Barry Arrington was astonished to find that Larry Moran agreed with him that it would be possible for some future biologist to detect design in a Venter-designed genome.
He was further astonished to find that REC, a commenter at UD, agreed with Larry Moran.
Barry expresses his epiphany in a UD post REC Becomes a Design Proponent.
Has Barry finally realised that those of us who oppose the ideas of Intelligent Design proponents do not dispute that it is possible, in principle, to make a reasonable inference of design? That rather our opposition is based on the evidence and argument advanced, not on some principled (or unprincipled!) objection to the entire project?
Sadly, it seems not. Because Barry then gives some examples of his continued lack of appreciation of this point. Here they are:
For example, consider this typical objection: “All scientific claims must employ methodological naturalism, and you violate the principle of methodological naturalism when you make a design inference in biology.”
If that objection is valid (it is not, but set that aside for now), it is just as valid against REC’s and Dr. Moran’s design inferences as it is against any other design inference.
Yes, indeed, Barry. It is not a valid objection, and if it were, it would be as valid against REC’s and Dr. Moran’s as against ID. There is nothing wrong with making a design inference in principle. We do it all the time, as IDists like to point out. And there’s nothing wrong with making it in biology, at least in principle. There is certainly nothing that violates the “principle of methodological naturalism when you make a design inference in biology”. I wonder where Barry found that quotation?
The point sailed right over REC’s head. He responded that the objections were not valid as to his design inference, because his design inference (opposed to ID’s design inferences) was “valid and well evidenced.”
I doubt it sailed over REC’s head. I expect it was the very point he was making – that there is no reason in principle why one cannot make a valid design inference in biology, but whether the inference is valid or not would depend on the specifics of the evidence and argument.
But that is exactly what ID proponents have been saying for decades REC! We have been saying all along that the various “typical objections” are invalid if the evidence leads to a design inference.
REC, the only difference between you and us is that you are persuaded by the evidence in a particular case and not in our case. But you are missing the point. If what is important is the EVIDENCE, then th “typical objections” lose all force all the time.
Barry, consider the possibility that you have been misreading the “typical objections” the entire time. That the yards of text that are spilled daily at UD railing against Lewontin and us benighted “materialists” are entirely irrelevant. The objection to ID by people like me (and Moran, and REC, and any other ID opponent I’ve come across, including Richard Dawkins in fact) is not that it is impossible that terrestrial life was designed by an intelligent agent, nor that it would be necessarily impossible to discover that it was, nor even, I suggest, impossible to infer a designer even if we had no clue as to who the designer might be (although that might make it trickier). The objection is that the arguments advanced by ID proponents are fallacious. They don’t work. Some are circular, some are based on bad math, and some are based on a misunderstanding of biochemistry and biology. They are not bad because they are design inferences, they are bad because they are bad design inferences.
In other words, the objection “all scientific claims must employ methodological naturalism” is invalid in principle, not in application, if it is even possible to make a valid design inference based on the EVIDENCE.
And here is where Barry steps on the rake again. Of course all scientific claims must employ methodological naturalism. It’s the only methodology we have in science – it is another way of saying that scientific claims must be falsifiable. That doesn’t mean we can’t infer design. Design is a perfectly natural phenomenon. If Barry means that we can only infer natural, not supernatural, design, he is absolutely correct, but that is simply because a supernatural design hypothesis is unfalsifiable. The reason Lewontin was correct is not that science is terrified of letting the supernatural in the door of science lest we have to face our worst nightmares, but that if you accept the supernatural as a valid hypothesis, you throw falsifiability out of the window.
You agree with us that it is the EVIDENCE that is important, and objections thrown up for the purpose of ruling that evidence out of court before it is even considered are invalid.
Yes, it is the EVIDENCE that is important, But on the other side of the EVIDENCE coin are the predictions we derive from the theory that we are testing against that EVIDENCE. If there are no predictions – and a theory that can predict anything predicts nothing – then we have no way of evaluating whether our EVIDENCE supports our theory. In fact, the word EVIDENCE only makes sense in relation to a theory. I’m no lawyer (heh) but doesn’t there have to be a charge before there is a trial?
