A very nice post by Barry at UD struck me as worth reposting here (as I can’t post there), inspired by Neil Rickert:
Phinehas asks Neil Rickert a fascinating question about the supposed direction of evolution. Neil says he will address it in a separate thread, and I started this one for that purpose. The rest of the post is Phenehas’ question to Neil:
@Neil I also appreciate the professional tone. I am a skeptic regarding what evolution can actually accomplish. In keeping with your demonstrated patience, I’d be grateful if you would give serious consideration to something that keeps tripping me up. I’ve often thought of natural selection as the heuristic to random mutations’ exhaustive search.
A path-finding algorithm can be aided in finding a path from point A to point B by using distance to B as a heuristic to narrow the search space. Without a heuristic, you are left to blind chance. It is said that evolution has no purpose or goal, so there is no point B. It is also claimed that evolution isn’t simply the result of blind chance, so a heuristic would seem to be required. Somehow, natural selection is supposed to address both of these concerns. Nature selects for fitness, we are told, so somehow we have a heuristic even without a point B.
But what is fitness? How does it work as a heuristic? How is it defined? Evidently, it is all about reproductive success. But how does one measure reproductive success? This is where things get fuzzy for me. Surely evolution is a story about the rise of more and more complex organisms. Isn’t this how the tree of life is laid out? Surely it is the complexity of highly developed organisms that evolution seeks to explain. Surely Mt. Improbable has man near its peak and bacteria near its base. But by what metric is man more successful at reproducing than bacteria? If I am a sponge somewhere between the two extremes, how is a step toward bacteria any less of a point B for me than a step toward man? Why should the fitness heuristic prefer a step upward in complexity toward man in any way whatsoever over a step downward in complexity toward bacteria?
It seems that, under the more obvious metrics for calculating reproductive success, bacteria are hard to beat. Even more, a rise in complexity, if anything, would appear to lead to less reproductive success and not more. So how can natural selection be any sort of heuristic for helping us climb Mt Improbable’s complexity when every simpler organism at the base of the mountain is at least as fit in passing on its genes as the more complex organisms near it’s peak? And without this heuristic, how are we not back to a blind, exhaustive search?
Excellent questions.
That’s very nice and warm and fuzzy but I don’t see how you go about actually doing that, specifically.
Let’s look at the Lenski case.
Keep doing science? Check!
Keep searching for the truth? Check?
Consider what implications there may be for how we look at life and the universe?
Ok, so here we go. If we say that “the designer” was somehow involved in the ability to digest citrate in those bacteria then I’d say that is somewhat strange, to say the least. For a designer to be concerned with that, when the rest of the universe, as far as we can tell, is void of all life, seems at odds with the idea that the designer want’s life to exist (othewise why help things learn new abilities to digest things in the first place)?
Consider whether you can discern the designer’s thoughts and motives?
Well, what designer? In what sense has a designer been identified by ID? It’s one of their core claims (I believe, it’s all a bit fuzzy) that the designer has not and does not need to be identified for ID to be science. ID detects design, it does not (yet) make inferences about the designer.
I know you are saying that these are things that could be done if a designer was to be considered to be as part of everything, but does it not seem absurd what I’ve already written? Can you actually do any better and be any less absurd? I challenge you to!
For other aspects of reality you are totally correct, of course. Examining a bronze tool from the perspective learning to cast bronze using only tools available at the time the artifact was created can of course lead you to insight about “the designer” of the artifact.
It’s just that’s not what ID claims or what ID itself professes to be about. ID is not like archaeology. ID’s designer is quite a different thing to archaeology’s.
Sure! As I’ve said, I don’t think anything in science rules out a designer. I’m not “skeptical” about a designer (well, I am, but not for any reasons given here) – what I’m “skeptical” about is the validity of the arguments made that biological organisms are evidence for one.
And, more to the point, I don’t see a problem that, scientifically speaking, a putative designer would solve. Give me a SETI signal, and perhaps we have one – or even an unexplained death. But I don’t see an unexplained mystery begging for a designer explanation at the moment. Except possibly the fundamental ontological mystery as to why there is anything rather than nothing.
