Note that I do not say “wrong”. I don’t think ID is wrong. I do think that it is not falsifiable.
That is not in itself a problem. I’d argue that most theories are unfalsiable. What are falsifiable are the predictive hypotheses we derive from our theories.
So I’ll go out on a limb and say that neither evolutionary theory nor ID are, in themselves, falsifiable. However, evolutionary theory generates lots of testable hypotheses. Many of these have proved confirmatory; some have delivered surprises, and as a result, the theory has had to change. This is a good thing.
In contrast, I would argue, that ID generates very few hypotheses, one exception being “front-loading”, and this remains rudimentary, and, AFAIK, untested.
But the problem I have found, repeatedly, in my discussions with ID proponents is that they insist that ID is “not about the designer/design process, it’s just about detecting design”. And so there is actual resistance, it seems, to constructing testable hypotheses, as these will, necessarily, I would argue, involve hypotheses about process.
What Dembski, and others, present instead, are probability estimates for a non-design alternative. And this is what I suggest is fallacious. Null hypothesis testing (not the only kind of hypothesist testing, but the one favoured by Dembski) is the process by which we do not attempt to falsify our actual hypothesis, but the “null” – the hypothesis that our actual hypothesis is untrue. Interestingly, this invokes the law of non-contradiction! What Dembki tests is that non-design is false, ergo design is true.
And that, IMO, is where the fallacy lies, and is just as fallacious as Dawkins or Provine arguing that evolutionary theory allows us to conclude that ID is false, or makes atheism a necessary conclusion. Unless you can actually model your null, which Dembski does not – and I would argue cannot – do, you cannot reject it.
So I’d say that while ID might well be true, we cannot conclude that it is true from the evidence, so the inference is false. On the other hand, while we also cannot conclude that evolutionary theory is true (it is almost certainly false in some respects, and, at best, incomplete), we can continue to derive testable hypotheses from it, and, to date, these have been enormously fruitful, both in terms of our understanding of how life may have arisen and diversified on this planet, and in terms of biological understanding of practical benefit.
That is the assymmetry I referred to in my post Good arguments and straw men. ID is a definitive inference that an Intelligent Designer was involved in the creation of life on earth. Evolutionary theory does not allow us to conclude that an ID was not involved, nor does it allow us to conclude that we know what was involved. Indeed, we know that there is much that we do not know and may never know. But whereas we can test predictive hypotheses arising from our theory, ID proponents on the whole seem to be positively against such ventures.
So I think at least some fo the “tribalism” William Murray refers to (and I think he is absolutely right that it exists) derives from lack of recognition of this assymmetry. Evolutionists scoff at ID proponents for not doing “real science” (and thereby exposing themslves as mere ideologues) while ID proponents scoff at evolutionists for denying the very concept of an ID (and thereby exposing themselves, equally, as ideologues).
At bottom, as I see it, are not two conflicting ideologies but two different inferential methodologies. And while I think that we have no grounds on which to conclude that there was/is no Intelligent Designer, I also think the conclusion that there was/is is fallacious.
But evolutionary theory remains viable even when we rightly reject the conclusion that there is/was no designer; ID on the other hand is nothing without the conclusion that there is/was.
Nothing surprising there. It’s young and has few resources in absolute or relative terms. And, of course, it is culturally and academically suspect.
I don’t think it’s sound to judge a scientific issue on the basis of any given subculture that is attracted to it. Doubly so when it’s an ostracized subculture. The same is true when speaking about Darwinism and it’s most vocal internet advocates, who tend themselves to be amongst the ostracized subculture of Atheism.
But I think there is general validity in looking for design details. That is, genetic forensics that allows and looks for design. Given biological warfare I’d be terribly surprised if governments were not already doing precisely this. I’d go so far as to say that they were negligent if they were not.
I don’t see here that a testable predictive is needed. We know intelligent actors can and do design organisms; and are. What’s missing is the basic research into the subject to characterize it. The only objection I can see here is on the ideology, a mens rea approach to basic research.
I’m not sure what to make of this as I’m not too familiar with Dembski. Dembski does this with abiogenesis or evolution? If the former then I absolutely agree. If the latter then I agree, but it should be absolutely shocking as the null is supposedly well-modeled.
Your ideology is peeking out here. If you’re speaking of creation myths then evo fails if there was a designer. (There are some nits that will pick with that.) If you’re speaking of future predicitves then there’s no question that there are current designers. Unless, of course, you hold that Monsanto and Merck were filmed on the same Nevada sound stage as the moon landings.
There is legitimacy in the ID notion in terms of the limits of evolution specifically with regard to human design for bioengineering reasons. As well I already mentioned the genetic forensics above. I don’t think it can be disagreed that these things occur, or need to, as a practical forward going issue. Especially in speaking about turning designed organisms loose in the environment.
It’s only the creation myth side of both ID and Darwinism that are ideologically contentious. And that should be the case as neither can ever be more than historical fan fiction.
It’s worth remembering that a decade ago this discussion was not merely table tennis in the blogosphere. Proponents of ID were working very hard to jam ID (in various guises, watered down to various degrees) into science classrooms across the US, and it was not always entirely clear that the effort would not succeed. I don’t think one became an ideologue by opposing those efforts on the basis that ID is not science. And I think the modifier “real” is appropriate (as in “it’s not ‘real’ science”): during those efforts, ID was clearly “fake” science crafted not by theoretical concerns but rather by an amalgam of religious and political calculation.
The ideal of conducting this debate on merits only, disregarding motivations, is a good one, but ID does have a history, and that history has been about nothing but motivations and the flatly dishonest conduct that has flowed from those motivations.
Indeed. Just such a nit right here. Evolution is broadly about what happens to populations when left to themselves – the ‘natural’ processes that give rise to ongoing genetic change and divergence. If there was a designer here, or there, then yes, the ‘natural’ process does not account for the change. But for ‘evo to fail’, the designer would have to be everywhere – nothing for the natural processes to do. What ID is deafeningly silent upon is where the designer actually operated. You may regard the commencement of the process as a ‘creation myth’ – abiogenesis – but which parts of subsequent diversity can we attribute to Design? Evolution is not a Creation Myth per se – it is an alternative to one, as far as explaining diversity is concerned. Genesis says “Multiple Special Creation Events”; Evolution says “Divergent Genetic Continuums descending from a single origin”. ID says “A Bit of Both, and Maybe Something Else as Well”. It is hopelessly vague.