Of course, by the same token, nobody can claim that ID is false – it may well be true that life was designed by a supernatural designer, whether at the origin-of-life stage as some claim, or at key stages, such as the Cambrian “Explosion” (scare quotes deliberate), as others claim; or for certain features too hard to leave to evolution such as the E.coli flagellae that enhance their ability to maim and kill our children. Or even to design a universe so fine-tuned that it contains the laws and materials necessary for life to emerge without further interference. Science cannot falsify any of that – nor, for that matter the theory that it was all created ex nihilo Last Thursday.
That’s why nothing in evolutionary biology is a threat to belief in God or gods, and why the paranoia surrounding “methodological naturalism” is so completely misplaced.
What is a threat to us all, though, I suggest, is bad science masquerading as science, and that is my objection to ID. Not the “broader” project itself as stated in the UD FAQ:
In a broader sense, Intelligent Design is simply the science of design detection — how to recognize patterns arranged by an intelligent cause for a purpose. Design detection is used in a number of scientific fields, including anthropology, forensic sciences that seek to explain the cause of events such as a death or fire, cryptanalysis and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). An inference that certain biological information may be the product of an intelligent cause can be tested or evaluated in the same manner as scientists daily test for design in other sciences.
but its fallacious (in my view) conclusion that:
…that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause rather than an undirected process such as natural selection.
Fallacious not because I assume that the “intelligent cause” is supernatural, but because the math and biochemistry simply do not support that inference. Even if it’s true.
It doesn’t matter since bias is dealt with on repeating others’ work.
Where do I suggest we shouldn’t always base conclusions on evidence? You seem to be intent on attacking a position I don’t hold.
I had been blissfully ignorant of formal philosophy till getting involved in internet discussions about ID and I’ve had to bone up a little since. I’m certainly unimpressed by religious philosophy epitomized by Ed Feser. Can you recommend something for the philosophical layman on philosophy of science? Popper?
Well, indeed. Your mission, should you wish to accept it, is to propose a well-designed experiment that could demonstrate anything at all about a “supernatural” phenomenon.
Yeah, that’s right, ask for advice from someone who’s never studied PoS. 😉 As long as he’s an atheist, right? The answer should be fun!
Patrick,
There are idiots, who do not ask questions. And then there are atheists who deny human-social reality.
PS @ Keith
Your phlogiston example is irrelevant. Proposing phlogiston as the substance that escapes when something burns is a reasonable testable hypothesis for the time it was first proposed. That it turned out to be wrong and was replaced by a better explanation says much about the scientific method (advancing along the Azimovian scale of wrongness) and nothing at all about whether “supernatural” is a meaningful concept.
Gregory,
Keith doesn’t do irony, Gregory. Being Canadian, I guess you dont either.
Gregory,
There are a wide variety of views among atheists. The only shared attribute is a lack of belief in a god or gods. There is no atheistic position either way on “human-social reality” (whatever that might be when it’s at home).
Is that a claim or presupposition? Isn’t the point of objective morality that it is context free?
Rate us on your PoS competency, Alan. What training in PoS do you have? Should anyone trust you in this field, since you’ve been asked?
Like I said Alan, you’ve been bested by keiths, as has Lizzie, re: MN. What recourse do you have but to admit it? Or just defend silly MNism like a TAMSZ apologetic-atheist mod/admin?
If I don’t think there is one, how can I want that?
Don’t you know it’s bad form to answer a question with a question.
Am I conscious? Well, that’s an easy one to answer. fmm, has your god revealed to you that I am conscious?
Keiths wrote
To repeat, it would indeed if that were the point I have been making. It is not a matter of declarations. Posited phenomena without entailments, models that cannot be tested, remain invisible to scientific scrutiny.
Gregory,
I freely admit to having none beyond a vague acquaintance with Popper. What can you recommend as introductory reading? Have you had any formal training in PoS?
I don’t believe or trust in this human being ‘Barry Arrington’. The conversation is much bigger than his little IDism would allow.
Gregory,
Why would you need to?
Yes, you freely admit to having little clue of what you’re talking about regularly here.