But even for that one, there are some interesting potential answers coming from cosmologists.
As for examining the evidence from “every perspective” – well, the number of potential explanations for a phenomenon are infinite, so we need to have some reason to start on the one road rather than another. But certainly if someone came up with a “frontloading” hypothesis for ID, I’d be interested to see it operationalised and tested.
My personal opinion is that ID is more about obfuscating this single fact then anything else. For example, the whole FSCO/I/CSI aspect, the presence of which indicates design unambiguously.
And the debate over defining FSCOetc is pointed to as evidence that “we’ve got something, and they don’t like it” on the ID side.
They might be justified in that opinion, but obviously I think not. If they have something, and that something been used “billions of times” (detecting design in internet messages KF et al ) then it’s remarkably unproductive for ID in the respect of actually progressing ID towards mainstream respectability or even serious consideration for such.
Joe,
For the benefit of Phinehas, could you describe if it is possible, even if only in theory, to determine if a single mutation was random or if the intelligent designer was in fact involved?
I’m sure it would be illustrative as to the current “state of the art” in ID’s thinking regarding this idea and coming from a never contradicted at UD vocal ID supporter it carries the associated gravitas of an ID veteran as yourself, Joe.
Yep. Those “hallmarks of itelligent activity” are excruciatingly defined and detailed however, unlike FCSO/I or CSI or any of the other supposed measures. The fact is, after literally thousands of times asking the question, not one ID proponent has been able to provide the FSCO/I for a cake or a chipmunk. So, it appears all that ID alphabet soup is like porn – we can’t really define it, but we know it when we see it. That might work for a court of law, but it isn’t very compelling as science.
This is just plain erroneous. Neither forensic science nor archaeology recognize signs of design <in general (that is, “design” as a concept unto itself devoid of parameters); they recognize signs of human activity (among other work). And once again, both fields of research have specific catalogues of human features they analyze artifacts against.
I’d be more than happy if ID used the same methodology, but so far there seems to be a mindset that there’s no way to tell what the assumed designer could do, so there is no way to create a catalogue to compare biological – never mind any other – objects against.
The semiotic nature of DNA doesn’t give you the slightest pause? Allan’s huge ‘hopeful monster’ leaps aren’t a problem? That a random and chaotic universe has managed to assemble a level of “tech” that (reasonably) intelligent agents like you and (more so) me struggle to comprehend, let alone achieve doesn’t suggest any potential red flags?
I don’t doubt that there are those on the other side who are too quick to jump to a God-of-the-gaps explanation. I don’t doubt that their faith is greater than their skepticism. But can you not see that there can be just as much faith and just as little skepticism inherent in a naturalism-of-the-gaps approach?
On the semiotic nature of DNA, I have no problem saying I think it is probably the result of design, but lets keep looking at it to see what we find.
On speciation, I have no problem saying I think natural processes and laws can probably account for it, but lets keep looking at it to see what we find.
But maybe this is all down to me not having enough faith.
Can be? Sure! Is there? Who knows?
Fact is nothing seems to be being held back because of lack of consideration about “what a designer might have done”. So I find your point unsupported. When “naturalism-of-the-gaps” becomes unproductive then perhaps science will move onto whatever it is you are proposing as an alternative.
Until then it’s up to you to show that there’s a reason to make that leap.
What about HIV? Is that designed?
I’d like to know what you propose as an explanation for DNA? That “it was designed”? Too tedious for words.
Suggest a research avenue that can examine the semiotic nature of DNA and, if successful, provide evidence for it’s intelligent design.
If not you, then who? Nobody except you (ID supporters) actually needs to do that as actual “don’t consider a designer unless there is evidence for one” real research seems to be coming along just fine.
Since the dawn of time, how many gaps have been filled with natural vs .supernatural explanations? Okay, based on that – Bayes’ / Laplace’s induction….
Richardthughes,
Someone please give an example from the history of science where the design inference turned out to be the useful heuristic.
OMagain:
Is your objection to the possibility scientific or religious in nature?
It’s a question.