This is my feeling as well. One of the reasins I find ID interesting is that it doesn’t have a positive heuristic. I’m intruigued to see how one could be developed: even if I think it’ll be wrong, I think the journey could be fascinating.
Let us assume, for argument, that Evolution — and all its attendant contradictory constituents — is right. Not sorta right, not better approximates right. I mean absolutely dead to the letter correct with nothing missing. Then the historical side of it is still a creation myth by definition.
I’m truly not certain where this error keeps coming from. Is it because there’s an illiteracy in play here that abiogenesis and the ‘Book of Genesis’ both have that G-word in them? Or is it a peculiarly Western notion that since the Christian creation myth has as part of it that the beasties and fishes are each produced by a single act that a ‘creation myth’ is a reference to a singular act of construction? A creation myth is simply an story of origins. It need not be single, cohesive or complete and it need not begin or end with any putative genesis event where abio or otherwise.
My objection to ID is that I think it is impossible. I’ve argued this for some time and haven’t seen any rebuttals from either side that weren’t simply insults. I realize that we have some actual designers on board, so I welcome their input. (When I say “impossible” I mean impossible without evolution. Impossible without cumulative selection.)
My argument is pretty straightforward. I start with gpuccio’s claim that protein coding sequences are rare, long, and isolated — unreachable by cumulative selection. (If they are not isolated, then evolution works, and the ID hypothesis falls on Occam’s razor.)
From this claim we can derive the minimum capabilities of the putative designer. Such a designer would be capable of “seeing” functional sequences of hundred or thousands of characters embedded in a sequence space that exceeds the count of the number of particles in the universe. In other words, the minimum capabilities of the designer are beyond the capabilities of any finite being in our universe. This is the same argument used by ID proponents, simply turned around to show the absurdity of design. To me, this explains why the most knowledgeable ID proponents, people like Behe, assume that the designer is God.
Phillip Johnson once lamented the lack of a theory of design. That was decades ago, and the void has not been filled. The reason is obvious. There can be no theory of design. There can be no discussion of what designers do when they are designing. No discussion of the steps they take. No discussion of the process. There is no possible process. If coding sequences are isolated, as claimed, then the designer is hoist on the same petard as evolution. The ID hypothesis has no conceptual advantage over evolution and suffers from a rather glaring lack of any positive evidence.
A Creation myth by what definition? Creation means making something which did not previously exist. Even recasting it as a synonym of ‘origins’ betrays that same sense. Yet, although we would talk of the ‘origins’ of French and Italian, say, we would be unlikely to refer to their ‘creation’. It seems a wholly unnecessary word to insist upon.
True, in one sense every individual was ‘created’ from their parental DNA, but there is an error inherent in seeing whole blocks of individuals – a long lineage, long enough to look like a separate fossil type – as ‘created’. It is central to the evolutionary argument that species do not arise as “events”, but from a broader sampling of a continuous and (generally) gradual generational modification process. I don’t consider it correct to talk of a gradual process of modification as ‘Creation’. Evolution is amendment.
Once you have replication (a discontinuity, and arguably a creation ‘event’), you then simply have organisms giving rise to other organisms. Nothing is being ‘created’ other than those offspring, individually and sequentially. Gradually, they may change, but there is no point at which you can say a new species (or family, order etc) was ‘created’. I’m not sure why you would insist upon a word that mischaracterises the process, other than for purposes of sophistry – arguing evolution out of schools, say.
You can’t falsify ID because we know it exists – humans use it all the time; that is a trivial fact. That humans can intelligently design things that are obviously different from what we would expect from non-intelligent processes is also a trivially true statement. That we call that differential the ID metric is just a way of labelling the difference, so that definition is a trivial matter.
Whether or not we have a good or rigorous methodology for measuring that difference is just a matter of debate, research, trial and error. If one claims that there is no way to meaningfully measure that difference, I would say that is a conclusion born of ideology and a priori bias. Why shouldn’t there be a meaningful way to measure such a difference? Finding telltale signs of intelligence shouldn’t be any more controversial than finding telltale signs of water erosion or volcanic activity. Specific categories of causes often leave telltale evidence.
We can easily hypothesize events where we could easily recognize the product of non-human intelligence even if we have no knowledge of the designer or the design process. That is a trivial matter explored in countless science-fiction movies and TV series and sci-fi books.
As with all deep historical science, the inference is one of best conclusion, not one of IF X cause is false, THEN Y cause must be true, as Elizabeth erroneously claims. ID proponents have regularly explained that if X (non-intelligent processes) cause cannot be shown to be categorically capable, and Y cause is known to be categorically capable (and also known to produce similar artifacts), then Y cause becomes the better provisional explanation. Y cause is falsified when/if some other X cause is shown to be categorically capable of producing the effect in question, because Y cause would no longer be the most efficient explanation, because it requires not just X causes (non-intelligence), but alsy a Y (intelligent) cause.
When intelligence is no longer necessary to any explanation, it has been falsified as the better explanation. It might be true that intelligence actually caused it, but until we find some way of learning that, it is no longer the better explanation. It could be that we come across a phenomena (like a pulsar) that at the time is inexplicable in terms of known intelligent forces, but even though an intelligence could have generated it, by the current design metric it is not “best explained” by intelligence because there is not enough FSCI in a pulsar signal to require an ID cause.
So, even in the case of a phenomena that many speculated at the time was an intelligent beacon of some sort, the current design metric would have ruled design out as “best explanation” due to the lack of FSCI in the signal, and that it would be better to search for non-intelligent causations.
However, ID proponents offer up similar arguments why NDE (Neo-Darwinian Evolution) is not a falsifiable theory and as such is fallacious. IMO, this is more post hoc rationalizing, stonewalling and demonstrations of a priori biases that stem from more fundamental commitments. IOW, Elizabeth, if you believed in god, you’d be making a similar argument, and consider it similarly compelling and valid, against NDE.
Above, I meant to say:
Feel free to justify the analogy by describing what a designer of life would do while designing.
Human design is not magic. Human inventions are cumulative, and human invention involves enormous investment in trial and error.
When you, or another ID advocate, calculates the enormous odds against some coding string arising “by chance,” tell me what the ID paradigm offers as an alternative. What knowledge does the designer bring to the table and where and how did the designer acquire that knowledge? Where and how does the designer store the list of coding sequences — a list that has to exceed the particle count of the universe.
