The intelligent-design movement is, by design, a big tent accommodating almost everyone who has something to say against “Darwinism.” How kooky is too kooky for admission? Well, the Raelian movement’s Message from the Designers may be out, but the Unification Church’s message from Moon is definitely in.
Evolution News and Views (ENV), ID’s blog of record, is consequently a wellspring of incoherence. It recently posted a lame argument by geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig that survival is “too random” for natural selection to “work.” Geneticist (of high renown) Joe Felsenstein has just responded at The Panda’s Thumb. He mentions that the Discovery Institute also released a podcast interview of Lönnig. Checking it out, I find this teaser by David Klinghoffer, the editor of ENV:
The question of whether evolution is “random” is a perennial. Darwinists respond to the challenge, often delivered casually, by exasperatedly pointing out that the natural-selection component of evolution is hardly a matter of chance. Actually, though, as geneticist Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig explains in an ID the Future podcast interview with Discovery Institute’s Paul Nelson, this is not quite true…
But we also have, at the moment, this from one of ENV‘s “Top Articles” in the “Scientific Research” category:
Yes, of course, natural selection is a “nonrandom” process as Dawkins correctly insists. Rates of reproductive success correlate to the traits that organisms possess. Those with fitness advantages will, all other things being equal, out-reproduce those lacking those advantages. Got it. Understood.
In short, natural selection “works as advertised” in mainstream evolutionary theory. The author? Stephen C. Meyer, director of the Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.
But we are told repeatedly that if we understood True Design it would make so much sense that we’d immediately repent our Darwinism–if it weren’t for our love of sinning, anyway.
Now I despair of finding True Design.
Glen Davidson
My allusion to Robert Pennock’s book on ID creationism, Tower of Babel (see Eugenie Scott’s review in Scientific American), was unintentional, but not accidental. ID is what it was. And what it was is no longer politically viable.
The only correct sense in which evolution is “unguided” is that there is no empirically detectable mechanism which determines which phenotypic changes will be adaptive and then brings those changes about.
That’s perfectly consistent with theism, by the way. The idea that unguided evolution entails atheism is, to be polite, bullshit. But the Discovery Institute makes a lot of money selling that bullshit to the unwary who are terrified that atheism will lead to The Breakdown of Civilization. (Which is also bullshit, though of a quite different aroma.)
True LoveTrue DesignI despair at the thought of what will find me before I find It.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/04/more_on_randomn102753.html
Well, see, it’s a statistical thing. Individual survival to breed is ALMOST, but not quite, a matter of chance. Kind of like a roulette wheel almost but not quite gives the players an even chance against the house.
As John Muir wrote, nature is careless of the few, but careful of the many. Small individual variations, even those that are beneficial, aren’t much help — but a little help gives them an edge. Not much of an edge, and even strikingly beneficial variations are more likely than not to fail to spread to fixation.
I imagine Klinghoffer would also find the small chance of the little roulette ball landing in just one of the many slots to be so insignificant as to make the idea of the odds favoring the house implausible. I hope his intuition never leads him to take up gambling. Las Vegas was built (and thrives daily) on peoples’ refusal to accept that the odds favor the casinos — through “an infinite serious of fortunate strokes of small serendipities”, of course.
It’s certainly consistent with a “lit the blue touch paper” kind of theism. It’s even consistent with an interventionist theism. You might imagine a deity which occasionally reworks a detail of its finished artwork for its own esthetic satisfaction, rather than for utility or survivability of its creation.
This isn’t how the Abrahamists usually describe their god — but it could be how their god “really” is, if god really exists and created our universe to evolve towards life and consciousness, but can’t resist a few tweaks here and there.
Evolution wouldn’t be purely “unguided” then, but close enough for all practical purposes. As you say, no empirically detectable mechanism …
I’m not following what the threads point is. however if its denying critics of natural selection being able to do everything (and then accusing evos of saying it doesn’t have to) well why is that a especial crazy idea?
In a thread of my own i showed that natural selection being able to explain everrything must then always agree to explain the impossible.
If selection on a trait can lead to a new population then there is no limits to options save physics. So a impossible lineage is not impossible however impossible.
Mung,
That is shrewdly crafted rhetoric. So I know now that Lönnig is a Liar for God, not an honest-to-god kook.
The whole reason that creationist debaters insist that natural selection “is random” is to fool the gullible. Why, if it’s “random” then that means that evolutionists want us to believe that impressive adaptations are forming “randomly”, like a tornado in a junkyard. Creationist debaters trust that they can fool their audiences in this way.
