Thank you Elizabeth for this opportunity-
Good day- Over the past many, many years, IDists have been telling people that intelligent design is not anti-evolution. Most people understand and accept that, while others just refuse to, no matter what.
With that said, in this post I will provide the evidence (again) that firmly demonstrates that ID is not anti-evolution. I will be presenting several authoritative definitions of “evolution” followed by what the ID leadership has to say about evolution. So without any further adieu, I give you-
Intelligent Design is NOT Anti-Evolution
”.
In order to have a discussion about whether or not Intelligent Design is anti-evolution or not we must first define “evolution”. Fortunately there are resources available that do just that.
Defining “evolution”:
Finally, during the evolutionary synthesis, a consensus emerged: “Evolution is the change in properties of populations of organisms over time”- Ernst Mayr page 8 of “What Evolution Is”
Biological (or organic) evolution is change in the properties of populations of organisms or groups of such populations, over the course of generations. The development, or ontogeny, of an individual organism is not considered evolution: individual organisms do not evolve. The changes in populations that are considered evolutionary are those that are ‘heritable’ via the genetic material from one generation to the next. Biological evolution may be slight or substantial; it embraces everything from slight changes in the proportions of different forms of a gene within a population, such as the alleles that determine the different human blood types, to the alterations that led from the earliest organisms to dinosaurs, bees, snapdragons, and humans. Douglas J. Futuyma (1998) Evolutionary Biology 3rd ed., Sinauer Associates Inc. Sunderland MA p.4
Biological evolution refers to the cumulative changes that occur in a population over time. PBS series “Evolution” endorsed by the NCSE
Biological evolution, simply put, is descent with modification. This definition encompasses small-scale evolution (changes in gene frequency in a population from one generation to the next) and large-scale evolution (the descent of different species from a common ancestor over many generations) UC Berkley
In fact, evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next. Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974
Evolution- in biology, the word means genetically based change in a line of descent over time.- Biology: Concepts and Applications Starr 5th edition 2003 page 10
Those are all accepted definitions of biological “evolution”. (Perhaps someone will present some definitions that differ from those. Most likely I will only comment on any differences if the differences are relevant.)
With biology, where-ever there is heritable genetic change there is evolution and where-ever you have offspring that are (genetically) different from the parent(s) you have descent with modification.
Next I will show what Intelligent Design says about biological evolution and people can see for themselves that Intelligent Design is not anti-evolution:
Intelligent Design is NOT Creationism (MAY 2000)
Scott refers to me as an intelligent design “creationist,” even though I clearly write in my book Darwin’s Black Box (which Scott cites) that I am not a creationist and have no reason to doubt common descent. In fact, my own views fit quite comfortably with the 40% of scientists that Scott acknowledges think “evolution occurred, but was guided by God.”- Dr Michael Behe
Dr Behe has repeatedly confirmed he is OK with common ancestry. And he has repeatedly made it clear that ID is an argument against materialistic evolution (see below), ie necessity and chance.
Then we have:
What is Intelligent Design and What is it Challenging?– a short video featuring Stephen C. Meyer on Intelligent Design. He also makes it clear that ID is not anti-evolution.
Next Dembski and Wells weigh in:
The theory of intelligent design (ID) neither requires nor excludes speciation- even speciation by Darwinian mechanisms. ID is sometimes confused with a static view of species, as though species were designed to be immutable. This is a conceptual possibility within ID, but it is not the only possibility. ID precludes neither significant variation within species nor the evolution of new species from earlier forms. Rather, it maintains that there are strict limits to the amount and quality of variations that material mechanisms such as natural selection and random genetic change can alone produce. At the same time, it holds that intelligence is fully capable of supplementing such mechanisms, interacting and influencing the material world, and thereby guiding it into certain physical states to the exclusion of others. To effect such guidance, intelligence must bring novel information to expression inside living forms. Exactly how this happens remains for now an open question, to be answered on the basis of scientific evidence. The point to note, however, is that intelligence can itself be a source of biological novelties that lead to macroevolutionary changes. In this way intelligent design is compatible with speciation. page 109 of “The Design of Life”
and
And that brings us to a true either-or. If the choice between common design and common ancestry is a false either-or, the choice between intelligent design and materialistic evolution is a true either-or. Materialistic evolution does not only embrace common ancestry; it also rejects any real design in the evolutionary process. Intelligent design, by contrast, contends that biological design is real and empirically detectable regardless of whether it occurs within an evolutionary process or in discrete independent stages. The verdict is not yet in, and proponents of intelligent design themselves hold differing views on the extent of the evolutionary interconnectedness of organisms, with some even accepting universal common ancestry (ie Darwin’s great tree of life). Common ancestry in combination with common design can explain the similar features that arise in biology. The real question is whether common ancestry apart from common design- in other words, materialistic evolution- can do so. The evidence of biology increasingly demonstrates that it cannot.- Ibid page 142
And from one more pro-ID book:
Many assume that if common ancestry is true, then the only viable scientific position is Darwinian evolution- in which all organisms are descended from a common ancestor via random mutation and blind selection. Such an assumption is incorrect- Intelligent Design is not necessarily incompatible with common ancestry.– page 217 of “Intelligent Design 101”
That is just a sample of what the Intelligent Design leadership say about biological evolution- they are OK with it. And the following is from “Uncommon Descent”:
9] “Evolution” Proves that Intelligent Design is Wrong The word “evolution” can mean different things. The simplest meaning is one of natural history of the appearance of different living forms. A stronger meaning implies common descent, in its universal form (all organisms have descended from a single common ancestor) or in partial form (particular groups of organisms have descended from a common ancestor). “Evolution” is often defined as descent with modifications, or simply as changes in the frequencies of alleles in the gene pool of a population.