In fact, it is an ideal question for which an ID/creationist can submit a research proposal.
Can you answer it with a research program? If so, submit a proposal.
So now it’s not valid if it isn’t entertaining enough? 🙂
Inferring design is no more or less of an explanation for DNA than assuming no design. I don’t know how many way to say this. No doubt there are lots of questions to answer in the attempt to try to explain DNA. One of those questions is, “Is it designed?” Inferring design is no more or less of an answer to this question than assuming no design. Nor is it any more or less of an answer to any of the other questions, though I don’t doubt that it could suggest some additional questions.
Why? I’m not out to prove that it is intelligently designed, I’m merely open enough to the possibility to note its similarity to programming language and codes, and free enough from philosophical assumptions to wonder whether design might be a better explanation for its origin. I’m here in the spirit of trying to beseech others to consider the possibility that they might be mistaken, particularly about their faith in the universe’s ability to conjure the advanced information processing and technological wonder that is DNA via the resort to purely chaotic and random forces pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps. Since I am not a scientist and am not beholden to science as the begetter and arbiter of all truth, I don’t feel any compulsion to jump through its particular hoops in order to support my points. I’d just as soon make my appeal through reason whether anyone is convinced by it or not.
Mike Elzinga,
I can see that it is a question. I think it is loaded. Do you not think that there might be an objection behind the question? I think there is and see no reason to be obtuse about it. Darwin certainly was not shy in making negative arguments for Darwinian evolution based on assumptions about what a designer would or would not do. But these assumptions are clearly motivated by religious beliefs and not scientific evidence.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m open for religious debate if that’s what we’d like to discuss. I don’t mind following a search for truth wherever it leads. I just want to make sure we understand exactly what it is we are discussing.
Which bit – the common descent bit, the endosymbiosis bit or the sex bit? 🙂 A bit rambling for an OP, perhaps.
I do have a particular interest in sex (yes, I know, arf arf!), and have considered the possibility of an OP on it. It is one heck of a subject, however, and all my intentions to be brief evaporate as I try to do it justice. Especially given the hostile reception I received first time I dared to offer an opinion – not that that would happen here, of course!
That’s a rotten and prejudicial way to phrase your question. What on earth made you interject “objection” into your description of a completely-neutral question by OMagain? If you were honestly skeptical, you would apologize fror attempting to insert a malign influence here.
And why on god’s green earth did you not simply answer the plain question ? Is HIV designed, or not ? In your view, that is, as far as you understand the current evidence and the word “designed” …is HIV designed, or not, is that not plain enough for you?
Scientists are NOT amateur armchair philosophers; we have to do viable research, and we have to do it by proposing research that will answer important scientific questions with money provided by someone else. It’s not a philosophical game.
We ask you these questions to try to get you to actually think through how you would carry out a research program. When pressed to write a competitive research proposal, what would you do?
Doing science is not what you apparently think it is. If you think you can get definitive answers to questions just by “philosophizing” and “being open,” then your understanding of science is far below the level of high school science students.
I would go farther and question your understanding of ontological and epistemological issues. Wishing doesn’t make things so; there is a real world out there.
Is HIV designed? Propose a research program that will answer the question.
If you don’t know what you are talking about, who are you to be criticizing the scientific community?
Phinehas,
To use your analogy, if DNA is a programming language, then the elements and the forces of nature is the machine language on which the higher level language is built. Now, is there evidence that the machine language is intelligently designed? Not by the current metrics used by ID advocates. Therefore its reasonable to conclude that the Intelligent Designer(s) built an ad-hoc language on top of a natural state — meaning the designer(s) would be of this universe and not the author(s) of it.
Now Catholic theology has a very different take, one that encompasses both Darwinian evolution and Biblical teachings. From its perspective everything is designed and sustained by God. Therefore, trying to detect ID would be like using a machine to detect the color red within a room in which every surface and material is red.
More importantly, ID removes God from the continual processes of the universe vis-a-vis the need for intelligent meddling (except for events directly pertaining to salvation, for only humanity has the agency to act contrary to God’s will). Consequently ID unwittingly promotes as true the “watchman” role for God — evolution is a fairly reliable machine operating independently of God’s power, but frequently requires God to wind the spring and adjust the hands to keep it in sync. To a Catholic, this view demeans God’s divine providence and his unlimited powers.
