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?
As I understand Joe’s argument, it wouldn’t be that the Intelligent Designer checked the weather and adjusted the beak sizes, but that the Intelligent Designer checked the seed sizes, and when a finch’s beak was too small to eat a seed, intelligently starved the finch so that it wouldn’t breed.
Joe? Do you see the problem?
Sorry Joe, but your “GAs run inside of cells” hypothesis was dead before it hit the ground. Here’s another fatal flaw it has:
In computer-run GAs the algorithms aren’t part of the organisms doing the evolving. They’re external – part of the environment. Indeed the algorithm controls the environment, providing the selection pressure that culls out the results undesirable for the goal.
How do your “GAs inside of cells” control external selection pressure to vector the organism towards the desired goal?
Yes, I think Joe has misunderstood how GAs work. Certainly his understanding seems different to the account given in the link he provided, which was a nice description of conventional GAs in which the whole thing – virtual organisms, virtual environment, is the GA, and nothing “runs inside” the organisms apart from reproduction with variance, as in biology.
BTW, Joe, as you seem to generate quite a bit of activity on your threads, I’ve got your new post still “pending” – I’ll release it into the wild next week when I’ve got a bit more time to keep an eye on things 🙂
I think Joe has misunderstood Shapiro’s claim of natural genetic engineering.
Watching that figure more closely, it looks like Pivar thinks horse hooves are made of two fused digits. That’s state-of-the-art anatomy… of 1848.
Dude I just asked how he can tell if it was NS or not.
Obvioulsy no one can.
That’shighly probable, Joe, as dachshunds don’t, in fact, live on badgers.
But, if they did, or could, and there were plenty of badgers, why would NS weed out the dachshunds?
My point of course being that it doesn’t matter whether the reason a variant becomes more prevalent is because humans like it for some reason, and breed from it, or because there is some other reason why that variant breeds better (perhaps it has better camouflage, or better eyesight) -the end result is the same.
Why should NS not produce dachshunds in an environment in which badgers were good food for dogs?
Umm it is up yo YOU to demonstrate what NS can do if that is your position- that NS didit.
Ya see with AS certain things would come about that would never happen with NS- take the Russians and tame foxes- the tame faxes started to have a coat pattern different from other, wild foxes.
That is because certains genomic patterns emerged as a result of AS.
Nice fasle accusation- and fine you think the stuff that goes on inside a cell “just happens” that new genes and new proteins “just happen”.
Ya see Elizabeth in my scenario the GA tells the mutations to occur to produce the new and required proteins- it would trigger the gene duplication followed by function-changing mutations- it would trigger the insertion or deletion or recombination or transposon- the GA directs that activity towards the goal of the new protein/ protein configuration.
Nope, that ain’t right. It is that the GA would be reacting to the environment- much like epigenetics- to ensure the POPULATION had the variations necessary to ensure survival during climatic changes.
There still isn’t any evidence that NS produced the beak variations. There is no evidence that the blind watchmaker can produce a finch.
I gave YOU the information so you can do that for yourself.
Get to it.
What does NS do and what is your evidence?
Elizabeth-
I am done with this thread as now the topic has been totally abandoned and it has become painfully obvious that most evos don’t understand the OP and are afraid to actually address it.
If I am not going to get answers to my off-toic questions I don’t see any reason to answer other people’s off-topic questions.
I can start another thread for GAs, if you like- but only after Tiktaalik…
Of course there is. The beak sizes correlate with the weather conditions of the previous years. That’s positive evidence for natural selection. It’s not an absolute proof, but science does not rely on such high standards.
You are looking at the result and trying to tell us how it came to be. NS requires the variation be random. In order for it to be NS it has to be differential reproduction due to heritable random variation.
Again you have no idea how the variation arose in the forst place in order to be “selected”.
There is of course another possible explanation. Namely, that the OP is not even wrong. It doesn’t contain much of an argument.
The variation for the beaks ALREADY EXISTED IN THE POPULATION.
NS cannot explain that.
BTW the OP is not an argument- it is a statement of fact.
NS explains the frequency of alleles in a population, not the origination of the alleles.
Can we at least be clear on the difference between the source of variation and the reasons some alleles become more common or fixed?