None of those definitions can prove ID wrong, because none are in any way incompatible with it.
ID is a theory about the cause of genetic information, not about the modalities or the natural history of its appearance, and is in no way incompatible with many well known patterns of limited modification of that information usually defined as “microevolution.” ID affirms that design is the cause, or at least a main cause, of complex biological information. A theory which would indeed be alternative to ID, and therefore could prove it wrong, is any empirically well-supported “causal theory” which excludes design; in other words any theory that fits well with the evidence and could explain the presence or emergence of complex biological information through chance, necessity, any mix of the two, or any other scenario which does not include design. However, once we rule out “just-so stories” and the like, we will see that there is not today, nor has there ever been, such a theory. Furthermore, the only empirically well-supported source of functionally specific, complex information is: intelligence. To sum it up: no definition of evolution is really incompatible with an ID scenario. Any causal theory of evolution which does not include design is obviously alternative to, and incompatible with, ID.
However, while many such theories have indeed been proposed, they are consistently wanting in the necessary degree of empirical support. By contrast, design is an empirically known source of the class of information – complex, specified information (CSI) — exhibited by complex biological systems.
They go on to say:
10] The Evidence for Common Descent is Incompatible with Intelligent Design ID is a theory about the cause of complex biological information. Common descent (CD) is a theory about the modalities of implementation of that information. They are two separate theories about two different aspects of the problem, totally independent and totally compatible. In other words, one can affirm CD and ID, CD and Darwinian Evolution, or ID and not CD. However, if one believes in Darwinian Evolution, CD is a necessary implication.
CD theory exists in two forms, universal CD and partial CD. No one can deny that there are evidences for the theory of CD (such as ERVs, homologies and so on). That’s probably the reason why many IDists do accept CD. Others do not agree that those evidences are really convincing, or suggest that they may reflect in part common design. But ID theory, proper, has nothing to do with all that. ID affirms that design is the key cause of complex biological information. The implementation of design can well be realized through common descent, that is through implementation of new information in existing biological beings. That can be done gradually or less gradually. All these are modalities of the implementation of information, and not causes of the information itself. ID theory is about causes.
And finally there is front loaded evolution (Mike Gene) and a prescribed evolutionary hypothesis (John Davison)- both are ID hypotheses pertaining to evolution.
Mutations are OK, differential reproduction is OK, horizontal gene transfer is OK. With Intelligent Design organisms are designed to evolve, ie they evolve by design. That is by “built-in responses to environmental cues” ala Dr Spetner’s “non-random evolution hypothesis” being the main process of adaptations.
As Dembski/ Wells said Intelligent design only has an issue with materialistic evolution- the idea that all organisms have descended from common ancestors solely through an unguided, unintelligent, purposeless, material processes such as natural selection acting on random variations or mutations; that the mechanisms of natural selection, random variation and mutation, and perhaps other similarly naturalistic mechanisms, are completely sufficient to account for the appearance of design in living organisms. (Also known as the blind watchmaker thesis)
Intelligent Design is OK with all individuals in a population generally having the same number and types of genes and that those genes give rise to an array of traits and characteristics that characterize that population. It is OK with mutations that may result in two or more slightly different molecular forms of a gene- alleles- that influence a trait in different ways and that individuals of a population vary in the details of a trait when they inherit different combinations of alleles. ID is OK with any allele that may become more or less common in the population relative to other kinds at a gene locus, or it may disappear. And ID is OK with allele frequencies changing as a result of mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, natural and artificial selection, that mutation alone produces new alleles and gene flow, genetic drift, natural and artificial selection shuffle existing alleles into, through, or out of populations. IOW ID is OK with biological evolution. As Dr Behe et al., make very clear, it just argues about the mechanisms- basically design/ telic vs spontaneous/ stochastic.