The difference between positions is that the assumption of naturalism leads to research proposals. Over time –say 400 yesrs in the case of gravity — progress is made.
When is the last time an ID type inference proved fruitful? Give me an instance in the history of science when a design inference proved fruitful?
sez phinehas:
Hold it. You, phinehas, made noise about how it would benefit science to consider invisible designers with unknown capabilities. Omagain’s reply was not about the putative utility-of-science of any designer-concept whatsover, including invisible designers with unknown capabilities; rather, his reply was about the putative utility-of-science of, specifically, invisible designers with unknown capabilities. And he’s right; absolutely anything at all can be ‘explained’ by invoking the notion of an invisible designer with unknown capabilities.
Bacterial flagellum? An invisible designer with unknown capabilities did it.
Malaria? An invisible designer with unknown capabilities did it.
Modern rabbit fossil in Precambrian strata? An invisible designer with unknown capabilities did it.
Big Bang? An invisible designer with unknown capabilities did it.
Invisible pink unicorns dancing a quadrille in Leicester Square? An invisible designer with unknown capabilities did it.
As far as SETI is concerned, it’s worth noting that SETI does not invoke, or depend on, the concept of an invisible designer with unknown capabilities. Instead, SETI is pretty clear on what sort of designer they believe will be behind any intelligent signal they may detect; their designer-concept can be summed up as “pretty much the same as us humans”.
Methodologically speaking, science is about disproving the null hypothesis. So… if the hypothesis is “an invisible designer with unknown capabilities did it”… what, exactly, is the null hypothesis?
The deceit I referred to would be the deceit of a designer that wanted to make it look as if sequences were commonly descended when in fact they weren’t. Commonality in ‘fluff’ does not rule out design, but it makes the clear case that sequences are commonly descended (rather than commonly designed), about which you claimed to be skeptical. You would not insist that commonality in Comments, down to spelling mistakes, was a result of your intelligent design, rather than your tendency to copy and paste.
You implicitly propose two mechanisms for commonality/difference. Among relatives in a species, commonality is simply a result of descent, unaided, and differences a result of mutation. The same is typically allowed between very similar species. But at a certain taxonomic level, you import a new mechanism, for certain ‘functional’ parts of the genome. Similarities are no longer due to descent, they are due to bits and bobs of ‘code’ that were left lying around that the designer decided to reuse in a manner that gives the identical pattern we observe among organisms that are simply left to get on with reproducing. This has no support in the data. There is no discontinuity at any taxonomic level – the genomes simply become more and more different, in a manner entirely consistent with progressive, diverging descent. That is, whatever a designer might have done, it was done by copying genomes.
I don’t feel particularly committed to the notion that these huge and hopeful leaps were accomplished by sheer, dumb luck
Nor do I. Nor, on the other hand, do I see a strong reason to doubt it. There are numerous examples of extremely close symbiosis, of organisms living within other cells. In none of these cases do I see a reason to subscribe to an idea that someone intentionally engineered both cells so that they could merge, so why should I see eukaryote endosymbiosis as any more special, just because it led to us? One might as well consider every single event in the last ten thousand years to have been engineered expressly to ensure that the genes that make up you ended up in the same body. Alternatively, your (biological) existence is sheer dumb luck. Why not?
In any period of a billion years, we might observe a billion or so events with a once-a-year chance of occurring. But we would also observe a hundred one-in-10-million-year events, even one once-in-a-billion-year event. The kind of ensosymbiosis that founds a new domain of life could readily be one of the latter, very unusual but not requiring anything extraordinary from the probabilistic resources available. I don’t know it is, but one isn’t forced to introduce an extraordinary cause simply to perform rare events with far-reaching consequences.
But apparently you are not here to consider the possibility that you swallowed – hook, line, and sinker – a caricature of how atoms and molecules behave.
So apparently it is ok for you to caricature science while “beseeching others of the possibility that they might be mistaken.”
