On Sun, 04 May 1997 18:30:02 -0400, Pim van Meurs wrote:
[...]
>PM>Of course the problem then arises how to distinguish apparant
>design from intelligent design.
>SJ>According to Dennett, it is not possible to "distinguish apparent
>design from intelligent design":
PM>That's sort of a problem for those who are trying to find evidence
>of intelligent design then would you not agree ?
Actually I think its more of a "problem for those who are trying to"
deny "intelligent design". If Darwinists cannot distinguish between
natural and artificial selection, then there is no empirical reason
to rule out "intelligent design".
>SJ>As Dennett's final "implausible fantasy" comment shows,
>"intelligent design" is simply ruled out on naturalistic
>philosophical grounds.
PM>For good reasons, science does not deal with unprovable hypotheses
>like invoking a supernatural designer.
This sounds a bit like old-fashioned positivism. These days
philosophers of science don't regard "uprovable" as a criteria
to rule out "hypotheses". How would "science" know that a
"hypotheses" was "unprovable" if it rules it out apriori?
But I am interested in what would it take to "prove" "a supernatural
designer" to you. Please state in advance what evidence it would
take to convince you of "a supernatural designer'.
[...]
>PM>A design need no purpose.
>SJ>Dawkins' point that naturalistic evolution has no "purpose", so it's
>"results" have only the "appearance of design", "the illusion of
>design". But perhaps you could give an example of a "design" that
>has 'no purpose"?
PM>I was merely pointing out the obvious namely that what we see as a
>purpose need not be and that our need for a purpose might be
>unnecessary.
That "what we see as a purpose need not be" and "that our need for a
purpose might be unnecessary" is granted. But that was not what you
said. You said: "A design need no purpose" and I asked you for "an
example of a `design' that has 'no purpose' ".
>PM>So indeed this 'apparant' design is often mistaken for intelligent
>design.
>SJ>A theist would say that this "apparent design" is in fact *real*
>"intelligent design":
PM>Of course this is an provable assumption and unnecessary as well.
All "assumptions" are *by definition* "uprovable". If they could be
proved they would not be "assumptions" - they would be facts.
And you don't know that "intelligent design" is "unnecessary" - you
just *assume* that it is, based on your prior philosophical
committment to naturalism.
>SJ>"Richard Dawkins begins The Blind Watchmaker with the statement
>"Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance
>of having been designed for a purpose." A theistic realist finds the
>appearance of design unsurprising, because living things really are
>the product of a designer." (Johnson P.E., "Reason in the Balance",
>1995, p209)
PM>Of course this is a highly circular argument.
Please explain why "A theistic realists" expectation of real design
is "highly circular" while an atheist's expectation of apparent
design isn't.
[...]
>SJ>"Because Darwinism is assumed to be a purposeless, undirected
>process, it could not proceed from a starting point to a destination.
PM>A better description would be that for evolution in the darwinian
>sense there is no predetermined destination. Destination is decided
>by chance and by selection.
How is that any different from what I said?
>SJ>The expectation is that instead of lines of descent you would have a
>thick bush with branches going off on each side and to failing and
>extinct organs. And so one has to imagine a whole *forest* of
>intermediates between the hypothetical animals and each of the later
>groups that emerges. As Darwin himself put it, if Darwinism is true
>the Precambrian world must have `swarmed with living creatures' many
>of them ancestral to the Cambrian animals." (Johnson P.E., "The
>Blind Watchmaker Thesis" , tape 2 of 3, Trinity Founders Lectures,
>Access Research Network, Colorado Springs CO, 1992)
PM>Several comments. First of all the assumption that there had to
>be a forest of intermediates does not necessary require such
>intermediates to be identifiable in fossil records.
This seems to be saying that there are "intermediates" but they are
not "identifiable in fossil records" Why wouldn't "intermediates" be
"identifiable in fossil records"?
PM>Only when there are morphological changes in organs which are
>preserved by fossilization would we expect to find them.
