoot the Creationist” for some background on the matter.
Posted by: TFBW at December 5, 2005 08:04 PM
Barry,
I think we’re still making some progress here, so I won’t quit just yet. There seems to be an important difference between our respective philosophies of science, which is playing an increasingly significant role. It seems to me that your criterion of falsifiability can be applied to theories in isolation, as in “theory X is falsifiable” or not. I take a relative view of science: I subscribe to Paul Feyerabend’s view that “theories cannot be justified and their excellence cannot be shown without reference to other theories” [Source: "How to Defend Society Against Science"]. Thus, my view of science always compares theories in the light of evidence, such as “evidence E supports theory X over theory Y”. Refer to the “Don’t Shoot the Creationist” article I mentioned in my previous post for further relevant details, and also ”In Defence of Feyerabend”.
One important and immediate consequence of my view of science is that theories stand or fall together in terms of their possibility as science. If a person claims, for example, that “there can be no evidence for design”, this doesn’t grant a win by default to “no design” — rather it places the question of “design or no design” outside science.
On the matter of structural similarities, as with cytochrome C, you present this as evidence for common descent. Where similarities do not follow the pattern of imagined common descent, do you accept this as counter-evidence?
“I’ve read both “monkey” articles, and the proposed thought experiment differs substantially from evolution (as noted before by others) in that there is no mechanism for retention of partial progress.”
1. No mathematically specific mechanism has been put forward. Feel free to specify a mechanism if you want me to critique it. The main thing holding me back on that front is the lack of mathematical precision in current evolution theory. I’d need to construct a mathematical model for natural selection, then criticise it, and I’d be accused (with some justification) of attacking a straw-man if I did. Catch-22.
2. My mathematical results show the limits of pure randomness. They are thus relevant in that they show how much slack the deterministic component of the mechanism must take up. If we could agree on a metric of biological complexity, then the mathematics would quantify how much directionality the natural selection mechanism must offer.
3. You’d still dismiss my results as irrelevant even if I included natural selection. You’ve already conceded that evolution can’t be falsified with reference to probability, so what’s the point? Do you want to introduce a possible point of falsification here? If so, please specify. Would an appropriately devastating mathematical analysis falsify evolution, or just the given mathematical model of natural selection?
“[The genetic crossover operation] is often vastly underestimated in power, and is a large part of the reason (IMO) that evolution of large-population groups is able to overcome what appear to be significant probabilistic barriers.”
Do you have a mathematical demonstration of this argument, or is it gut feeling? Is the process of evolution amenable to mathematical analysis or not? I’m still getting mixed messages on that front.
“Behe’s irreducible complexity argument doesn’t permit deletion, it only permits aggregation. If he allowed that that ancestor organism had additional features and then lost one to get to the current state, his entire argument collapses.”
The argument goes something like this. Behe may have a point that a certain feature can’t arise by a process of pure aggregation, but if we posit the pre-existence of amore complex organism, we can reach that point by deletion! Behe’s argument is therefore irrelevant.
Can you see why I find this less than satisfying?
“We’re only just now on the edge of the technology to be able to reliably do such an experiment… but I’m curious as to who you think would invest the time, money and effort to attempt to conduct something like that. Most mainstream science would see little need, and the creationist/ID/IC movement would seem to be loathe to fund something that could definitively destroy their own agenda… so who would fund and drive such an ambitious project, and actually be focused on producing the stated goal (as opposed to being incentivized to fail)?”
Well, if non-evolutionists undertook such research and failed to produce macro-evolution, evolutionists would dismiss the results as the product of incompetence or ulterior motives. That’s not to say that this matters very much: research is research, and it’s productive so long as it casts light on something. Such research might offer a non-evolutionist a greater insight into the practical limits of variation, even if staunchly evolutionist journals refuse to publish it. A good non-evolutionist falsificationist would see this as a natural research path, since you are supposed to try to prove your theories wrong in that scheme.
But I’m shocked that you think evolutionists would have no incentive to conduct this research. What sort of scientist is so sure of his theory that he feels no need to conduct relevant novel experiments on the matter? Certainly not a professional one! I think there’s every possibility of a Nobel Prize for success in this area. The results would be infinitely publishable.
“If every result that looks natural is explained as “God just chose to do it that way”, there’s no way to differentiate against the God Hypothesis… it can never fail. That’s why it’s rejected as unscientific.”
This is where my opening remarks come into force (and my article “Don’t Shoot the Creationist” is most relevant). When the argument reaches this point, the only appropriate course of action is to say that science can’t help us choose between the alternatives. In practice, the argument need not reach this point, because creationist theories can afford to look distinctly non-natural. We then hit another snag in that some scientists insist that science be about natural mechanisms. If we accept that requirement, then all scientific theories of origins must be natural theories, regardless of whether or not the origin was natural. That strikes me as problematic.