I’ll present you with the little high school physics/chemistry exercise that kairosfocus and all those other ‘geniuses” over at UD cannot do.
Scale up the charge-to-mass ratios for the proton and the electron to kilogram-sized masses. Then calculate the energies of interaction of these scaled-up, charged masses when they are separated by distances on the order of meters. Express your answer in joules and in megatons of TNT. Now add the rules of quantum mechanics.
In the light of your answers, justify your characterization of the forces as being “chaotic and random, pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.”
You sort of left out the whole “beyond the capability to design the artifact that is being examined” part of what I wrote in your analysis.
It’s also worth noting that anything SETI invokes or any conception they have about a potential sender, “beyond [its] capability to design the artifact that is [to be] examined,” is being pulled out of thin air. Any way you slice it SETI is looking for an intelligence that is not currently visible and whose capabilities are currently unknown.
And “pretty much the same as us humans” sounds rife with the potential to equivocate. The same in what way? Earlier, OMagain was arguing that evolution had so many potential endpoints that it was entirely unremarkable that we landed on Homo sapiens.
Completely neutral? Seriously? Nothing that OMagain has posted so far would suggest the s/he is neutral on the topic under discussion. What would possibly make me think s/he was suddenly asking a completely neutral question in discussing a topic in which s/he was clearly not a neutral observer? It seemed pretty obvious to me that OMagain had an objection in mind when asking whether HIV was designed. Nor do I find it highly unlikely that the objection was of a religious nature, since I often see arguments for Darwinism based on what a Designer would or would not do, starting with Darwin himself. Whether religious or scientific, I’m happy to try to address the objection, but it would certainly help for me to understand what kind of objection I am addressing.
At first, I was going to give you the benefit of the doubt and suppose that you were just too busy to have read carefully through the thread and didn’t know that I was a designer and not a scientist, but I see that I’ve stated that I am not a scientist right there at the top of what you’ve quoted. In light of this observation, repeated requests for me to submit research programs come off as a bit stodgy if not downright snobbish.
Who am I? Why I am a skeptic. Am I not in the right place to be skeptical? Or is it just that I’m being skeptical about the wrong things?
While I may not have certain credentials and have openly expressed my ignorance in some areas, if you think this is an indication that I lack the intelligence to contribute to the discussion, then I beseech you, think it possible that you may be mistaken.
Furthermore, I was invited here by the blog’s administrator and cordially welcomed by the same upon my arrival. I was led to believe that my questions and skepticism were also welcomed, but it appears that welcome is wearing thin.
Lizzie, thanks for being a wonderful hostess. I appreciate that you never talked down to me and took my questions seriously. I assure you that I’ve given the same consideration to your answers, even the ones about which I have nagging doubts. Surely nagging doubts are the curse of the skeptic. And our blessing. May we both have many. 🙂
In any case, if you’d like to further skepticise, I think you know where to find me.
Phinehas,
How much more direct does a question have to be in order for you to answer it without engaging in diversionary tactics and sophistry?
You appear to be avoiding the question; a question that provides a classic example that gets right to the heart of ID trying to pass itself off as a science.
Can you propose a research program that answers the question; “Is HIV designed?”
If so, lay it out.
If not, why not?
So you still can’t find it within yourself to answer the question (or to answer directly to the “objection” if that’s the term you insist upon). Why can’t you just answer? What are you afraid of? Are you too embarrassed to admit that ypu’re too ignorant of biological reality to give an competent answer? If so, simply say “you don’t know”. No shame in saying you don’t know rather than trying to import blame onto the questioner.
Or what deficiency in your putative designer are you trying to cover for? Not exactly making a great case for ID then, are you?
Science is not a thin-skinned game. All of us undergo this kind of scrutiny when submitting proposals for any line of research; and it gets more intense the more important the issues being addressed.
This is how research gets critiqued; and it is good, and it keeps us on our toes. It is the kind of crucible that makes ID advocates paranoid and wallow in self-pity.