This is the "imperfection of the fossil record argument" which might
have been barely plausible in Darwin's day, but it is hardly so
today. The problem is not that fossils are comparatively rare
(generally they are - but not for all living things, eg. marine
invertebrates). But the real problem for Darwinism is not the gaps in
the fossil record, but what is *found* in the fossil record. It
reveals a pervasive systematic pattern that is the exact reverse of
what Darwinism predicted:
"For over a century, paleontologists (scientists who study fossils)
were puzzled by this glaring lack of transitional fossils. It was one
thing to hold out the hope of finding missing links in Darwin's day
when the science of paleontology was still in its infancy. Maybe
scientists had not yet searched long enough. But today, more than a
century and a quarter later, few would still try to defend this
explanation. Today the number of fossils that have been unearthed is
staggering, and new ones are being discovered faster than they can be
catalogued. As fossil finds grew, it became apparent that the fossils
were falling into a definite pattern. Instead of forming a graded series,
as Darwin had expected, the fossils filled in existing taxa, leaving the
gaps between them conspicuously empty. The pattern in the fossils is
not a continuous chain but clusters separated by gaps." (Davis P. &
Kenyon D.H., "Of Pandas and People", 1993, pp23-24)
>SJ>Darwin's insistence that gradual evolution by natural selection would
>require inconceivable numbers of transitional forms may have been
>something of an exaggeration but it is hard to escape concluding that
>in some cases he may not have been so far from the mark. Take the
>case of the gap between modern whales and land mammals. All known
>aquatic or semi-aquatic mammals such as seals, sea cows (sirenians)
>or otters are specialized representatives of distinct orders and none
>can possibly be ancestral to the present-day whales. To bridge the
>gap we are forced therefore to postulate a large number of entirely
>extinct hypothetical species starting from a small, relatively
>unspecialized land mammal like a shrew and leading successfully
>through an otter-like stage, seal-like stage, sirenian-like stage and
>finally to a putative organism which could serve as the ancestor of
>the modern whales. Even from the hypothetical whale ancestor stage
>we need to postulate many hypothetical primitive whales to bridge the
>not inconsiderable gaps which separate the modern filter feeders (the
>baleen whales) and the toothed whales. Moreover, it is impossible to
>accept that such a hypothetical sequence of species which led
>directly from the unspecialized terrestrial ancestral form gave rise
>to no collateral branches. Such an assumption would be purely ad
>hoc, and would also be tantamount to postulating . Rather, we must
>suppose the existence of innumerable collateral branches leading to
>many unknown types. This was clearly Darwin's view and it implies
>that the total number of species which must have existed between the
>discontinuities must have been much greater than the number of
>species on the shortest direct evolutionary pathway...
PM>I am glad that you bring up the whale given the recent finds
>providing data for exactly what you are looking for.
Read Denton again. There should be "innumerable collateral branches
leading to many unknown types" UNLESS there was "an external unknown
directive influence in evolution which would be quite foreign to the
spirit of Darwinian theory and defeat its major purpose of attempting
to provide a natural explanation for evolution".
The fossil evidence is completely consistent with Mediate Creation
but completely *inconsistent* with Neo-Darwinian `blind watchmaker'
evolution.
>SJ>It is for these reasons that Darwinists have largely abandoned the
>fossil record as evidence for Darwinism. For example, Dawkin's
>colleague, Oxford zoologist Mark Ridley:
PM>Again this is misleading as well as incorrect. Fossil evidence
>does support darwinian evolution.
If the "Fossil evidence does support darwinian evolution", then why
did Darwin describe the "Fossil evidence" as "the most obvious and
serious objection which can be urged against the theory":
"But just in proportion as this process of extermination has acted on
an enormous scale, so must the number of intermediate varieties,
which have formerly existed, be truly enormous. Why then is not
every geological formation and every stratum full of such
intermediate links? Geology assuredly does not reveal any such
finely graduated organic chain; and this, perhaps, is the most
obvious and serious objection which can be urged against the theory."
(Darwin C., "The Origin of Species", 6th Edition, 1967 reprint,
pp292-293).
SJ>"This is a terrible mistake; and it springs, I believe, from the
>false idea that the fossil record provides an important part of the
>evidence that evolution took place. In fact, evolution is proven by
>a totally separate set of arguments-and the present debate within
>palaeontology does not impinge at all on the evidence that supports
>evolution...One reason that keeps on betraying itself is that a lot
PM>Of course that evolition is proven by a seperate set of arguments
>only strengthens the findings. Nothing revealing in this argument.
I fail to see how abandoning the fossil record as because it is "useless
for testing between evolution and special creation" can be construed as
"strengthens the findings"!
But atually the "separate set of arguments" are not much better:
"Observed evolution. Darwin called his mechanism natural selection
by analogy to the artificial selection of the animal breeder, and
artificial selection is the method of the experimental Darwinian."