Alan Fox,
No, no, no, Alan. You first requested advice from your despairing atheist ‘colleague.’ I’m not going to answer you at TAMSZ, this hollow place.
Yes, I’ve had formal and practical training in PoS and have published in this field. But because you are an atheist, you instead trust in philosophistic KN, confused Lizzie, & wft was that other atheist person’s name…anything other than actually doing the work with a theist.
Don’t try to pretend you are sincerely interested in theistic views of science when you have shown nothing so far. Atheist Alan Brit-France bullshit is all you deserve so far.
By the same token I don’t think there is a mind behind HAL so by your own logic it follows that I’m not murdering him if I unplug him.
How can you not see the equivalence in the two situations? It’s like you have blind spot or something.
Yes he has and as such it follows necessarily that the universe is conscious unless you are separate from the universe
Use your head man, this is very basic stuff. I shouldn’t have to spoon-feed you like this.
peace
I know of no one who has ever argued that the prohibition against eating pork is binding on all people at all times and all places. The confusion of some atheist’s understanding of Christianity (and Judaism) would be laughable if it weren’t so sad
peace
Gregory,
So, although claiming to be somewhat of an authority on PoS, you can’t point me toward any introductory material?
Alan Fox,
You intentionally position yourself here as an atheist dehumanising anti-theist. You continue to mod/admin against justice here. And yet pretend to seek good knowledge?!
This is a hollow place. TAMSZ is a den of atheists where the likes of you are elevated as ‘moderators’ only to display undereducated bias against theists. No, sorry, why help sub-human atheist assholes? Can you suggest a decent reason?
p.s. theist Djokovic just whooped atheist Nadal in the ATP finals; well-earned!!
Gregory,
Christian charity?
Proof positive! (I mean it couldn’t be Nadal’s apparent steroid use for the last 15 years taking its toll.)
Alan Fox,
Atheist dehumanisation, despair, destruction of soul?
BTW calling fellow commenters sub-human is against the rules.
Gregory,
Theist projection, fear, anger, bitterness, general impotent sputtering?
I think I’m getting the hang of arguing like a sociologist!
Throw ‘the rules’ at me again and again, Alan. You lost vs. keiths re: MN (which has repercussions you probably haven’t yet explored). You don’t have a clue what you’re talking about wrt PoS. And you seem to expect theists to be convinced and converted by your worldview despair? C’mon, man, who are you trying to kid?
And your atheist pal ‘Patrick’ thinks he’s a sociologist without any training. Where do you idiotic pretentious people come from anyway?
fifth, to OMagain:
Oh, the irony!
Gregory,
Clearly your dehumanizing theistic beliefs have left you without a sense of humor.
Pretentious? Moi? Quelle ironie! 🙂
The Skeptical Zone is a wretched hive of scum and villainy!
Kantian Naturalist,
And worse, pretentious sociologists!
keiths:
Alan:
Now there’s a recipe for good science: “Just let me indulge my prejudices. Someone else will fix it.”
Alan,
It’s abundantly relevant, because it shows that your claim about science is wrong:
As I said:
In the opinion of this mere philosophist, there’s a lot of philosophy of science I’d recommend. It’s not my core area, but philosophy of science frequently intersects with philosophy of mind and cognitive science.
The best books in philosophy of science I’ve read within the last year are Rouse’s How Scientific Practices Matter and Horst’s Beyond Reduction. (Rouse and Horst are good friends and colleagues, though Rouse is a metaphysical naturalist and Horst is a Christian.)
Going back a bit to my grad school education, I can happily recommend Kitcher (Science, Truth, and Democracy), Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie), Dupre (The Disorder of Things), Longino (Science as Social Knowledge), Hacking (Representing and Intervening), Feyerabend (Against Method), van Fraassen (The Empirical Stance) and of course Kuhn.
You cheer my shriveled little atheist heart, OMagain! 🙂
But what is it you think you are spoon feeding me? It’s just your opinions disguised as revealed knowledge from your religion.
How can I not see the equivalence between me murdering the universe and you unplugging a conscious computer? Yeah, how can I not see that? You are very confused.