You are welcome here; it’s Elizabeth’s forum. But if you are going to join the forum, you would do much better if you didn’t caricature what we in the science community do. ID/creationists have been doing this for over 50 years; and you have bought into their caricatures.
If you really want to know what science can and cannot do, talk to real scientists who have spent a lifetime in research; don’t believe a bunch of kvetching amateurs who never made the grade.
@Mike
I have not idea who you are addressing, but I can assure you that it isn’t me. You seem to assume that I feel some compunction to try to defend ID as a science. I don’t. You seem to assume that I ought to be interested in proposing research programs that answer particular questions. I’m not.
I’m simply a skeptic. Got it? A skeptic. As such, feel perfectly free to ignore me if you’d like, though I’d think that would be a strange approach to take at a blog called the skeptical zone. On the other hand, I suppose it is no more strange than demanding research program proposals from me.
As a skeptic, I feel perfectly free to answer any question proposed. I don’t feel a need to appeal to authority or bluster, or to try to muscle my way through debates by demanding any sort of hoop-jumping before giving serious consideration to questions or expressed skepticism. As outlined above, I feel there was plenty of warrant to suppose there might be a religious objection behind the question of whether or not HIV was designed. I am happy to apply my skepticism honestly and sincerely if there is, but assuming for the moment that there is not…
I doubt that the HIV virus is either entirely the product of design or of strictly evolutionary forces. I suspect it has evolved quite a bit to reach its current state, but I remain skeptical about its ability to configure itself into the arrangement that allowed evolution to begin. Shockingly, your repeated demand that I submit scientific proposals have done very little to assuage my skepticism.
“Skepticism” based on intransigent ignorance is not an honest form of skepticism. It tells the world that nobody can teach you anything.
I already indicated that, if you really want to get on a path to understanding, you will very likely need to start back in high school physics and chemistry as well as biology.
If you are not willing to think through the implications of what it takes to answer a direct question such as “Is HIV designed” then you have no clue on how to start on a journey of learning.
You may think I am stogy and mean; but if you can’t take the directness, you can’t even begin that journey with your current attitudes toward science.
I’ve watched ID/creationist “arguments” for something like 50 years. I know their “theories” and misconceptions about science better than they do; and I know why they can’t do scientific research. If you want to know why, then put yourself on the line and start thinking about how to answer research questions.
We in the research community know a lot more about ontology and epistemology than most of those philosopher wanabes over at UD.
Phinehas,
Elizabeth felt you were asking good questions of Neil; and indeed they are good questions if the person asking them is willing to follow up on attempts to answer them rather than simply starting the old Gish Galloping routine by jumping all over the map using ID/creationist “objections” before any deep follow-through can be achieved on any topic or concept.
You claim to be “skeptical” about what evolution can achieve; yet you reveal a typical ID/creationist misconception that it is all “spontaneous molecular chaos” down there as you bring up the origins of life.
In that little high school level physics/chemistry calculation that scales up the charge-to-mass of protons and electrons to kilogram-sized masses separated by distances on the order of meters, there is a hint of what is going on down there at the molecular level. It gives you a pretty big hint about what you would see if you were able to sit among atoms and molecules as they interacted to form compounds and complex structures.
It is not “spontaneous molecular chaos” down there; expecially when one adds the rules of quantum mechanics and the second law of thermodyanmics. Things get organized very quickly.
But you also have to know about binding energies at various levels of complexity as well as many examples of complex molecular systems, organic and inorganic, that do remarkable things even though they are relatively simple compared to molecular systems involved in living organisms. You have to know how and why complex things form in energy cascades.
All this basic physics and chemistry gets thrown away by ID/creationists as they talk about tornados-in-junkyards and make assertions that chemistry and physics must be replaced by “information” that pushes atoms and molecules around. Yet they cannot tell anyone how “information” pushes atoms and molecules around.
So another research question ID/creationists should be thinking through is “How does ‘information’ push atoms and molecules around, and at what level of complexity does it begin to take over from physics and chemistry.” How large is the effect of this “information” compared to electromagnetic and gravitational effects?
Can ID/creationist advocates propose a research program that addresses these questions? Can any of them even make order-of-magnitude estimates of the size of the “information” effects that even a high school science student can do with electromagnetic effects?
