Posted to talk.origins and the NTSE listserv.
A response to Paul Nelson's paper from the NTSE conference,
"Jettison the arguments, or the rule? The place of Darwinian
theological themata in evolutionary reasoning."
http://www.dla.utexas.edu/depts/philosophy/faculty/koons/ntse/papers/Nelson.html
I agree that the argument from imperfection, as used by Gould,
does not represent "scientific reasoning". However, I don't
feel that Gould advanced these arguments as scientific
reasoning.
Creation ex nihilo as a conjecture exists. Arguing against
this conjecture will be an exercise in metaphysics. The
argument from imperfection is such an exercise when it
references postulated attributes of a deity.
Must all scientists recuse themselves from commentary upon an
existing theological conjecture? I don't think that either an
unreserved "yes" or "no" is an appropriate response. Yes,
scientists should refrain from making theological arguments
which are deceptively packaged as if they were scientific. No,
scientists are free to engage in theological conjecture that is
labelled as such.
I also don't agree with the necessity of Paul's formulation of
the premises. Let me try a different set:
P1. Organic design p does not accord with the known principles
of good engineering design.
P2. Organic design p shows a function different from that known
in similar structure p' in other species.
Conclusions:
C1. Organic design p is consistent with a historical process
that adapts existing structures to new functions.
C2. From the attributes of organic design p, we can infer that
a creator of organic design p is not an optimizing engineer.
Note that I have off-loaded the theological stuff into the
conclusions, not the premises. Note that C1 is not dependent
upon theological themata. If no further conclusions were
derived, the argument as it is composed to that point is
eminently scientific in character.
C2 makes a theological statement. At the NTSE conference, we
heard from Michael Corey on how we can infer attributes of a
creator from aspects of the creation. Either we junk the rule
of inferring attributes of a creator from the creation, or we
must admit these disparate inferences as starting from an equal
premise.
I found Nelson's defense of a role for a creator to be
interesting. Basically, given the facts of the matter, one can
conceive of attributes of a creator which remain consistent
with the known data. Nelson's example of Mill's conception of
a possible creator makes this point. Thus, Gould's argument
fails according to Nelson because Gould cannot exclude *every*
creator concept. If this isn't the classic "god of the gaps"
type of apologetic, what is it? I can certainly see that
Gould's theological basis is not well developed, but it seems
to me that it does the job of establishing C2. While there are
some who will prefer a Millsian concept of a creator, I think
that in the USA the most common conception (not necessarily the
most astute conception) of a creator has been and is that of an
optimizing engineer. Gnosticism or Zoroastrianism also accords
with the facts as seen, yet I see no widespread move in
theological circles to adopt either of those, nor any
detectable political movement to have their origins accounts
taught as if science in science classrooms.
Nelson's discussion of perfection and imperfection raises many
important points, but failed to address the main issue: the
comparative method allows for identification of suboptimal
design. The instantiation of components achieving particular
functions gives us a basis for comparing the systems which
provide for similar functionality. In those cases where such
systems meet an engineering criterion of modularity, it is
eminently reasonable to ask why module p was employed in one
instance, but kludgy module p' was employed in another. We
don't have to be able to identify the optimal in order to
identify what is suboptimal.
Nelson argues from a mathematical viewpoint that we can't use
the suboptimality argument against a theological notion of a
"reasonable" creator. He gives an equation for illustration:
ObD / OptD = DesShort
Where
ObD is Observed Design
OptD is Optimal Design
and DesShort is the Design Shortfall
Because we can't obtain OptD, we must forego use of this manner
of argumentation, according to Nelson.
However, I can derive a different equation that demonstrates
the possible utility of the comparative method:
ObD_a / ObD_b = DAR
Where
ObD_a is the figure of merit for Observed Design "a"
ObD_b is the figure of merit for Observed Design "b"
and DAR is the Design Astuteness Ratio
This is a more appropriate metric to critique. There are no
unknowns hiding here, and no necessity for finding or even
worrying about an "optimal" design. That both ObD_a and ObD_b
are or may be suboptimal does not detract from the utility of
the comparison.
If the argument from imperfection is to be used as a scientific
argument, then it must, as Nelson points out, drop the
theology. This can be done without jettisoning the entire
argument as unworkable. The result will be an argument for the
historicity of adaptations without reference to the creation ex
nihilo conjecture or such a creator.
Wesley