Biologists keep trying to make the point that while mutational processes can be considered to be random, natural selection sorts things out in a highy directional way, such as making a bird fly faster rather than slower.
Tom is correct: Lönnig in his second ENV piece is playing slick word games, saying in effect that, well, what natural selection is doing is entriely based on the available mutations, so therefore it “is random”.
We are certainly in agreement on that!
However I have no clue what the rest of Byers’ comment means, so I cannot sensibly reply to it.
Of course it is. But ID isn’t about getting science out of the way of God. It’s about getting the courts to allow metonymic references to God in public science education. I have no doubt that Phillip Johnson thought in terms of saving Western Civilization. But he designed ID as a legal theory, assuming that the dissent of Scalia (joined by Rehnquist) in Edwards v. Aguillard would someday be the majority opinion.
Agreed. But the objective is to give conservative jurors a basis for ruling in favor of ID. The “scientific education” and “academic freedom” bills assert that they should not be construed to discriminate for or against religion. So if they are challenged in court, the issue of discrimination against religious viewpoints (presumably) gets a hearing.
The place of the DI within the Republican ecosystem is complicated. For instance, it has fed materials to the Family Life Foundation. Job One for the DI, I suspect, is to turn out conservative Christian voters by feeding their righteous indignation. Sure, the DI has tried to play the politics of fear. But what chance does it stand, when conservative Christians are inundated with talk about the Islamic caliphate taking over the world?
It feels strange to carry on about this stuff, now that Trump has clinched the Republican nomination.
ENV editor David Klinghoffer is pleased as punch to have Lönnig reject the mainstream notion of natural selection, and yet features an article in which Meyer emphatically accepts that notion.
This is not something unusual. ENV has always been a grab bag of mutually contradictory complaints against “Darwinism.”
Mung,
A conspiracy, IOW. Of which most here are willing, yet unwitting, participants.
‘Thoughtful people’ thus excludes the vast majority of biologists, plus many who understand the LLN and probability distributions. There is a strong tendency towards ‘some-therefore-all, few-therefore-none’ thinking among critics.
Tom English,
The world blinks.
Oh, the irony
Right. Many theologians would presumably maintain a wholly a priori argument for why evolution (and indeed all other physical processes) are really guided, despite how they (empirically) appear. That’s consistent with the claim of the evolutionary biologist that the process is unguided as far as empirical detectability is concerned.
There is no scientific argument against theistic evolution. The only arguments against it are going to be philosophical ones, or (if you’re into that kind of thing) theological ones.
Part of the chicanery of the ID movement is its tendency to dress up theological objections to theistic evolution in scientific drag.
I think it more likely that they just do not understand evolution, and they do not care to try to understand evolution.
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2016/03/randomness_in_n102731.html
LoL.
Natural selection doesn’t make birds fly faster or slower. It does not sort faster birds from slower birds. That’s just loony talk.
Evolution is and always has been mutation driven. It’s always been serendipity driven. One magical event following upon another magical event. It’s why evolution will never be science.
I don’t see why randomness is inconsistent with science. As I understand it, the most common interpretation of quantum phenomena depends on it.
Not really…
Still not quite right…
…and we can stop right there. That gets a big ol’ cup o’ NOPE.
There’s no magic, because there’s no intention. Not one organism is “supposed to” anything. That’s the whole point of evolution – it’s completely blind. It’s a mechanism that propagates useful changes through a group of organisms. Nothing magical about it.
Random mutation is simply half of the mechanism. You cannot have evolution without some mechanism of change (mutation) and some filtering mechanism (selection) within some framework of reproduction.
So your post here is totally erroneous Mung.
A set of fairly random creationist cliches selected for reaction rather than meaningful response.
I always wonder why randomness is supposed to be so bad to them, considering how lacking in intelligent direction their reactions are. A few shotgun blasts in the general direction of thought.
Glen Davidson
It’s all about the creationist strawman. If evolution is just random, then no particular change is any “fitter” than any other and everything about “evolution” is pointless and can’t do anything.
But note Mung’s post conveniently ignores the whole filtering component. This is the whole strawman version of evolution they believe in – it’s all random mutation and no selection. No wonder they are confused and frustrated.