If you are invoking magic, I can accept that. It isn’t science, but it’s honest. It’s the position Behe takes. He seems to have gone through the same thought process I have and reached the same conclusion. No finite designer can do what is claimed.
I do think ID is wrong. However, I am probably using “wrong” in a different sense.
I don’t scientific theories are either true or false, and you seem to agree with that. But I see ID as wrong, in that it is not a scientific theory at all but is wrongly presented as one.
I don’t see that aspect as a problem. It is entirely reasonable to identify a new property and go out and see what has that property. That the property was given the name “design” should not be an objection.
My objection is that this is all talk. There is no on-going program to actually identify design. There are no criteria that could be used in empirical work. Dembski’s complex specified information was a start, but Dembski or others need to make that precise, with detailed empirical criteria, before it can become real science. I am skeptical as to whether that is possible.
I’m not sure that “fallacious” is the right word here. Somehow “bogus” comes to mind as more appropriate.
There is a proper way of doing statistical inference. And, given that Dembski specialized in probability, he ought to at least know something about statistical inference. Yet he and others repeatedly make bogus arguments.
We might compare with the use of statistics in medicine. In that field, they distinguish between prospective studies and retrospective studies. The gold standard is a double blind prospective study, where you design your statistical model before any actual experimentation occurs, and do so in a way to minimize biases. But retrospective studies are also used, where you depend on data already gathered.
For the kind of questions that ID probabilistic arguments address, it would seem that only a retrospective study is possible. There are potential problems with retrospective studies. But those problems can be minimized with the use of suitable statistical modeling methods. Those methods require the use of conditional probability — “given the condition that X occured, what’s the probability that it occurred due to cause Y rather than cause Z?” But the ID proponents never do that, probably because they would not get the answer that they want.
I don’t undestand this. Are you saying that an omnipotent designer isn’t possible?
Also, some IDers accept that cumulative selection occurs, but think it needs the occasional push. So the existence of selection that doesn’t ID impossible.
You’re stuck on seeing ‘creation’ in ‘creation myth’ as a single act or construction. Once again that’s not what the term means. A creation myth is simply a story of origins. Full stop. You’d hardly get in a lather about ‘Dodge brothers’ not being a reference to siblings that avoid each other. Put your religion down and breathe slowly.
Paraphrasing: The problem with making something foolproof is that fools are so ingenious.
I should have thought it obvious from the context in speaking of the historical side evolution that we were talking about biology. But the full coverage of things included in a creation myth are the cosmos, earth, plants, animals, and man. Just the basic categories of things we see about us. There’s all manner of academic dickering but those are the broad stable topics.
Seriously, this is no more interesting a term than ‘pulp fiction’, ‘romance’, ‘science fantasy’. It’s just a reference to a kind of story. Being a myth, specifically, simply means it is or was a cherished or sacred belief. And for all the lather about teaching it that certainly seems to be the case.
I would be very interested to hear what parts of evolutionary theory you think are almost certainly false in some respects. I’m not a big fan of assigning truth values such as ‘true’ and ‘false’ to theories. All theories, IMHO, are approximations to reality, and well stated theories include boundary conditions that give an idea of where they begin to go pear shaped.
That said, my understanding of ‘evolutionary theory’ is that it describes an abstract process which pertains to _any_ population undergoing reproduction, variation, and selection in which the variations are heritable and influence reproductive success. This kind of evolutionary theory applies with as much force to bit strings as it does to butterflies. It applies whether the variation is driven by random processes or algorithmic processes. Alleles change in frequency over time. What is almost certainly false in that description?
I’d be happy to discuss design detection with anyone serious about it. My avatars at UD could never get such a discussion going. To state my initial position, if we look at the stars, we see no evidence that the universe has been disturbed from what we would expect to see if only non-life existed elsewhere. There are no Dyson spheres, no anomalous spectral lines. I’d be happy to see more evidence collected, more fine grained evidence. We are on the verge of being able to do that.
Turning inwards, we also see no evidence that the genome of any life existing today has been perturbed in any way that cannot be explained by known chemical processes happening at expected frequencies. Nor is there any geological evidence that such life existed in the past.
The only exceptions, at either macroscopic or microscopic scales, are the ones we know that we, human agents, are responsible for.
I agree. Fortunately we have a good methodology for evaluating scientific models that is independent of the subculture.
Yes, indeed. I have no problem with “looking for design details”.
I don’t understand this. Why is a testable predictive not needed? It’s the foundation of scientific methodology, including design detection.
Dembski doesn’t even mention biology. So it’s not surprising he doesn’t model his null very well. He just gives a general formula for determining whether a pattern was designed.
No, that’s not my ideology peeking out, it’s my methodology. Evo fails if a designer can be demonstrated. It doesn’t fail just because there happened to be one. Designers can do what they like, including designing things to look as though they evolved.
Well, I’m more than happy to debate this. But the “bioengineering reasons” in my experience evaporate on exposure to air 🙂 But try me.
I do not dispute that organisms can be designed. What I’m disputing is the validity of the inference that the organisms on earth (until recently) were.
And I would say that there is no creation myth of Darwinism. I think the myth is a myth 🙂 There’s a scientific narrative, of course, but no biologist would say it was complete. It’s full of mysteries.
Anything is possible with an omniscient designer. That’s part of my point. I can’t refute the claim that goddidit, and I won’t try. If God is your designer, I won’t try to convert you. I won’t even sneer.
I will point out that there is a long history of explaining physical phenomena by pushes and prods from gods and demigods. Even Isaac Newton invoked the possibility that planetary orbits need stabilizing pokes by angles or whatever.
For purely historical reasons I expect such explanations to evaporate in the light of advancing knowledge. I have no proof. It’s just the way I bet.
My larger point is that design of the kind envisioned by ID proponents is impossible except by an omniscient designer. The rational alternative is that function is neither as rare nor as isolated as ID proponents assert, and that it is worth looking for the connecting links. Which is what biologists are doing and have been doing all these decades.
William J. Murray wrote: “Finding telltale signs of intelligence shouldn’t be any more controversial than finding telltale signs of water erosion or volcanic activity. Specific categories of causes often leave telltale evidence.”
Actually, it is and *should be* more controversial, given the distinction between ‘reflexive science’ and ‘positive science’ made in the thread here:
ID seeks to be a positive science, while smuggling-in a concept (i.e. intelligence) common in reflexive science.
