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RE: ID is not science - 7/11/2008 2:41:57 PM
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essentialsaltes
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GHitch
Not one of you Darwinist has addressed my point on the phenomena of error detection and correction mechanisms in DNA - another thing that, in a coded system, intrinsically demands system pre-knowledge and therefore intelligence.
Could you be more specific?
I just looked over the Wikipedia article on DNA repair and was underwhelmed:
This repair has to do with molecular damage to the DNA, such as thymine dimers, which kink the DNA strand, but do not alter the sequence. Repairing this is more like straightening out a twisted bit of videotape, before your VCR can play it. This is not correcting an error in the sequence:
"In contrast to DNA damage, a mutation is a change in the base sequence of the DNA. A mutation cannot be recognized by enzymes once the base change is present in both DNA strands, and thus a mutation cannot be repaired."
(It looks like other processes like gene conversion could conceivably repair a mutation, but as far as I can tell, it would be just as likely to double the error as to fix it.)
Once again, I'm not a biologist, but if you won't explain what you're talking about in better detail, I'm left to my own devices.
_____________________________
"My object in all arguments is not to make any preconceived opinion of mine seem right, but merely to discover and establish the truth, whatever the truth may be."
-- HP Lovecraft, letter to Robert E. Howard 7/27-28/34
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RE: ID is not science - 7/11/2008 3:59:53 PM
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Method
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GHitch
How kind of you. Fortunately you are not anyones judge.
Indeed I am not interested in dialogue with anyone who denies first-truths, the facts and is only interested in upholding their philosophical naturalist world view at all costs, no matter how much denial of fact it requires.
When you include your conclusions as part of your "first-truths" you are not interested in dialogue. You are simply pushing dogma.
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- btw, that must by why RNA translation (mapping of one code to another for the purpose of protein production) exists huh?
The word Translation ought to give you a clue - it is impossible to have a translation from one symbolic system to another without pre-knowledge of both and their meaning - therefore intelligence.
It is analogous to language translation, not homologous. That is the mistake you keep making.
quote:
Not one of you Darwinist has addressed my point on the phenomena of error detection and correction mechanisms in DNA - another thing that, in a coded system, intrinsically demands system pre-knowledge and therefore intelligence.
Not to mention several other points.
What's to tackle? Enzymes cause chemical changes to the DNA molecule. In accordance with the theory of evolution, these changes and repairs are random with respect to fitness. Not all of the mismatches and DNA damage are repaired.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/11/2008 4:34:19 PM
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gluadys
Posts: 1000
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quote:
ORIGINAL: GHitch
quote:
ORIGINAL: gluadys
I am in a hurry...
Aren't we all.
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As a physicist, Gitt apparently does not understand that Shannon's definition of information entropy simply cannot apply in biology. You've got to be kidding right? Did you actually take any notice of his credentials?
He has no credentials in biology. He is trying to apply a knowledge of information derived from another field to biological information systems and not getting it right because he omits the very relevant biological fact of imperfect replication.
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Shannon's theories are useful (and used in bio info - look it up!) but incomplete for full bio-information analysis.
I am glad you agree.
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Did you noticed what you wrote? Sender/Receiver? Intended? All intelligence-related terms.
They are Gitt's terms. Now if we think of the "sender" as a germ-line cell and the "receiver" as the gamete produced by meiosis (meiosis being the "transmission line" if you like) and a DNA sequence as the message, where is the intelligence? Does the germ-line cell actually have a purpose it wishes the gamete to accomplish? And if the message is changed along the way, doesn't that thwart the sender's "purpose"? Yet this occasional thwarting of the senders' "purpose" is inevitable and essential in biology.
How then do Gitt's last two qualities of information apply to biology? Even if there is a sender's purpose which the recipient is to take action on, it is regularly blocked. The action the recipient takes is not the one supposedly purposed by the sender.
Furthermore, if there is conscious purpose in any of this, it clearly does not reside in either cell or in the mechanism of meiosis. One is driven back to a possible programmer who from time to time changes the program. Interestingly, more often than not, the programmer's changes are deliterious to the survival of the cell/organism. So we also have all this self-correction machinery for when the programmer commits a boo-boo.
Technically, in the world of information theory, I suppose this still passes for intelligence, but in real life it reminds one of that other oxymoron: military intelligence.
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And may I remind you that replacement copies of parts of the DNA code have been discovered in the so-called non-coding regions. How do you explain that with methodological naturalism (based on philosophical naturalism)? The code has back-ups that it can revert to when things go wrong over generations!