Robin,
I think they have the same intuition that Lamarck had–that it just couldn’t be that we’d get, you know, Shakespeare, with nothing but natural selection and random mutation driving the boat. But it’s mostly just confirmation bias. I mean, I can’t believe it’s possible that, of all the cars in the world and all the other possible places to poop, that particular large bird just happened to crap on mine. And why did I step on the one tiny bit of black ice in my driveway and dislocate my kneecap? How the hell could that happen….by accident?! X>{
What I mean is that it’s a psychological need, IMO, stemming from fear of death (which I’m totally on board with, incidentally), desire to be cared for, need to be “special”–that sort of thing. It’s not really reason-driven, I don’t think.
I like to balance out the fear of death with a fear of life.
Glen Davidson
That’s different, though. The causal process that generates novel phenotypes is mostly well understood; those phenotypes are “random” only in the sense that the arrival of novel phenotypes in an environment prior to selection is not strongly correlated with what will be adaptive in that environment. (If it were, there would be no need for selection.)
In the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics, particular events have no discernible cause whatsoever, and it is only the statistical averaging over many such events that determine the probability of, say, a photon-electron interaction kicking an electron into a higher orbital.
“Random” is really not the right word to use in talking about the genesis of novel phenotypes, since that implies that we don’t understand the causal mechanisms behind that process and that’s all magic. In fact we have a pretty good understanding at a crude level, and we’re figuring out more and more details all the time. That’s precisely why creationists are epistemically on a par with Holocaust deniers: they insist that no one knows anything because they themselves don’t know everything.
I’m gonna make that my project for this summer!
Kantian Naturalist,
Thanks for those corrections.
Kantian Naturalist,
I think that the new biochemical micro machines and mechanisms being discovered over the last 50 years is making the explanation more difficult and adding fuel to political organizations fighting the TOE. Examples are transcription translation, epigenetic mechanisms, alternative splicing, hox genes, micro RNA’s, LCRNA’s, protein chaperones etc. When and if the scientific explanation for the change mechanism get more solid IMHO the NCSE and Discovery institute wars will quite down.
This doesn’t quite make sense to me. A better understanding of the biochemical complexity at work in the production of novel phenotypes does mean that there’s anything wrong with evolutionary theory. (It could mean that there’s something wrong with how evolutionary theory is taught in public schools, but that’s like the difference between high school calculus and college calculus.)
Even the idea of “the extended synthesis,” which I support without reservation, still doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with evolutionary theory.
And someone would oppose evolutionary theory for political reasons only if they were deeply, fundamentally confused. Or perhaps if they were a moron.
From reading Larry Moran’s blog, I gather that AP biology is just fine.
In fact, commenters on Sandwalk express the opinion that many writers of popular biology books should take an AP course before writing books.
Apparently, publishers and book buyers aren’t interested in finding out that epigenetics has been understood for fifty years and isn’t the droid they are looking for.
To help me evaluate which argument is loony, let me get this clear. You don’t think that differences in fitness between genotypes have any effect? And your quantitative argument is … what ?
Out of 120,000 fertilized eggs of the green frog only two individuals survive. Are we to conclude that these two frogs out of 120,000 were selected by nature because they were the fittest ones; or rather — as Cuenot said — that natural selection is nothing but blind mortality which selects nothing at all?
As I understand it, there are more than two adult green frogs. And it’s the adults which are selected for or against, not their eggs. Fitter adults will produce eggs that potentially can become fitter frogs, even if few survive.
I wonder if even creationists think it’s a compelling argument to point to somewhere OTHER than where selection is done, and then pretend they can’t find selection there. Or only maybe stupid creationists, unable to grasp which aspects of their overall dishonesty are most idiotic.
Mung would be popular with casino owners.
But of course this all ties in with the assertion tha most fixed alleles got there by drift. But all of them got through the sieve of purifying selection. Really detrimental variations will never spread in a population.
So that leaves neutral and nearly neutral variants.
colewd,
I think, on the contrary, that ‘complexology’ is being seized upon by opponents to try and make capital. Biochemistry is no more complex than it was 50 years ago. We know a lot more detail, but there is nothing that could not, in principle, evolve. People spend considerable research hours investigating the evolution of the very things that were unknown 50 years ago.
If there were a problem, you can bet your life someone would be trying to make a name for themselves with it. But so far, all I hear are variants on “the spliceosome – how the f*** does that work then?”, from people who seem unwilling to even try and understand the answer.
Mung,
How is this any different from the random ‘selection’ of gametes – the millions of eggs and billions of sperm – in the average multicellular eukaryote? You think biologists were unaware of this?
So this makes sense if someone intentionally designed it but doesn’t if it happened unintentionally?
it must be that they reject natural selection as able to account for the constant creation of biology results from start to finish. Yet accept it on a limited basis. so they would embrace both points. even yEC accept selection for minor things relative to the glory of biology. YEC is fine with the amazon arms race in creatures using colors etc to survive .