At the same time, the IDM seems oblivious to the ethical consequences of its current position; trying to complete and perfect the Creator/Designer’s plan for humanity. Tinkering with genes, ‘designer’ babies, nanotechnologies, prosthetics, and even human cloning.
Let me rephrase: you can’t falsify the hypothesis that life on earth was brought about by an Intelligent Designer. I am not saying, of course, that design doesn’t exist. I actually trained as a designer myself!
And I’m not disputing that. Please see my emendation above.
And I’m not denying that either. However, if the putative “product” is a self-replicator, you have, we evos would argue, an alternative hypothesis. If I found a black monolith on the moon I might suspect an alien designer. If I found a green cactus on the moon, I’d be more likely to expect evolution.
But I don’t claim this. This is what Dembski claims (“because non-design is false, then design must be true”). What I propose is, indeed, “best conclusion”, given the data – i.e. the model that best fits the data. But a model that can fit all data is not a good fit, as anyone who has ever tried to by a “one size fits all” garment can tell you. And this is as true of “deep historical” science as any science. The only thing about “deep historical” science is that, the 2LoT being what it is, some evidence is necessarily going to be irrecoverable.
And I think this is fallacious. Or rather, it needs fleshing out with specifics, at which point it falls apart, IMO. Let me try substituting in your above:
(Sorry can’t parse that last bit).
Now you may accuse me of cheating by inserting “intelligent biological agent” for “intelligent agent”, but I’m not – we know of know intelligent agents that are not biological, and so we have no warrant to posit intelligent agents that are not biological, and clearly a biological agent cannot be responsible for creating all biological agents. What IDists therefore have to posit is that a non-biological intelligent created life. And non-biological intelligent agents are NOT “known to be categorically capable” – they aren’t known to exist.
But your problem, IMO, starts earlier than that: your argument hangs on the case that “[non-intelligent processes] cannot be shown to be categorically capable [of creating complex functional self-sustaining entities]”. No. If we cannot show a non-intelligent process that can create complex self-sustaining entities, we are not entitled to assume that there isn’t one, any more than we are obliged to assume that there is a non-biological intelligent one. All we are entitled to say is that “we don’t know”, because both the hypothesis of “an unknown non-intelligent agent” and an “unknown non-biological intelligent agent” are, by definition unsupported by evidence.
Plus, we do know that Darwinian processes, given an initial population of simple self-replicators, can result in “complex functional self-sustaining entities” because we use these processes ourselves to design things.
OK, let’s unpack that last thing 🙂 Please define FSCI, and say how you know how much FSCI requires an ID cause 😀
(BTW I was at school with Jocelyn Bell’s younger sister, and there was great excitement at school when the LGM stuff came out!)
Well, I await your unpacking of this argument with interest.
Unfalsifiable theories are not fallacious, as I said in my OP. But to be taken seriously they need to generate falsifiable hypotheses that are then tested against new data. And “Neo-Darwinian Evolution” is a horribly imprecise term. All scientific theories are false at least in the sense of being incomplete, and the state of the theory in the era when “neo-Darwinian” was coined is vastly different from the state it is in now, because countless hypotheses that it generated have been tested, and some have yielded surprises.
So I simply don’t know what you mean by “this is more post hoc rationalizing, stonewalling and demonstrations of a priori biases that stem from more fundamental commitments.” What are you referring to? And what is the “similar argument” I’d be making if I believed in god? I believed in God for half a century and made exactly the same arguments as I make now for the power of evolutionary theory. I found them as compelling and valid then as I find them now.
In fact, I find the God that emerges from the idea that the universe is capable of bringing forth life according to the working out of its own nature more compelling than the God that emerges from the idea that the universe was capable of bringing forth some things on its own but not others. And neither idea is inconsistent with the notion that God might occasionally reach in and do something dramatic, like raise someone from the dead, or be born of a virgin. It’s just that I don’t find the evidence that God does do these things compelling at all.
Petrushka, OK, I see – I think we’re pretty much in agreement.
Although I think there’s a “weak ID” which posits that some aspects of the natural world are best explained by design. This implies that they could have been designed by aliens which themselves had evolved naturally. I doubt many in the ID big tent take that seriously, though, unless they’re in front of Judge Jones.
A quibble, but I regard it as a big one:
So I’ll go out on a limb and say that neither evolutionary theory nor ID are, in themselves, falsifiable. However, evolutionary theory generates lots of testable hypotheses. Many of these have proved confirmatory; some have delivered surprises, and as a result, the theory has had to change. This is a good thing.
If a theory generates testable hypotheses, then the theory IS falsifiable. If the hypotheses are falsified, then so is the theory, as stated. Sure, you can change the theory, but then you have a whole new crop of derived hypotheses that also change, and those make the new theory also falsifiable.
What you’ve done more than anything else with the above statement, Elizabeth, is give creationists a new sound bite.
It was a lot less than a decade ago, and I believe its still going on today, intermittently.
I think the “weak” form of ID is what I’m addressing. Anything done by a designer that could be analogous to a human designer.
I am particularly addressing protein design, since that seems to be where the “scientific” argument for ID resides. That’s where the calculations for dFSCI and the like reside. That’s where the limited research of Douglas Axe resides.
The ID argument is that coding sequences cannot be reached incrementally. This is an empirical assertion, and happens to be very difficult to research. But not impossible. It strikes me the ID proponents are falling back to the “no transitional fossils” argument, only this time with no transitional sequences. Same melody, different instrument.
My argument is that coding sequences are either isolated or not isolated. If they are not isolated, evolution is possible and ID is an unnecessary conjecture. If empirical research confirms that sequences are truly isolated, then goddidit wins. At least until some new hypothesis emerges.
The fallacy in ID is assuming that a designer has some advantage over evolution. The fallacy is in assuming that a designer analogous to human designers can do something that doesn’t require evolution. Cut and try, variation and selection.
The way I’ve always seen the word “myth” used (when not being used as a synonym for “widely believed falshood”) is that it is a narrative account which gives cultural meaning to a segment of our relationship with nature.
So, in order to be a creation myth, evolution would have to be told as a narrative (which it often is) and imbued with some kind of deeper cultural meaning.
When you look at it this way, yes, there are some presentations — Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale comes to mind, that do seem to match. I don’t see a problem with this, and I don’t see a problem with using the term “myth” to describe such approaches. But the popular telling is not the same as the scientific investigation, and that needs to be pointed out. Pointedly.
