This offers the simplest “neutral” colloquial mixture of “design” and “evolution” that I’ve seen in a long time. The site is no longer maintained, but the language persists.
“As a designer it is important to understand where design came from, how it developed, and who shaped its evolution. The more exposure you have to past, current and future design trends, styles and designers, the larger your problem-solving toolkit. The larger your toolkit, the more effective of a designer you can be.” http://www.designishistory.com/this-site/
Here, the term “evolution” as used just meant “history”. The author was not indicating “design theory evolution”, but rather instead the “history of designs” themselves, which have been already instantiated.
The topic “design is history” nevertheless enables an obvious point of contact between “evolution” and “design”. They both have histories that can be studied. Present in the above meaning of “design” are the origin, processes and agent(s) involved in the “designing”. This differs significantly from the Discovery Institute’s version of “design theory”, when it comes to history, aim, structure and agency, since the DI’s version flat out avoids discussion of design processes and agent(s). The primary purpose of the DI’s “design theory”, meanwhile, is USAmerican religious apologetics and “theistic science”.
The quotation above likely didn’t come from an IDist, and it isn’t referencing “Intelligent Design” theory as a supposed “scientific theory”. The “designer” in the quotation above is a (more or less intelligent) human designer, not a Divine Designer. This fact distinguishes it “in principle” from the Discovery Institute’s ID theory, which is supposed to be (depends on who you’re speaking with in the IDM) about first biology, then informatics, and statistics. The DI’s ID theory is not actually focused on “designing by real designers”, but rather on apologetics using “design” and informational probabilism.
The Discovery Institute’s failure to distinguish or even highlight the differences and similarities between human design and Divine Design, and instead their engagement in active distortion, equivocation, double-talking, and obfuscation between them, are marks of its eventual downward trend to collapse.
And with a wave of his hand, Life was explained. Ta-dah!
Nope. We’ve moved beyond that. Recognised by observing genetic commonality, a layer undreamt of by those stuck with deducing phenotypic commonalities.
It is a hypothesis worthy of consideration, rather than knee-jerk dismissal.
Jolly good. How does it get there? By what means does a bird access the ‘group creativity’ you analogise with that of an individual human, such that their nests are as distinctive as their eggs?
Eta – is the mechanism of group transmission fundamentally different for nest-shape and egg colour? If so, why? If not, why not?
Good grief. You asked me for details!
Correct. I’ve tried addressing your ‘noises-off’ addenda – for example noting that Talbott’s point was a non sequitur – and you ignored it, proving the futility of my going down the rabbit hole. After all, you didn’t write it, why should you defend it? Sigh.
And you think this is news to gene-centrists?
Still no. You’re tilting at windmills
Nonsense. I exclude them from statements invoking direct manufacture by gene products because the genome clearly does not ‘make water’ (well even then … oh, never mind). I don’t exclude them from All Statements About Anything Ever. You’re determined to get a Gotcha out of it one way or another.
The fact that given expression modes occur repeatedly and consistently, such that one can look at one member of a species and be sure the same thing goes on in all others (the basis of medicine, for one thing), and the observation that this regulation itself has a genetic basis, suggest that you are wrong.
Your argument here being “because X has not outcompeted Y, nothing was ever outcompeted and hence everything that ever existed should have left modern descendants”.
That’s a pretty awful mangling of relativistic concepts with taphonomy. First quantum, now this. At least RNA world tries to take account of actual physics.
I think you meant to say that explaining complex adaptations is a goal of both evolutionary theory and creationism accounts, right? I am a bit of a suspicious bastard, so I actually doubt the latter.
To get the thread a bit more on OP, could you comment on the criticism that to escape from the realm of pseudo-science, ID should focus on describing “origin, processes and agent(s)” of organismal design? Is it a good idea? Is it even possible?
Trust me on this, I am a researcher.
I admire your faith in the power of chance events.
All the time. I don’t stare out of the window on Christmas Eve looking for Santa anymore. I don’t believe in an anthropomorphic god anymore.
ID and creation science has been playing an important role in stimulating reductionist, physicalists to defend their position. I’ve read plenty of papers and articles in which ID advocates and/or creationists are mentioned and criticised. Why would these subjects even need to be mentioned in scientific literature if the authors don’t feel that they are worthy of countering?
It is pointless to say that I would be an identical twin of Rowan Atkinson. If that way the case that person would not be me.
Corneel,
This was not to be a comment about the goals. Its about how the models are implemented and the starting points for the models. Both models use the same starting point which is reproducing populations.
To escape the wrath of science ID needs to become useful. In order for scientific inquiry to be effective it needs to understand where its lines of inquiry are likely to lead to productive discovery. ID is useful in helping to shine the light on areas that have a low probability of leading to useful discovery.
Yes I can believe that. Weismann’s experiment was pointless from his point of view because he already knew what the outcome would be. If others believed anything different, then that was their problem.
The inheritance of acquired physical differences should be thought of as occurring at the group level. A population of birds on Mauritius lose the inclination to fly. They had little to fear by remaining on the ground where they had all they needed and so their morphology changed accordingly. I might have seen them as the avian equivalent to couch potatoes were it not for the existence of sloths.