(Ridley M., "Who doubts evolution?' New Scientist, vol. 90, 25 June
1981, p831)
Artifical selection is the analog of *intelligent design*, as
Haeckel admitted:
"Haeckel (Creation, I. 167,) would parry this objection, by the
following self-stultifying remark: " The difference between the two
forms of selection is this: In artificial selection, the will of man
makes the selection according to a plan, whereas in natural
selection, the struggle for life (that universal inter-relation of
organisms) acts without a plan..." (Shedd W.G.T., "Dogmatic
Theology", 1969 reprint, Vol. I, p511)
so it also fails at "testing between evolution and special creation".
Anyway, its just microevolution.
"Biogeography. If you study a species across its geographic range you
find that it varies slightly from place to place. The spatial rate
of change is small, but the extreme forms are often so different that
if taken alone they would be classified as subspecies, or even as
different species. Usually the extremes do not meet in nature so we
do not know whether they would interbreed. In some exceptional cases
the extremes do meet, forming what is known as a ring species."
(Ridley M., "Who doubts evolution?' New Scientist, vol. 90, 25 June
1981, p832)
More microevolution.
"Hierarchical structure of taxonomy. The simple fact that species
can be classified hierarchically into genera, families and so on, is
not an argument for evolution. It is possible to classify any set of
objects into a hierarchy whether their variation is evolutionary or
not. It is the kind of characters on which the biological taxonomy
is based which implies that the hierarchy is the result of common
ancestry rather than the clustering of independently created
species." (Ridley M., "Who doubts evolution?' New Scientist, vol.
90, 25 June 1981, p832)
This is the argument from classification. It argues strongly for some
form of common descent but not necessarily Darwinian evolution. It
creates difficulties for an extreme form of creationism- the 19th
century Neo-Platonic philosophical doctrine of separate creations
(ie. "independently created species") but no creationist has believed
that for at least 50 years.
"These three are the clearest arguments for the mutability of
species. Other defences of the theory of evolution could be made,
not the least of which is the absence of a coherent alternative.
Darwin's theory is also uniquely able to account for both the
presence of design, and the absence of design (vestigial organs), in
nature." (Ridley M., "Who doubts evolution?' New Scientist, vol.
90, 25 June 1981, p832)
Note that Ridley starts off intending to defend Darwin's theory of
evolution but ends up with "three...arguments for the mutability of
species". Big deal! No creationist has doubted the "mutability of
species" for decades:
"Fixity of species. Perhaps the most common misconstrual related to
the above is the claim that creationists hold that species are fixed
and unvarying, and have been so since the creation. For instance,
according to Theodosius Dobzhansky, "[creationists] fancy that all
existing species were generated by supernatural fiat a few thousand
years ago, pretty much as we find them today." (Dobzhansky T.,
"Nothing in Biology Makes Sense Except in the Light of Evolution",
American Biology Teacher, March 1973, pp125-129). That, again, is
simply not the case....among both major creationists and major
creationist groups there is essentially unanimity that species were
not all simply frozen at the creation. In fact, most major
creationists hold other key doctrines that preclude such fixity..."
(Ratzsch D.L., "The Battle of Beginnings", 1996, p89)
>SJ>Thirdly, even if "Naturalists" were able to "show how this apparant
>design" *was* "the result of random change and natural selection" it
>would not rule out "design". The Bible affirms that God can "design"
>even through events that are "random" to man:
>PM>The bible is not scientific in any sense so should not be used as
>evidence of the existance of such a supernatural force.
>SJ>This is what philosophers of science call the "genetic fallacy":
>
>"`Creation science is a theory derived from the Bible and is
>therefore not Scientific.' This criticism is frequently encountered
PM>Strawman. Creation science is not scientific because it does not
>provide with predictions and can not be disproven.
So are you saying that "Creation science...can not be disproven"?
(Please note I am not here defending "Creation Science").
>SJ>Even if "The bible is not scientific in any sense", there is no
>reason whatsoever that "The bible" could not be used to support a
>"scientific" theory.
PM>Of course this would first require a scientific theory.
I don't think the Bible is "scientific" either, at least in the
strict sense of the word. But my point was that it is the "genetic
fallacy" to rule it out apriori as "not be used as evidence of the
existence of such a supernatural force".
>PM>[...] interesting but meainingless biblical story deleted.
>SJ>How can it be *both* "interesting" and "meainingless"?
PM>Quite easy.
How?
>SJ>An Intelligent Designer may have designed all the laws and initial
>conditions of the universe in such a way that the design of living
>creatures is *real* not apparent:
>PM>True but then again chance could have done this as well through
>>naturalistic forces so this explanation would fail under the Occam razor.