“You definitely can posit findings that would contradict evolution and/or common descent.”
You can posit findings that contradict evolutionary theories or creationist theories, so long as the theories are sufficiently specific. The broader the theory, the less possibility of contrary findings. At the broadest level, there is the question of whether life is natural or artificial, and we’ve yet to agree on what could count as evidence in resolving that question.
For example, you say, “finding an organism that shared little (if any) common genetic code with any ancestors would represent a monumental challenge to the prevailing theory.” Yes and no. It would be anomalous, but not fatal. If a weird mosaic creature like the platypus doesn’t represent a challenge to evolution, then a genetic freak need not either. Such a freak might be called an evolutionary dead end — something that turned up a blind alley early on and got stuck there. Some might hypothesise that it’s extra-terrestrial in origin — evolved from a different ancestor — but given the unpopularity of Panspermia, I wouldn’t predict mainstream support for the idea. I seriously doubt that any evolutionist would see it as evidence for intelligent design though. There would be no thought of abandoning the idea that life is a natural product, as opposed to an artificial creation.
[Aside: This ridiculous message board considers the word "play" questionable content. ]
Posted by: TFBW at December 5, 2005 11:27 PM
I’ve read both essays, and they are good, Brett. We are probably fairly closely aligned when it comes to philosophies of science after all.
It seems to me that your criterion of falsifiability can be applied to theories in isolation, as in “theory X is falsifiable” or not.
While I’d agree with that, I’d say that the conclusion I draw from that is not as rigid as that of Popper… instead, I take that datum (of a failed falsification test) as evidence that the hypothesis in question as formulated is flawed (since the evidence contradicts its predictions), and that the existing iteration of the hypothesis should be rejected. But that doesn’t mean that the baby has to be thrown out with the bath water. I don’t believe that means that components of the hypothesis can’t ever be re-used in a newly formulated hypothesis. In my view of science, a falsified hypothesis doesn’t condemn every aspect of it to the graveyard forever. I’m sure that many vital and useful hypotheses can be constructed by revising the premises to take the new evidence into account, and produce a new hypothesis.
Like your philosophy, this isn’t really that popular in the mainstream world of science (as Kuhn describes during his periods of “normality”). And I agree with many of Feyerabend’s observations with respect to the too-oft dogmatic practice of science. In my view, these folks have stopped doing meaningful science, and have formed a pseudo-religion out of their current paradigm. I have problems with that.
One important and immediate consequence of my view of science is that theories stand or fall together in terms of their possibility as science. If a person claims, for example, that “there can be no evidence for design”, this doesn’t grant a win by default to “no design” — rather it places the question of “design or no design” outside science.
In my view, that most likely places the person posing the claim as acting outside the bounds of science, since it is functionally impractical in almost all cases to support such a universal negative. That claim may put it outside the realm of that person’spersonal interpretation of science, but I don’t think that takes it out of the realm of what I call “science proper”.
I think the claim itself is silly, since I can come up with a variety of things that I would consider evidence for design, and that they would still be scientific.
As an example, there’s a wonderful bit in the novel “Contact” which presents a scenario that I would treat as pretty iron-clad evidence that the universe itself was not just created, but that it was meticulously engineered. I won’t spoil the surprise for those who haven’t read it… I highly recommend the novel, if only to introduce precisely such a concept (evidence that true scientists would be compelled to accept as proof of design).
Given the vast information space in the genetic code, it would also be trivial for one or more small fields in intron spaces to act as unique “species serial numbers”, where each species has a unique number assigned and carried forward as it breeds. There could even be redundant fields in case of genetic accidents. Finding such fields and demonstrating rigorously that these fields are, in fact, unique, would also be incredibly strong positive evidence that these were designed and assigned codes. Even more staggering would be something like sequential assignments within a tight range of possible codes, or a rigidly enforced heirarchy of assigned serial numbers (something like IP addresses in IPv6) which reliably showed things like continent/region, major type, minor type, exact species in unexpressed areas of genetic code.
Even stronger evidence for design would be error-correcting mechanisms which cross-checked and ensured the integrity of these fields, despite their being unused for other biological processes.
There’s any number of things that I would consider evidence for design. What I don’t accept is a false dichotomy of “you can’t explain how it happened via evolution, therefore it must have been designed”. That’s a classic argument from ignorance.
When I see strong positive evidence for design, I’ll consider an intelligent design hypothesis to be in the arena of competing ideas that I consider meaningful, as opposed to simple fanciful speculation.
When I see design hypotheses that allow me to make novel predictions and engineer useful solutions based off those predictions, those hypotheses will be strong candidates for me to treat as my currently “most useful model” for that aspect.