IDers may think that detecting design by itself constitutes a valid research program. I would say that, even if were possible, and I doubt that it is, design detection would only be the first step. To be a legitimate science, ID must investigate the the mechanism of design, even if the ultimate source of design is ignored. Indeed, isn’t elucidating mechanisms the goal of all sciences? That’s why science does not and cannot address the supernatural, which by definition produces effects by unknowable mechanisms.
Elizabeth,
For me, there’s no point in arguing the things you wish to argue here. FSCI has been argued, explained, and rebutted to death at UD while you were there. The inference to best explanation argument has been similarly beaten upon a rock to death then dragged through the field and stomped on. What would be the point of reiterating it here, even if I were to be able to give as good an accounting of it as kairosfocus or others? If you found their explanation of it uncompelling, you will find my account of it even less so. We either find one side or the other of those arguments valid, or we do not. Why rehash it?
Like Gil, I find it trivial to say that some things are obviously designed; I also find it trivial to say that some of what we find in nature appears to be designed by an intelligent agency (as have many others, including Lewontin). In fact, it has been stated by several that scientists must persevere against this appearance and in spite of it, to find explanations bereft of ID implication. I don’t find such an admonishment and the resulting attempt to weed the design premise out of science – even to the point of the ongoing attempt to change the lexicon used in published papers to avoid design terminology – to be necessary or productive.
Scientists – some of the best in history – labored under the design premise for hundreds of years. Scientific inquiry was quite fruitful during that time.
So what if some scientists go down design track in their efforts? So what if they publish papers that directly imply intelligence behind some of nature’s features? Why the acrimony? Why do members on both sides believe that the other side is attempting to hijack science towards service of their ideology? Why insist that science must only refer to non-intelligent causations, and must only refer to materialist (whatever that means) explanations?
It is the acrimony involved, and the cultural war as if our entire society is at risk, that indicates to me that this is about something more than just whether or not FSCI formulation and probabilistic argument is valid or not.
IOW, I think the idea that this is about the science, or the math, or the logic, is largely a self-deception for many involved in these rancorous “debates”, because frankly most of us are simply not specifically educated enough in any of those specific areas for it to really be about those things.
Well, I’m regarding “theory” as “the explanatory framework”. I don’t think “Life evolved” is falsifiable. “Life evolved by Darwinian mechanisms” isn’t really falsifiable either.
You can’t falsify a theory until you cast it as, or derive from it, a specific hypothesis. And even then, we don’t actually proceed by falsifying our hypotheses, as such, but by falsifying the null. Alternatively, we compare competing models for goodness-of-fit.
And whether it gives a creationists a new sound-bite or not, it’s an important point. ID proponents, and creationists, often say, with some justification: “but if you found that pre-Cambrian rabbit, you’d just adjust the theory to take care of it – what use is a theory that is infinitely flexible and can accommodate anything?”
And too often, people arguing on the other side have an inadequate response. If we really did find a pre-Cambrian rabbit, of course evolutionary scientist would bend over background to account for it, just as they when the genetic phylogenies didn’t map exactly onto to the morphological ones as expected: they came up with the hypothesis (perfectly falsifiable) of HGT.
So it’s foolish, and simply wrong, to sit there and pretend that something big and amorphous called “Darwinian evolutionary theory” is falsifiable. It only is if you derive testable hypotheses from it. And we know know that many of Darwin’s own hypotheses were wrong.
Or at any rate, if you insist that the big explanatory theories are truly falsifiable, in the sense that they can be incrementally adjustable, then so is ID. We can test the hypothesis, for instance, that designer had an inordinate fondness for beetles, and emphatically reject the null.
My point is that what is wrong with ID is not that it isn’t falsifiable, but that no ID proponent will actually derive a testable hypothesis from it.
Dembski claims to do so, but he doesn’t. He gets the null wrong.
Before we can get to producing testable hypotheses we need to get enough basic research under our belt. We can produce all the hypotheses we want now, they’re just not testable now. I’m rather unfond of the latter, but your take may be more in line with Popper.
::facepalm::
That’s the pick I was expecting, though not from yourself. And yes, I meant if the designer was demonstrated, for which the existence is enough. If a designer exists and is unknown then there’s no difference between ‘ignorance about’ and ‘non-existence of’.
That’d be a book in itself. Just to broad brush: What is the outcome of the future possible mutations of test organism NFL-23?
So your concern and focus is purely on the creation myth side of things; it’s a reasonable position. But as you phrased it I don’t dispute the inference that they were or the inference that they were not. As far as I’m concerned the only difference between two is a matter of taste. What I strongly dispute is that we can blithely play with Laplace’s Demon. Especially if we’re not dealing with pleasantly analytical curves.
Narrative is precisely the proper term as we are talking about historical narratives. This particular kind of historical narrative is simply known as a creation myth. See my replies to Alan Miller for details.
All you have to do to understand the acrimony is read UD. Anti-evolution is just the last vestige of the fear that science has displaced th Bible as an historical account. Anti-evolotion is no different from anti-astronomy and anti-geology. The feud has deep historical roots.
My expectation is it will be settled the same way.
Very well said. The only hope for each of us is to educate ourselves. I’ve certainly learned much more biochemistry as a result of participating in these discussions.
That said, we can’t make rhetorical flings about dFSCI or whatever without knowing what we are talking about, and being willing to share that point of view with our fellow discussants. For example, Elizabeth, above, stated her opinion that some aspect of ‘evolutionary theory’ is almost certainly false. I would love to know what evolutionary theory means to her, and what part she feels is almost certainly false.
I second that. Elizabeth can you entertain us with what aspects of evolutionary theory you find “certainly false”?
In fairness it’s not the ‘theory of evolution’ it’s the ‘research program of evolution’. But that’s simply not the current usage of the term ‘theory’ for better or worse.
And endlessly.
Because they are. Unless you’re going commando with hypothesis non fingo then you necessarily have baked in some pure philosophical explanans. The problem is that there’s a bit of remnant disease from the positivist side of the fence. Such that the hypothesis is materially and factually true in reality if the experiment goes over well. It needs to be repeatedly beaten into people that a successful experiment only fails to refute the hypothesis. No more and no less.