>
>SJ>That "chance could have done this as well through naturalistic
>forces", would have to be independently demonstrated, *before* "Occam
>razor" came into it.
PM>If there are two hypotheses and one requires more unlikely steps
>then that one is the one less likely to be relevant.
This is a botched version of Occam's Razor - it has nothing to do
with "unlikely steps", just "more...steps":
"Ockham's razor, also called the LAW OF ECONOMY or the LAW
OF PARSIMONY (Latin parsimonia, "frugality"), the name given to
the principle of William of Ockham, a late medieval Scholastic, that
"non sunt multiplicanda entia praeter necessitatem"; i.e., entities are
not to be multiplied beyond necessity."("Ockham's Razor",
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Benton: Chicago, 15th edition, 1984,
vii:475)
But my point is that you would have to demonstrate that "chance
could have done this as well through naturalistic forces", *before*
"Occam razor" came into play. Occam's Razor is only used for chosing
between two *equal* hypotheses, in which case the simpler one is to
be preferred. You haven't even yet shown that Neo-Darwinian
microevolution extended (ie. the `blind watchmaker') *can* produce
the design of the living world, without a Designer.
>SJ>More word-play. The question is not whether "complexity
>requires a designer" but whether *specified* "complexity requires a
>designer":
>PM>The question is irrelevant since there is no 'specified'
>complexity. You are assuming that the end result was specified.
>SJ>I could equally reply that "You are assuming that the end result was"
>*not* "specified"! Origin-of-life specialist Orgel notes:
>
>"Living organisms are distinguished by their specified complexity.
>Crystals fail to qualify as living because they lack complexity;
>mixtures of random polymers fail to qualify because they lack
>specificity." (Orgel L.E., "The Origins of Life", 1973, p189, in
>Thaxton C.B., Bradley W.L. & Olsen R.L., "The Mystery of Life's
>Origin", 1992, p130).
PM>And? How does Orgel define specified complexity?
I don't have his book. But Thaxton, Bradley & Olsen immediately
after the above quote give an example:
"Three sets of letter arrangements show nicely the difference
between order and complexity in relation to information:
1. An ordered (periodic) and therefore specified arrangement:
THE END THE END THE END THE END*
Example: Nylon, or a crystal.
2. A complex (aperiodic) and therefore specified arrangement:
AGDCBFE GBCAFED ACEDFBG
3. complex (aperiodic) unspecified arrangement::
THIS SEQUENCE OF LETTERS CONTAINS A MESSAGE
Example: DNA, protein.
Yockey and Wickens develop the same distinction, explaining that
"order" is a statistical concept referring to regularity such as
might characterize a series of digits in a number, or the ions of an
inorganic crystal. On the other hand, "organization" refers to
physical systems and the specific set of spatio-temporal and
functional relationships among their parts. Yockey and Wickens note
that informational macromolecules have a low degree of order but a
high degree of specified complexity." (Thaxton C.B., Bradley W.L.
& Olsen R.L., "The Mystery of Life's Origin, 1992, p130)
>SJ>Even Dawkins admits that living things have a "quality that is
>specified in advance":
PM>To what extent?
I don't know. It is sufficient for my purposes that Dawkins admits it to
*some* "extent".
>SJ>In the case of living things, the quality that is specified in
>advance is, in some sense 'proficiency'; either proficiency in a
>particular ability such as flying, as an aero-engineer might admire
>it; or proficiency in something more general, such as the ability
>to stave off death, or the ability to propagate genes in
>reproduction." (Dawkins R., "The Blind Watchmaker", Penguin:
>London, 1991, p9)
PM>The only specification is one which can be determined only after
>the fact.
Well since life began 3.5 billion years ago, that would have to be
the case for "living things"!
>SJ>specified but simple (snowflakes and crystals). A crystal fails
>to qualify as living because it lacks
>PM>Specified ? How do you define specified? There is no designer
>here and no inherent specification in crystaline structure.
>SJ>Your further comments below show that you *know* what "specified"
>means.
PM>I am confused about the use of specified. It appears to be
>implying a purpose or something which was decided in advance.
Well, that's indeed what it "appears" to be!
>PM>Just adherence to some basic physical laws.
>SJ>No. The genetic code is *not* the consequence of "physical
>laws" any more than ink writing on paper is a "consequence of
>`physical laws'". Physical laws of ink on paper just create blobs:
PM>Huh ? So an ink blob is not a consequence of physical laws?