Can you explain what you mean by DNA code in this context? Isn't the whole DNA sequence a string of base nucleotides whether it actively codes for a protein or not? Just because a sequence is not in an open reading frame doesn't mean it does not duplicate sequences which are found in open reading frames. After all, there are billons of nucleotides and only 64 3-nucleotide sequences, so I expect a lot of duplication.
Are you sure you are talking about the DNA code? Sound to me that you are speaking more of a message written in the code.
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Nor can Darwinism explain the ATP synthase.
Nor the fact that cells contain the encoded address of their locations in the body. see HERE
Isn't it great that we have so much more to learn? Isn't the ATP synthase a chemical reaction? Why would one expect that to be explained by evolution? I expect the positional coding of cells is a hot item in Evo-Devo research.
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Or what the corporation known as Genetic-ID (ID as in IDentification, not ID as in Intelligent Design) that is able to distinguish a Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) from a “naturally occurring” organism?
At www.genetic-id.com they claim:
quote:
Genetic ID can reliably detect ALL commercialized genetically modified organisms.
Wow, I certainly hope they can. I know they splice markers into all GMOs for this purpose.
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I could go on and on just on all the recent developments in biology that demonstrate more and more complex structures and intelligence requiring aspects of DNA.
The question really is"where is the intelligence located"? I don't think it is located in cells. And I don't think a creator needs to locate it in the process of evolution. As for DNA, I expect one is looking at pre-biotic entities, so that is outside the scope of evolution anyway.
As a believer in creation, I have no ax to grind in terms of denying the role of intelligence. I just think the ID people have not made the case that intelligence design is detectable or that complex biological structures cannot be produced by evolution.
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But, what I've seen thus far in this thread from the Darwinist supporters is nothing but ignorance about information, code and their implications to information storage, use, transport, translation etc. in DNA. Denial of facts about these things does not change those facts.
That may be. It is certainly not my field. Too top-heavy with math for me. But it goes both ways. What I have seen from the information theory side is ignorance about biology and evolution.
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Bio extensions to information theory are the death of the ridiculously simplist neo-Darwinian view wherein all occurs by chance mutations (mutations are almost always bad or useless) and selction. It is the theory that is most tantamount to magic.
Again, that may be. But evolution does not stand or fall with neo-Darwinism. I expect we need a new reformulation of the theory of evolution that takes into account a lot of new knowledge not available in the 1940s when neo-Darwinism melded genetics and natural selection. Back then they were still thinking of genes in terms of the single bullet one gene-one trait mechanism. That has certainly gone out the window. The structure of DNA had not been worked out yet. No one even knew there was a genetic code. And the role of embryological development wasn't even touched on. Just to scratch the surface of differences over the last 60 or so years of research.
So there is a lot of progress in the field of evolutionary biology that is not covered by neo-Darwinism by a long shot.
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I reiterate Sir Frederick Hoyle's comments : [
And I re-iterate:
1. Hoyle was not a biologist. He regularly displays a misunderstanding of the processes of evolution.
2. Hoyle was obsessed with panspermia. He may not have believed in God, but he was prepared to believe in little green extra-terrestrials zipping around the galaxy.
quote:
I conclude with a quote from a letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams on April 11, 1823:
I have no problem with Jefferson's comments. I expect Darwin would also have agreed with them. Of course, we can't know what Jefferson might have said in 1863. I do not consider evolution to be inimical to design. I don't know that Jefferson would have either. I am puzzled by this attitude of ID.
To me, evolution IS design and a producer of design. And I believe the creator of evolution is intelligent.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/11/2008 6:24:00 PM
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ferdgoodfellow
Posts: 237
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quote:
ORIGINAL: DanJames
quote:
ORIGINAL: ferdgoodfellow
I haff dese kvestions.
1. Vos ist Science?
2. Vos ist ID?
3. Vos ist Darwinian evolution?
4. Unt, if ID isn't so scientifick, why ist Darwinian Evo. so gosh darn scientifick?
Are you serious?
you betcha!
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RE: ID is not science - 7/11/2008 6:57:49 PM
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ferdgoodfellow
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quote:
ORIGINAL: hellohellohi
I suppose I ought to have set up definitions in the OP to create a context, huh.
1. Science is testable inquiry.
2. Intelligent Design is the idea that certain attributes of the universe are suggestive of an intelligent creator behind them.
3. Darwinian evolution is speciation by means of natural selection (though it would also be appropriate to discuss sexual selection and genetic drift).
Natural selection is the syllogism:
a.) Some traits are heritable.
b.) Some traits confer relative reproductive advantage within a population.