In fairness it’s not the ‘theory of evolution’ it’s the ‘research program of evolution’. But that’s simply not the current usage of the term ‘theory’ for better or worse. Nothing to be done for it.
And endlessly.
Because they are. Unless you’re going commando with hypothesis non fingo then you necessarily have baked in some pure philosophical explanans. The problem is that there’s a bit of remnant disease from the positivist side of the fence. Such that the hypothesis is materially and factually true in reality if the experiment goes over well. It needs to be repeatedly beaten into people that a successful experiment only fails to refute the hypothesis. No more and no less.
You think it has been rebutted? But you still find it persuasive?
Because you yourself advanced it here. I take it that you found it persuasive. If you did, then surely you should be able to present it compellingly?
Nor do I. But I do find it necessary to establish a clear definition of “design” because if “design” is taken to mean “designed by an intentional agent”, then no, there is no good reason to say that biological organisms are “obviously designed”. If “design”, on the other hand, is taken to mean “honed over many iterations to ensure it is optimally fit for purpose” then, yes, biological organisms are “obviously designed”. But in that case evolutionary process is a perfectly good candidate for “designer”.
Of course. And “the design stance” remains a perfectly valid one now, as long as we define “design” the second way, not the first. Asking “why did the designer give women pelvises that are too small for human infant heads?” will get us no-where. Asking “what purpose do our large human heads serve?” will get us quite a long way.
Science is under absolutely no obligation “only to refer to non-intelligent causations”. But that is not the same as referring only to “materialist” explanations. Intelligence itself has a perfectly good “materialist” explanation. The sole reason that science must only refer to “materialist” explanations is that these are the only explanations that science can, methodologically, come up with. Faced with some non-material factor, science can only say “we don’t know”. Science is simply not equipped to investigate the non-material.
That’s not to say that non-material agents don’t exist – merely that they lie beyond the domain of scientific investigation.
Yes, I think you are right. It doesn’t matter much whether some people think we are descended from Aquatic Apes (no), or whether a Downwind Cart Can Go Faster Than The Wind (yes), and although both these theories generate plenty of acrimony (seriously – I can provide links), there is no “culture war”. The culture war is about the role of science in society, and the threat that some of us, on the one hand, see ID proponents presenting to the understanding of science, and the threat that some ID proponents, on the other hand, see “evolutionary materialism” as kairosfocus calls it, posing to society.
This is because “the FSCI formulation and probabilistic argument” isn’t simply invalid, it is invalid because it is profoundly anti-scientific. The Aquatic Ape hypothesis is simply bad science, and even the anti-down-wind-carteers are at least setting up testable hypotheses. But the FSCI argument is, as they say, “not even wrong”. It is based on a complete misunderstanding of how scientific inferences are made.
Or, worse, on the conviction that scientific methodology is fundamentally flawed. Those of us who believe the scientific methodology is not fundamentally flawed, and is one of the most remarkable achievements of human kind, naturally get riled at the threat.
I disagree, William. Certainly, no-one on earth has enough expertise to evaluate every aspect of evolutionary theory, and that’s before we even start on cosmology and consciousness, but all trained scientists have the expertise to critique the validity of a scientific argument. And so when scientists challenge kairosfocus, or Abel, or Dembski, or whoever, on the validity of their argument, there is no good reason to think that the differences cannot be identified and resolved, unless, of course, tribal concerns get in the way.
From what I have seen, “FSCI” arguments either do not define it in manner in which the claims made for it can be tested, or they do, and it can be demonstrated that the claims are invalid.
I do not say that because I have an “a priori commitment to materialism” or even a theological objection (although if anything, that was stronger!), but because I’m a trained scientist, and I consider – and can point out how – the arguments are full of holes. Others can do it much more eloquently, and with more relevant knowledge, than I.
Mathematically, CSI makes no sense, and tacking a “d” and/or an “F” on to the front or doesn’t make it any more sensible. If you want to know why, I, or, I’m sure others, would be delighted to explain. But we’d need to start with an actual definition.
“The sole reason that science must only refer to ‘materialist’ explanations is that these are the only explanations that science can, methodologically, come up with. Faced with some non-material factor, science can only say ‘we don’t know’. Science is simply not equipped to investigate the non-material.” – Elizabeth
This is precisely why I’ve taken the time to return to this skeptic haven, to discuss MN. Now, Elizabeth is invoking methodological materialism instead of MN! Talk about shifting the burden (ideologically speaking).
‘Science’ *can* study both non-material and non-natural things. You just need to adjust the way you ideologize ‘science,’ Elizabeth.
Notice again, I am *not* suggesting ‘intelligent causes’ in biology.
Yes.
The idea that all evolutionary change in a population was a result of selective pressure is false. Population genetics, and even mathematical developments like chaos theory has shown us that drift effects are the norm, and that adaptive effects are simply a slight bias on drift.
The idea that all genetic variance generation is longitudinal is false. Genetic phylogenies do not map directly on to morphological phylogenies as expected, so we have had to come up with additional genetic transfer process, namely HGT to account for the bushiness of the genetic tree.
The idea that phenotypic changes are necessarily very small has been falsified by findings from evo-devo that show that even slight changes to regulatory genes can result in macroscopic phenotypic changes, such that populations can show adaptive evolution from generation to generation in marginal habitats.
The idea that all genetic variance is “copying errors” has been falsified. Symbiosis, sexual recombination, and possibly what Shapiro calls “natural genetic engineering” are supported by evidence, suggesting that the “random” part of “random mutations” is a misnomer, just as the idea that “natural selection” isn’t “random” is also misleading. Both variance-generation and natural selection are highly stochastic processes, but also have non-flat probability distributions that are extremely important to understanding how adaptation and speciation occur.
The idea that hybridisation is rare once populations have separated is false. Turns out to be quite common, so again, the branching of the Tree of Life is bushier than had been envisaged.
The “evolution of evolvability” is now a mainstream idea, and suggests that natural selection does not merely operate at within-population level but also at between-population level, and so features that lead to optimal adaptation (including variance-generation mechanism) will tend to be found in the narrow subset of all lineages that are actually extant today.
Epigenetics turns out to be important. Lamarck was partly right.
“Survival of the fittest” turns out to be a misnomer. What persists is what is passed on, and this doesn’t necessarily mean the offspring of the mightiest. Altruism, for example, can be selected for.
All these things are frequently pointed out by ID proponents as reasons why “Darwinism” is on the skids. And in some senses they are right. Darwinism, as conceived yesterday, is shown to be wrong today.