Well thats a important point or admission. The historic hunch of anti-evolutionists was that selection/random could not do the deed. yet evolutionists said it could.
Now your saying a highly directional way is in operation with evolutionary process.
What does “can be considered” mean/ as opposed to meaning that its random??
Random or not?!
This direction concept surely is a retreat and how does that work in blind selectionism as Darwin insisted on?
yes there are ceilings in biology from physics and other issues. Chemical biology has ceilings.
Direction. hmmm.
Perhaps your side means by direction just more limited options has been realized of late. So there is less options and more of a roll of the dice, a fixed dice, going on about biological change.
Most of the aware public would thing evolution is abount undirected chance in selection affecting survival of creatures with beneficial mutations and so creating new populations.
Thats why iD/YEC would stress how unlikely this is.
Now your side says there is a species of direction to selections efforts and results.
this is a worthy subject for iD scientist even if they/everyone gets points wrong. If so!
https://www.google.es/search?q=Wrybill+eggs&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwih762mzcfMAhWEthoKHbZVCXUQ_AUIBygB&biw=1920&bih=965
Even if the process of natural selection is not random, there are unsurmountable problems :
Dembsi, the design of life, general notes, page 11:
If the proportion of gene sequences that are biologically useful were large, there might be reason to think that point or chromosome mutations could be helpful in achieving the novel biological structures required by macroevolution. But all the evidence points to biologically useful gene sequences being exceedingly rare. It’s therefore highly unlikely that point and chromosome mutations can transform a duplicated gene into a novel functional gene. Genetic sequence space (i.e., the set of all possible genetic sequences) is functionally sparse (i.e., the overwhelming majority of genetic sequences don’t, and indeed can’t, do anything biologically useful or significant). As a consequence, navigating genetic sequence space by undirected means is no help getting from one island of functionality (i.e., one region of biologically useful or significant genetic sequences) to the next. For instance, there is no evidence that conventional evolutionary mechanisms, such as natural selection, can evolve a gene in one region of genetic sequence space with one set of functions into a gene in a far distant region of genetic sequence space with another set of functions (distance here being measured in terms of sequence similarity). In the language of mathematical biology, genetic sequence space gives no indication of being highly interconnected by functional pathways that continuously connect genes with one function to genes with another (which would be required if natural selection, say, were to assist a duplicated gene in transforming into a novel gene). But there are still more problems with trying to make mutation the basis for macroevolution. For point and chromosome mutations to account for macroevolutionary change, it is not enough for individual genes to be transformed into novel genes that exhibit novel functions. Rather it is required that a whole suite of novel genes be produced through the coordinated transformation of existing genes. This is because for new biological structures to evolve (as required by macroevolution), many genes will have to change.
The only beneficial mutations that have ever been observed, in bacteria or in any other kind of organism, have been biochemical. That is, they affect only single molecules (such as the target molecule for streptomycin). There are no known beneficial mutations affecting morphology, or shape. All known morphological mutations are either neutral (i.e., they don’t have any noticeable effect on the organism’s fitness), or they are harmful—and the bigger their effect the more harmful they are. Yet, Darwinian evolution (i.e., the origin of new species, new organs, and new body plans) clearly requires changes in shape. So, there is no evidence for (and indeed a lot of evidence against) a role for mutations as providing raw materials for Darwinian evolution.
Proteins: how they provide striking evidence of design
http://reasonandscience.heavenforum.org/t2062-proteins-how-they-provide-striking-evidence-of-design#3552
otangelo,
It doesn’t. Been through this a thousand times.
otangelo,
“Yet, Darwinian evolution (ie., [a list of things that aren’t Darwinian evolution])”
Yes, let’s all visit heavenforum to learn about how the science of Proteins provides striking evidence of ‘design’.
Out of interest, is the Intelligent Designer responsible for that ‘design’ running heaven also?
It doesn’t. Been through this a thousand times.
How so ? please explain.
Well, what is the evidence that points to that conclusion? Your attempt to answer that question will in turn answer your own question.
Well, thats the point:
The functional space of a chain of amino acids is a small subset of possible sequences — a very small subset, in fact. Take a chain of N amino acid residues. Since there are 20 amino acids in proteins, there are 20N possible combinations. For a relatively small protein of 100 amino acids, that’s 20100 combinations, or 20 thousand trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion possibilities. Of those, only a tiny fraction of those are functional — if they fold at all.