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c.) These traits will increase proportionally in that population.
4. The TOE is scientific because it provides a jumping off point for asking testable questions, such as, "Is it reproductively advantageous to exhibit trait X, and will this trait be observed to increase in a population under a lab-constructed setting?" ID, I suppose, would ask questions like this, "What considerations went into the construction of apparatus Z, practical, teleological, aesthetic?" I was hoping someone would help me in this direction, because I can answer this question less well, though, you see; hence the OP. I do not know if I fairly represent ID. Nor do I know if these types of questions are conceivably testable.
Thanks triple H.
Let's work with your defintion of science.
The Great Infallible Font of Knowledge (Wikipedia) defines ID this way: "Intelligent design is the assertion that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection."
What allows us to infer an intelligent cause? According to Wikipedia, tis sumptin called "specified complexity." Wiki defines it as follows: "The intelligent design concept of "specified complexity" was developed in the 1990s by mathematician, philosopher, and theologian William Dembski. Dembski states that when something exhibits specified complexity (i.e., is both complex and "specified", simultaneously), one can infer that it was produced by an intelligent cause (i.e., that it was designed) rather than being the result of natural processes."
So it seems to me that the crux of the ID question is whether specified complexity (SC) is a reliable indicator of intelligent design. We can undermine the ID thesis by finding concrete instances where SC has in fact arisen by undirected natural processes.
So in that sense ID is a testable theory. There is a clear way to refute it.
cordially,
ferd
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RE: ID is not science - 7/12/2008 7:41:04 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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As to what testable questions ID generates, I spose there is one general and obvious one, namely that nature will be full of instances of specified complexity. After all, if you are going to posit limits to the ability of undirected natural processes to splain things, then you better be able to point to instances where such explanations fail or are highly improbable.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/12/2008 7:58:53 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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Seems to me that ID is at least as "scientfick" as Darwinian evolution. Probbly more so. There are clear ways to refute ID, but snot so with Darwinian Evo, for it will always be possible to conceive of (not demonstrate empirically) some natural path that led to the SC in question, however improbable. And that's enuff for Darwinians.
< Message edited by ferdgoodfellow -- 7/12/2008 8:33:38 AM >
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RE: ID is not science - 7/12/2008 9:24:44 AM
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gluadys
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ferdgoodfellow
Seems to me that ID is at least as "scientfick" as Darwinian evolution. Probbly more so. There are clear ways to refute ID, but snot so with Darwinian Evo, for it will always be possible to conceive of (not demonstrate empirically) some natural path that led to the SC in question, however improbable. And that's enuff for Darwinians.
There are clear ways to refute evolution. A clear violation of the nested hierarchy would falsify evolution. The actual existence of a chimera such as a unicorn or the appearance of a species of six-legged bears would falsify evolution. Distinct genetic codes in different phyla would falsify evolution.
Of course, these things don't exist and that is why evolution has not been falsified empirically. But it is not the case that evolution cannot be falsified in principle.
In terms of specified complexity, remember it is the ID claim not only that it did not evolve but that it could not evolve. It is always difficult to prove a negative, but it is a box ID has made for itself. An improbable evolutionary path is still a possible one and shows that it could. Whether it did, and whether it did by this path rather than another, is, of course, a separate question.
ID might actually be right that a certain feature did not evolve, even while it is wrong about the claim that it could not evolve. But "could not" is the claim made.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/12/2008 11:16:28 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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Hi Gluadys,
quote:
There are clear ways to refute evolution. A clear violation of the nested hierarchy would falsify evolution. The actual existence of a chimera such as a unicorn or the appearance of a species of six-legged bears would falsify evolution. Distinct genetic codes in different phyla would falsify evolution.
Is the nested hierarchy an essential element of Darwinian Evolution (DE), without which the entire theory collapses? Probbly not. So if someone actually observes unicorns in the wild, the theory is going to have to be adjusted to accomodate the empirical fact. I am sure someone could come up with some plausible theory how the transfer of traits is possible.
So I see such quirks undermining an aspect of the theory but not the central idea that all biological forms came about by unguided natural processes. That notion is held dogmatically DE proponents.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/12/2008 11:28:43 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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As I understand it, when something is found to be an instance of specified complexity, it is deemed highly improbable that it arose by unguided natural processes. In any other context, the highly improbable is ruled out. But not with DE apparently. For no matter the probabilities, DE guys and gals will still insist that some unguided natural process or other explains the phenomenon and that the mere conceiving of a evolutionary pathway is sufficient. ID proponents can't merely talk about probabilities, they have to rule out all conceivable evolutionary explanations. (clearly impossible) Given that this is how DE proponents operate, it is impossible to falsify their basic premise.