NS does not require variation to be random. You can create very specific mutations and subject the resulting progeny to competition via differential reproduction. The outcome will still be natural selection.
That’s beside the point. How variations arise is a separate question. (See above.) The question is: once variations arise, what happens? Darwin’s theory answers that.
Certainly it cannot. But nor can it explain how the variation for dachshunds existed in the population. My point is, that neither NS nor AS explains how the genes for the short-legged/long-bodiness of dachsunds came about.
So if there is an Intelligent Designer, it seems a bit pointless for the ID to be acting as Artificial Selector when Natural Selection will do just as well. What you are proposing, I think, is that the ID is necessary not at the selection stage (or not only at the selection stage) but at the variance generation, stage, no?
That would make a bit more sense of your “GAs embedded in the organism” thing – that what is embedded isn’t the fitness function (which would make no sense) but some kind of preferentially-advantageous-variant-producing gizmo, that could then be acted on by either AS or NS.
Doesn’t that make more sense? (although you wouldn’t call that an “embedded GA”, because the virtual organisms in GAs generally undergo straightforward mutations, they aren’t “tweaked” by anything).
Once again, Joe. Natural selection is not the source of innovation. It’s a filter that favors particular varieties. Variation is a separate question.
No, it’s a statement of opinion, followed by an argument.
The statement of opinion is in boldface type in the OP:
This is not a fact. It is just your opinion. Others opined that ID is not OK with biological evolution. I won’t assess whose arguments offered better support for which opinion, but I want to make it clear that it is a clash of opinions, not facts.
Now that Joe has demonstrated that he doesn’t understand how GAs work and has zero supporting evidence for his “GAs run inside of cells” idea, what’s next?
Yes, according to fairly well understood principles of biochemistry.
No, I think they are the result of sequence changes to the genome that have phenotypic effects that impact on probability of successful reproduction. I think there are lots of mechanisms (biochemical again) for those sequence changes, one being recombination (in sexually reproducing species), but also events that happen during reproduction: insertion, deletion, duplication, substitution.
Ah, right. In that case you are saying what I thought you should be saying 🙂 So it’s not that the ID acts like a plant or animal breeder, substituting AS for NS, but rather that the ID acts at the level of variation generation. Now you are on the same page as Behe, I think.
But then that woudn’t be a direction by a GA – GAs don’t do any directing at the level of variation generation, they “direct”, just as AS and NS do, at the level of the environment in which the population has to thrive, and only “direct” in the sense that gravity “directs” a river downhill – it still has to find the most efficient path, and it doesn’t “know” where it’s trying to get to, or what other ways there might be.
So how do you think your “GA” (can we give it another name? Intelligent Mutation Generator – IMG?) generates these new sequences? Presumably you envisage it happening at DNA level, during meiosis or (or mitosis for cloning species)?
No, it’s clearly personal opinion.
OK, but then it wouldn’t be a GA.
The whole system would be a GA, but your Intelligent Mutation Generator (IMG) wouldn’t be. It would be an extra gizmo.
And there’s some evidence that you are half right (heh) on epigenetics. One theory is that epigenetic effects dampen the phenotypic effects of existing phenotypes, ensuring that variance is retained in the population in the event of a change of environment. This would entail population-level selection of course.
And you are also part-right, AFAIK, on epigenetics (did you ever watch that Denis Nobel video) – some epigenetic effects seem to be directly beneficial in the environment that induced them (not all do).
But epigenetics wouldn’t, and doesn’t, by definition, affect the DNA sequence, just the conditions under which the sequence is expressed. So that can’t account for chanes in genes.
So you must be proposing some active system that responds to the environment and tweaks the sequence appropriately. Well, could be, I guess. Again, it’s something that would tend to be selected at population level (because populations with the gizmo would tend to be more robust to environmental change.
Do you have any evidence for such a gizmo? I guess Shapiro’s work hints at the possibility.
No, oleg, you are very mistaken. I have proviuded the ID leadership that states ID is OK with biological evolution.
ID is against blind watchmaker evolution only.
IOW you are just twisted.
How is it my personal opinion when I provided several IDists as references?
Talk about pathetic…
Once again variation is part of natural selection- natural selection is the result of sdifferential reproduction due to heritable random variation.