If you want answers to your questions to Neil, you need to get away from the misconceptions and misrepresentations you picked up from the ID/creationist subculture and start learning how to use what we know in science to start checking things out for yourself. Even at the high school level you can begin to see the problems with ID.
Phinehas:
The robust treatment you have received at some hands should not put you off exploring your questions, surely? Lizzie and the rest of us know exactly where to find you, but must sit with our noses pressed to the glass, as we cannot comment.
The UD stance evidently strikes a chord with you; any ID sympathies you display will be reinforced there as much as you can stand, and only a few pet critics are kept on board to have someone to talk to (even they are invariably on notice). But you won’t learn a ‘skeptical’ version of any science there.
Exactly. As my favorite theologian, Herbert McCabe OP, wrote (in God Matters):
This seems to be at least coherent theology.
Except it sounds like pantheism. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
ITYM “may produce false negatives (looks undesigned/was designed) but no false positives ( looks designed/was not designed)”
You are indeed welcome here Phinehas. It is true that things can get heated, and it is true that evolution-skeptics are outnumbered by ID skeptics here, partly because I am in the latter camp, and it is my blog, and partly because so many of us are banned at UD (including myself). And so while Natural Selection ensures a majority for the ID “side” at UD, the remnants end up here, in their own majority! It’s the way of the internet, and while I don’t ban people here (except for some very specific violations of the rules), there is more than one way to make people feel unwelcome, and being in a minority with an indignant majority is one.
So I’d be delighted if you’d continue to drop by from time to time. Your questions were, as I said, excellent. And one of the principles I try to keep to here, is that we try not to make assumptions about what is motivating others – difficult, but a worthy aspiration, I think.
And I think the PoV of an actual human designer (as I have been myself) is a valuable one when considering the ID case. I have never shared the view that there can be no metric for detecting design within patterns – my position is that it delivers false positives when the patterns are those that result from evolutionary processes.
I hope you will stay in touch, or even post your own OP – and even encourage some of the UD folks to come over here in person – shouting across cyberspace is hard on the lungs! Then the numbers will even out somewhat 🙂
Cheers
Lizzie
PS: there is a post of yours I want to address, and will in a moment, so stick around for at least an hour or so.
And if one asked “What is the Darwinian explanation for the origin of species other than, ‘species arose randomly with perhaps some help from natural selection’?” there’s a mountain of scientific studies and observations, especially including Origin of Species.
I notice you made no attempt to answer “What is the Intelligent Design explanation for the origin of species other then “species were designed by an intelligent designer?”
Not at all. SET is looking for design by creatures similar to us with no messaging capabilities we aren’t capable of understanding that use radio waves to communicate, and attempting to rule out natural causes by comparison to known natural causes. Much more restricted than your paraphrase.
Great! You start. What are the limitations of an assumed intelligent designer capable of creating the vast panoply of life that we see?
I can empathise with P – most of us have direct experience of being out of step with the majority mood on a board – to wit, as critical UD posters. But none felt the experience too deflating to continue – instead, we had to be escorted from the premises! 🙂
One thing worth saying, Phinehas, is that there is history here, that makes some of us short tempered about ID (including me). It is one thing to disagree with another person’s conclusions, but it is another to falsely represent the other person’s position, whether deliberately, or from lack of due diligence. In the two posts I made recently, both concerning Douglas Axe, I point out that he rests his case on demonstrably false characterisations of the evolutionary hypothesis he is criticising.
This makes me cross! And it tends to shorten the tolerance those of us who try to engage with the ID argument. But I am aware that there is a parallel perception on the ID side – that ID proponents perceive “evolutionists” as mischaracterising ID arguments. And they in turn shorten their tolerance of us, and so the tribalism becomes entrenched, which is a shame.
I’m interested in why people think what they do. I think most people come to honest conclusions, whether those conclusions are correct or faulty. And honest people can both discuss their differences, and, in the end, agree to differ. But it’s good to find out where those real differences lie. That’s what this site is supposed to be for.