ID doesn't saythat evolution doesn't happen. It just denies that DE can explain everything. And when it thinks it has identified an instance of specified complexity, it doesn't say that it in principle could not have evolved, just that it is highly unlikely that it did, and, given the improbability, a evolutionary explanation should to be ruled out.
< Message edited by ferdgoodfellow -- 7/12/2008 11:37:24 AM >
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RE: ID is not science - 7/12/2008 12:51:57 PM
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gluadys
Posts: 1000
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ferdgoodfellow
Hi Gluadys,
quote:
There are clear ways to refute evolution. A clear violation of the nested hierarchy would falsify evolution. The actual existence of a chimera such as a unicorn or the appearance of a species of six-legged bears would falsify evolution. Distinct genetic codes in different phyla would falsify evolution.
Is the nested hierarchy an essential element of Darwinian Evolution (DE), without which the entire theory collapses?
Yes. Evolution relies on inheritable traits and inheritance necessarily produces a nested hierarchy. There can be no chimeras and no breaching of the boundaries of a "nest" in an evolutionary scenario.
quote:
Probbly not. So if someone actually observes unicorns in the wild, the theory is going to have to be adjusted to accomodate the empirical fact.
Exactly. Theories must always be adjusted to empirical facts. Any opposition of fact and theory is always settled in favour of the facts. So one would either have to find a way to bring the unicorn into the nested hierarchy or the theory is falsified--at least in respect to the unicorn.
To be brought into the nested hierarchy one would have to find intermediaries between other equines and unicorns (either fossil or genetic).
To give a more real-life example: for about a decade before it was proven to be a fake, students of human evolution had to keep setting Piltdown Man to one side. As more and more primitive hominid fossils were discovered, and relationships among them inferred, more and more it appeared that Piltdown Man was an unexplainable anomaly. It says something I suppose about the basic honesty of most scientists that no one thought "hoax" until a new dating technique was tried on the fossil in 1953. But as soon as it was known that the jaw was not that of the skull, but from a different fossil, examination quickly showed that it had indeed been rigged.
For most paleontologists, the information was a relief. Now instead of an anomalous fossil they could not fit into the nested hierarchy, they had a fake that could be removed from consideration. The theory of evolution was vindicated and the nested hierarchy proved sound.
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I am sure someone could come up with some plausible theory how the transfer of traits is possible.
They might, but it would not be acceptable without actual empirical evidence. Lacking evidence, the unicorn would remain, at best, an unexplainable anomaly like Piltdown Man before the hoax was discovered.
If genetic analysis demonstrated that, in spite of obvious homologies, it was not related to the equines, then we have more than just an unexplainable anomaly. We have a significant challenge to the nested hierarchy. We have a species without a history.
quote:
ORIGINAL: ferdgoodfellow
As I understand it, when something is found to be an instance of specified complexity, it is deemed highly improbable that it arose by unguided natural processes. In any other context, the highly improbable is ruled out.
No, the highly improbable is never ruled out. It is only considered highly improbable. It is highly improbable that earth-like planets exist elsewhere in the universe, but even given the immense improbability, it is mathematically probable that hundreds of such planets exist within our galaxy and millions in the known universe. That is a function of very low probabilities in the context of very high numbers.
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For no matter the probabilities, DE guys and gals will still insist that some unguided natural process or other explains the phenomenon and that the mere conceiving of a evolutionary pathway is sufficient.
In fact, the probabilities have never actually been properly measured.
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ID proponents can't merely talk about probabilities, they have to rule out all conceivable evolutionary explanations.
Exactly. That is the box they have put themselves in. They were the ones who set these terms.
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ID doesn't saythat evolution doesn't happen. It just denies that DE can explain everything.
True.
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And when it thinks it has identified an instance of specified complexity, it doesn't say that it in principle could not have evolved,
Yes, it does. You should check out the basic ID material again. This is exactly what Dembski, Meyer, Behe, et al are saying: that IC or SC features could not have evolved by Darwinian mechanisms. Not that it is highly improbable, but that it is impossible, in principle, for these features to be a product of Darwinian mechanisms. Only on that basis can they be used as an inference of intelligent design.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/12/2008 2:51:12 PM
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hellohellohi
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Ferd,
Without having read all the ensuing discussion above, let me restate my position in a different way:
Concepts like ID, and even irreducible complexity itself, seem to represent an institutionalization of mystery. It is my feeling that mystery exists in science only temporarily -- at least hypothetically -- and that acceptance of mystery would be the same to announce one's retirement from that realm of science. However, I must admit the implication of my position is to deny that QM is scientific, whenever it seems to accept notions of mystery. However, I am not sure if it does, though it appears to.