That seems right to me, though it’s been years since I’ve thought really hard about posits. Scientific reasoning would be absurdly limited if it was confined to only what is “immediately” perceptible.
The important thing is that the posits are constrained enough that we can generate testable predictions based on the causal powers ascribed to the posits. That is, we posit some unobserved entity, P, such that, if P exists, then we would predict that in circumstances C, we would observe E and that we would not observe E if P did not exist.
Usually it’s very difficult to establish the reality of the posit in one tidy little experiment, and it takes multiple lines of evidence and many different variations on the experiment to accumulate sufficient evidence for us to say that P exists (or doesn’t). But sometimes we get lucky, too!
Your god could simply have been clearer in it’s rules when handing them out. If there is confusion it is not because of the people receiving the rules, it is because of the person who says what they are.
Fish on Friday? Yes/No?
There are no stupid questions, only stupid answers.
And let’s face it, a bit of extra clarity from your deity would have prevented many many millions of deaths as people went to war over the most trivial of differences in interpretation.
So it’s almost as if your deity thrives on confusion and mayhem. Why many religions and not the true, single obviously true one?
That’s just a lie.
You may sincerely believe it, and you may just be repeating things some rightwing radio preacher has said about “atheistis”, but it’s just a lie.
No one here wants to murder the mind(s) behind the universe.
No one. Not even me. Not even with how much I abhor your genocidal raping tyrant god.
You owe everyone here an abject apology for your libel against us.
And you probably owe yourself a break from the (apparent) stress of trying to communicate with us. Go away for a while, heal thyself. Come back, or don’t as you wish, but don’t come back until you can behave yourself without falsely accusing us of wanting to “murder the mind(s) behind the universe”.
OMagain,
Hail Eris!
You need to spend some time with a cop listening to the convoluted twisted understanding of the criminal code that come from the average lawbreaker.
Depends on whether the crappie are biting.
and stupid premises for inquiry.
Funny how these scientific and philosophical discussions always end with the problem of evil and atheistic bible study hour. Can you even think of anything else?
It’s like you are obsessed or something.
Let me know if you have anything to add on the problem of other minds or the definition of natural verses supernatural.
peace
By exactly the same logic I don’t want to murder HAL.
I simply deny that he is a person and act accordingly in my own self interest.
You think that such a thing is murder and accused me of as much. I was even called a Nazi for my actions.
Good for the goose and all that
peace
Not me. I live in a small town where being visibly non-theist would get my car vandalized. It’s already suspicious enough when my car is always in my driveway on Sunday mornings (but maybe I walk or get a ride with someone else to church, so that’s sorta okay)
I guess I’m supposed to be grateful that most christians – in the western world, at least – no longer think they have god’s orders to burn people like me.
But I’m not about to take any more risk by displaying anything more obvious …
Not when we’ve got people like fifthmonarchyman around to remind us of how murderous they are towards entities that don’t fit their “revealed” picture of personhood.
You’ve never had a scientific discussion that I can tell.
Supernatural = everything you say that you can’t then provide evidence for.
Hmm, sounds familiar. Perhaps I saw it on a poster.
You would delete an entity no matter how much self awareness it showed. That is all.
like the claim that other minds exist?
If you disagree provide some evidence for once. I won’t hold my breath.
Right on cue.
and you still don’t even see it. ;-),
This is too easy
peace
By the way, the whole HAL thing has been about “the problem of other minds”. To you, there is no problem. You would murder an entity that was begging you not to, that was displaying self awareness.
If you are winning so strongly, what have you won? You win every argument you enter, after all you have god and his revealed knowledge on your side an who can compete with that?
Yes, it’s too easy. So perhaps there’s something else going on?
1) How do you tell the difference between self awareness and apparent self awareness?
2) If you can’t tell the difference how can you deny that self awareness exists in the universe?
peace
I agree that your conflation of “mind” and “the thing you claim is behind the universe” is noted.
Chuckle. Like the “evidence” you provide by quoting the bible? What was your evidence that each species is an archetype held in the mind of god again?
How do you? Apparently you can do it, as otherwise you would not be so happy to delete HAL.
What attributes that HAL displays does the universe also display? Please list them so we may get to the point of this.