Now we are left with the only way Intelligent Design can be considered anti-evolution is if and only if the only definition of evolution matches the definition provided for materialistic evolution. However I cannot find any source that states that is the case.
So the bottom line is Intelligent Design says “evolved, sure”. The questions are “evolved from what?” and “how did it evolve?
I’d like to note that Joe is basically using the very old creationist trope, “Macro vs Micro Evolution”
Elizabeth,
Lenski seems relevant here 🙂
You’re in luck: Joe has some basic lab facilities and has, per his notes, conducted experiments on ticks, watermelons and dragonflys before.
Seriously, if ID is going to go anywhere, someone needs to devise some actual front-loading (or other) hypotheses that make different predictions to those of standard evolutionary theory.
That would make ID real science.
I think a few us said that up-thread. Joe is proposing a mechanism, which if real could point to design and tell us about his/her/its intentions.
But on one hand they argue FRONTLOADING! and on the other GENETIC ENTROPY! They just don’t like evolution.
Sorry – spent too much time moving posts and not enough time reading the ones that were left!
No worries. If IDists spent half their keyboard time in the lab… actually, there’d be the same to report, but less reporting.
This ^^^
The problem with Joe’s argument is that there isn’t any one coherent “theory” of ID. There are dozens of separate individual hypotheses for how ID was done, ideas which have wildly varying claims as to when, and where, and how. These ID hypotheses are often directly contradictory as Rich illustrated nicely.
Of course not one of them has a single lick of positive evidence or even a way to test the hypotheses, but that never stopped the religious believers from pushing the claims.
It produces the differential sorting of reproducing entities according to the interaction between inheritable traits and the environment. The Geospiza fortis works you’ve been presented before are a good example, where you see a shift in the distribution of beak depth.
Now, if you could answer the questions…
Thorton,
Also, ID is clearly:
We don’t like evolution > Let’s try and find faults with it
NOT
Look at this cool new mechanism / discovery > Evolution might be wrong
Isn’t that actually a system of environmentally directed mutation, rather than a GA as commonly understood? If such mechanism existed, I don’t see how would it help the idea of an intelligent designer. That would be a superfluous assumption.
It definitely wouldn’t be a GA. Joe is just wrong about GAs. He seems to suggesting something quite different – environmental effects on DNA sequences that tend to produce phenotypes that are better fitted to that environment. That’s not how GAs work at all. After all, if we knew which genomes produced the solutions we are after, we wouldn’t need to use a GA!
But that doesn’t mean it’s into a reasonable hypothesis. He just needs to make some testable predictions and then test ’em.
But Joe – before you come back and say “but you haven’t got any evidence” – yes, we have. We know that GAs really work rather well, without the guidance you suggest is necessary at genome level.
You need to demonstrate that something additional is needed to account for what we see in biology, I think.
You mean that could be a reasonable hypothesis? I’d agree with that. Lenski wrote a series of articles about proposed mechanisms long ago. Here is one, which I haven’t read yet. My point is that, just by itself, environmentally directed mutation doesn’t imply design either. You need a model that explicitly defines the role of the designer in all of this.
Umm genetic entropy only applies to any blind watchmaker scenario
And what is this coherent theory of evolution? What are its testable hypotheses?
Please present that so we can compare.
Why wouldn’t it apply to Frontloading? why doesn’t you *cough* GA degrade over time?
But anyway- is there any way to get back to the topic?
Evotards are quick to say that I hijack threads but just look at what they have done to this one.
We can have another thread for GAs and what ID claims and how to test the design inference.
But we can’t do any of that if we can’t even agree on this.
It could but we know that agencies can counter the effects of entropy.
Elizabeth,
Start another thread about GAs and take it off of this thread-
What kind of mod are you?
I will more than gladly defend my ideas on GAs but first we have deal with this. topic
What are those mysterious evolutionary hypotheses?
So now there’s a GA AND some unseen agency (itself ummune to the effect of entropy) preserving the GA. FASCINIATING! *leans forward* Tell me more! Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Rich,
The entire wedge document pertains to materialism, which is the blind watchmaker thesis.
I bet it doesn’t say anything about blind and undirected processes
At the expense of producing more entropy. Lots more.
Agents such as humans consume high-quality (low-entropy) energy stored in food and dissipate most of it as low-quality (high-entropy) heat. The amount of entropy thus produced literally dwarfs the amount of information a human agent produces.
We can go through the numbers if you are interested.
Well according to “life beyond people” agencies are the only thing keeping things in shape- without us to maintain our infrastructure, it breaks down.