Yes, there is a lack of symmetry there. I’d like to think it is because we stand on firmer ground, but it could be because we are simply more cussed.
Moving a post or two to Guano.
That would certainly be my position on the origin of life. And there are still many unknowns about how things went on from there, although I am pretty confident that current evolutionary theory has the framework basically right – the big questions to me concern how potentially fitness enhancing variance occurs. Genetic mutation (by various mechanisms) is clearly important, but there have almost certainly been other key events, for instance symbiosis.
But “I don’t know” is a good position 🙂
I think a lot of those have, if you like “proximal” explanations within the universe as we know it, including the origin of morality. But what we can’t answer from within this universe (or not easily) are questions like: why this universe, and not another? Why a universe at all? Was existence intended, and, if so, was the existence that we know to have been actuated the sole choice of the intender out of all possible existences? Plenty of room for a God in there if we want to find a space. Much more room than within the ever-shrinking gaps in scientific knowledge!
Seems to me, Phinehas, that you are not so much skeptical as you are paranoid. The question OM asked is quite neutral, but even if it wasn’t so what? What do you think will happen if you answer it? Is OM going to spring some trap on you? Are the black helicopters going to show up?
Seriously, this is a forum for open discussion. The worst that could possibly happen is that someone hereon posts something obviously erroneous and gets called on it and then looks like a fool. But one can look like a fool to only so many people given a blog like this. So what are you so afraid of? What difference does it make if OM’s question is agenda based?
However, as noted in what I posted, they have made very specific predictions and parameters of what they are looking for. In other words, SETI is NOT based on the idea that the intelligent designers they are looking for can do anything. They aren’t saying that signals with some arbitrary FSCO/I or CSI demonstrate intelligence. On the contrary, they are looking for very specific metrical arrangements.
Again, I’d have no problem if the ID movement wished to apply the same methodology. Alas, that isn’t what the ID leaders want to do.
Lizzie,
But try quantifying the difference between Einstein and John Doe at the level of the genome.
Or between human and chimp for that matter. Try designing the difference.
Lizzie, there is a difference between heated discussion and flat-out bullying tactics. There is a difference between questioning an opposing argument and trying to silence any opposition.
Even the implication from some that I just can’t stand the heat in the kitchen is offensive. I merely don’t have the patience or even inclination to engage with bullying tactics.
If you and others have been treated similarly at UD, then, though I have no administrative connection or pull there, I apologize on their behalf. But frankly, two wrongs don’t make a right. The search for truth should be an open and welcoming engagement. Truth should be paramount, not sacrificed to your particular ideology. The goal should be to tear down barriers to intellectual investigation, not to erect them.
I sense that you feel likewise and strongly empathize with what you are doing here. Unfortunately, it seems like you are almost as much in the minority as am I. Perhaps we are the true minority both here and at UD.
There is, but the line between excluding bullying and silencing dissent is a difficult one to draw. I would rather put up with heat than silence opposition. But I have moved one post to Guano in the past few hours, and may move more (if you are interested in what kind of stuff gets moved to Guano, click on the link – I don’t hide posts!)
Yes, it is, and there’s no reason why you should. Feel free to ignore any comments that you think don’t merit a response.
No, they don’t. The difference between here and UD is that dissenters are banned at UD, whereas they are not banned here. I was not banned for bullying (as far as I know). In fact a reason was never given – though it has been retrospectively implied that it for violating logic. But verbal aggression takes place at both sites. I’d like to think it was less here, but that could be rose-tinted spectacles. None of us is guiltless.
I entirely agree, which is why I encourage you to stay here 🙂
No, I don’t think so. But tempers do fray, and the ID debate has generated a lot of bitterness on both sides. My hunch is that it is fear, on both sides, of the other. Those on “my” side fear theocracy; those on the ID side fear amorality.
I’d like it if we could at least suspend those fears. I’ll keep hoping 🙂
I think that’s a bit unfair.
Phinehas is feeling under a lot of pressure, due to the many replies that are criticizing his position and asking demanding questions.
One does not have to be paranoid to find this kind of “piling on” to be very frustrating.