And I provided opposing references – from same sources. So it’s not cut and dried – clearly YOUR OWN PERSONAL INTERPRETATION (opinion). Teach the controversy!
There aren’t “well understood pronciples of biochemistry” and stuff just happening because all the parts came together isn’t testable.
We need some way to test your opinions.
If you have something please present it and I will ditch my GA idea.
You provided an unreferenced quote-mine.
There isn’t any evidence that NS works as well as AS.
So that would be an issue.
Of course there are. Here: Principles of Biochemistry by David Nelson and Michael Cox, fourth edition. 🙂
I’m not sure I have anything topical to contribute, and I haven’t followed the arguments very closely, but
“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.)”
But some of the correspondents have added some important (“definitive”?) stipulations or qualifications.
If biological evolution is definitively not designed, not planned for, undirected, etc., then evolutionary computing is definitively not evolution and neither is human “evolution” evolution, and neither is the artificial selection and “evolution” of other domestic breeds of animals evolution. Indeed, virtually everything we’ve learned about evolution isn’t about “evolution” at all! Virtually everything we’ve learned about evolution is by design and through design—but according to some, that can’t be “evolution,” and definitively so!
But does anyone actually observe these strictures upon our understanding of “evolution”? I don’t think so. (Maybe more to the point, did anyone actually pay any attention to those definitions?)
But that could be a good thing, after all, as it indicates that people are not restricting themselves to the sometimes nonsensical and contradictory “definitions” proffered by Joe G. (Even if they are not actually giving much thought to it.)
Did I just join the ranks of the “anti-evolutionists”?
Great do they provide any evidence that blind and undirected processes didit?
No? Then what does anyone really know?
Read it in full:
http://www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.pdf
You may find it enlightening about ID motivations and ties to creationism.
Did what?
It probably doesn’t, if you’re looking to exaggerate specific features, although AS often times reduces fitness in other dimensions. But that’s a red herring, because they both work. The relative is not a degree is not an issue.
Read it- it says that ID is against materialitic evolution, ie blind watchmaker evolution.
Obvioulsy you have reading comprehension issues.
Again what does NS do?
AS can create little unfit dogs. What can NS do?
Hi Rock – in what way were the definitions I provided “nonsensical and contradictory “definitions” “
It can create big fit dogs. 🙂
In that case each organism’s GA would need to be able to communicate with all other members of the population and their GAs. Otherwise how can what you say be true? How can the GA ensure that the POPULATION has the variations necessary without knowing what variations are present globally?
Question-begging
It doesn’t say that. It just says “evolution” –
some background:
In his 1997 book Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds Johnson summed up the underlying philosophy of the strategy:
If we understand our own times, we will know that we should affirm the reality of God by challenging the domination of materialism and naturalism in the world of the mind. With the assistance of many friends I have developed a strategy for doing this… We call our strategy the “wedge.
—pg. 91-92, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds
(wikipedia)
Johnson stated in an interview conducted in 2002 for Touchstone Magazine”
“Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters.” –
he also says:
“Our strategy has been to change the subject a bit so that we can get the issue of intelligent design, which really means the reality of God, before the academic world and into the schools.”
“This isn’t really, and never has been a debate about science. Its about religion and philosophy.”
Full Demski quote:
“From our vantage, materialism is not a neutral, value-free, minimalist position from which to pursue inquiry. Rather, it is itself an ideology with an agenda. What’s more, it requires an evolutionary creation story to keep it afloat. On scientific grounds, we regard that creation story to be false. What’s more, we regard the ideological agenda that has flowed from it to be destructive to rational discourse. Our concerns are therefore entirely parallel to the evolutionists’. Indeed, all the evolutionists’ worst fears about what the world would be like if we succeed have, in our view, already been realized through the success of materialism and evolution. Hence, as a strategy for unseating materialism and evolution, the term “Wedge” has come to denote an intellectual and cultural movement that many find congenial. ”
No blind watchmakers there.
Not necessarily. If it’s a general response of the DNA to some environmental factor common to the whole population of organisms, you could get simultaneous sequence changes.
Or maybe it just happens in one individual from time to time, and then is rapidly selected by NS.
What do you think, Joe? Sounds like you might have an actual testable hypothesis there 🙂
No, it’s a hypothesis.