Basically, I am giving an opinion about how science ought to be defined: as inquiry. ID and IC seem to suggest a point at which inquiry can end. (However, it is trivial that one can always find some questions to ask. The point is that ID and IC suggest also points at which inquiry must halt.)
I think it is nice to consider holistic questions of nature, but I do not know if science is capable. Nevertheless, I am perfectly happy to grant that one might understand the task of holistic narrative about science, including introduction of such overarching rules or devices as emergence, irreducible complexity, and the possibility of intelligent design, as the worthy task of natural philosophy.
I do in fact feel that science ought to ask more and more specific questions. If it finds that complexity is common in nature, then it must try to explore the nature or cause of complexity. I am saying that complexity ought to serve as a signpost to mark where further inquiry is apparently needed, rather than, in its reification, a reason to crack open the champagne and congratulate ourselves on our achievements to date.
If, in fact, understanding IR is impossible, as it is philosophically defined, then that will just have to be a cruel irony for the scientist who is not interested in sitting back with his feet propped up while his publisher hawks his musings and who instead doggedly pursues inquiry.
Ultimately, all these discussions are not about scientific fact or theory, exactly, but rather how we do or ought to define science. I hope you will consider my suggestions.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/15/2008 7:49:20 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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Hey Gluadys and TripleH
I sed: And when it thinks it has identified an instance of specified complexity, it doesn't say that it in principle could not have evolved,
Glu replied:
quote:
Yes, it does. You should check out the basic ID material again. This is exactly what Dembski, Meyer, Behe, et al are saying: that IC or SC features could not have evolved by Darwinian mechanisms. Not that it is highly improbable, but that it is impossible, in principle, for these features to be a product of Darwinian mechanisms. Only on that basis can they be used as an inference of intelligent design.
Taking your advice, here is the ID thought process as laid out by Dembski in The Design Inference:
(p. 42)
1. SC and IC are reliable indicators or hallmarks of design.
2. Biological systems exhibit SC and employ irreducibly complex subsystems.
3. Naturalistic mechanism or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of SC or IC.
4. Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanation for the origin of SC and IC in biological systems.
I guess we will have to explore what he means by "undirected causes do not suffice to explain" and ID "constitutes the best explanation", but it doesn't seem that he is saying that naturalistic mechanisms are in principle ruled out. If anyone is ruling out something in principle and from the get-go, it is Darwinians, for they totally exclude design as an option. It's all chance or necessity (or some combination thereof), but never design.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/15/2008 8:19:47 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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Triple H sed:
quote:
Concepts like ID, and even irreducible complexity itself, seem to represent an institutionalization of mystery. It is my feeling that mystery exists in science only temporarily -- at least hypothetically -- and that acceptance of mystery would be the same to announce one's retirement from that realm of science. However, I must admit the implication of my position is to deny that QM is scientific, whenever it seems to accept notions of mystery. However, I am not sure if it does, though it appears to.
Basically, I am giving an opinion about how science ought to be defined: as inquiry. ID and IC seem to suggest a point at which inquiry can end. (However, it is trivial that one can always find some questions to ask. The point is that ID and IC suggest also points at which inquiry must halt.)
Snot true that ID "institutionalizes mystery" and ends inquiry. ID is actually more open-minded than Darwinisn because ID proposes that there is a third possible explanation for biological systems. Snot just chance or necessity; design is the third option. By insisting that design is (in principle!) impossible, Darwinism is guilty of doing what it accuses ID of doing, namely being dogmatic, ending inquiry, etc.
And if ID feels it has identified something as SC, the inquiry doesn't stop there, for the design inference doesn't mean the phenomenon is inherently unexplainable. The material mechanisms working in tandem with design can still be explored.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/15/2008 8:27:35 AM
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gluadys
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ferdgoodfellow
Hey Gluadys and TripleH
I sed: And when it thinks it has identified an instance of specified complexity, it doesn't say that it in principle could not have evolved,
Glu replied:
quote:
Yes, it does. You should check out the basic ID material again. This is exactly what Dembski, Meyer, Behe, et al are saying: that IC or SC features could not have evolved by Darwinian mechanisms. Not that it is highly improbable, but that it is impossible, in principle, for these features to be a product of Darwinian mechanisms. Only on that basis can they be used as an inference of intelligent design.