I just said it *was*. Please read more carefully.
PM>But if the ink blob were allowed to mutate under selective
>pressure it would be a better comparison.
What "selective pressure" could turn an "ink blob" into "ink
writing"?
PM>The appearance of 'design' need not point to one.
Granted. But equally it might. There is no known set of
physical laws that can do it.
>SJ>The sequence of nucleotides in DNA or of amino acids in a
>protein is not a repetitive order like a crystal. Instead it is
>like the letters in a written message."
>PM>Unfounded similarity implying design and actual intelligent
>design.
SJ>Why? Because a written message implies a designer, the sequence
i>n nucleotides does not.
>PM>It is not used to prove a scientific theory but disprove the
>argument from design. The error of a dichotomy between
>evolution/abiogenesis and intelligent design is a common one but
>needless.
>SJ>If the "dichotomy between evolution/abiogenesis and intelligent
>design" is an "error', why then are you trying to "disprove the
>argument from design"?
PM>I am trying to show that the argument from design is not a
>scientific argument.
What demarcation argument(s) do you claim rules out "design" as
"scientific"?
>SJ>From "evolution's perspective" *no* "`design' makes" *any* "sense".
>That's why you have to put single quotes around it. But from a
>*mediate creation* "perspective the design" (no single quotations
>marks needed), indeed "makes perfect sense".
>PM>Proof by assertion and word play without relevance.
>SJ>No. It is a logical consequence of "evolution" claiming there
>really is no Designer and "creation" claiming there really is.
PM>Evolution does not make a claim about a designer one way or
another.
Then why are you "trying to show that the argument from design is
not a scientific argument"?
>PM>It is creationism who tries to move their beliefs into a
>scientific realm without providing for a scientific argument.
Please make up your mind! On the one hand you claim that "the
argument from design is not a scientific argument" and then on the
other you criticise "creationism" for not "providing for a
scientific argument. By your own definition, they cannot.
Either: 1. grant that "the argument from design" *is* "a scientific
argument" and then debate the scientific evidence; or 2. rule "the
argument from design" out apriori as "a scientific argument" and
*don't* debate the scientific evidence. But don't 3. rule "the
argument from design" out apriori "a scientific argument" and *then*
debate the scientific evidence.
>PM>You claim design where there need not be any. The poverty of the
>argument lies in the subjective assumption that complexity as
>observed in living organisms requires an intelligent designer.
>SJ>It is not just a "subjective assumption". Naturalism has simply not
>demonstrated its thesis that "living organisms" do not "require an
>intelligent designer". Even non-theists like Hoyle and
>Wickramasinghe admit this:
PM>Steve, the assumption is very subjective, even the use of
>non-theists do not support your view that the appearance of design
>versus actual design is a subjective interpretation. Theists
>believe that what they see is evidence for their assumption that a
>deity exists. Naturalism can never demonstrate that living
>organisms require an intelligent designer since such is beyond the
>realm of real science.
Actually "real science" deals with the inference of "intelligent
designers" all the time:
"Today, we recognize that appeals to intelligent design may be
considered in science, as illustrated by the current NASA search for
extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Archaeology has pioneered the
development of methods for distinguishing the effects of natural and
intelligent causes." (Davis P. & Kenyon D.H., "Of Pandas and
People" 1993, pp126-127)
"The current search for extraterrestrial intelligence (acronym SETI)
also illustrates that intelligent causes are acceptable in science.
This is not to suggest that ETI actually exists, for evidence of it
is lacking. The current SETI program, however, is being carried out
within the bounds of legitimate science." (Bradley W.L. & Thaxton
C.B., "Information & the Origin of Life", in Moreland J.P. ed.,
"The Creation Hypothesis", 1994, p199)
"The SETI project is described as: "a valid scientific discipline,"
"perfectly proper science," (Tarter J.C., "SLTI Program," Letter in
Science, April 22, 1983, p359 ) and "The plan for SETI derives from
the best and most effective of scientific traditions and
procedures. (Drake F.D., "Will the real SETI please stand up?",
Physics Today, June 1982, p9) Active supporters of the SETI project
include such notable evolutionists as Carl Sagan, Francis Crick,
Stephen Jay Gould, David Raup, and Edward O. Wilson. In the United
States, funding for SETI has been provided by the National Academy
of Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and NASA." (ReMine
W.J., "The Biotic Message, 1993, p31)
Regards.
Steve
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