On the matter of structural similarities, as with cytochrome C, you present this as evidence for common descent. Where similarities do not follow the pattern of imagined common descent, do you accept this as counter-evidence?
Absolutely! If there were an example (or better yet, multiple different examples) found that had, for instance, five or less shared codons in cytochrome C, and especially if there were multiple other genes showing a like degree of dis-similarity with the rest of the common descent tree, I’d consider that a resounding falsification of common descent (as currently formulated). Some other hypothesis would have to be offered to explain that organism, and if there were several different organisms like that, I’d think the entire doctrine would be in shambles… at least from the perspective of “science proper”, rather than the opinions of the most dogmatic adherents of the current paradigm.
After all, Candida yeast is about as far on the tree from humans as we can get, yet we still see over half of the amino acids in cytochrome C matching exactly with humans. If we wanted to use probability as a yardstick, a conservative estimate of the chances of getting that close of a match by random selection of all available viable codings for cytochrome C (without common descent or deliberate engineering that happens to to look like common descent) would be on the order of 1E-25… so seeing something more than a dozen orders of magnitude more divergent than our farthest points in the tree would be a total hammer blow, in my opinion.
1. No mathematically specific mechanism has been put forward. Feel free to specify a mechanism if you want me to critique it. The main thing holding me back on that front is the lack of mathematical precision in current evolution theory. I’d need to construct a mathematical model for natural selection, then criticise it, and I’d be accused (with some justification) of attacking a straw-man if I did. Catch-22.
Well, since the real world isn’t constrained in operation to following precise mathematical formulations of hypotheses (so far as I know), this might indicate that the tool you’re choosing might not be the most effective one to accomplish the goal you’re looking for.
If you’re looking for a foundation for modelling evolution, and then performing empirical tests to get a feel for the “range of power” offered by the process (and eventually a formal mathematical model), I’d strongly recommend reviewing the work of John Holland in the field of Genetic Algorithms and John Koza in the field of Genetic Programming.
Holland’s “schema theorem” gives interesting insights into how evolution might overcome the “massive problem space” issue via implicit parallelism.
While not necessarily mathematically formal, these disciplines do give an arena for detailed, reproducible analyses of how so-called “random” processes can make progress that is startlingly faster than a true blind-random search, so long as they have access to a variable landscape of fitness and a mechanism for preservation of partial progress via gene transmission.
I’ve been working (or more honestly, tinkering) in the field for over ten years now, and I’ve gained a much, much stronger understanding of the power of genetic transmission of partial solutions to conquer unimaginably large search spaces.
An in-depth understanding of these techniques might allow you to more strongly mathematically model the questions you’re trying to model, and come up with an answer that presents a strong confidence of reasonable accuracy. If you haven’t done anything in these fields, I’d really strongly recommend it. I find it immensely rewarding, even on a purely intellectual level. I must admit that, until I ran experiments of my own, I didn’t really have anything close to a firm grasp of the immense power of the process… to a great extent, I just “went along” with the prevailing assumptions with respect to the genetic search space. Now that I’ve seen for myself what the mechanism can do, it’s no longer a “point of faith” for me that biological evolutionary processes could have formed the solutions I see… for me now, it is a natural, intuitive and logical expectation of extending these concepts to the massive populations and timeframes that we are discussing.
If anything, my gut intuition sometimes goes the other way now… I wonder why it took so long to reach this point, but I’m sure that’s due to my underestimating how often major setbacks can befall the process, and how frequently organisms might have died due to accident or predation before passing new improvements on. Comes from being an optimist, I guess. =)
All in all, it seems perfectly reasonable to me now that we could be here based on what I’ve seen based on my own hands-on work with evolutionary technologies.
2. My mathematical results show the limits of pure randomness. They are thus relevant in that they show how much slack the deterministic component of the mechanism must take up. If we could agree on a metric of biological complexity, then the mathematics would quantify how much directionality the natural selection mechanism must offer.
Well, your calculations show how improbable something like a “tornado in a junkyard” assembly scenario might be… and that’s why no reputable scientist I know of proposes that as the mechanism for how evolution works. I would, however, caution you as to treating things as only purely random, or purely deterministic, or a simple sum of those two results. That approach misses out on several valuable dynamics. There are a variety of chaotic processes out there that don’t divide neatly into those sorts of buckets, and adhering to that kind of dichotomy can lead to rather distorted intuitions.
Take brownian motors as an example. They are an example where, to realistically model them, you often need to resort to a Monte Carlo simulation. Is the motion or output of a brownian motor deterministic, or random?