A more advanced form of inheritance that does take place at the individual level is learning. It is fairly straightforward to make the Standard evolutionary argument when dealing with plants. They follow pretty standard patterns of replication and differentiation. Animals have the additional complication of instinctive behaviour to explain. But even higher animals and humans have in addition to this the ability to progress through individual learning. In higher life forms evolution has produced creatures that are relatively poor at reproducing in numbers but they live more meaningful and unique individual lives. Their existence goes against the flow of what would be expected of Darwinian evolution. Compare what it takes for e coli to reproduce with the intricacies that higher animals have to traverse in order to reproduce. Does this make any sense in a Darwinian franework?
For example?
Are you frightened of where quantum mechanics is leading us?
Changes in the DNA of germ cells get inherited. But not all changes are caused by blind chance. Why assume all changes are ‘mistakes’?
In my experience they are mentioned because they have misrepresented previous or similar work. Nobody is actually rebutting their scientific work.
Perhaps you can link to a few examples where this countering can be seen? It should be easy, if you’ve ready plenty of papers.
In the real world it seems to me that most people writing scientific papers have never even heard of ID or creationism and certainly don’t think they need to be “countered” as they simply are not relevant in their everyday experience.
This is the same “you are frightened of the implications of what X means, that a creator god is real, that’s why you are rejecting the evidence for Y”
It’s a sad ploy. It’s pure projection, even though you phrase it as a question.
And where is it that you think that quantum mechanics is leading is? And how long until it gets there and you can note unambiguously what it means that we are “there”?
Who should we watch in the world of QM? Who is doing work you believe will eventually led us to a place where people here are frighted of the implications?
Weapon against what, creationism? And why does evolution need a weapon?
But at least it comes with a model.
I don’t doubt that. What I am calling into question is your ability to reason. But then, perhaps you’re not trying to be reasonable, or rational. 🙂
Do you understand what is meant by the term non sequitur?
Likewise.
If the mutations that lead to novel functional and non-functional forms are not chance events, what are they?
And beyond that, do you think a mutation has any say in the environment (erm, “context”) in which occurs? Is that also not a chance event?
Oh dear! I was trying to help evolutionary skeptics focus their attacks. Attack selection successfully and your task is done. Have at it!
They are chance events.
I would think an unknown designer of something that exists would be subject to scientific research whether ID is scientific or not. Why not?
Because of the pernicious political influence of these notions in popular thinking. It’s like saying ‘why do people attack anti-vaxxers if there’s nothing in it?’.
No, it wouldn’t be you. But it’s still the case, if it were a genetically identical nucleus implanted in your zygote’s cytoplasm, that ‘you’ would be a functional twin. The point of the thought experiment (a mirror of real experiments) is that the form of the result is determined by genetics, not cytoplasm, not that one is implanting a sense of ‘self’ in the nucleus.
So does RNA world.
OMagain,
My immediate reaction too.
‘Quantum’ goes along with ‘epigenetics’, and anything else IDists fondly imagine bolsters their position by going against the ‘reductionist paradigm’. Sadly, as with epigenetics, or indeed genetics, a grasp of the subject itself is lacking. And people seem to reach a certain point in their lives that getting that grasp – especially in conversation with a ‘reductionist’ – will remain perennially elusive. It is reminiscent of attempts to reason with conspiracists. Once the mind has opened sufficiently, it becomes a yawning chasm, and all manner of nonsense falls in! 😉
Feynman’s jibe ‘cargo cult science’ remains true today.
No but I assume their ancestors would have. Dogs are a narrower specialisation which has developed out of a more general mammalian form.
And the evolutionary future of dogs has been restricted by their limbs which are specialised for locomotion and their sense and nervous system which has developed one-sidedly towards the sense of smell.
Well, certainly wolfs didn’t remain wolfs, right Charlie?
Of course there would be some similarities to humans. They would need to have some similar attributes that we would recognise. Why do you think the search for other form of life in the solar system has focused on primitive forms with no awareness of the wider universe? What evidence would be expected if any more advanced life existed?
Do have a more sensible answer to my original question?
Clones are never exactly identical and it is not just the genome but the complete nucleus that is transferred.
For US to recognize THEM, then it goes without saying that they would have some attribute that we would recognize, but your original question was “What attributes do you think they would need to possess to get to a point where they could observe life in a separate region of the universe?”, so there is no need whatsoever for them to have any attributes that we would recognize. Your thinking is, for the umpteenth time, waaaay to anthropocentric.
Prior probabilities: given what we currently know about our solar system, technologically advanced aliens in our solar system seems unlikely…
…we would be enslaved.
To observe life in a separate region of the universe, aliens would need to be technologically advanced. The idea that they would be humanoid is just plain silly.
Heh. As predicted. However, this is not the case with prokaryote transfers. However you slice it, form appears not to be determined by cytoplasmic factors, however much you may wish to blur all of phenotype into one mushed-up concept. To the extent that a zygote has pre-loaded cytoplasm/nuclear content, which does have a role in extracting genotype, that material is rapidly diluted by repeat cell division. What isn’t diluted is the genome.