Taking your advice, here is the ID thought process as laid out by Dembski in The Design Inference:
(p. 42)
1. SC and IC are reliable indicators or hallmarks of design.
2. Biological systems exhibit SC and employ irreducibly complex subsystems.
3. Naturalistic mechanism or undirected causes do not suffice to explain the origin of SC or IC.
4. Therefore, intelligent design constitutes the best explanation for the origin of SC and IC in biological systems.
I guess we will have to explore what he means by "undirected causes do not suffice to explain" and ID "constitutes the best explanation", but it doesn't seem that he is saying that naturalistic mechanisms are in principle ruled out. If anyone is ruling out something in principle and from the get-go, it is Darwinians, for they totally exclude design as an option. It's all chance or necessity (or some combination thereof), but never design.
"undirected causes" are causes like random mutation and natural selection--the Darwinian mechanisms. ID does not dispute that these causes exist and explain many features of species, but they claim that they are insufficient to account for IC or SC.
It is not true that those who disagree with them totally exclude design as an option. It is an interesting hypothesis and possibly true. But Dembski himself agrees, via his "design filter" that we can only go to that option when we have excluded natural options.
Those who disagree with ID feel that ID has not made its case that evolutionary mechanisms cannot account for IC and SC in biological systems. In fact, it is trivially easy to show that irreducible complexity can evolve. So the ID case really rests on the alleged non-evolvability of specified complexity. And the key word is "alleged". No case, including the much ballyhooed example of the bacterial flagellum, has been clearly excluded from the possibility of evolution.
Of course, ID has given itself the difficult task of proving a negative. Even if we cannot show precisely how a feature evolved, that doesn't eliminate the possibility that it evolved. But ID has to show that even the possibility has to be excluded. That is very difficult to test and may not even be testable.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/15/2008 8:36:30 AM
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hellohellohi
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quote:
The material mechanisms working in tandem with design can still be explored.
Can we think of some testable questions along these lines? Like, "is the leg bone connected to the thigh bone?" I'm not sure what kind of questions you could mean. Or, perhaps, "If I was designing these creatures, I would try to come up with a solution to X problem." Or, "Why didn't the creator address problem XX?" Or, "Is there evidence that the creator engineers, as humans sometimes do, through trial and error?" Or, "Is this particular engineered component maximally efficient in terms of resources used?" Or, "Why does the creator act only within the constraints of entropy?" Or, "Is there also a prescriptive purpose to DNA, regarding human action -- instructions actionable by human agency -- in addition to descriptions, or prescriptions, if you will, of physical form?"
Perhaps you can think of some now. We'll see what we can come up with.
Otherwise, I repeat, it is trivial to point out that we can ALWAYS come up with questions. However, IRREDUCIBLE means "cannot be reduced," which I would translate as "cannot be queried on an increasingly specific level." Basically, I would prefer to strip the word "reducible" of any, uh, asthetic connotations, for lack of a better word.
THIS is why I say it is an institutioanlization of mystery. Perhaps you can further consider my allegation.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/15/2008 8:48:53 AM
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hellohellohi
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If design is a third possibility or "question" then it must also be testable. Is it testable? I understand the tests that an IDer would be interested in would be, do those features which we consider indicative of design exist in perhaps all lifeforms, &c. But why exactly are these forms considered indicative of design? By analogy to human-made things? By their apparent unlikihood? Show me the math. We must consider the math or the deductive logic behind these ideas on its own merit. There is a reason I am skeptical; it is because I have been offered lots of sophistry and little math for apparently mathematical or deductive claims. This is quite aside from the question of whether testable questions for ID can be developed.
Another question to consider: if the creator is not only intelligent but consciousness (not dead, for instance) might we investigate this consciousness using the same methods employed by the neurosciences for investigating subjectivity? (Do you know what they are? ;) Or, perhaps, we should pay homage to the computer sciences and employ the Turing test to further confirm whether the creator is intelligent. I am not so mean to say that the creator must converse in English, but might we ought to consider how to pose our scientific, ID-based questions directly to the engineer with the know-how?
These are the types of questions that ID seems capable of producing. I agree these questions are a lot of fun, but I hope we can come to a common ground concerning the definition of science, and enthusiastically find that ID does not fall within its scope.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/15/2008 9:16:49 AM
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hellohellohi
Posts: 538
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From: North Carolina!