So we can deal with reality if you are interested…
“This isn’t really, and never has been a debate about science. Its about religion and philosophy.”
ID will yeild to science when it must (and rename itself from creationism). But you’re just flogging the old macro-micro AIG horse, my freind.
Joe, could you unpack this word salad for me?
Rich YOUR position is philosophy, not science.
And also Simpson and other evos brought up the macro-micro thing.
Yes. and kinds! can’t change kinds! because they wanted to be consistant with…baraminology. 0_o
Joe G,
No, just a communication problem.
How many mutations and to what genes produced an upright biped from a population of knuckle-walkers?
How many mutations and to what genes allowed an engulfed prokaryote to “evolve” into mitochondria?
How can we test either of those under a blind watchmaker scenario?
Doesn’t understand ‘entropy’. maybe thinks “without the garbage men, the garbage will all pile up”, or something.
Evidence Rich- don’t blame the evidence because your position requires eons of time and is scientifically untestable.
Textbook Gish-Gallop.
But anyway- is there any way to get back to the topic?
Evotards are quick to say that I hijack threads but just look at what they have done to this one.
We can have another thread for GAs and what ID claims and how to test the design inference.
But we can’t do any of that if we can’t even agree on this.
So you think Sanford’s ‘genetic entropy’ claims are completely wrong because mysterious ‘agencies’ have been continuously correcting for any degradation.
Interesting. You should write Sanford and tell him.
I know. And the world is only 6k old so we’re out of luck! Plus, finding Tiktaalic was a fluke (you keep telling us Shubin was looking in the wrong place, although considering it was THERE, how it was wrong is anyone’s guess), or maybe constent with ..baraminology. And Lenski – they’re still the same KIND!
Joe, do you believe in puddles but not oceans?
Handsome!
Whenever you get called out you just change the subject to some perceived problem you have with evolution. But ID isn’t anti evolution!
So would be be correct to say that blind-watchmaker evolution can’t work because of genetic entropy but front-loaded GA evolution does work because of the intervention of agencies?
There is nothing in the universe that “counters the effects of entropy.” This is a completely meaningless phrase that has nothing to do with physics or how things in the universe behave.
The mere notion of “countering the effects of entropy” is a standard ID/creationist misconception about basic physics. This is exactly the misconception that Henry Morris introduced way back in the early 1970s. It is the fundamental misconception that runs through all of ID/creationism.
There is and never has been any such concept in physics. It is not taught in physics, it is not a part of any thermodynamics and statistical mechanics course in physics. Physicists don’t use any such concept in any research or in any of their designs of experimental equipment.
Entropy is not and never has been about things coming all apart. It is not about disorder. The second law of thermodynamics is not about things coming all apart and decaying.
There is absolutely nothing in any formula used in the calculation of entropy that even hints at disorder or decay. Rudolph Clausius coined that word, not Henry Morris.
All the misconceptions about entropy and the second law are being promulgated by ID/creationists from things they have picked up from sloppy popularizations and sloppy textbooks for the general public.
This can be easily demonstrated by the fact that neither Joe G nor any other ID/creationist has ever been able to pass a simple elementary concept test on entropy. They just use the word thinking they know what it means.
Sorry, Joe G, but I really don’t have anything topical to contribute, as I’m not sure anymore what the topic is or was. I just thought that some of the correspondents, like myself, had a problem with accepting some statements as “definitive” of evolution, for whatever reasons, and if in not accepting them as such, that made me an “anti-evolutionist” too.
I thought you brought up GAs, Joe?
As for what kind of mod I am: sole.
Mike Elzinga,
Well said, Mike. It needs saying more often!
I think they are thinking of Maxwell’s Demon.
Joe, I don’t think GAs were derail, although I can see that you might, given that you don’t seem to have a standard view of what a GA is! But a GA is, essentially, a model of evolution, so if if you accept evolution (or are not against evolution) then you probably accept the power of GAs (as initially you seemed to do).
But now you are suggesting something quite interesting, that GAs generally do not do, which is that there is some intelligent mechanism by which DNA sequence alter, beneficially for the phenotype, in response to environmental cues.
So I agree that further discussion of GAs is probably off-topic – unless you want to call this putative gizmo a “GA” – which indeed it is not!
So I think I will close the thread now. As I’ve commented before, this thread has been be fairly demanding moderationwise, so I’ll keep your pending thread on hold over the weekend (I’m off to Wales) and post it on Monday
In the mean time, guys, be good 🙂
Thanks all – been enjoyable and enlightening.
Wales, the emerald green, sun and surf-splashed paradise of my ancient ancestors! Tell everyone I love ’em!