I would say that it is chaotic, and that it has non-random elements for incremental preservation and capture of something… in this case, predominantly unidirectional motion. But modelling the exact results that a particular brownian motor might have undergone, and trying to construct a probability calculation for it in conjunction with thousands or millions of others, might be computationally intractable… and even if you get a result, that result might not tell you anything meaningful at all.
3. You’d still dismiss my results as irrelevant even if I included natural selection. You’ve already conceded that evolution can’t be falsified with reference to probability, so what’s the point? Do you want to introduce a possible point of falsification here? If so, please specify. Would an appropriately devastating mathematical analysis falsify evolution, or just the given mathematical model of natural selection?
Err, I believe what I said was that the calculation was likely to be intractible if we want any sort of meaningful accuracy. I don’t recall ever saying that evolution can’tbe falsified by probability… simply that I believe this isn’t an instance where probability is an effectively usable tool, due in large part to limitations like a like of time travel and the ability to precisely-enough observe the actual conditions that occurred.
As an aside, that’s one of the reasons that I like modelling evolutionary processes using GA and GP… it gives me the ability to precisely reconstruct exactly what went on, and can demonstrate that, despite a “random” input, we can show high probabilities of success for the process solving a given problem… even though we never actually specify what the problem is. We can even demonstrate how similar results can be achieved with wildly different random inputs over multiple runs.
Take my examples above as evidence for design, and the reasons that “tornado in a junkyard” assembly techniques aren’t generally offered by propents as the actual mechanism. Why is that? Because they are too improbable to be realistically considered.
That’s an example where probability can be effectively used as a falsification criterion (because it can be calculated with reasonable accuracy).
Note carefully, please, that there is a fine distinction here. I’m not alleging that the probability of a particular evolutionary transition is, in fact, high. My allegation is that, due to the highly chaotic conditions and the technological limits we have, that it is often far too impractical to accurately calculate the “true probability” of the event.
There is a big difference between something that we can calculate a high probability against, and something that we lack the ability to calculate an accurate probability for (or against).
I find it reasonable to assume that the first didn’t happen (so long as we’ve accounted properly for everything involved in the probability calculations)… I don’t find it reasonable to assume that a probability we can’t accurately calculate must, necessarily, be too high against to consider possible.
In other words, I don’t think that “unknown” (and practically unknowable) is the same as “extremely high against”.
I’ll try to take on the rest later.
Posted by: Barry Kearns at December 6, 2005 02:24 PM
“Given the vast information space in the genetic code, it would also be trivial for one or more small fields in intron spaces to act as unique ‘species serial numbers’…”
True, and maybe there is such a thing that we haven’t discovered yet, but it’s not a necessary implication of design. You’re talking about non-functional tags in the genetic code, and anything non-functional is pretty much not necessary by definition.
“What I don’t accept is a false dichotomy of ‘you can’t explain how it happened via evolution, therefore it must have been designed’.”
If you can’t explain how it happened via evolution, you have no scientific grounds to prefer the evolution explanation over the design explanation. Indeed, you have no scientific grounds to claim that evolution is possible. That’s not to say that evolution is impossible or didn’t happen — only that you have no scientific grounds for claiming that it did.
“When I see strong positive evidence for design, I’ll consider an intelligent design hypothesis to be in the arena of competing ideas that I consider meaningful, as opposed to simple fanciful speculation.”
I’m not convinced that we’ve seen any evidence so far that supports the evolution hypothesis significantly better than a design hypothesis. Under the circumstances, to consider the former science and the latter “simple fanciful speculation” seems a bit severe.
“When I see design hypotheses that allow me to make novel predictions and engineer useful solutions based off those predictions, those hypotheses will be strong candidates for me to treat as my currently “most useful model” for that aspect.”
What advantages does evolution theory offer you in this regard? Are those advantages actually specific to the theory of evolution, or merely compatible with it?
On the matter of cytochrome C similarity, for example, are you sure the similarities support the evolutionary hypothesis? It may be that the differences presentdifficulties for evolution. A brief search turns up relevant technical papers: ”Protein mutational context dependence: a challenge to neo-Darwinism theory: part 1″, and”Protein families: chance or design?”
On the matter of a mathematical model for evolution, it seems you can’t help. The whole GA/GP thing is interesting, I’m sure, but this is a model of programming based around genetics and natural selection, not a model of evolution. I suspect that your surprise as to “why it took so long to reach this point” is well-founded: all the mathematical models I’ve seen which don’t result in “tornado in a junkyard” odds result in a system such that macro-evolution should be reproducible experimentally.
The other problem with GA/GP is that the entities on which the process operates don’t resemble living organisms. It generally fails to capture the difficulties of adjusting a complex metabolising and self-reproducing organism. This may go some way towards explaining why the process is too successful.
Posted by: TFBW at December 6, 2005 09:48 PM