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If you would like to make further assertions that the TOE is not science, I will consider them. I believe your criticism goes alng the lines, it continually asserts itself despite a lack of absolute evidence. However, i ask, what can a theory or proposition ever do except ASSERT itself? I do not say that othe rtheories might be developed or othe rnon-evolutionary questions could be asked by science; however, ID does not appear to be one of them. I do not think science is capable of asking many of the questions that ID qua ID is capable of generating. I would have to say that, for instance, one of the questions I listed, concerning efficiency, might also be asked by an evolutionist. It is a very local question and speaks nothing of a cause. In the same way, really, evolution does nto realyl say anything about distal or possible intentional causes behind life; rather it simply asserts if we have both heritable traits and variation leading to relative reproductive advantage, we see a change in the make-up of the gene pool of a population. Such small effects writ large could perhaps have large effects, but we would have to consider such a possibility in detail.
I know ID is upset that the ToE jumps from the local to the grand seeming without batting an eye. Further, perhaps you will point out, the ToE regularly indulges in ad hoc hypotheses whenever it seems to make a certain prediction but then appears to change its prediction whenever new data have been observed. I would spin this positively as the process of developing a narrative of life without foreknowledge following the device of chance and natural selection. We can readily contrast this with ID, which has a beginning to its narrative of life, but seemingly no plot. What happens "in the middle?" What happens now that scientists can investigate? Was life actually created by God who impregnated the earth with it? Perhaps. Can science ask this? I don't think so. Science is left with what can be directly observed and deductively inferred from direct observation (I have a question of whether intelligence can be inferred from extant data). What if God came down and told us in English that he created everything, etc. That is, what if EVERYONE contemporary with us was simultaneously confronted by near-undeniable testimony of the Deity himself that He is in charge? Would then science proceed to investigate the distal processes by which creation formed? I doubt it. Rather, science would morph straight into engineering, following either debate or inquiry of the deity, of the genetic code itself. If the code is engineered with intentionality, then why isn't God providing this little instruction book AND our faculties for decoding it so that we can ALTER it in whatever ways we can dream? If biology is engineering, then why don't we dispense with theories of origin straight away and proceed to the PRAGMATIC tasks of constructing novel forms -- or, heck , making IMPROVEMENTS on those existing. Are there flaws for instance? How can science answer this question? The only tools available to it are quantification and -- nothing else -- well, besides binary-queries (yes or no) if you want to set that aside as special. There is only one tool. Will science morph into "revelation?" WNY DON'T WE JUST THROW OUT THE WORD SCIENCE? Is it probably because it has so much political clout, and Christianity sometimes gets ridiculed? So much the better, apparently, for Christianity, so that it can be identified as heterogeneous with human-derived wisdom and virtues. Please, if we ought to change our mindset behind science from looking for the PROXIMATE INSENSIBLE causes of things to consider the ultimate, distal ones, then let's just consign the word to ARCHAEA. We don't need to insult the language of our ancestors by refusing to develop words that fit with the object of their intention.
Isn't God's commission to us to name all things? The, have we fulfilled this commission by calling ID science, or are we trying to cheat Him through a mean economy that wishes to call two things by the same? Isn't ID rather philosophical or theological? Then why don't we call it natural theology and respect the task of setting up a redundant system of symbols to represent the natural order of things.
Isn't science exactly that, calling things as they APPEAR. Natural selection, at the moment, APPEARS to be real or plausible. Do our senses deceive us? Will we one day say, remember when we believed in the ether, phlogiston, and genetic primacy? QUITE POSSIBLY. Is there immediate cause for it, beyond hopeful or creative speculation? Show me the papers on it then, and we will help each other consider in this forum whether or not the primary sources are themselves well-reasoned and so-on.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/16/2008 9:19:02 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
Posts: 237
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Hi Glu and 3H,
Glu is essentially saying that ID has set before itself an impossible task, and 3H is saying that ID is in essence a science stopper. Please bear with me, guys, as I work through this. It is now apparent to me that my understanding of ID is too superficial to allow me to properly answer your objections. (I will be pulling stuff and paraphasing from Dembski's The Design Revolution.) I also picked up Behe's latest book, the Edge of Evolution.
(p. 75)First, ID begins by raising the possibility that there might be natural systems that cannot be explained entirely in terms of natural causes and that exhibit features characteristic of intelligence. To yer credit, you guys are willing to entertain such a possibility. Many dogmatically reject it out of hand.
Next the design inference axes this kvestion: if an intelligence were involved in the occurrence of some event or in the formation of some object, and if we had no direct evidence of such an intelligence's activity, how could we know that an intelligence was involved at all? This question arises in archaeology, cryptography, SETI, data falsification cases, etc. In these contexts, the search is for specified complexity, and when it is found, the design inference is made.