Where they are wrong, IMO, is seeing this as a weakness, not as a strength. What is extraordinary, it seems to me, about Darwin’s original insight, is that he showed us how a simple algorithm, based on two givens (self-replication, and variance that affected reproductive success) could generate organisms exquisitely tuned to their environment.
But we are a very long way from showing how self-replication came to occur, and what the mechanisms of variance generation actually were and are.
Elizabeth,
What part of: “For me, there’s no point in arguing the things you wish to argue here. (as per FSCI) didn’t bridge the interpretive gap?
Let’s look at it this way. You run a blog site with the subheading “”I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.” When you were at UD, you basically ignored this site. Now that you’re back, you’re focusing all argument basically on ID. Apparently, the ID argument – for some reason – is important to you. Why is that? Is it just because you think someone is “wrong”, or because you think some bad science is being put into the culture?
Isn’t there any other “bad science” or “fallacious reasoning” going on in the scientific and academic world you could focus your time and effort on? Do you regularly contribute or examine climate science websites? Or anti-APG (anthropogenic global warming) sites? Do you obsess on websites and forums that debate zero point energy, homeopathy, astrology, electric universe theory, bigoot, holographic universe theory? Do you argue against any of Deepak Chopra’s views on forums, or any alternative healing sites?
How about mediumship sites and forums? Or sites and forums that have to do with paranormal investigations? How about sites or blogs that talk about and expose scientific fraud and misconduct? Were you involved in the great cold-fusion debate?
Why focus your attention on ID? I mean, who cares about FSCI and the efforts of a few people to see if they can find evidence of design? Who cares if they improperly define design, or whether or not FSCI is valid or not valid? Who cares about their arguments about abductive reasoning? Why argue with them as if their arguments matter?
The idea that this debate is about whether or not FSCI is a valid concept, or about whether or not “design” or “intelligence” have been properly defined or quantified, or about whether or not any papers have been published, or whether the math is right, etc., is preposterous. If that was all it was about, nobody would care.
The first rule of “honest debate club” is to be honest with yourself and others about what you’re really debating and why.
William, can I just say, however, that I do appreciate your willingness to be here.
I wish it was more widespread 🙁
Allan MIller: Yet, although we would talk of the ‘origins’ of French and Italian, say, we would be unlikely to refer to their ‘creation’.
Maus: Paraphrasing: The problem with making something foolproof is that fools are so ingenious. I should have thought it obvious from the context in speaking of the historical side evolution that we were talking about biology.
I know. I used the analogy of language to illustrate my point. Biological evolution, like language evolution, is a process of serial minor amendment of existing form that leads to major change over the long term. As ‘creation’ would not be an appropriate term for language, nor do I think it would be appropriate for evolution. It’s not the ‘myth’ bit, it’s the creation bit. It might be appropriate for Big Bangs, and abiogenesis, but is IMO too loaded (semantically) to use to describe an evolutionary process. It is a semantic point, possibly trivial, but one you felt sufficiently important to get ‘lathered up’ in arguing for in the first place. But of course, in arguing against, I am a ‘fool’, and ‘illiterate’. C’est la vie, sur les internets.
Not bad science, William, anti-science. And yes, I did ignore this site for a bit while I was posting at UD. I had hoped more UD people would come over here, and at first some did. Then a couple of things happened, including someone at UD castigating me for trying to poach members! Which I never meant to do – I just thought this might be a slower-paced place where we could actually engage.
I’m interested in ID – have been for a long time. That’s why I posted at UD. And obviously, having been banned there, there are conversations and issues I want to continue with. But a lot of what interests me is also what interests ID proponents – the mind-body problem, for instance, and the nature of will. And, of course, I’m interested in religion!
I spent a lot of time on fallacious interpretations of US presidential exit polls! Fighting tooth-and-nail with those who that that Kerry Really Won in 2004, and that Bush got in only because his team rigged the electronic voting machines.
No. But then I do not think these issues are a serious threat to science.
Because the idea that science is monolithic conservative power broker that Expels anyone who questions the Evolutionary Materialist orthodoxy is a dangerous one, and I think it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is and how it works. And I think failing to understand how science works is dangerous.
You have a good point. I don’t suppose Rick Santorum, for instance, has ever heard of FSCI. But, as shampoo advertisers know, sciencey language can be very persuasive, even when the product is a turkey. I’m not saying that those who use the FSCI arguments are a cynical as shampoo advertisers, but, as you say, you don’t actually have to persuade people you are right to have them join you, you just have to persuade them that you know what you are talking about.
So when people start saying that ID should be taught as science in schools, as though it was just another competing scientific theory, then I think that needs to be tackled. And I don’t think the case that it should not be taught is helped by people who imply that standard evolutionary theory is effectively teaching atheism, on either side of the argument. It isn’t. Science is not about theism or atheism (although certain religious models can be easily falsified, like YEC). It’s essentially a method for finding out about the universe. The FSCI concept violates that method.
Yes indeed. Although I have to confess my strongest motivation is simply – interest. Recall that I am a) a scientist, b) a neuroscientist and c) spent half a century as a devout theist. I’m not anti-theism. I remain interested in religion, and, in certain important senses, a sort-of theist. I still have a god-spot. So those are the subjects I like to talk about, and ID pretty well hits all the spots. Although I’ve waded in on Downwind carts occasionally (though I’ve steered clear of the Aquatic Ape!)
I like arguing on the internet 🙂 Especially about things I’m interested in. Which includes people 🙂
Tell me how science can study non-natural things (and what you mean by that term.)
I am! There are lots of intelligent causes in biology!
Elizabeth,
Thank you for taking a stab answering my question. However, what you’ve done is list off some things that some people overemphasized in the past, not given your definition of evolutionary theory as it stands today, and what part of it as it stands today is almost certainly false. You might as well have included Darwin’s own hypothesis on gametic particles being the basis of heredity.
What is evolution about? Is it about DNA or is it about heritable traits, however they are embodied?
I think that’s a good question. When “Darwinism” is supposed to be on the skids, I’m never quite sure what is meant.
My hunch is that what people really don’t like, and think, or at least hope, is on the skids is the “random” part.
Which is kind of odd, because I don’t think Darwin actually used the word.