Why not come out of your cave and read up on the history of skepticism regarding selection. Skepticism that arose within the evolutionary community, not from the opponents of evolution.
I agree.
Funny how a process can have opponents.
Next up, Mung vs the power law.
But I don’t think that’s what he said. I think there are disputes within the scientific community in every field. Advances in theory always start with competing interpretation of insufficient and generally misunderstood evidence, collected with initially inappropriate instrumentation – a situation which can’t be corrected without good theory, which in turn requires correct instrumentation. It’s a bootstrap spiral process.
So Mung is exactly correct. The leading edge of research in all fields is always a matter of dispute and skepticism. Often enough, the nitty gritty specifics of some field are understood by only a couple of researchers, who are the ONLY ones qualified to do peer review of each others’ work – and both of them think the other is wrong!
? My point remains that evolution depends on selection. Show that selection doesn’t work and evolutionary theory collapses.
Flint,
Without any substance, though, it’s hard to see what objections Mung is referring to. My guess is that it’s the ‘selectionist-neutralist controversy’, in which case it would be a misunderstanding of that controversy to see any participants opposing selection as an evolutionary force. Even the most ardent neutralists or mutationists recognise that selection also happens. Unless anyone knows different.
Not sure what you are referring to. What “creationist model” uses reproducing populations?
Being a science stopper is hardly useful. It is one of the many red flags showing that ID has nothing to do with science whatsoever. Why not flesh out “design history”?
Why didn’t they start flying again when the trade vessel crews started hunting them for meat? I bet they developed a passion for flying again real soon at that point.
Are you currently losing competition with the billions of E. coli inhabiting your gut? If not, then it goes fine with the “Darwinian framework” (personally, I think it is more of a question for ecology, but soit).
Since when do the paints completely determine what the painting will look like? Are you frightened of where genetics is leading us perhaps?
So much for our passions recruiting the appropriate archetypes. Are we free to develop according to our passions or are we restricted by our current form? What is it going to be?
You are suggesting that the revelation that all of life is designed will NOT result in people wanting to know who is the designer, yet I am the one who is not rational?
Striped socks!
Let me quote myself, because I am so pleased with it:
“Since when do the paints completely determine what the painting will look like? ”
It was you who suggested that mutation alone sufficed to explain the arisal of novel functional forms. Not me. You can defend it if you like. I will not.
Sorry if my facetious response irked you, but it was rather obvious what you were driving at. Jock spotted it as well.
To answer your question more sensibly: They would need to be able to survive interplanetary travel and they would need senses (in order to be able to observe). So far, no earthly life has accomplished that feat though humans have the best papers for doing this in the future. That does not mean that any aliens need to be like humans to accomplish this.
How any of this is relevant to our original discussion is unclear to me.
What Allan said.
I think if your interpretation of what Mung meant is correct, then of course that is correct.
Nobody who has been paying attention could have missed the debates re: selection.
Alan’s original point related to ‘evolutionary skeptics’. People who don’t believe that evolution works at all. There is a substantial difference between those people disagreeing that it works at all and having a disagreement inside the paradigm of evolution.
Mung’s conflation of the two is designed to provoke.
Mung might well be exactly correct, but what’s his intent? To clarify or to confuse?
Exactly this. Mung just throws verbal hand grenades around freely to see what he can provoke. Ever see him actually engaging on one side or other of the debate? Ever see him give his actual opinion on these matters? Me neither.
Give phoodoo a break, guys. His positions relays on the premise that something that is true, must be false, so attacking the tautology that something that is true, is true, is simply a matter of coherence for him.
Nice list.
Here are a few comments on these points:
1. So in reality a gene is a complex of nucleotides, proteins, salts and ions. In fact genes never appear naked in living systems. Whether we consider a gene to be active or passive will depend on how we decide to define it.
2. The expression of any one gene is dependent on other genes. What is in evidence is coordinated activity.
3. True. Genes are a part of the whole and are meaningless out with the context of the whole.
4. Also the comprehension of physiology needs to take account of comparative morphology, both within and between organisms.
5. Yes. Genes are incapable of acting independently.
6. Are there any decisions taken that are the result of ‘a gene ‘for’ doing that thing.’? The individual decisions made by organisms are highly contingent on circumstances and this influences gene expression.
7. No particles are placed in any location by genes. Products of gene expression processes either diffuse, transport themselves, or are actively transported to their suitable locations.
8. If you disagree with the description of genes that I gave in No.1, but consider the gene as a sequence of DNA then it is passive and does not act either deterministically or otherwise. It is acted upon.
Material substance comes and goes but information persists. I’ll agree with that.
Yes my actions will result in changes to gene expression. I also agree with that.
Corneel,
All that I have seen. Have you read Genesis 3,5 and 6. Populations are preloaded on the earth.
Being a “science stopper” is a great thing if the probability of success of a particular project is extremely low. It also aids in generating models that can actually be useful vs chasing rainbows.