So what is SC? (p. 81). SC has five components: 1) probablistic complexity (complexity = improbability), 2) conditionally independent patterns (specifications), 3)probabilistic resources, replicational (number of opportunities for an event to occur)or specificational (no. of opportunities to specify an event), 4)a specificational complexity ("Low specificational complexity is important in detecting design because it ensures that an event whose design is in question was not simply described after the fact and then dressed up as though it could have been described before the fact.") and 5)a universal probability bound (probabilities are not unlimited).
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RE: ID is not science - 7/16/2008 9:31:46 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
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So how zactly does SC function as a critieron for detecting design? (The Explanatory Filter)
1. Is the thing we are studying contingent? (rules out necessity as an explantion)
2. Is it complex? i.e. highly improbable.
3. Is it specified?
Say we want to explain why a a safe door is opened. Are we justified in concluding that someone knew and chose to dial the correct combination? First, the opening of the safe is not the result of some necessary natural laws. It depends on certain things happening which don't have to happen. Next, because the right combination is higly improbable, we can't explain the open safe reasonably as a result of someone just being lucky. Finally, the combination is the target or specification.
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RE: ID is not science - 7/16/2008 9:52:40 AM
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ferdgoodfellow
Posts: 237
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But is SC a reliable criterion for detecting design, and how in the heck can we apply it to natural biological phenomena?
ch 12. Dembski acknowledges that SC cannnot deal with false negatives. IOW, some real instances of intelligent causes will pass through the filter and go undetected. e.g. an intelligence mimicking undirect natural causes. But what about false positives? Dembski boldly claims that SC reliably avoids attributing design to things that are in fact caused by undirected natural causes. How can he say this?
quote:
The justification for this claim is a straightforward inductive generalization: in every instance where specified complexity is present and where the underlying causal story is known (i.e. where we are not just dealing with circumstantial evidence, but where, as it were, the video camera is running and any putative designer would be caught red-handed), it turns out design is present as well. That's a bold and fundamental claim, so I will restate it: Where direct, empirical corroboration is possible, design actually is present whenever specified complexity is present.
Although this justification of the complexity-specification criterion's reliability at detecting design may seem a bit too easy, it really isn't. If something genuinely exhibits specified complexity, then one can't explain it in terms of all material mechanisms...
So it seems Dembski is saying that we can be confident in applying criterion to natural phenomena (where we don't understand all the material mechanisms at play) because it works in other instances where we do have a handle on all the material mechanisms?
we'll see. ran out of time. Gotta go chase a buck.
cordially
ferd
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RE: ID is not science - 7/16/2008 10:10:05 AM
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hellohellohi
Posts: 538
Joined: 12/10/2007
From: North Carolina!
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All of the above illustrate that ID is interested in deductive reasoning that may indicate that some complexity is opaque to reductive questions. This is a positive assertion that apparently arises out of a purely negative claim. The negative -- and valid -- claim behind this would be that via the mechanisms of natural selection considered, structures of such complexity of the genetic code could not have formed. This is called refutation, and it does not suggest an alternative theory, only that one should be sought. Now, ID may be a theory, colloquially speaking, but it is not scientific since it does not ask any and all testable questions. Rather, it seems to ask untestable questions while also discouarging certain testable questions tied to a reductionist mindset.
Now, while I won't begin by complaining that theorists seek to measure complexity based on improbability, the probabilistic features of evolution by natural selection do not appear to have been fully developed or addressed. It has not been discussed to my knowledge how quickly the events involved in natural selection that are theorized to be random occur. No. 3) appears to address this, by discussing number of opportunities for an event to occur, but this actually entails the question of whether unlimited repetition of trials is possible. I say for all intents and purposes, one ought to grant a LARGE enough NUMBER (if it is permitted by the rate), so that the question of limitation becomes rather one of how quickly supposedly random, independent, sequential events occur.
In sum, I am suspicious so far of ID, as it is obviously deductive on the face of it, and not apparently thoroughly reasoned either. But, like you, I am learning about what these people say.
Let me further discuss the implications of ID being deductive in nature:
Science is the business of asking testable questions about the observable world. That is, it asks questions the answer to which seems observable through whatever means one can think of. In this it is similar to philosophy, or a subset of philosophy, which should be rightly understood (since Socrates) as the task of asking questions about all knowledge. It is my understanding that deduction can be called upon to connect conce | | |
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