William J Murray,
If someone wrote a stage play about ID, evolution, astrology, UFO’s, etc., and had an actor represent each “science” every single actor, except for ID, would be loudly trumpeting their beliefs.
The actor playing the role of ID however, would wait for someone to say something and then try to claim they were wrong.
It is the only role written to respond and not initiate.
Everyone else, even astrology, has something they can point to as their intellectual property that they can make a case for.
Only ID cannot stand on its own.
“Tell me how science can study non-natural things (and what you mean by that term.)” – Elizabeth
I just did, here: http://theskepticalzone.com/wp/?p=256#comment-4332
This was the first thread you wrote, after being dismissed from UD, apparently for duplicty rather than nastiness (cf. GIl’s respectful words to you on your home site). In that thread, at first you defended MN, then backed away from it and said you’d ‘avoide’ it, then returned in principle to defending it, as if ‘science’ could study *nature-only.* Flip-flops are normally worn at the beach or beside the pool, not in a discussion one suggests people take seriously.
Now you suggest there are “lots of intelligent causes in biology.” Are you playing games, Madame?
Thanks for the link. Would you like to repost it as an OP? If not I will respond later to it.
What? What “duplicity?” I wasn’t actually given a reason at the time, I just found I couldn’t log on. Then later Barry said something about it being because I was a fool because I denied universal applicability of The Three Laws Of Thought.
What duplicity am I supposed to have committed?
I said I would avoid the term. I have done. Where is the “flip-flop”?
No, but I am certainly not understanding you. Obviously lots of biological agents are intelligent. And they cause things.
Can you explain what you mean?
Elizabeth,
I don’t think you’re a philosopher of science. I think that your assertions that FSCI is “anti-science”, or that ID is “anti-science”, is just essentially rhetoric on your part. What science is, and how it should be conducted, is something that has been debated for centuries. That debate rages today and is not solved by some definitional edict handed down by the NAS or the NCSE, nor is it meaningfully violated by applying what is already accepted in information theory and communication applications to biological systems and structures.
Once again, I don’t think this has anything to do with FSCI per se; I think it has more to do with, as you say, preventing ID theory from being taught in school “as science”.
Oh, the horror!
Why on earth should that bother anyone?
You do realize that creationism was taught as a fact for most of the history of this country, and for hundreds of years elsewhere before that .. right? Did scientific progress stop dead in its tracks? Did those who believed that they were exploring the mind of god in their scientific studies not practice science? Was their assumption of an intelligently-designed world anti-science?
It’s not like questionable science has never been taught in school, or that there isn’t questionable science already in the textbooks (string theory? multiverse theory?); it’s not like information theory and communication sciences don’t employ all of the basic concepts involved in the FSCI concept; it’s really just about the idea that FSCI might legitimize ID as a science and then – god forbid – it might get taught in school as legitimate science!!!!
There’s more going on here than meets the eye.
No, I’m not. I’m merely a trained scientist.
No, it isn’t. And if you can find me a precise definition of FSCI and/or an argument that invokes it, I will show you precisely why it is “anti-science”. But unless you do, obviously I can’t. But I will clarify: all arguments that I have read that have invoked either FSCI or something similar (there are many variants) have been based IMO on a misunderstanding of the nature of scientific inference.
I entirely agree.
No, it wouldn’t be, in principle. That’s not what’s wrong with it. It’s the nature of the application that is problematic, not the fact of doing it at all.
No, you misunderstand me. I’d have no problem with ID theory being taught in school as science if ID could be presented as a scientific theory. But in its present formulation it isn’t, and that’s why it shouldn’t be taught as such. I’ve got nothing against the idea of God, but I have a great deal against teaching fallacious methodology. And that is not just rhetoric – I’m more than happy to explain exactly what is fallacious about any piece of ID literature you care to cite, but you have already said that you don’t have the expertise to evaluate it. Well, I do have some of the required expertise, because I am trained in scientific hypothesis testing and methodology. Specifically, in probability calculations and statistics.
It would have been delayed if creationism hadn’t given way. Galileo, you will remember, was right, and the Church wrong. Empiricism won the scientific battle, and religion had to move out of that domain. Which improved theology IMO, as well.
No. But we aren’t talking about an assumption, we are talking about an inference. It is that inference that I am saying is fallacious.
I have no problem with people assuming that the world was intelligently designed, nor with people regarding their science as an exploration of the mind of god. I did it myself, and still would if I was still persuaded that intelligence and will could exist outside a material brain. But I’m not, and I find that the loss is fairly trivial. All the things that mattered to me about my faith, I still retain.
No, it’s not. I’m not sure how to explain this to you, given that you don’t seem to want to actually talk about what you are calling “FSCI”! The problem isn’t that “FSCI might legitimize ID as a science” – the problem is that the argument based on FSCI isn’t legitimate science!
Sorry, this is an edit. I’ll try to expand on this below.
“Would you like to repost it as an OP?” – Elizabeth
Thank you, I would assent to that. After all, it is an anniversary today.
If you’d allow it, then I suggest the title: “Why MN is a Questionable PoS” or as a 2nd choice: “On the Ideological Convenience of MN.”
I have a take that is along the same lines as Elizabeth’s. I am not concerned about incorrect facts being taught. I am concerned about crippling children by teaching invalid ways of approaching knowledge and ways of acquiring knowledge.
Even if ID is right, and some super being — God or alien or whatever — has micro-managed every particle in the universe for it’s existence; even if the earth really is 6000 years old or created last Thursday — the ID inference is still wrong. It is the wrong way to approach the question.
There is nothing in the history of science to justify such an inference. The people who believed they were exploring the mind of God did not believe that God was constantly diddling in the details of the material world. They believed they were discovering the rules governing nature, and they believed God played fair.
Their descendent is Michael Denton and his Nature’s Destiny.
What the big tent of ID proposes is a garbage heap of incompatible and contradictory ramblings that are unified only by the common fear that science can demonstrate that the Bible is not historically accurate. This fear oozes from the pores of every website that promotes ID.It dominates the postings at UncommonDescent.
Where this fear does not dominate — say in the Catholic Church, or at Biologos, there is no resistance to evolution as an explanatory and descriptive science.
William J Murray,
1) FSCI fails at the “Specified” part. You can’t claim something meets spec without a pre-existing specification that exists before the object is built.
2) The improbability calculation is taken to be 2 ^ n where n is the number of bits we are concerned with. This implies every bit in the window can change every generation which doesn’t happen.